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-The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Cornhill Magazine, (vol. xli, no. 243

-new series, September 1916)

-

-This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and 

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-before using this eBook.

-

-

-Title: The Cornhill Magazine, (vol. xli, no. 243 new series, September

-1916)

-

-Author: Various

-

-Release Date: August 11, 2023 [eBook #71391]

-

-Language: English

-

-Credits: Carol Brown, hekula03 and the Online Distributed Proofreading

-         Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from

-         images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)

-

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-                                  THE

-                           CORNHILL MAGAZINE.

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-                            SEPTEMBER 1916.

-

-                 _THE KAISER AS HIS FRIENDS KNEW HIM._

-

-                         BY A NEUTRAL DIPLOMAT.

-

-

-Among the high German officials whose opinion of William the Second’s

-foreign policies I quoted in my previous article, I do not recall a

-single one whose loyalty or sense of propriety did not prevent his

-offering any personal criticisms of the Emperor to whose service his

-best efforts were being devoted. An apprehensiveness, bordering on

-positive dread in many instances, of the ultimate consequences of the

-Kaiser’s impetuosities was often apparent in the observations of their

-franker moments, but personal aspersions were never cast. This was,

-of course, no more than could have been expected from the well-bred

-men-of-the-world that they were. And in this connection it may be

-in point to add that not even among the rather gay and not always

-discreetly reserved officers of the Crown Prince’s suite (with whom I

-was thrown not a little during their visit to India in 1911) was loose

-criticism of the Emperor ever heard, either by myself or by others

-who enjoyed still fuller opportunities than I had for meeting them on

-intimate and confidential terms.

-

-Frederick William himself was, I regret to record, far less discreet

-than those about him in his references to his imperial progenitor, and

-I recall very clearly that quick-tongued youth’s sarcastic allusions

-to certain rulings of the Kaiser in the matter of the treatment of the

-natives of some of the islands of German Melanesia. The Crown Prince,

-I should explain, I had found consumed with interest concerning the

-progress his people were making in several of their Pacific island

-colonies I had recently visited, and it was to his very palpable desire

-to ‘pump me dry’ of any information I might have picked up regarding

-these incipient ‘places in the sun’ that I owed a number of hours of

-conversation with him the edification of which would hardly otherwise

-have fallen to my lot.

-

-The outburst I had in mind was led up to by my royal inquisitor’s

-asking me for my views concerning the comparative progress of the

-three political divisions of the island of New Guinea, and by my

-replying that, if the criterion of judgment was to be the contentment,

-physical well-being, and economic usefulness of the native, I should

-rate British New Guinea first, Dutch New Guinea an indifferent

-second, and German New Guinea a very poor third. It was anything but

-a courtier-like speech on my part, but I was not meeting Frederick

-William in my official capacity, and, moreover, he had made a point of

-asking that I should give him perfectly frank answers to his questions.

-(‘None of the “bull con’,” as the Yankees say,’ was the way he put it;

-‘give me the “straight goods.”’ Both expressions, as he confessed with

-a grin, he had picked up from a ‘neat little filly from Kentucky’ he

-had ‘seen a bit of’ at Ostend the previous summer.)

-

-The Crown Prince, in spite of his undeniable personal courage, of which

-I saw several striking instances in the course of his Indian visit, is

-far from being what the Anglo-Saxons call a ‘good sport,’ and on this

-occasion he made no pretence of hiding his annoyance. Because, however,

-as transpired later, there were several other matters which he had in

-mind ‘pumping’ me on, he evidently thought it best not to vent his

-spleen for the moment on one whose usefulness was not quite exhausted.

-This befell subsequently, I may add, though under circumstances which

-have no especial bearing on my present subject.

-

-Tapping his boot with his riding-whip--he had been playing polo--the

-Prince sat in a sort of spoiled-child pout of petulance for a minute or

-two, before bursting out with: ‘Doubtless you’re right. I’ve had hints

-of the same thing myself from private reports. It’s all due to the

-pater’s unwarranted interference in something he knows nothing about.

-Old X----’ (mentioning the previous Governor of German New Guinea by

-name) ‘has forgotten more about handling Papuans than the pater ever

-knew. The pater has put his foot in it every time he has moved in our

-Pacific colonies.’ (It may be in order to explain that not only does

-the Crown Prince speak excellent English, but that on this Indian visit

-he made a point of resorting to English idioms, colloquialisms, and

-slang to an extent which at times became positively ridiculous. I have

-quoted here almost his exact language.)

-

-Frederick William went on to give me a spirited and approving account

-of the manner in which a German colonist near Herbertshöhe had put an

-end to raids on his yam patch by planting on each corner-post of the

-enclosure the ‘frizzly’ head of a Papuan who had been shot in the act

-of making off with the succulent tubers, concluding with the dogmatic

-assertion that the only way to handle the black man was to ‘bleed him

-white.’

-

-I had the temerity to reply that, from what I had seen, the more ‘old

-X----’ continued to forget of what he thought he knew about handling

-Papuans, the better it would be for German colonial prospects in New

-Guinea, and as a consequence threw my royal interrogator into another

-fit of sulks. It is only fair to say that the ‘interference’ of which

-the Crown Prince waxed so unfilially censorious really consisted of

-measures calculated slightly--but only slightly--to mitigate the brutal

-repressiveness toward the natives which had characterised the German

-administration of New Guinea from the outset. The one bright spot in

-the brief but bloody annals of German overseas colonisation was the six

-or eight years’ régime of the broad-minded and humane Dr. Solf--the

-present Colonial Secretary--in Samoa. This tiny and comparatively

-unimportant Pacific outpost was the single Teutonic colony in which I

-found the natives treated with anything approaching the humanitarian

-consideration extended to them so universally by the English and the

-French. Dr. Solf may well be, as has been occasionally hinted from

-Holland, the hope of those conservative and intelligent Germans who

-are known to be silently working for a reborn and ‘de-Prussified’

-Fatherland after the war.

-

-As I have said, the Crown Prince was the only highly placed German

-whom I ever heard speak slightingly in a personal way of the Kaiser,

-and that impetuous youth was--as he still is--a law unto himself. Such

-loyalty and discretion, however, did not characterize all prominent

-Germans in private life, and it is to several of these I am indebted

-for the illuminating sidelights their observations and anecdotes threw

-on the human side of William II. Of such, I fancy the Baron Y----, who

-voyaged on the same steamer with me from Zanzibar to Port Said several

-years ago, had enjoyed perhaps the most intimate opportunities for an

-intelligent appraisal of his Emperor.

-

-The Baron was a scion of one of the oldest and wealthiest of Bavarian

-noble families, a graduate of the École des Beaux Arts as well as

-Heidelberg, and to the fact that several years of his boyhood were

-spent at Harrow owed an English accent in speaking that language which

-betrayed no trace of Teutonic gutturality. He was returning from an

-extended hunting trip in British and German East Africa at the time I

-made his acquaintance, and was nursing a light grievance against his

-own Government from the fact that he had been rather better treated

-in the former than the latter. His attitude toward the Kaiser was

-somewhat different from that of any other German I have ever met, this,

-doubtless, being due to his own great wealth and assured position.

-There was little of the ‘loyal and devoted subject’ in this attitude,

-to which no better comparison suggests itself to me than that of a very

-heavy stock-holder in a corporation toward a general manager who is in

-no respect his social superior.

-

-‘The Kaiser’s most pronounced characteristic,’ said Baron Y---- one

-evening as we paced the promenade, ‘is his overweening vanity. His

-“ego” dwarfs his every other attribute, natural or acquired, and it

-is idle to try to understand what he is, what he does, what he stands

-for--and, incidentally, what the German people, in quite another sense,

-have to stand for--without taking that fact into consideration. It is

-the obsession of his own importance--I might even say his belief in

-his own omnipotence--that is responsible for his taking the so-called

-Divine Right of the Hohenzollerns more seriously, interpreting the

-term more literally, than any of his ancestors since Frederick the

-Great. It is his vanity that is responsible for his incessant shiftings

-of uniforms, for his posturings, his obvious attempts to conceal or

-distract attention from his shrunken arm. He is the most consummate

-master of stagecraft; indeed, the Fates spoiled a great producer of

-spectacles--one who would have eclipsed Reinhardt--to make, not an

-indifferent Emperor, but----’ The Baron checked himself and concluded

-with: ‘Perhaps I had best not say what I had in mind. Everything

-considered, however, I am convinced that it would have been better

-for Germany if William the Second had been stage-manager rather than

-Kaiser.’

-

-Specific and intimate instance of the pettiness with which the Kaiser’s

-vanity occasionally expressed itself Baron Y---- gave me the following

-evening. I had been turning the pages of some of his German illustrated

-papers, and was unable to refrain from commenting, not only on the

-frequency with which the portrait of the Kaiser appeared, but also of

-the defiant ‘come-one-come-all’ attitude of all of those in which the

-War Lord appeared in uniform. The Baron laughed good-naturedly. ‘The

-Kaiser’s attitudinizings,’ he said, ‘never seem to strike the Prussians

-as in the least funny (they haven’t much of a sense of humour,

-anyhow): but we Bavarians have always taken them as quite as much of a

-joke as has the rest of Europe. Now this picture’ (he began turning the

-pages of ‘Ueber Land und Meer’ in search of it), ‘which is one of the

-most popular with the Prussians, we of Bavaria have always called “Ajax

-Defying the Lightning,” and I am going to tell you the history of it.

-

-‘This picture is reproduced from one of several dozen almost identical

-photographs which have been taken of the Kaiser glowering into the

-emptiness of the upper empyrean from the vantage of a little basaltic

-crag which crops up at the forks of a road in one of the Imperial game

-preserves. I have always taken a sort of paternal interest in this

-apparently “to-be-continued-indefinitely” series of photographs, for

-it chanced that I was in the company of their central figure on the

-occasion when he discovered this now famous pedestal, and it was due to

-a suggestion of mine that he was enabled to turn his find to what he no

-doubt considers a most felicitous use.

-

-‘It was on one of the early days of an imperial hunting party--just

-the ordinary affair of its kind, with no one in particular from the

-outside on hand, and nothing especial in the way of sport offered--and

-the Kaiser, not being in very good fettle, had bidden me remain in the

-lodge with him to discuss some experiments I had been conducting on my

-estates with some drought-resisting barleys and lucernes, the seed of

-which had been sent to Germany by one of our “agricultural explorers”

-in Central Asia. The Kaiser’s keenness for skimming the cream of the

-world and bringing it home for the German people is only exceeded by

-his vanity,’ the Baron added parenthetically.

-

-‘Having heard all I had to report, my imperial host suggested a stroll

-in the forest, and it was while pushing on from tree to tree to study

-the efficacy of a new kind of chemically treated cement the foresters

-had been using to arrest the progress of decay that we wandered out

-upon the jutting crag shown in this picture. It was late in the

-afternoon, and by both of the two converging roads, several hundred

-metres of vista of each of which were commanded from our lofty eyrie,

-men were drifting back toward the lodge from the hunt. The dramatic

-possibilities of the unexpected vantage point--the manner in which one

-was able to step from behind the drop-curtain of the forest undergrowth

-to the front of the stage at the tip of the jutting crag--kindled the

-fire of the Kaiser’s imagination instantly.

-

-‘“What a place from which to review my hunting guests!” he exclaimed,

-stepping forward and throwing out his chest in his best “reviewing”

-manner. “Strange I have never noticed it from the road. It must be

-because the light is so bad here. Yes, that is what the trouble is.

-They cannot see us even as clearly as we can see them.” (He frowned

-his palpable disappointment that all eyes from below were not centred

-upon him where he stood in fine defiance in the middle of his new-found

-stage.)

-

-‘“If I may venture a suggestion, Your Majesty,” I said, “I think it is

-the dense shadow from that big tree on the next point that makes it so

-dark here. Do you not see that the sun is directly behind it at this

-hour? The removal of that out-reaching limb on the right would give

-this crag at least an hour of sunshine, but, as a practical forester, I

-should warn you that doing so would destroy the ‘balance’ of the tree

-so much that the next heavy storm would probably topple it over to the

-left. It already inclines that way, and----”

-

-‘“There are several hundred thousand more trees like that in the Black

-Forest,” cut in the Kaiser, “but not one other look-out to compare with

-this. My sincere thanks for the suggestion. I will have it carried out.”

-

-‘And so,’ continued Baron Y----, ‘the obscuring limb was removed, and

-the mutilated tree, as I knew it must, went down the following winter.

-“My look-out now will have three hours of sunlight instead of one,” the

-Kaiser observed gleefully when he told me about it; “I was glad to see

-it go.”

-

-‘It was a case of one monarch against another, and as the Kaiser is

-resolved to brook no rival, especially where the question of his

-“sunlight” is concerned, I suppose the sequel was inevitable. All the

-same I am sorry that--that it was the monarch of the forest that had to

-go down. But though the tree went down,’ he concluded with a grimace,

-tossing the magazine into my lap, ‘the “Ajax” pictures still continue.’

-

-‘Wouldn’t “His Place in the Sun” be even an apter title than “Ajax

-Defying the Lightning”?’ I ventured.

-

-‘Unquestionably,’ was the reply. ‘I had thought of that myself. But,

-you see, even we Bavarians are very keen in the matter of the extension

-of Germany’s “_übersee_” colonies, and it wouldn’t do to make light of

-our own ambitions.’

-

-I have set down this little story just as it was told to me, and it is

-only since the outbreak of the war, when the mainsprings of German

-motives are revealed at Armageddon, that it has occurred to me how

-perfectly it resolves itself into allegory. To the world at large, but

-to the Briton especially, is there no suggestion in what the Kaiser

-_did_ to the tree, which for a hundred years or more had shadowed his

-tardily stumbled-upon look-out, of what he _planned to do_ to the

-Empire which he had so often intimated had crowded him out of his

-‘place in the sun’? With the tree he hewed off a sun-obscuring limb,

-and the unbalanced, mutilated remnant succumbed to the first storm that

-assailed it. Was not this the procedure that he reckoned upon following

-with the ‘obscuring limbs’ of the British Empire?

-

-The foregoing instance of the extravagant vanity of the Kaiser Baron

-Y---- told more in amusement than in censoriousness, but I recall

-another little story to much the same point that he related with hard

-eyes and the shade of a frown, as one man speaks of another who has not

-quite ‘played the game’ in sport or business. It, also, had to do with

-an imperial hunt.

-

-‘As you doubtless know,’ he said, after telling me something of how

-creditably the Kaiser shot, considering his infirmity, ‘a strenuous

-endeavour is always made on these occasions that the best game be

-driven up to the rifles of royalty, a custom which none of the

-Hohenzollerns have ever had the sporting instinct to modify in favour

-of even the most distinguished visitors. By some chance on the day in

-question, a remarkably fine boar ran unscathed the gauntlet of the

-imperial batteries and fell--an easy shot--to my own bullet. It was a

-really magnificent trophy--the brute was as high at the shoulder as a

-good-sized pony, and his tusks curved through fully ninety degrees more

-than a complete circle--and it had occurred to me at once that it was

-in order that I should at least _offer_ to make a present of the head

-to my royal host. Frankly, however, I really wanted it very badly for

-my own hall, and I can still recall hoping that the Kaiser would “touch

-and remit, after the manner of kings,” as Kipling puts it.’

-

-The Baron was silent for a few moments, staring hard in front of him

-with the look of a man who ponders something that has rankled in

-his mind for years. ‘Well,’ he resumed presently, ‘the Kaiser _did_

-“touch” (in the sense the Yankees use the term, I mean), but he did

-not “remit.” When we came to group for the inevitable after-the-hunt

-photograph, I was dumbfounded to see a couple of the imperial huntsmen

-drag up my prize, not in front of me, where immemorial custom decreed

-it should go, but to the feet of the Kaiser. He even had the nerve to

-have the photograph taken with his foot on its head. You have shot big

-game yourself, and you will know, therefore, that this would convey to

-any hunter exactly the same thing as his writing under the photograph,

-“I shot this boar myself.”’

-

-The Baron took a long breath before resuming. ‘I need not tell you how

-surprised and angry I was, and I will not tell you what it took all

-the self-control I had to keep from doing. What I _did_ do, I flatter

-myself, would have been thoroughly efficacious in bringing home to any

-other man in this world the consummate meanness of the thing he had

-done. The moment the photograph was finished I stepped up to the Kaiser

-and, controlling my voice as best I could, said: “Your Majesty, I beg

-you will deign to accept as a humble token of my admiration of your

-prowess as a hunter and your courtesy as a host the fine boar which my

-poor rifle was fortunate to bring down to-day.”

-

-‘I still think that my polite sarcasm would have cut through the armour

-of any other man on earth. It was impossible to mistake my meaning,

-and he must have known that every man there knew it was _my_ boar that

-he had had his picture taken with and was still coolly keeping his

-boot upon. Possibly he decided in his own mind, then and there, that

-the time had come to extend the “Divine Right of the Hohenzollerns”

-to the hunting field. At any rate, he bowed graciously, thanked me

-warmly, and, pointing down to where I had stood in the picture, said he

-presumed it was “that little fellow with the deformed tusk.”

-

-‘My head was humming from the shock of the effrontery, but I still

-have distinct recollection of the deliberate _sang-froid_ of the

-Kaiser’s manner as he directed someone to “mark that little boar with

-a twisted tusk, a gift from my good friend, Baron Y----, for mounting

-as a trophy.” I was a potential regicide for the next week or two, but

-my sense of humour pulled me up in the end. For, after all, what is

-the use of taking seriously a man who, for the sake of tickling his

-insatiate vanity by having his photograph taken with his foot on the

-head of a bigger pig than those in front of his hunting guests, commits

-an act that, were he anything less than an Emperor, would stamp him

-with every one of them as an out-and-out bounder? The memory of the

-thing makes me “see red” a bit even to-day if I let my mind dwell on

-it at all, but mingling with my resentment and mortification there is

-always a sort of sneaking admiration for the way the Kaiser (as the

-Yankees say) “got away with the goods.” The Hohenzollern--the trait

-is as evident in the Crown Prince as it is in his father--will always

-go forward instead of backward when it comes to being confronted with

-the consequences of either their bluffs or their breaks, and it is

-about time that the people in Germany, as well as the people outside of

-Germany, got this fact well in mind when dealing with them.’

-

-These words were spoken before the Kaiser backed down when his Agadir

-bluff was called, but, generally speaking, I think the action of both

-father and son since then has been eloquent vindication of their truth.

-

-Another noble German of my acquaintance who had at one time been on

-terms of exceptional intimacy with the Kaiser was the wealthy and

-distinguished Baron von K----, who, in the two decades previous to

-the outbreak of the war, had divided his time about equally between

-his ancestral castle on the Rhine and a great Northern California

-ranch brought him by his wealthy American wife. I met him first at

-a house-party in Honolulu about ten years ago, and at that time he

-appeared to take considerable pride in his friendship with the Kaiser,

-of whom he was wont to speak often and sympathetically. Since then I

-have encountered him, now in America, now in Europe, on an average of

-once a year, and on each succeeding occasion I noticed a decreasing

-warmth on his part, not so much for Germany and the Germans, for whom

-he still expressed great affection, but rather toward the Kaiser and

-his policies. It must have been fully seven years ago that he told me,

-at the Lotus Club in New York, that the mad race of armaments in which

-Germany was setting the pace for the rest of Europe could only end in

-one way--a great war in which his country would run a risk of losing

-far more than it had any chance of winning.

-

-It was not long after this that I heard that Baron von K---- had

-returned hurriedly and unexpectedly from Germany to America, taking

-with him his two sons who had been at school there. I never learned

-exactly what the trouble was, but a friend of his told me that it

-had some connection with an effort that had been made to induce the

-youngsters to become German subjects and join the army, flattering

-prospects in which were held out to them. Von K---- is said to have

-declared that the boys should never be allowed to set foot in Germany

-again. Whether this latter statement is true or not, it is a fact that

-neither of the lads has ever since crossed the Atlantic, and that both

-are now at Harvard.

-

-In the spring of 1911 von K---- cut short what was to have been a

-fortnight’s business trip to Germany to one of four days, the change

-in plan, as I have since learned, being due to an ‘invitation’ (an

-euphemism for a command) from the Kaiser to invest a huge sum of

-money in one of his armament concerns, great extensions in which

-were contemplated. Von K---- refused point-blank, rushed through his

-business, and took the first boat for New York. I did not see him until

-the following year, but friends told me that for a couple of months

-after his return to California he absolutely refused to talk of Germany

-or of German affairs even with his intimates.

-

-This silence was dramatically broken in the smoking-room of the Union

-League Club, San Francisco, on the evening when the news came that the

-Kaiser had sent the gunboat ‘Panther’ to Agadir as a trump card for the

-game he was playing for the control of Morocco. Von K---- was frowning

-over his paper when an American friend came up, clapped him on the

-shoulder, and exclaimed: ‘The Baron is in close touch with the Kaiser;

-perhaps he can tell us what “The Mailed Fist” is punching at in North

-Africa.’

-

-What von K---- said regarding the allegation that he was in close touch

-with the Kaiser was not stated in words that even the San Francisco

-papers (whose ‘news vultures’ had pounced upon the incident within

-an hour) felt able to report verbatim the following morning, but his

-‘Mailed Fist’ _mot_ went from California to Maine in the next twelve

-hours, and even to-day is still freely quoted whenever the question of

-the War Lord’s mentality is the subject of discussion.

-

-‘Mailed vist!’ snorted the Baron, whose English has never climbed

-entirely out of his throat; ‘Vell, berhabst dey haas mailed his

-vist, but, by Gott, dey haas neffer mailed his prain.’ Then, as an

-afterthought, ‘Or maype, if dey haas mailed his prain, der bostmann

-haas forgodt it to deliffer.’

-

-I saw Baron von K---- in San Francisco--encountered him beaming

-over the sculptures in the Italian Building at the Panama-Pacific

-Exposition--but was unable to draw him into any discussion of Germany

-and the war. He did, however, tell me that his German estates were

-for sale, that he never expected to return there again, and that--the

-day after Belgium was invaded--he had applied for his first papers of

-American citizenship.

-

-

-

-

-                        _THE TUTOR’S STORY._[1]

-

-                     BY THE LATE CHARLES KINGSLEY,

-          REVISED AND COMPLETED BY HIS DAUGHTER, LUCAS MALET.

-

-

-                              CHAPTER XXX.

-

-

-That was the first of many days--for by both Braithwaite’s and Nellie’s

-request I stayed on at Westrea until nearly the end of the vacation--of

-sweet but very searching experience. If I played with fire it was

-a purifying fire surely, burning away the baser metal and leaving

-whatever of gold might be in me free of dross.

-

-Not that I say this boastfully--who am I, indeed, to boast?--but humbly

-and thankfully, knowing I passed through an ordeal from which--while

-the animal man cowered and shrank, crying aloud, aye, and with tears

-of agony, to be spared--the spiritual man drew strength and rose, in

-God’s mercy, to greater fulness of life. For I learned very much, and

-that at first hand, by personal experiment, not by hearsay merely or,

-parrot-like, by rote. Learned the truth of the apostle’s dictum, that

-although ‘all things are lawful,’ yet, for some of us, many things,

-however good in themselves or good for others, are ‘not expedient.’

-Learned, too, the value of the second best, learned to accept the lower

-place. Learned to rejoice in friendship, since the greater joys of love

-were denied me, schooling myself to play a brother’s part; play it

-fearlessly and, as I trust, unselfishly, watchful that neither by word,

-or deed, or even by look, I overstepped the limit I had set myself and

-forfeited the trust and faith Nellie reposed in me.

-

-To do this was no easy matter. At moments, I own, the springs of

-courage and resolution ran perilously dry. Then I would go away by

-myself for a time; and--why should I hesitate to tell it?--pray,

-wrestle in prayer, for self-mastery which, with that wrestling, came.

-For if we are honest with ourselves and with Him, disdaining self-pity

-and self-excuse, Almighty God is very safe to fulfil His part of the

-bargain. This, also, I learned, during those sweet and searching days

-at Westrea, beyond all question of doubt.

-

-I rode or drove with Braithwaite about the neighbouring country.

-Walked with him over his farm. Talked with him endlessly of his

-agricultural schemes and improvements. Talked with him about public

-events, too, and about politics. Only once or twice was Hartover, or

-Hover, mentioned; and then, I observed, his tone took on a certain

-bitterness. He had been up to Yorkshire on business a little prior to

-my visit, had happened to run across Warcop--aged and sad, so he told

-me. But my old friend laid aside much of his customary caution, it

-appeared, on hearing Braithwaite expected shortly to see me, and bade

-him tell me things were not well at Hover.

-

-‘What he actually knows, what he only suspects, I could not quite

-discover,’ Braithwaite went on. ‘But I gathered the Countess has

-been up to queer tricks. As to that business, now, of the Italian

-rascal going off with the plate--you heard of it?--well, it looks

-uncommonly as though my lady was in no haste to have him laid by the

-heels--bamboozled the police, as she bamboozled pretty well every

-unlucky wretch she comes across, until he had time to make good his

-escape.’

-

-‘And the Colonel?’ I asked.

-

-‘A dark horse. Connived at the fellow’s escape, too, I am inclined to

-think. Marsigli knew too much of the family goings-on, and, if he was

-caught, was pretty sure to blab in revenge. I am not given to troubling

-myself about the unsavoury doings of great folks, Brownlow. They had

-a short way with aristocratic heads during the French Revolution at

-the end of last century, and I am not altogether sure they weren’t

-right. But for my poor Nellie’s sake, I should never give that Longmoor

-faction a second thought. As it is I have been obliged to think about

-them, and I believe the plain English of the whole affair is that the

-Colonel and my lady have been on better terms than they should be for

-many years past. What she wants is a second Lord Longmoor as husband,

-and the money, and the property, and--a son of her own to inherit it.

-An ugly accusation? Yes. But can you spell out the mystery any better

-way than that?’

-

-I did not know that I could, and told him so. There the conversation

-dropped, while my mind went back to the letter Nellie had shown me.--It

-was a devilish action of Fédore’s, I thought, the mark of a base, cruel

-nature, capable--the last sin--of trampling on the fallen. And yet

-might it not have been dictated by the pardonable desire to secure her

-prize for herself, to prevent pursuit, inquiry, scandal, perhaps fresh

-misery for Nellie? There are two sides, two explanations, of every

-human act; and the charitable one is just as rational, often more so,

-than the uncharitable. If she stated her case somewhat coarsely, was

-she not low-bred, ill-taught, excited by success?

-

-Thus did I argue with myself, trying to excuse the woman, lest I should

-let anger get the upper hand of reason and judgment. But what was her

-relation to Marsigli? This it was which really mattered, which was of

-lasting moment. And about this I must be silent, be cool and prudent.

-At present I could take no action. I must wait on events.

-

-Meanwhile each day brought me a closer acquaintance with, and respect

-for, Nellie’s character; the liveliness of her intelligence, and

-justness of her taste. And to it, the intellectual side of her nature,

-I made my appeal, trying to take her mind off personal matters and

-interest her in literature and thought. On warm mornings, her household

-duties finished, she would bring her needlework out to a sheltered

-spot in the garden, where the high red-brick wall formed an angle with

-the house front; and sitting there, the flowers, the brimming water,

-the gently upward sloping grass-land and avenue of oaks before us, I

-would read aloud to her from her favourite authors or introduce her to

-books she had not yet read. On chill evenings we would sit beside the

-wood fire in the hall, while Braithwaite was busy with the newspaper

-or accounts, and read till the dying twilight obliged her to rise

-and light the lamp. Much of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Scott, along with

-Pope’s rendering of the Iliad, Hazlitt’s Lectures and Lamb’s Essays,

-we studied thus. Shelley, save for a few of the lyrics, we avoided

-by tacit consent; and Byron likewise, with the exception of certain

-portions of ‘Childe Harold’; the heroic rather than the sentimental

-note seeming safest--though from different causes--to us both.

-

-Often I would illustrate our reading by telling her about the authors,

-the places, or the period with which it dealt, to see her hands drop in

-her lap, her face grow bright, her manner animated, as she listened and

-questioned me--argued a little too, if she differed from my opinion.

-Sometimes she laughed with frank enjoyment at some merry tale or novel

-idea. And then I was indeed rewarded--only too well rewarded. For her

-laughter was exquisite to me, both in sound and in token of--were it

-but momentary--lightness of heart.

-

-After that first morning in the Orchard Close, we rarely mentioned the

-dear boy. I felt nothing could be gained by leading the conversation in

-his direction. If it would afford her relief, if she wanted to speak,

-she knew by now, I felt, she could do so without embarrassment or fear

-of misunderstanding on my part. But it was not until the afternoon of

-the day preceding my return to Cambridge that we had any prolonged talk

-on the subject.

-

-Braithwaite, I remember, had driven over to Thetford upon business;

-and, at Nellie’s request, I walked with her to the village, so that she

-might show me the fine old monuments and brasses in the parish church.

-

-Coming back across the fields, we lingered a little, watching the

-loveliness of the early May sunset. For, looking westward, all the

-land lay drenched in golden haze, which--obliterating the horizon

-line--faded upward into a faint golden-green sky, across which long

-webs were drawn of rose and grey. Out of the sunset a soft wind blew;

-full, as it seemed, of memory and wistful invitation to--well--I know

-not what. But either that wind or consciousness of our parting on the

-morrow moved Nellie to open her heart to me more freely than ever

-before.

-

-‘Dear Mr. Brownlow,’ she said, her eyes still fixed on that loveliness

-of sunset--‘I want to thank you now, while we are still alone, for all

-you have done for me. You have, indeed, been a good physician, and I

-want you to know how much better I am since you came--stronger, and

-more at peace. I promise you I will do my utmost to keep the ground I

-have gained, and not fall back into the unworthy state of mind out of

-which you have brought me. I do not say I am cured.’

-

-She looked up at me, smiling.

-

-‘I do not think you would ask that of me. I have no wish to be--I

-should, I think, be ashamed to be cured of--of my love. For it would

-make what was most beautiful seem unreal and untrue. But I am resigned

-to all--almost all--which has happened. I no longer kick against the

-pricks, or ask to have things otherwise. I shall not let it make me

-sour or envious--thanks to you.’

-

-And as she spoke I read in her dear eyes a depth of innocent and

-trustful affection, which was almost more than I could endure.

-

-‘I have come to a better frame of mind,’ she said. ‘It will last. It

-shall last, I promise you.’

-

-‘Then all is well,’ I answered, haltingly.

-

-But as I spoke her expression changed. She walked forward along the

-field path, looking upon the ground.

-

-‘Yes, all--I suppose--is well,’ she repeated. ‘All except one

-thing--that hurts still.’

-

-‘And what is that one thing?’

-

-I thought I knew. If I was right, I had a remedy at hand--a desperate

-one, perhaps, but she was firm enough to bear it now.

-

-‘I always felt how little I had to offer, as against his position, his

-gifts, and all the attractions of his life at Hover, and still more his

-life in town. The wonder was he should ever have found me worth caring

-for at all. But I thought his nature was deeper and more constant, and

-it hurts--it must always hurt--that he should have forgotten so soon

-and so entirely as she--his wife--says he has.’

-

-‘There she lied. He has not forgotten,’ I answered. ‘Here are

-Hartover’s own words.’

-

-And I gave her the letter I received after my visit to Chelsea. Let her

-learn the truth, the whole truth, as from his own lips--learn the best

-and the worst of him, and so meet whatever the future might bring with

-open eyes.

-

-Some twenty yards ahead a stile and gate divided the field of spring

-wheat we were crossing from the pasture beyond. I must leave Nellie to

-herself. So I went on and stood, leaning my elbows on the top bar of

-the gate.

-

-Below, in the hollow, the red roofs and chimneys of Westrea and a glint

-of water showed through the veil of golden haze. An abode of peace, of

-those wholesome fruitful industries which link man to mother-earth and

-all her ancient mysteries of the seasons, of seed-time and harvest,

-rain and shine. How far away in purpose and sentiment from the gaudy

-world of fashion, of artificial excitement, intrigue and acrimonious

-rivalries, to which my poor boy, Hartover, now belonged! Yes, and

-therefore, since here her lot was cast, it was well Nellie should know

-the best and worst of him, his weakness and his fine instincts alike;

-because--because--in the back of my mind was a conviction, irrational,

-unfounded, very foolish perhaps, but at this moment absolute, that

-the end was not yet. And that, in the end, by ways which I knew not,

-once again Nellie would find Hartover, and Hartover would find Nellie,

-and finding her would find rest to his soul, salvation to his wayward

-nature, and thus escape the fate of Alcibiades, which I had always

-so dreaded for him, and prove worthy of his high station, his great

-possessions, his singular beauty, charm and talent, even yet.

-

-For five minutes, nearly ten minutes, while the gold faded to grey, I

-waited, and Nellie gave no sign. I began to grow nervous and question

-the wisdom of my own action. To her, pure and high-minded as she was,

-would this revelation of dissipation and hard-living prove too painful,

-would she turn from it in anger and disgust? Had I betrayed my trust,

-been disloyal to the dear boy in letting her see his confession? I

-bowed my head upon my hands. Fool, fool, thus to rush in where angels

-might truly fear to tread!

-

-Then quick, light footsteps behind me--the rustle of a woman’s dress.

-And as, fearful and humiliated, I, turning, looked up, Nellie’s eyes

-like stars, her face pale but glorious in its exaltation and triumphant

-tenderness.

-

-‘Dear good physician,’ she said, ‘I am really cured at last--not of,

-but by love. All that seemed spoilt and lost is given back. How can

-I thank you enough? I can bear to be away from him, bear to give him

-up, now that I know he really cared for me, really suffered in leaving

-me. I can even forgive her, though she has been cruel and insolent,

-because she went to him in his trouble and helped to save his life. And

-I understand why he married her--it was chivalrous and generous on his

-part. It places him higher in my estimation. I can admire him in that

-too.’

-

-I gazed at her, dazzled, enchanted, wondering. And then--shame, thrice

-shame to me after all my struggles, resolutions, prayers--the devil of

-envy raised its evil head, of bitterness against the rich man, who with

-all his gold and precious stones, his flocks and herds, must yet steal

-the poor man’s one jewel, one little ewe lamb.

-

-‘Have you read all the letter--read that part in which he speaks of his

-first months in London?’ I asked.

-

-For an instant she looked at me without comprehension, her eyebrows

-drawn together, in evident question and surprise. Then the tension

-relaxed. Gently and sweetly she laughed.

-

-‘Ah! yes,’ she said. ‘I know. He grew reckless--he did wrong.

-But--but, dear Mr. Brownlow--is it wicked of me?--I cannot condemn him

-for that--because it was his love for me which drove him to it. He

-tells you so himself. I suppose I ought to be shocked--I will try to

-be--presently--if you say I ought. But not just yet--please not just

-yet.’

-

-‘Neither now nor presently,’ I answered, conscience-stricken and

-ashamed. ‘You know far better than I what is right. Follow your own

-heart.’

-

-I opened the gate, and stood back for her to pass. As she did so she

-paused.

-

-‘You are displeased with me,’ she said. ‘Yet why? Why did you let me

-read his letter, except to comfort me and make me happy by showing me

-he was not to blame?’

-

-Why indeed? She well might ask. And how was I to answer without still

-further betraying my trust--my trust to her, this time, since I had

-sworn to be to her as a brother and let no hint of my own feelings

-disturb the serenity of our intercourse?

-

-So I replied, I am afraid clumsily enough--

-

-‘You are mistaken. And to show you how little I am displeased I beg you

-to keep this letter, in exchange for the one you gave me to keep. You

-may like to read it through again, from time to time.’

-

-I held it out. And for an instant she hesitated, her eyes fixed upon

-the writing, upon the paper, as though these actual and material things

-were precious in her sight. Then she put her hands behind her and shook

-her head.

-

-‘No--better not. It is not necessary,’ she said with a childlike

-gravity. Her whole attitude just now was curiously simple and

-childlike. ‘I have every word of it by heart already, dear Mr.

-Brownlow. I shall remember every word--always.’

-

-And for a while we walked on in silence, side by side, beneath the

-dying sunset. Upon the hump-backed bridge spanning the stream Nellie

-stopped.

-

-‘One thing more, good physician,’ she said, very gently. ‘I am cut off

-from him for--for ever by his marriage. But you can watch over him and

-care for his welfare still. You will do so?’

-

-‘Before God--yes,’ I answered.

-

-‘And, sometimes, you will let me hear, you will come and tell me about

-him?’

-

-‘Again--yes--before God.’

-

-And I smiled to myself, bowing my head. Oh! the magnificent and

-relentless egoism of love!--But she should have this since she asked

-it; this and more than this. Plans began to form in my mind, a

-determination to make sure, whatever it might cost me, about this same

-marriage of Hartover’s. I would devote myself to an inquiry, pursue it

-carefully, prudently; but pursue it regardless of time, regardless of

-money--such money as, by economy and hard work, I could command. For

-was not such an inquiry part, and an integral one, of the pledge to

-watch over Hartover and care for his welfare which I had so recently

-and solemnly given her? Undoubtedly it was.

-

-‘Thank you,’ she said. Then after a pause, ‘I wonder why you are so

-kind to me? Sometimes I am almost afraid of your kindness, lest it

-should make me selfish and conceited, make me think too highly of

-myself. Indeed I will try better to deserve it. I will read. I will

-improve my mind, so as to be more worthy of your society and teaching,

-when you come again.--But, Mr. Brownlow, I have never kept anything

-from my father until now. Is it deceitful of me not to tell him of

-these two letters? They would anger and vex him; and he has been so

-much happier and like his old self since you have been with us. I hate

-to disturb him and open up the past.’

-

-‘I think you are, at least, justified in waiting for a time before

-telling him,’ I faltered.

-

-For my poor head was spinning, and I had much ado to collect my wits.

-She would read, improve herself, be more worthy of my teaching when

-I came again, forsooth!--Ah! Nellie, Nellie, that I must listen with

-unmoved pedagogic countenance, that I must give you impersonal and sage

-advice, out of a broken heart!--

-

-‘Yes, wait,’ I repeated. ‘Later your course of action may be made

-clearer, and you may have an opportunity of speaking without causing

-him annoyance or distress. You are not disobeying his orders, in any

-case.’

-

-‘Thank you,’ she said again. ‘See, the lamps are lit. My father must be

-home and we are late. Oh! how I wish you were not going away to-morrow.

-He will miss you, we shall all miss you so badly.’

-

-I did not sleep much that night.

-

-

-                             CHAPTER XXXI.

-

-

-The ancient postboy drove out to Westrea next morning, and conveyed me

-and my impedimenta back to Cambridge.

-

-The journey was a silent one, I being as little disposed for

-conversation as he. My thoughts were not very cheerful. Yet what had

-I, after all, to make a poor mouth about? I had asked to know my own

-mind, and arrive at a definite decision concerning certain matters

-closely affecting my future. Now I knew it very thoroughly; and, as

-to those matters, had decided once and for all. It only remained for

-me to acquaint my kind old friend, the Master, with that decision as

-tactfully and delicately as might be. But how should I acquit myself?

-And how would he take it? And how far should I be compelled to speak of

-Hartover and Nellie, and of my own relation to both, to make my meaning

-clear? For what a tangle it all was--a tangle almost humorous, though

-almost tragic too, as such human tangles mostly are! Well, I supposed I

-must stick to my old method of blunt truth-telling, leaving the event

-to my Maker, who, having created that strange anomaly, the human heart,

-must surely know how best to deal with its manifold needs and vagaries!

-

-So far then, it was, after all, fairly plain sailing. But,

-unfortunately, these thoughts were not the only thing which troubled me.

-

-For I felt as well as thought; and feeling is more dangerous than

-thought because at once more intimate and more intangible. A great

-emptiness filled--for emptiness can fill, just as silence can shout,

-and that hideously--not only my own soul but, as it seemed, all Nature

-around me. The land was empty, the sky empty. An east-wind blight

-spread abroad, taking all colour out of the landscape and warmth out

-of the sunshine. Just so had my parting with Nellie cast a blight over

-me, taking the colour and warmth out of my life. For I had been with

-her long enough for her presence, the sound of her voice, and constant

-sight of her to become a habit. How terribly I missed, and should

-continue to miss, her--not only in great matters but in small, in all

-the pleasant, trivial, friendly incidents of every day!

-

-After the freshness and spotless cleanliness of Westrea, my college

-rooms--fond though I was of them--looked dingy and uncared for, as

-is too often the way of an exclusively masculine dwelling-place. The

-men had not come up yet, which spared me the annoyance of Halidane’s

-neighbourhood for the moment. Still I felt the depressing lack of

-life and movement throughout the college buildings and quadrangles.

-Cambridge was asleep--a dull and dismal sleep, as it struck me. The

-Master, I found, was back and at the Lodge once more; but, since only

-a portion of the house was ready for habitation, Mrs. Dynevor and her

-daughters would remain at Bath for some weeks longer. This I was glad

-to hear, as it promised to simplify my rather awkward task.

-

-I called at the Lodge the same evening, to be received by the Master

-with his usual cordiality. He invited me to stay and dine, admitting

-he felt somewhat lonely without his ladies in the still partially

-dismantled house.

-

-‘Unlike the three children in the Babylonian furnace, the smell of fire

-is very much upon it still,’ he said. ‘Signs and odours of destruction

-meet me at every turn. I dare say in the end--for I have an excellent

-architect--we shall make a more comfortable and certainly more sanitary

-place of it than ever before; but the continuity is broken, much

-history and many a tradition lost for good. I am only heartily glad you

-are not among the latter, Brownlow. It was a very near thing.’

-

-Whether this was intended to give me an opening for explanation, I

-could not say. In any case I did not choose to take advantage of it,

-preferring to explain at my own time and in my own way.

-

-We talked on general subjects for a while. But at the end of dinner,

-when the butler left the room, he said, eyeing me with a twinkle--

-

-‘It was a pity you could not manage to meet us at Bath, Brownlow,

-for you would have found some old friends there. One of whom, a very

-splendid personage by the same token, made many gracious inquiries

-after you--put me through the longer catechism in respect of you, and

-put my sister and nieces through it also, I understand.’

-

-‘Old friends?’ I asked, considerably puzzled both by his words and

-manner.

-

-‘You had not heard, then, any more than I, that Lord Longmoor has

-settled permanently at Bath?’

-

-I assured him I had not.

-

-‘Yes--and under sad enough circumstances,’ he went on, with a change of

-tone. ‘Poor gentleman, he and those about him have cried wolf for so

-many years that I, for one, had grown sceptical regarding his ailments.

-But what of constitution he ever possessed has been undermined by

-coddling and dosing. I was admitted once or twice, and was, I own,

-most painfully impressed by his appearance and by his state of

-mind--religious mania, or something alarmingly akin to it, and that of

-at once the most abject and arrogant sort.’

-

-I was greatly shocked by this news, and said so.

-

-‘What is being done?’ I asked.

-

-‘Everything that common sense would forbid, in my opinion. He is

-surrounded by an army of obsequious servants and rapacious medical and

-religious quacks, all and each busy to secure their private advantage

-while fooling him, poor soul, to the top of his bent. Our hopeful

-convert and gownsman Halidane had joined the throng, so I heard, but

-fled at my approach. Where the carcass is, there the vultures are

-gathered together--a repulsive and odious sight, showing the case of

-Dives may after all be hardly less miserable than that of Lazarus.’

-

-The Master paused.

-

-‘Lady Longmoor is there too; and heaven forgive me, Brownlow,’ he

-added, ‘I could not but wonder what sentiments that remarkably fair

-lady really entertains towards her lord. She confided in me in the most

-charming manner; yet, honestly, I knew less what to think and believe,

-knew less how the land really lay, after receiving those confidences

-than before.’

-

-In spite of myself I was amused. For could I not picture her

-Magnificence and my good kind old Master in solemn conclave? Picture

-the arts and graces let loose on him, the touching appeals, admissions,

-protests; the disarming innocence of glance and gesture, along with

-flashes of naughty laughter, beneath the black-fringed eyelids, in the

-demurely downcast eyes.

-

-‘Her ladyship’s communications are not always easy to interpret. They

-are not always intended to enlighten--perhaps,’ I ventured.

-

-‘Then you, too, have been honoured?’

-

-‘I have.’

-

-He chuckled.

-

-But, in my case, amusement speedily gave place to sober reflection. For

-if Lord Longmoor was in so critical a condition, dying possibly, what

-an immense change in Hartover’s position this entailed! All my fears

-for the dear boy reawakened. What means might not be taken to embroil

-him with his father, at this critical moment, to injure and dispossess

-him! Particularly did I dislike the fact that Halidane had been in

-attendance. I questioned the Master anxiously.

-

-‘Ah! there you have me, Brownlow,’ he replied. ‘Lord Hartover is a

-point upon which my lady’s confidences proved peculiarly obscure. She

-spoke of her “dear George” with a great show of affection, deploring

-that the festivities in celebration of his coming of age next month

-must be postponed. She had so counted on seeing both you and me at

-Hover then, she declared. Deploring, also’--and he looked rather hard

-at me, I thought, across the corner of the dinner table over the row of

-decanters, as he spoke--‘deploring also an unfortunate disposition in

-her stepson to become enamoured of young women very much beneath him

-in the social scale. She gave me to understand both she and his father

-had been caused much annoyance and trouble by more than one affair

-of this sort. Yet I could not help fancying she sought information,

-just then, rather than offered it. I had a notion--I may have been

-mistaken--she was doing her best to pump me and find out whether I had

-heard anything from you upon the subject of these amatory escapades.

-Come, Brownlow--for my instruction, not for hers--can you fill in the

-gaps?’

-

-I hesitated. Had the right moment come for explanation? I believed

-that it had. And so, as plainly and briefly as I could, I told him the

-whole story. I kept back nothing--why should I? There was nothing to be

-ashamed of, though somewhat to grieve over, and much to regret. I told

-him of Nellie, of Fédore; of Hartover’s love, Hartover’s marriage. I

-told him of my own love.

-

-For a while he remained silent. Then, laying his hand on my shoulder,

-as I sat, my elbows upon the table, my face buried in my hands--

-

-‘My poor fellow, my poor fellow--I had no notion of all this,’ he said.

-‘So this is the upshot of your two years at Hover. I sent you out to

-make your fortune, and you found your fate. Well--well--things are as

-they are; but I do not deny that recently I had formed very different

-plans for you.’

-

-‘Do not think me presumptuous, sir, if I answer I feared as much. And

-that is my reason for telling you what I have told no other human

-being--what, indeed, I had hoped to keep locked inviolably in my own

-breast as long as I live.’

-

-Something in my tone or in my narrative must have stirred him deeply,

-for he rose and took a turn up and down the room, as though with

-difficulty retaining his composure. For my part, I own, I felt broken,

-carried out of myself. It had been searching work, dislocating work, to

-lay bare my innermost heart thus. But only so, as I judged, could the

-mention of Alice Dynevor’s name be avoided between us. It was better to

-sacrifice myself, if by so doing I could at once spare her and arrive

-at a clear understanding. Of this I was glad. I think the Master was

-glad too; for, his rather agitated walk ended, he stood beside me and

-spoke most kindly.

-

-‘Your secret is perfectly safe with me, Brownlow, rest assured. I

-give you my word I will never reveal it. You have behaved honourably

-and high-mindedly throughout. Your conduct commands my respect and

-admiration,--though I could wish some matters had turned out otherwise.

-But now as to this marriage--real or supposed--of poor Hartover’s and

-all the ugly plotting of which, I fear with you, he is the victim. I do

-not think I can find it in my conscience to stand by, or encourage you

-to stand by, with folded hands.’

-

-‘That is exactly what I was coming to, sir,’ I said, choking down

-alike my thanks and my emotion. ‘If, as you inform me, Lord Longmoor’s

-health is so precarious, the poor dear boy’s future must not be left to

-chance.’

-

-‘No, no,’ he answered warmly. ‘His foes, I fear, are very literally

-of his own household. If this woman is legally his wife, we, as his

-friends, are called upon to stand by the marriage and, on grounds of

-public policy, make the best of what, I admit, strikes me as a very bad

-business. If she is not legally his wife, if there is any flaw in the

-marriage, we must take means to establish the fact of that flaw and set

-him free. Whether he is grateful to us for our self-imposed labours

-affects our duty neither one way nor the other at this stage of the

-proceedings. But, should she prove the unscrupulous person I take her

-to be, he will very certainly thank us in the end. And now, Brownlow,

-it occurs to me the sooner we move in all this the better. There is no

-time to be lost.’

-

-He gave me reasons for his opinion, in which I fully agreed; and we sat

-talking far into the night, with the result that within a fortnight I

-travelled, first to Yorkshire, and then up to town.

-

-

-                             CHAPTER XXXII.

-

-

-About my Yorkshire journey it is unnecessary to say much. I saw Hover

-once more, stately as ever, but lifeless. The great house shut up, its

-many treasures swathed in dust sheets and brown paper. When it would

-be opened again none knew. Probably Colonel Esdaile would bring some

-gentlemen down in August for grouse-shooting, or for covert-shooting in

-October. He would hunt there during the winter.--The Colonel, always

-and only the Colonel, as man in possession?

-

-I said as much to Warcop--to whom my visit was made--sitting before

-the empty stove in that queer sanctum of his, hung round with prints

-and spoils of the stud-farm and the chase. Whereupon he stuck out his

-bulldog under-jaw and mournfully shook his big grizzled head.

-

-Yes, he answered, that was pretty well what it all came to. Would to

-God it did not!--always and only Colonel Jack at Hover in these days.

-And my lord lay a-dying, so they said, at Bath; and my young lord gave

-no sign. And her ladyship flitted in, like some great bright-painted

-butterfly, for a day and a night. Looked round the stables and gardens

-with a laugh, hanging on the Colonel’s arm, and flitted off again, as

-gay as you please, to London or Bath, or Old Nick knew where; while

-Colonel Jack, with a face like thunder and a temper like tinder, cursed

-the very guts out of anyone unlucky enough to cross his path for full

-twenty-four hours afterwards. Colonel Esdaile was a changed man, as I

-gathered; his swaggering manner and jovial good-humour a thing of the

-past, save at rare intervals or when her ladyship happened to be about.

-

-All of which was bad hearing. The more so as, without going all lengths

-with Braithwaite in his condemnation of our hereditary nobility, I

-believed then--and believe firmly still--that if a great nobleman,

-or great landowner, is to justify his position--aye, and his very

-existence--he must live on his estate, keep in close touch with, and

-hold himself directly responsible for the welfare of, all ranks of its

-population--labourers, artisans, rent-payers great and small, alike.

-The middle-man, however just or able an administrator, introduces, and

-must always introduce, a cold-blooded, mechanical relation as between

-landlord and tenant, employer and employed. And, now listening to

-Warcop’s lament, I trembled lest the curse of absenteeism--which during

-recent years has worked such havoc of class hatred and disaffection in

-Ireland--should set its evil mark upon this English country-side.

-

-In this connection it was inevitable that memories of my former dreams

-and ambitions for Hover should come back to me with a bitter sense

-of failure and of regret. Dreams and ambitions of so educating and

-training my dear pupil as to make him an ideal landowner, an ideal

-nobleman, to whom no corner of his vast possessions, the lives lived

-and work done there, would be a matter of indifference; but who would

-accept and obey the divinely ordained law of rulership and ownership

-which reminds us every privilege carries with it a corresponding

-obligation, and that the highest duty of him who governs is to serve.

-

-Where had all those fair dreams and ambitions departed now? Were they

-for ever undone and dissipated? It seemed so, alas! Yet who could tell?

-Had I not promised Nellie, and that in some sort against my dearest

-interests, to watch over Hartover to the best of my power, and care

-for him still? And if a poor faulty human creature, such as I, could

-be faithful, how much more God, his Maker! Yes, I would set my hope,

-both for him and for Hover, firmly there, black though things looked

-at present. For Almighty God, loving him infinitely more than I--much

-though I loved him--would surely find means for his redemption, and,

-notwithstanding his many temptations, still make for him a way of

-escape.

-

-And with that I turned my mind resolutely to the practical inquiry

-which had brought me north, questioning Warcop concerning the

-disappearance of Marsigli and the theft, with which he stood charged,

-of jewels and of plate.

-

-Warcop’s first words in reply, I own, set my heart beating.

-

-‘Best ask French Mamzelle, sir,’ he said, with a snarl. ‘For, as sure

-as my name’s Jesse Warcop, she’d the main finger in that pie. Picked

-out t’ fattest o’ the plums for herself, too, and fathered the job upon

-Marsigli to rid herself of the fellow.’

-

-‘To rid herself of him?’

-

-‘’Od, an’ why not? So long as ye were here wi’ us, sir, what she’d

-set her mind to have was out of her reach. But, you safe gone, she’d

-na more stomach for my lord’s Italian butler, bless you--must fly at

-higher game than that.’

-

-‘Lord Hartover?’

-

-‘And who else? Eh! but she’s a canny one; none of your hot-heads,

-rushing into a thing afore they’ve fairly planned it. She’d her plan

-pat enough. Laid her train or ever she struck a match; waited till she

-kenned it was all over between t’ dear lad and Braithwaite’s lass. Had

-Marsigli muzzled, seeing that to tell on her was to tell on himself.

-And others, that should ha’ shown her up, durstn’t do it, lest she

-opened her mouth and set scandal yelping after them. So she’d a

-muzzle onto them too, and could afford to laugh t’ whole lot in the

-face--upstairs as well as down--and follow her own fancy.’

-

-He ruminated, chewing viciously at the straw he carried in his mouth.

-

-‘And, as the talk goes, she’s followed it to a finish,’ he added, ‘and

-fixed her devil she-kite’s claws in my young lord, poor dear lad, safe

-enough. Is the talk true, sir?’

-

-I answered, sadly, I feared it was so; but that, as some method might

-still possibly be found of unfixing those same kite’s claws, I had come

-in search of any information he could give.

-

-‘Then you mean to put up a fight, sir?’ he said, his jaw hard and his

-eyes bright. ‘For all your colleging and your black coat, you’re o’ the

-same kidney as when ye rode t’ little brown horse across the fells and

-saved t’ pack.’

-

-And therewith he settled down to recount all he had puzzled out, all

-he believed and thought. Inferential rather than circumstantial,

-this, alas! for the most part; yet to me valuable, from the man’s

-caution, honesty, power of close observation, shrewd intelligence and

-mother-wit. In his opinion the theft had been carried out at Fédore’s

-instigation, and upon her undertaking to join Marsigli as soon as

-it was accomplished, and fly with him to his native city of Milan.

-Having thus involved the Italian--whose long-standing passion for, and

-jealousy of her, were matters of common knowledge among the servants,

-Warcop said--she evidently played him false, although covering his

-escape by putting the police on a wrong scent. Where was he now? In

-England, Warcop opined, probably hiding in London, still hoping to

-induce Fédore to redeem her promise. Were the two man and wife? Over

-that Warcop shook his head. Who could say, save the two themselves?

-Yet, if they were, there must needs be a record of the marriage, which

-would have taken place during the period of my tutorship at Hover, at

-some time when her ladyship was in Grosvenor Square.

-

-Here, at last, I had a definite starting-point. For the church could be

-found, the clergyman who performed the ceremony could be found, always

-supposing any such ceremony had really taken place.

-

-I returned to Cambridge to talk everything over with the Master; and

-subsequently journeyed up to town, where, under seal of the strictest

-secrecy, I placed matters in the hands of Inspector Lavender, of the

-Detective Police. He must find the church, the clergyman--above all,

-must find Marsigli.--This was a desperate game to play. I knew it.

-Would the dear boy ever forgive me for interfering in his affairs thus?

-I knew not. But I did know it had to be risked both for his fortune and

-his honour’s sake. Further, was I not bound by my word solemnly given

-to Nellie? Still more, then, had it to be done for my own oath’s sake.

-

-

-                            CHAPTER XXXIII.

-

-

-And now we were well on into the May term. The noble elms towers of

-dense and solid green; lilac and laburnum giving place to roses in the

-Fellows’ Garden; and the river, a little shrunken by the summer heat,

-slipping past smooth lawns and beneath the weeping willows’ graceful

-shade with truly academic deliberation and repose.

-

-Never had I enjoyed my daily work so much, or met with so hearty and

-intelligent a response. An excellent set of men were in college that

-year; gentlemanlike, eager to learn, in some cases notably clever, in

-almost all agreeable to deal with. My popularity--enhanced by that

-episode of the fire at the Master’s Lodge--was great. Why should I

-hesitate to say so, since thankfulness rather than vanity did, I can

-honestly affirm, fill my heart? I had arranged to take a reading

-party to North Wales during the long vacation, and to this I looked

-forward as a new and interesting experience. Halidane, moreover, for

-cause unknown, had ceased from troubling me. Ever since his return,

-at the beginning of term, he had worn a somewhat hang-dog look; and,

-though almost cringingly civil when we chanced to meet, appeared, as

-I thought, to shun rather than seek my society. What had happened to

-the fellow? Had the change in his demeanour any connection with the

-Master’s visit to his ‘sainted patron,’ Lord Longmoor, at Bath? I did

-not know, nor did I greatly care, so long as I continued to be relieved

-of his officious and unsavoury attentions.

-

-And so, taking things all round, it seemed to me, just now, the lines

-had after all fallen to me in pleasant places. Temptation had been

-resisted, difficulties overcome, honour--and my conscience--satisfied.

-If much had been denied, yet much remained--sufficient, and more than

-sufficient, to make life a gift, not only good but glad--though after,

-perhaps, a somewhat serious pattern.

-

-Then came an afternoon the events of which stand out very forcibly in

-my memory. They marked a turning-point; a parting of the ways, abrupt

-as it was unexpected.

-

-For, neglecting alike the attractions of the glorious weather and of

-‘the boats’--it was during the June races--I stayed in my rooms to look

-through a set of mathematical papers. Some pleased me by their ability.

-Others amused--or irritated--me by their blunders. Heavens, what thick

-heads some of those youngsters had! After about an hour’s work, lulled

-by the stillness and the sunny warmth--droning of bees in the clematis

-below my window, chippering cries and glancing flight of swallows back

-and forth to their nests under the parapet above--I laid aside the

-papers, and, leaning back in my chair, sank into a brown study.

-

-The morning’s post had brought me a brief communication from Lavender,

-the detective. After weeks of silent pursuit he had reason to believe

-he was on Marsigli’s track at last. My own sensations in face of this

-announcement surprised me a little. By all rules of the game I should

-of course have felt unalloyed gratification. But did I really feel

-that? With a movement of shame, I was obliged to confess I did not.

-For a certain moral indolence had overtaken me. I was established in a

-routine from which I had no wish to break away. My college work, into

-which I threw myself at first mainly as a refuge from haunting desires

-and disturbing thoughts, had become an end in itself. It engrossed me.

-I found it restful--in that, while making small demand on my emotions,

-it gave scope for such talents, whether intellectual or practical, as

-I possessed. I found it exhilarating to deal with these young men, in

-the first flush of their mental powers, to--in some measure at all

-events--form their minds, influence their conduct and their thought.

-It was delightful, moreover, to have time and opportunity for private

-study; to read books, and ever more books. The scholar’s life, the

-life of the university, held me as never before. Hence this obtrusion

-of Lavender, hunter of crime and of criminals, this obtrusion of

-wretched Marsigli, the absconding Italian butler, were, to be honest,

-displeasing rather than welcome. I cried off further demands upon my

-energies in the direction of conflict and adventure. Leave the student

-to his library, the teacher to his lecture-room, unvexed by the

-passions and tumult of the world without.

-

-In fastidious repulsion, in something, heaven forgive me, approaching

-disgust, I turned away from both thief and thief-catcher, all they

-were and all they stood for, as beneath my notice, common and unclean.

-Almost angrily I prayed to be let alone, let be. Prayed no fresh

-exertion might be required of me; but that I might pursue my course, as

-a comfortable, well-read, well-fed Cambridge don, in security and peace.

-

-And, mercifully, my lazy prayer was not heard, not answered; or, more

-truly, was both heard and answered, though in a manner conspicuously

-the reverse of my intention in offering it.

-

-For, as I mused thus, the calm of the summer afternoon was disturbed

-by a sudden loud knocking at my door. The door was flung open. On the

-threshold a man stood. No learned brother fellow, no ordinary gownsman;

-but, with his pride of bearing, his air of fashion, the finest young

-fine gentleman I had ever seen--in long drab driving coat, smartly

-outstanding from the waist, and white top hat with rakish up-curled

-brim.

-

-For an instant I gazed in stupid amazement. Then, as the door closed

-behind him and he came from out the shadow, I sprang to my feet and ran

-forward, with a cry. And, almost before I knew what was happening, his

-two hands gripped my shoulders, and he backed me into the full light of

-the window, holding me away from him at arms’ length and looking down

-into my face. He was a good half head taller than I.

-

-‘Dearest Brownlow--my dear old man, my dear old man,’ he repeated, and

-his grip tightened while his voice was tender as a girl’s.

-

-Then, while I stammered in my excitement and surprise, he gave a

-naughty little laugh.

-

-‘Oh! I am no ghost,’ he said. ‘You needn’t be afraid. I’m very solid

-flesh and blood; worse luck for you, perhaps, old man. Gad, but it’s

-good, though, to see you once again.’

-

-He threw down his hat among the papers on the table, tossed his gloves

-into it, and drew me on to the window-seat beside him.

-

-Already the spell began to work, the spell of his extraordinary

-personal charm. Already he captivated me, firing my somewhat sluggish

-imagination. Already I asked nothing better than to devote myself to

-him, spend myself for him, stamp out the evil and nourish the good in

-him, at whatever loss or disadvantage to myself.

-

-I inquired what had brought him to Cambridge.

-

-‘I am in trouble, Brownlow,’ he answered simply, while his face

-hardened. ‘It’s an ugly sort of trouble, which I have not the pluck

-to meet single-handed. I cannot see my way through or out of it. I

-tell you, it was beginning to make me feel rather desperate. And I

-remembered your wisdom of old’--

-

-He smiled at me, patting my knee.

-

-‘So, as I do not want to take to drink--which last night seemed the

-only alternative--I took the road this morning instead, and came to

-look for you. Perhaps it is a rather presumptuous proceeding on my

-part. I have no claim on you, for I have been neglectful and selfish.

-I know that well enough--not by any means a model pupil, dear old man,

-not any great credit to you. But you cared for me once.’

-

-Cared for him? God was my witness that I did!

-

-‘And, as I tell you, I have not courage to meet this trouble alone. It

-raises a devil of suspicion and anger in me. I am afraid of being

-unjust, of losing my head and doing some wild thing I shall regret for

-the rest of my life. But we need not go into all this just yet, and

-spoil our first half-hour together. It will keep.’

-

-And he looked away, avoiding my eyes with a certain shyness, as

-I fancied; glanced round the room, at its sober colouring, solid

-furniture, ranges of bookshelves and many books; glanced through the

-window at the fine trees, the bright garden, and quiet river glistening

-in the still June sunlight.

-

-‘Gad! but what a delightful place!’ he said. ‘I am glad to know where

-you live, Brownlow, and I could find it in my heart to envy you, I

-think. The wheels must run very smooth.’

-

-I thought of Nellie, of my home-coming from Westrea. Verily, less

-smooth than he imagined--sometimes.

-

-‘Why, why did not they let me come here,’ he broke out--‘as I implored

-them to, after the row about--about--at Hover, I mean, when you left

-me? I would have given anything to come up to the university then,

-and work, and have you with me still. Ah! how different everything

-would be now! But my father refused to listen. The plan did not suit

-some people’s book, I suppose; and they worked upon him, making him

-hopelessly obstinate. Nothing would do, but into the Guards I must go.

-I begged for if only a year with you here, at Cambridge, first. But

-not a bit of it. Out they pitched me, neck and crop, into the London

-whirlpool, to sink or swim as I could--sink for choice, I fancy, as far

-as they were concerned.’

-

-He shrugged his shoulders.

-

-‘It is to be hoped they are better satisfied at the result than I am,’

-he added, with an oath. ‘But what is done is done--and, curse it,

-there is no going back. As you make your bed--or as others make it for

-you--so must you lie on it.’

-

-Sad words from a boy of barely one-and-twenty, as I thought. Surely

-punishment awaited those, somewhere and somewhen, who had taught him so

-harsh a lesson, and taught it him so young.

-

-Meanwhile, my first surprise and excitement over, I watched Hartover

-carefully, fearing to see in him signs of past dissipation and excess.

-But his beauty was as great as ever. His flesh firm, moreover, his eyes

-and skin clear. He had matured rather than altered, grown considerably

-taller and filled-out, though his figure remained gracefully alert

-and slight. Two points only did I observe which I did not quite

-like--namely an aspect of anxiety and care upon the brow, and little

-bitter lines at the corners of the handsome mouth, giving a singular

-arrogance to his expression when the face was in repose.

-

-We talked for a while of indifferent matters, and he asked me to walk

-with him to the Bull Hotel, where he had left the post-chaise in which

-he drove down from town, and where he invited me to dine with him and

-stay the night as his guest.

-

-‘Give me what time you can, Brownlow,’ he said. ‘Leave all the

-good boys, the white sheep of your numerous flock, to take care of

-themselves for once; and look after the bad boy, the black sheep--the

-scapegoat, rather. For, upon my soul, it amounts to that. The sins

-of others are loaded on to my unhappy head, I promise you, with a

-vengeance.’

-

-I could not but be aware of curious and admiring glances, as I walked

-up King’s Parade in his company. Reflected glory covered me, while he,

-royally careless of the observation he excited, was quick to note the

-grace of the different college buildings, the effects of light and

-colour, to ask a hundred pertinent questions, make a hundred pertinent

-remarks on all which caught his eye. What a delightful mind he had,

-open both to poetic and humorous impressions; instinctively using the

-right word, moreover, and striking out the happy phrase when it suited

-him to lay aside his slang.

-

-

-                             CHAPTER XXXIV.

-

-

-We dined in a private room on the first floor, which overlooked

-the street. Hartover proved a brilliant host. Once or twice, after

-anecdotes a trifle too highly salted for my white tie and clerical

-coat, he checked himself with a pretty air of penitence, expressing

-a mischievous hope I ‘wasn’t shocked.’ Shocked I was not, being no

-puritan; but somewhat grieved, I must admit, his wit should take so

-gross a turn. Yet what wonder? The guard-room is hardly mealy-mouthed,

-I supposed; neither, I could imagine, was French Mademoiselle--in

-intimacy. To her, by the way, I observed, Hartover made so far no

-smallest allusion.

-

-But he spoke of Braithwaite, asking, with an indifference too studied

-to carry conviction, if my friendship still continued with the father

-and daughter, and--‘were they well?’ I answered both questions briefly

-in the affirmative; and there, to my relief, the subject dropped.

-

-Towards the end of dinner his high spirits, which, entertaining though

-he had been, struck me all along as slightly forced, deserted him,

-and he became silent and preoccupied. Were we approaching disclosure

-of the trouble which, as he asserted, brought him here hot-foot, to

-Cambridge and to me? How gladly would I have made the way of confession

-easy for him! But I had sense to know I must be passive in the matter.

-Whatever confidence he gave must be given spontaneously. To question

-him, however circumspectly, would be to put him off by arousing his

-sensitive pride.

-

-As the waiter brought in coffee and lights, Hartover rose, swung out

-onto the balcony, and, leaning his elbows on the high iron rail of

-it, stood gazing down into the street. The June twilight lingered,

-disputing the feeble glimmer of the street lamps. Roofs, gables,

-pinnacles and towers showed velvet black against the sweet translucence

-of an almost colourless sky. Footsteps, voices, a grind of wheels and

-cloppet, cloppet, of horse-hoofs over the stones; the scream of swifts

-in the buoyant rush of their evening flight, and the tang of a chapel

-bell, a single reiterated note. Some five minutes must have elapsed

-while these varied sounds reached me from without. Then Hartover raised

-his head, calling imperatively over his shoulder----

-

-‘Brownlow, Brownlow, where are you? I want you. Come here.’

-

-Evidently he had reached some crisis of purpose or of feeling. I went

-out into the warm evening air and stood beside him. His head was

-lowered, and again he gazed down into the street.

-

-‘I am sorry, I am ashamed, Brownlow,’ he said, an odd thickness in his

-speech, ‘but I am afraid I have come here to-day and disturbed you on

-false pretences. I am afraid I cannot bring myself to talk to you about

-this matter after all.’

-

-He paused as asking an answer.

-

-‘Very well,’ I replied. ‘I, at all events, have gained by your coming,

-in that I have had the joy of seeing you again. Leave the rest if you

-think fit. You alone can know what you wish--know what appears to you

-right under the circumstances. You must use your own judgment.’

-

-‘Ah! there you have me,’ he returned sharply. ‘I don’t know what I

-wish. I am uncertain what is right. I distrust my own judgment. In

-short I’m cornered, Brownlow, miserably, detestably cornered. To speak

-looks to me, at this moment, like an act of unpardonable treachery.

-Yet, if I don’t speak, I may be rushed before many days are out, by

-my own mad anger, into something even worse than treachery. Do you

-understand?’

-

-In a sense I did understand, by intuition born of affection and

-sympathy. But, unless I was greatly mistaken in my reading of him, all

-this was merely preliminary. If I waited, I should understand, or at

-least hear, the whole. And that it would be well for him I should hear

-the whole I had--God helping me--no shadow of doubt.

-

-Slowly the twilight expired, while the blue of the night sky, opaque,

-profound, travelled stealthily, almost imperceptibly, downward from

-the zenith. The joyous scream of the swifts ceased, and the bell

-tanged irregularly, nearing its finish. As it did so, a little group

-of gownsmen, gathered upon the pavement immediately below, seized by

-an irresponsible spirit of frolic--as most young animals are prone

-to be at dusk--started laughing and skylarking, their black raiment

-fluttering, batlike, as they skirmished across the greyness of the

-street.

-

-Whether the sudden outcry jarred his already strained nerves, or

-whether the careless whole-hearted fun and laughter of these men, so

-little younger than himself, offered too mordant a contrast to his

-own troubled state, Hartover flung in from the balcony with an oath,

-hesitated for an instant, then blew out the lights and threw himself

-into an armchair.

-

-‘No, I’m not strong enough to hold my tongue. Wretched weakling that I

-am,’ he groaned, ‘I must blab. And concerning a woman too.’

-

-He extended his hand, through the semi-darkness, motioning me to a

-chair.

-

-‘Sit there, please,’ he said. ‘My God, when it comes to the point how I

-despise myself, Brownlow! It’s--it’s about her, about Fédore.’

-

-‘Yes,’ I replied, as calmly as I could, for his tone moved me deeply.

-And the subject, too! I trembled, penetrated alike by fear and hope of

-what I should hear next.

-

-‘For the last month or six weeks something’s been wrong--some mystery

-on hand I cannot fathom. Somebody who has, or imagines they have, a

-hold over her is pressing her for money, as far as I can make out.

-I believe--oh! it is an abominable suspicion, but I cannot rid my

-mind of it--this person visits the house when she is sure I shall be

-away. I have no idea who, Brownlow; but someone belonging to her old

-life, before I married her. Each time lately that I have been with

-her she has insisted upon my telling her exactly when I intend to

-come again. Nothing will pacify her but that I must fix a date and

-hour. Her persistence has vexed me once or twice. We nearly quarrelled

-over it. She says’--he choked a little--‘it is only that she may be

-able to put on a pretty gown, prepare a nice little dinner, and have

-everything smart and charming for me. But I don’t believe that is her

-sole reason--perhaps I am just a jealous brute--but I can’t. I wish to

-heaven I could!’

-

-He waited, fighting down his emotion.

-

-‘Yesterday matters came to a head. I went with’--he mentioned the names

-of several young men, well known, not to say notorious, in fashionable

-and sporting circles--‘to a race meeting at ----. I meant to stop the

-week. But racing bores me after a little while, and the play was too

-high at night. Positively I couldn’t afford it. So I cut my stay short,

-went back to town, and to Chelsea. I can’t deny I had been living

-rather hard, and I was cross with myself--I really have kept awfully

-straight for the last six months, Brownlow--and a bit seedy and out of

-sorts.’

-

-Again he waited.

-

-‘I let myself in at the garden door, and then at the house-door--as a

-matter of course. I had no intention of jumping any surprise on her. I

-was not thinking about my suspicions or any little tiff we had had. I

-only wanted to get to her, Brownlow, because I knew she’d put me into

-good conceit with myself--tease and pet and amuse me, you know--she can

-be devilish amusing when she likes’----

-

-His voice broke.

-

-‘Yes,’ I said quietly, ‘yes’----

-

-My heart bled for him; but I must be cautious and husband my resources.

-The time to speak would surely come, but it was not yet.

-

-‘I found the house empty,’ he went on presently, recovering himself,

-‘windows bolted and doors locked. I called her, and looked for her

-upstairs and down; but neither she nor the maid was at home. I was

-disappointed, of course; but I would not let myself be angry. I had

-told her I should be away till the end of the week, so she had a

-perfect right to go out if she wanted to. Finally I went into the

-drawing-room, meaning to wait there till she came in. But, somehow, I

-received a new impression of the house. It struck me as grubby, fusty,

-low-class. I wondered why I had never observed this before, or whether

-it was merely the effect of my disappointment at her absence. There

-were scraps of a torn-up letter on the carpet, for one thing, which

-I greatly disliked. I began to pick them up, and casually--I did not

-attempt to read it of course--I remarked the writing was in French.

-Then I thought I would smoke, to pass the time until she came back. I

-wanted something with which to cut off the end of my cigar, but found

-I had brought no penknife, so I rummaged in her little worktable for

-a pair of scissors. I could not find any in the top workbox part,

-and tried to pull out the square silk-covered drawer arrangement

-underneath, as I remembered often seeing her put her scissors away

-in it with her work. But the beastly thing was locked or jammed.

-Like a fool, I lost my temper over it, and dragged and poked till

-the catch gave and the drawer flew open. And--and, Brownlow, inside

-I saw a couple of white leather jewel-cases--oh! the whole thing was

-so incredible, such a profanation--it made me sick--stamped with a

-monogram and coronet. I recognised them at once. They belonged to my

-mother--own mother I mean’--

-

-His tone grew fierce.

-

-‘Not her Magnificence. Her hands have never touched, and touching

-defiled them, I am thankful to think.--These jewels would come to me,

-in the ordinary course of events, with certain other possessions

-of my mother’s, at my majority. Meanwhile they have always been

-kept in the strong-room at Hover. And, Brownlow--this is the point

-of the whole hateful business--they were among the valuables that

-scoundrel, Marsigli--you remember him, my step-mother’s beloved

-Italian butler?--made off with last year, and which by some to my mind

-incomprehensible stupidity on the part of the police--I have often

-talked it over with Fédore--have never yet been traced.’

-

-‘Were the contents of the cases intact?’ I asked.

-

-He hesitated.

-

-‘No--’ he said at last, unwillingly, almost I thought

-despairingly--‘and that makes it all the more intolerable. The cases

-were empty; and from the position in which I found them it seemed to

-me they had been thrown into the drawer just anyhow, by a person in a

-frantic hurry--too great a hurry to make sure the drawer was actually

-locked. For, if it had been properly locked, it would not have given

-way so easily when I tried to force it. These signs of haste increased

-my fears, Brownlow. For think,’ he cried with sudden passion, ‘only

-think what it all points to, what it may all mean! How could these

-precious things of my mother’s have found their way into the drawer

-of Fédore’s worktable--unless? The conjunction of ideas would be

-positively grotesque if--if it were not so damnable.--Does not it occur

-to you what horrible possibilities are opened out?’

-

-It did. I gauged those possibilities far more clearly than he, indeed,

-remembering my conversation with Warcop in the stables at Hover but

-a few weeks back. For was not Warcop’s theory in process of being

-proven up to the hilt? But how could I speak of either theory or

-proof to Hartover, distracted and tortured as he was? To do so would

-be incomparably cruel. No, I must play a waiting game still. The

-truth--or, to be exact, that which I firmly and increasingly believed

-to be the truth--must reach him by degrees, lest he should be driven

-into recklessness or violence. I would temporise, try to find excuses

-even, so as to retard rather than hasten the shock of that most ugly

-disclosure.

-

-‘All which you tell me is very strange and perplexing,’ I said. ‘But do

-not let us be hurried into rash and possibly unjust conclusions. There

-may be some explanation which will put a very different complexion upon

-affairs. Have you asked for any?’

-

-‘No,’ he said. ‘It was too soon to think of that. I could not meet her,

-could not trust myself to see or speak to her then. My one impulse was

-to get away, to get out of the house in which, as it seemed to me, I

-had been so shamelessly betrayed and tricked. I was half mad with rage

-and grief. For--ah! don’t you understand, Brownlow?--I do love her. Not

-as I loved Nellie Braithwaite. That was unique--a love more of the soul

-than the senses. Pure and clean as a wind of morning, blowing straight

-out of paradise. The love of my youth, of--in a way--my virginity; such

-as can never come twice in my or any man’s life.’

-

-He stopped, a sob in his throat. But not for long. The floodgates were

-open--all the proud, wayward, undisciplined, sensitive nature in revolt.

-

-‘My love for Fédore is different--no morning wind from Eden about that.

-How should there be? In the interval I had very effectually parted

-company with all claims to the angelic state. But think--she nursed me,

-dragged me back from the very mouth of hell; protected me from those

-who sought to ruin me; gave herself to me; made a home for me, too, of

-a sort--oh! that poor, poor, hateful little Chelsea house!--coaxed me,

-flirted with me, kept me from gambling and from drink. How could I do

-otherwise than marry her, and love her, out of the merest decency of

-ordinary gratitude? I owe her so much---- And now’----

-

-Here Hartover gave way completely. I felt rather than saw him--there

-was no light in the room save that thrown upward from the lamps in the

-street--fling himself sideways in the chair, crushing his face down

-upon the arm of it in a paroxysm of weeping.

-

-Only a woman should look on a man’s tears, since the motherhood

-resident in every woman--whether potential or as an accomplished

-act--has power to staunch those tears without humiliation and offence.

-To his fellow-man the sight is disabling; painful or unseemly according

-to individual quality, but, in either case, excluding all possibility

-of approach.

-

-I rose, went over to the window, and waited there. The boy should

-have his cry out, unhindered by my neighbourhood, since I knew he was

-beyond my clumsy male capacity of consolation. Later, when he came to

-himself, he would understand I had withdrawn not through callousness,

-but through reverence. Meanwhile, what a position and what a prospect!

-My heart sank. How, in heaven’s name, could he be drawn up out of this

-pit he had digged for himself? And he loved Nellie still. And, whatever

-his faults, whatever his weaknesses--vices even--his beauty and charm

-remained, beguiling, compelling, as ever. What woman could resist him?

-The thought gave me a pang. I put it from me sternly. Self, and again

-self--would self never die? Even in this hour of my dear boy’s agony,

-as he lay sobbing his hot young heart out within half a dozen paces of

-me, must I think of myself and of my private sorrow?

-

-I looked up into the vast serenity of the star-gemmed sky above the

-black irregular outline of the buildings opposite, and renewed my vow

-to Nellie--remembering no greater love hath any man than this, that he

-lay down his life--life of the body, or far dearer life of emotions,

-the affections--for his friend.

-

-And presently, as I still mused, I became aware of a movement in the

-room and of Hartover close beside me, his right arm cast about my neck.

-

-‘Dear old man, dear old man,’ he said hoarsely, yet very gently,

-‘forgive me. I have felt for these past twenty-four hours as though the

-last foothold had gone, the last foothold between me and perdition.

-But it isn’t so--you are left. Stay by me, Brownlow. See me through.

-Before God, I want to do right. Your worthless pupil wants for once to

-be a credit to you. But I cannot stand alone. I am afraid of myself.

-I distrust my own nature. If I go to her--to Fédore--with those empty

-jewel boxes of my mother’s in my hand and she lies to me, I shall want

-to kill her. And if she tells we what I can’t but believe is the truth,

-I shall want to blow my own brains out. For she has been very much to

-me. She is my wife--and what can the future hold for either of us but

-estrangement, misery and disgrace?’

-

-He waited, steadied his voice, and then--

-

-‘I know it is no small thing I ask of you; but will you come back to

-town with me to-morrow? And will you see her first, and so give me time

-to get myself in hand and decide what is to be done, before she and I

-meet? Will you stand between me and the devils of revenge and despair

-who tempt me? Will you do this because--barring you, Brownlow--I have

-nothing, no one, left?’

-

-Needless to set down here what I answered. He should have his way. How,

-in God’s name, could I refuse him?

-

-Then, as on that first night of my arrival at Hover long ago, I got him

-away to bed. Sat by him till he slept--at first restlessly, feverishly,

-murmuring to himself; and once--it cut me to the quick--calling Fédore

-by name, as one who calls for help in limitless distress.

-

-The brief summer night was over and the dawn breaking before I felt

-free to leave him, seek my room, and take some much-needed rest.

-

-

-                          (_To be continued._)

-

-

-FOOTNOTES:

-

-     [1] Copyright by Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co. in the United

-     States of America.

-

-

-

-

-                           _LEST WE FORGET._

-

-                       _A WORD ON WAR MEMORIALS._

-

-

-An old friend of mine, who was a boy at Rugby under the kindly,

-orthodox and dignified Dr. Goulburn, told me that on his first evening

-at that great school, a bewildered and timid little creature, after he

-had been much catechised and derided by a lot of cheerful youngsters,

-and with a terrible perspective before him of endless interviews with

-countless strange and not necessarily amiable mortals, a loud bell

-rang, and all trooped down to prayers. He sat on a bench in a big bare

-hall with a timbered roof, a door opened and a grave butler appeared,

-carrying two wax candles in silver candlesticks, followed by the

-Headmaster in silk gown and bands, in unimaginable state. The candles

-were set down on a table. The Headmaster opened a great Bible, and in

-a sonorous voice read the twelfth chapter of the Book of Joshua, a

-gloomy enough record, which begins, ‘Now these are the kings of the

-land, which the Children of Israel smote,’ and ends up with a sinister

-catalogue, ‘The king of Jericho, one; the king of Ai, one’--and so on

-for many verses, finishing up with ‘The king of the nations of Gilgal,

-one; the king of Tirzah, one; all the kings, thirty and one.’ After

-which pious and edifying exercise, the book was closed, and prayer

-offered.

-

-My old friend was an impressionable boy, and it seemed to him, he

-said, that there was a fearful and ominous significance in this list

-of slaughtered monarchs, depicting and emphasizing the darker side of

-life. But I have often thought that a few words from the Headmaster, on

-the vanity of human greatness and the triumph of the divine purpose,

-might have turned these lean and bitter memorials of the dead into an

-unforgettable parable. What, for instance, could be more profoundly

-moving in the scene of the ‘Passing of Arthur,’ where the knight steps

-slowly in the moonlight from the ruined shrine and the place of tombs:

-

-   ‘Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men,

-    Old knights--and over them the sea-wind sang

-    Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam’?

-

-That seems to lend the last touch of mystery and greatness to a scene

-of human endeavour, that the earth beneath the living feet should cover

-the bones, the hardy and heroic limbs of those who had lived and fought

-worthily. As the dying king, with the poignant accent of passion cries

-aloud:

-

-                  ‘“Such a sleep

-    They sleep--the men I loved!”’

-

-For nothing surely in the world can be so utterly and simply moving as

-the record of dead greatness--unless perhaps it be the oblivion which

-is the end of all greatness at the last. There is a place on the bleak

-top of the South Downs, a great tumulus, with an earth-work round it,

-all grassy now and tufted with gorse, the sheep grazing over it, which

-looks for miles north and east and west over the fertile weald, with

-shadowy hills on the horizon; and to the south, where the great ridges

-fold together, you can catch through the haze a golden glint of the

-sea. I never pass the place without a deep and strange thrill. It is

-called the Mound of the Seven Kings; it looks over a grassy space which

-is known as ‘Terrible Down,’ and of what day and what doom it is the

-record, who shall say?

-

-It seems impossible to us now, just as it seemed to the old hill-men

-who raised that tumulus, that as the world welters and widens onward,

-the great tragedies and losses and sacrifices which we have seen with

-our eyes, and the thought of which has so possessed our souls with a

-sense of grief and glory combined, should become but a tale that is

-told. But it is one of the thoughts which lie deepest and noblest in

-the mind and soul of man, the thought of old and infinite strife and

-endeavour, pain and death, courage and hope so richly blended, till

-it seems too great for the heart to hold. The mystery of it is that,

-as the Psalmist says: ‘I see that all things come to an end; but Thy

-commandment is exceeding broad.’ The thought, if I can define it, leaps

-like fire from crumbling ashes--all this great pageant of energy and

-heroism and fame fading farther and farther into the past--and yet,

-in spite of the hush of the tolling bell and the solemn music, the

-certainty that it is all worth doing and enduring, that we must wrest

-the great values out of life and make of it a noble thing; and that

-while memory fades and honour seems to perish, yet the seed once sown,

-it springs up again and again in life and beyond death, beyond all

-possibility of extinction.

-

-One of the things for which, in a great time like the present--great

-for all its sadness, and perhaps because of its sadness--one of the

-things for which I thank God is that this war has revealed as nothing

-else could have done the latent heroism of our nation. If only it could

-make us poets and cure us of being prophets! I have often been ashamed

-to the bottom of my heart of the cries of panic-mongers and crabbed

-pessimists shrieking in our ears that we were a nation sunk in sloth

-and luxury and indifference. I have lived all my life among the young,

-and if ever there was a thing of which I was certain, it was that our

-youth was brave and modest and manly--as this long and bitter fight has

-daily and hourly proved.

-

-And we have a task before us--to see that the memory of those who

-have fought for us and died for us should be as stably and as durably

-commemorated as possible. It is not that I think of a memorial as being

-in any sense a reward for the honoured dead. If there is one thing

-which our heart tells us, it is that they have a nobler reward than

-that. A new life, doubtless, a passing from strength to strength. But

-as Shelley so immortally said, ‘Fame is love disguised,’ and we owe it

-to our love and gratitude not only to remember, but to commemorate.

-I defy anyone, however simple and stolid, to set foot in our great

-Abbey, and not be thrilled with the thought, ‘After all, humanity is a

-splendid thing, so full of devotion and greatness as it is!’ Statesmen,

-monarchs, writers, artists, men of science, men of learning, there they

-sleep; there is a generous glow in many young hearts, which may thus be

-kindled. The poet of boyhood makes the boy, just disengaging himself

-from the beloved school and stepping into the world, say to himself:

-

-   ‘Much lost I: something stayed behind,

-      A snatch maybe of ancient song,

-    Some breathings of a deathless mind;

-      Some love of truth; some hate of wrong.

-

-    And to myself in games I said,

-     “What mean the books? Can I win fame?

-    I would be like the faithful dead,

-      A fearless man and pure of blame.”’

-

-This, then, is our present task--to see that our dead are worthily

-commemorated for our own sakes and for the sake of those who come

-after. How shall we do it?

-

-In the first place, we must not do it idly and carelessly--we must take

-thought, have a plan and a purpose, not be in too great a hurry. Hurry

-is the worst foe of memorials. We have a national habit--I think it is

-rather a sign of greatness--not to do anything until we are obliged;

-but the result of that often is a loss of grace and fineness; because

-people who must act, and are a little ashamed of not having acted,

-accept any solution.

-

-What I hope we shall do is to take careful thought where our memorials

-shall be set, so that they may be most constantly and plainly seen;

-and then how they may best fulfil their purpose, which is to remind

-us first, and next to kindle emotion and imagination. We have an ugly

-habit of combining, if we can, local utility with a memorial, as in

-the well-known story of the benevolent clergyman who read out the

-announcement of the death of a great statesman and added, ‘That is

-just what we wanted! We have long needed a new water supply!’ That is

-like using a grandfather’s sword to trim a privet-hedge with! I do not

-believe in fitting things in. If we commemorate, let us commemorate by

-a memorial which arrests and attracts the eye, is long and gratefully

-remembered, and by an inscription which touches the heart, and does not

-merely merge a man among the possessors of all human gifts and virtues.

-I remember a Georgian monument in a cathedral, where a lean man in a

-toga peeped anxiously out of an arbour of fluted columns, and of whom

-it was announced that in him ‘every talent which adorns the human

-spirit was united with every virtue which sustains it.’ How different

-is the little tablet in a church I know on which a former choir-boy

-is commemorated! He had joined the army, and had won a Victoria Cross

-in the Boer War which he did not live to receive. The facts were most

-briefly told; and below were the words, which I can hardly read without

-tears:

-

-                ‘Thou hast put a new song in my mouth.’

-

-What we want, then, are beauty, dignity, simplicity, and force. We want

-what appeals directly to the eye, and then darts a strong emotion into

-the heart, an emotion in which gratitude and hope are blended.

-

-I must not here attempt to unfold a wide technical scheme; indeed I

-could not if I would; but I may perhaps outline a few principles.

-

-First comes the difficulty that places like to manage their own

-affairs; and that the men who administer local interests, however

-devotedly and industriously, do not acquire their influence by artistic

-tastes. The next difficulty is that our artistic instinct in England is

-not widely diffused. When Walter Pater’s attention was called to some

-expensive tribute, and he became aware that an expression of admiration

-was required, he used to say in his soft voice, ‘Very costly, no

-doubt,’ and this was always accepted as an appropriate compliment, he

-said. A third difficulty is the deep-seated mistrust in England of the

-expert--it is all part of our independence--but the expert is often

-regarded simply as a man who lets you in for heavier expense than you

-had intended.

-

-It would be well if some central advisory board could be established--a

-central authority can hardly be expected, and indeed would not even be

-desirable. The nature of memorials should be carefully scrutinised. We

-are always weak in allegorical representation, and perhaps for that

-very reason have a great fondness for it. Our civic heraldry, for

-instance, is woefully weak, not by excess of symbolism, so much as by a

-desperate inclusiveness of all local tradition, till the shield becomes

-a landscape in which a company of travellers have hung their private

-property on every bush.

-

-Thus with our taste for representing and explaining and accounting

-and cataloguing, our memorials become architectural first, with every

-cornice loaded with precarious figures, like the painting described by

-Dickens of six angels carrying a stout gentleman to heaven in festoons

-with some difficulty. Our inscriptions become biographies. Again,

-the surrounding scene is little regarded. A statesman in a bronze

-frock-coat and trousers reading aloud a bronze manuscript behind the

-railings of a city square, embowered in acacias, has no power over the

-mind except the power of a ludicrous sense of embarrassment. A statue,

-majestic enough in a pillared alcove, is only uncomfortable in a storm

-of wind and rain.

-

-We ought, I believe, to fight shy of elaborate _designs_, because

-the pantomime of allegory at once begins. What we rather need is

-simplicity of statement, with perhaps a touch of emblem, no more, of

-characteristic material, of perfect gravity, so that the gazer can see

-at once that the matter recorded is great and significant, and desires

-to know more. It is said that an inscription was once to be seen in

-India, marking one of the farthest points of the advance of Alexander

-the Great. It was a slab with the words:

-

-                           ΕΝΤΑΥΘΑ · ΕϹΤΗΝ

-

-‘Here I stood’--upon it. What could be more impressive, what more

-calculated to sow a seed of wonder in an imaginative mind?

-

-These memorials should, I believe, evoke the spirit of the artist, as

-a craftsman, rather than as a designer. Alike in inscriptions and in

-representations, the wholesome and humble appeal must be direct and

-personal, avoiding rhetoric and over-emphasis, as well as elaborate

-conventions which other hands will dully and mechanically reproduce.

-If, as in cast metal-work, reproduction is natural and inevitable, let

-the designs be perfectly simple and sincere; if again it be painter,

-sculptor, carver, or builder that is called upon to create a memorial,

-let the responsibility and originality of the craft be his, and not

-be superseded or overruled by the authority of the design--for this

-indeed is, as Professor Prior said wittily to me the other day, as

-though a surgeon should provide a specification and an estimate for an

-operation, and leave the execution of it to other hands.

-

-But we must not suppose that we can insist upon any particular form

-of memorial in any particular place. What we may desire is that the

-memorial, whatever it is, of this great and heroic trial through which

-we are passing, should grow up out of the minds of the inhabitants of a

-city or a town, and should be made by the hands of inhabitants as well.

-I do not desire that they should be too costly. Indeed it may well be

-that we shall have given so much of our resources to the prosecution of

-the war that we shall have but little left for adorning our trophies.

-I do not desire that they should be constructed to serve other uses,

-at least not primarily. They are to tell their own story, a story of

-noble deeds, and provide alike a dedication of our dead to honour, and

-a dedication of ourselves to gratitude and future effort.

-

-I hope too most earnestly that we shall not accumulate resources on one

-national monument, to astonish tourists and to feed our vanity; but

-that as many places as possible should have a record of a great fact

-which has penetrated our national life more deeply than any historical

-event in the whole of our annals.

-

-Forethought, then, simplicity, naturalness, eloquence of emotion rather

-than of word, native feeling, these will, I hope, be the notes of our

-memorials. Let us try for once to express ourselves, not to cover up

-truth with turgid verdicts, but to say what we mean and what we feel as

-simply and emphatically as we can.

-

-We are not likely to forget the war; but what we may forget is that

-the result of it is the outcome of modest, faithful, loyal services

-done with no flourish or vanity, by thousands of very simple,

-straightforward people, who did not argue themselves into indignation,

-or reflect much about what they were doing, but came forward, leaving

-comfort and home and work and love, without any balancing of motives,

-but just because they felt that they must take their place in the

-battle of liberty and right with intolerable pride and aggression.

-That is the plain truth; and that is the best and only proof of the

-greatness of a nation that it should prefer death, if need be, to all

-the pleasant business of life. If this or any of this can be recorded,

-if this national impulse can be kept alive in our children, we need

-not fear either life with all its complications, or death with all its

-mysteries. The nation will live; and the memorials of these dark and

-great days will stand to witness to our far-off sons and daughters that

-their old forefathers did not live to no purpose and did not die in

-vain.

-

-

-

-

-                       _A GERMAN BUSINESS MIND._

-

-                    BY SIR JOHN WOLFE BARRY, K.C.B.

-

-

-Now that we are entering on the third year of the war so shamelessly

-brought about by Germany, the accompanying correspondence,

-commencing in August 1914, may interest your readers. It indicates

-the extreme rancour against our country of a leading and capable

-German manufacturer, not merely evoked by our declaration of war,

-but pre-existing for a long time and very carefully concealed from

-his English friends. It was to me in 1914 a curious lifting of the

-curtain, and indicates for our present guidance what will remain to

-be encountered by us in the economic struggle against the mercantile

-interests of Germany when the war ends.

-

-The manufacturer’s letter is also interesting as showing clearly the

-anticipations held in Germany, when she declared war, of a speedy and

-highly successful result of the wicked and stealthy attack on her

-neighbours for which she had been so long preparing. It is astonishing

-moreover in the extraordinary ignorance displayed, on the part of a

-clever leader of German enterprise, as to the Constitution, resources,

-and temper of the British Empire, and it gives full vent to his hatred

-and contempt of France, Russia, and Japan.

-

-This letter, printed second in the series, was addressed to an intimate

-friend of mine who was closely connected with engineering interests in

-Germany, and who had known the writer well for some years, having had

-important interests with him in business. My friend sent me the letter

-for my perusal, but did not disclose the name of the writer.

-

-The third letter is an attempted reply on my part to the statements and

-misstatements of the German manufacturer, and requires no comment from

-me. My friend sent a copy of my letter to his German correspondent, but

-it evoked no reply.

-

-Copies of both these letters were forwarded, anonymously, by my friend

-to a well-known English engineer long resident in Germany, who occupied

-a leading and acknowledged position in that country. He had been for

-many years closely in touch with very many members of his profession

-there, and was connected with numerous commercial interests.

-

-As will be seen, he promptly identified the German manufacturer,

-and his note on the correspondence is placed first in the series in

-order to make clear the character and position of the writer of the

-amazing letter No. 2. He expresses the astonishment which he felt at

-its contents, remarking that the sentiments expressed in it had been

-carefully concealed in his interviews with him both before and after

-the outbreak of the war. The correspondence appears to me to give

-much food for thought in many various ways, and I may, with these few

-explanatory comments, let the letters speak for themselves.

-

-

-                             Letter No. 1.

-

-Extract from a letter received by Mr. A. B. of London from Mr. C. D., a

-gentleman long resident in Germany and unusually well acquainted with

-German commercial life:

-

-

-                                     Received February 1915.

-

-     ‘I now see from whom the letter came. He is a friend of

-     mine. I have had a good deal to do with him lately, also

-     after the outbreak of war. Curiously, although knowing

-     me to be an Englishman, he has never in the slightest

-     manner expressed himself in a like sense to me. He has

-     evidently written to you in a great state of excitement.

-     Nevertheless I cannot understand his doing so nor his

-     harbouring the thoughts expressed in his letter. He is a

-     clever and clear-headed man and much respected. His conduct

-     in the labour question is looked upon as exemplary. He has

-     proceeded by quiet well-considered but energetic measures

-     to get his working staff entirely free from labour and

-     social-democratic influences. His workmen are all content

-     with their conditions, and his works therefore free from

-     labour troubles when these break out in other works. I

-     am told that all works at ---- have profited by his wise

-     measures. I therefore can all the less understand his

-     writing you such an incredible letter. How can men of his

-     position be so blinded to the true facts?

-

-     ‘The reply you sent[2] me sets this forth very clearly. I

-     entirely concur in the contents and the opinions expressed

-     in the same.’

-

-

-

-                             Letter No. 2.

-

-A letter written on August 29, 1914, to Mr. A. B. of London by a German

-business friend, and sent by Mr. A. B., in September 1914, to Sir John

-Wolfe Barry for his perusal:

-

-     ‘The poisonous seed sown by your good King Edward VII. has

-     sprung up. It is a well-known fact that the great aim of

-     his life, to which he devoted all his energy, was to unite

-     the whole world in one bond against Germany, to annihilate

-     that hated nation.

-

-     ‘His disciple Minister Grey has seized the opportunity of

-     tightening the noose with which Germany is to be strangled.

-     For ten years English diplomacy has worked for that end,

-     to close up the ring round us. Now the die is irrevocably

-     cast and Destiny goes its way. No one can say positively

-     what the outcome will be, but one thing I do believe, and

-     sixty-seven million Germans believe it with me, and that is

-     that we shall be victorious.

-

-     ‘We shall win because we are fighting for the right, for

-     our national existence, for civilization. Without England’s

-     intervention this war would have been inconceivable. In

-     France, whom we sincerely pity, and whom this war will

-     crush, one hears a united cry that she is ready for peace.

-     In Russia it was only the aristocratic party that has

-     forced on the war, and they will seize this opportunity to

-     steal. That party of course owns the anti-German press,

-     such as the _Nowoje Wremja_ and other papers, which are

-     financed by England. England alone was thirsting for war,

-     and has pressed the other nations into war against us.

-     For years she has seen how we have excelled her more and

-     more in the industrial world. If people were but honest,

-     they would know that the reason for our success lies in

-     the fact that we are an industrious and hardworking folk.

-     In England, on the other hand, there exists a widespread

-     tendency to avoid work. We have no public holidays. Our

-     working week averages fifty-eight hours. We Directors have

-     no “week-ends,” we work in the factory on an average from

-     fifty to sixty hours a week, and as a rule spend one or two

-     nights and sometimes even all Sunday in the train in order

-     to get work for our business. Moreover we understand how

-     to adapt ourselves to all possible circumstances, while

-     your people in their well-known arrogance, do not concern

-     themselves with the requirements of other countries.

-

-     ‘Because we have attained great prosperity by ability and

-     hard work, the hatred and jealousy you bear us Germans has

-     grown beyond all bounds. This embarrassing competition

-     must be crushed so that you can go on in your comfortable

-     decadent existence.

-

-     ‘In order that a people, who appear particularly Christian,

-     may attain this worthy goal, the barbarian hordes of the

-     Slavs are mobilised against the champions of civilization,

-     to whom the world owes so much. The natives in Africa are

-     incited against us, and we are even betrayed in Japan. This

-     last act has raised a storm of indignation in our country

-     which would alarm you, had you any idea of it. England will

-     certainly make terrible amends for this underhand deed.

-     The hatred which is raging among Germany’s sixty-seven

-     millions will avenge itself on England in a most fearful

-     way. For a hundred years the fist of every German will be

-     clenched whenever the word “England” is spoken.

-

-     ‘I have had many experiences in my time, but never have

-     I known anything like the satisfaction which prevailed

-     throughout our country yesterday, when it first became

-     known that your army of mercenaries had been under the

-     fire of our noble reserves, and that we were in a position

-     to shoot down the people who draw the sword for money.

-     Your soldiers who oppose us in the field will yet learn

-     something of the loathing which our army has for anything

-     that is English. Our sailors look forward eagerly to the

-     time when your fleet, of which you talk so much, appears

-     in German waters. You may be quite sure that a large part

-     of it will never again see the shores of England, even

-     if we lose the whole of our navy. It is to be hoped that

-     your fleet will at last summon up courage to attack us. If

-     they come under the guns of Heligoland and Kuxhaven, your

-     battleships will share the same fate as befell the forts at

-     Liège and Namur.

-

-     ‘In this war, which is the most shameful crime that has

-     ever been committed against humanity, and which lies

-     entirely at the door of English statesmen, we shall be

-     triumphant. England will be shaken to her foundations.

-     Mankind could not but lose its belief in right and

-     justice, and more particularly in the Divine guidance of

-     the universe, if a country, who in the most shameless way

-     professes Christianity and yet allies herself with Asiatics

-     and barbarians, were to be victorious.

-

-     ‘Your newspapers, of which we still regularly receive

-     copies, may overwhelm English readers with falsehoods

-     about our army and its successes. Truth is going forward,

-     and before fourteen days have passed our forces will be

-     investing Paris. Belgium, whom you incited to oppose us,

-     is cursing you. France, whom you likewise forced into war

-     against us, will in future show perfidious Albion the door.

-

-     ‘It is very sad that a country like England which has won

-     for herself so much merit in the progress of mankind,

-     and has produced so many able men, should abandon moral

-     principles proved through the centuries and hand herself

-     over to a band of unscrupulous men like Minister Grey.

-     When one considers all the misery which this war, which is

-     the most terrible the world has yet seen, has caused, it

-     makes one shudder to imagine what sort of conscience the

-     Councillors of the Czar, your Minister Grey and Minister

-     Churchill must have.

-

-     ‘Your great philosopher Carlyle has foreseen and indeed

-     prophesied the moral decadence which always precedes

-     political downfall. England has become the champion of

-     a band of murderers who eleven years ago assassinated

-     their King and his consort and have now killed a foreign

-     prince. This nation who wishes to be so great conspires

-     with the most barbaric race which the world has ever seen,

-     the Russians, and is the brother-in-arms of the most

-     treacherous, most contemptible, most ungrateful people that

-     the earth holds, the Japanese.

-

-     ‘I am sure America will endorse the general scorn and wrath

-     towards your country. Australia will not be very grateful

-     to England who wishes to make the position of the Japanese

-     more assured. I will go so far as to maintain that the

-     British world-empire will split off in all directions. The

-     world’s history must be judged by subsequent generations,

-     and the judgment of the world now passes sentence on your

-     country’s action.

-

-     ‘If I have offended you by what I have written, just

-     consider I cannot do otherwise than say what is my opinion.

-     My personal esteem for you is not altered by what is taking

-     place.’

-

-

-                             Letter No. 3.

-

-From Sir John Wolfe Barry to Mr. A. B.:

-

-

-                                          October 4th, 1914.

-

-     ‘I have read with profound interest and grief the copy of

-     the letter of August 29th from your German friend. The

-     rancour which it displays is beyond words. It is apparently

-     useless to criticise its contents looking to the frame of

-     mind of the writer, who, I think and fear, expresses the

-     present general feeling in Germany of hatred and anger

-     with our country. Many of his statements and arguments are

-     however absolutely and fundamentally erroneous and are

-     capable of complete refutation.

-

-     ‘The poisoning of German thought in respect of Great

-     Britain does not date from anything done by King Edward

-     and still less from Sir Edward Grey or the present or

-     former Ministry. It began long earlier in the antagonism

-     between the military class and what may be termed the

-     liberal aspirations of many thoughtful Germans when the

-     Crown Prince, afterwards the Emperor Frederick William,

-     married our Princess Royal. Both were in sympathy with

-     liberal ideas and they were violently opposed by Bismarck

-     and the blood-and-iron school, while the youth of Germany

-     were systematically taught by the professors and writers of

-     Germany, under the encouragement of Bismarck and his school

-     of thought, to hate and despise Great Britain. There is not

-     and never has been a corresponding feeling here towards

-     Germany.

-

-     ‘Of course the two countries are rivals in trade and

-     commerce, but that is no reason for rancorous hatred.

-     We are keen rivals in trade with the United States and

-     other countries, but such rivalries have not engendered

-     any other feelings than that each country should do its

-     best honourably to succeed in competition. It must never

-     be forgotten in this connection that in England and in

-     our colonies Germans, though keeping a strict barrier

-     of tariffs themselves, have had absolute freedom in

-     competition, that they have availed themselves of it and

-     have made huge profits under our Free Trade system. Thus

-     the rancour of Germany against Great Britain must be sought

-     for in other directions, and it cannot be truthfully put

-     down to trade rivalry.

-

-     ‘The cause is in fact to be found in the _Welt Politik_,

-     the jealousy of Germany of British world power and in the

-     aspirations of crushing Great Britain by force of arms.

-     This has been the persistent and avowed policy of the

-     Kaiser and the Junker class.

-

-     ‘The idea was to fight France and Russia to a finish

-     and then concentrate all forces against England (and

-     parenthetically against Belgium) and to destroy the British

-     Empire. The present extreme and violent hatred on the part

-     of Germany is due to the probability of the failure of

-     that deep-laid scheme in consequence of England supporting

-     her Allies, and refusing to break her pledged word to

-     Belgium. It may be also caused by the feeling which must

-     be somewhere embedded in German thought, that Germany has

-     behaved dishonourably and scandalously to Belgium, whose

-     neutrality she most solemnly guaranteed.

-

-     ‘If one looks back on the history of the last twenty-five

-     years, or thereabouts, one sees Bismarck threatening an

-     unprovoked war with France, and only withdrawing under the

-     threat of the opposition of Russia and Great Britain. This

-     proposed attack on France by Bismarck was a most shameful

-     episode, for France’s only offence was her existence and

-     recuperative power after her disasters in 1870. Then came

-     the Emperor’s policy in our South African War, when, if he

-     could have done so, he would have arrayed Europe against

-     this country, but ended only in having lured Kruger to

-     ruin. Then came the “mailed fist” in China, the seizure

-     of Tsing-tau, and Germany’s efforts to crush Japan after

-     the Russo-Japanese war. The demonstrations at Tangiers and

-     Agadir occurred soon afterwards, with more threats of an

-     European war. Afterwards came the annexation of Bosnia by

-     Austria backed by Germany and the insults hurled at Russia

-     by Germany in “shining armour.”

-

-     ‘It is these things and others of a similar nature when

-     the German “sabre has been rattled” constantly in the face

-     of Europe, that demonstrated that Germany was the enemy of

-     peace, and which, crowned by the breach of the Treaty of

-     Belgium, showed to the Allies that no treaty would hold

-     Germany, and that her aspirations and lust for world power

-     were Napoleonic. Lastly the Allies knew that Germany had

-     resolved on war and was making a catspaw of Austria by

-     preventing her from coming to an agreement with Servia and

-     Russia.

-

-     ‘I have said nothing about the systematic building of

-     the German navy. It was within her rights as a Sovereign

-     Power, but none the less the avowed object was to seize the

-     “Trident of the Seas” and to attack Great Britain. It was

-     obviously intended to attack our coasts, so as to enable an

-     invasion of this country to be possible, and to seize the

-     colonies of Great Britain and France.

-

-     ‘Germany was utterly deceived by her diplomatists about

-     England, which was troubled with threats of civil war and

-     by trade disputes, and they never thought that we would

-     stand up for Belgium and fight now rather than later. It is

-     chagrin at the miscalculation, combined with the effects

-     of our maritime power, which has produced the outburst of

-     hatred against us. Commercial rivalry has no real basis for

-     hatred, and as for the question of a “place in the sun,”

-     Germany has large and advantageous colonial possessions

-     but can do but little with those which she owns, and has

-     preferred to compete with us in our colonies as she has

-     done so long and so successfully.

-

-     ‘All this history of German jealousy, hatred and designs

-     is very sad, and I do not suppose that your German friend,

-     obsessed as he is, would listen to any facts or arguments.

-     But since I began to write, somewhat hurriedly, to you I

-     have been led on to write more than I intended to try to

-     deal with. I do not imagine that he has seen or would be

-     allowed to see the statement of the British case in the

-     White Paper, which I understand will be further elaborated

-     in a new paper to be published next Tuesday.

-

-     ‘Have you answered your friend’s letter, or have you looked

-     upon it as hopeless to do so? In the temper in which he

-     wrote there was nothing visible but fighting to a finish.

-

-                               ‘Yours very sincerely,

-                                 ‘(_Signed_) J. WOLFE BARRY.

-

-     ‘_P.S._--I suppose you have not had another letter? It

-     would be interesting to see one of a later date than August

-     29th.

-                                                  ‘J. W. B.’

-

-_N.B._--A copy of Sir John Wolfe Barry’s letter was sent by Mr. A.

-B. to his German business friend, but no reply was attempted and the

-correspondence then ceased.

-

-

-FOOTNOTES:

-

-     [2] Viz. that of Sir John Wolfe Barry printed below as

-     letter No. 3.

-

-

-

-

-                  _THE NEW TEMPTATION OF ST. ANTHONY._

-

-                        BY JOHN W. N. SULLIVAN.

-

-

-(_The time is the present day. St. Anthony is discovered seated on the

-ground outside his hut. The cross stands in its accustomed place, erect

-before him; and the great panorama, of which he is now weary, lies

-below him. He has changed but slightly with the years; something of his

-old immobility has disappeared. He occasionally shrugs his shoulders

-when speaking, and he often accompanies his reflections with slight

-gestures of the hands._)

-

-ANTHONY (_thinking_). I have attained peace. Those troubling visions

-have disappeared. Never for an instant have I departed from grace since

-the Saviour’s face appeared to me in its shining disc of gold. The

-burning days and solemn nights pass noiselessly. Rare tempests mutter

-unnoticed about me. Nothing has power to disturb my beatific monotony;

-nor hope, nor fear, nor love, nor regrets. I have triumphed over all

-temptations. The devil has left me. (_He sighs._) That journey through

-space, upborne on his wings! (_Stars commence to shine: the daylight

-lingers._) I have resisted all the seductions of the flesh. I value not

-the riches of the mind. (_He starts, and looks fixedly at a vague light

-which advances across the desert._) It seems as if----. But that cannot

-be: I have already sustained all assaults.

-

-(_The light approaches rapidly. It is rose-coloured; within it a figure

-is dimly visible. With a thunderous noise it rolls to within ten paces

-of the saint. The air shakes and for an instant the stars are obscured.

-This passes: the light fades, and the form of a woman is perceived,

-upright, robed in white, her face stern and majestic. The sleeves of

-her garment are very wide, reaching to the ground._)

-

-THE WOMAN (_slightly raising her right arm_). I have need of you.

-

-ANTHONY (_stammering_). What mean you?

-

-THE WOMAN. I am your creator. Much study and great gifts came together

-for your making. They also were my children. My best blood flows in

-your veins. My name must mean everything to you, for you are wholly a

-product of my essence. I am called La France.

-

-ANTHONY (_pales and gazes fixedly at his visitor_). I belong to God.

-

-THE WOMAN (_sternly_). Do you deny that you are French? (_Anthony

-blushes and averts his gaze. He becomes sulky._) What existence have

-you had apart from France? Would the world still hold you, you and your

-temptations, apart from----

-

-ANTHONY (_starting up and with outstretched hands_). Say not that name!

-Say it not! (_He places his fingers in his ears and then, observing

-that the woman’s lips do not move, lowers his hands._) Speak! but avoid

-that name. I can endure aught else.

-

-THE WOMAN (_speaks, her arms hanging by her sides. Her head is thrown

-slightly back. Her words come slowly. Her voice is as the sound of a

-solemn sea plunging in distant caverns_). The hour of my agony is upon

-me. I am beset. My strength is great, my courage greater, and my pride

-reaches to the stars. But I have mighty foes, skilled in all cruel

-arts. I suffer. I dwell in the shadow of pain. My woes increase and the

-issue is doubtful. (_She stretches her hands towards Anthony._) Can you

-remain aloof?

-

-ANTHONY (_frowning_). This touches me not.

-

-THE WOMAN (_with irony_). Have you, then, purified your heart of

-all compassion? (_Anthony shrugs his shoulders with a gesture of

-indifference._) Are you, indeed, amongst the noblest of my offspring?

-My sons have sacrificed life for me: they have been content to forgo

-their ardent curiosities for my sake. What holds you back?

-

-ANTHONY (_with great dignity_). I seek union with God. The Devil

-himself tempted me for many days. He failed. How, then, can you

-succeed? (_Softly._) You cannot, even if you be he.

-

-THE WOMAN (_flinging her arms apart, and letting them drop heavily_).

-Shame cannot move you. But he who aids me receives great rewards. I

-will show you visions.

-

-(_She waves her hand. A cloud descends, swaying slowly in the air. It

-unwinds in sluggish masses till it fills the horizon. It glows with

-pale fire. Upon it are cities and wide plains. It is a very clean,

-neat, and precise land. Rivers wind gently between ploughed fields,

-red and brown. The cloud surges nearer, and presently Anthony discerns

-an immense temple shining in the sun. It approaches more quickly,

-its crystalline walls sending innumerable shafts of light before it.

-Anthony and his companion are enveloped in an insupportable radiance,

-and the next instant they find they are within the building. Facing

-them is a great altar, its gold shining dully in the light of a

-thousand lighted candles. The flags of France droop motionless about

-the altar; upon it the carved figure of a soldier lies prone. The

-pavement of the temple is invisible under the feet of the silent crowd.

-Mighty columns rush upward and are lost in the sweep of the dim roof.

-The air begins to pulsate with the heavy notes of an organ. Anthony

-and The Woman are floating above the heads of the multitude. None have

-observed them._)

-

-THE WOMAN (_motioning to the crowd_). Here are assembled rich and poor,

-wise men and fools; judges, statesmen, poets, the criminal and the

-peasant. All France is here, united in a common gratitude.

-

-ANTHONY. What do they?

-

-THE WOMAN. They honour the dead. (_She points to the prone figure on

-the altar._) The soldiers who saved France.

-

-(_A trumpet note is heard and the air rustles with the inclining of a

-myriad heads. A sweet singing arises behind the altar. A procession

-slowly passes before it. The first to pass is a man beyond middle age,

-with a grave, bearded face, a broad white forehead and serene eyes. He

-kneels for an instant and passes on._)

-

-THE WOMAN. The Philosophy of France. (_A young man, with a dark, keen

-face, and a very penetrating look, follows. Each figure, on arriving

-before the altar, kneels and passes on._) The Science of France.

-

-(_Then follow the Literature of France, an old man, very harmoniously

-dressed; the Music and Painting of France, two smaller figures; the

-Statesmanship and Laws of France, superb men, but badly clothed. There

-follow priests, merchants, scribes, criminals and courtesans. Anthony

-and his companion begin to soar higher. The music fades; the bowed

-heads of the people become indistinct. There is a period of darkness,

-and Anthony finds himself back on his rock. Before him stands The

-Woman. The great cloud has utterly vanished._)

-

-THE WOMAN. You have seen the greatness of France.

-

-ANTHONY (_thoughtfully_). It is a land not without merit.

-

-THE WOMAN. Many have died for it. Many more must die for it, or it will

-be a stricken land. Is it worth dying for?

-

-ANTHONY (_who has grown more argumentative with the years, hesitates.

-Then_:) That depends! (_He faces The Woman with a stern and questioning

-look._) Much knowledge and beauty lie within the borders of your land,

-but no man should die for knowledge or beauty. A man’s life belongs to

-God alone. Do your great ones serve God? Do they use their wisdom more

-fully to understand His counsels? Do they create beauty to glorify His

-praise? (_The Woman does not answer._) I will die for you if my death

-serves God. I will not die to extend your borders, to add beauty to

-your palaces, to make you more skilled in wisdom. Will my death bring

-you nearer to God?

-

-THE WOMAN (_regards Anthony sadly_). You ask me hard questions. Are

-there not many ways of serving God? I worship God in His creation. I

-meditate on the laws of His universe. I reveal to the world the beauty

-of His handiwork. Do I not therefore serve God?

-

-ANTHONY (_drily_). Does that heresy still flourish? God is not His

-creation.

-

-THE WOMAN. Is knowledge to vanish from the earth? Must none seek after

-beauty?

-

-ANTHONY (_raising his right hand and speaking with deliberation_). None

-may seek knowledge for the sake of wisdom. None may seek beauty for the

-sake of happiness. These things are but the raiment of God. Your great

-ones count the threads in God’s garment, but do they seek God? (_He

-delicately shrugs his shoulders._) Does France worship clothes?

-

-THE WOMAN (_sad and bewildered_). I do not understand.

-

-ANTHONY (_regards her long and then speaks gently_). You will never

-understand, for you are La France. You cannot see without eyes, nor

-hear without ears. You are the cleverest and most limited of God’s

-children.

-

-THE WOMAN (_stands still, her arms hanging limp, her head bowed.

-Suddenly she raises her head_). But I suffer!

-

-(_The air grows dim and a cold wind rises. The stars vanish. In the

-valley, mysteriously visible, Anthony sees a road. It is cumbered

-with dead and wounded men, lying in all attitudes, some as if asleep,

-head resting on arm, and some contorted hideously. Anthony notes the

-curious attitude of one man who seems to have his legs drawn right up

-under him; until presently he sees that he has no legs. A dead man sits

-propped against a gun. The whole of his tongue is visible, hanging

-downwards; the lower jaw is shot away. Presently one of the black

-shapes starts to flounder clumsily. In the mysterious light comes the

-glint of steel; the black shape is trying to fix the end of a bayonet

-in the ground. In one of his clumsy attempts the man reveals the fact

-that he has but one arm. For some minutes he struggles and finally the

-bayonet is fixed. The man lies still. Then he raises himself awkwardly

-on his one arm till the bayonet point touches his chest; he flings his

-arm straight out and falls with his whole weight on the point. A long

-red finger points up from his back._

-

-_The Woman waves her arm and the scene vanishes, to be replaced by

-another. A soldier, young, and with a look of bright intelligence,

-is saying farewell to his mother at the door of a cottage. The old

-woman’s face is lined; her hands tremble. Her eyes peer up anxiously

-at the young man, as she fondles the sleeve of his tunic. He speaks

-confidently and cheerfully, and after a final embrace walks briskly

-away. The old woman enters the cottage and sits there, in silence and

-alone. She picks up a book the young man had been reading and very

-carefully places it in a drawer._)

-

-THE WOMAN. An only child, and she a widow.

-

-ANTHONY (_looks very thoughtful_). What of her son?

-

-THE WOMAN. His agony is greater. He feels all her grief and his own.

-She feels but her own, for his leave-taking deceived her, and she

-believes he has joy in battle.

-

-ANTHONY (_as if musing_). Will men do so much to keep France?

-

-THE WOMAN (_softly_). They do much more. They know the issue is

-doubtful. They sacrifice so much, knowing the sacrifice may be in vain.

-(_Anthony raises his head and looks very intently at The Woman; she

-continues, her eyes glowing._) For years you have suffered on your

-rock. You suffer to save yourself. Jesus, your master, suffered to

-save the world. (_She stretches out her arms and her voice rings with

-triumph._) I offer you greater suffering. He who suffers for me knows

-not the fruit of his suffering. I offer you the opportunity of the

-greatest sacrifice: the sacrifice of all, knowing that your all may be

-in vain.

-

-(_The Woman pauses, her arms outspread. Anthony presses his hands to

-his head, and remains silent for a long time. Then, taking a step

-forward, he places his right hand in that of The Woman. They slowly

-leave the ground. As they mount in the air the few retarded rays of

-light utterly vanish, and blackest night confounds the jutting rock

-with the starless heaven._)

-

-

-

-

-                _THE OLD CONTEMPTIBLES: THE GOOD WORD._

-

-                             BY BOYD CABLE.

-

-

-It is quite inadequate to say that the troops were worn out, and indeed

-it is hard to find words to convey to anyone who has not experienced

-some days of a mixture of fighting and forced marching how utterly

-exhausted, how dead beat, how stupefied and numbed in mind and body the

-men were. For four days and nights they had fought and dug trenches and

-marched, and fought again, and halted to dig again, and fought again,

-and extricated themselves under hailing bullets and pouring shells from

-positions they never expected to leave alive, only to scramble together

-into some sort of ragged-shaped units and march again. And all this was

-under a fierce August sun, with irregular meals and sometimes no meals,

-at odd times with a scarcity or complete want of water, at all times

-with a burning lack and want of sleep.

-

-This want of sleep was the worst of it all. Any sort of fighting is

-heavy sleep inducing; when it is prolonged for days and nights without

-one good full, satisfying sleep, the desire for rest becomes a craving,

-an all-absorbing aching passion. At first a man wants a bed or space

-to lie down and stretch his limbs and pillow his head and sink into

-dreamless oblivion; at last he would give his last possession merely

-to be allowed to lean against a wall, to stand upright on his feet and

-close his eyes. To keep awake is torture, to lift and move each foot is

-a desperate effort, to keep the burning eyes open and seeing an agony.

-It takes the most tremendous effort of will to contemplate another five

-minutes of wakefulness, another hundred yards to be covered; and here

-were hours, endless hours, of wakefulness, miles and tens of miles to

-be covered.

-

-Cruelly hard as the conditions were for the whole retreating army,

-the rear-guard suffered the worst by a good deal. They were under the

-constant threat of attack, were halted every now and then under that

-threat or to allow the main body to keep a sufficient distance, had to

-make some attempt to dig in again, had to endure spasmodic shelling

-either in their shallow trenches or as they marched along the road.

-

-By the fourth day the men were reduced to the condition of automatons.

-They marched--no, it could hardly be said any longer that they

-‘marched’; they stumbled and staggered along like drunken men; their

-chins were sunk on their chests, their jaws hung slack, their eyes

-were set in a fixed and glassy stare, or blinked, and shut and opened

-heavily, slowly, and drowsily, their feet trailed draggingly, their

-knees sagged under them. When the word passed to halt, the front ranks

-took a minute or two to realise its meaning and obey, and the ranks

-behind bumped into them and raised heads and vacant staring eyes for

-a moment and let them drop again in a stupor of apathy. The change,

-the cessation of automatic motion was too much for many men; once

-halted they could no longer keep their feet, and dropped and sat or

-rolled helplessly to lie in the dust of the road. These men who fell

-were almost impossible to rouse. They sank into sleep that was almost

-a swoon, and no shaking or calling or cursing could rouse them or get

-them up again. The officers, knowing this, tried to keep them from

-sitting or lying down, moved, staggering themselves as they walked, to

-and fro along the line, exhorting, begging, beseeching, or scolding and

-swearing and ordering the men to keep up, to stand, to be ready to move

-on. And when the order was given again, the pathetically ridiculous

-order to ‘Quick march,’ the front ranks slowly roused and shuffled off,

-and the rear stirred slowly and with an effort heaved their rifles over

-their shoulders again and reeled after the leaders.

-

-Scores of the men had abandoned packs and haversacks, all of them had

-cast away their overcoats. Many had taken their boots off and marched

-with rags or puttees wound round their blistered and swollen feet.

-But no matter what one or other or all had thrown away, there was no

-man without his rifle, his full ammunition pouches, and his bayonet.

-These things weighed murderously, cut deep and agonisingly into the

-shoulders, cramped arms and fingers to an aching numbness; but every

-man clung to them, had never a thought of throwing them into the ditch,

-although many of them had many thoughts of throwing themselves there.

-

-Many fell out--fell out in the literal as well as the drill sense

-of the word; swerved to the side of the road and missed foot in the

-ditch and fell there, or stumbled in the ranks, tripped, lacking the

-brain or body quickness to recover themselves, collapsed, and rolled

-and lay helpless. Others, again, gasped a word or two to a comrade or

-an N.C.O., stumbled out of the ranks to the roadside, sank down with

-hanging head and rounded shoulders to a sitting position. Few or none

-of these men deliberately lay down. They sat till the regiment had

-plodded his trailing length past, tried to stagger to knees and feet,

-succeeded, and stood swaying a moment, and then lurched off after the

-rear ranks; or failed, stared stupidly after them, collapsed again

-slowly and completely. All these were left to lie where they fell. It

-was useless to urge them to move, because every officer and N.C.O. knew

-that no man gave up while he had an ounce of strength or energy left to

-carry on, that orders or entreaties had less power to keep a man moving

-than his own dogged pluck and will, that when these failed to keep a

-man going nothing else could succeed.

-

-All were not, of course, so hopelessly done as this. There were still a

-number of the tougher muscled, the firmer willed, who kept their limbs

-moving with conscious volition, who still retained some thinking power,

-who even at times exchanged a few words or a mouthful of curses. These,

-and the officers, kept the whole together, kept them moving by force

-of example, set the pace for them and gave them the direction. Most of

-them were in the leading ranks of their own companies, merely because

-their greater energy had carried them there past and through the ranks

-of those whose minds were nearly or quite a blank, whose bodies were

-more completely exhausted, whose will-power was reduced to a blind and

-sheep-like instinct to follow a leader, move when and where the dimly

-seen khaki form or tramping boots in front of them moved, stop when and

-where they stopped.

-

-The roads by which the army was retreating were cumbered and in places

-choked and blocked with fugitive peasantry fleeing from the advancing

-Germans, spurred into and upon their flight by the tales that reached

-them of ravished Belgium, by first-hand accounts of the murder of old

-men and women and children, of rape and violation and pillage and

-burning. Their slow, crawling procession checked and hindered the army

-transport, added to the trials of the weary troops by making necessary

-frequent halts and deviations off the road and back to it to clear some

-block in the traffic where a cart had broken down, or where worn-out

-women with hollow cheeks and staring eyes, and children with dusty,

-tear-streaked faces crowded and filled the road.

-

-The rear-guard passed numbers of these lying utterly exhausted by

-the roadside, and the road for miles was strewn with the wreckage

-of the retreat, with men who had fallen out unable longer to march

-on blistered or bleeding feet or collapsed in the heedless sleep of

-complete exhaustion; with broken-down carts dragged clear into the

-roadside and spilled with their jumbled contents into the ditch; with

-crippled horses and footsore cattle; with quivering-lipped, grey-haired

-old men, and dry-eyed, cowering women, and frightened, clinging

-children. Some of these peasantry roused themselves as the last of

-the rear-guard regiments came up with them, struggled again to follow

-on the road, or dragged themselves clear of it and sought refuge and

-hiding in abandoned cottages or barns or the deep dry ditches.

-

-At one point where the road crept up the long slope of a hill the

-rear-guard came under the longe-range fire of the German guns. The

-shells came roaring down, to burst in clouds of belching black smoke

-in the fields to either side of the road, or to explode with a sharp

-tearing cr-r-rash in the air, their splinters and bullets raining down

-out of the thick white woolly smoke cloud that coiled and writhed and

-unfolded in slow heavy oily eddies.

-

-One battalion of the rear-guard was halted at the foot of the hill and

-spread out off the road and across the line of it. Again they were told

-not to lie down, and for the most part the men obeyed, leaning heavily

-with their arms folded on the muzzles of their rifles or watching the

-regiments crawling slowly up the road with the coal-black shell-bursts

-in the fields about them or the white air-bursts of the shrapnel above

-them.

-

-‘Pretty bloomin’ sight--I don’t think,’ growled a gaunt and weary-eyed

-private. The man next him laughed shortly. ‘Pretty one for the Germs,

-anyway,’ he said; ‘and one they’re seein’ a sight too often for my

-fancy. They’ll be forgettin’ wot our faces look like if we keep on at

-this everlastin’ runnin’ away.’

-

-‘Blast ’em,’ said the first speaker savagely, ‘but our turn will come

-presently. D’you think this yarn is right, Jacko, that we’re retirin’

-this way just to draw ’em away from their base?’

-

-‘Gawd knows,’ said Jacko; ‘but they didn’t bring us over ’ere to do

-nothin’ but run away, an’ you can bet on that, Peter.’

-

-An order passed down the line, and the men began to move slowly into

-the road again and to shake into some sort of formation on it, and

-then to plod off up the hill in the wake of the rest. The shells were

-still plastering the hillside and crashing over the road, and several

-men were hit as the battalion tramped wearily up the hill. Even the

-shells failed to rouse most of the men from their apathy and weariness,

-but those it did stir it roused mainly to angry resentment or sullen

-oath-mumblings and curses.

-

-‘Well, Jacko,’ said Peter bitterly, ‘I’ve knowed I had a fair chance

-o’ bein’ shot, but burn me if ever I thought I was goin’ to be shot in

-the back.’

-

-‘It’s a long way to Tipperary,’ said Jacko, ‘an’ there’s bound to be a

-turnin’ in it somewheres.’

-

-‘An’ it’s a longer way to Berlin if we keeps on marchin’ like this with

-our backs to it,’ grumbled Peter.

-

-The sound of another approaching shell rose from a faint moan to

-a loud shriek, to a roar, to a wild torrent of yelling, whooping,

-rush-of-an-express-train, whirlwind noise; and then, just when it

-seemed to each man that the shell was about to fall directly on his own

-individual head, it burst with a harsh crash over them, and a storm of

-bullets and fragments whistled and hummed down, hitting the fields’

-soft ground with deep _whutts_, clashing sharply on the harder road. A

-young officer jerked out a cry, stumbled blindly forward a few paces

-with outstretched arms, pitched, and fell heavily on his face. He was

-close to where Peter and Jacko marched, and the two shambled hastily

-together to where he lay, lifted and turned him over. Neither needed

-a second look. ‘Done in,’ said Peter briefly, and ‘Never knew wot hit

-’im,’ agreed Jacko.

-

-An officer ran back to them, followed slowly and heavily by another.

-There was no question as to what should be done with the lad’s body.

-He had to be left there, and the utmost they could do for him was to

-lift and carry him--four dog-tired men hardly able to lift their feet

-and carry their own bodies--to a cottage by the roadside, and bring him

-into an empty room with a litter of clothes and papers spilled about

-the floor from the tumbled drawers, and lay him on a dishevelled bed

-and spread a crumpled sheet over him.

-

-‘Let’s hope they’ll bury him decently,’ said one of the officers. The

-other was pocketing the watch and few pitiful trinkets he had taken

-from the lad’s pockets. ‘Hope so,’ he said dully. ‘Not that it matters

-much to poor old Dicky. Come on, we must move, or I’ll never be able to

-catch the others up.’

-

-They left the empty house quietly, pulling the door gently shut behind

-them.

-

-‘Pore little Blinker,’ said Jacko as they trudged up the road after the

-battalion; ‘the best bloomin’ officer the platoon ever ’ad.’

-

-‘The best I ever ’ad in all my seven,’ said Peter. ‘I ain’t forgettin’

-the way ’e stood up for me afore the C.O. at Aldershot when I was

-carpeted for drunk. And ’im tryin’ to stand wi’ the right side of ’is

-face turned away from the light, so the C.O. wouldn’t spot the black

-eye I gave ’im in that same drunk!’

-

-‘Ah, an’ that was just like ’im,’ said Jacko. ‘An’ to think ’e’s washed

-out with a ’ole in the back of his ’ead--the back of it, mind you.’

-

-Peter cursed sourly.

-

-The battalion trailed wearily on until noon, halted then, and for

-the greater part flung themselves down and slept on the roadside for

-the two hours they waited there; were roused--as many of them, that

-is, as would rouse, for many, having stopped the machine-like motion

-of marching, could not recommence it, and had to be left there--and

-plodded on again through the baking afternoon heat. They had marched

-over thirty miles that day when at last they trailed into a small town

-where they were told they were to be billeted for the night. Other

-troops, almost as worn as themselves, were to take over the duties of

-rear-guard next day, but although that was good enough news it was

-nothing to the fact that to-night, now, the battalion was to halt and

-lie down and take their fill--if the Huns let them--of sleep.

-

-They were halted in the main square and waited there for what seemed to

-the tired men an interminable time.

-

-‘Findin’ billets,’ said Jacko. ‘Wish they’d hurry up about it.’

-

-‘Seems to me there’s something more than billets in the wind,’ said

-Peter suspiciously. ‘Wot’s all the officers confabbin’ about, an’ wot’s

-that _tamasha_ over there wi’ them Staff officers an’ the C.O.?’

-

-The _tamasha_ broke up, and the C.O. tramped back to the group of his

-officers, and after a short parley they saluted him and walked over to

-the battalion.

-

-‘Fall in,’ came the order sharply. ‘Fall in there, fall in.’

-

-Most of the men were sitting along the curb of the pavement or in the

-dusty road, or standing leaning on their rifles. They rose and moved

-heavily and stiffly, and shuffled into line.

-

-‘Wot is it, sergeant?’ asked Jacko suspiciously. ‘Wot’s the move?’

-

-‘We’re goin’ back,’ said the sergeant. ‘Hurry up there, you. Fall in.

-We’re goin’ back, an’ there’s some word of a fight.’

-

-The word flew round the ranks. ‘Going back ... a fight ... back....’

-

-Across the square another regiment tramped stolidly and turned down a

-side street. A man in their rear ranks turned and waved a hand to the

-waiting battalion. ‘So long, chums,’ he called. ‘See you in Berlin.’

-

-‘Ga’ strewth,’ said Jacko, and drew a deep breath. ‘Goin’ back; an’ a

-fight; an’ the ol’ Buffs on the move too. In Berlin, eh; wonder wot

-they’ve ’eard. Back--blimey, Peter, I believe we’re goin’ for the

-blinkin’ ’Uns again. I believe we’re goin’ to advance.’

-

-That word went round even faster than the other, and where it passed

-it left behind it a stir of excitement, a straightening of rounded

-shoulders, a lifting of lolling heads. ‘Going back ... going to attack

-this time ... going to advance....’

-

-Actually this was untrue, or partly so at least. They were going back,

-but still merely acting as rear-guard to take up a position clear of

-the town and hold it against the threat of too close-pressing pursuit.

-But the men knew nothing of that at the time. They were going back;

-there was word of a fight; what else did that spell but a finish to

-this cursed running away, an advance instead of a retreat? The rumour

-acted like strong wine to the men. They moved to the parade orders

-with something of their old drilled and disciplined appearance; they

-swung off in their fours with shuffling steps, it is true, but with a

-decent attempt to keep the step, with their heads more or less erect

-and their shoulders back. And when the head of the column turned off

-the square back into the same street they had come up into the town,

-a buzz of talk and calling ran through the ranks, a voice piped up

-shakily ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’ and a dozen, a score, a hundred

-voices took up the chorus sturdily and defiantly. The battalion moved

-out with the narrow streets ringing to their steady tramp, tramp,

-over the _pavé_ cobbles and the sound of their singing. Once clear of

-the town, it is true, the singing died away and the regular tramping

-march tailed off into the murmuring shuffle of feet moving out of

-step. But the deadly apathy had lifted from the men, there was an air

-of new life about them; one would never have known this battalion for

-the one that had marched in over the same road half an hour before.

-Then they were no more than a broken, dispirited crowd, their minds

-dazed, their bodies numbed with fatigue, moving mechanically, dully,

-apathetically, still plodding and shuffling their feet forward merely

-because their conscious minds had set their limbs the task, and then

-the tired brains, run down, had left the machinery of their bodies

-still working--working jerkily and slackly perhaps, but nevertheless

-working as it would continue to work until the overstrained muscles

-refused their mechanical duty.

-

-Now they were a battalion, a knitted and coherent body of fighting

-men, still worn out and fatigued almost to the point of collapse, but

-with working minds, with a conscious thought in their brains, with

-discipline locking their ranks again, with the prospect of a fight

-ahead, with the hope strong in them that the tide was turning, that

-they were done with the running away and retreating and abandoning

-hard-fought fields they were positive they had won; that now their turn

-was come, that here they were commencing and making the longed-for

-advance.

-

-And as they marched they heard behind them a deep _boo-boom_,

-_boo-boom_, _boo-moom_ and the whistling rush of the shells over their

-heads. That and the low muttering rumble of guns far out on the flank

-brought to them a final touch of satisfaction. They were advancing, and

-the guns were supporting them already then--good, oh good!

-

-And as they marched back down the road they had come they met some of

-their stragglers hobbling painfully on bandaged feet, or picked them

-up from where they still lay in a stupor of sleep on the roadside. And

-to all of them the one word ‘advance’ was enough. ‘We’re going back

-... it’s an advance,’ turned them staggering round to limp back in the

-tail of the battalion, or lifted them to their feet to follow on as

-best they might. They picked up more than their own men, too, men of

-other regiments who had straggled and fallen out, but now drew fresh

-store of strength from the cheerful word ‘advance,’ and would not be

-denied their chance to be in the van of it, but tailed on in rear of

-the battalion and struggled to keep up with them. ‘We’re all right,

-sir,’ said one when an officer would have turned him and sent him back

-to find his own battalion. ‘We’re pretty near done in on marching; but

-there’s a plenty fight left in us--specially when it’s an advance.’

-

-‘Jacko,’ said Peter, ‘I’m damn near dead; but thank the Lord I won’t

-’ave to die runnin’ away.’

-

-‘All I asks,’ said Jacko, ‘is as fair a target on ’em as we’ve ’ad

-before, an’ a chance to put a ’ole in the back o’ some o’ _their_

-’eads.’

-

-‘Ah!’ said Peter. ‘Pore little Blinker. They’ve got to pay for ’im an’

-a few more like ’im.’

-

-‘They ’ave, blarst them,’ said Jacko savagely, and dropped his hand

-to his bayonet haft, slid the steel half out and home again. ‘Don’t

-fret, chum, they’ll pay--soon or late, this time or nex’, one day or

-another--they’ll pay.’

-

-

-

-

-                        _THE LOST NAVAL PAPERS._

-

-                         BY BENNET COPPLESTONE.

-

-

-                                   I.

-

-                           BAITING THE TRAP.

-

-

-This story--which contains a moral for those fearful folk who exalt

-everything German--was told to me by Richard Cary, the accomplished

-naval correspondent of a big paper in the North of England. I have

-known him and his enthusiasm for the White Ensign for twenty years.

-He springs from an old naval stock, the Carys of North Devon, and

-has devoted his life to the study of the Sea Service. He had for so

-long been accustomed to move freely among shipyards and navymen, and

-was trusted so completely, that the veil of secrecy which dropped in

-August 1914 between the Fleets and the world scarcely existed for

-him. Everything which he desired to know for the better understanding

-of the real work of the Navy came to him officially or unofficially.

-When, therefore, he states that the Naval Notes with which this story

-deals would have been of incalculable value to the enemy, I accept

-his word without hesitation. I have myself seen some of them and they

-made me tremble--for Cary’s neck. I pressed him to write this story

-himself, but he refused. ‘No,’ said he, ‘I have told you the yarn just

-as it happened; write it yourself. I am a dull dog, quite efficient at

-handling hard facts and making scientific deductions from them, but

-with no eye for the picturesque details. I give it to you.’ He rose to

-go--Cary had been lunching with me--but paused for an instant upon my

-front doorstep. ‘If you insist upon it,’ added he, smiling, ‘I don’t

-mind sharing in the plunder.’

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-It was in the latter part of May 1916. Cary was hard at work one

-morning in his rooms in the Northern City where he had established

-his headquarters. His study table was littered with papers--notes,

-diagrams, and newspaper cuttings--and he was laboriously reducing the

-apparent chaos into an orderly series of chapters upon the Navy’s

-Work which he proposed to publish after the war was over. It was not

-designed to be an exciting book--Cary has no dramatic instinct--but

-it would be full of fine sound stuff, close accurate detail, and clear

-analysis. Day by day for more than twenty months he had been collecting

-details of every phase of the Navy’s operations, here a little and

-there a little. He had recently returned from a confidential tour of

-the shipyards and naval bases, and had exercised his trained eye upon

-checking and amplifying what he had previously learned. While his

-recollection of this tour was fresh he was actively writing up his

-Notes and revising the rough early draft of his book. More than once

-it had occurred to him that his accumulations of Notes were dangerous

-explosives to store in a private house. They were becoming so full and

-so accurate that the enemy would have paid any sum or have committed

-any crime to secure possession of them. Cary is not nervous or

-imaginative--have I not said that he springs from a naval stock?--but

-even he now and then felt anxious. He would, I believe, have slept

-peacefully though knowing that a delicately primed bomb lay beneath his

-bed, for personal risks troubled him little, but the thought that hurt

-to his country might come from his well-meant labours sometimes rapped

-against his nerves. A few days before his patriotic conscience had been

-stabbed by no less a personage than Admiral Jellicoe, who, speaking

-to a group of naval students which included Cary, had said: ‘We have

-concealed nothing from you, for we trust absolutely to your discretion.

-Remember what you have seen, but do not make any notes.’ Yet here at

-this moment was Cary disregarding the orders of a Commander-in-Chief

-whom he worshipped. He tried to square his conscience by reflecting

-that no more than three people knew of the existence of his Notes

-or of the book which he was writing from them, and that each one of

-those three was as trustworthy as himself. So he went on collating,

-comparing, writing, and the heap upon his table grew bigger under his

-hands.

-

-The clock had just struck twelve upon that morning when a servant

-entered and said ‘A gentleman to see you, sir, upon important business.

-His name is Mr. Dawson.’

-

-Cary jumped up and went to his dining-room, where the visitor was

-waiting. The name had meant nothing to him, but the instant his eyes

-fell upon Mr. Dawson he remembered that he was the chief Scotland

-Yard officer who had come north to teach the local police how to keep

-track of the German agents who infested the shipbuilding centres. Cary

-had met Dawson more than once and had assisted him with his intimate

-local knowledge. He greeted his visitor with smiling courtesy, but

-Dawson did not smile. His first words, indeed, came like shots from an

-automatic pistol.

-

-‘Mr. Cary,’ said he, ‘I want to see your Naval Notes.’

-

-Cary was staggered, for the three people whom I have mentioned did not

-include Mr. Dawson. ‘Certainly,’ said he, ‘I will show them to you if

-you ask officially. But how in the world did you hear anything about

-them?’

-

-‘I am afraid that a good many people know about them, most undesirable

-people, too. If you will show them to me--I am asking officially--I

-will tell you what I know.’

