THE RECRUITING SERGEANT.
When the College had thus ignominiously been driven into the House
and the key turned upon us, the Rebels looked at each other with the
greatest satisfaction.
"So far," said Jack, "we have succeeded beyond our greatest hopes. The
Prisoners are rescued; the only man with any fight in him has been
put out of the temptation to fight any more; the Holy College are
made Prisoners; ourselves are masters of the field, and certain to
remain so; and the People are like lambs--nothing to be feared from
them--nothing, apparently, to be hoped."
They had been reduced to terror by the violence of the Rebels in
pushing through them; they had rushed away, screaming: those of them
who witnessed the horrible murder of John Lax were also seized with
panic, and fled. But when no more terrifying things befell, they
speedily relapsed into their habitual indifference, and crept back
again, as if nothing had happened at all, to dawdle away their time in
the sunshine and upon the garden benches--every man alone, as usual.
That the Holy College were Prisoners--that Rebels had usurped the
Authority--affected them not a whit, even if they understood it. My
administration had been even too successful. One could no longer look
to the People for anything. They were now, even more rapidly than I had
thought possible, passing into the last stages of human existence.
"Ye Gods!" cried Dr. Linister, swearing in the language of the Past and
by the shadows long forgotten. "Ye Gods! How stupid they have become! I
knew not that they were so far gone. Can nothing move them? They have
seen a victorious Rebellion--a Revolution, not without bloodshed. But
they pay no heed. Will nothing move them? Will words? Call some of them
together, Jack. Drive them here. Let us try to speak to them. It may be
that I shall touch some chord which will recall the Past. It was thus
that you--we--were all awakened from that deadly Torpor."
Being thus summoned, the People--men and women--flocked about the
scaffold, now stripped of its black draperies, and listened while Dr.
Linister harangued them. They were told to stand and listen, and they
obeyed, without a gleam in their patient, sheep-like faces to show that
they understood.
* * * * *
"I can do no more!" cried Dr. Linister, after three-quarters of an hour.
He had drawn a skilful and moving picture of the Past; he had depicted
its glories and its joys, compared with the dismal realities of the
Present. He dwelt upon their loveless and passionless existence; he
showed them how they were gradually sinking lower and lower--that they
would soon lose the intelligence necessary even for the daily task.
Then he asked them if they would join his friends and himself in the
new Life which they were about to begin: it should be full of all the
old things--endeavor, struggle, ambition, and Love. They should be
alive, not half dead.
More he said--a great deal more--but to no purpose. If they showed any
intelligence at all, it was terror at the thought of change.
Dr. Linister descended.
"It is no use," he said. "Will you try, Jack?"
"Not by speaking. But I will try another plan."
He disappeared, and presently came back again, having visited the
cellars behind the Public Halls. After him came servants, rolling
barrels and casks at his direction.
"I am going to try the effect of a good drink," said Jack. "In the old
days they were always getting drunk, and the trades had each their
favorite liquor. It is now no one knows how long since these poor
fellows have had to become sober, because they could no longer exceed
their ration. Let us encourage them to get drunk. I am sure that ought
to touch a chord."
This disgraceful idea was actually carried out. Drink of all
kinds--spirits, beer, and every sort of intoxicating liquor--were
brought forth, and the men were invited to sit down and drink freely,
after the manner of the old time.
When they saw the casks brought out and placed on stands, each ready
with its spigot, and, beside the casks, the tables and benches, spread
for them--on the benches, pipes and tobacco--gleams of intelligence
seemed to steal into their eyes.
"Come," said Jack, "sit down, my friends; sit down, all of you. Now
then, what will you drink? What shall it be? Call for what you like
best. Here is a barrel of beer; here is stout; here are gin, whiskey,
rum, Hollands, and brandy. What will you have? Call for what you
please. Take your pipes. Why, it is the old time over again."
They looked at each other stupidly. The very names of these drinks
had been long forgotten by them. But they presently accepted the
invitation, and began to drink greedily. At seven o'clock, when the
Supper Bell rang, there were at least three hundred men lying about,
in various stages of drunkenness. Some were fast asleep, stretched
at their full length on the ground; some lay with their heads on the
table; some sat, clutching at the pewter mugs; some were vacuously
laughing or noisily singing.
