Produced by David Widger
THE BURNING SPEAR
by John Galsworthy
Being the Experiences of Mr. John Lavender in the Time of War
Recorded by: A. R. P—M [John Galsworthy]
[NOTE: John Galsworthy said of this work: “'The Burning Spear' was revenge of the nerves. It was bad enough to have to bear the dreads and strains and griefs of war.” Several years after its first publication he admitted authorship and it was included in the collected edition of his works. D.W.]
“With a heart of furious fancies,
Whereof I am commander,
With a burning spear and a horse of air
In the wilderness I wander;
With a night of ghosts and shadows
I summoned am to tourney
Ten leagues beyond the wide world's end
For me it is no journey.”
TOM O'BEDLAM
CONTENTS
THE BURNING SPEAR
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV.
XVI
XVII
XVIII
XIX
XX
XXI
THE BURNING SPEAR
I THE HERO
In the year —— there dwelt on Hampstead Heath a small thin gentleman of
fifty-eight, gentle disposition, and independent means, whose wits had
become somewhat addled from reading the writings and speeches of public
men. The castle which, like every Englishman, he inhabited was embedded
in lilac bushes and laburnums, and was attached to another castle,
embedded, in deference to our national dislike of uniformity, in acacias
and laurustinus. Our gentleman, whose name was John Lavender, had until
the days of the Great War passed one of those curious existences are
sometimes to be met with, in doing harm to nobody. He had been brought
up to the Bar, but like most barristers had never practised, and had
spent his time among animals and the wisdom of the past. At the period
in which this record opens he owned a young female sheep-dog called
Blink, with beautiful eyes obscured by hair; and was attended to by a
thin and energetic housekeeper, in his estimation above all weakness,
whose name was Marian Petty, and by her husband, his chauffeur, whose
name was Joe.
It was the ambition of our hero to be, like all public men, without fear
and without reproach. He drank not, abstained from fleshly intercourse,
and habitually spoke the truth. His face was thin, high cheek-boned, and
not unpleasing, with one loose eyebrow over which he had no control; his
eyes, bright and of hazel hue, looked his fellows in the face without
seeing what was in it. Though his moustache was still dark, his thick
waving hair was permanently white, for his study was lined from floor to
ceiling with books, pamphlets, journals, and the recorded utterances
of great mouths. He was of a frugal habit, ate what was put before him
without question, and if asked what he would have, invariably answered:
“What is there?” without listening to the reply. For at mealtimes it was
his custom to read the writings of great men.
“Joe,” he would say to his chauffeur, who had a slight limp, a green
wandering eye, and a red face, with a rather curved and rather redder
nose, “You must read this.”
And Joe would answer:
“Which one is that, sir?”
“Hummingtop; a great man, I think, Joe.”
“A brainy chap, right enough, sir.”
“He has done wonders for the country. Listen to this.” And Mr. Lavender
would read as follows: “If I had fifty sons I would give them all. If
I had forty daughters they should nurse and scrub and weed and fill
shells; if I had thirty country-houses they should all be hospitals; if
I had twenty pens I would use them all day long; if had ten voices they
should never cease to inspire and aid my country.”
“If 'e had nine lives,” interrupted Joe, with a certain suddenness,
“'e'd save the lot.”
Mr. Lavender lowered the paper.
“I cannot bear cynicism, Joe; there is no quality so unbecoming to a
gentleman.”
“Me and 'im don't put in for that, sir.”
“Joe, Mr. Lavender would say you are, incorrigible....”
Our gentleman, in common with all worthy of the name, had a bank-book,
which, in hopes that it would disclose an unsuspected balance, he would
have “made up” every time he read an utterance exhorting people to
invest and save their country.
One morning at the end of May, finding there was none, he called in his
housekeeper and said:
“Mrs. Petty, we are spending too much; we have again been exhorted to
save. Listen! 'Every penny diverted from prosecution of the war is one
more spent in the interests of the enemies of mankind. No patriotic
person, I am confident; will spend upon him or herself a stiver which
could be devoted to the noble ends so near to all our hearts. Let us
make every spare copper into bullets to strengthen the sinews of war!' A
great speech. What can we do without?”
“The newspapers, sir.”
“Don't be foolish, Mrs. Petty. From what else could we draw our
inspiration and comfort in these terrible days?”
Mrs. Petty sniffed. “Well, you can't eat less than you do,” she said;
“but you might stop feedin' Blink out of your rations—that I do think.”
“I have not found that forbidden as yet in any public utterance,”
returned Mr. Lavender; “but when the Earl of Betternot tells us to stop,
I shall follow his example, you may depend on that. The country comes
before everything.” Mrs. Petty tossed her head and murmured darkly—
“Do you suppose he's got an example, Sir?”
“Mrs. Petty,” replied Mr. Lavender, “that is quite unworthy of you. But,
tell me, what can we do without?”
“I could do without Joe,” responded Mrs. Petty, “now that you're not
using him as chauffeur.”
“Please be serious. Joe is an institution; besides, I am thinking of
offering myself to the Government as a speaker now that we may use gas.”
“Ah!” said Mrs. Petty.
“I am going down about it to-morrow.”
“Indeed, sir!”
“I feel my energies are not fully employed.”
“No, sir?”
“By the way, there was a wonderful leader on potatoes yesterday. We must
dig up the garden. Do you know what the subsoil is?”
“Brickbats and dead cats, I expect, sir.”
“Ah! We shall soon improve that. Every inch of land reclaimed is a nail
in the coffin of our common enemies.”