-

-Cary led the way to his study. Dawson glanced round the room, at

-the papers heaped upon the table, at the tall windows bare of

-curtains--Cary, who loved light and sunshine, hated curtains--and

-growled. Then he locked the door, pulled down the thick blue blinds

-required by the East Coast lighting orders, and switched on the

-electric lights though it was high noon in May. ‘That’s better,’ said

-he. ‘You are an absolutely trustworthy man, Mr. Cary. I know all about

-you. But you are damned careless. That bare window is overlooked from

-half a dozen flats. You might as well do your work in the street.’

-

-Dawson picked up some of the papers, and their purport was explained to

-him by Cary. ‘I don’t know anything of naval details,’ said he, ‘but I

-don’t need any evidence of the value of the stuff here. The enemy wants

-it, wants it badly; that is good enough for me.’

-

-‘But,’ remonstrated Cary, ‘no one knows of these papers, or of the use

-to which I am putting them, except my son in the Navy, my wife (who has

-not read a line of them), and my publisher in London.’

-

-‘Hum!’ commented Dawson. ‘Then how do you account for this?’

-

-He opened his leather despatch-case and drew forth a parcel carefully

-wrapped up in brown paper. Within the wrapping was a large white

-envelope of the linen woven paper used for registered letters, and

-generously sealed. To Cary’s surprise, for the envelope appeared to be

-secure, Dawson cautiously opened it so as not to break the seal which

-was adhering to the flap and drew out a second smaller envelope, also

-sealed. This he opened in the same delicate way and took out a third;

-from the third he drew a fourth, and so on until eleven empty envelopes

-had been added to the litter piled upon Cary’s table, and the twelfth,

-a small one, remained in Dawson’s hands.

-

-‘Did you ever see anything so childish?’ observed he, indicating the

-envelopes. ‘A big, registered, sealed Chinese puzzle like that is just

-crying out to be opened. We would have seen the inside of that one even

-if it had been addressed to the Lord Mayor, and not to--well, someone

-in whom we are deeply interested, though he does not know it.’

-

-Cary, who had been fascinated by the succession of sealed envelopes,

-stretched out his hand towards one of them. ‘Don’t touch,’ snapped out

-Dawson. ‘Your clumsy hands would break the seals, and then there would

-be the devil to pay. Of course all these envelopes were first opened in

-my office. It takes a dozen years to train men to open sealed envelopes

-so that neither flap nor seal is broken, and both can be again secured

-without showing a sign of disturbance. It is a trade secret.’

-

-Dawson’s expert fingers then opened the twelfth envelope and he

-produced a letter. ‘Now, Mr. Cary, if we had not known you and also

-known that you were absolutely honest and loyal--though dangerously

-simple-minded and careless in the matter of windows--this letter would

-have been very awkward indeed for you. It runs: “Hagan arrives 10.30

-P.M. Wednesday to get Cary’s Naval Notes. Meet him. Urgent.” Had we not

-known you, Mr. Richard Cary might have been asked to explain how Hagan

-knew all about his Naval Notes and was so very confident of being able

-to get them.’

-

-Cary smiled. ‘I have often felt,’ said he, ‘especially in war-time,

-that it was most useful to be well known to the police. You may ask me

-anything you like and I will do my best to answer. I confess that I am

-aghast at the searchlight of inquiry which has suddenly been turned

-upon my humble labours. My son at sea knows nothing of the Notes except

-what I have told him in my letters, my wife has not read a line of

-them, and my publisher is the last man to talk. I seem to have suddenly

-dropped into the middle of a detective story.’ The poor man scratched

-his head and smiled ruefully at the Scotland Yard officer.

-

-‘Mr. Cary,’ said Dawson, ‘those windows of yours would account for

-anything. You have been watched for a long time, and I am perfectly

-sure that our friend Hagan and his associates here know precisely in

-what drawer of that desk you keep your naval papers. Your flat is easy

-to enter--I had a look round before coming in to-day--and on Wednesday

-night (that is to-morrow) there will be a scientific burglary here and

-your Notes will be stolen.’

-

-‘Oh no they won’t,’ cried Cary. ‘I will take them down this afternoon

-to my office and lock them up in the big safe. It will put me to a lot

-of bother, for I shall also have to lock up there the chapters of my

-book.’

-

-‘You newspaper men ought all to be locked up yourselves. You are a

-cursed nuisance to honest, hard-worked Scotland Yard men like me. But

-you mistake the object of my visit. I want this flat to be entered

-to-morrow night, and I want your naval papers to be stolen.’

-

-For a moment the wild thought came to Cary that this man Dawson--the

-chosen of the Yard--was himself a German Secret Service agent, and

-must have shown in his eyes some signs of the suspicion, for Dawson

-laughed loudly. ‘No, Mr. Cary, I am not in the Kaiser’s pay, nor are

-you, though the case against you might be painted pretty black. This

-man Hagan is on our string in London and we want him very badly indeed.

-Not to arrest--at least not just yet--but to keep running round showing

-us his pals and all their little games. He is an Irish American, a very

-unbenevolent neutral, to whom we want to give a nice, easy, happy time,

-so that he can mix himself up thoroughly with the spy business and wrap

-a rope many times round his neck. We will pull on to the end when we

-have finished with him, but not a minute too soon. He is too precious

-to be frightened. Did you ever come across such an ass’--Dawson

-contemptuously indicated the pile of sealed envelopes--‘he must have

-soaked himself in American dime novels and cinema crime films. He will

-be of more use to us than a dozen of our best officers. I feel that I

-love Hagan and won’t have him disturbed. When he comes here to-morrow

-night he shall be seen but not heard. He shall enter this room, lift

-your Notes, which shall be in their usual drawer, and shall take them

-safely away. After that I rather fancy that we shall enjoy ourselves,

-and that the salt will stick very firmly upon Hagan’s little tail.’

-

-Cary did not at all like this plan; it might offer amusement and

-instruction to the police, but seemed to involve himself in an

-excessive amount of responsibility. ‘Will it not be far too risky to

-let him take my Notes even if you do shadow him closely afterwards? He

-will get them copied and scattered amongst a score of agents, one of

-whom may get the information through to Germany. You know your job,

-of course, but the risk seems too big for me. After all, they are my

-Notes, and I would far sooner burn them now than that the Germans

-should see a line of them.’

-

-Dawson laughed again. ‘You are a dear simple soul, Mr. Cary; it does

-one good to meet you. Why on earth do you suppose I came here to-day

-if it were not to enlist your help? Hagan is going to take all the

-risks; you and I are not looking for any. He is going to steal some

-Naval Notes, but they will not be those which lie on this table. I

-myself will take charge of those and of the chapters of your most

-reprehensible book. You shall prepare, right now, a beautiful new

-artistic set of notes calculated to deceive. They must be accurate

-where any errors would be spotted, but wickedly false wherever

-deception would be good for Fritz’s health. I want you to get down

-to a real plant. This letter shall be sealed up again in its twelve

-silly envelopes and go by registered post to Hagan’s correspondent.

-You shall have till to-morrow morning to invent all those things which

-we want Fritz to believe about the Navy. Make us out to be as rotten

-as you plausibly can. Give him some heavy losses to gloat over and to

-tempt him out of harbour. Don’t overdo it, but mix up your fiction with

-enough facts to keep it sweet and make it sound convincing. If you do

-your work well--and the Naval authorities here seem to think a lot of

-you--Hagan will believe in your Notes, and will try to get them to

-his German friends at any cost or risk, which will be exactly what we

-want of him. Then, when he has served our purpose, he will find that

-we--have--no--more--use--for--him.’

-

-Dawson accompanied this slow, harmlessly sounding sentence with a grim

-and nasty smile. Cary, before whose eyes flashed for a moment the

-vision of a chill dawn, cold grey walls, and a silent firing party,

-shuddered. It was a dirty task to lay so subtle a trap even for a dirty

-Irish-American spy. His honest English soul revolted at the call upon

-his brains and knowledge, but common sense told him that in this way,

-Dawson’s way, he could do his country a very real service. For a few

-minutes he mused over the task set to his hand, and then spoke.

-

-‘All right. I think that I can put up exactly what you want. The faked

-Notes shall be ready when you come to-morrow. I will give the whole day

-to them.’

-

-In the morning the new set of Naval Papers was ready, and their

-purport was explained in detail to Dawson, who chuckled joyously. ‘This

-is exactly what Admiral ---- wants, and it shall get through to Germany

-by Fritz’s own channels. I have misjudged you, Mr. Cary; I thought you

-little better than a fool, but that story here of a collision in a fog

-and the list of damaged Queen Elizabeths in dock would have taken in

-even me. Fritz will suck it down like cream. I like that effort even

-better than your grave comments on damaged turbines and worn-out gun

-tubes. You are a genius, Mr. Cary, and I must take you to lunch with

-the Admiral this very day. You can explain the plant better than I can,

-and he is dying to hear all about it. Oh, by the way, he particularly

-wants a description of the failure to complete the latest batch of

-big shell fuses, and the shortage of lyddite. You might get that done

-before the evening. Now for the burglary. Do nothing, nothing at all,

-outside your usual routine. Come home at your usual hour, go to bed

-as usual, and sleep soundly if you can. Should you hear any noise in

-the night put your head under the bedclothes. Say nothing to Mrs. Cary

-unless you are obliged, and for God’s sake don’t let any woman--wife,

-daughter, or maidservant--disturb my pearl of a burglar while he is at

-work. He must have a clear run, with everything exactly as he expects

-to find it. Can I depend upon you?’

-

-‘I don’t pretend to like the business,’ said Cary, ‘but you can depend

-upon me to the letter of my orders.’

-

-‘Good,’ cried Dawson. ‘That is all I want.’

-

-

-                                  II.

-

-                            THE TRAP CLOSES.

-

-

-Cary heard no noise though he lay awake for most of the night,

-listening intently. The flat seemed to be more quiet even than usual.

-There was little traffic in the street below, and hardly a step

-broke the long silence of the night. Early in the morning--at six

-B.S.T.--Cary slipped out of bed, stole down to his study, and pulled

-open the deep drawer in which he had placed the bundle of faked Naval

-Notes. They had gone! So the Spy-Burglar had come, and, carefully

-shepherded by Dawson’s sleuth-hounds, had found the primrose path easy

-for his crime. To Cary, the simple, honest gentleman, the whole plot

-seemed to be utterly revolting--justified, of course, by the country’s

-needs in time of war, but none the less revolting. There is nothing

-of glamour in the Secret Service, nothing of romance, little even of

-excitement. It is a cold-blooded exercise of wits against wits, of

-spies against spies. The amateur plays a fish upon a line and gives

-him a fair run for his life, but the professional fisherman--to whom

-a salmon is a people’s food--nets him coldly and expeditiously as he

-comes in from the sea.

-

-Shortly after breakfast there came a call from Dawson on the telephone.

-‘All goes well. Come to my office as soon as possible.’ Cary found

-Dawson bubbling with professional satisfaction. ‘It was beautiful,’

-cried he. ‘Hagan was met at the train, taken to a place we know of,

-and shadowed by us tight as wax. We now know all his associates--the

-swine have not even the excuse of being German. He burgled your flat

-himself while one of his gang watched outside. Never mind where I was;

-you would be surprised if I told you; but I saw everything. He has the

-faked papers, is busy making copies, and this afternoon is going down

-the river in a steamer to get a glimpse of the shipyards and docks and

-check your Notes as far as can be done. Will they stand all right?’

-

-‘Quite all right,’ said Cary. ‘The obvious things were given correctly.’

-

-‘Good. We will be in the steamer.’

-

-Cary went that afternoon, quite unchanged in appearance by Dawson’s

-order. ‘If you try to disguise yourself,’ declared that expert, ‘you

-will be spotted at once. Leave the refinements to us.’ Dawson himself

-went as an elderly dug-out officer with the rank marks of a colonel,

-and never spoke a word to Cary upon the whole trip down and up the

-teeming river. Dawson’s men were scattered here and there--one a

-passenger of inquiring mind, another a deckhand, yet a third--a pretty

-girl in khaki--sold tea and cakes in the vessel’s saloon. Hagan--who,

-Cary heard afterwards, wore the brass-bound cap and blue kit of a mate

-in the American merchant service--was never out of sight for an instant

-of Dawson or of one of his troupe. He busied himself with a strong pair

-of marine glasses and now and then asked innocent questions of the

-ship’s deckhands. He had evidently himself once served as a sailor.

-One deckhand, an idle fellow to whom Hagan was very civil, told his

-questioner quite a lot of interesting details about the Navy ships,

-great and small, which could be seen upon the building slips. All

-these details tallied strangely with those recorded in Cary’s Notes.

-The trip up and down the river was a great success for Hagan and for

-Dawson, but for Cary it was rather a bore. He felt somehow out of the

-picture. In the evening Dawson called at Cary’s office and broke in

-upon him. ‘We had a splendid trip to-day,’ said he. ‘It exceeded my

-utmost hopes. Hagan thinks no end of your Notes, but he is not taking

-any risks. He leaves in the morning for Glasgow to do the Clyde and to

-check some more of your stuff. Would you like to come?’ Cary remarked

-that he was rather busy, and that these river excursions, though

-doubtless great fun for Dawson, were rather poor sport for himself.

-Dawson laughed joyously--he was a cheerful soul when he had a spy upon

-his string. ‘Come along,’ said he. ‘See the thing through. I should

-like you to be in at the death.’ Cary observed that he had no stomach

-for cold damp dawns, and firing parties.

-

-‘I did not quite mean that,’ replied Dawson. ‘Those closing ceremonies

-are still strictly private. But you should see the chase through

-to a finish. You are a newspaper man and should be eager for new

-experiences.’

-

-‘I will come,’ said Cary, rather reluctantly. ‘But I warn you that my

-sympathies are steadily going over to Hagan. The poor devil does not

-look to have a dog’s chance against you.’

-

-‘He hasn’t,’ said Dawson with great satisfaction.

-

-Cary, to whom the wonderful Clyde was as familiar as the river near

-his own home, found the second trip almost as wearisome as the first.

-But not quite. He was now able to recognise Hagan, who again appeared

-as a brass-bounder, and did not affect to conceal his deep interest in

-the Naval panorama offered by the river. Nothing of real importance

-can, of course, be learned from a casual steamer trip, but Hagan

-seemed to think otherwise, for he was always either watching through

-his glasses or asking apparently artless questions of passengers or

-passing deckhands. Again a sailor seemed disposed to be communicative;

-he pointed out more than one monster in steel, red raw with surface

-rust, and gave particulars of a completed power which would have

-surprised the Admiralty Superintendent. They would not, however, have

-surprised Mr. Cary, in whose ingenious brain they had been conceived.

-This second trip, like the first, was declared by Dawson to have been

-a great success. ‘Did you know me?’ he asked. ‘I was a clean-shaven

-Naval doctor, about as unlike the Army colonel of the first trip as a

-pigeon is unlike a gamecock. Hagan is off to London to-night by the

-North-Western. There are three copies of your Notes. One is going

-by Edinburgh and the east coast, and another by the Midland. Hagan

-has the original masterpiece. I will look after him and leave the two

-other messengers to my men. I have been on to the Yard by ’phone and

-have arranged that all three shall have passports for Holland. The

-two copies shall reach the Kaiser, bless him, but I really must have

-Hagan’s set of Notes for my Museum.’

-

-‘And what will become of Hagan?’ asked Cary.

-

-‘Come and see,’ said Mr. Dawson.

-

-Dawson entertained Cary at dinner in a private room at the Station

-Hotel, waited upon by one of his own confidential men. ‘Nobody ever

-sees me,’ he observed with much satisfaction, ‘though I am everywhere.’

-(I suspect that Dawson is not without his little vanities.) ‘Except

-in my office and with people whom I know well, I am always someone

-else. The first time I came to your house I wore a beard, and the

-second time looked like a gas inspector. You saw only the real Dawson.

-When one has got the passion for the chase in one’s blood, one cannot

-bide for long in a stuffy office. As I have a jewel of an assistant,

-I can always escape and follow up my own victims. This man Hagan is

-a black heartless devil. Don’t waste your sympathy on him, Mr. Cary.

-He took money from us quite lately to betray the silly asses of Sinn

-Feiners, and now, thinking us hoodwinked, is after more money from the

-Kaiser. He is of the type that would sell his own mother and buy a

-mistress with the money. He’s not worth your pity. We use him and his

-like for just so long as they can be useful, and then the jaws of the

-trap close. By letting him take those faked Notes we have done a fine

-stroke for the Navy, for the Yard, and for Bill Dawson. We have got

-into close touch with four new German agents here and two more down

-south. We shan’t seize them yet; just keep them hanging on and use

-them. That’s the game. I am never anxious about an agent when I know

-him and can keep him watched. Anxious, bless you; I love him like a

-cat loves a mouse. I’ve had some spies on my string ever since the war

-began; I wouldn’t have them touched or worried for the world. Their

-correspondence tells me everything, and if a letter to Holland which

-they haven’t written slips in sometimes it’s useful, very useful, as

-useful almost as your faked Notes.’

-

-Half an hour before the night train was due to leave for the South,

-Dawson, very simply but effectively changed in appearance--for Hagan

-knew by sight the real Dawson,--led Cary to the middle sleeping-coach

-on the train. ‘I have had Hagan put in No. 5,’ he said, ‘and you and

-I will take Nos. 4 and 6. No. 5 is an observation berth; there is one

-fixed up for us on this sleeping-coach. Come in here.’ He pulled Cary

-into No. 4, shut the door, and pointed to a small wooden knob set a few

-inches below the luggage rack. ‘If one unscrews that knob one can see

-into the next berth, No. 5. No. 6 is fitted in the same way, so that

-we can rake No. 5 from both sides. But, mind you, on no account touch

-those knobs until the train is moving fast and until you have switched

-out the lights. If No. 5 was dark when you opened the peep-hole, a ray

-of light from your side would give the show away. And unless there was

-a good deal of vibration and rattle in the train you might be heard.

-Now cut away to No. 6, fasten the door, and go to bed. I shall sit up

-and watch, but there is nothing for you to do.’

-

-Hagan appeared in due course, was shown into No. 5 berth, and the train

-started. Cary asked himself whether he should go to bed as advised or

-sit up reading. He decided to obey Dawson’s orders, but to take a look

-in upon Hagan before settling down for the journey. He switched off his

-lights, climbed upon the bed, and carefully unscrewed the little knob

-which was like the one shown to him by Dawson. A beam of light stabbed

-the darkness of his berth, and putting his eye with some difficulty

-to the hole--one’s nose gets so confoundedly in the way--he saw Hagan

-comfortably arranging himself for the night. The spy had no suspicion

-of his watchers on both sides, for, after settling himself in bed, he

-unwrapped a flat parcel, and took out a bundle of blue papers which

-Cary at once recognised as the originals of his stolen Notes. Hagan

-went through them--he had put his suit-case across his knees to form

-a desk--and carefully made marginal jottings. Cary, who had often

-tried to write in trains, could not but admire the man’s laborious

-patience. He painted his letters and figures over and over again, in

-order to secure distinctness, in spite of the swaying of the train, and

-frequently stopped to suck the point of his pencil.

-

-‘I suppose,’ thought Cary, ‘that Dawson yonder is just gloating over

-his prey, but for my part I feel an utterly contemptible beast. Never

-again will I set a trap for even the worst of my fellow-creatures.’ He

-put back the knob, went to bed, and passed half the night in extreme

-mental discomfort and the other half in snatching brief intervals of

-sleep. It was not a pleasant journey.

-

-Dawson did not come out of his berth at Euston until after Hagan had

-left the station in a taxicab, much to Cary’s surprise, and then was

-quite ready, even anxious, to remain for breakfast at the hotel.

-He explained his strange conduct. ‘Two of my men,’ said he, as he

-wallowed in tea and fried soles--one cannot get Dover soles in the

-weary North--‘who travelled in ordinary compartments, are after Hagan

-in two taxis, so that if one is delayed the other will keep touch.

-Hagan’s driver also has had a police warning, so that our spy is in a

-barbed-wire net. I shall hear before very long all about him.’

-

-Cary and Dawson spent the morning at the hotel with a telephone beside

-them; every few minutes the bell would ring, and a whisper of Hagan’s

-movements steal over the wires into the ears of the spider Dawson. He

-reported progress to Cary with ever-increasing satisfaction.

-

-‘Hagan has applied for and been granted a passport to Holland, and

-has booked a passage in the boat which leaves Harwich to-night for

-the Hook. We will go with him. The other two spies, with the copies,

-haven’t turned up yet, but they are all right. My men will see them

-safe across into Dutch territory, and make sure that no blundering

-Customs officer interferes with their papers. This time the way of

-transgressors shall be very soft. As for Hagan, he is not going to

-arrive.’

-

-‘I don’t quite understand why you carry on so long with him,’ said

-Cary, who, though tired, could not but feel intense interest in the

-perfection of the police system and in the serene confidence of Dawson.

-The Yard could, it appeared, do unto the spies precisely what Dawson

-chose to direct.

-

-‘Hagan is an American citizen,’ explained Dawson. ‘If he had been a

-British subject I would have taken him at Euston--we have full evidence

-of the burglary, and of the stolen papers in his suit-case. But as he

-is a damned unbenevolent neutral, and the American Government is very

-touchy, we must prove his intention to sell the papers to Germany. Then

-we can deal with him by secret court-martial, and President Wilson can

-go to blazes. The journey to Holland will prove this intention. Hagan

-has been most useful to us in Ireland, and now in the North of England

-and in Scotland, but he is too enterprising and too daring to be left

-any longer on the string. I will draw the ends together at the Hook.’

-

-‘I did not want to go to Holland,’ said Cary to me, when telling his

-story. ‘I was utterly sick and disgusted with the whole cold-blooded

-game of cat and mouse, but the police needed my evidence about the

-Notes and the burglary, and did not intend to let me slip out of their

-clutches. Dawson was very civil and pleasant, but I was in fact as

-tightly held upon his string as was the wretched Hagan. So I went on to

-Holland with that quick-change artist, and watched him come on board

-the steamer at Parkeston Quay, dressed as a rather German-looking

-commercial traveller, eager for war commissions upon smuggled goods.

-This sounds absurd, but his get-up seemed somehow to suggest the idea.

-Then I went below. Dawson always kept away from me whenever Hagan might

-have seen us together.’

-

-The passage across to Holland was free from incident; there was no

-sign that we were at war, and Continental traffic was being carried

-serenely on, within easy striking distance of the German submarine base

-at Zeebrugge. The steamer had drawn in to the Hook beside the train,

-and Hagan was approaching the gangway, suit-case in hand. The man was

-on the edge of safety; once upon Dutch soil, Dawson could not have

-laid hands upon him. He would have been a neutral citizen in a neutral

-country, and no English warrant would run against him. But between

-Hagan and the gangway suddenly interposed the tall form of the ship’s

-captain; instantly the man was ringed about by officers, and before

-he could say a word or move a hand he was gripped hard and led across

-the deck to the steamer’s chart-house. Therein sat Dawson, the real,

-undisguised Dawson, and beside him sat Richard Cary. Hagan’s face,

-which two minutes earlier had been glowing with triumph and with the

-anticipation of German gold beyond the dreams of avarice, went white as

-chalk. He staggered and gasped as one stabbed to the heart, and dropped

-into a chair. His suit-case fell from his relaxed fingers to the floor.

-

-‘Give him a stiff brandy-and-soda,’ directed Dawson, almost kindly, and

-when the victim’s colour had ebbed back a little from his overcharged

-heart, and he had drunk deep of the friendly cordial, the detective put

-him out of pain. The game of cat and mouse was over.

-

-‘It is all up, Hagan,’ said the detective gently. ‘Face the music and

-make the best of it, my poor friend. This is Mr. Richard Cary, and you

-have not for a moment been out of our sight since you left London for

-the north four days ago.’

-

-When I had completed the writing of his story I showed the MS. to

-Richard Cary, who was pleased to express a general approval. ‘Not at

-all bad, Copplestone,’ said he, ‘not at all bad. You have clothed my

-dry bones in real flesh and blood. But you have missed what to me is

-the outstanding feature of the whole affair, that which justifies to my

-mind the whole rather grubby business. Let me give you two dates. On

-May 25 two copies of my faked Notes were shepherded through to Holland

-and reached the Germans; on May 31 was fought the Battle of Jutland.

-Can the brief space between these dates have been merely an accident?

-I cannot believe it. No, I prefer to believe that in my humble way I

-induced the German Fleet to issue forth and to risk an action which,

-under more favourable conditions for us, would have resulted in their

-utter destruction. I may be wrong, but I am happy in retaining my

-faith.’

-

-‘What became of Hagan?’ I asked, for I wished to bring the narrative to

-a clean artistic finish.

-

-‘I am not sure,’ answered Cary, ‘though I gave evidence as ordered

-by the court-martial. But I rather think that I have here Hagan’s

-epitaph.’ He took out his pocket-book, and drew forth a slip of paper

-upon which was gummed a brief newspaper cutting. This he handed to me,

-and I read as follows:

-

-               The War Office announces that a

-               prisoner who was charged with espionage

-               and recently tried by court-martial at

-               the Westminster Guildhall was found

-               guilty and sentenced to death. The

-               sentence was duly confirmed and carried

-               out yesterday morning.

-

-

-

-

-                          _THREE GENERATIONS._

-

-

-Out in the quiet paddock, with the mellow brick walls screening them

-from the common life in Bushey Park, they are browsing gently through

-the last days of their existence. It is not so many years since, gay

-with trappings, led by a groom apiece to restrain their Hanoverian

-tempers, these old cream-coloured horses drew the wonderful glass coach

-through the streets of London, haughtily accepting for themselves

-the acclamations of the people. At how many pageants, could they but

-tell us, have they not assisted? Are they old enough to have drawn

-Queen Victoria to her Diamond Jubilee, and did they drag that heavy

-gun-carriage with its pathetically small burden through the mourning

-streets on a Queen’s last journey? Certainly in their own estimation

-they were the central figures on the chilly August day when they

-at last carried King Edward to Westminster Abbey amid the joyous

-thanksgiving of a whole Empire. Their reminiscences would not probably

-take them very far into the present reign. It must be some little time

-since the next generation callously ousted them from between the royal

-shafts, stripped them once for all of their gay trappings, and set them

-on a back shelf of history.

-

-So now they browse and slumber among the buttercups, and perhaps wonder

-vaguely at their unshorn and generally disordered condition, and at

-their prolonged days of idleness. They know and care nothing about the

-war. They are aliens who have no need to be registered, naturalised as

-they have been by long generations of royal service. For it is just two

-hundred years since the first George, in a spirit of arrogance which,

-as a race, they appear to have assimilated, brought their ancestors

-from Hanover to draw his royal coach in his adopted country.

-

-They came with those ill-featured ladies who, according to tradition,

-gave the name to the _Frog Walk_ outside the Palace walls--yes,

-_outside_--and the creams had nothing to do with them. Never, in

-the course of their aristocratic history, have they drawn anything

-but crowned heads and their most legitimate spouses, and for this

-the British nation reveres and respects them. And now these, their

-descendants in the paddock, have done with streets and crowds and

-uniforms--and even with sovereigns. Sometimes one old fellow will lift

-his head at the sound of the children’s cries on the swings in the

-Park, and wonder if he is once more being cheered by the populace,

-but his dim eyes can only see the chestnuts hanging out their red and

-white candles, and a crow laughs at him from the wall. By his side

-his comrades, wholly unmoved, with hanging heads and slowly switching

-tails, are busy cropping the sweet grass, with no thought beyond it.

-Old age does sometimes, in spite of evidence to the contrary, broaden

-and mellow the sympathies, and the Cream Colours, who have been above

-all things exclusive, have developed a very soft spot in their hearts

-for the old bay horse who shares their paddock. Possibly he, who,

-whatever he has done in private life, in royal processions has never

-aspired beyond princesses, knows how to keep his place. At all events,

-when a sudden spurt of renewed activity will carry him at a gallant

-pace across the paddock, the august Three will follow him at a feeble

-canter and with anxious whinnies, until at last, finding him on the

-other side, they will happily nuzzle their noses into his neck, with

-every sign of equine affection, which he must accept with mingled pride

-and resignation. Is he not the _enfant gâté de la maison_?

-

-Well, their great days are over, but they could have found no more

-dignified place of retirement than under the royal shadow of Hampton

-Court Palace, the accepted home of retirement and dignity.

-

-Meantime, out in the road, could they but know it, their successors on

-these summer mornings are taking part in a strange, rather pathetic

-mimicry of those greater pageants which have no place in war-time.

-For the Cream Colours of to-day cannot be allowed to idle like their

-parents. Much may yet, we hope, be expected of them, and they must

-not forget the manner of that service to which alone they owe their

-existence. So in the early morning, when trams are few and other

-traffic is non-existent, they may be met, eight of them, stepping

-proudly along, with arched necks and haughty expressions, quite unaware

-that the grooms holding to their bridles are in mufti, that their

-trappings are of plain wood, and that the royal coach they imagine to

-be rumbling behind them resembles nothing so much as an empty jail van!

-The King in the fairy tale was not better pleased with his imaginary

-fine raiment than the Cream Colours with their phantom state. But

-nobody troubles to undeceive them; the rooks flap cawing overhead in

-pursuit of their breakfasts, and the cuckoo monotonously calling from

-the Home Park is entirely absorbed in his own business. All is vanity,

-and in another few years they also will be cropping buttercups, with no

-higher aspiration.

-

-For the next generation is already knocking at the door. On the further

-side of the road from his forebears, a little dusky foal who will some

-day be of a correct highly polished cream colour is kicking up his

-heels in a paddock, a truly royal nursery with a golden floor. He is

-separated even at this early age from his black and bay contemporaries,

-whose lot, however, will certainly be more varied and interesting than

-any which he can look for. Let us hope that he may still be in the

-nursery when his sleek elders, now disappearing in their own dust along

-the road, will draw their sovereign in state to return thanks for the

-greatest of all victories, and the establishment of a righteous peace

-throughout the world.

-

-                                                   ROSE M. BRADLEY.

-

-

-

-

-                   _ARMY UNIFORMS, PAST AND PRESENT._

-

-                BY THE RT. HON. SIR HERBERT MAXWELL, BT.

-

-

-In the early ’seventies of last century there was staged in London

-a very amusing musical comedy called _The Happy Land_, the scene

-being laid in Paradise. Among the principal characters were extremely

-skilful and poignant burlesques of Mr. Gladstone, Prime Minister at

-the time, Mr. Lowe, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Mr. Ayrton, First

-Commissioner of Works. The piece had but a short, though brilliant,

-run in the metropolis; for the Lord Chamberlain ordered it off the

-stage, not on the grounds of what is usually implied by immorality, but

-because it brought Her Majesty’s Ministers into contempt by mordant

-caricature of their features and action.[3] It is not known--to me,

-at least--which of the three victims set the censorship in motion.

-Certainly it was not ‘Bob’ Lowe, who was gifted with a fine strain

-of humour. Probably it was done at Mr. Ayrton’s instance, he being

-destitute of that saving grace, and, besides, having been more

-mercilessly satirised in the play than his colleagues. He had outraged

-public feeling, if not public taste, by some acts of his administration

-as ædile, notably by painting grey some of the fine stone-work in the

-lobbies of the Houses of Parliament. I forget the libretto of _The

-Happy Land_; but this much I remember, that, whereas in the first act

-the scenery of Paradise appeared glowing with rainbow radiance and

-shimmering with gems, in the second act it represented the effect of

-Ayrton’s régime--everything had been painted ‘government grey.’

-

-All this was brought to mind by the change wrought upon the appearance

-of the British Army after the outbreak of the South African war in

-1899. By a wave of his wand or a scratch of his quill the Secretary of

-State for War, Mr. St. John Brodrick (now Viscount Midleton) quenched

-all gaiety of colour in the fighting dress of our troops; the historic

-thin red line was to be seen no more; the glittering squadrons were

-doomed to ride in raiment as sombre as the dust of their own raising;

-henceforward standards and regimental colours were to be returned to

-store before the troops went on active service.

-

-Had that been all, it would have sufficed to mark a notable era in the

-operations of war--a wise measure, imposed upon the Army Council by the

-vast improvement in the range, trajectory, and precision of artillery

-and small arms. Hitherto it had been the object of the military

-authorities of all nations to make their fighting men as conspicuous as

-possible, exaggerating their stature by fantastic headgear and setting

-them in strong relief to every variety of natural background by means

-of bright colours and pipeclay. The Brigade of Guards landed in the

-Crimea without their knapsacks, which followed in another ship. The

-men had to do without them for some weeks; but the cumbrous bearskin

-caps were considered indispensable, and offered a fine target for the

-Russian defenders of the slopes of the Alma. The hint was thrown away

-upon our military authorities. It required a sharper lesson to convince

-them of the cruel absurdity of figging out men for battle in a dress

-that hampered the limbs and obscured the eyesight. The Guards were not

-more absurdly dressed on that occasion than the rest of the British

-troops. The late Sir William Flower described to me his feelings when,

-as surgeon of an infantry regiment, he stepped out from a boat on the

-wet sands at the mouth of the Alma, dressed in a skin-tight scarlet

-coatee with swallow tails, a high collar enclosing a black stock,

-close-fitting trousers tightly strapped over Wellington boots, and a

-cocked hat!

-

-Two years before that--in 1852--Colonel Luard published his _History of

-the Dress of the British Soldier_. Having served as a heavy dragoon in

-the Peninsula, as a light dragoon at Waterloo, as a lancer in India,

-and as a staff officer both in India and at home, he had practical

-experience of the variety of torment inflicted by different kinds of

-uniform. He advocated many reforms in the soldier’s dress, tending

-as much to increased efficiency as to comfort, and he supported his

-argument by extracts from his correspondence with regimental officers.

-One of these wrote--‘If an infantry soldier has to step over a drain

-two feet broad, he has to put one hand to his cap to keep it on his

-head, and his other to his pouch, and what becomes of his musket?’ And

-this, be it remembered, was the fighting-kit; for no general in those

-days ever dreamed of taking troops into action except in full review

-order.

-

-James I. was not a warlike king, but he was a pretty shrewd observer

-of men and matters. He was not far wrong when he observed that plate

-armour was a fine thing, for it not only protected the life of the

-wearer, but hindered him from hurting anybody else! The remark might

-have been applied with equal justice to the costume of British soldiers

-in the Crimean campaign, except that it afforded no protection to the

-wearer’s life or limb. It required nearly one hundred years of painful

-experience to convince the War Office that it was cruel stupidity to

-put men in the field in clothing so tight as to fetter the limbs and

-compress the chest. That was the legacy of George IV. to the British

-Army.

-

-Although, to one looking back over the history of what is now the

-United Kingdom, the most salient features seem to be campaigns and

-battles, invasion and counter-invasion, it was not until the Civil

-War that any attempt was made towards a uniform dress for any army.

-It is true that both the English and Scottish Parliaments from time

-to time prescribed with the utmost care the offensive and defensive

-armour with which every able-bodied subject was to provide himself or

-be provided by his feudal chief, and if that chief were a wealthy baron

-his following would be clothed in his liveries. Thus, in describing the

-famous scene at Lauder when Archibald Douglas, fifth Earl of Angus,

-won his sobriquet of Bell-the-Cat, Pitscottie tells us in deliciously

-quaint phrase how luckless Thomas Cochrane, newly created Earl of Mar,

-rode down to the kirk where the disaffected lords were in conference,

-at the head of three hundred men all dressed in his liveries of white

-doublets with black bands. Cromwell was the first ruler of England

-who succeeded in what several of his predecessors had failed--in

-maintaining a standing army. At one time he had 80,000 men under

-arms. There was a degree of uniformity in the dress of his cavalry

-and infantry. It consisted mainly of buff coats, with the addition of

-breast and back pieces, iron caps, and other defensive armour. But that

-army was disbanded after the Restoration, and it was not until the

-reign of William III. that a standing army was finally constituted,

-and colonels commanding regiments, being allowed a sufficient sum for

-clothing the men, were required to do so according to sealed pattern.

-

-Throughout the eighteenth century, the British soldier’s dress was,

-on the whole, both picturesque and comfortable. In cut, it conformed

-pretty faithfully to the fashion prevailing in civilian attire,

-though there occurred an interval when George II. inflicted upon his

-Guards regiments the preposterous conical head-dress, copied from the

-Prussian Guards of Frederick the Great. This disfiguring headgear did

-not last very long, and gave place before the end of the century to

-the three-cocked hat of the style called, I believe, Nivernois or

-Kevenhüller.

-

-The easy grace of the full-dress uniform of an officer of the Guards

-towards the close of the eighteenth century is admirably shown in

-Romney’s portrait of John, tenth Earl of Westmorland, now at Osterley

-Park. It shows a long-skirted scarlet frock, lined with white, faced

-with blue, with ruffles at the wrists, and without any ornament save

-a pair of gilt epaulets of moderate size and soft material, very

-different from the cumbrous, unyielding things now prescribed for

-naval officers and lords-lieutenant. The frock is worn open over a

-Ramillies cravat and waistcoat and breeches of white kersey. It would

-be difficult to devise a dress for a soldier so well combining comfort

-and dignified distinction. To one feature only can objection be taken.

-The powdered and curled hair, clubbed in a pigtail, looks charming on

-Romney’s canvas, but must have proved an intolerable nuisance both to

-officers and men.

-

-    ‘During the command of the late Duke of Kent at Gibraltar

-     [1802-3], when a field-day was ordered, there not being

-     sufficient barbers in the town to attend to all the

-     officers in the morning, the seniors claimed the privilege

-     of their rank; the juniors consequently were obliged to

-     have their heads dressed the night before; and to preserve

-     the beauty of this artistic arrangement--pomatumed,

-     powdered, curled and clubbed--these poor fellows were

-     obliged to sleep on their faces! It is said that in the

-     adjutant’s office of each regiment there was kept a pattern

-     of the correct curls, to which the barbers could refer.’[4]

-

-The men wore tunics of a cut similar to those of the officers, but of

-coarser cloth. They were buttoned up on duty, the skirts being looped

-back. It was a thoroughly sensible and workmanlike dress, giving

-perfect freedom to breathing and circulation, together with protection

-to loins and thighs. The Chelsea pensioners wear a coat of the old

-infantry pattern to this day.

-

-With the Regency came a vicious change. The Prince Regent paid

-incessant attention to dress--both to his own and that of others. He

-was proud of his figure, which, indeed, was a fine one till it was

-ruined by excess, and he loved to display it in closely fitting dress.

-Nor was he content until he got his father’s army buttoned up to the

-limit of endurance and disfigured by headgear of appalling dimensions.

-The easy open collar and Ramillies tie were replaced by an upright

-fence of buckram and a leather stock. It would be hardly credible,

-were there not abundant evidence in the correspondence of the Horse

-Guards to prove it, that while Wellington was absorbed in manœuvring

-against immensely superior forces in Spain, he had to give attention

-to correspondence about changes in the dress of the army, not with a

-view to making it more comfortable and workmanlike, but in order to

-gratify the caprice of the Prince Regent. No man ever gave less thought

-to niceties of tailoring than Lord Wellington (as he was at that time).

-His views are set forth in a letter to the Military Secretary who had

-consulted him about the uniform to be prescribed for those regiments

-of Light Dragoons which the Prince Regent had desired the Duke of York

-(recently reinstated as Commander-in-Chief) to convert into Hussars.

-

-

-                             ‘FRENEDA, _6th November, 1811_.

-

-    ‘... There is no subject of which I understand so little

-     [as military uniforms], and, abstractedly speaking, I think

-     it indifferent how a soldier is clothed, provided it is in

-     an uniform manner, and that he is forced to keep himself

-     clean and smart, as a soldier ought to be. But there is one

-     thing I deprecate, and that is any imitation of the French

-     in any manner. It is impossible to form an idea of the

-     inconvenience and injury which result from having anything

-     like them, either on horseback or on foot.[5] Lutyens and

-     his piquet were taken in June because the 3rd Hussars had

-     the same caps as the French _Chasseurs-à-cheval_ and some

-     of their Hussars, and I was near being taken on September

-     25 from the same cause. At a distance or in action colours

-     are nothing; the profile and shape of a man’s cap, and his

-     general appearance, are what guide us; and why should we

-     make our people look like the French?... I only beg that

-     we may be as different as possible from the French in

-     everything. The narrow tops of our infantry, as opposed to

-     their broad top caps, are a great advantage to those who

-     are to look at long lines of posts opposed to each other.’

-

-Two years later, at the battle of Vitoria, the justice of Wellington’s

-views about the soldier’s uniform received apt illustration.

-Wellington on that day kept the Light Division and 4th Division under

-his immediate command. The 3rd and 7th Divisions, under Picton and

-Lord Dalhousie, were to join him in order to complete the centre of

-the line, but they had difficult ground to traverse, and were late.

-The Zadora flowed swift and deep in front of the French position. A

-countryman having informed Wellington that the bridge of Tres Puentes

-was unguarded, Kempt’s riflemen were sent forward to seize it, which

-they did, and went so far up the heights on the farther side that they

-were able to establish themselves in shelter of a crest well in rear

-of a French advanced post. There they lay, until Wellington’s line was

-completed by the arrival of ‘old Picton, riding at the head of the 3rd

-Division, dressed in a blue coat and a round hat, swearing as loudly

-all the way as if he wore two cocked ones.’[6] The 7th Division came up

-at the same time, and while they were deploying the enemy opened fire

-upon them. Kempt immediately drew his riflemen from their shelter and

-took the French batteries in flank, thereby enabling the 3rd Division

-to cross the bridge of Mendoza without loss. But the dark uniforms of

-the Rifles deceived the British on the other side of the river into the

-belief that they were French. A battery opened upon them and continued

-pounding them with round shot and shrapnel till the advance of Picton’s

-Division revealed the blunder.

-

-Wellington’s warning against copying the uniforms of other nations

-received little attention. After 1815, when he was in command of the

-Army of Occupation in Paris, it was decided to arm four regiments

-of cavalry with lances, a most effective weapon which had not been

-carried by British troops since the seventeenth century. One would

-have supposed that the lance might be wielded as effectively by a man

-dressed as a light dragoon or a hussar as in any other rig; but the

-Prince Regent hailed the innovation as an opportunity for an entirely

-new costume. Consequently the 9th, 12th, 16th and 23rd Light Dragoons

-were put into a Polish dress, modified in such manner as to agree with

-his Royal Highness’s sartorial taste.

-

-    ‘An officer of rank commanding one of the Lancer regiments

-     was ordered to attend the Prince Regent to fit the new

-     jacket on him. The tailor, with a pair of scissors, was

-     ordered to cut smooth every wrinkle and fine-draw the

-     seams. The consequence was that the coats of the private

-     soldiers, as well as those of the officers, were made so

-     tight they could hardly get into them; the freedom of

-     action was so restricted that the infantry with difficulty

-     handled their muskets, and the cavalry could scarcely do

-     the sword exercise.’

-

-The cuirass had been discontinued in the British cavalry since 1794,

-when it had been found most unsuitable for active service in the

-Netherlands. But it was far too showy a piece of goods to escape the

-Prince Regent’s attention. Accordingly the three regiments of Household

-Cavalry were made to appear at his coronation in 1820 in steel

-cuirasses and burnished helmets, with enormous combs of bearskin; the

-latter, as Colonel Luard caustically observes, rendering it impossible

-for a man to deliver the sixth cut in the sword exercise of that day.

-The cuirass and helmet remain, with the unwieldy jack-boots and leather

-breeches, an effective, if archaic, part of a theatrical pageant which

-Londoners have learnt to love; but as the equipment of a modern soldier

-the costume is ludicrously inapt and very costly. In an era when war

-has become more terrible and more intensely destructive than in any

-previous age, and at a time when the whole resources of the nation

-are strained for the country to hold its own, it may well be asked

-whether money might not be more profitably employed than in causing the

-splendid men of the Household Cavalry to masquerade in such attire as

-would be grotesque to imagine them wearing in modern warfare.

-

-About the same time that the cuirass was inflicted upon the Household

-Cavalry, the sentry boxes in London and at Windsor Castle had to be

-increased in height in order to accommodate a new pattern of bearskin

-cap which had been approved for the Foot Guards. The old pattern,

-which had superseded the three-cocked hat at the end of the previous

-century, was a sensible affair of reasonable dimensions; but the army

-tailors, encouraged by the new King, were indefatigable in devising

-extravagance in uniforms, and the bearskin was made to shoot up several

-inches in height. ‘Ridicule,’ observed Colonel Luard, ‘subsides when

-the eye is no longer a stranger to the object of excitement; otherwise

-the little boys would run after the guardsmen when they appear in the

-streets of London, and shout at the overwhelming, preposterous, hideous

-bearskin caps.’ It is rumoured that the supply of the right sort of

-bear is now running short. It may not be too much to hope that, when

-our armies return victorious at the end of the war, the occasion may

-be marked by the invention of some uniform for the Brigade of Guards

-more comfortable and workmanlike than a skin-tight tunic and a grossly

-exaggerated fur-cap. Londoners, laudably conservative in what they have

-become used with, would be the less likely to murmur at the change,

-inasmuch as they have grown accustomed to see guard-mounting performed

-in forage-caps.

-

-Among all the variety of uniforms of the British infantry, none has

-undergone so little change in the last hundred and fifty years as

-that of the Highland regiments. Well that it is so, for there is

-none other that so admirably sets off a soldier-like figure, none

-that stirs so much enthusiasm among the spectators at a field-day.

-So fully has this been recognised that a society has recently been

-formed to protest against and endeavour to remedy what is deemed the

-unmerited neglect of Lowland Scottish regiments, whereof the records

-certainly are no whit inferior in lustre to those of the Highland

-corps. It is complained that the Lowland regiments are always kept in

-the background; that Edinburgh, though a Lowland city, is invariably

-garrisoned by a Highland regiment, and that facilities for recruiting

-in Edinburgh and Glasgow are accorded to Highland regiments and refused

-to Lowland regiments. Much of this is unfortunately true; but the real

-reason for it exists in the greater popularity of the Highland uniform.

-No amount of protest or persuasion will prevail to make the general

-public take the same interest in a trousered regiment as in a kilted

-one. Might not the surest remedy be to put the Lowland regiments also

-into kilts? Purists will object that Lowlanders have no business to

-don the philabeg; but, for that matter, neither have they any business

-to wear tartan trews, _which all the Lowland regiments do at the

-present time, besides being furnished with kilted pipers_.[7] Then

-all Scottish regiments would be on an equal footing, and no material

-would remain for the present irritation. It is difficult to understand,

-impossible to explain, the emotion--involuntary, as all true emotion

-must be--roused, even in Saisneach breasts, by the sight of a Highland

-regiment marching to the skirl of the pipes. In order to illustrate it,

-let me lapse for a moment into the first person singular.

-

-During Queen Victoria’s memorable progress through her metropolis in

-the Diamond Jubilee of 1897, I was seated with two ladies of my family

-in the stand set up for members of Parliament in Palace Yard. The

-long hours of waiting on that shining summer forenoon were enlivened

-by the march of many regiments, headed by their bands, passing to

-their appointed places in the route. It was a shifting pageant of

-stirring sight and sound. Presently, over Westminster Bridge came the

-Seaforth Highlanders stepping to the lively strains of _The Muckin’ o’

-Geordie’s Byre_.[8] The effect was indescribable--the swing of kilts

-and sporrans, the dark waving plumes, the gallant but simple melody,

-thrilled all spectators. As for myself, I felt a big lump in my throat,

-and I was ashamed to feel something trickle down both cheeks. Yet am

-I a Lowland Scot, if anybody is; so far as I am aware, I can lay no

-claim to any strain of Celtic blood. If such an one was so deeply moved

-by the passing of a single Highland regiment, why should not all the

-Scottish regiments be clothed in the romantic garb of Old Gaul, with

-the desirable result of rendering the Lowland corps as well-beloved

-by the people as the Highlanders? If this were carried out, it would

-be esteemed a privilege by the former and a compliment by the latter.

-Objection on the score of economy would be raised because of the cost

-of the full-dress feather-bonnet, which, though picturesque, is but a

-tailor’s parody of the bonnet of the _duine uasail_. Let the Lowland

-regiments be content, then, with the Glengarry. Nobody who has seen

-a battalion of the London Scottish marching through Pall Mall, and

-listened to the comments of those who crowd to the club windows at

-the sound of the pibroch, will tell you that that fine corps would

-gain anything in soldierly appearance by wearing feather-bonnets.

-That head-dress was condemned in 1882, but in deference to Queen

-Victoria’s wishes it was restored. Its abolition had previously been

-hotly challenged in the House of Commons by certain perfervid Scots,

-one of whom volunteered a quaint explanation to an honourable member

-who had ventured to express some doubt about ostrich feathers being

-an appropriate ornament for a Scottish soldier. He gravely assured

-the House that the costume had its origin in Sir Ralph Abercromby’s

-Egyptian campaign in 1801, when the Highland soldiers picked up ostrich

-feathers in the desert and stuck them in their bonnets as a protection

-from the sun!

-

-The fact is that the feather-bonnet, and all other exaggerated and

-expensive head-dresses, should be as resolutely relegated to limbo as

-the hideous masks worn by the fighting men of Old Japan. Both were

-designed to overawe the enemy; but, as modern fighting is done in

-forage-caps, that naïve purpose cannot be carried into effect, and the

-object should be to provide such clothing as will best enable a man to

-keep himself, in the Duke of Wellington’s words, ‘clean and smart, as a

-soldier ought to be.’ And no headgear is smarter, none more easily kept

-clean, than the Glengarry bonnet.

-

-While it is hardly possible to imagine any dress better calculated

-to impede a soldier’s movements than the uniforms inflicted upon all

-arms in the service during the early years of the nineteenth century,

-one should not overlook the relief that was ordained in a detail that

-was a source of constant unnecessary trouble to the soldier. Clubbed

-pigtails had been transmitted as an irksome legacy from Marlborough’s

-army, until in 1808 the Horse Guards decreed their abolition. When Sir

-Arthur Wellesley landed in Mondego Bay on August 1-5 in that year, one

-of his first orders was that these senseless, dirty appendages were

-to be cut off. Never, one may believe, was an order more cheerfully

-obeyed. A counter-order was issued shortly after from the Horse Guards,

-requiring the retention of pigtails, but it was beyond the power of man

-to comply with it. It was easy to cut off pigtails, but they could not

-be replaced; and now the only vestige of a barbarous fashion in the

-army remains in the bow of black ribbon worn by the Welsh Fusiliers at

-the back of the collar of the tunic.

-

-Unfortunately, the irrational fashion of tight clothing for the army

-instituted by the Prince Regent endures to this day. It is true that

-a sensible field-dress of khaki was devised and worn during the South

-African War, and is now the service dress of the army; but the full

-dress for officers and the ‘walking-out’ uniform for men is still

-cut and fitted on the old excruciating lines. I think it took three

-weeks to fit a young friend of mine, joining a battalion of Guards a

-few years ago, before the adjutant of that _corps d’élite_ passed the

-tunic as satisfactory. Every crease and wrinkle had to be obliterated,

-at such cost to freedom of limbs and lungs as may be imagined. It may

-not be an extravagant hope that, when our army returns once more to

-a peace footing, the full dress may be designed with more regard to

-health and comfort than hitherto. Our eyes have grown accustomed during

-the present war to seeing soldiers in a costume, far from beautiful,

-indeed, but easy and respectable. There is no reason why a scarlet coat

-should be less comfortable than a dust-coloured one, and it will be a

-sad thing if the historic red of the English infantry is not preserved

-for full dress. But even if it were not, the khaki uniform might be

-rendered very becoming by the addition of a little modest ornament,

-especially by the restoration of the old regimental facings. These

-would not make troops one whit more conspicuous in the field; on the

-contrary, it is a commonplace of optics that parti-coloured objects are

-less easily detected in a landscape than those of one uniform colour.

-

-One desirable result of making uniform more comfortable wear might be

-expected to follow; officers might not be so scrupulous to exchange

-it for mufti the moment they are released from duty. Alone among the

-nationalities of Europe has the British officer hitherto treated his

-uniform as if it were something to be ashamed of in private life. It is

-an unseemly, even an unhandsome practice, seeing that non-commissioned

-officers and privates are not allowed to disport themselves in what

-they call ‘private clothes.’ Nor was it the custom among officers in

-the eighteenth century, when uniform was as easy and becoming as any

-other dress. The usual dress of an officer, even when on leave, was

-then his undress uniform, just as it is now in Continental armies.

-The change in the British Army was the direct outcome of the Prince

-Regent’s tyranny in buttoning up soldiers to the throat in clothes

-which it was a torment to wear.

-

-It must be owned that the Duke of Wellington was in large measure

-responsible, inasmuch as he set the example of preferring easy clothes

-to uneasy ones. A plain blue frock opening at the throat to a white

-cravat was his invariable dress throughout his campaigns. He had for

-his own wear a cocked hat one third the size of the huge one prescribed

-for general officers. There was a famous occasion in 1814, after the

-restoration of Louis XVIII., when the King and the Royal Princes, with

-a brilliant suite, attended a state performance in the Odéon Theatre.

-The house was ablaze with uniforms of many nations and the gay dresses

-of ladies of the Court. In a box immediately opposite the royal one

-sat the Duke--in plain clothes! ‘The pride that apes humility’? Not a

-bit. _Le vainqueur des vainqueurs_ could scarcely be suspected of that.

-Simply, as he had to sit through a long performance, he chose to do so

-in clothes that enabled him to sit in comfort.

-

-Much praiseworthy attention is now given to the equipment and clothing

-of British troops serving in hot climates, but it was otherwise

-throughout most of the nineteenth century, and it is incalculable

-how much suffering, disease, and death was caused by neglect of any

-such provision. When Colonel Luard was preparing his book in 1850-52

-he received letters from many officers calling his attention to this

-matter. One of these writes:

-

-    ‘I shall be very glad if you dedicate a portion of your

-     work to the dress of our soldiers in the colonies.... I

-     have myself seen the Spanish, French, and Danish troops in

-     the West Indies much more healthy than our own, from great

-     attention to their comfort in their dress.... The whole

-     body of civilians in the tropics appear in loose white

-     jackets and trousers and a skull-cap ... the shakoes and

-     red coats of our troops were not altered in our West India

-     colonies.’

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-A cavalry officer remarks: ‘I hope you will dwell on the madness of

-our soldiers wearing leather caps under a tropical sun’; while another

-observes that ‘a brass helmet was not found serviceable in Africa by

-the 7th Dragoon Guards when that regiment was at the Cape.’

-

-Our troops suffered horribly during the first Kaffir war, 1846-48, from

-being clothed exactly as they had been at home--leather stocks, tight

-coatees, heavy shakoes, and all the rest of it. Some consideration was

-shown for the soldier in the second Kaffir war, 1851-52. Captain King,

-of the 74th Highlanders, describes how his regiment landed at Cape Town

-(after a voyage from England of two months!) wearing their ordinary

-clothing, and it was not until they had marched far into the interior

-that ‘our bonnets and plaids were replaced by a costume more suitable

-for the bush--viz., a short dark canvas blouse; in addition to which

-feldt-schoen and lighter pouches, made of untanned leather, were issued

-to the men, and broad leather peaks affixed to their forage-caps.’[9]

-

-Captain King’s narrative is illustrated by lithographs from his own

-excellent drawings, which show his men, heavily accoutred with pack and

-pouch, and with no protection against the sun except the aforesaid peak

-to the forage-cap, severely handicapped in fighting nearly naked blacks

-armed with rifles. No wonder the 74th lost heavily, their commander,

-Colonel Fordyce, falling at their head in a bush fight, together with

-some of his best officers.

-

-It is not only in matters of dress and equipment that we have learnt

-consideration for our troops on foreign service. The splendid

-organisation of the Royal Army Medical Corps has been severely tested

-in coping with the requirements of such a force as it was never

-contemplated Great Britain would or could put in the field; but the

-test has been nobly met; the latest discoveries in science have been

-employed to avert disease and mortality from wounds, thereby saving

-soldiers and their families and friends from an incalculable amount of

-misery. The Transport Service has not only met the extraordinary demand

-upon its resources in the conveyance of necessary supplies--food,

-munitions, &c.--but has proved equal to the punctual deliverance of

-the vast stores of comforts and even luxuries consigned from voluntary

-sources at home.

-

-Among the said luxuries is one whereon the Iron Duke would have turned

-no favouring eye. The tobacco which has been supplied to our troops at

-the front--aye, and in hospital at home--must amount to a prodigious

-figure. When the Duke was Commander-in-Chief in 1845 he issued the

-following counterblast:

-

-    ‘G.O. No. 577.--The Commander-in-Chief has been informed

-     that the practice of smoking, by the use of pipes, cigars

-     and cheroots, has become prevalent among the Officers

-     of the Army, which is not only in itself a species of

-     intoxication occasioned by the fumes of tobacco, but,

-     undoubtedly, occasions drinking and tippling by those who

-     acquire the habit; and he intreats the Officers commanding

-     Regiments to prevent smoking in the Mess Rooms of their

-     several Regiments, and in the adjoining apartments, and to

-     discourage the practice among the Officers of Junior Rank

-     in their Regiments.’

-

-There was no Press Censor in those days, and _Punch_, which was then

-a vigorous stripling in its fourth year, was allowed to make merry

-over this fulmination, declaring that officers of the Army were

-greatly perturbed, ‘dreading the possibility of being thrown upon

-their conversational resources, which must have a most dreary effect.’

-Tobacconists drove a brisk trade in pipe-stoppers carved in the

-likeness of the Duke’s head. These might now be a fitting object of

-pursuit on the part of collectors.

-

-

-FOOTNOTES:

-

-     [3] The piece continued to be given in the provinces, where

-     the Lord Chamberlain’s censorship does not take effect.

-

-     [4] _A History of the Dress of the British Soldier_, by

-     Lieut.-Col. John Luard, 1852, p. 99.

-

-     [5] Of course because the French were the enemy in that

-     campaign.

-

-     [6] Kincaid’s _Adventures in the Rifle Brigade_, 2nd

-     edition, 1838, p. 222.

-

-     [7] See report of meeting of the Lowland Scots Society,

-     held in Edinburgh on November 25, 1915.

-

-     [8] An old air, subsequently set to the song _My Tocher’s

-     the Jewel_.

-

-     [9] _Campaigning in Kaffirland_, by Capt. W. R. King, 1853,

-     p. 27.

-

-

-

-

-                   _THE NEW UBIQUE: SPIT AND POLISH._

-

-                         BY JEFFERY E. JEFFERY.

-

-

-‘Per_son_ally myself,’ said the Child, tilting back his chair until his

-head touched the wall behind him, and stretching out a lazy arm towards

-the cigarette-box--‘per_son_ally myself, I’ve enjoyed this trip no

-end--haven’t you?’

-

-‘I have,’ I answered; ‘so much so, Child, that the thought of going

-back to gun-pits and trenches and O.P.s again fills me with gloom.’

-

-It was our last night in a most comfortable billet near ----, where, on

-and off, we had spent rather more than a month of ease: on the morrow

-we were going into the line again. The trip to which the Child was

-referring, however, was an eight days’ course at a place vaguely known

-as ‘the --th Army Mobile Artillery Training School,’ from which our

-battery had but lately returned.

-

-The circumstances were these. When, five weeks ago, the division moved

-(for the _n_th time!) to a different part of the line, it transpired

-that three batteries would be ‘out at rest,’ as there would be no

-room for them in action. It also so chanced that it was our colonel’s

-turn to be left without a ‘group’[10] to command. This being so, he

-suggested to higher authorities that the three batteries ‘out’ should

-be those of his own brigade, in order that he might have a chance

-‘to tidy them up a bit,’ as he phrased it. Thus it was that we found

-ourselves, as I have said, in extremely comfortable billets--places,

-I mean, where they have sheets on the beds and china jugs and gas and

-drains--with every prospect of a pleasant loaf. But in this we were

-somewhat sanguine.

-

-The colonel’s idea in having us ‘out’ for a while was not so much to

-rest us as to give us a variation of work. Being essentially a thorough

-man, he started--or rather ordered me to start--at the very beginning.

-The gunners paraded daily for marching drill, physical exercises, and

-‘elementary standing gun drill by numbers.’ N.C.O.s and drivers were

-taken out and given hours of riding drill under the supervision of

-subalterns bursting with knowledge crammed up from the book the night

-before and under the personal direction of a brazen-voiced sergeant

-who, having passed through the ‘riding troop’ at Woolwich in his

-youth, knew his business. The strangest sight of all was the class

-of signallers--men who had spent months in the fœtid atmosphere of

-cellars and dug-outs, or creeping along telephone wires in ‘unhealthy’

-spots--now waving flags at a word of command and going solemnly through

-the Morse alphabet letter by letter. Of the whole community this was

-perhaps the most scandalised portion. But in a few days, when everybody

-(not excluding myself and the other officers) had discovered how much

-had been forgotten during our long spell in action, a great spirit of

-emulation began to be displayed. Subsections vied with one another to

-produce the smartest gun detachment, the sleekest horses, the best

-turned-out ride, the cleanest harness, guns, and wagons.

-

-The colonel, after the manner of his kind, came at the end of a week

-or so to inspect things. He is not the sort of man upon whom one can

-easily impose. A dozen of the shiniest saddles or bits in the battery

-placed so as to catch the light (and the eye) near the doorway of the

-harness-room do not necessarily satisfy him: nor is he content with

-the mere general and symmetrical effect of rows of superficially clean

-breast-collars, traces, and breechings. On the contrary, he is quite

-prepared to spend an hour or more over his inspection, examining every

-set of harness in minute detail, even down to the backs of the buckle

-tongues, the inside of the double-folded breast collars, and the

-oft-neglected underside of saddle flaps. It is the same thing with the

-guns and wagons. Burnished breech-rings and polished brasswork look

-very nice, and he approves of them, but he does not on that account

-omit to look closely at every oil-hole or to check the lists of ‘small

-stores’ and ‘spare parts.’

-

-For the next week or so we were kept very busy on ‘the many small

-points which required attention,’ to quote the colonel’s phrase.

-Nevertheless, as a variation from the monotony of siege warfare, the

-time was regarded by most of us as a holiday. Many things combined to

-enhance our pleasure. The sun shone and the country became gorgeously

-green again; the horses began to get their summer coats and to lose

-their unkempt winter’s appearance; there was a fair-sized town near at

-hand, and passes to visit it were freely granted to N.C.O.s and men;

-at the back of the officers’ billet was a garden with real flower-beds

-in it and a bit of lawn on which one could have tea. Occasionally we

-could hear the distant muttering of the guns, and at night we could see

-the ‘flares’ darting up from the black horizon--just to remind us, I

-suppose, that the war was only in the next parish....

-

-But it was not to be supposed that a man of such energy as our

-colonel would be content just to ride round daily and watch three of

-his batteries doing rides and gun drill. It occurred to him at once

-that this was the time to practise the legitimate business--that is,

-open, moving warfare. Wherefore he made representations to various

-quite superior authorities. In three days, by dint of considerable

-personal exertion, he had secured the following concessions: two large

-tracts of ground suitable for driving drill and battery manœuvre,

-good billets, an area of some six square miles (part of the --th Army

-Training area) for the purpose of tactical schemes, the appointment of

-himself as commandant of the ‘school,’ a Ford ambulance for his private

-use, three motor lorries for the supply of the units under training,

-and a magnificent château for his own headquarters. And all this he

-accomplished without causing any serious friction between the various

-‘offices’ and departments concerned--no mean feat.

-

-Each course was to last eight days, and there were to be four

-batteries, taken from different divisions, undergoing it

-simultaneously. It fell to us to go with the second batch, and we

-spent a strenuous week of preparation: it was four months since we

-had done any work ‘in the open,’ and we knew, inwardly, that we were

-distinctly rusty. We packed up, and at full war strength, transport,

-spare horses and all, we marched our sixteen miles to the selected

-area. At the half-way halt we met the commander of a battery of our own

-brigade returning. He stopped to pass the time of day and volunteered

-the information that he was going on leave that night. ‘And, by Jove!’

-he added significantly, ‘I deserve a bit of rest. Réveillé at 4 A.M.

-every morning, out all day wet or fine, gun drill at every odd moment,

-schemes, tactical exercises, everybody at high pressure all the time.

-The colonel’s fairly in his element, revels in it, and “strafes”

-everybody indiscriminately. But it’s done us all a world of good

-though. Cheeriho! wish you luck.’ And he rode on, leaving us rather

-flabbergasted.

-

-We discovered quite early (on the following morning about dawn, to be

-precise) that there had been no exaggeration. We began with elementary

-driving drill, and we did four and a half hours of it straight on end,

-except for occasional ten-minute halts to rest the astonished teams. It

-was wonderful how much we had forgotten and yet how much came back to

-us after the first hour or so.

-

-‘I want all your officers to drill the battery in turn,’ said the

-colonel. ‘I shall just ride round and correct mistakes.’

-

-He did--with an energy, a power of observation, and a command of

-language which I have seldom seen or heard surpassed. But the ultimate

-result by mid-day, when all the officers and N.C.O.s were hoarse, the

-teams sweating and the carriages caked in oily dust--the ultimate

-result was, as the Child politely says, ‘not too stinkin’ awful.’ And

-it had been good to hear once again the rattle and bump of the guns and

-wagons over hard ground, the jingle of harness and the thud of many

-hoofs; good to see the teams swing round together as they wheeled into

-line or column at a spanking trot; good above all to remember that

-_this_ was our job and that the months spent in concrete gun-pits and

-double-bricked O.P.s were but a lengthy prelude to our resumption of

-it--some day.

-

-In the evening, when the day’s work was over and ‘stables’ finished, we

-left the tired horses picking over the remains of their hay and walked

-down the _pavé_ village street, Angelo and I, to look at the church.

-Angelo is my eldest but not, as it so happens, my senior subaltern.

-Before the war he was a budding architect, with a taste for painting:

-hence the nickname, coined by the Child in one of his more erudite

-moods.

-

-The church at L---- is very fine. Its square tower is thirteenth

-century, its interior is pure Gothic, and its vaulted roof a marvel.

-For its size the building is well-nigh perfect. We spent some time

-examining the nave and chancel--Angelo, his professional as well as

-his artistic enthusiasm aroused, explaining technicalities to me and

-making me envious of his knowledge. It was with regret that we turned

-away at last, for in spite of the tattered colours of some French

-regiment which hung on the north side of the chancel, we had forgotten

-the war in the quiet peacefulness of that exquisite interior. But we

-were quickly reminded. At the end of the church, kneeling on one of

-the rough chairs, was an old peasant woman: her head was bowed, and

-the beads dropped slowly through her twisted fingers. As we crept

-down the aisle she raised her eyes--not to look at us, for I think

-she was unconscious of our presence--but to gaze earnestly at the

-altar. Her lips moved in prayer, but no tear damped her yellow cheek.

-And, passing out into the sunlight again, I wondered for whom she was

-praying--husband, brother, sons?--whether, still hoping, she prayed for

-the living, or, faithfully, for the souls of those lost to her. They

-are brave, the peasant women of France....

-

-Madame our hostess, besides being one of the fattest, was also one of

-the most agreeable ladies it has ever been our lot to be billeted upon.

-Before we had been in her house ten minutes she had given us (at an

-amazing speed) the following information:

-

-Her only remaining son had been wounded and was now a prisoner in

-Germany.

-

-She had played hostess continuously since August 1914 to every kind of

-soldier, including French motor-bus drivers, Indian chiefs (_sic_), and

-generals.

-

-English officers arriving after the battle of Loos slept in her hall

-for twenty-four hours, woke to have a bath and to eat an omelette, and

-then slept the clock round again.

-

-She remembered 1870, in which war her husband had fought.

-

-The Boches were barbarians, but they would never advance now, though at

-one time they had been within a few kilometres of her house.

-

-The lettuce and cabbages in her garden were at our disposal.

-

-She took an enormous interest in the Infant, who is even younger than

-the Child and is our latest acquisition.

-

-‘Regardez donc le petit, comme il est fatigué!’ she exclaimed to me in

-the tones of an anxious mother--and then added in an excited whisper,

-‘A-t-il vu les Boches, ce petit sous-lieutenant?’

-

-When I assured her not only that he had seen them, but had fired his

-guns at them, she was delighted and declared that he could not be more

-than sixteen. But here the Infant, considering that the conversation

-was becoming personal, intervened, and the old lady left us to our

-dinner.

-

-Towards the end of our week we packed up essentials and marched out

-to bivouac two nights and fight a two days’ running battle--directed,

-of course, by our indefatigable colonel. After the dead flat ugliness

-where we had been in action all the winter and early spring it was a

-delight to find ourselves in this spacious undulating country, with

-its trees and church spires and red-tiled villages. We fought all day

-against an imaginary foe, made innumerable mistakes, all forcibly

-pointed out by the colonel (who rode both his horses to a standstill

-in endeavouring to direct operations and at the same time watch the

-procedure of four widely separated batteries); our imaginary infantry

-captured ridge after ridge, and we advanced from position to position

-‘in close support,’ until finally, the rout of the foe being complete,

-we moved to our appointed bivouacs.

-

-In peace time it would have been regarded as a quite ordinary day,

-boring because of its resemblance to so many others. Now it was

-different. True, it was make-believe from start to finish, without

-even blank cartridge to give the vaguest hint of reality. But there

-was this: at the back of all our minds was the knowledge that this

-was a preparation--possibly our last preparation--not for something

-in the indefinite future (as in peace time), but for an occasion that

-assuredly _is_ coming, perhaps in a few months, perhaps even in a few

-weeks. The colonel spoke truly when, at his first conference, he said:

-

-‘During these schemes you must all of you force yourselves to imagine

-that there is a real enemy opposed to you. The Boche is no fool:

-he’s got guns, and he knows how to use them. If you show up on crest

-lines with a whole battery staff at your heels, he’ll have the place

-“registered,” and he’ll smash your show to bits before you ever get

-your guns into action at all. _Think_ where he is likely to be, _think_

-what he’s likely to be doing, don’t expose yourselves unless you must,

-and above all, _get a move on_.’

-

-It was a delightful bivouac. We were on the sheltered side of a little

-hill, looking south into a wooded valley. Nightingales sang to us as we

-lay smoking on our valises after a picnic dinner and stared dreamily at

-the stars above us.

-

-‘Jolly, isn’t it?’ said the Child, ‘but I s’pose we wouldn’t be feeling

-quite so comfy if it was the real business.’

-

-‘Don’t,’ said Angelo quietly. ‘I was pretending to myself that we were

-just a merry camping party, here for pleasure only. I’d forgotten the

-war.’

-

-But I had not. I was thinking of the last time I had

-bivouacked--amongst the corn sheaves of a harvest that was never

-gathered, side by side with friends who were soon to fall, on the night

-before the first day of Mons, nearly two years ago.

-

-The following day was more or less a repetition of the first, except

-that we made fewer mistakes and ‘dropped into action’ with more style

-and finish. We were now becoming fully aware of the almost-forgotten

-fact that a field battery is designed to be a mobile unit, and we

-were just beginning to take shape as such when our time was over. A

-day’s rest for the horses and then we returned to our comfortable

-rest billets. It had been a strenuous week, but I think everyone had

-thoroughly enjoyed it....

-

-We have had two days in which to ‘clean up,’ and now to-morrow we are

-to relieve another battery and take our place in the line again. Our

-holiday is definitely over. It will take a little time to settle down

-to the old conditions: our week’s practice of open warfare has spoilt

-us for this other kind. We who have climbed hills and looked over

-miles of rolling country will find an increased ugliness in our old

-flat surroundings. It will seem ludicrous to put our guns into pits

-again--the guns that we have seen bounding over rough ground behind the

-straining teams. To be cooped up in a brick O.P. staring at a strip

-of desolation will be odious after our bivouacs under the stars and

-our dashes into action under a blazing sun. Worst of all, perhaps, is

-the thought that the battery will be split up again into ‘gun line’

-and ‘wagon line,’ with three miles or more separating its two halves,

-instead of its being, as it has been all these weeks, one complete

-cohesive unit. But what must be, must be; and it is absurd to grumble.

-Moreover--the end is not yet.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-‘Let’s toss up for who takes first turn at the O.P. when the relief is

-completed,’ suggested the Child.

-

-‘Wait a minute,’ I said, remembering something suddenly. ‘Do you know

-what to-day is?’

-

-‘Friday,’ he volunteered, ‘and to-morrow ought to be a half-holiday,

-but it won’t be, ’cos we’re going into action.’

-

-I passed the port round again. ‘It’s only a fortnight since we

-celebrated the battery’s first birthday,’ I said, ‘but to-day the Royal

-Regiment of Artillery is two hundred years old. Let’s drink its health.’

-

-And we did.

-

-

-FOOTNOTES:

-

-     [10] A certain number of batteries.

-

-

-

-

-                 _THE REHABILITATION OF PRIVATE HAGAN._

-

-                          BY ‘MAJOR, R.A.M.C.’

-

-

-Private Timothy Hagan, of ‘D’ Company, extracted a box of matches from

-his pocket, mechanically lighted a seasoned briar pipe, and sought

-inspiration from the log roof of the dugout.

-

-The last of the enemy’s usual evening salvo of shells screamed above

-the tree-tops and burst harmlessly in a stubble field. Hagan did not

-move. The announcement that the evening meal was ready equally failed

-to interest him.

-

-The dugout, efficiently constructed of sand-bags, logs, and earth, was

-just large enough for the accommodation of two improvised beds and

-blankets. Private Sawyer, the normal occupant of the other half, was

-at the moment busy in the kitchen outside beneath the trees. It was

-seclusion that Hagan courted, not protection.

-

-Presently, Sawyer, his face smoke-begrimed and heated, thrust his head

-over a sand-bag parapet.

-

-‘Tea ready, cooky,’ he cried.

-

-‘Phwat’s the good ov thay?’ grunted Hagan, dropping his pipe

-listlessly. ‘Fed up!’

-

-Sawyer’s eyes dilated in speechless surprise. His rapid scrutiny of his

-pal’s downcast features failed to help.

-

-‘’Ullo, what’s wrong, hey?’ he asked, wiping his face with the back of

-his hand and dropping into the trench. ‘Can’t yer high-class stomach

-relish bully-beef no more? What’s wrong with it?’

-

-Without answering in words Timothy slipped his hand into the breast

-pocket of his tunic, produced a much-thumbed envelope, and slowly

-unfolded a letter. The sight of the irregular writing seemed to have

-an immediate tonic effect upon his demeanour. His eyes suddenly became

-suffused with red-blood anger. (He had learned the habit in more than

-one barbed-wire scrimmage against the enemy.) Clenching his fists, he

-cursed beneath his breath, thoughtfully, with intent.

-

-‘H’m!’ grunted Sawyer sympathetically.

-

-‘There’s a blighter at home,’ stammered Hagan, ‘phwat is afeared to do

-his bit out here’--he hesitated as if to swallow pent-up gorge--‘of the

-name of O’Shea--a damned thaivin’ grocer. The letter says as how he’s

-afther walking out wid Kitty Murphy, as is promised to mesilf.’

-

-‘Ugh, a woman is it?’ breathed Sawyer.

-

-‘And me not able to get me hands on him,’ groaned Hagan. ‘’Tis

-perishin’ hard.’

-

-The sharp explosions of anti-aircraft shells in rapid succession

-overhead caused Sawyer to glance upwards. Shading his eyes with

-his hand, he shook his head in disappointment at the marksmanship

-displayed, and slipped back again into a sitting posture.

-

-‘What abhart leave ’ome?’ he inquired. ‘The captain says as ’ow each of

-us is to ’ave a turn--in doo course.’

-

-‘Bah!’ ejaculated Hagan contemptuously. ‘We all knows phwat in doo

-course mains.’ Meditatively refolding his letter, he consigned it

-again to its inner pocket. ‘There ain’t no proper foighting now

-naither--nothin’ but scrappin’ phwat doesn’t even kape the blood wharm

-in yez veins.’ Striking a match on the heel of his boot, he stared into

-space and forgot to use it. ‘I be afther thinkin’, Jock, it is now that

-I could be sphared, or not at all.’

-

-‘Wot’s wimmin to you now, anyway? ’Tis different with the married

-blokes,’ murmured Sawyer. ‘Won’t we both be killed in doo course?’

-

-‘We will that,’ agreed Hagan. ‘But, all the same, I could not lie happy

-loike widout I be afther settlin’ first wid the grocer.’

-

-For some seconds Sawyer did not speak. In the cool calm of the autumn

-evening there arose before him the memory of a dozen little wayside

-cemeteries marked by stereotyped plain wooden crosses--the British

-soldier’s humble badge of honour won. With a whimsical smile upon his

-lips he wondered vaguely where his own resting-place would lie.

-

-‘Ye see, Jock,’ persisted Hagan, ‘’tisn’t as if I was much wanted here

-just now.’

-

-Sawyer, turning suddenly, stared hard at his friend’s bronzed

-countenance, noted the stern-set jaw, and ceased sucking his pipe.

-He had learned to read Tim Hagan’s moods with the accuracy of much

-practice in the course of many devious wanderings.

-

-‘Humph! Wot’s the bloomin’ plan of campaign?’ he demanded. ‘Sneakin’

-be’ind mud’eaps, or fightin’ in the open?’

-

-Hagan mechanically refilled his pipe and rammed down the tobacco with

-mature deliberation. An indefinite hum of voices near the company

-cooking-pots and the sharp bark of a French 75-gun in the near distance

-accentuated the seclusion of the dugout. A dull crimson glow of sunset

-irradiated a cloudless skyline. To the rear of the wood the lowing of

-a cow sounded strangely out of place. On the left, cutting the winding

-line of trenches, lay the long, straight, deserted, _pavé_ road leading

-to the German lines. The scene, through many days of comparative

-stagnation, had grown contemptuously familiar.

-

-‘I’m sick,’ said Hagan, ‘to-morrow morning as iver is.’

-

-Sawyer, gurgling in a characteristic manner meant to denote mirth,

-shook his head.

-

-‘Sick is it?’ he commented. ‘Wot’s the complaint, matey? Some ’as fits;

-others injures their trigger fingers; some ’as lost their glasses and

-carn’t see nothink; some breaks their false teeth and gets shockin’

-pains from the hard biscuits; some ’as pains in the kidneys; some ’as

-a narsty corph. ’Tain’t the season for corphs.’ Rubbing his nose with

-the back of a begrimed finger, he relapsed into thought. ‘Some ’as a

-buzzin’ in the ’ead wot nothink can cure. Some’--looking serious, he

-suddenly ended in a grunt--‘’Tain’t good enough, Tim, me lad, even for

-the pleasure of punchin’ the ’ead of a stinkin’ grocer. You see, if

-you only get a few days in ’orspital, back you come again. If you’re

-took serious, ’ome you goes and stays there for a long time and misses

-everythink ’ere.’ Gripping Hagan’s arm with highly strung fingers, he

-leaned nearer. ‘You ain’t goin’ to schrimshank at ’ome if a big push

-comes, old pal, are you?’

-

-Hagan’s jaw clenched and his lips moved speechlessly. Then once more he

-drew the letter from his pocket and handed it to his friend.

-

-‘Read that!’ he said. ‘I’m goin’ home.’

-

-Sawyer’s face assumed a sphinx-like gravity. He knew the proverbial

-strength of obstinacy, also the amount of that commodity possessed by

-Tim Hagan. He smoothed out the paper and sniffed violently. A faint

-perfume of cheap scent permeated the immediate atmosphere. With a

-grunt, he proceeded to master the contents of the epistle. So slowly

-did he progress, however, that presently even Hagan began to show signs

-of impatience. Sawyer was, in truth, merely gaining time for thought.

-

-‘If you’re caught out malingerin’ on active service, Tim,’ he whispered

-at length, ‘it won’t be only seven days “confined to barracks” you will

-be gettin’ off with.’

-

-With eyes bent upon the crimson skyline, Hagan sighed wearily.

-

-‘’Tis goin’ home I be, Jock,’ he repeated. ‘I’ll be afther marryin’

-Kitty Murphy, and thin me sickness will all go and back it is I’ll

-come.’

-

-With a groan of despair Sawyer crawled to his feet and, without another

-word, walked off in the direction of a ruined château. He knew there

-was no immediate urgency. For ordinary cases of illness the ambulance

-wagon would not arrive until the morning. He, therefore, still had all

-night in which to formulate a plan of operations. It was, of course,

-open to him to drop a hint to the R.A.M.C. orderly, but that would have

-to be a _dernier ressort_ indeed.

-

-Left to himself, Hagan brooded more sombrely than before. The

-regulations regarding reporting sick were perfectly familiar to him.

-For a serious case the medical officer could be summoned within a few

-minutes. The Field Ambulance advanced dressing-station, located in a

-school-house in the nearest village, was not more than a mile away.

-Weighing the matter in all its visible points, he suddenly decided that

-the rôle of an emergency case would better fit his purpose than that of

-the ordinary sick soldier reporting at the sealed-pattern hour.

-

-To determine was to act. Smearing the perspiration of undue thought

-from his forehead, he buttoned his tunic, looked hastily about

-the interstices of the sand-bags of the dugout for small valued

-possessions, and slipped out beneath the shelter of the trees.

-

-The area lying between the wood and the village where the Field

-Ambulance had located its post was alive with troops. The pavé of the

-road, upheaved by continuous traffic and an occasional shell, was not

-a healthy place for evening exercise, but there was no order against

-it. The danger of being shot during the journey had long become a

-negligible quantity. A church tower, shell-riddled and tottering, was

-the landmark. Behind it Hagan knew he should find the red-cross flag

-hanging limply from its pole.

-

-Women, with a horse and cart gathering the wheat in a field on his

-left, glanced up with pleasant smile of greeting as he passed. The

-orderlies filling a regimental water-cart at the village pump took no

-notice of him whatever. Presently, reaching the shadows of the church,

-he began to walk slower, then halted. He felt as if he needed a moment

-in which to pull himself together. So far in his life his histrionic

-sense had never been tested. It is notorious that even experienced

-actors occasionally suffer from stage fright.

-

-A couple of R.A.M.C. orderlies, leaning against the door-post beneath

-the red-cross flag, presently noticed a soldier staggering towards

-them and blindly clutching at the empty air. In normal times their

-unanimous diagnosis woud have been ‘beer.’ They knew, however, that in

-the firing line such could not be.

-

-Hagan, squinting between half-closed eyelashes, staggered another ten

-yards, embraced one of the orderlies round the neck, slid limply to the

-ground, and, breathing heavily, lay quite still.

-

-In a moment a stretcher was at hand; within a minute the patient was

-inside the building. There were only half a dozen other men to share it

-with him, as the evening evacuation of sick and wounded to the Clearing

-Hospital had already taken place.

-

-‘What’s wrong, matey?’ questioned one of the orderlies, holding a

-pannikin of soup to the patient’s lips. ‘Here, drink this. Wake up! Can

-you hear me?’

-

-With a shudder Hagan opened his eyes, and, half-rising to his feet,

-glared about him. Rolls of wool and bandages, trays of surgical

-instruments, splints, buckets, and basins surrounded him upon all sides.

-

-‘Ah--the hospital!’ he muttered. ‘I remimber now. It is afther faintin’

-I be.’

-

-‘H’m--lie down!’ advised the orderly, pushing him back on the

-stretcher. ‘I will call the medical officer. Perhaps he’ll give you a

-tot of brandy.’

-

-‘Begob, and I’m all roight, me bhoy,’ asserted Hagan, with well-assumed

-eagerness to depart. ‘Give me only foive--or maybe tin--minutes’ rest

-and a sip av whater.’

-

-The orderly gave the water, but, none the less, called his officer.

-Meanwhile Hagan, with shut eyes, summoned to his aid all medical

-knowledge, real and spurious, that had ever crossed his path of

-life. The rôle he had assigned to himself was extremely difficult.

-Whatever else might be imaginary, the beads of perspiration bedewing

-his forehead were certainly genuine enough. In order to fool a man

-successfully one requires to know something of his mental attitude

-towards the subject in hand. What a medico’s mind might contain, or

-what pitfalls it was necessary to beware of in dealing with him, were

-points that suddenly assailed the wretched Tim with terrifying force.

-In fact, had the R.A.M.C. officer not arrived within a few moments, it

-is probable that fear of superior wisdom would have driven the schemer

-forth from the building.

-

-‘Well, my man, what is the matter?’ asked the officer, feeling his

-patient’s pulse. ‘Fainted, hey?’

-

-‘Yes, sir,’ asserted the orderly. ‘Fell into my arms.’

-

-Hagan, opening his eyes slowly, shook his head from side to side,

-noisily blew out his cheeks, and ‘marked time.’ Adjusting a

-stethoscope, the officer examined his chest, grunted, and ordered his

-temperature to be taken. That the result would be negative Hagan knew

-only too well. Consequently, it seemed obvious that it behoved him to

-make the next move.

-

-‘Terrible buzzin’ in me head, sor,’ he breathed.

-

-‘Ah--quite so. Rest and light diet. Overstrain. Perhaps you will be all

-right again by morning.’

-

-Emboldened by an initiatory success, Hagan ventured upon driving the

-nail still deeper.

-

-‘Lost all feelin’s in me legs, sor,’ he added, with a groan.

-‘It--er--has been comin’ on, sor, for a week; but it wasn’t loikin’ to

-go sick I was.’

-

-The medico, with newly awakened interest, bent his eyes upon the man’s

-face and silently observed the movements of his rolling head and eyes.

-Hagan, gradually ceasing his gyrations, at length opened his eyes and

-met the doctor’s absorbed gaze. It was at that moment--had he but known

-it--that he sorely needed all the knowledge available regarding his

-interrogator. The latter was by nature a silent man, but that did not

-interfere with his power of absorbing details and piecing them together

-with uncanny accuracy.

-

-‘A pin, sir?’ suggested the orderly.

-

-‘What for?’ asked the officer blandly.

-

-‘Thought, perhaps, you wanted to test his feelings, sir,’ explained the

-zealot.

-

-‘No--er--that is, not to-night,’ answered the officer, suppressing a

-half-smile beneath his moustache. ‘We will see what a night’s rest can

-do.’

-

-As he watched the tall figure of the doctor sauntering out of the room,

-Hagan experienced a sensation of acute alarm. In the presence of the

-calm assurance of this man of few words he felt that he had slipped

-up somewhere. But where? Loss of all feeling in the legs was surely a

-good effort! Glancing at the orderly, he noticed the man smiling in a

-peculiar manner as his officer disappeared from sight. An orderly’s

-knowledge has its limitations, even if a doctor’s has not. The more

-thought he gave to it the more suspicious did he feel, and a guilty

-conscience did not assist matters.

-

-Soup and biscuits were served out for supper. Tim Hagan could have

-absorbed both with relish. He felt, however, that such diet might

-not be good for buzzing in the head--and said so. The night orderly,

-indifferent to arguments, deposited the food on a box by his side

-and departed. The fact, however, that all the articles of diet had

-disappeared by morning was by no means lost upon the day orderly when

-he returned to duty at the hour of breakfast.

-

-During the silent watches of the night Hagan had time to think of

-many things. He decided that he did not like the look of the medical

-officer, nor, indeed, did he know what to make of the orderly. Could

-he have fought them hand to hand, he would have known exactly where

-he was. In this subtle, silent contest of brains he was beginning to

-writhe against an invisible foe which seemed to be closing in upon him

-more surely with every tick of his watch. A change of diagnosis seemed

-advisable. But, with his scanty repertoire of diseases, the point was

-none too easy. In fact, when the officer unexpectedly stood by his

-side, he was still so undecided, that closed eyes and immobility seemed

-the path of least resistance.

-

-‘Well, Private Hagan, how are you this morning?’ inquired the officer,

-shaking him by the shoulder.

-

-What the answer to the question was Timothy did not know. He conceded a

-point, however, by opening his eyes.

-

-The question being repeated with emphasis, an inspiration gripped him.

-In a flash his line of country seemed to open out before him. The

-dizziness in the head had led to complications.

-

-‘Carn’t hear,’ he blurted.

-

-‘Ah!’ commented the persecutor, raising his eyebrows. ‘Deaf, are you?

-That’s bad.’ Perceptibly dropping his voice, he studied his victim’s

-face. ‘H’m--I wonder what degree of deafness. Which is the worst ear?’

-

-With praiseworthy presence of mind, Hagan resisted the impulse to

-answer. Staring blankly at the ceiling, he made no sign.

-

-Stepping a pace nearer, the officer spoke louder. Hagan still made no

-voluntary response, but the perspiration upon his face attested to the

-physical effort.

-

-From the psychological standpoint the doctor was intensely amused.

-That Private Timothy Hagan was a clumsy malingerer, pure and simple,

-he had no doubt. To prove such a negative condition however is quite

-another matter. If proved, the offence meant a court-martial. As an

-officer it was his duty to conceal no crime which could be proved. He

-was interested, but had little time just then for fancy cases. Hagan’s

-facial expression of struggling conjecture condemned him, morally,

-beyond a doubt, but the production of the self-same expression before

-the members of a court-martial could hardly be guaranteed.

-

-It was a six-inch German shell that solved the situation for the

-moment. Dropping three hundred yards from the dressing-station in the

-middle of the village street it exploded with a roar which smashed

-every pane of glass in the building. A second quickly followed. The

-R.A.M.C. staff, expectant of they knew not what, stood listening.

-Hagan, feeling the eyes of the medical officer upon him, did not move a

-muscle.

-

-‘One to you,’ murmured the officer to himself. ‘I don’t believe a word

-of it all the same.’ Turning on his heel, he winked to the orderly and

-with well-assumed indifference strode to the far end of the room.

-

-The orderly, quickly stepping round to the head of Hagan’s stretcher,

-needed no further instructions. With book and pencil in hand, he

-appeared to be engaged upon his ordinary duty of taking names for the

-Clearing Hospital.

-

-‘What’s your number, matey?’ he asked quickly.

-

-The wretched competitor, breathing heavily after his recent mental

-tension, had dropped his guard.

-

-‘4179,’ he answered promptly.

-

-‘_Thank you!_’ remarked a bland voice from the doorway.

-

-To state that Hagan could have kicked himself for his stupidity, is

-to put the case mildly. Conscious that no words of his could possibly

-regain lost ground, he stared blankly at the accusing face of the

-officer.

-

-‘It’s all UP, matey,’ whispered the orderly, indulging in an open

-guffaw.

-

-‘Thin I may as well be afther gettin’ on me bhoots,’ remarked the

-culprit quietly, rising to his feet. ‘You’ve bin done down, Tim, me

-bhoy, and there ain’t no manner av use in kickin’.’

-

-What happened next in that little school-house, as regards points of

-detail, has never been actually recorded. That a deafening explosion

-resembling the noise of the end of all things earthly, accompanied by

-the caving in of the brickwork of the side of the room, and followed by

-the collapse of most of the roof, took place at that moment are facts

-of history.

-

-‘It has come at last,’ groaned the doctor. ‘Thank God, there are only a

-few men in the building.’

-

-A second later, a tottering rafter, swaying beneath its weight of

-tiles, fell with a sickening crash and buried him beneath its ruins.

-

-In an instant all had become chaos.

-

-Whatever the damage done, it was probably at an end. Hagan appreciated

-that much immediately. That he himself remained unhurt was a miracle.

-The orderly, holding both hands to his head, lay like a log on the

-floor. Several stretchers, with their occupants, lay buried beneath the

-débris of brick and plaster.

-

-‘A fifteen-inch, begob!’ exclaimed Hagan, seizing the orderly by the

-shoulders and dragging him into the open air.

-

-The atmosphere outside was still reeking with heavy black smoke and

-dust. A cavern in the road, large enough to conceal a motor-bus,

-yawned in his path. The heat of action was upon him. Handing over the

-orderly to other hands, he did not hesitate. There were wounded men to

-be rescued. At any moment a second shell might follow the first, or

-more walls might fall. A feeble, muffled call for help, emanating from

-the very centre of the wreckage, arrested his attention. He knew that

-bland, cool voice only too well. The available orderlies were already

-struggling to remove the wounded and unearth their officer.

-

-Hagan dashed forward. He was a strong man, and in the best of

-condition. Without argument, he took command.

-

-To remove the smaller masses of mortared brick was the work of but a

-few moments. The men worked at fever heat. The cries from beneath grew

-feebler, almost ceased. It was the weight of long rafters which formed

-the main obstruction. Without axes or saws, its removal might be a

-matter of hours.

-

-Wiping the sweat from his face, Hagan set his teeth and urged on his

-party to final effort. But their combined strength was without avail to

-clear the rafters. The victim beneath seemed nearing suffocation with

-every breath he drew.

-

-Hagan could see only one way, and he took it.

-

-Throwing himself on his face, he insinuated his head beneath the

-rafters, and by herculean efforts forced his shoulders to follow.

-Tearing away the loose stuff with his hands, whilst the orderlies

-endeavoured to ease the weight above him, he at length was able to

-gauge the situation accurately. A great beam lay across the chest of

-the officer, whose body supported it.

-

-Tim Hagan sweated in an agony as he looked. He had seen hundreds of men

-killed in action, but to see his late persecutor being slowly crushed

-to death before his eyes was more than he could bear.

-

-From outside the cries of men with axes reached him. Immediate action,

-however, was what was wanted. An instant’s thought, a whispered,

-guttural prayer, and he proceeded with his task.

-

-Rolling with difficulty upon his back, he wriggled himself, inch by

-inch, close up beside his now silent antagonist, and with all the

-strength in his body pressed upwards until he managed to relieve the

-pressure on the other’s chest. Inch by inch he shoved the unconscious

-man aside and replaced the latter’s body by his own. Then, with ears at

-acutest tension, he listened to the crash of the axes and wondered how

-long he could last--how long it would take him to die.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-Two weeks later, Private Timothy Hagan, propped up in bed, lay in a

-hospital at the base. Presently an R.A.M.C. officer, obviously also

-more or less convalescent, entered the ward by means of a wheeled

-chair and looked about him. Hagan, catching the visitor’s eye, flushed

-deeply, laboriously drew a long breath, and turned away his head. The

-next minute, the officer, having given an order to the orderly pushing

-his chair, was at Hagan’s side. A word to the orderly, and the two

-wounded men were alone.

-

-‘I have come, Hagan, to thank you for my life,’ said the officer.

-

-Hagan nervously rubbed his forehead with his hand, moved his lips as if

-framing unspoken words, and drew a deep inspiration.

-

-‘’Twasn’t cowardice, sor,’ he breathed at last. ‘’Twas nought but a

-litle gurl at home phwat drew me.’

-

-‘Cowardice! You! You’re one of the pluckiest men I have ever seen. What

-do you mean?’

-

-‘I main, sor, whin I was schrimshankin’.’

-

-‘Sh--sh, my man! That little matter is all forgotten.’

-

-‘Yez did have me beat, sor,’ persisted Hagan, with a flash of humour in

-his eyes. ‘’Twas too cliver for me you was, sor. ’Twas the orderly hit

-me below the belt. He took me unbeknownst, sor.’

-

-With a light laugh, the medical officer placed his hand upon the brawny

-fist of the man beside him.

-

-‘You will get home to see your girl after all, Hagan--in your own

-way--and I am glad,’ he said.

-

-‘Is it to be quits then, sor?’

-

-‘Yes--we will call it that,’ agreed the officer. ‘For the time being,

-we are quits. Later, I will repay you what is over--if I ever can.’

-

-

-

-

-                   _DURING MUSIC: FANTASY AND FUGUE._

-

-                            BY J. B. TREND.

-

-

-                        I.

-

-    That low-breathed air and inwoven melody,

-      Twined marvellously together, swift to run

-      To the farthest bound of song, or knit in one

-    To melt and glow in o’erwhelming harmony,

-    You played. And I, startled to fantasy,

-      Beheld a land of dishevelled wood and stream,

-      A desperate rally of men, a flash, a scream--

-    And a friend riven beyond all agony.

-

-    Yet did you play. Each delicate, rival thread

-      Of sound was knotted at last and the music ended.

-        Forest, colour, and mountain, earth held none

-    But stunted woods with no companion tread,

-      Greyness, and little hills, in a life unfriended;

-        For all joy in things and love of them were gone.

-

-

-                        II.

-

-    I heard those echoing tones your touch unpenned,

-      Now hammer-notes that rivetted life with love,

-      Now light as sou’west wind blown softly above;

-    But all you played only to him could tend.

-    So let it be, I said, until life’s end;

-      In the tinkling wash at the bows, or water lapping

-      All night upon the dinghy’s side, or tapping

-    Of light wind in the halyards; there is my friend.

-

-    So did your unrelenting notes flit by,

-      While death and music in my thought were welded

-        To swing me lonely down to the loveless night.

-    I am a sail that wind takes wantonly

-      Because the sheet has carried away that held it--

-        Then let your fugue pursue its scornful flight!

-

-

-

-

-                           _LADY CONNIE._[11]

-

-                         BY MRS. HUMPHRY WARD.

-

-

-                             CHAPTER XVII.

-

-

-Falloden had just finished a solitary luncheon, in the little

-dining-room of the Boar’s Hill cottage. There was a garden door in the

-room, and lighting a cigarette, he passed out through it to the terrace

-outside. A landscape lay before him, which has often been compared to

-that of the Val d’Arno seen from Fiesole, and has indeed some common

-points with that incomparable mingling of man’s best with the best of

-mountain and river. It was the last week of October, and the autumn was

-still warm and windless, as though there were no shrieking November

-to come. Oxford, the beautiful city, with its domes and spires, lay

-in the hollow beneath the spectator, wreathed in thin mists of sunlit

-amethyst. Behind that ridge in the middle distance ran the river and

-the Nuneham woods; beyond rose the long blue line of the Chilterns.

-In front of the cottage the ground sank through copse and field to

-the river level, the hedge lines all held by sentinel trees, to which

-the advancing autumn had given that significance the indiscriminate

-summer green denies. The gravely rounded elms with their golden caps,

-the scarlet of the beeches, the pale lemon-yellow of the nearly naked

-limes, the splendid blacks of yew and fir--they were all there, mingled

-in the autumn cup of misty sunshine, like melting jewels. And among

-them, the enchanted city shone, fair and insubstantial, from the depth

-below; as it were, the spiritual word and voice of all the scene.

-

-Falloden paced up and down the terrace, smoking and thinking. That was

-Otto’s open window. But Radowitz had not yet appeared that morning, and

-the ex-scout, who acted butler and valet to the two men, had brought

-word that he would come down in the afternoon, but was not to be

-disturbed till then.

-

-‘What lunacy made me do it?’ thought Falloden, standing still at the

-end of the terrace which fronted the view.

-

-He and Radowitz had been three weeks together. Had he been of the

-slightest service or consolation to Radowitz during that time? He

-doubted it. That incalculable impulse which had made him propose

-himself as Otto’s companion for the winter still persisted indeed. He

-was haunted still by a sense of being ‘under command’--directed--by a

-force which could not be repelled. Ill at ease, unhappy, as he was, and

-conscious of being quite ineffective, whether as nurse or companion,

-unless Radowitz proposed to ‘throw up,’ he knew that he himself should

-hold on; though why, he could scarcely have explained.

-

-But the divergences between them were great; the possibilities of

-friction many. Falloden was astonished to find that he disliked Otto’s

-little fopperies and eccentricities quite as much as he had ever done

-in college days; his finicking dress, his foreign ways in eating, his

-tendency to boast about his music, his country, and his forebears, on

-his good days, balanced by a brooding irritability on his bad days. And

-he was conscious that his own ways and customs were no less teasing

-to Radowitz; his Tory habits of thought, his British contempt for

-vague sentimentalisms and heroics, for all that _panache_ means to the

-Frenchman, or ‘glory’ to the Slav.

-

-‘Then why, in the name of common sense, are we living together?’

-

-He could really give no answer but the answer of ‘necessity’--of

-a spiritual ἀνάγκη[ananki]--issuing from a strange tangle of

-circumstance. The helpless form, the upturned face of his dying

-father, seemed to make the centre of it, and those faint last words,

-so sharply, and as it were, dynamically connected with the hateful

-memory of Otto’s fall and cry in the Marmion Quad, and the hateful

-ever-present fact of his maimed life. Constance too--his scene with

-her on the river bank--her letter breaking with him--and then the soft

-mysterious change in her--and that passionate involuntary promise in

-her eyes and voice, as they stood together in her aunts’ garden--all

-these various elements, bitter and sweet, were mingled in the influence

-which was shaping his own life. He wanted to forgive himself; and he

-wanted Constance to forgive him, whether she married him or no. A kind

-of sublimated egotism, he said to himself, after all!

-

-But Otto? What had really made him consent to take up daily life with

-the man to whom he owed his disaster? Falloden seemed occasionally to

-be on the track of an explanation, which would then vanish and evade

-him. He was conscious, however, that here also, Constance Bledlow

-was somehow concerned; and, perhaps, the Pole’s mystical religion.

-He asked himself, indeed, as Constance had already done, whether

-some presentiment of doom, together with the Christian doctrines of

-forgiveness and vicarious suffering, were not at the root of it? There

-had been certain symptoms apparent during Otto’s last weeks at Penfold

-known only to the old vicar, to himself and Sorell. The doctors were

-not convinced yet of the presence of phthisis; but from various signs,

-Falloden was inclined to think that the boy believed himself sentenced

-to the same death which had carried off his mother. Was there then a

-kind of calculated charity in his act also--but aiming in his case at

-an eternal reward?

-

-‘He wants to please God--and comfort Constance--by forgiving me. I want

-to please her--and relieve myself, by doing something to make up to

-him. He has the best of it! But we are neither of us disinterested.’

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-The manservant came out with a cup of coffee.

-

-‘How is he?’ said Falloden, as he took it, glancing up at a still

-curtained window.

-

-The man hesitated.

-

-‘Well, I don’t know, sir, I’m sure. He saw the doctor this morning, and

-told me afterwards not to disturb him till three o’clock. But he rang

-just now, and said I was to tell you that two ladies were coming to

-tea.’

-

-‘Did he mention their names?’

-

-‘Not as I’m aware of, sir.’

-

-Falloden pondered a moment.

-

-‘Tell Mr. Radowitz, when he rings again, that I have gone down to the

-college ground for some football, and I shan’t be back till after six.

-You’re sure he doesn’t want to see me?’

-

-‘No, sir, I think not. He told me to leave the blind down, and not to

-come in again till he rang.’

-

-Falloden put on flannels, and ran down the field paths towards Oxford,

-and the Marmion ground, which lay on the hither side of the river. Here

-he took hard exercise for a couple of hours, walking on afterwards to

-his club in the High Street, where he kept a change of clothes. He

-found some old Marmion friends there, including Robertson and Meyrick,

-who asked him eagerly after Radowitz.

-

-‘Better come and see,’ said Falloden. ‘Give you a bread and cheese

-luncheon any day.’

-

-They got no more out of him. But his reticence made them visibly

-uneasy, and they both declared their intention of coming up the

-following day. In both men there was a certain indefinable change

-which Falloden soon perceived. Both seemed, at times, to be dragging a

-weight too heavy for their youth. At other times, they were just like

-other men of their age; but Falloden, who knew them well, realised

-that they were both hag-ridden by remorse for what had happened in the

-summer. And indeed the attitude of a large part of the college towards

-them, and towards Falloden, when at rare intervals he shewed himself

-there, could hardly have been colder or more hostile. The ‘bloods’

-were broken up; the dons had set their faces steadily against any form

-of ‘ragging’; and the story of the maimed hand, of the wrecking of

-Radowitz’s career, together with sinister rumours as to his general

-health, had spread through Oxford, magnifying as they went. Falloden

-met it all with a haughty silence; and was but seldom seen in his old

-haunts.

-

-And presently it had become known, to the stupefaction of those who

-were aware of the earlier facts, that victim and tormentor, the injured

-and the offender, were living together in the Boar’s Hill cottage where

-Radowitz was finishing the composition required for his second musical

-examination, and Falloden--having lost his father, his money and his

-prospects--was reading for a prize Fellowship to be given by Merton in

-December.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-It was already moonlight when Falloden began to climb the long hill

-again, which leads up from Folly Bridge to the height on which stood

-the cottage. But the autumn sunset was not long over, and in the

-mingled light, all the rich colours of the fading woodland seemed to

-be suspended in, or fused with, the evening air. Forms and distances,

-hedges, trees, moving figures, and distant buildings were marvellously

-though dimly glorified; and above the golds and reds and purples of the

-misty earth, shone broad and large--an Achilles shield in heaven--the

-autumn moon, with one bright star beside it.

-

-Suddenly, out of the twilight, Falloden became aware of a pony-carriage

-descending the hill, and two ladies in it. His blood leapt. He

-recognised Constance Bledlow, and he supposed the other lady was Mrs.

-Mulholland.

-

-Constance on her side knew in a moment from the bearing of his head and

-shoulders who was the tall man approaching them. She spoke hurriedly to

-Mrs. Mulholland.

-

-‘Do you mind if I stop and speak to Mr. Falloden?’

-

-Mrs. Mulholland shrugged her shoulders--

-

-‘Do as you like, my dear. Only don’t expect me to be very forthcoming!’

-

-Constance stopped the carriage, and bent forward.

-

-‘Mr. Falloden!’

-

-He came up to her. Connie introduced him to Mrs. Mulholland, who bowed

-coldly.

-

-‘We have just been to see Otto Radowitz,’ said Constance. ‘We found

-him--very sadly, to-day.’ Her hesitating voice, with the note of

-wistful appeal in it, affected him strangely.

-

-‘Yes, it has been a bad day. I haven’t seen him at all.’

-

-‘He gave us tea, and talked a great deal. He was rather excited. But he

-looked wretched. And why has he turned against his doctor?’

-

-‘Has he turned against his doctor?’ Falloden’s tone was one of

-surprise. ‘I thought he liked him.’

-

-‘He said he was a croaker, and he wasn’t going to let himself be

-depressed by anybody--doctor or no.’

-

-Falloden was silent. Mrs. Mulholland interposed.

-

-‘Perhaps you would like to walk a little way with Mr. Falloden? I can

-manage the pony.’

-

-Constance descended. Falloden turned back with her towards Oxford. The

-pony-carriage followed at some distance behind.

-

-Then Falloden talked freely. The presence of the light figure beside

-him, in its dark dress and close-fitting cap, seemed to thaw the chill

-of life. He began rapidly to pour out his own anxieties, his own sense

-of failure.

-

-‘I am the last man in the world who ought to be looking after him; I

-know that as well as anybody,’ he said, with emphasis. ‘But what’s to

-be done? Sorell can’t get away from college. And Radowitz knows very

-few men intimately. Neither Meyrick nor Robertson would be any better

-than me.’

-

-‘Oh, not so good--not nearly so good!’ exclaimed Constance eagerly.

-‘You don’t know! He counts on you.’

-

-Falloden shook his head.

-

-‘Then he counts on a broken reed. I irritate and annoy him a hundred

-times a day.’

-

-‘Oh, no, no--he _does_ count on you,’ repeated Connie in her soft,

-determined voice. ‘If you give up, he will be much--much worse off!’

-Then she added after a moment--‘Don’t give up! I--I ask you!’

-

-‘Then I shall stay.’

-

-They moved on a few steps in silence, till Connie said eagerly--

-

-‘Have you any news from Paris?’

-

-‘Yes, I am going over next week. We wrote in the nick of time. The

-whole thing was just being given up--for lack of funds. Now I have told

-him he may spend what he pleases, so long as he does the thing.’

-

-‘Please--mayn’t I help?’

-

-‘Thank you. It’s my affair.’

-

-‘It’ll be very--very expensive.’

-

-‘I shall manage it.’

-

-‘It would be kinder’--her voice shook a little--‘if I might help.’

-

-He considered it--then said doubtfully--

-

-‘Suppose you provide the records?--the things it plays? I don’t know

-anything about music--and I have been racking my brains to think of

-somebody in Paris who could look after that part of it.’

-

-Constance exclaimed. Why, she had several friends in Paris, in the very

-thick of the musical world there! She had herself had lessons all one

-winter in Paris at the Conservatoire from a dear old fellow--a Pole, a

-pupil of Chopin in his youth, and in touch with the whole Polish colony

-in Paris, which was steeped in music.

-

-‘He made love to me a little’--she said laughing--‘I’m sure he’d do

-anything for us. I’ll write _at once_! And there is somebody at the

-Embassy--why, of course, I can set all kinds of people to work!’

-

-And her feet began to dance along the road beside him.

-

-‘We must get some Polish music’--she went on--‘There’s that marvellous

-young pianist they rave about in Paris--Paderewski. I’m sure he’d help!

-Otto has often talked to me about him. We must have lots of Chopin--and

-Liszt--though of course he wasn’t a Pole!--And Polish national

-songs!--Otto was only telling me to-day how Chopin loved them--how he

-and Liszt used to go about the villages and farms and note them down.

-Oh we’ll have a _wonderful_ collection!’

-

-Her eyes shone in her small, flushed face. They walked on fast, talking

-and dreaming, till there was Folly Bridge in front of them, and the

-beginnings of Oxford. Falloden pulled up sharply.

-

-‘I must run back. We have supper early. Will you come again?’

-

-She held out her hand. His face beside her, as the moonlight caught it,

-stirred in her a sudden, acute sense of delight.

-

-‘Oh yes--we’ll come again. But don’t leave him!--don’t, please, think

-of it! He trusts you--he leans on you.’

-

-‘It is kind of you to believe it. But I am no use!’

-

-He put her back into the carriage, bowed formally, and was gone,

-running up the hill at an athlete’s pace.

-

-The two ladies drove silently on, and were soon amongst the movement

-and traffic of the Oxford streets. Connie’s mind was steeped in

-passionate feeling. Till now Falloden had touched first her senses,

-then her pity. Now in these painful and despondent attempts of his to

-adjust himself to Otto’s weakness and irritability, he was stirring

-sympathies and enthusiasms in her which belonged to that deepest soul

-in Connie which was just becoming conscious of itself. And all the

-more, perhaps, because in Falloden’s manner towards her there was

-nothing left of the lover. For the moment at any rate she preferred it

-so. Life was all doubt, expectation, thrill--its colour heightened, its

-meanings underlined. And in her complete uncertainty as to what turn

-it would take, and how the doubt would end, lay the spell--the potent

-tormenting charm--of the situation.

-

-She was sorry, bitterly sorry for Radowitz--the victim. But she loved

-Falloden--the offender! It was the perennial injustice of passion, the

-eternal injustice of human things.

-

-When Falloden was half-way up the hill, he left the road, and took

-a short cut through fields, by a path which led him to the back of

-the cottage, where its sitting-room window opened on the garden and

-the view. As he approached the house, he saw that the sitting-room

-blinds had not been drawn, and some of the windows were still open.

-The whole room was brilliantly lit by fire and lamp. Otto was there

-alone, sitting at the piano, with his back to the approaching spectator

-and the moonlit night outside. He was playing something with his left

-hand; Falloden could see him plainly. Suddenly, he saw the boy’s figure

-collapse. He was still sitting, but his face was buried in his arms

-which were lying on the piano; and through the open window, Falloden

-heard a sound which, muffled as it was, produced upon him a strange and

-horrible impression. It was a low cry, or groan--the voice of despair

-itself.

-

-Falloden stood motionless. All he knew was that he would have given

-anything in the world to recall the past; to undo the events of that

-June evening in the Marmion quadrangle.

-

-Then, before Otto could discover his presence, he went noiselessly

-round the corner of the house, and entered it by the front door. In the

-hall, he called loudly to the ex-scout, as he went upstairs, so that

-Radowitz might know he had come back. When he returned, Radowitz was

-sitting over the fire with sheets of scribbled music paper on a small

-table before him. His eyes shone, his cheeks were feverishly bright. He

-turned with forced gaiety at the sight of Falloden--

-

-‘Well, did you meet them on the road?’

-

-‘Lady Constance, and her friend? Yes. I had a few words with them. How

-are you now? What did the doctor say to you?’

-

-‘What on earth does it matter!’ said Radowitz impatiently. ‘He was just

-a fool--a young one--the worst sort--I can put up with the old ones. I

-know my own case a great deal better than he does.’

-

-‘Does he want you to stop working?’ Falloden stood on the hearth,

-looking down on the huddled figure in the chair; himself broad and tall

-and curly-haired, like the divine Odysseus, when Athene had breathed

-ambrosial youth upon him. But he was pale, and his eyes frowned

-perpetually under his splendid brows.

-

-‘Some nonsense of that sort!’ said Radowitz. ‘Don’t let’s talk about

-it.’

-

-They went in to dinner, and Radowitz sent for champagne.

-

-‘That’s the only sensible thing the idiot said--that I might have that

-stuff whenever I liked.’

-

-His spirits rose with the wine; and presently Falloden could have

-thought what he had seen from the dark had been a mere illusion. A

-review in _The Times_ of a book of Polish memoirs served to let loose

-a flood of boastful talk, which jarred abominably on the Englishman.

-Under the Oxford code, to boast in plain language of your ancestors, or

-your own performances, meant simply that you were an outsider, not sure

-of your footing. If a man really had ancestors, or more brains than

-other people, his neighbours saved him the trouble of talking about

-them. Only the fools and the _parvenus_ trumpeted themselves; a process

-in any case not worth while, since it defeated its own ends. You might

-of course be as insolent or arrogant as you pleased; but only an idiot

-tried to explain why.

-

-In Otto, however, there was the characteristic Slav mingling of quick

-wits with streaks of childish vanity. He wanted passionately to make

-this tough Englishman feel what a great country Poland had been and

-would be again; what great people his ancestors had been; and what a

-leading part they had played in the national movements. And the more he

-hit against an answering stubbornness--or coolness--in Falloden, the

-more he held forth. So that it was an uncomfortable dinner. And again

-Falloden said to himself--‘Why did I do it? I am only in his way. I

-shall bore and chill him; and I don’t seem to be able to help it.’

-

-But after dinner, as the night frost grew sharper, and as Otto sat over

-the fire, piling on the coal, Falloden suddenly went and fetched a warm

-Scotch plaid of his own. When he offered it, Radowitz received it with

-surprise, and a little annoyance.

-

-‘I am not the least cold--thank you!’

-

-But, presently, he had wrapped it round his knees; and some restraint

-had broken down in Falloden.

-

-‘Isn’t there a splendid church in Cracow?’ he asked casually,

-stretching himself, with his pipe, in a long chair on the opposite side

-of the fire.

-

-‘One!--five or six!’ cried Otto, indignantly. ‘But I expect you’re

-thinking of Panna Marya. Panna means Lady. I tell you, you English

-haven’t got anything to touch it!’

-

-‘What’s it like?--what date?’--said Falloden, laughing.

-

-‘I don’t know--I don’t know anything about architecture. But it’s

-glorious. It’s all colour and stained glass--and magnificent

-tombs--like the gate of Heaven,’ said the boy with ardour. ‘It’s the

-church that every Pole loves. Some of my ancestors are buried there.

-And it’s the church where, instead of a clock striking, the hours are

-given out by a watchman who plays a horn. He plays an old air--ever so

-old--we call it the “Heynal,” on the top of one of the towers. The only

-time I was ever in Cracow I heard a man at a concert--a magnificent

-player--improvise on it. And it comes into one of Chopin’s sonatas.’

-

-He began to hum under his breath a sweet wandering melody. And suddenly

-he sprang up, and ran to the piano. He played the air with his left

-hand, embroidering it with delicate arabesques and variations, catching

-a bass here and there with a flying touch, suggesting marvellously

-what had once been a rich and complete whole. The injured hand, which

-had that day been very painful, lay helpless in its sling; the other

-flashed over the piano, while the boy’s blue eyes shone beneath his

-vivid frieze of hair. Falloden, lying back in his chair, noticed the

-emaciation of the face, the hollow eyes, the contracted shoulders; and

-as he did so, he thought of the scene in the Magdalen ballroom--the

-slender girl, wreathed in pearls, and the brilliant foreign

-youth--dancing, dancing, with all the eyes of the room upon them.

-

-Presently, with a sound of impatience, Radowitz left the piano. He

-could do nothing that he wanted to do. He stood at the window for some

-minutes looking out at the autumn moon, with his back to Falloden.

-

-Falloden took up one of the books he was at work on for his Fellowship

-exam. When Radowitz came back to the fire, however, white and

-shivering, he laid it down again, and once more made conversation.

-Radowitz was at first unwilling to respond. But he was by nature

-_bavard_, and Falloden played him with some skill.

-

-Very soon he was talking fast and brilliantly again, about his

-artistic life in Paris, his friends at the Conservatoire or in the

-Quartier Latin; and so back to his childish days in Poland, and the

-rising of ’63, in which the family estates near Warsaw had been

-forfeited. Falloden found it all very strange. The seething, artistic,

-revolutionary world which had produced Otto was wholly foreign to him;

-and this patriotic passion for a dead country seemed to his English

-common sense a waste of force. But in Otto’s eyes Poland was not dead;

-the white eagle, torn and bloodstained though she was, would mount the

-heavens again; and in those dark skies the stars were already rising!

-

-At eleven, Falloden got up--

-

-‘I must go and swat. It was awfully jolly, what you’ve been telling me.

-I know a lot I didn’t know before.’

-

-A gleam of pleasure shewed in the boy’s sunken eyes.

-

-‘I expect I’m a bore,’ he said, with a shrug; ‘and I’d better go to

-bed.’

-

-Falloden helped him carry up his plaid, his books and papers. In Otto’s

-room, the windows were wide open, but there was a bright fire, and

-Bateson the scout was waiting to help him undress. Falloden asked some

-questions about the doctor’s orders. Various things were wanted from

-Oxford. He undertook to get them in the morning.

-

-When he came back to the sitting-room, he stood some time in a brown

-study. He wondered again whether he had any qualifications at all as a

-nurse. But he was inclined to think now that Radowitz might be worse

-off without him; what Constance had said seemed less unreal; and his

-effort of the evening, as he looked back on it, brought him a certain

-bitter satisfaction.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-The following day, Radowitz came downstairs with the course of the

-second movement of his symphony clear before him. He worked feverishly

-all day, now writing, now walking up and down, humming and thinking,

-now getting out of his piano--a beautiful Erard hired for the

-winter--all that his maimed state allowed him to get; and passing

-hour after hour, between an ecstasy of happy creation, and a state of

-impotent rage with his own helplessness. Towards sunset he was worn

-out, and with tea beside him which he had been greedily drinking, he

-was sitting huddled over the fire, when he heard someone ride up to the

-front door.

-

-In another minute the sitting-room door opened, and a girl’s figure in

-a riding habit appeared.

-

-‘May I come in?’ said Connie, flushing rather pink.

-

-Otto sprang up, and drew her in. His fatigue disappeared as though by

-magic. He seemed all gaiety and force.

-

-‘Come in! Sit down and have some tea! I was so depressed five minutes

-ago--I was fit to kill myself. And now you make the room shine--you

-come in like a goddess!’

-

-He busied himself excitedly in putting a chair for her, in relighting

-the spirit kettle, in blowing up the fire.

-

-Constance meanwhile stood in some embarrassment with one hand on the

-back of a chair--a charming vision in her close fitting habit, and

-the same black _tricorne_ that she had worn in the Lathom Woods, at

-Falloden’s side.

-

-‘I came to bring you a book, dear Mr. Otto, the book we talked of

-yesterday.’ She held out a paper-covered volume. ‘But I mustn’t stay.’

-

-‘Oh, do stay!’ he implored her. ‘Don’t bother about Mrs. Grundy. I’m

-so tired and so bored. Anybody may visit an invalid. Think this is a

-nursing home, and you’re my daily visitor. Falloden’s miles away on a

-drag-hunt. Ah, that’s right!’ He waved his hand as he saw that she had

-seated herself. ‘Now you shall have some tea!’

-

-She let him provide her, watching him the while with slightly frowning

-brows. How ill he looked--how ill! Her heart sank.

-

-‘Dear Mr. Otto, how are you? You don’t seem so well to-day.’

-

-‘I have been working myself to death. It won’t come right--this beastly

-_Andante_. It’s too jerky--it wants _liaison_. And I can’t hear it--I

-can’t _hear_ it!--that’s the devilish part of it.’

-

-And taking his helpless hand out of the sling in which it had been

-resting, he struck it bitterly against the arm of his chair. The tears

-came to Connie’s eyes.

-

-‘Don’t!--you’ll hurt yourself. It’ll be all right--it’ll be all right!

-You’ll hear it in your mind.’ And bending forward under a sudden

-impulse, she took the maimed hand in her two hands--so small and

-soft--and lifting it tenderly she put her lips to it.

-

-He looked at her in amazement.

-

-‘You do that--for me?’

-

-‘Yes. Because you are a great artist--and a brave man!’ she said,

-gulping. ‘You are not to despair. Your music is in your soul--your

-brain. Other people shall play it for you.’

-

-He calmed down.

-

-‘At least I am not deaf, like Beethoven,’ he said, trying to please

-her. ‘That would have been worse.--Do you know last night, Falloden

-and I had a glorious talk. He was awfully decent. He made me tell him

-all about Poland, and my people. He never scoffed once. He makes me do

-what the doctor says. And last night--when it was freezing cold--he

-brought a rug and wrapped it round me. Think of that!’--he looked at

-her--half-shamefaced, half-laughing--‘_Falloden!_’

-

-Her eyes shone.

-

-‘I’m glad!’ she said softly. ‘I’m glad!’

-

-‘Yes, but do you know why he’s kind--why he’s here at all?’ he asked

-her, abruptly.

-

-‘What’s the good of silly questions?’ she said hastily. ‘Take it as it

-comes.’

-

-He laughed.

-

-‘He does it--I’m going to say it!--yes, I _am_--and you are not to be

-angry--he does it because--simply--he’s in love with _you_!’

-

-Connie flushed again, more deeply, and he, already alarmed by his own

-boldness, looked at her nervously.

-

-‘You are quite wrong.’ Her tone was quiet, but decided. ‘He did it,

-first of all, because of what you did for his father----’

-

-‘I did nothing!’ interposed Radowitz.

-

-She took no notice.

-

-‘And secondly’--her voice shook a little--‘because--he was sorry.

-Now--_now_--he is doing it’--suddenly her smile flashed out, with its

-touch of humour--‘just simply because he likes it!’

-

-It was a bold assertion. She knew it. But she straightened her slight

-shoulders, prepared to stick to it.

-

-Radowitz shook his head.

-

-‘And what am I doing it for? Do you remember when I said to you I

-loathed him?’

-

-‘No--not him.’

-

-‘Well, something in him--the chief thing, it seemed to me then. I felt

-towards him really--as a man might feel towards his murderer--or the

-murderer of someone else, some innocent, helpless person who had given

-no offence. Hatred--loathing--_abhorrence!_--you couldn’t put it too

-strongly. Well then,’--he began to fidget with the fire, tongs in

-hand, building it up, while he went on thinking aloud--‘God brought us

-together in that strange manner. By the way’--he turned to her--‘are

-you a Christian?’

-

-‘I--I don’t know. I suppose I am.’

-

-‘I am,’ he said firmly. ‘I am a practising Catholic. Catholicism with

-us Poles is partly religion, partly patriotism--do you understand? I

-go to confession--I am a communicant. And for some time I couldn’t go

-to Communion at all. I always felt Falloden’s hand on my shoulder, as

-he was pushing me down the stairs; and I wanted _to kill him_!--just

-that! You know our Polish blood runs hotter than yours. I didn’t want

-the college to punish him. Not at all. It was my affair. After I saw

-you in town, it grew worse--it was an obsession. When we first got

-to Yorkshire, Sorell and I, and I knew that Falloden was only a few

-miles away, I never could get quit of it--of the thought that some

-day--somewhere--I should kill him. I never, if I could help it, crossed

-a certain boundary line that I had made for myself, between our side of

-the moor, and the side which belonged to the Fallodens. I couldn’t be

-sure of myself if I had come upon him unawares. Oh, of course, he would

-soon have got the better of me--but there would have been a struggle--I

-should have attacked him--and I might have had a revolver. So for your

-sake’--he turned to look at her with his hollow blue eyes--‘I kept

-away. Then, one evening, I quite forgot all about it. I was thinking

-of the theme for the slow movement in my symphony, and I didn’t notice

-where I was going. I walked on and on over the hill--and at last I

-heard a man groaning--and there was Sir Arthur--by the stream. I saw at

-once that he was dying, and I took a card from his waistcoat pocket,

-which told me who he was. There I sat, alone with him. He asked me not

-to leave him. He said something about Douglas. “Poor Douglas!” And when

-the horrible thing came back--the last time--he just whispered, “Pray!”

-and I said our Catholic prayers--that our priest had said when my

-mother died. Then Falloden came--just in time--and instead of wanting

-to kill him, I waited there, a little way off--and prayed hard for

-myself and him! Queer, wasn’t it? And afterwards--you know--I saw his

-mother. Then the next day, I confessed to a dear old priest, who was

-very kind to me, and on the Sunday he gave me Communion. He said God

-had been very gracious to me; and I saw what he meant. That very week

-I had a hæmorrhage, the first I ever had.’

-

-Connie gave a sudden, startled cry. He turned again to smile at her.

-

-‘Didn’t you know? No, I believe no one knew, but Sorell and the

-doctors. It was nothing. It’s quite healed. But the strange thing was

-how extraordinarily happy I felt that week. I didn’t hate Falloden

-any more. It was as though a sharp thorn had gone from one’s mind.

-It didn’t last long of course, the queer ecstatic feeling. There was

-always my hand--and I got very low again. But _something_ lasted;

-and when Falloden said that extraordinary thing--I don’t believe he

-meant to say it at all!--suggesting we should settle together for the

-winter--I knew that I must do it. It was a kind of miracle--one thing

-after another--_driving_ us.’

-

-His voice dropped. He remained gazing absently into the fire.

-

-‘Dear Otto’--said Constance softly--‘you have forgiven him?’

-

-He smiled.

-

-‘What does that matter? _Have you?_’

-

-His eager eyes searched her face. She faltered under them.

-

-‘He doesn’t care whether I have or not.’

-

-At that he laughed out.

-

-‘Doesn’t he? I say, did you ask us both to come--on purpose--that

-afternoon?--in the garden?’

-

-She was silent.

-

-‘It was bold of you!’ he said, in the same laughing tone. ‘But it’s

-answered. Unless, of course, I bore him to death. I talk a lot of

-nonsense--I can’t help it--and he bears it. And he says hard, horrid

-things, sometimes--and my blood boils--and I bear it. And I expect he

-wants to break off a hundred times a day--and so do I. Yet here we

-stay. And it’s _you_’--he raised his head deliberately--‘it’s _you_

-that are really at the bottom of it.’

-

-Constance rose trembling from her chair.

-

-‘Don’t say any more, dear Otto. I didn’t mean any harm. I--I was so

-sorry for you both.’

-

-He laughed again.

-

-‘You’ve got to marry him!’ he said triumphantly. ‘There!--you may go

-now--But you’ll come again soon. I know you will!’

-

-She seemed to slip, to melt, out of the room. But he had a last vision

-of flushed cheeks, and half-reproachful eyes.

-

-

-                          (_To be continued._)

-

-

-FOOTNOTES:

-

-     [11] Copyright, 1915, by Mrs. Humphry Ward in the United

-     States of America.

-

-

-

-

-                   _TO THE EDITOR OF THE ‘CORNHILL.’_

-

-

-Dear Sir,--If it gives Mr. Russell any pleasure to accuse me of ‘living

-in a happy remoteness from affairs,’ and of having ‘only just awakened

-from a slumber which seems to have lasted longer than that of Rip Van

-Winkle,’ it would be cruel of me to object. But the proof of my guilt,

-it seems, is to be found in the article I wrote in the CORNHILL on

-‘The Duke of Wellington and Miss J.’ That article, Mr. Russell thinks,

-proves that I had only just discovered Miss J. and her correspondence

-with the Duke. As a matter of fact I have been familiar with the volume

-published by Mr. T. Fisher Unwin for more than twenty years, and it

-must be fifteen years ago since I wrote an article on the subject in an

-Australian magazine. But Mr. Russell himself thinks the letters of Miss

-J. so little known, and so very interesting, that he himself expends

-another article on them, three months later than mine, and taking

-exactly the same view of them! It seems clear that there are two Rip

-Van Winkles--one in England and one in Australia: and the English Van

-Winkle is even drowsier, and wakes later, than his Australian kinsman.

-

-I should not trouble you with this note, however, except for the

-opportunity it gives me of apologising for an injustice to Sir Herbert

-Maxwell which I committed in the article I wrote in the CORNHILL. I

-represented him as saying the Duke ‘must have been inexpressibly bored

-by the correspondence,’ and the words are in inverted commas, giving

-the reader the impression these were the exact words Sir Herbert

-Maxwell used. I apologise for those unfortunate inverted commas. The

-words they seem to quote were not the precise words Sir Herbert Maxwell

-used in his ‘Life of Wellington,’ and they do not accurately convey his

-meaning. ‘The letters,’ he says, ‘_some might think_ were of the very

-kind to bore the Duke, whose religion was of a somewhat conventional

-kind.’ But Sir Herbert Maxwell does not say that that was his personal

-opinion.

-                                        Yours truly,

-                                                    W. H. FITCHETT.

-

-

-NOTE.--In her article, ‘Dublin Days: the Rising,’ which appeared in

-my July number, Mrs. Hamilton Norway, on page 51, repeats the current

-story that Messrs. Jacob were ready to let the military blow up their

-biscuit factory, for they would never make another biscuit in Ireland.

-In justice to Messrs. Jacob, let me add that I have since learnt on the

-one unimpeachable authority that this story, however picturesque, is

-wholly apocryphal.

-

-                                                        THE EDITOR.

-

-

-

-

-Transcriber’s Note:

-

-This book was written in a period when many words had not become

-standardized in their spelling. Words may have multiple spelling

-variations or inconsistent hyphenation in the text. These have been

-left unchanged unless indicated below. Misspelled words were not

-corrected.

-

-Words and phrases in italics are surrounded by underscores, _like

-this_. Footnotes were renumbered sequentially and were moved to the

-end of the chapter. Obvious printing errors, such as backwards, upside

-down, partially printed letters and punctuation or punctuation used as

-letters, were corrected. Final stops missing at the end of sentences

-and abbreviations were added. Duplicate letters at line endings or

-page breaks and excess single quote marks were removed.

-

-Missing word added: ... a devil [of] suspicion ...

-

-Word changed:  ... except that [if] it afforded ...