"What do you make of your experiment?" asked Dr. Linister. "Have you
struck your chord?"
"Well, they have done once more what they used to do," said Jack,
despondently; "and they have done it in the same old way. I don't
think there could ever have been any real jolliness about the dogs,
who got drunk as fast as ever they could. I expected a more gradual
business. I thought the drink would first unloose their tongues, and
set them talking. Then I hoped that they would, in this way, be led
to remember the Past; and I thought that directly they began to show
any recollection at all, I would knock off the supply and carry on
the memory. But the experiment has failed, unless"--here a gleam of
hope shone in his face--"to-morrow's hot coppers prove a sensation so
unusual as to revive the memory of their last experience in the same
direction--never mind how many years ago. Hot coppers _may_ produce
that result."
He ordered the casks to be rolled back to the cellars. That evening the
Rebels, headed by Dr. Linister--all dressed in scarlet and gold, with
swords--and with them the ladies--(they were called ladies now, nothing
less--not women of the People any more)--came to the Public Hall,
dressed for the evening in strange garments, with bracelets, necklaces,
jewels, gloves, and things which most of the People had never seen. But
they seemed to take no heed of these things.
"They are hopeless," said Jack. "Nothing moves them. We shall have to
begin our new life with our own company of thirty."
"Leave them to us," said Mildred. "Remember, it was by dress that
Christine aroused us from our stagnant condition; and it was by us that
you men were first awakened. Leave them to us."
After the evening meal the ladies went about from table to table,
talking to the women. Many of these, who had belonged to the working
classes in the old Time, and had no recollection at all of fine dress,
looked stupidly at the ladies' dainty attire. But there were others
whose faces seemed to show possibilities of other things. And to these
the ladies addressed themselves. First, they asked them to look at
their fine frocks and bangles and things; and next, if any admiration
was awakened, they begged them to take off their flat caps and to let
down their hair. Some of them consented, and laughed with new-born
pride in showing off their long-forgotten beauty. Then the ladies tied
ribbons round their necks and waists, put flowers into their hair, and
made them look in the glass. Not one of those who laughed and looked in
the glass but followed the ladies that evening to the Museum.
They came--a company of Recruits fifty strong, all girls. And then the
whole evening was devoted to bringing back the Past. It came quickly
enough to most. To some, a sad Past, full of hard, underpaid work;
to some, a Past of enforced idleness; to some, a Past of work and
pay and contentment. They were shopgirls, work-girls, ballet-girls,
barmaids--all kinds of girls. To every one was given a pretty and
becoming dress; not one but was rejoiced at the prospect of changing
the calm and quiet Present for the emotions and the struggles of the
Past.
But they were not allowed to rest idle. Next day these girls again,
with the ladies, went out and tried the effect of their new dress
and their newly-restored beauty upon other women first, and the men
afterwards. As they went about, lightly and gracefully, singing,
laughing, daintily dressed, many of the men began to lift up their
sleepy eyes, and to look after them. And when the girls saw these
symptoms, they laid siege to such a man, two or three together; or
perhaps one alone would undertake the task, if he was more than
commonly susceptible. As for those on whom bright eyes, smiles,
laughter, and pretty dresses produced no effect, they let them alone
altogether. But still Recruits came in fast.
Every night they did all in their power to make the Past live again.
They played the old Comedies, Melodramas, and Farces in the Public
Hall; they sang the old songs; they encouraged the Recruits to sing;
they gave the men tobacco and beer; they had dances and music. Every
morning the original company of Rebels sat in Council. Every afternoon
the Recruits, dressed like soldiers of the Past, were drawn up,
drilled, and put through all kinds of bodily exercise.
* * * * *
We were Prisoners, I said, for three weeks.
One morning, at the end of that time, a message came to us from the
"Headquarters of the Army." This was now their official style and
title. The Chief ordered the immediate attendance of the Suffragan and
two Fellows of the College of Physicians.
At this terrifying order, I confess that I fell into so violent a
trembling--for, indeed, my last hour seemed now at hand--that I
could no longer stand upright; and, in this condition of mind, I was
carried--being unable to walk, and more dead than alive--out of the
House of Life to the Headquarters of the Rebel Army.