And going over to a bookcase, Mr. Lavender took out the third from the
top of a pile of newspapers. “Listen!” he said. “'The problem before
us is the extraction of every potential ounce of food. No half measures
must content us. Potatoes! Potatoes! No matter how, where, when the
prime national necessity is now the growth of potatoes. All Britons
should join in raising a plant which may be our very salvation.
“Fudge!” murmured Mrs. Petty.
Mr. Lavender read on, and his eyes glowed.
“Ah!” he thought, “I, too, can do my bit to save England.... It needs
but the spark to burn away the dross of this terrible horse-sense which
keeps the country back.
“Mrs. Petty!” But Mrs. Petty was already not.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The grass never grew under the feet of Mr. Lavender, No sooner had he
formed his sudden resolve than he wrote to what he conceived to be the
proper quarter, and receiving no reply, went down to the centre of
the official world. It was at time of change and no small national
excitement; brooms were sweeping clean, and new offices had arisen
everywhere. Mr. Lavender passed bewildered among large stone buildings
and small wooden buildings, not knowing where to go. He had bought no
clothes since the beginning of the war, except the various Volunteer
uniforms which the exigencies of a shifting situation had forced the
authorities to withdraw from time to time; and his, small shrunken
figure struck somewhat vividly on the eye, with elbows and knees shining
in the summer sunlight. Stopping at last before the only object which
seemed unchanged, he said:
“Can you tell me where the Ministry is?”
The officer looked down at him.
“What for?”
“For speaking about the country.”
“Ministry of Propagation? First on the right, second door on the left.”
“Thank you. The Police are wonderful.”
“None of that,” said the officer coldly.
“I only said you were wonderful.”
“I 'eard you.”
“But you are. I don't know what the country would do without you.
Your solid qualities, your imperturbable bonhomie, your truly British
tenderness towards——”
“Pass away!” said the officer.
“I am only repeating what we all say of you,” rejoined Mr. Lavender
reproachfully.
“Did you 'ear me say 'Move on,'” said the officer; “or must I make you
an example?”
“YOU are the example,” said Mr. Lavender warmly.
“Any more names,” returned the officer, “and I take you to the station.”
And he moved out into the traffic. Puzzled by his unfriendliness Mr.
Lavender resumed his search, and, arriving at the door indicated, went
in. A dark, dusty, deserted corridor led him nowhere, till he came on a
little girl in a brown frock, with her hair down her back.
“Can you tell me, little one——” he said, laying his hand on her head.
“Chuck it!” said the little girl.
“No, no!” responded Mr. Lavender, deeply hurt. “Can you tell me where I
can find the Minister?”
“'Ave you an appointment?
“No; but I wrote to him. He should expect me.”
“Wot nyme?”
“John Lavender. Here is my card.”
“I'll tyke it in. Wyte 'ere!”
“Wonderful!” mused Mr. Lavender; “the patriotic impulse already stirring
in these little hearts! What was the stanza of that patriotic poet?
“'Lives not a babe who shall not feel the pulse
Of Britain's need beat wild in Britain's wrist.
And, sacrificial, in the world's convulse
Put up its lips to be by Britain kissed.'
“So young to bring their lives to the service of the country!”
“Come on,” said the little girl, reappearing suddenly; “e'll see you.”
Mr. Lavender entered a room which had a considerable resemblance to the
office of a lawyer save for the absence of tomes. It seemed furnished
almost exclusively by the Minister, who sat with knees crossed, in a
pair of large round tortoiseshell spectacles, which did not, however,
veil the keenness of his eyes. He was a man with close cropped grey
hair, a broad, yellow, clean-shaven face, and thrusting grey eyes.
“Mr. Lavender,” he said, in a raw, forcible voice; “sit down, will you?”
“I wrote to you,” began our hero, “expressing the wish to offer myself
as a speaker.”
“Ah!” said the Minister. “Let's see—Lavender, Lavender. Here's your
letter.” And extracting a letter from a file he read it, avoiding
with difficulty his tortoise-shell spectacles. “You want to stump the
country? M.A., Barrister, and Fellow of the Zoological. Are you a good
speaker?”
“If zeal—-” began Mr. Lavender.
“That's it; spark! We're out to win this war, sir.”
“Quite so,” began Mr. Lavender. “If devotion——”
“You'll have to use gas,” said the Minister; “and we don't pay.”
“Pay!” cried Mr. Lavender with horror; “no, indeed!”
The Minister bent on him a shrewd glance.
“What's your line? Anything particular, or just general patriotism? I
recommend that; but you'll have to put some punch into it, you know.”
“I have studied all the great orators of the war, sir,” said Mr.
Lavender, “and am familiar with all the great writers on, it. I should
form myself on them; and if enthusiasm——”
“Quite!” said the Minister. “If you want any atrocities we can give you
them. No facts and no figures; just general pat.”
“I shall endeavour——” began Mr. Lavender.
“Well, good-bye,” said the Minister, rising. “When do you start?”
Mr. Lavender rose too. “To-morrow,” he said, “if I can get inflated.”
The Minister rang a bell.
“You're on your own, mind,” he said. “No facts; what they want is
ginger. Yes, Mr. Japes?”
And seeing that the Minister was looking over his tortoiseshell.
spectacles at somebody behind him, Mr. Lavender turned and went out. In
the corridor he thought, “What terseness! How different from the days
when Dickens wrote his 'Circumlocution Office'! Punch!” And opening
the wrong door, he found himself in the presence of six little girls
in brown frocks, sitting against the walls with their thumbs in their
mouths.
“Oh!” he said, “I'm afraid I've lost my way.”
The eldest of the little girls withdrew a thumb.
“What d'yer want?”
“The door,” said Mr. Lavender.
“Second on the right.”
“Goodbye,” said Mr. Lavender.