-

-

-*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CORNHILL MAGAZINE, (VOL. XLI,

-NO. 243 NEW SERIES, SEPTEMBER 1916) ***

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+
+The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Cornhill Magazine, (vol. xli, no. 243
+new series, September 1916)
+
+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: The Cornhill Magazine, (vol. xli, no. 243 new series, September
+1916)
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: August 11, 2023 [eBook #71391]
+
+Language: English
+
+Credits: Carol Brown, hekula03 and the Online Distributed Proofreading
+         Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from
+         images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CORNHILL MAGAZINE, (VOL.
+XLI, NO. 243 NEW SERIES, SEPTEMBER 1916) ***
+
+
+
+
+
+               BY SPECIAL [Illustration] APPOINTMENT
+
+
+
+        ARTISTS’ COLOURMEN TO THEIR MAJESTIES THE KING AND QUEEN
+                      AND TO H.M. QUEEN ALEXANDRA.
+
+
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+                                LIMITED,
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+range of tint and covering power approximately equal to the ordinary
+Students’ Box.
+
+_‘In developing the faculty of observation in children, Drawing and
+Colour Work is most essential. The Drawing and Colour materials should
+always be of good quality, and suitable for the purpose for which they
+are intended.’_
+
+    Scholars’ Box of Artists’ Water Colours           =Price 3s. net.=
+                    Containing 8 Pans and 2 Brushes.
+
+    Refills for Scholars’ Box - -  =Series 1, 2s. 6d.; Series 2, 4s.;=
+                          =Series 3, 6s.; Series 4, 8s. per doz. net.=
+
+                   Offices RATHBONE PLACE, LONDON, W.
+
+
+
+
+                 A SEARCHLIGHT INTO THINGS THAT MATTER.
+
+                        =The Review of Reviews=
+
+                    ILLUSTRATED. MONTHLY. PRICE 1/-
+
+          _=The Ideal Magazine for the Homes of the Empire.=_
+
+G., in _The Newspaper World_, says:
+
+‘The management of _The Review of Reviews_, impelled by an
+unprecedented situation in our annals to double the price of that
+familiar monthly, have succeeded in providing their readers with
+an increased number of pages and a richer and more varied table of
+contents, while maintaining at the same time in every department of the
+_Review_ the spirit and the purpose of its founder. For a monthly so
+fresh and full, so vital and stimulating, one shilling is a low rather
+than a high figure for so excellent and varied a bill of intellectual
+fare.’
+
+                    =‘WE PUT THE WORLD BEFORE YOU!’=
+
+Readers of the ‘Cornhill Magazine’ are invited to carefully examine
+=THE REVIEW OF REVIEWS=; they will, it is anticipated, decide to order
+it regularly from Booksellers or Newsagents. Single copies 1/- monthly;
+or it can be sent by post for one year for =14/6=; to Canada, =13/6=.
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+KINGSWAY, LONDON, W.C.=
+
+
+
+
+                                  THE
+                           CORNHILL MAGAZINE.
+
+                            SEPTEMBER 1916.
+
+                 _THE KAISER AS HIS FRIENDS KNEW HIM._
+
+                         BY A NEUTRAL DIPLOMAT.
+
+
+Among the high German officials whose opinion of William the Second’s
+foreign policies I quoted in my previous article, I do not recall a
+single one whose loyalty or sense of propriety did not prevent his
+offering any personal criticisms of the Emperor to whose service his
+best efforts were being devoted. An apprehensiveness, bordering on
+positive dread in many instances, of the ultimate consequences of the
+Kaiser’s impetuosities was often apparent in the observations of their
+franker moments, but personal aspersions were never cast. This was,
+of course, no more than could have been expected from the well-bred
+men-of-the-world that they were. And in this connection it may be
+in point to add that not even among the rather gay and not always
+discreetly reserved officers of the Crown Prince’s suite (with whom I
+was thrown not a little during their visit to India in 1911) was loose
+criticism of the Emperor ever heard, either by myself or by others
+who enjoyed still fuller opportunities than I had for meeting them on
+intimate and confidential terms.
+
+Frederick William himself was, I regret to record, far less discreet
+than those about him in his references to his imperial progenitor, and
+I recall very clearly that quick-tongued youth’s sarcastic allusions
+to certain rulings of the Kaiser in the matter of the treatment of the
+natives of some of the islands of German Melanesia. The Crown Prince,
+I should explain, I had found consumed with interest concerning the
+progress his people were making in several of their Pacific island
+colonies I had recently visited, and it was to his very palpable desire
+to ‘pump me dry’ of any information I might have picked up regarding
+these incipient ‘places in the sun’ that I owed a number of hours of
+conversation with him the edification of which would hardly otherwise
+have fallen to my lot.
+
+The outburst I had in mind was led up to by my royal inquisitor’s
+asking me for my views concerning the comparative progress of the
+three political divisions of the island of New Guinea, and by my
+replying that, if the criterion of judgment was to be the contentment,
+physical well-being, and economic usefulness of the native, I should
+rate British New Guinea first, Dutch New Guinea an indifferent
+second, and German New Guinea a very poor third. It was anything but
+a courtier-like speech on my part, but I was not meeting Frederick
+William in my official capacity, and, moreover, he had made a point of
+asking that I should give him perfectly frank answers to his questions.
+(‘None of the “bull con’,” as the Yankees say,’ was the way he put it;
+‘give me the “straight goods.”’ Both expressions, as he confessed with
+a grin, he had picked up from a ‘neat little filly from Kentucky’ he
+had ‘seen a bit of’ at Ostend the previous summer.)
+
+The Crown Prince, in spite of his undeniable personal courage, of which
+I saw several striking instances in the course of his Indian visit, is
+far from being what the Anglo-Saxons call a ‘good sport,’ and on this
+occasion he made no pretence of hiding his annoyance. Because, however,
+as transpired later, there were several other matters which he had in
+mind ‘pumping’ me on, he evidently thought it best not to vent his
+spleen for the moment on one whose usefulness was not quite exhausted.
+This befell subsequently, I may add, though under circumstances which
+have no especial bearing on my present subject.
+
+Tapping his boot with his riding-whip--he had been playing polo--the
+Prince sat in a sort of spoiled-child pout of petulance for a minute or
+two, before bursting out with: ‘Doubtless you’re right. I’ve had hints
+of the same thing myself from private reports. It’s all due to the
+pater’s unwarranted interference in something he knows nothing about.
+Old X----’ (mentioning the previous Governor of German New Guinea by
+name) ‘has forgotten more about handling Papuans than the pater ever
+knew. The pater has put his foot in it every time he has moved in our
+Pacific colonies.’ (It may be in order to explain that not only does
+the Crown Prince speak excellent English, but that on this Indian visit
+he made a point of resorting to English idioms, colloquialisms, and
+slang to an extent which at times became positively ridiculous. I have
+quoted here almost his exact language.)
+
+Frederick William went on to give me a spirited and approving account
+of the manner in which a German colonist near Herbertshöhe had put an
+end to raids on his yam patch by planting on each corner-post of the
+enclosure the ‘frizzly’ head of a Papuan who had been shot in the act
+of making off with the succulent tubers, concluding with the dogmatic
+assertion that the only way to handle the black man was to ‘bleed him
+white.’
+
+I had the temerity to reply that, from what I had seen, the more ‘old
+X----’ continued to forget of what he thought he knew about handling
+Papuans, the better it would be for German colonial prospects in New
+Guinea, and as a consequence threw my royal interrogator into another
+fit of sulks. It is only fair to say that the ‘interference’ of which
+the Crown Prince waxed so unfilially censorious really consisted of
+measures calculated slightly--but only slightly--to mitigate the brutal
+repressiveness toward the natives which had characterised the German
+administration of New Guinea from the outset. The one bright spot in
+the brief but bloody annals of German overseas colonisation was the six
+or eight years’ régime of the broad-minded and humane Dr. Solf--the
+present Colonial Secretary--in Samoa. This tiny and comparatively
+unimportant Pacific outpost was the single Teutonic colony in which I
+found the natives treated with anything approaching the humanitarian
+consideration extended to them so universally by the English and the
+French. Dr. Solf may well be, as has been occasionally hinted from
+Holland, the hope of those conservative and intelligent Germans who
+are known to be silently working for a reborn and ‘de-Prussified’
+Fatherland after the war.
+
+As I have said, the Crown Prince was the only highly placed German
+whom I ever heard speak slightingly in a personal way of the Kaiser,
+and that impetuous youth was--as he still is--a law unto himself. Such
+loyalty and discretion, however, did not characterize all prominent
+Germans in private life, and it is to several of these I am indebted
+for the illuminating sidelights their observations and anecdotes threw
+on the human side of William II. Of such, I fancy the Baron Y----, who
+voyaged on the same steamer with me from Zanzibar to Port Said several
+years ago, had enjoyed perhaps the most intimate opportunities for an
+intelligent appraisal of his Emperor.
+
+The Baron was a scion of one of the oldest and wealthiest of Bavarian
+noble families, a graduate of the École des Beaux Arts as well as
+Heidelberg, and to the fact that several years of his boyhood were
+spent at Harrow owed an English accent in speaking that language which
+betrayed no trace of Teutonic gutturality. He was returning from an
+extended hunting trip in British and German East Africa at the time I
+made his acquaintance, and was nursing a light grievance against his
+own Government from the fact that he had been rather better treated
+in the former than the latter. His attitude toward the Kaiser was
+somewhat different from that of any other German I have ever met, this,
+doubtless, being due to his own great wealth and assured position.
+There was little of the ‘loyal and devoted subject’ in this attitude,
+to which no better comparison suggests itself to me than that of a very
+heavy stock-holder in a corporation toward a general manager who is in
+no respect his social superior.
+
+‘The Kaiser’s most pronounced characteristic,’ said Baron Y---- one
+evening as we paced the promenade, ‘is his overweening vanity. His
+“ego” dwarfs his every other attribute, natural or acquired, and it
+is idle to try to understand what he is, what he does, what he stands
+for--and, incidentally, what the German people, in quite another sense,
+have to stand for--without taking that fact into consideration. It is
+the obsession of his own importance--I might even say his belief in
+his own omnipotence--that is responsible for his taking the so-called
+Divine Right of the Hohenzollerns more seriously, interpreting the
+term more literally, than any of his ancestors since Frederick the
+Great. It is his vanity that is responsible for his incessant shiftings
+of uniforms, for his posturings, his obvious attempts to conceal or
+distract attention from his shrunken arm. He is the most consummate
+master of stagecraft; indeed, the Fates spoiled a great producer of
+spectacles--one who would have eclipsed Reinhardt--to make, not an
+indifferent Emperor, but----’ The Baron checked himself and concluded
+with: ‘Perhaps I had best not say what I had in mind. Everything
+considered, however, I am convinced that it would have been better
+for Germany if William the Second had been stage-manager rather than
+Kaiser.’
+
+Specific and intimate instance of the pettiness with which the Kaiser’s
+vanity occasionally expressed itself Baron Y---- gave me the following
+evening. I had been turning the pages of some of his German illustrated
+papers, and was unable to refrain from commenting, not only on the
+frequency with which the portrait of the Kaiser appeared, but also of
+the defiant ‘come-one-come-all’ attitude of all of those in which the
+War Lord appeared in uniform. The Baron laughed good-naturedly. ‘The
+Kaiser’s attitudinizings,’ he said, ‘never seem to strike the Prussians
+as in the least funny (they haven’t much of a sense of humour,
+anyhow): but we Bavarians have always taken them as quite as much of a
+joke as has the rest of Europe. Now this picture’ (he began turning the
+pages of ‘Ueber Land und Meer’ in search of it), ‘which is one of the
+most popular with the Prussians, we of Bavaria have always called “Ajax
+Defying the Lightning,” and I am going to tell you the history of it.
+
+‘This picture is reproduced from one of several dozen almost identical
+photographs which have been taken of the Kaiser glowering into the
+emptiness of the upper empyrean from the vantage of a little basaltic
+crag which crops up at the forks of a road in one of the Imperial game
+preserves. I have always taken a sort of paternal interest in this
+apparently “to-be-continued-indefinitely” series of photographs, for
+it chanced that I was in the company of their central figure on the
+occasion when he discovered this now famous pedestal, and it was due to
+a suggestion of mine that he was enabled to turn his find to what he no
+doubt considers a most felicitous use.
+
+‘It was on one of the early days of an imperial hunting party--just
+the ordinary affair of its kind, with no one in particular from the
+outside on hand, and nothing especial in the way of sport offered--and
+the Kaiser, not being in very good fettle, had bidden me remain in the
+lodge with him to discuss some experiments I had been conducting on my
+estates with some drought-resisting barleys and lucernes, the seed of
+which had been sent to Germany by one of our “agricultural explorers”
+in Central Asia. The Kaiser’s keenness for skimming the cream of the
+world and bringing it home for the German people is only exceeded by
+his vanity,’ the Baron added parenthetically.
+
+‘Having heard all I had to report, my imperial host suggested a stroll
+in the forest, and it was while pushing on from tree to tree to study
+the efficacy of a new kind of chemically treated cement the foresters
+had been using to arrest the progress of decay that we wandered out
+upon the jutting crag shown in this picture. It was late in the
+afternoon, and by both of the two converging roads, several hundred
+metres of vista of each of which were commanded from our lofty eyrie,
+men were drifting back toward the lodge from the hunt. The dramatic
+possibilities of the unexpected vantage point--the manner in which one
+was able to step from behind the drop-curtain of the forest undergrowth
+to the front of the stage at the tip of the jutting crag--kindled the
+fire of the Kaiser’s imagination instantly.
+
+‘“What a place from which to review my hunting guests!” he exclaimed,
+stepping forward and throwing out his chest in his best “reviewing”
+manner. “Strange I have never noticed it from the road. It must be
+because the light is so bad here. Yes, that is what the trouble is.
+They cannot see us even as clearly as we can see them.” (He frowned
+his palpable disappointment that all eyes from below were not centred
+upon him where he stood in fine defiance in the middle of his new-found
+stage.)
+
+‘“If I may venture a suggestion, Your Majesty,” I said, “I think it is
+the dense shadow from that big tree on the next point that makes it so
+dark here. Do you not see that the sun is directly behind it at this
+hour? The removal of that out-reaching limb on the right would give
+this crag at least an hour of sunshine, but, as a practical forester, I
+should warn you that doing so would destroy the ‘balance’ of the tree
+so much that the next heavy storm would probably topple it over to the
+left. It already inclines that way, and----”
+
+‘“There are several hundred thousand more trees like that in the Black
+Forest,” cut in the Kaiser, “but not one other look-out to compare with
+this. My sincere thanks for the suggestion. I will have it carried out.”
+
+‘And so,’ continued Baron Y----, ‘the obscuring limb was removed, and
+the mutilated tree, as I knew it must, went down the following winter.
+“My look-out now will have three hours of sunlight instead of one,” the
+Kaiser observed gleefully when he told me about it; “I was glad to see
+it go.”
+
+‘It was a case of one monarch against another, and as the Kaiser is
+resolved to brook no rival, especially where the question of his
+“sunlight” is concerned, I suppose the sequel was inevitable. All the
+same I am sorry that--that it was the monarch of the forest that had to
+go down. But though the tree went down,’ he concluded with a grimace,
+tossing the magazine into my lap, ‘the “Ajax” pictures still continue.’
+
+‘Wouldn’t “His Place in the Sun” be even an apter title than “Ajax
+Defying the Lightning”?’ I ventured.
+
+‘Unquestionably,’ was the reply. ‘I had thought of that myself. But,
+you see, even we Bavarians are very keen in the matter of the extension
+of Germany’s “_übersee_” colonies, and it wouldn’t do to make light of
+our own ambitions.’
+
+I have set down this little story just as it was told to me, and it is
+only since the outbreak of the war, when the mainsprings of German
+motives are revealed at Armageddon, that it has occurred to me how
+perfectly it resolves itself into allegory. To the world at large, but
+to the Briton especially, is there no suggestion in what the Kaiser
+_did_ to the tree, which for a hundred years or more had shadowed his
+tardily stumbled-upon look-out, of what he _planned to do_ to the
+Empire which he had so often intimated had crowded him out of his
+‘place in the sun’? With the tree he hewed off a sun-obscuring limb,
+and the unbalanced, mutilated remnant succumbed to the first storm that
+assailed it. Was not this the procedure that he reckoned upon following
+with the ‘obscuring limbs’ of the British Empire?
+
+The foregoing instance of the extravagant vanity of the Kaiser Baron
+Y---- told more in amusement than in censoriousness, but I recall
+another little story to much the same point that he related with hard
+eyes and the shade of a frown, as one man speaks of another who has not
+quite ‘played the game’ in sport or business. It, also, had to do with
+an imperial hunt.
+
+‘As you doubtless know,’ he said, after telling me something of how
+creditably the Kaiser shot, considering his infirmity, ‘a strenuous
+endeavour is always made on these occasions that the best game be
+driven up to the rifles of royalty, a custom which none of the
+Hohenzollerns have ever had the sporting instinct to modify in favour
+of even the most distinguished visitors. By some chance on the day in
+question, a remarkably fine boar ran unscathed the gauntlet of the
+imperial batteries and fell--an easy shot--to my own bullet. It was a
+really magnificent trophy--the brute was as high at the shoulder as a
+good-sized pony, and his tusks curved through fully ninety degrees more
+than a complete circle--and it had occurred to me at once that it was
+in order that I should at least _offer_ to make a present of the head
+to my royal host. Frankly, however, I really wanted it very badly for
+my own hall, and I can still recall hoping that the Kaiser would “touch
+and remit, after the manner of kings,” as Kipling puts it.’
+
+The Baron was silent for a few moments, staring hard in front of him
+with the look of a man who ponders something that has rankled in
+his mind for years. ‘Well,’ he resumed presently, ‘the Kaiser _did_
+“touch” (in the sense the Yankees use the term, I mean), but he did
+not “remit.” When we came to group for the inevitable after-the-hunt
+photograph, I was dumbfounded to see a couple of the imperial huntsmen
+drag up my prize, not in front of me, where immemorial custom decreed
+it should go, but to the feet of the Kaiser. He even had the nerve to
+have the photograph taken with his foot on its head. You have shot big
+game yourself, and you will know, therefore, that this would convey to
+any hunter exactly the same thing as his writing under the photograph,
+“I shot this boar myself.”’
+
+The Baron took a long breath before resuming. ‘I need not tell you how
+surprised and angry I was, and I will not tell you what it took all
+the self-control I had to keep from doing. What I _did_ do, I flatter
+myself, would have been thoroughly efficacious in bringing home to any
+other man in this world the consummate meanness of the thing he had
+done. The moment the photograph was finished I stepped up to the Kaiser
+and, controlling my voice as best I could, said: “Your Majesty, I beg
+you will deign to accept as a humble token of my admiration of your
+prowess as a hunter and your courtesy as a host the fine boar which my
+poor rifle was fortunate to bring down to-day.”
+
+‘I still think that my polite sarcasm would have cut through the armour
+of any other man on earth. It was impossible to mistake my meaning,
+and he must have known that every man there knew it was _my_ boar that
+he had had his picture taken with and was still coolly keeping his
+boot upon. Possibly he decided in his own mind, then and there, that
+the time had come to extend the “Divine Right of the Hohenzollerns”
+to the hunting field. At any rate, he bowed graciously, thanked me
+warmly, and, pointing down to where I had stood in the picture, said he
+presumed it was “that little fellow with the deformed tusk.”
+
+‘My head was humming from the shock of the effrontery, but I still
+have distinct recollection of the deliberate _sang-froid_ of the
+Kaiser’s manner as he directed someone to “mark that little boar with
+a twisted tusk, a gift from my good friend, Baron Y----, for mounting
+as a trophy.” I was a potential regicide for the next week or two, but
+my sense of humour pulled me up in the end. For, after all, what is
+the use of taking seriously a man who, for the sake of tickling his
+insatiate vanity by having his photograph taken with his foot on the
+head of a bigger pig than those in front of his hunting guests, commits
+an act that, were he anything less than an Emperor, would stamp him
+with every one of them as an out-and-out bounder? The memory of the
+thing makes me “see red” a bit even to-day if I let my mind dwell on
+it at all, but mingling with my resentment and mortification there is
+always a sort of sneaking admiration for the way the Kaiser (as the
+Yankees say) “got away with the goods.” The Hohenzollern--the trait
+is as evident in the Crown Prince as it is in his father--will always
+go forward instead of backward when it comes to being confronted with
+the consequences of either their bluffs or their breaks, and it is
+about time that the people in Germany, as well as the people outside of
+Germany, got this fact well in mind when dealing with them.’
+
+These words were spoken before the Kaiser backed down when his Agadir
+bluff was called, but, generally speaking, I think the action of both
+father and son since then has been eloquent vindication of their truth.
+
+Another noble German of my acquaintance who had at one time been on
+terms of exceptional intimacy with the Kaiser was the wealthy and
+distinguished Baron von K----, who, in the two decades previous to
+the outbreak of the war, had divided his time about equally between
+his ancestral castle on the Rhine and a great Northern California
+ranch brought him by his wealthy American wife. I met him first at
+a house-party in Honolulu about ten years ago, and at that time he
+appeared to take considerable pride in his friendship with the Kaiser,
+of whom he was wont to speak often and sympathetically. Since then I
+have encountered him, now in America, now in Europe, on an average of
+once a year, and on each succeeding occasion I noticed a decreasing
+warmth on his part, not so much for Germany and the Germans, for whom
+he still expressed great affection, but rather toward the Kaiser and
+his policies. It must have been fully seven years ago that he told me,
+at the Lotus Club in New York, that the mad race of armaments in which
+Germany was setting the pace for the rest of Europe could only end in
+one way--a great war in which his country would run a risk of losing
+far more than it had any chance of winning.
+
+It was not long after this that I heard that Baron von K---- had
+returned hurriedly and unexpectedly from Germany to America, taking
+with him his two sons who had been at school there. I never learned
+exactly what the trouble was, but a friend of his told me that it
+had some connection with an effort that had been made to induce the
+youngsters to become German subjects and join the army, flattering
+prospects in which were held out to them. Von K---- is said to have
+declared that the boys should never be allowed to set foot in Germany
+again. Whether this latter statement is true or not, it is a fact that
+neither of the lads has ever since crossed the Atlantic, and that both
+are now at Harvard.
+
+In the spring of 1911 von K---- cut short what was to have been a
+fortnight’s business trip to Germany to one of four days, the change
+in plan, as I have since learned, being due to an ‘invitation’ (an
+euphemism for a command) from the Kaiser to invest a huge sum of
+money in one of his armament concerns, great extensions in which
+were contemplated. Von K---- refused point-blank, rushed through his
+business, and took the first boat for New York. I did not see him until
+the following year, but friends told me that for a couple of months
+after his return to California he absolutely refused to talk of Germany
+or of German affairs even with his intimates.
+
+This silence was dramatically broken in the smoking-room of the Union
+League Club, San Francisco, on the evening when the news came that the
+Kaiser had sent the gunboat ‘Panther’ to Agadir as a trump card for the
+game he was playing for the control of Morocco. Von K---- was frowning
+over his paper when an American friend came up, clapped him on the
+shoulder, and exclaimed: ‘The Baron is in close touch with the Kaiser;
+perhaps he can tell us what “The Mailed Fist” is punching at in North
+Africa.’
+
+What von K---- said regarding the allegation that he was in close touch
+with the Kaiser was not stated in words that even the San Francisco
+papers (whose ‘news vultures’ had pounced upon the incident within
+an hour) felt able to report verbatim the following morning, but his
+‘Mailed Fist’ _mot_ went from California to Maine in the next twelve
+hours, and even to-day is still freely quoted whenever the question of
+the War Lord’s mentality is the subject of discussion.
+
+‘Mailed vist!’ snorted the Baron, whose English has never climbed
+entirely out of his throat; ‘Vell, berhabst dey haas mailed his
+vist, but, by Gott, dey haas neffer mailed his prain.’ Then, as an
+afterthought, ‘Or maype, if dey haas mailed his prain, der bostmann
+haas forgodt it to deliffer.’
+
+I saw Baron von K---- in San Francisco--encountered him beaming
+over the sculptures in the Italian Building at the Panama-Pacific
+Exposition--but was unable to draw him into any discussion of Germany
+and the war. He did, however, tell me that his German estates were
+for sale, that he never expected to return there again, and that--the
+day after Belgium was invaded--he had applied for his first papers of
+American citizenship.
+
+
+
+
+                        _THE TUTOR’S STORY._[1]
+
+                     BY THE LATE CHARLES KINGSLEY,
+          REVISED AND COMPLETED BY HIS DAUGHTER, LUCAS MALET.
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXX.
+
+
+That was the first of many days--for by both Braithwaite’s and Nellie’s
+request I stayed on at Westrea until nearly the end of the vacation--of
+sweet but very searching experience. If I played with fire it was
+a purifying fire surely, burning away the baser metal and leaving
+whatever of gold might be in me free of dross.
+
+Not that I say this boastfully--who am I, indeed, to boast?--but humbly
+and thankfully, knowing I passed through an ordeal from which--while
+the animal man cowered and shrank, crying aloud, aye, and with tears
+of agony, to be spared--the spiritual man drew strength and rose, in
+God’s mercy, to greater fulness of life. For I learned very much, and
+that at first hand, by personal experiment, not by hearsay merely or,
+parrot-like, by rote. Learned the truth of the apostle’s dictum, that
+although ‘all things are lawful,’ yet, for some of us, many things,
+however good in themselves or good for others, are ‘not expedient.’
+Learned, too, the value of the second best, learned to accept the lower
+place. Learned to rejoice in friendship, since the greater joys of love
+were denied me, schooling myself to play a brother’s part; play it
+fearlessly and, as I trust, unselfishly, watchful that neither by word,
+or deed, or even by look, I overstepped the limit I had set myself and
+forfeited the trust and faith Nellie reposed in me.
+
+To do this was no easy matter. At moments, I own, the springs of
+courage and resolution ran perilously dry. Then I would go away by
+myself for a time; and--why should I hesitate to tell it?--pray,
+wrestle in prayer, for self-mastery which, with that wrestling, came.
+For if we are honest with ourselves and with Him, disdaining self-pity
+and self-excuse, Almighty God is very safe to fulfil His part of the
+bargain. This, also, I learned, during those sweet and searching days
+at Westrea, beyond all question of doubt.
+
+I rode or drove with Braithwaite about the neighbouring country.
+Walked with him over his farm. Talked with him endlessly of his
+agricultural schemes and improvements. Talked with him about public
+events, too, and about politics. Only once or twice was Hartover, or
+Hover, mentioned; and then, I observed, his tone took on a certain
+bitterness. He had been up to Yorkshire on business a little prior to
+my visit, had happened to run across Warcop--aged and sad, so he told
+me. But my old friend laid aside much of his customary caution, it
+appeared, on hearing Braithwaite expected shortly to see me, and bade
+him tell me things were not well at Hover.
+
+‘What he actually knows, what he only suspects, I could not quite
+discover,’ Braithwaite went on. ‘But I gathered the Countess has
+been up to queer tricks. As to that business, now, of the Italian
+rascal going off with the plate--you heard of it?--well, it looks
+uncommonly as though my lady was in no haste to have him laid by the
+heels--bamboozled the police, as she bamboozled pretty well every
+unlucky wretch she comes across, until he had time to make good his
+escape.’
+
+‘And the Colonel?’ I asked.
+
+‘A dark horse. Connived at the fellow’s escape, too, I am inclined to
+think. Marsigli knew too much of the family goings-on, and, if he was
+caught, was pretty sure to blab in revenge. I am not given to troubling
+myself about the unsavoury doings of great folks, Brownlow. They had
+a short way with aristocratic heads during the French Revolution at
+the end of last century, and I am not altogether sure they weren’t
+right. But for my poor Nellie’s sake, I should never give that Longmoor
+faction a second thought. As it is I have been obliged to think about
+them, and I believe the plain English of the whole affair is that the
+Colonel and my lady have been on better terms than they should be for
+many years past. What she wants is a second Lord Longmoor as husband,
+and the money, and the property, and--a son of her own to inherit it.
+An ugly accusation? Yes. But can you spell out the mystery any better
+way than that?’
+
+I did not know that I could, and told him so. There the conversation
+dropped, while my mind went back to the letter Nellie had shown me.--It
+was a devilish action of Fédore’s, I thought, the mark of a base, cruel
+nature, capable--the last sin--of trampling on the fallen. And yet
+might it not have been dictated by the pardonable desire to secure her
+prize for herself, to prevent pursuit, inquiry, scandal, perhaps fresh
+misery for Nellie? There are two sides, two explanations, of every
+human act; and the charitable one is just as rational, often more so,
+than the uncharitable. If she stated her case somewhat coarsely, was
+she not low-bred, ill-taught, excited by success?
+
+Thus did I argue with myself, trying to excuse the woman, lest I should
+let anger get the upper hand of reason and judgment. But what was her
+relation to Marsigli? This it was which really mattered, which was of
+lasting moment. And about this I must be silent, be cool and prudent.
+At present I could take no action. I must wait on events.
+
+Meanwhile each day brought me a closer acquaintance with, and respect
+for, Nellie’s character; the liveliness of her intelligence, and
+justness of her taste. And to it, the intellectual side of her nature,
+I made my appeal, trying to take her mind off personal matters and
+interest her in literature and thought. On warm mornings, her household
+duties finished, she would bring her needlework out to a sheltered
+spot in the garden, where the high red-brick wall formed an angle with
+the house front; and sitting there, the flowers, the brimming water,
+the gently upward sloping grass-land and avenue of oaks before us, I
+would read aloud to her from her favourite authors or introduce her to
+books she had not yet read. On chill evenings we would sit beside the
+wood fire in the hall, while Braithwaite was busy with the newspaper
+or accounts, and read till the dying twilight obliged her to rise
+and light the lamp. Much of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Scott, along with
+Pope’s rendering of the Iliad, Hazlitt’s Lectures and Lamb’s Essays,
+we studied thus. Shelley, save for a few of the lyrics, we avoided
+by tacit consent; and Byron likewise, with the exception of certain
+portions of ‘Childe Harold’; the heroic rather than the sentimental
+note seeming safest--though from different causes--to us both.
+
+Often I would illustrate our reading by telling her about the authors,
+the places, or the period with which it dealt, to see her hands drop in
+her lap, her face grow bright, her manner animated, as she listened and
+questioned me--argued a little too, if she differed from my opinion.
+Sometimes she laughed with frank enjoyment at some merry tale or novel
+idea. And then I was indeed rewarded--only too well rewarded. For her
+laughter was exquisite to me, both in sound and in token of--were it
+but momentary--lightness of heart.
+
+After that first morning in the Orchard Close, we rarely mentioned the
+dear boy. I felt nothing could be gained by leading the conversation in
+his direction. If it would afford her relief, if she wanted to speak,
+she knew by now, I felt, she could do so without embarrassment or fear
+of misunderstanding on my part. But it was not until the afternoon of
+the day preceding my return to Cambridge that we had any prolonged talk
+on the subject.
+
+Braithwaite, I remember, had driven over to Thetford upon business;
+and, at Nellie’s request, I walked with her to the village, so that she
+might show me the fine old monuments and brasses in the parish church.
+
+Coming back across the fields, we lingered a little, watching the
+loveliness of the early May sunset. For, looking westward, all the
+land lay drenched in golden haze, which--obliterating the horizon
+line--faded upward into a faint golden-green sky, across which long
+webs were drawn of rose and grey. Out of the sunset a soft wind blew;
+full, as it seemed, of memory and wistful invitation to--well--I know
+not what. But either that wind or consciousness of our parting on the
+morrow moved Nellie to open her heart to me more freely than ever
+before.
+
+‘Dear Mr. Brownlow,’ she said, her eyes still fixed on that loveliness
+of sunset--‘I want to thank you now, while we are still alone, for all
+you have done for me. You have, indeed, been a good physician, and I
+want you to know how much better I am since you came--stronger, and
+more at peace. I promise you I will do my utmost to keep the ground I
+have gained, and not fall back into the unworthy state of mind out of
+which you have brought me. I do not say I am cured.’
+
+She looked up at me, smiling.
+
+‘I do not think you would ask that of me. I have no wish to be--I
+should, I think, be ashamed to be cured of--of my love. For it would
+make what was most beautiful seem unreal and untrue. But I am resigned
+to all--almost all--which has happened. I no longer kick against the
+pricks, or ask to have things otherwise. I shall not let it make me
+sour or envious--thanks to you.’
+
+And as she spoke I read in her dear eyes a depth of innocent and
+trustful affection, which was almost more than I could endure.
+
+‘I have come to a better frame of mind,’ she said. ‘It will last. It
+shall last, I promise you.’
+
+‘Then all is well,’ I answered, haltingly.
+
+But as I spoke her expression changed. She walked forward along the
+field path, looking upon the ground.
+
+‘Yes, all--I suppose--is well,’ she repeated. ‘All except one
+thing--that hurts still.’
+
+‘And what is that one thing?’
+
+I thought I knew. If I was right, I had a remedy at hand--a desperate
+one, perhaps, but she was firm enough to bear it now.
+
+‘I always felt how little I had to offer, as against his position, his
+gifts, and all the attractions of his life at Hover, and still more his
+life in town. The wonder was he should ever have found me worth caring
+for at all. But I thought his nature was deeper and more constant, and
+it hurts--it must always hurt--that he should have forgotten so soon
+and so entirely as she--his wife--says he has.’
+
+‘There she lied. He has not forgotten,’ I answered. ‘Here are
+Hartover’s own words.’
+
+And I gave her the letter I received after my visit to Chelsea. Let her
+learn the truth, the whole truth, as from his own lips--learn the best
+and the worst of him, and so meet whatever the future might bring with
+open eyes.
+
+Some twenty yards ahead a stile and gate divided the field of spring
+wheat we were crossing from the pasture beyond. I must leave Nellie to
+herself. So I went on and stood, leaning my elbows on the top bar of
+the gate.
+
+Below, in the hollow, the red roofs and chimneys of Westrea and a glint
+of water showed through the veil of golden haze. An abode of peace, of
+those wholesome fruitful industries which link man to mother-earth and
+all her ancient mysteries of the seasons, of seed-time and harvest,
+rain and shine. How far away in purpose and sentiment from the gaudy
+world of fashion, of artificial excitement, intrigue and acrimonious
+rivalries, to which my poor boy, Hartover, now belonged! Yes, and
+therefore, since here her lot was cast, it was well Nellie should know
+the best and worst of him, his weakness and his fine instincts alike;
+because--because--in the back of my mind was a conviction, irrational,
+unfounded, very foolish perhaps, but at this moment absolute, that
+the end was not yet. And that, in the end, by ways which I knew not,
+once again Nellie would find Hartover, and Hartover would find Nellie,
+and finding her would find rest to his soul, salvation to his wayward
+nature, and thus escape the fate of Alcibiades, which I had always
+so dreaded for him, and prove worthy of his high station, his great
+possessions, his singular beauty, charm and talent, even yet.
+
+For five minutes, nearly ten minutes, while the gold faded to grey, I
+waited, and Nellie gave no sign. I began to grow nervous and question
+the wisdom of my own action. To her, pure and high-minded as she was,
+would this revelation of dissipation and hard-living prove too painful,
+would she turn from it in anger and disgust? Had I betrayed my trust,
+been disloyal to the dear boy in letting her see his confession? I
+bowed my head upon my hands. Fool, fool, thus to rush in where angels
+might truly fear to tread!
+
+Then quick, light footsteps behind me--the rustle of a woman’s dress.
+And as, fearful and humiliated, I, turning, looked up, Nellie’s eyes
+like stars, her face pale but glorious in its exaltation and triumphant
+tenderness.
+
+‘Dear good physician,’ she said, ‘I am really cured at last--not of,
+but by love. All that seemed spoilt and lost is given back. How can
+I thank you enough? I can bear to be away from him, bear to give him
+up, now that I know he really cared for me, really suffered in leaving
+me. I can even forgive her, though she has been cruel and insolent,
+because she went to him in his trouble and helped to save his life. And
+I understand why he married her--it was chivalrous and generous on his
+part. It places him higher in my estimation. I can admire him in that
+too.’
+
+I gazed at her, dazzled, enchanted, wondering. And then--shame, thrice
+shame to me after all my struggles, resolutions, prayers--the devil of
+envy raised its evil head, of bitterness against the rich man, who with
+all his gold and precious stones, his flocks and herds, must yet steal
+the poor man’s one jewel, one little ewe lamb.
+
+‘Have you read all the letter--read that part in which he speaks of his
+first months in London?’ I asked.
+
+For an instant she looked at me without comprehension, her eyebrows
+drawn together, in evident question and surprise. Then the tension
+relaxed. Gently and sweetly she laughed.
+
+‘Ah! yes,’ she said. ‘I know. He grew reckless--he did wrong.
+But--but, dear Mr. Brownlow--is it wicked of me?--I cannot condemn him
+for that--because it was his love for me which drove him to it. He
+tells you so himself. I suppose I ought to be shocked--I will try to
+be--presently--if you say I ought. But not just yet--please not just
+yet.’
+
+‘Neither now nor presently,’ I answered, conscience-stricken and
+ashamed. ‘You know far better than I what is right. Follow your own
+heart.’
+
+I opened the gate, and stood back for her to pass. As she did so she
+paused.
+
+‘You are displeased with me,’ she said. ‘Yet why? Why did you let me
+read his letter, except to comfort me and make me happy by showing me
+he was not to blame?’
+
+Why indeed? She well might ask. And how was I to answer without still
+further betraying my trust--my trust to her, this time, since I had
+sworn to be to her as a brother and let no hint of my own feelings
+disturb the serenity of our intercourse?
+
+So I replied, I am afraid clumsily enough--
+
+‘You are mistaken. And to show you how little I am displeased I beg you
+to keep this letter, in exchange for the one you gave me to keep. You
+may like to read it through again, from time to time.’
+
+I held it out. And for an instant she hesitated, her eyes fixed upon
+the writing, upon the paper, as though these actual and material things
+were precious in her sight. Then she put her hands behind her and shook
+her head.
+
+‘No--better not. It is not necessary,’ she said with a childlike
+gravity. Her whole attitude just now was curiously simple and
+childlike. ‘I have every word of it by heart already, dear Mr.
+Brownlow. I shall remember every word--always.’
+
+And for a while we walked on in silence, side by side, beneath the
+dying sunset. Upon the hump-backed bridge spanning the stream Nellie
+stopped.
+
+‘One thing more, good physician,’ she said, very gently. ‘I am cut off
+from him for--for ever by his marriage. But you can watch over him and
+care for his welfare still. You will do so?’
+
+‘Before God--yes,’ I answered.
+
+‘And, sometimes, you will let me hear, you will come and tell me about
+him?’
+
+‘Again--yes--before God.’
+
+And I smiled to myself, bowing my head. Oh! the magnificent and
+relentless egoism of love!--But she should have this since she asked
+it; this and more than this. Plans began to form in my mind, a
+determination to make sure, whatever it might cost me, about this same
+marriage of Hartover’s. I would devote myself to an inquiry, pursue it
+carefully, prudently; but pursue it regardless of time, regardless of
+money--such money as, by economy and hard work, I could command. For
+was not such an inquiry part, and an integral one, of the pledge to
+watch over Hartover and care for his welfare which I had so recently
+and solemnly given her? Undoubtedly it was.
+
+‘Thank you,’ she said. Then after a pause, ‘I wonder why you are so
+kind to me? Sometimes I am almost afraid of your kindness, lest it
+should make me selfish and conceited, make me think too highly of
+myself. Indeed I will try better to deserve it. I will read. I will
+improve my mind, so as to be more worthy of your society and teaching,
+when you come again.--But, Mr. Brownlow, I have never kept anything
+from my father until now. Is it deceitful of me not to tell him of
+these two letters? They would anger and vex him; and he has been so
+much happier and like his old self since you have been with us. I hate
+to disturb him and open up the past.’
+
+‘I think you are, at least, justified in waiting for a time before
+telling him,’ I faltered.
+
+For my poor head was spinning, and I had much ado to collect my wits.
+She would read, improve herself, be more worthy of my teaching when
+I came again, forsooth!--Ah! Nellie, Nellie, that I must listen with
+unmoved pedagogic countenance, that I must give you impersonal and sage
+advice, out of a broken heart!--
+
+‘Yes, wait,’ I repeated. ‘Later your course of action may be made
+clearer, and you may have an opportunity of speaking without causing
+him annoyance or distress. You are not disobeying his orders, in any
+case.’
+
+‘Thank you,’ she said again. ‘See, the lamps are lit. My father must be
+home and we are late. Oh! how I wish you were not going away to-morrow.
+He will miss you, we shall all miss you so badly.’
+
+I did not sleep much that night.
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+
+The ancient postboy drove out to Westrea next morning, and conveyed me
+and my impedimenta back to Cambridge.
+
+The journey was a silent one, I being as little disposed for
+conversation as he. My thoughts were not very cheerful. Yet what had
+I, after all, to make a poor mouth about? I had asked to know my own
+mind, and arrive at a definite decision concerning certain matters
+closely affecting my future. Now I knew it very thoroughly; and, as
+to those matters, had decided once and for all. It only remained for
+me to acquaint my kind old friend, the Master, with that decision as
+tactfully and delicately as might be. But how should I acquit myself?
+And how would he take it? And how far should I be compelled to speak of
+Hartover and Nellie, and of my own relation to both, to make my meaning
+clear? For what a tangle it all was--a tangle almost humorous, though
+almost tragic too, as such human tangles mostly are! Well, I supposed I
+must stick to my old method of blunt truth-telling, leaving the event
+to my Maker, who, having created that strange anomaly, the human heart,
+must surely know how best to deal with its manifold needs and vagaries!
+
+So far then, it was, after all, fairly plain sailing. But,
+unfortunately, these thoughts were not the only thing which troubled me.
+
+For I felt as well as thought; and feeling is more dangerous than
+thought because at once more intimate and more intangible. A great
+emptiness filled--for emptiness can fill, just as silence can shout,
+and that hideously--not only my own soul but, as it seemed, all Nature
+around me. The land was empty, the sky empty. An east-wind blight
+spread abroad, taking all colour out of the landscape and warmth out
+of the sunshine. Just so had my parting with Nellie cast a blight over
+me, taking the colour and warmth out of my life. For I had been with
+her long enough for her presence, the sound of her voice, and constant
+sight of her to become a habit. How terribly I missed, and should
+continue to miss, her--not only in great matters but in small, in all
+the pleasant, trivial, friendly incidents of every day!
+
+After the freshness and spotless cleanliness of Westrea, my college
+rooms--fond though I was of them--looked dingy and uncared for, as
+is too often the way of an exclusively masculine dwelling-place. The
+men had not come up yet, which spared me the annoyance of Halidane’s
+neighbourhood for the moment. Still I felt the depressing lack of
+life and movement throughout the college buildings and quadrangles.
+Cambridge was asleep--a dull and dismal sleep, as it struck me. The
+Master, I found, was back and at the Lodge once more; but, since only
+a portion of the house was ready for habitation, Mrs. Dynevor and her
+daughters would remain at Bath for some weeks longer. This I was glad
+to hear, as it promised to simplify my rather awkward task.
+
+I called at the Lodge the same evening, to be received by the Master
+with his usual cordiality. He invited me to stay and dine, admitting
+he felt somewhat lonely without his ladies in the still partially
+dismantled house.
+
+‘Unlike the three children in the Babylonian furnace, the smell of fire
+is very much upon it still,’ he said. ‘Signs and odours of destruction
+meet me at every turn. I dare say in the end--for I have an excellent
+architect--we shall make a more comfortable and certainly more sanitary
+place of it than ever before; but the continuity is broken, much
+history and many a tradition lost for good. I am only heartily glad you
+are not among the latter, Brownlow. It was a very near thing.’
+
+Whether this was intended to give me an opening for explanation, I
+could not say. In any case I did not choose to take advantage of it,
+preferring to explain at my own time and in my own way.
+
+We talked on general subjects for a while. But at the end of dinner,
+when the butler left the room, he said, eyeing me with a twinkle--
+
+‘It was a pity you could not manage to meet us at Bath, Brownlow,
+for you would have found some old friends there. One of whom, a very
+splendid personage by the same token, made many gracious inquiries
+after you--put me through the longer catechism in respect of you, and
+put my sister and nieces through it also, I understand.’
+
+‘Old friends?’ I asked, considerably puzzled both by his words and
+manner.
+
+‘You had not heard, then, any more than I, that Lord Longmoor has
+settled permanently at Bath?’
+
+I assured him I had not.
+
+‘Yes--and under sad enough circumstances,’ he went on, with a change of
+tone. ‘Poor gentleman, he and those about him have cried wolf for so
+many years that I, for one, had grown sceptical regarding his ailments.
+But what of constitution he ever possessed has been undermined by
+coddling and dosing. I was admitted once or twice, and was, I own,
+most painfully impressed by his appearance and by his state of
+mind--religious mania, or something alarmingly akin to it, and that of
+at once the most abject and arrogant sort.’
+
+I was greatly shocked by this news, and said so.
+
+‘What is being done?’ I asked.
+
+‘Everything that common sense would forbid, in my opinion. He is
+surrounded by an army of obsequious servants and rapacious medical and
+religious quacks, all and each busy to secure their private advantage
+while fooling him, poor soul, to the top of his bent. Our hopeful
+convert and gownsman Halidane had joined the throng, so I heard, but
+fled at my approach. Where the carcass is, there the vultures are
+gathered together--a repulsive and odious sight, showing the case of
+Dives may after all be hardly less miserable than that of Lazarus.’
+
+The Master paused.
+
+‘Lady Longmoor is there too; and heaven forgive me, Brownlow,’ he
+added, ‘I could not but wonder what sentiments that remarkably fair
+lady really entertains towards her lord. She confided in me in the most
+charming manner; yet, honestly, I knew less what to think and believe,
+knew less how the land really lay, after receiving those confidences
+than before.’
+
+In spite of myself I was amused. For could I not picture her
+Magnificence and my good kind old Master in solemn conclave? Picture
+the arts and graces let loose on him, the touching appeals, admissions,
+protests; the disarming innocence of glance and gesture, along with
+flashes of naughty laughter, beneath the black-fringed eyelids, in the
+demurely downcast eyes.
+
+‘Her ladyship’s communications are not always easy to interpret. They
+are not always intended to enlighten--perhaps,’ I ventured.
+
+‘Then you, too, have been honoured?’
+
+‘I have.’
+
+He chuckled.
+
+But, in my case, amusement speedily gave place to sober reflection. For
+if Lord Longmoor was in so critical a condition, dying possibly, what
+an immense change in Hartover’s position this entailed! All my fears
+for the dear boy reawakened. What means might not be taken to embroil
+him with his father, at this critical moment, to injure and dispossess
+him! Particularly did I dislike the fact that Halidane had been in
+attendance. I questioned the Master anxiously.
+
+‘Ah! there you have me, Brownlow,’ he replied. ‘Lord Hartover is a
+point upon which my lady’s confidences proved peculiarly obscure. She
+spoke of her “dear George” with a great show of affection, deploring
+that the festivities in celebration of his coming of age next month
+must be postponed. She had so counted on seeing both you and me at
+Hover then, she declared. Deploring, also’--and he looked rather hard
+at me, I thought, across the corner of the dinner table over the row of
+decanters, as he spoke--‘deploring also an unfortunate disposition in
+her stepson to become enamoured of young women very much beneath him
+in the social scale. She gave me to understand both she and his father
+had been caused much annoyance and trouble by more than one affair
+of this sort. Yet I could not help fancying she sought information,
+just then, rather than offered it. I had a notion--I may have been
+mistaken--she was doing her best to pump me and find out whether I had
+heard anything from you upon the subject of these amatory escapades.
+Come, Brownlow--for my instruction, not for hers--can you fill in the
+gaps?’
+
+I hesitated. Had the right moment come for explanation? I believed
+that it had. And so, as plainly and briefly as I could, I told him the
+whole story. I kept back nothing--why should I? There was nothing to be
+ashamed of, though somewhat to grieve over, and much to regret. I told
+him of Nellie, of Fédore; of Hartover’s love, Hartover’s marriage. I
+told him of my own love.
+
+For a while he remained silent. Then, laying his hand on my shoulder,
+as I sat, my elbows upon the table, my face buried in my hands--
+
+‘My poor fellow, my poor fellow--I had no notion of all this,’ he said.
+‘So this is the upshot of your two years at Hover. I sent you out to
+make your fortune, and you found your fate. Well--well--things are as
+they are; but I do not deny that recently I had formed very different
+plans for you.’
+
+‘Do not think me presumptuous, sir, if I answer I feared as much. And
+that is my reason for telling you what I have told no other human
+being--what, indeed, I had hoped to keep locked inviolably in my own
+breast as long as I live.’
+
+Something in my tone or in my narrative must have stirred him deeply,
+for he rose and took a turn up and down the room, as though with
+difficulty retaining his composure. For my part, I own, I felt broken,
+carried out of myself. It had been searching work, dislocating work, to
+lay bare my innermost heart thus. But only so, as I judged, could the
+mention of Alice Dynevor’s name be avoided between us. It was better to
+sacrifice myself, if by so doing I could at once spare her and arrive
+at a clear understanding. Of this I was glad. I think the Master was
+glad too; for, his rather agitated walk ended, he stood beside me and
+spoke most kindly.
+
+‘Your secret is perfectly safe with me, Brownlow, rest assured. I
+give you my word I will never reveal it. You have behaved honourably
+and high-mindedly throughout. Your conduct commands my respect and
+admiration,--though I could wish some matters had turned out otherwise.
+But now as to this marriage--real or supposed--of poor Hartover’s and
+all the ugly plotting of which, I fear with you, he is the victim. I do
+not think I can find it in my conscience to stand by, or encourage you
+to stand by, with folded hands.’
+
+‘That is exactly what I was coming to, sir,’ I said, choking down
+alike my thanks and my emotion. ‘If, as you inform me, Lord Longmoor’s
+health is so precarious, the poor dear boy’s future must not be left to
+chance.’
+
+‘No, no,’ he answered warmly. ‘His foes, I fear, are very literally
+of his own household. If this woman is legally his wife, we, as his
+friends, are called upon to stand by the marriage and, on grounds of
+public policy, make the best of what, I admit, strikes me as a very bad
+business. If she is not legally his wife, if there is any flaw in the
+marriage, we must take means to establish the fact of that flaw and set
+him free. Whether he is grateful to us for our self-imposed labours
+affects our duty neither one way nor the other at this stage of the
+proceedings. But, should she prove the unscrupulous person I take her
+to be, he will very certainly thank us in the end. And now, Brownlow,
+it occurs to me the sooner we move in all this the better. There is no
+time to be lost.’
+
+He gave me reasons for his opinion, in which I fully agreed; and we sat
+talking far into the night, with the result that within a fortnight I
+travelled, first to Yorkshire, and then up to town.
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+
+About my Yorkshire journey it is unnecessary to say much. I saw Hover
+once more, stately as ever, but lifeless. The great house shut up, its
+many treasures swathed in dust sheets and brown paper. When it would
+be opened again none knew. Probably Colonel Esdaile would bring some
+gentlemen down in August for grouse-shooting, or for covert-shooting in
+October. He would hunt there during the winter.--The Colonel, always
+and only the Colonel, as man in possession?
+
+I said as much to Warcop--to whom my visit was made--sitting before
+the empty stove in that queer sanctum of his, hung round with prints
+and spoils of the stud-farm and the chase. Whereupon he stuck out his
+bulldog under-jaw and mournfully shook his big grizzled head.
+
+Yes, he answered, that was pretty well what it all came to. Would to
+God it did not!--always and only Colonel Jack at Hover in these days.
+And my lord lay a-dying, so they said, at Bath; and my young lord gave
+no sign. And her ladyship flitted in, like some great bright-painted
+butterfly, for a day and a night. Looked round the stables and gardens
+with a laugh, hanging on the Colonel’s arm, and flitted off again, as
+gay as you please, to London or Bath, or Old Nick knew where; while
+Colonel Jack, with a face like thunder and a temper like tinder, cursed
+the very guts out of anyone unlucky enough to cross his path for full
+twenty-four hours afterwards. Colonel Esdaile was a changed man, as I
+gathered; his swaggering manner and jovial good-humour a thing of the
+past, save at rare intervals or when her ladyship happened to be about.
+
+All of which was bad hearing. The more so as, without going all lengths
+with Braithwaite in his condemnation of our hereditary nobility, I
+believed then--and believe firmly still--that if a great nobleman,
+or great landowner, is to justify his position--aye, and his very
+existence--he must live on his estate, keep in close touch with, and
+hold himself directly responsible for the welfare of, all ranks of its
+population--labourers, artisans, rent-payers great and small, alike.
+The middle-man, however just or able an administrator, introduces, and
+must always introduce, a cold-blooded, mechanical relation as between
+landlord and tenant, employer and employed. And, now listening to
+Warcop’s lament, I trembled lest the curse of absenteeism--which during
+recent years has worked such havoc of class hatred and disaffection in
+Ireland--should set its evil mark upon this English country-side.
+
+In this connection it was inevitable that memories of my former dreams
+and ambitions for Hover should come back to me with a bitter sense
+of failure and of regret. Dreams and ambitions of so educating and
+training my dear pupil as to make him an ideal landowner, an ideal
+nobleman, to whom no corner of his vast possessions, the lives lived
+and work done there, would be a matter of indifference; but who would
+accept and obey the divinely ordained law of rulership and ownership
+which reminds us every privilege carries with it a corresponding
+obligation, and that the highest duty of him who governs is to serve.
+
+Where had all those fair dreams and ambitions departed now? Were they
+for ever undone and dissipated? It seemed so, alas! Yet who could tell?
+Had I not promised Nellie, and that in some sort against my dearest
+interests, to watch over Hartover to the best of my power, and care
+for him still? And if a poor faulty human creature, such as I, could
+be faithful, how much more God, his Maker! Yes, I would set my hope,
+both for him and for Hover, firmly there, black though things looked
+at present. For Almighty God, loving him infinitely more than I--much
+though I loved him--would surely find means for his redemption, and,
+notwithstanding his many temptations, still make for him a way of
+escape.
+
+And with that I turned my mind resolutely to the practical inquiry
+which had brought me north, questioning Warcop concerning the
+disappearance of Marsigli and the theft, with which he stood charged,
+of jewels and of plate.
+
+Warcop’s first words in reply, I own, set my heart beating.
+
+‘Best ask French Mamzelle, sir,’ he said, with a snarl. ‘For, as sure
+as my name’s Jesse Warcop, she’d the main finger in that pie. Picked
+out t’ fattest o’ the plums for herself, too, and fathered the job upon
+Marsigli to rid herself of the fellow.’
+
+‘To rid herself of him?’
+
+‘’Od, an’ why not? So long as ye were here wi’ us, sir, what she’d
+set her mind to have was out of her reach. But, you safe gone, she’d
+na more stomach for my lord’s Italian butler, bless you--must fly at
+higher game than that.’
+
+‘Lord Hartover?’
+
+‘And who else? Eh! but she’s a canny one; none of your hot-heads,
+rushing into a thing afore they’ve fairly planned it. She’d her plan
+pat enough. Laid her train or ever she struck a match; waited till she
+kenned it was all over between t’ dear lad and Braithwaite’s lass. Had
+Marsigli muzzled, seeing that to tell on her was to tell on himself.
+And others, that should ha’ shown her up, durstn’t do it, lest she
+opened her mouth and set scandal yelping after them. So she’d a
+muzzle onto them too, and could afford to laugh t’ whole lot in the
+face--upstairs as well as down--and follow her own fancy.’
+
+He ruminated, chewing viciously at the straw he carried in his mouth.
+
+‘And, as the talk goes, she’s followed it to a finish,’ he added, ‘and
+fixed her devil she-kite’s claws in my young lord, poor dear lad, safe
+enough. Is the talk true, sir?’
+
+I answered, sadly, I feared it was so; but that, as some method might
+still possibly be found of unfixing those same kite’s claws, I had come
+in search of any information he could give.
+
+‘Then you mean to put up a fight, sir?’ he said, his jaw hard and his
+eyes bright. ‘For all your colleging and your black coat, you’re o’ the
+same kidney as when ye rode t’ little brown horse across the fells and
+saved t’ pack.’
+
+And therewith he settled down to recount all he had puzzled out, all
+he believed and thought. Inferential rather than circumstantial,
+this, alas! for the most part; yet to me valuable, from the man’s
+caution, honesty, power of close observation, shrewd intelligence and
+mother-wit. In his opinion the theft had been carried out at Fédore’s
+instigation, and upon her undertaking to join Marsigli as soon as
+it was accomplished, and fly with him to his native city of Milan.
+Having thus involved the Italian--whose long-standing passion for, and
+jealousy of her, were matters of common knowledge among the servants,
+Warcop said--she evidently played him false, although covering his
+escape by putting the police on a wrong scent. Where was he now? In
+England, Warcop opined, probably hiding in London, still hoping to
+induce Fédore to redeem her promise. Were the two man and wife? Over
+that Warcop shook his head. Who could say, save the two themselves?
+Yet, if they were, there must needs be a record of the marriage, which
+would have taken place during the period of my tutorship at Hover, at
+some time when her ladyship was in Grosvenor Square.
+
+Here, at last, I had a definite starting-point. For the church could be
+found, the clergyman who performed the ceremony could be found, always
+supposing any such ceremony had really taken place.
+
+I returned to Cambridge to talk everything over with the Master; and
+subsequently journeyed up to town, where, under seal of the strictest
+secrecy, I placed matters in the hands of Inspector Lavender, of the
+Detective Police. He must find the church, the clergyman--above all,
+must find Marsigli.--This was a desperate game to play. I knew it.
+Would the dear boy ever forgive me for interfering in his affairs thus?
+I knew not. But I did know it had to be risked both for his fortune and
+his honour’s sake. Further, was I not bound by my word solemnly given
+to Nellie? Still more, then, had it to be done for my own oath’s sake.
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+
+And now we were well on into the May term. The noble elms towers of
+dense and solid green; lilac and laburnum giving place to roses in the
+Fellows’ Garden; and the river, a little shrunken by the summer heat,
+slipping past smooth lawns and beneath the weeping willows’ graceful
+shade with truly academic deliberation and repose.
+
+Never had I enjoyed my daily work so much, or met with so hearty and
+intelligent a response. An excellent set of men were in college that
+year; gentlemanlike, eager to learn, in some cases notably clever, in
+almost all agreeable to deal with. My popularity--enhanced by that
+episode of the fire at the Master’s Lodge--was great. Why should I
+hesitate to say so, since thankfulness rather than vanity did, I can
+honestly affirm, fill my heart? I had arranged to take a reading
+party to North Wales during the long vacation, and to this I looked
+forward as a new and interesting experience. Halidane, moreover, for
+cause unknown, had ceased from troubling me. Ever since his return,
+at the beginning of term, he had worn a somewhat hang-dog look; and,
+though almost cringingly civil when we chanced to meet, appeared, as
+I thought, to shun rather than seek my society. What had happened to
+the fellow? Had the change in his demeanour any connection with the
+Master’s visit to his ‘sainted patron,’ Lord Longmoor, at Bath? I did
+not know, nor did I greatly care, so long as I continued to be relieved
+of his officious and unsavoury attentions.
+
+And so, taking things all round, it seemed to me, just now, the lines
+had after all fallen to me in pleasant places. Temptation had been
+resisted, difficulties overcome, honour--and my conscience--satisfied.
+If much had been denied, yet much remained--sufficient, and more than
+sufficient, to make life a gift, not only good but glad--though after,
+perhaps, a somewhat serious pattern.
+
+Then came an afternoon the events of which stand out very forcibly in
+my memory. They marked a turning-point; a parting of the ways, abrupt
+as it was unexpected.
+
+For, neglecting alike the attractions of the glorious weather and of
+‘the boats’--it was during the June races--I stayed in my rooms to look
+through a set of mathematical papers. Some pleased me by their ability.
+Others amused--or irritated--me by their blunders. Heavens, what thick
+heads some of those youngsters had! After about an hour’s work, lulled
+by the stillness and the sunny warmth--droning of bees in the clematis
+below my window, chippering cries and glancing flight of swallows back
+and forth to their nests under the parapet above--I laid aside the
+papers, and, leaning back in my chair, sank into a brown study.
+
+The morning’s post had brought me a brief communication from Lavender,
+the detective. After weeks of silent pursuit he had reason to believe
+he was on Marsigli’s track at last. My own sensations in face of this
+announcement surprised me a little. By all rules of the game I should
+of course have felt unalloyed gratification. But did I really feel
+that? With a movement of shame, I was obliged to confess I did not.
+For a certain moral indolence had overtaken me. I was established in a
+routine from which I had no wish to break away. My college work, into
+which I threw myself at first mainly as a refuge from haunting desires
+and disturbing thoughts, had become an end in itself. It engrossed me.
+I found it restful--in that, while making small demand on my emotions,
+it gave scope for such talents, whether intellectual or practical, as
+I possessed. I found it exhilarating to deal with these young men, in
+the first flush of their mental powers, to--in some measure at all
+events--form their minds, influence their conduct and their thought.
+It was delightful, moreover, to have time and opportunity for private
+study; to read books, and ever more books. The scholar’s life, the
+life of the university, held me as never before. Hence this obtrusion
+of Lavender, hunter of crime and of criminals, this obtrusion of
+wretched Marsigli, the absconding Italian butler, were, to be honest,
+displeasing rather than welcome. I cried off further demands upon my
+energies in the direction of conflict and adventure. Leave the student
+to his library, the teacher to his lecture-room, unvexed by the
+passions and tumult of the world without.
+
+In fastidious repulsion, in something, heaven forgive me, approaching
+disgust, I turned away from both thief and thief-catcher, all they
+were and all they stood for, as beneath my notice, common and unclean.
+Almost angrily I prayed to be let alone, let be. Prayed no fresh
+exertion might be required of me; but that I might pursue my course, as
+a comfortable, well-read, well-fed Cambridge don, in security and peace.
+
+And, mercifully, my lazy prayer was not heard, not answered; or, more
+truly, was both heard and answered, though in a manner conspicuously
+the reverse of my intention in offering it.
+
+For, as I mused thus, the calm of the summer afternoon was disturbed
+by a sudden loud knocking at my door. The door was flung open. On the
+threshold a man stood. No learned brother fellow, no ordinary gownsman;
+but, with his pride of bearing, his air of fashion, the finest young
+fine gentleman I had ever seen--in long drab driving coat, smartly
+outstanding from the waist, and white top hat with rakish up-curled
+brim.
+
+For an instant I gazed in stupid amazement. Then, as the door closed
+behind him and he came from out the shadow, I sprang to my feet and ran
+forward, with a cry. And, almost before I knew what was happening, his
+two hands gripped my shoulders, and he backed me into the full light of
+the window, holding me away from him at arms’ length and looking down
+into my face. He was a good half head taller than I.
+
+‘Dearest Brownlow--my dear old man, my dear old man,’ he repeated, and
+his grip tightened while his voice was tender as a girl’s.
+
+Then, while I stammered in my excitement and surprise, he gave a
+naughty little laugh.
+
+‘Oh! I am no ghost,’ he said. ‘You needn’t be afraid. I’m very solid
+flesh and blood; worse luck for you, perhaps, old man. Gad, but it’s
+good, though, to see you once again.’
+
+He threw down his hat among the papers on the table, tossed his gloves
+into it, and drew me on to the window-seat beside him.
+
+Already the spell began to work, the spell of his extraordinary
+personal charm. Already he captivated me, firing my somewhat sluggish
+imagination. Already I asked nothing better than to devote myself to
+him, spend myself for him, stamp out the evil and nourish the good in
+him, at whatever loss or disadvantage to myself.
+
+I inquired what had brought him to Cambridge.
+
+‘I am in trouble, Brownlow,’ he answered simply, while his face
+hardened. ‘It’s an ugly sort of trouble, which I have not the pluck
+to meet single-handed. I cannot see my way through or out of it. I
+tell you, it was beginning to make me feel rather desperate. And I
+remembered your wisdom of old’--
+
+He smiled at me, patting my knee.
+
+‘So, as I do not want to take to drink--which last night seemed the
+only alternative--I took the road this morning instead, and came to
+look for you. Perhaps it is a rather presumptuous proceeding on my
+part. I have no claim on you, for I have been neglectful and selfish.
+I know that well enough--not by any means a model pupil, dear old man,
+not any great credit to you. But you cared for me once.’
+
+Cared for him? God was my witness that I did!
+
+‘And, as I tell you, I have not courage to meet this trouble alone. It
+raises a devil of suspicion and anger in me. I am afraid of being
+unjust, of losing my head and doing some wild thing I shall regret for
+the rest of my life. But we need not go into all this just yet, and
+spoil our first half-hour together. It will keep.’
+
+And he looked away, avoiding my eyes with a certain shyness, as
+I fancied; glanced round the room, at its sober colouring, solid
+furniture, ranges of bookshelves and many books; glanced through the
+window at the fine trees, the bright garden, and quiet river glistening
+in the still June sunlight.
+
+‘Gad! but what a delightful place!’ he said. ‘I am glad to know where
+you live, Brownlow, and I could find it in my heart to envy you, I
+think. The wheels must run very smooth.’
+
+I thought of Nellie, of my home-coming from Westrea. Verily, less
+smooth than he imagined--sometimes.
+
+‘Why, why did not they let me come here,’ he broke out--‘as I implored
+them to, after the row about--about--at Hover, I mean, when you left
+me? I would have given anything to come up to the university then,
+and work, and have you with me still. Ah! how different everything
+would be now! But my father refused to listen. The plan did not suit
+some people’s book, I suppose; and they worked upon him, making him
+hopelessly obstinate. Nothing would do, but into the Guards I must go.
+I begged for if only a year with you here, at Cambridge, first. But
+not a bit of it. Out they pitched me, neck and crop, into the London
+whirlpool, to sink or swim as I could--sink for choice, I fancy, as far
+as they were concerned.’
+
+He shrugged his shoulders.
+
+‘It is to be hoped they are better satisfied at the result than I am,’
+he added, with an oath. ‘But what is done is done--and, curse it,
+there is no going back. As you make your bed--or as others make it for
+you--so must you lie on it.’
+
+Sad words from a boy of barely one-and-twenty, as I thought. Surely
+punishment awaited those, somewhere and somewhen, who had taught him so
+harsh a lesson, and taught it him so young.
+
+Meanwhile, my first surprise and excitement over, I watched Hartover
+carefully, fearing to see in him signs of past dissipation and excess.
+But his beauty was as great as ever. His flesh firm, moreover, his eyes
+and skin clear. He had matured rather than altered, grown considerably
+taller and filled-out, though his figure remained gracefully alert
+and slight. Two points only did I observe which I did not quite
+like--namely an aspect of anxiety and care upon the brow, and little
+bitter lines at the corners of the handsome mouth, giving a singular
+arrogance to his expression when the face was in repose.
+
+We talked for a while of indifferent matters, and he asked me to walk
+with him to the Bull Hotel, where he had left the post-chaise in which
+he drove down from town, and where he invited me to dine with him and
+stay the night as his guest.
+
+‘Give me what time you can, Brownlow,’ he said. ‘Leave all the
+good boys, the white sheep of your numerous flock, to take care of
+themselves for once; and look after the bad boy, the black sheep--the
+scapegoat, rather. For, upon my soul, it amounts to that. The sins
+of others are loaded on to my unhappy head, I promise you, with a
+vengeance.’
+
+I could not but be aware of curious and admiring glances, as I walked
+up King’s Parade in his company. Reflected glory covered me, while he,
+royally careless of the observation he excited, was quick to note the
+grace of the different college buildings, the effects of light and
+colour, to ask a hundred pertinent questions, make a hundred pertinent
+remarks on all which caught his eye. What a delightful mind he had,
+open both to poetic and humorous impressions; instinctively using the
+right word, moreover, and striking out the happy phrase when it suited
+him to lay aside his slang.
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+
+We dined in a private room on the first floor, which overlooked
+the street. Hartover proved a brilliant host. Once or twice, after
+anecdotes a trifle too highly salted for my white tie and clerical
+coat, he checked himself with a pretty air of penitence, expressing
+a mischievous hope I ‘wasn’t shocked.’ Shocked I was not, being no
+puritan; but somewhat grieved, I must admit, his wit should take so
+gross a turn. Yet what wonder? The guard-room is hardly mealy-mouthed,
+I supposed; neither, I could imagine, was French Mademoiselle--in
+intimacy. To her, by the way, I observed, Hartover made so far no
+smallest allusion.
+
+But he spoke of Braithwaite, asking, with an indifference too studied
+to carry conviction, if my friendship still continued with the father
+and daughter, and--‘were they well?’ I answered both questions briefly
+in the affirmative; and there, to my relief, the subject dropped.
+
+Towards the end of dinner his high spirits, which, entertaining though
+he had been, struck me all along as slightly forced, deserted him,
+and he became silent and preoccupied. Were we approaching disclosure
+of the trouble which, as he asserted, brought him here hot-foot, to
+Cambridge and to me? How gladly would I have made the way of confession
+easy for him! But I had sense to know I must be passive in the matter.
+Whatever confidence he gave must be given spontaneously. To question
+him, however circumspectly, would be to put him off by arousing his
+sensitive pride.
+
+As the waiter brought in coffee and lights, Hartover rose, swung out
+onto the balcony, and, leaning his elbows on the high iron rail of
+it, stood gazing down into the street. The June twilight lingered,
+disputing the feeble glimmer of the street lamps. Roofs, gables,
+pinnacles and towers showed velvet black against the sweet translucence
+of an almost colourless sky. Footsteps, voices, a grind of wheels and
+cloppet, cloppet, of horse-hoofs over the stones; the scream of swifts
+in the buoyant rush of their evening flight, and the tang of a chapel
+bell, a single reiterated note. Some five minutes must have elapsed
+while these varied sounds reached me from without. Then Hartover raised
+his head, calling imperatively over his shoulder----
+
+‘Brownlow, Brownlow, where are you? I want you. Come here.’
+
+Evidently he had reached some crisis of purpose or of feeling. I went
+out into the warm evening air and stood beside him. His head was
+lowered, and again he gazed down into the street.
+
+‘I am sorry, I am ashamed, Brownlow,’ he said, an odd thickness in his
+speech, ‘but I am afraid I have come here to-day and disturbed you on
+false pretences. I am afraid I cannot bring myself to talk to you about
+this matter after all.’
+
+He paused as asking an answer.
+
+‘Very well,’ I replied. ‘I, at all events, have gained by your coming,
+in that I have had the joy of seeing you again. Leave the rest if you
+think fit. You alone can know what you wish--know what appears to you
+right under the circumstances. You must use your own judgment.’
+
+‘Ah! there you have me,’ he returned sharply. ‘I don’t know what I
+wish. I am uncertain what is right. I distrust my own judgment. In
+short I’m cornered, Brownlow, miserably, detestably cornered. To speak
+looks to me, at this moment, like an act of unpardonable treachery.
+Yet, if I don’t speak, I may be rushed before many days are out, by
+my own mad anger, into something even worse than treachery. Do you
+understand?’
+
+In a sense I did understand, by intuition born of affection and
+sympathy. But, unless I was greatly mistaken in my reading of him, all
+this was merely preliminary. If I waited, I should understand, or at
+least hear, the whole. And that it would be well for him I should hear
+the whole I had--God helping me--no shadow of doubt.
+
+Slowly the twilight expired, while the blue of the night sky, opaque,
+profound, travelled stealthily, almost imperceptibly, downward from
+the zenith. The joyous scream of the swifts ceased, and the bell
+tanged irregularly, nearing its finish. As it did so, a little group
+of gownsmen, gathered upon the pavement immediately below, seized by
+an irresponsible spirit of frolic--as most young animals are prone
+to be at dusk--started laughing and skylarking, their black raiment
+fluttering, batlike, as they skirmished across the greyness of the
+street.
+
+Whether the sudden outcry jarred his already strained nerves, or
+whether the careless whole-hearted fun and laughter of these men, so
+little younger than himself, offered too mordant a contrast to his
+own troubled state, Hartover flung in from the balcony with an oath,
+hesitated for an instant, then blew out the lights and threw himself
+into an armchair.
+
+‘No, I’m not strong enough to hold my tongue. Wretched weakling that I
+am,’ he groaned, ‘I must blab. And concerning a woman too.’
+
+He extended his hand, through the semi-darkness, motioning me to a
+chair.
+
+‘Sit there, please,’ he said. ‘My God, when it comes to the point how I
+despise myself, Brownlow! It’s--it’s about her, about Fédore.’
+
+‘Yes,’ I replied, as calmly as I could, for his tone moved me deeply.
+And the subject, too! I trembled, penetrated alike by fear and hope of
+what I should hear next.
+
+‘For the last month or six weeks something’s been wrong--some mystery
+on hand I cannot fathom. Somebody who has, or imagines they have, a
+hold over her is pressing her for money, as far as I can make out.
+I believe--oh! it is an abominable suspicion, but I cannot rid my
+mind of it--this person visits the house when she is sure I shall be
+away. I have no idea who, Brownlow; but someone belonging to her old
+life, before I married her. Each time lately that I have been with
+her she has insisted upon my telling her exactly when I intend to
+come again. Nothing will pacify her but that I must fix a date and
+hour. Her persistence has vexed me once or twice. We nearly quarrelled
+over it. She says’--he choked a little--‘it is only that she may be
+able to put on a pretty gown, prepare a nice little dinner, and have
+everything smart and charming for me. But I don’t believe that is her
+sole reason--perhaps I am just a jealous brute--but I can’t. I wish to
+heaven I could!’
+
+He waited, fighting down his emotion.
+
+‘Yesterday matters came to a head. I went with’--he mentioned the names
+of several young men, well known, not to say notorious, in fashionable
+and sporting circles--‘to a race meeting at ----. I meant to stop the
+week. But racing bores me after a little while, and the play was too
+high at night. Positively I couldn’t afford it. So I cut my stay short,
+went back to town, and to Chelsea. I can’t deny I had been living
+rather hard, and I was cross with myself--I really have kept awfully
+straight for the last six months, Brownlow--and a bit seedy and out of
+sorts.’
+
+Again he waited.
+
+‘I let myself in at the garden door, and then at the house-door--as a
+matter of course. I had no intention of jumping any surprise on her. I
+was not thinking about my suspicions or any little tiff we had had. I
+only wanted to get to her, Brownlow, because I knew she’d put me into
+good conceit with myself--tease and pet and amuse me, you know--she can
+be devilish amusing when she likes’----
+
+His voice broke.
+
+‘Yes,’ I said quietly, ‘yes’----
+
+My heart bled for him; but I must be cautious and husband my resources.
+The time to speak would surely come, but it was not yet.
+
+‘I found the house empty,’ he went on presently, recovering himself,
+‘windows bolted and doors locked. I called her, and looked for her
+upstairs and down; but neither she nor the maid was at home. I was
+disappointed, of course; but I would not let myself be angry. I had
+told her I should be away till the end of the week, so she had a
+perfect right to go out if she wanted to. Finally I went into the
+drawing-room, meaning to wait there till she came in. But, somehow, I
+received a new impression of the house. It struck me as grubby, fusty,
+low-class. I wondered why I had never observed this before, or whether
+it was merely the effect of my disappointment at her absence. There
+were scraps of a torn-up letter on the carpet, for one thing, which
+I greatly disliked. I began to pick them up, and casually--I did not
+attempt to read it of course--I remarked the writing was in French.
+Then I thought I would smoke, to pass the time until she came back. I
+wanted something with which to cut off the end of my cigar, but found
+I had brought no penknife, so I rummaged in her little worktable for
+a pair of scissors. I could not find any in the top workbox part,
+and tried to pull out the square silk-covered drawer arrangement
+underneath, as I remembered often seeing her put her scissors away
+in it with her work. But the beastly thing was locked or jammed.
+Like a fool, I lost my temper over it, and dragged and poked till
+the catch gave and the drawer flew open. And--and, Brownlow, inside
+I saw a couple of white leather jewel-cases--oh! the whole thing was
+so incredible, such a profanation--it made me sick--stamped with a
+monogram and coronet. I recognised them at once. They belonged to my
+mother--own mother I mean’--
+
+His tone grew fierce.
+
+‘Not her Magnificence. Her hands have never touched, and touching
+defiled them, I am thankful to think.--These jewels would come to me,
+in the ordinary course of events, with certain other possessions
+of my mother’s, at my majority. Meanwhile they have always been
+kept in the strong-room at Hover. And, Brownlow--this is the point
+of the whole hateful business--they were among the valuables that
+scoundrel, Marsigli--you remember him, my step-mother’s beloved
+Italian butler?--made off with last year, and which by some to my mind
+incomprehensible stupidity on the part of the police--I have often
+talked it over with Fédore--have never yet been traced.’
+
+‘Were the contents of the cases intact?’ I asked.
+
+He hesitated.
+
+‘No--’ he said at last, unwillingly, almost I thought
+despairingly--‘and that makes it all the more intolerable. The cases
+were empty; and from the position in which I found them it seemed to
+me they had been thrown into the drawer just anyhow, by a person in a
+frantic hurry--too great a hurry to make sure the drawer was actually
+locked. For, if it had been properly locked, it would not have given
+way so easily when I tried to force it. These signs of haste increased
+my fears, Brownlow. For think,’ he cried with sudden passion, ‘only
+think what it all points to, what it may all mean! How could these
+precious things of my mother’s have found their way into the drawer
+of Fédore’s worktable--unless? The conjunction of ideas would be
+positively grotesque if--if it were not so damnable.--Does not it occur
+to you what horrible possibilities are opened out?’
+
+It did. I gauged those possibilities far more clearly than he, indeed,
+remembering my conversation with Warcop in the stables at Hover but
+a few weeks back. For was not Warcop’s theory in process of being
+proven up to the hilt? But how could I speak of either theory or
+proof to Hartover, distracted and tortured as he was? To do so would
+be incomparably cruel. No, I must play a waiting game still. The
+truth--or, to be exact, that which I firmly and increasingly believed
+to be the truth--must reach him by degrees, lest he should be driven
+into recklessness or violence. I would temporise, try to find excuses
+even, so as to retard rather than hasten the shock of that most ugly
+disclosure.
+
+‘All which you tell me is very strange and perplexing,’ I said. ‘But do
+not let us be hurried into rash and possibly unjust conclusions. There
+may be some explanation which will put a very different complexion upon
+affairs. Have you asked for any?’
+
+‘No,’ he said. ‘It was too soon to think of that. I could not meet her,
+could not trust myself to see or speak to her then. My one impulse was
+to get away, to get out of the house in which, as it seemed to me, I
+had been so shamelessly betrayed and tricked. I was half mad with rage
+and grief. For--ah! don’t you understand, Brownlow?--I do love her. Not
+as I loved Nellie Braithwaite. That was unique--a love more of the soul
+than the senses. Pure and clean as a wind of morning, blowing straight
+out of paradise. The love of my youth, of--in a way--my virginity; such
+as can never come twice in my or any man’s life.’
+
+He stopped, a sob in his throat. But not for long. The floodgates were
+open--all the proud, wayward, undisciplined, sensitive nature in revolt.
+
+‘My love for Fédore is different--no morning wind from Eden about that.
+How should there be? In the interval I had very effectually parted
+company with all claims to the angelic state. But think--she nursed me,
+dragged me back from the very mouth of hell; protected me from those
+who sought to ruin me; gave herself to me; made a home for me, too, of
+a sort--oh! that poor, poor, hateful little Chelsea house!--coaxed me,
+flirted with me, kept me from gambling and from drink. How could I do
+otherwise than marry her, and love her, out of the merest decency of
+ordinary gratitude? I owe her so much---- And now’----
+
+Here Hartover gave way completely. I felt rather than saw him--there
+was no light in the room save that thrown upward from the lamps in the
+street--fling himself sideways in the chair, crushing his face down
+upon the arm of it in a paroxysm of weeping.
+
+Only a woman should look on a man’s tears, since the motherhood
+resident in every woman--whether potential or as an accomplished
+act--has power to staunch those tears without humiliation and offence.
+To his fellow-man the sight is disabling; painful or unseemly according
+to individual quality, but, in either case, excluding all possibility
+of approach.
+
+I rose, went over to the window, and waited there. The boy should
+have his cry out, unhindered by my neighbourhood, since I knew he was
+beyond my clumsy male capacity of consolation. Later, when he came to
+himself, he would understand I had withdrawn not through callousness,
+but through reverence. Meanwhile, what a position and what a prospect!
+My heart sank. How, in heaven’s name, could he be drawn up out of this
+pit he had digged for himself? And he loved Nellie still. And, whatever
+his faults, whatever his weaknesses--vices even--his beauty and charm
+remained, beguiling, compelling, as ever. What woman could resist him?
+The thought gave me a pang. I put it from me sternly. Self, and again
+self--would self never die? Even in this hour of my dear boy’s agony,
+as he lay sobbing his hot young heart out within half a dozen paces of
+me, must I think of myself and of my private sorrow?
+
+I looked up into the vast serenity of the star-gemmed sky above the
+black irregular outline of the buildings opposite, and renewed my vow
+to Nellie--remembering no greater love hath any man than this, that he
+lay down his life--life of the body, or far dearer life of emotions,
+the affections--for his friend.
+
+And presently, as I still mused, I became aware of a movement in the
+room and of Hartover close beside me, his right arm cast about my neck.
+
+‘Dear old man, dear old man,’ he said hoarsely, yet very gently,
+‘forgive me. I have felt for these past twenty-four hours as though the
+last foothold had gone, the last foothold between me and perdition.
+But it isn’t so--you are left. Stay by me, Brownlow. See me through.
+Before God, I want to do right. Your worthless pupil wants for once to
+be a credit to you. But I cannot stand alone. I am afraid of myself.
+I distrust my own nature. If I go to her--to Fédore--with those empty
+jewel boxes of my mother’s in my hand and she lies to me, I shall want
+to kill her. And if she tells we what I can’t but believe is the truth,
+I shall want to blow my own brains out. For she has been very much to
+me. She is my wife--and what can the future hold for either of us but
+estrangement, misery and disgrace?’
+
+He waited, steadied his voice, and then--
+
+‘I know it is no small thing I ask of you; but will you come back to
+town with me to-morrow? And will you see her first, and so give me time
+to get myself in hand and decide what is to be done, before she and I
+meet? Will you stand between me and the devils of revenge and despair
+who tempt me? Will you do this because--barring you, Brownlow--I have
+nothing, no one, left?’
+
+Needless to set down here what I answered. He should have his way. How,
+in God’s name, could I refuse him?
+
+Then, as on that first night of my arrival at Hover long ago, I got him
+away to bed. Sat by him till he slept--at first restlessly, feverishly,
+murmuring to himself; and once--it cut me to the quick--calling Fédore
+by name, as one who calls for help in limitless distress.
+
+The brief summer night was over and the dawn breaking before I felt
+free to leave him, seek my room, and take some much-needed rest.
+
+
+                          (_To be continued._)
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+     [1] Copyright by Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co. in the United
+     States of America.
+
+
+
+
+                           _LEST WE FORGET._
+
+                       _A WORD ON WAR MEMORIALS._
+
+
+An old friend of mine, who was a boy at Rugby under the kindly,
+orthodox and dignified Dr. Goulburn, told me that on his first evening
+at that great school, a bewildered and timid little creature, after he
+had been much catechised and derided by a lot of cheerful youngsters,
+and with a terrible perspective before him of endless interviews with
+countless strange and not necessarily amiable mortals, a loud bell
+rang, and all trooped down to prayers. He sat on a bench in a big bare
+hall with a timbered roof, a door opened and a grave butler appeared,
+carrying two wax candles in silver candlesticks, followed by the
+Headmaster in silk gown and bands, in unimaginable state. The candles
+were set down on a table. The Headmaster opened a great Bible, and in
+a sonorous voice read the twelfth chapter of the Book of Joshua, a
+gloomy enough record, which begins, ‘Now these are the kings of the
+land, which the Children of Israel smote,’ and ends up with a sinister
+catalogue, ‘The king of Jericho, one; the king of Ai, one’--and so on
+for many verses, finishing up with ‘The king of the nations of Gilgal,
+one; the king of Tirzah, one; all the kings, thirty and one.’ After
+which pious and edifying exercise, the book was closed, and prayer
+offered.
+
+My old friend was an impressionable boy, and it seemed to him, he
+said, that there was a fearful and ominous significance in this list
+of slaughtered monarchs, depicting and emphasizing the darker side of
+life. But I have often thought that a few words from the Headmaster, on
+the vanity of human greatness and the triumph of the divine purpose,
+might have turned these lean and bitter memorials of the dead into an
+unforgettable parable. What, for instance, could be more profoundly
+moving in the scene of the ‘Passing of Arthur,’ where the knight steps
+slowly in the moonlight from the ruined shrine and the place of tombs:
+
+   ‘Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men,
+    Old knights--and over them the sea-wind sang
+    Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam’?
+
+That seems to lend the last touch of mystery and greatness to a scene
+of human endeavour, that the earth beneath the living feet should cover
+the bones, the hardy and heroic limbs of those who had lived and fought
+worthily. As the dying king, with the poignant accent of passion cries
+aloud:
+
+                  ‘“Such a sleep
+    They sleep--the men I loved!”’
+
+For nothing surely in the world can be so utterly and simply moving as
+the record of dead greatness--unless perhaps it be the oblivion which
+is the end of all greatness at the last. There is a place on the bleak
+top of the South Downs, a great tumulus, with an earth-work round it,
+all grassy now and tufted with gorse, the sheep grazing over it, which
+looks for miles north and east and west over the fertile weald, with
+shadowy hills on the horizon; and to the south, where the great ridges
+fold together, you can catch through the haze a golden glint of the
+sea. I never pass the place without a deep and strange thrill. It is
+called the Mound of the Seven Kings; it looks over a grassy space which
+is known as ‘Terrible Down,’ and of what day and what doom it is the
+record, who shall say?
+
+It seems impossible to us now, just as it seemed to the old hill-men
+who raised that tumulus, that as the world welters and widens onward,
+the great tragedies and losses and sacrifices which we have seen with
+our eyes, and the thought of which has so possessed our souls with a
+sense of grief and glory combined, should become but a tale that is
+told. But it is one of the thoughts which lie deepest and noblest in
+the mind and soul of man, the thought of old and infinite strife and
+endeavour, pain and death, courage and hope so richly blended, till
+it seems too great for the heart to hold. The mystery of it is that,
+as the Psalmist says: ‘I see that all things come to an end; but Thy
+commandment is exceeding broad.’ The thought, if I can define it, leaps
+like fire from crumbling ashes--all this great pageant of energy and
+heroism and fame fading farther and farther into the past--and yet,
+in spite of the hush of the tolling bell and the solemn music, the
+certainty that it is all worth doing and enduring, that we must wrest
+the great values out of life and make of it a noble thing; and that
+while memory fades and honour seems to perish, yet the seed once sown,
+it springs up again and again in life and beyond death, beyond all
+possibility of extinction.
+
+One of the things for which, in a great time like the present--great
+for all its sadness, and perhaps because of its sadness--one of the
+things for which I thank God is that this war has revealed as nothing
+else could have done the latent heroism of our nation. If only it could
+make us poets and cure us of being prophets! I have often been ashamed
+to the bottom of my heart of the cries of panic-mongers and crabbed
+pessimists shrieking in our ears that we were a nation sunk in sloth
+and luxury and indifference. I have lived all my life among the young,
+and if ever there was a thing of which I was certain, it was that our
+youth was brave and modest and manly--as this long and bitter fight has
+daily and hourly proved.
+
+And we have a task before us--to see that the memory of those who
+have fought for us and died for us should be as stably and as durably
+commemorated as possible. It is not that I think of a memorial as being
+in any sense a reward for the honoured dead. If there is one thing
+which our heart tells us, it is that they have a nobler reward than
+that. A new life, doubtless, a passing from strength to strength. But
+as Shelley so immortally said, ‘Fame is love disguised,’ and we owe it
+to our love and gratitude not only to remember, but to commemorate.
+I defy anyone, however simple and stolid, to set foot in our great
+Abbey, and not be thrilled with the thought, ‘After all, humanity is a
+splendid thing, so full of devotion and greatness as it is!’ Statesmen,
+monarchs, writers, artists, men of science, men of learning, there they
+sleep; there is a generous glow in many young hearts, which may thus be
+kindled. The poet of boyhood makes the boy, just disengaging himself
+from the beloved school and stepping into the world, say to himself:
+
+   ‘Much lost I: something stayed behind,
+      A snatch maybe of ancient song,
+    Some breathings of a deathless mind;
+      Some love of truth; some hate of wrong.
+
+    And to myself in games I said,
+     “What mean the books? Can I win fame?
+    I would be like the faithful dead,
+      A fearless man and pure of blame.”’
+
+This, then, is our present task--to see that our dead are worthily
+commemorated for our own sakes and for the sake of those who come
+after. How shall we do it?
+
+In the first place, we must not do it idly and carelessly--we must take
+thought, have a plan and a purpose, not be in too great a hurry. Hurry
+is the worst foe of memorials. We have a national habit--I think it is
+rather a sign of greatness--not to do anything until we are obliged;
+but the result of that often is a loss of grace and fineness; because
+people who must act, and are a little ashamed of not having acted,
+accept any solution.
+
+What I hope we shall do is to take careful thought where our memorials
+shall be set, so that they may be most constantly and plainly seen;
+and then how they may best fulfil their purpose, which is to remind
+us first, and next to kindle emotion and imagination. We have an ugly
+habit of combining, if we can, local utility with a memorial, as in
+the well-known story of the benevolent clergyman who read out the
+announcement of the death of a great statesman and added, ‘That is
+just what we wanted! We have long needed a new water supply!’ That is
+like using a grandfather’s sword to trim a privet-hedge with! I do not
+believe in fitting things in. If we commemorate, let us commemorate by
+a memorial which arrests and attracts the eye, is long and gratefully
+remembered, and by an inscription which touches the heart, and does not
+merely merge a man among the possessors of all human gifts and virtues.
+I remember a Georgian monument in a cathedral, where a lean man in a
+toga peeped anxiously out of an arbour of fluted columns, and of whom
+it was announced that in him ‘every talent which adorns the human
+spirit was united with every virtue which sustains it.’ How different
+is the little tablet in a church I know on which a former choir-boy
+is commemorated! He had joined the army, and had won a Victoria Cross
+in the Boer War which he did not live to receive. The facts were most
+briefly told; and below were the words, which I can hardly read without
+tears:
+
+                ‘Thou hast put a new song in my mouth.’
+
+What we want, then, are beauty, dignity, simplicity, and force. We want
+what appeals directly to the eye, and then darts a strong emotion into
+the heart, an emotion in which gratitude and hope are blended.
+
+I must not here attempt to unfold a wide technical scheme; indeed I
+could not if I would; but I may perhaps outline a few principles.
+
+First comes the difficulty that places like to manage their own
+affairs; and that the men who administer local interests, however
+devotedly and industriously, do not acquire their influence by artistic
+tastes. The next difficulty is that our artistic instinct in England is
+not widely diffused. When Walter Pater’s attention was called to some
+expensive tribute, and he became aware that an expression of admiration
+was required, he used to say in his soft voice, ‘Very costly, no
+doubt,’ and this was always accepted as an appropriate compliment, he
+said. A third difficulty is the deep-seated mistrust in England of the
+expert--it is all part of our independence--but the expert is often
+regarded simply as a man who lets you in for heavier expense than you
+had intended.
+
+It would be well if some central advisory board could be established--a
+central authority can hardly be expected, and indeed would not even be
+desirable. The nature of memorials should be carefully scrutinised. We
+are always weak in allegorical representation, and perhaps for that
+very reason have a great fondness for it. Our civic heraldry, for
+instance, is woefully weak, not by excess of symbolism, so much as by a
+desperate inclusiveness of all local tradition, till the shield becomes
+a landscape in which a company of travellers have hung their private
+property on every bush.
+
+Thus with our taste for representing and explaining and accounting
+and cataloguing, our memorials become architectural first, with every
+cornice loaded with precarious figures, like the painting described by
+Dickens of six angels carrying a stout gentleman to heaven in festoons
+with some difficulty. Our inscriptions become biographies. Again,
+the surrounding scene is little regarded. A statesman in a bronze
+frock-coat and trousers reading aloud a bronze manuscript behind the
+railings of a city square, embowered in acacias, has no power over the
+mind except the power of a ludicrous sense of embarrassment. A statue,
+majestic enough in a pillared alcove, is only uncomfortable in a storm
+of wind and rain.
+
+We ought, I believe, to fight shy of elaborate _designs_, because
+the pantomime of allegory at once begins. What we rather need is
+simplicity of statement, with perhaps a touch of emblem, no more, of
+characteristic material, of perfect gravity, so that the gazer can see
+at once that the matter recorded is great and significant, and desires
+to know more. It is said that an inscription was once to be seen in
+India, marking one of the farthest points of the advance of Alexander
+the Great. It was a slab with the words:
+
+                           ΕΝΤΑΥΘΑ · ΕϹΤΗΝ
+
+‘Here I stood’--upon it. What could be more impressive, what more
+calculated to sow a seed of wonder in an imaginative mind?
+
+These memorials should, I believe, evoke the spirit of the artist, as
+a craftsman, rather than as a designer. Alike in inscriptions and in
+representations, the wholesome and humble appeal must be direct and
+personal, avoiding rhetoric and over-emphasis, as well as elaborate
+conventions which other hands will dully and mechanically reproduce.
+If, as in cast metal-work, reproduction is natural and inevitable, let
+the designs be perfectly simple and sincere; if again it be painter,
+sculptor, carver, or builder that is called upon to create a memorial,
+let the responsibility and originality of the craft be his, and not
+be superseded or overruled by the authority of the design--for this
+indeed is, as Professor Prior said wittily to me the other day, as
+though a surgeon should provide a specification and an estimate for an
+operation, and leave the execution of it to other hands.
+
+But we must not suppose that we can insist upon any particular form
+of memorial in any particular place. What we may desire is that the
+memorial, whatever it is, of this great and heroic trial through which
+we are passing, should grow up out of the minds of the inhabitants of a
+city or a town, and should be made by the hands of inhabitants as well.
+I do not desire that they should be too costly. Indeed it may well be
+that we shall have given so much of our resources to the prosecution of
+the war that we shall have but little left for adorning our trophies.
+I do not desire that they should be constructed to serve other uses,
+at least not primarily. They are to tell their own story, a story of
+noble deeds, and provide alike a dedication of our dead to honour, and
+a dedication of ourselves to gratitude and future effort.
+
+I hope too most earnestly that we shall not accumulate resources on one
+national monument, to astonish tourists and to feed our vanity; but
+that as many places as possible should have a record of a great fact
+which has penetrated our national life more deeply than any historical
+event in the whole of our annals.
+
+Forethought, then, simplicity, naturalness, eloquence of emotion rather
+than of word, native feeling, these will, I hope, be the notes of our
+memorials. Let us try for once to express ourselves, not to cover up
+truth with turgid verdicts, but to say what we mean and what we feel as
+simply and emphatically as we can.
+
+We are not likely to forget the war; but what we may forget is that
+the result of it is the outcome of modest, faithful, loyal services
+done with no flourish or vanity, by thousands of very simple,
+straightforward people, who did not argue themselves into indignation,
+or reflect much about what they were doing, but came forward, leaving
+comfort and home and work and love, without any balancing of motives,
+but just because they felt that they must take their place in the
+battle of liberty and right with intolerable pride and aggression.
+That is the plain truth; and that is the best and only proof of the
+greatness of a nation that it should prefer death, if need be, to all
+the pleasant business of life. If this or any of this can be recorded,
+if this national impulse can be kept alive in our children, we need
+not fear either life with all its complications, or death with all its
+mysteries. The nation will live; and the memorials of these dark and
+great days will stand to witness to our far-off sons and daughters that
+their old forefathers did not live to no purpose and did not die in
+vain.
+
+
+
+
+                       _A GERMAN BUSINESS MIND._
+
+                    BY SIR JOHN WOLFE BARRY, K.C.B.
+
+
+Now that we are entering on the third year of the war so shamelessly
+brought about by Germany, the accompanying correspondence,
+commencing in August 1914, may interest your readers. It indicates
+the extreme rancour against our country of a leading and capable
+German manufacturer, not merely evoked by our declaration of war,
+but pre-existing for a long time and very carefully concealed from
+his English friends. It was to me in 1914 a curious lifting of the
+curtain, and indicates for our present guidance what will remain to
+be encountered by us in the economic struggle against the mercantile
+interests of Germany when the war ends.
+
+The manufacturer’s letter is also interesting as showing clearly the
+anticipations held in Germany, when she declared war, of a speedy and
+highly successful result of the wicked and stealthy attack on her
+neighbours for which she had been so long preparing. It is astonishing
+moreover in the extraordinary ignorance displayed, on the part of a
+clever leader of German enterprise, as to the Constitution, resources,
+and temper of the British Empire, and it gives full vent to his hatred
+and contempt of France, Russia, and Japan.
+
+This letter, printed second in the series, was addressed to an intimate
+friend of mine who was closely connected with engineering interests in
+Germany, and who had known the writer well for some years, having had
+important interests with him in business. My friend sent me the letter
+for my perusal, but did not disclose the name of the writer.
+
+The third letter is an attempted reply on my part to the statements and
+misstatements of the German manufacturer, and requires no comment from
+me. My friend sent a copy of my letter to his German correspondent, but
+it evoked no reply.
+
+Copies of both these letters were forwarded, anonymously, by my friend
+to a well-known English engineer long resident in Germany, who occupied
+a leading and acknowledged position in that country. He had been for
+many years closely in touch with very many members of his profession
+there, and was connected with numerous commercial interests.
+
+As will be seen, he promptly identified the German manufacturer,
+and his note on the correspondence is placed first in the series in
+order to make clear the character and position of the writer of the
+amazing letter No. 2. He expresses the astonishment which he felt at
+its contents, remarking that the sentiments expressed in it had been
+carefully concealed in his interviews with him both before and after
+the outbreak of the war. The correspondence appears to me to give
+much food for thought in many various ways, and I may, with these few
+explanatory comments, let the letters speak for themselves.
+
+
+                             Letter No. 1.
+
+Extract from a letter received by Mr. A. B. of London from Mr. C. D., a
+gentleman long resident in Germany and unusually well acquainted with
+German commercial life:
+
+
+                                     Received February 1915.
+
+     ‘I now see from whom the letter came. He is a friend of
+     mine. I have had a good deal to do with him lately, also
+     after the outbreak of war. Curiously, although knowing
+     me to be an Englishman, he has never in the slightest
+     manner expressed himself in a like sense to me. He has
+     evidently written to you in a great state of excitement.
+     Nevertheless I cannot understand his doing so nor his
+     harbouring the thoughts expressed in his letter. He is a
+     clever and clear-headed man and much respected. His conduct
+     in the labour question is looked upon as exemplary. He has
+     proceeded by quiet well-considered but energetic measures
+     to get his working staff entirely free from labour and
+     social-democratic influences. His workmen are all content
+     with their conditions, and his works therefore free from
+     labour troubles when these break out in other works. I
+     am told that all works at ---- have profited by his wise
+     measures. I therefore can all the less understand his
+     writing you such an incredible letter. How can men of his
+     position be so blinded to the true facts?
+
+     ‘The reply you sent[2] me sets this forth very clearly. I
+     entirely concur in the contents and the opinions expressed
+     in the same.’
+
+
+
+                             Letter No. 2.
+
+A letter written on August 29, 1914, to Mr. A. B. of London by a German
+business friend, and sent by Mr. A. B., in September 1914, to Sir John
+Wolfe Barry for his perusal:
+
+     ‘The poisonous seed sown by your good King Edward VII. has
+     sprung up. It is a well-known fact that the great aim of
+     his life, to which he devoted all his energy, was to unite
+     the whole world in one bond against Germany, to annihilate
+     that hated nation.
+
+     ‘His disciple Minister Grey has seized the opportunity of
+     tightening the noose with which Germany is to be strangled.
+     For ten years English diplomacy has worked for that end,
+     to close up the ring round us. Now the die is irrevocably
+     cast and Destiny goes its way. No one can say positively
+     what the outcome will be, but one thing I do believe, and
+     sixty-seven million Germans believe it with me, and that is
+     that we shall be victorious.
+
+     ‘We shall win because we are fighting for the right, for
+     our national existence, for civilization. Without England’s
+     intervention this war would have been inconceivable. In
+     France, whom we sincerely pity, and whom this war will
+     crush, one hears a united cry that she is ready for peace.
+     In Russia it was only the aristocratic party that has
+     forced on the war, and they will seize this opportunity to
+     steal. That party of course owns the anti-German press,
+     such as the _Nowoje Wremja_ and other papers, which are
+     financed by England. England alone was thirsting for war,
+     and has pressed the other nations into war against us.
+     For years she has seen how we have excelled her more and
+     more in the industrial world. If people were but honest,
+     they would know that the reason for our success lies in
+     the fact that we are an industrious and hardworking folk.
+     In England, on the other hand, there exists a widespread
+     tendency to avoid work. We have no public holidays. Our
+     working week averages fifty-eight hours. We Directors have
+     no “week-ends,” we work in the factory on an average from
+     fifty to sixty hours a week, and as a rule spend one or two
+     nights and sometimes even all Sunday in the train in order
+     to get work for our business. Moreover we understand how
+     to adapt ourselves to all possible circumstances, while
+     your people in their well-known arrogance, do not concern
+     themselves with the requirements of other countries.
+
+     ‘Because we have attained great prosperity by ability and
+     hard work, the hatred and jealousy you bear us Germans has
+     grown beyond all bounds. This embarrassing competition
+     must be crushed so that you can go on in your comfortable
+     decadent existence.
+
+     ‘In order that a people, who appear particularly Christian,
+     may attain this worthy goal, the barbarian hordes of the
+     Slavs are mobilised against the champions of civilization,
+     to whom the world owes so much. The natives in Africa are
+     incited against us, and we are even betrayed in Japan. This
+     last act has raised a storm of indignation in our country
+     which would alarm you, had you any idea of it. England will
+     certainly make terrible amends for this underhand deed.
+     The hatred which is raging among Germany’s sixty-seven
+     millions will avenge itself on England in a most fearful
+     way. For a hundred years the fist of every German will be
+     clenched whenever the word “England” is spoken.
+
+     ‘I have had many experiences in my time, but never have
+     I known anything like the satisfaction which prevailed
+     throughout our country yesterday, when it first became
+     known that your army of mercenaries had been under the
+     fire of our noble reserves, and that we were in a position
+     to shoot down the people who draw the sword for money.
+     Your soldiers who oppose us in the field will yet learn
+     something of the loathing which our army has for anything
+     that is English. Our sailors look forward eagerly to the
+     time when your fleet, of which you talk so much, appears
+     in German waters. You may be quite sure that a large part
+     of it will never again see the shores of England, even
+     if we lose the whole of our navy. It is to be hoped that
+     your fleet will at last summon up courage to attack us. If
+     they come under the guns of Heligoland and Kuxhaven, your
+     battleships will share the same fate as befell the forts at
+     Liège and Namur.
+
+     ‘In this war, which is the most shameful crime that has
+     ever been committed against humanity, and which lies
+     entirely at the door of English statesmen, we shall be
+     triumphant. England will be shaken to her foundations.
+     Mankind could not but lose its belief in right and
+     justice, and more particularly in the Divine guidance of
+     the universe, if a country, who in the most shameless way
+     professes Christianity and yet allies herself with Asiatics
+     and barbarians, were to be victorious.
+
+     ‘Your newspapers, of which we still regularly receive
+     copies, may overwhelm English readers with falsehoods
+     about our army and its successes. Truth is going forward,
+     and before fourteen days have passed our forces will be
+     investing Paris. Belgium, whom you incited to oppose us,
+     is cursing you. France, whom you likewise forced into war
+     against us, will in future show perfidious Albion the door.
+
+     ‘It is very sad that a country like England which has won
+     for herself so much merit in the progress of mankind,
+     and has produced so many able men, should abandon moral
+     principles proved through the centuries and hand herself
+     over to a band of unscrupulous men like Minister Grey.
+     When one considers all the misery which this war, which is
+     the most terrible the world has yet seen, has caused, it
+     makes one shudder to imagine what sort of conscience the
+     Councillors of the Czar, your Minister Grey and Minister
+     Churchill must have.
+
+     ‘Your great philosopher Carlyle has foreseen and indeed
+     prophesied the moral decadence which always precedes
+     political downfall. England has become the champion of
+     a band of murderers who eleven years ago assassinated
+     their King and his consort and have now killed a foreign
+     prince. This nation who wishes to be so great conspires
+     with the most barbaric race which the world has ever seen,
+     the Russians, and is the brother-in-arms of the most
+     treacherous, most contemptible, most ungrateful people that
+     the earth holds, the Japanese.
+
+     ‘I am sure America will endorse the general scorn and wrath
+     towards your country. Australia will not be very grateful
+     to England who wishes to make the position of the Japanese
+     more assured. I will go so far as to maintain that the
+     British world-empire will split off in all directions. The
+     world’s history must be judged by subsequent generations,
+     and the judgment of the world now passes sentence on your
+     country’s action.
+
+     ‘If I have offended you by what I have written, just
+     consider I cannot do otherwise than say what is my opinion.
+     My personal esteem for you is not altered by what is taking
+     place.’
+
+
+                             Letter No. 3.
+
+From Sir John Wolfe Barry to Mr. A. B.:
+
+
+                                          October 4th, 1914.
+
+     ‘I have read with profound interest and grief the copy of
+     the letter of August 29th from your German friend. The
+     rancour which it displays is beyond words. It is apparently
+     useless to criticise its contents looking to the frame of
+     mind of the writer, who, I think and fear, expresses the
+     present general feeling in Germany of hatred and anger
+     with our country. Many of his statements and arguments are
+     however absolutely and fundamentally erroneous and are
+     capable of complete refutation.
+
+     ‘The poisoning of German thought in respect of Great
+     Britain does not date from anything done by King Edward
+     and still less from Sir Edward Grey or the present or
+     former Ministry. It began long earlier in the antagonism
+     between the military class and what may be termed the
+     liberal aspirations of many thoughtful Germans when the
+     Crown Prince, afterwards the Emperor Frederick William,
+     married our Princess Royal. Both were in sympathy with
+     liberal ideas and they were violently opposed by Bismarck
+     and the blood-and-iron school, while the youth of Germany
+     were systematically taught by the professors and writers of
+     Germany, under the encouragement of Bismarck and his school
+     of thought, to hate and despise Great Britain. There is not
+     and never has been a corresponding feeling here towards
+     Germany.
+
+     ‘Of course the two countries are rivals in trade and
+     commerce, but that is no reason for rancorous hatred.
+     We are keen rivals in trade with the United States and
+     other countries, but such rivalries have not engendered
+     any other feelings than that each country should do its
+     best honourably to succeed in competition. It must never
+     be forgotten in this connection that in England and in
+     our colonies Germans, though keeping a strict barrier
+     of tariffs themselves, have had absolute freedom in
+     competition, that they have availed themselves of it and
+     have made huge profits under our Free Trade system. Thus
+     the rancour of Germany against Great Britain must be sought
+     for in other directions, and it cannot be truthfully put
+     down to trade rivalry.
+
+     ‘The cause is in fact to be found in the _Welt Politik_,
+     the jealousy of Germany of British world power and in the
+     aspirations of crushing Great Britain by force of arms.
+     This has been the persistent and avowed policy of the
+     Kaiser and the Junker class.
+
+     ‘The idea was to fight France and Russia to a finish
+     and then concentrate all forces against England (and
+     parenthetically against Belgium) and to destroy the British
+     Empire. The present extreme and violent hatred on the part
+     of Germany is due to the probability of the failure of
+     that deep-laid scheme in consequence of England supporting
+     her Allies, and refusing to break her pledged word to
+     Belgium. It may be also caused by the feeling which must
+     be somewhere embedded in German thought, that Germany has
+     behaved dishonourably and scandalously to Belgium, whose
+     neutrality she most solemnly guaranteed.
+
+     ‘If one looks back on the history of the last twenty-five
+     years, or thereabouts, one sees Bismarck threatening an
+     unprovoked war with France, and only withdrawing under the
+     threat of the opposition of Russia and Great Britain. This
+     proposed attack on France by Bismarck was a most shameful
+     episode, for France’s only offence was her existence and
+     recuperative power after her disasters in 1870. Then came
+     the Emperor’s policy in our South African War, when, if he
+     could have done so, he would have arrayed Europe against
+     this country, but ended only in having lured Kruger to
+     ruin. Then came the “mailed fist” in China, the seizure
+     of Tsing-tau, and Germany’s efforts to crush Japan after
+     the Russo-Japanese war. The demonstrations at Tangiers and
+     Agadir occurred soon afterwards, with more threats of an
+     European war. Afterwards came the annexation of Bosnia by
+     Austria backed by Germany and the insults hurled at Russia
+     by Germany in “shining armour.”
+
+     ‘It is these things and others of a similar nature when
+     the German “sabre has been rattled” constantly in the face
+     of Europe, that demonstrated that Germany was the enemy of
+     peace, and which, crowned by the breach of the Treaty of
+     Belgium, showed to the Allies that no treaty would hold
+     Germany, and that her aspirations and lust for world power
+     were Napoleonic. Lastly the Allies knew that Germany had
+     resolved on war and was making a catspaw of Austria by
+     preventing her from coming to an agreement with Servia and
+     Russia.
+
+     ‘I have said nothing about the systematic building of
+     the German navy. It was within her rights as a Sovereign
+     Power, but none the less the avowed object was to seize the
+     “Trident of the Seas” and to attack Great Britain. It was
+     obviously intended to attack our coasts, so as to enable an
+     invasion of this country to be possible, and to seize the
+     colonies of Great Britain and France.
+
+     ‘Germany was utterly deceived by her diplomatists about
+     England, which was troubled with threats of civil war and
+     by trade disputes, and they never thought that we would
+     stand up for Belgium and fight now rather than later. It is
+     chagrin at the miscalculation, combined with the effects
+     of our maritime power, which has produced the outburst of
+     hatred against us. Commercial rivalry has no real basis for
+     hatred, and as for the question of a “place in the sun,”
+     Germany has large and advantageous colonial possessions
+     but can do but little with those which she owns, and has
+     preferred to compete with us in our colonies as she has
+     done so long and so successfully.
+
+     ‘All this history of German jealousy, hatred and designs
+     is very sad, and I do not suppose that your German friend,
+     obsessed as he is, would listen to any facts or arguments.
+     But since I began to write, somewhat hurriedly, to you I
+     have been led on to write more than I intended to try to
+     deal with. I do not imagine that he has seen or would be
+     allowed to see the statement of the British case in the
+     White Paper, which I understand will be further elaborated
+     in a new paper to be published next Tuesday.
+
+     ‘Have you answered your friend’s letter, or have you looked
+     upon it as hopeless to do so? In the temper in which he
+     wrote there was nothing visible but fighting to a finish.
+
+                               ‘Yours very sincerely,
+                                 ‘(_Signed_) J. WOLFE BARRY.
+
+     ‘_P.S._--I suppose you have not had another letter? It
+     would be interesting to see one of a later date than August
+     29th.
+                                                  ‘J. W. B.’
+
+_N.B._--A copy of Sir John Wolfe Barry’s letter was sent by Mr. A.
+B. to his German business friend, but no reply was attempted and the
+correspondence then ceased.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+     [2] Viz. that of Sir John Wolfe Barry printed below as
+     letter No. 3.
+
+
+
+
+                  _THE NEW TEMPTATION OF ST. ANTHONY._
+
+                        BY JOHN W. N. SULLIVAN.
+
+
+(_The time is the present day. St. Anthony is discovered seated on the
+ground outside his hut. The cross stands in its accustomed place, erect
+before him; and the great panorama, of which he is now weary, lies
+below him. He has changed but slightly with the years; something of his
+old immobility has disappeared. He occasionally shrugs his shoulders
+when speaking, and he often accompanies his reflections with slight
+gestures of the hands._)
+
+ANTHONY (_thinking_). I have attained peace. Those troubling visions
+have disappeared. Never for an instant have I departed from grace since
+the Saviour’s face appeared to me in its shining disc of gold. The
+burning days and solemn nights pass noiselessly. Rare tempests mutter
+unnoticed about me. Nothing has power to disturb my beatific monotony;
+nor hope, nor fear, nor love, nor regrets. I have triumphed over all
+temptations. The devil has left me. (_He sighs._) That journey through
+space, upborne on his wings! (_Stars commence to shine: the daylight
+lingers._) I have resisted all the seductions of the flesh. I value not
+the riches of the mind. (_He starts, and looks fixedly at a vague light
+which advances across the desert._) It seems as if----. But that cannot
+be: I have already sustained all assaults.
+
+(_The light approaches rapidly. It is rose-coloured; within it a figure
+is dimly visible. With a thunderous noise it rolls to within ten paces
+of the saint. The air shakes and for an instant the stars are obscured.
+This passes: the light fades, and the form of a woman is perceived,
+upright, robed in white, her face stern and majestic. The sleeves of
+her garment are very wide, reaching to the ground._)
+
+THE WOMAN (_slightly raising her right arm_). I have need of you.
+
+ANTHONY (_stammering_). What mean you?
+
+THE WOMAN. I am your creator. Much study and great gifts came together
+for your making. They also were my children. My best blood flows in
+your veins. My name must mean everything to you, for you are wholly a
+product of my essence. I am called La France.
+
+ANTHONY (_pales and gazes fixedly at his visitor_). I belong to God.
+
+THE WOMAN (_sternly_). Do you deny that you are French? (_Anthony
+blushes and averts his gaze. He becomes sulky._) What existence have
+you had apart from France? Would the world still hold you, you and your
+temptations, apart from----
+
+ANTHONY (_starting up and with outstretched hands_). Say not that name!
+Say it not! (_He places his fingers in his ears and then, observing
+that the woman’s lips do not move, lowers his hands._) Speak! but avoid
+that name. I can endure aught else.
+
+THE WOMAN (_speaks, her arms hanging by her sides. Her head is thrown
+slightly back. Her words come slowly. Her voice is as the sound of a
+solemn sea plunging in distant caverns_). The hour of my agony is upon
+me. I am beset. My strength is great, my courage greater, and my pride
+reaches to the stars. But I have mighty foes, skilled in all cruel
+arts. I suffer. I dwell in the shadow of pain. My woes increase and the
+issue is doubtful. (_She stretches her hands towards Anthony._) Can you
+remain aloof?
+
+ANTHONY (_frowning_). This touches me not.
+
+THE WOMAN (_with irony_). Have you, then, purified your heart of
+all compassion? (_Anthony shrugs his shoulders with a gesture of
+indifference._) Are you, indeed, amongst the noblest of my offspring?
+My sons have sacrificed life for me: they have been content to forgo
+their ardent curiosities for my sake. What holds you back?
+
+ANTHONY (_with great dignity_). I seek union with God. The Devil
+himself tempted me for many days. He failed. How, then, can you
+succeed? (_Softly._) You cannot, even if you be he.
+
+THE WOMAN (_flinging her arms apart, and letting them drop heavily_).
+Shame cannot move you. But he who aids me receives great rewards. I
+will show you visions.
+
+(_She waves her hand. A cloud descends, swaying slowly in the air. It
+unwinds in sluggish masses till it fills the horizon. It glows with
+pale fire. Upon it are cities and wide plains. It is a very clean,
+neat, and precise land. Rivers wind gently between ploughed fields,
+red and brown. The cloud surges nearer, and presently Anthony discerns
+an immense temple shining in the sun. It approaches more quickly,
+its crystalline walls sending innumerable shafts of light before it.
+Anthony and his companion are enveloped in an insupportable radiance,
+and the next instant they find they are within the building. Facing
+them is a great altar, its gold shining dully in the light of a
+thousand lighted candles. The flags of France droop motionless about
+the altar; upon it the carved figure of a soldier lies prone. The
+pavement of the temple is invisible under the feet of the silent crowd.
+Mighty columns rush upward and are lost in the sweep of the dim roof.
+The air begins to pulsate with the heavy notes of an organ. Anthony
+and The Woman are floating above the heads of the multitude. None have
+observed them._)
+
+THE WOMAN (_motioning to the crowd_). Here are assembled rich and poor,
+wise men and fools; judges, statesmen, poets, the criminal and the
+peasant. All France is here, united in a common gratitude.
+
+ANTHONY. What do they?
+
+THE WOMAN. They honour the dead. (_She points to the prone figure on
+the altar._) The soldiers who saved France.
+
+(_A trumpet note is heard and the air rustles with the inclining of a
+myriad heads. A sweet singing arises behind the altar. A procession
+slowly passes before it. The first to pass is a man beyond middle age,
+with a grave, bearded face, a broad white forehead and serene eyes. He
+kneels for an instant and passes on._)
+
+THE WOMAN. The Philosophy of France. (_A young man, with a dark, keen
+face, and a very penetrating look, follows. Each figure, on arriving
+before the altar, kneels and passes on._) The Science of France.
+
+(_Then follow the Literature of France, an old man, very harmoniously
+dressed; the Music and Painting of France, two smaller figures; the
+Statesmanship and Laws of France, superb men, but badly clothed. There
+follow priests, merchants, scribes, criminals and courtesans. Anthony
+and his companion begin to soar higher. The music fades; the bowed
+heads of the people become indistinct. There is a period of darkness,
+and Anthony finds himself back on his rock. Before him stands The
+Woman. The great cloud has utterly vanished._)
+
+THE WOMAN. You have seen the greatness of France.
+
+ANTHONY (_thoughtfully_). It is a land not without merit.
+
+THE WOMAN. Many have died for it. Many more must die for it, or it will
+be a stricken land. Is it worth dying for?
+
+ANTHONY (_who has grown more argumentative with the years, hesitates.
+Then_:) That depends! (_He faces The Woman with a stern and questioning
+look._) Much knowledge and beauty lie within the borders of your land,
+but no man should die for knowledge or beauty. A man’s life belongs to
+God alone. Do your great ones serve God? Do they use their wisdom more
+fully to understand His counsels? Do they create beauty to glorify His
+praise? (_The Woman does not answer._) I will die for you if my death
+serves God. I will not die to extend your borders, to add beauty to
+your palaces, to make you more skilled in wisdom. Will my death bring
+you nearer to God?
+
+THE WOMAN (_regards Anthony sadly_). You ask me hard questions. Are
+there not many ways of serving God? I worship God in His creation. I
+meditate on the laws of His universe. I reveal to the world the beauty
+of His handiwork. Do I not therefore serve God?
+
+ANTHONY (_drily_). Does that heresy still flourish? God is not His
+creation.
+
+THE WOMAN. Is knowledge to vanish from the earth? Must none seek after
+beauty?
+
+ANTHONY (_raising his right hand and speaking with deliberation_). None
+may seek knowledge for the sake of wisdom. None may seek beauty for the
+sake of happiness. These things are but the raiment of God. Your great
+ones count the threads in God’s garment, but do they seek God? (_He
+delicately shrugs his shoulders._) Does France worship clothes?
+
+THE WOMAN (_sad and bewildered_). I do not understand.
+
+ANTHONY (_regards her long and then speaks gently_). You will never
+understand, for you are La France. You cannot see without eyes, nor
+hear without ears. You are the cleverest and most limited of God’s
+children.
+
+THE WOMAN (_stands still, her arms hanging limp, her head bowed.
+Suddenly she raises her head_). But I suffer!
+
+(_The air grows dim and a cold wind rises. The stars vanish. In the
+valley, mysteriously visible, Anthony sees a road. It is cumbered
+with dead and wounded men, lying in all attitudes, some as if asleep,
+head resting on arm, and some contorted hideously. Anthony notes the
+curious attitude of one man who seems to have his legs drawn right up
+under him; until presently he sees that he has no legs. A dead man sits
+propped against a gun. The whole of his tongue is visible, hanging
+downwards; the lower jaw is shot away. Presently one of the black
+shapes starts to flounder clumsily. In the mysterious light comes the
+glint of steel; the black shape is trying to fix the end of a bayonet
+in the ground. In one of his clumsy attempts the man reveals the fact
+that he has but one arm. For some minutes he struggles and finally the
+bayonet is fixed. The man lies still. Then he raises himself awkwardly
+on his one arm till the bayonet point touches his chest; he flings his
+arm straight out and falls with his whole weight on the point. A long
+red finger points up from his back._
+
+_The Woman waves her arm and the scene vanishes, to be replaced by
+another. A soldier, young, and with a look of bright intelligence,
+is saying farewell to his mother at the door of a cottage. The old
+woman’s face is lined; her hands tremble. Her eyes peer up anxiously
+at the young man, as she fondles the sleeve of his tunic. He speaks
+confidently and cheerfully, and after a final embrace walks briskly
+away. The old woman enters the cottage and sits there, in silence and
+alone. She picks up a book the young man had been reading and very
+carefully places it in a drawer._)
+
+THE WOMAN. An only child, and she a widow.
+
+ANTHONY (_looks very thoughtful_). What of her son?
+
+THE WOMAN. His agony is greater. He feels all her grief and his own.
+She feels but her own, for his leave-taking deceived her, and she
+believes he has joy in battle.
+
+ANTHONY (_as if musing_). Will men do so much to keep France?
+
+THE WOMAN (_softly_). They do much more. They know the issue is
+doubtful. They sacrifice so much, knowing the sacrifice may be in vain.
+(_Anthony raises his head and looks very intently at The Woman; she
+continues, her eyes glowing._) For years you have suffered on your
+rock. You suffer to save yourself. Jesus, your master, suffered to
+save the world. (_She stretches out her arms and her voice rings with
+triumph._) I offer you greater suffering. He who suffers for me knows
+not the fruit of his suffering. I offer you the opportunity of the
+greatest sacrifice: the sacrifice of all, knowing that your all may be
+in vain.
+
+(_The Woman pauses, her arms outspread. Anthony presses his hands to
+his head, and remains silent for a long time. Then, taking a step
+forward, he places his right hand in that of The Woman. They slowly
+leave the ground. As they mount in the air the few retarded rays of
+light utterly vanish, and blackest night confounds the jutting rock
+with the starless heaven._)
+
+
+
+
+                _THE OLD CONTEMPTIBLES: THE GOOD WORD._
+
+                             BY BOYD CABLE.
+
+
+It is quite inadequate to say that the troops were worn out, and indeed
+it is hard to find words to convey to anyone who has not experienced
+some days of a mixture of fighting and forced marching how utterly
+exhausted, how dead beat, how stupefied and numbed in mind and body the
+men were. For four days and nights they had fought and dug trenches and
+marched, and fought again, and halted to dig again, and fought again,
+and extricated themselves under hailing bullets and pouring shells from
+positions they never expected to leave alive, only to scramble together
+into some sort of ragged-shaped units and march again. And all this was
+under a fierce August sun, with irregular meals and sometimes no meals,
+at odd times with a scarcity or complete want of water, at all times
+with a burning lack and want of sleep.
+
+This want of sleep was the worst of it all. Any sort of fighting is
+heavy sleep inducing; when it is prolonged for days and nights without
+one good full, satisfying sleep, the desire for rest becomes a craving,
+an all-absorbing aching passion. At first a man wants a bed or space
+to lie down and stretch his limbs and pillow his head and sink into
+dreamless oblivion; at last he would give his last possession merely
+to be allowed to lean against a wall, to stand upright on his feet and
+close his eyes. To keep awake is torture, to lift and move each foot is
+a desperate effort, to keep the burning eyes open and seeing an agony.
+It takes the most tremendous effort of will to contemplate another five
+minutes of wakefulness, another hundred yards to be covered; and here
+were hours, endless hours, of wakefulness, miles and tens of miles to
+be covered.
+
+Cruelly hard as the conditions were for the whole retreating army,
+the rear-guard suffered the worst by a good deal. They were under the
+constant threat of attack, were halted every now and then under that
+threat or to allow the main body to keep a sufficient distance, had to
+make some attempt to dig in again, had to endure spasmodic shelling
+either in their shallow trenches or as they marched along the road.
+
+By the fourth day the men were reduced to the condition of automatons.
+They marched--no, it could hardly be said any longer that they
+‘marched’; they stumbled and staggered along like drunken men; their
+chins were sunk on their chests, their jaws hung slack, their eyes
+were set in a fixed and glassy stare, or blinked, and shut and opened
+heavily, slowly, and drowsily, their feet trailed draggingly, their
+knees sagged under them. When the word passed to halt, the front ranks
+took a minute or two to realise its meaning and obey, and the ranks
+behind bumped into them and raised heads and vacant staring eyes for
+a moment and let them drop again in a stupor of apathy. The change,
+the cessation of automatic motion was too much for many men; once
+halted they could no longer keep their feet, and dropped and sat or
+rolled helplessly to lie in the dust of the road. These men who fell
+were almost impossible to rouse. They sank into sleep that was almost
+a swoon, and no shaking or calling or cursing could rouse them or get
+them up again. The officers, knowing this, tried to keep them from
+sitting or lying down, moved, staggering themselves as they walked, to
+and fro along the line, exhorting, begging, beseeching, or scolding and
+swearing and ordering the men to keep up, to stand, to be ready to move
+on. And when the order was given again, the pathetically ridiculous
+order to ‘Quick march,’ the front ranks slowly roused and shuffled off,
+and the rear stirred slowly and with an effort heaved their rifles over
+their shoulders again and reeled after the leaders.
+
+Scores of the men had abandoned packs and haversacks, all of them had
+cast away their overcoats. Many had taken their boots off and marched
+with rags or puttees wound round their blistered and swollen feet.
+But no matter what one or other or all had thrown away, there was no
+man without his rifle, his full ammunition pouches, and his bayonet.
+These things weighed murderously, cut deep and agonisingly into the
+shoulders, cramped arms and fingers to an aching numbness; but every
+man clung to them, had never a thought of throwing them into the ditch,
+although many of them had many thoughts of throwing themselves there.
+
+Many fell out--fell out in the literal as well as the drill sense
+of the word; swerved to the side of the road and missed foot in the
+ditch and fell there, or stumbled in the ranks, tripped, lacking the
+brain or body quickness to recover themselves, collapsed, and rolled
+and lay helpless. Others, again, gasped a word or two to a comrade or
+an N.C.O., stumbled out of the ranks to the roadside, sank down with
+hanging head and rounded shoulders to a sitting position. Few or none
+of these men deliberately lay down. They sat till the regiment had
+plodded his trailing length past, tried to stagger to knees and feet,
+succeeded, and stood swaying a moment, and then lurched off after the
+rear ranks; or failed, stared stupidly after them, collapsed again
+slowly and completely. All these were left to lie where they fell. It
+was useless to urge them to move, because every officer and N.C.O. knew
+that no man gave up while he had an ounce of strength or energy left to
+carry on, that orders or entreaties had less power to keep a man moving
+than his own dogged pluck and will, that when these failed to keep a
+man going nothing else could succeed.
+
+All were not, of course, so hopelessly done as this. There were still a
+number of the tougher muscled, the firmer willed, who kept their limbs
+moving with conscious volition, who still retained some thinking power,
+who even at times exchanged a few words or a mouthful of curses. These,
+and the officers, kept the whole together, kept them moving by force
+of example, set the pace for them and gave them the direction. Most of
+them were in the leading ranks of their own companies, merely because
+their greater energy had carried them there past and through the ranks
+of those whose minds were nearly or quite a blank, whose bodies were
+more completely exhausted, whose will-power was reduced to a blind and
+sheep-like instinct to follow a leader, move when and where the dimly
+seen khaki form or tramping boots in front of them moved, stop when and
+where they stopped.
+
+The roads by which the army was retreating were cumbered and in places
+choked and blocked with fugitive peasantry fleeing from the advancing
+Germans, spurred into and upon their flight by the tales that reached
+them of ravished Belgium, by first-hand accounts of the murder of old
+men and women and children, of rape and violation and pillage and
+burning. Their slow, crawling procession checked and hindered the army
+transport, added to the trials of the weary troops by making necessary
+frequent halts and deviations off the road and back to it to clear some
+block in the traffic where a cart had broken down, or where worn-out
+women with hollow cheeks and staring eyes, and children with dusty,
+tear-streaked faces crowded and filled the road.
+
+The rear-guard passed numbers of these lying utterly exhausted by
+the roadside, and the road for miles was strewn with the wreckage
+of the retreat, with men who had fallen out unable longer to march
+on blistered or bleeding feet or collapsed in the heedless sleep of
+complete exhaustion; with broken-down carts dragged clear into the
+roadside and spilled with their jumbled contents into the ditch; with
+crippled horses and footsore cattle; with quivering-lipped, grey-haired
+old men, and dry-eyed, cowering women, and frightened, clinging
+children. Some of these peasantry roused themselves as the last of
+the rear-guard regiments came up with them, struggled again to follow
+on the road, or dragged themselves clear of it and sought refuge and
+hiding in abandoned cottages or barns or the deep dry ditches.
+
+At one point where the road crept up the long slope of a hill the
+rear-guard came under the longe-range fire of the German guns. The
+shells came roaring down, to burst in clouds of belching black smoke
+in the fields to either side of the road, or to explode with a sharp
+tearing cr-r-rash in the air, their splinters and bullets raining down
+out of the thick white woolly smoke cloud that coiled and writhed and
+unfolded in slow heavy oily eddies.
+
+One battalion of the rear-guard was halted at the foot of the hill and
+spread out off the road and across the line of it. Again they were told
+not to lie down, and for the most part the men obeyed, leaning heavily
+with their arms folded on the muzzles of their rifles or watching the
+regiments crawling slowly up the road with the coal-black shell-bursts
+in the fields about them or the white air-bursts of the shrapnel above
+them.
+
+‘Pretty bloomin’ sight--I don’t think,’ growled a gaunt and weary-eyed
+private. The man next him laughed shortly. ‘Pretty one for the Germs,
+anyway,’ he said; ‘and one they’re seein’ a sight too often for my
+fancy. They’ll be forgettin’ wot our faces look like if we keep on at
+this everlastin’ runnin’ away.’
+
+‘Blast ’em,’ said the first speaker savagely, ‘but our turn will come
+presently. D’you think this yarn is right, Jacko, that we’re retirin’
+this way just to draw ’em away from their base?’
+
+‘Gawd knows,’ said Jacko; ‘but they didn’t bring us over ’ere to do
+nothin’ but run away, an’ you can bet on that, Peter.’
+
+An order passed down the line, and the men began to move slowly into
+the road again and to shake into some sort of formation on it, and
+then to plod off up the hill in the wake of the rest. The shells were
+still plastering the hillside and crashing over the road, and several
+men were hit as the battalion tramped wearily up the hill. Even the
+shells failed to rouse most of the men from their apathy and weariness,
+but those it did stir it roused mainly to angry resentment or sullen
+oath-mumblings and curses.
+
+‘Well, Jacko,’ said Peter bitterly, ‘I’ve knowed I had a fair chance
+o’ bein’ shot, but burn me if ever I thought I was goin’ to be shot in
+the back.’
+
+‘It’s a long way to Tipperary,’ said Jacko, ‘an’ there’s bound to be a
+turnin’ in it somewheres.’
+
+‘An’ it’s a longer way to Berlin if we keeps on marchin’ like this with
+our backs to it,’ grumbled Peter.
+
+The sound of another approaching shell rose from a faint moan to
+a loud shriek, to a roar, to a wild torrent of yelling, whooping,
+rush-of-an-express-train, whirlwind noise; and then, just when it
+seemed to each man that the shell was about to fall directly on his own
+individual head, it burst with a harsh crash over them, and a storm of
+bullets and fragments whistled and hummed down, hitting the fields’
+soft ground with deep _whutts_, clashing sharply on the harder road. A
+young officer jerked out a cry, stumbled blindly forward a few paces
+with outstretched arms, pitched, and fell heavily on his face. He was
+close to where Peter and Jacko marched, and the two shambled hastily
+together to where he lay, lifted and turned him over. Neither needed
+a second look. ‘Done in,’ said Peter briefly, and ‘Never knew wot hit
+’im,’ agreed Jacko.
+
+An officer ran back to them, followed slowly and heavily by another.
+There was no question as to what should be done with the lad’s body.
+He had to be left there, and the utmost they could do for him was to
+lift and carry him--four dog-tired men hardly able to lift their feet
+and carry their own bodies--to a cottage by the roadside, and bring him
+into an empty room with a litter of clothes and papers spilled about
+the floor from the tumbled drawers, and lay him on a dishevelled bed
+and spread a crumpled sheet over him.
+
+‘Let’s hope they’ll bury him decently,’ said one of the officers. The
+other was pocketing the watch and few pitiful trinkets he had taken
+from the lad’s pockets. ‘Hope so,’ he said dully. ‘Not that it matters
+much to poor old Dicky. Come on, we must move, or I’ll never be able to
+catch the others up.’
+
+They left the empty house quietly, pulling the door gently shut behind
+them.
+
+‘Pore little Blinker,’ said Jacko as they trudged up the road after the
+battalion; ‘the best bloomin’ officer the platoon ever ’ad.’
+
+‘The best I ever ’ad in all my seven,’ said Peter. ‘I ain’t forgettin’
+the way ’e stood up for me afore the C.O. at Aldershot when I was
+carpeted for drunk. And ’im tryin’ to stand wi’ the right side of ’is
+face turned away from the light, so the C.O. wouldn’t spot the black
+eye I gave ’im in that same drunk!’
+
+‘Ah, an’ that was just like ’im,’ said Jacko. ‘An’ to think ’e’s washed
+out with a ’ole in the back of his ’ead--the back of it, mind you.’
+
+Peter cursed sourly.
+
+The battalion trailed wearily on until noon, halted then, and for
+the greater part flung themselves down and slept on the roadside for
+the two hours they waited there; were roused--as many of them, that
+is, as would rouse, for many, having stopped the machine-like motion
+of marching, could not recommence it, and had to be left there--and
+plodded on again through the baking afternoon heat. They had marched
+over thirty miles that day when at last they trailed into a small town
+where they were told they were to be billeted for the night. Other
+troops, almost as worn as themselves, were to take over the duties of
+rear-guard next day, but although that was good enough news it was
+nothing to the fact that to-night, now, the battalion was to halt and
+lie down and take their fill--if the Huns let them--of sleep.
+
+They were halted in the main square and waited there for what seemed to
+the tired men an interminable time.
+
+‘Findin’ billets,’ said Jacko. ‘Wish they’d hurry up about it.’
+
+‘Seems to me there’s something more than billets in the wind,’ said
+Peter suspiciously. ‘Wot’s all the officers confabbin’ about, an’ wot’s
+that _tamasha_ over there wi’ them Staff officers an’ the C.O.?’
+
+The _tamasha_ broke up, and the C.O. tramped back to the group of his
+officers, and after a short parley they saluted him and walked over to
+the battalion.
+
+‘Fall in,’ came the order sharply. ‘Fall in there, fall in.’
+
+Most of the men were sitting along the curb of the pavement or in the
+dusty road, or standing leaning on their rifles. They rose and moved
+heavily and stiffly, and shuffled into line.
+
+‘Wot is it, sergeant?’ asked Jacko suspiciously. ‘Wot’s the move?’
+
+‘We’re goin’ back,’ said the sergeant. ‘Hurry up there, you. Fall in.
+We’re goin’ back, an’ there’s some word of a fight.’
+
+The word flew round the ranks. ‘Going back ... a fight ... back....’
+
+Across the square another regiment tramped stolidly and turned down a
+side street. A man in their rear ranks turned and waved a hand to the
+waiting battalion. ‘So long, chums,’ he called. ‘See you in Berlin.’
+
+‘Ga’ strewth,’ said Jacko, and drew a deep breath. ‘Goin’ back; an’ a
+fight; an’ the ol’ Buffs on the move too. In Berlin, eh; wonder wot
+they’ve ’eard. Back--blimey, Peter, I believe we’re goin’ for the
+blinkin’ ’Uns again. I believe we’re goin’ to advance.’
+
+That word went round even faster than the other, and where it passed
+it left behind it a stir of excitement, a straightening of rounded
+shoulders, a lifting of lolling heads. ‘Going back ... going to attack
+this time ... going to advance....’
+
+Actually this was untrue, or partly so at least. They were going back,
+but still merely acting as rear-guard to take up a position clear of
+the town and hold it against the threat of too close-pressing pursuit.
+But the men knew nothing of that at the time. They were going back;
+there was word of a fight; what else did that spell but a finish to
+this cursed running away, an advance instead of a retreat? The rumour
+acted like strong wine to the men. They moved to the parade orders
+with something of their old drilled and disciplined appearance; they
+swung off in their fours with shuffling steps, it is true, but with a
+decent attempt to keep the step, with their heads more or less erect
+and their shoulders back. And when the head of the column turned off
+the square back into the same street they had come up into the town,
+a buzz of talk and calling ran through the ranks, a voice piped up
+shakily ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’ and a dozen, a score, a hundred
+voices took up the chorus sturdily and defiantly. The battalion moved
+out with the narrow streets ringing to their steady tramp, tramp,
+over the _pavé_ cobbles and the sound of their singing. Once clear of
+the town, it is true, the singing died away and the regular tramping
+march tailed off into the murmuring shuffle of feet moving out of
+step. But the deadly apathy had lifted from the men, there was an air
+of new life about them; one would never have known this battalion for
+the one that had marched in over the same road half an hour before.
+Then they were no more than a broken, dispirited crowd, their minds
+dazed, their bodies numbed with fatigue, moving mechanically, dully,
+apathetically, still plodding and shuffling their feet forward merely
+because their conscious minds had set their limbs the task, and then
+the tired brains, run down, had left the machinery of their bodies
+still working--working jerkily and slackly perhaps, but nevertheless
+working as it would continue to work until the overstrained muscles
+refused their mechanical duty.
+
+Now they were a battalion, a knitted and coherent body of fighting
+men, still worn out and fatigued almost to the point of collapse, but
+with working minds, with a conscious thought in their brains, with
+discipline locking their ranks again, with the prospect of a fight
+ahead, with the hope strong in them that the tide was turning, that
+they were done with the running away and retreating and abandoning
+hard-fought fields they were positive they had won; that now their turn
+was come, that here they were commencing and making the longed-for
+advance.
+
+And as they marched they heard behind them a deep _boo-boom_,
+_boo-boom_, _boo-moom_ and the whistling rush of the shells over their
+heads. That and the low muttering rumble of guns far out on the flank
+brought to them a final touch of satisfaction. They were advancing, and
+the guns were supporting them already then--good, oh good!
+
+And as they marched back down the road they had come they met some of
+their stragglers hobbling painfully on bandaged feet, or picked them
+up from where they still lay in a stupor of sleep on the roadside. And
+to all of them the one word ‘advance’ was enough. ‘We’re going back
+... it’s an advance,’ turned them staggering round to limp back in the
+tail of the battalion, or lifted them to their feet to follow on as
+best they might. They picked up more than their own men, too, men of
+other regiments who had straggled and fallen out, but now drew fresh
+store of strength from the cheerful word ‘advance,’ and would not be
+denied their chance to be in the van of it, but tailed on in rear of
+the battalion and struggled to keep up with them. ‘We’re all right,
+sir,’ said one when an officer would have turned him and sent him back
+to find his own battalion. ‘We’re pretty near done in on marching; but
+there’s a plenty fight left in us--specially when it’s an advance.’
+
+‘Jacko,’ said Peter, ‘I’m damn near dead; but thank the Lord I won’t
+’ave to die runnin’ away.’
+
+‘All I asks,’ said Jacko, ‘is as fair a target on ’em as we’ve ’ad
+before, an’ a chance to put a ’ole in the back o’ some o’ _their_
+’eads.’
+
+‘Ah!’ said Peter. ‘Pore little Blinker. They’ve got to pay for ’im an’
+a few more like ’im.’
+
+‘They ’ave, blarst them,’ said Jacko savagely, and dropped his hand
+to his bayonet haft, slid the steel half out and home again. ‘Don’t
+fret, chum, they’ll pay--soon or late, this time or nex’, one day or
+another--they’ll pay.’
+
+
+
+
+                        _THE LOST NAVAL PAPERS._
+
+                         BY BENNET COPPLESTONE.
+
+
+                                   I.
+
+                           BAITING THE TRAP.
+
+
+This story--which contains a moral for those fearful folk who exalt
+everything German--was told to me by Richard Cary, the accomplished
+naval correspondent of a big paper in the North of England. I have
+known him and his enthusiasm for the White Ensign for twenty years.
+He springs from an old naval stock, the Carys of North Devon, and
+has devoted his life to the study of the Sea Service. He had for so
+long been accustomed to move freely among shipyards and navymen, and
+was trusted so completely, that the veil of secrecy which dropped in
+August 1914 between the Fleets and the world scarcely existed for
+him. Everything which he desired to know for the better understanding
+of the real work of the Navy came to him officially or unofficially.
+When, therefore, he states that the Naval Notes with which this story
+deals would have been of incalculable value to the enemy, I accept
+his word without hesitation. I have myself seen some of them and they
+made me tremble--for Cary’s neck. I pressed him to write this story
+himself, but he refused. ‘No,’ said he, ‘I have told you the yarn just
+as it happened; write it yourself. I am a dull dog, quite efficient at
+handling hard facts and making scientific deductions from them, but
+with no eye for the picturesque details. I give it to you.’ He rose to
+go--Cary had been lunching with me--but paused for an instant upon my
+front doorstep. ‘If you insist upon it,’ added he, smiling, ‘I don’t
+mind sharing in the plunder.’
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was in the latter part of May 1916. Cary was hard at work one
+morning in his rooms in the Northern City where he had established
+his headquarters. His study table was littered with papers--notes,
+diagrams, and newspaper cuttings--and he was laboriously reducing the
+apparent chaos into an orderly series of chapters upon the Navy’s
+Work which he proposed to publish after the war was over. It was not
+designed to be an exciting book--Cary has no dramatic instinct--but
+it would be full of fine sound stuff, close accurate detail, and clear
+analysis. Day by day for more than twenty months he had been collecting
+details of every phase of the Navy’s operations, here a little and
+there a little. He had recently returned from a confidential tour of
+the shipyards and naval bases, and had exercised his trained eye upon
+checking and amplifying what he had previously learned. While his
+recollection of this tour was fresh he was actively writing up his
+Notes and revising the rough early draft of his book. More than once
+it had occurred to him that his accumulations of Notes were dangerous
+explosives to store in a private house. They were becoming so full and
+so accurate that the enemy would have paid any sum or have committed
+any crime to secure possession of them. Cary is not nervous or
+imaginative--have I not said that he springs from a naval stock?--but
+even he now and then felt anxious. He would, I believe, have slept
+peacefully though knowing that a delicately primed bomb lay beneath his
+bed, for personal risks troubled him little, but the thought that hurt
+to his country might come from his well-meant labours sometimes rapped
+against his nerves. A few days before his patriotic conscience had been
+stabbed by no less a personage than Admiral Jellicoe, who, speaking
+to a group of naval students which included Cary, had said: ‘We have
+concealed nothing from you, for we trust absolutely to your discretion.
+Remember what you have seen, but do not make any notes.’ Yet here at
+this moment was Cary disregarding the orders of a Commander-in-Chief
+whom he worshipped. He tried to square his conscience by reflecting
+that no more than three people knew of the existence of his Notes
+or of the book which he was writing from them, and that each one of
+those three was as trustworthy as himself. So he went on collating,
+comparing, writing, and the heap upon his table grew bigger under his
+hands.
+
+The clock had just struck twelve upon that morning when a servant
+entered and said ‘A gentleman to see you, sir, upon important business.
+His name is Mr. Dawson.’
+
+Cary jumped up and went to his dining-room, where the visitor was
+waiting. The name had meant nothing to him, but the instant his eyes
+fell upon Mr. Dawson he remembered that he was the chief Scotland
+Yard officer who had come north to teach the local police how to keep
+track of the German agents who infested the shipbuilding centres. Cary
+had met Dawson more than once and had assisted him with his intimate
+local knowledge. He greeted his visitor with smiling courtesy, but
+Dawson did not smile. His first words, indeed, came like shots from an
+automatic pistol.
+
+‘Mr. Cary,’ said he, ‘I want to see your Naval Notes.’
+
+Cary was staggered, for the three people whom I have mentioned did not
+include Mr. Dawson. ‘Certainly,’ said he, ‘I will show them to you if
+you ask officially. But how in the world did you hear anything about
+them?’
+
+‘I am afraid that a good many people know about them, most undesirable
+people, too. If you will show them to me--I am asking officially--I
+will tell you what I know.’
+
+Cary led the way to his study. Dawson glanced round the room, at
+the papers heaped upon the table, at the tall windows bare of
+curtains--Cary, who loved light and sunshine, hated curtains--and
+growled. Then he locked the door, pulled down the thick blue blinds
+required by the East Coast lighting orders, and switched on the
+electric lights though it was high noon in May. ‘That’s better,’ said
+he. ‘You are an absolutely trustworthy man, Mr. Cary. I know all about
+you. But you are damned careless. That bare window is overlooked from
+half a dozen flats. You might as well do your work in the street.’
+
+Dawson picked up some of the papers, and their purport was explained to
+him by Cary. ‘I don’t know anything of naval details,’ said he, ‘but I
+don’t need any evidence of the value of the stuff here. The enemy wants
+it, wants it badly; that is good enough for me.’
+
+‘But,’ remonstrated Cary, ‘no one knows of these papers, or of the use
+to which I am putting them, except my son in the Navy, my wife (who has
+not read a line of them), and my publisher in London.’
+
+‘Hum!’ commented Dawson. ‘Then how do you account for this?’
+
+He opened his leather despatch-case and drew forth a parcel carefully
+wrapped up in brown paper. Within the wrapping was a large white
+envelope of the linen woven paper used for registered letters, and
+generously sealed. To Cary’s surprise, for the envelope appeared to be
+secure, Dawson cautiously opened it so as not to break the seal which
+was adhering to the flap and drew out a second smaller envelope, also
+sealed. This he opened in the same delicate way and took out a third;
+from the third he drew a fourth, and so on until eleven empty envelopes
+had been added to the litter piled upon Cary’s table, and the twelfth,
+a small one, remained in Dawson’s hands.
+
+‘Did you ever see anything so childish?’ observed he, indicating the
+envelopes. ‘A big, registered, sealed Chinese puzzle like that is just
+crying out to be opened. We would have seen the inside of that one even
+if it had been addressed to the Lord Mayor, and not to--well, someone
+in whom we are deeply interested, though he does not know it.’
+
+Cary, who had been fascinated by the succession of sealed envelopes,
+stretched out his hand towards one of them. ‘Don’t touch,’ snapped out
+Dawson. ‘Your clumsy hands would break the seals, and then there would
+be the devil to pay. Of course all these envelopes were first opened in
+my office. It takes a dozen years to train men to open sealed envelopes
+so that neither flap nor seal is broken, and both can be again secured
+without showing a sign of disturbance. It is a trade secret.’
+
+Dawson’s expert fingers then opened the twelfth envelope and he
+produced a letter. ‘Now, Mr. Cary, if we had not known you and also
+known that you were absolutely honest and loyal--though dangerously
+simple-minded and careless in the matter of windows--this letter would
+have been very awkward indeed for you. It runs: “Hagan arrives 10.30
+P.M. Wednesday to get Cary’s Naval Notes. Meet him. Urgent.” Had we not
+known you, Mr. Richard Cary might have been asked to explain how Hagan
+knew all about his Naval Notes and was so very confident of being able
+to get them.’
+
+Cary smiled. ‘I have often felt,’ said he, ‘especially in war-time,
+that it was most useful to be well known to the police. You may ask me
+anything you like and I will do my best to answer. I confess that I am
+aghast at the searchlight of inquiry which has suddenly been turned
+upon my humble labours. My son at sea knows nothing of the Notes except
+what I have told him in my letters, my wife has not read a line of
+them, and my publisher is the last man to talk. I seem to have suddenly
+dropped into the middle of a detective story.’ The poor man scratched
+his head and smiled ruefully at the Scotland Yard officer.
+
+‘Mr. Cary,’ said Dawson, ‘those windows of yours would account for
+anything. You have been watched for a long time, and I am perfectly
+sure that our friend Hagan and his associates here know precisely in
+what drawer of that desk you keep your naval papers. Your flat is easy
+to enter--I had a look round before coming in to-day--and on Wednesday
+night (that is to-morrow) there will be a scientific burglary here and
+your Notes will be stolen.’
+
+‘Oh no they won’t,’ cried Cary. ‘I will take them down this afternoon
+to my office and lock them up in the big safe. It will put me to a lot
+of bother, for I shall also have to lock up there the chapters of my
+book.’
+
+‘You newspaper men ought all to be locked up yourselves. You are a
+cursed nuisance to honest, hard-worked Scotland Yard men like me. But
+you mistake the object of my visit. I want this flat to be entered
+to-morrow night, and I want your naval papers to be stolen.’
+
+For a moment the wild thought came to Cary that this man Dawson--the
+chosen of the Yard--was himself a German Secret Service agent, and
+must have shown in his eyes some signs of the suspicion, for Dawson
+laughed loudly. ‘No, Mr. Cary, I am not in the Kaiser’s pay, nor are
+you, though the case against you might be painted pretty black. This
+man Hagan is on our string in London and we want him very badly indeed.
+Not to arrest--at least not just yet--but to keep running round showing
+us his pals and all their little games. He is an Irish American, a very
+unbenevolent neutral, to whom we want to give a nice, easy, happy time,
+so that he can mix himself up thoroughly with the spy business and wrap
+a rope many times round his neck. We will pull on to the end when we
+have finished with him, but not a minute too soon. He is too precious
+to be frightened. Did you ever come across such an ass’--Dawson
+contemptuously indicated the pile of sealed envelopes--‘he must have
+soaked himself in American dime novels and cinema crime films. He will
+be of more use to us than a dozen of our best officers. I feel that I
+love Hagan and won’t have him disturbed. When he comes here to-morrow
+night he shall be seen but not heard. He shall enter this room, lift
+your Notes, which shall be in their usual drawer, and shall take them
+safely away. After that I rather fancy that we shall enjoy ourselves,
+and that the salt will stick very firmly upon Hagan’s little tail.’
+
+Cary did not at all like this plan; it might offer amusement and
+instruction to the police, but seemed to involve himself in an
+excessive amount of responsibility. ‘Will it not be far too risky to
+let him take my Notes even if you do shadow him closely afterwards? He
+will get them copied and scattered amongst a score of agents, one of
+whom may get the information through to Germany. You know your job,
+of course, but the risk seems too big for me. After all, they are my
+Notes, and I would far sooner burn them now than that the Germans
+should see a line of them.’
+
+Dawson laughed again. ‘You are a dear simple soul, Mr. Cary; it does
+one good to meet you. Why on earth do you suppose I came here to-day
+if it were not to enlist your help? Hagan is going to take all the
+risks; you and I are not looking for any. He is going to steal some
+Naval Notes, but they will not be those which lie on this table. I
+myself will take charge of those and of the chapters of your most
+reprehensible book. You shall prepare, right now, a beautiful new
+artistic set of notes calculated to deceive. They must be accurate
+where any errors would be spotted, but wickedly false wherever
+deception would be good for Fritz’s health. I want you to get down
+to a real plant. This letter shall be sealed up again in its twelve
+silly envelopes and go by registered post to Hagan’s correspondent.
+You shall have till to-morrow morning to invent all those things which
+we want Fritz to believe about the Navy. Make us out to be as rotten
+as you plausibly can. Give him some heavy losses to gloat over and to
+tempt him out of harbour. Don’t overdo it, but mix up your fiction with
+enough facts to keep it sweet and make it sound convincing. If you do
+your work well--and the Naval authorities here seem to think a lot of
+you--Hagan will believe in your Notes, and will try to get them to
+his German friends at any cost or risk, which will be exactly what we
+want of him. Then, when he has served our purpose, he will find that
+we--have--no--more--use--for--him.’
+
+Dawson accompanied this slow, harmlessly sounding sentence with a grim
+and nasty smile. Cary, before whose eyes flashed for a moment the
+vision of a chill dawn, cold grey walls, and a silent firing party,
+shuddered. It was a dirty task to lay so subtle a trap even for a dirty
+Irish-American spy. His honest English soul revolted at the call upon
+his brains and knowledge, but common sense told him that in this way,
+Dawson’s way, he could do his country a very real service. For a few
+minutes he mused over the task set to his hand, and then spoke.
+
+‘All right. I think that I can put up exactly what you want. The faked
+Notes shall be ready when you come to-morrow. I will give the whole day
+to them.’
+
+In the morning the new set of Naval Papers was ready, and their
+purport was explained in detail to Dawson, who chuckled joyously. ‘This
+is exactly what Admiral ---- wants, and it shall get through to Germany
+by Fritz’s own channels. I have misjudged you, Mr. Cary; I thought you
+little better than a fool, but that story here of a collision in a fog
+and the list of damaged Queen Elizabeths in dock would have taken in
+even me. Fritz will suck it down like cream. I like that effort even
+better than your grave comments on damaged turbines and worn-out gun
+tubes. You are a genius, Mr. Cary, and I must take you to lunch with
+the Admiral this very day. You can explain the plant better than I can,
+and he is dying to hear all about it. Oh, by the way, he particularly
+wants a description of the failure to complete the latest batch of
+big shell fuses, and the shortage of lyddite. You might get that done
+before the evening. Now for the burglary. Do nothing, nothing at all,
+outside your usual routine. Come home at your usual hour, go to bed
+as usual, and sleep soundly if you can. Should you hear any noise in
+the night put your head under the bedclothes. Say nothing to Mrs. Cary
+unless you are obliged, and for God’s sake don’t let any woman--wife,
+daughter, or maidservant--disturb my pearl of a burglar while he is at
+work. He must have a clear run, with everything exactly as he expects
+to find it. Can I depend upon you?’
+
+‘I don’t pretend to like the business,’ said Cary, ‘but you can depend
+upon me to the letter of my orders.’
+
+‘Good,’ cried Dawson. ‘That is all I want.’
+
+
+                                  II.
+
+                            THE TRAP CLOSES.
+
+
+Cary heard no noise though he lay awake for most of the night,
+listening intently. The flat seemed to be more quiet even than usual.
+There was little traffic in the street below, and hardly a step
+broke the long silence of the night. Early in the morning--at six
+B.S.T.--Cary slipped out of bed, stole down to his study, and pulled
+open the deep drawer in which he had placed the bundle of faked Naval
+Notes. They had gone! So the Spy-Burglar had come, and, carefully
+shepherded by Dawson’s sleuth-hounds, had found the primrose path easy
+for his crime. To Cary, the simple, honest gentleman, the whole plot
+seemed to be utterly revolting--justified, of course, by the country’s
+needs in time of war, but none the less revolting. There is nothing
+of glamour in the Secret Service, nothing of romance, little even of
+excitement. It is a cold-blooded exercise of wits against wits, of
+spies against spies. The amateur plays a fish upon a line and gives
+him a fair run for his life, but the professional fisherman--to whom
+a salmon is a people’s food--nets him coldly and expeditiously as he
+comes in from the sea.
+
+Shortly after breakfast there came a call from Dawson on the telephone.
+‘All goes well. Come to my office as soon as possible.’ Cary found
+Dawson bubbling with professional satisfaction. ‘It was beautiful,’
+cried he. ‘Hagan was met at the train, taken to a place we know of,
+and shadowed by us tight as wax. We now know all his associates--the
+swine have not even the excuse of being German. He burgled your flat
+himself while one of his gang watched outside. Never mind where I was;
+you would be surprised if I told you; but I saw everything. He has the
+faked papers, is busy making copies, and this afternoon is going down
+the river in a steamer to get a glimpse of the shipyards and docks and
+check your Notes as far as can be done. Will they stand all right?’
+
+‘Quite all right,’ said Cary. ‘The obvious things were given correctly.’
+
+‘Good. We will be in the steamer.’
+
+Cary went that afternoon, quite unchanged in appearance by Dawson’s
+order. ‘If you try to disguise yourself,’ declared that expert, ‘you
+will be spotted at once. Leave the refinements to us.’ Dawson himself
+went as an elderly dug-out officer with the rank marks of a colonel,
+and never spoke a word to Cary upon the whole trip down and up the
+teeming river. Dawson’s men were scattered here and there--one a
+passenger of inquiring mind, another a deckhand, yet a third--a pretty
+girl in khaki--sold tea and cakes in the vessel’s saloon. Hagan--who,
+Cary heard afterwards, wore the brass-bound cap and blue kit of a mate
+in the American merchant service--was never out of sight for an instant
+of Dawson or of one of his troupe. He busied himself with a strong pair
+of marine glasses and now and then asked innocent questions of the
+ship’s deckhands. He had evidently himself once served as a sailor.
+One deckhand, an idle fellow to whom Hagan was very civil, told his
+questioner quite a lot of interesting details about the Navy ships,
+great and small, which could be seen upon the building slips. All
+these details tallied strangely with those recorded in Cary’s Notes.
+The trip up and down the river was a great success for Hagan and for
+Dawson, but for Cary it was rather a bore. He felt somehow out of the
+picture. In the evening Dawson called at Cary’s office and broke in
+upon him. ‘We had a splendid trip to-day,’ said he. ‘It exceeded my
+utmost hopes. Hagan thinks no end of your Notes, but he is not taking
+any risks. He leaves in the morning for Glasgow to do the Clyde and to
+check some more of your stuff. Would you like to come?’ Cary remarked
+that he was rather busy, and that these river excursions, though
+doubtless great fun for Dawson, were rather poor sport for himself.
+Dawson laughed joyously--he was a cheerful soul when he had a spy upon
+his string. ‘Come along,’ said he. ‘See the thing through. I should
+like you to be in at the death.’ Cary observed that he had no stomach
+for cold damp dawns, and firing parties.
+
+‘I did not quite mean that,’ replied Dawson. ‘Those closing ceremonies
+are still strictly private. But you should see the chase through
+to a finish. You are a newspaper man and should be eager for new
+experiences.’
+
+‘I will come,’ said Cary, rather reluctantly. ‘But I warn you that my
+sympathies are steadily going over to Hagan. The poor devil does not
+look to have a dog’s chance against you.’
+
+‘He hasn’t,’ said Dawson with great satisfaction.
+
+Cary, to whom the wonderful Clyde was as familiar as the river near
+his own home, found the second trip almost as wearisome as the first.
+But not quite. He was now able to recognise Hagan, who again appeared
+as a brass-bounder, and did not affect to conceal his deep interest in
+the Naval panorama offered by the river. Nothing of real importance
+can, of course, be learned from a casual steamer trip, but Hagan
+seemed to think otherwise, for he was always either watching through
+his glasses or asking apparently artless questions of passengers or
+passing deckhands. Again a sailor seemed disposed to be communicative;
+he pointed out more than one monster in steel, red raw with surface
+rust, and gave particulars of a completed power which would have
+surprised the Admiralty Superintendent. They would not, however, have
+surprised Mr. Cary, in whose ingenious brain they had been conceived.
+This second trip, like the first, was declared by Dawson to have been
+a great success. ‘Did you know me?’ he asked. ‘I was a clean-shaven
+Naval doctor, about as unlike the Army colonel of the first trip as a
+pigeon is unlike a gamecock. Hagan is off to London to-night by the
+North-Western. There are three copies of your Notes. One is going
+by Edinburgh and the east coast, and another by the Midland. Hagan
+has the original masterpiece. I will look after him and leave the two
+other messengers to my men. I have been on to the Yard by ’phone and
+have arranged that all three shall have passports for Holland. The
+two copies shall reach the Kaiser, bless him, but I really must have
+Hagan’s set of Notes for my Museum.’
+
+‘And what will become of Hagan?’ asked Cary.
+
+‘Come and see,’ said Mr. Dawson.
+
+Dawson entertained Cary at dinner in a private room at the Station
+Hotel, waited upon by one of his own confidential men. ‘Nobody ever
+sees me,’ he observed with much satisfaction, ‘though I am everywhere.’
+(I suspect that Dawson is not without his little vanities.) ‘Except
+in my office and with people whom I know well, I am always someone
+else. The first time I came to your house I wore a beard, and the
+second time looked like a gas inspector. You saw only the real Dawson.
+When one has got the passion for the chase in one’s blood, one cannot
+bide for long in a stuffy office. As I have a jewel of an assistant,
+I can always escape and follow up my own victims. This man Hagan is
+a black heartless devil. Don’t waste your sympathy on him, Mr. Cary.
+He took money from us quite lately to betray the silly asses of Sinn
+Feiners, and now, thinking us hoodwinked, is after more money from the
+Kaiser. He is of the type that would sell his own mother and buy a
+mistress with the money. He’s not worth your pity. We use him and his
+like for just so long as they can be useful, and then the jaws of the
+trap close. By letting him take those faked Notes we have done a fine
+stroke for the Navy, for the Yard, and for Bill Dawson. We have got
+into close touch with four new German agents here and two more down
+south. We shan’t seize them yet; just keep them hanging on and use
+them. That’s the game. I am never anxious about an agent when I know
+him and can keep him watched. Anxious, bless you; I love him like a
+cat loves a mouse. I’ve had some spies on my string ever since the war
+began; I wouldn’t have them touched or worried for the world. Their
+correspondence tells me everything, and if a letter to Holland which
+they haven’t written slips in sometimes it’s useful, very useful, as
+useful almost as your faked Notes.’
+
+Half an hour before the night train was due to leave for the South,
+Dawson, very simply but effectively changed in appearance--for Hagan
+knew by sight the real Dawson,--led Cary to the middle sleeping-coach
+on the train. ‘I have had Hagan put in No. 5,’ he said, ‘and you and
+I will take Nos. 4 and 6. No. 5 is an observation berth; there is one
+fixed up for us on this sleeping-coach. Come in here.’ He pulled Cary
+into No. 4, shut the door, and pointed to a small wooden knob set a few
+inches below the luggage rack. ‘If one unscrews that knob one can see
+into the next berth, No. 5. No. 6 is fitted in the same way, so that
+we can rake No. 5 from both sides. But, mind you, on no account touch
+those knobs until the train is moving fast and until you have switched
+out the lights. If No. 5 was dark when you opened the peep-hole, a ray
+of light from your side would give the show away. And unless there was
+a good deal of vibration and rattle in the train you might be heard.
+Now cut away to No. 6, fasten the door, and go to bed. I shall sit up
+and watch, but there is nothing for you to do.’
+
+Hagan appeared in due course, was shown into No. 5 berth, and the train
+started. Cary asked himself whether he should go to bed as advised or
+sit up reading. He decided to obey Dawson’s orders, but to take a look
+in upon Hagan before settling down for the journey. He switched off his
+lights, climbed upon the bed, and carefully unscrewed the little knob
+which was like the one shown to him by Dawson. A beam of light stabbed
+the darkness of his berth, and putting his eye with some difficulty
+to the hole--one’s nose gets so confoundedly in the way--he saw Hagan
+comfortably arranging himself for the night. The spy had no suspicion
+of his watchers on both sides, for, after settling himself in bed, he
+unwrapped a flat parcel, and took out a bundle of blue papers which
+Cary at once recognised as the originals of his stolen Notes. Hagan
+went through them--he had put his suit-case across his knees to form
+a desk--and carefully made marginal jottings. Cary, who had often
+tried to write in trains, could not but admire the man’s laborious
+patience. He painted his letters and figures over and over again, in
+order to secure distinctness, in spite of the swaying of the train, and
+frequently stopped to suck the point of his pencil.
+
+‘I suppose,’ thought Cary, ‘that Dawson yonder is just gloating over
+his prey, but for my part I feel an utterly contemptible beast. Never
+again will I set a trap for even the worst of my fellow-creatures.’ He
+put back the knob, went to bed, and passed half the night in extreme
+mental discomfort and the other half in snatching brief intervals of
+sleep. It was not a pleasant journey.
+
+Dawson did not come out of his berth at Euston until after Hagan had
+left the station in a taxicab, much to Cary’s surprise, and then was
+quite ready, even anxious, to remain for breakfast at the hotel.
+He explained his strange conduct. ‘Two of my men,’ said he, as he
+wallowed in tea and fried soles--one cannot get Dover soles in the
+weary North--‘who travelled in ordinary compartments, are after Hagan
+in two taxis, so that if one is delayed the other will keep touch.
+Hagan’s driver also has had a police warning, so that our spy is in a
+barbed-wire net. I shall hear before very long all about him.’
+
+Cary and Dawson spent the morning at the hotel with a telephone beside
+them; every few minutes the bell would ring, and a whisper of Hagan’s
+movements steal over the wires into the ears of the spider Dawson. He
+reported progress to Cary with ever-increasing satisfaction.
+
+‘Hagan has applied for and been granted a passport to Holland, and
+has booked a passage in the boat which leaves Harwich to-night for
+the Hook. We will go with him. The other two spies, with the copies,
+haven’t turned up yet, but they are all right. My men will see them
+safe across into Dutch territory, and make sure that no blundering
+Customs officer interferes with their papers. This time the way of
+transgressors shall be very soft. As for Hagan, he is not going to
+arrive.’
+
+‘I don’t quite understand why you carry on so long with him,’ said
+Cary, who, though tired, could not but feel intense interest in the
+perfection of the police system and in the serene confidence of Dawson.
+The Yard could, it appeared, do unto the spies precisely what Dawson
+chose to direct.
+
+‘Hagan is an American citizen,’ explained Dawson. ‘If he had been a
+British subject I would have taken him at Euston--we have full evidence
+of the burglary, and of the stolen papers in his suit-case. But as he
+is a damned unbenevolent neutral, and the American Government is very
+touchy, we must prove his intention to sell the papers to Germany. Then
+we can deal with him by secret court-martial, and President Wilson can
+go to blazes. The journey to Holland will prove this intention. Hagan
+has been most useful to us in Ireland, and now in the North of England
+and in Scotland, but he is too enterprising and too daring to be left
+any longer on the string. I will draw the ends together at the Hook.’
+
+‘I did not want to go to Holland,’ said Cary to me, when telling his
+story. ‘I was utterly sick and disgusted with the whole cold-blooded
+game of cat and mouse, but the police needed my evidence about the
+Notes and the burglary, and did not intend to let me slip out of their
+clutches. Dawson was very civil and pleasant, but I was in fact as
+tightly held upon his string as was the wretched Hagan. So I went on to
+Holland with that quick-change artist, and watched him come on board
+the steamer at Parkeston Quay, dressed as a rather German-looking
+commercial traveller, eager for war commissions upon smuggled goods.
+This sounds absurd, but his get-up seemed somehow to suggest the idea.
+Then I went below. Dawson always kept away from me whenever Hagan might
+have seen us together.’
+
+The passage across to Holland was free from incident; there was no
+sign that we were at war, and Continental traffic was being carried
+serenely on, within easy striking distance of the German submarine base
+at Zeebrugge. The steamer had drawn in to the Hook beside the train,
+and Hagan was approaching the gangway, suit-case in hand. The man was
+on the edge of safety; once upon Dutch soil, Dawson could not have
+laid hands upon him. He would have been a neutral citizen in a neutral
+country, and no English warrant would run against him. But between
+Hagan and the gangway suddenly interposed the tall form of the ship’s
+captain; instantly the man was ringed about by officers, and before
+he could say a word or move a hand he was gripped hard and led across
+the deck to the steamer’s chart-house. Therein sat Dawson, the real,
+undisguised Dawson, and beside him sat Richard Cary. Hagan’s face,
+which two minutes earlier had been glowing with triumph and with the
+anticipation of German gold beyond the dreams of avarice, went white as
+chalk. He staggered and gasped as one stabbed to the heart, and dropped
+into a chair. His suit-case fell from his relaxed fingers to the floor.
+
+‘Give him a stiff brandy-and-soda,’ directed Dawson, almost kindly, and
+when the victim’s colour had ebbed back a little from his overcharged
+heart, and he had drunk deep of the friendly cordial, the detective put
+him out of pain. The game of cat and mouse was over.
+
+‘It is all up, Hagan,’ said the detective gently. ‘Face the music and
+make the best of it, my poor friend. This is Mr. Richard Cary, and you
+have not for a moment been out of our sight since you left London for
+the north four days ago.’
+
+When I had completed the writing of his story I showed the MS. to
+Richard Cary, who was pleased to express a general approval. ‘Not at
+all bad, Copplestone,’ said he, ‘not at all bad. You have clothed my
+dry bones in real flesh and blood. But you have missed what to me is
+the outstanding feature of the whole affair, that which justifies to my
+mind the whole rather grubby business. Let me give you two dates. On
+May 25 two copies of my faked Notes were shepherded through to Holland
+and reached the Germans; on May 31 was fought the Battle of Jutland.
+Can the brief space between these dates have been merely an accident?
+I cannot believe it. No, I prefer to believe that in my humble way I
+induced the German Fleet to issue forth and to risk an action which,
+under more favourable conditions for us, would have resulted in their
+utter destruction. I may be wrong, but I am happy in retaining my
+faith.’
+
+‘What became of Hagan?’ I asked, for I wished to bring the narrative to
+a clean artistic finish.
+
+‘I am not sure,’ answered Cary, ‘though I gave evidence as ordered
+by the court-martial. But I rather think that I have here Hagan’s
+epitaph.’ He took out his pocket-book, and drew forth a slip of paper
+upon which was gummed a brief newspaper cutting. This he handed to me,
+and I read as follows:
+
+               The War Office announces that a
+               prisoner who was charged with espionage
+               and recently tried by court-martial at
+               the Westminster Guildhall was found
+               guilty and sentenced to death. The
+               sentence was duly confirmed and carried
+               out yesterday morning.
+
+
+
+
+                          _THREE GENERATIONS._
+
+
+Out in the quiet paddock, with the mellow brick walls screening them
+from the common life in Bushey Park, they are browsing gently through
+the last days of their existence. It is not so many years since, gay
+with trappings, led by a groom apiece to restrain their Hanoverian
+tempers, these old cream-coloured horses drew the wonderful glass coach
+through the streets of London, haughtily accepting for themselves
+the acclamations of the people. At how many pageants, could they but
+tell us, have they not assisted? Are they old enough to have drawn
+Queen Victoria to her Diamond Jubilee, and did they drag that heavy
+gun-carriage with its pathetically small burden through the mourning
+streets on a Queen’s last journey? Certainly in their own estimation
+they were the central figures on the chilly August day when they
+at last carried King Edward to Westminster Abbey amid the joyous
+thanksgiving of a whole Empire. Their reminiscences would not probably
+take them very far into the present reign. It must be some little time
+since the next generation callously ousted them from between the royal
+shafts, stripped them once for all of their gay trappings, and set them
+on a back shelf of history.
+
+So now they browse and slumber among the buttercups, and perhaps wonder
+vaguely at their unshorn and generally disordered condition, and at
+their prolonged days of idleness. They know and care nothing about the
+war. They are aliens who have no need to be registered, naturalised as
+they have been by long generations of royal service. For it is just two
+hundred years since the first George, in a spirit of arrogance which,
+as a race, they appear to have assimilated, brought their ancestors
+from Hanover to draw his royal coach in his adopted country.
+
+They came with those ill-featured ladies who, according to tradition,
+gave the name to the _Frog Walk_ outside the Palace walls--yes,
+_outside_--and the creams had nothing to do with them. Never, in
+the course of their aristocratic history, have they drawn anything
+but crowned heads and their most legitimate spouses, and for this
+the British nation reveres and respects them. And now these, their
+descendants in the paddock, have done with streets and crowds and
+uniforms--and even with sovereigns. Sometimes one old fellow will lift
+his head at the sound of the children’s cries on the swings in the
+Park, and wonder if he is once more being cheered by the populace,
+but his dim eyes can only see the chestnuts hanging out their red and
+white candles, and a crow laughs at him from the wall. By his side
+his comrades, wholly unmoved, with hanging heads and slowly switching
+tails, are busy cropping the sweet grass, with no thought beyond it.
+Old age does sometimes, in spite of evidence to the contrary, broaden
+and mellow the sympathies, and the Cream Colours, who have been above
+all things exclusive, have developed a very soft spot in their hearts
+for the old bay horse who shares their paddock. Possibly he, who,
+whatever he has done in private life, in royal processions has never
+aspired beyond princesses, knows how to keep his place. At all events,
+when a sudden spurt of renewed activity will carry him at a gallant
+pace across the paddock, the august Three will follow him at a feeble
+canter and with anxious whinnies, until at last, finding him on the
+other side, they will happily nuzzle their noses into his neck, with
+every sign of equine affection, which he must accept with mingled pride
+and resignation. Is he not the _enfant gâté de la maison_?
+
+Well, their great days are over, but they could have found no more
+dignified place of retirement than under the royal shadow of Hampton
+Court Palace, the accepted home of retirement and dignity.
+
+Meantime, out in the road, could they but know it, their successors on
+these summer mornings are taking part in a strange, rather pathetic
+mimicry of those greater pageants which have no place in war-time.
+For the Cream Colours of to-day cannot be allowed to idle like their
+parents. Much may yet, we hope, be expected of them, and they must
+not forget the manner of that service to which alone they owe their
+existence. So in the early morning, when trams are few and other
+traffic is non-existent, they may be met, eight of them, stepping
+proudly along, with arched necks and haughty expressions, quite unaware
+that the grooms holding to their bridles are in mufti, that their
+trappings are of plain wood, and that the royal coach they imagine to
+be rumbling behind them resembles nothing so much as an empty jail van!
+The King in the fairy tale was not better pleased with his imaginary
+fine raiment than the Cream Colours with their phantom state. But
+nobody troubles to undeceive them; the rooks flap cawing overhead in
+pursuit of their breakfasts, and the cuckoo monotonously calling from
+the Home Park is entirely absorbed in his own business. All is vanity,
+and in another few years they also will be cropping buttercups, with no
+higher aspiration.
+
+For the next generation is already knocking at the door. On the further
+side of the road from his forebears, a little dusky foal who will some
+day be of a correct highly polished cream colour is kicking up his
+heels in a paddock, a truly royal nursery with a golden floor. He is
+separated even at this early age from his black and bay contemporaries,
+whose lot, however, will certainly be more varied and interesting than
+any which he can look for. Let us hope that he may still be in the
+nursery when his sleek elders, now disappearing in their own dust along
+the road, will draw their sovereign in state to return thanks for the
+greatest of all victories, and the establishment of a righteous peace
+throughout the world.
+
+                                                   ROSE M. BRADLEY.
+
+
+
+
+                   _ARMY UNIFORMS, PAST AND PRESENT._
+
+                BY THE RT. HON. SIR HERBERT MAXWELL, BT.
+
+
+In the early ’seventies of last century there was staged in London
+a very amusing musical comedy called _The Happy Land_, the scene
+being laid in Paradise. Among the principal characters were extremely
+skilful and poignant burlesques of Mr. Gladstone, Prime Minister at
+the time, Mr. Lowe, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Mr. Ayrton, First
+Commissioner of Works. The piece had but a short, though brilliant,
+run in the metropolis; for the Lord Chamberlain ordered it off the
+stage, not on the grounds of what is usually implied by immorality, but
+because it brought Her Majesty’s Ministers into contempt by mordant
+caricature of their features and action.[3] It is not known--to me,
+at least--which of the three victims set the censorship in motion.
+Certainly it was not ‘Bob’ Lowe, who was gifted with a fine strain
+of humour. Probably it was done at Mr. Ayrton’s instance, he being
+destitute of that saving grace, and, besides, having been more
+mercilessly satirised in the play than his colleagues. He had outraged
+public feeling, if not public taste, by some acts of his administration
+as ædile, notably by painting grey some of the fine stone-work in the
+lobbies of the Houses of Parliament. I forget the libretto of _The
+Happy Land_; but this much I remember, that, whereas in the first act
+the scenery of Paradise appeared glowing with rainbow radiance and
+shimmering with gems, in the second act it represented the effect of
+Ayrton’s régime--everything had been painted ‘government grey.’
+
+All this was brought to mind by the change wrought upon the appearance
+of the British Army after the outbreak of the South African war in
+1899. By a wave of his wand or a scratch of his quill the Secretary of
+State for War, Mr. St. John Brodrick (now Viscount Midleton) quenched
+all gaiety of colour in the fighting dress of our troops; the historic
+thin red line was to be seen no more; the glittering squadrons were
+doomed to ride in raiment as sombre as the dust of their own raising;
+henceforward standards and regimental colours were to be returned to
+store before the troops went on active service.
+
+Had that been all, it would have sufficed to mark a notable era in the
+operations of war--a wise measure, imposed upon the Army Council by the
+vast improvement in the range, trajectory, and precision of artillery
+and small arms. Hitherto it had been the object of the military
+authorities of all nations to make their fighting men as conspicuous as
+possible, exaggerating their stature by fantastic headgear and setting
+them in strong relief to every variety of natural background by means
+of bright colours and pipeclay. The Brigade of Guards landed in the
+Crimea without their knapsacks, which followed in another ship. The
+men had to do without them for some weeks; but the cumbrous bearskin
+caps were considered indispensable, and offered a fine target for the
+Russian defenders of the slopes of the Alma. The hint was thrown away
+upon our military authorities. It required a sharper lesson to convince
+them of the cruel absurdity of figging out men for battle in a dress
+that hampered the limbs and obscured the eyesight. The Guards were not
+more absurdly dressed on that occasion than the rest of the British
+troops. The late Sir William Flower described to me his feelings when,
+as surgeon of an infantry regiment, he stepped out from a boat on the
+wet sands at the mouth of the Alma, dressed in a skin-tight scarlet
+coatee with swallow tails, a high collar enclosing a black stock,
+close-fitting trousers tightly strapped over Wellington boots, and a
+cocked hat!
+
+Two years before that--in 1852--Colonel Luard published his _History of
+the Dress of the British Soldier_. Having served as a heavy dragoon in
+the Peninsula, as a light dragoon at Waterloo, as a lancer in India,
+and as a staff officer both in India and at home, he had practical
+experience of the variety of torment inflicted by different kinds of
+uniform. He advocated many reforms in the soldier’s dress, tending
+as much to increased efficiency as to comfort, and he supported his
+argument by extracts from his correspondence with regimental officers.
+One of these wrote--‘If an infantry soldier has to step over a drain
+two feet broad, he has to put one hand to his cap to keep it on his
+head, and his other to his pouch, and what becomes of his musket?’ And
+this, be it remembered, was the fighting-kit; for no general in those
+days ever dreamed of taking troops into action except in full review
+order.
+
+James I. was not a warlike king, but he was a pretty shrewd observer
+of men and matters. He was not far wrong when he observed that plate
+armour was a fine thing, for it not only protected the life of the
+wearer, but hindered him from hurting anybody else! The remark might
+have been applied with equal justice to the costume of British soldiers
+in the Crimean campaign, except that it afforded no protection to the
+wearer’s life or limb. It required nearly one hundred years of painful
+experience to convince the War Office that it was cruel stupidity to
+put men in the field in clothing so tight as to fetter the limbs and
+compress the chest. That was the legacy of George IV. to the British
+Army.
+
+Although, to one looking back over the history of what is now the
+United Kingdom, the most salient features seem to be campaigns and
+battles, invasion and counter-invasion, it was not until the Civil
+War that any attempt was made towards a uniform dress for any army.
+It is true that both the English and Scottish Parliaments from time
+to time prescribed with the utmost care the offensive and defensive
+armour with which every able-bodied subject was to provide himself or
+be provided by his feudal chief, and if that chief were a wealthy baron
+his following would be clothed in his liveries. Thus, in describing the
+famous scene at Lauder when Archibald Douglas, fifth Earl of Angus,
+won his sobriquet of Bell-the-Cat, Pitscottie tells us in deliciously
+quaint phrase how luckless Thomas Cochrane, newly created Earl of Mar,
+rode down to the kirk where the disaffected lords were in conference,
+at the head of three hundred men all dressed in his liveries of white
+doublets with black bands. Cromwell was the first ruler of England
+who succeeded in what several of his predecessors had failed--in
+maintaining a standing army. At one time he had 80,000 men under
+arms. There was a degree of uniformity in the dress of his cavalry
+and infantry. It consisted mainly of buff coats, with the addition of
+breast and back pieces, iron caps, and other defensive armour. But that
+army was disbanded after the Restoration, and it was not until the
+reign of William III. that a standing army was finally constituted,
+and colonels commanding regiments, being allowed a sufficient sum for
+clothing the men, were required to do so according to sealed pattern.
+
+Throughout the eighteenth century, the British soldier’s dress was,
+on the whole, both picturesque and comfortable. In cut, it conformed
+pretty faithfully to the fashion prevailing in civilian attire,
+though there occurred an interval when George II. inflicted upon his
+Guards regiments the preposterous conical head-dress, copied from the
+Prussian Guards of Frederick the Great. This disfiguring headgear did
+not last very long, and gave place before the end of the century to
+the three-cocked hat of the style called, I believe, Nivernois or
+Kevenhüller.
+
+The easy grace of the full-dress uniform of an officer of the Guards
+towards the close of the eighteenth century is admirably shown in
+Romney’s portrait of John, tenth Earl of Westmorland, now at Osterley
+Park. It shows a long-skirted scarlet frock, lined with white, faced
+with blue, with ruffles at the wrists, and without any ornament save
+a pair of gilt epaulets of moderate size and soft material, very
+different from the cumbrous, unyielding things now prescribed for
+naval officers and lords-lieutenant. The frock is worn open over a
+Ramillies cravat and waistcoat and breeches of white kersey. It would
+be difficult to devise a dress for a soldier so well combining comfort
+and dignified distinction. To one feature only can objection be taken.
+The powdered and curled hair, clubbed in a pigtail, looks charming on
+Romney’s canvas, but must have proved an intolerable nuisance both to
+officers and men.
+
+    ‘During the command of the late Duke of Kent at Gibraltar
+     [1802-3], when a field-day was ordered, there not being
+     sufficient barbers in the town to attend to all the
+     officers in the morning, the seniors claimed the privilege
+     of their rank; the juniors consequently were obliged to
+     have their heads dressed the night before; and to preserve
+     the beauty of this artistic arrangement--pomatumed,
+     powdered, curled and clubbed--these poor fellows were
+     obliged to sleep on their faces! It is said that in the
+     adjutant’s office of each regiment there was kept a pattern
+     of the correct curls, to which the barbers could refer.’[4]
+
+The men wore tunics of a cut similar to those of the officers, but of
+coarser cloth. They were buttoned up on duty, the skirts being looped
+back. It was a thoroughly sensible and workmanlike dress, giving
+perfect freedom to breathing and circulation, together with protection
+to loins and thighs. The Chelsea pensioners wear a coat of the old
+infantry pattern to this day.
+
+With the Regency came a vicious change. The Prince Regent paid
+incessant attention to dress--both to his own and that of others. He
+was proud of his figure, which, indeed, was a fine one till it was
+ruined by excess, and he loved to display it in closely fitting dress.
+Nor was he content until he got his father’s army buttoned up to the
+limit of endurance and disfigured by headgear of appalling dimensions.
+The easy open collar and Ramillies tie were replaced by an upright
+fence of buckram and a leather stock. It would be hardly credible,
+were there not abundant evidence in the correspondence of the Horse
+Guards to prove it, that while Wellington was absorbed in manœuvring
+against immensely superior forces in Spain, he had to give attention
+to correspondence about changes in the dress of the army, not with a
+view to making it more comfortable and workmanlike, but in order to
+gratify the caprice of the Prince Regent. No man ever gave less thought
+to niceties of tailoring than Lord Wellington (as he was at that time).
+His views are set forth in a letter to the Military Secretary who had
+consulted him about the uniform to be prescribed for those regiments
+of Light Dragoons which the Prince Regent had desired the Duke of York
+(recently reinstated as Commander-in-Chief) to convert into Hussars.
+
+
+                             ‘FRENEDA, _6th November, 1811_.
+
+    ‘... There is no subject of which I understand so little
+     [as military uniforms], and, abstractedly speaking, I think
+     it indifferent how a soldier is clothed, provided it is in
+     an uniform manner, and that he is forced to keep himself
+     clean and smart, as a soldier ought to be. But there is one
+     thing I deprecate, and that is any imitation of the French
+     in any manner. It is impossible to form an idea of the
+     inconvenience and injury which result from having anything
+     like them, either on horseback or on foot.[5] Lutyens and
+     his piquet were taken in June because the 3rd Hussars had
+     the same caps as the French _Chasseurs-à-cheval_ and some
+     of their Hussars, and I was near being taken on September
+     25 from the same cause. At a distance or in action colours
+     are nothing; the profile and shape of a man’s cap, and his
+     general appearance, are what guide us; and why should we
+     make our people look like the French?... I only beg that
+     we may be as different as possible from the French in
+     everything. The narrow tops of our infantry, as opposed to
+     their broad top caps, are a great advantage to those who
+     are to look at long lines of posts opposed to each other.’
+
+Two years later, at the battle of Vitoria, the justice of Wellington’s
+views about the soldier’s uniform received apt illustration.
+Wellington on that day kept the Light Division and 4th Division under
+his immediate command. The 3rd and 7th Divisions, under Picton and
+Lord Dalhousie, were to join him in order to complete the centre of
+the line, but they had difficult ground to traverse, and were late.
+The Zadora flowed swift and deep in front of the French position. A
+countryman having informed Wellington that the bridge of Tres Puentes
+was unguarded, Kempt’s riflemen were sent forward to seize it, which
+they did, and went so far up the heights on the farther side that they
+were able to establish themselves in shelter of a crest well in rear
+of a French advanced post. There they lay, until Wellington’s line was
+completed by the arrival of ‘old Picton, riding at the head of the 3rd
+Division, dressed in a blue coat and a round hat, swearing as loudly
+all the way as if he wore two cocked ones.’[6] The 7th Division came up
+at the same time, and while they were deploying the enemy opened fire
+upon them. Kempt immediately drew his riflemen from their shelter and
+took the French batteries in flank, thereby enabling the 3rd Division
+to cross the bridge of Mendoza without loss. But the dark uniforms of
+the Rifles deceived the British on the other side of the river into the
+belief that they were French. A battery opened upon them and continued
+pounding them with round shot and shrapnel till the advance of Picton’s
+Division revealed the blunder.
+
+Wellington’s warning against copying the uniforms of other nations
+received little attention. After 1815, when he was in command of the
+Army of Occupation in Paris, it was decided to arm four regiments
+of cavalry with lances, a most effective weapon which had not been
+carried by British troops since the seventeenth century. One would
+have supposed that the lance might be wielded as effectively by a man
+dressed as a light dragoon or a hussar as in any other rig; but the
+Prince Regent hailed the innovation as an opportunity for an entirely
+new costume. Consequently the 9th, 12th, 16th and 23rd Light Dragoons
+were put into a Polish dress, modified in such manner as to agree with
+his Royal Highness’s sartorial taste.
+
+    ‘An officer of rank commanding one of the Lancer regiments
+     was ordered to attend the Prince Regent to fit the new
+     jacket on him. The tailor, with a pair of scissors, was
+     ordered to cut smooth every wrinkle and fine-draw the
+     seams. The consequence was that the coats of the private
+     soldiers, as well as those of the officers, were made so
+     tight they could hardly get into them; the freedom of
+     action was so restricted that the infantry with difficulty
+     handled their muskets, and the cavalry could scarcely do
+     the sword exercise.’
+
+The cuirass had been discontinued in the British cavalry since 1794,
+when it had been found most unsuitable for active service in the
+Netherlands. But it was far too showy a piece of goods to escape the
+Prince Regent’s attention. Accordingly the three regiments of Household
+Cavalry were made to appear at his coronation in 1820 in steel
+cuirasses and burnished helmets, with enormous combs of bearskin; the
+latter, as Colonel Luard caustically observes, rendering it impossible
+for a man to deliver the sixth cut in the sword exercise of that day.
+The cuirass and helmet remain, with the unwieldy jack-boots and leather
+breeches, an effective, if archaic, part of a theatrical pageant which
+Londoners have learnt to love; but as the equipment of a modern soldier
+the costume is ludicrously inapt and very costly. In an era when war
+has become more terrible and more intensely destructive than in any
+previous age, and at a time when the whole resources of the nation
+are strained for the country to hold its own, it may well be asked
+whether money might not be more profitably employed than in causing the
+splendid men of the Household Cavalry to masquerade in such attire as
+would be grotesque to imagine them wearing in modern warfare.
+
+About the same time that the cuirass was inflicted upon the Household
+Cavalry, the sentry boxes in London and at Windsor Castle had to be
+increased in height in order to accommodate a new pattern of bearskin
+cap which had been approved for the Foot Guards. The old pattern,
+which had superseded the three-cocked hat at the end of the previous
+century, was a sensible affair of reasonable dimensions; but the army
+tailors, encouraged by the new King, were indefatigable in devising
+extravagance in uniforms, and the bearskin was made to shoot up several
+inches in height. ‘Ridicule,’ observed Colonel Luard, ‘subsides when
+the eye is no longer a stranger to the object of excitement; otherwise
+the little boys would run after the guardsmen when they appear in the
+streets of London, and shout at the overwhelming, preposterous, hideous
+bearskin caps.’ It is rumoured that the supply of the right sort of
+bear is now running short. It may not be too much to hope that, when
+our armies return victorious at the end of the war, the occasion may
+be marked by the invention of some uniform for the Brigade of Guards
+more comfortable and workmanlike than a skin-tight tunic and a grossly
+exaggerated fur-cap. Londoners, laudably conservative in what they have
+become used with, would be the less likely to murmur at the change,
+inasmuch as they have grown accustomed to see guard-mounting performed
+in forage-caps.
+
+Among all the variety of uniforms of the British infantry, none has
+undergone so little change in the last hundred and fifty years as
+that of the Highland regiments. Well that it is so, for there is
+none other that so admirably sets off a soldier-like figure, none
+that stirs so much enthusiasm among the spectators at a field-day.
+So fully has this been recognised that a society has recently been
+formed to protest against and endeavour to remedy what is deemed the
+unmerited neglect of Lowland Scottish regiments, whereof the records
+certainly are no whit inferior in lustre to those of the Highland
+corps. It is complained that the Lowland regiments are always kept in
+the background; that Edinburgh, though a Lowland city, is invariably
+garrisoned by a Highland regiment, and that facilities for recruiting
+in Edinburgh and Glasgow are accorded to Highland regiments and refused
+to Lowland regiments. Much of this is unfortunately true; but the real
+reason for it exists in the greater popularity of the Highland uniform.
+No amount of protest or persuasion will prevail to make the general
+public take the same interest in a trousered regiment as in a kilted
+one. Might not the surest remedy be to put the Lowland regiments also
+into kilts? Purists will object that Lowlanders have no business to
+don the philabeg; but, for that matter, neither have they any business
+to wear tartan trews, _which all the Lowland regiments do at the
+present time, besides being furnished with kilted pipers_.[7] Then
+all Scottish regiments would be on an equal footing, and no material
+would remain for the present irritation. It is difficult to understand,
+impossible to explain, the emotion--involuntary, as all true emotion
+must be--roused, even in Saisneach breasts, by the sight of a Highland
+regiment marching to the skirl of the pipes. In order to illustrate it,
+let me lapse for a moment into the first person singular.
+
+During Queen Victoria’s memorable progress through her metropolis in
+the Diamond Jubilee of 1897, I was seated with two ladies of my family
+in the stand set up for members of Parliament in Palace Yard. The
+long hours of waiting on that shining summer forenoon were enlivened
+by the march of many regiments, headed by their bands, passing to
+their appointed places in the route. It was a shifting pageant of
+stirring sight and sound. Presently, over Westminster Bridge came the
+Seaforth Highlanders stepping to the lively strains of _The Muckin’ o’
+Geordie’s Byre_.[8] The effect was indescribable--the swing of kilts
+and sporrans, the dark waving plumes, the gallant but simple melody,
+thrilled all spectators. As for myself, I felt a big lump in my throat,
+and I was ashamed to feel something trickle down both cheeks. Yet am
+I a Lowland Scot, if anybody is; so far as I am aware, I can lay no
+claim to any strain of Celtic blood. If such an one was so deeply moved
+by the passing of a single Highland regiment, why should not all the
+Scottish regiments be clothed in the romantic garb of Old Gaul, with
+the desirable result of rendering the Lowland corps as well-beloved
+by the people as the Highlanders? If this were carried out, it would
+be esteemed a privilege by the former and a compliment by the latter.
+Objection on the score of economy would be raised because of the cost
+of the full-dress feather-bonnet, which, though picturesque, is but a
+tailor’s parody of the bonnet of the _duine uasail_. Let the Lowland
+regiments be content, then, with the Glengarry. Nobody who has seen
+a battalion of the London Scottish marching through Pall Mall, and
+listened to the comments of those who crowd to the club windows at
+the sound of the pibroch, will tell you that that fine corps would
+gain anything in soldierly appearance by wearing feather-bonnets.
+That head-dress was condemned in 1882, but in deference to Queen
+Victoria’s wishes it was restored. Its abolition had previously been
+hotly challenged in the House of Commons by certain perfervid Scots,
+one of whom volunteered a quaint explanation to an honourable member
+who had ventured to express some doubt about ostrich feathers being
+an appropriate ornament for a Scottish soldier. He gravely assured
+the House that the costume had its origin in Sir Ralph Abercromby’s
+Egyptian campaign in 1801, when the Highland soldiers picked up ostrich
+feathers in the desert and stuck them in their bonnets as a protection
+from the sun!
+
+The fact is that the feather-bonnet, and all other exaggerated and
+expensive head-dresses, should be as resolutely relegated to limbo as
+the hideous masks worn by the fighting men of Old Japan. Both were
+designed to overawe the enemy; but, as modern fighting is done in
+forage-caps, that naïve purpose cannot be carried into effect, and the
+object should be to provide such clothing as will best enable a man to
+keep himself, in the Duke of Wellington’s words, ‘clean and smart, as a
+soldier ought to be.’ And no headgear is smarter, none more easily kept
+clean, than the Glengarry bonnet.
+
+While it is hardly possible to imagine any dress better calculated
+to impede a soldier’s movements than the uniforms inflicted upon all
+arms in the service during the early years of the nineteenth century,
+one should not overlook the relief that was ordained in a detail that
+was a source of constant unnecessary trouble to the soldier. Clubbed
+pigtails had been transmitted as an irksome legacy from Marlborough’s
+army, until in 1808 the Horse Guards decreed their abolition. When Sir
+Arthur Wellesley landed in Mondego Bay on August 1-5 in that year, one
+of his first orders was that these senseless, dirty appendages were
+to be cut off. Never, one may believe, was an order more cheerfully
+obeyed. A counter-order was issued shortly after from the Horse Guards,
+requiring the retention of pigtails, but it was beyond the power of man
+to comply with it. It was easy to cut off pigtails, but they could not
+be replaced; and now the only vestige of a barbarous fashion in the
+army remains in the bow of black ribbon worn by the Welsh Fusiliers at
+the back of the collar of the tunic.
+
+Unfortunately, the irrational fashion of tight clothing for the army
+instituted by the Prince Regent endures to this day. It is true that
+a sensible field-dress of khaki was devised and worn during the South
+African War, and is now the service dress of the army; but the full
+dress for officers and the ‘walking-out’ uniform for men is still
+cut and fitted on the old excruciating lines. I think it took three
+weeks to fit a young friend of mine, joining a battalion of Guards a
+few years ago, before the adjutant of that _corps d’élite_ passed the
+tunic as satisfactory. Every crease and wrinkle had to be obliterated,
+at such cost to freedom of limbs and lungs as may be imagined. It may
+not be an extravagant hope that, when our army returns once more to
+a peace footing, the full dress may be designed with more regard to
+health and comfort than hitherto. Our eyes have grown accustomed during
+the present war to seeing soldiers in a costume, far from beautiful,
+indeed, but easy and respectable. There is no reason why a scarlet coat
+should be less comfortable than a dust-coloured one, and it will be a
+sad thing if the historic red of the English infantry is not preserved
+for full dress. But even if it were not, the khaki uniform might be
+rendered very becoming by the addition of a little modest ornament,
+especially by the restoration of the old regimental facings. These
+would not make troops one whit more conspicuous in the field; on the
+contrary, it is a commonplace of optics that parti-coloured objects are
+less easily detected in a landscape than those of one uniform colour.
+
+One desirable result of making uniform more comfortable wear might be
+expected to follow; officers might not be so scrupulous to exchange
+it for mufti the moment they are released from duty. Alone among the
+nationalities of Europe has the British officer hitherto treated his
+uniform as if it were something to be ashamed of in private life. It is
+an unseemly, even an unhandsome practice, seeing that non-commissioned
+officers and privates are not allowed to disport themselves in what
+they call ‘private clothes.’ Nor was it the custom among officers in
+the eighteenth century, when uniform was as easy and becoming as any
+other dress. The usual dress of an officer, even when on leave, was
+then his undress uniform, just as it is now in Continental armies.
+The change in the British Army was the direct outcome of the Prince
+Regent’s tyranny in buttoning up soldiers to the throat in clothes
+which it was a torment to wear.
+
+It must be owned that the Duke of Wellington was in large measure
+responsible, inasmuch as he set the example of preferring easy clothes
+to uneasy ones. A plain blue frock opening at the throat to a white
+cravat was his invariable dress throughout his campaigns. He had for
+his own wear a cocked hat one third the size of the huge one prescribed
+for general officers. There was a famous occasion in 1814, after the
+restoration of Louis XVIII., when the King and the Royal Princes, with
+a brilliant suite, attended a state performance in the Odéon Theatre.
+The house was ablaze with uniforms of many nations and the gay dresses
+of ladies of the Court. In a box immediately opposite the royal one
+sat the Duke--in plain clothes! ‘The pride that apes humility’? Not a
+bit. _Le vainqueur des vainqueurs_ could scarcely be suspected of that.
+Simply, as he had to sit through a long performance, he chose to do so
+in clothes that enabled him to sit in comfort.
+
+Much praiseworthy attention is now given to the equipment and clothing
+of British troops serving in hot climates, but it was otherwise
+throughout most of the nineteenth century, and it is incalculable
+how much suffering, disease, and death was caused by neglect of any
+such provision. When Colonel Luard was preparing his book in 1850-52
+he received letters from many officers calling his attention to this
+matter. One of these writes:
+
+    ‘I shall be very glad if you dedicate a portion of your
+     work to the dress of our soldiers in the colonies.... I
+     have myself seen the Spanish, French, and Danish troops in
+     the West Indies much more healthy than our own, from great
+     attention to their comfort in their dress.... The whole
+     body of civilians in the tropics appear in loose white
+     jackets and trousers and a skull-cap ... the shakoes and
+     red coats of our troops were not altered in our West India
+     colonies.’
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A cavalry officer remarks: ‘I hope you will dwell on the madness of
+our soldiers wearing leather caps under a tropical sun’; while another
+observes that ‘a brass helmet was not found serviceable in Africa by
+the 7th Dragoon Guards when that regiment was at the Cape.’
+
+Our troops suffered horribly during the first Kaffir war, 1846-48, from
+being clothed exactly as they had been at home--leather stocks, tight
+coatees, heavy shakoes, and all the rest of it. Some consideration was
+shown for the soldier in the second Kaffir war, 1851-52. Captain King,
+of the 74th Highlanders, describes how his regiment landed at Cape Town
+(after a voyage from England of two months!) wearing their ordinary
+clothing, and it was not until they had marched far into the interior
+that ‘our bonnets and plaids were replaced by a costume more suitable
+for the bush--viz., a short dark canvas blouse; in addition to which
+feldt-schoen and lighter pouches, made of untanned leather, were issued
+to the men, and broad leather peaks affixed to their forage-caps.’[9]
+
+Captain King’s narrative is illustrated by lithographs from his own
+excellent drawings, which show his men, heavily accoutred with pack and
+pouch, and with no protection against the sun except the aforesaid peak
+to the forage-cap, severely handicapped in fighting nearly naked blacks
+armed with rifles. No wonder the 74th lost heavily, their commander,
+Colonel Fordyce, falling at their head in a bush fight, together with
+some of his best officers.
+
+It is not only in matters of dress and equipment that we have learnt
+consideration for our troops on foreign service. The splendid
+organisation of the Royal Army Medical Corps has been severely tested
+in coping with the requirements of such a force as it was never
+contemplated Great Britain would or could put in the field; but the
+test has been nobly met; the latest discoveries in science have been
+employed to avert disease and mortality from wounds, thereby saving
+soldiers and their families and friends from an incalculable amount of
+misery. The Transport Service has not only met the extraordinary demand
+upon its resources in the conveyance of necessary supplies--food,
+munitions, &c.--but has proved equal to the punctual deliverance of
+the vast stores of comforts and even luxuries consigned from voluntary
+sources at home.
+
+Among the said luxuries is one whereon the Iron Duke would have turned
+no favouring eye. The tobacco which has been supplied to our troops at
+the front--aye, and in hospital at home--must amount to a prodigious
+figure. When the Duke was Commander-in-Chief in 1845 he issued the
+following counterblast:
+
+    ‘G.O. No. 577.--The Commander-in-Chief has been informed
+     that the practice of smoking, by the use of pipes, cigars
+     and cheroots, has become prevalent among the Officers
+     of the Army, which is not only in itself a species of
+     intoxication occasioned by the fumes of tobacco, but,
+     undoubtedly, occasions drinking and tippling by those who
+     acquire the habit; and he intreats the Officers commanding
+     Regiments to prevent smoking in the Mess Rooms of their
+     several Regiments, and in the adjoining apartments, and to
+     discourage the practice among the Officers of Junior Rank
+     in their Regiments.’
+
+There was no Press Censor in those days, and _Punch_, which was then
+a vigorous stripling in its fourth year, was allowed to make merry
+over this fulmination, declaring that officers of the Army were
+greatly perturbed, ‘dreading the possibility of being thrown upon
+their conversational resources, which must have a most dreary effect.’
+Tobacconists drove a brisk trade in pipe-stoppers carved in the
+likeness of the Duke’s head. These might now be a fitting object of
+pursuit on the part of collectors.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+     [3] The piece continued to be given in the provinces, where
+     the Lord Chamberlain’s censorship does not take effect.
+
+     [4] _A History of the Dress of the British Soldier_, by
+     Lieut.-Col. John Luard, 1852, p. 99.
+
+     [5] Of course because the French were the enemy in that
+     campaign.
+
+     [6] Kincaid’s _Adventures in the Rifle Brigade_, 2nd
+     edition, 1838, p. 222.
+
+     [7] See report of meeting of the Lowland Scots Society,
+     held in Edinburgh on November 25, 1915.
+
+     [8] An old air, subsequently set to the song _My Tocher’s
+     the Jewel_.
+
+     [9] _Campaigning in Kaffirland_, by Capt. W. R. King, 1853,
+     p. 27.
+
+
+
+
+                   _THE NEW UBIQUE: SPIT AND POLISH._
+
+                         BY JEFFERY E. JEFFERY.
+
+
+‘Per_son_ally myself,’ said the Child, tilting back his chair until his
+head touched the wall behind him, and stretching out a lazy arm towards
+the cigarette-box--‘per_son_ally myself, I’ve enjoyed this trip no
+end--haven’t you?’
+
+‘I have,’ I answered; ‘so much so, Child, that the thought of going
+back to gun-pits and trenches and O.P.s again fills me with gloom.’
+
+It was our last night in a most comfortable billet near ----, where, on
+and off, we had spent rather more than a month of ease: on the morrow
+we were going into the line again. The trip to which the Child was
+referring, however, was an eight days’ course at a place vaguely known
+as ‘the --th Army Mobile Artillery Training School,’ from which our
+battery had but lately returned.
+
+The circumstances were these. When, five weeks ago, the division moved
+(for the _n_th time!) to a different part of the line, it transpired
+that three batteries would be ‘out at rest,’ as there would be no
+room for them in action. It also so chanced that it was our colonel’s
+turn to be left without a ‘group’[10] to command. This being so, he
+suggested to higher authorities that the three batteries ‘out’ should
+be those of his own brigade, in order that he might have a chance
+‘to tidy them up a bit,’ as he phrased it. Thus it was that we found
+ourselves, as I have said, in extremely comfortable billets--places,
+I mean, where they have sheets on the beds and china jugs and gas and
+drains--with every prospect of a pleasant loaf. But in this we were
+somewhat sanguine.
+
+The colonel’s idea in having us ‘out’ for a while was not so much to
+rest us as to give us a variation of work. Being essentially a thorough
+man, he started--or rather ordered me to start--at the very beginning.
+The gunners paraded daily for marching drill, physical exercises, and
+‘elementary standing gun drill by numbers.’ N.C.O.s and drivers were
+taken out and given hours of riding drill under the supervision of
+subalterns bursting with knowledge crammed up from the book the night
+before and under the personal direction of a brazen-voiced sergeant
+who, having passed through the ‘riding troop’ at Woolwich in his
+youth, knew his business. The strangest sight of all was the class
+of signallers--men who had spent months in the fœtid atmosphere of
+cellars and dug-outs, or creeping along telephone wires in ‘unhealthy’
+spots--now waving flags at a word of command and going solemnly through
+the Morse alphabet letter by letter. Of the whole community this was
+perhaps the most scandalised portion. But in a few days, when everybody
+(not excluding myself and the other officers) had discovered how much
+had been forgotten during our long spell in action, a great spirit of
+emulation began to be displayed. Subsections vied with one another to
+produce the smartest gun detachment, the sleekest horses, the best
+turned-out ride, the cleanest harness, guns, and wagons.
+
+The colonel, after the manner of his kind, came at the end of a week
+or so to inspect things. He is not the sort of man upon whom one can
+easily impose. A dozen of the shiniest saddles or bits in the battery
+placed so as to catch the light (and the eye) near the doorway of the
+harness-room do not necessarily satisfy him: nor is he content with
+the mere general and symmetrical effect of rows of superficially clean
+breast-collars, traces, and breechings. On the contrary, he is quite
+prepared to spend an hour or more over his inspection, examining every
+set of harness in minute detail, even down to the backs of the buckle
+tongues, the inside of the double-folded breast collars, and the
+oft-neglected underside of saddle flaps. It is the same thing with the
+guns and wagons. Burnished breech-rings and polished brasswork look
+very nice, and he approves of them, but he does not on that account
+omit to look closely at every oil-hole or to check the lists of ‘small
+stores’ and ‘spare parts.’
+
+For the next week or so we were kept very busy on ‘the many small
+points which required attention,’ to quote the colonel’s phrase.
+Nevertheless, as a variation from the monotony of siege warfare, the
+time was regarded by most of us as a holiday. Many things combined to
+enhance our pleasure. The sun shone and the country became gorgeously
+green again; the horses began to get their summer coats and to lose
+their unkempt winter’s appearance; there was a fair-sized town near at
+hand, and passes to visit it were freely granted to N.C.O.s and men;
+at the back of the officers’ billet was a garden with real flower-beds
+in it and a bit of lawn on which one could have tea. Occasionally we
+could hear the distant muttering of the guns, and at night we could see
+the ‘flares’ darting up from the black horizon--just to remind us, I
+suppose, that the war was only in the next parish....
+
+But it was not to be supposed that a man of such energy as our
+colonel would be content just to ride round daily and watch three of
+his batteries doing rides and gun drill. It occurred to him at once
+that this was the time to practise the legitimate business--that is,
+open, moving warfare. Wherefore he made representations to various
+quite superior authorities. In three days, by dint of considerable
+personal exertion, he had secured the following concessions: two large
+tracts of ground suitable for driving drill and battery manœuvre,
+good billets, an area of some six square miles (part of the --th Army
+Training area) for the purpose of tactical schemes, the appointment of
+himself as commandant of the ‘school,’ a Ford ambulance for his private
+use, three motor lorries for the supply of the units under training,
+and a magnificent château for his own headquarters. And all this he
+accomplished without causing any serious friction between the various
+‘offices’ and departments concerned--no mean feat.
+
+Each course was to last eight days, and there were to be four
+batteries, taken from different divisions, undergoing it
+simultaneously. It fell to us to go with the second batch, and we
+spent a strenuous week of preparation: it was four months since we
+had done any work ‘in the open,’ and we knew, inwardly, that we were
+distinctly rusty. We packed up, and at full war strength, transport,
+spare horses and all, we marched our sixteen miles to the selected
+area. At the half-way halt we met the commander of a battery of our own
+brigade returning. He stopped to pass the time of day and volunteered
+the information that he was going on leave that night. ‘And, by Jove!’
+he added significantly, ‘I deserve a bit of rest. Réveillé at 4 A.M.
+every morning, out all day wet or fine, gun drill at every odd moment,
+schemes, tactical exercises, everybody at high pressure all the time.
+The colonel’s fairly in his element, revels in it, and “strafes”
+everybody indiscriminately. But it’s done us all a world of good
+though. Cheeriho! wish you luck.’ And he rode on, leaving us rather
+flabbergasted.
+
+We discovered quite early (on the following morning about dawn, to be
+precise) that there had been no exaggeration. We began with elementary
+driving drill, and we did four and a half hours of it straight on end,
+except for occasional ten-minute halts to rest the astonished teams. It
+was wonderful how much we had forgotten and yet how much came back to
+us after the first hour or so.
+
+‘I want all your officers to drill the battery in turn,’ said the
+colonel. ‘I shall just ride round and correct mistakes.’
+
+He did--with an energy, a power of observation, and a command of
+language which I have seldom seen or heard surpassed. But the ultimate
+result by mid-day, when all the officers and N.C.O.s were hoarse, the
+teams sweating and the carriages caked in oily dust--the ultimate
+result was, as the Child politely says, ‘not too stinkin’ awful.’ And
+it had been good to hear once again the rattle and bump of the guns and
+wagons over hard ground, the jingle of harness and the thud of many
+hoofs; good to see the teams swing round together as they wheeled into
+line or column at a spanking trot; good above all to remember that
+_this_ was our job and that the months spent in concrete gun-pits and
+double-bricked O.P.s were but a lengthy prelude to our resumption of
+it--some day.
+
+In the evening, when the day’s work was over and ‘stables’ finished, we
+left the tired horses picking over the remains of their hay and walked
+down the _pavé_ village street, Angelo and I, to look at the church.
+Angelo is my eldest but not, as it so happens, my senior subaltern.
+Before the war he was a budding architect, with a taste for painting:
+hence the nickname, coined by the Child in one of his more erudite
+moods.
+
+The church at L---- is very fine. Its square tower is thirteenth
+century, its interior is pure Gothic, and its vaulted roof a marvel.
+For its size the building is well-nigh perfect. We spent some time
+examining the nave and chancel--Angelo, his professional as well as
+his artistic enthusiasm aroused, explaining technicalities to me and
+making me envious of his knowledge. It was with regret that we turned
+away at last, for in spite of the tattered colours of some French
+regiment which hung on the north side of the chancel, we had forgotten
+the war in the quiet peacefulness of that exquisite interior. But we
+were quickly reminded. At the end of the church, kneeling on one of
+the rough chairs, was an old peasant woman: her head was bowed, and
+the beads dropped slowly through her twisted fingers. As we crept
+down the aisle she raised her eyes--not to look at us, for I think
+she was unconscious of our presence--but to gaze earnestly at the
+altar. Her lips moved in prayer, but no tear damped her yellow cheek.
+And, passing out into the sunlight again, I wondered for whom she was
+praying--husband, brother, sons?--whether, still hoping, she prayed for
+the living, or, faithfully, for the souls of those lost to her. They
+are brave, the peasant women of France....
+
+Madame our hostess, besides being one of the fattest, was also one of
+the most agreeable ladies it has ever been our lot to be billeted upon.
+Before we had been in her house ten minutes she had given us (at an
+amazing speed) the following information:
+
+Her only remaining son had been wounded and was now a prisoner in
+Germany.
+
+She had played hostess continuously since August 1914 to every kind of
+soldier, including French motor-bus drivers, Indian chiefs (_sic_), and
+generals.
+
+English officers arriving after the battle of Loos slept in her hall
+for twenty-four hours, woke to have a bath and to eat an omelette, and
+then slept the clock round again.
+
+She remembered 1870, in which war her husband had fought.
+
+The Boches were barbarians, but they would never advance now, though at
+one time they had been within a few kilometres of her house.
+
+The lettuce and cabbages in her garden were at our disposal.
+
+She took an enormous interest in the Infant, who is even younger than
+the Child and is our latest acquisition.
+
+‘Regardez donc le petit, comme il est fatigué!’ she exclaimed to me in
+the tones of an anxious mother--and then added in an excited whisper,
+‘A-t-il vu les Boches, ce petit sous-lieutenant?’
+
+When I assured her not only that he had seen them, but had fired his
+guns at them, she was delighted and declared that he could not be more
+than sixteen. But here the Infant, considering that the conversation
+was becoming personal, intervened, and the old lady left us to our
+dinner.
+
+Towards the end of our week we packed up essentials and marched out
+to bivouac two nights and fight a two days’ running battle--directed,
+of course, by our indefatigable colonel. After the dead flat ugliness
+where we had been in action all the winter and early spring it was a
+delight to find ourselves in this spacious undulating country, with
+its trees and church spires and red-tiled villages. We fought all day
+against an imaginary foe, made innumerable mistakes, all forcibly
+pointed out by the colonel (who rode both his horses to a standstill
+in endeavouring to direct operations and at the same time watch the
+procedure of four widely separated batteries); our imaginary infantry
+captured ridge after ridge, and we advanced from position to position
+‘in close support,’ until finally, the rout of the foe being complete,
+we moved to our appointed bivouacs.
+
+In peace time it would have been regarded as a quite ordinary day,
+boring because of its resemblance to so many others. Now it was
+different. True, it was make-believe from start to finish, without
+even blank cartridge to give the vaguest hint of reality. But there
+was this: at the back of all our minds was the knowledge that this
+was a preparation--possibly our last preparation--not for something
+in the indefinite future (as in peace time), but for an occasion that
+assuredly _is_ coming, perhaps in a few months, perhaps even in a few
+weeks. The colonel spoke truly when, at his first conference, he said:
+
+‘During these schemes you must all of you force yourselves to imagine
+that there is a real enemy opposed to you. The Boche is no fool:
+he’s got guns, and he knows how to use them. If you show up on crest
+lines with a whole battery staff at your heels, he’ll have the place
+“registered,” and he’ll smash your show to bits before you ever get
+your guns into action at all. _Think_ where he is likely to be, _think_
+what he’s likely to be doing, don’t expose yourselves unless you must,
+and above all, _get a move on_.’
+
+It was a delightful bivouac. We were on the sheltered side of a little
+hill, looking south into a wooded valley. Nightingales sang to us as we
+lay smoking on our valises after a picnic dinner and stared dreamily at
+the stars above us.
+
+‘Jolly, isn’t it?’ said the Child, ‘but I s’pose we wouldn’t be feeling
+quite so comfy if it was the real business.’
+
+‘Don’t,’ said Angelo quietly. ‘I was pretending to myself that we were
+just a merry camping party, here for pleasure only. I’d forgotten the
+war.’
+
+But I had not. I was thinking of the last time I had
+bivouacked--amongst the corn sheaves of a harvest that was never
+gathered, side by side with friends who were soon to fall, on the night
+before the first day of Mons, nearly two years ago.
+
+The following day was more or less a repetition of the first, except
+that we made fewer mistakes and ‘dropped into action’ with more style
+and finish. We were now becoming fully aware of the almost-forgotten
+fact that a field battery is designed to be a mobile unit, and we
+were just beginning to take shape as such when our time was over. A
+day’s rest for the horses and then we returned to our comfortable
+rest billets. It had been a strenuous week, but I think everyone had
+thoroughly enjoyed it....
+
+We have had two days in which to ‘clean up,’ and now to-morrow we are
+to relieve another battery and take our place in the line again. Our
+holiday is definitely over. It will take a little time to settle down
+to the old conditions: our week’s practice of open warfare has spoilt
+us for this other kind. We who have climbed hills and looked over
+miles of rolling country will find an increased ugliness in our old
+flat surroundings. It will seem ludicrous to put our guns into pits
+again--the guns that we have seen bounding over rough ground behind the
+straining teams. To be cooped up in a brick O.P. staring at a strip
+of desolation will be odious after our bivouacs under the stars and
+our dashes into action under a blazing sun. Worst of all, perhaps, is
+the thought that the battery will be split up again into ‘gun line’
+and ‘wagon line,’ with three miles or more separating its two halves,
+instead of its being, as it has been all these weeks, one complete
+cohesive unit. But what must be, must be; and it is absurd to grumble.
+Moreover--the end is not yet.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+‘Let’s toss up for who takes first turn at the O.P. when the relief is
+completed,’ suggested the Child.
+
+‘Wait a minute,’ I said, remembering something suddenly. ‘Do you know
+what to-day is?’
+
+‘Friday,’ he volunteered, ‘and to-morrow ought to be a half-holiday,
+but it won’t be, ’cos we’re going into action.’
+
+I passed the port round again. ‘It’s only a fortnight since we
+celebrated the battery’s first birthday,’ I said, ‘but to-day the Royal
+Regiment of Artillery is two hundred years old. Let’s drink its health.’
+
+And we did.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+     [10] A certain number of batteries.
+
+
+
+
+                 _THE REHABILITATION OF PRIVATE HAGAN._
+
+                          BY ‘MAJOR, R.A.M.C.’
+
+
+Private Timothy Hagan, of ‘D’ Company, extracted a box of matches from
+his pocket, mechanically lighted a seasoned briar pipe, and sought
+inspiration from the log roof of the dugout.
+
+The last of the enemy’s usual evening salvo of shells screamed above
+the tree-tops and burst harmlessly in a stubble field. Hagan did not
+move. The announcement that the evening meal was ready equally failed
+to interest him.
+
+The dugout, efficiently constructed of sand-bags, logs, and earth, was
+just large enough for the accommodation of two improvised beds and
+blankets. Private Sawyer, the normal occupant of the other half, was
+at the moment busy in the kitchen outside beneath the trees. It was
+seclusion that Hagan courted, not protection.
+
+Presently, Sawyer, his face smoke-begrimed and heated, thrust his head
+over a sand-bag parapet.
+
+‘Tea ready, cooky,’ he cried.
+
+‘Phwat’s the good ov thay?’ grunted Hagan, dropping his pipe
+listlessly. ‘Fed up!’
+
+Sawyer’s eyes dilated in speechless surprise. His rapid scrutiny of his
+pal’s downcast features failed to help.
+
+‘’Ullo, what’s wrong, hey?’ he asked, wiping his face with the back of
+his hand and dropping into the trench. ‘Can’t yer high-class stomach
+relish bully-beef no more? What’s wrong with it?’
+
+Without answering in words Timothy slipped his hand into the breast
+pocket of his tunic, produced a much-thumbed envelope, and slowly
+unfolded a letter. The sight of the irregular writing seemed to have
+an immediate tonic effect upon his demeanour. His eyes suddenly became
+suffused with red-blood anger. (He had learned the habit in more than
+one barbed-wire scrimmage against the enemy.) Clenching his fists, he
+cursed beneath his breath, thoughtfully, with intent.
+
+‘H’m!’ grunted Sawyer sympathetically.
+
+‘There’s a blighter at home,’ stammered Hagan, ‘phwat is afeared to do
+his bit out here’--he hesitated as if to swallow pent-up gorge--‘of the
+name of O’Shea--a damned thaivin’ grocer. The letter says as how he’s
+afther walking out wid Kitty Murphy, as is promised to mesilf.’
+
+‘Ugh, a woman is it?’ breathed Sawyer.
+
+‘And me not able to get me hands on him,’ groaned Hagan. ‘’Tis
+perishin’ hard.’
+
+The sharp explosions of anti-aircraft shells in rapid succession
+overhead caused Sawyer to glance upwards. Shading his eyes with
+his hand, he shook his head in disappointment at the marksmanship
+displayed, and slipped back again into a sitting posture.
+
+‘What abhart leave ’ome?’ he inquired. ‘The captain says as ’ow each of
+us is to ’ave a turn--in doo course.’
+
+‘Bah!’ ejaculated Hagan contemptuously. ‘We all knows phwat in doo
+course mains.’ Meditatively refolding his letter, he consigned it
+again to its inner pocket. ‘There ain’t no proper foighting now
+naither--nothin’ but scrappin’ phwat doesn’t even kape the blood wharm
+in yez veins.’ Striking a match on the heel of his boot, he stared into
+space and forgot to use it. ‘I be afther thinkin’, Jock, it is now that
+I could be sphared, or not at all.’
+
+‘Wot’s wimmin to you now, anyway? ’Tis different with the married
+blokes,’ murmured Sawyer. ‘Won’t we both be killed in doo course?’
+
+‘We will that,’ agreed Hagan. ‘But, all the same, I could not lie happy
+loike widout I be afther settlin’ first wid the grocer.’
+
+For some seconds Sawyer did not speak. In the cool calm of the autumn
+evening there arose before him the memory of a dozen little wayside
+cemeteries marked by stereotyped plain wooden crosses--the British
+soldier’s humble badge of honour won. With a whimsical smile upon his
+lips he wondered vaguely where his own resting-place would lie.
+
+‘Ye see, Jock,’ persisted Hagan, ‘’tisn’t as if I was much wanted here
+just now.’
+
+Sawyer, turning suddenly, stared hard at his friend’s bronzed
+countenance, noted the stern-set jaw, and ceased sucking his pipe.
+He had learned to read Tim Hagan’s moods with the accuracy of much
+practice in the course of many devious wanderings.
+
+‘Humph! Wot’s the bloomin’ plan of campaign?’ he demanded. ‘Sneakin’
+be’ind mud’eaps, or fightin’ in the open?’
+
+Hagan mechanically refilled his pipe and rammed down the tobacco with
+mature deliberation. An indefinite hum of voices near the company
+cooking-pots and the sharp bark of a French 75-gun in the near distance
+accentuated the seclusion of the dugout. A dull crimson glow of sunset
+irradiated a cloudless skyline. To the rear of the wood the lowing of
+a cow sounded strangely out of place. On the left, cutting the winding
+line of trenches, lay the long, straight, deserted, _pavé_ road leading
+to the German lines. The scene, through many days of comparative
+stagnation, had grown contemptuously familiar.
+
+‘I’m sick,’ said Hagan, ‘to-morrow morning as iver is.’
+
+Sawyer, gurgling in a characteristic manner meant to denote mirth,
+shook his head.
+
+‘Sick is it?’ he commented. ‘Wot’s the complaint, matey? Some ’as fits;
+others injures their trigger fingers; some ’as lost their glasses and
+carn’t see nothink; some breaks their false teeth and gets shockin’
+pains from the hard biscuits; some ’as pains in the kidneys; some ’as
+a narsty corph. ’Tain’t the season for corphs.’ Rubbing his nose with
+the back of a begrimed finger, he relapsed into thought. ‘Some ’as a
+buzzin’ in the ’ead wot nothink can cure. Some’--looking serious, he
+suddenly ended in a grunt--‘’Tain’t good enough, Tim, me lad, even for
+the pleasure of punchin’ the ’ead of a stinkin’ grocer. You see, if
+you only get a few days in ’orspital, back you come again. If you’re
+took serious, ’ome you goes and stays there for a long time and misses
+everythink ’ere.’ Gripping Hagan’s arm with highly strung fingers, he
+leaned nearer. ‘You ain’t goin’ to schrimshank at ’ome if a big push
+comes, old pal, are you?’
+
+Hagan’s jaw clenched and his lips moved speechlessly. Then once more he
+drew the letter from his pocket and handed it to his friend.
+
+‘Read that!’ he said. ‘I’m goin’ home.’
+
+Sawyer’s face assumed a sphinx-like gravity. He knew the proverbial
+strength of obstinacy, also the amount of that commodity possessed by
+Tim Hagan. He smoothed out the paper and sniffed violently. A faint
+perfume of cheap scent permeated the immediate atmosphere. With a
+grunt, he proceeded to master the contents of the epistle. So slowly
+did he progress, however, that presently even Hagan began to show signs
+of impatience. Sawyer was, in truth, merely gaining time for thought.
+
+‘If you’re caught out malingerin’ on active service, Tim,’ he whispered
+at length, ‘it won’t be only seven days “confined to barracks” you will
+be gettin’ off with.’
+
+With eyes bent upon the crimson skyline, Hagan sighed wearily.
+
+‘’Tis goin’ home I be, Jock,’ he repeated. ‘I’ll be afther marryin’
+Kitty Murphy, and thin me sickness will all go and back it is I’ll
+come.’
+
+With a groan of despair Sawyer crawled to his feet and, without another
+word, walked off in the direction of a ruined château. He knew there
+was no immediate urgency. For ordinary cases of illness the ambulance
+wagon would not arrive until the morning. He, therefore, still had all
+night in which to formulate a plan of operations. It was, of course,
+open to him to drop a hint to the R.A.M.C. orderly, but that would have
+to be a _dernier ressort_ indeed.
+
+Left to himself, Hagan brooded more sombrely than before. The
+regulations regarding reporting sick were perfectly familiar to him.
+For a serious case the medical officer could be summoned within a few
+minutes. The Field Ambulance advanced dressing-station, located in a
+school-house in the nearest village, was not more than a mile away.
+Weighing the matter in all its visible points, he suddenly decided that
+the rôle of an emergency case would better fit his purpose than that of
+the ordinary sick soldier reporting at the sealed-pattern hour.
+
+To determine was to act. Smearing the perspiration of undue thought
+from his forehead, he buttoned his tunic, looked hastily about
+the interstices of the sand-bags of the dugout for small valued
+possessions, and slipped out beneath the shelter of the trees.
+
+The area lying between the wood and the village where the Field
+Ambulance had located its post was alive with troops. The pavé of the
+road, upheaved by continuous traffic and an occasional shell, was not
+a healthy place for evening exercise, but there was no order against
+it. The danger of being shot during the journey had long become a
+negligible quantity. A church tower, shell-riddled and tottering, was
+the landmark. Behind it Hagan knew he should find the red-cross flag
+hanging limply from its pole.
+
+Women, with a horse and cart gathering the wheat in a field on his
+left, glanced up with pleasant smile of greeting as he passed. The
+orderlies filling a regimental water-cart at the village pump took no
+notice of him whatever. Presently, reaching the shadows of the church,
+he began to walk slower, then halted. He felt as if he needed a moment
+in which to pull himself together. So far in his life his histrionic
+sense had never been tested. It is notorious that even experienced
+actors occasionally suffer from stage fright.
+
+A couple of R.A.M.C. orderlies, leaning against the door-post beneath
+the red-cross flag, presently noticed a soldier staggering towards
+them and blindly clutching at the empty air. In normal times their
+unanimous diagnosis woud have been ‘beer.’ They knew, however, that in
+the firing line such could not be.
+
+Hagan, squinting between half-closed eyelashes, staggered another ten
+yards, embraced one of the orderlies round the neck, slid limply to the
+ground, and, breathing heavily, lay quite still.
+
+In a moment a stretcher was at hand; within a minute the patient was
+inside the building. There were only half a dozen other men to share it
+with him, as the evening evacuation of sick and wounded to the Clearing
+Hospital had already taken place.
+
+‘What’s wrong, matey?’ questioned one of the orderlies, holding a
+pannikin of soup to the patient’s lips. ‘Here, drink this. Wake up! Can
+you hear me?’
+
+With a shudder Hagan opened his eyes, and, half-rising to his feet,
+glared about him. Rolls of wool and bandages, trays of surgical
+instruments, splints, buckets, and basins surrounded him upon all sides.
+
+‘Ah--the hospital!’ he muttered. ‘I remimber now. It is afther faintin’
+I be.’
+
+‘H’m--lie down!’ advised the orderly, pushing him back on the
+stretcher. ‘I will call the medical officer. Perhaps he’ll give you a
+tot of brandy.’
+
+‘Begob, and I’m all roight, me bhoy,’ asserted Hagan, with well-assumed
+eagerness to depart. ‘Give me only foive--or maybe tin--minutes’ rest
+and a sip av whater.’
+
+The orderly gave the water, but, none the less, called his officer.
+Meanwhile Hagan, with shut eyes, summoned to his aid all medical
+knowledge, real and spurious, that had ever crossed his path of
+life. The rôle he had assigned to himself was extremely difficult.
+Whatever else might be imaginary, the beads of perspiration bedewing
+his forehead were certainly genuine enough. In order to fool a man
+successfully one requires to know something of his mental attitude
+towards the subject in hand. What a medico’s mind might contain, or
+what pitfalls it was necessary to beware of in dealing with him, were
+points that suddenly assailed the wretched Tim with terrifying force.
+In fact, had the R.A.M.C. officer not arrived within a few moments, it
+is probable that fear of superior wisdom would have driven the schemer
+forth from the building.
+
+‘Well, my man, what is the matter?’ asked the officer, feeling his
+patient’s pulse. ‘Fainted, hey?’
+
+‘Yes, sir,’ asserted the orderly. ‘Fell into my arms.’
+
+Hagan, opening his eyes slowly, shook his head from side to side,
+noisily blew out his cheeks, and ‘marked time.’ Adjusting a
+stethoscope, the officer examined his chest, grunted, and ordered his
+temperature to be taken. That the result would be negative Hagan knew
+only too well. Consequently, it seemed obvious that it behoved him to
+make the next move.
+
+‘Terrible buzzin’ in me head, sor,’ he breathed.
+
+‘Ah--quite so. Rest and light diet. Overstrain. Perhaps you will be all
+right again by morning.’
+
+Emboldened by an initiatory success, Hagan ventured upon driving the
+nail still deeper.
+
+‘Lost all feelin’s in me legs, sor,’ he added, with a groan.
+‘It--er--has been comin’ on, sor, for a week; but it wasn’t loikin’ to
+go sick I was.’
+
+The medico, with newly awakened interest, bent his eyes upon the man’s
+face and silently observed the movements of his rolling head and eyes.
+Hagan, gradually ceasing his gyrations, at length opened his eyes and
+met the doctor’s absorbed gaze. It was at that moment--had he but known
+it--that he sorely needed all the knowledge available regarding his
+interrogator. The latter was by nature a silent man, but that did not
+interfere with his power of absorbing details and piecing them together
+with uncanny accuracy.
+
+‘A pin, sir?’ suggested the orderly.
+
+‘What for?’ asked the officer blandly.
+
+‘Thought, perhaps, you wanted to test his feelings, sir,’ explained the
+zealot.
+
+‘No--er--that is, not to-night,’ answered the officer, suppressing a
+half-smile beneath his moustache. ‘We will see what a night’s rest can
+do.’
+
+As he watched the tall figure of the doctor sauntering out of the room,
+Hagan experienced a sensation of acute alarm. In the presence of the
+calm assurance of this man of few words he felt that he had slipped
+up somewhere. But where? Loss of all feeling in the legs was surely a
+good effort! Glancing at the orderly, he noticed the man smiling in a
+peculiar manner as his officer disappeared from sight. An orderly’s
+knowledge has its limitations, even if a doctor’s has not. The more
+thought he gave to it the more suspicious did he feel, and a guilty
+conscience did not assist matters.
+
+Soup and biscuits were served out for supper. Tim Hagan could have
+absorbed both with relish. He felt, however, that such diet might
+not be good for buzzing in the head--and said so. The night orderly,
+indifferent to arguments, deposited the food on a box by his side
+and departed. The fact, however, that all the articles of diet had
+disappeared by morning was by no means lost upon the day orderly when
+he returned to duty at the hour of breakfast.
+
+During the silent watches of the night Hagan had time to think of
+many things. He decided that he did not like the look of the medical
+officer, nor, indeed, did he know what to make of the orderly. Could
+he have fought them hand to hand, he would have known exactly where
+he was. In this subtle, silent contest of brains he was beginning to
+writhe against an invisible foe which seemed to be closing in upon him
+more surely with every tick of his watch. A change of diagnosis seemed
+advisable. But, with his scanty repertoire of diseases, the point was
+none too easy. In fact, when the officer unexpectedly stood by his
+side, he was still so undecided, that closed eyes and immobility seemed
+the path of least resistance.
+
+‘Well, Private Hagan, how are you this morning?’ inquired the officer,
+shaking him by the shoulder.
+
+What the answer to the question was Timothy did not know. He conceded a
+point, however, by opening his eyes.
+
+The question being repeated with emphasis, an inspiration gripped him.
+In a flash his line of country seemed to open out before him. The
+dizziness in the head had led to complications.
+
+‘Carn’t hear,’ he blurted.
+
+‘Ah!’ commented the persecutor, raising his eyebrows. ‘Deaf, are you?
+That’s bad.’ Perceptibly dropping his voice, he studied his victim’s
+face. ‘H’m--I wonder what degree of deafness. Which is the worst ear?’
+
+With praiseworthy presence of mind, Hagan resisted the impulse to
+answer. Staring blankly at the ceiling, he made no sign.
+
+Stepping a pace nearer, the officer spoke louder. Hagan still made no
+voluntary response, but the perspiration upon his face attested to the
+physical effort.
+
+From the psychological standpoint the doctor was intensely amused.
+That Private Timothy Hagan was a clumsy malingerer, pure and simple,
+he had no doubt. To prove such a negative condition however is quite
+another matter. If proved, the offence meant a court-martial. As an
+officer it was his duty to conceal no crime which could be proved. He
+was interested, but had little time just then for fancy cases. Hagan’s
+facial expression of struggling conjecture condemned him, morally,
+beyond a doubt, but the production of the self-same expression before
+the members of a court-martial could hardly be guaranteed.
+
+It was a six-inch German shell that solved the situation for the
+moment. Dropping three hundred yards from the dressing-station in the
+middle of the village street it exploded with a roar which smashed
+every pane of glass in the building. A second quickly followed. The
+R.A.M.C. staff, expectant of they knew not what, stood listening.
+Hagan, feeling the eyes of the medical officer upon him, did not move a
+muscle.
+
+‘One to you,’ murmured the officer to himself. ‘I don’t believe a word
+of it all the same.’ Turning on his heel, he winked to the orderly and
+with well-assumed indifference strode to the far end of the room.
+
+The orderly, quickly stepping round to the head of Hagan’s stretcher,
+needed no further instructions. With book and pencil in hand, he
+appeared to be engaged upon his ordinary duty of taking names for the
+Clearing Hospital.
+
+‘What’s your number, matey?’ he asked quickly.
+
+The wretched competitor, breathing heavily after his recent mental
+tension, had dropped his guard.
+
+‘4179,’ he answered promptly.
+
+‘_Thank you!_’ remarked a bland voice from the doorway.
+
+To state that Hagan could have kicked himself for his stupidity, is
+to put the case mildly. Conscious that no words of his could possibly
+regain lost ground, he stared blankly at the accusing face of the
+officer.
+
+‘It’s all UP, matey,’ whispered the orderly, indulging in an open
+guffaw.
+
+‘Thin I may as well be afther gettin’ on me bhoots,’ remarked the
+culprit quietly, rising to his feet. ‘You’ve bin done down, Tim, me
+bhoy, and there ain’t no manner av use in kickin’.’
+
+What happened next in that little school-house, as regards points of
+detail, has never been actually recorded. That a deafening explosion
+resembling the noise of the end of all things earthly, accompanied by
+the caving in of the brickwork of the side of the room, and followed by
+the collapse of most of the roof, took place at that moment are facts
+of history.
+
+‘It has come at last,’ groaned the doctor. ‘Thank God, there are only a
+few men in the building.’
+
+A second later, a tottering rafter, swaying beneath its weight of
+tiles, fell with a sickening crash and buried him beneath its ruins.
+
+In an instant all had become chaos.
+
+Whatever the damage done, it was probably at an end. Hagan appreciated
+that much immediately. That he himself remained unhurt was a miracle.
+The orderly, holding both hands to his head, lay like a log on the
+floor. Several stretchers, with their occupants, lay buried beneath the
+débris of brick and plaster.
+
+‘A fifteen-inch, begob!’ exclaimed Hagan, seizing the orderly by the
+shoulders and dragging him into the open air.
+
+The atmosphere outside was still reeking with heavy black smoke and
+dust. A cavern in the road, large enough to conceal a motor-bus,
+yawned in his path. The heat of action was upon him. Handing over the
+orderly to other hands, he did not hesitate. There were wounded men to
+be rescued. At any moment a second shell might follow the first, or
+more walls might fall. A feeble, muffled call for help, emanating from
+the very centre of the wreckage, arrested his attention. He knew that
+bland, cool voice only too well. The available orderlies were already
+struggling to remove the wounded and unearth their officer.
+
+Hagan dashed forward. He was a strong man, and in the best of
+condition. Without argument, he took command.
+
+To remove the smaller masses of mortared brick was the work of but a
+few moments. The men worked at fever heat. The cries from beneath grew
+feebler, almost ceased. It was the weight of long rafters which formed
+the main obstruction. Without axes or saws, its removal might be a
+matter of hours.
+
+Wiping the sweat from his face, Hagan set his teeth and urged on his
+party to final effort. But their combined strength was without avail to
+clear the rafters. The victim beneath seemed nearing suffocation with
+every breath he drew.
+
+Hagan could see only one way, and he took it.
+
+Throwing himself on his face, he insinuated his head beneath the
+rafters, and by herculean efforts forced his shoulders to follow.
+Tearing away the loose stuff with his hands, whilst the orderlies
+endeavoured to ease the weight above him, he at length was able to
+gauge the situation accurately. A great beam lay across the chest of
+the officer, whose body supported it.
+
+Tim Hagan sweated in an agony as he looked. He had seen hundreds of men
+killed in action, but to see his late persecutor being slowly crushed
+to death before his eyes was more than he could bear.
+
+From outside the cries of men with axes reached him. Immediate action,
+however, was what was wanted. An instant’s thought, a whispered,
+guttural prayer, and he proceeded with his task.
+
+Rolling with difficulty upon his back, he wriggled himself, inch by
+inch, close up beside his now silent antagonist, and with all the
+strength in his body pressed upwards until he managed to relieve the
+pressure on the other’s chest. Inch by inch he shoved the unconscious
+man aside and replaced the latter’s body by his own. Then, with ears at
+acutest tension, he listened to the crash of the axes and wondered how
+long he could last--how long it would take him to die.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Two weeks later, Private Timothy Hagan, propped up in bed, lay in a
+hospital at the base. Presently an R.A.M.C. officer, obviously also
+more or less convalescent, entered the ward by means of a wheeled
+chair and looked about him. Hagan, catching the visitor’s eye, flushed
+deeply, laboriously drew a long breath, and turned away his head. The
+next minute, the officer, having given an order to the orderly pushing
+his chair, was at Hagan’s side. A word to the orderly, and the two
+wounded men were alone.
+
+‘I have come, Hagan, to thank you for my life,’ said the officer.
+
+Hagan nervously rubbed his forehead with his hand, moved his lips as if
+framing unspoken words, and drew a deep inspiration.
+
+‘’Twasn’t cowardice, sor,’ he breathed at last. ‘’Twas nought but a
+litle gurl at home phwat drew me.’
+
+‘Cowardice! You! You’re one of the pluckiest men I have ever seen. What
+do you mean?’
+
+‘I main, sor, whin I was schrimshankin’.’
+
+‘Sh--sh, my man! That little matter is all forgotten.’
+
+‘Yez did have me beat, sor,’ persisted Hagan, with a flash of humour in
+his eyes. ‘’Twas too cliver for me you was, sor. ’Twas the orderly hit
+me below the belt. He took me unbeknownst, sor.’
+
+With a light laugh, the medical officer placed his hand upon the brawny
+fist of the man beside him.
+
+‘You will get home to see your girl after all, Hagan--in your own
+way--and I am glad,’ he said.
+
+‘Is it to be quits then, sor?’
+
+‘Yes--we will call it that,’ agreed the officer. ‘For the time being,
+we are quits. Later, I will repay you what is over--if I ever can.’
+
+
+
+
+                   _DURING MUSIC: FANTASY AND FUGUE._
+
+                            BY J. B. TREND.
+
+
+                        I.
+
+    That low-breathed air and inwoven melody,
+      Twined marvellously together, swift to run
+      To the farthest bound of song, or knit in one
+    To melt and glow in o’erwhelming harmony,
+    You played. And I, startled to fantasy,
+      Beheld a land of dishevelled wood and stream,
+      A desperate rally of men, a flash, a scream--
+    And a friend riven beyond all agony.
+
+    Yet did you play. Each delicate, rival thread
+      Of sound was knotted at last and the music ended.
+        Forest, colour, and mountain, earth held none
+    But stunted woods with no companion tread,
+      Greyness, and little hills, in a life unfriended;
+        For all joy in things and love of them were gone.
+
+
+                        II.
+
+    I heard those echoing tones your touch unpenned,
+      Now hammer-notes that rivetted life with love,
+      Now light as sou’west wind blown softly above;
+    But all you played only to him could tend.
+    So let it be, I said, until life’s end;
+      In the tinkling wash at the bows, or water lapping
+      All night upon the dinghy’s side, or tapping
+    Of light wind in the halyards; there is my friend.
+
+    So did your unrelenting notes flit by,
+      While death and music in my thought were welded
+        To swing me lonely down to the loveless night.
+    I am a sail that wind takes wantonly
+      Because the sheet has carried away that held it--
+        Then let your fugue pursue its scornful flight!
+
+
+
+
+                           _LADY CONNIE._[11]
+
+                         BY MRS. HUMPHRY WARD.
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+Falloden had just finished a solitary luncheon, in the little
+dining-room of the Boar’s Hill cottage. There was a garden door in the
+room, and lighting a cigarette, he passed out through it to the terrace
+outside. A landscape lay before him, which has often been compared to
+that of the Val d’Arno seen from Fiesole, and has indeed some common
+points with that incomparable mingling of man’s best with the best of
+mountain and river. It was the last week of October, and the autumn was
+still warm and windless, as though there were no shrieking November
+to come. Oxford, the beautiful city, with its domes and spires, lay
+in the hollow beneath the spectator, wreathed in thin mists of sunlit
+amethyst. Behind that ridge in the middle distance ran the river and
+the Nuneham woods; beyond rose the long blue line of the Chilterns.
+In front of the cottage the ground sank through copse and field to
+the river level, the hedge lines all held by sentinel trees, to which
+the advancing autumn had given that significance the indiscriminate
+summer green denies. The gravely rounded elms with their golden caps,
+the scarlet of the beeches, the pale lemon-yellow of the nearly naked
+limes, the splendid blacks of yew and fir--they were all there, mingled
+in the autumn cup of misty sunshine, like melting jewels. And among
+them, the enchanted city shone, fair and insubstantial, from the depth
+below; as it were, the spiritual word and voice of all the scene.
+
+Falloden paced up and down the terrace, smoking and thinking. That was
+Otto’s open window. But Radowitz had not yet appeared that morning, and
+the ex-scout, who acted butler and valet to the two men, had brought
+word that he would come down in the afternoon, but was not to be
+disturbed till then.
+
+‘What lunacy made me do it?’ thought Falloden, standing still at the
+end of the terrace which fronted the view.
+
+He and Radowitz had been three weeks together. Had he been of the
+slightest service or consolation to Radowitz during that time? He
+doubted it. That incalculable impulse which had made him propose
+himself as Otto’s companion for the winter still persisted indeed. He
+was haunted still by a sense of being ‘under command’--directed--by a
+force which could not be repelled. Ill at ease, unhappy, as he was, and
+conscious of being quite ineffective, whether as nurse or companion,
+unless Radowitz proposed to ‘throw up,’ he knew that he himself should
+hold on; though why, he could scarcely have explained.
+
+But the divergences between them were great; the possibilities of
+friction many. Falloden was astonished to find that he disliked Otto’s
+little fopperies and eccentricities quite as much as he had ever done
+in college days; his finicking dress, his foreign ways in eating, his
+tendency to boast about his music, his country, and his forebears, on
+his good days, balanced by a brooding irritability on his bad days. And
+he was conscious that his own ways and customs were no less teasing
+to Radowitz; his Tory habits of thought, his British contempt for
+vague sentimentalisms and heroics, for all that _panache_ means to the
+Frenchman, or ‘glory’ to the Slav.
+
+‘Then why, in the name of common sense, are we living together?’
+
+He could really give no answer but the answer of ‘necessity’--of
+a spiritual ἀνάγκη[ananki]--issuing from a strange tangle of
+circumstance. The helpless form, the upturned face of his dying
+father, seemed to make the centre of it, and those faint last words,
+so sharply, and as it were, dynamically connected with the hateful
+memory of Otto’s fall and cry in the Marmion Quad, and the hateful
+ever-present fact of his maimed life. Constance too--his scene with
+her on the river bank--her letter breaking with him--and then the soft
+mysterious change in her--and that passionate involuntary promise in
+her eyes and voice, as they stood together in her aunts’ garden--all
+these various elements, bitter and sweet, were mingled in the influence
+which was shaping his own life. He wanted to forgive himself; and he
+wanted Constance to forgive him, whether she married him or no. A kind
+of sublimated egotism, he said to himself, after all!
+
+But Otto? What had really made him consent to take up daily life with
+the man to whom he owed his disaster? Falloden seemed occasionally to
+be on the track of an explanation, which would then vanish and evade
+him. He was conscious, however, that here also, Constance Bledlow
+was somehow concerned; and, perhaps, the Pole’s mystical religion.
+He asked himself, indeed, as Constance had already done, whether
+some presentiment of doom, together with the Christian doctrines of
+forgiveness and vicarious suffering, were not at the root of it? There
+had been certain symptoms apparent during Otto’s last weeks at Penfold
+known only to the old vicar, to himself and Sorell. The doctors were
+not convinced yet of the presence of phthisis; but from various signs,
+Falloden was inclined to think that the boy believed himself sentenced
+to the same death which had carried off his mother. Was there then a
+kind of calculated charity in his act also--but aiming in his case at
+an eternal reward?
+
+‘He wants to please God--and comfort Constance--by forgiving me. I want
+to please her--and relieve myself, by doing something to make up to
+him. He has the best of it! But we are neither of us disinterested.’
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The manservant came out with a cup of coffee.
+
+‘How is he?’ said Falloden, as he took it, glancing up at a still
+curtained window.
+
+The man hesitated.
+
+‘Well, I don’t know, sir, I’m sure. He saw the doctor this morning, and
+told me afterwards not to disturb him till three o’clock. But he rang
+just now, and said I was to tell you that two ladies were coming to
+tea.’
+
+‘Did he mention their names?’
+
+‘Not as I’m aware of, sir.’
+
+Falloden pondered a moment.
+
+‘Tell Mr. Radowitz, when he rings again, that I have gone down to the
+college ground for some football, and I shan’t be back till after six.
+You’re sure he doesn’t want to see me?’
+
+‘No, sir, I think not. He told me to leave the blind down, and not to
+come in again till he rang.’
+
+Falloden put on flannels, and ran down the field paths towards Oxford,
+and the Marmion ground, which lay on the hither side of the river. Here
+he took hard exercise for a couple of hours, walking on afterwards to
+his club in the High Street, where he kept a change of clothes. He
+found some old Marmion friends there, including Robertson and Meyrick,
+who asked him eagerly after Radowitz.
+
+‘Better come and see,’ said Falloden. ‘Give you a bread and cheese
+luncheon any day.’
+
+They got no more out of him. But his reticence made them visibly
+uneasy, and they both declared their intention of coming up the
+following day. In both men there was a certain indefinable change
+which Falloden soon perceived. Both seemed, at times, to be dragging a
+weight too heavy for their youth. At other times, they were just like
+other men of their age; but Falloden, who knew them well, realised
+that they were both hag-ridden by remorse for what had happened in the
+summer. And indeed the attitude of a large part of the college towards
+them, and towards Falloden, when at rare intervals he shewed himself
+there, could hardly have been colder or more hostile. The ‘bloods’
+were broken up; the dons had set their faces steadily against any form
+of ‘ragging’; and the story of the maimed hand, of the wrecking of
+Radowitz’s career, together with sinister rumours as to his general
+health, had spread through Oxford, magnifying as they went. Falloden
+met it all with a haughty silence; and was but seldom seen in his old
+haunts.
+
+And presently it had become known, to the stupefaction of those who
+were aware of the earlier facts, that victim and tormentor, the injured
+and the offender, were living together in the Boar’s Hill cottage where
+Radowitz was finishing the composition required for his second musical
+examination, and Falloden--having lost his father, his money and his
+prospects--was reading for a prize Fellowship to be given by Merton in
+December.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was already moonlight when Falloden began to climb the long hill
+again, which leads up from Folly Bridge to the height on which stood
+the cottage. But the autumn sunset was not long over, and in the
+mingled light, all the rich colours of the fading woodland seemed to
+be suspended in, or fused with, the evening air. Forms and distances,
+hedges, trees, moving figures, and distant buildings were marvellously
+though dimly glorified; and above the golds and reds and purples of the
+misty earth, shone broad and large--an Achilles shield in heaven--the
+autumn moon, with one bright star beside it.
+
+Suddenly, out of the twilight, Falloden became aware of a pony-carriage
+descending the hill, and two ladies in it. His blood leapt. He
+recognised Constance Bledlow, and he supposed the other lady was Mrs.
+Mulholland.
+
+Constance on her side knew in a moment from the bearing of his head and
+shoulders who was the tall man approaching them. She spoke hurriedly to
+Mrs. Mulholland.
+
+‘Do you mind if I stop and speak to Mr. Falloden?’
+
+Mrs. Mulholland shrugged her shoulders--
+
+‘Do as you like, my dear. Only don’t expect me to be very forthcoming!’
+
+Constance stopped the carriage, and bent forward.
+
+‘Mr. Falloden!’
+
+He came up to her. Connie introduced him to Mrs. Mulholland, who bowed
+coldly.
+
+‘We have just been to see Otto Radowitz,’ said Constance. ‘We found
+him--very sadly, to-day.’ Her hesitating voice, with the note of
+wistful appeal in it, affected him strangely.
+
+‘Yes, it has been a bad day. I haven’t seen him at all.’
+
+‘He gave us tea, and talked a great deal. He was rather excited. But he
+looked wretched. And why has he turned against his doctor?’
+
+‘Has he turned against his doctor?’ Falloden’s tone was one of
+surprise. ‘I thought he liked him.’
+
+‘He said he was a croaker, and he wasn’t going to let himself be
+depressed by anybody--doctor or no.’
+
+Falloden was silent. Mrs. Mulholland interposed.
+
+‘Perhaps you would like to walk a little way with Mr. Falloden? I can
+manage the pony.’
+
+Constance descended. Falloden turned back with her towards Oxford. The
+pony-carriage followed at some distance behind.
+
+Then Falloden talked freely. The presence of the light figure beside
+him, in its dark dress and close-fitting cap, seemed to thaw the chill
+of life. He began rapidly to pour out his own anxieties, his own sense
+of failure.
+
+‘I am the last man in the world who ought to be looking after him; I
+know that as well as anybody,’ he said, with emphasis. ‘But what’s to
+be done? Sorell can’t get away from college. And Radowitz knows very
+few men intimately. Neither Meyrick nor Robertson would be any better
+than me.’
+
+‘Oh, not so good--not nearly so good!’ exclaimed Constance eagerly.
+‘You don’t know! He counts on you.’
+
+Falloden shook his head.
+
+‘Then he counts on a broken reed. I irritate and annoy him a hundred
+times a day.’
+
+‘Oh, no, no--he _does_ count on you,’ repeated Connie in her soft,
+determined voice. ‘If you give up, he will be much--much worse off!’
+Then she added after a moment--‘Don’t give up! I--I ask you!’
+
+‘Then I shall stay.’
+
+They moved on a few steps in silence, till Connie said eagerly--
+
+‘Have you any news from Paris?’
+
+‘Yes, I am going over next week. We wrote in the nick of time. The
+whole thing was just being given up--for lack of funds. Now I have told
+him he may spend what he pleases, so long as he does the thing.’
+
+‘Please--mayn’t I help?’
+
+‘Thank you. It’s my affair.’
+
+‘It’ll be very--very expensive.’
+
+‘I shall manage it.’
+
+‘It would be kinder’--her voice shook a little--‘if I might help.’
+
+He considered it--then said doubtfully--
+
+‘Suppose you provide the records?--the things it plays? I don’t know
+anything about music--and I have been racking my brains to think of
+somebody in Paris who could look after that part of it.’
+
+Constance exclaimed. Why, she had several friends in Paris, in the very
+thick of the musical world there! She had herself had lessons all one
+winter in Paris at the Conservatoire from a dear old fellow--a Pole, a
+pupil of Chopin in his youth, and in touch with the whole Polish colony
+in Paris, which was steeped in music.
+
+‘He made love to me a little’--she said laughing--‘I’m sure he’d do
+anything for us. I’ll write _at once_! And there is somebody at the
+Embassy--why, of course, I can set all kinds of people to work!’
+
+And her feet began to dance along the road beside him.
+
+‘We must get some Polish music’--she went on--‘There’s that marvellous
+young pianist they rave about in Paris--Paderewski. I’m sure he’d help!
+Otto has often talked to me about him. We must have lots of Chopin--and
+Liszt--though of course he wasn’t a Pole!--And Polish national
+songs!--Otto was only telling me to-day how Chopin loved them--how he
+and Liszt used to go about the villages and farms and note them down.
+Oh we’ll have a _wonderful_ collection!’
+
+Her eyes shone in her small, flushed face. They walked on fast, talking
+and dreaming, till there was Folly Bridge in front of them, and the
+beginnings of Oxford. Falloden pulled up sharply.
+
+‘I must run back. We have supper early. Will you come again?’
+
+She held out her hand. His face beside her, as the moonlight caught it,
+stirred in her a sudden, acute sense of delight.
+
+‘Oh yes--we’ll come again. But don’t leave him!--don’t, please, think
+of it! He trusts you--he leans on you.’
+
+‘It is kind of you to believe it. But I am no use!’
+
+He put her back into the carriage, bowed formally, and was gone,
+running up the hill at an athlete’s pace.
+
+The two ladies drove silently on, and were soon amongst the movement
+and traffic of the Oxford streets. Connie’s mind was steeped in
+passionate feeling. Till now Falloden had touched first her senses,
+then her pity. Now in these painful and despondent attempts of his to
+adjust himself to Otto’s weakness and irritability, he was stirring
+sympathies and enthusiasms in her which belonged to that deepest soul
+in Connie which was just becoming conscious of itself. And all the
+more, perhaps, because in Falloden’s manner towards her there was
+nothing left of the lover. For the moment at any rate she preferred it
+so. Life was all doubt, expectation, thrill--its colour heightened, its
+meanings underlined. And in her complete uncertainty as to what turn
+it would take, and how the doubt would end, lay the spell--the potent
+tormenting charm--of the situation.
+
+She was sorry, bitterly sorry for Radowitz--the victim. But she loved
+Falloden--the offender! It was the perennial injustice of passion, the
+eternal injustice of human things.
+
+When Falloden was half-way up the hill, he left the road, and took
+a short cut through fields, by a path which led him to the back of
+the cottage, where its sitting-room window opened on the garden and
+the view. As he approached the house, he saw that the sitting-room
+blinds had not been drawn, and some of the windows were still open.
+The whole room was brilliantly lit by fire and lamp. Otto was there
+alone, sitting at the piano, with his back to the approaching spectator
+and the moonlit night outside. He was playing something with his left
+hand; Falloden could see him plainly. Suddenly, he saw the boy’s figure
+collapse. He was still sitting, but his face was buried in his arms
+which were lying on the piano; and through the open window, Falloden
+heard a sound which, muffled as it was, produced upon him a strange and
+horrible impression. It was a low cry, or groan--the voice of despair
+itself.
+
+Falloden stood motionless. All he knew was that he would have given
+anything in the world to recall the past; to undo the events of that
+June evening in the Marmion quadrangle.
+
+Then, before Otto could discover his presence, he went noiselessly
+round the corner of the house, and entered it by the front door. In the
+hall, he called loudly to the ex-scout, as he went upstairs, so that
+Radowitz might know he had come back. When he returned, Radowitz was
+sitting over the fire with sheets of scribbled music paper on a small
+table before him. His eyes shone, his cheeks were feverishly bright. He
+turned with forced gaiety at the sight of Falloden--
+
+‘Well, did you meet them on the road?’
+
+‘Lady Constance, and her friend? Yes. I had a few words with them. How
+are you now? What did the doctor say to you?’
+
+‘What on earth does it matter!’ said Radowitz impatiently. ‘He was just
+a fool--a young one--the worst sort--I can put up with the old ones. I
+know my own case a great deal better than he does.’
+
+‘Does he want you to stop working?’ Falloden stood on the hearth,
+looking down on the huddled figure in the chair; himself broad and tall
+and curly-haired, like the divine Odysseus, when Athene had breathed
+ambrosial youth upon him. But he was pale, and his eyes frowned
+perpetually under his splendid brows.
+
+‘Some nonsense of that sort!’ said Radowitz. ‘Don’t let’s talk about
+it.’
+
+They went in to dinner, and Radowitz sent for champagne.
+
+‘That’s the only sensible thing the idiot said--that I might have that
+stuff whenever I liked.’
+
+His spirits rose with the wine; and presently Falloden could have
+thought what he had seen from the dark had been a mere illusion. A
+review in _The Times_ of a book of Polish memoirs served to let loose
+a flood of boastful talk, which jarred abominably on the Englishman.
+Under the Oxford code, to boast in plain language of your ancestors, or
+your own performances, meant simply that you were an outsider, not sure
+of your footing. If a man really had ancestors, or more brains than
+other people, his neighbours saved him the trouble of talking about
+them. Only the fools and the _parvenus_ trumpeted themselves; a process
+in any case not worth while, since it defeated its own ends. You might
+of course be as insolent or arrogant as you pleased; but only an idiot
+tried to explain why.
+
+In Otto, however, there was the characteristic Slav mingling of quick
+wits with streaks of childish vanity. He wanted passionately to make
+this tough Englishman feel what a great country Poland had been and
+would be again; what great people his ancestors had been; and what a
+leading part they had played in the national movements. And the more he
+hit against an answering stubbornness--or coolness--in Falloden, the
+more he held forth. So that it was an uncomfortable dinner. And again
+Falloden said to himself--‘Why did I do it? I am only in his way. I
+shall bore and chill him; and I don’t seem to be able to help it.’
+
+But after dinner, as the night frost grew sharper, and as Otto sat over
+the fire, piling on the coal, Falloden suddenly went and fetched a warm
+Scotch plaid of his own. When he offered it, Radowitz received it with
+surprise, and a little annoyance.
+
+‘I am not the least cold--thank you!’
+
+But, presently, he had wrapped it round his knees; and some restraint
+had broken down in Falloden.
+
+‘Isn’t there a splendid church in Cracow?’ he asked casually,
+stretching himself, with his pipe, in a long chair on the opposite side
+of the fire.
+
+‘One!--five or six!’ cried Otto, indignantly. ‘But I expect you’re
+thinking of Panna Marya. Panna means Lady. I tell you, you English
+haven’t got anything to touch it!’
+
+‘What’s it like?--what date?’--said Falloden, laughing.
+
+‘I don’t know--I don’t know anything about architecture. But it’s
+glorious. It’s all colour and stained glass--and magnificent
+tombs--like the gate of Heaven,’ said the boy with ardour. ‘It’s the
+church that every Pole loves. Some of my ancestors are buried there.
+And it’s the church where, instead of a clock striking, the hours are
+given out by a watchman who plays a horn. He plays an old air--ever so
+old--we call it the “Heynal,” on the top of one of the towers. The only
+time I was ever in Cracow I heard a man at a concert--a magnificent
+player--improvise on it. And it comes into one of Chopin’s sonatas.’
+
+He began to hum under his breath a sweet wandering melody. And suddenly
+he sprang up, and ran to the piano. He played the air with his left
+hand, embroidering it with delicate arabesques and variations, catching
+a bass here and there with a flying touch, suggesting marvellously
+what had once been a rich and complete whole. The injured hand, which
+had that day been very painful, lay helpless in its sling; the other
+flashed over the piano, while the boy’s blue eyes shone beneath his
+vivid frieze of hair. Falloden, lying back in his chair, noticed the
+emaciation of the face, the hollow eyes, the contracted shoulders; and
+as he did so, he thought of the scene in the Magdalen ballroom--the
+slender girl, wreathed in pearls, and the brilliant foreign
+youth--dancing, dancing, with all the eyes of the room upon them.
+
+Presently, with a sound of impatience, Radowitz left the piano. He
+could do nothing that he wanted to do. He stood at the window for some
+minutes looking out at the autumn moon, with his back to Falloden.
+
+Falloden took up one of the books he was at work on for his Fellowship
+exam. When Radowitz came back to the fire, however, white and
+shivering, he laid it down again, and once more made conversation.
+Radowitz was at first unwilling to respond. But he was by nature
+_bavard_, and Falloden played him with some skill.
+
+Very soon he was talking fast and brilliantly again, about his
+artistic life in Paris, his friends at the Conservatoire or in the
+Quartier Latin; and so back to his childish days in Poland, and the
+rising of ’63, in which the family estates near Warsaw had been
+forfeited. Falloden found it all very strange. The seething, artistic,
+revolutionary world which had produced Otto was wholly foreign to him;
+and this patriotic passion for a dead country seemed to his English
+common sense a waste of force. But in Otto’s eyes Poland was not dead;
+the white eagle, torn and bloodstained though she was, would mount the
+heavens again; and in those dark skies the stars were already rising!
+
+At eleven, Falloden got up--
+
+‘I must go and swat. It was awfully jolly, what you’ve been telling me.
+I know a lot I didn’t know before.’
+
+A gleam of pleasure shewed in the boy’s sunken eyes.
+
+‘I expect I’m a bore,’ he said, with a shrug; ‘and I’d better go to
+bed.’
+
+Falloden helped him carry up his plaid, his books and papers. In Otto’s
+room, the windows were wide open, but there was a bright fire, and
+Bateson the scout was waiting to help him undress. Falloden asked some
+questions about the doctor’s orders. Various things were wanted from
+Oxford. He undertook to get them in the morning.
+
+When he came back to the sitting-room, he stood some time in a brown
+study. He wondered again whether he had any qualifications at all as a
+nurse. But he was inclined to think now that Radowitz might be worse
+off without him; what Constance had said seemed less unreal; and his
+effort of the evening, as he looked back on it, brought him a certain
+bitter satisfaction.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The following day, Radowitz came downstairs with the course of the
+second movement of his symphony clear before him. He worked feverishly
+all day, now writing, now walking up and down, humming and thinking,
+now getting out of his piano--a beautiful Erard hired for the
+winter--all that his maimed state allowed him to get; and passing
+hour after hour, between an ecstasy of happy creation, and a state of
+impotent rage with his own helplessness. Towards sunset he was worn
+out, and with tea beside him which he had been greedily drinking, he
+was sitting huddled over the fire, when he heard someone ride up to the
+front door.
+
+In another minute the sitting-room door opened, and a girl’s figure in
+a riding habit appeared.
+
+‘May I come in?’ said Connie, flushing rather pink.
+
+Otto sprang up, and drew her in. His fatigue disappeared as though by
+magic. He seemed all gaiety and force.
+
+‘Come in! Sit down and have some tea! I was so depressed five minutes
+ago--I was fit to kill myself. And now you make the room shine--you
+come in like a goddess!’
+
+He busied himself excitedly in putting a chair for her, in relighting
+the spirit kettle, in blowing up the fire.
+
+Constance meanwhile stood in some embarrassment with one hand on the
+back of a chair--a charming vision in her close fitting habit, and
+the same black _tricorne_ that she had worn in the Lathom Woods, at
+Falloden’s side.
+
+‘I came to bring you a book, dear Mr. Otto, the book we talked of
+yesterday.’ She held out a paper-covered volume. ‘But I mustn’t stay.’
+
+‘Oh, do stay!’ he implored her. ‘Don’t bother about Mrs. Grundy. I’m
+so tired and so bored. Anybody may visit an invalid. Think this is a
+nursing home, and you’re my daily visitor. Falloden’s miles away on a
+drag-hunt. Ah, that’s right!’ He waved his hand as he saw that she had
+seated herself. ‘Now you shall have some tea!’
+
+She let him provide her, watching him the while with slightly frowning
+brows. How ill he looked--how ill! Her heart sank.
+
+‘Dear Mr. Otto, how are you? You don’t seem so well to-day.’
+
+‘I have been working myself to death. It won’t come right--this beastly
+_Andante_. It’s too jerky--it wants _liaison_. And I can’t hear it--I
+can’t _hear_ it!--that’s the devilish part of it.’
+
+And taking his helpless hand out of the sling in which it had been
+resting, he struck it bitterly against the arm of his chair. The tears
+came to Connie’s eyes.
+
+‘Don’t!--you’ll hurt yourself. It’ll be all right--it’ll be all right!
+You’ll hear it in your mind.’ And bending forward under a sudden
+impulse, she took the maimed hand in her two hands--so small and
+soft--and lifting it tenderly she put her lips to it.
+
+He looked at her in amazement.
+
+‘You do that--for me?’
+
+‘Yes. Because you are a great artist--and a brave man!’ she said,
+gulping. ‘You are not to despair. Your music is in your soul--your
+brain. Other people shall play it for you.’
+
+He calmed down.
+
+‘At least I am not deaf, like Beethoven,’ he said, trying to please
+her. ‘That would have been worse.--Do you know last night, Falloden
+and I had a glorious talk. He was awfully decent. He made me tell him
+all about Poland, and my people. He never scoffed once. He makes me do
+what the doctor says. And last night--when it was freezing cold--he
+brought a rug and wrapped it round me. Think of that!’--he looked at
+her--half-shamefaced, half-laughing--‘_Falloden!_’
+
+Her eyes shone.
+
+‘I’m glad!’ she said softly. ‘I’m glad!’
+
+‘Yes, but do you know why he’s kind--why he’s here at all?’ he asked
+her, abruptly.
+
+‘What’s the good of silly questions?’ she said hastily. ‘Take it as it
+comes.’
+
+He laughed.
+
+‘He does it--I’m going to say it!--yes, I _am_--and you are not to be
+angry--he does it because--simply--he’s in love with _you_!’
+
+Connie flushed again, more deeply, and he, already alarmed by his own
+boldness, looked at her nervously.
+
+‘You are quite wrong.’ Her tone was quiet, but decided. ‘He did it,
+first of all, because of what you did for his father----’
+
+‘I did nothing!’ interposed Radowitz.
+
+She took no notice.
+
+‘And secondly’--her voice shook a little--‘because--he was sorry.
+Now--_now_--he is doing it’--suddenly her smile flashed out, with its
+touch of humour--‘just simply because he likes it!’
+
+It was a bold assertion. She knew it. But she straightened her slight
+shoulders, prepared to stick to it.
+
+Radowitz shook his head.
+
+‘And what am I doing it for? Do you remember when I said to you I
+loathed him?’
+
+‘No--not him.’
+
+‘Well, something in him--the chief thing, it seemed to me then. I felt
+towards him really--as a man might feel towards his murderer--or the
+murderer of someone else, some innocent, helpless person who had given
+no offence. Hatred--loathing--_abhorrence!_--you couldn’t put it too
+strongly. Well then,’--he began to fidget with the fire, tongs in
+hand, building it up, while he went on thinking aloud--‘God brought us
+together in that strange manner. By the way’--he turned to her--‘are
+you a Christian?’
+
+‘I--I don’t know. I suppose I am.’
+
+‘I am,’ he said firmly. ‘I am a practising Catholic. Catholicism with
+us Poles is partly religion, partly patriotism--do you understand? I
+go to confession--I am a communicant. And for some time I couldn’t go
+to Communion at all. I always felt Falloden’s hand on my shoulder, as
+he was pushing me down the stairs; and I wanted _to kill him_!--just
+that! You know our Polish blood runs hotter than yours. I didn’t want
+the college to punish him. Not at all. It was my affair. After I saw
+you in town, it grew worse--it was an obsession. When we first got
+to Yorkshire, Sorell and I, and I knew that Falloden was only a few
+miles away, I never could get quit of it--of the thought that some
+day--somewhere--I should kill him. I never, if I could help it, crossed
+a certain boundary line that I had made for myself, between our side of
+the moor, and the side which belonged to the Fallodens. I couldn’t be
+sure of myself if I had come upon him unawares. Oh, of course, he would
+soon have got the better of me--but there would have been a struggle--I
+should have attacked him--and I might have had a revolver. So for your
+sake’--he turned to look at her with his hollow blue eyes--‘I kept
+away. Then, one evening, I quite forgot all about it. I was thinking
+of the theme for the slow movement in my symphony, and I didn’t notice
+where I was going. I walked on and on over the hill--and at last I
+heard a man groaning--and there was Sir Arthur--by the stream. I saw at
+once that he was dying, and I took a card from his waistcoat pocket,
+which told me who he was. There I sat, alone with him. He asked me not
+to leave him. He said something about Douglas. “Poor Douglas!” And when
+the horrible thing came back--the last time--he just whispered, “Pray!”
+and I said our Catholic prayers--that our priest had said when my
+mother died. Then Falloden came--just in time--and instead of wanting
+to kill him, I waited there, a little way off--and prayed hard for
+myself and him! Queer, wasn’t it? And afterwards--you know--I saw his
+mother. Then the next day, I confessed to a dear old priest, who was
+very kind to me, and on the Sunday he gave me Communion. He said God
+had been very gracious to me; and I saw what he meant. That very week
+I had a hæmorrhage, the first I ever had.’
+
+Connie gave a sudden, startled cry. He turned again to smile at her.
+
+‘Didn’t you know? No, I believe no one knew, but Sorell and the
+doctors. It was nothing. It’s quite healed. But the strange thing was
+how extraordinarily happy I felt that week. I didn’t hate Falloden
+any more. It was as though a sharp thorn had gone from one’s mind.
+It didn’t last long of course, the queer ecstatic feeling. There was
+always my hand--and I got very low again. But _something_ lasted;
+and when Falloden said that extraordinary thing--I don’t believe he
+meant to say it at all!--suggesting we should settle together for the
+winter--I knew that I must do it. It was a kind of miracle--one thing
+after another--_driving_ us.’
+
+His voice dropped. He remained gazing absently into the fire.
+
+‘Dear Otto’--said Constance softly--‘you have forgiven him?’
+
+He smiled.
+
+‘What does that matter? _Have you?_’
+
+His eager eyes searched her face. She faltered under them.
+
+‘He doesn’t care whether I have or not.’
+
+At that he laughed out.
+
+‘Doesn’t he? I say, did you ask us both to come--on purpose--that
+afternoon?--in the garden?’
+
+She was silent.
+
+‘It was bold of you!’ he said, in the same laughing tone. ‘But it’s
+answered. Unless, of course, I bore him to death. I talk a lot of
+nonsense--I can’t help it--and he bears it. And he says hard, horrid
+things, sometimes--and my blood boils--and I bear it. And I expect he
+wants to break off a hundred times a day--and so do I. Yet here we
+stay. And it’s _you_’--he raised his head deliberately--‘it’s _you_
+that are really at the bottom of it.’
+
+Constance rose trembling from her chair.
+
+‘Don’t say any more, dear Otto. I didn’t mean any harm. I--I was so
+sorry for you both.’
+
+He laughed again.
+
+‘You’ve got to marry him!’ he said triumphantly. ‘There!--you may go
+now--But you’ll come again soon. I know you will!’
+
+She seemed to slip, to melt, out of the room. But he had a last vision
+of flushed cheeks, and half-reproachful eyes.
+
+
+                          (_To be continued._)
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+     [11] Copyright, 1915, by Mrs. Humphry Ward in the United
+     States of America.
+
+
+
+
+                   _TO THE EDITOR OF THE ‘CORNHILL.’_
+
+
+Dear Sir,--If it gives Mr. Russell any pleasure to accuse me of ‘living
+in a happy remoteness from affairs,’ and of having ‘only just awakened
+from a slumber which seems to have lasted longer than that of Rip Van
+Winkle,’ it would be cruel of me to object. But the proof of my guilt,
+it seems, is to be found in the article I wrote in the CORNHILL on
+‘The Duke of Wellington and Miss J.’ That article, Mr. Russell thinks,
+proves that I had only just discovered Miss J. and her correspondence
+with the Duke. As a matter of fact I have been familiar with the volume
+published by Mr. T. Fisher Unwin for more than twenty years, and it
+must be fifteen years ago since I wrote an article on the subject in an
+Australian magazine. But Mr. Russell himself thinks the letters of Miss
+J. so little known, and so very interesting, that he himself expends
+another article on them, three months later than mine, and taking
+exactly the same view of them! It seems clear that there are two Rip
+Van Winkles--one in England and one in Australia: and the English Van
+Winkle is even drowsier, and wakes later, than his Australian kinsman.
+
+I should not trouble you with this note, however, except for the
+opportunity it gives me of apologising for an injustice to Sir Herbert
+Maxwell which I committed in the article I wrote in the CORNHILL. I
+represented him as saying the Duke ‘must have been inexpressibly bored
+by the correspondence,’ and the words are in inverted commas, giving
+the reader the impression these were the exact words Sir Herbert
+Maxwell used. I apologise for those unfortunate inverted commas. The
+words they seem to quote were not the precise words Sir Herbert Maxwell
+used in his ‘Life of Wellington,’ and they do not accurately convey his
+meaning. ‘The letters,’ he says, ‘_some might think_ were of the very
+kind to bore the Duke, whose religion was of a somewhat conventional
+kind.’ But Sir Herbert Maxwell does not say that that was his personal
+opinion.
+                                        Yours truly,
+                                                    W. H. FITCHETT.
+
+
+NOTE.--In her article, ‘Dublin Days: the Rising,’ which appeared in
+my July number, Mrs. Hamilton Norway, on page 51, repeats the current
+story that Messrs. Jacob were ready to let the military blow up their
+biscuit factory, for they would never make another biscuit in Ireland.
+In justice to Messrs. Jacob, let me add that I have since learnt on the
+one unimpeachable authority that this story, however picturesque, is
+wholly apocryphal.
+
+                                                        THE EDITOR.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber’s Note:
+
+This book was written in a period when many words had not become
+standardized in their spelling. Words may have multiple spelling
+variations or inconsistent hyphenation in the text. These have been
+left unchanged unless indicated below. Misspelled words were not
+corrected.
+
+Words and phrases in italics are surrounded by underscores, _like
+this_. Footnotes were renumbered sequentially and were moved to the
+end of the chapter. Obvious printing errors, such as backwards, upside
+down, partially printed letters and punctuation or punctuation used as
+letters, were corrected. Final stops missing at the end of sentences
+and abbreviations were added. Duplicate letters at line endings or
+page breaks and excess single quote marks were removed.
+
+Missing word added: ... a devil [of] suspicion ...
+
+Word changed:  ... except that [if] it afforded ...
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CORNHILL MAGAZINE, (VOL. XLI,
+NO. 243 NEW SERIES, SEPTEMBER 1916) ***
+
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-<section class='pg-boilerplate pgheader' id='pg-header' lang='en'>

-<h2 id='pg-header-heading' title=''>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Cornhill Magazine, (vol. xli, no. 243 new series, September 1916) by Various</h2>

-

-<div>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 <a class="reference external" href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. 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.</div>

-

-

-<div class='container' id='pg-machine-header'>

-<p><strong>Title:</strong> The Cornhill Magazine, (vol. xli, no. 243 new series, September 1916)</p>

-<div id='pg-header-authlist'>

-<p><strong>Author:</strong> Various</p>

-</div>

-

-<p><strong>Release Date:</strong> August 11, 2023 [eBook #71391]</p>

-<p><strong>Language:</strong> English</p>

-<p><strong>Credits:</strong> Carol Brown, hekula03 and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)</p>

-</div>

-<div id='pg-start-separator'>

-<span>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CORNHILL MAGAZINE, (VOL. XLI, NO. 243 NEW SERIES, SEPTEMBER 1916) ***</span>

-</div>

-</section>

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<p class="center">

-<span class="up">BY SPECIAL</span> <img src="images/logo.jpg" alt="logo"> <span class="up">APPOINTMENT</span></p>

-

-<p class="center">

-ARTISTS’ COLOURMEN TO THEIR MAJESTIES THE KING AND QUEEN<br>

-<span class="allsmcap">AND TO</span> H.M. QUEEN ALEXANDRA.<br>

-<br>

-<br></p>

-<p class="center h2head">WINSOR &amp; NEWTON,</p>

-<p class="center">LIMITED,</p>

-<p class="center"><b>MANUFACTURERS OF ARTISTS’ OIL AND<br>

-WATER COLOURS of the FINEST QUALITY.</b></p>

-

-<hr class="medium">

-

-<p class="center"><b>THE SCHOLARS’ BOX of<br>

-ARTISTS’ MOIST WATER COLOURS.</b><br>

-<br>

-Designed to provide an inexpensive box of Artists’ Colours with a range of

-tint and covering power approximately equal to the ordinary Students’ Box.</p>

-

-<p class="unindent"><i>‘In developing the faculty of observation in children, Drawing and Colour Work is most essential. The

-Drawing and Colour materials should always be of good quality, and suitable for the purpose for which

-they are intended.’</i></p>

-

-<table>

-<tr><td class="tdl">Scholars’ Box of Artists’ Water Colours</td>

-    <td class="tdr"><b>Price 3s. net.</b></td></tr>

-<tr><td class="tdc small">Containing 8 Pans and 2 Brushes.</td><td></td></tr>

-<tr><td class="tdl">Refills for Scholars’ Box &emsp; - &emsp; -</td>

-    <td class="tdr"><b>Series 1, 2s. 6d.; Series 2, 4s.;</b></td></tr>

-<tr><td></td><td class="tdr"><b>Series 3, 6s.; Series 4, 8s. per doz. net.</b></td></tr>

-</table>

-

-<p class="center">Offices <span class="ss"> </span> RATHBONE PLACE, LONDON, W.</p>

-

-<hr>

-<p class="center">A SEARCHLIGHT INTO THINGS THAT MATTER.</p>

-

-<p class="center h1head black">The Review of Reviews</p>

-

-<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Illustrated.</span><span class="ss"> </span><span class="smcap">Monthly.</span><span class="ss"> </span><span class="smcap">Price</span> 1/-</p>

-

-<p class="center"><i><b>The Ideal Magazine for the Homes of the Empire.</b></i></p>

-

-<p class="unindent">G., in <cite>The Newspaper World</cite>, says:</p>

-

-<p>‘The management of <cite>The Review of Reviews</cite>, impelled by an unprecedented situation

-in our annals to double the price of that familiar monthly, have succeeded in providing

-their readers with an increased number of pages and a richer and more varied table of

-contents, while maintaining at the same time in every department of the <cite>Review</cite> the

-spirit and the purpose of its founder. For a monthly so fresh and full, so vital and

-stimulating, one shilling is a low rather than a high figure for so excellent and varied a

-bill of intellectual fare.’</p>

-<hr class="medium">

-<p class="center"><b>‘WE PUT THE WORLD BEFORE YOU!’</b></p>

-<hr class="medium">

-<p class="unindent">Readers of the ‘Cornhill Magazine’ are invited to carefully examine <b>THE REVIEW OF REVIEWS</b>;

-they will, it is anticipated, decide to order it regularly from Booksellers or Newsagents. Single copies

-1/- monthly; or it can be sent by post for one year for <b>14/6</b>; to Canada, <b>13/6</b>.<br>

-<br>

-Subscription Orders, enclosing Cheque or Post Office Order, should be addressed to <b>THE

-MANAGER, ‘REVIEW OF REVIEWS’ OFFICE, BANK BUILDINGS, KINGSWAY, LONDON, W.C.</b></p>

-

-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">

-</div><!--end chapter-->

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</span>

-<h1><span class="muchsmaller">THE</span><br>

-CORNHILL MAGAZINE.</h1>

-<hr class="short">

-<p class="center">SEPTEMBER 1916.<br></p>

-<hr class="short">

-<h2><span class="h3head"><i>THE KAISER AS HIS FRIENDS KNEW HIM.</i></span></h2>

-

-<p class="center allsmcap">BY A NEUTRAL DIPLOMAT.</p>

-

-<p class="p2"><span class="smcap">Among</span> the high German officials whose opinion of William the

-Second’s foreign policies I quoted in my previous article, I do not

-recall a single one whose loyalty or sense of propriety did not

-prevent his offering any personal criticisms of the Emperor to whose

-service his best efforts were being devoted. An apprehensiveness,

-bordering on positive dread in many instances, of the ultimate

-consequences of the Kaiser’s impetuosities was often apparent in

-the observations of their franker moments, but personal aspersions

-were never cast. This was, of course, no more than could have

-been expected from the well-bred men-of-the-world that they were.

-And in this connection it may be in point to add that not even

-among the rather gay and not always discreetly reserved officers

-of the Crown Prince’s suite (with whom I was thrown not a little

-during their visit to India in 1911) was loose criticism of the

-Emperor ever heard, either by myself or by others who enjoyed

-still fuller opportunities than I had for meeting them on intimate

-and confidential terms.</p>

-

-<p>Frederick William himself was, I regret to record, far less discreet

-than those about him in his references to his imperial progenitor,

-and I recall very clearly that quick-tongued youth’s sarcastic

-allusions to certain rulings of the Kaiser in the matter of the treatment

-of the natives of some of the islands of German Melanesia.

-The Crown Prince, I should explain, I had found consumed with

-interest concerning the progress his people were making in

-several of their Pacific island colonies I had recently visited, and it

-was to his very palpable desire to ‘pump me dry’ of any information

-I might have picked up regarding these incipient ‘places in

-the sun’ that I owed a number of hours of conversation with him

-the edification of which would hardly otherwise have fallen to my

-lot.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</span>

-The outburst I had in mind was led up to by my royal inquisitor’s

-asking me for my views concerning the comparative progress of

-the three political divisions of the island of New Guinea, and by

-my replying that, if the criterion of judgment was to be the contentment,

-physical well-being, and economic usefulness of the native,

-I should rate British New Guinea first, Dutch New Guinea an

-indifferent second, and German New Guinea a very poor third. It

-was anything but a courtier-like speech on my part, but I was not

-meeting Frederick William in my official capacity, and, moreover,

-he had made a point of asking that I should give him perfectly

-frank answers to his questions. (‘None of the “bull con’,” as the

-Yankees say,’ was the way he put it; ‘give me the “straight

-goods.”’ Both expressions, as he confessed with a grin, he had

-picked up from a ‘neat little filly from Kentucky’ he had ‘seen

-a bit of’ at Ostend the previous summer.)</p>

-

-<p>The Crown Prince, in spite of his undeniable personal courage,

-of which I saw several striking instances in the course of his Indian

-visit, is far from being what the Anglo-Saxons call a ‘good sport,’

-and on this occasion he made no pretence of hiding his annoyance.

-Because, however, as transpired later, there were several other

-matters which he had in mind ‘pumping’ me on, he evidently

-thought it best not to vent his spleen for the moment on one whose

-usefulness was not quite exhausted. This befell subsequently,

-I may add, though under circumstances which have no especial

-bearing on my present subject.</p>

-

-<p>Tapping his boot with his riding-whip—he had been playing

-polo—the Prince sat in a sort of spoiled-child pout of petulance for

-a minute or two, before bursting out with: ‘Doubtless you’re right.

-I’ve had hints of the same thing myself from private reports. It’s

-all due to the pater’s unwarranted interference in something

-he knows nothing about. Old X——’ (mentioning the previous

-Governor of German New Guinea by name) ‘has forgotten more

-about handling Papuans than the pater ever knew. The pater

-has put his foot in it every time he has moved in our Pacific

-colonies.’ (It may be in order to explain that not only does the

-Crown Prince speak excellent English, but that on this Indian visit

-he made a point of resorting to English idioms, colloquialisms, and

-slang to an extent which at times became positively ridiculous.

-I have quoted here almost his exact language.)</p>

-

-<p>Frederick William went on to give me a spirited and approving

-account of the manner in which a German colonist near Herbertshöhe<span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</span>

-had put an end to raids on his yam patch by planting on

-each corner-post of the enclosure the ‘frizzly’ head of a Papuan

-who had been shot in the act of making off with the succulent

-tubers, concluding with the dogmatic assertion that the only way

-to handle the black man was to ‘bleed him white.’</p>

-

-<p>I had the temerity to reply that, from what I had seen, the more

-‘old X——’ continued to forget of what he thought he knew about

-handling Papuans, the better it would be for German colonial

-prospects in New Guinea, and as a consequence threw my royal

-interrogator into another fit of sulks. It is only fair to say that

-the ‘interference’ of which the Crown Prince waxed so unfilially

-censorious really consisted of measures calculated slightly—but

-only slightly—to mitigate the brutal repressiveness toward the

-natives which had characterised the German administration of

-New Guinea from the outset. The one bright spot in the brief but

-bloody annals of German overseas colonisation was the six or eight

-years’ régime of the broad-minded and humane Dr. Solf—the

-present Colonial Secretary—in Samoa. This tiny and comparatively

-unimportant Pacific outpost was the single Teutonic colony in

-which I found the natives treated with anything approaching the

-humanitarian consideration extended to them so universally by

-the English and the French. Dr. Solf may well be, as has been

-occasionally hinted from Holland, the hope of those conservative

-and intelligent Germans who are known to be silently working for

-a reborn and ‘de-Prussified’ Fatherland after the war.</p>

-

-<p>As I have said, the Crown Prince was the only highly placed

-German whom I ever heard speak slightingly in a personal way of

-the Kaiser, and that impetuous youth was—as he still is—a law

-unto himself. Such loyalty and discretion, however, did not

-characterize all prominent Germans in private life, and it is to

-several of these I am indebted for the illuminating sidelights their

-observations and anecdotes threw on the human side of William II.

-Of such, I fancy the Baron Y——, who voyaged on the same

-steamer with me from Zanzibar to Port Said several years ago,

-had enjoyed perhaps the most intimate opportunities for an

-intelligent appraisal of his Emperor.</p>

-

-<p>The Baron was a scion of one of the oldest and wealthiest of

-Bavarian noble families, a graduate of the École des Beaux Arts as well

-as Heidelberg, and to the fact that several years of his boyhood were

-spent at Harrow owed an English accent in speaking that language

-which betrayed no trace of Teutonic gutturality. He was returning<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</span>

-from an extended hunting trip in British and German East Africa

-at the time I made his acquaintance, and was nursing a light

-grievance against his own Government from the fact that he had

-been rather better treated in the former than the latter. His

-attitude toward the Kaiser was somewhat different from that of any

-other German I have ever met, this, doubtless, being due to his own

-great wealth and assured position. There was little of the ‘loyal

-and devoted subject’ in this attitude, to which no better comparison

-suggests itself to me than that of a very heavy stock-holder in a

-corporation toward a general manager who is in no respect his

-social superior.</p>

-

-<p>‘The Kaiser’s most pronounced characteristic,’ said Baron

-Y—— one evening as we paced the promenade, ‘is his overweening

-vanity. His “ego” dwarfs his every other attribute, natural or

-acquired, and it is idle to try to understand what he is, what he

-does, what he stands for—and, incidentally, what the German

-people, in quite another sense, have to stand for—without taking

-that fact into consideration. It is the obsession of his own importance—I

-might even say his belief in his own omnipotence—that is

-responsible for his taking the so-called Divine Right of the Hohenzollerns

-more seriously, interpreting the term more literally, than

-any of his ancestors since Frederick the Great. It is his vanity

-that is responsible for his incessant shiftings of uniforms, for his

-posturings, his obvious attempts to conceal or distract attention

-from his shrunken arm. He is the most consummate master of

-stagecraft; indeed, the Fates spoiled a great producer of spectacles—one

-who would have eclipsed Reinhardt—to make, not an

-indifferent Emperor, but——’ The Baron checked himself and

-concluded with: ‘Perhaps I had best not say what I had in mind.

-Everything considered, however, I am convinced that it would

-have been better for Germany if William the Second had been

-stage-manager rather than Kaiser.’</p>

-

-<p>Specific and intimate instance of the pettiness with which the

-Kaiser’s vanity occasionally expressed itself Baron Y—— gave me

-the following evening. I had been turning the pages of some of

-his German illustrated papers, and was unable to refrain from

-commenting, not only on the frequency with which the portrait of

-the Kaiser appeared, but also of the defiant ‘come-one-come-all’

-attitude of all of those in which the War Lord appeared in uniform.

-The Baron laughed good-naturedly. ‘The Kaiser’s attitudinizings,’

-he said, ‘never seem to strike the Prussians as in the

-least funny (they haven’t much of a sense of humour, anyhow):<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</span>

-but we Bavarians have always taken them as quite as much of

-a joke as has the rest of Europe. Now this picture’ (he began

-turning the pages of ‘Ueber Land und Meer’ in search of it), ‘which

-is one of the most popular with the Prussians, we of Bavaria have

-always called “Ajax Defying the Lightning,” and I am going to tell

-you the history of it.</p>

-

-<p>‘This picture is reproduced from one of several dozen almost

-identical photographs which have been taken of the Kaiser glowering

-into the emptiness of the upper empyrean from the vantage of

-a little basaltic crag which crops up at the forks of a road in one

-of the Imperial game preserves. I have always taken a sort of

-paternal interest in this apparently “to-be-continued-indefinitely”

-series of photographs, for it chanced that I was in the company of

-their central figure on the occasion when he discovered this now

-famous pedestal, and it was due to a suggestion of mine that he was

-enabled to turn his find to what he no doubt considers a most

-felicitous use.</p>

-

-<p>‘It was on one of the early days of an imperial hunting party—just

-the ordinary affair of its kind, with no one in particular from the

-outside on hand, and nothing especial in the way of sport offered—and

-the Kaiser, not being in very good fettle, had bidden me

-remain in the lodge with him to discuss some experiments I had

-been conducting on my estates with some drought-resisting barleys

-and lucernes, the seed of which had been sent to Germany by one

-of our “agricultural explorers” in Central Asia. The Kaiser’s

-keenness for skimming the cream of the world and bringing it home

-for the German people is only exceeded by his vanity,’ the Baron

-added parenthetically.</p>

-

-<p>‘Having heard all I had to report, my imperial host suggested

-a stroll in the forest, and it was while pushing on from tree to tree

-to study the efficacy of a new kind of chemically treated cement

-the foresters had been using to arrest the progress of decay that we

-wandered out upon the jutting crag shown in this picture. It was

-late in the afternoon, and by both of the two converging roads,

-several hundred metres of vista of each of which were commanded

-from our lofty eyrie, men were drifting back toward the lodge from

-the hunt. The dramatic possibilities of the unexpected vantage

-point—the manner in which one was able to step from behind

-the drop-curtain of the forest undergrowth to the front of the

-stage at the tip of the jutting crag—kindled the fire of the Kaiser’s

-imagination instantly.</p>

-

-<p>‘“What a place from which to review my hunting guests!”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</span>

-he exclaimed, stepping forward and throwing out his chest

-in his best “reviewing” manner. “Strange I have never

-noticed it from the road. It must be because the light is so

-bad here. Yes, that is what the trouble is. They cannot see us

-even as clearly as we can see them.” (He frowned his palpable

-disappointment that all eyes from below were not centred upon

-him where he stood in fine defiance in the middle of his new-found

-stage.)</p>

-

-<p>‘“If I may venture a suggestion, Your Majesty,” I said, “I think

-it is the dense shadow from that big tree on the next point that

-makes it so dark here. Do you not see that the sun is directly

-behind it at this hour? The removal of that out-reaching limb

-on the right would give this crag at least an hour of sunshine, but,

-as a practical forester, I should warn you that doing so would

-destroy the ‘balance’ of the tree so much that the next heavy

-storm would probably topple it over to the left. It already inclines

-that way, and——”</p>

-

-<p>‘“There are several hundred thousand more trees like that in

-the Black Forest,” cut in the Kaiser, “but not one other look-out

-to compare with this. My sincere thanks for the suggestion.

-I will have it carried out.”</p>

-

-<p>‘And so,’ continued Baron Y——, ‘the obscuring limb was

-removed, and the mutilated tree, as I knew it must, went down

-the following winter. “My look-out now will have three hours of

-sunlight instead of one,” the Kaiser observed gleefully when he

-told me about it; “I was glad to see it go.”</p>

-

-<p>‘It was a case of one monarch against another, and as the

-Kaiser is resolved to brook no rival, especially where the question

-of his “sunlight” is concerned, I suppose the sequel was inevitable.

-All the same I am sorry that—that it was the monarch of the

-forest that had to go down. But though the tree went down,’

-he concluded with a grimace, tossing the magazine into my lap,

-‘the “Ajax” pictures still continue.’</p>

-

-<p>‘Wouldn’t “His Place in the Sun” be even an apter title than

-“Ajax Defying the Lightning”?’ I ventured.</p>

-

-<p>‘Unquestionably,’ was the reply. ‘I had thought of that

-myself. But, you see, even we Bavarians are very keen in the

-matter of the extension of Germany’s “<i lang="de">übersee</i>” colonies, and it

-wouldn’t do to make light of our own ambitions.’</p>

-

-<p>I have set down this little story just as it was told to me, and

-it is only since the outbreak of the war, when the mainsprings of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</span>

-German motives are revealed at Armageddon, that it has occurred

-to me how perfectly it resolves itself into allegory. To the world

-at large, but to the Briton especially, is there no suggestion in what

-the Kaiser <em>did</em> to the tree, which for a hundred years or more had

-shadowed his tardily stumbled-upon look-out, of what he <em>planned

-to do</em> to the Empire which he had so often intimated had crowded

-him out of his ‘place in the sun’? With the tree he hewed off

-a sun-obscuring limb, and the unbalanced, mutilated remnant

-succumbed to the first storm that assailed it. Was not this the

-procedure that he reckoned upon following with the ‘obscuring

-limbs’ of the British Empire?</p>

-

-<p>The foregoing instance of the extravagant vanity of the Kaiser

-Baron Y—— told more in amusement than in censoriousness, but

-I recall another little story to much the same point that he related

-with hard eyes and the shade of a frown, as one man speaks of

-another who has not quite ‘played the game’ in sport or business.

-It, also, had to do with an imperial hunt.</p>

-

-<p>‘As you doubtless know,’ he said, after telling me something

-of how creditably the Kaiser shot, considering his infirmity, ‘a

-strenuous endeavour is always made on these occasions that the

-best game be driven up to the rifles of royalty, a custom which none

-of the Hohenzollerns have ever had the sporting instinct to modify

-in favour of even the most distinguished visitors. By some chance

-on the day in question, a remarkably fine boar ran unscathed the

-gauntlet of the imperial batteries and fell—an easy shot—to my own

-bullet. It was a really magnificent trophy—the brute was as

-high at the shoulder as a good-sized pony, and his tusks curved

-through fully ninety degrees more than a complete circle—and it

-had occurred to me at once that it was in order that I should at

-least <em>offer</em> to make a present of the head to my royal host. Frankly,

-however, I really wanted it very badly for my own hall, and I can

-still recall hoping that the Kaiser would “touch and remit, after

-the manner of kings,” as Kipling puts it.’</p>

-

-<p>The Baron was silent for a few moments, staring hard in front

-of him with the look of a man who ponders something that has

-rankled in his mind for years. ‘Well,’ he resumed presently,

-‘the Kaiser <em>did</em> “touch” (in the sense the Yankees use the term,

-I mean), but he did not “remit.” When we came to group for the

-inevitable after-the-hunt photograph, I was dumbfounded to see a

-couple of the imperial huntsmen drag up my prize, not in front

-of me, where immemorial custom decreed it should go, but to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</span>

-the feet of the Kaiser. He even had the nerve to have the photograph

-taken with his foot on its head. You have shot big game

-yourself, and you will know, therefore, that this would convey to

-any hunter exactly the same thing as his writing under the photograph,

-“I shot this boar myself.”’</p>

-

-<p>The Baron took a long breath before resuming. ‘I need not tell

-you how surprised and angry I was, and I will not tell you what it

-took all the self-control I had to keep from doing. What I <em>did</em> do,

-I flatter myself, would have been thoroughly efficacious in bringing

-home to any other man in this world the consummate meanness

-of the thing he had done. The moment the photograph was finished

-I stepped up to the Kaiser and, controlling my voice as best I could,

-said: “Your Majesty, I beg you will deign to accept as a humble

-token of my admiration of your prowess as a hunter and your

-courtesy as a host the fine boar which my poor rifle was fortunate

-to bring down to-day.”</p>

-

-<p>‘I still think that my polite sarcasm would have cut through

-the armour of any other man on earth. It was impossible to

-mistake my meaning, and he must have known that every man

-there knew it was <em>my</em> boar that he had had his picture taken with

-and was still coolly keeping his boot upon. Possibly he decided

-in his own mind, then and there, that the time had come to extend

-the “Divine Right of the Hohenzollerns” to the hunting field.

-At any rate, he bowed graciously, thanked me warmly, and, pointing

-down to where I had stood in the picture, said he presumed it was

-“that little fellow with the deformed tusk.”</p>

-

-<p>‘My head was humming from the shock of the effrontery, but

-I still have distinct recollection of the deliberate <i lang="fr">sang-froid</i> of the

-Kaiser’s manner as he directed someone to “mark that little boar

-with a twisted tusk, a gift from my good friend, Baron Y——, for

-mounting as a trophy.” I was a potential regicide for the next

-week or two, but my sense of humour pulled me up in the end.