The little girls did not answer. And he went out thinking, “These
children are really wonderful! What devotion one sees! And yet the
country is not yet fully roused!”
II THE VALET
Joe Petty stood contemplating the car which, purchased some fifteen
years before had not been used since the war began. Birds had nested in
its hair. It smelled of mould inside; it creaked from rust. “The Guv'nor
must be cracked,” he thought, “to think we can get anywhere in this
old geyser. Well, well, it's summer; if we break down it won't break my
'eart. Government job—better than diggin' or drillin'. Good old Guv!” So
musing, he lit his pipe and examined the recesses beneath the driver's
seat. “A bottle or three,” he thought, “in case our patriotism should
get us stuck a bit off the beaten; a loaf or two, some 'oney in a pot,
and a good old 'am.
“A life on the rollin' road——' 'Ow they can give 'im the job I can't
think!” His soliloquy was here interrupted by the approach of his wife,
bearing a valise.
“Don't you wish you was comin', old girl?” he remarked to her lightly.
“I do not; I'm glad to be shut of you. Keep his feet dry. What have you
got under there?”
Joe Petty winked.
“What a lumbering great thing it looks!” said Mrs. Petty, gazing
upwards.
“Ah!” returned her husband thoughtfully, we'll 'ave the population round
us without advertisement. And taking the heads of two small boys who had
come up, he knocked them together in an absent-minded fashion.
“Well,” said Mrs. Petty, “I can't waste time. Here's his extra set of
teeth. Don't lose them. Have you got your own toothbrush? Use it, and
behave yourself. Let me have a line. And don't let him get excited.” She
tapped her forehead.
“Go away, you boys; shoo!”
The boys, now six in number, raised a slight cheer; for at that moment
Mr. Lavender, in a broad-brimmed grey felt hat and a holland dust-coat,
came out through his garden-gate carrying a pile of newspapers and
pamphlets so large that his feet, legs, and hat alone were visible.
“Open the door, Joe!” he said, and stumbled into the body of the
vehicle. A shrill cheer rose from the eight boys, who could see him
through the further window. Taking this for an augury Of success, Mr.
Lavender removed his hat, and putting his head through the window, thus
addressed the ten boys:
“I thank you. The occasion is one which I shall ever remember. The
Government has charged me with the great task of rousing our country in
days which demand of each of us the utmost exertions. I am proud to
feel that I have here, on the very threshold of my task, an audience of
bright young spirits, each one of whom in this democratic country has in
him perhaps the makings of a General or even of a Prime Minister. Let it
be your earnest endeavour, boys——”
At this moment a piece of indiarubber rebounded from Mr. Lavender's
forehead, and he recoiled into the body of the car.
“Are you right, sir?” said Joe, looking in; and without waiting for
reply he started the engine. The car moved out amid a volley of stones,
balls, cheers, and other missiles from the fifteen boys who pursued it
with frenzy. Swaying slightly from side to side, with billowing bag, it
gathered speed, and, turning a corner, took road for the country. Mr.
Lavender, somewhat dazed, for the indiarubber had been hard, sat gazing
through the little back window at the great city he was leaving. His
lips moved, expressing unconsciously the sentiments of innumerable Lord
Mayors: “Greatest City in the world, Queen of Commerce, whose full heart
I can still hear beating behind me, in mingled pride and regret I leave
you. With the most sacred gratitude I lay down my office. I go to other
work, whose——Joe!”
“Sir?”
“Do you see that?”
“I see your 'ead, that's all, sir.”
“We seem to be followed by a little column of dust, which keeps ever at
the same distance in the middle of the road. Do you think it can be an
augury.”
“No; I should think it's a dog.”
“In that case, hold hard!” said Mr. Lavender, who had a weakness for
dog's. Joe slackened the car's pace, and leaned his head round the
corner. The column of dust approached rapidly.
“It is a dog,” said Mr. Lavender, “it's Blink.”
The female sheep-dog, almost flat with the ground from speed, emerged
from the dust, wild with hair and anxiety, white on the cheeks and chest
and top of the head, and grey in the body and the very little tail, and
passed them like a streak of lightning.
“Get on!” cried Mr. Lavender, excited; “follow her she's trying to catch
us up!”
Joe urged on the car, which responded gallantly, swaying from side to
side, while the gas-bag bellied and shook; but the faster it went the
faster the sheep-dog flew in front of it.
“This is dreadful!” said Mr. Lavender in anguish, leaning far out.
“Blink! Blink!”
His cries were drowned in the roar of the car.
“Damn the brute!” muttered Joe, “at this rate she'll be over the edge in
'alf a mo'. Wherever does she think we are?”
“Blink! Blink!” wailed Mr. Lavender. “Get on, Joe, get on! She's gaining
on us!”
“Well I never see anything like this,” said Joe, “chasin' wot's chasing
you! Hi! Hi!”
Urged on by their shouts and the noise of the pursuing car, the poor dog
redoubled her efforts to rejoin her master, and Mr. Lavender, Joe, and
the car, which had begun to emit the most lamentable creaks and odours,
redoubled theirs.
“I shall bust her up,” said Joe.
“I care not!” cried Mr. Lavender. “I must recover the dog.”
They flashed through the outskirts of the Garden City. “Stop her, stop
her!” called Mr. Lavender to such of the astonished inhabitants as they
had already left behind. “This is a nightmare, Joe!”
“'It's a blinkin' day-dream,” returned Joe, forcing the car to an
expiring spurt.
“If she gets to that 'ill before we ketch 'er, we're done; the old
geyser can't 'alf crawl up 'ills.”
“We're gaining,” shrieked Mr. Lavender; “I can see her tongue.”