-For, after all, what is the use of taking seriously a man who, for the

-sake of tickling his insatiate vanity by having his photograph

-taken with his foot on the head of a bigger pig than those in front

-of his hunting guests, commits an act that, were he anything less

-than an Emperor, would stamp him with every one of them as an

-out-and-out bounder? The memory of the thing makes me “see

-red” a bit even to-day if I let my mind dwell on it at all, but

-mingling with my resentment and mortification there is always a sort

-of sneaking admiration for the way the Kaiser (as the Yankees<span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</span>

-say) “got away with the goods.” The Hohenzollern—the trait is

-as evident in the Crown Prince as it is in his father—will always

-go forward instead of backward when it comes to being confronted

-with the consequences of either their bluffs or their breaks, and it

-is about time that the people in Germany, as well as the people

-outside of Germany, got this fact well in mind when dealing with

-them.’</p>

-

-<p>These words were spoken before the Kaiser backed down

-when his Agadir bluff was called, but, generally speaking, I think

-the action of both father and son since then has been eloquent

-vindication of their truth.</p>

-

-<p>Another noble German of my acquaintance who had at one

-time been on terms of exceptional intimacy with the Kaiser was

-the wealthy and distinguished Baron von K——, who, in the two

-decades previous to the outbreak of the war, had divided his time

-about equally between his ancestral castle on the Rhine and a great

-Northern California ranch brought him by his wealthy American

-wife. I met him first at a house-party in Honolulu about ten years

-ago, and at that time he appeared to take considerable pride in his

-friendship with the Kaiser, of whom he was wont to speak often

-and sympathetically. Since then I have encountered him, now

-in America, now in Europe, on an average of once a year, and on

-each succeeding occasion I noticed a decreasing warmth on his

-part, not so much for Germany and the Germans, for whom he

-still expressed great affection, but rather toward the Kaiser and

-his policies. It must have been fully seven years ago that he told

-me, at the Lotus Club in New York, that the mad race of armaments

-in which Germany was setting the pace for the rest of Europe could

-only end in one way—a great war in which his country would run

-a risk of losing far more than it had any chance of winning.</p>

-

-<p>It was not long after this that I heard that Baron von K——

-had returned hurriedly and unexpectedly from Germany to America,

-taking with him his two sons who had been at school there. I

-never learned exactly what the trouble was, but a friend of his told

-me that it had some connection with an effort that had been made

-to induce the youngsters to become German subjects and join the

-army, flattering prospects in which were held out to them. Von

-K—— is said to have declared that the boys should never be allowed

-to set foot in Germany again. Whether this latter statement is

-true or not, it is a fact that neither of the lads has ever since crossed

-the Atlantic, and that both are now at Harvard.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</span>

-In the spring of 1911 von K—— cut short what was to have

-been a fortnight’s business trip to Germany to one of four days,

-the change in plan, as I have since learned, being due to an ‘invitation’

-(an euphemism for a command) from the Kaiser to invest

-a huge sum of money in one of his armament concerns, great

-extensions in which were contemplated. Von K—— refused point-blank,

-rushed through his business, and took the first boat for

-New York. I did not see him until the following year, but friends

-told me that for a couple of months after his return to California he

-absolutely refused to talk of Germany or of German affairs even

-with his intimates.</p>

-

-<p>This silence was dramatically broken in the smoking-room of

-the Union League Club, San Francisco, on the evening when the

-news came that the Kaiser had sent the gunboat ‘Panther’ to

-Agadir as a trump card for the game he was playing for the control

-of Morocco. Von K—— was frowning over his paper when an

-American friend came up, clapped him on the shoulder, and

-exclaimed: ‘The Baron is in close touch with the Kaiser; perhaps

-he can tell us what “The Mailed Fist” is punching at in North

-Africa.’</p>

-

-<p>What von K—— said regarding the allegation that he was in

-close touch with the Kaiser was not stated in words that even the

-San Francisco papers (whose ‘news vultures’ had pounced upon

-the incident within an hour) felt able to report verbatim the

-following morning, but his ‘Mailed Fist’ <i lang="fr">mot</i> went from California

-to Maine in the next twelve hours, and even to-day is still freely

-quoted whenever the question of the War Lord’s mentality is the

-subject of discussion.</p>

-

-<p>‘Mailed vist!’ snorted the Baron, whose English has

-never climbed entirely out of his throat; ‘Vell, berhabst dey haas

-mailed his vist, but, by Gott, dey haas neffer mailed his prain.’

-Then, as an afterthought, ‘Or maype, if dey haas mailed his prain,

-der bostmann haas forgodt it to deliffer.’</p>

-

-<p>I saw Baron von K—— in San Francisco—encountered him

-beaming over the sculptures in the Italian Building at the Panama-Pacific

-Exposition—but was unable to draw him into any discussion

-of Germany and the war. He did, however, tell me that his German

-estates were for sale, that he never expected to return there again,

-and that—the day after Belgium was invaded—he had applied for

-his first papers of American citizenship.</p>

-

-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">

-</div><!--end chapter-->

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</span>

-<h2><span class="h3head"><i>THE TUTOR’S STORY.</i></span><a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchorh2">[1]</a></h2>

-

-

-<p class="center">

-BY THE LATE CHARLES KINGSLEY,<br>

-REVISED AND COMPLETED BY HIS DAUGHTER, LUCAS MALET.</p>

-

-<p class="p2 center allsmcap">CHAPTER <abbr title="thirty">XXX</abbr>.</p>

-

-<p><span class="smcap">That</span> was the first of many days—for by both Braithwaite’s and

-Nellie’s request I stayed on at Westrea until nearly the end of

-the vacation—of sweet but very searching experience. If I

-played with fire it was a purifying fire surely, burning away the

-baser metal and leaving whatever of gold might be in me free of

-dross.</p>

-

-<p>Not that I say this boastfully—who am I, indeed, to boast?—but

-humbly and thankfully, knowing I passed through an ordeal

-from which—while the animal man cowered and shrank, crying

-aloud, aye, and with tears of agony, to be spared—the spiritual

-man drew strength and rose, in God’s mercy, to greater fulness of

-life. For I learned very much, and that at first hand, by personal

-experiment, not by hearsay merely or, parrot-like, by rote. Learned

-the truth of the apostle’s dictum, that although ‘all things are

-lawful,’ yet, for some of us, many things, however good in themselves

-or good for others, are ‘not expedient.’ Learned, too, the

-value of the second best, learned to accept the lower place. Learned

-to rejoice in friendship, since the greater joys of love were denied

-me, schooling myself to play a brother’s part; play it fearlessly

-and, as I trust, unselfishly, watchful that neither by word, or deed,

-or even by look, I overstepped the limit I had set myself and

-forfeited the trust and faith Nellie reposed in me.</p>

-

-<p>To do this was no easy matter. At moments, I own, the springs

-of courage and resolution ran perilously dry. Then I would go

-away by myself for a time; and—why should I hesitate to tell

-it?—pray, wrestle in prayer, for self-mastery which, with that

-wrestling, came. For if we are honest with ourselves and with

-Him, disdaining self-pity and self-excuse, Almighty God is very

-safe to fulfil His part of the bargain. This, also, I learned, during

-those sweet and searching days at Westrea, beyond all question

-of doubt.</p>

-

-<p>I rode or drove with Braithwaite about the neighbouring<span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</span>

-country. Walked with him over his farm. Talked with him

-endlessly of his agricultural schemes and improvements. Talked

-with him about public events, too, and about politics. Only once

-or twice was Hartover, or Hover, mentioned; and then, I observed,

-his tone took on a certain bitterness. He had been up to Yorkshire

-on business a little prior to my visit, had happened to run across

-Warcop—aged and sad, so he told me. But my old friend laid

-aside much of his customary caution, it appeared, on hearing

-Braithwaite expected shortly to see me, and bade him tell me things

-were not well at Hover.</p>

-

-<p>‘What he actually knows, what he only suspects, I could not

-quite discover,’ Braithwaite went on. ‘But I gathered the Countess

-has been up to queer tricks. As to that business, now, of the

-Italian rascal going off with the plate—you heard of it?—well,

-it looks uncommonly as though my lady was in no haste to have

-him laid by the heels—bamboozled the police, as she bamboozled

-pretty well every unlucky wretch she comes across, until he had

-time to make good his escape.’</p>

-

-<p>‘And the Colonel?’ I asked.</p>

-

-<p>‘A dark horse. Connived at the fellow’s escape, too, I am

-inclined to think. Marsigli knew too much of the family goings-on,

-and, if he was caught, was pretty sure to blab in revenge. I am

-not given to troubling myself about the unsavoury doings of great

-folks, Brownlow. They had a short way with aristocratic heads

-during the French Revolution at the end of last century, and I

-am not altogether sure they weren’t right. But for my poor Nellie’s

-sake, I should never give that Longmoor faction a second thought.

-As it is I have been obliged to think about them, and I believe

-the plain English of the whole affair is that the Colonel and my

-lady have been on better terms than they should be for many years

-past. What she wants is a second Lord Longmoor as husband,

-and the money, and the property, and—a son of her own to inherit

-it. An ugly accusation? Yes. But can you spell out the mystery

-any better way than that?’</p>

-

-<p>I did not know that I could, and told him so. There the conversation

-dropped, while my mind went back to the letter Nellie

-had shown me.—It was a devilish action of Fédore’s, I thought, the

-mark of a base, cruel nature, capable—the last sin—of trampling

-on the fallen. And yet might it not have been dictated by the

-pardonable desire to secure her prize for herself, to prevent pursuit,

-inquiry, scandal, perhaps fresh misery for Nellie? There are two<span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</span>

-sides, two explanations, of every human act; and the charitable

-one is just as rational, often more so, than the uncharitable. If she

-stated her case somewhat coarsely, was she not low-bred, ill-taught,

-excited by success?</p>

-

-<p>Thus did I argue with myself, trying to excuse the woman,

-lest I should let anger get the upper hand of reason and judgment.

-But what was her relation to Marsigli? This it was which really

-mattered, which was of lasting moment. And about this I must

-be silent, be cool and prudent. At present I could take no action.

-I must wait on events.</p>

-

-<p>Meanwhile each day brought me a closer acquaintance with,

-and respect for, Nellie’s character; the liveliness of her intelligence,

-and justness of her taste. And to it, the intellectual side of her

-nature, I made my appeal, trying to take her mind off personal

-matters and interest her in literature and thought. On warm

-mornings, her household duties finished, she would bring her

-needlework out to a sheltered spot in the garden, where the high

-red-brick wall formed an angle with the house front; and sitting

-there, the flowers, the brimming water, the gently upward sloping

-grass-land and avenue of oaks before us, I would read aloud to

-her from her favourite authors or introduce her to books she had

-not yet read. On chill evenings we would sit beside the wood

-fire in the hall, while Braithwaite was busy with the newspaper or

-accounts, and read till the dying twilight obliged her to rise and

-light the lamp. Much of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Scott, along

-with Pope’s rendering of the Iliad, Hazlitt’s Lectures and Lamb’s

-Essays, we studied thus. Shelley, save for a few of the lyrics,

-we avoided by tacit consent; and Byron likewise, with the exception

-of certain portions of ‘Childe Harold’; the heroic rather

-than the sentimental note seeming safest—though from different

-causes—to us both.</p>

-

-<p>Often I would illustrate our reading by telling her about the

-authors, the places, or the period with which it dealt, to see her

-hands drop in her lap, her face grow bright, her manner animated,

-as she listened and questioned me—argued a little too, if she differed

-from my opinion. Sometimes she laughed with frank enjoyment at

-some merry tale or novel idea. And then I was indeed rewarded—only

-too well rewarded. For her laughter was exquisite to me,

-both in sound and in token of—were it but momentary—lightness

-of heart.</p>

-

-<p>After that first morning in the Orchard Close, we rarely<span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</span>

-mentioned the dear boy. I felt nothing could be gained by leading

-the conversation in his direction. If it would afford her relief,

-if she wanted to speak, she knew by now, I felt, she could do so

-without embarrassment or fear of misunderstanding on my part.

-But it was not until the afternoon of the day preceding my

-return to Cambridge that we had any prolonged talk on the

-subject.</p>

-

-<p>Braithwaite, I remember, had driven over to Thetford upon

-business; and, at Nellie’s request, I walked with her to the village,

-so that she might show me the fine old monuments and brasses in

-the parish church.</p>

-

-<p>Coming back across the fields, we lingered a little, watching the

-loveliness of the early May sunset. For, looking westward, all

-the land lay drenched in golden haze, which—obliterating the

-horizon line—faded upward into a faint golden-green sky, across

-which long webs were drawn of rose and grey. Out of the sunset

-a soft wind blew; full, as it seemed, of memory and wistful invitation

-to—well—I know not what. But either that wind or consciousness

-of our parting on the morrow moved Nellie to open her

-heart to me more freely than ever before.</p>

-

-<p>‘Dear Mr. Brownlow,’ she said, her eyes still fixed on that

-loveliness of sunset—‘I want to thank you now, while we are still

-alone, for all you have done for me. You have, indeed, been a

-good physician, and I want you to know how much better I am

-since you came—stronger, and more at peace. I promise you I

-will do my utmost to keep the ground I have gained, and not

-fall back into the unworthy state of mind out of which you have

-brought me. I do not say I am cured.’</p>

-

-<p>She looked up at me, smiling.</p>

-

-<p>‘I do not think you would ask that of me. I have no wish to

-be—I should, I think, be ashamed to be cured of—of my love.

-For it would make what was most beautiful seem unreal and

-untrue. But I am resigned to all—almost all—which has happened.

-I no longer kick against the pricks, or ask to have things

-otherwise. I shall not let it make me sour or envious—thanks

-to you.’</p>

-

-<p>And as she spoke I read in her dear eyes a depth of innocent

-and trustful affection, which was almost more than I could endure.</p>

-

-<p>‘I have come to a better frame of mind,’ she said. ‘It will

-last. It shall last, I promise you.’</p>

-

-<p>‘Then all is well,’ I answered, haltingly.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</span>

-But as I spoke her expression changed. She walked forward

-along the field path, looking upon the ground.</p>

-

-<p>‘Yes, all—I suppose—is well,’ she repeated. ‘All except one

-thing—that hurts still.’</p>

-

-<p>‘And what is that one thing?’</p>

-

-<p>I thought I knew. If I was right, I had a remedy at hand—a

-desperate one, perhaps, but she was firm enough to bear it now.</p>

-

-<p>‘I always felt how little I had to offer, as against his position,

-his gifts, and all the attractions of his life at Hover, and still more

-his life in town. The wonder was he should ever have found me

-worth caring for at all. But I thought his nature was deeper and

-more constant, and it hurts—it must always hurt—that he should

-have forgotten so soon and so entirely as she—his wife—says he

-has.’</p>

-

-<p>‘There she lied. He has not forgotten,’ I answered. ‘Here

-are Hartover’s own words.’</p>

-

-<p>And I gave her the letter I received after my visit to Chelsea.

-Let her learn the truth, the whole truth, as from his own lips—learn

-the best and the worst of him, and so meet whatever the

-future might bring with open eyes.</p>

-

-<p>Some twenty yards ahead a stile and gate divided the field of

-spring wheat we were crossing from the pasture beyond. I must

-leave Nellie to herself. So I went on and stood, leaning my elbows

-on the top bar of the gate.</p>

-

-<p>Below, in the hollow, the red roofs and chimneys of Westrea

-and a glint of water showed through the veil of golden haze.

-An abode of peace, of those wholesome fruitful industries which

-link man to mother-earth and all her ancient mysteries of the

-seasons, of seed-time and harvest, rain and shine. How far away

-in purpose and sentiment from the gaudy world of fashion, of

-artificial excitement, intrigue and acrimonious rivalries, to which

-my poor boy, Hartover, now belonged! Yes, and therefore,

-since here her lot was cast, it was well Nellie should know the

-best and worst of him, his weakness and his fine instincts alike;

-because—because—in the back of my mind was a conviction,

-irrational, unfounded, very foolish perhaps, but at this moment

-absolute, that the end was not yet. And that, in the end, by ways

-which I knew not, once again Nellie would find Hartover, and

-Hartover would find Nellie, and finding her would find rest to his

-soul, salvation to his wayward nature, and thus escape the fate

-of Alcibiades, which I had always so dreaded for him, and prove<span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</span>

-worthy of his high station, his great possessions, his singular beauty,

-charm and talent, even yet.</p>

-

-<p>For five minutes, nearly ten minutes, while the gold faded to

-grey, I waited, and Nellie gave no sign. I began to grow nervous

-and question the wisdom of my own action. To her, pure and

-high-minded as she was, would this revelation of dissipation and

-hard-living prove too painful, would she turn from it in anger

-and disgust? Had I betrayed my trust, been disloyal to the dear

-boy in letting her see his confession? I bowed my head upon my

-hands. Fool, fool, thus to rush in where angels might truly fear

-to tread!</p>

-

-<p>Then quick, light footsteps behind me—the rustle of a woman’s

-dress. And as, fearful and humiliated, I, turning, looked up,

-Nellie’s eyes like stars, her face pale but glorious in its exaltation

-and triumphant tenderness.</p>

-

-<p>‘Dear good physician,’ she said, ‘I am really cured at last—not

-of, but by love. All that seemed spoilt and lost is given back.

-How can I thank you enough? I can bear to be away from him,

-bear to give him up, now that I know he really cared for me, really

-suffered in leaving me. I can even forgive her, though she has

-been cruel and insolent, because she went to him in his trouble

-and helped to save his life. And I understand why he married

-her—it was chivalrous and generous on his part. It places him

-higher in my estimation. I can admire him in that too.’</p>

-

-<p>I gazed at her, dazzled, enchanted, wondering. And then—shame,

-thrice shame to me after all my struggles, resolutions,

-prayers—the devil of envy raised its evil head, of bitterness against

-the rich man, who with all his gold and precious stones, his flocks

-and herds, must yet steal the poor man’s one jewel, one little ewe

-lamb.</p>

-

-<p>‘Have you read all the letter—read that part in which he

-speaks of his first months in London?’ I asked.</p>

-

-<p>For an instant she looked at me without comprehension, her

-eyebrows drawn together, in evident question and surprise. Then

-the tension relaxed. Gently and sweetly she laughed.</p>

-

-<p>‘Ah! yes,’ she said. ‘I know. He grew reckless—he did

-wrong. But—but, dear Mr. Brownlow—is it wicked of me?—I

-cannot condemn him for that—because it was his love for me

-which drove him to it. He tells you so himself. I suppose I

-ought to be shocked—I will try to be—presently—if you say I

-ought. But not just yet—please not just yet.’</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</span>

-‘Neither now nor presently,’ I answered, conscience-stricken

-and ashamed. ‘You know far better than I what is right. Follow

-your own heart.’</p>

-

-<p>I opened the gate, and stood back for her to pass. As she

-did so she paused.</p>

-

-<p>‘You are displeased with me,’ she said. ‘Yet why? Why

-did you let me read his letter, except to comfort me and make me

-happy by showing me he was not to blame?’</p>

-

-<p>Why indeed? She well might ask. And how was I to answer

-without still further betraying my trust—my trust to her, this

-time, since I had sworn to be to her as a brother and let no hint

-of my own feelings disturb the serenity of our intercourse?</p>

-

-<p>So I replied, I am afraid clumsily enough—</p>

-

-<p>‘You are mistaken. And to show you how little I am displeased

-I beg you to keep this letter, in exchange for the one you

-gave me to keep. You may like to read it through again, from

-time to time.’</p>

-

-<p>I held it out. And for an instant she hesitated, her eyes fixed

-upon the writing, upon the paper, as though these actual and

-material things were precious in her sight. Then she put her hands

-behind her and shook her head.</p>

-

-<p>‘No—better not. It is not necessary,’ she said with a childlike

-gravity. Her whole attitude just now was curiously simple

-and childlike. ‘I have every word of it by heart already, dear

-Mr. Brownlow. I shall remember every word—always.’</p>

-

-<p>And for a while we walked on in silence, side by side, beneath

-the dying sunset. Upon the hump-backed bridge spanning the

-stream Nellie stopped.</p>

-

-<p>‘One thing more, good physician,’ she said, very gently. ‘I

-am cut off from him for—for ever by his marriage. But you

-can watch over him and care for his welfare still. You will do

-so?’</p>

-

-<p>‘Before God—yes,’ I answered.</p>

-

-<p>‘And, sometimes, you will let me hear, you will come and tell

-me about him?’</p>

-

-<p>‘Again—yes—before God.’</p>

-

-<p>And I smiled to myself, bowing my head. Oh! the magnificent

-and relentless egoism of love!—But she should have this

-since she asked it; this and more than this. Plans began to

-form in my mind, a determination to make sure, whatever it might

-cost me, about this same marriage of Hartover’s. I would devote<span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</span>

-myself to an inquiry, pursue it carefully, prudently; but pursue

-it regardless of time, regardless of money—such money as, by

-economy and hard work, I could command. For was not such an

-inquiry part, and an integral one, of the pledge to watch over

-Hartover and care for his welfare which I had so recently and

-solemnly given her? Undoubtedly it was.</p>

-

-<p>‘Thank you,’ she said. Then after a pause, ‘I wonder why

-you are so kind to me? Sometimes I am almost afraid of your

-kindness, lest it should make me selfish and conceited, make me

-think too highly of myself. Indeed I will try better to deserve

-it. I will read. I will improve my mind, so as to be more worthy

-of your society and teaching, when you come again.—But, Mr.

-Brownlow, I have never kept anything from my father until now.

-Is it deceitful of me not to tell him of these two letters? They

-would anger and vex him; and he has been so much happier and

-like his old self since you have been with us. I hate to disturb him

-and open up the past.’</p>

-

-<p>‘I think you are, at least, justified in waiting for a time before

-telling him,’ I faltered.</p>

-

-<p>For my poor head was spinning, and I had much ado to collect

-my wits. She would read, improve herself, be more worthy of my

-teaching when I came again, forsooth!—Ah! Nellie, Nellie, that

-I must listen with unmoved pedagogic countenance, that I must

-give you impersonal and sage advice, out of a broken heart!—</p>

-

-<p>‘Yes, wait,’ I repeated. ‘Later your course of action may

-be made clearer, and you may have an opportunity of speaking

-without causing him annoyance or distress. You are not disobeying

-his orders, in any case.’</p>

-

-<p>‘Thank you,’ she said again. ‘See, the lamps are lit. My

-father must be home and we are late. Oh! how I wish you were

-not going away to-morrow. He will miss you, we shall all miss

-you so badly.’</p>

-

-<p>I did not sleep much that night.</p>

-

-<p class="p2 center allsmcap">CHAPTER XXXI.</p>

-

-<p><span class="smcap">The</span> ancient postboy drove out to Westrea next morning, and

-conveyed me and my impedimenta back to Cambridge.</p>

-

-<p>The journey was a silent one, I being as little disposed for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</span>

-conversation as he. My thoughts were not very cheerful. Yet

-what had I, after all, to make a poor mouth about? I had asked

-to know my own mind, and arrive at a definite decision concerning

-certain matters closely affecting my future. Now I knew it very

-thoroughly; and, as to those matters, had decided once and for

-all. It only remained for me to acquaint my kind old friend,

-the Master, with that decision as tactfully and delicately as might

-be. But how should I acquit myself? And how would he take

-it? And how far should I be compelled to speak of Hartover

-and Nellie, and of my own relation to both, to make my meaning

-clear? For what a tangle it all was—a tangle almost humorous,

-though almost tragic too, as such human tangles mostly are!

-Well, I supposed I must stick to my old method of blunt truth-telling,

-leaving the event to my Maker, who, having created that

-strange anomaly, the human heart, must surely know how best to

-deal with its manifold needs and vagaries!</p>

-

-<p>So far then, it was, after all, fairly plain sailing. But, unfortunately,

-these thoughts were not the only thing which troubled me.</p>

-

-<p>For I felt as well as thought; and feeling is more dangerous

-than thought because at once more intimate and more intangible.

-A great emptiness filled—for emptiness can fill, just as silence can

-shout, and that hideously—not only my own soul but, as it seemed,

-all Nature around me. The land was empty, the sky empty.

-An east-wind blight spread abroad, taking all colour out of the

-landscape and warmth out of the sunshine. Just so had my

-parting with Nellie cast a blight over me, taking the colour and

-warmth out of my life. For I had been with her long enough for

-her presence, the sound of her voice, and constant sight of her to

-become a habit. How terribly I missed, and should continue to

-miss, her—not only in great matters but in small, in all the pleasant,

-trivial, friendly incidents of every day!</p>

-

-<p>After the freshness and spotless cleanliness of Westrea, my

-college rooms—fond though I was of them—looked dingy and

-uncared for, as is too often the way of an exclusively masculine

-dwelling-place. The men had not come up yet, which spared me

-the annoyance of Halidane’s neighbourhood for the moment. Still

-I felt the depressing lack of life and movement throughout the

-college buildings and quadrangles. Cambridge was asleep—a dull

-and dismal sleep, as it struck me. The Master, I found, was back

-and at the Lodge once more; but, since only a portion of the

-house was ready for habitation, Mrs. Dynevor and her daughters<span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</span>

-would remain at Bath for some weeks longer. This I was glad to

-hear, as it promised to simplify my rather awkward task.</p>

-

-<p>I called at the Lodge the same evening, to be received by the

-Master with his usual cordiality. He invited me to stay and dine,

-admitting he felt somewhat lonely without his ladies in the still

-partially dismantled house.</p>

-

-<p>‘Unlike the three children in the Babylonian furnace, the

-smell of fire is very much upon it still,’ he said. ‘Signs and odours

-of destruction meet me at every turn. I dare say in the end—for

-I have an excellent architect—we shall make a more comfortable

-and certainly more sanitary place of it than ever before; but the

-continuity is broken, much history and many a tradition lost for

-good. I am only heartily glad you are not among the latter,

-Brownlow. It was a very near thing.’</p>

-

-<p>Whether this was intended to give me an opening for explanation,

-I could not say. In any case I did not choose to take advantage

-of it, preferring to explain at my own time and in my own

-way.</p>

-

-<p>We talked on general subjects for a while. But at the end of

-dinner, when the butler left the room, he said, eyeing me with a

-twinkle—</p>

-

-<p>‘It was a pity you could not manage to meet us at Bath, Brownlow,

-for you would have found some old friends there. One of

-whom, a very splendid personage by the same token, made many

-gracious inquiries after you—put me through the longer catechism

-in respect of you, and put my sister and nieces through it also,

-I understand.’</p>

-

-<p>‘Old friends?’ I asked, considerably puzzled both by his words

-and manner.</p>

-

-<p>‘You had not heard, then, any more than I, that Lord Longmoor

-has settled permanently at Bath?’</p>

-

-<p>I assured him I had not.</p>

-

-<p>‘Yes—and under sad enough circumstances,’ he went on, with

-a change of tone. ‘Poor gentleman, he and those about him have

-cried wolf for so many years that I, for one, had grown sceptical

-regarding his ailments. But what of constitution he ever possessed

-has been undermined by coddling and dosing. I was admitted

-once or twice, and was, I own, most painfully impressed by his

-appearance and by his state of mind—religious mania, or something

-alarmingly akin to it, and that of at once the most abject and

-arrogant sort.’</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</span>

-I was greatly shocked by this news, and said so.</p>

-

-<p>‘What is being done?’ I asked.</p>

-

-<p>‘Everything that common sense would forbid, in my opinion.

-He is surrounded by an army of obsequious servants and rapacious

-medical and religious quacks, all and each busy to secure their

-private advantage while fooling him, poor soul, to the top of his

-bent. Our hopeful convert and gownsman Halidane had joined

-the throng, so I heard, but fled at my approach. Where the

-carcass is, there the vultures are gathered together—a repulsive

-and odious sight, showing the case of Dives may after all be hardly

-less miserable than that of Lazarus.’</p>

-

-<p>The Master paused.</p>

-

-<p>‘Lady Longmoor is there too; and heaven forgive me, Brownlow,’

-he added, ‘I could not but wonder what sentiments that

-remarkably fair lady really entertains towards her lord. She

-confided in me in the most charming manner; yet, honestly, I

-knew less what to think and believe, knew less how the land really

-lay, after receiving those confidences than before.’</p>

-

-<p>In spite of myself I was amused. For could I not picture

-her Magnificence and my good kind old Master in solemn conclave?

-Picture the arts and graces let loose on him, the touching appeals,

-admissions, protests; the disarming innocence of glance and

-gesture, along with flashes of naughty laughter, beneath the black-fringed

-eyelids, in the demurely downcast eyes.</p>

-

-<p>‘Her ladyship’s communications are not always easy to interpret.

-They are not always intended to enlighten—perhaps,’ I

-ventured.</p>

-

-<p>‘Then you, too, have been honoured?’</p>

-

-<p>‘I have.’</p>

-

-<p>He chuckled.</p>

-

-<p>But, in my case, amusement speedily gave place to sober reflection.

-For if Lord Longmoor was in so critical a condition, dying

-possibly, what an immense change in Hartover’s position this

-entailed! All my fears for the dear boy reawakened. What means

-might not be taken to embroil him with his father, at this critical

-moment, to injure and dispossess him! Particularly did I dislike

-the fact that Halidane had been in attendance. I questioned the

-Master anxiously.</p>

-

-<p>‘Ah! there you have me, Brownlow,’ he replied. ‘Lord

-Hartover is a point upon which my lady’s confidences proved

-peculiarly obscure. She spoke of her “dear George” with a great<span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</span>

-show of affection, deploring that the festivities in celebration of his

-coming of age next month must be postponed. She had so counted

-on seeing both you and me at Hover then, she declared. Deploring,

-also’—and he looked rather hard at me, I thought, across the

-corner of the dinner table over the row of decanters, as he spoke—‘deploring

-also an unfortunate disposition in her stepson to become

-enamoured of young women very much beneath him in the social

-scale. She gave me to understand both she and his father had

-been caused much annoyance and trouble by more than one affair

-of this sort. Yet I could not help fancying she sought information,

-just then, rather than offered it. I had a notion—I may have

-been mistaken—she was doing her best to pump me and find out

-whether I had heard anything from you upon the subject of these

-amatory escapades. Come, Brownlow—for my instruction, not for

-hers—can you fill in the gaps?’</p>

-

-<p>I hesitated. Had the right moment come for explanation? I

-believed that it had. And so, as plainly and briefly as I could,

-I told him the whole story. I kept back nothing—why should

-I? There was nothing to be ashamed of, though somewhat to

-grieve over, and much to regret. I told him of Nellie, of Fédore;

-of Hartover’s love, Hartover’s marriage. I told him of my own

-love.</p>

-

-<p>For a while he remained silent. Then, laying his hand on my

-shoulder, as I sat, my elbows upon the table, my face buried in

-my hands—</p>

-

-<p>‘My poor fellow, my poor fellow—I had no notion of all this,’

-he said. ‘So this is the upshot of your two years at Hover. I sent

-you out to make your fortune, and you found your fate. Well—well—things

-are as they are; but I do not deny that recently I had

-formed very different plans for you.’</p>

-

-<p>‘Do not think me presumptuous, sir, if I answer I feared as

-much. And that is my reason for telling you what I have told no

-other human being—what, indeed, I had hoped to keep locked

-inviolably in my own breast as long as I live.’</p>

-

-<p>Something in my tone or in my narrative must have stirred

-him deeply, for he rose and took a turn up and down the room, as

-though with difficulty retaining his composure. For my part, I

-own, I felt broken, carried out of myself. It had been searching

-work, dislocating work, to lay bare my innermost heart thus.

-But only so, as I judged, could the mention of Alice Dynevor’s

-name be avoided between us. It was better to sacrifice myself,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</span>

-if by so doing I could at once spare her and arrive at a clear understanding.

-Of this I was glad. I think the Master was glad too;

-for, his rather agitated walk ended, he stood beside me and spoke

-most kindly.</p>

-

-<p>‘Your secret is perfectly safe with me, Brownlow, rest assured.

-I give you my word I will never reveal it. You have behaved

-honourably and high-mindedly throughout. Your conduct commands

-my respect and admiration,—though I could wish some

-matters had turned out otherwise. But now as to this marriage—real

-or supposed—of poor Hartover’s and all the ugly plotting

-of which, I fear with you, he is the victim. I do not think I can

-find it in my conscience to stand by, or encourage you to stand by,

-with folded hands.’</p>

-

-<p>‘That is exactly what I was coming to, sir,’ I said, choking

-down alike my thanks and my emotion. ‘If, as you inform me,

-Lord Longmoor’s health is so precarious, the poor dear boy’s

-future must not be left to chance.’</p>

-

-<p>‘No, no,’ he answered warmly. ‘His foes, I fear, are very

-literally of his own household. If this woman is legally his wife,

-we, as his friends, are called upon to stand by the marriage and,

-on grounds of public policy, make the best of what, I admit, strikes

-me as a very bad business. If she is not legally his wife, if there

-is any flaw in the marriage, we must take means to establish the

-fact of that flaw and set him free. Whether he is grateful to us

-for our self-imposed labours affects our duty neither one way nor

-the other at this stage of the proceedings. But, should she prove

-the unscrupulous person I take her to be, he will very certainly

-thank us in the end. And now, Brownlow, it occurs to me the

-sooner we move in all this the better. There is no time to be

-lost.’</p>

-

-<p>He gave me reasons for his opinion, in which I fully agreed;

-and we sat talking far into the night, with the result that within

-a fortnight I travelled, first to Yorkshire, and then up to town.</p>

-

-<p class="p2 center allsmcap">CHAPTER <abbr title="32">XXXII</abbr>.</p>

-

-<p><span class="smcap">About</span> my Yorkshire journey it is unnecessary to say much. I

-saw Hover once more, stately as ever, but lifeless. The great

-house shut up, its many treasures swathed in dust sheets and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</span>

-brown paper. When it would be opened again none knew. Probably

-Colonel Esdaile would bring some gentlemen down in August

-for grouse-shooting, or for covert-shooting in October. He would

-hunt there during the winter.—The Colonel, always and only the

-Colonel, as man in possession?</p>

-

-<p>I said as much to Warcop—to whom my visit was made—sitting

-before the empty stove in that queer sanctum of his, hung round

-with prints and spoils of the stud-farm and the chase. Whereupon

-he stuck out his bulldog under-jaw and mournfully shook

-his big grizzled head.</p>

-

-<p>Yes, he answered, that was pretty well what it all came

-to. Would to God it did not!—always and only Colonel Jack

-at Hover in these days. And my lord lay a-dying, so they said,

-at Bath; and my young lord gave no sign. And her ladyship

-flitted in, like some great bright-painted butterfly, for a day and a

-night. Looked round the stables and gardens with a laugh, hanging

-on the Colonel’s arm, and flitted off again, as gay as you

-please, to London or Bath, or Old Nick knew where; while Colonel

-Jack, with a face like thunder and a temper like tinder, cursed

-the very guts out of anyone unlucky enough to cross his path

-for full twenty-four hours afterwards. Colonel Esdaile was a

-changed man, as I gathered; his swaggering manner and jovial

-good-humour a thing of the past, save at rare intervals or when

-her ladyship happened to be about.</p>

-

-<p>All of which was bad hearing. The more so as, without going

-all lengths with Braithwaite in his condemnation of our hereditary

-nobility, I believed then—and believe firmly still—that if a great

-nobleman, or great landowner, is to justify his position—aye, and

-his very existence—he must live on his estate, keep in close touch

-with, and hold himself directly responsible for the welfare of, all

-ranks of its population—labourers, artisans, rent-payers great and

-small, alike. The middle-man, however just or able an administrator,

-introduces, and must always introduce, a cold-blooded,

-mechanical relation as between landlord and tenant, employer

-and employed. And, now listening to Warcop’s lament, I trembled

-lest the curse of absenteeism—which during recent years has worked

-such havoc of class hatred and disaffection in Ireland—should

-set its evil mark upon this English country-side.</p>

-

-<p>In this connection it was inevitable that memories of my former

-dreams and ambitions for Hover should come back to me with a

-bitter sense of failure and of regret. Dreams and ambitions of so<span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</span>

-educating and training my dear pupil as to make him an ideal

-landowner, an ideal nobleman, to whom no corner of his vast

-possessions, the lives lived and work done there, would be a matter

-of indifference; but who would accept and obey the divinely

-ordained law of rulership and ownership which reminds us every

-privilege carries with it a corresponding obligation, and that the

-highest duty of him who governs is to serve.</p>

-

-<p>Where had all those fair dreams and ambitions departed now?

-Were they for ever undone and dissipated? It seemed so, alas!

-Yet who could tell? Had I not promised Nellie, and that in

-some sort against my dearest interests, to watch over Hartover

-to the best of my power, and care for him still? And if a poor

-faulty human creature, such as I, could be faithful, how much

-more God, his Maker! Yes, I would set my hope, both for him

-and for Hover, firmly there, black though things looked at present.

-For Almighty God, loving him infinitely more than I—much though

-I loved him—would surely find means for his redemption, and,

-notwithstanding his many temptations, still make for him a way of

-escape.</p>

-

-<p>And with that I turned my mind resolutely to the practical

-inquiry which had brought me north, questioning Warcop concerning

-the disappearance of Marsigli and the theft, with which he

-stood charged, of jewels and of plate.</p>

-

-<p>Warcop’s first words in reply, I own, set my heart beating.</p>

-

-<p>‘Best ask French Mamzelle, sir,’ he said, with a snarl. ‘For,

-as sure as my name’s Jesse Warcop, she’d the main finger in that

-pie. Picked out t’ fattest o’ the plums for herself, too, and fathered

-the job upon Marsigli to rid herself of the fellow.’</p>

-

-<p>‘To rid herself of him?’</p>

-

-<p>‘’Od, an’ why not? So long as ye were here wi’ us, sir, what

-she’d set her mind to have was out of her reach. But, you safe

-gone, she’d na more stomach for my lord’s Italian butler, bless

-you—must fly at higher game than that.’</p>

-

-<p>‘Lord Hartover?’</p>

-

-<p>‘And who else? Eh! but she’s a canny one; none of your

-hot-heads, rushing into a thing afore they’ve fairly planned it.

-She’d her plan pat enough. Laid her train or ever she struck a

-match; waited till she kenned it was all over between t’ dear

-lad and Braithwaite’s lass. Had Marsigli muzzled, seeing that

-to tell on her was to tell on himself. And others, that should

-ha’ shown her up, durstn’t do it, lest she opened her mouth and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</span>

-set scandal yelping after them. So she’d a muzzle onto them too,

-and could afford to laugh t’ whole lot in the face—upstairs as well

-as down—and follow her own fancy.’</p>

-

-<p>He ruminated, chewing viciously at the straw he carried in

-his mouth.</p>

-

-<p>‘And, as the talk goes, she’s followed it to a finish,’ he added,

-‘and fixed her devil she-kite’s claws in my young lord, poor dear

-lad, safe enough. Is the talk true, sir?’</p>

-

-<p>I answered, sadly, I feared it was so; but that, as some method

-might still possibly be found of unfixing those same kite’s claws,

-I had come in search of any information he could give.</p>

-

-<p>‘Then you mean to put up a fight, sir?’ he said, his jaw hard

-and his eyes bright. ‘For all your colleging and your black coat,

-you’re o’ the same kidney as when ye rode t’ little brown horse

-across the fells and saved t’ pack.’</p>

-

-<p>And therewith he settled down to recount all he had puzzled

-out, all he believed and thought. Inferential rather than circumstantial,

-this, alas! for the most part; yet to me valuable, from

-the man’s caution, honesty, power of close observation, shrewd

-intelligence and mother-wit. In his opinion the theft had been

-carried out at Fédore’s instigation, and upon her undertaking

-to join Marsigli as soon as it was accomplished, and fly with him

-to his native city of Milan. Having thus involved the Italian—whose

-long-standing passion for, and jealousy of her, were matters

-of common knowledge among the servants, Warcop said—she

-evidently played him false, although covering his escape by putting

-the police on a wrong scent. Where was he now? In England,

-Warcop opined, probably hiding in London, still hoping to induce

-Fédore to redeem her promise. Were the two man and wife?

-Over that Warcop shook his head. Who could say, save the two

-themselves? Yet, if they were, there must needs be a record

-of the marriage, which would have taken place during the period

-of my tutorship at Hover, at some time when her ladyship was in

-Grosvenor Square.</p>

-

-<p>Here, at last, I had a definite starting-point. For the church

-could be found, the clergyman who performed the ceremony could

-be found, always supposing any such ceremony had really taken

-place.</p>

-

-<p>I returned to Cambridge to talk everything over with the

-Master; and subsequently journeyed up to town, where, under<span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</span>

-seal of the strictest secrecy, I placed matters in the hands of

-Inspector Lavender, of the Detective Police. He must find the

-church, the clergyman—above all, must find Marsigli.—This was

-a desperate game to play. I knew it. Would the dear boy ever

-forgive me for interfering in his affairs thus? I knew not. But

-I did know it had to be risked both for his fortune and his honour’s

-sake. Further, was I not bound by my word solemnly given to

-Nellie? Still more, then, had it to be done for my own oath’s

-sake.</p>

-

-<p class="p2 center allsmcap">CHAPTER <abbr title="33">XXXIII</abbr>.</p>

-

-<p><span class="smcap">And</span> now we were well on into the May term. The noble elms

-towers of dense and solid green; lilac and laburnum giving place

-to roses in the Fellows’ Garden; and the river, a little shrunken

-by the summer heat, slipping past smooth lawns and beneath the

-weeping willows’ graceful shade with truly academic deliberation

-and repose.</p>

-

-<p>Never had I enjoyed my daily work so much, or met with so

-hearty and intelligent a response. An excellent set of men were

-in college that year; gentlemanlike, eager to learn, in some cases

-notably clever, in almost all agreeable to deal with. My popularity—enhanced

-by that episode of the fire at the Master’s Lodge—was

-great. Why should I hesitate to say so, since thankfulness

-rather than vanity did, I can honestly affirm, fill my heart? I

-had arranged to take a reading party to North Wales during the

-long vacation, and to this I looked forward as a new and interesting

-experience. Halidane, moreover, for cause unknown, had ceased

-from troubling me. Ever since his return, at the beginning of

-term, he had worn a somewhat hang-dog look; and, though almost

-cringingly civil when we chanced to meet, appeared, as I thought,

-to shun rather than seek my society. What had happened to the

-fellow? Had the change in his demeanour any connection with

-the Master’s visit to his ‘sainted patron,’ Lord Longmoor, at Bath?

-I did not know, nor did I greatly care, so long as I continued to be

-relieved of his officious and unsavoury attentions.</p>

-

-<p>And so, taking things all round, it seemed to me, just now, the

-lines had after all fallen to me in pleasant places. Temptation had

-been resisted, difficulties overcome, honour—and my conscience—satisfied.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</span>

-If much had been denied, yet much remained—sufficient,

-and more than sufficient, to make life a gift, not only

-good but glad—though after, perhaps, a somewhat serious pattern.</p>

-

-<p>Then came an afternoon the events of which stand out very

-forcibly in my memory. They marked a turning-point; a parting

-of the ways, abrupt as it was unexpected.</p>

-

-<p>For, neglecting alike the attractions of the glorious weather

-and of ‘the boats’—it was during the June races—I stayed in

-my rooms to look through a set of mathematical papers. Some

-pleased me by their ability. Others amused—or irritated—me

-by their blunders. Heavens, what thick heads some of those

-youngsters had! After about an hour’s work, lulled by the stillness

-and the sunny warmth—droning of bees in the clematis below

-my window, chippering cries and glancing flight of swallows back

-and forth to their nests under the parapet above—I laid aside

-the papers, and, leaning back in my chair, sank into a brown

-study.</p>

-

-<p>The morning’s post had brought me a brief communication from

-Lavender, the detective. After weeks of silent pursuit he had

-reason to believe he was on Marsigli’s track at last. My own

-sensations in face of this announcement surprised me a little.

-By all rules of the game I should of course have felt unalloyed

-gratification. But did I really feel that? With a movement

-of shame, I was obliged to confess I did not. For a certain moral

-indolence had overtaken me. I was established in a routine from

-which I had no wish to break away. My college work, into which

-I threw myself at first mainly as a refuge from haunting desires

-and disturbing thoughts, had become an end in itself. It engrossed

-me. I found it restful—in that, while making small demand on

-my emotions, it gave scope for such talents, whether intellectual

-or practical, as I possessed. I found it exhilarating to deal with

-these young men, in the first flush of their mental powers, to—in

-some measure at all events—form their minds, influence their

-conduct and their thought. It was delightful, moreover, to have

-time and opportunity for private study; to read books, and ever

-more books. The scholar’s life, the life of the university, held me

-as never before. Hence this obtrusion of Lavender, hunter of

-crime and of criminals, this obtrusion of wretched Marsigli, the

-absconding Italian butler, were, to be honest, displeasing rather

-than welcome. I cried off further demands upon my energies

-in the direction of conflict and adventure. Leave the student<span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</span>

-to his library, the teacher to his lecture-room, unvexed by the

-passions and tumult of the world without.</p>

-

-<p>In fastidious repulsion, in something, heaven forgive me,

-approaching disgust, I turned away from both thief and thief-catcher,

-all they were and all they stood for, as beneath my notice,

-common and unclean. Almost angrily I prayed to be let alone, let

-be. Prayed no fresh exertion might be required of me; but that I

-might pursue my course, as a comfortable, well-read, well-fed

-Cambridge don, in security and peace.</p>

-

-<p>And, mercifully, my lazy prayer was not heard, not answered;

-or, more truly, was both heard and answered, though in a manner

-conspicuously the reverse of my intention in offering it.</p>

-

-<p>For, as I mused thus, the calm of the summer afternoon was

-disturbed by a sudden loud knocking at my door. The door was

-flung open. On the threshold a man stood. No learned brother

-fellow, no ordinary gownsman; but, with his pride of bearing, his

-air of fashion, the finest young fine gentleman I had ever seen—in

-long drab driving coat, smartly outstanding from the waist, and

-white top hat with rakish up-curled brim.</p>

-

-<p>For an instant I gazed in stupid amazement. Then, as the

-door closed behind him and he came from out the shadow, I sprang

-to my feet and ran forward, with a cry. And, almost before I

-knew what was happening, his two hands gripped my shoulders,

-and he backed me into the full light of the window, holding me

-away from him at arms’ length and looking down into my face.

-He was a good half head taller than I.</p>

-

-<p>‘Dearest Brownlow—my dear old man, my dear old man,’ he

-repeated, and his grip tightened while his voice was tender as a

-girl’s.</p>

-

-<p>Then, while I stammered in my excitement and surprise, he

-gave a naughty little laugh.</p>

-

-<p>‘Oh! I am no ghost,’ he said. ‘You needn’t be afraid. I’m

-very solid flesh and blood; worse luck for you, perhaps, old man.

-Gad, but it’s good, though, to see you once again.’</p>

-

-<p>He threw down his hat among the papers on the table, tossed

-his gloves into it, and drew me on to the window-seat beside

-him.</p>

-

-<p>Already the spell began to work, the spell of his extraordinary

-personal charm. Already he captivated me, firing my somewhat

-sluggish imagination. Already I asked nothing better than to

-devote myself to him, spend myself for him, stamp out the evil<span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</span>

-and nourish the good in him, at whatever loss or disadvantage to

-myself.</p>

-

-<p>I inquired what had brought him to Cambridge.</p>

-

-<p>‘I am in trouble, Brownlow,’ he answered simply, while his

-face hardened. ‘It’s an ugly sort of trouble, which I have not

-the pluck to meet single-handed. I cannot see my way through

-or out of it. I tell you, it was beginning to make me feel rather

-desperate. And I remembered your wisdom of old’—</p>

-

-<p>He smiled at me, patting my knee.</p>

-

-<p>‘So, as I do not want to take to drink—which last night seemed

-the only alternative—I took the road this morning instead, and

-came to look for you. Perhaps it is a rather presumptuous proceeding

-on my part. I have no claim on you, for I have been

-neglectful and selfish. I know that well enough—not by any means

-a model pupil, dear old man, not any great credit to you. But you

-cared for me once.’</p>

-

-<p>Cared for him? God was my witness that I did!</p>

-

-<p>‘And, as I tell you, I have not courage to meet this trouble

-alone. It raises a devil <a id="chg2"></a> of suspicion and anger in me. I am afraid

-of being unjust, of losing my head and doing some wild thing I shall

-regret for the rest of my life. But we need not go into all this just

-yet, and spoil our first half-hour together. It will keep.’</p>

-

-<p>And he looked away, avoiding my eyes with a certain shyness,

-as I fancied; glanced round the room, at its sober colouring, solid

-furniture, ranges of bookshelves and many books; glanced

-through the window at the fine trees, the bright garden, and quiet

-river glistening in the still June sunlight.</p>

-

-<p>‘Gad! but what a delightful place!’ he said. ‘I am glad to

-know where you live, Brownlow, and I could find it in my heart

-to envy you, I think. The wheels must run very smooth.’</p>

-

-<p>I thought of Nellie, of my home-coming from Westrea. Verily,

-less smooth than he imagined—sometimes.</p>

-

-<p>‘Why, why did not they let me come here,’ he broke out—‘as

-I implored them to, after the row about—about—at Hover, I

-mean, when you left me? I would have given anything to come

-up to the university then, and work, and have you with me still.

-Ah! how different everything would be now! But my father

-refused to listen. The plan did not suit some people’s book, I

-suppose; and they worked upon him, making him hopelessly

-obstinate. Nothing would do, but into the Guards I must go.

-I begged for if only a year with you here, at Cambridge, first. But<span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</span>

-not a bit of it. Out they pitched me, neck and crop, into the

-London whirlpool, to sink or swim as I could—sink for choice,

-I fancy, as far as they were concerned.’</p>

-

-<p>He shrugged his shoulders.</p>

-

-<p>‘It is to be hoped they are better satisfied at the result than

-I am,’ he added, with an oath. ‘But what is done is done—and,

-curse it, there is no going back. As you make your bed—or

-as others make it for you—so must you lie on it.’</p>

-

-<p>Sad words from a boy of barely one-and-twenty, as I thought.

-Surely punishment awaited those, somewhere and somewhen, who

-had taught him so harsh a lesson, and taught it him so young.</p>

-

-<p>Meanwhile, my first surprise and excitement over, I watched

-Hartover carefully, fearing to see in him signs of past dissipation

-and excess. But his beauty was as great as ever. His flesh firm,

-moreover, his eyes and skin clear. He had matured rather than

-altered, grown considerably taller and filled-out, though his figure

-remained gracefully alert and slight. Two points only did I

-observe which I did not quite like—namely an aspect of anxiety

-and care upon the brow, and little bitter lines at the corners of

-the handsome mouth, giving a singular arrogance to his expression

-when the face was in repose.</p>

-

-<p>We talked for a while of indifferent matters, and he asked

-me to walk with him to the Bull Hotel, where he had left the post-chaise

-in which he drove down from town, and where he invited

-me to dine with him and stay the night as his guest.</p>

-

-<p>‘Give me what time you can, Brownlow,’ he said. ‘Leave all

-the good boys, the white sheep of your numerous flock, to take

-care of themselves for once; and look after the bad boy, the black

-sheep—the scapegoat, rather. For, upon my soul, it amounts to

-that. The sins of others are loaded on to my unhappy head, I

-promise you, with a vengeance.’</p>

-

-<p>I could not but be aware of curious and admiring glances, as I

-walked up King’s Parade in his company. Reflected glory covered

-me, while he, royally careless of the observation he excited,

-was quick to note the grace of the different college buildings, the

-effects of light and colour, to ask a hundred pertinent questions,

-make a hundred pertinent remarks on all which caught his eye.

-What a delightful mind he had, open both to poetic and humorous

-impressions; instinctively using the right word, moreover, and

-striking out the happy phrase when it suited him to lay aside his

-slang.</p>

-

-<p class="p2 center"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</span>

-<span class="allsmcap">CHAPTER <abbr title="34">XXXIV</abbr>.</span></p>

-

-<p><span class="smcap">We</span> dined in a private room on the first floor, which overlooked

-the street. Hartover proved a brilliant host. Once or twice,

-after anecdotes a trifle too highly salted for my white tie and clerical

-coat, he checked himself with a pretty air of penitence, expressing

-a mischievous hope I ‘wasn’t shocked.’ Shocked I was not,

-being no puritan; but somewhat grieved, I must admit, his wit

-should take so gross a turn. Yet what wonder? The guard-room

-is hardly mealy-mouthed, I supposed; neither, I could imagine,

-was French Mademoiselle—in intimacy. To her, by the way,

-I observed, Hartover made so far no smallest allusion.</p>

-

-<p>But he spoke of Braithwaite, asking, with an indifference too

-studied to carry conviction, if my friendship still continued with

-the father and daughter, and—‘were they well?’ I answered both

-questions briefly in the affirmative; and there, to my relief, the

-subject dropped.</p>

-

-<p>Towards the end of dinner his high spirits, which, entertaining

-though he had been, struck me all along as slightly forced, deserted

-him, and he became silent and preoccupied. Were we approaching

-disclosure of the trouble which, as he asserted, brought him here

-hot-foot, to Cambridge and to me? How gladly would I have

-made the way of confession easy for him! But I had sense to

-know I must be passive in the matter. Whatever confidence he

-gave must be given spontaneously. To question him, however circumspectly,

-would be to put him off by arousing his sensitive pride.</p>

-

-<p>As the waiter brought in coffee and lights, Hartover rose,

-swung out onto the balcony, and, leaning his elbows on the high

-iron rail of it, stood gazing down into the street. The June twilight

-lingered, disputing the feeble glimmer of the street lamps.

-Roofs, gables, pinnacles and towers showed velvet black against

-the sweet translucence of an almost colourless sky. Footsteps,

-voices, a grind of wheels and cloppet, cloppet, of horse-hoofs over

-the stones; the scream of swifts in the buoyant rush of their

-evening flight, and the tang of a chapel bell, a single reiterated note.

-Some five minutes must have elapsed while these varied sounds

-reached me from without. Then Hartover raised his head, calling

-imperatively over his shoulder——</p>

-

-<p>‘Brownlow, Brownlow, where are you? I want you. Come

-here.’</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</span>

-Evidently he had reached some crisis of purpose or of feeling.

-I went out into the warm evening air and stood beside him. His

-head was lowered, and again he gazed down into the street.</p>

-

-<p>‘I am sorry, I am ashamed, Brownlow,’ he said, an odd thickness

-in his speech, ‘but I am afraid I have come here to-day and

-disturbed you on false pretences. I am afraid I cannot bring

-myself to talk to you about this matter after all.’</p>

-

-<p>He paused as asking an answer.</p>

-

-<p>‘Very well,’ I replied. ‘I, at all events, have gained by your

-coming, in that I have had the joy of seeing you again. Leave

-the rest if you think fit. You alone can know what you wish—know

-what appears to you right under the circumstances. You

-must use your own judgment.’</p>

-

-<p>‘Ah! there you have me,’ he returned sharply. ‘I don’t

-know what I wish. I am uncertain what is right. I distrust my

-own judgment. In short I’m cornered, Brownlow, miserably,

-detestably cornered. To speak looks to me, at this moment, like

-an act of unpardonable treachery. Yet, if I don’t speak, I may be

-rushed before many days are out, by my own mad anger, into

-something even worse than treachery. Do you understand?’</p>

-

-<p>In a sense I did understand, by intuition born of affection

-and sympathy. But, unless I was greatly mistaken in my reading

-of him, all this was merely preliminary. If I waited, I should

-understand, or at least hear, the whole. And that it would be

-well for him I should hear the whole I had—God helping me—no

-shadow of doubt.</p>

-

-<p>Slowly the twilight expired, while the blue of the night sky,

-opaque, profound, travelled stealthily, almost imperceptibly,

-downward from the zenith. The joyous scream of the swifts

-ceased, and the bell tanged irregularly, nearing its finish. As

-it did so, a little group of gownsmen, gathered upon the pavement

-immediately below, seized by an irresponsible spirit of frolic—as

-most young animals are prone to be at dusk—started laughing

-and skylarking, their black raiment fluttering, batlike, as they

-skirmished across the greyness of the street.</p>

-

-<p>Whether the sudden outcry jarred his already strained nerves,

-or whether the careless whole-hearted fun and laughter of these

-men, so little younger than himself, offered too mordant a contrast

-to his own troubled state, Hartover flung in from the balcony with

-an oath, hesitated for an instant, then blew out the lights and

-threw himself into an armchair.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</span>

-‘No, I’m not strong enough to hold my tongue. Wretched

-weakling that I am,’ he groaned, ‘I must blab. And concerning a

-woman too.’</p>

-

-<p>He extended his hand, through the semi-darkness, motioning me

-to a chair.</p>

-

-<p>‘Sit there, please,’ he said. ‘My God, when it comes to the

-point how I despise myself, Brownlow! It’s—it’s about her,

-about Fédore.’</p>

-

-<p>‘Yes,’ I replied, as calmly as I could, for his tone moved me

-deeply. And the subject, too! I trembled, penetrated alike

-by fear and hope of what I should hear next.</p>

-

-<p>‘For the last month or six weeks something’s been wrong—some

-mystery on hand I cannot fathom. Somebody who has, or

-imagines they have, a hold over her is pressing her for money,

-as far as I can make out. I believe—oh! it is an abominable

-suspicion, but I cannot rid my mind of it—this person visits the

-house when she is sure I shall be away. I have no idea who,

-Brownlow; but someone belonging to her old life, before I married

-her. Each time lately that I have been with her she has insisted

-upon my telling her exactly when I intend to come again. Nothing

-will pacify her but that I must fix a date and hour. Her persistence

-has vexed me once or twice. We nearly quarrelled over it.

-She says’—he choked a little—‘it is only that she may be able

-to put on a pretty gown, prepare a nice little dinner, and have

-everything smart and charming for me. But I don’t believe that

-is her sole reason—perhaps I am just a jealous brute—but I can’t.

-I wish to heaven I could!’</p>

-

-<p>He waited, fighting down his emotion.</p>

-

-<p>‘Yesterday matters came to a head. I went with’—he mentioned

-the names of several young men, well known, not to say

-notorious, in fashionable and sporting circles—‘to a race meeting

-at ——. I meant to stop the week. But racing bores me after a

-little while, and the play was too high at night. Positively I

-couldn’t afford it. So I cut my stay short, went back to town, and

-to Chelsea. I can’t deny I had been living rather hard, and I was

-cross with myself—I really have kept awfully straight for the last

-six months, Brownlow—and a bit seedy and out of sorts.’</p>

-

-<p>Again he waited.</p>

-

-<p>‘I let myself in at the garden door, and then at the house-door—as

-a matter of course. I had no intention of jumping any

-surprise on her. I was not thinking about my suspicions or any<span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</span>

-little tiff we had had. I only wanted to get to her, Brownlow,

-because I knew she’d put me into good conceit with myself—tease

-and pet and amuse me, you know—she can be devilish amusing

-when she likes’——</p>

-

-<p>His voice broke.</p>

-

-<p>‘Yes,’ I said quietly, ‘yes’——</p>

-

-<p>My heart bled for him; but I must be cautious and husband

-my resources. The time to speak would surely come, but it was

-not yet.</p>

-

-<p>‘I found the house empty,’ he went on presently, recovering

-himself, ‘windows bolted and doors locked. I called her, and

-looked for her upstairs and down; but neither she nor the maid

-was at home. I was disappointed, of course; but I would not

-let myself be angry. I had told her I should be away till the end

-of the week, so she had a perfect right to go out if she wanted to.

-Finally I went into the drawing-room, meaning to wait there till

-she came in. But, somehow, I received a new impression of the

-house. It struck me as grubby, fusty, low-class. I wondered why

-I had never observed this before, or whether it was merely the

-effect of my disappointment at her absence. There were scraps

-of a torn-up letter on the carpet, for one thing, which I greatly

-disliked. I began to pick them up, and casually—I did not attempt

-to read it of course—I remarked the writing was in French. Then

-I thought I would smoke, to pass the time until she came back.

-I wanted something with which to cut off the end of my cigar, but

-found I had brought no penknife, so I rummaged in her little worktable

-for a pair of scissors. I could not find any in the top workbox

-part, and tried to pull out the square silk-covered drawer

-arrangement underneath, as I remembered often seeing her put

-her scissors away in it with her work. But the beastly thing was

-locked or jammed. Like a fool, I lost my temper over it, and

-dragged and poked till the catch gave and the drawer flew open.

-And—and, Brownlow, inside I saw a couple of white leather jewel-cases—oh!

-the whole thing was so incredible, such a profanation—it

-made me sick—stamped with a monogram and coronet. I

-recognised them at once. They belonged to my mother—own

-mother I mean’—</p>

-

-<p>His tone grew fierce.</p>

-

-<p>‘Not her Magnificence. Her hands have never touched, and

-touching defiled them, I am thankful to think.—These jewels

-would come to me, in the ordinary course of events, with certain<span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</span>

-other possessions of my mother’s, at my majority. Meanwhile they

-have always been kept in the strong-room at Hover. And, Brownlow—this

-is the point of the whole hateful business—they were

-among the valuables that scoundrel, Marsigli—you remember

-him, my step-mother’s beloved Italian butler?—made off with

-last year, and which by some to my mind incomprehensible stupidity

-on the part of the police—I have often talked it over with Fédore—have

-never yet been traced.’</p>

-

-<p>‘Were the contents of the cases intact?’ I asked.</p>

-

-<p>He hesitated.</p>

-

-<p>‘No—’ he said at last, unwillingly, almost I thought despairingly—‘and

-that makes it all the more intolerable. The

-cases were empty; and from the position in which I found them

-it seemed to me they had been thrown into the drawer just anyhow,

-by a person in a frantic hurry—too great a hurry to make sure the

-drawer was actually locked. For, if it had been properly locked,

-it would not have given way so easily when I tried to force it.

-These signs of haste increased my fears, Brownlow. For think,’

-he cried with sudden passion, ‘only think what it all points to,

-what it may all mean! How could these precious things of my

-mother’s have found their way into the drawer of Fédore’s worktable—unless?

-The conjunction of ideas would be positively

-grotesque if—if it were not so damnable.—Does not it occur to

-you what horrible possibilities are opened out?’</p>

-

-<p>It did. I gauged those possibilities far more clearly than he,

-indeed, remembering my conversation with Warcop in the stables

-at Hover but a few weeks back. For was not Warcop’s theory

-in process of being proven up to the hilt? But how could I speak

-of either theory or proof to Hartover, distracted and tortured

-as he was? To do so would be incomparably cruel. No, I must

-play a waiting game still. The truth—or, to be exact, that which

-I firmly and increasingly believed to be the truth—must reach him

-by degrees, lest he should be driven into recklessness or violence.

-I would temporise, try to find excuses even, so as to retard

-rather than hasten the shock of that most ugly disclosure.</p>

-

-<p>‘All which you tell me is very strange and perplexing,’ I said.

-‘But do not let us be hurried into rash and possibly unjust conclusions.

-There may be some explanation which will put a very

-different complexion upon affairs. Have you asked for any?’</p>

-

-<p>‘No,’ he said. ‘It was too soon to think of that. I could not

-meet her, could not trust myself to see or speak to her then. My

-one impulse was to get away, to get out of the house in which, as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</span>

-it seemed to me, I had been so shamelessly betrayed and tricked.

-I was half mad with rage and grief. For—ah! don’t you understand,

-Brownlow?—I do love her. Not as I loved Nellie Braithwaite.

-That was unique—a love more of the soul than the senses.

-Pure and clean as a wind of morning, blowing straight out of

-paradise. The love of my youth, of—in a way—my virginity;

-such as can never come twice in my or any man’s life.’</p>

-

-<p>He stopped, a sob in his throat. But not for long. The floodgates

-were open—all the proud, wayward, undisciplined, sensitive

-nature in revolt.</p>

-

-<p>‘My love for Fédore is different—no morning wind from Eden

-about that. How should there be? In the interval I had very

-effectually parted company with all claims to the angelic state.

-But think—she nursed me, dragged me back from the very mouth

-of hell; protected me from those who sought to ruin me; gave

-herself to me; made a home for me, too, of a sort—oh! that poor,

-poor, hateful little Chelsea house!—coaxed me, flirted with me,

-kept me from gambling and from drink. How could I do otherwise

-than marry her, and love her, out of the merest decency of ordinary

-gratitude? I owe her so much—— And now’——</p>

-

-<p>Here Hartover gave way completely. I felt rather than saw

-him—there was no light in the room save that thrown upward

-from the lamps in the street—fling himself sideways in the chair,

-crushing his face down upon the arm of it in a paroxysm of weeping.</p>

-

-<p>Only a woman should look on a man’s tears, since the motherhood

-resident in every woman—whether potential or as an accomplished

-act—has power to staunch those tears without humiliation

-and offence. To his fellow-man the sight is disabling; painful

-or unseemly according to individual quality, but, in either case,

-excluding all possibility of approach.</p>

-

-<p>I rose, went over to the window, and waited there. The boy

-should have his cry out, unhindered by my neighbourhood, since

-I knew he was beyond my clumsy male capacity of consolation.

-Later, when he came to himself, he would understand I had withdrawn

-not through callousness, but through reverence. Meanwhile,

-what a position and what a prospect! My heart sank. How, in

-heaven’s name, could he be drawn up out of this pit he had digged

-for himself? And he loved Nellie still. And, whatever his faults,

-whatever his weaknesses—vices even—his beauty and charm

-remained, beguiling, compelling, as ever. What woman could

-resist him? The thought gave me a pang. I put it from me sternly.

-Self, and again self—would self never die? Even in this hour<span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</span>

-of my dear boy’s agony, as he lay sobbing his hot young heart

-out within half a dozen paces of me, must I think of myself and of

-my private sorrow?</p>

-

-<p>I looked up into the vast serenity of the star-gemmed sky

-above the black irregular outline of the buildings opposite, and

-renewed my vow to Nellie—remembering no greater love hath

-any man than this, that he lay down his life—life of the body, or

-far dearer life of emotions, the affections—for his friend.</p>

-

-<p>And presently, as I still mused, I became aware of a movement

-in the room and of Hartover close beside me, his right arm cast

-about my neck.</p>

-

-<p>‘Dear old man, dear old man,’ he said hoarsely, yet very gently,

-‘forgive me. I have felt for these past twenty-four hours as though

-the last foothold had gone, the last foothold between me and

-perdition. But it isn’t so—you are left. Stay by me, Brownlow.

-See me through. Before God, I want to do right. Your worthless

-pupil wants for once to be a credit to you. But I cannot stand

-alone. I am afraid of myself. I distrust my own nature. If I go

-to her—to Fédore—with those empty jewel boxes of my mother’s

-in my hand and she lies to me, I shall want to kill her. And if

-she tells we what I can’t but believe is the truth, I shall want to

-blow my own brains out. For she has been very much to me.

-She is my wife—and what can the future hold for either of us but

-estrangement, misery and disgrace?’</p>

-

-<p>He waited, steadied his voice, and then—</p>

-

-<p>‘I know it is no small thing I ask of you; but will you come

-back to town with me to-morrow? And will you see her first, and

-so give me time to get myself in hand and decide what is to be

-done, before she and I meet? Will you stand between me and the

-devils of revenge and despair who tempt me? Will you do this

-because—barring you, Brownlow—I have nothing, no one, left?’</p>

-

-<p>Needless to set down here what I answered. He should have

-his way. How, in God’s name, could I refuse him?</p>

-

-<p>Then, as on that first night of my arrival at Hover long ago,

-I got him away to bed. Sat by him till he slept—at first restlessly,

-feverishly, murmuring to himself; and once—it cut me to the

-quick—calling Fédore by name, as one who calls for help in limitless

-distress.</p>

-

-<p>The brief summer night was over and the dawn breaking before

-I felt free to leave him, seek my room, and take some much-needed

-rest.</p>

-

-<p class="p2 center">(<i>To be continued.</i>)</p>

-

-<p class="p2">FOOTNOTES:</p>

-

-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> Copyright by Messrs. Smith, Elder &amp; <abbr title="Company">Co.</abbr> in the United States of America.</p>

-

-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">

-</div><!--end chapter-->

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</span>

-<h2><span class="h3head"><i>LEST WE FORGET.</i></span></h2>

-

-<p class="center"><span class="allsmcap"><i>A WORD ON WAR MEMORIALS.</i></span></p>

-

-<p class="p2"><span class="smcap">An</span> old friend of mine, who was a boy at Rugby under the kindly,

-orthodox and dignified Dr. Goulburn, told me that on his first

-evening at that great school, a bewildered and timid little creature,

-after he had been much catechised and derided by a lot of cheerful

-youngsters, and with a terrible perspective before him of endless

-interviews with countless strange and not necessarily amiable

-mortals, a loud bell rang, and all trooped down to prayers. He

-sat on a bench in a big bare hall with a timbered roof, a door opened

-and a grave butler appeared, carrying two wax candles in silver

-candlesticks, followed by the Headmaster in silk gown and bands,

-in unimaginable state. The candles were set down on a table.

-The Headmaster opened a great Bible, and in a sonorous voice

-read the twelfth chapter of the Book of Joshua, a gloomy enough

-record, which begins, ‘Now these are the kings of the land, which

-the Children of Israel smote,’ and ends up with a sinister catalogue,

-‘The king of Jericho, one; the king of Ai, one’—and so on for

-many verses, finishing up with ‘The king of the nations of Gilgal,

-one; the king of Tirzah, one; all the kings, thirty and one.’

-After which pious and edifying exercise, the book was closed,

-and prayer offered.</p>

-

-<p>My old friend was an impressionable boy, and it seemed to

-him, he said, that there was a fearful and ominous significance

-in this list of slaughtered monarchs, depicting and emphasizing

-the darker side of life. But I have often thought that a few words

-from the Headmaster, on the vanity of human greatness and the

-triumph of the divine purpose, might have turned these lean and

-bitter memorials of the dead into an unforgettable parable. What,

-for instance, could be more profoundly moving in the scene of the

-‘Passing of Arthur,’ where the knight steps slowly in the moonlight

-from the ruined shrine and the place of tombs:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

- <div class="poetry">

-    <div class="i1a">‘Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men,</div>

-    <div class="i1">Old knights—and over them the sea-wind sang</div>

-    <div class="i1">Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam’?</div>

- </div><!--end poem-->

-</div><!--end container-->

-

-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</span></p>

-<p>That seems to lend the last touch of mystery and greatness

-to a scene of human endeavour, that the earth beneath the living

-feet should cover the bones, the hardy and heroic limbs of those

-who had lived and fought worthily. As the dying king, with the

-poignant accent of passion cries aloud:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

- <div class="poetry">

-    <div class="i6">‘“Such a sleep</div>

-    <div class="i0">They sleep—the men I loved!”’</div>

- </div><!--end poem-->

-</div><!--end container-->

-

-<p>For nothing surely in the world can be so utterly and simply

-moving as the record of dead greatness—unless perhaps it be the

-oblivion which is the end of all greatness at the last. There is a

-place on the bleak top of the South Downs, a great tumulus, with

-an earth-work round it, all grassy now and tufted with gorse, the

-sheep grazing over it, which looks for miles north and east and

-west over the fertile weald, with shadowy hills on the horizon;

-and to the south, where the great ridges fold together, you can

-catch through the haze a golden glint of the sea. I never pass the

-place without a deep and strange thrill. It is called the Mound

-of the Seven Kings; it looks over a grassy space which is known

-as ‘Terrible Down,’ and of what day and what doom it is the

-record, who shall say?</p>

-

-<p>It seems impossible to us now, just as it seemed to the old hill-men

-who raised that tumulus, that as the world welters and widens

-onward, the great tragedies and losses and sacrifices which we

-have seen with our eyes, and the thought of which has so possessed

-our souls with a sense of grief and glory combined, should become

-but a tale that is told. But it is one of the thoughts which lie

-deepest and noblest in the mind and soul of man, the thought of

-old and infinite strife and endeavour, pain and death, courage

-and hope so richly blended, till it seems too great for the heart

-to hold. The mystery of it is that, as the Psalmist says: ‘I see

-that all things come to an end; but Thy commandment is exceeding

-broad.’ The thought, if I can define it, leaps like fire

-from crumbling ashes—all this great pageant of energy and heroism

-and fame fading farther and farther into the past—and yet, in

-spite of the hush of the tolling bell and the solemn music, the

-certainty that it is all worth doing and enduring, that we must

-wrest the great values out of life and make of it a noble thing;

-and that while memory fades and honour seems to perish, yet

-the seed once sown, it springs up again and again in life and

-beyond death, beyond all possibility of extinction.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</span>

-One of the things for which, in a great time like the present—great

-for all its sadness, and perhaps because of its sadness—one

-of the things for which I thank God is that this war has revealed

-as nothing else could have done the latent heroism of our nation.

-If only it could make us poets and cure us of being prophets!

-I have often been ashamed to the bottom of my heart of the cries

-of panic-mongers and crabbed pessimists shrieking in our ears

-that we were a nation sunk in sloth and luxury and indifference.

-I have lived all my life among the young, and if ever there was a

-thing of which I was certain, it was that our youth was brave and

-modest and manly—as this long and bitter fight has daily and

-hourly proved.</p>

-

-<p>And we have a task before us—to see that the memory of those

-who have fought for us and died for us should be as stably and as

-durably commemorated as possible. It is not that I think of a

-memorial as being in any sense a reward for the honoured dead.

-If there is one thing which our heart tells us, it is that they have

-a nobler reward than that. A new life, doubtless, a passing from

-strength to strength. But as Shelley so immortally said, ‘Fame

-is love disguised,’ and we owe it to our love and gratitude not only

-to remember, but to commemorate. I defy anyone, however

-simple and stolid, to set foot in our great Abbey, and not be thrilled

-with the thought, ‘After all, humanity is a splendid thing, so full

-of devotion and greatness as it is!’ Statesmen, monarchs, writers,

-artists, men of science, men of learning, there they sleep; there

-is a generous glow in many young hearts, which may thus be

-kindled. The poet of boyhood makes the boy, just disengaging

-himself from the beloved school and stepping into the world, say

-to himself:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

- <div class="poetry">

-    <div class="i1a">‘Much lost I: something stayed behind,</div>

-    <div class="i3">A snatch maybe of ancient song,</div>

-    <div class="i1">Some breathings of a deathless mind;</div>

-    <div class="i3">Some love of truth; some hate of wrong.</div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="i1">And to myself in games I said,</div>

-    <div class="i3">“What mean the books? Can I win fame?</div>

-    <div class="i1">I would be like the faithful dead,</div>

-    <div class="i3">A fearless man and pure of blame.”’</div>

-  </div><!--end stanza-->

- </div><!--end poem-->

-</div><!--end container-->

-

-<p>This, then, is our present task—to see that our dead are worthily

-commemorated for our own sakes and for the sake of those who

-come after. How shall we do it?</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</span>

-In the first place, we must not do it idly and carelessly—we

-must take thought, have a plan and a purpose, not be in too great

-a hurry. Hurry is the worst foe of memorials. We have a national

-habit—I think it is rather a sign of greatness—not to do anything

-until we are obliged; but the result of that often is a loss of grace

-and fineness; because people who must act, and are a little ashamed

-of not having acted, accept any solution.</p>

-

-<p>What I hope we shall do is to take careful thought where our

-memorials shall be set, so that they may be most constantly and

-plainly seen; and then how they may best fulfil their purpose,

-which is to remind us first, and next to kindle emotion and imagination.

-We have an ugly habit of combining, if we can, local utility

-with a memorial, as in the well-known story of the benevolent

-clergyman who read out the announcement of the death of a

-great statesman and added, ‘That is just what we wanted! We

-have long needed a new water supply!’ That is like using a

-grandfather’s sword to trim a privet-hedge with! I do not believe

-in fitting things in. If we commemorate, let us commemorate

-by a memorial which arrests and attracts the eye, is long and

-gratefully remembered, and by an inscription which touches the

-heart, and does not merely merge a man among the possessors of

-all human gifts and virtues. I remember a Georgian monument

-in a cathedral, where a lean man in a toga peeped anxiously out

-of an arbour of fluted columns, and of whom it was announced that

-in him ‘every talent which adorns the human spirit was united

-with every virtue which sustains it.’ How different is the little

-tablet in a church I know on which a former choir-boy is commemorated!

-He had joined the army, and had won a Victoria

-Cross in the Boer War which he did not live to receive. The facts

-were most briefly told; and below were the words, which I can

-hardly read without tears:</p>

-

-<p class="center">‘Thou hast put a new song in my mouth.’</p>

-

-<p>What we want, then, are beauty, dignity, simplicity, and force.

-We want what appeals directly to the eye, and then darts a strong

-emotion into the heart, an emotion in which gratitude and hope

-are blended.</p>

-

-<p>I must not here attempt to unfold a wide technical scheme;

-indeed I could not if I would; but I may perhaps outline a few

-principles.</p>

-

-<p>First comes the difficulty that places like to manage their own<span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</span>

-affairs; and that the men who administer local interests, however

-devotedly and industriously, do not acquire their influence by

-artistic tastes. The next difficulty is that our artistic instinct in

-England is not widely diffused. When Walter Pater’s attention

-was called to some expensive tribute, and he became aware that

-an expression of admiration was required, he used to say in his

-soft voice, ‘Very costly, no doubt,’ and this was always accepted

-as an appropriate compliment, he said. A third difficulty

-is the deep-seated mistrust in England of the expert—it is all

-part of our independence—but the expert is often regarded simply

-as a man who lets you in for heavier expense than you had

-intended.</p>

-

-<p>It would be well if some central advisory board could be established—a

-central authority can hardly be expected, and indeed

-would not even be desirable. The nature of memorials should be

-carefully scrutinised. We are always weak in allegorical representation,

-and perhaps for that very reason have a great fondness

-for it. Our civic heraldry, for instance, is woefully weak, not by

-excess of symbolism, so much as by a desperate inclusiveness of

-all local tradition, till the shield becomes a landscape in which

-a company of travellers have hung their private property on every

-bush.</p>

-

-<p>Thus with our taste for representing and explaining and accounting

-and cataloguing, our memorials become architectural first,

-with every cornice loaded with precarious figures, like the painting

-described by Dickens of six angels carrying a stout gentleman to

-heaven in festoons with some difficulty. Our inscriptions become

-biographies. Again, the surrounding scene is little regarded. A

-statesman in a bronze frock-coat and trousers reading aloud a

-bronze manuscript behind the railings of a city square, embowered

-in acacias, has no power over the mind except the power of

-a ludicrous sense of embarrassment. A statue, majestic enough

-in a pillared alcove, is only uncomfortable in a storm of wind

-and rain.</p>

-

-<p>We ought, I believe, to fight shy of elaborate <em>designs</em>,

-because the pantomime of allegory at once begins. What we rather

-need is simplicity of statement, with perhaps a touch of emblem,

-no more, of characteristic material, of perfect gravity, so that the

-gazer can see at once that the matter recorded is great and significant,

-and desires to know more. It is said that an inscription

-was once to be seen in India, marking one of the farthest points<span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</span>

-of the advance of Alexander the Great. It was a slab with the

-words:</p>

-

-<p class="center" lang="el">ΕΝΤΑΥΘΑ · ΕϹΤΗΝ</p>

-

-<p>‘Here I stood’—upon it. What could be more impressive, what

-more calculated to sow a seed of wonder in an imaginative mind?</p>

-

-<p>These memorials should, I believe, evoke the spirit of the

-artist, as a craftsman, rather than as a designer. Alike in inscriptions

-and in representations, the wholesome and humble appeal

-must be direct and personal, avoiding rhetoric and over-emphasis,

-as well as elaborate conventions which other hands will dully

-and mechanically reproduce. If, as in cast metal-work, reproduction

-is natural and inevitable, let the designs be perfectly

-simple and sincere; if again it be painter, sculptor, carver, or

-builder that is called upon to create a memorial, let the responsibility

-and originality of the craft be his, and not be superseded

-or overruled by the authority of the design—for this indeed is,

-as Professor Prior said wittily to me the other day, as though a

-surgeon should provide a specification and an estimate for an

-operation, and leave the execution of it to other hands.</p>

-

-<p>But we must not suppose that we can insist upon any particular

-form of memorial in any particular place. What we may desire

-is that the memorial, whatever it is, of this great and heroic trial

-through which we are passing, should grow up out of the minds of the

-inhabitants of a city or a town, and should be made by the hands

-of inhabitants as well. I do not desire that they should be too

-costly. Indeed it may well be that we shall have given so much

-of our resources to the prosecution of the war that we shall have

-but little left for adorning our trophies. I do not desire that

-they should be constructed to serve other uses, at least not primarily.

-They are to tell their own story, a story of noble deeds, and provide

-alike a dedication of our dead to honour, and a dedication of ourselves

-to gratitude and future effort.</p>

-

-<p>I hope too most earnestly that we shall not accumulate resources

-on one national monument, to astonish tourists and to

-feed our vanity; but that as many places as possible should have a

-record of a great fact which has penetrated our national life more

-deeply than any historical event in the whole of our annals.</p>

-

-<p>Forethought, then, simplicity, naturalness, eloquence of emotion

-rather than of word, native feeling, these will, I hope, be the notes

-of our memorials. Let us try for once to express ourselves, not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</span>

-to cover up truth with turgid verdicts, but to say what we mean

-and what we feel as simply and emphatically as we can.</p>

-

-<p>We are not likely to forget the war; but what we may forget

-is that the result of it is the outcome of modest, faithful, loyal

-services done with no flourish or vanity, by thousands of very

-simple, straightforward people, who did not argue themselves

-into indignation, or reflect much about what they were doing, but

-came forward, leaving comfort and home and work and love,

-without any balancing of motives, but just because they felt that

-they must take their place in the battle of liberty and right with

-intolerable pride and aggression. That is the plain truth; and

-that is the best and only proof of the greatness of a nation that

-it should prefer death, if need be, to all the pleasant business of

-life. If this or any of this can be recorded, if this national impulse

-can be kept alive in our children, we need not fear either life with

-all its complications, or death with all its mysteries. The nation

-will live; and the memorials of these dark and great days will

-stand to witness to our far-off sons and daughters that their old

-forefathers did not live to no purpose and did not die in vain.</p>

-

-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">

-</div><!--end chapter-->

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</span>

-<h2><span class="h3head"><i>A GERMAN BUSINESS MIND.</i></span></h2>

-

-<p class="center">BY SIR JOHN WOLFE BARRY, <abbr title="Knight Commander of the Bath">K.C.B.</abbr></p>

-

-<p class="p2"><span class="smcap">Now</span> that we are entering on the third year of the war so shamelessly

-brought about by Germany, the accompanying correspondence,

-commencing in August 1914, may interest your readers.

-It indicates the extreme rancour against our country of a leading

-and capable German manufacturer, not merely evoked by our

-declaration of war, but pre-existing for a long time and very carefully

-concealed from his English friends. It was to me in 1914 a

-curious lifting of the curtain, and indicates for our present guidance

-what will remain to be encountered by us in the economic struggle

-against the mercantile interests of Germany when the war ends.</p>

-

-<p>The manufacturer’s letter is also interesting as showing clearly

-the anticipations held in Germany, when she declared war, of a

-speedy and highly successful result of the wicked and stealthy attack

-on her neighbours for which she had been so long preparing. It is

-astonishing moreover in the extraordinary ignorance displayed, on

-the part of a clever leader of German enterprise, as to the Constitution,

-resources, and temper of the British Empire, and it gives full

-vent to his hatred and contempt of France, Russia, and Japan.</p>

-

-<p>This letter, printed second in the series, was addressed to an

-intimate friend of mine who was closely connected with engineering

-interests in Germany, and who had known the writer well for some

-years, having had important interests with him in business. My

-friend sent me the letter for my perusal, but did not disclose the

-name of the writer.</p>

-

-<p>The third letter is an attempted reply on my part to the statements

-and misstatements of the German manufacturer, and requires

-no comment from me. My friend sent a copy of my letter to

-his German correspondent, but it evoked no reply.</p>

-

-<p>Copies of both these letters were forwarded, anonymously, by

-my friend to a well-known English engineer long resident in

-Germany, who occupied a leading and acknowledged position in

-that country. He had been for many years closely in touch with

-very many members of his profession there, and was connected

-with numerous commercial interests.</p>

-

-<p>As will be seen, he promptly identified the German manufacturer,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</span>

-and his note on the correspondence is placed first in the series in

-order to make clear the character and position of the writer of

-the amazing letter No. 2. He expresses the astonishment which he

-felt at its contents, remarking that the sentiments expressed in it

-had been carefully concealed in his interviews with him both before

-and after the outbreak of the war. The correspondence appears to

-me to give much food for thought in many various ways, and I

-may, with these few explanatory comments, let the letters speak

-for themselves.</p>

-

-<p class="center">Letter No. 1.</p>

-

-<p>Extract from a letter received by Mr. A. B. of London from

-Mr. C. D., a gentleman long resident in Germany and unusually

-well acquainted with German commercial life:</p>

-

-<div class="blockquot">

-<p class="quotesig">Received February 1915.</p>

-

-<p>‘I now see from whom the letter came. He is a friend of mine.

-I have had a good deal to do with him lately, also after the outbreak

-of war. Curiously, although knowing me to be an Englishman,

-he has never in the slightest manner expressed himself in a like

-sense to me. He has evidently written to you in a great state of

-excitement. Nevertheless I cannot understand his doing so nor

-his harbouring the thoughts expressed in his letter. He is a

-clever and clear-headed man and much respected. His conduct in

-the labour question is looked upon as exemplary. He has proceeded

-by quiet well-considered but energetic measures to get his

-working staff entirely free from labour and social-democratic

-influences. His workmen are all content with their conditions,

-and his works therefore free from labour troubles when these break

-out in other works. I am told that all works at —— have

-profited by his wise measures. I therefore can all the less understand

-his writing you such an incredible letter. How can men of his

-position be so blinded to the true facts?</p>

-

-<p>‘The reply you sent<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> me sets this forth very clearly. I entirely

-concur in the contents and the opinions expressed in the same.’</p>

-</div><!--end blockquot-->

-

-<p class="p2 center">Letter No. 2.</p>

-

-<p>A letter written on August 29, 1914, to Mr. A. B. of London by

-a German business friend, and sent by Mr. A. B., in September

-1914, to Sir John Wolfe Barry for his perusal:</p>

-

-<div class="blockquot">

-<p>‘The poisonous seed sown by your good King Edward VII. has

-sprung up. It is a well-known fact that the great aim of his life,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</span>

-to which he devoted all his energy, was to unite the whole world

-in one bond against Germany, to annihilate that hated nation.</p>

-

-<p>‘His disciple Minister Grey has seized the opportunity of tightening

-the noose with which Germany is to be strangled. For ten

-years English diplomacy has worked for that end, to close up the

-ring round us. Now the die is irrevocably cast and Destiny goes its

-way. No one can say positively what the outcome will be, but one

-thing I do believe, and sixty-seven million Germans believe it with

-me, and that is that we shall be victorious.</p>

-

-<p>‘We shall win because we are fighting for the right, for our

-national existence, for civilization. Without England’s intervention

-this war would have been inconceivable. In France, whom we

-sincerely pity, and whom this war will crush, one hears a united

-cry that she is ready for peace. In Russia it was only the aristocratic

-party that has forced on the war, and they will seize this

-opportunity to steal. That party of course owns the anti-German

-press, such as the <cite>Nowoje Wremja</cite> and other papers, which are

-financed by England. England alone was thirsting for war, and has

-pressed the other nations into war against us. For years she has

-seen how we have excelled her more and more in the industrial world.

-If people were but honest, they would know that the reason for our

-success lies in the fact that we are an industrious and hardworking

-folk. In England, on the other hand, there exists a widespread

-tendency to avoid work. We have no public holidays. Our

-working week averages fifty-eight hours. We Directors have no

-“week-ends,” we work in the factory on an average from fifty to

-sixty hours a week, and as a rule spend one or two nights and sometimes

-even all Sunday in the train in order to get work for our

-business. Moreover we understand how to adapt ourselves to all

-possible circumstances, while your people in their well-known arrogance,

-do not concern themselves with the requirements of other

-countries.</p>

-

-<p>‘Because we have attained great prosperity by ability and

-hard work, the hatred and jealousy you bear us Germans has

-grown beyond all bounds. This embarrassing competition must

-be crushed so that you can go on in your comfortable decadent

-existence.</p>

-

-<p>‘In order that a people, who appear particularly Christian,

-may attain this worthy goal, the barbarian hordes of the Slavs

-are mobilised against the champions of civilization, to whom the

-world owes so much. The natives in Africa are incited against us,

-and we are even betrayed in Japan. This last act has raised a storm

-of indignation in our country which would alarm you, had you any

-idea of it. England will certainly make terrible amends for this

-underhand deed. The hatred which is raging among Germany’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</span>

-sixty-seven millions will avenge itself on England in a most fearful

-way. For a hundred years the fist of every German will be clenched

-whenever the word “England” is spoken.</p>

-

-<p>‘I have had many experiences in my time, but never have I

-known anything like the satisfaction which prevailed throughout

-our country yesterday, when it first became known that your army

-of mercenaries had been under the fire of our noble reserves, and

-that we were in a position to shoot down the people who draw the

-sword for money. Your soldiers who oppose us in the field will yet

-learn something of the loathing which our army has for anything

-that is English. Our sailors look forward eagerly to the time when

-your fleet, of which you talk so much, appears in German waters.

-You may be quite sure that a large part of it will never again see

-the shores of England, even if we lose the whole of our navy. It is

-to be hoped that your fleet will at last summon up courage to attack

-us. If they come under the guns of Heligoland and Kuxhaven,

-your battleships will share the same fate as befell the forts at

-Liège and Namur.</p>

-

-<p>‘In this war, which is the most shameful crime that has ever been

-committed against humanity, and which lies entirely at the door of

-English statesmen, we shall be triumphant. England will be shaken

-to her foundations. Mankind could not but lose its belief in right

-and justice, and more particularly in the Divine guidance of the

-universe, if a country, who in the most shameless way professes

-Christianity and yet allies herself with Asiatics and barbarians,

-were to be victorious.</p>

-

-<p>‘Your newspapers, of which we still regularly receive copies, may

-overwhelm English readers with falsehoods about our army and its

-successes. Truth is going forward, and before fourteen days have

-passed our forces will be investing Paris. Belgium, whom you

-incited to oppose us, is cursing you. France, whom you likewise

-forced into war against us, will in future show perfidious Albion the

-door.</p>

-

-<p>‘It is very sad that a country like England which has won for

-herself so much merit in the progress of mankind, and has produced so

-many able men, should abandon moral principles proved through the

-centuries and hand herself over to a band of unscrupulous men like

-Minister Grey. When one considers all the misery which this war,

-which is the most terrible the world has yet seen, has caused, it makes

-one shudder to imagine what sort of conscience the Councillors of

-the Czar, your Minister Grey and Minister Churchill must have.</p>

-

-<p>‘Your great philosopher Carlyle has foreseen and indeed prophesied

-the moral decadence which always precedes political downfall.

-England has become the champion of a band of murderers

-who eleven years ago assassinated their King and his consort and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</span>

-have now killed a foreign prince. This nation who wishes to be so

-great conspires with the most barbaric race which the world

-has ever seen, the Russians, and is the brother-in-arms of the most

-treacherous, most contemptible, most ungrateful people that the

-earth holds, the Japanese.</p>

-

-<p>‘I am sure America will endorse the general scorn and wrath

-towards your country. Australia will not be very grateful to

-England who wishes to make the position of the Japanese more

-assured. I will go so far as to maintain that the British world-empire

-will split off in all directions. The world’s history must be

-judged by subsequent generations, and the judgment of the world

-now passes sentence on your country’s action.</p>

-

-<p>‘If I have offended you by what I have written, just consider I

-cannot do otherwise than say what is my opinion. My personal

-esteem for you is not altered by what is taking place.’</p>

-</div><!--end blockquote-->

-

-<p class="p2 center"><a id="ltr3"></a>Letter No. 3.</p>

-

-<p>From Sir John Wolfe Barry to Mr. A. B.:</p>

-

-<div class="blockquot">

-<p class="quotesig">October 4th, 1914.</p>

-

-<p>‘I have read with profound interest and grief the copy of the

-letter of August 29th from your German friend. The rancour which

-it displays is beyond words. It is apparently useless to criticise its

-contents looking to the frame of mind of the writer, who, I think

-and fear, expresses the present general feeling in Germany of hatred

-and anger with our country. Many of his statements and arguments

-are however absolutely and fundamentally erroneous and are

-capable of complete refutation.</p>

-

-<p>‘The poisoning of German thought in respect of Great Britain

-does not date from anything done by King Edward and still less

-from Sir Edward Grey or the present or former Ministry. It

-began long earlier in the antagonism between the military class

-and what may be termed the liberal aspirations of many thoughtful

-Germans when the Crown Prince, afterwards the Emperor Frederick

-William, married our Princess Royal. Both were in sympathy with

-liberal ideas and they were violently opposed by Bismarck and the

-blood-and-iron school, while the youth of Germany were systematically

-taught by the professors and writers of Germany, under the

-encouragement of Bismarck and his school of thought, to hate and

-despise Great Britain. There is not and never has been a corresponding

-feeling here towards Germany.</p>

-

-<p>‘Of course the two countries are rivals in trade and commerce,

-but that is no reason for rancorous hatred. We are keen rivals in

-trade with the United States and other countries, but such rivalries<span class="pagenum" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</span>

-have not engendered any other feelings than that each country

-should do its best honourably to succeed in competition. It must

-never be forgotten in this connection that in England and in our

-colonies Germans, though keeping a strict barrier of tariffs themselves,

-have had absolute freedom in competition, that they have

-availed themselves of it and have made huge profits under our Free

-Trade system. Thus the rancour of Germany against Great Britain

-must be sought for in other directions, and it cannot be truthfully

-put down to trade rivalry.</p>

-

-<p>‘The cause is in fact to be found in the <cite lang="de">Welt Politik</cite>, the jealousy

-of Germany of British world power and in the aspirations of

-crushing Great Britain by force of arms. This has been the persistent

-and avowed policy of the Kaiser and the Junker class.</p>

-

-<p>‘The idea was to fight France and Russia to a finish and then

-concentrate all forces against England (and parenthetically against

-Belgium) and to destroy the British Empire. The present extreme

-and violent hatred on the part of Germany is due to the probability

-of the failure of that deep-laid scheme in consequence of England

-supporting her Allies, and refusing to break her pledged word to

-Belgium. It may be also caused by the feeling which must be

-somewhere embedded in German thought, that Germany has

-behaved dishonourably and scandalously to Belgium, whose neutrality

-she most solemnly guaranteed.</p>

-

-<p>‘If one looks back on the history of the last twenty-five years,

-or thereabouts, one sees Bismarck threatening an unprovoked

-war with France, and only withdrawing under the threat of the

-opposition of Russia and Great Britain. This proposed attack

-on France by Bismarck was a most shameful episode, for France’s

-only offence was her existence and recuperative power after her

-disasters in 1870. Then came the Emperor’s policy in our South

-African War, when, if he could have done so, he would have arrayed

-Europe against this country, but ended only in having lured Kruger

-to ruin. Then came the “mailed fist” in China, the seizure of

-Tsing-tau, and Germany’s efforts to crush Japan after the Russo-Japanese

-war. The demonstrations at Tangiers and Agadir

-occurred soon afterwards, with more threats of an European war.

-Afterwards came the annexation of Bosnia by Austria backed by

-Germany and the insults hurled at Russia by Germany in “shining

-armour.”</p>

-

-<p>‘It is these things and others of a similar nature when the

-German “sabre has been rattled” constantly in the face of Europe,

-that demonstrated that Germany was the enemy of peace, and

-which, crowned by the breach of the Treaty of Belgium, showed to

-the Allies that no treaty would hold Germany, and that her aspirations

-and lust for world power were Napoleonic. Lastly the Allies<span class="pagenum" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</span>

-knew that Germany had resolved on war and was making a catspaw

-of Austria by preventing her from coming to an agreement with

-Servia and Russia.</p>

-

-<p>‘I have said nothing about the systematic building of the

-German navy. It was within her rights as a Sovereign Power,

-but none the less the avowed object was to seize the “Trident of

-the Seas” and to attack Great Britain. It was obviously intended

-to attack our coasts, so as to enable an invasion of this country to

-be possible, and to seize the colonies of Great Britain and France.</p>

-

-<p>‘Germany was utterly deceived by her diplomatists about

-England, which was troubled with threats of civil war and by

-trade disputes, and they never thought that we would stand up

-for Belgium and fight now rather than later. It is chagrin at the

-miscalculation, combined with the effects of our maritime power,

-which has produced the outburst of hatred against us. Commercial

-rivalry has no real basis for hatred, and as for the question

-of a “place in the sun,” Germany has large and advantageous

-colonial possessions but can do but little with those which she

-owns, and has preferred to compete with us in our colonies as she

-has done so long and so successfully.</p>

-

-<p>‘All this history of German jealousy, hatred and designs is very

-sad, and I do not suppose that your German friend, obsessed as he is,

-would listen to any facts or arguments. But since I began to write,

-somewhat hurriedly, to you I have been led on to write more than

-I intended to try to deal with. I do not imagine that he has seen

-or would be allowed to see the statement of the British case in the

-White Paper, which I understand will be further elaborated in a new

-paper to be published next Tuesday.</p>

-

-<p>‘Have you answered your friend’s letter, or have you looked upon

-it as hopeless to do so? In the temper in which he wrote there was

-nothing visible but fighting to a finish.</p>

-

-<p class="quotesig"><span style="margin-right: 9.5em;">‘Yours very sincerely,</span><br>

-‘(<i>Signed</i>) <span class="smcap">J. Wolfe Barry</span>.</p>

-

-<p>‘<i>P.S.</i>—I suppose you have not had another letter? It would

-be interesting to see one of a later date than August 29th.</p>

-

-<p class="quotesig">‘J. W. B.’</p>

-</div><!--end blockquote-->

-

-<p><i>N.B.</i>—A copy of Sir John Wolfe Barry’s letter was sent by

-Mr. A. B. to his German business friend, but no reply was attempted

-and the correspondence then ceased.</p>

-

-<p class="p2">FOOTNOTES:</p>

-

-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a> Viz. that of Sir John Wolfe Barry printed below as letter <a href="#ltr3">No. 3</a>.</p>

-

-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">

-</div><!--end chapter-->

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</span>

-<h2><span class="h3head"><i>THE NEW TEMPTATION OF ST. ANTHONY.</i></span></h2>

-

-<p class="center">BY JOHN W. N. SULLIVAN.</p>

-

-<p class="p2">(<i>The time is the present day. St. Anthony is discovered seated

-on the ground outside his hut. The cross stands in its accustomed

-place, erect before him; and the great panorama, of which he is

-now weary, lies below him. He has changed but slightly with the

-years; something of his old immobility has disappeared. He occasionally

-shrugs his shoulders when speaking, and he often accompanies

-his reflections with slight gestures of the hands.</i>)</p>

-

-<p><span class="smcap">Anthony</span> (<i>thinking</i>). I have attained peace. Those troubling

-visions have disappeared. Never for an instant have I departed

-from grace since the Saviour’s face appeared to me in its shining

-disc of gold. The burning days and solemn nights pass noiselessly.

-Rare tempests mutter unnoticed about me. Nothing has power

-to disturb my beatific monotony; nor hope, nor fear, nor love,

-nor regrets. I have triumphed over all temptations. The devil

-has left me. (<i>He sighs.</i>) That journey through space, upborne

-on his wings! (<i>Stars commence to shine: the daylight lingers.</i>)

-I have resisted all the seductions of the flesh. I value not the

-riches of the mind. (<i>He starts, and looks fixedly at a vague light

-which advances across the desert.</i>) It seems as if——. But that

-cannot be: I have already sustained all assaults.</p>

-

-<p>(<i>The light approaches rapidly. It is rose-coloured; within it

-a figure is dimly visible. With a thunderous noise it rolls to within

-ten paces of the saint. The air shakes and for an instant the stars

-are obscured. This passes: the light fades, and the form of a woman

-is perceived, upright, robed in white, her face stern and majestic.

-The sleeves of her garment are very wide, reaching to the ground.</i>)</p>

-

-<p><span class="smcap">The Woman</span> (<i>slightly raising her right arm</i>). I have need

-of you.</p>

-

-<p><span class="smcap">Anthony</span> (<i>stammering</i>). What mean you?</p>

-

-<p><span class="smcap">The Woman.</span> I am your creator. Much study and great gifts

-came together for your making. They also were my children.

-My best blood flows in your veins. My name must mean everything

-to you, for you are wholly a product of my essence. I am

-called La France.</p>

-

-<p><span class="smcap">Anthony</span> (<i>pales and gazes fixedly at his visitor</i>). I belong

-to God.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</span>

-<span class="smcap">The Woman</span> (<i>sternly</i>). Do you deny that you are French?

-(<i>Anthony blushes and averts his gaze. He becomes sulky.</i>) What

-existence have you had apart from France? Would the world

-still hold you, you and your temptations, apart from——</p>

-

-<p><span class="smcap">Anthony</span> (<i>starting up and with outstretched hands</i>). Say not that

-name! Say it not! (<i>He places his fingers in his ears and then, observing

-that the woman’s lips do not move, lowers his hands.</i>) Speak!

-but avoid that name. I can endure aught else.</p>

-

-<p><span class="smcap">The Woman</span> (<i>speaks, her arms hanging by her sides. Her head

-is thrown slightly back. Her words come slowly. Her voice is as

-the sound of a solemn sea plunging in distant caverns</i>). The hour

-of my agony is upon me. I am beset. My strength is great,

-my courage greater, and my pride reaches to the stars. But I

-have mighty foes, skilled in all cruel arts. I suffer. I dwell in

-the shadow of pain. My woes increase and the issue is doubtful.

-(<i>She stretches her hands towards Anthony.</i>) Can you remain aloof?</p>

-

-<p><span class="smcap">Anthony</span> (<i>frowning</i>). This touches me not.</p>

-

-<p><span class="smcap">The Woman</span> (<i>with irony</i>). Have you, then, purified your

-heart of all compassion? (<i>Anthony shrugs his shoulders with a

-gesture of indifference.</i>) Are you, indeed, amongst the noblest

-of my offspring? My sons have sacrificed life for me: they

-have been content to forgo their ardent curiosities for my sake.

-What holds you back?</p>

-

-<p><span class="smcap">Anthony</span> (<i>with great dignity</i>). I seek union with God. The

-Devil himself tempted me for many days. He failed. How, then,

-can you succeed? (<i>Softly.</i>) You cannot, even if you be he.</p>

-

-<p><span class="smcap">The Woman</span> (<i>flinging her arms apart, and letting them drop

-heavily</i>). Shame cannot move you. But he who aids me receives

-great rewards. I will show you visions.</p>

-

-<p>(<i>She waves her hand. A cloud descends, swaying slowly in

-the air. It unwinds in sluggish masses till it fills the horizon. It

-glows with pale fire. Upon it are cities and wide plains. It is a

-very clean, neat, and precise land. Rivers wind gently between ploughed

-fields, red and brown. The cloud surges nearer, and presently Anthony

-discerns an immense temple shining in the sun. It approaches

-more quickly, its crystalline walls sending innumerable shafts of

-light before it. Anthony and his companion are enveloped in an insupportable

-radiance, and the next instant they find they are within

-the building. Facing them is a great altar, its gold shining dully

-in the light of a thousand lighted candles. The flags of France droop

-motionless about the altar; upon it the carved figure of a soldier<span class="pagenum" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</span>

-lies prone. The pavement of the temple is invisible under the feet

-of the silent crowd. Mighty columns rush upward and are lost in

-the sweep of the dim roof. The air begins to pulsate with the

-heavy notes of an organ. Anthony and The Woman are floating

-above the heads of the multitude. None have observed them.</i>)</p>

-

-<p><span class="smcap">The Woman</span> (<i>motioning to the crowd</i>). Here are assembled

-rich and poor, wise men and fools; judges, statesmen, poets,

-the criminal and the peasant. All France is here, united in a

-common gratitude.</p>

-

-<p><span class="smcap">Anthony.</span> What do they?</p>

-

-<p><span class="smcap">The Woman.</span> They honour the dead. (<i>She points to the

-prone figure on the altar.</i>) The soldiers who saved France.</p>

-

-<p>(<i>A trumpet note is heard and the air rustles with the inclining

-of a myriad heads. A sweet singing arises behind the altar. A procession

-slowly passes before it. The first to pass is a man beyond

-middle age, with a grave, bearded face, a broad white forehead and

-serene eyes. He kneels for an instant and passes on.</i>)</p>

-

-<p><span class="smcap">The Woman.</span> The Philosophy of France. (<i>A young man,

-with a dark, keen face, and a very penetrating look, follows. Each

-figure, on arriving before the altar, kneels and passes on.</i>) The Science

-of France.</p>

-

-<p>(<i>Then follow the Literature of France, an old man, very harmoniously

-dressed; the Music and Painting of France, two smaller

-figures; the Statesmanship and Laws of France, superb men, but

-badly clothed. There follow priests, merchants, scribes, criminals

-and courtesans. Anthony and his companion begin to soar

-higher. The music fades; the bowed heads of the people become

-indistinct. There is a period of darkness, and Anthony finds himself

-back on his rock. Before him stands The Woman. The great

-cloud has utterly vanished.</i>)</p>

-

-<p><span class="smcap">The Woman.</span> You have seen the greatness of France.</p>

-

-<p><span class="smcap">Anthony</span> (<i>thoughtfully</i>). It is a land not without merit.</p>

-

-<p><span class="smcap">The Woman.</span> Many have died for it. Many more must

-die for it, or it will be a stricken land. Is it worth dying

-for?</p>

-

-<p><span class="smcap">Anthony</span> (<i>who has grown more argumentative with the years,

-hesitates. Then</i>:) That depends! (<i>He faces The Woman with a

-stern and questioning look.</i>) Much knowledge and beauty lie within

-the borders of your land, but no man should die for knowledge

-or beauty. A man’s life belongs to God alone. Do your

-great ones serve God? Do they use their wisdom more fully to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</span>

-understand His counsels? Do they create beauty to glorify

-His praise? (<i>The Woman does not answer.</i>) I will die for you

-if my death serves God. I will not die to extend your borders,

-to add beauty to your palaces, to make you more skilled in wisdom.

-Will my death bring you nearer to God?</p>

-

-<p><span class="smcap">The Woman</span> (<i>regards Anthony sadly</i>). You ask me hard

-questions. Are there not many ways of serving God? I worship

-God in His creation. I meditate on the laws of His universe.

-I reveal to the world the beauty of His handiwork. Do I not therefore

-serve God?</p>

-

-<p><span class="smcap">Anthony</span> (<i>drily</i>). Does that heresy still flourish? God

-is not His creation.</p>

-

-<p><span class="smcap">The Woman.</span> Is knowledge to vanish from the earth? Must

-none seek after beauty?</p>

-

-<p><span class="smcap">Anthony</span> (<i>raising his right hand and speaking with deliberation</i>).

-None may seek knowledge for the sake of wisdom. None may

-seek beauty for the sake of happiness. These things are but the

-raiment of God. Your great ones count the threads in God’s

-garment, but do they seek God? (<i>He delicately shrugs his shoulders.</i>)

-Does France worship clothes?</p>

-

-<p><span class="smcap">The Woman</span> (<i>sad and bewildered</i>). I do not understand.</p>

-

-<p><span class="smcap">Anthony</span> (<i>regards her long and then speaks gently</i>). You will

-never understand, for you are La France. You cannot see

-without eyes, nor hear without ears. You are the cleverest and

-most limited of God’s children.</p>

-

-<p><span class="smcap">The Woman</span> (<i>stands still, her arms hanging limp, her head

-bowed. Suddenly she raises her head</i>). But I suffer!</p>

-

-<p>(<i>The air grows dim and a cold wind rises. The stars vanish.

-In the valley, mysteriously visible, Anthony sees a road. It is cumbered

-with dead and wounded men, lying in all attitudes, some as if asleep,

-head resting on arm, and some contorted hideously. Anthony notes

-the curious attitude of one man who seems to have his legs drawn

-right up under him; until presently he sees that he has no legs. A dead

-man sits propped against a gun. The whole of his tongue is visible,

-hanging downwards; the lower jaw is shot away. Presently one

-of the black shapes starts to flounder clumsily. In the mysterious

-light comes the glint of steel; the black shape is trying to fix the end

-of a bayonet in the ground. In one of his clumsy attempts the man

-reveals the fact that he has but one arm. For some minutes he struggles

-and finally the bayonet is fixed. The man lies still. Then he raises

-himself awkwardly on his one arm till the bayonet point touches his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</span>

-chest; he flings his arm straight out and falls with his whole weight

-on the point. A long red finger points up from his back.</i></p>

-

-<p><i>The Woman waves her arm and the scene vanishes, to be replaced

-by another. A soldier, young, and with a look of bright intelligence,

-is saying farewell to his mother at the door of a cottage.

-The old woman’s face is lined; her hands tremble. Her eyes peer

-up anxiously at the young man, as she fondles the sleeve of his tunic.

-He speaks confidently and cheerfully, and after a final embrace

-walks briskly away. The old woman enters the cottage and sits

-there, in silence and alone. She picks up a book the young man

-had been reading and very carefully places it in a drawer.</i>)</p>

-

-<p><span class="smcap">The Woman.</span> An only child, and she a widow.</p>

-

-<p><span class="smcap">Anthony</span> (<i>looks very thoughtful</i>). What of her son?</p>

-

-<p><span class="smcap">The Woman.</span> His agony is greater. He feels all her grief

-and his own. She feels but her own, for his leave-taking deceived

-her, and she believes he has joy in battle.</p>

-

-<p><span class="smcap">Anthony</span> (<i>as if musing</i>). Will men do so much to keep

-France?</p>

-

-<p><span class="smcap">The Woman</span> (<i>softly</i>). They do much more. They know the

-issue is doubtful. They sacrifice so much, knowing the sacrifice

-may be in vain. (<i>Anthony raises his head and looks very intently

-at The Woman; she continues, her eyes glowing.</i>) For years you have

-suffered on your rock. You suffer to save yourself. Jesus, your

-master, suffered to save the world. (<i>She stretches out her arms

-and her voice rings with triumph.</i>) I offer you greater suffering.

-He who suffers for me knows not the fruit of his suffering. I offer

-you the opportunity of the greatest sacrifice: the sacrifice of all,

-knowing that your all may be in vain.</p>

-

-<p>(<i>The Woman pauses, her arms outspread. Anthony presses

-his hands to his head, and remains silent for a long time. Then,

-taking a step forward, he places his right hand in that of The Woman.

-They slowly leave the ground. As they mount in the air the few

-retarded rays of light utterly vanish, and blackest night confounds

-the jutting rock with the starless heaven.</i>)</p>

-

-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">

-</div><!--end chapter-->

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</span>

-<h2><span class="h3head"><i>THE OLD CONTEMPTIBLES: THE GOOD WORD.</i></span></h2>

-

-<p class="center">BY BOYD CABLE.</p>

-

-<p class="p2"><span class="smcap">It</span> is quite inadequate to say that the troops were worn out, and

-indeed it is hard to find words to convey to anyone who has not

-experienced some days of a mixture of fighting and forced marching

-how utterly exhausted, how dead beat, how stupefied and numbed

-in mind and body the men were. For four days and nights they

-had fought and dug trenches and marched, and fought again, and

-halted to dig again, and fought again, and extricated themselves

-under hailing bullets and pouring shells from positions they never

-expected to leave alive, only to scramble together into some sort

-of ragged-shaped units and march again. And all this was under

-a fierce August sun, with irregular meals and sometimes no meals,

-at odd times with a scarcity or complete want of water, at all

-times with a burning lack and want of sleep.</p>

-

-<p>This want of sleep was the worst of it all. Any sort of fighting

-is heavy sleep inducing; when it is prolonged for days and nights

-without one good full, satisfying sleep, the desire for rest becomes

-a craving, an all-absorbing aching passion. At first a man wants

-a bed or space to lie down and stretch his limbs and pillow his

-head and sink into dreamless oblivion; at last he would give his

-last possession merely to be allowed to lean against a wall, to stand

-upright on his feet and close his eyes. To keep awake is torture,

-to lift and move each foot is a desperate effort, to keep the burning

-eyes open and seeing an agony. It takes the most tremendous

-effort of will to contemplate another five minutes of wakefulness,

-another hundred yards to be covered; and here were hours, endless

-hours, of wakefulness, miles and tens of miles to be covered.</p>

-

-<p>Cruelly hard as the conditions were for the whole retreating

-army, the rear-guard suffered the worst by a good deal. They

-were under the constant threat of attack, were halted every now

-and then under that threat or to allow the main body to keep a

-sufficient distance, had to make some attempt to dig in again,

-had to endure spasmodic shelling either in their shallow trenches

-or as they marched along the road.</p>

-

-<p>By the fourth day the men were reduced to the condition of

-automatons. They marched—no, it could hardly be said any<span class="pagenum" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</span>

-longer that they ‘marched’; they stumbled and staggered along

-like drunken men; their chins were sunk on their chests, their

-jaws hung slack, their eyes were set in a fixed and glassy stare, or

-blinked, and shut and opened heavily, slowly, and drowsily, their

-feet trailed draggingly, their knees sagged under them. When

-the word passed to halt, the front ranks took a minute or two to

-realise its meaning and obey, and the ranks behind bumped into

-them and raised heads and vacant staring eyes for a moment and

-let them drop again in a stupor of apathy. The change, the cessation

-of automatic motion was too much for many men; once halted

-they could no longer keep their feet, and dropped and sat or rolled

-helplessly to lie in the dust of the road. These men who fell were

-almost impossible to rouse. They sank into sleep that was almost

-a swoon, and no shaking or calling or cursing could rouse them

-or get them up again. The officers, knowing this, tried to keep

-them from sitting or lying down, moved, staggering themselves

-as they walked, to and fro along the line, exhorting, begging, beseeching,

-or scolding and swearing and ordering the men to keep

-up, to stand, to be ready to move on. And when the order was

-given again, the pathetically ridiculous order to ‘Quick march,’

-the front ranks slowly roused and shuffled off, and the rear stirred

-slowly and with an effort heaved their rifles over their shoulders

-again and reeled after the leaders.</p>

-

-<p>Scores of the men had abandoned packs and haversacks, all

-of them had cast away their overcoats. Many had taken their

-boots off and marched with rags or puttees wound round their

-blistered and swollen feet. But no matter what one or other or

-all had thrown away, there was no man without his rifle, his full

-ammunition pouches, and his bayonet. These things weighed

-murderously, cut deep and agonisingly into the shoulders, cramped

-arms and fingers to an aching numbness; but every man clung to

-them, had never a thought of throwing them into the ditch, although

-many of them had many thoughts of throwing themselves there.</p>

-

-<p>Many fell out—fell out in the literal as well as the drill sense of

-the word; swerved to the side of the road and missed foot in the

-ditch and fell there, or stumbled in the ranks, tripped, lacking the

-brain or body quickness to recover themselves, collapsed, and rolled

-and lay helpless. Others, again, gasped a word or two to a comrade

-or an N.C.O., stumbled out of the ranks to the roadside, sank down

-with hanging head and rounded shoulders to a sitting position.

-Few or none of these men deliberately lay down. They sat till the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</span>

-regiment had plodded his trailing length past, tried to stagger to

-knees and feet, succeeded, and stood swaying a moment, and then

-lurched off after the rear ranks; or failed, stared stupidly after

-them, collapsed again slowly and completely. All these were left

-to lie where they fell. It was useless to urge them to move, because

-every officer and N.C.O. knew that no man gave up while he had

-an ounce of strength or energy left to carry on, that orders or

-entreaties had less power to keep a man moving than his own dogged

-pluck and will, that when these failed to keep a man going nothing

-else could succeed.</p>

-

-<p>All were not, of course, so hopelessly done as this. There were

-still a number of the tougher muscled, the firmer willed, who kept

-their limbs moving with conscious volition, who still retained some

-thinking power, who even at times exchanged a few words or a

-mouthful of curses. These, and the officers, kept the whole together,

-kept them moving by force of example, set the pace for them and

-gave them the direction. Most of them were in the leading ranks

-of their own companies, merely because their greater energy had

-carried them there past and through the ranks of those whose minds

-were nearly or quite a blank, whose bodies were more completely

-exhausted, whose will-power was reduced to a blind and sheep-like

-instinct to follow a leader, move when and where the dimly seen

-khaki form or tramping boots in front of them moved, stop when

-and where they stopped.</p>

-

-<p>The roads by which the army was retreating were cumbered

-and in places choked and blocked with fugitive peasantry fleeing

-from the advancing Germans, spurred into and upon their flight

-by the tales that reached them of ravished Belgium, by first-hand

-accounts of the murder of old men and women and children, of

-rape and violation and pillage and burning. Their slow, crawling

-procession checked and hindered the army transport, added to the

-trials of the weary troops by making necessary frequent halts and

-deviations off the road and back to it to clear some block in the

-traffic where a cart had broken down, or where worn-out women

-with hollow cheeks and staring eyes, and children with dusty, tear-streaked

-faces crowded and filled the road.</p>

-

-<p>The rear-guard passed numbers of these lying utterly exhausted

-by the roadside, and the road for miles was strewn with the wreckage

-of the retreat, with men who had fallen out unable longer to march

-on blistered or bleeding feet or collapsed in the heedless sleep of

-complete exhaustion; with broken-down carts dragged clear into<span class="pagenum" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</span>

-the roadside and spilled with their jumbled contents into the ditch;

-with crippled horses and footsore cattle; with quivering-lipped,

-grey-haired old men, and dry-eyed, cowering women, and frightened,

-clinging children. Some of these peasantry roused themselves as

-the last of the rear-guard regiments came up with them, struggled

-again to follow on the road, or dragged themselves clear of it and

-sought refuge and hiding in abandoned cottages or barns or the

-deep dry ditches.</p>

-

-<p>At one point where the road crept up the long slope of a hill the

-rear-guard came under the longe-range fire of the German guns.

-The shells came roaring down, to burst in clouds of belching black

-smoke in the fields to either side of the road, or to explode with a

-sharp tearing cr-r-rash in the air, their splinters and bullets raining

-down out of the thick white woolly smoke cloud that coiled and

-writhed and unfolded in slow heavy oily eddies.</p>

-

-<p>One battalion of the rear-guard was halted at the foot of the hill

-and spread out off the road and across the line of it. Again they

-were told not to lie down, and for the most part the men obeyed,

-leaning heavily with their arms folded on the muzzles of their rifles

-or watching the regiments crawling slowly up the road with the coal-black

-shell-bursts in the fields about them or the white air-bursts

-of the shrapnel above them.</p>

-

-<p>‘Pretty bloomin’ sight—I don’t think,’ growled a gaunt and

-weary-eyed private. The man next him laughed shortly. ‘Pretty

-one for the Germs, anyway,’ he said; ‘and one they’re seein’ a sight

-too often for my fancy. They’ll be forgettin’ wot our faces look

-like if we keep on at this everlastin’ runnin’ away.’</p>

-

-<p>‘Blast ’em,’ said the first speaker savagely, ‘but our turn will

-come presently. D’you think this yarn is right, Jacko, that we’re

-retirin’ this way just to draw ’em away from their base?’</p>

-

-<p>‘Gawd knows,’ said Jacko; ‘but they didn’t bring us over ’ere

-to do nothin’ but run away, an’ you can bet on that, Peter.’</p>

-

-<p>An order passed down the line, and the men began to move slowly

-into the road again and to shake into some sort of formation on it,

-and then to plod off up the hill in the wake of the rest. The shells

-were still plastering the hillside and crashing over the road, and

-several men were hit as the battalion tramped wearily up the hill.

-Even the shells failed to rouse most of the men from their apathy

-and weariness, but those it did stir it roused mainly to angry resentment

-or sullen oath-mumblings and curses.</p>

-

-<p>‘Well, Jacko,’ said Peter bitterly, ‘I’ve knowed I had a fair<span class="pagenum" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</span>

-chance o’ bein’ shot, but burn me if ever I thought I was goin’ to

-be shot in the back.’</p>

-

-<p>‘It’s a long way to Tipperary,’ said Jacko, ‘an’ there’s bound

-to be a turnin’ in it somewheres.’</p>

-

-<p>‘An’ it’s a longer way to Berlin if we keeps on marchin’ like this

-with our backs to it,’ grumbled Peter.</p>

-

-<p>The sound of another approaching shell rose from a faint moan

-to a loud shriek, to a roar, to a wild torrent of yelling, whooping,

-rush-of-an-express-train, whirlwind noise; and then, just when it

-seemed to each man that the shell was about to fall directly on his

-own individual head, it burst with a harsh crash over them, and a

-storm of bullets and fragments whistled and hummed down, hitting

-the fields’ soft ground with deep <em>whutts</em>, clashing sharply on the

-harder road. A young officer jerked out a cry, stumbled blindly

-forward a few paces with outstretched arms, pitched, and fell heavily

-on his face. He was close to where Peter and Jacko marched, and

-the two shambled hastily together to where he lay, lifted and turned

-him over. Neither needed a second look. ‘Done in,’ said Peter

-briefly, and ‘Never knew wot hit ’im,’ agreed Jacko.</p>

-

-<p>An officer ran back to them, followed slowly and heavily by

-another. There was no question as to what should be done with

-the lad’s body. He had to be left there, and the utmost they could

-do for him was to lift and carry him—four dog-tired men hardly

-able to lift their feet and carry their own bodies—to a cottage by

-the roadside, and bring him into an empty room with a litter of

-clothes and papers spilled about the floor from the tumbled drawers,

-and lay him on a dishevelled bed and spread a crumpled sheet over

-him.</p>

-

-<p>‘Let’s hope they’ll bury him decently,’ said one of the officers.

-The other was pocketing the watch and few pitiful trinkets he had

-taken from the lad’s pockets. ‘Hope so,’ he said dully. ‘Not that

-it matters much to poor old Dicky. Come on, we must move, or

-I’ll never be able to catch the others up.’</p>

-

-<p>They left the empty house quietly, pulling the door gently shut

-behind them.</p>

-

-<p>‘Pore little Blinker,’ said Jacko as they trudged up the

-road after the battalion; ‘the best bloomin’ officer the platoon

-ever ’ad.’</p>

-

-<p>‘The best I ever ’ad in all my seven,’ said Peter. ‘I ain’t forgettin’

-the way ’e stood up for me afore the C.O. at Aldershot

-when I was carpeted for drunk. And ’im tryin’ to stand wi’<span class="pagenum" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</span>

-the right side of ’is face turned away from the light, so the C.O.

-wouldn’t spot the black eye I gave ’im in that same drunk!’</p>

-

-<p>‘Ah, an’ that was just like ’im,’ said Jacko. ‘An’ to think

-’e’s washed out with a ’ole in the back of his ’ead—the back of it,

-mind you.’</p>

-

-<p>Peter cursed sourly.</p>

-

-<p>The battalion trailed wearily on until noon, halted then, and

-for the greater part flung themselves down and slept on the roadside

-for the two hours they waited there; were roused—as many

-of them, that is, as would rouse, for many, having stopped the

-machine-like motion of marching, could not recommence it, and

-had to be left there—and plodded on again through the baking

-afternoon heat. They had marched over thirty miles that day

-when at last they trailed into a small town where they were told

-they were to be billeted for the night. Other troops, almost as

-worn as themselves, were to take over the duties of rear-guard

-next day, but although that was good enough news it was nothing

-to the fact that to-night, now, the battalion was to halt and lie

-down and take their fill—if the Huns let them—of sleep.</p>

-

-<p>They were halted in the main square and waited there for what

-seemed to the tired men an interminable time.</p>

-

-<p>‘Findin’ billets,’ said Jacko. ‘Wish they’d hurry up about it.’</p>

-

-<p>‘Seems to me there’s something more than billets in the wind,’

-said Peter suspiciously. ‘Wot’s all the officers confabbin’ about, an’

-wot’s that <em>tamasha</em> over there wi’ them Staff officers an’ the C.O.?’</p>

-

-<p>The <em>tamasha</em> broke up, and the C.O. tramped back to the group

-of his officers, and after a short parley they saluted him and walked

-over to the battalion.</p>

-

-<p>‘Fall in,’ came the order sharply. ‘Fall in there, fall in.’</p>

-

-<p>Most of the men were sitting along the curb of the pavement

-or in the dusty road, or standing leaning on their rifles. They

-rose and moved heavily and stiffly, and shuffled into line.</p>

-

-<p>‘Wot is it, sergeant?’ asked Jacko suspiciously. ‘Wot’s the move?’</p>

-

-<p>‘We’re goin’ back,’ said the sergeant. ‘Hurry up there, you.

-Fall in. We’re goin’ back, an’ there’s some word of a fight.’</p>

-

-<p>The word flew round the ranks. ‘Going back ... a fight

-... back....’</p>

-

-<p>Across the square another regiment tramped stolidly and

-turned down a side street. A man in their rear ranks turned and

-waved a hand to the waiting battalion. ‘So long, chums,’ he

-called. ‘See you in Berlin.’</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</span>

-‘Ga’ strewth,’ said Jacko, and drew a deep breath. ‘Goin’

-back; an’ a fight; an’ the ol’ Buffs on the move too. In Berlin,

-eh; wonder wot they’ve ’eard. Back—blimey, Peter, I believe

-we’re goin’ for the blinkin’ ’Uns again. I believe we’re goin’ to

-advance.’</p>

-

-<p>That word went round even faster than the other, and where

-it passed it left behind it a stir of excitement, a straightening of

-rounded shoulders, a lifting of lolling heads. ‘Going back ...

-going to attack this time ... going to advance....’</p>

-

-<p>Actually this was untrue, or partly so at least. They were

-going back, but still merely acting as rear-guard to take up a position

-clear of the town and hold it against the threat of too close-pressing

-pursuit. But the men knew nothing of that at the time. They

-were going back; there was word of a fight; what else did that

-spell but a finish to this cursed running away, an advance instead

-of a retreat? The rumour acted like strong wine to the men. They

-moved to the parade orders with something of their old drilled and

-disciplined appearance; they swung off in their fours with shuffling

-steps, it is true, but with a decent attempt to keep the step, with

-their heads more or less erect and their shoulders back. And when

-the head of the column turned off the square back into the same

-street they had come up into the town, a buzz of talk and calling

-ran through the ranks, a voice piped up shakily ‘It’s a Long Way

-to Tipperary’ and a dozen, a score, a hundred voices took up the

-chorus sturdily and defiantly. The battalion moved out with the

-narrow streets ringing to their steady tramp, tramp, over the <i lang="fr">pavé</i>

-cobbles and the sound of their singing. Once clear of the town, it is

-true, the singing died away and the regular tramping march tailed

-off into the murmuring shuffle of feet moving out of step. But the

-deadly apathy had lifted from the men, there was an air of new life

-about them; one would never have known this battalion for the

-one that had marched in over the same road half an hour before.

-Then they were no more than a broken, dispirited crowd, their minds

-dazed, their bodies numbed with fatigue, moving mechanically,

-dully, apathetically, still plodding and shuffling their feet forward

-merely because their conscious minds had set their limbs the task,

-and then the tired brains, run down, had left the machinery of their

-bodies still working—working jerkily and slackly perhaps, but

-nevertheless working as it would continue to work until the overstrained

-muscles refused their mechanical duty.</p>

-

-<p>Now they were a battalion, a knitted and coherent body of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</span>

-fighting men, still worn out and fatigued almost to the point of

-collapse, but with working minds, with a conscious thought in their

-brains, with discipline locking their ranks again, with the prospect

-of a fight ahead, with the hope strong in them that the tide was

-turning, that they were done with the running away and retreating

-and abandoning hard-fought fields they were positive they had

-won; that now their turn was come, that here they were commencing

-and making the longed-for advance.</p>

-

-<p>And as they marched they heard behind them a deep <em>boo-boom</em>,

-<em>boo-boom</em>, <em>boo-moom</em> and the whistling rush of the shells over their

-heads. That and the low muttering rumble of guns far out on the

-flank brought to them a final touch of satisfaction. They were

-advancing, and the guns were supporting them already then—good,

-oh good!</p>

-

-<p>And as they marched back down the road they had come they

-met some of their stragglers hobbling painfully on bandaged feet,

-or picked them up from where they still lay in a stupor of sleep on

-the roadside. And to all of them the one word ‘advance’ was

-enough. ‘We’re going back ... it’s an advance,’ turned them

-staggering round to limp back in the tail of the battalion, or lifted

-them to their feet to follow on as best they might. They picked

-up more than their own men, too, men of other regiments who had

-straggled and fallen out, but now drew fresh store of strength from

-the cheerful word ‘advance,’ and would not be denied their chance

-to be in the van of it, but tailed on in rear of the battalion and

-struggled to keep up with them. ‘We’re all right, sir,’ said one

-when an officer would have turned him and sent him back to find

-his own battalion. ‘We’re pretty near done in on marching;

-but there’s a plenty fight left in us—specially when it’s an advance.’</p>

-

-<p>‘Jacko,’ said Peter, ‘I’m damn near dead; but thank the Lord

-I won’t ’ave to die runnin’ away.’</p>

-

-<p>‘All I asks,’ said Jacko, ‘is as fair a target on ’em as we’ve ’ad

-before, an’ a chance to put a ’ole in the back o’ some o’ <em>their</em> ’eads.’</p>

-

-<p>‘Ah!’ said Peter. ‘Pore little Blinker. They’ve got to pay

-for ’im an’ a few more like ’im.’</p>

-

-<p>‘They ’ave, blarst them,’ said Jacko savagely, and dropped his

-hand to his bayonet haft, slid the steel half out and home again.

-‘Don’t fret, chum, they’ll pay—soon or late, this time or nex’, one

-day or another—they’ll pay.’</p>

-

-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">

-</div><!--end chapter-->

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</span>

-<h2><span class="h3head"><i>THE LOST NAVAL PAPERS.</i></span></h2>

-

-<p class="center">BY BENNET COPPLESTONE.<br>

-<br>

-<abbr title="One">I.</abbr>

-<br>

-<span class="allsmcap">BAITING THE TRAP</span>.</p>

-

-<p><span class="smcap">This</span> story—which contains a moral for those fearful folk who

-exalt everything German—was told to me by Richard Cary, the

-accomplished naval correspondent of a big paper in the North of

-England. I have known him and his enthusiasm for the White

-Ensign for twenty years. He springs from an old naval stock,

-the Carys of North Devon, and has devoted his life to the study of

-the Sea Service. He had for so long been accustomed to move

-freely among shipyards and navymen, and was trusted so completely,

-that the veil of secrecy which dropped in August 1914

-between the Fleets and the world scarcely existed for him. Everything

-which he desired to know for the better understanding of the

-real work of the Navy came to him officially or unofficially. When,

-therefore, he states that the Naval Notes with which this story

-deals would have been of incalculable value to the enemy, I accept

-his word without hesitation. I have myself seen some of them

-and they made me tremble—for Cary’s neck. I pressed him to

-write this story himself, but he refused. ‘No,’ said he, ‘I have

-told you the yarn just as it happened; write it yourself. I am

-a dull dog, quite efficient at handling hard facts and making

-scientific deductions from them, but with no eye for the picturesque

-details. I give it to you.’ He rose to go—Cary had been lunching

-with me—but paused for an instant upon my front doorstep. ‘If

-you insist upon it,’ added he, smiling, ‘I don’t mind sharing in

-the plunder.’</p>

-

-<p class="p2">It was in the latter part of May 1916. Cary was hard at work

-one morning in his rooms in the Northern City where he had established

-his headquarters. His study table was littered with papers—notes,

-diagrams, and newspaper cuttings—and he was laboriously

-reducing the apparent chaos into an orderly series of chapters upon

-the Navy’s Work which he proposed to publish after the war was

-over. It was not designed to be an exciting book—Cary has no<span class="pagenum" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</span>

-dramatic instinct—but it would be full of fine sound stuff, close

-accurate detail, and clear analysis. Day by day for more than

-twenty months he had been collecting details of every phase of

-the Navy’s operations, here a little and there a little. He had

-recently returned from a confidential tour of the shipyards and

-naval bases, and had exercised his trained eye upon checking and

-amplifying what he had previously learned. While his recollection

-of this tour was fresh he was actively writing up his Notes and

-revising the rough early draft of his book. More than once it had

-occurred to him that his accumulations of Notes were dangerous

-explosives to store in a private house. They were becoming so

-full and so accurate that the enemy would have paid any sum or

-have committed any crime to secure possession of them. Cary

-is not nervous or imaginative—have I not said that he springs from

-a naval stock?—but even he now and then felt anxious. He would,

-I believe, have slept peacefully though knowing that a delicately

-primed bomb lay beneath his bed, for personal risks troubled him

-little, but the thought that hurt to his country might come from

-his well-meant labours sometimes rapped against his nerves. A few

-days before his patriotic conscience had been stabbed by no less

-a personage than Admiral Jellicoe, who, speaking to a group of

-naval students which included Cary, had said: ‘We have concealed

-nothing from you, for we trust absolutely to your discretion.

-Remember what you have seen, but do not make any notes.’ Yet

-here at this moment was Cary disregarding the orders of a Commander-in-Chief

-whom he worshipped. He tried to square his

-conscience by reflecting that no more than three people knew of

-the existence of his Notes or of the book which he was writing from

-them, and that each one of those three was as trustworthy as

-himself. So he went on collating, comparing, writing, and the

-heap upon his table grew bigger under his hands.</p>

-

-<p>The clock had just struck twelve upon that morning when a

-servant entered and said ‘A gentleman to see you, sir, upon

-important business. His name is Mr. Dawson.’</p>

-

-<p>Cary jumped up and went to his dining-room, where the visitor

-was waiting. The name had meant nothing to him, but the instant

-his eyes fell upon Mr. Dawson he remembered that he was the

-chief Scotland Yard officer who had come north to teach the local

-police how to keep track of the German agents who infested the

-shipbuilding centres. Cary had met Dawson more than once and

-had assisted him with his intimate local knowledge. He greeted<span class="pagenum" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</span>

-his visitor with smiling courtesy, but Dawson did not smile.

-His first words, indeed, came like shots from an automatic

-pistol.</p>

-

-<p>‘Mr. Cary,’ said he, ‘I want to see your Naval Notes.’</p>

-

-<p>Cary was staggered, for the three people whom I have mentioned

-did not include Mr. Dawson. ‘Certainly,’ said he, ‘I will show

-them to you if you ask officially. But how in the world did you

-hear anything about them?’</p>

-

-<p>‘I am afraid that a good many people know about them, most

-undesirable people, too. If you will show them to me—I am asking

-officially—I will tell you what I know.’</p>

-

-<p>Cary led the way to his study. Dawson glanced round the

-room, at the papers heaped upon the table, at the tall windows

-bare of curtains—Cary, who loved light and sunshine, hated

-curtains—and growled. Then he locked the door, pulled down the

-thick blue blinds required by the East Coast lighting orders, and

-switched on the electric lights though it was high noon in May.

-‘That’s better,’ said he. ‘You are an absolutely trustworthy man,

-Mr. Cary. I know all about you. But you are damned careless.

-That bare window is overlooked from half a dozen flats. You

-might as well do your work in the street.’</p>

-

-<p>Dawson picked up some of the papers, and their purport was

-explained to him by Cary. ‘I don’t know anything of naval

-details,’ said he, ‘but I don’t need any evidence of the value of

-the stuff here. The enemy wants it, wants it badly; that is good

-enough for me.’</p>

-

-<p>‘But,’ remonstrated Cary, ‘no one knows of these papers, or of

-the use to which I am putting them, except my son in the Navy,

-my wife (who has not read a line of them), and my publisher in

-London.’</p>

-

-<p>‘Hum!’ commented Dawson. ‘Then how do you account for

-this?’</p>

-

-<p>He opened his leather despatch-case and drew forth a parcel

-carefully wrapped up in brown paper. Within the wrapping was

-a large white envelope of the linen woven paper used for registered

-letters, and generously sealed. To Cary’s surprise, for the envelope

-appeared to be secure, Dawson cautiously opened it so as not to

-break the seal which was adhering to the flap and drew out a second

-smaller envelope, also sealed. This he opened in the same delicate

-way and took out a third; from the third he drew a fourth, and so

-on until eleven empty envelopes had been added to the litter piled<span class="pagenum" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</span>

-upon Cary’s table, and the twelfth, a small one, remained in

-Dawson’s hands.</p>

-

-<p>‘Did you ever see anything so childish?’ observed he, indicating

-the envelopes. ‘A big, registered, sealed Chinese puzzle like that is

-just crying out to be opened. We would have seen the inside of

-that one even if it had been addressed to the Lord Mayor, and not

-to—well, someone in whom we are deeply interested, though he

-does not know it.’</p>

-

-<p>Cary, who had been fascinated by the succession of sealed

-envelopes, stretched out his hand towards one of them. ‘Don’t

-touch,’ snapped out Dawson. ‘Your clumsy hands would break

-the seals, and then there would be the devil to pay. Of course all

-these envelopes were first opened in my office. It takes a dozen

-years to train men to open sealed envelopes so that neither flap nor

-seal is broken, and both can be again secured without showing a

-sign of disturbance. It is a trade secret.’</p>

-

-<p>Dawson’s expert fingers then opened the twelfth envelope and

-he produced a letter. ‘Now, Mr. Cary, if we had not known you

-and also known that you were absolutely honest and loyal—though

-dangerously simple-minded and careless in the matter of

-windows—this letter would have been very awkward indeed for

-you. It runs: “Hagan arrives 10.30 <span class="allsmcap">P.M.</span> Wednesday to get

-Cary’s Naval Notes. Meet him. Urgent.” Had we not known

-you, Mr. Richard Cary might have been asked to explain how

-Hagan knew all about his Naval Notes and was so very confident

-of being able to get them.’</p>

-

-<p>Cary smiled. ‘I have often felt,’ said he, ‘especially in war-time,

-that it was most useful to be well known to the police. You may

-ask me anything you like and I will do my best to answer. I confess

-that I am aghast at the searchlight of inquiry which has suddenly

-been turned upon my humble labours. My son at sea knows

-nothing of the Notes except what I have told him in my letters,

-my wife has not read a line of them, and my publisher is the last

-man to talk. I seem to have suddenly dropped into the middle

-of a detective story.’ The poor man scratched his head and

-smiled ruefully at the Scotland Yard officer.</p>

-

-<p>‘Mr. Cary,’ said Dawson, ‘those windows of yours would

-account for anything. You have been watched for a long time,

-and I am perfectly sure that our friend Hagan and his associates

-here know precisely in what drawer of that desk you keep your

-naval papers. Your flat is easy to enter—I had a look round<span class="pagenum" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</span>

-before coming in to-day—and on Wednesday night (that is to-morrow)

-there will be a scientific burglary here and your Notes

-will be stolen.’</p>

-

-<p>‘Oh no they won’t,’ cried Cary. ‘I will take them down this

-afternoon to my office and lock them up in the big safe. It will

-put me to a lot of bother, for I shall also have to lock up there the

-chapters of my book.’</p>

-

-<p>‘You newspaper men ought all to be locked up yourselves.

-You are a cursed nuisance to honest, hard-worked Scotland Yard

-men like me. But you mistake the object of my visit. I want this

-flat to be entered to-morrow night, and I want your naval papers

-to be stolen.’</p>

-

-<p>For a moment the wild thought came to Cary that this man

-Dawson—the chosen of the Yard—was himself a German Secret

-Service agent, and must have shown in his eyes some signs of the

-suspicion, for Dawson laughed loudly. ‘No, Mr. Cary, I am not

-in the Kaiser’s pay, nor are you, though the case against you might

-be painted pretty black. This man Hagan is on our string in

-London and we want him very badly indeed. Not to arrest—at

-least not just yet—but to keep running round showing us his

-pals and all their little games. He is an Irish American, a very

-unbenevolent neutral, to whom we want to give a nice, easy, happy

-time, so that he can mix himself up thoroughly with the spy business

-and wrap a rope many times round his neck. We will pull on to

-the end when we have finished with him, but not a minute too soon.

-He is too precious to be frightened. Did you ever come across such

-an ass’—Dawson contemptuously indicated the pile of sealed

-envelopes—‘he must have soaked himself in American dime

-novels and cinema crime films. He will be of more use to us than

-a dozen of our best officers. I feel that I love Hagan and won’t

-have him disturbed. When he comes here to-morrow night he

-shall be seen but not heard. He shall enter this room, lift your

-Notes, which shall be in their usual drawer, and shall take them

-safely away. After that I rather fancy that we shall enjoy ourselves,

-and that the salt will stick very firmly upon Hagan’s little

-tail.’</p>

-

-<p>Cary did not at all like this plan; it might offer amusement and

-instruction to the police, but seemed to involve himself in an

-excessive amount of responsibility. ‘Will it not be far too risky

-to let him take my Notes even if you do shadow him closely afterwards?

-He will get them copied and scattered amongst a score of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</span>

-agents, one of whom may get the information through to Germany.

-You know your job, of course, but the risk seems too big for me.

-After all, they are my Notes, and I would far sooner burn them now

-than that the Germans should see a line of them.’</p>

-

-<p>Dawson laughed again. ‘You are a dear simple soul, Mr. Cary;

-it does one good to meet you. Why on earth do you suppose

-I came here to-day if it were not to enlist your help? Hagan

-is going to take all the risks; you and I are not looking for any.

-He is going to steal some Naval Notes, but they will not be those

-which lie on this table. I myself will take charge of those and

-of the chapters of your most reprehensible book. You shall

-prepare, right now, a beautiful new artistic set of notes calculated

-to deceive. They must be accurate where any errors would be

-spotted, but wickedly false wherever deception would be good

-for Fritz’s health. I want you to get down to a real plant. This

-letter shall be sealed up again in its twelve silly envelopes and

-go by registered post to Hagan’s correspondent. You shall have

-till to-morrow morning to invent all those things which we want

-Fritz to believe about the Navy. Make us out to be as rotten as

-you plausibly can. Give him some heavy losses to gloat over

-and to tempt him out of harbour. Don’t overdo it, but mix up

-your fiction with enough facts to keep it sweet and make it sound

-convincing. If you do your work well—and the Naval authorities

-here seem to think a lot of you—Hagan will believe in your Notes,

-and will try to get them to his German friends at any cost or risk,

-which will be exactly what we want of him. Then, when he has

-served our purpose, he will find that we—have—no—more—use—for—him.’</p>

-

-<p>Dawson accompanied this slow, harmlessly sounding sentence

-with a grim and nasty smile. Cary, before whose eyes flashed

-for a moment the vision of a chill dawn, cold grey walls, and a

-silent firing party, shuddered. It was a dirty task to lay so subtle

-a trap even for a dirty Irish-American spy. His honest English

-soul revolted at the call upon his brains and knowledge, but common

-sense told him that in this way, Dawson’s way, he could do his

-country a very real service. For a few minutes he mused over the

-task set to his hand, and then spoke.</p>

-

-<p>‘All right. I think that I can put up exactly what you want.

-The faked Notes shall be ready when you come to-morrow. I

-will give the whole day to them.’</p>

-

-<p>In the morning the new set of Naval Papers was ready, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</span>

-their purport was explained in detail to Dawson, who chuckled

-joyously. ‘This is exactly what Admiral —— wants, and it shall

-get through to Germany by Fritz’s own channels. I have misjudged

-you, Mr. Cary; I thought you little better than a fool, but

-that story here of a collision in a fog and the list of damaged

-Queen Elizabeths in dock would have taken in even me. Fritz

-will suck it down like cream. I like that effort even better than

-your grave comments on damaged turbines and worn-out gun

-tubes. You are a genius, Mr. Cary, and I must take you to lunch

-with the Admiral this very day. You can explain the plant better

-than I can, and he is dying to hear all about it. Oh, by the way,

-he particularly wants a description of the failure to complete the

-latest batch of big shell fuses, and the shortage of lyddite. You

-might get that done before the evening. Now for the burglary.

-Do nothing, nothing at all, outside your usual routine. Come home

-at your usual hour, go to bed as usual, and sleep soundly if you

-can. Should you hear any noise in the night put your head under

-the bedclothes. Say nothing to Mrs. Cary unless you are obliged,

-and for God’s sake don’t let any woman—wife, daughter, or maidservant—disturb

-my pearl of a burglar while he is at work. He

-must have a clear run, with everything exactly as he expects to

-find it. Can I depend upon you?’</p>

-

-<p>‘I don’t pretend to like the business,’ said Cary, ‘but you can

-depend upon me to the letter of my orders.’</p>

-

-<p>‘Good,’ cried Dawson. ‘That is all I want.’</p>

-

-<p class="p2 center"><abbr title="Two">II.</abbr><br>

-<span class="allsmcap">THE TRAP CLOSES</span>.</p>

-

-<p>Cary heard no noise though he lay awake for most of the night,

-listening intently. The flat seemed to be more quiet even than

-usual. There was little traffic in the street below, and hardly

-a step broke the long silence of the night. Early in the morning—at

-six B.S.T.—Cary slipped out of bed, stole down to his study,

-and pulled open the deep drawer in which he had placed the bundle

-of faked Naval Notes. They had gone! So the Spy-Burglar had

-come, and, carefully shepherded by Dawson’s sleuth-hounds, had

-found the primrose path easy for his crime. To Cary, the simple,

-honest gentleman, the whole plot seemed to be utterly revolting—justified,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</span>

-of course, by the country’s needs in time of war, but none

-the less revolting. There is nothing of glamour in the Secret

-Service, nothing of romance, little even of excitement. It is a cold-blooded

-exercise of wits against wits, of spies against spies. The

-amateur plays a fish upon a line and gives him a fair run for his

-life, but the professional fisherman—to whom a salmon is a people’s

-food—nets him coldly and expeditiously as he comes in from the

-sea.</p>

-

-<p>Shortly after breakfast there came a call from Dawson on the

-telephone. ‘All goes well. Come to my office as soon as possible.’

-Cary found Dawson bubbling with professional satisfaction. ‘It

-was beautiful,’ cried he. ‘Hagan was met at the train, taken to

-a place we know of, and shadowed by us tight as wax. We now

-know all his associates—the swine have not even the excuse of

-being German. He burgled your flat himself while one of his gang

-watched outside. Never mind where I was; you would be surprised

-if I told you; but I saw everything. He has the faked papers, is

-busy making copies, and this afternoon is going down the river in

-a steamer to get a glimpse of the shipyards and docks and check

-your Notes as far as can be done. Will they stand all right?’</p>

-

-<p>‘Quite all right,’ said Cary. ‘The obvious things were given

-correctly.’</p>

-

-<p>‘Good. We will be in the steamer.’</p>

-

-<p>Cary went that afternoon, quite unchanged in appearance by

-Dawson’s order. ‘If you try to disguise yourself,’ declared that

-expert, ‘you will be spotted at once. Leave the refinements to

-us.’ Dawson himself went as an elderly dug-out officer with the

-rank marks of a colonel, and never spoke a word to Cary upon the

-whole trip down and up the teeming river. Dawson’s men were

-scattered here and there—one a passenger of inquiring mind,

-another a deckhand, yet a third—a pretty girl in khaki—sold tea

-and cakes in the vessel’s saloon. Hagan—who, Cary heard afterwards,

-wore the brass-bound cap and blue kit of a mate in the

-American merchant service—was never out of sight for an instant

-of Dawson or of one of his troupe. He busied himself with a strong

-pair of marine glasses and now and then asked innocent questions

-of the ship’s deckhands. He had evidently himself once served as

-a sailor. One deckhand, an idle fellow to whom Hagan was very

-civil, told his questioner quite a lot of interesting details about the

-Navy ships, great and small, which could be seen upon the building

-slips. All these details tallied strangely with those recorded in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</span>

-Cary’s Notes. The trip up and down the river was a great success

-for Hagan and for Dawson, but for Cary it was rather a bore. He

-felt somehow out of the picture. In the evening Dawson called

-at Cary’s office and broke in upon him. ‘We had a splendid trip

-to-day,’ said he. ‘It exceeded my utmost hopes. Hagan thinks

-no end of your Notes, but he is not taking any risks. He leaves in

-the morning for Glasgow to do the Clyde and to check some more

-of your stuff. Would you like to come?’ Cary remarked that he

-was rather busy, and that these river excursions, though doubtless

-great fun for Dawson, were rather poor sport for himself. Dawson

-laughed joyously—he was a cheerful soul when he had a spy upon

-his string. ‘Come along,’ said he. ‘See the thing through. I

-should like you to be in at the death.’ Cary observed that he had

-no stomach for cold damp dawns, and firing parties.</p>

-

-<p>‘I did not quite mean that,’ replied Dawson. ‘Those closing

-ceremonies are still strictly private. But you should see the

-chase through to a finish. You are a newspaper man and should

-be eager for new experiences.’</p>

-

-<p>‘I will come,’ said Cary, rather reluctantly. ‘But I warn you

-that my sympathies are steadily going over to Hagan. The poor

-devil does not look to have a dog’s chance against you.’</p>

-

-<p>‘He hasn’t,’ said Dawson with great satisfaction.</p>

-

-<p>Cary, to whom the wonderful Clyde was as familiar as the river

-near his own home, found the second trip almost as wearisome

-as the first. But not quite. He was now able to recognise Hagan,

-who again appeared as a brass-bounder, and did not affect to

-conceal his deep interest in the Naval panorama offered by the

-river. Nothing of real importance can, of course, be learned

-from a casual steamer trip, but Hagan seemed to think otherwise,

-for he was always either watching through his glasses or asking

-apparently artless questions of passengers or passing deckhands.

-Again a sailor seemed disposed to be communicative; he pointed

-out more than one monster in steel, red raw with surface rust,

-and gave particulars of a completed power which would have

-surprised the Admiralty Superintendent. They would not, however,

-have surprised Mr. Cary, in whose ingenious brain they had been

-conceived. This second trip, like the first, was declared by Dawson

-to have been a great success. ‘Did you know me?’ he asked.

-‘I was a clean-shaven Naval doctor, about as unlike the Army

-colonel of the first trip as a pigeon is unlike a gamecock. Hagan

-is off to London to-night by the North-Western. There are three<span class="pagenum" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</span>

-copies of your Notes. One is going by Edinburgh and the east

-coast, and another by the Midland. Hagan has the original masterpiece.

-I will look after him and leave the two other messengers

-to my men. I have been on to the Yard by ’phone and have

-arranged that all three shall have passports for Holland. The

-two copies shall reach the Kaiser, bless him, but I really must

-have Hagan’s set of Notes for my Museum.’</p>

-

-<p>‘And what will become of Hagan?’ asked Cary.</p>

-

-<p>‘Come and see,’ said Mr. Dawson.</p>

-

-<p>Dawson entertained Cary at dinner in a private room at the

-Station Hotel, waited upon by one of his own confidential men.

-‘Nobody ever sees me,’ he observed with much satisfaction, ‘though

-I am everywhere.’ (I suspect that Dawson is not without his

-little vanities.) ‘Except in my office and with people whom

-I know well, I am always someone else. The first time I came to

-your house I wore a beard, and the second time looked like a gas

-inspector. You saw only the real Dawson. When one has got

-the passion for the chase in one’s blood, one cannot bide for long

-in a stuffy office. As I have a jewel of an assistant, I can always

-escape and follow up my own victims. This man Hagan is a

-black heartless devil. Don’t waste your sympathy on him,

-Mr. Cary. He took money from us quite lately to betray the

-silly asses of Sinn Feiners, and now, thinking us hoodwinked, is

-after more money from the Kaiser. He is of the type that

-would sell his own mother and buy a mistress with the money.

-He’s not worth your pity. We use him and his like for just so

-long as they can be useful, and then the jaws of the trap close.

-By letting him take those faked Notes we have done a fine

-stroke for the Navy, for the Yard, and for Bill Dawson. We

-have got into close touch with four new German agents here and

-two more down south. We shan’t seize them yet; just keep them

-hanging on and use them. That’s the game. I am never anxious

-about an agent when I know him and can keep him watched.

-Anxious, bless you; I love him like a cat loves a mouse. I’ve had

-some spies on my string ever since the war began; I wouldn’t have

-them touched or worried for the world. Their correspondence

-tells me everything, and if a letter to Holland which they haven’t

-written slips in sometimes it’s useful, very useful, as useful almost

-as your faked Notes.’</p>

-

-<p>Half an hour before the night train was due to leave for the

-South, Dawson, very simply but effectively changed in appearance—for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</span>

-Hagan knew by sight the real Dawson,—led Cary to the

-middle sleeping-coach on the train. ‘I have had Hagan put in

-No. 5,’ he said, ‘and you and I will take Nos. 4 and 6. No. 5 is

-an observation berth; there is one fixed up for us on this sleeping-coach.

-Come in here.’ He pulled Cary into No. 4, shut the door,

-and pointed to a small wooden knob set a few inches below the

-luggage rack. ‘If one unscrews that knob one can see into the

-next berth, No. 5. No. 6 is fitted in the same way, so that we can

-rake No. 5 from both sides. But, mind you, on no account touch

-those knobs until the train is moving fast and until you have

-switched out the lights. If No. 5 was dark when you opened the

-peep-hole, a ray of light from your side would give the show away.

-And unless there was a good deal of vibration and rattle in the

-train you might be heard. Now cut away to No. 6, fasten the

-door, and go to bed. I shall sit up and watch, but there is nothing

-for you to do.’</p>

-

-<p>Hagan appeared in due course, was shown into No. 5 berth,

-and the train started. Cary asked himself whether he should go

-to bed as advised or sit up reading. He decided to obey Dawson’s

-orders, but to take a look in upon Hagan before settling down

-for the journey. He switched off his lights, climbed upon the

-bed, and carefully unscrewed the little knob which was like the

-one shown to him by Dawson. A beam of light stabbed the darkness

-of his berth, and putting his eye with some difficulty to the

-hole—one’s nose gets so confoundedly in the way—he saw Hagan

-comfortably arranging himself for the night. The spy had no

-suspicion of his watchers on both sides, for, after settling himself

-in bed, he unwrapped a flat parcel, and took out a bundle of blue

-papers which Cary at once recognised as the originals of his stolen

-Notes. Hagan went through them—he had put his suit-case

-across his knees to form a desk—and carefully made marginal

-jottings. Cary, who had often tried to write in trains, could not

-but admire the man’s laborious patience. He painted his letters and

-figures over and over again, in order to secure distinctness, in spite

-of the swaying of the train, and frequently stopped to suck the

-point of his pencil.</p>

-

-<p>‘I suppose,’ thought Cary, ‘that Dawson yonder is just gloating

-over his prey, but for my part I feel an utterly contemptible

-beast. Never again will I set a trap for even the worst of my

-fellow-creatures.’ He put back the knob, went to bed, and passed

-half the night in extreme mental discomfort and the other half<span class="pagenum" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</span>

-in snatching brief intervals of sleep. It was not a pleasant

-journey.</p>

-

-<p>Dawson did not come out of his berth at Euston until after

-Hagan had left the station in a taxicab, much to Cary’s surprise,

-and then was quite ready, even anxious, to remain for breakfast

-at the hotel. He explained his strange conduct. ‘Two of my

-men,’ said he, as he wallowed in tea and fried soles—one cannot

-get Dover soles in the weary North—‘who travelled in ordinary

-compartments, are after Hagan in two taxis, so that if one is delayed

-the other will keep touch. Hagan’s driver also has had a police

-warning, so that our spy is in a barbed-wire net. I shall hear

-before very long all about him.’</p>

-

-<p>Cary and Dawson spent the morning at the hotel with a telephone

-beside them; every few minutes the bell would ring, and a whisper

-of Hagan’s movements steal over the wires into the ears of the

-spider Dawson. He reported progress to Cary with ever-increasing

-satisfaction.</p>

-

-<p>‘Hagan has applied for and been granted a passport to

-Holland, and has booked a passage in the boat which leaves

-Harwich to-night for the Hook. We will go with him. The other

-two spies, with the copies, haven’t turned up yet, but they are

-all right. My men will see them safe across into Dutch territory,

-and make sure that no blundering Customs officer interferes with

-their papers. This time the way of transgressors shall be very

-soft. As for Hagan, he is not going to arrive.’</p>

-

-<p>‘I don’t quite understand why you carry on so long with him,’

-said Cary, who, though tired, could not but feel intense interest in

-the perfection of the police system and in the serene confidence of

-Dawson. The Yard could, it appeared, do unto the spies precisely

-what Dawson chose to direct.</p>

-

-<p>‘Hagan is an American citizen,’ explained Dawson. ‘If he had

-been a British subject I would have taken him at Euston—we

-have full evidence of the burglary, and of the stolen papers in his

-suit-case. But as he is a damned unbenevolent neutral, and the

-American Government is very touchy, we must prove his intention

-to sell the papers to Germany. Then we can deal with him by

-secret court-martial, and President Wilson can go to blazes. The

-journey to Holland will prove this intention. Hagan has been

-most useful to us in Ireland, and now in the North of England and

-in Scotland, but he is too enterprising and too daring to be left

-any longer on the string. I will draw the ends together at the Hook.’</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</span>

-‘I did not want to go to Holland,’ said Cary to me, when telling

-his story. ‘I was utterly sick and disgusted with the whole cold-blooded

-game of cat and mouse, but the police needed my evidence

-about the Notes and the burglary, and did not intend to let me

-slip out of their clutches. Dawson was very civil and pleasant,

-but I was in fact as tightly held upon his string as was the wretched

-Hagan. So I went on to Holland with that quick-change artist,

-and watched him come on board the steamer at Parkeston Quay,

-dressed as a rather German-looking commercial traveller, eager for

-war commissions upon smuggled goods. This sounds absurd, but

-his get-up seemed somehow to suggest the idea. Then I went

-below. Dawson always kept away from me whenever Hagan

-might have seen us together.’</p>

-

-<p>The passage across to Holland was free from incident; there

-was no sign that we were at war, and Continental traffic was

-being carried serenely on, within easy striking distance of the

-German submarine base at Zeebrugge. The steamer had drawn

-in to the Hook beside the train, and Hagan was approaching the

-gangway, suit-case in hand. The man was on the edge of safety;

-once upon Dutch soil, Dawson could not have laid hands upon him.

-He would have been a neutral citizen in a neutral country, and no

-English warrant would run against him. But between Hagan

-and the gangway suddenly interposed the tall form of the ship’s

-captain; instantly the man was ringed about by officers, and before

-he could say a word or move a hand he was gripped hard and led

-across the deck to the steamer’s chart-house. Therein sat Dawson,

-the real, undisguised Dawson, and beside him sat Richard Cary.

-Hagan’s face, which two minutes earlier had been glowing with

-triumph and with the anticipation of German gold beyond the

-dreams of avarice, went white as chalk. He staggered and gasped

-as one stabbed to the heart, and dropped into a chair. His suit-case

-fell from his relaxed fingers to the floor.</p>

-

-<p>‘Give him a stiff brandy-and-soda,’ directed Dawson, almost

-kindly, and when the victim’s colour had ebbed back a little from

-his overcharged heart, and he had drunk deep of the friendly

-cordial, the detective put him out of pain. The game of cat and

-mouse was over.</p>

-

-<p>‘It is all up, Hagan,’ said the detective gently. ‘Face the

-music and make the best of it, my poor friend. This is Mr. Richard

-Cary, and you have not for a moment been out of our sight since

-you left London for the north four days ago.’</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</span>

-When I had completed the writing of his story I showed the

-MS. to Richard Cary, who was pleased to express a general approval.

-‘Not at all bad, Copplestone,’ said he, ‘not at all bad. You

-have clothed my dry bones in real flesh and blood. But you have

-missed what to me is the outstanding feature of the whole affair, that

-which justifies to my mind the whole rather grubby business. Let

-me give you two dates. On May 25 two copies of my faked Notes

-were shepherded through to Holland and reached the Germans;

-on May 31 was fought the Battle of Jutland. Can the brief space

-between these dates have been merely an accident? I cannot

-believe it. No, I prefer to believe that in my humble way I

-induced the German Fleet to issue forth and to risk an

-action which, under more favourable conditions for us, would

-have resulted in their utter destruction. I may be wrong, but I

-am happy in retaining my faith.’</p>

-

-<p>‘What became of Hagan?’ I asked, for I wished to bring the

-narrative to a clean artistic finish.</p>

-

-<p>‘I am not sure,’ answered Cary, ‘though I gave evidence as

-ordered by the court-martial. But I rather think that I have

-here Hagan’s epitaph.’ He took out his pocket-book, and drew

-forth a slip of paper upon which was gummed a brief newspaper

-cutting. This he handed to me, and I read as follows:</p>

-

-<div class="blockquot_narrow">

-<p class="small">The War Office announces that a prisoner

-who was charged with espionage and recently

-tried by court-martial at the Westminster

-Guildhall was found guilty and sentenced to

-death. The sentence was duly confirmed and

-carried out yesterday morning.</p>

-</div><!--end narrow blockquote-->

-

-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">

-</div><!--end chapter-->

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</span>

-<h2><span class="h3head"><i>THREE GENERATIONS.</i></span></h2>

-

-<p class="p2"><span class="smcap">Out</span> in the quiet paddock, with the mellow brick walls screening

-them from the common life in Bushey Park, they are browsing

-gently through the last days of their existence. It is not so many

-years since, gay with trappings, led by a groom apiece to restrain

-their Hanoverian tempers, these old cream-coloured horses drew

-the wonderful glass coach through the streets of London, haughtily

-accepting for themselves the acclamations of the people. At

-how many pageants, could they but tell us, have they not assisted?

-Are they old enough to have drawn Queen Victoria to her Diamond

-Jubilee, and did they drag that heavy gun-carriage with its

-pathetically small burden through the mourning streets on a

-Queen’s last journey? Certainly in their own estimation they were

-the central figures on the chilly August day when they at last

-carried King Edward to Westminster Abbey amid the joyous thanksgiving

-of a whole Empire. Their reminiscences would not probably

-take them very far into the present reign. It must be some little

-time since the next generation callously ousted them from between

-the royal shafts, stripped them once for all of their gay trappings,

-and set them on a back shelf of history.</p>

-

-<p>So now they browse and slumber among the buttercups, and

-perhaps wonder vaguely at their unshorn and generally disordered

-condition, and at their prolonged days of idleness. They know

-and care nothing about the war. They are aliens who have no

-need to be registered, naturalised as they have been by long generations

-of royal service. For it is just two hundred years since the

-first George, in a spirit of arrogance which, as a race, they appear to

-have assimilated, brought their ancestors from Hanover to draw

-his royal coach in his adopted country.</p>

-

-<p>They came with those ill-featured ladies who, according to

-tradition, gave the name to the <cite>Frog Walk</cite> outside the Palace

-walls—yes, <em>outside</em>—and the creams had nothing to do with them.

-Never, in the course of their aristocratic history, have they drawn

-anything but crowned heads and their most legitimate spouses,

-and for this the British nation reveres and respects them. And

-now these, their descendants in the paddock, have done with streets

-and crowds and uniforms—and even with sovereigns. Sometimes

-one old fellow will lift his head at the sound of the children’s cries<span class="pagenum" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</span>

-on the swings in the Park, and wonder if he is once more being

-cheered by the populace, but his dim eyes can only see the chestnuts

-hanging out their red and white candles, and a crow laughs at him

-from the wall. By his side his comrades, wholly unmoved, with

-hanging heads and slowly switching tails, are busy cropping the

-sweet grass, with no thought beyond it. Old age does sometimes,

-in spite of evidence to the contrary, broaden and mellow the sympathies,

-and the Cream Colours, who have been above all things

-exclusive, have developed a very soft spot in their hearts for the

-old bay horse who shares their paddock. Possibly he, who, whatever

-he has done in private life, in royal processions has never

-aspired beyond princesses, knows how to keep his place. At all

-events, when a sudden spurt of renewed activity will carry him at

-a gallant pace across the paddock, the august Three will follow

-him at a feeble canter and with anxious whinnies, until at last,

-finding him on the other side, they will happily nuzzle their noses

-into his neck, with every sign of equine affection, which he must

-accept with mingled pride and resignation. Is he not the <i lang="fr">enfant

-gâté de la maison</i>?</p>

-

-<p>Well, their great days are over, but they could have found

-no more dignified place of retirement than under the royal shadow

-of Hampton Court Palace, the accepted home of retirement and

-dignity.</p>

-

-<p>Meantime, out in the road, could they but know it, their successors

-on these summer mornings are taking part in a strange,

-rather pathetic mimicry of those greater pageants which have no

-place in war-time. For the Cream Colours of to-day cannot be

-allowed to idle like their parents. Much may yet, we hope, be

-expected of them, and they must not forget the manner of that

-service to which alone they owe their existence. So in the early

-morning, when trams are few and other traffic is non-existent,

-they may be met, eight of them, stepping proudly along, with

-arched necks and haughty expressions, quite unaware that the

-grooms holding to their bridles are in mufti, that their trappings

-are of plain wood, and that the royal coach they imagine to be

-rumbling behind them resembles nothing so much as an empty

-jail van! The King in the fairy tale was not better pleased with

-his imaginary fine raiment than the Cream Colours with their

-phantom state. But nobody troubles to undeceive them; the

-rooks flap cawing overhead in pursuit of their breakfasts, and

-the cuckoo monotonously calling from the Home Park is entirely<span class="pagenum" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</span>

-absorbed in his own business. All is vanity, and in another

-few years they also will be cropping buttercups, with no higher

-aspiration.</p>

-

-<p>For the next generation is already knocking at the door. On

-the further side of the road from his forebears, a little dusky foal

-who will some day be of a correct highly polished cream colour

-is kicking up his heels in a paddock, a truly royal nursery with a

-golden floor. He is separated even at this early age from his

-black and bay contemporaries, whose lot, however, will certainly

-be more varied and interesting than any which he can look for.

-Let us hope that he may still be in the nursery when his sleek

-elders, now disappearing in their own dust along the road, will draw

-their sovereign in state to return thanks for the greatest of all

-victories, and the establishment of a righteous peace throughout

-the world.</p>

-

-<p class="quotesig"><span class="smcap">Rose M. Bradley.</span></p>

-

-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">

-</div><!--end chapter-->

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</span>

-<h2><span class="h3head"><i>ARMY UNIFORMS, PAST AND PRESENT.</i></span></h2>

-<p class="center">BY THE RT. HON. SIR HERBERT MAXWELL, BT.</p>

-

-<p class="p2"><span class="smcap">In</span> the early ’seventies of last century there was staged in London

-a very amusing musical comedy called <cite>The Happy Land</cite>, the scene

-being laid in Paradise. Among the principal characters were

-extremely skilful and poignant burlesques of Mr. Gladstone, Prime

-Minister at the time, Mr. Lowe, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and

-Mr. Ayrton, First Commissioner of Works. The piece had but a

-short, though brilliant, run in the metropolis; for the Lord

-Chamberlain ordered it off the stage, not on the grounds of what

-is usually implied by immorality, but because it brought Her

-Majesty’s Ministers into contempt by mordant caricature of their

-features and action.<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> It is not known—to me, at least—which of

-the three victims set the censorship in motion. Certainly it was

-not ‘Bob’ Lowe, who was gifted with a fine strain of humour.

-Probably it was done at Mr. Ayrton’s instance, he being destitute

-of that saving grace, and, besides, having been more mercilessly

-satirised in the play than his colleagues. He had outraged public

-feeling, if not public taste, by some acts of his administration as

-ædile, notably by painting grey some of the fine stone-work in the

-lobbies of the Houses of Parliament. I forget the libretto of <cite>The

-Happy Land</cite>; but this much I remember, that, whereas in the first

-act the scenery of Paradise appeared glowing with rainbow radiance

-and shimmering with gems, in the second act it represented the

-effect of Ayrton’s régime—everything had been painted ‘government

-grey.’</p>

-

-<p>All this was brought to mind by the change wrought upon the

-appearance of the British Army after the outbreak of the South

-African war in 1899. By a wave of his wand or a scratch of his

-quill the Secretary of State for War, Mr. St. John Brodrick (now

-Viscount Midleton) quenched all gaiety of colour in the fighting

-dress of our troops; the historic thin red line was to be seen no

-more; the glittering squadrons were doomed to ride in raiment

-as sombre as the dust of their own raising; henceforward standards

-and regimental colours were to be returned to store before the

-troops went on active service.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</span>

-Had that been all, it would have sufficed to mark a notable era

-in the operations of war—a wise measure, imposed upon the Army

-Council by the vast improvement in the range, trajectory, and

-precision of artillery and small arms. Hitherto it had been the

-object of the military authorities of all nations to make their fighting

-men as conspicuous as possible, exaggerating their stature by

-fantastic headgear and setting them in strong relief to every variety

-of natural background by means of bright colours and pipeclay.

-The Brigade of Guards landed in the Crimea without their knapsacks,

-which followed in another ship. The men had to do

-without them for some weeks; but the cumbrous bearskin caps

-were considered indispensable, and offered a fine target for the

-Russian defenders of the slopes of the Alma. The hint was

-thrown away upon our military authorities. It required a

-sharper lesson to convince them of the cruel absurdity of figging

-out men for battle in a dress that hampered the limbs and obscured

-the eyesight. The Guards were not more absurdly dressed on that

-occasion than the rest of the British troops. The late Sir William

-Flower described to me his feelings when, as surgeon of an

-infantry regiment, he stepped out from a boat on the wet sands

-at the mouth of the Alma, dressed in a skin-tight scarlet coatee with

-swallow tails, a high collar enclosing a black stock, close-fitting

-trousers tightly strapped over Wellington boots, and a cocked hat!</p>

-

-<p>Two years before that—in 1852—Colonel Luard published his

-<cite>History of the Dress of the British Soldier</cite>. Having served as a

-heavy dragoon in the Peninsula, as a light dragoon at Waterloo, as

-a lancer in India, and as a staff officer both in India and at home,

-he had practical experience of the variety of torment inflicted by

-different kinds of uniform. He advocated many reforms in the

-soldier’s dress, tending as much to increased efficiency as to comfort,

-and he supported his argument by extracts from his correspondence

-with regimental officers. One of these wrote—‘If an infantry

-soldier has to step over a drain two feet broad, he has to put one

-hand to his cap to keep it on his head, and his other to his pouch,

-and what becomes of his musket?’ And this, be it remembered,

-was the fighting-kit; for no general in those days ever dreamed of

-taking troops into action except in full review order.</p>

-

-<p>James <abbr title="One">I.</abbr> was not a warlike king, but he was a pretty shrewd

-observer of men and matters. He was not far wrong when he

-observed that plate armour was a fine thing, for it not only protected

-the life of the wearer, but hindered him from hurting anybody else!<span class="pagenum" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</span>

-The remark might have been applied with equal justice to the

-costume of British soldiers in the Crimean campaign, except that

-<a id="chg1"></a>it afforded no protection to the wearer’s life or limb. It required

-nearly one hundred years of painful experience to convince the

-War Office that it was cruel stupidity to put men in the field in

-clothing so tight as to fetter the limbs and compress the chest.

-That was the legacy of George IV. to the British Army.</p>

-

-<p>Although, to one looking back over the history of what is now

-the United Kingdom, the most salient features seem to be campaigns

-and battles, invasion and counter-invasion, it was not until the

-Civil War that any attempt was made towards a uniform dress

-for any army. It is true that both the English and Scottish Parliaments

-from time to time prescribed with the utmost care the

-offensive and defensive armour with which every able-bodied

-subject was to provide himself or be provided by his feudal chief,

-and if that chief were a wealthy baron his following would be

-clothed in his liveries. Thus, in describing the famous scene at

-Lauder when Archibald Douglas, fifth Earl of Angus, won his

-sobriquet of Bell-the-Cat, Pitscottie tells us in deliciously quaint

-phrase how luckless Thomas Cochrane, newly created Earl of

-Mar, rode down to the kirk where the disaffected lords were in

-conference, at the head of three hundred men all dressed in his

-liveries of white doublets with black bands. Cromwell was the

-first ruler of England who succeeded in what several of his

-predecessors had failed—in maintaining a standing army. At one

-time he had 80,000 men under arms. There was a degree of

-uniformity in the dress of his cavalry and infantry. It consisted

-mainly of buff coats, with the addition of breast and

-back pieces, iron caps, and other defensive armour. But that

-army was disbanded after the Restoration, and it was not until

-the reign of William III. that a standing army was finally constituted,

-and colonels commanding regiments, being allowed a

-sufficient sum for clothing the men, were required to do so according

-to sealed pattern.</p>

-

-<p>Throughout the eighteenth century, the British soldier’s dress

-was, on the whole, both picturesque and comfortable. In cut, it

-conformed pretty faithfully to the fashion prevailing in civilian

-attire, though there occurred an interval when George II. inflicted

-upon his Guards regiments the preposterous conical head-dress,

-copied from the Prussian Guards of Frederick the Great. This

-disfiguring headgear did not last very long, and gave place before<span class="pagenum" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</span>

-the end of the century to the three-cocked hat of the style called,

-I believe, Nivernois or Kevenhüller.</p>

-

-<p>The easy grace of the full-dress uniform of an officer of the Guards

-towards the close of the eighteenth century is admirably shown in

-Romney’s portrait of John, tenth Earl of Westmorland, now at

-Osterley Park. It shows a long-skirted scarlet frock, lined with

-white, faced with blue, with ruffles at the wrists, and without any

-ornament save a pair of gilt epaulets of moderate size and soft

-material, very different from the cumbrous, unyielding things now

-prescribed for naval officers and lords-lieutenant. The frock is

-worn open over a Ramillies cravat and waistcoat and breeches

-of white kersey. It would be difficult to devise a dress for a soldier

-so well combining comfort and dignified distinction. To one feature

-only can objection be taken. The powdered and curled hair,

-clubbed in a pigtail, looks charming on Romney’s canvas, but must

-have proved an intolerable nuisance both to officers and men.</p>

-

-<div class="blockquot">

-<p class="p2">‘During the command of the late Duke of Kent at Gibraltar

-[1802-3], when a field-day was ordered, there not being sufficient

-barbers in the town to attend to all the officers in the morning, the

-seniors claimed the privilege of their rank; the juniors consequently

-were obliged to have their heads dressed the night before; and to

-preserve the beauty of this artistic arrangement—pomatumed,

-powdered, curled and clubbed—these poor fellows were obliged to

-sleep on their faces! It is said that in the adjutant’s office of each

-regiment there was kept a pattern of the correct curls, to which

-the barbers could refer.’<a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></p>

-</div>

-

-<p>The men wore tunics of a cut similar to those of the officers, but

-of coarser cloth. They were buttoned up on duty, the skirts being

-looped back. It was a thoroughly sensible and workmanlike

-dress, giving perfect freedom to breathing and circulation, together

-with protection to loins and thighs. The Chelsea pensioners wear

-a coat of the old infantry pattern to this day.</p>

-

-<p>With the Regency came a vicious change. The Prince Regent

-paid incessant attention to dress—both to his own and that of

-others. He was proud of his figure, which, indeed, was a fine one

-till it was ruined by excess, and he loved to display it in closely

-fitting dress. Nor was he content until he got his father’s army

-buttoned up to the limit of endurance and disfigured by headgear<span class="pagenum" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</span>

-of appalling dimensions. The easy open collar and Ramillies tie

-were replaced by an upright fence of buckram and a leather stock.

-It would be hardly credible, were there not abundant evidence in

-the correspondence of the Horse Guards to prove it, that while

-Wellington was absorbed in manœuvring against immensely

-superior forces in Spain, he had to give attention to correspondence

-about changes in the dress of the army, not with a view to making

-it more comfortable and workmanlike, but in order to gratify the

-caprice of the Prince Regent. No man ever gave less thought

-to niceties of tailoring than Lord Wellington (as he was at that

-time). His views are set forth in a letter to the Military Secretary

-who had consulted him about the uniform to be prescribed for

-those regiments of Light Dragoons which the Prince Regent had

-desired the Duke of York (recently reinstated as Commander-in-Chief)

-to convert into Hussars.</p>

-

-<div class="blockquot">

-<p class="quotesig">

-‘<span class="smcap">Freneda</span>, <i>6th November, 1811</i>.</p>

-

-<p>‘... There is no subject of which I understand so little [as military

-uniforms], and, abstractedly speaking, I think it indifferent how

-a soldier is clothed, provided it is in an uniform manner, and that

-he is forced to keep himself clean and smart, as a soldier ought to

-be. But there is one thing I deprecate, and that is any imitation

-of the French in any manner. It is impossible to form an idea of

-the inconvenience and injury which result from having anything

-like them, either on horseback or on foot.<a id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> Lutyens and his piquet

-were taken in June because the 3rd Hussars had the same caps

-as the French <i lang="fr">Chasseurs-à-cheval</i> and some of their Hussars, and

-I was near being taken on September 25 from the same cause. At

-a distance or in action colours are nothing; the profile and shape

-of a man’s cap, and his general appearance, are what guide us; and

-why should we make our people look like the French?... I

-only beg that we may be as different as possible from the French

-in everything. The narrow tops of our infantry, as opposed to

-their broad top caps, are a great advantage to those who are to

-look at long lines of posts opposed to each other.’</p>

-</div>

-

-<p>Two years later, at the battle of Vitoria, the justice of Wellington’s

-views about the soldier’s uniform received apt illustration.

-Wellington on that day kept the Light Division and 4th Division

-under his immediate command. The 3rd and 7th Divisions, under

-Picton and Lord Dalhousie, were to join him in order to complete<span class="pagenum" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</span>

-the centre of the line, but they had difficult ground to traverse,

-and were late. The Zadora flowed swift and deep in front of the

-French position. A countryman having informed Wellington that

-the bridge of Tres Puentes was unguarded, Kempt’s riflemen were

-sent forward to seize it, which they did, and went so far up the

-heights on the farther side that they were able to establish themselves

-in shelter of a crest well in rear of a French advanced post.

-There they lay, until Wellington’s line was completed by the

-arrival of ‘old Picton, riding at the head of the 3rd Division,

-dressed in a blue coat and a round hat, swearing as loudly all the

-way as if he wore two cocked ones.’<a id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> The 7th Division came up

-at the same time, and while they were deploying the enemy opened

-fire upon them. Kempt immediately drew his riflemen from their

-shelter and took the French batteries in flank, thereby enabling

-the 3rd Division to cross the bridge of Mendoza without loss. But

-the dark uniforms of the Rifles deceived the British on the other

-side of the river into the belief that they were French. A battery

-opened upon them and continued pounding them with round shot

-and shrapnel till the advance of Picton’s Division revealed the

-blunder.</p>

-

-<p>Wellington’s warning against copying the uniforms of other

-nations received little attention. After 1815, when he was in

-command of the Army of Occupation in Paris, it was decided to

-arm four regiments of cavalry with lances, a most effective weapon

-which had not been carried by British troops since the seventeenth

-century. One would have supposed that the lance might be wielded

-as effectively by a man dressed as a light dragoon or a hussar as

-in any other rig; but the Prince Regent hailed the innovation as

-an opportunity for an entirely new costume. Consequently the

-9th, 12th, 16th and 23rd Light Dragoons were put into a Polish

-dress, modified in such manner as to agree with his Royal Highness’s

-sartorial taste.</p>

-

-<div class="blockquot">

-<p class="p2">‘An officer of rank commanding one of the Lancer regiments

-was ordered to attend the Prince Regent to fit the new jacket on

-him. The tailor, with a pair of scissors, was ordered to cut smooth

-every wrinkle and fine-draw the seams. The consequence was

-that the coats of the private soldiers, as well as those of the officers,

-were made so tight they could hardly get into them; the freedom

-of action was so restricted that the infantry with difficulty handled

-their muskets, and the cavalry could scarcely do the sword exercise.’</p>

-</div>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</span>

-The cuirass had been discontinued in the British cavalry since

-1794, when it had been found most unsuitable for active service

-in the Netherlands. But it was far too showy a piece of goods

-to escape the Prince Regent’s attention. Accordingly the three

-regiments of Household Cavalry were made to appear at his coronation

-in 1820 in steel cuirasses and burnished helmets, with enormous

-combs of bearskin; the latter, as Colonel Luard caustically observes,

-rendering it impossible for a man to deliver the sixth cut in the

-sword exercise of that day. The cuirass and helmet remain, with

-the unwieldy jack-boots and leather breeches, an effective, if archaic,

-part of a theatrical pageant which Londoners have learnt to love;

-but as the equipment of a modern soldier the costume is ludicrously

-inapt and very costly. In an era when war has become more

-terrible and more intensely destructive than in any previous age,

-and at a time when the whole resources of the nation are strained

-for the country to hold its own, it may well be asked whether money

-might not be more profitably employed than in causing the splendid

-men of the Household Cavalry to masquerade in such attire as

-would be grotesque to imagine them wearing in modern warfare.</p>

-

-<p>About the same time that the cuirass was inflicted upon the

-Household Cavalry, the sentry boxes in London and at Windsor

-Castle had to be increased in height in order to accommodate a new

-pattern of bearskin cap which had been approved for the Foot

-Guards. The old pattern, which had superseded the three-cocked

-hat at the end of the previous century, was a sensible affair of

-reasonable dimensions; but the army tailors, encouraged by the

-new King, were indefatigable in devising extravagance in uniforms,

-and the bearskin was made to shoot up several inches in height.

-‘Ridicule,’ observed Colonel Luard, ‘subsides when the eye is no

-longer a stranger to the object of excitement; otherwise the little

-boys would run after the guardsmen when they appear in the

-streets of London, and shout at the overwhelming, preposterous,

-hideous bearskin caps.’ It is rumoured that the supply of the

-right sort of bear is now running short. It may not be too much to

-hope that, when our armies return victorious at the end of the war,

-the occasion may be marked by the invention of some uniform for

-the Brigade of Guards more comfortable and workmanlike than

-a skin-tight tunic and a grossly exaggerated fur-cap. Londoners,

-laudably conservative in what they have become used with, would

-be the less likely to murmur at the change, inasmuch as they have

-grown accustomed to see guard-mounting performed in forage-caps.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</span>

-Among all the variety of uniforms of the British infantry, none

-has undergone so little change in the last hundred and fifty years

-as that of the Highland regiments. Well that it is so, for there is

-none other that so admirably sets off a soldier-like figure, none

-that stirs so much enthusiasm among the spectators at a field-day.

-So fully has this been recognised that a society has recently been

-formed to protest against and endeavour to remedy what is deemed

-the unmerited neglect of Lowland Scottish regiments, whereof

-the records certainly are no whit inferior in lustre to those of the

-Highland corps. It is complained that the Lowland regiments are

-always kept in the background; that Edinburgh, though a Lowland

-city, is invariably garrisoned by a Highland regiment, and that

-facilities for recruiting in Edinburgh and Glasgow are accorded to

-Highland regiments and refused to Lowland regiments. Much of

-this is unfortunately true; but the real reason for it exists in the

-greater popularity of the Highland uniform. No amount of protest

-or persuasion will prevail to make the general public take the same

-interest in a trousered regiment as in a kilted one. Might not the

-surest remedy be to put the Lowland regiments also into kilts?

-Purists will object that Lowlanders have no business to don the

-philabeg; but, for that matter, neither have they any business to

-wear tartan trews, <em>which all the Lowland regiments do at the present

-time, besides being furnished with kilted pipers</em>.<a id="FNanchor_7" href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> Then all Scottish

-regiments would be on an equal footing, and no material would

-remain for the present irritation. It is difficult to understand,

-impossible to explain, the emotion—involuntary, as all true

-emotion must be—roused, even in Saisneach breasts, by the sight of

-a Highland regiment marching to the skirl of the pipes. In order to

-illustrate it, let me lapse for a moment into the first person singular.</p>

-

-<p>During Queen Victoria’s memorable progress through her

-metropolis in the Diamond Jubilee of 1897, I was seated with two

-ladies of my family in the stand set up for members of Parliament

-in Palace Yard. The long hours of waiting on that shining summer

-forenoon were enlivened by the march of many regiments, headed

-by their bands, passing to their appointed places in the route. It

-was a shifting pageant of stirring sight and sound. Presently,

-over Westminster Bridge came the Seaforth Highlanders stepping

-to the lively strains of <cite>The Muckin’ o’ Geordie’s Byre</cite>.<a id="FNanchor_8" href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> The effect<span class="pagenum" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</span>

-was indescribable—the swing of kilts and sporrans, the dark waving

-plumes, the gallant but simple melody, thrilled all spectators. As

-for myself, I felt a big lump in my throat, and I was ashamed to

-feel something trickle down both cheeks. Yet am I a Lowland

-Scot, if anybody is; so far as I am aware, I can lay no claim to any

-strain of Celtic blood. If such an one was so deeply moved by the

-passing of a single Highland regiment, why should not all the

-Scottish regiments be clothed in the romantic garb of Old Gaul,

-with the desirable result of rendering the Lowland corps as well-beloved

-by the people as the Highlanders? If this were carried

-out, it would be esteemed a privilege by the former and a compliment

-by the latter. Objection on the score of economy would be

-raised because of the cost of the full-dress feather-bonnet, which,

-though picturesque, is but a tailor’s parody of the bonnet of the

-<i>duine uasail</i>. Let the Lowland regiments be content, then, with

-the Glengarry. Nobody who has seen a battalion of the London

-Scottish marching through Pall Mall, and listened to the comments

-of those who crowd to the club windows at the sound of the pibroch,

-will tell you that that fine corps would gain anything in soldierly

-appearance by wearing feather-bonnets. That head-dress was

-condemned in 1882, but in deference to Queen Victoria’s wishes

-it was restored. Its abolition had previously been hotly challenged

-in the House of Commons by certain perfervid Scots, one of whom

-volunteered a quaint explanation to an honourable member who

-had ventured to express some doubt about ostrich feathers being

-an appropriate ornament for a Scottish soldier. He gravely assured

-the House that the costume had its origin in Sir Ralph Abercromby’s

-Egyptian campaign in 1801, when the Highland soldiers picked

-up ostrich feathers in the desert and stuck them in their bonnets

-as a protection from the sun!</p>

-

-<p>The fact is that the feather-bonnet, and all other exaggerated

-and expensive head-dresses, should be as resolutely relegated to

-limbo as the hideous masks worn by the fighting men of Old Japan.

-Both were designed to overawe the enemy; but, as modern fighting

-is done in forage-caps, that naïve purpose cannot be carried into

-effect, and the object should be to provide such clothing as will

-best enable a man to keep himself, in the Duke of Wellington’s

-words, ‘clean and smart, as a soldier ought to be.’ And no headgear

-is smarter, none more easily kept clean, than the Glengarry

-bonnet.</p>

-

-<p>While it is hardly possible to imagine any dress better calculated<span class="pagenum" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</span>

-to impede a soldier’s movements than the uniforms inflicted upon

-all arms in the service during the early years of the nineteenth

-century, one should not overlook the relief that was ordained in

-a detail that was a source of constant unnecessary trouble to the

-soldier. Clubbed pigtails had been transmitted as an irksome

-legacy from Marlborough’s army, until in 1808 the Horse Guards

-decreed their abolition. When Sir Arthur Wellesley landed in

-Mondego Bay on August 1-5 in that year, one of his first orders

-was that these senseless, dirty appendages were to be cut off.

-Never, one may believe, was an order more cheerfully obeyed. A

-counter-order was issued shortly after from the Horse Guards,

-requiring the retention of pigtails, but it was beyond the power of

-man to comply with it. It was easy to cut off pigtails, but

-they could not be replaced; and now the only vestige of a barbarous

-fashion in the army remains in the bow of black ribbon worn by

-the Welsh Fusiliers at the back of the collar of the tunic.</p>

-

-<p>Unfortunately, the irrational fashion of tight clothing for the

-army instituted by the Prince Regent endures to this day. It

-is true that a sensible field-dress of khaki was devised and worn

-during the South African War, and is now the service dress of the

-army; but the full dress for officers and the ‘walking-out’ uniform

-for men is still cut and fitted on the old excruciating lines. I

-think it took three weeks to fit a young friend of mine, joining a

-battalion of Guards a few years ago, before the adjutant of that

-<i lang="fr">corps d’élite</i> passed the tunic as satisfactory. Every crease and

-wrinkle had to be obliterated, at such cost to freedom of limbs and

-lungs as may be imagined. It may not be an extravagant hope

-that, when our army returns once more to a peace footing, the full

-dress may be designed with more regard to health and comfort

-than hitherto. Our eyes have grown accustomed during the

-present war to seeing soldiers in a costume, far from beautiful,

-indeed, but easy and respectable. There is no reason why a scarlet

-coat should be less comfortable than a dust-coloured one, and it

-will be a sad thing if the historic red of the English infantry is not

-preserved for full dress. But even if it were not, the khaki uniform

-might be rendered very becoming by the addition of a little modest

-ornament, especially by the restoration of the old regimental facings.

-These would not make troops one whit more conspicuous in the

-field; on the contrary, it is a commonplace of optics that parti-coloured

-objects are less easily detected in a landscape than those

-of one uniform colour.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</span>

-One desirable result of making uniform more comfortable wear

-might be expected to follow; officers might not be so scrupulous

-to exchange it for mufti the moment they are released from duty.

-Alone among the nationalities of Europe has the British officer

-hitherto treated his uniform as if it were something to be ashamed

-of in private life. It is an unseemly, even an unhandsome practice,

-seeing that non-commissioned officers and privates are not allowed

-to disport themselves in what they call ‘private clothes.’ Nor

-was it the custom among officers in the eighteenth century, when

-uniform was as easy and becoming as any other dress. The usual

-dress of an officer, even when on leave, was then his undress

-uniform, just as it is now in Continental armies. The change in the

-British Army was the direct outcome of the Prince Regent’s tyranny

-in buttoning up soldiers to the throat in clothes which it was a

-torment to wear.</p>

-

-<p>It must be owned that the Duke of Wellington was in large

-measure responsible, inasmuch as he set the example of preferring

-easy clothes to uneasy ones. A plain blue frock opening at the

-throat to a white cravat was his invariable dress throughout his

-campaigns. He had for his own wear a cocked hat one third the

-size of the huge one prescribed for general officers. There was a

-famous occasion in 1814, after the restoration of Louis XVIII.,

-when the King and the Royal Princes, with a brilliant suite, attended

-a state performance in the Odéon Theatre. The house was ablaze

-with uniforms of many nations and the gay dresses of ladies of the

-Court. In a box immediately opposite the royal one sat the Duke—in

-plain clothes! ‘The pride that apes humility’? Not a bit.

-<i lang="fr">Le vainqueur des vainqueurs</i> could scarcely be suspected of that.

-Simply, as he had to sit through a long performance, he chose to

-do so in clothes that enabled him to sit in comfort.</p>

-

-<p>Much praiseworthy attention is now given to the equipment

-and clothing of British troops serving in hot climates, but it was

-otherwise throughout most of the nineteenth century, and it is

-incalculable how much suffering, disease, and death was caused by

-neglect of any such provision. When Colonel Luard was preparing

-his book in 1850-52 he received letters from many officers calling

-his attention to this matter. One of these writes:</p>

-

-<div class="blockquot">

-<p class="p2">‘I shall be very glad if you dedicate a portion of your work to

-the dress of our soldiers in the colonies.... I have myself seen

-the Spanish, French, and Danish troops in the West Indies much<span class="pagenum" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</span>

-more healthy than our own, from great attention to their comfort

-in their dress.... The whole body of civilians in the tropics

-appear in loose white jackets and trousers and a skull-cap ...

-the shakoes and red coats of our troops were not altered in our West

-India colonies.’</p>

-</div>

-

-<p class="p2">A cavalry officer remarks: ‘I hope you will dwell on the madness

-of our soldiers wearing leather caps under a tropical sun’;

-while another observes that ‘a brass helmet was not found serviceable

-in Africa by the 7th Dragoon Guards when that regiment was

-at the Cape.’</p>

-

-<p>Our troops suffered horribly during the first Kaffir war, 1846-48,

-from being clothed exactly as they had been at home—leather

-stocks, tight coatees, heavy shakoes, and all the rest of it. Some

-consideration was shown for the soldier in the second Kaffir war,

-1851-52. Captain King, of the 74th Highlanders, describes how his

-regiment landed at Cape Town (after a voyage from England of

-two months!) wearing their ordinary clothing, and it was not until

-they had marched far into the interior that ‘our bonnets and plaids

-were replaced by a costume more suitable for the bush—viz., a

-short dark canvas blouse; in addition to which feldt-schoen and

-lighter pouches, made of untanned leather, were issued to the

-men, and broad leather peaks affixed to their forage-caps.’<a id="FNanchor_9" href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p>

-

-<p>Captain King’s narrative is illustrated by lithographs from his

-own excellent drawings, which show his men, heavily accoutred

-with pack and pouch, and with no protection against the sun except

-the aforesaid peak to the forage-cap, severely handicapped in

-fighting nearly naked blacks armed with rifles. No wonder the

-74th lost heavily, their commander, Colonel Fordyce, falling at

-their head in a bush fight, together with some of his best officers.</p>

-

-<p>It is not only in matters of dress and equipment that we have

-learnt consideration for our troops on foreign service. The splendid

-organisation of the Royal Army Medical Corps has been severely

-tested in coping with the requirements of such a force as it was

-never contemplated Great Britain would or could put in the field;

-but the test has been nobly met; the latest discoveries in science

-have been employed to avert disease and mortality from wounds,

-thereby saving soldiers and their families and friends from an incalculable

-amount of misery. The Transport Service has not only

-met the extraordinary demand upon its resources in the conveyance<span class="pagenum" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</span>

-of necessary supplies—food, munitions, &amp;c.—but has proved

-equal to the punctual deliverance of the vast stores of comforts

-and even luxuries consigned from voluntary sources at home.</p>

-

-<p>Among the said luxuries is one whereon the Iron Duke would

-have turned no favouring eye. The tobacco which has been

-supplied to our troops at the front—aye, and in hospital at home—must

-amount to a prodigious figure. When the Duke was Commander-in-Chief

-in 1845 he issued the following counterblast:</p>

-

-<div class="blockquot">

-<p class="p2">‘<abbr title="General Order Number">G.O. No.</abbr> 577.—The Commander-in-Chief has been informed

-that the practice of smoking, by the use of pipes, cigars and cheroots,

-has become prevalent among the Officers of the Army, which is

-not only in itself a species of intoxication occasioned by the fumes

-of tobacco, but, undoubtedly, occasions drinking and tippling by

-those who acquire the habit; and he intreats the Officers commanding

-Regiments to prevent smoking in the Mess Rooms of their

-several Regiments, and in the adjoining apartments, and to discourage

-the practice among the Officers of Junior Rank in their

-Regiments.’</p>

-</div>

-

-<p>There was no Press Censor in those days, and <cite>Punch</cite>, which was

-then a vigorous stripling in its fourth year, was allowed to make

-merry over this fulmination, declaring that officers of the Army

-were greatly perturbed, ‘dreading the possibility of being thrown

-upon their conversational resources, which must have a most

-dreary effect.’ Tobacconists drove a brisk trade in pipe-stoppers

-carved in the likeness of the Duke’s head. These might now be

-a fitting object of pursuit on the part of collectors.</p>

-

-<p class="p2">FOOTNOTES:</p>

-

-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">[3]</a> The piece continued to be given in the provinces, where the Lord Chamberlain’s

-censorship does not take effect.</p>

-

-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="label">[4]</a> <cite>A History of the Dress of the British Soldier</cite>, by <abbr title="Lieutenanat Colonel">Lieut.-Col.</abbr> John Luard, 1852,

-p. 99.</p>

-

-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5" class="label">[5]</a> Of course because the French were the enemy in that campaign.</p>

-

-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6" class="label">[6]</a> Kincaid’s <cite>Adventures in the Rifle Brigade</cite>, <abbr title="second">2nd</abbr> edition, 1838, p. 222.</p>

-

-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_7" href="#FNanchor_7" class="label">[7]</a> See report of meeting of the Lowland Scots Society, held in Edinburgh on

-November 25, 1915.</p>

-

-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_8" href="#FNanchor_8" class="label">[8]</a> An old air, subsequently set to the song <cite>My Tocher’s the Jewel</cite>.</p>

-

-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_9" href="#FNanchor_9" class="label">[9]</a> <cite>Campaigning in Kaffirland</cite>, by <abbr title="Captain">Capt.</abbr> W. R. King, 1853, p. 27.</p>

-

-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">

-</div><!--end chapter-->

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</span>

-<h2><span class="h3head"><i>THE NEW UBIQUE: SPIT AND POLISH.</i></span></h2>

-

-<p class="center">BY JEFFERY E. JEFFERY.</p>

-

-<p class="p2"><span class="smcap">‘Per<em>son</em>ally</span> myself,’ said the Child, tilting back his chair until

-his head touched the wall behind him, and stretching out a lazy

-arm towards the cigarette-box—‘per<em>son</em>ally myself, I’ve enjoyed this

-trip no end—haven’t you?’</p>

-

-<p>‘I have,’ I answered; ‘so much so, Child, that the thought of

-going back to gun-pits and trenches and O.P.s again fills me

-with gloom.’</p>

-

-<p>It was our last night in a most comfortable billet near ——,

-where, on and off, we had spent rather more than a month of ease:

-on the morrow we were going into the line again. The trip to which

-the Child was referring, however, was an eight days’ course at a place

-vaguely known as ‘the —th Army Mobile Artillery Training School,’

-from which our battery had but lately returned.</p>

-

-<p>The circumstances were these. When, five weeks ago, the division

-moved (for the <em>n</em>th time!) to a different part of the line, it

-transpired that three batteries would be ‘out at rest,’ as there would

-be no room for them in action. It also so chanced that it was our

-colonel’s turn to be left without a ‘group’<a id="FNanchor_10" href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> to command. This

-being so, he suggested to higher authorities that the three batteries

-‘out’ should be those of his own brigade, in order that he might

-have a chance ‘to tidy them up a bit,’ as he phrased it. Thus it

-was that we found ourselves, as I have said, in extremely comfortable

-billets—places, I mean, where they have sheets on the beds and

-china jugs and gas and drains—with every prospect of a pleasant

-loaf. But in this we were somewhat sanguine.</p>

-

-<p>The colonel’s idea in having us ‘out’ for a while was not so

-much to rest us as to give us a variation of work. Being essentially

-a thorough man, he started—or rather ordered me to start—at the

-very beginning. The gunners paraded daily for marching drill,

-physical exercises, and ‘elementary standing gun drill by numbers.’

-N.C.O.s and drivers were taken out and given hours of riding drill

-under the supervision of subalterns bursting with knowledge

-crammed up from the book the night before and under the personal

-direction of a brazen-voiced sergeant who, having passed through the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</span>

-‘riding troop’ at Woolwich in his youth, knew his business. The

-strangest sight of all was the class of signallers—men who had spent

-months in the fœtid atmosphere of cellars and dug-outs, or creeping

-along telephone wires in ‘unhealthy’ spots—now waving flags at a

-word of command and going solemnly through the Morse alphabet

-letter by letter. Of the whole community this was perhaps the

-most scandalised portion. But in a few days, when everybody

-(not excluding myself and the other officers) had discovered how

-much had been forgotten during our long spell in action, a great

-spirit of emulation began to be displayed. Subsections vied with

-one another to produce the smartest gun detachment, the sleekest

-horses, the best turned-out ride, the cleanest harness, guns, and

-wagons.</p>

-

-<p>The colonel, after the manner of his kind, came at the end of a

-week or so to inspect things. He is not the sort of man upon whom

-one can easily impose. A dozen of the shiniest saddles or bits in

-the battery placed so as to catch the light (and the eye) near the

-doorway of the harness-room do not necessarily satisfy him: nor

-is he content with the mere general and symmetrical effect of rows

-of superficially clean breast-collars, traces, and breechings. On

-the contrary, he is quite prepared to spend an hour or more over his

-inspection, examining every set of harness in minute detail, even

-down to the backs of the buckle tongues, the inside of the double-folded

-breast collars, and the oft-neglected underside of saddle

-flaps. It is the same thing with the guns and wagons. Burnished

-breech-rings and polished brasswork look very nice, and he approves

-of them, but he does not on that account omit to look closely at

-every oil-hole or to check the lists of ‘small stores’ and ‘spare

-parts.’</p>

-

-<p>For the next week or so we were kept very busy on ‘the many

-small points which required attention,’ to quote the colonel’s phrase.

-Nevertheless, as a variation from the monotony of siege warfare,

-the time was regarded by most of us as a holiday. Many things

-combined to enhance our pleasure. The sun shone and the country

-became gorgeously green again; the horses began to get their

-summer coats and to lose their unkempt winter’s appearance;

-there was a fair-sized town near at hand, and passes to visit it were

-freely granted to N.C.O.s and men; at the back of the officers’

-billet was a garden with real flower-beds in it and a bit of lawn on

-which one could have tea. Occasionally we could hear the distant

-muttering of the guns, and at night we could see the ‘flares’ darting<span class="pagenum" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</span>

-up from the black horizon—just to remind us, I suppose, that the

-war was only in the next parish....</p>

-

-<p>But it was not to be supposed that a man of such energy as our

-colonel would be content just to ride round daily and watch three

-of his batteries doing rides and gun drill. It occurred to him at

-once that this was the time to practise the legitimate business—that

-is, open, moving warfare. Wherefore he made representations

-to various quite superior authorities. In three days, by dint of

-considerable personal exertion, he had secured the following concessions:

-two large tracts of ground suitable for driving drill

-and battery manœuvre, good billets, an area of some six square

-miles (part of the —th Army Training area) for the purpose of

-tactical schemes, the appointment of himself as commandant of

-the ‘school,’ a Ford ambulance for his private use, three motor

-lorries for the supply of the units under training, and a magnificent

-château for his own headquarters. And all this he accomplished

-without causing any serious friction between the various ‘offices’

-and departments concerned—no mean feat.</p>

-

-<p>Each course was to last eight days, and there were to be four

-batteries, taken from different divisions, undergoing it simultaneously.

-It fell to us to go with the second batch, and we spent

-a strenuous week of preparation: it was four months since we had

-done any work ‘in the open,’ and we knew, inwardly, that we were

-distinctly rusty. We packed up, and at full war strength, transport,

-spare horses and all, we marched our sixteen miles to the selected

-area. At the half-way halt we met the commander of a battery

-of our own brigade returning. He stopped to pass the time of

-day and volunteered the information that he was going on leave

-that night. ‘And, by Jove!’ he added significantly, ‘I deserve

-a bit of rest. Réveillé at 4 <span class="allsmcap">A.M.</span> every morning, out all day wet or

-fine, gun drill at every odd moment, schemes, tactical exercises,

-everybody at high pressure all the time. The colonel’s fairly in his

-element, revels in it, and “strafes” everybody indiscriminately.

-But it’s done us all a world of good though. Cheeriho! wish you

-luck.’ And he rode on, leaving us rather flabbergasted.</p>

-

-<p>We discovered quite early (on the following morning about

-dawn, to be precise) that there had been no exaggeration. We began

-with elementary driving drill, and we did four and a half hours of it

-straight on end, except for occasional ten-minute halts to rest the

-astonished teams. It was wonderful how much we had forgotten

-and yet how much came back to us after the first hour or so.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</span>

-‘I want all your officers to drill the battery in turn,’ said the

-colonel. ‘I shall just ride round and correct mistakes.’</p>

-

-<p>He did—with an energy, a power of observation, and a command

-of language which I have seldom seen or heard surpassed. But the

-ultimate result by mid-day, when all the officers and N.C.O.s were

-hoarse, the teams sweating and the carriages caked in oily dust—the

-ultimate result was, as the Child politely says, ‘not too stinkin’

-awful.’ And it had been good to hear once again the rattle and

-bump of the guns and wagons over hard ground, the jingle of harness

-and the thud of many hoofs; good to see the teams swing round

-together as they wheeled into line or column at a spanking trot;

-good above all to remember that <em>this</em> was our job and that the months

-spent in concrete gun-pits and double-bricked O.P.s were but a

-lengthy prelude to our resumption of it—some day.</p>

-

-<p>In the evening, when the day’s work was over and ‘stables’

-finished, we left the tired horses picking over the remains of their

-hay and walked down the <i lang="fr">pavé</i> village street, Angelo and I, to look

-at the church. Angelo is my eldest but not, as it so happens, my

-senior subaltern. Before the war he was a budding architect, with

-a taste for painting: hence the nickname, coined by the Child in one

-of his more erudite moods.</p>

-

-<p>The church at L—— is very fine. Its square tower is thirteenth

-century, its interior is pure Gothic, and its vaulted roof a marvel.

-For its size the building is well-nigh perfect. We spent some time

-examining the nave and chancel—Angelo, his professional as well as

-his artistic enthusiasm aroused, explaining technicalities to me and

-making me envious of his knowledge. It was with regret that we

-turned away at last, for in spite of the tattered colours of some

-French regiment which hung on the north side of the chancel, we

-had forgotten the war in the quiet peacefulness of that exquisite

-interior. But we were quickly reminded. At the end of the

-church, kneeling on one of the rough chairs, was an old peasant

-woman: her head was bowed, and the beads dropped slowly through

-her twisted fingers. As we crept down the aisle she raised her

-eyes—not to look at us, for I think she was unconscious of our

-presence—but to gaze earnestly at the altar. Her lips moved in

-prayer, but no tear damped her yellow cheek. And, passing out

-into the sunlight again, I wondered for whom she was praying—husband,

-brother, sons?—whether, still hoping, she prayed for

-the living, or, faithfully, for the souls of those lost to her. They

-are brave, the peasant women of France....</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</span>

-Madame our hostess, besides being one of the fattest, was also

-one of the most agreeable ladies it has ever been our lot to be billeted

-upon. Before we had been in her house ten minutes she had given

-us (at an amazing speed) the following information:</p>

-

-<p>Her only remaining son had been wounded and was now a

-prisoner in Germany.</p>

-

-<p>She had played hostess continuously since August 1914 to every

-kind of soldier, including French motor-bus drivers, Indian chiefs

-(<i lang="la">sic</i>), and generals.</p>

-

-<p>English officers arriving after the battle of Loos slept in her

-hall for twenty-four hours, woke to have a bath and to eat an

-omelette, and then slept the clock round again.</p>

-

-<p>She remembered 1870, in which war her husband had fought.</p>

-

-<p>The Boches were barbarians, but they would never advance now,

-though at one time they had been within a few kilometres of her

-house.</p>

-

-<p>The lettuce and cabbages in her garden were at our disposal.</p>

-

-<p>She took an enormous interest in the Infant, who is even

-younger than the Child and is our latest acquisition.</p>

-

-<p><span lang="fr">‘Regardez donc le petit, comme il est fatigué!’</span> she exclaimed

-to me in the tones of an anxious mother—and then added in an

-excited whisper, <span lang="fr">‘A-t-il vu les Boches, ce petit sous-lieutenant?’</span></p>

-

-<p>When I assured her not only that he had seen them, but had

-fired his guns at them, she was delighted and declared that he

-could not be more than sixteen. But here the Infant, considering

-that the conversation was becoming personal, intervened, and the

-old lady left us to our dinner.</p>

-

-<p>Towards the end of our week we packed up essentials and

-marched out to bivouac two nights and fight a two days’ running

-battle—directed, of course, by our indefatigable colonel. After

-the dead flat ugliness where we had been in action all the winter

-and early spring it was a delight to find ourselves in this spacious

-undulating country, with its trees and church spires and red-tiled

-villages. We fought all day against an imaginary foe, made innumerable

-mistakes, all forcibly pointed out by the colonel (who

-rode both his horses to a standstill in endeavouring to direct operations

-and at the same time watch the procedure of four widely

-separated batteries); our imaginary infantry captured ridge

-after ridge, and we advanced from position to position ‘in close

-support,’ until finally, the rout of the foe being complete, we moved

-to our appointed bivouacs.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</span>

-In peace time it would have been regarded as a quite ordinary

-day, boring because of its resemblance to so many others. Now

-it was different. True, it was make-believe from start to finish,

-without even blank cartridge to give the vaguest hint of reality.

-But there was this: at the back of all our minds was the knowledge

-that this was a preparation—possibly our last preparation—not

-for something in the indefinite future (as in peace time), but

-for an occasion that assuredly <em>is</em> coming, perhaps in a few months,

-perhaps even in a few weeks. The colonel spoke truly when, at

-his first conference, he said:</p>

-

-<p>‘During these schemes you must all of you force yourselves

-to imagine that there is a real enemy opposed to you. The Boche

-is no fool: he’s got guns, and he knows how to use them. If you

-show up on crest lines with a whole battery staff at your heels,

-he’ll have the place “registered,” and he’ll smash your show to

-bits before you ever get your guns into action at all. <em>Think</em> where

-he is likely to be, <em>think</em> what he’s likely to be doing, don’t expose

-yourselves unless you must, and above all, <em>get a move on</em>.’</p>

-

-<p>It was a delightful bivouac. We were on the sheltered side of

-a little hill, looking south into a wooded valley. Nightingales

-sang to us as we lay smoking on our valises after a picnic dinner and

-stared dreamily at the stars above us.</p>

-

-<p>‘Jolly, isn’t it?’ said the Child, ‘but I s’pose we wouldn’t be

-feeling quite so comfy if it was the real business.’</p>

-

-<p>‘Don’t,’ said Angelo quietly. ‘I was pretending to myself

-that we were just a merry camping party, here for pleasure only.

-I’d forgotten the war.’</p>

-

-<p>But I had not. I was thinking of the last time I had bivouacked—amongst

-the corn sheaves of a harvest that was never gathered,

-side by side with friends who were soon to fall, on the night before

-the first day of Mons, nearly two years ago.</p>

-

-<p>The following day was more or less a repetition of the first,

-except that we made fewer mistakes and ‘dropped into action’

-with more style and finish. We were now becoming fully aware

-of the almost-forgotten fact that a field battery is designed to be

-a mobile unit, and we were just beginning to take shape as such

-when our time was over. A day’s rest for the horses and then we

-returned to our comfortable rest billets. It had been a strenuous

-week, but I think everyone had thoroughly enjoyed it....</p>

-

-<p>We have had two days in which to ‘clean up,’ and now

-to-morrow we are to relieve another battery and take our place in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</span>

-the line again. Our holiday is definitely over. It will take a little

-time to settle down to the old conditions: our week’s practice of

-open warfare has spoilt us for this other kind. We who have

-climbed hills and looked over miles of rolling country will find an

-increased ugliness in our old flat surroundings. It will seem

-ludicrous to put our guns into pits again—the guns that we have

-seen bounding over rough ground behind the straining teams. To

-be cooped up in a brick O.P. staring at a strip of desolation will

-be odious after our bivouacs under the stars and our dashes into

-action under a blazing sun. Worst of all, perhaps, is the thought

-that the battery will be split up again into ‘gun line’ and ‘wagon

-line,’ with three miles or more separating its two halves, instead

-of its being, as it has been all these weeks, one complete cohesive

-unit. But what must be, must be; and it is absurd to grumble.

-Moreover—the end is not yet.</p>

-

-<p class="p2">‘Let’s toss up for who takes first turn at the O.P. when the

-relief is completed,’ suggested the Child.</p>

-

-<p>‘Wait a minute,’ I said, remembering something suddenly.

-‘Do you know what to-day is?’</p>

-

-<p>‘Friday,’ he volunteered, ‘and to-morrow ought to be a half-holiday,

-but it won’t be, ’cos we’re going into action.’</p>

-

-<p>I passed the port round again. ‘It’s only a fortnight since we

-celebrated the battery’s first birthday,’ I said, ‘but to-day the

-Royal Regiment of Artillery is two hundred years old. Let’s

-drink its health.’</p>

-

-<p>And we did.</p>

-

-<p class="p2">FOOTNOTES:</p>

-

-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_10" href="#FNanchor_10" class="label">[10]</a> A certain number of batteries.</p>

-

-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">

-</div><!--end chapter-->

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</span>

-<h2><span class="h3head"><i>THE REHABILITATION OF PRIVATE HAGAN.</i></span></h2>

-

-<p class="center">BY ‘MAJOR, R.A.M.C.’</p>

-

-<p class="p2"><span class="smcap">Private Timothy Hagan</span>, of ‘D’ Company, extracted a box of

-matches from his pocket, mechanically lighted a seasoned briar

-pipe, and sought inspiration from the log roof of the dugout.</p>

-

-<p>The last of the enemy’s usual evening salvo of shells screamed

-above the tree-tops and burst harmlessly in a stubble field. Hagan

-did not move. The announcement that the evening meal was

-ready equally failed to interest him.</p>

-

-<p>The dugout, efficiently constructed of sand-bags, logs, and

-earth, was just large enough for the accommodation of two

-improvised beds and blankets. Private Sawyer, the normal

-occupant of the other half, was at the moment busy in the kitchen

-outside beneath the trees. It was seclusion that Hagan courted,

-not protection.</p>

-

-<p>Presently, Sawyer, his face smoke-begrimed and heated, thrust

-his head over a sand-bag parapet.</p>

-

-<p>‘Tea ready, cooky,’ he cried.</p>

-

-<p>‘Phwat’s the good ov thay?’ grunted Hagan, dropping his

-pipe listlessly. ‘Fed up!’</p>

-

-<p>Sawyer’s eyes dilated in speechless surprise. His rapid scrutiny

-of his pal’s downcast features failed to help.</p>

-

-<p>‘’Ullo, what’s wrong, hey?’ he asked, wiping his face with the

-back of his hand and dropping into the trench. ‘Can’t yer high-class

-stomach relish bully-beef no more? What’s wrong with it?’</p>

-

-<p>Without answering in words Timothy slipped his hand into

-the breast pocket of his tunic, produced a much-thumbed envelope,

-and slowly unfolded a letter. The sight of the irregular writing

-seemed to have an immediate tonic effect upon his demeanour.

-His eyes suddenly became suffused with red-blood anger. (He

-had learned the habit in more than one barbed-wire scrimmage

-against the enemy.) Clenching his fists, he cursed beneath his

-breath, thoughtfully, with intent.</p>

-

-<p>‘H’m!’ grunted Sawyer sympathetically.</p>

-

-<p>‘There’s a blighter at home,’ stammered Hagan, ‘phwat is

-afeared to do his bit out here’—he hesitated as if to swallow pent-up

-gorge—‘of the name of O’Shea—a damned thaivin’ grocer.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</span>

-The letter says as how he’s afther walking out wid Kitty Murphy,

-as is promised to mesilf.’</p>

-

-<p>‘Ugh, a woman is it?’ breathed Sawyer.</p>

-

-<p>‘And me not able to get me hands on him,’ groaned Hagan.

-‘’Tis perishin’ hard.’</p>

-

-<p>The sharp explosions of anti-aircraft shells in rapid succession

-overhead caused Sawyer to glance upwards. Shading his eyes

-with his hand, he shook his head in disappointment at the marksmanship

-displayed, and slipped back again into a sitting posture.</p>

-

-<p>‘What abhart leave ’ome?’ he inquired. ‘The captain says

-as ’ow each of us is to ’ave a turn—in doo course.’</p>

-

-<p>‘Bah!’ ejaculated Hagan contemptuously. ‘We all knows

-phwat in doo course mains.’ Meditatively refolding his letter, he

-consigned it again to its inner pocket. ‘There ain’t no proper

-foighting now naither—nothin’ but scrappin’ phwat doesn’t even

-kape the blood wharm in yez veins.’ Striking a match on the heel

-of his boot, he stared into space and forgot to use it. ‘I be afther

-thinkin’, Jock, it is now that I could be sphared, or not at all.’</p>

-

-<p>‘Wot’s wimmin to you now, anyway? ’Tis different with the

-married blokes,’ murmured Sawyer. ‘Won’t we both be killed

-in doo course?’</p>

-

-<p>‘We will that,’ agreed Hagan. ‘But, all the same, I could not

-lie happy loike widout I be afther settlin’ first wid the grocer.’</p>

-

-<p>For some seconds Sawyer did not speak. In the cool calm of

-the autumn evening there arose before him the memory of a dozen

-little wayside cemeteries marked by stereotyped plain wooden

-crosses—the British soldier’s humble badge of honour won. With

-a whimsical smile upon his lips he wondered vaguely where his

-own resting-place would lie.</p>

-

-<p>‘Ye see, Jock,’ persisted Hagan, ‘’tisn’t as if I was much wanted

-here just now.’</p>

-

-<p>Sawyer, turning suddenly, stared hard at his friend’s bronzed

-countenance, noted the stern-set jaw, and ceased sucking his pipe.

-He had learned to read Tim Hagan’s moods with the accuracy of

-much practice in the course of many devious wanderings.</p>

-

-<p>‘Humph! Wot’s the bloomin’ plan of campaign?’ he

-demanded. ‘Sneakin’ be’ind mud’eaps, or fightin’ in the open?’</p>

-

-<p>Hagan mechanically refilled his pipe and rammed down the

-tobacco with mature deliberation. An indefinite hum of voices

-near the company cooking-pots and the sharp bark of a French

-75-gun in the near distance accentuated the seclusion of the dugout.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</span>

-A dull crimson glow of sunset irradiated a cloudless skyline.

-To the rear of the wood the lowing of a cow sounded strangely

-out of place. On the left, cutting the winding line of trenches,

-lay the long, straight, deserted, <i lang="fr">pavé</i> road leading to the German

-lines. The scene, through many days of comparative stagnation,

-had grown contemptuously familiar.</p>

-

-<p>‘I’m sick,’ said Hagan, ‘to-morrow morning as iver is.’</p>

-

-<p>Sawyer, gurgling in a characteristic manner meant to denote

-mirth, shook his head.</p>

-

-<p>‘Sick is it?’ he commented. ‘Wot’s the complaint, matey?

-Some ’as fits; others injures their trigger fingers; some ’as lost

-their glasses and carn’t see nothink; some breaks their false teeth

-and gets shockin’ pains from the hard biscuits; some ’as pains

-in the kidneys; some ’as a narsty corph. ’Tain’t the season for

-corphs.’ Rubbing his nose with the back of a begrimed finger, he

-relapsed into thought. ‘Some ’as a buzzin’ in the ’ead wot nothink

-can cure. Some’—looking serious, he suddenly ended in a grunt—‘’Tain’t

-good enough, Tim, me lad, even for the pleasure of punchin’

-the ’ead of a stinkin’ grocer. You see, if you only get a few days

-in ’orspital, back you come again. If you’re took serious, ’ome

-you goes and stays there for a long time and misses everythink

-’ere.’ Gripping Hagan’s arm with highly strung fingers, he leaned

-nearer. ‘You ain’t goin’ to schrimshank at ’ome if a big push

-comes, old pal, are you?’</p>

-

-<p>Hagan’s jaw clenched and his lips moved speechlessly. Then

-once more he drew the letter from his pocket and handed it to his

-friend.</p>

-

-<p>‘Read that!’ he said. ‘I’m goin’ home.’</p>

-

-<p>Sawyer’s face assumed a sphinx-like gravity. He knew the

-proverbial strength of obstinacy, also the amount of that commodity

-possessed by Tim Hagan. He smoothed out the paper and

-sniffed violently. A faint perfume of cheap scent permeated the

-immediate atmosphere. With a grunt, he proceeded to master

-the contents of the epistle. So slowly did he progress, however,

-that presently even Hagan began to show signs of impatience.

-Sawyer was, in truth, merely gaining time for thought.</p>

-

-<p>‘If you’re caught out malingerin’ on active service, Tim,’ he

-whispered at length, ‘it won’t be only seven days “confined to

-barracks” you will be gettin’ off with.’</p>

-

-<p>With eyes bent upon the crimson skyline, Hagan sighed wearily.</p>

-

-<p>‘’Tis goin’ home I be, Jock,’ he repeated. ‘I’ll be afther<span class="pagenum" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</span>

-marryin’ Kitty Murphy, and thin me sickness will all go and back

-it is I’ll come.’</p>

-

-<p>With a groan of despair Sawyer crawled to his feet and, without

-another word, walked off in the direction of a ruined château.

-He knew there was no immediate urgency. For ordinary cases of

-illness the ambulance wagon would not arrive until the morning.

-He, therefore, still had all night in which to formulate a plan of

-operations. It was, of course, open to him to drop a hint to the

-R.A.M.C. orderly, but that would have to be a <i lang="fr">dernier ressort</i>

-indeed.</p>

-

-<p>Left to himself, Hagan brooded more sombrely than before.

-The regulations regarding reporting sick were perfectly familiar

-to him. For a serious case the medical officer could be summoned

-within a few minutes. The Field Ambulance advanced dressing-station,

-located in a school-house in the nearest village, was not

-more than a mile away. Weighing the matter in all its visible

-points, he suddenly decided that the rôle of an emergency case

-would better fit his purpose than that of the ordinary sick soldier

-reporting at the sealed-pattern hour.</p>

-

-<p>To determine was to act. Smearing the perspiration of undue

-thought from his forehead, he buttoned his tunic, looked hastily

-about the interstices of the sand-bags of the dugout for small valued

-possessions, and slipped out beneath the shelter of the trees.</p>

-

-<p>The area lying between the wood and the village where the

-Field Ambulance had located its post was alive with troops. The

-pavé of the road, upheaved by continuous traffic and an occasional

-shell, was not a healthy place for evening exercise, but there was

-no order against it. The danger of being shot during the journey

-had long become a negligible quantity. A church tower, shell-riddled

-and tottering, was the landmark. Behind it Hagan knew

-he should find the red-cross flag hanging limply from its pole.</p>

-

-<p>Women, with a horse and cart gathering the wheat in a field

-on his left, glanced up with pleasant smile of greeting as he passed.

-The orderlies filling a regimental water-cart at the village pump

-took no notice of him whatever. Presently, reaching the shadows

-of the church, he began to walk slower, then halted. He felt as

-if he needed a moment in which to pull himself together. So far

-in his life his histrionic sense had never been tested. It is notorious

-that even experienced actors occasionally suffer from stage

-fright.</p>

-

-<p>A couple of R.A.M.C. orderlies, leaning against the door-post

-beneath the red-cross flag, presently noticed a soldier staggering<span class="pagenum" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</span>

-towards them and blindly clutching at the empty air. In normal

-times their unanimous diagnosis woud have been ‘beer.’ They

-knew, however, that in the firing line such could not be.</p>

-

-<p>Hagan, squinting between half-closed eyelashes, staggered

-another ten yards, embraced one of the orderlies round the neck,

-slid limply to the ground, and, breathing heavily, lay quite still.</p>

-

-<p>In a moment a stretcher was at hand; within a minute the

-patient was inside the building. There were only half a dozen

-other men to share it with him, as the evening evacuation of sick

-and wounded to the Clearing Hospital had already taken place.</p>

-

-<p>‘What’s wrong, matey?’ questioned one of the orderlies,

-holding a pannikin of soup to the patient’s lips. ‘Here, drink

-this. Wake up! Can you hear me?’</p>

-

-<p>With a shudder Hagan opened his eyes, and, half-rising to his

-feet, glared about him. Rolls of wool and bandages, trays of

-surgical instruments, splints, buckets, and basins surrounded him

-upon all sides.</p>

-

-<p>‘Ah—the hospital!’ he muttered. ‘I remimber now. It is

-afther faintin’ I be.’</p>

-

-<p>‘H’m—lie down!’ advised the orderly, pushing him back

-on the stretcher. ‘I will call the medical officer. Perhaps he’ll

-give you a tot of brandy.’</p>

-

-<p>‘Begob, and I’m all roight, me bhoy,’ asserted Hagan, with

-well-assumed eagerness to depart. ‘Give me only foive—or maybe

-tin—minutes’ rest and a sip av whater.’</p>

-

-<p>The orderly gave the water, but, none the less, called his officer.

-Meanwhile Hagan, with shut eyes, summoned to his aid all medical

-knowledge, real and spurious, that had ever crossed his path of

-life. The rôle he had assigned to himself was extremely difficult.

-Whatever else might be imaginary, the beads of perspiration

-bedewing his forehead were certainly genuine enough. In order

-to fool a man successfully one requires to know something of his

-mental attitude towards the subject in hand. What a medico’s

-mind might contain, or what pitfalls it was necessary to beware

-of in dealing with him, were points that suddenly assailed the

-wretched Tim with terrifying force. In fact, had the R.A.M.C.

-officer not arrived within a few moments, it is probable that fear

-of superior wisdom would have driven the schemer forth from the

-building.</p>

-

-<p>‘Well, my man, what is the matter?’ asked the officer, feeling

-his patient’s pulse. ‘Fainted, hey?’</p>

-

-<p>‘Yes, sir,’ asserted the orderly. ‘Fell into my arms.’</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</span>

-Hagan, opening his eyes slowly, shook his head from side to

-side, noisily blew out his cheeks, and ‘marked time.’ Adjusting

-a stethoscope, the officer examined his chest, grunted, and ordered

-his temperature to be taken. That the result would be negative

-Hagan knew only too well. Consequently, it seemed obvious that

-it behoved him to make the next move.</p>

-

-<p>‘Terrible buzzin’ in me head, sor,’ he breathed.</p>

-

-<p>‘Ah—quite so. Rest and light diet. Overstrain. Perhaps

-you will be all right again by morning.’</p>

-

-<p>Emboldened by an initiatory success, Hagan ventured upon

-driving the nail still deeper.</p>

-

-<p>‘Lost all feelin’s in me legs, sor,’ he added, with a groan. ‘It—er—has

-been comin’ on, sor, for a week; but it wasn’t loikin’ to

-go sick I was.’</p>

-

-<p>The medico, with newly awakened interest, bent his eyes upon

-the man’s face and silently observed the movements of his rolling

-head and eyes. Hagan, gradually ceasing his gyrations, at length

-opened his eyes and met the doctor’s absorbed gaze. It was at

-that moment—had he but known it—that he sorely needed all

-the knowledge available regarding his interrogator. The latter

-was by nature a silent man, but that did not interfere with his

-power of absorbing details and piecing them together with uncanny

-accuracy.</p>

-

-<p>‘A pin, sir?’ suggested the orderly.</p>

-

-<p>‘What for?’ asked the officer blandly.</p>

-

-<p>‘Thought, perhaps, you wanted to test his feelings, sir,’ explained

-the zealot.</p>

-

-<p>‘No—er—that is, not to-night,’ answered the officer, suppressing

-a half-smile beneath his moustache. ‘We will see what a night’s

-rest can do.’</p>

-

-<p>As he watched the tall figure of the doctor sauntering out of

-the room, Hagan experienced a sensation of acute alarm. In the

-presence of the calm assurance of this man of few words he felt

-that he had slipped up somewhere. But where? Loss of all

-feeling in the legs was surely a good effort! Glancing at the

-orderly, he noticed the man smiling in a peculiar manner as his

-officer disappeared from sight. An orderly’s knowledge has its

-limitations, even if a doctor’s has not. The more thought he gave

-to it the more suspicious did he feel, and a guilty conscience did

-not assist matters.</p>

-

-<p>Soup and biscuits were served out for supper. Tim Hagan

-could have absorbed both with relish. He felt, however, that such<span class="pagenum" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</span>

-diet might not be good for buzzing in the head—and said so. The

-night orderly, indifferent to arguments, deposited the food on a

-box by his side and departed. The fact, however, that all the

-articles of diet had disappeared by morning was by no means lost

-upon the day orderly when he returned to duty at the hour of

-breakfast.</p>

-

-<p>During the silent watches of the night Hagan had time to think

-of many things. He decided that he did not like the look of the

-medical officer, nor, indeed, did he know what to make of the orderly.

-Could he have fought them hand to hand, he would have known

-exactly where he was. In this subtle, silent contest of brains he

-was beginning to writhe against an invisible foe which seemed to

-be closing in upon him more surely with every tick of his watch.

-A change of diagnosis seemed advisable. But, with his scanty

-repertoire of diseases, the point was none too easy. In fact, when

-the officer unexpectedly stood by his side, he was still so undecided,

-that closed eyes and immobility seemed the path of least

-resistance.</p>

-

-<p>‘Well, Private Hagan, how are you this morning?’ inquired

-the officer, shaking him by the shoulder.</p>

-

-<p>What the answer to the question was Timothy did not know.

-He conceded a point, however, by opening his eyes.</p>

-

-<p>The question being repeated with emphasis, an inspiration

-gripped him. In a flash his line of country seemed to open out

-before him. The dizziness in the head had led to complications.</p>

-

-<p>‘Carn’t hear,’ he blurted.</p>

-

-<p>‘Ah!’ commented the persecutor, raising his eyebrows. ‘Deaf,

-are you? That’s bad.’ Perceptibly dropping his voice, he studied

-his victim’s face. ‘H’m—I wonder what degree of deafness.

-Which is the worst ear?’</p>

-

-<p>With praiseworthy presence of mind, Hagan resisted the impulse

-to answer. Staring blankly at the ceiling, he made no sign.</p>

-

-<p>Stepping a pace nearer, the officer spoke louder. Hagan still

-made no voluntary response, but the perspiration upon his face

-attested to the physical effort.</p>

-

-<p>From the psychological standpoint the doctor was intensely

-amused. That Private Timothy Hagan was a clumsy malingerer,

-pure and simple, he had no doubt. To prove such a negative

-condition however is quite another matter. If proved, the offence

-meant a court-martial. As an officer it was his duty to conceal

-no crime which could be proved. He was interested, but had little

-time just then for fancy cases. Hagan’s facial expression of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</span>

-struggling conjecture condemned him, morally, beyond a doubt,

-but the production of the self-same expression before the members

-of a court-martial could hardly be guaranteed.</p>

-

-<p>It was a six-inch German shell that solved the situation for the

-moment. Dropping three hundred yards from the dressing-station

-in the middle of the village street it exploded with a roar which

-smashed every pane of glass in the building. A second quickly

-followed. The R.A.M.C. staff, expectant of they knew not what,

-stood listening. Hagan, feeling the eyes of the medical officer

-upon him, did not move a muscle.</p>

-

-<p>‘One to you,’ murmured the officer to himself. ‘I don’t believe

-a word of it all the same.’ Turning on his heel, he winked to the

-orderly and with well-assumed indifference strode to the far end

-of the room.</p>

-

-<p>The orderly, quickly stepping round to the head of Hagan’s

-stretcher, needed no further instructions. With book and pencil

-in hand, he appeared to be engaged upon his ordinary duty of

-taking names for the Clearing Hospital.</p>

-

-<p>‘What’s your number, matey?’ he asked quickly.</p>

-

-<p>The wretched competitor, breathing heavily after his recent

-mental tension, had dropped his guard.</p>

-

-<p>‘4179,’ he answered promptly.</p>

-

-<p>‘<em>Thank you!</em>’ remarked a bland voice from the doorway.</p>

-

-<p>To state that Hagan could have kicked himself for his stupidity,

-is to put the case mildly. Conscious that no words of his could

-possibly regain lost ground, he stared blankly at the accusing face

-of the officer.</p>

-

-<p>‘It’s all <span class="allsmcap">UP</span>, matey,’ whispered the orderly, indulging in an

-open guffaw.</p>

-

-<p>‘Thin I may as well be afther gettin’ on me bhoots,’ remarked

-the culprit quietly, rising to his feet. ‘You’ve bin done down,

-Tim, me bhoy, and there ain’t no manner av use in kickin’.’</p>

-

-<p>What happened next in that little school-house, as regards points

-of detail, has never been actually recorded. That a deafening

-explosion resembling the noise of the end of all things earthly,

-accompanied by the caving in of the brickwork of the side of the

-room, and followed by the collapse of most of the roof, took place

-at that moment are facts of history.</p>

-

-<p>‘It has come at last,’ groaned the doctor. ‘Thank God, there

-are only a few men in the building.’</p>

-

-<p>A second later, a tottering rafter, swaying beneath its weight of

-tiles, fell with a sickening crash and buried him beneath its ruins.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</span>

-In an instant all had become chaos.</p>

-

-<p>Whatever the damage done, it was probably at an end. Hagan

-appreciated that much immediately. That he himself remained

-unhurt was a miracle. The orderly, holding both hands to his

-head, lay like a log on the floor. Several stretchers, with their

-occupants, lay buried beneath the débris of brick and plaster.</p>

-

-<p>‘A fifteen-inch, begob!’ exclaimed Hagan, seizing the orderly

-by the shoulders and dragging him into the open air.</p>

-

-<p>The atmosphere outside was still reeking with heavy black

-smoke and dust. A cavern in the road, large enough to conceal

-a motor-bus, yawned in his path. The heat of action was upon him.

-Handing over the orderly to other hands, he did not hesitate.

-There were wounded men to be rescued. At any moment a second

-shell might follow the first, or more walls might fall. A feeble,

-muffled call for help, emanating from the very centre of the

-wreckage, arrested his attention. He knew that bland, cool voice

-only too well. The available orderlies were already struggling to

-remove the wounded and unearth their officer.</p>

-

-<p>Hagan dashed forward. He was a strong man, and in the best

-of condition. Without argument, he took command.</p>

-

-<p>To remove the smaller masses of mortared brick was the work

-of but a few moments. The men worked at fever heat. The cries

-from beneath grew feebler, almost ceased. It was the weight of

-long rafters which formed the main obstruction. Without axes

-or saws, its removal might be a matter of hours.</p>

-

-<p>Wiping the sweat from his face, Hagan set his teeth and urged

-on his party to final effort. But their combined strength was

-without avail to clear the rafters. The victim beneath seemed

-nearing suffocation with every breath he drew.</p>

-

-<p>Hagan could see only one way, and he took it.</p>

-

-<p>Throwing himself on his face, he insinuated his head beneath

-the rafters, and by herculean efforts forced his shoulders to follow.

-Tearing away the loose stuff with his hands, whilst the orderlies

-endeavoured to ease the weight above him, he at length was able

-to gauge the situation accurately. A great beam lay across the

-chest of the officer, whose body supported it.</p>

-

-<p>Tim Hagan sweated in an agony as he looked. He had seen

-hundreds of men killed in action, but to see his late persecutor

-being slowly crushed to death before his eyes was more than he

-could bear.</p>

-

-<p>From outside the cries of men with axes reached him.

-Immediate action, however, was what was wanted. An instant’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</span>

-thought, a whispered, guttural prayer, and he proceeded with his

-task.</p>

-

-<p>Rolling with difficulty upon his back, he wriggled himself,

-inch by inch, close up beside his now silent antagonist, and with

-all the strength in his body pressed upwards until he managed to

-relieve the pressure on the other’s chest. Inch by inch he shoved

-the unconscious man aside and replaced the latter’s body by his

-own. Then, with ears at acutest tension, he listened to the crash

-of the axes and wondered how long he could last—how long it

-would take him to die.</p>

-

-<p class="p2">Two weeks later, Private Timothy Hagan, propped up in bed,

-lay in a hospital at the base. Presently an R.A.M.C. officer,

-obviously also more or less convalescent, entered the ward by

-means of a wheeled chair and looked about him. Hagan, catching

-the visitor’s eye, flushed deeply, laboriously drew a long breath,

-and turned away his head. The next minute, the officer, having

-given an order to the orderly pushing his chair, was at Hagan’s

-side. A word to the orderly, and the two wounded men were

-alone.</p>

-

-<p>‘I have come, Hagan, to thank you for my life,’ said the officer.</p>

-

-<p>Hagan nervously rubbed his forehead with his hand, moved his

-lips as if framing unspoken words, and drew a deep inspiration.</p>

-

-<p>‘’Twasn’t cowardice, sor,’ he breathed at last. ‘’Twas nought

-but a litle gurl at home phwat drew me.’</p>

-

-<p>‘Cowardice! You! You’re one of the pluckiest men I have

-ever seen. What do you mean?’</p>

-

-<p>‘I main, sor, whin I was schrimshankin’.’</p>

-

-<p>‘Sh—sh, my man! That little matter is all forgotten.’</p>

-

-<p>‘Yez did have me beat, sor,’ persisted Hagan, with a flash of

-humour in his eyes. ‘’Twas too cliver for me you was, sor. ’Twas

-the orderly hit me below the belt. He took me unbeknownst,

-sor.’</p>

-

-<p>With a light laugh, the medical officer placed his hand upon

-the brawny fist of the man beside him.</p>

-

-<p>‘You will get home to see your girl after all, Hagan—in your

-own way—and I am glad,’ he said.</p>

-

-<p>‘Is it to be quits then, sor?’</p>

-

-<p>‘Yes—we will call it that,’ agreed the officer. ‘For the time

-being, we are quits. Later, I will repay you what is over—if I

-ever can.’</p>

-

-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">

-</div><!--end chapter-->

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</span>

-<h2><span class="h3head"><i>DURING MUSIC: FANTASY AND FUGUE.</i></span></h2>

-

-<p class="center">BY J. B. TREND.</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

- <div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="poemcenter"><abbr title="One">I.</abbr></div>

-

-  </div><div class="stanza">

-    <div class="i0"><span class="smcap">That</span> low-breathed air and inwoven melody,</div>

-    <div class="i2">Twined marvellously together, swift to run</div>

-    <div class="i2">To the farthest bound of song, or knit in one</div>

-    <div class="i0">To melt and glow in o’erwhelming harmony,</div>

-    <div class="i0">You played. And I, startled to fantasy,</div>

-    <div class="i2">Beheld a land of dishevelled wood and stream,</div>

-    <div class="i2">A desperate rally of men, a flash, a scream—</div>

-    <div class="i0">And a friend riven beyond all agony.</div>

-

-  </div><div class="stanza">

-    <div class="i0">Yet did you play. Each delicate, rival thread</div>

-    <div class="i2">Of sound was knotted at last and the music ended.</div>

-    <div class="i4">Forest, colour, and mountain, earth held none</div>

-    <div class="i0">But stunted woods with no companion tread,</div>

-    <div class="i2">Greyness, and little hills, in a life unfriended;</div>

-    <div class="i4">For all joy in things and love of them were gone.</div>

-

-  </div><div class="stanza">

-    <div class="poemcenter"><abbr title="Two">II.</abbr></div>

-

-  </div><div class="stanza">

-    <div class="i0">I heard those echoing tones your touch unpenned,</div>

-    <div class="i2">Now hammer-notes that rivetted life with love,</div>

-    <div class="i2">Now light as sou’west wind blown softly above;</div>

-    <div class="i0">But all you played only to him could tend.</div>

-    <div class="i0">So let it be, I said, until life’s end;</div>

-    <div class="i2">In the tinkling wash at the bows, or water lapping</div>

-    <div class="i2">All night upon the dinghy’s side, or tapping</div>

-    <div class="i0">Of light wind in the halyards; there is my friend.</div>

-

-  </div><div class="stanza">

-    <div class="i0">So did your unrelenting notes flit by,</div>

-    <div class="i2">While death and music in my thought were welded</div>

-    <div class="i4">To swing me lonely down to the loveless night.</div>

-    <div class="i0">I am a sail that wind takes wantonly</div>

-    <div class="i2">Because the sheet has carried away that held it—</div>

-    <div class="i4">Then let your fugue pursue its scornful flight!</div>

-  </div><!--end stanza-->

- </div><!--end poem-->

-</div><!--end container-->

-

-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">

-</div><!--end chapter-->

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</span>

-<h2><span class="h3head"><i>LADY CONNIE.</i></span><a id="FNanchor_11" href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchorh2">[11]</a></h2>

-

-<p class="center">BY MRS. HUMPHRY WARD.</p>

-

-<p class="center">CHAPTER <abbr title="Seventeen">XVII</abbr>.</p>

-

-<p class="p2"><span class="smcap">Falloden</span> had just finished a solitary luncheon, in the little dining-room

-of the Boar’s Hill cottage. There was a garden door in the

-room, and lighting a cigarette, he passed out through it to the

-terrace outside. A landscape lay before him, which has often been

-compared to that of the Val d’Arno seen from Fiesole, and has

-indeed some common points with that incomparable mingling of

-man’s best with the best of mountain and river. It was the last

-week of October, and the autumn was still warm and windless,

-as though there were no shrieking November to come. Oxford,

-the beautiful city, with its domes and spires, lay in the hollow

-beneath the spectator, wreathed in thin mists of sunlit amethyst.

-Behind that ridge in the middle distance ran the river and the

-Nuneham woods; beyond rose the long blue line of the Chilterns.

-In front of the cottage the ground sank through copse and field to

-the river level, the hedge lines all held by sentinel trees, to which

-the advancing autumn had given that significance the indiscriminate

-summer green denies. The gravely rounded elms with their golden

-caps, the scarlet of the beeches, the pale lemon-yellow of the nearly

-naked limes, the splendid blacks of yew and fir—they were all

-there, mingled in the autumn cup of misty sunshine, like melting

-jewels. And among them, the enchanted city shone, fair and

-insubstantial, from the depth below; as it were, the spiritual word

-and voice of all the scene.</p>

-

-<p>Falloden paced up and down the terrace, smoking and thinking.

-That was Otto’s open window. But Radowitz had not yet appeared

-that morning, and the ex-scout, who acted butler and valet to

-the two men, had brought word that he would come down in the

-afternoon, but was not to be disturbed till then.</p>

-

-<p>‘What lunacy made me do it?’ thought Falloden, standing

-still at the end of the terrace which fronted the view.</p>

-

-<p>He and Radowitz had been three weeks together. Had he

-been of the slightest service or consolation to Radowitz during

-that time? He doubted it. That incalculable impulse which had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</span>

-made him propose himself as Otto’s companion for the winter still

-persisted indeed. He was haunted still by a sense of being ‘under

-command’—directed—by a force which could not be repelled.

-Ill at ease, unhappy, as he was, and conscious of being quite

-ineffective, whether as nurse or companion, unless Radowitz

-proposed to ‘throw up,’ he knew that he himself should hold on;

-though why, he could scarcely have explained.</p>

-

-<p>But the divergences between them were great; the possibilities

-of friction many. Falloden was astonished to find that he disliked

-Otto’s little fopperies and eccentricities quite as much as he had

-ever done in college days; his finicking dress, his foreign ways in

-eating, his tendency to boast about his music, his country, and his

-forebears, on his good days, balanced by a brooding irritability

-on his bad days. And he was conscious that his own ways and

-customs were no less teasing to Radowitz; his Tory habits of

-thought, his British contempt for vague sentimentalisms and

-heroics, for all that <i lang="fr">panache</i> means to the Frenchman, or ‘glory’

-to the Slav.</p>

-

-<p>‘Then why, in the name of common sense, are we living

-together?’</p>

-

-<p>He could really give no answer but the answer of ‘necessity’—of

-a spiritual ἀνάγκη[ananki]—issuing from a strange tangle of circumstance.

-The helpless form, the upturned face of his dying father, seemed

-to make the centre of it, and those faint last words, so sharply, and

-as it were, dynamically connected with the hateful memory of

-Otto’s fall and cry in the Marmion Quad, and the hateful ever-present

-fact of his maimed life. Constance too—his scene with her

-on the river bank—her letter breaking with him—and then the

-soft mysterious change in her—and that passionate involuntary

-promise in her eyes and voice, as they stood together in her aunts’

-garden—all these various elements, bitter and sweet, were mingled

-in the influence which was shaping his own life. He wanted to

-forgive himself; and he wanted Constance to forgive him, whether

-she married him or no. A kind of sublimated egotism, he said to

-himself, after all!</p>

-

-<p>But Otto? What had really made him consent to take up

-daily life with the man to whom he owed his disaster? Falloden

-seemed occasionally to be on the track of an explanation, which

-would then vanish and evade him. He was conscious, however,

-that here also, Constance Bledlow was somehow concerned; and,

-perhaps, the Pole’s mystical religion. He asked himself, indeed,

-as Constance had already done, whether some presentiment of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</span>

-doom, together with the Christian doctrines of forgiveness and

-vicarious suffering, were not at the root of it? There had been

-certain symptoms apparent during Otto’s last weeks at Penfold

-known only to the old vicar, to himself and Sorell. The doctors

-were not convinced yet of the presence of phthisis; but from various

-signs, Falloden was inclined to think that the boy believed himself

-sentenced to the same death which had carried off his mother. Was

-there then a kind of calculated charity in his act also—but aiming

-in his case at an eternal reward?</p>

-

-<p>‘He wants to please God—and comfort Constance—by forgiving

-me. I want to please her—and relieve myself, by doing

-something to make up to him. He has the best of it! But we

-are neither of us disinterested.’</p>

-

-<p class="p2">The manservant came out with a cup of coffee.</p>

-

-<p>‘How is he?’ said Falloden, as he took it, glancing up at a

-still curtained window.</p>

-

-<p>The man hesitated.</p>

-

-<p>‘Well, I don’t know, sir, I’m sure. He saw the doctor this

-morning, and told me afterwards not to disturb him till three o’clock.

-But he rang just now, and said I was to tell you that two ladies

-were coming to tea.’</p>

-

-<p>‘Did he mention their names?’</p>

-

-<p>‘Not as I’m aware of, sir.’</p>

-

-<p>Falloden pondered a moment.</p>

-

-<p>‘Tell Mr. Radowitz, when he rings again, that I have gone

-down to the college ground for some football, and I shan’t be

-back till after six. You’re sure he doesn’t want to see me?’</p>

-

-<p>‘No, sir, I think not. He told me to leave the blind down, and

-not to come in again till he rang.’</p>

-

-<p>Falloden put on flannels, and ran down the field paths towards

-Oxford, and the Marmion ground, which lay on the hither side of

-the river. Here he took hard exercise for a couple of hours, walking

-on afterwards to his club in the High Street, where he kept

-a change of clothes. He found some old Marmion friends there,

-including Robertson and Meyrick, who asked him eagerly after

-Radowitz.</p>

-

-<p>‘Better come and see,’ said Falloden. ‘Give you a bread and

-cheese luncheon any day.’</p>

-

-<p>They got no more out of him. But his reticence made them

-visibly uneasy, and they both declared their intention of coming up

-the following day. In both men there was a certain indefinable<span class="pagenum" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</span>

-change which Falloden soon perceived. Both seemed, at times,

-to be dragging a weight too heavy for their youth. At other times,

-they were just like other men of their age; but Falloden, who knew

-them well, realised that they were both hag-ridden by remorse for

-what had happened in the summer. And indeed the attitude of a

-large part of the college towards them, and towards Falloden, when

-at rare intervals he shewed himself there, could hardly have been

-colder or more hostile. The ‘bloods’ were broken up; the dons

-had set their faces steadily against any form of ‘ragging’; and

-the story of the maimed hand, of the wrecking of Radowitz’s career,

-together with sinister rumours as to his general health, had spread

-through Oxford, magnifying as they went. Falloden met it all with

-a haughty silence; and was but seldom seen in his old haunts.</p>

-

-<p>And presently it had become known, to the stupefaction of

-those who were aware of the earlier facts, that victim and

-tormentor, the injured and the offender, were living together in the

-Boar’s Hill cottage where Radowitz was finishing the composition

-required for his second musical examination, and Falloden—having

-lost his father, his money and his prospects—was reading

-for a prize Fellowship to be given by Merton in December.</p>

-

-<p class="p2">It was already moonlight when Falloden began to climb the long

-hill again, which leads up from Folly Bridge to the height on which

-stood the cottage. But the autumn sunset was not long over, and

-in the mingled light, all the rich colours of the fading woodland

-seemed to be suspended in, or fused with, the evening air. Forms

-and distances, hedges, trees, moving figures, and distant buildings

-were marvellously though dimly glorified; and above the golds

-and reds and purples of the misty earth, shone broad and large—an

-Achilles shield in heaven—the autumn moon, with one bright star

-beside it.</p>

-

-<p>Suddenly, out of the twilight, Falloden became aware of a pony-carriage

-descending the hill, and two ladies in it. His blood leapt.

-He recognised Constance Bledlow, and he supposed the other lady

-was Mrs. Mulholland.</p>

-

-<p>Constance on her side knew in a moment from the bearing

-of his head and shoulders who was the tall man approaching

-them. She spoke hurriedly to Mrs. Mulholland.</p>

-

-<p>‘Do you mind if I stop and speak to Mr. Falloden?’</p>

-

-<p>Mrs. Mulholland shrugged her shoulders—</p>

-

-<p>‘Do as you like, my dear. Only don’t expect me to be very

-forthcoming!’</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</span>

-Constance stopped the carriage, and bent forward.</p>

-

-<p>‘Mr. Falloden!’</p>

-

-<p>He came up to her. Connie introduced him to Mrs. Mulholland,

-who bowed coldly.</p>

-

-<p>‘We have just been to see Otto Radowitz,’ said Constance.

-‘We found him—very sadly, to-day.’ Her hesitating voice, with

-the note of wistful appeal in it, affected him strangely.</p>

-

-<p>‘Yes, it has been a bad day. I haven’t seen him at all.’</p>

-

-<p>‘He gave us tea, and talked a great deal. He was rather

-excited. But he looked wretched. And why has he turned against

-his doctor?’</p>

-

-<p>‘Has he turned against his doctor?’ Falloden’s tone was one

-of surprise. ‘I thought he liked him.’</p>

-

-<p>‘He said he was a croaker, and he wasn’t going to let himself be

-depressed by anybody—doctor or no.’</p>

-

-<p>Falloden was silent. Mrs. Mulholland interposed.</p>

-

-<p>‘Perhaps you would like to walk a little way with Mr. Falloden?

-I can manage the pony.’</p>

-

-<p>Constance descended. Falloden turned back with her

-towards Oxford. The pony-carriage followed at some distance

-behind.</p>

-

-<p>Then Falloden talked freely. The presence of the light figure

-beside him, in its dark dress and close-fitting cap, seemed to thaw

-the chill of life. He began rapidly to pour out his own anxieties,

-his own sense of failure.</p>

-

-<p>‘I am the last man in the world who ought to be looking after

-him; I know that as well as anybody,’ he said, with emphasis.

-‘But what’s to be done? Sorell can’t get away from college. And

-Radowitz knows very few men intimately. Neither Meyrick nor

-Robertson would be any better than me.’</p>

-

-<p>‘Oh, not so good—not nearly so good!’ exclaimed Constance

-eagerly. ‘You don’t know! He counts on you.’</p>

-

-<p>Falloden shook his head.</p>

-

-<p>‘Then he counts on a broken reed. I irritate and annoy him

-a hundred times a day.’</p>

-

-<p>‘Oh, no, no—he <em>does</em> count on you,’ repeated Connie in her soft,

-determined voice. ‘If you give up, he will be much—much worse

-off!’ Then she added after a moment—‘Don’t give up! I—I

-ask you!’</p>

-

-<p>‘Then I shall stay.’</p>

-

-<p>They moved on a few steps in silence, till Connie said eagerly—</p>

-

-<p>‘Have you any news from Paris?’</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</span>

-‘Yes, I am going over next week. We wrote in the nick of time.

-The whole thing was just being given up—for lack of funds. Now

-I have told him he may spend what he pleases, so long as he does

-the thing.’</p>

-

-<p>‘Please—mayn’t I help?’</p>

-

-<p>‘Thank you. It’s my affair.’</p>

-

-<p>‘It’ll be very—very expensive.’</p>

-

-<p>‘I shall manage it.’</p>

-

-<p>‘It would be kinder’—her voice shook a little—‘if I might

-help.’</p>

-

-<p>He considered it—then said doubtfully—</p>

-

-<p>‘Suppose you provide the records?—the things it plays?

-I don’t know anything about music—and I have been racking

-my brains to think of somebody in Paris who could look after that

-part of it.’</p>

-

-<p>Constance exclaimed. Why, she had several friends in Paris,

-in the very thick of the musical world there! She had herself

-had lessons all one winter in Paris at the Conservatoire from

-a dear old fellow—a Pole, a pupil of Chopin in his youth, and in

-touch with the whole Polish colony in Paris, which was steeped

-in music.</p>

-

-<p>‘He made love to me a little’—she said laughing—‘I’m sure he’d

-do anything for us. I’ll write <em>at once</em>! And there is somebody at

-the Embassy—why, of course, I can set all kinds of people to work!’</p>

-

-<p>And her feet began to dance along the road beside him.</p>

-

-<p>‘We must get some Polish music’—she went on—‘There’s that

-marvellous young pianist they rave about in Paris—Paderewski.

-I’m sure he’d help! Otto has often talked to me about him.

-We must have lots of Chopin—and Liszt—though of course he

-wasn’t a Pole!—And Polish national songs!—Otto was only telling

-me to-day how Chopin loved them—how he and Liszt used to go

-about the villages and farms and note them down. Oh we’ll

-have a <em>wonderful</em> collection!’</p>

-

-<p>Her eyes shone in her small, flushed face. They walked on fast,

-talking and dreaming, till there was Folly Bridge in front of them,

-and the beginnings of Oxford. Falloden pulled up sharply.</p>

-

-<p>‘I must run back. We have supper early. Will you come

-again?’</p>

-

-<p>She held out her hand. His face beside her, as the moonlight

-caught it, stirred in her a sudden, acute sense of delight.</p>

-

-<p>‘Oh yes—we’ll come again. But don’t leave him!—don’t,

-please, think of it! He trusts you—he leans on you.’</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</span>

-‘It is kind of you to believe it. But I am no use!’</p>

-

-<p>He put her back into the carriage, bowed formally, and was

-gone, running up the hill at an athlete’s pace.</p>

-

-<p>The two ladies drove silently on, and were soon amongst the

-movement and traffic of the Oxford streets. Connie’s mind was

-steeped in passionate feeling. Till now Falloden had touched

-first her senses, then her pity. Now in these painful and despondent

-attempts of his to adjust himself to Otto’s weakness and irritability,

-he was stirring sympathies and enthusiasms in her which belonged

-to that deepest soul in Connie which was just becoming conscious

-of itself. And all the more, perhaps, because in Falloden’s manner

-towards her there was nothing left of the lover. For the moment

-at any rate she preferred it so. Life was all doubt, expectation,

-thrill—its colour heightened, its meanings underlined. And in

-her complete uncertainty as to what turn it would take, and how

-the doubt would end, lay the spell—the potent tormenting charm—of

-the situation.</p>

-

-<p>She was sorry, bitterly sorry for Radowitz—the victim. But

-she loved Falloden—the offender! It was the perennial injustice

-of passion, the eternal injustice of human things.</p>

-

-<p>When Falloden was half-way up the hill, he left the road,

-and took a short cut through fields, by a path which led him to

-the back of the cottage, where its sitting-room window opened on

-the garden and the view. As he approached the house, he saw

-that the sitting-room blinds had not been drawn, and some of

-the windows were still open. The whole room was brilliantly lit

-by fire and lamp. Otto was there alone, sitting at the piano,

-with his back to the approaching spectator and the moonlit night

-outside. He was playing something with his left hand; Falloden

-could see him plainly. Suddenly, he saw the boy’s figure collapse.

-He was still sitting, but his face was buried in his arms which were

-lying on the piano; and through the open window, Falloden heard

-a sound which, muffled as it was, produced upon him a strange

-and horrible impression. It was a low cry, or groan—the voice

-of despair itself.</p>

-

-<p>Falloden stood motionless. All he knew was that he would

-have given anything in the world to recall the past; to undo the

-events of that June evening in the Marmion quadrangle.</p>

-

-<p>Then, before Otto could discover his presence, he went noiselessly

-round the corner of the house, and entered it by the front

-door. In the hall, he called loudly to the ex-scout, as he went upstairs,

-so that Radowitz might know he had come back. When<span class="pagenum" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</span>

-he returned, Radowitz was sitting over the fire with sheets of

-scribbled music paper on a small table before him. His eyes shone,

-his cheeks were feverishly bright. He turned with forced gaiety

-at the sight of Falloden—</p>

-

-<p>‘Well, did you meet them on the road?’</p>

-

-<p>‘Lady Constance, and her friend? Yes. I had a few words with

-them. How are you now? What did the doctor say to you?’</p>

-

-<p>‘What on earth does it matter!’ said Radowitz impatiently.

-‘He was just a fool—a young one—the worst sort—I can put up

-with the old ones. I know my own case a great deal better than

-he does.’</p>

-

-<p>‘Does he want you to stop working?’ Falloden stood on the

-hearth, looking down on the huddled figure in the chair; himself

-broad and tall and curly-haired, like the divine Odysseus, when

-Athene had breathed ambrosial youth upon him. But he was

-pale, and his eyes frowned perpetually under his splendid brows.</p>

-

-<p>‘Some nonsense of that sort!’ said Radowitz. ‘Don’t let’s

-talk about it.’</p>

-

-<p>They went in to dinner, and Radowitz sent for champagne.</p>

-

-<p>‘That’s the only sensible thing the idiot said—that I might

-have that stuff whenever I liked.’</p>

-

-<p>His spirits rose with the wine; and presently Falloden could

-have thought what he had seen from the dark had been a mere

-illusion. A review in <cite>The Times</cite> of a book of Polish memoirs

-served to let loose a flood of boastful talk, which jarred abominably

-on the Englishman. Under the Oxford code, to boast in plain

-language of your ancestors, or your own performances, meant simply

-that you were an outsider, not sure of your footing. If a man really

-had ancestors, or more brains than other people, his neighbours

-saved him the trouble of talking about them. Only the fools

-and the <i lang="fr">parvenus</i> trumpeted themselves; a process in any case

-not worth while, since it defeated its own ends. You might of

-course be as insolent or arrogant as you pleased; but only an

-idiot tried to explain why.</p>

-

-<p>In Otto, however, there was the characteristic Slav mingling of

-quick wits with streaks of childish vanity. He wanted passionately

-to make this tough Englishman feel what a great country Poland

-had been and would be again; what great people his ancestors had

-been; and what a leading part they had played in the national

-movements. And the more he hit against an answering stubbornness—or

-coolness—in Falloden, the more he held forth. So that

-it was an uncomfortable dinner. And again Falloden said to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</span>

-himself—‘Why did I do it? I am only in his way. I shall bore

-and chill him; and I don’t seem to be able to help it.’</p>

-

-<p>But after dinner, as the night frost grew sharper, and as

-Otto sat over the fire, piling on the coal, Falloden suddenly

-went and fetched a warm Scotch plaid of his own. When

-he offered it, Radowitz received it with surprise, and a little

-annoyance.</p>

-

-<p>‘I am not the least cold—thank you!’</p>

-

-<p>But, presently, he had wrapped it round his knees; and some

-restraint had broken down in Falloden.</p>

-

-<p>‘Isn’t there a splendid church in Cracow?’ he asked casually,

-stretching himself, with his pipe, in a long chair on the opposite

-side of the fire.</p>

-

-<p>‘One!—five or six!’ cried Otto, indignantly. ‘But I expect

-you’re thinking of Panna Marya. Panna means Lady. I tell

-you, you English haven’t got anything to touch it!’</p>

-

-<p>‘What’s it like?—what date?’—said Falloden, laughing.</p>

-

-<p>‘I don’t know—I don’t know anything about architecture.

-But it’s glorious. It’s all colour and stained glass—and magnificent

-tombs—like the gate of Heaven,’ said the boy with ardour. ‘It’s

-the church that every Pole loves. Some of my ancestors are

-buried there. And it’s the church where, instead of a clock

-striking, the hours are given out by a watchman who plays a horn.

-He plays an old air—ever so old—we call it the “Heynal,” on the

-top of one of the towers. The only time I was ever in Cracow

-I heard a man at a concert—a magnificent player—improvise

-on it. And it comes into one of Chopin’s sonatas.’</p>

-

-<p>He began to hum under his breath a sweet wandering melody.

-And suddenly he sprang up, and ran to the piano. He played the

-air with his left hand, embroidering it with delicate arabesques and

-variations, catching a bass here and there with a flying touch, suggesting

-marvellously what had once been a rich and complete whole.

-The injured hand, which had that day been very painful, lay helpless

-in its sling; the other flashed over the piano, while the boy’s blue

-eyes shone beneath his vivid frieze of hair. Falloden, lying back

-in his chair, noticed the emaciation of the face, the hollow eyes,

-the contracted shoulders; and as he did so, he thought of the

-scene in the Magdalen ballroom—the slender girl, wreathed in

-pearls, and the brilliant foreign youth—dancing, dancing, with all

-the eyes of the room upon them.</p>

-

-<p>Presently, with a sound of impatience, Radowitz left the piano.

-He could do nothing that he wanted to do. He stood at the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</span>

-window for some minutes looking out at the autumn moon, with

-his back to Falloden.</p>

-

-<p>Falloden took up one of the books he was at work on for his

-Fellowship exam. When Radowitz came back to the fire, however,

-white and shivering, he laid it down again, and once more made

-conversation. Radowitz was at first unwilling to respond. But he

-was by nature <i lang="fr">bavard</i>, and Falloden played him with some skill.</p>

-

-<p>Very soon he was talking fast and brilliantly again, about his

-artistic life in Paris, his friends at the Conservatoire or in the

-Quartier Latin; and so back to his childish days in Poland, and

-the rising of ’63, in which the family estates near Warsaw had been

-forfeited. Falloden found it all very strange. The seething,

-artistic, revolutionary world which had produced Otto was wholly

-foreign to him; and this patriotic passion for a dead country

-seemed to his English common sense a waste of force. But in

-Otto’s eyes Poland was not dead; the white eagle, torn and bloodstained

-though she was, would mount the heavens again; and in

-those dark skies the stars were already rising!</p>

-

-<p>At eleven, Falloden got up—</p>

-

-<p>‘I must go and swat. It was awfully jolly, what you’ve been

-telling me. I know a lot I didn’t know before.’</p>

-

-<p>A gleam of pleasure shewed in the boy’s sunken eyes.</p>

-

-<p>‘I expect I’m a bore,’ he said, with a shrug; ‘and I’d better

-go to bed.’</p>

-

-<p>Falloden helped him carry up his plaid, his books and papers.

-In Otto’s room, the windows were wide open, but there was a

-bright fire, and Bateson the scout was waiting to help him undress.

-Falloden asked some questions about the doctor’s orders. Various

-things were wanted from Oxford. He undertook to get them in the

-morning.</p>

-

-<p>When he came back to the sitting-room, he stood some time

-in a brown study. He wondered again whether he had any qualifications

-at all as a nurse. But he was inclined to think now that

-Radowitz might be worse off without him; what Constance had

-said seemed less unreal; and his effort of the evening, as he looked

-back on it, brought him a certain bitter satisfaction.</p>

-

-<p class="p2">The following day, Radowitz came downstairs with the course

-of the second movement of his symphony clear before him.

-He worked feverishly all day, now writing, now walking up and

-down, humming and thinking, now getting out of his piano—a

-beautiful Erard hired for the winter—all that his maimed state<span class="pagenum" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</span>

-allowed him to get; and passing hour after hour, between an

-ecstasy of happy creation, and a state of impotent rage with his

-own helplessness. Towards sunset he was worn out, and with tea

-beside him which he had been greedily drinking, he was sitting

-huddled over the fire, when he heard someone ride up to the front

-door.</p>

-

-<p>In another minute the sitting-room door opened, and a girl’s

-figure in a riding habit appeared.</p>

-

-<p>‘May I come in?’ said Connie, flushing rather pink.</p>

-

-<p>Otto sprang up, and drew her in. His fatigue disappeared as

-though by magic. He seemed all gaiety and force.</p>

-

-<p>‘Come in! Sit down and have some tea! I was so depressed

-five minutes ago—I was fit to kill myself. And now you make the

-room shine—you come in like a goddess!’</p>

-

-<p>He busied himself excitedly in putting a chair for her, in

-relighting the spirit kettle, in blowing up the fire.</p>

-

-<p>Constance meanwhile stood in some embarrassment with one

-hand on the back of a chair—a charming vision in her close fitting

-habit, and the same black <i lang="fr">tricorne</i> that she had worn in the Lathom

-Woods, at Falloden’s side.</p>

-

-<p>‘I came to bring you a book, dear Mr. Otto, the book we talked

-of yesterday.’ She held out a paper-covered volume. ‘But I

-mustn’t stay.’</p>

-

-<p>‘Oh, do stay!’ he implored her. ‘Don’t bother about Mrs.

-Grundy. I’m so tired and so bored. Anybody may visit an invalid.

-Think this is a nursing home, and you’re my daily visitor.

-Falloden’s miles away on a drag-hunt. Ah, that’s right!’ He

-waved his hand as he saw that she had seated herself. ‘Now

-you shall have some tea!’</p>

-

-<p>She let him provide her, watching him the while with slightly

-frowning brows. How ill he looked—how ill! Her heart sank.</p>

-

-<p>‘Dear Mr. Otto, how are you? You don’t seem so well

-to-day.’</p>

-

-<p>‘I have been working myself to death. It won’t come right—this

-beastly <cite>Andante</cite>. It’s too jerky—it wants <em>liaison</em>. And I

-can’t hear it—I can’t <em>hear</em> it!—that’s the devilish part of it.’</p>

-

-<p>And taking his helpless hand out of the sling in which it had

-been resting, he struck it bitterly against the arm of his chair.

-The tears came to Connie’s eyes.</p>

-

-<p>‘Don’t!—you’ll hurt yourself. It’ll be all right—it’ll be all

-right! You’ll hear it in your mind.’ And bending forward under

-a sudden impulse, she took the maimed hand in her two hands—so<span class="pagenum" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</span>

-small and soft—and lifting it tenderly she put her lips

-to it.</p>

-

-<p>He looked at her in amazement.</p>

-

-<p>‘You do that—for me?’</p>

-

-<p>‘Yes. Because you are a great artist—and a brave man!’

-she said, gulping. ‘You are not to despair. Your music is in your

-soul—your brain. Other people shall play it for you.’</p>

-

-<p>He calmed down.</p>

-

-<p>‘At least I am not deaf, like Beethoven,’ he said, trying to

-please her. ‘That would have been worse.—Do you know last

-night, Falloden and I had a glorious talk. He was awfully decent.

-He made me tell him all about Poland, and my people. He never

-scoffed once. He makes me do what the doctor says. And last

-night—when it was freezing cold—he brought a rug and wrapped it

-round me. Think of that!’—he looked at her—half-shamefaced,

-half-laughing—‘<em>Falloden!</em>’</p>

-

-<p>Her eyes shone.</p>

-

-<p>‘I’m glad!’ she said softly. ‘I’m glad!’</p>

-

-<p>‘Yes, but do you know why he’s kind—why he’s here at all?’

-he asked her, abruptly.</p>

-

-<p>‘What’s the good of silly questions?’ she said hastily. ‘Take

-it as it comes.’</p>

-

-<p>He laughed.</p>

-

-<p>‘He does it—I’m going to say it!—yes, I <em>am</em>—and you are not

-to be angry—he does it because—simply—he’s in love with <em>you</em>!’</p>

-

-<p>Connie flushed again, more deeply, and he, already alarmed by

-his own boldness, looked at her nervously.</p>

-

-<p>‘You are quite wrong.’ Her tone was quiet, but decided.

-‘He did it, first of all, because of what you did for his father——’</p>

-

-<p>‘I did nothing!’ interposed Radowitz.</p>

-

-<p>She took no notice.</p>

-

-<p>‘And secondly’—her voice shook a little—‘because—he was

-sorry. Now—<em>now</em>—he is doing it’—suddenly her smile flashed

-out, with its touch of humour—‘just simply because he likes it!’</p>

-

-<p>It was a bold assertion. She knew it. But she straightened

-her slight shoulders, prepared to stick to it.</p>

-

-<p>Radowitz shook his head.</p>

-

-<p>‘And what am I doing it for? Do you remember when I said

-to you I loathed him?’</p>

-

-<p>‘No—not him.’</p>

-

-<p>‘Well, something in him—the chief thing, it seemed to me then.

-I felt towards him really—as a man might feel towards his murderer—or<span class="pagenum" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</span>

-the murderer of someone else, some innocent, helpless person

-who had given no offence. Hatred—loathing—<em>abhorrence!</em>—you

-couldn’t put it too strongly. Well then,’—he began to fidget with

-the fire, tongs in hand, building it up, while he went on thinking

-aloud—‘God brought us together in that strange manner. By the

-way’—he turned to her—‘are you a Christian?’</p>

-

-<p>‘I—I don’t know. I suppose I am.’</p>

-

-<p>‘I am,’ he said firmly. ‘I am a practising Catholic.

-Catholicism with us Poles is partly religion, partly patriotism—do

-you understand? I go to confession—I am a communicant.

-And for some time I couldn’t go to Communion at all. I always

-felt Falloden’s hand on my shoulder, as he was pushing me down

-the stairs; and I wanted <em>to kill him</em>!—just that! You know our

-Polish blood runs hotter than yours. I didn’t want the college to

-punish him. Not at all. It was my affair. After I saw you in

-town, it grew worse—it was an obsession. When we first got to

-Yorkshire, Sorell and I, and I knew that Falloden was only a few

-miles away, I never could get quit of it—of the thought that some

-day—somewhere—I should kill him. I never, if I could help it,

-crossed a certain boundary line that I had made for myself, between

-our side of the moor, and the side which belonged to the Fallodens.

-I couldn’t be sure of myself if I had come upon him unawares.

-Oh, of course, he would soon have got the better of me—but there

-would have been a struggle—I should have attacked him—and

-I might have had a revolver. So for your sake’—he turned to

-look at her with his hollow blue eyes—‘I kept away. Then, one

-evening, I quite forgot all about it. I was thinking of the theme

-for the slow movement in my symphony, and I didn’t notice where

-I was going. I walked on and on over the hill—and at last I heard

-a man groaning—and there was Sir Arthur—by the stream. I saw

-at once that he was dying, and I took a card from his waistcoat

-pocket, which told me who he was. There I sat, alone with him.

-He asked me not to leave him. He said something about Douglas.

-“Poor Douglas!” And when the horrible thing came back—the

-last time—he just whispered, “Pray!” and I said our Catholic

-prayers—that our priest had said when my mother died. Then

-Falloden came—just in time—and instead of wanting to kill him,

-I waited there, a little way off—and prayed hard for myself and

-him! Queer, wasn’t it? And afterwards—you know—I saw his

-mother. Then the next day, I confessed to a dear old priest, who

-was very kind to me, and on the Sunday he gave me Communion.

-He said God had been very gracious to me; and I saw what he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</span>

-meant. That very week I had a hæmorrhage, the first I ever

-had.’</p>

-

-<p>Connie gave a sudden, startled cry. He turned again to smile

-at her.</p>

-

-<p>‘Didn’t you know? No, I believe no one knew, but Sorell and

-the doctors. It was nothing. It’s quite healed. But the strange

-thing was how extraordinarily happy I felt that week. I didn’t

-hate Falloden any more. It was as though a sharp thorn had gone

-from one’s mind. It didn’t last long of course, the queer ecstatic

-feeling. There was always my hand—and I got very low again.

-But <em>something</em> lasted; and when Falloden said that extraordinary

-thing—I don’t believe he meant to say it at all!—suggesting we

-should settle together for the winter—I knew that I must do it.

-It was a kind of miracle—one thing after another—<em>driving</em> us.’</p>

-

-<p>His voice dropped. He remained gazing absently into the fire.</p>

-

-<p>‘Dear Otto’—said Constance softly—‘you have forgiven him?’</p>

-

-<p>He smiled.</p>

-

-<p>‘What does that matter? <em>Have you?</em>’</p>

-

-<p>His eager eyes searched her face. She faltered under them.</p>

-

-<p>‘He doesn’t care whether I have or not.’</p>

-

-<p>At that he laughed out.</p>

-

-<p>‘Doesn’t he? I say, did you ask us both to come—on purpose—that

-afternoon?—in the garden?’</p>

-

-<p>She was silent.</p>

-

-<p>‘It was bold of you!’ he said, in the same laughing tone. ‘But

-it’s answered. Unless, of course, I bore him to death. I talk

-a lot of nonsense—I can’t help it—and he bears it. And he says

-hard, horrid things, sometimes—and my blood boils—and I bear it.

-And I expect he wants to break off a hundred times a day—and

-so do I. Yet here we stay. And it’s <em>you</em>’—he raised his head

-deliberately—‘it’s <em>you</em> that are really at the bottom of it.’</p>

-

-<p>Constance rose trembling from her chair.</p>

-

-<p>‘Don’t say any more, dear Otto. I didn’t mean any harm.

-I—I was so sorry for you both.’</p>

-

-<p>He laughed again.</p>

-

-<p>‘You’ve got to marry him!’ he said triumphantly. ‘There!—you

-may go now—But you’ll come again soon. I know you

-will!’</p>

-

-<p>She seemed to slip, to melt, out of the room. But he had a

-last vision of flushed cheeks, and half-reproachful eyes.</p>

-

-<p class="p2 center">(<i>To be continued.</i>)</p>

-

-<p class="p2">FOOTNOTES:</p>

-

-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_11" href="#FNanchor_11" class="label">[11]</a> Copyright, 1915, by Mrs. Humphry Ward in the United States of America.</p>

-

-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">

-</div><!--end chapter-->

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</span>

-<h2><span class="h3head"><i>TO THE EDITOR OF THE ‘CORNHILL.’</i></span></h2>

-

-<p><span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,—If it gives Mr. Russell any pleasure to accuse me of

-‘living in a happy remoteness from affairs,’ and of having ‘only just

-awakened from a slumber which seems to have lasted longer than

-that of Rip Van Winkle,’ it would be cruel of me to object. But

-the proof of my guilt, it seems, is to be found in the article I wrote

-in the <span class="smcap">Cornhill</span> on ‘The Duke of Wellington and Miss J.’ That

-article, Mr. Russell thinks, proves that I had only just discovered

-Miss J. and her correspondence with the Duke. As a matter of

-fact I have been familiar with the volume published by Mr. T.

-Fisher Unwin for more than twenty years, and it must be fifteen years

-ago since I wrote an article on the subject in an Australian magazine.

-But Mr. Russell himself thinks the letters of Miss J. so little known,

-and so very interesting, that he himself expends another article

-on them, three months later than mine, and taking exactly the

-same view of them! It seems clear that there are two Rip Van

-Winkles—one in England and one in Australia: and the English

-Van Winkle is even drowsier, and wakes later, than his Australian

-kinsman.</p>

-

-<p>I should not trouble you with this note, however, except for

-the opportunity it gives me of apologising for an injustice to Sir

-Herbert Maxwell which I committed in the article I wrote in the

-<span class="smcap">Cornhill</span>. I represented him as saying the Duke ‘must have

-been inexpressibly bored by the correspondence,’ and the words

-are in inverted commas, giving the reader the impression these

-were the exact words Sir Herbert Maxwell used. I apologise for

-those unfortunate inverted commas. The words they seem to quote

-were not the precise words Sir Herbert Maxwell used in his ‘Life

-of Wellington,’ and they do not accurately convey his meaning.

-‘The letters,’ he says, ‘<em>some might think</em> were of the very kind to

-bore the Duke, whose religion was of a somewhat conventional

-kind.’ But Sir Herbert Maxwell does not say that that was his

-personal opinion.</p>

-

-<p class="p0 center">Yours truly,</p>

-<p class="p0 sigright"><span class="smcap">W. H. Fitchett</span>.</p>

-

-<hr class="medium">

-

-<p class="small"><span class="smcap">Note.</span>—In her article, ‘Dublin Days: the Rising,’ which appeared in my

-July number, Mrs. Hamilton Norway, on page 51, repeats the current story

-that Messrs. Jacob were ready to let the military blow up their biscuit factory,

-for they would never make another biscuit in Ireland. In justice to Messrs.