As though it heard his voice, the car leaped forward and stopped with a
sudden and most formidable jerk; the door burst open, and Mr. Lavender
fell out upon his sheep-dog.
Fortunately they were in the only bed of nettles in that part of the
world, and its softness and that of Blink assuaged the severity of his
fall, yet it was some minutes before he regained the full measure of his
faculties. He came to himself sitting on a milestone, with his dog on
her hind legs between his knees, licking his face clean, and panting
down his throat.
“Joe,” he said; “where are you?”
The voice of Joe replied from underneath the car: “Here sir. She's
popped.”
“Do you mean that our journey is arrested?”
“Ah! We're in irons. You may as well walk 'ome, sir. It ain't two miles.
“No! no!” said Mr. Lavender. “We passed the Garden City a little way
back; I could go and hold a meeting. How long will you be?”
“A day or two,” said Joe.
Mr. Lavender sighed, and at this manifestation of his grief his
sheep-dog redoubled her efforts to comfort him. “Nothing becomes one
more than the practice of philosophy,” he thought. “I always admired
those great public men who in moments of national peril can still dine
with a good appetite. We will sit in the car a little, for I have rather
a pain, and think over a speech.” So musing he mounted the car, followed
by his dog, and sat down in considerable discomfort.
“What subject can I choose for a Garden City?” he thought, and
remembering that he had with him the speech of a bishop on the subject
of babies, he dived into his bundle of literature, and extracting a
pamphlet began to con its periods. A sharp blow from a hammer on the
bottom of the car just below where Blink was sitting caused him to pause
and the dog to rise and examine her tiny tail.
“Curious,” thought Mr. Lavender dreamily, “how Joe always does the right
thing in the wrong place. He is very English.” The hammering continued,
and the dog, who traced it to the omnipotence of her master, got up on
the seat where she could lick his face. Mr. Lavender was compelled to
stop.
“Joe,” he said, leaning out and down; “must you?”
The face of Joe, very red, leaned out and up. “What's the matter now,
sir?”
“I am preparing a speech; must you hammer?”
“No,” returned Joe, “I needn't.”
“I don't wish you to waste your time,” said Mr Lavender.
“Don't worry about that, sir,” replied Joe; “there's plenty to do.”
“In that case I shall be glad to finish my speech.”
Mr. Lavender resumed his seat and Blink her position on the floor, with
her head on his feet. The sound of his voice soon rose again in the car
like the buzzing of large flies. “'If we are to win this war we must
have an ever-increasing population. In town and countryside, in
the palace and the slum, above all in the Garden City, we must have
babies.'”
Here Blink, who had been regarding him with lustrous eyes, leaped on
to his knees and licked his mouth. Again Mr. Lavender was compelled to
stop.
“Down, Blink, down! I am not speaking to you. 'The future of our country
depends on the little citizens born now. I especially appeal to women.
It is to them we must look——'”
“Will you 'ave a glass, sir?”
Mr. Lavender saw before him a tumbler containing a yellow fluid.
“Joe,” he said sadly, “you know my rule——”
“'Ere's the exception, sir.”
Mr. Lavender sighed. “No, no; I must practise what I preach. I shall
soon be rousing the people on the liquor question, too.”
“Well, 'ere's luck,” said Joe, draining the glass. “Will you 'ave a
slice of 'am?”
“That would not be amiss,” said Mr. Lavender, taking Joe's knife with
the slice of ham upon its point. “'It is to them that we must look,'”
he resumed, “'to rejuvenate the Empire and make good the losses in the
firing-line.'” And he raised the knife to his mouth. No result followed,
while Blink wriggled on her base and licked her lips.
“Blink!” said Mr. Lavender reproachfully. “Joe!”
“Sir!”
“When you've finished your lunch and repaired the car you will find me
in the Town Hall or market-place. Take care of Blink. I'll tie her up.
Have you some string?”
Having secured his dog to the handle of the door and disregarded the
intensity of her gaze, Mr. Lavender walked back towards the Garden City
with a pamphlet in one hand and a crutch-handled stick in the other.
Restoring the ham to its nest behind his feet, Joe finished the bottle
of Bass. “This is a bit of all right!” he thought dreamily. “Lie down,
you bitch! Quiet! How can I get my nap while you make that row? Lie
down! That's better.”
Blink was silent, gnawing at her string. The smile deepened on Joe's
face, his head fell a little one side his mouth fell open a fly flew
into it.
“Ah!” he thought, spitting it out; “dog's quiet now.” He slept.
III MR. LAVENDER ADDRESSES A CROWD OF HUNS
“'Give them ginger!'” thought Mr. Lavender, approaching the first
houses. “My first task, however, will be to collect them.”
“Can you tell me,” he said to a dustman, “where the market-place is?”
“Ain't none.”
“The Town Hall, then?”
“Likewise.”
“What place is there, then,” said Mr. Lavender, “where people
congregate?”
“They don't.”
“Do they never hold public meetings here?”
“Ah!” said the dustman mysteriously.
“I wish to address them on the subject of babies.”
“Bill! Gent abaht babies. Where'd he better go?”
The man addressed, however, who carried a bag of tools, did not stop.
“You, 'ear?” said the dustman, and urging his horse, passed on.
“How rude!” thought Mr. Lavender. Something cold and wet was pressed
against his hand, he felt a turmoil, and saw Blink moving round and
round him, curved like a horseshoe, with a bit of string dangling from
her white neck. At that moment of discouragement the sight of one who
believed in him gave Mr. Lavender nothing but pleasure. “How wonderful
dogs are!” he murmured. The sheep-dog responded by bounds and
ear-splitting barks, so that two boys and a little girl wheeling a
perambulator stopped to look and listen.