-Jacob, let me add that I have since learnt on the one unimpeachable authority

-that this story, however picturesque, is wholly apocryphal.</p>

-

-<p class="sigright"><span class="smcap">The Editor.</span></p>

-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">

-</div><!--end chapter-->

-

-<div class="chapter">

-<h4>Transcriber’s Note:</h4>

-

-<p>This book was written in a period when many words had not become

-standardized in their spelling. Words may have multiple spelling

-variations or inconsistent hyphenation in the text. These have been

-left unchanged unless indicated below. Misspelled words were not

-corrected.</p>

-

-<p>Footnotes were renumbered sequentially and were moved to the end of

-the chapter. Obvious printing errors, such as backwards, upside down,

-partially printed letters and punctuation or punctuation used as

-letters, were corrected. Final stops missing at the end of sentences

-and abbreviations were added. Duplicate letters at line endings or

-page breaks and excess single quote marks were removed.</p>

-

-<p>Missing word added: ... a devil <a href="#chg2">[of]</a> suspicion ...</p>

-<p>Word changed: ... except that [if] <a href="#chg1">it</a> afforded ...</p>

-</div><!--end chapter-->

-<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'></div>

-<section class='pg-boilerplate pgheader' id='pg-footer' lang='en' >

-<div id='pg-end-separator'>

-<span>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CORNHILL MAGAZINE, (VOL. XLI, NO. 243 NEW SERIES, SEPTEMBER 1916) ***</span>