“She is like Mercury,” thought Mr. Lavender; and taking advantage of
her interest in his hat, which she had knocked off in her effusions, he
placed his hand on her head and crumpled her ear. The dog passed into
an hypnotic trance, broken by soft grumblings of pleasure. “The most
beautiful eyes in the world!” thought Mr. Lavender, replacing his hat;
“the innocence and goodness of her face are entrancing.”
In his long holland coat, with his wide-brimmed felt hat all dusty,
and the crutch-handled stick in his hand, he had already arrested
the attention of five boys, the little girl with the perambulator, a
postman, a maid-servant, and three old ladies.
“What a beautiful dog yours is!” said one of the old ladies; “dear
creature! Are you a shepherd?”
Mr. Lavender removed his hat.
“No, madam,” he said; “a public speaker.”
“How foolish of me!” replied the old lady.
“Not at all, madam; the folly is mine.” And Mr. Lavender bowed. “I have
come here to give an address on babies.”
The old lady looked at him shrewdly, and, saying something in a low
voice to her companions, passed on, to halt again a little way off.
In the meantime the rumour that there was a horse down in the Clemenceau
Road had spread rapidly, and more boys, several little girls, and
three soldiers in blue, with red ties, had joined the group round Mr.
Lavender, to whom there seemed something more than providential in this
rapid assemblage. Looking round him for a platform from which to address
them, he saw nothing but the low wall of the little villa garden outside
which he was standing. Mounting on this, therefore, and firmly grasping
the branch of a young acacia tree to steady himself, he stood upright,
while Blink, on her hind legs, scratched at the wall, whining and
sniffing his feet.
Encouraged by the low murmur of astonishment, which swelled idly into a
shrill cheer, Mr. Lavender removed his hat, and spoke as follows:
“Fellow Britons, at this crisis in the history of our country I make no
apology for addressing myself to the gathering I see around me. Here, in
the cradle of patriotism and the very heart of Movements, I may safely
assume that you are aware of the importance of Man-power. At a moment
when every man of a certain age and over is wanted at the front, and
every woman of marriageable years is needed in hospitals, in factories,
on the land, or where not, we see as never before the paramount
necessity of mobilizing the forces racial progress and increasing the
numbers of our population. Not a man, not a woman can be spared from the
great task in which they are now engaged, of defeating the common enemy.
Side by side with our American cousins, with la belle France, and the
Queen of the Adriatic, we are fighting to avert the greatest menace
which ever threatened civilization. Our cruel enemies are strong and
ruthless. While I have any say in this matter, no man or woman shall be
withdrawn from the sacred cause of victory; better they should die to
the last unit than that we should take our hands from the plough. But,
ladies and gentlemen, we must never forget that in the place of every
one who dies we must put two. Do not be content with ordinary measures;
these are no piping times of peace. Never was there in the history
of this country such a crying need for—for twins, if I may put it
picturesquely. In each family, in each home where there are no families,
let there be two babies where there was one, for thus only can we
triumph over the devastation of this war.” At this moment the now
considerable audience, which had hitherto been silent, broke into a
shrill “'Ear, 'ear!” and Mr. Lavender, taking his hand from the acacia
branch to silence them, fell off the wall into the garden. Seeing her
master thus vanish, Blink, who had never ceased to whine and sniff his
toes, leaped over and landed on his chest. Rising with difficulty, Mr.
Lavender found himself in front of an elderly man with a commercial cast
of countenance, who said: “You're trespassing!”
“I am aware of it,” returned Mr. Lavender and I beg your pardon. It was
quite inadvertent, however.
“Rubbish!” said the man.
“I fell off the wall.”
“Whose wall do you think it is?” said the man.
“How should I know?” said Mr. Lavender; “I am a stranger.”
“Out you go,” said the man, applying his boot to Blink.
Mr. Lavender's eyes blazed. “You may insult me,” he said, “but you must
not kick my dog, or I shall do you an injury.”
“Try!” said the man.
“I will,” responded Mr. Lavender, taking off his holland coat.
To what extremities he would have proceeded cannot be told, for at this
moment the old lady who had taken him for a shepherd appeared on the
path, tapping her forehead with finger.
“All right!” said the owner of the garden, “take him away.”
The old lady laced her hand within Mr. Lavender's arm. “Come with me,
sir,” she said, “and your nice doggie.”
Mr. Lavender, whose politeness to ladies was invariable, bowed, and
resuming his coat accompanied her through the 'garden gate. “He kicked
my dog,” he said; “no action could be more despicable.”
“Yes, yes,” said the old lady soothingly. “Poor doggie!”
The crowd, who had hoped for better things, here gave vent to a
prolonged jeer.
“Stop!” said Mr. Lavender; “I am going to take a collection.
“There, there!” said the old lady. “Poor man!”
“I don't know what you mean by that, madam,” said Mr. Lavender,
whose spirit was roused; “I shall certainly take a collection, in
the interests of our population.” So saying he removed his hat, and
disengaging his arm from the old lady's hand, moved out into the throng,
extending the hat. A boy took it from him at once, and placing it on
his head, ran off, pursued by Blink, who, by barking and jumping up
increased the boy's speed to one of which he could never have thought
himself capable. Mr. Lavender followed, calling out “Blink!” at the top
of his voice. The crowd followed Mr. Lavender, and the old lady followed
crowd. Thus they proceeded until the boy, arriving at a small piece of
communal water, flung the hat into the middle of it, and, scaling the
wall, made a strategic detour and became a disinterested spectator among
the crowd. The hat, after skimming the surface of the pond, settled like
a water-lily, crown downwards, while Blink, perceiving in all this the
hand of her master, stood barking at it wildly. Mr. Lavender arrived at
the edge of the pond slightly in advance of the crowd.
“Good Blink!” he said. “Fetch it! Good Blink!”
Blink looked up into his face, and, with the acumen for which her breed
is noted, perceiving he desired her to enter the water backed away from
it.
“She is not a water dog,” explained Mr. Lavender to the three soldiers
in blue clothes.
“Good dog; fetch it!” Blink backed into the soldiers, who, bending down,
took her by head tail, threw her into the pond, and encouraged her
on with small stones pitched at the hat. Having taken the plunge, the
intelligent animal waded boldly to the hat, and endeavoured by barking
and making little rushes at it with her nose, to induce it to return to
shore.
“She thinks it's a sheep,” said Mr. Lavender; “a striking instance of
hereditary instinct.”
Blink, unable to persuade the hat, mounted it with her fore-paws and
trod it under.
“Ooray!” shouted the crowd.
“Give us a shilling, guv'nor, an' I'll get it for yer?”
“Thank you, my boy,” said Mr. Lavender, producing a shilling.
The boy—the same boy who had thrown it in—stepped into the water and
waded towards the hat. But as he approached, Blink interposed between
him and the hat, growling and showing her teeth.
“Does she bite?” yelled the boy.
“Only strangers,” cried Mr. Lavender.
Excited by her master's appeal, Blink seized the jacket of the boy, who
made for the shore, while the hat rested in the centre of the pond,
the cynosure of the stones with which the soldiers were endeavouring to
drive it towards the bank. By this, time the old lady had rejoined Mr.
Lavender.
“Your nice hat she murmured.
“I thank you for your sympathy, madam,” Lavender, running his hand
through his hair; “in moments like these one realizes the deep humanity
of the British people. I really believe that in no other race could you
find such universal interest and anxiety to recover a hat. Say what you
will, we are a great nation, who only, need rousing to show our best
qualities. Do you remember the words of the editor: 'In the spavined
and spatch-cocked ruin to which our inhuman enemies have reduced
civilization, we of the island shine with undimmed effulgence in all
those qualities which mark man out from the ravening beast'?”
“But how are you going to get your hat?” asked the old lady.
“I know not,” returned Mr. Lavender, still under the influence of the
sentiment he had quoted; “but if I had fifteen hats I would take them
all off to the virtues which have been ascribed to the British people by
all those great men who have written and spoken since the war began.”
“Yes,” said the old lady soothingly. “But, I think you had better come
under my sunshade. The sun is very strong.”
“Madam,” said Mr. Lavender, “you are very good, but your sunshade is too
small. To deprive you of even an inch of its shade would be unworthy
of anyone in public life.” So saying, he recoiled from the proffered
sunshade into the pond, which he had forgotten was behind him.
“Oh, dear!” said the old lady; “now you've got your feet wet!”
“It is nothing,” responded Mr. Lavender gallantly. And seeing that he
was already wet, he rolled up his trousers, and holding up the tails
of his holland coat, turned round and proceeded towards his hat, to the
frantic delight of the crowd.
“The war is a lesson to us to make little of little things,” he thought,
securing the hat and wringing it out. “My feet are wet, but—how much
wetter they would be in the trenches, if feet can be wetter than wet
through,” he mused with some exactitude. “Down, Blink, down!” For Blink
was plastering him with the water-marks of joy and anxiety. “Nothing
is quite so beautiful as the devotion of one's own dog,” thought
Mr. Lavender, resuming the hat, and returning towards the shore. The
by-now-considerable throng were watching him with every mark of acute
enjoyment; and the moment appeared to Mr. Lavender auspicious for
addressing them. Without, therefore, emerging from the pond, which he
took for his, platform, he spoke as follows:
“Circumstances over which I have no control have given me the advantage
of your presence in numbers which do credit to the heart of the nation
to which we all belong. In the midst of the greatest war which ever
threatened the principle of Liberty, I rejoice to see so many people
able to follow the free and spontaneous impulses of their inmost beings.
For, while we must remember that our every hour is at the disposal of
our country, we must not forget the maxim of our fathers: 'Britons
never will be slaves.' Only by preserving the freedom of individual
conscience, and at the same time surrendering it whole-heartedly to
every which the State makes on us, can we hope defeat the machinations
of the arch enemies of mankind.”
At this moment a little stone hit him sharply on the hand.
“Who threw that stone?” said Mr. Lavender. “Let him stand out.”
The culprit, no other indeed than he who had thrown the hat in, and not
fetched it out for a shilling, thus menaced with discovery made use of a
masterly device, and called out loudly:
“Pro-German!”
Such was the instinctive patriotism of the crowd that the cry was
taken up in several quarters; and for the moment Mr. Lavender remained
speechless from astonishment. The cries of “Pro-German!” increased in
volume, and a stone hitting her on the nose caused Blink to utter a
yelp; Mr. Lavender's eyes blazed.
“Huns!” he cried; “Huns! I am coming out.”
With this prodigious threat he emerged from the pond at the very moment
that a car scattered the throng, and a well-known voice said:
“Well, sir, you 'ave been goin' it!”
“Joe,” said Mr. Lavender, “don't speak to me!”
“Get in.”
“Never!”
“Pro-Germans!” yelled the crowd.
“Get in!” repeated Joe.
And seizing Mr. Lavender as if collaring him at football, he knocked
off his hat, propelled him into the car, banged the door, mounted, and
started at full speed, with Blink leaping and barking in front of them.
Debouching from Piave Parade into Bottomley Lane he drove up it till the
crowd was but a memory before he stopped to examine the condition
his master. Mr. Lavender was hanging out of window, looking back, and
shivering violently.