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+<section class='pg-boilerplate pgheader' id='pg-header' lang='en'>
+<h2 id='pg-header-heading' title=''>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Cornhill Magazine, (vol. xli, no. 243 new series, September 1916) by Various</h2>
+
+<div>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 <a class="reference external" href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. 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.</div>
+
+
+<div class='container' id='pg-machine-header'>
+<p><strong>Title:</strong> The Cornhill Magazine, (vol. xli, no. 243 new series, September 1916)</p>
+<div id='pg-header-authlist'>
+<p><strong>Author:</strong> Various</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><strong>Release Date:</strong> August 11, 2023 [eBook #71391]</p>
+<p><strong>Language:</strong> English</p>
+<p><strong>Credits:</strong> Carol Brown, hekula03 and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)</p>
+</div>
+<div id='pg-start-separator'>
+<span>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CORNHILL MAGAZINE, (VOL. XLI, NO. 243 NEW SERIES, SEPTEMBER 1916) ***</span>
+</div>
+</section>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="center">
+<span class="up">BY SPECIAL</span> <img src="images/logo.jpg" alt="logo"> <span class="up">APPOINTMENT</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">
+ARTISTS’ COLOURMEN TO THEIR MAJESTIES THE KING AND QUEEN<br>
+<span class="allsmcap">AND TO</span> H.M. QUEEN ALEXANDRA.<br>
+<br>
+<br></p>
+<p class="center h2head">WINSOR &amp; NEWTON,</p>
+<p class="center">LIMITED,</p>
+<p class="center"><b>MANUFACTURERS OF ARTISTS’ OIL AND<br>
+WATER COLOURS of the FINEST QUALITY.</b></p>
+
+<hr class="medium">
+
+<p class="center"><b>THE SCHOLARS’ BOX of<br>
+ARTISTS’ MOIST WATER COLOURS.</b><br>
+<br>
+Designed to provide an inexpensive box of Artists’ Colours with a range of
+tint and covering power approximately equal to the ordinary Students’ Box.</p>
+
+<p class="unindent"><i>‘In developing the faculty of observation in children, Drawing and Colour Work is most essential. The
+Drawing and Colour materials should always be of good quality, and suitable for the purpose for which
+they are intended.’</i></p>
+
+<table>
+<tr><td class="tdl">Scholars’ Box of Artists’ Water Colours</td>
+    <td class="tdr"><b>Price 3s. net.</b></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdc small">Containing 8 Pans and 2 Brushes.</td><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdl">Refills for Scholars’ Box &emsp; - &emsp; -</td>
+    <td class="tdr"><b>Series 1, 2s. 6d.; Series 2, 4s.;</b></td></tr>
+<tr><td></td><td class="tdr"><b>Series 3, 6s.; Series 4, 8s. per doz. net.</b></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p class="center">Offices <span class="ss"> </span> RATHBONE PLACE, LONDON, W.</p>
+
+<hr>
+<p class="center">A SEARCHLIGHT INTO THINGS THAT MATTER.</p>
+
+<p class="center h1head black">The Review of Reviews</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Illustrated.</span><span class="ss"> </span><span class="smcap">Monthly.</span><span class="ss"> </span><span class="smcap">Price</span> 1/-</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i><b>The Ideal Magazine for the Homes of the Empire.</b></i></p>
+
+<p class="unindent">G., in <cite>The Newspaper World</cite>, says:</p>
+
+<p>‘The management of <cite>The Review of Reviews</cite>, impelled by an unprecedented situation
+in our annals to double the price of that familiar monthly, have succeeded in providing
+their readers with an increased number of pages and a richer and more varied table of
+contents, while maintaining at the same time in every department of the <cite>Review</cite> the
+spirit and the purpose of its founder. For a monthly so fresh and full, so vital and
+stimulating, one shilling is a low rather than a high figure for so excellent and varied a
+bill of intellectual fare.’</p>
+<hr class="medium">
+<p class="center"><b>‘WE PUT THE WORLD BEFORE YOU!’</b></p>
+<hr class="medium">
+<p class="unindent">Readers of the ‘Cornhill Magazine’ are invited to carefully examine <b>THE REVIEW OF REVIEWS</b>;
+they will, it is anticipated, decide to order it regularly from Booksellers or Newsagents. Single copies
+1/- monthly; or it can be sent by post for one year for <b>14/6</b>; to Canada, <b>13/6</b>.<br>
+<br>
+Subscription Orders, enclosing Cheque or Post Office Order, should be addressed to <b>THE
+MANAGER, ‘REVIEW OF REVIEWS’ OFFICE, BANK BUILDINGS, KINGSWAY, LONDON, W.C.</b></p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</span>
+<h1><span class="muchsmaller">THE</span><br>
+CORNHILL MAGAZINE.</h1>
+<hr class="short">
+<p class="center">SEPTEMBER 1916.<br></p>
+<hr class="short">
+<h2><span class="h3head"><i>THE KAISER AS HIS FRIENDS KNEW HIM.</i></span></h2>
+
+<p class="center allsmcap">BY A NEUTRAL DIPLOMAT.</p>
+
+<p class="p2"><span class="smcap">Among</span> the high German officials whose opinion of William the
+Second’s foreign policies I quoted in my previous article, I do not
+recall a single one whose loyalty or sense of propriety did not
+prevent his offering any personal criticisms of the Emperor to whose
+service his best efforts were being devoted. An apprehensiveness,
+bordering on positive dread in many instances, of the ultimate
+consequences of the Kaiser’s impetuosities was often apparent in
+the observations of their franker moments, but personal aspersions
+were never cast. This was, of course, no more than could have
+been expected from the well-bred men-of-the-world that they were.
+And in this connection it may be in point to add that not even
+among the rather gay and not always discreetly reserved officers
+of the Crown Prince’s suite (with whom I was thrown not a little
+during their visit to India in 1911) was loose criticism of the
+Emperor ever heard, either by myself or by others who enjoyed
+still fuller opportunities than I had for meeting them on intimate
+and confidential terms.</p>
+
+<p>Frederick William himself was, I regret to record, far less discreet
+than those about him in his references to his imperial progenitor,
+and I recall very clearly that quick-tongued youth’s sarcastic
+allusions to certain rulings of the Kaiser in the matter of the treatment
+of the natives of some of the islands of German Melanesia.
+The Crown Prince, I should explain, I had found consumed with
+interest concerning the progress his people were making in
+several of their Pacific island colonies I had recently visited, and it
+was to his very palpable desire to ‘pump me dry’ of any information
+I might have picked up regarding these incipient ‘places in
+the sun’ that I owed a number of hours of conversation with him
+the edification of which would hardly otherwise have fallen to my
+lot.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</span>
+The outburst I had in mind was led up to by my royal inquisitor’s
+asking me for my views concerning the comparative progress of
+the three political divisions of the island of New Guinea, and by
+my replying that, if the criterion of judgment was to be the contentment,
+physical well-being, and economic usefulness of the native,
+I should rate British New Guinea first, Dutch New Guinea an
+indifferent second, and German New Guinea a very poor third. It
+was anything but a courtier-like speech on my part, but I was not
+meeting Frederick William in my official capacity, and, moreover,
+he had made a point of asking that I should give him perfectly
+frank answers to his questions. (‘None of the “bull con’,” as the
+Yankees say,’ was the way he put it; ‘give me the “straight
+goods.”’ Both expressions, as he confessed with a grin, he had
+picked up from a ‘neat little filly from Kentucky’ he had ‘seen
+a bit of’ at Ostend the previous summer.)</p>
+
+<p>The Crown Prince, in spite of his undeniable personal courage,
+of which I saw several striking instances in the course of his Indian
+visit, is far from being what the Anglo-Saxons call a ‘good sport,’
+and on this occasion he made no pretence of hiding his annoyance.
+Because, however, as transpired later, there were several other
+matters which he had in mind ‘pumping’ me on, he evidently
+thought it best not to vent his spleen for the moment on one whose
+usefulness was not quite exhausted. This befell subsequently,
+I may add, though under circumstances which have no especial
+bearing on my present subject.</p>
+
+<p>Tapping his boot with his riding-whip—he had been playing
+polo—the Prince sat in a sort of spoiled-child pout of petulance for
+a minute or two, before bursting out with: ‘Doubtless you’re right.
+I’ve had hints of the same thing myself from private reports. It’s
+all due to the pater’s unwarranted interference in something
+he knows nothing about. Old X——’ (mentioning the previous
+Governor of German New Guinea by name) ‘has forgotten more
+about handling Papuans than the pater ever knew. The pater
+has put his foot in it every time he has moved in our Pacific
+colonies.’ (It may be in order to explain that not only does the
+Crown Prince speak excellent English, but that on this Indian visit
+he made a point of resorting to English idioms, colloquialisms, and
+slang to an extent which at times became positively ridiculous.
+I have quoted here almost his exact language.)</p>
+
+<p>Frederick William went on to give me a spirited and approving
+account of the manner in which a German colonist near Herbertshöhe<span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</span>
+had put an end to raids on his yam patch by planting on
+each corner-post of the enclosure the ‘frizzly’ head of a Papuan
+who had been shot in the act of making off with the succulent
+tubers, concluding with the dogmatic assertion that the only way
+to handle the black man was to ‘bleed him white.’</p>
+
+<p>I had the temerity to reply that, from what I had seen, the more
+‘old X——’ continued to forget of what he thought he knew about
+handling Papuans, the better it would be for German colonial
+prospects in New Guinea, and as a consequence threw my royal
+interrogator into another fit of sulks. It is only fair to say that
+the ‘interference’ of which the Crown Prince waxed so unfilially
+censorious really consisted of measures calculated slightly—but
+only slightly—to mitigate the brutal repressiveness toward the
+natives which had characterised the German administration of
+New Guinea from the outset. The one bright spot in the brief but
+bloody annals of German overseas colonisation was the six or eight
+years’ régime of the broad-minded and humane Dr. Solf—the
+present Colonial Secretary—in Samoa. This tiny and comparatively
+unimportant Pacific outpost was the single Teutonic colony in
+which I found the natives treated with anything approaching the
+humanitarian consideration extended to them so universally by
+the English and the French. Dr. Solf may well be, as has been
+occasionally hinted from Holland, the hope of those conservative
+and intelligent Germans who are known to be silently working for
+a reborn and ‘de-Prussified’ Fatherland after the war.</p>
+
+<p>As I have said, the Crown Prince was the only highly placed
+German whom I ever heard speak slightingly in a personal way of
+the Kaiser, and that impetuous youth was—as he still is—a law
+unto himself. Such loyalty and discretion, however, did not
+characterize all prominent Germans in private life, and it is to
+several of these I am indebted for the illuminating sidelights their
+observations and anecdotes threw on the human side of William II.
+Of such, I fancy the Baron Y——, who voyaged on the same
+steamer with me from Zanzibar to Port Said several years ago,
+had enjoyed perhaps the most intimate opportunities for an
+intelligent appraisal of his Emperor.</p>
+
+<p>The Baron was a scion of one of the oldest and wealthiest of
+Bavarian noble families, a graduate of the École des Beaux Arts as well
+as Heidelberg, and to the fact that several years of his boyhood were
+spent at Harrow owed an English accent in speaking that language
+which betrayed no trace of Teutonic gutturality. He was returning<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</span>
+from an extended hunting trip in British and German East Africa
+at the time I made his acquaintance, and was nursing a light
+grievance against his own Government from the fact that he had
+been rather better treated in the former than the latter. His
+attitude toward the Kaiser was somewhat different from that of any
+other German I have ever met, this, doubtless, being due to his own
+great wealth and assured position. There was little of the ‘loyal
+and devoted subject’ in this attitude, to which no better comparison
+suggests itself to me than that of a very heavy stock-holder in a
+corporation toward a general manager who is in no respect his
+social superior.</p>
+
+<p>‘The Kaiser’s most pronounced characteristic,’ said Baron
+Y—— one evening as we paced the promenade, ‘is his overweening
+vanity. His “ego” dwarfs his every other attribute, natural or
+acquired, and it is idle to try to understand what he is, what he
+does, what he stands for—and, incidentally, what the German
+people, in quite another sense, have to stand for—without taking
+that fact into consideration. It is the obsession of his own importance—I
+might even say his belief in his own omnipotence—that is
+responsible for his taking the so-called Divine Right of the Hohenzollerns
+more seriously, interpreting the term more literally, than
+any of his ancestors since Frederick the Great. It is his vanity
+that is responsible for his incessant shiftings of uniforms, for his
+posturings, his obvious attempts to conceal or distract attention
+from his shrunken arm. He is the most consummate master of
+stagecraft; indeed, the Fates spoiled a great producer of spectacles—one
+who would have eclipsed Reinhardt—to make, not an
+indifferent Emperor, but——’ The Baron checked himself and
+concluded with: ‘Perhaps I had best not say what I had in mind.
+Everything considered, however, I am convinced that it would
+have been better for Germany if William the Second had been
+stage-manager rather than Kaiser.’</p>
+
+<p>Specific and intimate instance of the pettiness with which the
+Kaiser’s vanity occasionally expressed itself Baron Y—— gave me
+the following evening. I had been turning the pages of some of
+his German illustrated papers, and was unable to refrain from
+commenting, not only on the frequency with which the portrait of
+the Kaiser appeared, but also of the defiant ‘come-one-come-all’
+attitude of all of those in which the War Lord appeared in uniform.
+The Baron laughed good-naturedly. ‘The Kaiser’s attitudinizings,’
+he said, ‘never seem to strike the Prussians as in the
+least funny (they haven’t much of a sense of humour, anyhow):<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</span>
+but we Bavarians have always taken them as quite as much of
+a joke as has the rest of Europe. Now this picture’ (he began
+turning the pages of ‘Ueber Land und Meer’ in search of it), ‘which
+is one of the most popular with the Prussians, we of Bavaria have
+always called “Ajax Defying the Lightning,” and I am going to tell
+you the history of it.</p>
+
+<p>‘This picture is reproduced from one of several dozen almost
+identical photographs which have been taken of the Kaiser glowering
+into the emptiness of the upper empyrean from the vantage of
+a little basaltic crag which crops up at the forks of a road in one
+of the Imperial game preserves. I have always taken a sort of
+paternal interest in this apparently “to-be-continued-indefinitely”
+series of photographs, for it chanced that I was in the company of
+their central figure on the occasion when he discovered this now
+famous pedestal, and it was due to a suggestion of mine that he was
+enabled to turn his find to what he no doubt considers a most
+felicitous use.</p>
+
+<p>‘It was on one of the early days of an imperial hunting party—just
+the ordinary affair of its kind, with no one in particular from the
+outside on hand, and nothing especial in the way of sport offered—and
+the Kaiser, not being in very good fettle, had bidden me
+remain in the lodge with him to discuss some experiments I had
+been conducting on my estates with some drought-resisting barleys
+and lucernes, the seed of which had been sent to Germany by one
+of our “agricultural explorers” in Central Asia. The Kaiser’s
+keenness for skimming the cream of the world and bringing it home
+for the German people is only exceeded by his vanity,’ the Baron
+added parenthetically.</p>
+
+<p>‘Having heard all I had to report, my imperial host suggested
+a stroll in the forest, and it was while pushing on from tree to tree
+to study the efficacy of a new kind of chemically treated cement
+the foresters had been using to arrest the progress of decay that we
+wandered out upon the jutting crag shown in this picture. It was
+late in the afternoon, and by both of the two converging roads,
+several hundred metres of vista of each of which were commanded
+from our lofty eyrie, men were drifting back toward the lodge from
+the hunt. The dramatic possibilities of the unexpected vantage
+point—the manner in which one was able to step from behind
+the drop-curtain of the forest undergrowth to the front of the
+stage at the tip of the jutting crag—kindled the fire of the Kaiser’s
+imagination instantly.</p>
+
+<p>‘“What a place from which to review my hunting guests!”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</span>
+he exclaimed, stepping forward and throwing out his chest
+in his best “reviewing” manner. “Strange I have never
+noticed it from the road. It must be because the light is so
+bad here. Yes, that is what the trouble is. They cannot see us
+even as clearly as we can see them.” (He frowned his palpable
+disappointment that all eyes from below were not centred upon
+him where he stood in fine defiance in the middle of his new-found
+stage.)</p>
+
+<p>‘“If I may venture a suggestion, Your Majesty,” I said, “I think
+it is the dense shadow from that big tree on the next point that
+makes it so dark here. Do you not see that the sun is directly
+behind it at this hour? The removal of that out-reaching limb
+on the right would give this crag at least an hour of sunshine, but,
+as a practical forester, I should warn you that doing so would
+destroy the ‘balance’ of the tree so much that the next heavy
+storm would probably topple it over to the left. It already inclines
+that way, and——”</p>
+
+<p>‘“There are several hundred thousand more trees like that in
+the Black Forest,” cut in the Kaiser, “but not one other look-out
+to compare with this. My sincere thanks for the suggestion.
+I will have it carried out.”</p>
+
+<p>‘And so,’ continued Baron Y——, ‘the obscuring limb was
+removed, and the mutilated tree, as I knew it must, went down
+the following winter. “My look-out now will have three hours of
+sunlight instead of one,” the Kaiser observed gleefully when he
+told me about it; “I was glad to see it go.”</p>
+
+<p>‘It was a case of one monarch against another, and as the
+Kaiser is resolved to brook no rival, especially where the question
+of his “sunlight” is concerned, I suppose the sequel was inevitable.
+All the same I am sorry that—that it was the monarch of the
+forest that had to go down. But though the tree went down,’
+he concluded with a grimace, tossing the magazine into my lap,
+‘the “Ajax” pictures still continue.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Wouldn’t “His Place in the Sun” be even an apter title than
+“Ajax Defying the Lightning”?’ I ventured.</p>
+
+<p>‘Unquestionably,’ was the reply. ‘I had thought of that
+myself. But, you see, even we Bavarians are very keen in the
+matter of the extension of Germany’s “<i lang="de">übersee</i>” colonies, and it
+wouldn’t do to make light of our own ambitions.’</p>
+
+<p>I have set down this little story just as it was told to me, and
+it is only since the outbreak of the war, when the mainsprings of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</span>
+German motives are revealed at Armageddon, that it has occurred
+to me how perfectly it resolves itself into allegory. To the world
+at large, but to the Briton especially, is there no suggestion in what
+the Kaiser <em>did</em> to the tree, which for a hundred years or more had
+shadowed his tardily stumbled-upon look-out, of what he <em>planned
+to do</em> to the Empire which he had so often intimated had crowded
+him out of his ‘place in the sun’? With the tree he hewed off
+a sun-obscuring limb, and the unbalanced, mutilated remnant
+succumbed to the first storm that assailed it. Was not this the
+procedure that he reckoned upon following with the ‘obscuring
+limbs’ of the British Empire?</p>
+
+<p>The foregoing instance of the extravagant vanity of the Kaiser
+Baron Y—— told more in amusement than in censoriousness, but
+I recall another little story to much the same point that he related
+with hard eyes and the shade of a frown, as one man speaks of
+another who has not quite ‘played the game’ in sport or business.
+It, also, had to do with an imperial hunt.</p>
+
+<p>‘As you doubtless know,’ he said, after telling me something
+of how creditably the Kaiser shot, considering his infirmity, ‘a
+strenuous endeavour is always made on these occasions that the
+best game be driven up to the rifles of royalty, a custom which none
+of the Hohenzollerns have ever had the sporting instinct to modify
+in favour of even the most distinguished visitors. By some chance
+on the day in question, a remarkably fine boar ran unscathed the
+gauntlet of the imperial batteries and fell—an easy shot—to my own
+bullet. It was a really magnificent trophy—the brute was as
+high at the shoulder as a good-sized pony, and his tusks curved
+through fully ninety degrees more than a complete circle—and it
+had occurred to me at once that it was in order that I should at
+least <em>offer</em> to make a present of the head to my royal host. Frankly,
+however, I really wanted it very badly for my own hall, and I can
+still recall hoping that the Kaiser would “touch and remit, after
+the manner of kings,” as Kipling puts it.’</p>
+
+<p>The Baron was silent for a few moments, staring hard in front
+of him with the look of a man who ponders something that has
+rankled in his mind for years. ‘Well,’ he resumed presently,
+‘the Kaiser <em>did</em> “touch” (in the sense the Yankees use the term,
+I mean), but he did not “remit.” When we came to group for the
+inevitable after-the-hunt photograph, I was dumbfounded to see a
+couple of the imperial huntsmen drag up my prize, not in front
+of me, where immemorial custom decreed it should go, but to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</span>
+the feet of the Kaiser. He even had the nerve to have the photograph
+taken with his foot on its head. You have shot big game
+yourself, and you will know, therefore, that this would convey to
+any hunter exactly the same thing as his writing under the photograph,
+“I shot this boar myself.”’</p>
+
+<p>The Baron took a long breath before resuming. ‘I need not tell
+you how surprised and angry I was, and I will not tell you what it
+took all the self-control I had to keep from doing. What I <em>did</em> do,
+I flatter myself, would have been thoroughly efficacious in bringing
+home to any other man in this world the consummate meanness
+of the thing he had done. The moment the photograph was finished
+I stepped up to the Kaiser and, controlling my voice as best I could,
+said: “Your Majesty, I beg you will deign to accept as a humble
+token of my admiration of your prowess as a hunter and your
+courtesy as a host the fine boar which my poor rifle was fortunate
+to bring down to-day.”</p>
+
+<p>‘I still think that my polite sarcasm would have cut through
+the armour of any other man on earth. It was impossible to
+mistake my meaning, and he must have known that every man
+there knew it was <em>my</em> boar that he had had his picture taken with
+and was still coolly keeping his boot upon. Possibly he decided
+in his own mind, then and there, that the time had come to extend
+the “Divine Right of the Hohenzollerns” to the hunting field.
+At any rate, he bowed graciously, thanked me warmly, and, pointing
+down to where I had stood in the picture, said he presumed it was
+“that little fellow with the deformed tusk.”</p>
+
+<p>‘My head was humming from the shock of the effrontery, but
+I still have distinct recollection of the deliberate <i lang="fr">sang-froid</i> of the
+Kaiser’s manner as he directed someone to “mark that little boar
+with a twisted tusk, a gift from my good friend, Baron Y——, for
+mounting as a trophy.” I was a potential regicide for the next
+week or two, but my sense of humour pulled me up in the end.
+For, after all, what is the use of taking seriously a man who, for the
+sake of tickling his insatiate vanity by having his photograph
+taken with his foot on the head of a bigger pig than those in front
+of his hunting guests, commits an act that, were he anything less
+than an Emperor, would stamp him with every one of them as an
+out-and-out bounder? The memory of the thing makes me “see
+red” a bit even to-day if I let my mind dwell on it at all, but
+mingling with my resentment and mortification there is always a sort
+of sneaking admiration for the way the Kaiser (as the Yankees<span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</span>
+say) “got away with the goods.” The Hohenzollern—the trait is
+as evident in the Crown Prince as it is in his father—will always
+go forward instead of backward when it comes to being confronted
+with the consequences of either their bluffs or their breaks, and it
+is about time that the people in Germany, as well as the people
+outside of Germany, got this fact well in mind when dealing with
+them.’</p>
+
+<p>These words were spoken before the Kaiser backed down
+when his Agadir bluff was called, but, generally speaking, I think
+the action of both father and son since then has been eloquent
+vindication of their truth.</p>
+
+<p>Another noble German of my acquaintance who had at one
+time been on terms of exceptional intimacy with the Kaiser was
+the wealthy and distinguished Baron von K——, who, in the two
+decades previous to the outbreak of the war, had divided his time
+about equally between his ancestral castle on the Rhine and a great
+Northern California ranch brought him by his wealthy American
+wife. I met him first at a house-party in Honolulu about ten years
+ago, and at that time he appeared to take considerable pride in his
+friendship with the Kaiser, of whom he was wont to speak often
+and sympathetically. Since then I have encountered him, now
+in America, now in Europe, on an average of once a year, and on
+each succeeding occasion I noticed a decreasing warmth on his
+part, not so much for Germany and the Germans, for whom he
+still expressed great affection, but rather toward the Kaiser and
+his policies. It must have been fully seven years ago that he told
+me, at the Lotus Club in New York, that the mad race of armaments
+in which Germany was setting the pace for the rest of Europe could
+only end in one way—a great war in which his country would run
+a risk of losing far more than it had any chance of winning.</p>
+
+<p>It was not long after this that I heard that Baron von K——
+had returned hurriedly and unexpectedly from Germany to America,
+taking with him his two sons who had been at school there. I
+never learned exactly what the trouble was, but a friend of his told
+me that it had some connection with an effort that had been made
+to induce the youngsters to become German subjects and join the
+army, flattering prospects in which were held out to them. Von
+K—— is said to have declared that the boys should never be allowed
+to set foot in Germany again. Whether this latter statement is
+true or not, it is a fact that neither of the lads has ever since crossed
+the Atlantic, and that both are now at Harvard.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</span>
+In the spring of 1911 von K—— cut short what was to have
+been a fortnight’s business trip to Germany to one of four days,
+the change in plan, as I have since learned, being due to an ‘invitation’
+(an euphemism for a command) from the Kaiser to invest
+a huge sum of money in one of his armament concerns, great
+extensions in which were contemplated. Von K—— refused point-blank,
+rushed through his business, and took the first boat for
+New York. I did not see him until the following year, but friends
+told me that for a couple of months after his return to California he
+absolutely refused to talk of Germany or of German affairs even
+with his intimates.</p>
+
+<p>This silence was dramatically broken in the smoking-room of
+the Union League Club, San Francisco, on the evening when the
+news came that the Kaiser had sent the gunboat ‘Panther’ to
+Agadir as a trump card for the game he was playing for the control
+of Morocco. Von K—— was frowning over his paper when an
+American friend came up, clapped him on the shoulder, and
+exclaimed: ‘The Baron is in close touch with the Kaiser; perhaps
+he can tell us what “The Mailed Fist” is punching at in North
+Africa.’</p>
+
+<p>What von K—— said regarding the allegation that he was in
+close touch with the Kaiser was not stated in words that even the
+San Francisco papers (whose ‘news vultures’ had pounced upon
+the incident within an hour) felt able to report verbatim the
+following morning, but his ‘Mailed Fist’ <i lang="fr">mot</i> went from California
+to Maine in the next twelve hours, and even to-day is still freely
+quoted whenever the question of the War Lord’s mentality is the
+subject of discussion.</p>
+
+<p>‘Mailed vist!’ snorted the Baron, whose English has
+never climbed entirely out of his throat; ‘Vell, berhabst dey haas
+mailed his vist, but, by Gott, dey haas neffer mailed his prain.’
+Then, as an afterthought, ‘Or maype, if dey haas mailed his prain,
+der bostmann haas forgodt it to deliffer.’</p>
+
+<p>I saw Baron von K—— in San Francisco—encountered him
+beaming over the sculptures in the Italian Building at the Panama-Pacific
+Exposition—but was unable to draw him into any discussion
+of Germany and the war. He did, however, tell me that his German
+estates were for sale, that he never expected to return there again,
+and that—the day after Belgium was invaded—he had applied for
+his first papers of American citizenship.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</span>
+<h2><span class="h3head"><i>THE TUTOR’S STORY.</i></span><a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchorh2">[1]</a></h2>
+
+
+<p class="center">
+BY THE LATE CHARLES KINGSLEY,<br>
+REVISED AND COMPLETED BY HIS DAUGHTER, LUCAS MALET.</p>
+
+<p class="p2 center allsmcap">CHAPTER <abbr title="thirty">XXX</abbr>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">That</span> was the first of many days—for by both Braithwaite’s and
+Nellie’s request I stayed on at Westrea until nearly the end of
+the vacation—of sweet but very searching experience. If I
+played with fire it was a purifying fire surely, burning away the
+baser metal and leaving whatever of gold might be in me free of
+dross.</p>
+
+<p>Not that I say this boastfully—who am I, indeed, to boast?—but
+humbly and thankfully, knowing I passed through an ordeal
+from which—while the animal man cowered and shrank, crying
+aloud, aye, and with tears of agony, to be spared—the spiritual
+man drew strength and rose, in God’s mercy, to greater fulness of
+life. For I learned very much, and that at first hand, by personal
+experiment, not by hearsay merely or, parrot-like, by rote. Learned
+the truth of the apostle’s dictum, that although ‘all things are
+lawful,’ yet, for some of us, many things, however good in themselves
+or good for others, are ‘not expedient.’ Learned, too, the
+value of the second best, learned to accept the lower place. Learned
+to rejoice in friendship, since the greater joys of love were denied
+me, schooling myself to play a brother’s part; play it fearlessly
+and, as I trust, unselfishly, watchful that neither by word, or deed,
+or even by look, I overstepped the limit I had set myself and
+forfeited the trust and faith Nellie reposed in me.</p>
+
+<p>To do this was no easy matter. At moments, I own, the springs
+of courage and resolution ran perilously dry. Then I would go
+away by myself for a time; and—why should I hesitate to tell
+it?—pray, wrestle in prayer, for self-mastery which, with that
+wrestling, came. For if we are honest with ourselves and with
+Him, disdaining self-pity and self-excuse, Almighty God is very
+safe to fulfil His part of the bargain. This, also, I learned, during
+those sweet and searching days at Westrea, beyond all question
+of doubt.</p>
+
+<p>I rode or drove with Braithwaite about the neighbouring<span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</span>
+country. Walked with him over his farm. Talked with him
+endlessly of his agricultural schemes and improvements. Talked
+with him about public events, too, and about politics. Only once
+or twice was Hartover, or Hover, mentioned; and then, I observed,
+his tone took on a certain bitterness. He had been up to Yorkshire
+on business a little prior to my visit, had happened to run across
+Warcop—aged and sad, so he told me. But my old friend laid
+aside much of his customary caution, it appeared, on hearing
+Braithwaite expected shortly to see me, and bade him tell me things
+were not well at Hover.</p>
+
+<p>‘What he actually knows, what he only suspects, I could not
+quite discover,’ Braithwaite went on. ‘But I gathered the Countess
+has been up to queer tricks. As to that business, now, of the
+Italian rascal going off with the plate—you heard of it?—well,
+it looks uncommonly as though my lady was in no haste to have
+him laid by the heels—bamboozled the police, as she bamboozled
+pretty well every unlucky wretch she comes across, until he had
+time to make good his escape.’</p>
+
+<p>‘And the Colonel?’ I asked.</p>
+
+<p>‘A dark horse. Connived at the fellow’s escape, too, I am
+inclined to think. Marsigli knew too much of the family goings-on,
+and, if he was caught, was pretty sure to blab in revenge. I am
+not given to troubling myself about the unsavoury doings of great
+folks, Brownlow. They had a short way with aristocratic heads
+during the French Revolution at the end of last century, and I
+am not altogether sure they weren’t right. But for my poor Nellie’s
+sake, I should never give that Longmoor faction a second thought.
+As it is I have been obliged to think about them, and I believe
+the plain English of the whole affair is that the Colonel and my
+lady have been on better terms than they should be for many years
+past. What she wants is a second Lord Longmoor as husband,
+and the money, and the property, and—a son of her own to inherit
+it. An ugly accusation? Yes. But can you spell out the mystery
+any better way than that?’</p>
+
+<p>I did not know that I could, and told him so. There the conversation
+dropped, while my mind went back to the letter Nellie
+had shown me.—It was a devilish action of Fédore’s, I thought, the
+mark of a base, cruel nature, capable—the last sin—of trampling
+on the fallen. And yet might it not have been dictated by the
+pardonable desire to secure her prize for herself, to prevent pursuit,
+inquiry, scandal, perhaps fresh misery for Nellie? There are two<span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</span>
+sides, two explanations, of every human act; and the charitable
+one is just as rational, often more so, than the uncharitable. If she
+stated her case somewhat coarsely, was she not low-bred, ill-taught,
+excited by success?</p>
+
+<p>Thus did I argue with myself, trying to excuse the woman,
+lest I should let anger get the upper hand of reason and judgment.
+But what was her relation to Marsigli? This it was which really
+mattered, which was of lasting moment. And about this I must
+be silent, be cool and prudent. At present I could take no action.
+I must wait on events.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile each day brought me a closer acquaintance with,
+and respect for, Nellie’s character; the liveliness of her intelligence,
+and justness of her taste. And to it, the intellectual side of her
+nature, I made my appeal, trying to take her mind off personal
+matters and interest her in literature and thought. On warm
+mornings, her household duties finished, she would bring her
+needlework out to a sheltered spot in the garden, where the high
+red-brick wall formed an angle with the house front; and sitting
+there, the flowers, the brimming water, the gently upward sloping
+grass-land and avenue of oaks before us, I would read aloud to
+her from her favourite authors or introduce her to books she had
+not yet read. On chill evenings we would sit beside the wood
+fire in the hall, while Braithwaite was busy with the newspaper or
+accounts, and read till the dying twilight obliged her to rise and
+light the lamp. Much of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Scott, along
+with Pope’s rendering of the Iliad, Hazlitt’s Lectures and Lamb’s
+Essays, we studied thus. Shelley, save for a few of the lyrics,
+we avoided by tacit consent; and Byron likewise, with the exception
+of certain portions of ‘Childe Harold’; the heroic rather
+than the sentimental note seeming safest—though from different
+causes—to us both.</p>
+
+<p>Often I would illustrate our reading by telling her about the
+authors, the places, or the period with which it dealt, to see her
+hands drop in her lap, her face grow bright, her manner animated,
+as she listened and questioned me—argued a little too, if she differed
+from my opinion. Sometimes she laughed with frank enjoyment at
+some merry tale or novel idea. And then I was indeed rewarded—only
+too well rewarded. For her laughter was exquisite to me,
+both in sound and in token of—were it but momentary—lightness
+of heart.</p>
+
+<p>After that first morning in the Orchard Close, we rarely<span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</span>
+mentioned the dear boy. I felt nothing could be gained by leading
+the conversation in his direction. If it would afford her relief,
+if she wanted to speak, she knew by now, I felt, she could do so
+without embarrassment or fear of misunderstanding on my part.
+But it was not until the afternoon of the day preceding my
+return to Cambridge that we had any prolonged talk on the
+subject.</p>
+
+<p>Braithwaite, I remember, had driven over to Thetford upon
+business; and, at Nellie’s request, I walked with her to the village,
+so that she might show me the fine old monuments and brasses in
+the parish church.</p>
+
+<p>Coming back across the fields, we lingered a little, watching the
+loveliness of the early May sunset. For, looking westward, all
+the land lay drenched in golden haze, which—obliterating the
+horizon line—faded upward into a faint golden-green sky, across
+which long webs were drawn of rose and grey. Out of the sunset
+a soft wind blew; full, as it seemed, of memory and wistful invitation
+to—well—I know not what. But either that wind or consciousness
+of our parting on the morrow moved Nellie to open her
+heart to me more freely than ever before.</p>
+
+<p>‘Dear Mr. Brownlow,’ she said, her eyes still fixed on that
+loveliness of sunset—‘I want to thank you now, while we are still
+alone, for all you have done for me. You have, indeed, been a
+good physician, and I want you to know how much better I am
+since you came—stronger, and more at peace. I promise you I
+will do my utmost to keep the ground I have gained, and not
+fall back into the unworthy state of mind out of which you have
+brought me. I do not say I am cured.’</p>
+
+<p>She looked up at me, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>‘I do not think you would ask that of me. I have no wish to
+be—I should, I think, be ashamed to be cured of—of my love.
+For it would make what was most beautiful seem unreal and
+untrue. But I am resigned to all—almost all—which has happened.
+I no longer kick against the pricks, or ask to have things
+otherwise. I shall not let it make me sour or envious—thanks
+to you.’</p>
+
+<p>And as she spoke I read in her dear eyes a depth of innocent
+and trustful affection, which was almost more than I could endure.</p>
+
+<p>‘I have come to a better frame of mind,’ she said. ‘It will
+last. It shall last, I promise you.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Then all is well,’ I answered, haltingly.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</span>
+But as I spoke her expression changed. She walked forward
+along the field path, looking upon the ground.</p>
+
+<p>‘Yes, all—I suppose—is well,’ she repeated. ‘All except one
+thing—that hurts still.’</p>
+
+<p>‘And what is that one thing?’</p>
+
+<p>I thought I knew. If I was right, I had a remedy at hand—a
+desperate one, perhaps, but she was firm enough to bear it now.</p>
+
+<p>‘I always felt how little I had to offer, as against his position,
+his gifts, and all the attractions of his life at Hover, and still more
+his life in town. The wonder was he should ever have found me
+worth caring for at all. But I thought his nature was deeper and
+more constant, and it hurts—it must always hurt—that he should
+have forgotten so soon and so entirely as she—his wife—says he
+has.’</p>
+
+<p>‘There she lied. He has not forgotten,’ I answered. ‘Here
+are Hartover’s own words.’</p>
+
+<p>And I gave her the letter I received after my visit to Chelsea.
+Let her learn the truth, the whole truth, as from his own lips—learn
+the best and the worst of him, and so meet whatever the
+future might bring with open eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Some twenty yards ahead a stile and gate divided the field of
+spring wheat we were crossing from the pasture beyond. I must
+leave Nellie to herself. So I went on and stood, leaning my elbows
+on the top bar of the gate.</p>
+
+<p>Below, in the hollow, the red roofs and chimneys of Westrea
+and a glint of water showed through the veil of golden haze.
+An abode of peace, of those wholesome fruitful industries which
+link man to mother-earth and all her ancient mysteries of the
+seasons, of seed-time and harvest, rain and shine. How far away
+in purpose and sentiment from the gaudy world of fashion, of
+artificial excitement, intrigue and acrimonious rivalries, to which
+my poor boy, Hartover, now belonged! Yes, and therefore,
+since here her lot was cast, it was well Nellie should know the
+best and worst of him, his weakness and his fine instincts alike;
+because—because—in the back of my mind was a conviction,
+irrational, unfounded, very foolish perhaps, but at this moment
+absolute, that the end was not yet. And that, in the end, by ways
+which I knew not, once again Nellie would find Hartover, and
+Hartover would find Nellie, and finding her would find rest to his
+soul, salvation to his wayward nature, and thus escape the fate
+of Alcibiades, which I had always so dreaded for him, and prove<span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</span>
+worthy of his high station, his great possessions, his singular beauty,
+charm and talent, even yet.</p>
+
+<p>For five minutes, nearly ten minutes, while the gold faded to
+grey, I waited, and Nellie gave no sign. I began to grow nervous
+and question the wisdom of my own action. To her, pure and
+high-minded as she was, would this revelation of dissipation and
+hard-living prove too painful, would she turn from it in anger
+and disgust? Had I betrayed my trust, been disloyal to the dear
+boy in letting her see his confession? I bowed my head upon my
+hands. Fool, fool, thus to rush in where angels might truly fear
+to tread!</p>
+
+<p>Then quick, light footsteps behind me—the rustle of a woman’s
+dress. And as, fearful and humiliated, I, turning, looked up,
+Nellie’s eyes like stars, her face pale but glorious in its exaltation
+and triumphant tenderness.</p>
+
+<p>‘Dear good physician,’ she said, ‘I am really cured at last—not
+of, but by love. All that seemed spoilt and lost is given back.
+How can I thank you enough? I can bear to be away from him,
+bear to give him up, now that I know he really cared for me, really
+suffered in leaving me. I can even forgive her, though she has
+been cruel and insolent, because she went to him in his trouble
+and helped to save his life. And I understand why he married
+her—it was chivalrous and generous on his part. It places him
+higher in my estimation. I can admire him in that too.’</p>
+
+<p>I gazed at her, dazzled, enchanted, wondering. And then—shame,
+thrice shame to me after all my struggles, resolutions,
+prayers—the devil of envy raised its evil head, of bitterness against
+the rich man, who with all his gold and precious stones, his flocks
+and herds, must yet steal the poor man’s one jewel, one little ewe
+lamb.</p>
+
+<p>‘Have you read all the letter—read that part in which he
+speaks of his first months in London?’ I asked.</p>
+
+<p>For an instant she looked at me without comprehension, her
+eyebrows drawn together, in evident question and surprise. Then
+the tension relaxed. Gently and sweetly she laughed.</p>
+
+<p>‘Ah! yes,’ she said. ‘I know. He grew reckless—he did
+wrong. But—but, dear Mr. Brownlow—is it wicked of me?—I
+cannot condemn him for that—because it was his love for me
+which drove him to it. He tells you so himself. I suppose I
+ought to be shocked—I will try to be—presently—if you say I
+ought. But not just yet—please not just yet.’</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</span>
+‘Neither now nor presently,’ I answered, conscience-stricken
+and ashamed. ‘You know far better than I what is right. Follow
+your own heart.’</p>
+
+<p>I opened the gate, and stood back for her to pass. As she
+did so she paused.</p>
+
+<p>‘You are displeased with me,’ she said. ‘Yet why? Why
+did you let me read his letter, except to comfort me and make me
+happy by showing me he was not to blame?’</p>
+
+<p>Why indeed? She well might ask. And how was I to answer
+without still further betraying my trust—my trust to her, this
+time, since I had sworn to be to her as a brother and let no hint
+of my own feelings disturb the serenity of our intercourse?</p>
+
+<p>So I replied, I am afraid clumsily enough—</p>
+
+<p>‘You are mistaken. And to show you how little I am displeased
+I beg you to keep this letter, in exchange for the one you
+gave me to keep. You may like to read it through again, from
+time to time.’</p>
+
+<p>I held it out. And for an instant she hesitated, her eyes fixed
+upon the writing, upon the paper, as though these actual and
+material things were precious in her sight. Then she put her hands
+behind her and shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>‘No—better not. It is not necessary,’ she said with a childlike
+gravity. Her whole attitude just now was curiously simple
+and childlike. ‘I have every word of it by heart already, dear
+Mr. Brownlow. I shall remember every word—always.’</p>
+
+<p>And for a while we walked on in silence, side by side, beneath
+the dying sunset. Upon the hump-backed bridge spanning the
+stream Nellie stopped.</p>
+
+<p>‘One thing more, good physician,’ she said, very gently. ‘I
+am cut off from him for—for ever by his marriage. But you
+can watch over him and care for his welfare still. You will do
+so?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Before God—yes,’ I answered.</p>
+
+<p>‘And, sometimes, you will let me hear, you will come and tell
+me about him?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Again—yes—before God.’</p>
+
+<p>And I smiled to myself, bowing my head. Oh! the magnificent
+and relentless egoism of love!—But she should have this
+since she asked it; this and more than this. Plans began to
+form in my mind, a determination to make sure, whatever it might
+cost me, about this same marriage of Hartover’s. I would devote<span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</span>
+myself to an inquiry, pursue it carefully, prudently; but pursue
+it regardless of time, regardless of money—such money as, by
+economy and hard work, I could command. For was not such an
+inquiry part, and an integral one, of the pledge to watch over
+Hartover and care for his welfare which I had so recently and
+solemnly given her? Undoubtedly it was.</p>
+
+<p>‘Thank you,’ she said. Then after a pause, ‘I wonder why
+you are so kind to me? Sometimes I am almost afraid of your
+kindness, lest it should make me selfish and conceited, make me
+think too highly of myself. Indeed I will try better to deserve
+it. I will read. I will improve my mind, so as to be more worthy
+of your society and teaching, when you come again.—But, Mr.
+Brownlow, I have never kept anything from my father until now.
+Is it deceitful of me not to tell him of these two letters? They
+would anger and vex him; and he has been so much happier and
+like his old self since you have been with us. I hate to disturb him
+and open up the past.’</p>
+
+<p>‘I think you are, at least, justified in waiting for a time before
+telling him,’ I faltered.</p>
+
+<p>For my poor head was spinning, and I had much ado to collect
+my wits. She would read, improve herself, be more worthy of my
+teaching when I came again, forsooth!—Ah! Nellie, Nellie, that
+I must listen with unmoved pedagogic countenance, that I must
+give you impersonal and sage advice, out of a broken heart!—</p>
+
+<p>‘Yes, wait,’ I repeated. ‘Later your course of action may
+be made clearer, and you may have an opportunity of speaking
+without causing him annoyance or distress. You are not disobeying
+his orders, in any case.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Thank you,’ she said again. ‘See, the lamps are lit. My
+father must be home and we are late. Oh! how I wish you were
+not going away to-morrow. He will miss you, we shall all miss
+you so badly.’</p>
+
+<p>I did not sleep much that night.</p>
+
+<p class="p2 center allsmcap">CHAPTER XXXI.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> ancient postboy drove out to Westrea next morning, and
+conveyed me and my impedimenta back to Cambridge.</p>
+
+<p>The journey was a silent one, I being as little disposed for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</span>
+conversation as he. My thoughts were not very cheerful. Yet
+what had I, after all, to make a poor mouth about? I had asked
+to know my own mind, and arrive at a definite decision concerning
+certain matters closely affecting my future. Now I knew it very
+thoroughly; and, as to those matters, had decided once and for
+all. It only remained for me to acquaint my kind old friend,
+the Master, with that decision as tactfully and delicately as might
+be. But how should I acquit myself? And how would he take
+it? And how far should I be compelled to speak of Hartover
+and Nellie, and of my own relation to both, to make my meaning
+clear? For what a tangle it all was—a tangle almost humorous,
+though almost tragic too, as such human tangles mostly are!
+Well, I supposed I must stick to my old method of blunt truth-telling,
+leaving the event to my Maker, who, having created that
+strange anomaly, the human heart, must surely know how best to
+deal with its manifold needs and vagaries!</p>
+
+<p>So far then, it was, after all, fairly plain sailing. But, unfortunately,
+these thoughts were not the only thing which troubled me.</p>
+
+<p>For I felt as well as thought; and feeling is more dangerous
+than thought because at once more intimate and more intangible.
+A great emptiness filled—for emptiness can fill, just as silence can
+shout, and that hideously—not only my own soul but, as it seemed,
+all Nature around me. The land was empty, the sky empty.
+An east-wind blight spread abroad, taking all colour out of the
+landscape and warmth out of the sunshine. Just so had my
+parting with Nellie cast a blight over me, taking the colour and
+warmth out of my life. For I had been with her long enough for
+her presence, the sound of her voice, and constant sight of her to
+become a habit. How terribly I missed, and should continue to
+miss, her—not only in great matters but in small, in all the pleasant,
+trivial, friendly incidents of every day!</p>
+
+<p>After the freshness and spotless cleanliness of Westrea, my
+college rooms—fond though I was of them—looked dingy and
+uncared for, as is too often the way of an exclusively masculine
+dwelling-place. The men had not come up yet, which spared me
+the annoyance of Halidane’s neighbourhood for the moment. Still
+I felt the depressing lack of life and movement throughout the
+college buildings and quadrangles. Cambridge was asleep—a dull
+and dismal sleep, as it struck me. The Master, I found, was back
+and at the Lodge once more; but, since only a portion of the
+house was ready for habitation, Mrs. Dynevor and her daughters<span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</span>
+would remain at Bath for some weeks longer. This I was glad to
+hear, as it promised to simplify my rather awkward task.</p>
+
+<p>I called at the Lodge the same evening, to be received by the
+Master with his usual cordiality. He invited me to stay and dine,
+admitting he felt somewhat lonely without his ladies in the still
+partially dismantled house.</p>
+
+<p>‘Unlike the three children in the Babylonian furnace, the
+smell of fire is very much upon it still,’ he said. ‘Signs and odours
+of destruction meet me at every turn. I dare say in the end—for
+I have an excellent architect—we shall make a more comfortable
+and certainly more sanitary place of it than ever before; but the
+continuity is broken, much history and many a tradition lost for
+good. I am only heartily glad you are not among the latter,
+Brownlow. It was a very near thing.’</p>
+
+<p>Whether this was intended to give me an opening for explanation,
+I could not say. In any case I did not choose to take advantage
+of it, preferring to explain at my own time and in my own
+way.</p>
+
+<p>We talked on general subjects for a while. But at the end of
+dinner, when the butler left the room, he said, eyeing me with a
+twinkle—</p>
+
+<p>‘It was a pity you could not manage to meet us at Bath, Brownlow,
+for you would have found some old friends there. One of
+whom, a very splendid personage by the same token, made many
+gracious inquiries after you—put me through the longer catechism
+in respect of you, and put my sister and nieces through it also,
+I understand.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Old friends?’ I asked, considerably puzzled both by his words
+and manner.</p>
+
+<p>‘You had not heard, then, any more than I, that Lord Longmoor
+has settled permanently at Bath?’</p>
+
+<p>I assured him I had not.</p>
+
+<p>‘Yes—and under sad enough circumstances,’ he went on, with
+a change of tone. ‘Poor gentleman, he and those about him have
+cried wolf for so many years that I, for one, had grown sceptical
+regarding his ailments. But what of constitution he ever possessed
+has been undermined by coddling and dosing. I was admitted
+once or twice, and was, I own, most painfully impressed by his
+appearance and by his state of mind—religious mania, or something
+alarmingly akin to it, and that of at once the most abject and
+arrogant sort.’</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</span>
+I was greatly shocked by this news, and said so.</p>
+
+<p>‘What is being done?’ I asked.</p>
+
+<p>‘Everything that common sense would forbid, in my opinion.
+He is surrounded by an army of obsequious servants and rapacious
+medical and religious quacks, all and each busy to secure their
+private advantage while fooling him, poor soul, to the top of his
+bent. Our hopeful convert and gownsman Halidane had joined
+the throng, so I heard, but fled at my approach. Where the
+carcass is, there the vultures are gathered together—a repulsive
+and odious sight, showing the case of Dives may after all be hardly
+less miserable than that of Lazarus.’</p>
+
+<p>The Master paused.</p>
+
+<p>‘Lady Longmoor is there too; and heaven forgive me, Brownlow,’
+he added, ‘I could not but wonder what sentiments that
+remarkably fair lady really entertains towards her lord. She
+confided in me in the most charming manner; yet, honestly, I
+knew less what to think and believe, knew less how the land really
+lay, after receiving those confidences than before.’</p>
+
+<p>In spite of myself I was amused. For could I not picture
+her Magnificence and my good kind old Master in solemn conclave?
+Picture the arts and graces let loose on him, the touching appeals,
+admissions, protests; the disarming innocence of glance and
+gesture, along with flashes of naughty laughter, beneath the black-fringed
+eyelids, in the demurely downcast eyes.</p>
+
+<p>‘Her ladyship’s communications are not always easy to interpret.
+They are not always intended to enlighten—perhaps,’ I
+ventured.</p>
+
+<p>‘Then you, too, have been honoured?’</p>
+
+<p>‘I have.’</p>
+
+<p>He chuckled.</p>
+
+<p>But, in my case, amusement speedily gave place to sober reflection.
+For if Lord Longmoor was in so critical a condition, dying
+possibly, what an immense change in Hartover’s position this
+entailed! All my fears for the dear boy reawakened. What means
+might not be taken to embroil him with his father, at this critical
+moment, to injure and dispossess him! Particularly did I dislike
+the fact that Halidane had been in attendance. I questioned the
+Master anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>‘Ah! there you have me, Brownlow,’ he replied. ‘Lord
+Hartover is a point upon which my lady’s confidences proved
+peculiarly obscure. She spoke of her “dear George” with a great<span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</span>
+show of affection, deploring that the festivities in celebration of his
+coming of age next month must be postponed. She had so counted
+on seeing both you and me at Hover then, she declared. Deploring,
+also’—and he looked rather hard at me, I thought, across the
+corner of the dinner table over the row of decanters, as he spoke—‘deploring
+also an unfortunate disposition in her stepson to become
+enamoured of young women very much beneath him in the social
+scale. She gave me to understand both she and his father had
+been caused much annoyance and trouble by more than one affair
+of this sort. Yet I could not help fancying she sought information,
+just then, rather than offered it. I had a notion—I may have
+been mistaken—she was doing her best to pump me and find out
+whether I had heard anything from you upon the subject of these
+amatory escapades. Come, Brownlow—for my instruction, not for
+hers—can you fill in the gaps?’</p>
+
+<p>I hesitated. Had the right moment come for explanation? I
+believed that it had. And so, as plainly and briefly as I could,
+I told him the whole story. I kept back nothing—why should
+I? There was nothing to be ashamed of, though somewhat to
+grieve over, and much to regret. I told him of Nellie, of Fédore;
+of Hartover’s love, Hartover’s marriage. I told him of my own
+love.</p>
+
+<p>For a while he remained silent. Then, laying his hand on my
+shoulder, as I sat, my elbows upon the table, my face buried in
+my hands—</p>
+
+<p>‘My poor fellow, my poor fellow—I had no notion of all this,’
+he said. ‘So this is the upshot of your two years at Hover. I sent
+you out to make your fortune, and you found your fate. Well—well—things
+are as they are; but I do not deny that recently I had
+formed very different plans for you.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Do not think me presumptuous, sir, if I answer I feared as
+much. And that is my reason for telling you what I have told no
+other human being—what, indeed, I had hoped to keep locked
+inviolably in my own breast as long as I live.’</p>
+
+<p>Something in my tone or in my narrative must have stirred
+him deeply, for he rose and took a turn up and down the room, as
+though with difficulty retaining his composure. For my part, I
+own, I felt broken, carried out of myself. It had been searching
+work, dislocating work, to lay bare my innermost heart thus.
+But only so, as I judged, could the mention of Alice Dynevor’s
+name be avoided between us. It was better to sacrifice myself,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</span>
+if by so doing I could at once spare her and arrive at a clear understanding.
+Of this I was glad. I think the Master was glad too;
+for, his rather agitated walk ended, he stood beside me and spoke
+most kindly.</p>
+
+<p>‘Your secret is perfectly safe with me, Brownlow, rest assured.
+I give you my word I will never reveal it. You have behaved
+honourably and high-mindedly throughout. Your conduct commands
+my respect and admiration,—though I could wish some
+matters had turned out otherwise. But now as to this marriage—real
+or supposed—of poor Hartover’s and all the ugly plotting
+of which, I fear with you, he is the victim. I do not think I can
+find it in my conscience to stand by, or encourage you to stand by,
+with folded hands.’</p>
+
+<p>‘That is exactly what I was coming to, sir,’ I said, choking
+down alike my thanks and my emotion. ‘If, as you inform me,
+Lord Longmoor’s health is so precarious, the poor dear boy’s
+future must not be left to chance.’</p>
+
+<p>‘No, no,’ he answered warmly. ‘His foes, I fear, are very
+literally of his own household. If this woman is legally his wife,
+we, as his friends, are called upon to stand by the marriage and,
+on grounds of public policy, make the best of what, I admit, strikes
+me as a very bad business. If she is not legally his wife, if there
+is any flaw in the marriage, we must take means to establish the
+fact of that flaw and set him free. Whether he is grateful to us
+for our self-imposed labours affects our duty neither one way nor
+the other at this stage of the proceedings. But, should she prove
+the unscrupulous person I take her to be, he will very certainly
+thank us in the end. And now, Brownlow, it occurs to me the
+sooner we move in all this the better. There is no time to be
+lost.’</p>
+
+<p>He gave me reasons for his opinion, in which I fully agreed;
+and we sat talking far into the night, with the result that within
+a fortnight I travelled, first to Yorkshire, and then up to town.</p>
+
+<p class="p2 center allsmcap">CHAPTER <abbr title="32">XXXII</abbr>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">About</span> my Yorkshire journey it is unnecessary to say much. I
+saw Hover once more, stately as ever, but lifeless. The great
+house shut up, its many treasures swathed in dust sheets and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</span>
+brown paper. When it would be opened again none knew. Probably
+Colonel Esdaile would bring some gentlemen down in August
+for grouse-shooting, or for covert-shooting in October. He would
+hunt there during the winter.—The Colonel, always and only the
+Colonel, as man in possession?</p>
+
+<p>I said as much to Warcop—to whom my visit was made—sitting
+before the empty stove in that queer sanctum of his, hung round
+with prints and spoils of the stud-farm and the chase. Whereupon
+he stuck out his bulldog under-jaw and mournfully shook
+his big grizzled head.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, he answered, that was pretty well what it all came
+to. Would to God it did not!—always and only Colonel Jack
+at Hover in these days. And my lord lay a-dying, so they said,
+at Bath; and my young lord gave no sign. And her ladyship
+flitted in, like some great bright-painted butterfly, for a day and a
+night. Looked round the stables and gardens with a laugh, hanging
+on the Colonel’s arm, and flitted off again, as gay as you
+please, to London or Bath, or Old Nick knew where; while Colonel
+Jack, with a face like thunder and a temper like tinder, cursed
+the very guts out of anyone unlucky enough to cross his path
+for full twenty-four hours afterwards. Colonel Esdaile was a
+changed man, as I gathered; his swaggering manner and jovial
+good-humour a thing of the past, save at rare intervals or when
+her ladyship happened to be about.</p>
+
+<p>All of which was bad hearing. The more so as, without going
+all lengths with Braithwaite in his condemnation of our hereditary
+nobility, I believed then—and believe firmly still—that if a great
+nobleman, or great landowner, is to justify his position—aye, and
+his very existence—he must live on his estate, keep in close touch
+with, and hold himself directly responsible for the welfare of, all
+ranks of its population—labourers, artisans, rent-payers great and
+small, alike. The middle-man, however just or able an administrator,
+introduces, and must always introduce, a cold-blooded,
+mechanical relation as between landlord and tenant, employer
+and employed. And, now listening to Warcop’s lament, I trembled
+lest the curse of absenteeism—which during recent years has worked
+such havoc of class hatred and disaffection in Ireland—should
+set its evil mark upon this English country-side.</p>
+
+<p>In this connection it was inevitable that memories of my former
+dreams and ambitions for Hover should come back to me with a
+bitter sense of failure and of regret. Dreams and ambitions of so<span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</span>
+educating and training my dear pupil as to make him an ideal
+landowner, an ideal nobleman, to whom no corner of his vast
+possessions, the lives lived and work done there, would be a matter
+of indifference; but who would accept and obey the divinely
+ordained law of rulership and ownership which reminds us every
+privilege carries with it a corresponding obligation, and that the
+highest duty of him who governs is to serve.</p>
+
+<p>Where had all those fair dreams and ambitions departed now?
+Were they for ever undone and dissipated? It seemed so, alas!
+Yet who could tell? Had I not promised Nellie, and that in
+some sort against my dearest interests, to watch over Hartover
+to the best of my power, and care for him still? And if a poor
+faulty human creature, such as I, could be faithful, how much
+more God, his Maker! Yes, I would set my hope, both for him
+and for Hover, firmly there, black though things looked at present.
+For Almighty God, loving him infinitely more than I—much though
+I loved him—would surely find means for his redemption, and,
+notwithstanding his many temptations, still make for him a way of
+escape.</p>
+
+<p>And with that I turned my mind resolutely to the practical
+inquiry which had brought me north, questioning Warcop concerning
+the disappearance of Marsigli and the theft, with which he
+stood charged, of jewels and of plate.</p>
+
+<p>Warcop’s first words in reply, I own, set my heart beating.</p>
+
+<p>‘Best ask French Mamzelle, sir,’ he said, with a snarl. ‘For,
+as sure as my name’s Jesse Warcop, she’d the main finger in that
+pie. Picked out t’ fattest o’ the plums for herself, too, and fathered
+the job upon Marsigli to rid herself of the fellow.’</p>
+
+<p>‘To rid herself of him?’</p>
+
+<p>‘’Od, an’ why not? So long as ye were here wi’ us, sir, what
+she’d set her mind to have was out of her reach. But, you safe
+gone, she’d na more stomach for my lord’s Italian butler, bless
+you—must fly at higher game than that.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Lord Hartover?’</p>
+
+<p>‘And who else? Eh! but she’s a canny one; none of your
+hot-heads, rushing into a thing afore they’ve fairly planned it.
+She’d her plan pat enough. Laid her train or ever she struck a
+match; waited till she kenned it was all over between t’ dear
+lad and Braithwaite’s lass. Had Marsigli muzzled, seeing that
+to tell on her was to tell on himself. And others, that should
+ha’ shown her up, durstn’t do it, lest she opened her mouth and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</span>
+set scandal yelping after them. So she’d a muzzle onto them too,
+and could afford to laugh t’ whole lot in the face—upstairs as well
+as down—and follow her own fancy.’</p>
+
+<p>He ruminated, chewing viciously at the straw he carried in
+his mouth.</p>
+
+<p>‘And, as the talk goes, she’s followed it to a finish,’ he added,
+‘and fixed her devil she-kite’s claws in my young lord, poor dear
+lad, safe enough. Is the talk true, sir?’</p>
+
+<p>I answered, sadly, I feared it was so; but that, as some method
+might still possibly be found of unfixing those same kite’s claws,
+I had come in search of any information he could give.</p>
+
+<p>‘Then you mean to put up a fight, sir?’ he said, his jaw hard
+and his eyes bright. ‘For all your colleging and your black coat,
+you’re o’ the same kidney as when ye rode t’ little brown horse
+across the fells and saved t’ pack.’</p>
+
+<p>And therewith he settled down to recount all he had puzzled
+out, all he believed and thought. Inferential rather than circumstantial,
+this, alas! for the most part; yet to me valuable, from
+the man’s caution, honesty, power of close observation, shrewd
+intelligence and mother-wit. In his opinion the theft had been
+carried out at Fédore’s instigation, and upon her undertaking
+to join Marsigli as soon as it was accomplished, and fly with him
+to his native city of Milan. Having thus involved the Italian—whose
+long-standing passion for, and jealousy of her, were matters
+of common knowledge among the servants, Warcop said—she
+evidently played him false, although covering his escape by putting
+the police on a wrong scent. Where was he now? In England,
+Warcop opined, probably hiding in London, still hoping to induce
+Fédore to redeem her promise. Were the two man and wife?
+Over that Warcop shook his head. Who could say, save the two
+themselves? Yet, if they were, there must needs be a record
+of the marriage, which would have taken place during the period
+of my tutorship at Hover, at some time when her ladyship was in
+Grosvenor Square.</p>
+
+<p>Here, at last, I had a definite starting-point. For the church
+could be found, the clergyman who performed the ceremony could
+be found, always supposing any such ceremony had really taken
+place.</p>
+
+<p>I returned to Cambridge to talk everything over with the
+Master; and subsequently journeyed up to town, where, under<span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</span>
+seal of the strictest secrecy, I placed matters in the hands of
+Inspector Lavender, of the Detective Police. He must find the
+church, the clergyman—above all, must find Marsigli.—This was
+a desperate game to play. I knew it. Would the dear boy ever
+forgive me for interfering in his affairs thus? I knew not. But
+I did know it had to be risked both for his fortune and his honour’s
+sake. Further, was I not bound by my word solemnly given to
+Nellie? Still more, then, had it to be done for my own oath’s
+sake.</p>
+
+<p class="p2 center allsmcap">CHAPTER <abbr title="33">XXXIII</abbr>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">And</span> now we were well on into the May term. The noble elms
+towers of dense and solid green; lilac and laburnum giving place
+to roses in the Fellows’ Garden; and the river, a little shrunken
+by the summer heat, slipping past smooth lawns and beneath the
+weeping willows’ graceful shade with truly academic deliberation
+and repose.</p>
+
+<p>Never had I enjoyed my daily work so much, or met with so
+hearty and intelligent a response. An excellent set of men were
+in college that year; gentlemanlike, eager to learn, in some cases
+notably clever, in almost all agreeable to deal with. My popularity—enhanced
+by that episode of the fire at the Master’s Lodge—was
+great. Why should I hesitate to say so, since thankfulness
+rather than vanity did, I can honestly affirm, fill my heart? I
+had arranged to take a reading party to North Wales during the
+long vacation, and to this I looked forward as a new and interesting
+experience. Halidane, moreover, for cause unknown, had ceased
+from troubling me. Ever since his return, at the beginning of
+term, he had worn a somewhat hang-dog look; and, though almost
+cringingly civil when we chanced to meet, appeared, as I thought,
+to shun rather than seek my society. What had happened to the
+fellow? Had the change in his demeanour any connection with
+the Master’s visit to his ‘sainted patron,’ Lord Longmoor, at Bath?
+I did not know, nor did I greatly care, so long as I continued to be
+relieved of his officious and unsavoury attentions.</p>
+
+<p>And so, taking things all round, it seemed to me, just now, the
+lines had after all fallen to me in pleasant places. Temptation had
+been resisted, difficulties overcome, honour—and my conscience—satisfied.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</span>
+If much had been denied, yet much remained—sufficient,
+and more than sufficient, to make life a gift, not only
+good but glad—though after, perhaps, a somewhat serious pattern.</p>
+
+<p>Then came an afternoon the events of which stand out very
+forcibly in my memory. They marked a turning-point; a parting
+of the ways, abrupt as it was unexpected.</p>
+
+<p>For, neglecting alike the attractions of the glorious weather
+and of ‘the boats’—it was during the June races—I stayed in
+my rooms to look through a set of mathematical papers. Some
+pleased me by their ability. Others amused—or irritated—me
+by their blunders. Heavens, what thick heads some of those
+youngsters had! After about an hour’s work, lulled by the stillness
+and the sunny warmth—droning of bees in the clematis below
+my window, chippering cries and glancing flight of swallows back
+and forth to their nests under the parapet above—I laid aside
+the papers, and, leaning back in my chair, sank into a brown
+study.</p>
+
+<p>The morning’s post had brought me a brief communication from
+Lavender, the detective. After weeks of silent pursuit he had
+reason to believe he was on Marsigli’s track at last. My own
+sensations in face of this announcement surprised me a little.
+By all rules of the game I should of course have felt unalloyed
+gratification. But did I really feel that? With a movement
+of shame, I was obliged to confess I did not. For a certain moral
+indolence had overtaken me. I was established in a routine from
+which I had no wish to break away. My college work, into which
+I threw myself at first mainly as a refuge from haunting desires
+and disturbing thoughts, had become an end in itself. It engrossed
+me. I found it restful—in that, while making small demand on
+my emotions, it gave scope for such talents, whether intellectual
+or practical, as I possessed. I found it exhilarating to deal with
+these young men, in the first flush of their mental powers, to—in
+some measure at all events—form their minds, influence their
+conduct and their thought. It was delightful, moreover, to have
+time and opportunity for private study; to read books, and ever
+more books. The scholar’s life, the life of the university, held me
+as never before. Hence this obtrusion of Lavender, hunter of
+crime and of criminals, this obtrusion of wretched Marsigli, the
+absconding Italian butler, were, to be honest, displeasing rather
+than welcome. I cried off further demands upon my energies
+in the direction of conflict and adventure. Leave the student<span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</span>
+to his library, the teacher to his lecture-room, unvexed by the
+passions and tumult of the world without.</p>
+
+<p>In fastidious repulsion, in something, heaven forgive me,
+approaching disgust, I turned away from both thief and thief-catcher,
+all they were and all they stood for, as beneath my notice,
+common and unclean. Almost angrily I prayed to be let alone, let
+be. Prayed no fresh exertion might be required of me; but that I
+might pursue my course, as a comfortable, well-read, well-fed
+Cambridge don, in security and peace.</p>
+
+<p>And, mercifully, my lazy prayer was not heard, not answered;
+or, more truly, was both heard and answered, though in a manner
+conspicuously the reverse of my intention in offering it.</p>
+
+<p>For, as I mused thus, the calm of the summer afternoon was
+disturbed by a sudden loud knocking at my door. The door was
+flung open. On the threshold a man stood. No learned brother
+fellow, no ordinary gownsman; but, with his pride of bearing, his
+air of fashion, the finest young fine gentleman I had ever seen—in
+long drab driving coat, smartly outstanding from the waist, and
+white top hat with rakish up-curled brim.</p>
+
+<p>For an instant I gazed in stupid amazement. Then, as the
+door closed behind him and he came from out the shadow, I sprang
+to my feet and ran forward, with a cry. And, almost before I
+knew what was happening, his two hands gripped my shoulders,
+and he backed me into the full light of the window, holding me
+away from him at arms’ length and looking down into my face.
+He was a good half head taller than I.</p>
+
+<p>‘Dearest Brownlow—my dear old man, my dear old man,’ he
+repeated, and his grip tightened while his voice was tender as a
+girl’s.</p>
+
+<p>Then, while I stammered in my excitement and surprise, he
+gave a naughty little laugh.</p>
+
+<p>‘Oh! I am no ghost,’ he said. ‘You needn’t be afraid. I’m
+very solid flesh and blood; worse luck for you, perhaps, old man.
+Gad, but it’s good, though, to see you once again.’</p>
+
+<p>He threw down his hat among the papers on the table, tossed
+his gloves into it, and drew me on to the window-seat beside
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Already the spell began to work, the spell of his extraordinary
+personal charm. Already he captivated me, firing my somewhat
+sluggish imagination. Already I asked nothing better than to
+devote myself to him, spend myself for him, stamp out the evil<span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</span>
+and nourish the good in him, at whatever loss or disadvantage to
+myself.</p>
+
+<p>I inquired what had brought him to Cambridge.</p>
+
+<p>‘I am in trouble, Brownlow,’ he answered simply, while his
+face hardened. ‘It’s an ugly sort of trouble, which I have not
+the pluck to meet single-handed. I cannot see my way through
+or out of it. I tell you, it was beginning to make me feel rather
+desperate. And I remembered your wisdom of old’—</p>
+
+<p>He smiled at me, patting my knee.</p>
+
+<p>‘So, as I do not want to take to drink—which last night seemed
+the only alternative—I took the road this morning instead, and
+came to look for you. Perhaps it is a rather presumptuous proceeding
+on my part. I have no claim on you, for I have been
+neglectful and selfish. I know that well enough—not by any means
+a model pupil, dear old man, not any great credit to you. But you
+cared for me once.’</p>
+
+<p>Cared for him? God was my witness that I did!</p>
+
+<p>‘And, as I tell you, I have not courage to meet this trouble
+alone. It raises a devil <a id="chg2"></a> of suspicion and anger in me. I am afraid
+of being unjust, of losing my head and doing some wild thing I shall
+regret for the rest of my life. But we need not go into all this just
+yet, and spoil our first half-hour together. It will keep.’</p>
+
+<p>And he looked away, avoiding my eyes with a certain shyness,
+as I fancied; glanced round the room, at its sober colouring, solid
+furniture, ranges of bookshelves and many books; glanced
+through the window at the fine trees, the bright garden, and quiet
+river glistening in the still June sunlight.</p>
+
+<p>‘Gad! but what a delightful place!’ he said. ‘I am glad to
+know where you live, Brownlow, and I could find it in my heart
+to envy you, I think. The wheels must run very smooth.’</p>
+
+<p>I thought of Nellie, of my home-coming from Westrea. Verily,
+less smooth than he imagined—sometimes.</p>
+
+<p>‘Why, why did not they let me come here,’ he broke out—‘as
+I implored them to, after the row about—about—at Hover, I
+mean, when you left me? I would have given anything to come
+up to the university then, and work, and have you with me still.
+Ah! how different everything would be now! But my father
+refused to listen. The plan did not suit some people’s book, I
+suppose; and they worked upon him, making him hopelessly
+obstinate. Nothing would do, but into the Guards I must go.
+I begged for if only a year with you here, at Cambridge, first. But<span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</span>
+not a bit of it. Out they pitched me, neck and crop, into the
+London whirlpool, to sink or swim as I could—sink for choice,
+I fancy, as far as they were concerned.’</p>
+
+<p>He shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>‘It is to be hoped they are better satisfied at the result than
+I am,’ he added, with an oath. ‘But what is done is done—and,
+curse it, there is no going back. As you make your bed—or
+as others make it for you—so must you lie on it.’</p>
+
+<p>Sad words from a boy of barely one-and-twenty, as I thought.
+Surely punishment awaited those, somewhere and somewhen, who
+had taught him so harsh a lesson, and taught it him so young.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, my first surprise and excitement over, I watched
+Hartover carefully, fearing to see in him signs of past dissipation
+and excess. But his beauty was as great as ever. His flesh firm,
+moreover, his eyes and skin clear. He had matured rather than
+altered, grown considerably taller and filled-out, though his figure
+remained gracefully alert and slight. Two points only did I
+observe which I did not quite like—namely an aspect of anxiety
+and care upon the brow, and little bitter lines at the corners of
+the handsome mouth, giving a singular arrogance to his expression
+when the face was in repose.</p>
+
+<p>We talked for a while of indifferent matters, and he asked
+me to walk with him to the Bull Hotel, where he had left the post-chaise
+in which he drove down from town, and where he invited
+me to dine with him and stay the night as his guest.</p>
+
+<p>‘Give me what time you can, Brownlow,’ he said. ‘Leave all
+the good boys, the white sheep of your numerous flock, to take
+care of themselves for once; and look after the bad boy, the black
+sheep—the scapegoat, rather. For, upon my soul, it amounts to
+that. The sins of others are loaded on to my unhappy head, I
+promise you, with a vengeance.’</p>
+
+<p>I could not but be aware of curious and admiring glances, as I
+walked up King’s Parade in his company. Reflected glory covered
+me, while he, royally careless of the observation he excited,
+was quick to note the grace of the different college buildings, the
+effects of light and colour, to ask a hundred pertinent questions,
+make a hundred pertinent remarks on all which caught his eye.
+What a delightful mind he had, open both to poetic and humorous
+impressions; instinctively using the right word, moreover, and
+striking out the happy phrase when it suited him to lay aside his
+slang.</p>
+
+<p class="p2 center"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</span>
+<span class="allsmcap">CHAPTER <abbr title="34">XXXIV</abbr>.</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">We</span> dined in a private room on the first floor, which overlooked
+the street. Hartover proved a brilliant host. Once or twice,
+after anecdotes a trifle too highly salted for my white tie and clerical
+coat, he checked himself with a pretty air of penitence, expressing
+a mischievous hope I ‘wasn’t shocked.’ Shocked I was not,
+being no puritan; but somewhat grieved, I must admit, his wit
+should take so gross a turn. Yet what wonder? The guard-room
+is hardly mealy-mouthed, I supposed; neither, I could imagine,
+was French Mademoiselle—in intimacy. To her, by the way,
+I observed, Hartover made so far no smallest allusion.</p>
+
+<p>But he spoke of Braithwaite, asking, with an indifference too
+studied to carry conviction, if my friendship still continued with
+the father and daughter, and—‘were they well?’ I answered both
+questions briefly in the affirmative; and there, to my relief, the
+subject dropped.</p>
+
+<p>Towards the end of dinner his high spirits, which, entertaining
+though he had been, struck me all along as slightly forced, deserted
+him, and he became silent and preoccupied. Were we approaching
+disclosure of the trouble which, as he asserted, brought him here
+hot-foot, to Cambridge and to me? How gladly would I have
+made the way of confession easy for him! But I had sense to
+know I must be passive in the matter. Whatever confidence he
+gave must be given spontaneously. To question him, however circumspectly,
+would be to put him off by arousing his sensitive pride.</p>
+
+<p>As the waiter brought in coffee and lights, Hartover rose,
+swung out onto the balcony, and, leaning his elbows on the high
+iron rail of it, stood gazing down into the street. The June twilight
+lingered, disputing the feeble glimmer of the street lamps.
+Roofs, gables, pinnacles and towers showed velvet black against
+the sweet translucence of an almost colourless sky. Footsteps,
+voices, a grind of wheels and cloppet, cloppet, of horse-hoofs over
+the stones; the scream of swifts in the buoyant rush of their
+evening flight, and the tang of a chapel bell, a single reiterated note.
+Some five minutes must have elapsed while these varied sounds
+reached me from without. Then Hartover raised his head, calling
+imperatively over his shoulder——</p>
+
+<p>‘Brownlow, Brownlow, where are you? I want you. Come
+here.’</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</span>
+Evidently he had reached some crisis of purpose or of feeling.
+I went out into the warm evening air and stood beside him. His
+head was lowered, and again he gazed down into the street.</p>
+
+<p>‘I am sorry, I am ashamed, Brownlow,’ he said, an odd thickness
+in his speech, ‘but I am afraid I have come here to-day and
+disturbed you on false pretences. I am afraid I cannot bring
+myself to talk to you about this matter after all.’</p>
+
+<p>He paused as asking an answer.</p>
+
+<p>‘Very well,’ I replied. ‘I, at all events, have gained by your
+coming, in that I have had the joy of seeing you again. Leave
+the rest if you think fit. You alone can know what you wish—know
+what appears to you right under the circumstances. You
+must use your own judgment.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Ah! there you have me,’ he returned sharply. ‘I don’t
+know what I wish. I am uncertain what is right. I distrust my
+own judgment. In short I’m cornered, Brownlow, miserably,
+detestably cornered. To speak looks to me, at this moment, like
+an act of unpardonable treachery. Yet, if I don’t speak, I may be
+rushed before many days are out, by my own mad anger, into
+something even worse than treachery. Do you understand?’</p>
+
+<p>In a sense I did understand, by intuition born of affection
+and sympathy. But, unless I was greatly mistaken in my reading
+of him, all this was merely preliminary. If I waited, I should
+understand, or at least hear, the whole. And that it would be
+well for him I should hear the whole I had—God helping me—no
+shadow of doubt.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly the twilight expired, while the blue of the night sky,
+opaque, profound, travelled stealthily, almost imperceptibly,
+downward from the zenith. The joyous scream of the swifts
+ceased, and the bell tanged irregularly, nearing its finish. As
+it did so, a little group of gownsmen, gathered upon the pavement
+immediately below, seized by an irresponsible spirit of frolic—as
+most young animals are prone to be at dusk—started laughing
+and skylarking, their black raiment fluttering, batlike, as they
+skirmished across the greyness of the street.</p>
+
+<p>Whether the sudden outcry jarred his already strained nerves,
+or whether the careless whole-hearted fun and laughter of these
+men, so little younger than himself, offered too mordant a contrast
+to his own troubled state, Hartover flung in from the balcony with
+an oath, hesitated for an instant, then blew out the lights and
+threw himself into an armchair.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</span>
+‘No, I’m not strong enough to hold my tongue. Wretched
+weakling that I am,’ he groaned, ‘I must blab. And concerning a
+woman too.’</p>
+
+<p>He extended his hand, through the semi-darkness, motioning me
+to a chair.</p>
+
+<p>‘Sit there, please,’ he said. ‘My God, when it comes to the
+point how I despise myself, Brownlow! It’s—it’s about her,
+about Fédore.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Yes,’ I replied, as calmly as I could, for his tone moved me
+deeply. And the subject, too! I trembled, penetrated alike
+by fear and hope of what I should hear next.</p>
+
+<p>‘For the last month or six weeks something’s been wrong—some
+mystery on hand I cannot fathom. Somebody who has, or
+imagines they have, a hold over her is pressing her for money,
+as far as I can make out. I believe—oh! it is an abominable
+suspicion, but I cannot rid my mind of it—this person visits the
+house when she is sure I shall be away. I have no idea who,
+Brownlow; but someone belonging to her old life, before I married
+her. Each time lately that I have been with her she has insisted
+upon my telling her exactly when I intend to come again. Nothing
+will pacify her but that I must fix a date and hour. Her persistence
+has vexed me once or twice. We nearly quarrelled over it.
+She says’—he choked a little—‘it is only that she may be able
+to put on a pretty gown, prepare a nice little dinner, and have
+everything smart and charming for me. But I don’t believe that
+is her sole reason—perhaps I am just a jealous brute—but I can’t.
+I wish to heaven I could!’</p>
+
+<p>He waited, fighting down his emotion.</p>
+
+<p>‘Yesterday matters came to a head. I went with’—he mentioned
+the names of several young men, well known, not to say
+notorious, in fashionable and sporting circles—‘to a race meeting
+at ——. I meant to stop the week. But racing bores me after a
+little while, and the play was too high at night. Positively I
+couldn’t afford it. So I cut my stay short, went back to town, and
+to Chelsea. I can’t deny I had been living rather hard, and I was
+cross with myself—I really have kept awfully straight for the last
+six months, Brownlow—and a bit seedy and out of sorts.’</p>
+
+<p>Again he waited.</p>
+
+<p>‘I let myself in at the garden door, and then at the house-door—as
+a matter of course. I had no intention of jumping any
+surprise on her. I was not thinking about my suspicions or any<span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</span>
+little tiff we had had. I only wanted to get to her, Brownlow,
+because I knew she’d put me into good conceit with myself—tease
+and pet and amuse me, you know—she can be devilish amusing
+when she likes’——</p>
+
+<p>His voice broke.</p>
+
+<p>‘Yes,’ I said quietly, ‘yes’——</p>
+
+<p>My heart bled for him; but I must be cautious and husband
+my resources. The time to speak would surely come, but it was
+not yet.</p>
+
+<p>‘I found the house empty,’ he went on presently, recovering
+himself, ‘windows bolted and doors locked. I called her, and
+looked for her upstairs and down; but neither she nor the maid
+was at home. I was disappointed, of course; but I would not
+let myself be angry. I had told her I should be away till the end
+of the week, so she had a perfect right to go out if she wanted to.
+Finally I went into the drawing-room, meaning to wait there till
+she came in. But, somehow, I received a new impression of the
+house. It struck me as grubby, fusty, low-class. I wondered why
+I had never observed this before, or whether it was merely the
+effect of my disappointment at her absence. There were scraps
+of a torn-up letter on the carpet, for one thing, which I greatly
+disliked. I began to pick them up, and casually—I did not attempt
+to read it of course—I remarked the writing was in French. Then
+I thought I would smoke, to pass the time until she came back.
+I wanted something with which to cut off the end of my cigar, but
+found I had brought no penknife, so I rummaged in her little worktable
+for a pair of scissors. I could not find any in the top workbox
+part, and tried to pull out the square silk-covered drawer
+arrangement underneath, as I remembered often seeing her put
+her scissors away in it with her work. But the beastly thing was
+locked or jammed. Like a fool, I lost my temper over it, and
+dragged and poked till the catch gave and the drawer flew open.
+And—and, Brownlow, inside I saw a couple of white leather jewel-cases—oh!
+the whole thing was so incredible, such a profanation—it
+made me sick—stamped with a monogram and coronet. I
+recognised them at once. They belonged to my mother—own
+mother I mean’—</p>
+
+<p>His tone grew fierce.</p>
+
+<p>‘Not her Magnificence. Her hands have never touched, and
+touching defiled them, I am thankful to think.—These jewels
+would come to me, in the ordinary course of events, with certain<span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</span>
+other possessions of my mother’s, at my majority. Meanwhile they
+have always been kept in the strong-room at Hover. And, Brownlow—this
+is the point of the whole hateful business—they were
+among the valuables that scoundrel, Marsigli—you remember
+him, my step-mother’s beloved Italian butler?—made off with
+last year, and which by some to my mind incomprehensible stupidity
+on the part of the police—I have often talked it over with Fédore—have
+never yet been traced.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Were the contents of the cases intact?’ I asked.</p>
+
+<p>He hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>‘No—’ he said at last, unwillingly, almost I thought despairingly—‘and
+that makes it all the more intolerable. The
+cases were empty; and from the position in which I found them
+it seemed to me they had been thrown into the drawer just anyhow,
+by a person in a frantic hurry—too great a hurry to make sure the
+drawer was actually locked. For, if it had been properly locked,
+it would not have given way so easily when I tried to force it.
+These signs of haste increased my fears, Brownlow. For think,’
+he cried with sudden passion, ‘only think what it all points to,
+what it may all mean! How could these precious things of my
+mother’s have found their way into the drawer of Fédore’s worktable—unless?
+The conjunction of ideas would be positively
+grotesque if—if it were not so damnable.—Does not it occur to
+you what horrible possibilities are opened out?’</p>
+
+<p>It did. I gauged those possibilities far more clearly than he,
+indeed, remembering my conversation with Warcop in the stables
+at Hover but a few weeks back. For was not Warcop’s theory
+in process of being proven up to the hilt? But how could I speak
+of either theory or proof to Hartover, distracted and tortured
+as he was? To do so would be incomparably cruel. No, I must
+play a waiting game still. The truth—or, to be exact, that which
+I firmly and increasingly believed to be the truth—must reach him
+by degrees, lest he should be driven into recklessness or violence.
+I would temporise, try to find excuses even, so as to retard
+rather than hasten the shock of that most ugly disclosure.</p>
+
+<p>‘All which you tell me is very strange and perplexing,’ I said.
+‘But do not let us be hurried into rash and possibly unjust conclusions.
+There may be some explanation which will put a very
+different complexion upon affairs. Have you asked for any?’</p>
+
+<p>‘No,’ he said. ‘It was too soon to think of that. I could not
+meet her, could not trust myself to see or speak to her then. My
+one impulse was to get away, to get out of the house in which, as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</span>
+it seemed to me, I had been so shamelessly betrayed and tricked.
+I was half mad with rage and grief. For—ah! don’t you understand,
+Brownlow?—I do love her. Not as I loved Nellie Braithwaite.
+That was unique—a love more of the soul than the senses.
+Pure and clean as a wind of morning, blowing straight out of
+paradise. The love of my youth, of—in a way—my virginity;
+such as can never come twice in my or any man’s life.’</p>
+
+<p>He stopped, a sob in his throat. But not for long. The floodgates
+were open—all the proud, wayward, undisciplined, sensitive
+nature in revolt.</p>
+
+<p>‘My love for Fédore is different—no morning wind from Eden
+about that. How should there be? In the interval I had very
+effectually parted company with all claims to the angelic state.
+But think—she nursed me, dragged me back from the very mouth
+of hell; protected me from those who sought to ruin me; gave
+herself to me; made a home for me, too, of a sort—oh! that poor,
+poor, hateful little Chelsea house!—coaxed me, flirted with me,
+kept me from gambling and from drink. How could I do otherwise
+than marry her, and love her, out of the merest decency of ordinary
+gratitude? I owe her so much—— And now’——</p>
+
+<p>Here Hartover gave way completely. I felt rather than saw
+him—there was no light in the room save that thrown upward
+from the lamps in the street—fling himself sideways in the chair,
+crushing his face down upon the arm of it in a paroxysm of weeping.</p>
+
+<p>Only a woman should look on a man’s tears, since the motherhood
+resident in every woman—whether potential or as an accomplished
+act—has power to staunch those tears without humiliation
+and offence. To his fellow-man the sight is disabling; painful
+or unseemly according to individual quality, but, in either case,
+excluding all possibility of approach.</p>
+
+<p>I rose, went over to the window, and waited there. The boy
+should have his cry out, unhindered by my neighbourhood, since
+I knew he was beyond my clumsy male capacity of consolation.
+Later, when he came to himself, he would understand I had withdrawn
+not through callousness, but through reverence. Meanwhile,
+what a position and what a prospect! My heart sank. How, in
+heaven’s name, could he be drawn up out of this pit he had digged
+for himself? And he loved Nellie still. And, whatever his faults,
+whatever his weaknesses—vices even—his beauty and charm
+remained, beguiling, compelling, as ever. What woman could
+resist him? The thought gave me a pang. I put it from me sternly.
+Self, and again self—would self never die? Even in this hour<span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</span>
+of my dear boy’s agony, as he lay sobbing his hot young heart
+out within half a dozen paces of me, must I think of myself and of
+my private sorrow?</p>
+
+<p>I looked up into the vast serenity of the star-gemmed sky
+above the black irregular outline of the buildings opposite, and
+renewed my vow to Nellie—remembering no greater love hath
+any man than this, that he lay down his life—life of the body, or
+far dearer life of emotions, the affections—for his friend.</p>
+
+<p>And presently, as I still mused, I became aware of a movement
+in the room and of Hartover close beside me, his right arm cast
+about my neck.</p>
+
+<p>‘Dear old man, dear old man,’ he said hoarsely, yet very gently,
+‘forgive me. I have felt for these past twenty-four hours as though
+the last foothold had gone, the last foothold between me and
+perdition. But it isn’t so—you are left. Stay by me, Brownlow.
+See me through. Before God, I want to do right. Your worthless
+pupil wants for once to be a credit to you. But I cannot stand
+alone. I am afraid of myself. I distrust my own nature. If I go
+to her—to Fédore—with those empty jewel boxes of my mother’s
+in my hand and she lies to me, I shall want to kill her. And if
+she tells we what I can’t but believe is the truth, I shall want to
+blow my own brains out. For she has been very much to me.
+She is my wife—and what can the future hold for either of us but
+estrangement, misery and disgrace?’</p>
+
+<p>He waited, steadied his voice, and then—</p>
+
+<p>‘I know it is no small thing I ask of you; but will you come
+back to town with me to-morrow? And will you see her first, and
+so give me time to get myself in hand and decide what is to be
+done, before she and I meet? Will you stand between me and the
+devils of revenge and despair who tempt me? Will you do this
+because—barring you, Brownlow—I have nothing, no one, left?’</p>
+
+<p>Needless to set down here what I answered. He should have
+his way. How, in God’s name, could I refuse him?</p>
+
+<p>Then, as on that first night of my arrival at Hover long ago,
+I got him away to bed. Sat by him till he slept—at first restlessly,
+feverishly, murmuring to himself; and once—it cut me to the
+quick—calling Fédore by name, as one who calls for help in limitless
+distress.</p>
+
+<p>The brief summer night was over and the dawn breaking before
+I felt free to leave him, seek my room, and take some much-needed
+rest.</p>
+
+<p class="p2 center">(<i>To be continued.</i>)</p>
+
+<p class="p2">FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> Copyright by Messrs. Smith, Elder &amp; <abbr title="Company">Co.</abbr> in the United States of America.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</span>
+<h2><span class="h3head"><i>LEST WE FORGET.</i></span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="allsmcap"><i>A WORD ON WAR MEMORIALS.</i></span></p>
+
+<p class="p2"><span class="smcap">An</span> old friend of mine, who was a boy at Rugby under the kindly,
+orthodox and dignified Dr. Goulburn, told me that on his first
+evening at that great school, a bewildered and timid little creature,
+after he had been much catechised and derided by a lot of cheerful
+youngsters, and with a terrible perspective before him of endless
+interviews with countless strange and not necessarily amiable
+mortals, a loud bell rang, and all trooped down to prayers. He
+sat on a bench in a big bare hall with a timbered roof, a door opened
+and a grave butler appeared, carrying two wax candles in silver
+candlesticks, followed by the Headmaster in silk gown and bands,
+in unimaginable state. The candles were set down on a table.
+The Headmaster opened a great Bible, and in a sonorous voice
+read the twelfth chapter of the Book of Joshua, a gloomy enough
+record, which begins, ‘Now these are the kings of the land, which
+the Children of Israel smote,’ and ends up with a sinister catalogue,
+‘The king of Jericho, one; the king of Ai, one’—and so on for
+many verses, finishing up with ‘The king of the nations of Gilgal,
+one; the king of Tirzah, one; all the kings, thirty and one.’
+After which pious and edifying exercise, the book was closed,
+and prayer offered.</p>
+
+<p>My old friend was an impressionable boy, and it seemed to
+him, he said, that there was a fearful and ominous significance
+in this list of slaughtered monarchs, depicting and emphasizing
+the darker side of life. But I have often thought that a few words
+from the Headmaster, on the vanity of human greatness and the
+triumph of the divine purpose, might have turned these lean and
+bitter memorials of the dead into an unforgettable parable. What,
+for instance, could be more profoundly moving in the scene of the
+‘Passing of Arthur,’ where the knight steps slowly in the moonlight
+from the ruined shrine and the place of tombs:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="i1a">‘Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men,</div>
+    <div class="i1">Old knights—and over them the sea-wind sang</div>
+    <div class="i1">Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam’?</div>
+ </div><!--end poem-->
+</div><!--end container-->
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</span></p>
+<p>That seems to lend the last touch of mystery and greatness
+to a scene of human endeavour, that the earth beneath the living
+feet should cover the bones, the hardy and heroic limbs of those
+who had lived and fought worthily. As the dying king, with the
+poignant accent of passion cries aloud:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="i6">‘“Such a sleep</div>
+    <div class="i0">They sleep—the men I loved!”’</div>
+ </div><!--end poem-->
+</div><!--end container-->
+
+<p>For nothing surely in the world can be so utterly and simply
+moving as the record of dead greatness—unless perhaps it be the
+oblivion which is the end of all greatness at the last. There is a
+place on the bleak top of the South Downs, a great tumulus, with
+an earth-work round it, all grassy now and tufted with gorse, the
+sheep grazing over it, which looks for miles north and east and
+west over the fertile weald, with shadowy hills on the horizon;
+and to the south, where the great ridges fold together, you can
+catch through the haze a golden glint of the sea. I never pass the
+place without a deep and strange thrill. It is called the Mound
+of the Seven Kings; it looks over a grassy space which is known
+as ‘Terrible Down,’ and of what day and what doom it is the
+record, who shall say?</p>
+
+<p>It seems impossible to us now, just as it seemed to the old hill-men
+who raised that tumulus, that as the world welters and widens
+onward, the great tragedies and losses and sacrifices which we
+have seen with our eyes, and the thought of which has so possessed
+our souls with a sense of grief and glory combined, should become
+but a tale that is told. But it is one of the thoughts which lie
+deepest and noblest in the mind and soul of man, the thought of
+old and infinite strife and endeavour, pain and death, courage
+and hope so richly blended, till it seems too great for the heart
+to hold. The mystery of it is that, as the Psalmist says: ‘I see
+that all things come to an end; but Thy commandment is exceeding
+broad.’ The thought, if I can define it, leaps like fire
+from crumbling ashes—all this great pageant of energy and heroism
+and fame fading farther and farther into the past—and yet, in
+spite of the hush of the tolling bell and the solemn music, the
+certainty that it is all worth doing and enduring, that we must
+wrest the great values out of life and make of it a noble thing;
+and that while memory fades and honour seems to perish, yet
+the seed once sown, it springs up again and again in life and
+beyond death, beyond all possibility of extinction.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</span>
+One of the things for which, in a great time like the present—great
+for all its sadness, and perhaps because of its sadness—one
+of the things for which I thank God is that this war has revealed
+as nothing else could have done the latent heroism of our nation.
+If only it could make us poets and cure us of being prophets!
+I have often been ashamed to the bottom of my heart of the cries
+of panic-mongers and crabbed pessimists shrieking in our ears
+that we were a nation sunk in sloth and luxury and indifference.
+I have lived all my life among the young, and if ever there was a
+thing of which I was certain, it was that our youth was brave and
+modest and manly—as this long and bitter fight has daily and
+hourly proved.</p>
+
+<p>And we have a task before us—to see that the memory of those
+who have fought for us and died for us should be as stably and as
+durably commemorated as possible. It is not that I think of a
+memorial as being in any sense a reward for the honoured dead.
+If there is one thing which our heart tells us, it is that they have
+a nobler reward than that. A new life, doubtless, a passing from
+strength to strength. But as Shelley so immortally said, ‘Fame
+is love disguised,’ and we owe it to our love and gratitude not only
+to remember, but to commemorate. I defy anyone, however
+simple and stolid, to set foot in our great Abbey, and not be thrilled
+with the thought, ‘After all, humanity is a splendid thing, so full
+of devotion and greatness as it is!’ Statesmen, monarchs, writers,
+artists, men of science, men of learning, there they sleep; there
+is a generous glow in many young hearts, which may thus be
+kindled. The poet of boyhood makes the boy, just disengaging
+himself from the beloved school and stepping into the world, say
+to himself:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="i1a">‘Much lost I: something stayed behind,</div>
+    <div class="i3">A snatch maybe of ancient song,</div>
+    <div class="i1">Some breathings of a deathless mind;</div>
+    <div class="i3">Some love of truth; some hate of wrong.</div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="i1">And to myself in games I said,</div>
+    <div class="i3">“What mean the books? Can I win fame?</div>
+    <div class="i1">I would be like the faithful dead,</div>
+    <div class="i3">A fearless man and pure of blame.”’</div>
+  </div><!--end stanza-->
+ </div><!--end poem-->
+</div><!--end container-->
+
+<p>This, then, is our present task—to see that our dead are worthily
+commemorated for our own sakes and for the sake of those who
+come after. How shall we do it?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</span>
+In the first place, we must not do it idly and carelessly—we
+must take thought, have a plan and a purpose, not be in too great
+a hurry. Hurry is the worst foe of memorials. We have a national
+habit—I think it is rather a sign of greatness—not to do anything
+until we are obliged; but the result of that often is a loss of grace
+and fineness; because people who must act, and are a little ashamed
+of not having acted, accept any solution.</p>
+
+<p>What I hope we shall do is to take careful thought where our
+memorials shall be set, so that they may be most constantly and
+plainly seen; and then how they may best fulfil their purpose,
+which is to remind us first, and next to kindle emotion and imagination.
+We have an ugly habit of combining, if we can, local utility
+with a memorial, as in the well-known story of the benevolent
+clergyman who read out the announcement of the death of a
+great statesman and added, ‘That is just what we wanted! We
+have long needed a new water supply!’ That is like using a
+grandfather’s sword to trim a privet-hedge with! I do not believe
+in fitting things in. If we commemorate, let us commemorate
+by a memorial which arrests and attracts the eye, is long and
+gratefully remembered, and by an inscription which touches the
+heart, and does not merely merge a man among the possessors of
+all human gifts and virtues. I remember a Georgian monument
+in a cathedral, where a lean man in a toga peeped anxiously out
+of an arbour of fluted columns, and of whom it was announced that
+in him ‘every talent which adorns the human spirit was united
+with every virtue which sustains it.’ How different is the little
+tablet in a church I know on which a former choir-boy is commemorated!
+He had joined the army, and had won a Victoria
+Cross in the Boer War which he did not live to receive. The facts
+were most briefly told; and below were the words, which I can
+hardly read without tears:</p>
+
+<p class="center">‘Thou hast put a new song in my mouth.’</p>
+
+<p>What we want, then, are beauty, dignity, simplicity, and force.
+We want what appeals directly to the eye, and then darts a strong
+emotion into the heart, an emotion in which gratitude and hope
+are blended.</p>
+
+<p>I must not here attempt to unfold a wide technical scheme;
+indeed I could not if I would; but I may perhaps outline a few
+principles.</p>
+
+<p>First comes the difficulty that places like to manage their own<span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</span>
+affairs; and that the men who administer local interests, however
+devotedly and industriously, do not acquire their influence by
+artistic tastes. The next difficulty is that our artistic instinct in
+England is not widely diffused. When Walter Pater’s attention
+was called to some expensive tribute, and he became aware that
+an expression of admiration was required, he used to say in his
+soft voice, ‘Very costly, no doubt,’ and this was always accepted
+as an appropriate compliment, he said. A third difficulty
+is the deep-seated mistrust in England of the expert—it is all
+part of our independence—but the expert is often regarded simply
+as a man who lets you in for heavier expense than you had
+intended.</p>
+
+<p>It would be well if some central advisory board could be established—a
+central authority can hardly be expected, and indeed
+would not even be desirable. The nature of memorials should be
+carefully scrutinised. We are always weak in allegorical representation,
+and perhaps for that very reason have a great fondness
+for it. Our civic heraldry, for instance, is woefully weak, not by
+excess of symbolism, so much as by a desperate inclusiveness of
+all local tradition, till the shield becomes a landscape in which
+a company of travellers have hung their private property on every
+bush.</p>
+
+<p>Thus with our taste for representing and explaining and accounting
+and cataloguing, our memorials become architectural first,
+with every cornice loaded with precarious figures, like the painting
+described by Dickens of six angels carrying a stout gentleman to
+heaven in festoons with some difficulty. Our inscriptions become
+biographies. Again, the surrounding scene is little regarded. A
+statesman in a bronze frock-coat and trousers reading aloud a
+bronze manuscript behind the railings of a city square, embowered
+in acacias, has no power over the mind except the power of
+a ludicrous sense of embarrassment. A statue, majestic enough
+in a pillared alcove, is only uncomfortable in a storm of wind
+and rain.</p>
+
+<p>We ought, I believe, to fight shy of elaborate <em>designs</em>,
+because the pantomime of allegory at once begins. What we rather
+need is simplicity of statement, with perhaps a touch of emblem,
+no more, of characteristic material, of perfect gravity, so that the
+gazer can see at once that the matter recorded is great and significant,
+and desires to know more. It is said that an inscription
+was once to be seen in India, marking one of the farthest points<span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</span>
+of the advance of Alexander the Great. It was a slab with the
+words:</p>
+
+<p class="center" lang="el">ΕΝΤΑΥΘΑ · ΕϹΤΗΝ</p>
+
+<p>‘Here I stood’—upon it. What could be more impressive, what
+more calculated to sow a seed of wonder in an imaginative mind?</p>
+
+<p>These memorials should, I believe, evoke the spirit of the
+artist, as a craftsman, rather than as a designer. Alike in inscriptions
+and in representations, the wholesome and humble appeal
+must be direct and personal, avoiding rhetoric and over-emphasis,
+as well as elaborate conventions which other hands will dully
+and mechanically reproduce. If, as in cast metal-work, reproduction
+is natural and inevitable, let the designs be perfectly
+simple and sincere; if again it be painter, sculptor, carver, or
+builder that is called upon to create a memorial, let the responsibility
+and originality of the craft be his, and not be superseded
+or overruled by the authority of the design—for this indeed is,
+as Professor Prior said wittily to me the other day, as though a
+surgeon should provide a specification and an estimate for an
+operation, and leave the execution of it to other hands.</p>
+
+<p>But we must not suppose that we can insist upon any particular
+form of memorial in any particular place. What we may desire
+is that the memorial, whatever it is, of this great and heroic trial
+through which we are passing, should grow up out of the minds of the
+inhabitants of a city or a town, and should be made by the hands
+of inhabitants as well. I do not desire that they should be too
+costly. Indeed it may well be that we shall have given so much
+of our resources to the prosecution of the war that we shall have
+but little left for adorning our trophies. I do not desire that
+they should be constructed to serve other uses, at least not primarily.
+They are to tell their own story, a story of noble deeds, and provide
+alike a dedication of our dead to honour, and a dedication of ourselves
+to gratitude and future effort.</p>
+
+<p>I hope too most earnestly that we shall not accumulate resources
+on one national monument, to astonish tourists and to
+feed our vanity; but that as many places as possible should have a
+record of a great fact which has penetrated our national life more
+deeply than any historical event in the whole of our annals.</p>
+
+<p>Forethought, then, simplicity, naturalness, eloquence of emotion
+rather than of word, native feeling, these will, I hope, be the notes
+of our memorials. Let us try for once to express ourselves, not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</span>
+to cover up truth with turgid verdicts, but to say what we mean
+and what we feel as simply and emphatically as we can.</p>
+
+<p>We are not likely to forget the war; but what we may forget
+is that the result of it is the outcome of modest, faithful, loyal
+services done with no flourish or vanity, by thousands of very
+simple, straightforward people, who did not argue themselves
+into indignation, or reflect much about what they were doing, but
+came forward, leaving comfort and home and work and love,
+without any balancing of motives, but just because they felt that
+they must take their place in the battle of liberty and right with
+intolerable pride and aggression. That is the plain truth; and
+that is the best and only proof of the greatness of a nation that
+it should prefer death, if need be, to all the pleasant business of
+life. If this or any of this can be recorded, if this national impulse
+can be kept alive in our children, we need not fear either life with
+all its complications, or death with all its mysteries. The nation
+will live; and the memorials of these dark and great days will
+stand to witness to our far-off sons and daughters that their old
+forefathers did not live to no purpose and did not die in vain.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</span>
+<h2><span class="h3head"><i>A GERMAN BUSINESS MIND.</i></span></h2>
+
+<p class="center">BY SIR JOHN WOLFE BARRY, <abbr title="Knight Commander of the Bath">K.C.B.</abbr></p>
+
+<p class="p2"><span class="smcap">Now</span> that we are entering on the third year of the war so shamelessly
+brought about by Germany, the accompanying correspondence,
+commencing in August 1914, may interest your readers.
+It indicates the extreme rancour against our country of a leading
+and capable German manufacturer, not merely evoked by our
+declaration of war, but pre-existing for a long time and very carefully
+concealed from his English friends. It was to me in 1914 a
+curious lifting of the curtain, and indicates for our present guidance
+what will remain to be encountered by us in the economic struggle
+against the mercantile interests of Germany when the war ends.</p>
+
+<p>The manufacturer’s letter is also interesting as showing clearly
+the anticipations held in Germany, when she declared war, of a
+speedy and highly successful result of the wicked and stealthy attack
+on her neighbours for which she had been so long preparing. It is
+astonishing moreover in the extraordinary ignorance displayed, on
+the part of a clever leader of German enterprise, as to the Constitution,
+resources, and temper of the British Empire, and it gives full
+vent to his hatred and contempt of France, Russia, and Japan.</p>
+
+<p>This letter, printed second in the series, was addressed to an
+intimate friend of mine who was closely connected with engineering
+interests in Germany, and who had known the writer well for some
+years, having had important interests with him in business. My
+friend sent me the letter for my perusal, but did not disclose the
+name of the writer.</p>
+
+<p>The third letter is an attempted reply on my part to the statements
+and misstatements of the German manufacturer, and requires
+no comment from me. My friend sent a copy of my letter to
+his German correspondent, but it evoked no reply.</p>
+
+<p>Copies of both these letters were forwarded, anonymously, by
+my friend to a well-known English engineer long resident in
+Germany, who occupied a leading and acknowledged position in
+that country. He had been for many years closely in touch with
+very many members of his profession there, and was connected
+with numerous commercial interests.</p>
+
+<p>As will be seen, he promptly identified the German manufacturer,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</span>
+and his note on the correspondence is placed first in the series in
+order to make clear the character and position of the writer of
+the amazing letter No. 2. He expresses the astonishment which he
+felt at its contents, remarking that the sentiments expressed in it
+had been carefully concealed in his interviews with him both before
+and after the outbreak of the war. The correspondence appears to
+me to give much food for thought in many various ways, and I
+may, with these few explanatory comments, let the letters speak
+for themselves.</p>
+
+<p class="center">Letter No. 1.</p>
+
+<p>Extract from a letter received by Mr. A. B. of London from
+Mr. C. D., a gentleman long resident in Germany and unusually
+well acquainted with German commercial life:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="quotesig">Received February 1915.</p>
+
+<p>‘I now see from whom the letter came. He is a friend of mine.
+I have had a good deal to do with him lately, also after the outbreak
+of war. Curiously, although knowing me to be an Englishman,
+he has never in the slightest manner expressed himself in a like
+sense to me. He has evidently written to you in a great state of
+excitement. Nevertheless I cannot understand his doing so nor
+his harbouring the thoughts expressed in his letter. He is a
+clever and clear-headed man and much respected. His conduct in
+the labour question is looked upon as exemplary. He has proceeded
+by quiet well-considered but energetic measures to get his
+working staff entirely free from labour and social-democratic
+influences. His workmen are all content with their conditions,
+and his works therefore free from labour troubles when these break
+out in other works. I am told that all works at —— have
+profited by his wise measures. I therefore can all the less understand
+his writing you such an incredible letter. How can men of his
+position be so blinded to the true facts?</p>
+
+<p>‘The reply you sent<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> me sets this forth very clearly. I entirely
+concur in the contents and the opinions expressed in the same.’</p>
+</div><!--end blockquot-->
+
+<p class="p2 center">Letter No. 2.</p>
+
+<p>A letter written on August 29, 1914, to Mr. A. B. of London by
+a German business friend, and sent by Mr. A. B., in September
+1914, to Sir John Wolfe Barry for his perusal:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>‘The poisonous seed sown by your good King Edward VII. has
+sprung up. It is a well-known fact that the great aim of his life,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</span>
+to which he devoted all his energy, was to unite the whole world
+in one bond against Germany, to annihilate that hated nation.</p>
+
+<p>‘His disciple Minister Grey has seized the opportunity of tightening
+the noose with which Germany is to be strangled. For ten
+years English diplomacy has worked for that end, to close up the
+ring round us. Now the die is irrevocably cast and Destiny goes its
+way. No one can say positively what the outcome will be, but one
+thing I do believe, and sixty-seven million Germans believe it with
+me, and that is that we shall be victorious.</p>
+
+<p>‘We shall win because we are fighting for the right, for our
+national existence, for civilization. Without England’s intervention
+this war would have been inconceivable. In France, whom we
+sincerely pity, and whom this war will crush, one hears a united
+cry that she is ready for peace. In Russia it was only the aristocratic
+party that has forced on the war, and they will seize this
+opportunity to steal. That party of course owns the anti-German
+press, such as the <cite>Nowoje Wremja</cite> and other papers, which are
+financed by England. England alone was thirsting for war, and has
+pressed the other nations into war against us. For years she has
+seen how we have excelled her more and more in the industrial world.
+If people were but honest, they would know that the reason for our
+success lies in the fact that we are an industrious and hardworking
+folk. In England, on the other hand, there exists a widespread
+tendency to avoid work. We have no public holidays. Our
+working week averages fifty-eight hours. We Directors have no
+“week-ends,” we work in the factory on an average from fifty to
+sixty hours a week, and as a rule spend one or two nights and sometimes
+even all Sunday in the train in order to get work for our
+business. Moreover we understand how to adapt ourselves to all
+possible circumstances, while your people in their well-known arrogance,
+do not concern themselves with the requirements of other
+countries.</p>
+
+<p>‘Because we have attained great prosperity by ability and
+hard work, the hatred and jealousy you bear us Germans has
+grown beyond all bounds. This embarrassing competition must
+be crushed so that you can go on in your comfortable decadent
+existence.</p>
+
+<p>‘In order that a people, who appear particularly Christian,
+may attain this worthy goal, the barbarian hordes of the Slavs
+are mobilised against the champions of civilization, to whom the
+world owes so much. The natives in Africa are incited against us,
+and we are even betrayed in Japan. This last act has raised a storm
+of indignation in our country which would alarm you, had you any
+idea of it. England will certainly make terrible amends for this
+underhand deed. The hatred which is raging among Germany’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</span>
+sixty-seven millions will avenge itself on England in a most fearful
+way. For a hundred years the fist of every German will be clenched
+whenever the word “England” is spoken.</p>
+
+<p>‘I have had many experiences in my time, but never have I
+known anything like the satisfaction which prevailed throughout
+our country yesterday, when it first became known that your army
+of mercenaries had been under the fire of our noble reserves, and
+that we were in a position to shoot down the people who draw the
+sword for money. Your soldiers who oppose us in the field will yet
+learn something of the loathing which our army has for anything
+that is English. Our sailors look forward eagerly to the time when
+your fleet, of which you talk so much, appears in German waters.
+You may be quite sure that a large part of it will never again see
+the shores of England, even if we lose the whole of our navy. It is
+to be hoped that your fleet will at last summon up courage to attack
+us. If they come under the guns of Heligoland and Kuxhaven,
+your battleships will share the same fate as befell the forts at
+Liège and Namur.</p>
+
+<p>‘In this war, which is the most shameful crime that has ever been
+committed against humanity, and which lies entirely at the door of
+English statesmen, we shall be triumphant. England will be shaken
+to her foundations. Mankind could not but lose its belief in right
+and justice, and more particularly in the Divine guidance of the
+universe, if a country, who in the most shameless way professes
+Christianity and yet allies herself with Asiatics and barbarians,
+were to be victorious.</p>
+
+<p>‘Your newspapers, of which we still regularly receive copies, may
+overwhelm English readers with falsehoods about our army and its
+successes. Truth is going forward, and before fourteen days have
+passed our forces will be investing Paris. Belgium, whom you
+incited to oppose us, is cursing you. France, whom you likewise
+forced into war against us, will in future show perfidious Albion the
+door.</p>
+
+<p>‘It is very sad that a country like England which has won for
+herself so much merit in the progress of mankind, and has produced so
+many able men, should abandon moral principles proved through the
+centuries and hand herself over to a band of unscrupulous men like
+Minister Grey. When one considers all the misery which this war,
+which is the most terrible the world has yet seen, has caused, it makes
+one shudder to imagine what sort of conscience the Councillors of
+the Czar, your Minister Grey and Minister Churchill must have.</p>
+
+<p>‘Your great philosopher Carlyle has foreseen and indeed prophesied
+the moral decadence which always precedes political downfall.
+England has become the champion of a band of murderers
+who eleven years ago assassinated their King and his consort and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</span>
+have now killed a foreign prince. This nation who wishes to be so
+great conspires with the most barbaric race which the world
+has ever seen, the Russians, and is the brother-in-arms of the most
+treacherous, most contemptible, most ungrateful people that the
+earth holds, the Japanese.</p>
+
+<p>‘I am sure America will endorse the general scorn and wrath
+towards your country. Australia will not be very grateful to
+England who wishes to make the position of the Japanese more
+assured. I will go so far as to maintain that the British world-empire
+will split off in all directions. The world’s history must be
+judged by subsequent generations, and the judgment of the world
+now passes sentence on your country’s action.</p>
+
+<p>‘If I have offended you by what I have written, just consider I
+cannot do otherwise than say what is my opinion. My personal
+esteem for you is not altered by what is taking place.’</p>
+</div><!--end blockquote-->
+
+<p class="p2 center"><a id="ltr3"></a>Letter No. 3.</p>
+
+<p>From Sir John Wolfe Barry to Mr. A. B.:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="quotesig">October 4th, 1914.</p>
+
+<p>‘I have read with profound interest and grief the copy of the
+letter of August 29th from your German friend. The rancour which
+it displays is beyond words. It is apparently useless to criticise its
+contents looking to the frame of mind of the writer, who, I think
+and fear, expresses the present general feeling in Germany of hatred
+and anger with our country. Many of his statements and arguments
+are however absolutely and fundamentally erroneous and are
+capable of complete refutation.</p>
+
+<p>‘The poisoning of German thought in respect of Great Britain
+does not date from anything done by King Edward and still less
+from Sir Edward Grey or the present or former Ministry. It
+began long earlier in the antagonism between the military class
+and what may be termed the liberal aspirations of many thoughtful
+Germans when the Crown Prince, afterwards the Emperor Frederick
+William, married our Princess Royal. Both were in sympathy with
+liberal ideas and they were violently opposed by Bismarck and the
+blood-and-iron school, while the youth of Germany were systematically
+taught by the professors and writers of Germany, under the
+encouragement of Bismarck and his school of thought, to hate and
+despise Great Britain. There is not and never has been a corresponding
+feeling here towards Germany.</p>
+
+<p>‘Of course the two countries are rivals in trade and commerce,
+but that is no reason for rancorous hatred. We are keen rivals in
+trade with the United States and other countries, but such rivalries<span class="pagenum" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</span>
+have not engendered any other feelings than that each country
+should do its best honourably to succeed in competition. It must
+never be forgotten in this connection that in England and in our
+colonies Germans, though keeping a strict barrier of tariffs themselves,
+have had absolute freedom in competition, that they have
+availed themselves of it and have made huge profits under our Free
+Trade system. Thus the rancour of Germany against Great Britain
+must be sought for in other directions, and it cannot be truthfully
+put down to trade rivalry.</p>
+
+<p>‘The cause is in fact to be found in the <cite lang="de">Welt Politik</cite>, the jealousy
+of Germany of British world power and in the aspirations of
+crushing Great Britain by force of arms. This has been the persistent
+and avowed policy of the Kaiser and the Junker class.</p>
+
+<p>‘The idea was to fight France and Russia to a finish and then
+concentrate all forces against England (and parenthetically against
+Belgium) and to destroy the British Empire. The present extreme
+and violent hatred on the part of Germany is due to the probability
+of the failure of that deep-laid scheme in consequence of England
+supporting her Allies, and refusing to break her pledged word to
+Belgium. It may be also caused by the feeling which must be
+somewhere embedded in German thought, that Germany has
+behaved dishonourably and scandalously to Belgium, whose neutrality
+she most solemnly guaranteed.</p>
+
+<p>‘If one looks back on the history of the last twenty-five years,
+or thereabouts, one sees Bismarck threatening an unprovoked
+war with France, and only withdrawing under the threat of the
+opposition of Russia and Great Britain. This proposed attack
+on France by Bismarck was a most shameful episode, for France’s
+only offence was her existence and recuperative power after her
+disasters in 1870. Then came the Emperor’s policy in our South
+African War, when, if he could have done so, he would have arrayed
+Europe against this country, but ended only in having lured Kruger
+to ruin. Then came the “mailed fist” in China, the seizure of
+Tsing-tau, and Germany’s efforts to crush Japan after the Russo-Japanese
+war. The demonstrations at Tangiers and Agadir
+occurred soon afterwards, with more threats of an European war.
+Afterwards came the annexation of Bosnia by Austria backed by
+Germany and the insults hurled at Russia by Germany in “shining
+armour.”</p>
+
+<p>‘It is these things and others of a similar nature when the
+German “sabre has been rattled” constantly in the face of Europe,
+that demonstrated that Germany was the enemy of peace, and
+which, crowned by the breach of the Treaty of Belgium, showed to
+the Allies that no treaty would hold Germany, and that her aspirations
+and lust for world power were Napoleonic. Lastly the Allies<span class="pagenum" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</span>
+knew that Germany had resolved on war and was making a catspaw
+of Austria by preventing her from coming to an agreement with
+Servia and Russia.</p>
+
+<p>‘I have said nothing about the systematic building of the
+German navy. It was within her rights as a Sovereign Power,
+but none the less the avowed object was to seize the “Trident of
+the Seas” and to attack Great Britain. It was obviously intended
+to attack our coasts, so as to enable an invasion of this country to
+be possible, and to seize the colonies of Great Britain and France.</p>
+
+<p>‘Germany was utterly deceived by her diplomatists about
+England, which was troubled with threats of civil war and by
+trade disputes, and they never thought that we would stand up
+for Belgium and fight now rather than later. It is chagrin at the
+miscalculation, combined with the effects of our maritime power,
+which has produced the outburst of hatred against us. Commercial
+rivalry has no real basis for hatred, and as for the question
+of a “place in the sun,” Germany has large and advantageous
+colonial possessions but can do but little with those which she
+owns, and has preferred to compete with us in our colonies as she
+has done so long and so successfully.</p>
+
+<p>‘All this history of German jealousy, hatred and designs is very
+sad, and I do not suppose that your German friend, obsessed as he is,
+would listen to any facts or arguments. But since I began to write,
+somewhat hurriedly, to you I have been led on to write more than
+I intended to try to deal with. I do not imagine that he has seen
+or would be allowed to see the statement of the British case in the
+White Paper, which I understand will be further elaborated in a new
+paper to be published next Tuesday.</p>
+
+<p>‘Have you answered your friend’s letter, or have you looked upon
+it as hopeless to do so? In the temper in which he wrote there was
+nothing visible but fighting to a finish.</p>
+
+<p class="quotesig"><span style="margin-right: 9.5em;">‘Yours very sincerely,</span><br>
+‘(<i>Signed</i>) <span class="smcap">J. Wolfe Barry</span>.</p>
+
+<p>‘<i>P.S.</i>—I suppose you have not had another letter? It would
+be interesting to see one of a later date than August 29th.</p>
+
+<p class="quotesig">‘J. W. B.’</p>
+</div><!--end blockquote-->
+
+<p><i>N.B.</i>—A copy of Sir John Wolfe Barry’s letter was sent by
+Mr. A. B. to his German business friend, but no reply was attempted
+and the correspondence then ceased.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a> Viz. that of Sir John Wolfe Barry printed below as letter <a href="#ltr3">No. 3</a>.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</span>
+<h2><span class="h3head"><i>THE NEW TEMPTATION OF ST. ANTHONY.</i></span></h2>
+
+<p class="center">BY JOHN W. N. SULLIVAN.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">(<i>The time is the present day. St. Anthony is discovered seated
+on the ground outside his hut. The cross stands in its accustomed
+place, erect before him; and the great panorama, of which he is
+now weary, lies below him. He has changed but slightly with the
+years; something of his old immobility has disappeared. He occasionally
+shrugs his shoulders when speaking, and he often accompanies
+his reflections with slight gestures of the hands.</i>)</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Anthony</span> (<i>thinking</i>). I have attained peace. Those troubling
+visions have disappeared. Never for an instant have I departed
+from grace since the Saviour’s face appeared to me in its shining
+disc of gold. The burning days and solemn nights pass noiselessly.
+Rare tempests mutter unnoticed about me. Nothing has power
+to disturb my beatific monotony; nor hope, nor fear, nor love,
+nor regrets. I have triumphed over all temptations. The devil
+has left me. (<i>He sighs.</i>) That journey through space, upborne
+on his wings! (<i>Stars commence to shine: the daylight lingers.</i>)
+I have resisted all the seductions of the flesh. I value not the
+riches of the mind. (<i>He starts, and looks fixedly at a vague light
+which advances across the desert.</i>) It seems as if——. But that
+cannot be: I have already sustained all assaults.</p>
+
+<p>(<i>The light approaches rapidly. It is rose-coloured; within it
+a figure is dimly visible. With a thunderous noise it rolls to within
+ten paces of the saint. The air shakes and for an instant the stars
+are obscured. This passes: the light fades, and the form of a woman
+is perceived, upright, robed in white, her face stern and majestic.
+The sleeves of her garment are very wide, reaching to the ground.</i>)</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Woman</span> (<i>slightly raising her right arm</i>). I have need
+of you.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Anthony</span> (<i>stammering</i>). What mean you?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Woman.</span> I am your creator. Much study and great gifts
+came together for your making. They also were my children.
+My best blood flows in your veins. My name must mean everything
+to you, for you are wholly a product of my essence. I am
+called La France.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Anthony</span> (<i>pales and gazes fixedly at his visitor</i>). I belong
+to God.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</span>
+<span class="smcap">The Woman</span> (<i>sternly</i>). Do you deny that you are French?
+(<i>Anthony blushes and averts his gaze. He becomes sulky.</i>) What
+existence have you had apart from France? Would the world
+still hold you, you and your temptations, apart from——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Anthony</span> (<i>starting up and with outstretched hands</i>). Say not that
+name! Say it not! (<i>He places his fingers in his ears and then, observing
+that the woman’s lips do not move, lowers his hands.</i>) Speak!
+but avoid that name. I can endure aught else.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Woman</span> (<i>speaks, her arms hanging by her sides. Her head
+is thrown slightly back. Her words come slowly. Her voice is as
+the sound of a solemn sea plunging in distant caverns</i>). The hour
+of my agony is upon me. I am beset. My strength is great,
+my courage greater, and my pride reaches to the stars. But I
+have mighty foes, skilled in all cruel arts. I suffer. I dwell in
+the shadow of pain. My woes increase and the issue is doubtful.
+(<i>She stretches her hands towards Anthony.</i>) Can you remain aloof?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Anthony</span> (<i>frowning</i>). This touches me not.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Woman</span> (<i>with irony</i>). Have you, then, purified your
+heart of all compassion? (<i>Anthony shrugs his shoulders with a
+gesture of indifference.</i>) Are you, indeed, amongst the noblest
+of my offspring? My sons have sacrificed life for me: they
+have been content to forgo their ardent curiosities for my sake.
+What holds you back?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Anthony</span> (<i>with great dignity</i>). I seek union with God. The
+Devil himself tempted me for many days. He failed. How, then,
+can you succeed? (<i>Softly.</i>) You cannot, even if you be he.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Woman</span> (<i>flinging her arms apart, and letting them drop
+heavily</i>). Shame cannot move you. But he who aids me receives
+great rewards. I will show you visions.</p>
+
+<p>(<i>She waves her hand. A cloud descends, swaying slowly in
+the air. It unwinds in sluggish masses till it fills the horizon. It
+glows with pale fire. Upon it are cities and wide plains. It is a
+very clean, neat, and precise land. Rivers wind gently between ploughed
+fields, red and brown. The cloud surges nearer, and presently Anthony
+discerns an immense temple shining in the sun. It approaches
+more quickly, its crystalline walls sending innumerable shafts of
+light before it. Anthony and his companion are enveloped in an insupportable
+radiance, and the next instant they find they are within
+the building. Facing them is a great altar, its gold shining dully
+in the light of a thousand lighted candles. The flags of France droop
+motionless about the altar; upon it the carved figure of a soldier<span class="pagenum" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</span>
+lies prone. The pavement of the temple is invisible under the feet
+of the silent crowd. Mighty columns rush upward and are lost in
+the sweep of the dim roof. The air begins to pulsate with the
+heavy notes of an organ. Anthony and The Woman are floating
+above the heads of the multitude. None have observed them.</i>)</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Woman</span> (<i>motioning to the crowd</i>). Here are assembled
+rich and poor, wise men and fools; judges, statesmen, poets,
+the criminal and the peasant. All France is here, united in a
+common gratitude.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Anthony.</span> What do they?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Woman.</span> They honour the dead. (<i>She points to the
+prone figure on the altar.</i>) The soldiers who saved France.</p>
+
+<p>(<i>A trumpet note is heard and the air rustles with the inclining
+of a myriad heads. A sweet singing arises behind the altar. A procession
+slowly passes before it. The first to pass is a man beyond
+middle age, with a grave, bearded face, a broad white forehead and
+serene eyes. He kneels for an instant and passes on.</i>)</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Woman.</span> The Philosophy of France. (<i>A young man,
+with a dark, keen face, and a very penetrating look, follows. Each
+figure, on arriving before the altar, kneels and passes on.</i>) The Science
+of France.</p>
+
+<p>(<i>Then follow the Literature of France, an old man, very harmoniously
+dressed; the Music and Painting of France, two smaller
+figures; the Statesmanship and Laws of France, superb men, but
+badly clothed. There follow priests, merchants, scribes, criminals
+and courtesans. Anthony and his companion begin to soar
+higher. The music fades; the bowed heads of the people become
+indistinct. There is a period of darkness, and Anthony finds himself
+back on his rock. Before him stands The Woman. The great
+cloud has utterly vanished.</i>)</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Woman.</span> You have seen the greatness of France.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Anthony</span> (<i>thoughtfully</i>). It is a land not without merit.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Woman.</span> Many have died for it. Many more must
+die for it, or it will be a stricken land. Is it worth dying
+for?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Anthony</span> (<i>who has grown more argumentative with the years,
+hesitates. Then</i>:) That depends! (<i>He faces The Woman with a
+stern and questioning look.</i>) Much knowledge and beauty lie within
+the borders of your land, but no man should die for knowledge
+or beauty. A man’s life belongs to God alone. Do your
+great ones serve God? Do they use their wisdom more fully to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</span>
+understand His counsels? Do they create beauty to glorify
+His praise? (<i>The Woman does not answer.</i>) I will die for you
+if my death serves God. I will not die to extend your borders,
+to add beauty to your palaces, to make you more skilled in wisdom.
+Will my death bring you nearer to God?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Woman</span> (<i>regards Anthony sadly</i>). You ask me hard
+questions. Are there not many ways of serving God? I worship
+God in His creation. I meditate on the laws of His universe.
+I reveal to the world the beauty of His handiwork. Do I not therefore
+serve God?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Anthony</span> (<i>drily</i>). Does that heresy still flourish? God
+is not His creation.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Woman.</span> Is knowledge to vanish from the earth? Must
+none seek after beauty?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Anthony</span> (<i>raising his right hand and speaking with deliberation</i>).
+None may seek knowledge for the sake of wisdom. None may
+seek beauty for the sake of happiness. These things are but the
+raiment of God. Your great ones count the threads in God’s
+garment, but do they seek God? (<i>He delicately shrugs his shoulders.</i>)
+Does France worship clothes?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Woman</span> (<i>sad and bewildered</i>). I do not understand.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Anthony</span> (<i>regards her long and then speaks gently</i>). You will
+never understand, for you are La France. You cannot see
+without eyes, nor hear without ears. You are the cleverest and
+most limited of God’s children.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Woman</span> (<i>stands still, her arms hanging limp, her head
+bowed. Suddenly she raises her head</i>). But I suffer!</p>
+
+<p>(<i>The air grows dim and a cold wind rises. The stars vanish.
+In the valley, mysteriously visible, Anthony sees a road. It is cumbered
+with dead and wounded men, lying in all attitudes, some as if asleep,
+head resting on arm, and some contorted hideously. Anthony notes
+the curious attitude of one man who seems to have his legs drawn
+right up under him; until presently he sees that he has no legs. A dead
+man sits propped against a gun. The whole of his tongue is visible,
+hanging downwards; the lower jaw is shot away. Presently one
+of the black shapes starts to flounder clumsily. In the mysterious
+light comes the glint of steel; the black shape is trying to fix the end
+of a bayonet in the ground. In one of his clumsy attempts the man
+reveals the fact that he has but one arm. For some minutes he struggles
+and finally the bayonet is fixed. The man lies still. Then he raises
+himself awkwardly on his one arm till the bayonet point touches his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</span>
+chest; he flings his arm straight out and falls with his whole weight
+on the point. A long red finger points up from his back.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>The Woman waves her arm and the scene vanishes, to be replaced
+by another. A soldier, young, and with a look of bright intelligence,
+is saying farewell to his mother at the door of a cottage.
+The old woman’s face is lined; her hands tremble. Her eyes peer
+up anxiously at the young man, as she fondles the sleeve of his tunic.
+He speaks confidently and cheerfully, and after a final embrace
+walks briskly away. The old woman enters the cottage and sits
+there, in silence and alone. She picks up a book the young man
+had been reading and very carefully places it in a drawer.</i>)</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Woman.</span> An only child, and she a widow.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Anthony</span> (<i>looks very thoughtful</i>). What of her son?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Woman.</span> His agony is greater. He feels all her grief
+and his own. She feels but her own, for his leave-taking deceived
+her, and she believes he has joy in battle.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Anthony</span> (<i>as if musing</i>). Will men do so much to keep
+France?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Woman</span> (<i>softly</i>). They do much more. They know the
+issue is doubtful. They sacrifice so much, knowing the sacrifice
+may be in vain. (<i>Anthony raises his head and looks very intently
+at The Woman; she continues, her eyes glowing.</i>) For years you have
+suffered on your rock. You suffer to save yourself. Jesus, your
+master, suffered to save the world. (<i>She stretches out her arms
+and her voice rings with triumph.</i>) I offer you greater suffering.
+He who suffers for me knows not the fruit of his suffering. I offer
+you the opportunity of the greatest sacrifice: the sacrifice of all,
+knowing that your all may be in vain.</p>
+
+<p>(<i>The Woman pauses, her arms outspread. Anthony presses
+his hands to his head, and remains silent for a long time. Then,
+taking a step forward, he places his right hand in that of The Woman.
+They slowly leave the ground. As they mount in the air the few
+retarded rays of light utterly vanish, and blackest night confounds
+the jutting rock with the starless heaven.</i>)</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</span>
+<h2><span class="h3head"><i>THE OLD CONTEMPTIBLES: THE GOOD WORD.</i></span></h2>
+
+<p class="center">BY BOYD CABLE.</p>
+
+<p class="p2"><span class="smcap">It</span> is quite inadequate to say that the troops were worn out, and
+indeed it is hard to find words to convey to anyone who has not
+experienced some days of a mixture of fighting and forced marching
+how utterly exhausted, how dead beat, how stupefied and numbed
+in mind and body the men were. For four days and nights they
+had fought and dug trenches and marched, and fought again, and
+halted to dig again, and fought again, and extricated themselves
+under hailing bullets and pouring shells from positions they never
+expected to leave alive, only to scramble together into some sort
+of ragged-shaped units and march again. And all this was under
+a fierce August sun, with irregular meals and sometimes no meals,
+at odd times with a scarcity or complete want of water, at all
+times with a burning lack and want of sleep.</p>
+
+<p>This want of sleep was the worst of it all. Any sort of fighting
+is heavy sleep inducing; when it is prolonged for days and nights
+without one good full, satisfying sleep, the desire for rest becomes
+a craving, an all-absorbing aching passion. At first a man wants
+a bed or space to lie down and stretch his limbs and pillow his
+head and sink into dreamless oblivion; at last he would give his
+last possession merely to be allowed to lean against a wall, to stand
+upright on his feet and close his eyes. To keep awake is torture,
+to lift and move each foot is a desperate effort, to keep the burning
+eyes open and seeing an agony. It takes the most tremendous
+effort of will to contemplate another five minutes of wakefulness,
+another hundred yards to be covered; and here were hours, endless
+hours, of wakefulness, miles and tens of miles to be covered.</p>
+
+<p>Cruelly hard as the conditions were for the whole retreating
+army, the rear-guard suffered the worst by a good deal. They
+were under the constant threat of attack, were halted every now
+and then under that threat or to allow the main body to keep a
+sufficient distance, had to make some attempt to dig in again,
+had to endure spasmodic shelling either in their shallow trenches
+or as they marched along the road.</p>
+
+<p>By the fourth day the men were reduced to the condition of
+automatons. They marched—no, it could hardly be said any<span class="pagenum" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</span>
+longer that they ‘marched’; they stumbled and staggered along
+like drunken men; their chins were sunk on their chests, their
+jaws hung slack, their eyes were set in a fixed and glassy stare, or
+blinked, and shut and opened heavily, slowly, and drowsily, their
+feet trailed draggingly, their knees sagged under them. When
+the word passed to halt, the front ranks took a minute or two to
+realise its meaning and obey, and the ranks behind bumped into
+them and raised heads and vacant staring eyes for a moment and
+let them drop again in a stupor of apathy. The change, the cessation
+of automatic motion was too much for many men; once halted
+they could no longer keep their feet, and dropped and sat or rolled
+helplessly to lie in the dust of the road. These men who fell were
+almost impossible to rouse. They sank into sleep that was almost
+a swoon, and no shaking or calling or cursing could rouse them
+or get them up again. The officers, knowing this, tried to keep
+them from sitting or lying down, moved, staggering themselves
+as they walked, to and fro along the line, exhorting, begging, beseeching,
+or scolding and swearing and ordering the men to keep
+up, to stand, to be ready to move on. And when the order was
+given again, the pathetically ridiculous order to ‘Quick march,’
+the front ranks slowly roused and shuffled off, and the rear stirred
+slowly and with an effort heaved their rifles over their shoulders
+again and reeled after the leaders.</p>
+
+<p>Scores of the men had abandoned packs and haversacks, all
+of them had cast away their overcoats. Many had taken their
+boots off and marched with rags or puttees wound round their
+blistered and swollen feet. But no matter what one or other or
+all had thrown away, there was no man without his rifle, his full
+ammunition pouches, and his bayonet. These things weighed
+murderously, cut deep and agonisingly into the shoulders, cramped
+arms and fingers to an aching numbness; but every man clung to
+them, had never a thought of throwing them into the ditch, although
+many of them had many thoughts of throwing themselves there.</p>
+
+<p>Many fell out—fell out in the literal as well as the drill sense of
+the word; swerved to the side of the road and missed foot in the
+ditch and fell there, or stumbled in the ranks, tripped, lacking the
+brain or body quickness to recover themselves, collapsed, and rolled
+and lay helpless. Others, again, gasped a word or two to a comrade
+or an N.C.O., stumbled out of the ranks to the roadside, sank down
+with hanging head and rounded shoulders to a sitting position.
+Few or none of these men deliberately lay down. They sat till the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</span>
+regiment had plodded his trailing length past, tried to stagger to
+knees and feet, succeeded, and stood swaying a moment, and then
+lurched off after the rear ranks; or failed, stared stupidly after
+them, collapsed again slowly and completely. All these were left
+to lie where they fell. It was useless to urge them to move, because
+every officer and N.C.O. knew that no man gave up while he had
+an ounce of strength or energy left to carry on, that orders or
+entreaties had less power to keep a man moving than his own dogged
+pluck and will, that when these failed to keep a man going nothing
+else could succeed.</p>
+
+<p>All were not, of course, so hopelessly done as this. There were
+still a number of the tougher muscled, the firmer willed, who kept
+their limbs moving with conscious volition, who still retained some
+thinking power, who even at times exchanged a few words or a
+mouthful of curses. These, and the officers, kept the whole together,
+kept them moving by force of example, set the pace for them and
+gave them the direction. Most of them were in the leading ranks
+of their own companies, merely because their greater energy had
+carried them there past and through the ranks of those whose minds
+were nearly or quite a blank, whose bodies were more completely
+exhausted, whose will-power was reduced to a blind and sheep-like
+instinct to follow a leader, move when and where the dimly seen
+khaki form or tramping boots in front of them moved, stop when
+and where they stopped.</p>
+
+<p>The roads by which the army was retreating were cumbered
+and in places choked and blocked with fugitive peasantry fleeing
+from the advancing Germans, spurred into and upon their flight
+by the tales that reached them of ravished Belgium, by first-hand
+accounts of the murder of old men and women and children, of
+rape and violation and pillage and burning. Their slow, crawling
+procession checked and hindered the army transport, added to the
+trials of the weary troops by making necessary frequent halts and
+deviations off the road and back to it to clear some block in the
+traffic where a cart had broken down, or where worn-out women
+with hollow cheeks and staring eyes, and children with dusty, tear-streaked
+faces crowded and filled the road.</p>
+
+<p>The rear-guard passed numbers of these lying utterly exhausted
+by the roadside, and the road for miles was strewn with the wreckage
+of the retreat, with men who had fallen out unable longer to march
+on blistered or bleeding feet or collapsed in the heedless sleep of
+complete exhaustion; with broken-down carts dragged clear into<span class="pagenum" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</span>
+the roadside and spilled with their jumbled contents into the ditch;
+with crippled horses and footsore cattle; with quivering-lipped,
+grey-haired old men, and dry-eyed, cowering women, and frightened,
+clinging children. Some of these peasantry roused themselves as
+the last of the rear-guard regiments came up with them, struggled
+again to follow on the road, or dragged themselves clear of it and
+sought refuge and hiding in abandoned cottages or barns or the
+deep dry ditches.</p>
+
+<p>At one point where the road crept up the long slope of a hill the
+rear-guard came under the longe-range fire of the German guns.
+The shells came roaring down, to burst in clouds of belching black
+smoke in the fields to either side of the road, or to explode with a
+sharp tearing cr-r-rash in the air, their splinters and bullets raining
+down out of the thick white woolly smoke cloud that coiled and
+writhed and unfolded in slow heavy oily eddies.</p>
+
+<p>One battalion of the rear-guard was halted at the foot of the hill
+and spread out off the road and across the line of it. Again they
+were told not to lie down, and for the most part the men obeyed,
+leaning heavily with their arms folded on the muzzles of their rifles
+or watching the regiments crawling slowly up the road with the coal-black
+shell-bursts in the fields about them or the white air-bursts
+of the shrapnel above them.</p>
+
+<p>‘Pretty bloomin’ sight—I don’t think,’ growled a gaunt and
+weary-eyed private. The man next him laughed shortly. ‘Pretty
+one for the Germs, anyway,’ he said; ‘and one they’re seein’ a sight
+too often for my fancy. They’ll be forgettin’ wot our faces look
+like if we keep on at this everlastin’ runnin’ away.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Blast ’em,’ said the first speaker savagely, ‘but our turn will
+come presently. D’you think this yarn is right, Jacko, that we’re
+retirin’ this way just to draw ’em away from their base?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Gawd knows,’ said Jacko; ‘but they didn’t bring us over ’ere
+to do nothin’ but run away, an’ you can bet on that, Peter.’</p>
+
+<p>An order passed down the line, and the men began to move slowly
+into the road again and to shake into some sort of formation on it,
+and then to plod off up the hill in the wake of the rest. The shells
+were still plastering the hillside and crashing over the road, and
+several men were hit as the battalion tramped wearily up the hill.
+Even the shells failed to rouse most of the men from their apathy
+and weariness, but those it did stir it roused mainly to angry resentment
+or sullen oath-mumblings and curses.</p>
+
+<p>‘Well, Jacko,’ said Peter bitterly, ‘I’ve knowed I had a fair<span class="pagenum" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</span>
+chance o’ bein’ shot, but burn me if ever I thought I was goin’ to
+be shot in the back.’</p>
+
+<p>‘It’s a long way to Tipperary,’ said Jacko, ‘an’ there’s bound
+to be a turnin’ in it somewheres.’</p>
+
+<p>‘An’ it’s a longer way to Berlin if we keeps on marchin’ like this
+with our backs to it,’ grumbled Peter.</p>
+
+<p>The sound of another approaching shell rose from a faint moan
+to a loud shriek, to a roar, to a wild torrent of yelling, whooping,
+rush-of-an-express-train, whirlwind noise; and then, just when it
+seemed to each man that the shell was about to fall directly on his
+own individual head, it burst with a harsh crash over them, and a
+storm of bullets and fragments whistled and hummed down, hitting
+the fields’ soft ground with deep <em>whutts</em>, clashing sharply on the
+harder road. A young officer jerked out a cry, stumbled blindly
+forward a few paces with outstretched arms, pitched, and fell heavily
+on his face. He was close to where Peter and Jacko marched, and
+the two shambled hastily together to where he lay, lifted and turned
+him over. Neither needed a second look. ‘Done in,’ said Peter
+briefly, and ‘Never knew wot hit ’im,’ agreed Jacko.</p>
+
+<p>An officer ran back to them, followed slowly and heavily by
+another. There was no question as to what should be done with
+the lad’s body. He had to be left there, and the utmost they could
+do for him was to lift and carry him—four dog-tired men hardly
+able to lift their feet and carry their own bodies—to a cottage by
+the roadside, and bring him into an empty room with a litter of
+clothes and papers spilled about the floor from the tumbled drawers,
+and lay him on a dishevelled bed and spread a crumpled sheet over
+him.</p>
+
+<p>‘Let’s hope they’ll bury him decently,’ said one of the officers.
+The other was pocketing the watch and few pitiful trinkets he had
+taken from the lad’s pockets. ‘Hope so,’ he said dully. ‘Not that
+it matters much to poor old Dicky. Come on, we must move, or
+I’ll never be able to catch the others up.’</p>
+
+<p>They left the empty house quietly, pulling the door gently shut
+behind them.</p>
+
+<p>‘Pore little Blinker,’ said Jacko as they trudged up the
+road after the battalion; ‘the best bloomin’ officer the platoon
+ever ’ad.’</p>
+
+<p>‘The best I ever ’ad in all my seven,’ said Peter. ‘I ain’t forgettin’
+the way ’e stood up for me afore the C.O. at Aldershot
+when I was carpeted for drunk. And ’im tryin’ to stand wi’<span class="pagenum" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</span>
+the right side of ’is face turned away from the light, so the C.O.
+wouldn’t spot the black eye I gave ’im in that same drunk!’</p>
+
+<p>‘Ah, an’ that was just like ’im,’ said Jacko. ‘An’ to think
+’e’s washed out with a ’ole in the back of his ’ead—the back of it,
+mind you.’</p>
+
+<p>Peter cursed sourly.</p>
+
+<p>The battalion trailed wearily on until noon, halted then, and
+for the greater part flung themselves down and slept on the roadside
+for the two hours they waited there; were roused—as many
+of them, that is, as would rouse, for many, having stopped the
+machine-like motion of marching, could not recommence it, and
+had to be left there—and plodded on again through the baking
+afternoon heat. They had marched over thirty miles that day
+when at last they trailed into a small town where they were told
+they were to be billeted for the night. Other troops, almost as
+worn as themselves, were to take over the duties of rear-guard
+next day, but although that was good enough news it was nothing
+to the fact that to-night, now, the battalion was to halt and lie
+down and take their fill—if the Huns let them—of sleep.</p>
+
+<p>They were halted in the main square and waited there for what
+seemed to the tired men an interminable time.</p>
+
+<p>‘Findin’ billets,’ said Jacko. ‘Wish they’d hurry up about it.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Seems to me there’s something more than billets in the wind,’
+said Peter suspiciously. ‘Wot’s all the officers confabbin’ about, an’
+wot’s that <em>tamasha</em> over there wi’ them Staff officers an’ the C.O.?’</p>
+
+<p>The <em>tamasha</em> broke up, and the C.O. tramped back to the group
+of his officers, and after a short parley they saluted him and walked
+over to the battalion.</p>
+
+<p>‘Fall in,’ came the order sharply. ‘Fall in there, fall in.’</p>
+
+<p>Most of the men were sitting along the curb of the pavement
+or in the dusty road, or standing leaning on their rifles. They
+rose and moved heavily and stiffly, and shuffled into line.</p>
+
+<p>‘Wot is it, sergeant?’ asked Jacko suspiciously. ‘Wot’s the move?’</p>
+
+<p>‘We’re goin’ back,’ said the sergeant. ‘Hurry up there, you.
+Fall in. We’re goin’ back, an’ there’s some word of a fight.’</p>
+
+<p>The word flew round the ranks. ‘Going back ... a fight
+... back....’</p>
+
+<p>Across the square another regiment tramped stolidly and
+turned down a side street. A man in their rear ranks turned and
+waved a hand to the waiting battalion. ‘So long, chums,’ he
+called. ‘See you in Berlin.’</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</span>
+‘Ga’ strewth,’ said Jacko, and drew a deep breath. ‘Goin’
+back; an’ a fight; an’ the ol’ Buffs on the move too. In Berlin,
+eh; wonder wot they’ve ’eard. Back—blimey, Peter, I believe
+we’re goin’ for the blinkin’ ’Uns again. I believe we’re goin’ to
+advance.’</p>
+
+<p>That word went round even faster than the other, and where
+it passed it left behind it a stir of excitement, a straightening of
+rounded shoulders, a lifting of lolling heads. ‘Going back ...
+going to attack this time ... going to advance....’</p>
+
+<p>Actually this was untrue, or partly so at least. They were
+going back, but still merely acting as rear-guard to take up a position
+clear of the town and hold it against the threat of too close-pressing
+pursuit. But the men knew nothing of that at the time. They
+were going back; there was word of a fight; what else did that
+spell but a finish to this cursed running away, an advance instead
+of a retreat? The rumour acted like strong wine to the men. They
+moved to the parade orders with something of their old drilled and
+disciplined appearance; they swung off in their fours with shuffling
+steps, it is true, but with a decent attempt to keep the step, with
+their heads more or less erect and their shoulders back. And when
+the head of the column turned off the square back into the same
+street they had come up into the town, a buzz of talk and calling
+ran through the ranks, a voice piped up shakily ‘It’s a Long Way
+to Tipperary’ and a dozen, a score, a hundred voices took up the
+chorus sturdily and defiantly. The battalion moved out with the
+narrow streets ringing to their steady tramp, tramp, over the <i lang="fr">pavé</i>
+cobbles and the sound of their singing. Once clear of the town, it is
+true, the singing died away and the regular tramping march tailed
+off into the murmuring shuffle of feet moving out of step. But the
+deadly apathy had lifted from the men, there was an air of new life
+about them; one would never have known this battalion for the
+one that had marched in over the same road half an hour before.
+Then they were no more than a broken, dispirited crowd, their minds
+dazed, their bodies numbed with fatigue, moving mechanically,
+dully, apathetically, still plodding and shuffling their feet forward
+merely because their conscious minds had set their limbs the task,
+and then the tired brains, run down, had left the machinery of their
+bodies still working—working jerkily and slackly perhaps, but
+nevertheless working as it would continue to work until the overstrained
+muscles refused their mechanical duty.</p>
+
+<p>Now they were a battalion, a knitted and coherent body of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</span>
+fighting men, still worn out and fatigued almost to the point of
+collapse, but with working minds, with a conscious thought in their
+brains, with discipline locking their ranks again, with the prospect
+of a fight ahead, with the hope strong in them that the tide was
+turning, that they were done with the running away and retreating
+and abandoning hard-fought fields they were positive they had
+won; that now their turn was come, that here they were commencing
+and making the longed-for advance.</p>
+
+<p>And as they marched they heard behind them a deep <em>boo-boom</em>,
+<em>boo-boom</em>, <em>boo-moom</em> and the whistling rush of the shells over their
+heads. That and the low muttering rumble of guns far out on the
+flank brought to them a final touch of satisfaction. They were
+advancing, and the guns were supporting them already then—good,
+oh good!</p>
+
+<p>And as they marched back down the road they had come they
+met some of their stragglers hobbling painfully on bandaged feet,
+or picked them up from where they still lay in a stupor of sleep on
+the roadside. And to all of them the one word ‘advance’ was
+enough. ‘We’re going back ... it’s an advance,’ turned them
+staggering round to limp back in the tail of the battalion, or lifted
+them to their feet to follow on as best they might. They picked
+up more than their own men, too, men of other regiments who had
+straggled and fallen out, but now drew fresh store of strength from
+the cheerful word ‘advance,’ and would not be denied their chance
+to be in the van of it, but tailed on in rear of the battalion and
+struggled to keep up with them. ‘We’re all right, sir,’ said one
+when an officer would have turned him and sent him back to find
+his own battalion. ‘We’re pretty near done in on marching;
+but there’s a plenty fight left in us—specially when it’s an advance.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Jacko,’ said Peter, ‘I’m damn near dead; but thank the Lord
+I won’t ’ave to die runnin’ away.’</p>
+
+<p>‘All I asks,’ said Jacko, ‘is as fair a target on ’em as we’ve ’ad
+before, an’ a chance to put a ’ole in the back o’ some o’ <em>their</em> ’eads.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Ah!’ said Peter. ‘Pore little Blinker. They’ve got to pay
+for ’im an’ a few more like ’im.’</p>
+
+<p>‘They ’ave, blarst them,’ said Jacko savagely, and dropped his
+hand to his bayonet haft, slid the steel half out and home again.
+‘Don’t fret, chum, they’ll pay—soon or late, this time or nex’, one
+day or another—they’ll pay.’</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</span>
+<h2><span class="h3head"><i>THE LOST NAVAL PAPERS.</i></span></h2>
+
+<p class="center">BY BENNET COPPLESTONE.<br>
+<br>
+<abbr title="One">I.</abbr>
+<br>
+<span class="allsmcap">BAITING THE TRAP</span>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">This</span> story—which contains a moral for those fearful folk who
+exalt everything German—was told to me by Richard Cary, the
+accomplished naval correspondent of a big paper in the North of
+England. I have known him and his enthusiasm for the White
+Ensign for twenty years. He springs from an old naval stock,
+the Carys of North Devon, and has devoted his life to the study of
+the Sea Service. He had for so long been accustomed to move
+freely among shipyards and navymen, and was trusted so completely,
+that the veil of secrecy which dropped in August 1914
+between the Fleets and the world scarcely existed for him. Everything
+which he desired to know for the better understanding of the
+real work of the Navy came to him officially or unofficially. When,
+therefore, he states that the Naval Notes with which this story
+deals would have been of incalculable value to the enemy, I accept
+his word without hesitation. I have myself seen some of them
+and they made me tremble—for Cary’s neck. I pressed him to
+write this story himself, but he refused. ‘No,’ said he, ‘I have
+told you the yarn just as it happened; write it yourself. I am
+a dull dog, quite efficient at handling hard facts and making
+scientific deductions from them, but with no eye for the picturesque
+details. I give it to you.’ He rose to go—Cary had been lunching
+with me—but paused for an instant upon my front doorstep. ‘If
+you insist upon it,’ added he, smiling, ‘I don’t mind sharing in
+the plunder.’</p>
+
+<p class="p2">It was in the latter part of May 1916. Cary was hard at work
+one morning in his rooms in the Northern City where he had established
+his headquarters. His study table was littered with papers—notes,
+diagrams, and newspaper cuttings—and he was laboriously
+reducing the apparent chaos into an orderly series of chapters upon
+the Navy’s Work which he proposed to publish after the war was
+over. It was not designed to be an exciting book—Cary has no<span class="pagenum" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</span>
+dramatic instinct—but it would be full of fine sound stuff, close
+accurate detail, and clear analysis. Day by day for more than
+twenty months he had been collecting details of every phase of
+the Navy’s operations, here a little and there a little. He had
+recently returned from a confidential tour of the shipyards and
+naval bases, and had exercised his trained eye upon checking and
+amplifying what he had previously learned. While his recollection
+of this tour was fresh he was actively writing up his Notes and
+revising the rough early draft of his book. More than once it had
+occurred to him that his accumulations of Notes were dangerous
+explosives to store in a private house. They were becoming so
+full and so accurate that the enemy would have paid any sum or
+have committed any crime to secure possession of them. Cary
+is not nervous or imaginative—have I not said that he springs from
+a naval stock?—but even he now and then felt anxious. He would,
+I believe, have slept peacefully though knowing that a delicately
+primed bomb lay beneath his bed, for personal risks troubled him
+little, but the thought that hurt to his country might come from
+his well-meant labours sometimes rapped against his nerves. A few
+days before his patriotic conscience had been stabbed by no less
+a personage than Admiral Jellicoe, who, speaking to a group of
+naval students which included Cary, had said: ‘We have concealed
+nothing from you, for we trust absolutely to your discretion.
+Remember what you have seen, but do not make any notes.’ Yet
+here at this moment was Cary disregarding the orders of a Commander-in-Chief
+whom he worshipped. He tried to square his
+conscience by reflecting that no more than three people knew of
+the existence of his Notes or of the book which he was writing from
+them, and that each one of those three was as trustworthy as
+himself. So he went on collating, comparing, writing, and the
+heap upon his table grew bigger under his hands.</p>
+
+<p>The clock had just struck twelve upon that morning when a
+servant entered and said ‘A gentleman to see you, sir, upon
+important business. His name is Mr. Dawson.’</p>
+
+<p>Cary jumped up and went to his dining-room, where the visitor
+was waiting. The name had meant nothing to him, but the instant
+his eyes fell upon Mr. Dawson he remembered that he was the
+chief Scotland Yard officer who had come north to teach the local
+police how to keep track of the German agents who infested the
+shipbuilding centres. Cary had met Dawson more than once and
+had assisted him with his intimate local knowledge. He greeted<span class="pagenum" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</span>
+his visitor with smiling courtesy, but Dawson did not smile.
+His first words, indeed, came like shots from an automatic
+pistol.</p>
+
+<p>‘Mr. Cary,’ said he, ‘I want to see your Naval Notes.’</p>
+
+<p>Cary was staggered, for the three people whom I have mentioned
+did not include Mr. Dawson. ‘Certainly,’ said he, ‘I will show
+them to you if you ask officially. But how in the world did you
+hear anything about them?’</p>
+
+<p>‘I am afraid that a good many people know about them, most
+undesirable people, too. If you will show them to me—I am asking
+officially—I will tell you what I know.’</p>
+
+<p>Cary led the way to his study. Dawson glanced round the
+room, at the papers heaped upon the table, at the tall windows
+bare of curtains—Cary, who loved light and sunshine, hated
+curtains—and growled. Then he locked the door, pulled down the
+thick blue blinds required by the East Coast lighting orders, and
+switched on the electric lights though it was high noon in May.
+‘That’s better,’ said he. ‘You are an absolutely trustworthy man,
+Mr. Cary. I know all about you. But you are damned careless.
+That bare window is overlooked from half a dozen flats. You
+might as well do your work in the street.’</p>
+
+<p>Dawson picked up some of the papers, and their purport was
+explained to him by Cary. ‘I don’t know anything of naval
+details,’ said he, ‘but I don’t need any evidence of the value of
+the stuff here. The enemy wants it, wants it badly; that is good
+enough for me.’</p>
+
+<p>‘But,’ remonstrated Cary, ‘no one knows of these papers, or of
+the use to which I am putting them, except my son in the Navy,
+my wife (who has not read a line of them), and my publisher in
+London.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Hum!’ commented Dawson. ‘Then how do you account for
+this?’</p>
+
+<p>He opened his leather despatch-case and drew forth a parcel
+carefully wrapped up in brown paper. Within the wrapping was
+a large white envelope of the linen woven paper used for registered
+letters, and generously sealed. To Cary’s surprise, for the envelope
+appeared to be secure, Dawson cautiously opened it so as not to
+break the seal which was adhering to the flap and drew out a second
+smaller envelope, also sealed. This he opened in the same delicate
+way and took out a third; from the third he drew a fourth, and so
+on until eleven empty envelopes had been added to the litter piled<span class="pagenum" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</span>
+upon Cary’s table, and the twelfth, a small one, remained in
+Dawson’s hands.</p>
+
+<p>‘Did you ever see anything so childish?’ observed he, indicating
+the envelopes. ‘A big, registered, sealed Chinese puzzle like that is
+just crying out to be opened. We would have seen the inside of
+that one even if it had been addressed to the Lord Mayor, and not
+to—well, someone in whom we are deeply interested, though he
+does not know it.’</p>
+
+<p>Cary, who had been fascinated by the succession of sealed
+envelopes, stretched out his hand towards one of them. ‘Don’t
+touch,’ snapped out Dawson. ‘Your clumsy hands would break
+the seals, and then there would be the devil to pay. Of course all
+these envelopes were first opened in my office. It takes a dozen
+years to train men to open sealed envelopes so that neither flap nor
+seal is broken, and both can be again secured without showing a
+sign of disturbance. It is a trade secret.’</p>
+
+<p>Dawson’s expert fingers then opened the twelfth envelope and
+he produced a letter. ‘Now, Mr. Cary, if we had not known you
+and also known that you were absolutely honest and loyal—though
+dangerously simple-minded and careless in the matter of
+windows—this letter would have been very awkward indeed for
+you. It runs: “Hagan arrives 10.30 <span class="allsmcap">P.M.</span> Wednesday to get
+Cary’s Naval Notes. Meet him. Urgent.” Had we not known
+you, Mr. Richard Cary might have been asked to explain how
+Hagan knew all about his Naval Notes and was so very confident
+of being able to get them.’</p>
+
+<p>Cary smiled. ‘I have often felt,’ said he, ‘especially in war-time,
+that it was most useful to be well known to the police. You may
+ask me anything you like and I will do my best to answer. I confess
+that I am aghast at the searchlight of inquiry which has suddenly
+been turned upon my humble labours. My son at sea knows
+nothing of the Notes except what I have told him in my letters,
+my wife has not read a line of them, and my publisher is the last
+man to talk. I seem to have suddenly dropped into the middle
+of a detective story.’ The poor man scratched his head and
+smiled ruefully at the Scotland Yard officer.</p>
+
+<p>‘Mr. Cary,’ said Dawson, ‘those windows of yours would
+account for anything. You have been watched for a long time,
+and I am perfectly sure that our friend Hagan and his associates
+here know precisely in what drawer of that desk you keep your
+naval papers. Your flat is easy to enter—I had a look round<span class="pagenum" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</span>
+before coming in to-day—and on Wednesday night (that is to-morrow)
+there will be a scientific burglary here and your Notes
+will be stolen.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Oh no they won’t,’ cried Cary. ‘I will take them down this
+afternoon to my office and lock them up in the big safe. It will
+put me to a lot of bother, for I shall also have to lock up there the
+chapters of my book.’</p>
+
+<p>‘You newspaper men ought all to be locked up yourselves.
+You are a cursed nuisance to honest, hard-worked Scotland Yard
+men like me. But you mistake the object of my visit. I want this
+flat to be entered to-morrow night, and I want your naval papers
+to be stolen.’</p>
+
+<p>For a moment the wild thought came to Cary that this man
+Dawson—the chosen of the Yard—was himself a German Secret
+Service agent, and must have shown in his eyes some signs of the
+suspicion, for Dawson laughed loudly. ‘No, Mr. Cary, I am not
+in the Kaiser’s pay, nor are you, though the case against you might
+be painted pretty black. This man Hagan is on our string in
+London and we want him very badly indeed. Not to arrest—at
+least not just yet—but to keep running round showing us his
+pals and all their little games. He is an Irish American, a very
+unbenevolent neutral, to whom we want to give a nice, easy, happy
+time, so that he can mix himself up thoroughly with the spy business
+and wrap a rope many times round his neck. We will pull on to
+the end when we have finished with him, but not a minute too soon.
+He is too precious to be frightened. Did you ever come across such
+an ass’—Dawson contemptuously indicated the pile of sealed
+envelopes—‘he must have soaked himself in American dime
+novels and cinema crime films. He will be of more use to us than
+a dozen of our best officers. I feel that I love Hagan and won’t
+have him disturbed. When he comes here to-morrow night he
+shall be seen but not heard. He shall enter this room, lift your
+Notes, which shall be in their usual drawer, and shall take them
+safely away. After that I rather fancy that we shall enjoy ourselves,
+and that the salt will stick very firmly upon Hagan’s little
+tail.’</p>
+
+<p>Cary did not at all like this plan; it might offer amusement and
+instruction to the police, but seemed to involve himself in an
+excessive amount of responsibility. ‘Will it not be far too risky
+to let him take my Notes even if you do shadow him closely afterwards?
+He will get them copied and scattered amongst a score of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</span>
+agents, one of whom may get the information through to Germany.
+You know your job, of course, but the risk seems too big for me.
+After all, they are my Notes, and I would far sooner burn them now
+than that the Germans should see a line of them.’</p>
+
+<p>Dawson laughed again. ‘You are a dear simple soul, Mr. Cary;
+it does one good to meet you. Why on earth do you suppose
+I came here to-day if it were not to enlist your help? Hagan
+is going to take all the risks; you and I are not looking for any.
+He is going to steal some Naval Notes, but they will not be those
+which lie on this table. I myself will take charge of those and
+of the chapters of your most reprehensible book. You shall
+prepare, right now, a beautiful new artistic set of notes calculated
+to deceive. They must be accurate where any errors would be
+spotted, but wickedly false wherever deception would be good
+for Fritz’s health. I want you to get down to a real plant. This
+letter shall be sealed up again in its twelve silly envelopes and
+go by registered post to Hagan’s correspondent. You shall have
+till to-morrow morning to invent all those things which we want
+Fritz to believe about the Navy. Make us out to be as rotten as
+you plausibly can. Give him some heavy losses to gloat over
+and to tempt him out of harbour. Don’t overdo it, but mix up
+your fiction with enough facts to keep it sweet and make it sound
+convincing. If you do your work well—and the Naval authorities
+here seem to think a lot of you—Hagan will believe in your Notes,
+and will try to get them to his German friends at any cost or risk,
+which will be exactly what we want of him. Then, when he has
+served our purpose, he will find that we—have—no—more—use—for—him.’</p>
+
+<p>Dawson accompanied this slow, harmlessly sounding sentence
+with a grim and nasty smile. Cary, before whose eyes flashed
+for a moment the vision of a chill dawn, cold grey walls, and a
+silent firing party, shuddered. It was a dirty task to lay so subtle
+a trap even for a dirty Irish-American spy. His honest English
+soul revolted at the call upon his brains and knowledge, but common
+sense told him that in this way, Dawson’s way, he could do his
+country a very real service. For a few minutes he mused over the
+task set to his hand, and then spoke.</p>
+
+<p>‘All right. I think that I can put up exactly what you want.
+The faked Notes shall be ready when you come to-morrow. I
+will give the whole day to them.’</p>
+
+<p>In the morning the new set of Naval Papers was ready, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</span>
+their purport was explained in detail to Dawson, who chuckled
+joyously. ‘This is exactly what Admiral —— wants, and it shall
+get through to Germany by Fritz’s own channels. I have misjudged
+you, Mr. Cary; I thought you little better than a fool, but
+that story here of a collision in a fog and the list of damaged
+Queen Elizabeths in dock would have taken in even me. Fritz
+will suck it down like cream. I like that effort even better than
+your grave comments on damaged turbines and worn-out gun
+tubes. You are a genius, Mr. Cary, and I must take you to lunch
+with the Admiral this very day. You can explain the plant better
+than I can, and he is dying to hear all about it. Oh, by the way,
+he particularly wants a description of the failure to complete the
+latest batch of big shell fuses, and the shortage of lyddite. You
+might get that done before the evening. Now for the burglary.
+Do nothing, nothing at all, outside your usual routine. Come home
+at your usual hour, go to bed as usual, and sleep soundly if you
+can. Should you hear any noise in the night put your head under
+the bedclothes. Say nothing to Mrs. Cary unless you are obliged,
+and for God’s sake don’t let any woman—wife, daughter, or maidservant—disturb
+my pearl of a burglar while he is at work. He
+must have a clear run, with everything exactly as he expects to
+find it. Can I depend upon you?’</p>
+
+<p>‘I don’t pretend to like the business,’ said Cary, ‘but you can
+depend upon me to the letter of my orders.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Good,’ cried Dawson. ‘That is all I want.’</p>
+
+<p class="p2 center"><abbr title="Two">II.</abbr><br>
+<span class="allsmcap">THE TRAP CLOSES</span>.</p>
+
+<p>Cary heard no noise though he lay awake for most of the night,
+listening intently. The flat seemed to be more quiet even than
+usual. There was little traffic in the street below, and hardly
+a step broke the long silence of the night. Early in the morning—at
+six B.S.T.—Cary slipped out of bed, stole down to his study,
+and pulled open the deep drawer in which he had placed the bundle
+of faked Naval Notes. They had gone! So the Spy-Burglar had
+come, and, carefully shepherded by Dawson’s sleuth-hounds, had
+found the primrose path easy for his crime. To Cary, the simple,
+honest gentleman, the whole plot seemed to be utterly revolting—justified,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</span>
+of course, by the country’s needs in time of war, but none
+the less revolting. There is nothing of glamour in the Secret
+Service, nothing of romance, little even of excitement. It is a cold-blooded
+exercise of wits against wits, of spies against spies. The
+amateur plays a fish upon a line and gives him a fair run for his
+life, but the professional fisherman—to whom a salmon is a people’s
+food—nets him coldly and expeditiously as he comes in from the
+sea.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly after breakfast there came a call from Dawson on the
+telephone. ‘All goes well. Come to my office as soon as possible.’
+Cary found Dawson bubbling with professional satisfaction. ‘It
+was beautiful,’ cried he. ‘Hagan was met at the train, taken to
+a place we know of, and shadowed by us tight as wax. We now
+know all his associates—the swine have not even the excuse of
+being German. He burgled your flat himself while one of his gang
+watched outside. Never mind where I was; you would be surprised
+if I told you; but I saw everything. He has the faked papers, is
+busy making copies, and this afternoon is going down the river in
+a steamer to get a glimpse of the shipyards and docks and check
+your Notes as far as can be done. Will they stand all right?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Quite all right,’ said Cary. ‘The obvious things were given
+correctly.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Good. We will be in the steamer.’</p>
+
+<p>Cary went that afternoon, quite unchanged in appearance by
+Dawson’s order. ‘If you try to disguise yourself,’ declared that
+expert, ‘you will be spotted at once. Leave the refinements to
+us.’ Dawson himself went as an elderly dug-out officer with the
+rank marks of a colonel, and never spoke a word to Cary upon the
+whole trip down and up the teeming river. Dawson’s men were
+scattered here and there—one a passenger of inquiring mind,
+another a deckhand, yet a third—a pretty girl in khaki—sold tea
+and cakes in the vessel’s saloon. Hagan—who, Cary heard afterwards,
+wore the brass-bound cap and blue kit of a mate in the
+American merchant service—was never out of sight for an instant
+of Dawson or of one of his troupe. He busied himself with a strong
+pair of marine glasses and now and then asked innocent questions
+of the ship’s deckhands. He had evidently himself once served as
+a sailor. One deckhand, an idle fellow to whom Hagan was very
+civil, told his questioner quite a lot of interesting details about the
+Navy ships, great and small, which could be seen upon the building
+slips. All these details tallied strangely with those recorded in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</span>
+Cary’s Notes. The trip up and down the river was a great success
+for Hagan and for Dawson, but for Cary it was rather a bore. He
+felt somehow out of the picture. In the evening Dawson called
+at Cary’s office and broke in upon him. ‘We had a splendid trip
+to-day,’ said he. ‘It exceeded my utmost hopes. Hagan thinks
+no end of your Notes, but he is not taking any risks. He leaves in
+the morning for Glasgow to do the Clyde and to check some more
+of your stuff. Would you like to come?’ Cary remarked that he
+was rather busy, and that these river excursions, though doubtless
+great fun for Dawson, were rather poor sport for himself. Dawson
+laughed joyously—he was a cheerful soul when he had a spy upon
+his string. ‘Come along,’ said he. ‘See the thing through. I
+should like you to be in at the death.’ Cary observed that he had
+no stomach for cold damp dawns, and firing parties.</p>
+
+<p>‘I did not quite mean that,’ replied Dawson. ‘Those closing
+ceremonies are still strictly private. But you should see the
+chase through to a finish. You are a newspaper man and should
+be eager for new experiences.’</p>
+
+<p>‘I will come,’ said Cary, rather reluctantly. ‘But I warn you
+that my sympathies are steadily going over to Hagan. The poor
+devil does not look to have a dog’s chance against you.’</p>
+
+<p>‘He hasn’t,’ said Dawson with great satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>Cary, to whom the wonderful Clyde was as familiar as the river
+near his own home, found the second trip almost as wearisome
+as the first. But not quite. He was now able to recognise Hagan,
+who again appeared as a brass-bounder, and did not affect to
+conceal his deep interest in the Naval panorama offered by the
+river. Nothing of real importance can, of course, be learned
+from a casual steamer trip, but Hagan seemed to think otherwise,
+for he was always either watching through his glasses or asking
+apparently artless questions of passengers or passing deckhands.
+Again a sailor seemed disposed to be communicative; he pointed
+out more than one monster in steel, red raw with surface rust,
+and gave particulars of a completed power which would have
+surprised the Admiralty Superintendent. They would not, however,
+have surprised Mr. Cary, in whose ingenious brain they had been
+conceived. This second trip, like the first, was declared by Dawson
+to have been a great success. ‘Did you know me?’ he asked.
+‘I was a clean-shaven Naval doctor, about as unlike the Army
+colonel of the first trip as a pigeon is unlike a gamecock. Hagan
+is off to London to-night by the North-Western. There are three<span class="pagenum" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</span>
+copies of your Notes. One is going by Edinburgh and the east
+coast, and another by the Midland. Hagan has the original masterpiece.
+I will look after him and leave the two other messengers
+to my men. I have been on to the Yard by ’phone and have
+arranged that all three shall have passports for Holland. The
+two copies shall reach the Kaiser, bless him, but I really must
+have Hagan’s set of Notes for my Museum.’</p>
+
+<p>‘And what will become of Hagan?’ asked Cary.</p>
+
+<p>‘Come and see,’ said Mr. Dawson.</p>
+
+<p>Dawson entertained Cary at dinner in a private room at the
+Station Hotel, waited upon by one of his own confidential men.
+‘Nobody ever sees me,’ he observed with much satisfaction, ‘though
+I am everywhere.’ (I suspect that Dawson is not without his
+little vanities.) ‘Except in my office and with people whom
+I know well, I am always someone else. The first time I came to
+your house I wore a beard, and the second time looked like a gas
+inspector. You saw only the real Dawson. When one has got
+the passion for the chase in one’s blood, one cannot bide for long
+in a stuffy office. As I have a jewel of an assistant, I can always
+escape and follow up my own victims. This man Hagan is a
+black heartless devil. Don’t waste your sympathy on him,
+Mr. Cary. He took money from us quite lately to betray the
+silly asses of Sinn Feiners, and now, thinking us hoodwinked, is
+after more money from the Kaiser. He is of the type that
+would sell his own mother and buy a mistress with the money.
+He’s not worth your pity. We use him and his like for just so
+long as they can be useful, and then the jaws of the trap close.
+By letting him take those faked Notes we have done a fine
+stroke for the Navy, for the Yard, and for Bill Dawson. We
+have got into close touch with four new German agents here and
+two more down south. We shan’t seize them yet; just keep them
+hanging on and use them. That’s the game. I am never anxious
+about an agent when I know him and can keep him watched.
+Anxious, bless you; I love him like a cat loves a mouse. I’ve had
+some spies on my string ever since the war began; I wouldn’t have
+them touched or worried for the world. Their correspondence
+tells me everything, and if a letter to Holland which they haven’t
+written slips in sometimes it’s useful, very useful, as useful almost
+as your faked Notes.’</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour before the night train was due to leave for the
+South, Dawson, very simply but effectively changed in appearance—for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</span>
+Hagan knew by sight the real Dawson,—led Cary to the
+middle sleeping-coach on the train. ‘I have had Hagan put in
+No. 5,’ he said, ‘and you and I will take Nos. 4 and 6. No. 5 is
+an observation berth; there is one fixed up for us on this sleeping-coach.
+Come in here.’ He pulled Cary into No. 4, shut the door,
+and pointed to a small wooden knob set a few inches below the
+luggage rack. ‘If one unscrews that knob one can see into the
+next berth, No. 5. No. 6 is fitted in the same way, so that we can
+rake No. 5 from both sides. But, mind you, on no account touch
+those knobs until the train is moving fast and until you have
+switched out the lights. If No. 5 was dark when you opened the
+peep-hole, a ray of light from your side would give the show away.
+And unless there was a good deal of vibration and rattle in the
+train you might be heard. Now cut away to No. 6, fasten the
+door, and go to bed. I shall sit up and watch, but there is nothing
+for you to do.’</p>
+
+<p>Hagan appeared in due course, was shown into No. 5 berth,
+and the train started. Cary asked himself whether he should go
+to bed as advised or sit up reading. He decided to obey Dawson’s
+orders, but to take a look in upon Hagan before settling down
+for the journey. He switched off his lights, climbed upon the
+bed, and carefully unscrewed the little knob which was like the
+one shown to him by Dawson. A beam of light stabbed the darkness
+of his berth, and putting his eye with some difficulty to the
+hole—one’s nose gets so confoundedly in the way—he saw Hagan
+comfortably arranging himself for the night. The spy had no
+suspicion of his watchers on both sides, for, after settling himself
+in bed, he unwrapped a flat parcel, and took out a bundle of blue
+papers which Cary at once recognised as the originals of his stolen
+Notes. Hagan went through them—he had put his suit-case
+across his knees to form a desk—and carefully made marginal
+jottings. Cary, who had often tried to write in trains, could not
+but admire the man’s laborious patience. He painted his letters and
+figures over and over again, in order to secure distinctness, in spite
+of the swaying of the train, and frequently stopped to suck the
+point of his pencil.</p>
+
+<p>‘I suppose,’ thought Cary, ‘that Dawson yonder is just gloating
+over his prey, but for my part I feel an utterly contemptible
+beast. Never again will I set a trap for even the worst of my
+fellow-creatures.’ He put back the knob, went to bed, and passed
+half the night in extreme mental discomfort and the other half<span class="pagenum" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</span>
+in snatching brief intervals of sleep. It was not a pleasant
+journey.</p>
+
+<p>Dawson did not come out of his berth at Euston until after
+Hagan had left the station in a taxicab, much to Cary’s surprise,
+and then was quite ready, even anxious, to remain for breakfast
+at the hotel. He explained his strange conduct. ‘Two of my
+men,’ said he, as he wallowed in tea and fried soles—one cannot
+get Dover soles in the weary North—‘who travelled in ordinary
+compartments, are after Hagan in two taxis, so that if one is delayed
+the other will keep touch. Hagan’s driver also has had a police
+warning, so that our spy is in a barbed-wire net. I shall hear
+before very long all about him.’</p>
+
+<p>Cary and Dawson spent the morning at the hotel with a telephone
+beside them; every few minutes the bell would ring, and a whisper
+of Hagan’s movements steal over the wires into the ears of the
+spider Dawson. He reported progress to Cary with ever-increasing
+satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>‘Hagan has applied for and been granted a passport to
+Holland, and has booked a passage in the boat which leaves
+Harwich to-night for the Hook. We will go with him. The other
+two spies, with the copies, haven’t turned up yet, but they are
+all right. My men will see them safe across into Dutch territory,
+and make sure that no blundering Customs officer interferes with
+their papers. This time the way of transgressors shall be very
+soft. As for Hagan, he is not going to arrive.’</p>
+
+<p>‘I don’t quite understand why you carry on so long with him,’
+said Cary, who, though tired, could not but feel intense interest in
+the perfection of the police system and in the serene confidence of
+Dawson. The Yard could, it appeared, do unto the spies precisely
+what Dawson chose to direct.</p>
+
+<p>‘Hagan is an American citizen,’ explained Dawson. ‘If he had
+been a British subject I would have taken him at Euston—we
+have full evidence of the burglary, and of the stolen papers in his
+suit-case. But as he is a damned unbenevolent neutral, and the
+American Government is very touchy, we must prove his intention
+to sell the papers to Germany. Then we can deal with him by
+secret court-martial, and President Wilson can go to blazes. The
+journey to Holland will prove this intention. Hagan has been
+most useful to us in Ireland, and now in the North of England and
+in Scotland, but he is too enterprising and too daring to be left
+any longer on the string. I will draw the ends together at the Hook.’</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</span>
+‘I did not want to go to Holland,’ said Cary to me, when telling
+his story. ‘I was utterly sick and disgusted with the whole cold-blooded
+game of cat and mouse, but the police needed my evidence
+about the Notes and the burglary, and did not intend to let me
+slip out of their clutches. Dawson was very civil and pleasant,
+but I was in fact as tightly held upon his string as was the wretched
+Hagan. So I went on to Holland with that quick-change artist,
+and watched him come on board the steamer at Parkeston Quay,
+dressed as a rather German-looking commercial traveller, eager for
+war commissions upon smuggled goods. This sounds absurd, but
+his get-up seemed somehow to suggest the idea. Then I went
+below. Dawson always kept away from me whenever Hagan
+might have seen us together.’</p>
+
+<p>The passage across to Holland was free from incident; there
+was no sign that we were at war, and Continental traffic was
+being carried serenely on, within easy striking distance of the
+German submarine base at Zeebrugge. The steamer had drawn
+in to the Hook beside the train, and Hagan was approaching the
+gangway, suit-case in hand. The man was on the edge of safety;
+once upon Dutch soil, Dawson could not have laid hands upon him.
+He would have been a neutral citizen in a neutral country, and no
+English warrant would run against him. But between Hagan
+and the gangway suddenly interposed the tall form of the ship’s
+captain; instantly the man was ringed about by officers, and before
+he could say a word or move a hand he was gripped hard and led
+across the deck to the steamer’s chart-house. Therein sat Dawson,
+the real, undisguised Dawson, and beside him sat Richard Cary.
+Hagan’s face, which two minutes earlier had been glowing with
+triumph and with the anticipation of German gold beyond the
+dreams of avarice, went white as chalk. He staggered and gasped
+as one stabbed to the heart, and dropped into a chair. His suit-case
+fell from his relaxed fingers to the floor.</p>
+
+<p>‘Give him a stiff brandy-and-soda,’ directed Dawson, almost
+kindly, and when the victim’s colour had ebbed back a little from
+his overcharged heart, and he had drunk deep of the friendly
+cordial, the detective put him out of pain. The game of cat and
+mouse was over.</p>
+
+<p>‘It is all up, Hagan,’ said the detective gently. ‘Face the
+music and make the best of it, my poor friend. This is Mr. Richard
+Cary, and you have not for a moment been out of our sight since
+you left London for the north four days ago.’</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</span>
+When I had completed the writing of his story I showed the
+MS. to Richard Cary, who was pleased to express a general approval.
+‘Not at all bad, Copplestone,’ said he, ‘not at all bad. You
+have clothed my dry bones in real flesh and blood. But you have
+missed what to me is the outstanding feature of the whole affair, that
+which justifies to my mind the whole rather grubby business. Let
+me give you two dates. On May 25 two copies of my faked Notes
+were shepherded through to Holland and reached the Germans;
+on May 31 was fought the Battle of Jutland. Can the brief space
+between these dates have been merely an accident? I cannot
+believe it. No, I prefer to believe that in my humble way I
+induced the German Fleet to issue forth and to risk an
+action which, under more favourable conditions for us, would
+have resulted in their utter destruction. I may be wrong, but I
+am happy in retaining my faith.’</p>
+
+<p>‘What became of Hagan?’ I asked, for I wished to bring the
+narrative to a clean artistic finish.</p>
+
+<p>‘I am not sure,’ answered Cary, ‘though I gave evidence as
+ordered by the court-martial. But I rather think that I have
+here Hagan’s epitaph.’ He took out his pocket-book, and drew
+forth a slip of paper upon which was gummed a brief newspaper
+cutting. This he handed to me, and I read as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot_narrow">
+<p class="small">The War Office announces that a prisoner
+who was charged with espionage and recently
+tried by court-martial at the Westminster
+Guildhall was found guilty and sentenced to
+death. The sentence was duly confirmed and
+carried out yesterday morning.</p>
+</div><!--end narrow blockquote-->
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</span>
+<h2><span class="h3head"><i>THREE GENERATIONS.</i></span></h2>
+
+<p class="p2"><span class="smcap">Out</span> in the quiet paddock, with the mellow brick walls screening
+them from the common life in Bushey Park, they are browsing
+gently through the last days of their existence. It is not so many
+years since, gay with trappings, led by a groom apiece to restrain
+their Hanoverian tempers, these old cream-coloured horses drew
+the wonderful glass coach through the streets of London, haughtily
+accepting for themselves the acclamations of the people. At
+how many pageants, could they but tell us, have they not assisted?
+Are they old enough to have drawn Queen Victoria to her Diamond
+Jubilee, and did they drag that heavy gun-carriage with its
+pathetically small burden through the mourning streets on a
+Queen’s last journey? Certainly in their own estimation they were
+the central figures on the chilly August day when they at last
+carried King Edward to Westminster Abbey amid the joyous thanksgiving
+of a whole Empire. Their reminiscences would not probably
+take them very far into the present reign. It must be some little
+time since the next generation callously ousted them from between
+the royal shafts, stripped them once for all of their gay trappings,
+and set them on a back shelf of history.</p>
+
+<p>So now they browse and slumber among the buttercups, and
+perhaps wonder vaguely at their unshorn and generally disordered
+condition, and at their prolonged days of idleness. They know
+and care nothing about the war. They are aliens who have no
+need to be registered, naturalised as they have been by long generations
+of royal service. For it is just two hundred years since the
+first George, in a spirit of arrogance which, as a race, they appear to
+have assimilated, brought their ancestors from Hanover to draw
+his royal coach in his adopted country.</p>
+
+<p>They came with those ill-featured ladies who, according to
+tradition, gave the name to the <cite>Frog Walk</cite> outside the Palace
+walls—yes, <em>outside</em>—and the creams had nothing to do with them.
+Never, in the course of their aristocratic history, have they drawn
+anything but crowned heads and their most legitimate spouses,
+and for this the British nation reveres and respects them. And
+now these, their descendants in the paddock, have done with streets
+and crowds and uniforms—and even with sovereigns. Sometimes
+one old fellow will lift his head at the sound of the children’s cries<span class="pagenum" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</span>
+on the swings in the Park, and wonder if he is once more being
+cheered by the populace, but his dim eyes can only see the chestnuts
+hanging out their red and white candles, and a crow laughs at him
+from the wall. By his side his comrades, wholly unmoved, with
+hanging heads and slowly switching tails, are busy cropping the
+sweet grass, with no thought beyond it. Old age does sometimes,
+in spite of evidence to the contrary, broaden and mellow the sympathies,
+and the Cream Colours, who have been above all things
+exclusive, have developed a very soft spot in their hearts for the
+old bay horse who shares their paddock. Possibly he, who, whatever
+he has done in private life, in royal processions has never
+aspired beyond princesses, knows how to keep his place. At all
+events, when a sudden spurt of renewed activity will carry him at
+a gallant pace across the paddock, the august Three will follow
+him at a feeble canter and with anxious whinnies, until at last,
+finding him on the other side, they will happily nuzzle their noses
+into his neck, with every sign of equine affection, which he must
+accept with mingled pride and resignation. Is he not the <i lang="fr">enfant
+gâté de la maison</i>?</p>
+
+<p>Well, their great days are over, but they could have found
+no more dignified place of retirement than under the royal shadow
+of Hampton Court Palace, the accepted home of retirement and
+dignity.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime, out in the road, could they but know it, their successors
+on these summer mornings are taking part in a strange,
+rather pathetic mimicry of those greater pageants which have no
+place in war-time. For the Cream Colours of to-day cannot be
+allowed to idle like their parents. Much may yet, we hope, be
+expected of them, and they must not forget the manner of that
+service to which alone they owe their existence. So in the early
+morning, when trams are few and other traffic is non-existent,
+they may be met, eight of them, stepping proudly along, with
+arched necks and haughty expressions, quite unaware that the
+grooms holding to their bridles are in mufti, that their trappings
+are of plain wood, and that the royal coach they imagine to be
+rumbling behind them resembles nothing so much as an empty
+jail van! The King in the fairy tale was not better pleased with
+his imaginary fine raiment than the Cream Colours with their
+phantom state. But nobody troubles to undeceive them; the
+rooks flap cawing overhead in pursuit of their breakfasts, and
+the cuckoo monotonously calling from the Home Park is entirely<span class="pagenum" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</span>
+absorbed in his own business. All is vanity, and in another
+few years they also will be cropping buttercups, with no higher
+aspiration.</p>
+
+<p>For the next generation is already knocking at the door. On
+the further side of the road from his forebears, a little dusky foal
+who will some day be of a correct highly polished cream colour
+is kicking up his heels in a paddock, a truly royal nursery with a
+golden floor. He is separated even at this early age from his
+black and bay contemporaries, whose lot, however, will certainly
+be more varied and interesting than any which he can look for.
+Let us hope that he may still be in the nursery when his sleek
+elders, now disappearing in their own dust along the road, will draw
+their sovereign in state to return thanks for the greatest of all
+victories, and the establishment of a righteous peace throughout
+the world.</p>
+
+<p class="quotesig"><span class="smcap">Rose M. Bradley.</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</span>
+<h2><span class="h3head"><i>ARMY UNIFORMS, PAST AND PRESENT.</i></span></h2>
+<p class="center">BY THE RT. HON. SIR HERBERT MAXWELL, BT.</p>
+
+<p class="p2"><span class="smcap">In</span> the early ’seventies of last century there was staged in London
+a very amusing musical comedy called <cite>The Happy Land</cite>, the scene
+being laid in Paradise. Among the principal characters were
+extremely skilful and poignant burlesques of Mr. Gladstone, Prime
+Minister at the time, Mr. Lowe, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and
+Mr. Ayrton, First Commissioner of Works. The piece had but a
+short, though brilliant, run in the metropolis; for the Lord
+Chamberlain ordered it off the stage, not on the grounds of what
+is usually implied by immorality, but because it brought Her
+Majesty’s Ministers into contempt by mordant caricature of their
+features and action.<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> It is not known—to me, at least—which of
+the three victims set the censorship in motion. Certainly it was
+not ‘Bob’ Lowe, who was gifted with a fine strain of humour.
+Probably it was done at Mr. Ayrton’s instance, he being destitute
+of that saving grace, and, besides, having been more mercilessly
+satirised in the play than his colleagues. He had outraged public
+feeling, if not public taste, by some acts of his administration as
+ædile, notably by painting grey some of the fine stone-work in the
+lobbies of the Houses of Parliament. I forget the libretto of <cite>The
+Happy Land</cite>; but this much I remember, that, whereas in the first
+act the scenery of Paradise appeared glowing with rainbow radiance
+and shimmering with gems, in the second act it represented the
+effect of Ayrton’s régime—everything had been painted ‘government
+grey.’</p>
+
+<p>All this was brought to mind by the change wrought upon the
+appearance of the British Army after the outbreak of the South
+African war in 1899. By a wave of his wand or a scratch of his
+quill the Secretary of State for War, Mr. St. John Brodrick (now
+Viscount Midleton) quenched all gaiety of colour in the fighting
+dress of our troops; the historic thin red line was to be seen no
+more; the glittering squadrons were doomed to ride in raiment
+as sombre as the dust of their own raising; henceforward standards
+and regimental colours were to be returned to store before the
+troops went on active service.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</span>
+Had that been all, it would have sufficed to mark a notable era
+in the operations of war—a wise measure, imposed upon the Army
+Council by the vast improvement in the range, trajectory, and
+precision of artillery and small arms. Hitherto it had been the
+object of the military authorities of all nations to make their fighting
+men as conspicuous as possible, exaggerating their stature by
+fantastic headgear and setting them in strong relief to every variety
+of natural background by means of bright colours and pipeclay.
+The Brigade of Guards landed in the Crimea without their knapsacks,
+which followed in another ship. The men had to do
+without them for some weeks; but the cumbrous bearskin caps
+were considered indispensable, and offered a fine target for the
+Russian defenders of the slopes of the Alma. The hint was
+thrown away upon our military authorities. It required a
+sharper lesson to convince them of the cruel absurdity of figging
+out men for battle in a dress that hampered the limbs and obscured
+the eyesight. The Guards were not more absurdly dressed on that
+occasion than the rest of the British troops. The late Sir William
+Flower described to me his feelings when, as surgeon of an
+infantry regiment, he stepped out from a boat on the wet sands
+at the mouth of the Alma, dressed in a skin-tight scarlet coatee with
+swallow tails, a high collar enclosing a black stock, close-fitting
+trousers tightly strapped over Wellington boots, and a cocked hat!</p>
+
+<p>Two years before that—in 1852—Colonel Luard published his
+<cite>History of the Dress of the British Soldier</cite>. Having served as a
+heavy dragoon in the Peninsula, as a light dragoon at Waterloo, as
+a lancer in India, and as a staff officer both in India and at home,
+he had practical experience of the variety of torment inflicted by
+different kinds of uniform. He advocated many reforms in the
+soldier’s dress, tending as much to increased efficiency as to comfort,
+and he supported his argument by extracts from his correspondence
+with regimental officers. One of these wrote—‘If an infantry
+soldier has to step over a drain two feet broad, he has to put one
+hand to his cap to keep it on his head, and his other to his pouch,
+and what becomes of his musket?’ And this, be it remembered,
+was the fighting-kit; for no general in those days ever dreamed of
+taking troops into action except in full review order.</p>
+
+<p>James <abbr title="One">I.</abbr> was not a warlike king, but he was a pretty shrewd
+observer of men and matters. He was not far wrong when he
+observed that plate armour was a fine thing, for it not only protected
+the life of the wearer, but hindered him from hurting anybody else!<span class="pagenum" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</span>
+The remark might have been applied with equal justice to the
+costume of British soldiers in the Crimean campaign, except that
+<a id="chg1"></a>it afforded no protection to the wearer’s life or limb. It required
+nearly one hundred years of painful experience to convince the
+War Office that it was cruel stupidity to put men in the field in
+clothing so tight as to fetter the limbs and compress the chest.
+That was the legacy of George IV. to the British Army.</p>
+
+<p>Although, to one looking back over the history of what is now
+the United Kingdom, the most salient features seem to be campaigns
+and battles, invasion and counter-invasion, it was not until the
+Civil War that any attempt was made towards a uniform dress
+for any army. It is true that both the English and Scottish Parliaments
+from time to time prescribed with the utmost care the
+offensive and defensive armour with which every able-bodied
+subject was to provide himself or be provided by his feudal chief,
+and if that chief were a wealthy baron his following would be
+clothed in his liveries. Thus, in describing the famous scene at
+Lauder when Archibald Douglas, fifth Earl of Angus, won his
+sobriquet of Bell-the-Cat, Pitscottie tells us in deliciously quaint
+phrase how luckless Thomas Cochrane, newly created Earl of
+Mar, rode down to the kirk where the disaffected lords were in
+conference, at the head of three hundred men all dressed in his
+liveries of white doublets with black bands. Cromwell was the
+first ruler of England who succeeded in what several of his
+predecessors had failed—in maintaining a standing army. At one
+time he had 80,000 men under arms. There was a degree of
+uniformity in the dress of his cavalry and infantry. It consisted
+mainly of buff coats, with the addition of breast and
+back pieces, iron caps, and other defensive armour. But that
+army was disbanded after the Restoration, and it was not until
+the reign of William III. that a standing army was finally constituted,
+and colonels commanding regiments, being allowed a
+sufficient sum for clothing the men, were required to do so according
+to sealed pattern.</p>
+
+<p>Throughout the eighteenth century, the British soldier’s dress
+was, on the whole, both picturesque and comfortable. In cut, it
+conformed pretty faithfully to the fashion prevailing in civilian
+attire, though there occurred an interval when George II. inflicted
+upon his Guards regiments the preposterous conical head-dress,
+copied from the Prussian Guards of Frederick the Great. This
+disfiguring headgear did not last very long, and gave place before<span class="pagenum" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</span>
+the end of the century to the three-cocked hat of the style called,
+I believe, Nivernois or Kevenhüller.</p>
+
+<p>The easy grace of the full-dress uniform of an officer of the Guards
+towards the close of the eighteenth century is admirably shown in
+Romney’s portrait of John, tenth Earl of Westmorland, now at
+Osterley Park. It shows a long-skirted scarlet frock, lined with
+white, faced with blue, with ruffles at the wrists, and without any
+ornament save a pair of gilt epaulets of moderate size and soft
+material, very different from the cumbrous, unyielding things now
+prescribed for naval officers and lords-lieutenant. The frock is
+worn open over a Ramillies cravat and waistcoat and breeches
+of white kersey. It would be difficult to devise a dress for a soldier
+so well combining comfort and dignified distinction. To one feature
+only can objection be taken. The powdered and curled hair,
+clubbed in a pigtail, looks charming on Romney’s canvas, but must
+have proved an intolerable nuisance both to officers and men.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="p2">‘During the command of the late Duke of Kent at Gibraltar
+[1802-3], when a field-day was ordered, there not being sufficient
+barbers in the town to attend to all the officers in the morning, the
+seniors claimed the privilege of their rank; the juniors consequently
+were obliged to have their heads dressed the night before; and to
+preserve the beauty of this artistic arrangement—pomatumed,
+powdered, curled and clubbed—these poor fellows were obliged to
+sleep on their faces! It is said that in the adjutant’s office of each
+regiment there was kept a pattern of the correct curls, to which
+the barbers could refer.’<a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The men wore tunics of a cut similar to those of the officers, but
+of coarser cloth. They were buttoned up on duty, the skirts being
+looped back. It was a thoroughly sensible and workmanlike
+dress, giving perfect freedom to breathing and circulation, together
+with protection to loins and thighs. The Chelsea pensioners wear
+a coat of the old infantry pattern to this day.</p>
+
+<p>With the Regency came a vicious change. The Prince Regent
+paid incessant attention to dress—both to his own and that of
+others. He was proud of his figure, which, indeed, was a fine one
+till it was ruined by excess, and he loved to display it in closely
+fitting dress. Nor was he content until he got his father’s army
+buttoned up to the limit of endurance and disfigured by headgear<span class="pagenum" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</span>
+of appalling dimensions. The easy open collar and Ramillies tie
+were replaced by an upright fence of buckram and a leather stock.
+It would be hardly credible, were there not abundant evidence in
+the correspondence of the Horse Guards to prove it, that while
+Wellington was absorbed in manœuvring against immensely
+superior forces in Spain, he had to give attention to correspondence
+about changes in the dress of the army, not with a view to making
+it more comfortable and workmanlike, but in order to gratify the
+caprice of the Prince Regent. No man ever gave less thought
+to niceties of tailoring than Lord Wellington (as he was at that
+time). His views are set forth in a letter to the Military Secretary
+who had consulted him about the uniform to be prescribed for
+those regiments of Light Dragoons which the Prince Regent had
+desired the Duke of York (recently reinstated as Commander-in-Chief)
+to convert into Hussars.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="quotesig">
+‘<span class="smcap">Freneda</span>, <i>6th November, 1811</i>.</p>
+
+<p>‘... There is no subject of which I understand so little [as military
+uniforms], and, abstractedly speaking, I think it indifferent how
+a soldier is clothed, provided it is in an uniform manner, and that
+he is forced to keep himself clean and smart, as a soldier ought to
+be. But there is one thing I deprecate, and that is any imitation
+of the French in any manner. It is impossible to form an idea of
+the inconvenience and injury which result from having anything
+like them, either on horseback or on foot.<a id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> Lutyens and his piquet
+were taken in June because the 3rd Hussars had the same caps
+as the French <i lang="fr">Chasseurs-à-cheval</i> and some of their Hussars, and
+I was near being taken on September 25 from the same cause. At
+a distance or in action colours are nothing; the profile and shape
+of a man’s cap, and his general appearance, are what guide us; and
+why should we make our people look like the French?... I
+only beg that we may be as different as possible from the French
+in everything. The narrow tops of our infantry, as opposed to
+their broad top caps, are a great advantage to those who are to
+look at long lines of posts opposed to each other.’</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Two years later, at the battle of Vitoria, the justice of Wellington’s
+views about the soldier’s uniform received apt illustration.
+Wellington on that day kept the Light Division and 4th Division
+under his immediate command. The 3rd and 7th Divisions, under
+Picton and Lord Dalhousie, were to join him in order to complete<span class="pagenum" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</span>
+the centre of the line, but they had difficult ground to traverse,
+and were late. The Zadora flowed swift and deep in front of the
+French position. A countryman having informed Wellington that
+the bridge of Tres Puentes was unguarded, Kempt’s riflemen were
+sent forward to seize it, which they did, and went so far up the
+heights on the farther side that they were able to establish themselves
+in shelter of a crest well in rear of a French advanced post.
+There they lay, until Wellington’s line was completed by the
+arrival of ‘old Picton, riding at the head of the 3rd Division,
+dressed in a blue coat and a round hat, swearing as loudly all the
+way as if he wore two cocked ones.’<a id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> The 7th Division came up
+at the same time, and while they were deploying the enemy opened
+fire upon them. Kempt immediately drew his riflemen from their
+shelter and took the French batteries in flank, thereby enabling
+the 3rd Division to cross the bridge of Mendoza without loss. But
+the dark uniforms of the Rifles deceived the British on the other
+side of the river into the belief that they were French. A battery
+opened upon them and continued pounding them with round shot
+and shrapnel till the advance of Picton’s Division revealed the
+blunder.</p>
+
+<p>Wellington’s warning against copying the uniforms of other
+nations received little attention. After 1815, when he was in
+command of the Army of Occupation in Paris, it was decided to
+arm four regiments of cavalry with lances, a most effective weapon
+which had not been carried by British troops since the seventeenth
+century. One would have supposed that the lance might be wielded
+as effectively by a man dressed as a light dragoon or a hussar as
+in any other rig; but the Prince Regent hailed the innovation as
+an opportunity for an entirely new costume. Consequently the
+9th, 12th, 16th and 23rd Light Dragoons were put into a Polish
+dress, modified in such manner as to agree with his Royal Highness’s
+sartorial taste.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="p2">‘An officer of rank commanding one of the Lancer regiments
+was ordered to attend the Prince Regent to fit the new jacket on
+him. The tailor, with a pair of scissors, was ordered to cut smooth
+every wrinkle and fine-draw the seams. The consequence was
+that the coats of the private soldiers, as well as those of the officers,
+were made so tight they could hardly get into them; the freedom
+of action was so restricted that the infantry with difficulty handled
+their muskets, and the cavalry could scarcely do the sword exercise.’</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</span>
+The cuirass had been discontinued in the British cavalry since
+1794, when it had been found most unsuitable for active service
+in the Netherlands. But it was far too showy a piece of goods
+to escape the Prince Regent’s attention. Accordingly the three
+regiments of Household Cavalry were made to appear at his coronation
+in 1820 in steel cuirasses and burnished helmets, with enormous
+combs of bearskin; the latter, as Colonel Luard caustically observes,
+rendering it impossible for a man to deliver the sixth cut in the
+sword exercise of that day. The cuirass and helmet remain, with
+the unwieldy jack-boots and leather breeches, an effective, if archaic,
+part of a theatrical pageant which Londoners have learnt to love;
+but as the equipment of a modern soldier the costume is ludicrously
+inapt and very costly. In an era when war has become more
+terrible and more intensely destructive than in any previous age,
+and at a time when the whole resources of the nation are strained
+for the country to hold its own, it may well be asked whether money
+might not be more profitably employed than in causing the splendid
+men of the Household Cavalry to masquerade in such attire as
+would be grotesque to imagine them wearing in modern warfare.</p>
+
+<p>About the same time that the cuirass was inflicted upon the
+Household Cavalry, the sentry boxes in London and at Windsor
+Castle had to be increased in height in order to accommodate a new
+pattern of bearskin cap which had been approved for the Foot
+Guards. The old pattern, which had superseded the three-cocked
+hat at the end of the previous century, was a sensible affair of
+reasonable dimensions; but the army tailors, encouraged by the
+new King, were indefatigable in devising extravagance in uniforms,
+and the bearskin was made to shoot up several inches in height.
+‘Ridicule,’ observed Colonel Luard, ‘subsides when the eye is no
+longer a stranger to the object of excitement; otherwise the little
+boys would run after the guardsmen when they appear in the
+streets of London, and shout at the overwhelming, preposterous,
+hideous bearskin caps.’ It is rumoured that the supply of the
+right sort of bear is now running short. It may not be too much to
+hope that, when our armies return victorious at the end of the war,
+the occasion may be marked by the invention of some uniform for
+the Brigade of Guards more comfortable and workmanlike than
+a skin-tight tunic and a grossly exaggerated fur-cap. Londoners,
+laudably conservative in what they have become used with, would
+be the less likely to murmur at the change, inasmuch as they have
+grown accustomed to see guard-mounting performed in forage-caps.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</span>
+Among all the variety of uniforms of the British infantry, none
+has undergone so little change in the last hundred and fifty years
+as that of the Highland regiments. Well that it is so, for there is
+none other that so admirably sets off a soldier-like figure, none
+that stirs so much enthusiasm among the spectators at a field-day.
+So fully has this been recognised that a society has recently been
+formed to protest against and endeavour to remedy what is deemed
+the unmerited neglect of Lowland Scottish regiments, whereof
+the records certainly are no whit inferior in lustre to those of the
+Highland corps. It is complained that the Lowland regiments are
+always kept in the background; that Edinburgh, though a Lowland
+city, is invariably garrisoned by a Highland regiment, and that
+facilities for recruiting in Edinburgh and Glasgow are accorded to
+Highland regiments and refused to Lowland regiments. Much of
+this is unfortunately true; but the real reason for it exists in the
+greater popularity of the Highland uniform. No amount of protest
+or persuasion will prevail to make the general public take the same
+interest in a trousered regiment as in a kilted one. Might not the
+surest remedy be to put the Lowland regiments also into kilts?
+Purists will object that Lowlanders have no business to don the
+philabeg; but, for that matter, neither have they any business to
+wear tartan trews, <em>which all the Lowland regiments do at the present
+time, besides being furnished with kilted pipers</em>.<a id="FNanchor_7" href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> Then all Scottish
+regiments would be on an equal footing, and no material would
+remain for the present irritation. It is difficult to understand,
+impossible to explain, the emotion—involuntary, as all true
+emotion must be—roused, even in Saisneach breasts, by the sight of
+a Highland regiment marching to the skirl of the pipes. In order to
+illustrate it, let me lapse for a moment into the first person singular.</p>
+
+<p>During Queen Victoria’s memorable progress through her
+metropolis in the Diamond Jubilee of 1897, I was seated with two
+ladies of my family in the stand set up for members of Parliament
+in Palace Yard. The long hours of waiting on that shining summer
+forenoon were enlivened by the march of many regiments, headed
+by their bands, passing to their appointed places in the route. It
+was a shifting pageant of stirring sight and sound. Presently,
+over Westminster Bridge came the Seaforth Highlanders stepping
+to the lively strains of <cite>The Muckin’ o’ Geordie’s Byre</cite>.<a id="FNanchor_8" href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> The effect<span class="pagenum" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</span>
+was indescribable—the swing of kilts and sporrans, the dark waving
+plumes, the gallant but simple melody, thrilled all spectators. As
+for myself, I felt a big lump in my throat, and I was ashamed to
+feel something trickle down both cheeks. Yet am I a Lowland
+Scot, if anybody is; so far as I am aware, I can lay no claim to any
+strain of Celtic blood. If such an one was so deeply moved by the
+passing of a single Highland regiment, why should not all the
+Scottish regiments be clothed in the romantic garb of Old Gaul,
+with the desirable result of rendering the Lowland corps as well-beloved
+by the people as the Highlanders? If this were carried
+out, it would be esteemed a privilege by the former and a compliment
+by the latter. Objection on the score of economy would be
+raised because of the cost of the full-dress feather-bonnet, which,
+though picturesque, is but a tailor’s parody of the bonnet of the
+<i>duine uasail</i>. Let the Lowland regiments be content, then, with
+the Glengarry. Nobody who has seen a battalion of the London
+Scottish marching through Pall Mall, and listened to the comments
+of those who crowd to the club windows at the sound of the pibroch,
+will tell you that that fine corps would gain anything in soldierly
+appearance by wearing feather-bonnets. That head-dress was
+condemned in 1882, but in deference to Queen Victoria’s wishes
+it was restored. Its abolition had previously been hotly challenged
+in the House of Commons by certain perfervid Scots, one of whom
+volunteered a quaint explanation to an honourable member who
+had ventured to express some doubt about ostrich feathers being
+an appropriate ornament for a Scottish soldier. He gravely assured
+the House that the costume had its origin in Sir Ralph Abercromby’s
+Egyptian campaign in 1801, when the Highland soldiers picked
+up ostrich feathers in the desert and stuck them in their bonnets
+as a protection from the sun!</p>
+
+<p>The fact is that the feather-bonnet, and all other exaggerated
+and expensive head-dresses, should be as resolutely relegated to
+limbo as the hideous masks worn by the fighting men of Old Japan.
+Both were designed to overawe the enemy; but, as modern fighting
+is done in forage-caps, that naïve purpose cannot be carried into
+effect, and the object should be to provide such clothing as will
+best enable a man to keep himself, in the Duke of Wellington’s
+words, ‘clean and smart, as a soldier ought to be.’ And no headgear
+is smarter, none more easily kept clean, than the Glengarry
+bonnet.</p>
+
+<p>While it is hardly possible to imagine any dress better calculated<span class="pagenum" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</span>
+to impede a soldier’s movements than the uniforms inflicted upon
+all arms in the service during the early years of the nineteenth
+century, one should not overlook the relief that was ordained in
+a detail that was a source of constant unnecessary trouble to the
+soldier. Clubbed pigtails had been transmitted as an irksome
+legacy from Marlborough’s army, until in 1808 the Horse Guards
+decreed their abolition. When Sir Arthur Wellesley landed in
+Mondego Bay on August 1-5 in that year, one of his first orders
+was that these senseless, dirty appendages were to be cut off.
+Never, one may believe, was an order more cheerfully obeyed. A
+counter-order was issued shortly after from the Horse Guards,
+requiring the retention of pigtails, but it was beyond the power of
+man to comply with it. It was easy to cut off pigtails, but
+they could not be replaced; and now the only vestige of a barbarous
+fashion in the army remains in the bow of black ribbon worn by
+the Welsh Fusiliers at the back of the collar of the tunic.</p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately, the irrational fashion of tight clothing for the
+army instituted by the Prince Regent endures to this day. It
+is true that a sensible field-dress of khaki was devised and worn
+during the South African War, and is now the service dress of the
+army; but the full dress for officers and the ‘walking-out’ uniform
+for men is still cut and fitted on the old excruciating lines. I
+think it took three weeks to fit a young friend of mine, joining a
+battalion of Guards a few years ago, before the adjutant of that
+<i lang="fr">corps d’élite</i> passed the tunic as satisfactory. Every crease and
+wrinkle had to be obliterated, at such cost to freedom of limbs and
+lungs as may be imagined. It may not be an extravagant hope
+that, when our army returns once more to a peace footing, the full
+dress may be designed with more regard to health and comfort
+than hitherto. Our eyes have grown accustomed during the
+present war to seeing soldiers in a costume, far from beautiful,
+indeed, but easy and respectable. There is no reason why a scarlet
+coat should be less comfortable than a dust-coloured one, and it
+will be a sad thing if the historic red of the English infantry is not
+preserved for full dress. But even if it were not, the khaki uniform
+might be rendered very becoming by the addition of a little modest
+ornament, especially by the restoration of the old regimental facings.
+These would not make troops one whit more conspicuous in the
+field; on the contrary, it is a commonplace of optics that parti-coloured
+objects are less easily detected in a landscape than those
+of one uniform colour.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</span>
+One desirable result of making uniform more comfortable wear
+might be expected to follow; officers might not be so scrupulous
+to exchange it for mufti the moment they are released from duty.
+Alone among the nationalities of Europe has the British officer
+hitherto treated his uniform as if it were something to be ashamed
+of in private life. It is an unseemly, even an unhandsome practice,
+seeing that non-commissioned officers and privates are not allowed
+to disport themselves in what they call ‘private clothes.’ Nor
+was it the custom among officers in the eighteenth century, when
+uniform was as easy and becoming as any other dress. The usual
+dress of an officer, even when on leave, was then his undress
+uniform, just as it is now in Continental armies. The change in the
+British Army was the direct outcome of the Prince Regent’s tyranny
+in buttoning up soldiers to the throat in clothes which it was a
+torment to wear.</p>
+
+<p>It must be owned that the Duke of Wellington was in large
+measure responsible, inasmuch as he set the example of preferring
+easy clothes to uneasy ones. A plain blue frock opening at the
+throat to a white cravat was his invariable dress throughout his
+campaigns. He had for his own wear a cocked hat one third the
+size of the huge one prescribed for general officers. There was a
+famous occasion in 1814, after the restoration of Louis XVIII.,
+when the King and the Royal Princes, with a brilliant suite, attended
+a state performance in the Odéon Theatre. The house was ablaze
+with uniforms of many nations and the gay dresses of ladies of the
+Court. In a box immediately opposite the royal one sat the Duke—in
+plain clothes! ‘The pride that apes humility’? Not a bit.
+<i lang="fr">Le vainqueur des vainqueurs</i> could scarcely be suspected of that.
+Simply, as he had to sit through a long performance, he chose to
+do so in clothes that enabled him to sit in comfort.</p>
+
+<p>Much praiseworthy attention is now given to the equipment
+and clothing of British troops serving in hot climates, but it was
+otherwise throughout most of the nineteenth century, and it is
+incalculable how much suffering, disease, and death was caused by
+neglect of any such provision. When Colonel Luard was preparing
+his book in 1850-52 he received letters from many officers calling
+his attention to this matter. One of these writes:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="p2">‘I shall be very glad if you dedicate a portion of your work to
+the dress of our soldiers in the colonies.... I have myself seen
+the Spanish, French, and Danish troops in the West Indies much<span class="pagenum" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</span>
+more healthy than our own, from great attention to their comfort
+in their dress.... The whole body of civilians in the tropics
+appear in loose white jackets and trousers and a skull-cap ...
+the shakoes and red coats of our troops were not altered in our West
+India colonies.’</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="p2">A cavalry officer remarks: ‘I hope you will dwell on the madness
+of our soldiers wearing leather caps under a tropical sun’;
+while another observes that ‘a brass helmet was not found serviceable
+in Africa by the 7th Dragoon Guards when that regiment was
+at the Cape.’</p>
+
+<p>Our troops suffered horribly during the first Kaffir war, 1846-48,
+from being clothed exactly as they had been at home—leather
+stocks, tight coatees, heavy shakoes, and all the rest of it. Some
+consideration was shown for the soldier in the second Kaffir war,
+1851-52. Captain King, of the 74th Highlanders, describes how his
+regiment landed at Cape Town (after a voyage from England of
+two months!) wearing their ordinary clothing, and it was not until
+they had marched far into the interior that ‘our bonnets and plaids
+were replaced by a costume more suitable for the bush—viz., a
+short dark canvas blouse; in addition to which feldt-schoen and
+lighter pouches, made of untanned leather, were issued to the
+men, and broad leather peaks affixed to their forage-caps.’<a id="FNanchor_9" href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p>
+
+<p>Captain King’s narrative is illustrated by lithographs from his
+own excellent drawings, which show his men, heavily accoutred
+with pack and pouch, and with no protection against the sun except
+the aforesaid peak to the forage-cap, severely handicapped in
+fighting nearly naked blacks armed with rifles. No wonder the
+74th lost heavily, their commander, Colonel Fordyce, falling at
+their head in a bush fight, together with some of his best officers.</p>
+
+<p>It is not only in matters of dress and equipment that we have
+learnt consideration for our troops on foreign service. The splendid
+organisation of the Royal Army Medical Corps has been severely
+tested in coping with the requirements of such a force as it was
+never contemplated Great Britain would or could put in the field;
+but the test has been nobly met; the latest discoveries in science
+have been employed to avert disease and mortality from wounds,
+thereby saving soldiers and their families and friends from an incalculable
+amount of misery. The Transport Service has not only
+met the extraordinary demand upon its resources in the conveyance<span class="pagenum" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</span>
+of necessary supplies—food, munitions, &amp;c.—but has proved
+equal to the punctual deliverance of the vast stores of comforts
+and even luxuries consigned from voluntary sources at home.</p>
+
+<p>Among the said luxuries is one whereon the Iron Duke would
+have turned no favouring eye. The tobacco which has been
+supplied to our troops at the front—aye, and in hospital at home—must
+amount to a prodigious figure. When the Duke was Commander-in-Chief
+in 1845 he issued the following counterblast:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="p2">‘<abbr title="General Order Number">G.O. No.</abbr> 577.—The Commander-in-Chief has been informed
+that the practice of smoking, by the use of pipes, cigars and cheroots,
+has become prevalent among the Officers of the Army, which is
+not only in itself a species of intoxication occasioned by the fumes
+of tobacco, but, undoubtedly, occasions drinking and tippling by
+those who acquire the habit; and he intreats the Officers commanding
+Regiments to prevent smoking in the Mess Rooms of their
+several Regiments, and in the adjoining apartments, and to discourage
+the practice among the Officers of Junior Rank in their
+Regiments.’</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>There was no Press Censor in those days, and <cite>Punch</cite>, which was
+then a vigorous stripling in its fourth year, was allowed to make
+merry over this fulmination, declaring that officers of the Army
+were greatly perturbed, ‘dreading the possibility of being thrown
+upon their conversational resources, which must have a most
+dreary effect.’ Tobacconists drove a brisk trade in pipe-stoppers
+carved in the likeness of the Duke’s head. These might now be
+a fitting object of pursuit on the part of collectors.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">[3]</a> The piece continued to be given in the provinces, where the Lord Chamberlain’s
+censorship does not take effect.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="label">[4]</a> <cite>A History of the Dress of the British Soldier</cite>, by <abbr title="Lieutenanat Colonel">Lieut.-Col.</abbr> John Luard, 1852,
+p. 99.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5" class="label">[5]</a> Of course because the French were the enemy in that campaign.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6" class="label">[6]</a> Kincaid’s <cite>Adventures in the Rifle Brigade</cite>, <abbr title="second">2nd</abbr> edition, 1838, p. 222.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_7" href="#FNanchor_7" class="label">[7]</a> See report of meeting of the Lowland Scots Society, held in Edinburgh on
+November 25, 1915.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_8" href="#FNanchor_8" class="label">[8]</a> An old air, subsequently set to the song <cite>My Tocher’s the Jewel</cite>.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_9" href="#FNanchor_9" class="label">[9]</a> <cite>Campaigning in Kaffirland</cite>, by <abbr title="Captain">Capt.</abbr> W. R. King, 1853, p. 27.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</span>
+<h2><span class="h3head"><i>THE NEW UBIQUE: SPIT AND POLISH.</i></span></h2>
+
+<p class="center">BY JEFFERY E. JEFFERY.</p>
+
+<p class="p2"><span class="smcap">‘Per<em>son</em>ally</span> myself,’ said the Child, tilting back his chair until
+his head touched the wall behind him, and stretching out a lazy
+arm towards the cigarette-box—‘per<em>son</em>ally myself, I’ve enjoyed this
+trip no end—haven’t you?’</p>
+
+<p>‘I have,’ I answered; ‘so much so, Child, that the thought of
+going back to gun-pits and trenches and O.P.s again fills me
+with gloom.’</p>
+
+<p>It was our last night in a most comfortable billet near ——,
+where, on and off, we had spent rather more than a month of ease:
+on the morrow we were going into the line again. The trip to which
+the Child was referring, however, was an eight days’ course at a place
+vaguely known as ‘the —th Army Mobile Artillery Training School,’
+from which our battery had but lately returned.</p>
+
+<p>The circumstances were these. When, five weeks ago, the division
+moved (for the <em>n</em>th time!) to a different part of the line, it
+transpired that three batteries would be ‘out at rest,’ as there would
+be no room for them in action. It also so chanced that it was our
+colonel’s turn to be left without a ‘group’<a id="FNanchor_10" href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> to command. This
+being so, he suggested to higher authorities that the three batteries
+‘out’ should be those of his own brigade, in order that he might
+have a chance ‘to tidy them up a bit,’ as he phrased it. Thus it
+was that we found ourselves, as I have said, in extremely comfortable
+billets—places, I mean, where they have sheets on the beds and
+china jugs and gas and drains—with every prospect of a pleasant
+loaf. But in this we were somewhat sanguine.</p>
+
+<p>The colonel’s idea in having us ‘out’ for a while was not so
+much to rest us as to give us a variation of work. Being essentially
+a thorough man, he started—or rather ordered me to start—at the
+very beginning. The gunners paraded daily for marching drill,
+physical exercises, and ‘elementary standing gun drill by numbers.’
+N.C.O.s and drivers were taken out and given hours of riding drill
+under the supervision of subalterns bursting with knowledge
+crammed up from the book the night before and under the personal
+direction of a brazen-voiced sergeant who, having passed through the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</span>
+‘riding troop’ at Woolwich in his youth, knew his business. The
+strangest sight of all was the class of signallers—men who had spent
+months in the fœtid atmosphere of cellars and dug-outs, or creeping
+along telephone wires in ‘unhealthy’ spots—now waving flags at a
+word of command and going solemnly through the Morse alphabet
+letter by letter. Of the whole community this was perhaps the
+most scandalised portion. But in a few days, when everybody
+(not excluding myself and the other officers) had discovered how
+much had been forgotten during our long spell in action, a great
+spirit of emulation began to be displayed. Subsections vied with
+one another to produce the smartest gun detachment, the sleekest
+horses, the best turned-out ride, the cleanest harness, guns, and
+wagons.</p>
+
+<p>The colonel, after the manner of his kind, came at the end of a
+week or so to inspect things. He is not the sort of man upon whom
+one can easily impose. A dozen of the shiniest saddles or bits in
+the battery placed so as to catch the light (and the eye) near the
+doorway of the harness-room do not necessarily satisfy him: nor
+is he content with the mere general and symmetrical effect of rows
+of superficially clean breast-collars, traces, and breechings. On
+the contrary, he is quite prepared to spend an hour or more over his
+inspection, examining every set of harness in minute detail, even
+down to the backs of the buckle tongues, the inside of the double-folded
+breast collars, and the oft-neglected underside of saddle
+flaps. It is the same thing with the guns and wagons. Burnished
+breech-rings and polished brasswork look very nice, and he approves
+of them, but he does not on that account omit to look closely at
+every oil-hole or to check the lists of ‘small stores’ and ‘spare
+parts.’</p>
+
+<p>For the next week or so we were kept very busy on ‘the many
+small points which required attention,’ to quote the colonel’s phrase.
+Nevertheless, as a variation from the monotony of siege warfare,
+the time was regarded by most of us as a holiday. Many things
+combined to enhance our pleasure. The sun shone and the country
+became gorgeously green again; the horses began to get their
+summer coats and to lose their unkempt winter’s appearance;
+there was a fair-sized town near at hand, and passes to visit it were
+freely granted to N.C.O.s and men; at the back of the officers’
+billet was a garden with real flower-beds in it and a bit of lawn on
+which one could have tea. Occasionally we could hear the distant
+muttering of the guns, and at night we could see the ‘flares’ darting<span class="pagenum" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</span>
+up from the black horizon—just to remind us, I suppose, that the
+war was only in the next parish....</p>
+
+<p>But it was not to be supposed that a man of such energy as our
+colonel would be content just to ride round daily and watch three
+of his batteries doing rides and gun drill. It occurred to him at
+once that this was the time to practise the legitimate business—that
+is, open, moving warfare. Wherefore he made representations
+to various quite superior authorities. In three days, by dint of
+considerable personal exertion, he had secured the following concessions:
+two large tracts of ground suitable for driving drill
+and battery manœuvre, good billets, an area of some six square
+miles (part of the —th Army Training area) for the purpose of
+tactical schemes, the appointment of himself as commandant of
+the ‘school,’ a Ford ambulance for his private use, three motor
+lorries for the supply of the units under training, and a magnificent
+château for his own headquarters. And all this he accomplished
+without causing any serious friction between the various ‘offices’
+and departments concerned—no mean feat.</p>
+
+<p>Each course was to last eight days, and there were to be four
+batteries, taken from different divisions, undergoing it simultaneously.
+It fell to us to go with the second batch, and we spent
+a strenuous week of preparation: it was four months since we had
+done any work ‘in the open,’ and we knew, inwardly, that we were
+distinctly rusty. We packed up, and at full war strength, transport,
+spare horses and all, we marched our sixteen miles to the selected
+area. At the half-way halt we met the commander of a battery
+of our own brigade returning. He stopped to pass the time of
+day and volunteered the information that he was going on leave
+that night. ‘And, by Jove!’ he added significantly, ‘I deserve
+a bit of rest. Réveillé at 4 <span class="allsmcap">A.M.</span> every morning, out all day wet or
+fine, gun drill at every odd moment, schemes, tactical exercises,
+everybody at high pressure all the time. The colonel’s fairly in his
+element, revels in it, and “strafes” everybody indiscriminately.
+But it’s done us all a world of good though. Cheeriho! wish you
+luck.’ And he rode on, leaving us rather flabbergasted.</p>
+
+<p>We discovered quite early (on the following morning about
+dawn, to be precise) that there had been no exaggeration. We began
+with elementary driving drill, and we did four and a half hours of it
+straight on end, except for occasional ten-minute halts to rest the
+astonished teams. It was wonderful how much we had forgotten
+and yet how much came back to us after the first hour or so.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</span>
+‘I want all your officers to drill the battery in turn,’ said the
+colonel. ‘I shall just ride round and correct mistakes.’</p>
+
+<p>He did—with an energy, a power of observation, and a command
+of language which I have seldom seen or heard surpassed. But the
+ultimate result by mid-day, when all the officers and N.C.O.s were
+hoarse, the teams sweating and the carriages caked in oily dust—the
+ultimate result was, as the Child politely says, ‘not too stinkin’
+awful.’ And it had been good to hear once again the rattle and
+bump of the guns and wagons over hard ground, the jingle of harness
+and the thud of many hoofs; good to see the teams swing round
+together as they wheeled into line or column at a spanking trot;
+good above all to remember that <em>this</em> was our job and that the months
+spent in concrete gun-pits and double-bricked O.P.s were but a
+lengthy prelude to our resumption of it—some day.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening, when the day’s work was over and ‘stables’
+finished, we left the tired horses picking over the remains of their
+hay and walked down the <i lang="fr">pavé</i> village street, Angelo and I, to look
+at the church. Angelo is my eldest but not, as it so happens, my
+senior subaltern. Before the war he was a budding architect, with
+a taste for painting: hence the nickname, coined by the Child in one
+of his more erudite moods.</p>
+
+<p>The church at L—— is very fine. Its square tower is thirteenth
+century, its interior is pure Gothic, and its vaulted roof a marvel.
+For its size the building is well-nigh perfect. We spent some time
+examining the nave and chancel—Angelo, his professional as well as
+his artistic enthusiasm aroused, explaining technicalities to me and
+making me envious of his knowledge. It was with regret that we
+turned away at last, for in spite of the tattered colours of some
+French regiment which hung on the north side of the chancel, we
+had forgotten the war in the quiet peacefulness of that exquisite
+interior. But we were quickly reminded. At the end of the
+church, kneeling on one of the rough chairs, was an old peasant
+woman: her head was bowed, and the beads dropped slowly through
+her twisted fingers. As we crept down the aisle she raised her
+eyes—not to look at us, for I think she was unconscious of our
+presence—but to gaze earnestly at the altar. Her lips moved in
+prayer, but no tear damped her yellow cheek. And, passing out
+into the sunlight again, I wondered for whom she was praying—husband,
+brother, sons?—whether, still hoping, she prayed for
+the living, or, faithfully, for the souls of those lost to her. They
+are brave, the peasant women of France....</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</span>
+Madame our hostess, besides being one of the fattest, was also
+one of the most agreeable ladies it has ever been our lot to be billeted
+upon. Before we had been in her house ten minutes she had given
+us (at an amazing speed) the following information:</p>
+
+<p>Her only remaining son had been wounded and was now a
+prisoner in Germany.</p>
+
+<p>She had played hostess continuously since August 1914 to every
+kind of soldier, including French motor-bus drivers, Indian chiefs
+(<i lang="la">sic</i>), and generals.</p>
+
+<p>English officers arriving after the battle of Loos slept in her
+hall for twenty-four hours, woke to have a bath and to eat an
+omelette, and then slept the clock round again.</p>
+
+<p>She remembered 1870, in which war her husband had fought.</p>
+
+<p>The Boches were barbarians, but they would never advance now,
+though at one time they had been within a few kilometres of her
+house.</p>
+
+<p>The lettuce and cabbages in her garden were at our disposal.</p>
+
+<p>She took an enormous interest in the Infant, who is even
+younger than the Child and is our latest acquisition.</p>
+
+<p><span lang="fr">‘Regardez donc le petit, comme il est fatigué!’</span> she exclaimed
+to me in the tones of an anxious mother—and then added in an
+excited whisper, <span lang="fr">‘A-t-il vu les Boches, ce petit sous-lieutenant?’</span></p>
+
+<p>When I assured her not only that he had seen them, but had
+fired his guns at them, she was delighted and declared that he
+could not be more than sixteen. But here the Infant, considering
+that the conversation was becoming personal, intervened, and the
+old lady left us to our dinner.</p>
+
+<p>Towards the end of our week we packed up essentials and
+marched out to bivouac two nights and fight a two days’ running
+battle—directed, of course, by our indefatigable colonel. After
+the dead flat ugliness where we had been in action all the winter
+and early spring it was a delight to find ourselves in this spacious
+undulating country, with its trees and church spires and red-tiled
+villages. We fought all day against an imaginary foe, made innumerable
+mistakes, all forcibly pointed out by the colonel (who
+rode both his horses to a standstill in endeavouring to direct operations
+and at the same time watch the procedure of four widely
+separated batteries); our imaginary infantry captured ridge
+after ridge, and we advanced from position to position ‘in close
+support,’ until finally, the rout of the foe being complete, we moved
+to our appointed bivouacs.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</span>
+In peace time it would have been regarded as a quite ordinary
+day, boring because of its resemblance to so many others. Now
+it was different. True, it was make-believe from start to finish,
+without even blank cartridge to give the vaguest hint of reality.
+But there was this: at the back of all our minds was the knowledge
+that this was a preparation—possibly our last preparation—not
+for something in the indefinite future (as in peace time), but
+for an occasion that assuredly <em>is</em> coming, perhaps in a few months,
+perhaps even in a few weeks. The colonel spoke truly when, at
+his first conference, he said:</p>
+
+<p>‘During these schemes you must all of you force yourselves
+to imagine that there is a real enemy opposed to you. The Boche
+is no fool: he’s got guns, and he knows how to use them. If you
+show up on crest lines with a whole battery staff at your heels,
+he’ll have the place “registered,” and he’ll smash your show to
+bits before you ever get your guns into action at all. <em>Think</em> where
+he is likely to be, <em>think</em> what he’s likely to be doing, don’t expose
+yourselves unless you must, and above all, <em>get a move on</em>.’</p>
+
+<p>It was a delightful bivouac. We were on the sheltered side of
+a little hill, looking south into a wooded valley. Nightingales
+sang to us as we lay smoking on our valises after a picnic dinner and
+stared dreamily at the stars above us.</p>
+
+<p>‘Jolly, isn’t it?’ said the Child, ‘but I s’pose we wouldn’t be
+feeling quite so comfy if it was the real business.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Don’t,’ said Angelo quietly. ‘I was pretending to myself
+that we were just a merry camping party, here for pleasure only.
+I’d forgotten the war.’</p>
+
+<p>But I had not. I was thinking of the last time I had bivouacked—amongst
+the corn sheaves of a harvest that was never gathered,
+side by side with friends who were soon to fall, on the night before
+the first day of Mons, nearly two years ago.</p>
+
+<p>The following day was more or less a repetition of the first,
+except that we made fewer mistakes and ‘dropped into action’
+with more style and finish. We were now becoming fully aware
+of the almost-forgotten fact that a field battery is designed to be
+a mobile unit, and we were just beginning to take shape as such
+when our time was over. A day’s rest for the horses and then we
+returned to our comfortable rest billets. It had been a strenuous
+week, but I think everyone had thoroughly enjoyed it....</p>
+
+<p>We have had two days in which to ‘clean up,’ and now
+to-morrow we are to relieve another battery and take our place in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</span>
+the line again. Our holiday is definitely over. It will take a little
+time to settle down to the old conditions: our week’s practice of
+open warfare has spoilt us for this other kind. We who have
+climbed hills and looked over miles of rolling country will find an
+increased ugliness in our old flat surroundings. It will seem
+ludicrous to put our guns into pits again—the guns that we have
+seen bounding over rough ground behind the straining teams. To
+be cooped up in a brick O.P. staring at a strip of desolation will
+be odious after our bivouacs under the stars and our dashes into
+action under a blazing sun. Worst of all, perhaps, is the thought
+that the battery will be split up again into ‘gun line’ and ‘wagon
+line,’ with three miles or more separating its two halves, instead
+of its being, as it has been all these weeks, one complete cohesive
+unit. But what must be, must be; and it is absurd to grumble.
+Moreover—the end is not yet.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">‘Let’s toss up for who takes first turn at the O.P. when the
+relief is completed,’ suggested the Child.</p>
+
+<p>‘Wait a minute,’ I said, remembering something suddenly.
+‘Do you know what to-day is?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Friday,’ he volunteered, ‘and to-morrow ought to be a half-holiday,
+but it won’t be, ’cos we’re going into action.’</p>
+
+<p>I passed the port round again. ‘It’s only a fortnight since we
+celebrated the battery’s first birthday,’ I said, ‘but to-day the
+Royal Regiment of Artillery is two hundred years old. Let’s
+drink its health.’</p>
+
+<p>And we did.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_10" href="#FNanchor_10" class="label">[10]</a> A certain number of batteries.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</span>
+<h2><span class="h3head"><i>THE REHABILITATION OF PRIVATE HAGAN.</i></span></h2>
+
+<p class="center">BY ‘MAJOR, R.A.M.C.’</p>
+
+<p class="p2"><span class="smcap">Private Timothy Hagan</span>, of ‘D’ Company, extracted a box of
+matches from his pocket, mechanically lighted a seasoned briar
+pipe, and sought inspiration from the log roof of the dugout.</p>
+
+<p>The last of the enemy’s usual evening salvo of shells screamed
+above the tree-tops and burst harmlessly in a stubble field. Hagan
+did not move. The announcement that the evening meal was
+ready equally failed to interest him.</p>
+
+<p>The dugout, efficiently constructed of sand-bags, logs, and
+earth, was just large enough for the accommodation of two
+improvised beds and blankets. Private Sawyer, the normal
+occupant of the other half, was at the moment busy in the kitchen
+outside beneath the trees. It was seclusion that Hagan courted,
+not protection.</p>
+
+<p>Presently, Sawyer, his face smoke-begrimed and heated, thrust
+his head over a sand-bag parapet.</p>
+
+<p>‘Tea ready, cooky,’ he cried.</p>
+
+<p>‘Phwat’s the good ov thay?’ grunted Hagan, dropping his
+pipe listlessly. ‘Fed up!’</p>
+
+<p>Sawyer’s eyes dilated in speechless surprise. His rapid scrutiny
+of his pal’s downcast features failed to help.</p>
+
+<p>‘’Ullo, what’s wrong, hey?’ he asked, wiping his face with the
+back of his hand and dropping into the trench. ‘Can’t yer high-class
+stomach relish bully-beef no more? What’s wrong with it?’</p>
+
+<p>Without answering in words Timothy slipped his hand into
+the breast pocket of his tunic, produced a much-thumbed envelope,
+and slowly unfolded a letter. The sight of the irregular writing
+seemed to have an immediate tonic effect upon his demeanour.
+His eyes suddenly became suffused with red-blood anger. (He
+had learned the habit in more than one barbed-wire scrimmage
+against the enemy.) Clenching his fists, he cursed beneath his
+breath, thoughtfully, with intent.</p>
+
+<p>‘H’m!’ grunted Sawyer sympathetically.</p>
+
+<p>‘There’s a blighter at home,’ stammered Hagan, ‘phwat is
+afeared to do his bit out here’—he hesitated as if to swallow pent-up
+gorge—‘of the name of O’Shea—a damned thaivin’ grocer.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</span>
+The letter says as how he’s afther walking out wid Kitty Murphy,
+as is promised to mesilf.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Ugh, a woman is it?’ breathed Sawyer.</p>
+
+<p>‘And me not able to get me hands on him,’ groaned Hagan.
+‘’Tis perishin’ hard.’</p>
+
+<p>The sharp explosions of anti-aircraft shells in rapid succession
+overhead caused Sawyer to glance upwards. Shading his eyes
+with his hand, he shook his head in disappointment at the marksmanship
+displayed, and slipped back again into a sitting posture.</p>
+
+<p>‘What abhart leave ’ome?’ he inquired. ‘The captain says
+as ’ow each of us is to ’ave a turn—in doo course.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Bah!’ ejaculated Hagan contemptuously. ‘We all knows
+phwat in doo course mains.’ Meditatively refolding his letter, he
+consigned it again to its inner pocket. ‘There ain’t no proper
+foighting now naither—nothin’ but scrappin’ phwat doesn’t even
+kape the blood wharm in yez veins.’ Striking a match on the heel
+of his boot, he stared into space and forgot to use it. ‘I be afther
+thinkin’, Jock, it is now that I could be sphared, or not at all.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Wot’s wimmin to you now, anyway? ’Tis different with the
+married blokes,’ murmured Sawyer. ‘Won’t we both be killed
+in doo course?’</p>
+
+<p>‘We will that,’ agreed Hagan. ‘But, all the same, I could not
+lie happy loike widout I be afther settlin’ first wid the grocer.’</p>
+
+<p>For some seconds Sawyer did not speak. In the cool calm of
+the autumn evening there arose before him the memory of a dozen
+little wayside cemeteries marked by stereotyped plain wooden
+crosses—the British soldier’s humble badge of honour won. With
+a whimsical smile upon his lips he wondered vaguely where his
+own resting-place would lie.</p>
+
+<p>‘Ye see, Jock,’ persisted Hagan, ‘’tisn’t as if I was much wanted
+here just now.’</p>
+
+<p>Sawyer, turning suddenly, stared hard at his friend’s bronzed
+countenance, noted the stern-set jaw, and ceased sucking his pipe.
+He had learned to read Tim Hagan’s moods with the accuracy of
+much practice in the course of many devious wanderings.</p>
+
+<p>‘Humph! Wot’s the bloomin’ plan of campaign?’ he
+demanded. ‘Sneakin’ be’ind mud’eaps, or fightin’ in the open?’</p>
+
+<p>Hagan mechanically refilled his pipe and rammed down the
+tobacco with mature deliberation. An indefinite hum of voices
+near the company cooking-pots and the sharp bark of a French
+75-gun in the near distance accentuated the seclusion of the dugout.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</span>
+A dull crimson glow of sunset irradiated a cloudless skyline.
+To the rear of the wood the lowing of a cow sounded strangely
+out of place. On the left, cutting the winding line of trenches,
+lay the long, straight, deserted, <i lang="fr">pavé</i> road leading to the German
+lines. The scene, through many days of comparative stagnation,
+had grown contemptuously familiar.</p>
+
+<p>‘I’m sick,’ said Hagan, ‘to-morrow morning as iver is.’</p>
+
+<p>Sawyer, gurgling in a characteristic manner meant to denote
+mirth, shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>‘Sick is it?’ he commented. ‘Wot’s the complaint, matey?
+Some ’as fits; others injures their trigger fingers; some ’as lost
+their glasses and carn’t see nothink; some breaks their false teeth
+and gets shockin’ pains from the hard biscuits; some ’as pains
+in the kidneys; some ’as a narsty corph. ’Tain’t the season for
+corphs.’ Rubbing his nose with the back of a begrimed finger, he
+relapsed into thought. ‘Some ’as a buzzin’ in the ’ead wot nothink
+can cure. Some’—looking serious, he suddenly ended in a grunt—‘’Tain’t
+good enough, Tim, me lad, even for the pleasure of punchin’
+the ’ead of a stinkin’ grocer. You see, if you only get a few days
+in ’orspital, back you come again. If you’re took serious, ’ome
+you goes and stays there for a long time and misses everythink
+’ere.’ Gripping Hagan’s arm with highly strung fingers, he leaned
+nearer. ‘You ain’t goin’ to schrimshank at ’ome if a big push
+comes, old pal, are you?’</p>
+
+<p>Hagan’s jaw clenched and his lips moved speechlessly. Then
+once more he drew the letter from his pocket and handed it to his
+friend.</p>
+
+<p>‘Read that!’ he said. ‘I’m goin’ home.’</p>
+
+<p>Sawyer’s face assumed a sphinx-like gravity. He knew the
+proverbial strength of obstinacy, also the amount of that commodity
+possessed by Tim Hagan. He smoothed out the paper and
+sniffed violently. A faint perfume of cheap scent permeated the
+immediate atmosphere. With a grunt, he proceeded to master
+the contents of the epistle. So slowly did he progress, however,
+that presently even Hagan began to show signs of impatience.
+Sawyer was, in truth, merely gaining time for thought.</p>
+
+<p>‘If you’re caught out malingerin’ on active service, Tim,’ he
+whispered at length, ‘it won’t be only seven days “confined to
+barracks” you will be gettin’ off with.’</p>
+
+<p>With eyes bent upon the crimson skyline, Hagan sighed wearily.</p>
+
+<p>‘’Tis goin’ home I be, Jock,’ he repeated. ‘I’ll be afther<span class="pagenum" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</span>
+marryin’ Kitty Murphy, and thin me sickness will all go and back
+it is I’ll come.’</p>
+
+<p>With a groan of despair Sawyer crawled to his feet and, without
+another word, walked off in the direction of a ruined château.
+He knew there was no immediate urgency. For ordinary cases of
+illness the ambulance wagon would not arrive until the morning.
+He, therefore, still had all night in which to formulate a plan of
+operations. It was, of course, open to him to drop a hint to the
+R.A.M.C. orderly, but that would have to be a <i lang="fr">dernier ressort</i>
+indeed.</p>
+
+<p>Left to himself, Hagan brooded more sombrely than before.
+The regulations regarding reporting sick were perfectly familiar
+to him. For a serious case the medical officer could be summoned
+within a few minutes. The Field Ambulance advanced dressing-station,
+located in a school-house in the nearest village, was not
+more than a mile away. Weighing the matter in all its visible
+points, he suddenly decided that the rôle of an emergency case
+would better fit his purpose than that of the ordinary sick soldier
+reporting at the sealed-pattern hour.</p>
+
+<p>To determine was to act. Smearing the perspiration of undue
+thought from his forehead, he buttoned his tunic, looked hastily
+about the interstices of the sand-bags of the dugout for small valued
+possessions, and slipped out beneath the shelter of the trees.</p>
+
+<p>The area lying between the wood and the village where the
+Field Ambulance had located its post was alive with troops. The
+pavé of the road, upheaved by continuous traffic and an occasional
+shell, was not a healthy place for evening exercise, but there was
+no order against it. The danger of being shot during the journey
+had long become a negligible quantity. A church tower, shell-riddled
+and tottering, was the landmark. Behind it Hagan knew
+he should find the red-cross flag hanging limply from its pole.</p>
+
+<p>Women, with a horse and cart gathering the wheat in a field
+on his left, glanced up with pleasant smile of greeting as he passed.
+The orderlies filling a regimental water-cart at the village pump
+took no notice of him whatever. Presently, reaching the shadows
+of the church, he began to walk slower, then halted. He felt as
+if he needed a moment in which to pull himself together. So far
+in his life his histrionic sense had never been tested. It is notorious
+that even experienced actors occasionally suffer from stage
+fright.</p>
+
+<p>A couple of R.A.M.C. orderlies, leaning against the door-post
+beneath the red-cross flag, presently noticed a soldier staggering<span class="pagenum" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</span>
+towards them and blindly clutching at the empty air. In normal
+times their unanimous diagnosis woud have been ‘beer.’ They
+knew, however, that in the firing line such could not be.</p>
+
+<p>Hagan, squinting between half-closed eyelashes, staggered
+another ten yards, embraced one of the orderlies round the neck,
+slid limply to the ground, and, breathing heavily, lay quite still.</p>
+
+<p>In a moment a stretcher was at hand; within a minute the
+patient was inside the building. There were only half a dozen
+other men to share it with him, as the evening evacuation of sick
+and wounded to the Clearing Hospital had already taken place.</p>
+
+<p>‘What’s wrong, matey?’ questioned one of the orderlies,
+holding a pannikin of soup to the patient’s lips. ‘Here, drink
+this. Wake up! Can you hear me?’</p>
+
+<p>With a shudder Hagan opened his eyes, and, half-rising to his
+feet, glared about him. Rolls of wool and bandages, trays of
+surgical instruments, splints, buckets, and basins surrounded him
+upon all sides.</p>
+
+<p>‘Ah—the hospital!’ he muttered. ‘I remimber now. It is
+afther faintin’ I be.’</p>
+
+<p>‘H’m—lie down!’ advised the orderly, pushing him back
+on the stretcher. ‘I will call the medical officer. Perhaps he’ll
+give you a tot of brandy.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Begob, and I’m all roight, me bhoy,’ asserted Hagan, with
+well-assumed eagerness to depart. ‘Give me only foive—or maybe
+tin—minutes’ rest and a sip av whater.’</p>
+
+<p>The orderly gave the water, but, none the less, called his officer.
+Meanwhile Hagan, with shut eyes, summoned to his aid all medical
+knowledge, real and spurious, that had ever crossed his path of
+life. The rôle he had assigned to himself was extremely difficult.
+Whatever else might be imaginary, the beads of perspiration
+bedewing his forehead were certainly genuine enough. In order
+to fool a man successfully one requires to know something of his
+mental attitude towards the subject in hand. What a medico’s
+mind might contain, or what pitfalls it was necessary to beware
+of in dealing with him, were points that suddenly assailed the
+wretched Tim with terrifying force. In fact, had the R.A.M.C.
+officer not arrived within a few moments, it is probable that fear
+of superior wisdom would have driven the schemer forth from the
+building.</p>
+
+<p>‘Well, my man, what is the matter?’ asked the officer, feeling
+his patient’s pulse. ‘Fainted, hey?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Yes, sir,’ asserted the orderly. ‘Fell into my arms.’</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</span>
+Hagan, opening his eyes slowly, shook his head from side to
+side, noisily blew out his cheeks, and ‘marked time.’ Adjusting
+a stethoscope, the officer examined his chest, grunted, and ordered
+his temperature to be taken. That the result would be negative
+Hagan knew only too well. Consequently, it seemed obvious that
+it behoved him to make the next move.</p>
+
+<p>‘Terrible buzzin’ in me head, sor,’ he breathed.</p>
+
+<p>‘Ah—quite so. Rest and light diet. Overstrain. Perhaps
+you will be all right again by morning.’</p>
+
+<p>Emboldened by an initiatory success, Hagan ventured upon
+driving the nail still deeper.</p>
+
+<p>‘Lost all feelin’s in me legs, sor,’ he added, with a groan. ‘It—er—has
+been comin’ on, sor, for a week; but it wasn’t loikin’ to
+go sick I was.’</p>
+
+<p>The medico, with newly awakened interest, bent his eyes upon
+the man’s face and silently observed the movements of his rolling
+head and eyes. Hagan, gradually ceasing his gyrations, at length
+opened his eyes and met the doctor’s absorbed gaze. It was at
+that moment—had he but known it—that he sorely needed all
+the knowledge available regarding his interrogator. The latter
+was by nature a silent man, but that did not interfere with his
+power of absorbing details and piecing them together with uncanny
+accuracy.</p>
+
+<p>‘A pin, sir?’ suggested the orderly.</p>
+
+<p>‘What for?’ asked the officer blandly.</p>
+
+<p>‘Thought, perhaps, you wanted to test his feelings, sir,’ explained
+the zealot.</p>
+
+<p>‘No—er—that is, not to-night,’ answered the officer, suppressing
+a half-smile beneath his moustache. ‘We will see what a night’s
+rest can do.’</p>
+
+<p>As he watched the tall figure of the doctor sauntering out of
+the room, Hagan experienced a sensation of acute alarm. In the
+presence of the calm assurance of this man of few words he felt
+that he had slipped up somewhere. But where? Loss of all
+feeling in the legs was surely a good effort! Glancing at the
+orderly, he noticed the man smiling in a peculiar manner as his
+officer disappeared from sight. An orderly’s knowledge has its
+limitations, even if a doctor’s has not. The more thought he gave
+to it the more suspicious did he feel, and a guilty conscience did
+not assist matters.</p>
+
+<p>Soup and biscuits were served out for supper. Tim Hagan
+could have absorbed both with relish. He felt, however, that such<span class="pagenum" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</span>
+diet might not be good for buzzing in the head—and said so. The
+night orderly, indifferent to arguments, deposited the food on a
+box by his side and departed. The fact, however, that all the
+articles of diet had disappeared by morning was by no means lost
+upon the day orderly when he returned to duty at the hour of
+breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>During the silent watches of the night Hagan had time to think
+of many things. He decided that he did not like the look of the
+medical officer, nor, indeed, did he know what to make of the orderly.
+Could he have fought them hand to hand, he would have known
+exactly where he was. In this subtle, silent contest of brains he
+was beginning to writhe against an invisible foe which seemed to
+be closing in upon him more surely with every tick of his watch.
+A change of diagnosis seemed advisable. But, with his scanty
+repertoire of diseases, the point was none too easy. In fact, when
+the officer unexpectedly stood by his side, he was still so undecided,
+that closed eyes and immobility seemed the path of least
+resistance.</p>
+
+<p>‘Well, Private Hagan, how are you this morning?’ inquired
+the officer, shaking him by the shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>What the answer to the question was Timothy did not know.
+He conceded a point, however, by opening his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>The question being repeated with emphasis, an inspiration
+gripped him. In a flash his line of country seemed to open out
+before him. The dizziness in the head had led to complications.</p>
+
+<p>‘Carn’t hear,’ he blurted.</p>
+
+<p>‘Ah!’ commented the persecutor, raising his eyebrows. ‘Deaf,
+are you? That’s bad.’ Perceptibly dropping his voice, he studied
+his victim’s face. ‘H’m—I wonder what degree of deafness.
+Which is the worst ear?’</p>
+
+<p>With praiseworthy presence of mind, Hagan resisted the impulse
+to answer. Staring blankly at the ceiling, he made no sign.</p>
+
+<p>Stepping a pace nearer, the officer spoke louder. Hagan still
+made no voluntary response, but the perspiration upon his face
+attested to the physical effort.</p>
+
+<p>From the psychological standpoint the doctor was intensely
+amused. That Private Timothy Hagan was a clumsy malingerer,
+pure and simple, he had no doubt. To prove such a negative
+condition however is quite another matter. If proved, the offence
+meant a court-martial. As an officer it was his duty to conceal
+no crime which could be proved. He was interested, but had little
+time just then for fancy cases. Hagan’s facial expression of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</span>
+struggling conjecture condemned him, morally, beyond a doubt,
+but the production of the self-same expression before the members
+of a court-martial could hardly be guaranteed.</p>
+
+<p>It was a six-inch German shell that solved the situation for the
+moment. Dropping three hundred yards from the dressing-station
+in the middle of the village street it exploded with a roar which
+smashed every pane of glass in the building. A second quickly
+followed. The R.A.M.C. staff, expectant of they knew not what,
+stood listening. Hagan, feeling the eyes of the medical officer
+upon him, did not move a muscle.</p>
+
+<p>‘One to you,’ murmured the officer to himself. ‘I don’t believe
+a word of it all the same.’ Turning on his heel, he winked to the
+orderly and with well-assumed indifference strode to the far end
+of the room.</p>
+
+<p>The orderly, quickly stepping round to the head of Hagan’s
+stretcher, needed no further instructions. With book and pencil
+in hand, he appeared to be engaged upon his ordinary duty of
+taking names for the Clearing Hospital.</p>
+
+<p>‘What’s your number, matey?’ he asked quickly.</p>
+
+<p>The wretched competitor, breathing heavily after his recent
+mental tension, had dropped his guard.</p>
+
+<p>‘4179,’ he answered promptly.</p>
+
+<p>‘<em>Thank you!</em>’ remarked a bland voice from the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>To state that Hagan could have kicked himself for his stupidity,
+is to put the case mildly. Conscious that no words of his could
+possibly regain lost ground, he stared blankly at the accusing face
+of the officer.</p>
+
+<p>‘It’s all <span class="allsmcap">UP</span>, matey,’ whispered the orderly, indulging in an
+open guffaw.</p>
+
+<p>‘Thin I may as well be afther gettin’ on me bhoots,’ remarked
+the culprit quietly, rising to his feet. ‘You’ve bin done down,
+Tim, me bhoy, and there ain’t no manner av use in kickin’.’</p>
+
+<p>What happened next in that little school-house, as regards points
+of detail, has never been actually recorded. That a deafening
+explosion resembling the noise of the end of all things earthly,
+accompanied by the caving in of the brickwork of the side of the
+room, and followed by the collapse of most of the roof, took place
+at that moment are facts of history.</p>
+
+<p>‘It has come at last,’ groaned the doctor. ‘Thank God, there
+are only a few men in the building.’</p>
+
+<p>A second later, a tottering rafter, swaying beneath its weight of
+tiles, fell with a sickening crash and buried him beneath its ruins.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</span>
+In an instant all had become chaos.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever the damage done, it was probably at an end. Hagan
+appreciated that much immediately. That he himself remained
+unhurt was a miracle. The orderly, holding both hands to his
+head, lay like a log on the floor. Several stretchers, with their
+occupants, lay buried beneath the débris of brick and plaster.</p>
+
+<p>‘A fifteen-inch, begob!’ exclaimed Hagan, seizing the orderly
+by the shoulders and dragging him into the open air.</p>
+
+<p>The atmosphere outside was still reeking with heavy black
+smoke and dust. A cavern in the road, large enough to conceal
+a motor-bus, yawned in his path. The heat of action was upon him.
+Handing over the orderly to other hands, he did not hesitate.
+There were wounded men to be rescued. At any moment a second
+shell might follow the first, or more walls might fall. A feeble,
+muffled call for help, emanating from the very centre of the
+wreckage, arrested his attention. He knew that bland, cool voice
+only too well. The available orderlies were already struggling to
+remove the wounded and unearth their officer.</p>
+
+<p>Hagan dashed forward. He was a strong man, and in the best
+of condition. Without argument, he took command.</p>
+
+<p>To remove the smaller masses of mortared brick was the work
+of but a few moments. The men worked at fever heat. The cries
+from beneath grew feebler, almost ceased. It was the weight of
+long rafters which formed the main obstruction. Without axes
+or saws, its removal might be a matter of hours.</p>
+
+<p>Wiping the sweat from his face, Hagan set his teeth and urged
+on his party to final effort. But their combined strength was
+without avail to clear the rafters. The victim beneath seemed
+nearing suffocation with every breath he drew.</p>
+
+<p>Hagan could see only one way, and he took it.</p>
+
+<p>Throwing himself on his face, he insinuated his head beneath
+the rafters, and by herculean efforts forced his shoulders to follow.
+Tearing away the loose stuff with his hands, whilst the orderlies
+endeavoured to ease the weight above him, he at length was able
+to gauge the situation accurately. A great beam lay across the
+chest of the officer, whose body supported it.</p>
+
+<p>Tim Hagan sweated in an agony as he looked. He had seen
+hundreds of men killed in action, but to see his late persecutor
+being slowly crushed to death before his eyes was more than he
+could bear.</p>
+
+<p>From outside the cries of men with axes reached him.
+Immediate action, however, was what was wanted. An instant’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</span>
+thought, a whispered, guttural prayer, and he proceeded with his
+task.</p>
+
+<p>Rolling with difficulty upon his back, he wriggled himself,
+inch by inch, close up beside his now silent antagonist, and with
+all the strength in his body pressed upwards until he managed to
+relieve the pressure on the other’s chest. Inch by inch he shoved
+the unconscious man aside and replaced the latter’s body by his
+own. Then, with ears at acutest tension, he listened to the crash
+of the axes and wondered how long he could last—how long it
+would take him to die.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">Two weeks later, Private Timothy Hagan, propped up in bed,
+lay in a hospital at the base. Presently an R.A.M.C. officer,
+obviously also more or less convalescent, entered the ward by
+means of a wheeled chair and looked about him. Hagan, catching
+the visitor’s eye, flushed deeply, laboriously drew a long breath,
+and turned away his head. The next minute, the officer, having
+given an order to the orderly pushing his chair, was at Hagan’s
+side. A word to the orderly, and the two wounded men were
+alone.</p>
+
+<p>‘I have come, Hagan, to thank you for my life,’ said the officer.</p>
+
+<p>Hagan nervously rubbed his forehead with his hand, moved his
+lips as if framing unspoken words, and drew a deep inspiration.</p>
+
+<p>‘’Twasn’t cowardice, sor,’ he breathed at last. ‘’Twas nought
+but a litle gurl at home phwat drew me.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Cowardice! You! You’re one of the pluckiest men I have
+ever seen. What do you mean?’</p>
+
+<p>‘I main, sor, whin I was schrimshankin’.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Sh—sh, my man! That little matter is all forgotten.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Yez did have me beat, sor,’ persisted Hagan, with a flash of
+humour in his eyes. ‘’Twas too cliver for me you was, sor. ’Twas
+the orderly hit me below the belt. He took me unbeknownst,
+sor.’</p>
+
+<p>With a light laugh, the medical officer placed his hand upon
+the brawny fist of the man beside him.</p>
+
+<p>‘You will get home to see your girl after all, Hagan—in your
+own way—and I am glad,’ he said.</p>
+
+<p>‘Is it to be quits then, sor?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Yes—we will call it that,’ agreed the officer. ‘For the time
+being, we are quits. Later, I will repay you what is over—if I
+ever can.’</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</span>
+<h2><span class="h3head"><i>DURING MUSIC: FANTASY AND FUGUE.</i></span></h2>
+
+<p class="center">BY J. B. TREND.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+ <div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="poemcenter"><abbr title="One">I.</abbr></div>
+
+  </div><div class="stanza">
+    <div class="i0"><span class="smcap">That</span> low-breathed air and inwoven melody,</div>
+    <div class="i2">Twined marvellously together, swift to run</div>
+    <div class="i2">To the farthest bound of song, or knit in one</div>
+    <div class="i0">To melt and glow in o’erwhelming harmony,</div>
+    <div class="i0">You played. And I, startled to fantasy,</div>
+    <div class="i2">Beheld a land of dishevelled wood and stream,</div>
+    <div class="i2">A desperate rally of men, a flash, a scream—</div>
+    <div class="i0">And a friend riven beyond all agony.</div>
+
+  </div><div class="stanza">
+    <div class="i0">Yet did you play. Each delicate, rival thread</div>
+    <div class="i2">Of sound was knotted at last and the music ended.</div>
+    <div class="i4">Forest, colour, and mountain, earth held none</div>
+    <div class="i0">But stunted woods with no companion tread,</div>
+    <div class="i2">Greyness, and little hills, in a life unfriended;</div>
+    <div class="i4">For all joy in things and love of them were gone.</div>
+
+  </div><div class="stanza">
+    <div class="poemcenter"><abbr title="Two">II.</abbr></div>
+
+  </div><div class="stanza">
+    <div class="i0">I heard those echoing tones your touch unpenned,</div>
+    <div class="i2">Now hammer-notes that rivetted life with love,</div>
+    <div class="i2">Now light as sou’west wind blown softly above;</div>
+    <div class="i0">But all you played only to him could tend.</div>
+    <div class="i0">So let it be, I said, until life’s end;</div>
+    <div class="i2">In the tinkling wash at the bows, or water lapping</div>
+    <div class="i2">All night upon the dinghy’s side, or tapping</div>
+    <div class="i0">Of light wind in the halyards; there is my friend.</div>
+
+  </div><div class="stanza">
+    <div class="i0">So did your unrelenting notes flit by,</div>
+    <div class="i2">While death and music in my thought were welded</div>
+    <div class="i4">To swing me lonely down to the loveless night.</div>
+    <div class="i0">I am a sail that wind takes wantonly</div>
+    <div class="i2">Because the sheet has carried away that held it—</div>
+    <div class="i4">Then let your fugue pursue its scornful flight!</div>
+  </div><!--end stanza-->
+ </div><!--end poem-->
+</div><!--end container-->
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</span>
+<h2><span class="h3head"><i>LADY CONNIE.</i></span><a id="FNanchor_11" href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchorh2">[11]</a></h2>
+
+<p class="center">BY MRS. HUMPHRY WARD.</p>
+
+<p class="center">CHAPTER <abbr title="Seventeen">XVII</abbr>.</p>
+
+<p class="p2"><span class="smcap">Falloden</span> had just finished a solitary luncheon, in the little dining-room
+of the Boar’s Hill cottage. There was a garden door in the
+room, and lighting a cigarette, he passed out through it to the
+terrace outside. A landscape lay before him, which has often been
+compared to that of the Val d’Arno seen from Fiesole, and has
+indeed some common points with that incomparable mingling of
+man’s best with the best of mountain and river. It was the last
+week of October, and the autumn was still warm and windless,
+as though there were no shrieking November to come. Oxford,
+the beautiful city, with its domes and spires, lay in the hollow
+beneath the spectator, wreathed in thin mists of sunlit amethyst.
+Behind that ridge in the middle distance ran the river and the
+Nuneham woods; beyond rose the long blue line of the Chilterns.
+In front of the cottage the ground sank through copse and field to
+the river level, the hedge lines all held by sentinel trees, to which
+the advancing autumn had given that significance the indiscriminate
+summer green denies. The gravely rounded elms with their golden
+caps, the scarlet of the beeches, the pale lemon-yellow of the nearly
+naked limes, the splendid blacks of yew and fir—they were all
+there, mingled in the autumn cup of misty sunshine, like melting
+jewels. And among them, the enchanted city shone, fair and
+insubstantial, from the depth below; as it were, the spiritual word
+and voice of all the scene.</p>
+
+<p>Falloden paced up and down the terrace, smoking and thinking.
+That was Otto’s open window. But Radowitz had not yet appeared
+that morning, and the ex-scout, who acted butler and valet to
+the two men, had brought word that he would come down in the
+afternoon, but was not to be disturbed till then.</p>
+
+<p>‘What lunacy made me do it?’ thought Falloden, standing
+still at the end of the terrace which fronted the view.</p>
+
+<p>He and Radowitz had been three weeks together. Had he
+been of the slightest service or consolation to Radowitz during
+that time? He doubted it. That incalculable impulse which had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</span>
+made him propose himself as Otto’s companion for the winter still
+persisted indeed. He was haunted still by a sense of being ‘under
+command’—directed—by a force which could not be repelled.
+Ill at ease, unhappy, as he was, and conscious of being quite
+ineffective, whether as nurse or companion, unless Radowitz
+proposed to ‘throw up,’ he knew that he himself should hold on;
+though why, he could scarcely have explained.</p>
+
+<p>But the divergences between them were great; the possibilities
+of friction many. Falloden was astonished to find that he disliked
+Otto’s little fopperies and eccentricities quite as much as he had
+ever done in college days; his finicking dress, his foreign ways in
+eating, his tendency to boast about his music, his country, and his
+forebears, on his good days, balanced by a brooding irritability
+on his bad days. And he was conscious that his own ways and
+customs were no less teasing to Radowitz; his Tory habits of
+thought, his British contempt for vague sentimentalisms and
+heroics, for all that <i lang="fr">panache</i> means to the Frenchman, or ‘glory’
+to the Slav.</p>
+
+<p>‘Then why, in the name of common sense, are we living
+together?’</p>
+
+<p>He could really give no answer but the answer of ‘necessity’—of
+a spiritual ἀνάγκη[ananki]—issuing from a strange tangle of circumstance.
+The helpless form, the upturned face of his dying father, seemed
+to make the centre of it, and those faint last words, so sharply, and
+as it were, dynamically connected with the hateful memory of
+Otto’s fall and cry in the Marmion Quad, and the hateful ever-present
+fact of his maimed life. Constance too—his scene with her
+on the river bank—her letter breaking with him—and then the
+soft mysterious change in her—and that passionate involuntary
+promise in her eyes and voice, as they stood together in her aunts’
+garden—all these various elements, bitter and sweet, were mingled
+in the influence which was shaping his own life. He wanted to
+forgive himself; and he wanted Constance to forgive him, whether
+she married him or no. A kind of sublimated egotism, he said to
+himself, after all!</p>
+
+<p>But Otto? What had really made him consent to take up
+daily life with the man to whom he owed his disaster? Falloden
+seemed occasionally to be on the track of an explanation, which
+would then vanish and evade him. He was conscious, however,
+that here also, Constance Bledlow was somehow concerned; and,
+perhaps, the Pole’s mystical religion. He asked himself, indeed,
+as Constance had already done, whether some presentiment of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</span>
+doom, together with the Christian doctrines of forgiveness and
+vicarious suffering, were not at the root of it? There had been
+certain symptoms apparent during Otto’s last weeks at Penfold
+known only to the old vicar, to himself and Sorell. The doctors
+were not convinced yet of the presence of phthisis; but from various
+signs, Falloden was inclined to think that the boy believed himself
+sentenced to the same death which had carried off his mother. Was
+there then a kind of calculated charity in his act also—but aiming
+in his case at an eternal reward?</p>
+
+<p>‘He wants to please God—and comfort Constance—by forgiving
+me. I want to please her—and relieve myself, by doing
+something to make up to him. He has the best of it! But we
+are neither of us disinterested.’</p>
+
+<p class="p2">The manservant came out with a cup of coffee.</p>
+
+<p>‘How is he?’ said Falloden, as he took it, glancing up at a
+still curtained window.</p>
+
+<p>The man hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>‘Well, I don’t know, sir, I’m sure. He saw the doctor this
+morning, and told me afterwards not to disturb him till three o’clock.
+But he rang just now, and said I was to tell you that two ladies
+were coming to tea.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Did he mention their names?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Not as I’m aware of, sir.’</p>
+
+<p>Falloden pondered a moment.</p>
+
+<p>‘Tell Mr. Radowitz, when he rings again, that I have gone
+down to the college ground for some football, and I shan’t be
+back till after six. You’re sure he doesn’t want to see me?’</p>
+
+<p>‘No, sir, I think not. He told me to leave the blind down, and
+not to come in again till he rang.’</p>
+
+<p>Falloden put on flannels, and ran down the field paths towards
+Oxford, and the Marmion ground, which lay on the hither side of
+the river. Here he took hard exercise for a couple of hours, walking
+on afterwards to his club in the High Street, where he kept
+a change of clothes. He found some old Marmion friends there,
+including Robertson and Meyrick, who asked him eagerly after
+Radowitz.</p>
+
+<p>‘Better come and see,’ said Falloden. ‘Give you a bread and
+cheese luncheon any day.’</p>
+
+<p>They got no more out of him. But his reticence made them
+visibly uneasy, and they both declared their intention of coming up
+the following day. In both men there was a certain indefinable<span class="pagenum" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</span>
+change which Falloden soon perceived. Both seemed, at times,
+to be dragging a weight too heavy for their youth. At other times,
+they were just like other men of their age; but Falloden, who knew
+them well, realised that they were both hag-ridden by remorse for
+what had happened in the summer. And indeed the attitude of a
+large part of the college towards them, and towards Falloden, when
+at rare intervals he shewed himself there, could hardly have been
+colder or more hostile. The ‘bloods’ were broken up; the dons
+had set their faces steadily against any form of ‘ragging’; and
+the story of the maimed hand, of the wrecking of Radowitz’s career,
+together with sinister rumours as to his general health, had spread
+through Oxford, magnifying as they went. Falloden met it all with
+a haughty silence; and was but seldom seen in his old haunts.</p>
+
+<p>And presently it had become known, to the stupefaction of
+those who were aware of the earlier facts, that victim and
+tormentor, the injured and the offender, were living together in the
+Boar’s Hill cottage where Radowitz was finishing the composition
+required for his second musical examination, and Falloden—having
+lost his father, his money and his prospects—was reading
+for a prize Fellowship to be given by Merton in December.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">It was already moonlight when Falloden began to climb the long
+hill again, which leads up from Folly Bridge to the height on which
+stood the cottage. But the autumn sunset was not long over, and
+in the mingled light, all the rich colours of the fading woodland
+seemed to be suspended in, or fused with, the evening air. Forms
+and distances, hedges, trees, moving figures, and distant buildings
+were marvellously though dimly glorified; and above the golds
+and reds and purples of the misty earth, shone broad and large—an
+Achilles shield in heaven—the autumn moon, with one bright star
+beside it.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, out of the twilight, Falloden became aware of a pony-carriage
+descending the hill, and two ladies in it. His blood leapt.
+He recognised Constance Bledlow, and he supposed the other lady
+was Mrs. Mulholland.</p>
+
+<p>Constance on her side knew in a moment from the bearing
+of his head and shoulders who was the tall man approaching
+them. She spoke hurriedly to Mrs. Mulholland.</p>
+
+<p>‘Do you mind if I stop and speak to Mr. Falloden?’</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Mulholland shrugged her shoulders—</p>
+
+<p>‘Do as you like, my dear. Only don’t expect me to be very
+forthcoming!’</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</span>
+Constance stopped the carriage, and bent forward.</p>
+
+<p>‘Mr. Falloden!’</p>
+
+<p>He came up to her. Connie introduced him to Mrs. Mulholland,
+who bowed coldly.</p>
+
+<p>‘We have just been to see Otto Radowitz,’ said Constance.
+‘We found him—very sadly, to-day.’ Her hesitating voice, with
+the note of wistful appeal in it, affected him strangely.</p>
+
+<p>‘Yes, it has been a bad day. I haven’t seen him at all.’</p>
+
+<p>‘He gave us tea, and talked a great deal. He was rather
+excited. But he looked wretched. And why has he turned against
+his doctor?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Has he turned against his doctor?’ Falloden’s tone was one
+of surprise. ‘I thought he liked him.’</p>
+
+<p>‘He said he was a croaker, and he wasn’t going to let himself be
+depressed by anybody—doctor or no.’</p>
+
+<p>Falloden was silent. Mrs. Mulholland interposed.</p>
+
+<p>‘Perhaps you would like to walk a little way with Mr. Falloden?
+I can manage the pony.’</p>
+
+<p>Constance descended. Falloden turned back with her
+towards Oxford. The pony-carriage followed at some distance
+behind.</p>
+
+<p>Then Falloden talked freely. The presence of the light figure
+beside him, in its dark dress and close-fitting cap, seemed to thaw
+the chill of life. He began rapidly to pour out his own anxieties,
+his own sense of failure.</p>
+
+<p>‘I am the last man in the world who ought to be looking after
+him; I know that as well as anybody,’ he said, with emphasis.
+‘But what’s to be done? Sorell can’t get away from college. And
+Radowitz knows very few men intimately. Neither Meyrick nor
+Robertson would be any better than me.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Oh, not so good—not nearly so good!’ exclaimed Constance
+eagerly. ‘You don’t know! He counts on you.’</p>
+
+<p>Falloden shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>‘Then he counts on a broken reed. I irritate and annoy him
+a hundred times a day.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Oh, no, no—he <em>does</em> count on you,’ repeated Connie in her soft,
+determined voice. ‘If you give up, he will be much—much worse
+off!’ Then she added after a moment—‘Don’t give up! I—I
+ask you!’</p>
+
+<p>‘Then I shall stay.’</p>
+
+<p>They moved on a few steps in silence, till Connie said eagerly—</p>
+
+<p>‘Have you any news from Paris?’</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</span>
+‘Yes, I am going over next week. We wrote in the nick of time.
+The whole thing was just being given up—for lack of funds. Now
+I have told him he may spend what he pleases, so long as he does
+the thing.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Please—mayn’t I help?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Thank you. It’s my affair.’</p>
+
+<p>‘It’ll be very—very expensive.’</p>
+
+<p>‘I shall manage it.’</p>
+
+<p>‘It would be kinder’—her voice shook a little—‘if I might
+help.’</p>
+
+<p>He considered it—then said doubtfully—</p>
+
+<p>‘Suppose you provide the records?—the things it plays?
+I don’t know anything about music—and I have been racking
+my brains to think of somebody in Paris who could look after that
+part of it.’</p>
+
+<p>Constance exclaimed. Why, she had several friends in Paris,
+in the very thick of the musical world there! She had herself
+had lessons all one winter in Paris at the Conservatoire from
+a dear old fellow—a Pole, a pupil of Chopin in his youth, and in
+touch with the whole Polish colony in Paris, which was steeped
+in music.</p>
+
+<p>‘He made love to me a little’—she said laughing—‘I’m sure he’d
+do anything for us. I’ll write <em>at once</em>! And there is somebody at
+the Embassy—why, of course, I can set all kinds of people to work!’</p>
+
+<p>And her feet began to dance along the road beside him.</p>
+
+<p>‘We must get some Polish music’—she went on—‘There’s that
+marvellous young pianist they rave about in Paris—Paderewski.
+I’m sure he’d help! Otto has often talked to me about him.
+We must have lots of Chopin—and Liszt—though of course he
+wasn’t a Pole!—And Polish national songs!—Otto was only telling
+me to-day how Chopin loved them—how he and Liszt used to go
+about the villages and farms and note them down. Oh we’ll
+have a <em>wonderful</em> collection!’</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes shone in her small, flushed face. They walked on fast,
+talking and dreaming, till there was Folly Bridge in front of them,
+and the beginnings of Oxford. Falloden pulled up sharply.</p>
+
+<p>‘I must run back. We have supper early. Will you come
+again?’</p>
+
+<p>She held out her hand. His face beside her, as the moonlight
+caught it, stirred in her a sudden, acute sense of delight.</p>
+
+<p>‘Oh yes—we’ll come again. But don’t leave him!—don’t,
+please, think of it! He trusts you—he leans on you.’</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</span>
+‘It is kind of you to believe it. But I am no use!’</p>
+
+<p>He put her back into the carriage, bowed formally, and was
+gone, running up the hill at an athlete’s pace.</p>
+
+<p>The two ladies drove silently on, and were soon amongst the
+movement and traffic of the Oxford streets. Connie’s mind was
+steeped in passionate feeling. Till now Falloden had touched
+first her senses, then her pity. Now in these painful and despondent
+attempts of his to adjust himself to Otto’s weakness and irritability,
+he was stirring sympathies and enthusiasms in her which belonged
+to that deepest soul in Connie which was just becoming conscious
+of itself. And all the more, perhaps, because in Falloden’s manner
+towards her there was nothing left of the lover. For the moment
+at any rate she preferred it so. Life was all doubt, expectation,
+thrill—its colour heightened, its meanings underlined. And in
+her complete uncertainty as to what turn it would take, and how
+the doubt would end, lay the spell—the potent tormenting charm—of
+the situation.</p>
+
+<p>She was sorry, bitterly sorry for Radowitz—the victim. But
+she loved Falloden—the offender! It was the perennial injustice
+of passion, the eternal injustice of human things.</p>
+
+<p>When Falloden was half-way up the hill, he left the road,
+and took a short cut through fields, by a path which led him to
+the back of the cottage, where its sitting-room window opened on
+the garden and the view. As he approached the house, he saw
+that the sitting-room blinds had not been drawn, and some of
+the windows were still open. The whole room was brilliantly lit
+by fire and lamp. Otto was there alone, sitting at the piano,
+with his back to the approaching spectator and the moonlit night
+outside. He was playing something with his left hand; Falloden
+could see him plainly. Suddenly, he saw the boy’s figure collapse.
+He was still sitting, but his face was buried in his arms which were
+lying on the piano; and through the open window, Falloden heard
+a sound which, muffled as it was, produced upon him a strange
+and horrible impression. It was a low cry, or groan—the voice
+of despair itself.</p>
+
+<p>Falloden stood motionless. All he knew was that he would
+have given anything in the world to recall the past; to undo the
+events of that June evening in the Marmion quadrangle.</p>
+
+<p>Then, before Otto could discover his presence, he went noiselessly
+round the corner of the house, and entered it by the front
+door. In the hall, he called loudly to the ex-scout, as he went upstairs,
+so that Radowitz might know he had come back. When<span class="pagenum" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</span>
+he returned, Radowitz was sitting over the fire with sheets of
+scribbled music paper on a small table before him. His eyes shone,
+his cheeks were feverishly bright. He turned with forced gaiety
+at the sight of Falloden—</p>
+
+<p>‘Well, did you meet them on the road?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Lady Constance, and her friend? Yes. I had a few words with
+them. How are you now? What did the doctor say to you?’</p>
+
+<p>‘What on earth does it matter!’ said Radowitz impatiently.
+‘He was just a fool—a young one—the worst sort—I can put up
+with the old ones. I know my own case a great deal better than
+he does.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Does he want you to stop working?’ Falloden stood on the
+hearth, looking down on the huddled figure in the chair; himself
+broad and tall and curly-haired, like the divine Odysseus, when
+Athene had breathed ambrosial youth upon him. But he was
+pale, and his eyes frowned perpetually under his splendid brows.</p>
+
+<p>‘Some nonsense of that sort!’ said Radowitz. ‘Don’t let’s
+talk about it.’</p>
+
+<p>They went in to dinner, and Radowitz sent for champagne.</p>
+
+<p>‘That’s the only sensible thing the idiot said—that I might
+have that stuff whenever I liked.’</p>
+
+<p>His spirits rose with the wine; and presently Falloden could
+have thought what he had seen from the dark had been a mere
+illusion. A review in <cite>The Times</cite> of a book of Polish memoirs
+served to let loose a flood of boastful talk, which jarred abominably
+on the Englishman. Under the Oxford code, to boast in plain
+language of your ancestors, or your own performances, meant simply
+that you were an outsider, not sure of your footing. If a man really
+had ancestors, or more brains than other people, his neighbours
+saved him the trouble of talking about them. Only the fools
+and the <i lang="fr">parvenus</i> trumpeted themselves; a process in any case
+not worth while, since it defeated its own ends. You might of
+course be as insolent or arrogant as you pleased; but only an
+idiot tried to explain why.</p>
+
+<p>In Otto, however, there was the characteristic Slav mingling of
+quick wits with streaks of childish vanity. He wanted passionately
+to make this tough Englishman feel what a great country Poland
+had been and would be again; what great people his ancestors had
+been; and what a leading part they had played in the national
+movements. And the more he hit against an answering stubbornness—or
+coolness—in Falloden, the more he held forth. So that
+it was an uncomfortable dinner. And again Falloden said to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</span>
+himself—‘Why did I do it? I am only in his way. I shall bore
+and chill him; and I don’t seem to be able to help it.’</p>
+
+<p>But after dinner, as the night frost grew sharper, and as
+Otto sat over the fire, piling on the coal, Falloden suddenly
+went and fetched a warm Scotch plaid of his own. When
+he offered it, Radowitz received it with surprise, and a little
+annoyance.</p>
+
+<p>‘I am not the least cold—thank you!’</p>
+
+<p>But, presently, he had wrapped it round his knees; and some
+restraint had broken down in Falloden.</p>
+
+<p>‘Isn’t there a splendid church in Cracow?’ he asked casually,
+stretching himself, with his pipe, in a long chair on the opposite
+side of the fire.</p>
+
+<p>‘One!—five or six!’ cried Otto, indignantly. ‘But I expect
+you’re thinking of Panna Marya. Panna means Lady. I tell
+you, you English haven’t got anything to touch it!’</p>
+
+<p>‘What’s it like?—what date?’—said Falloden, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>‘I don’t know—I don’t know anything about architecture.
+But it’s glorious. It’s all colour and stained glass—and magnificent
+tombs—like the gate of Heaven,’ said the boy with ardour. ‘It’s
+the church that every Pole loves. Some of my ancestors are
+buried there. And it’s the church where, instead of a clock
+striking, the hours are given out by a watchman who plays a horn.
+He plays an old air—ever so old—we call it the “Heynal,” on the
+top of one of the towers. The only time I was ever in Cracow
+I heard a man at a concert—a magnificent player—improvise
+on it. And it comes into one of Chopin’s sonatas.’</p>
+
+<p>He began to hum under his breath a sweet wandering melody.
+And suddenly he sprang up, and ran to the piano. He played the
+air with his left hand, embroidering it with delicate arabesques and
+variations, catching a bass here and there with a flying touch, suggesting
+marvellously what had once been a rich and complete whole.
+The injured hand, which had that day been very painful, lay helpless
+in its sling; the other flashed over the piano, while the boy’s blue
+eyes shone beneath his vivid frieze of hair. Falloden, lying back
+in his chair, noticed the emaciation of the face, the hollow eyes,
+the contracted shoulders; and as he did so, he thought of the
+scene in the Magdalen ballroom—the slender girl, wreathed in
+pearls, and the brilliant foreign youth—dancing, dancing, with all
+the eyes of the room upon them.</p>
+
+<p>Presently, with a sound of impatience, Radowitz left the piano.
+He could do nothing that he wanted to do. He stood at the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</span>
+window for some minutes looking out at the autumn moon, with
+his back to Falloden.</p>
+
+<p>Falloden took up one of the books he was at work on for his
+Fellowship exam. When Radowitz came back to the fire, however,
+white and shivering, he laid it down again, and once more made
+conversation. Radowitz was at first unwilling to respond. But he
+was by nature <i lang="fr">bavard</i>, and Falloden played him with some skill.</p>
+
+<p>Very soon he was talking fast and brilliantly again, about his
+artistic life in Paris, his friends at the Conservatoire or in the
+Quartier Latin; and so back to his childish days in Poland, and
+the rising of ’63, in which the family estates near Warsaw had been
+forfeited. Falloden found it all very strange. The seething,
+artistic, revolutionary world which had produced Otto was wholly
+foreign to him; and this patriotic passion for a dead country
+seemed to his English common sense a waste of force. But in
+Otto’s eyes Poland was not dead; the white eagle, torn and bloodstained
+though she was, would mount the heavens again; and in
+those dark skies the stars were already rising!</p>
+
+<p>At eleven, Falloden got up—</p>
+
+<p>‘I must go and swat. It was awfully jolly, what you’ve been
+telling me. I know a lot I didn’t know before.’</p>
+
+<p>A gleam of pleasure shewed in the boy’s sunken eyes.</p>
+
+<p>‘I expect I’m a bore,’ he said, with a shrug; ‘and I’d better
+go to bed.’</p>
+
+<p>Falloden helped him carry up his plaid, his books and papers.
+In Otto’s room, the windows were wide open, but there was a
+bright fire, and Bateson the scout was waiting to help him undress.
+Falloden asked some questions about the doctor’s orders. Various
+things were wanted from Oxford. He undertook to get them in the
+morning.</p>
+
+<p>When he came back to the sitting-room, he stood some time
+in a brown study. He wondered again whether he had any qualifications
+at all as a nurse. But he was inclined to think now that
+Radowitz might be worse off without him; what Constance had
+said seemed less unreal; and his effort of the evening, as he looked
+back on it, brought him a certain bitter satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">The following day, Radowitz came downstairs with the course
+of the second movement of his symphony clear before him.
+He worked feverishly all day, now writing, now walking up and
+down, humming and thinking, now getting out of his piano—a
+beautiful Erard hired for the winter—all that his maimed state<span class="pagenum" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</span>
+allowed him to get; and passing hour after hour, between an
+ecstasy of happy creation, and a state of impotent rage with his
+own helplessness. Towards sunset he was worn out, and with tea
+beside him which he had been greedily drinking, he was sitting
+huddled over the fire, when he heard someone ride up to the front
+door.</p>
+
+<p>In another minute the sitting-room door opened, and a girl’s
+figure in a riding habit appeared.</p>
+
+<p>‘May I come in?’ said Connie, flushing rather pink.</p>
+
+<p>Otto sprang up, and drew her in. His fatigue disappeared as
+though by magic. He seemed all gaiety and force.</p>
+
+<p>‘Come in! Sit down and have some tea! I was so depressed
+five minutes ago—I was fit to kill myself. And now you make the
+room shine—you come in like a goddess!’</p>
+
+<p>He busied himself excitedly in putting a chair for her, in
+relighting the spirit kettle, in blowing up the fire.</p>
+
+<p>Constance meanwhile stood in some embarrassment with one
+hand on the back of a chair—a charming vision in her close fitting
+habit, and the same black <i lang="fr">tricorne</i> that she had worn in the Lathom
+Woods, at Falloden’s side.</p>
+
+<p>‘I came to bring you a book, dear Mr. Otto, the book we talked
+of yesterday.’ She held out a paper-covered volume. ‘But I
+mustn’t stay.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Oh, do stay!’ he implored her. ‘Don’t bother about Mrs.
+Grundy. I’m so tired and so bored. Anybody may visit an invalid.
+Think this is a nursing home, and you’re my daily visitor.
+Falloden’s miles away on a drag-hunt. Ah, that’s right!’ He
+waved his hand as he saw that she had seated herself. ‘Now
+you shall have some tea!’</p>
+
+<p>She let him provide her, watching him the while with slightly
+frowning brows. How ill he looked—how ill! Her heart sank.</p>
+
+<p>‘Dear Mr. Otto, how are you? You don’t seem so well
+to-day.’</p>
+
+<p>‘I have been working myself to death. It won’t come right—this
+beastly <cite>Andante</cite>. It’s too jerky—it wants <em>liaison</em>. And I
+can’t hear it—I can’t <em>hear</em> it!—that’s the devilish part of it.’</p>
+
+<p>And taking his helpless hand out of the sling in which it had
+been resting, he struck it bitterly against the arm of his chair.
+The tears came to Connie’s eyes.</p>
+
+<p>‘Don’t!—you’ll hurt yourself. It’ll be all right—it’ll be all
+right! You’ll hear it in your mind.’ And bending forward under
+a sudden impulse, she took the maimed hand in her two hands—so<span class="pagenum" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</span>
+small and soft—and lifting it tenderly she put her lips
+to it.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her in amazement.</p>
+
+<p>‘You do that—for me?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Yes. Because you are a great artist—and a brave man!’
+she said, gulping. ‘You are not to despair. Your music is in your
+soul—your brain. Other people shall play it for you.’</p>
+
+<p>He calmed down.</p>
+
+<p>‘At least I am not deaf, like Beethoven,’ he said, trying to
+please her. ‘That would have been worse.—Do you know last
+night, Falloden and I had a glorious talk. He was awfully decent.
+He made me tell him all about Poland, and my people. He never
+scoffed once. He makes me do what the doctor says. And last
+night—when it was freezing cold—he brought a rug and wrapped it
+round me. Think of that!’—he looked at her—half-shamefaced,
+half-laughing—‘<em>Falloden!</em>’</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes shone.</p>
+
+<p>‘I’m glad!’ she said softly. ‘I’m glad!’</p>
+
+<p>‘Yes, but do you know why he’s kind—why he’s here at all?’
+he asked her, abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>‘What’s the good of silly questions?’ she said hastily. ‘Take
+it as it comes.’</p>
+
+<p>He laughed.</p>
+
+<p>‘He does it—I’m going to say it!—yes, I <em>am</em>—and you are not
+to be angry—he does it because—simply—he’s in love with <em>you</em>!’</p>
+
+<p>Connie flushed again, more deeply, and he, already alarmed by
+his own boldness, looked at her nervously.</p>
+
+<p>‘You are quite wrong.’ Her tone was quiet, but decided.
+‘He did it, first of all, because of what you did for his father——’</p>
+
+<p>‘I did nothing!’ interposed Radowitz.</p>
+
+<p>She took no notice.</p>
+
+<p>‘And secondly’—her voice shook a little—‘because—he was
+sorry. Now—<em>now</em>—he is doing it’—suddenly her smile flashed
+out, with its touch of humour—‘just simply because he likes it!’</p>
+
+<p>It was a bold assertion. She knew it. But she straightened
+her slight shoulders, prepared to stick to it.</p>
+
+<p>Radowitz shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>‘And what am I doing it for? Do you remember when I said
+to you I loathed him?’</p>
+
+<p>‘No—not him.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Well, something in him—the chief thing, it seemed to me then.
+I felt towards him really—as a man might feel towards his murderer—or<span class="pagenum" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</span>
+the murderer of someone else, some innocent, helpless person
+who had given no offence. Hatred—loathing—<em>abhorrence!</em>—you
+couldn’t put it too strongly. Well then,’—he began to fidget with
+the fire, tongs in hand, building it up, while he went on thinking
+aloud—‘God brought us together in that strange manner. By the
+way’—he turned to her—‘are you a Christian?’</p>
+
+<p>‘I—I don’t know. I suppose I am.’</p>
+
+<p>‘I am,’ he said firmly. ‘I am a practising Catholic.
+Catholicism with us Poles is partly religion, partly patriotism—do
+you understand? I go to confession—I am a communicant.
+And for some time I couldn’t go to Communion at all. I always
+felt Falloden’s hand on my shoulder, as he was pushing me down
+the stairs; and I wanted <em>to kill him</em>!—just that! You know our
+Polish blood runs hotter than yours. I didn’t want the college to
+punish him. Not at all. It was my affair. After I saw you in
+town, it grew worse—it was an obsession. When we first got to
+Yorkshire, Sorell and I, and I knew that Falloden was only a few
+miles away, I never could get quit of it—of the thought that some
+day—somewhere—I should kill him. I never, if I could help it,
+crossed a certain boundary line that I had made for myself, between
+our side of the moor, and the side which belonged to the Fallodens.
+I couldn’t be sure of myself if I had come upon him unawares.
+Oh, of course, he would soon have got the better of me—but there
+would have been a struggle—I should have attacked him—and
+I might have had a revolver. So for your sake’—he turned to
+look at her with his hollow blue eyes—‘I kept away. Then, one
+evening, I quite forgot all about it. I was thinking of the theme
+for the slow movement in my symphony, and I didn’t notice where
+I was going. I walked on and on over the hill—and at last I heard
+a man groaning—and there was Sir Arthur—by the stream. I saw
+at once that he was dying, and I took a card from his waistcoat
+pocket, which told me who he was. There I sat, alone with him.
+He asked me not to leave him. He said something about Douglas.
+“Poor Douglas!” And when the horrible thing came back—the
+last time—he just whispered, “Pray!” and I said our Catholic
+prayers—that our priest had said when my mother died. Then
+Falloden came—just in time—and instead of wanting to kill him,
+I waited there, a little way off—and prayed hard for myself and
+him! Queer, wasn’t it? And afterwards—you know—I saw his
+mother. Then the next day, I confessed to a dear old priest, who
+was very kind to me, and on the Sunday he gave me Communion.
+He said God had been very gracious to me; and I saw what he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</span>
+meant. That very week I had a hæmorrhage, the first I ever
+had.’</p>
+
+<p>Connie gave a sudden, startled cry. He turned again to smile
+at her.</p>
+
+<p>‘Didn’t you know? No, I believe no one knew, but Sorell and
+the doctors. It was nothing. It’s quite healed. But the strange
+thing was how extraordinarily happy I felt that week. I didn’t
+hate Falloden any more. It was as though a sharp thorn had gone
+from one’s mind. It didn’t last long of course, the queer ecstatic
+feeling. There was always my hand—and I got very low again.
+But <em>something</em> lasted; and when Falloden said that extraordinary
+thing—I don’t believe he meant to say it at all!—suggesting we
+should settle together for the winter—I knew that I must do it.
+It was a kind of miracle—one thing after another—<em>driving</em> us.’</p>
+
+<p>His voice dropped. He remained gazing absently into the fire.</p>
+
+<p>‘Dear Otto’—said Constance softly—‘you have forgiven him?’</p>
+
+<p>He smiled.</p>
+
+<p>‘What does that matter? <em>Have you?</em>’</p>
+
+<p>His eager eyes searched her face. She faltered under them.</p>
+
+<p>‘He doesn’t care whether I have or not.’</p>
+
+<p>At that he laughed out.</p>
+
+<p>‘Doesn’t he? I say, did you ask us both to come—on purpose—that
+afternoon?—in the garden?’</p>
+
+<p>She was silent.</p>
+
+<p>‘It was bold of you!’ he said, in the same laughing tone. ‘But
+it’s answered. Unless, of course, I bore him to death. I talk
+a lot of nonsense—I can’t help it—and he bears it. And he says
+hard, horrid things, sometimes—and my blood boils—and I bear it.
+And I expect he wants to break off a hundred times a day—and
+so do I. Yet here we stay. And it’s <em>you</em>’—he raised his head
+deliberately—‘it’s <em>you</em> that are really at the bottom of it.’</p>
+
+<p>Constance rose trembling from her chair.</p>
+
+<p>‘Don’t say any more, dear Otto. I didn’t mean any harm.
+I—I was so sorry for you both.’</p>
+
+<p>He laughed again.</p>
+
+<p>‘You’ve got to marry him!’ he said triumphantly. ‘There!—you
+may go now—But you’ll come again soon. I know you
+will!’</p>
+
+<p>She seemed to slip, to melt, out of the room. But he had a
+last vision of flushed cheeks, and half-reproachful eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="p2 center">(<i>To be continued.</i>)</p>
+
+<p class="p2">FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_11" href="#FNanchor_11" class="label">[11]</a> Copyright, 1915, by Mrs. Humphry Ward in the United States of America.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</span>
+<h2><span class="h3head"><i>TO THE EDITOR OF THE ‘CORNHILL.’</i></span></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,—If it gives Mr. Russell any pleasure to accuse me of
+‘living in a happy remoteness from affairs,’ and of having ‘only just
+awakened from a slumber which seems to have lasted longer than
+that of Rip Van Winkle,’ it would be cruel of me to object. But
+the proof of my guilt, it seems, is to be found in the article I wrote
+in the <span class="smcap">Cornhill</span> on ‘The Duke of Wellington and Miss J.’ That
+article, Mr. Russell thinks, proves that I had only just discovered
+Miss J. and her correspondence with the Duke. As a matter of
+fact I have been familiar with the volume published by Mr. T.
+Fisher Unwin for more than twenty years, and it must be fifteen years
+ago since I wrote an article on the subject in an Australian magazine.
+But Mr. Russell himself thinks the letters of Miss J. so little known,
+and so very interesting, that he himself expends another article
+on them, three months later than mine, and taking exactly the
+same view of them! It seems clear that there are two Rip Van
+Winkles—one in England and one in Australia: and the English
+Van Winkle is even drowsier, and wakes later, than his Australian
+kinsman.</p>
+
+<p>I should not trouble you with this note, however, except for
+the opportunity it gives me of apologising for an injustice to Sir
+Herbert Maxwell which I committed in the article I wrote in the
+<span class="smcap">Cornhill</span>. I represented him as saying the Duke ‘must have
+been inexpressibly bored by the correspondence,’ and the words
+are in inverted commas, giving the reader the impression these
+were the exact words Sir Herbert Maxwell used. I apologise for
+those unfortunate inverted commas. The words they seem to quote
+were not the precise words Sir Herbert Maxwell used in his ‘Life
+of Wellington,’ and they do not accurately convey his meaning.
+‘The letters,’ he says, ‘<em>some might think</em> were of the very kind to
+bore the Duke, whose religion was of a somewhat conventional
+kind.’ But Sir Herbert Maxwell does not say that that was his
+personal opinion.</p>
+
+<p class="p0 center">Yours truly,</p>
+<p class="p0 sigright"><span class="smcap">W. H. Fitchett</span>.</p>
+
+<hr class="medium">
+
+<p class="small"><span class="smcap">Note.</span>—In her article, ‘Dublin Days: the Rising,’ which appeared in my
+July number, Mrs. Hamilton Norway, on page 51, repeats the current story
+that Messrs. Jacob were ready to let the military blow up their biscuit factory,
+for they would never make another biscuit in Ireland. In justice to Messrs.
+Jacob, let me add that I have since learnt on the one unimpeachable authority
+that this story, however picturesque, is wholly apocryphal.</p>
+
+<p class="sigright"><span class="smcap">The Editor.</span></p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h4>Transcriber’s Note:</h4>
+
+<p>This book was written in a period when many words had not become
+standardized in their spelling. Words may have multiple spelling
+variations or inconsistent hyphenation in the text. These have been
+left unchanged unless indicated below. Misspelled words were not
+corrected.</p>
+
+<p>Footnotes were renumbered sequentially and were moved to the end of
+the chapter. Obvious printing errors, such as backwards, upside down,
+partially printed letters and punctuation or punctuation used as
+letters, were corrected. Final stops missing at the end of sentences
+and abbreviations were added. Duplicate letters at line endings or
+page breaks and excess single quote marks were removed.</p>
+
+<p>Missing word added: ... a devil <a href="#chg2">[of]</a> suspicion ...</p>
+<p>Word changed: ... except that [if] <a href="#chg1">it</a> afforded ...</p>
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'></div>
+<section class='pg-boilerplate pgheader' id='pg-footer' lang='en' >
+<div id='pg-end-separator'>
+<span>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CORNHILL MAGAZINE, (VOL. XLI, NO. 243 NEW SERIES, SEPTEMBER 1916) ***</span>
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