“Well, sir,” said Joe. “I don't think!”
“Joe,” said Mr. Lavender that crowd ought not to be at large. They were
manifestly Huns.
“The speakin's been a bit too much for you, sir,” said Joe. “But you've
got it off your chest, anyway.”
Mr. Lavender regarded him for a moment in silence; then putting his hand
to his throat, said hoarsely:
“No, on my chest, I think, Joe. All public speakers do. It is
inseparable from that great calling.”
“'Alf a mo'!” grunted Joe, diving into the recesses beneath the
driving-seat. “'Ere, swig that off, sir.”
Mr. Lavender raised the tumbler of fluid to his mouth, and drank it
off; only from the dregs left on his moustache did he perceive that it
smelled of rum and honey.
“Joe,” he said reproachfully, “you have made me break my pledge.”
Joe smiled. “Well, what are they for, sir? You'll sleep at 'ome
to-night.”
“Never,” said Mr. Lavender. “I shall sleep at High Barnet; I must
address them there tomorrow on abstinence during the war.”
“As you please, sir. But try and 'ave a nap while we go along.” And
lifting Blink into the car, where she lay drenched and exhausted by
excitement, with the petal of a purple flower clinging to her black
nose, he mounted to his seat and drove off. Mr. Lavender, for years
unaccustomed to spirituous liquor, of which he had swallowed nearly
half a pint neat, passed rapidly into a state of coma. Nor did he fully
regain consciousness till he awoke in bed the next morning.
IV INTO THE DANGERS OF A PUBLIC LIFE
“At what time is my meeting?” thought Mr. Lavender vaguely, gazing at
the light filtering through the Venetian blind. “Blink!”
His dog, who was lying beside his bed gnawing a bone which with some
presence of mind she had brought in, raised herself and regarded him
with the innocence of her species. “She has an air of divine madness,”
thought Mr. Lavender, “which is very pleasing to me. I have a terrible
headache.” And seeing a bellrope near his hand he pulled it.
A voice said: “Yes, sir.”
“I wish to see my servant, Joe Petty,” said Lavender. “I shall not
require any breakfast thank you. What is the population of High Barnet?”
“I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about, sir,” answered the
voice, which seemed to be that of his housekeeper; “but you can't see
Joe; he's gone out with a flea in his ear. The idea of his letting you
get your feet wet like that!
“How is this?” said Mr. Lavender. “I thought you were the chambermaid of
the inn at High Barnet?”
“No, indeed,” said Mrs. Petty soothingly, placing a thermometer in his
mouth. “Smoke that a minute, sir. Oh! look at what this dog's brought
in! Fie!” And taking the bone between thumb and finger she cast it out
of the window; while Blink, aware that she was considered in the wrong,
and convinced that she was in the right, spread out her left paw, laid
her head on her right paw, and pressed her chin hard against it. Mrs.
Petty, returning from the window, stood above her master, who lay gazing
up with the thermometer jutting out through the middle of his moustache.
“I thought so!” she said, removing it; “a hundred and one. No getting up
for you, sir! That Joe!”
“Mrs. Petty,” said Mr. Lavender rather feebly, for his head pained him
excessively, “bring me the morning papers.”
“No, sir. The thermometer bursts at an an' ten. I'll bring you the
doctor.”
Mr. Lavender was about to utter a protest when he reflected that all
public men had doctors.
“About the bulletin?” he said faintly.
“What?” ejaculated Mrs. Petty, whose face seemed to Mr. Lavender to
have become all cheekbones, eyes, and shadows. Joe never said a about a
bullet. Where? and however did you get it in?
“I did not say 'bullet in',” murmured Mr. Lavender closing his eyes! “I
said bulletin. They have it.”
At this mysterious sentence Mrs. Petty lifted her hands, and muttering
the word “Ravin'!” hastened from the room. No sooner had she gone,
however, than Blink, whose memory was perfect, rose, and going to the
window placed her forepaws on the sill. Seeing her bone shining on the
lawn below, with that disregard of worldly consequence which she shared
with all fine characters, she leaped through. The rattle of the Venetian
blind disturbed Mr. Lavender from the lethargy to which he had reverted.
“Mr. John Lavender passed a good night,” he thought, “but his condition
is still critical.” And in his disordered imagination he seemed to see
people outside Tube stations, standing stock-still in the middle of the
traffic, reading that bulletin in the evening papers. “Let me see,” he
mused, “how will they run?” To-morrow I shall be better, but not yet
able to leave my bed; the day after to-morrow I shall have a slight
relapse, and my condition will still give cause for anxiety; on the day
following—What is that noise. For a sound like the whiffling of a wind
through dry sticks combined with the creaking of a saw had, impinged on
his senses. It was succeeded by scratching. “Blink!” said Mr. Lavender.
A heartrending whine came from outside the door. Mr. Lavender rose and
opened it. His dog came in carrying her bone, and putting it down by the
bed divided her attention between it and her master's legs, revealed by
the nightshirt which, in deference to the great Disraeli, he had never
abandoned in favour of pyjamas. Having achieved so erect a posture
Mr. Lavender, whose heated imagination had now carried him to the
convalescent stage of his indisposition, felt that a change of air would
do him good, and going to the window, leaned out above a lilac-tree.
“Mr. John Lavender,” he murmured, “has gone to his seat to recuperate
before resuming his public duties.”
While he stood there his attention was distracted by a tall young lady
of fine build and joyous colour, who was watering some sweet-peas in the
garden of the adjoining castle: Naturally delicate, Mr. Lavender at
once sought a jacket, and, having put it on, resumed his position at the
window. He had not watched her more than two minutes before he saw that
she was cultivating soil, and, filled with admiration, he leaned still
further out, and said:
“My dear young madam, you are doing a great work.”
Thus addressed, the young lady, who had those roving grey eyes which see
everything and betoken a large nature not devoid of merry genius, looked
up and smiled.
“Believe me,” continued Mr. Lavender, “no task in these days is so
important as the cultivation of the soil; now that we are fighting to
the last man and the last dollar every woman and child in the islands
should put their hands to the plough. And at that word his vision became
feverishly enlarged, so that he seemed to see not merely the young lady,
but quantities of young ladies, filling the whole garden.
“This,” he went on, raising his voice, “is the psychological moment, the
turning-point in the history of these islands. The defeat of our common
enemies imposes on us the sacred duty of feeding ourselves once more.
'There is a tide in the affairs of men which taken at the flood leads
on to——Oh!” For in his desire to stir his audience, Mr. Lavender had
reached out too far, and losing foothold on his polished bedroom floor,
was slipping down into the lilac-bush. He was arrested by a jerk from
behind; where Blink, moved by this sudden elopement of her master, had
seized him by the nightshirt tails, and was staying his descent.
“Is anything up?” said the young lady.
“I have lost my balance,” thickly answered Mr. Lavender, whose blood was
running to his head, which was now lower than his feet. “Fortunately, my
dog seems to be holding me from behind. But if someone could assist her
it would be an advantage, for I fear that I am slipping.”
“Hold on!” cried the young lady. And breaking through the low privet
hedge which separated the domains, she vanished beneath him with a low
gurgling sound.
Mr. Lavender, who dared not speak again for fear that Blink, hearing
his voice, might let go to answer, remained suspended, torn with anxiety
about his costume. “If she comes in,” he thought, “I shall die from
shame. And if she doesn't, I shall die from a broken neck. What a
dreadful alternative!” And he firmly grasped the most substantial
lilac-boughs within his reach, listening with the ears of a hare for
any sound within the room, in which he no longer was to any appreciable
extent. Then the thought of what a public man should feel in his
position came to his rescue. “We die but once,” he mused; “rather than
shock that charming lady let me seek oblivion.” And the words of his
obituary notice at once began to dance before his eyes. “This great
public servant honoured his country no less in his death than in his
life.” Then striking out vigorously with his feet he launched his
body forward. The words “My goodness!” resounded above him, as all
restraining influence was suddenly relaxed; Mr. Lavender slid into the
lilac-bush, turned heels over head, and fell bump on the ground. He lay
there at full, length, conscious of everything, and especially of the
faces of Blink and the young lady looking down on him from the window.
“Are you hurt?” she called.
“No,” said Mr. Lavender, “that is—er—yes,” he added, ever scrupulously
exact.
“I'm coming down,” said the young lady.
“Don't move!”
With a great effort Mr. Lavender arranged his costume, and closed his
eyes. “How many lie like this, staring at the blue heavens!” he thought.
“Where has it got you?” said a voice; and he saw the young lady bending
over him.
“'In the dorsal region, I think,” said Mr. Lavender. “But I suffer more
from the thought that I—that you—”
“That's all right,” said the young lady; “I'm a V.A.D. It WAS a bump!
Let's see if you can——” and taking his hands she raised him to a sitting
posture. “Does it work?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Lavender rather faintly.
“Try and stand,” said the young lady, pulling.
Mr. Lavender tried, and stood; but no, sooner was he on his feet than
she turned her face away. Great tears rolled down her cheeks; and she
writhed and shook all over.
“Don't!” cried Mr. Lavender, much concerned. “I beg you not to cry. It's
nothing, I assure you—nothing!” The young lady with an effort controlled
her emotion, and turned her large grey eyes on him.
“The angelic devotion of nurses!” murmured Mr. Lavender, leaning against
the wall of the house with his hand to his back. “Nothing like it has
been seen since the world began.”
“I shall never forget the sight!” said the young lady, choking.
Mr. Lavender, who took the noises she made for sobbing, was unutterably
disturbed.
“I can't bear to see you distressed on my account,” he said. “I am quite
well, I assure you; look—I can walk!” And he started forth up the garden
in his nightshirt and Norfolk jacket. When he turned round she was no
longer there, sounds of uncontrollable emotion were audible from the
adjoining garden. Going to the privet hedge, he looked aver. She was
lying gracefully on the grass, with her face smothered in her hands, and
her whole body shaking. “Poor thing!” thought Mr. Lavender. “No doubt
she is one of those whose nerves have been destroyed by the terrible
sights she has seen!” But at that moment the young lady rose and ran as
if demented into her castle. Mr. Lavender stayed transfixed. “Who would
not be ill for the pleasure of drinking from a cup held by her hand?” he
thought. “I am fortunate to have received injuries in trying to save her
from confusion. Down, Blink, down!”
For his dog, who had once more leaped from the window, was frantically
endeavouring to lick his face. Soothing her, and feeling his anatomy,
Mr. Lavender became conscious that he was not alone. An old lady was
standing on the gardenpath which led to the front gate, holding in her
hand a hat. Mr. Lavender sat down at once, and gathering his nightshirt
under him, spoke as follows:
“There are circumstances, madam, which even the greatest public servants
cannot foresee, and I, who am the humblest of them, ask you to forgive
me for receiving you in this costume.”
“I have brought your hat back,” said the old lady with a kindling eye;
“they told me you lived here and I was anxious to know that you and your
dear dog were none the worse.”
“Madam,” replied Mr. Lavender, “I am infinitely obliged to you. Would
you very kindly hang my hat up on the—er—weeping willow tree?”