CHAPTER XXI

THUNDER

The two brothers had to appear before the Bench on Monday. As it

chanced Mr. Pigott, Colonel Lewknor and Mr. Trupp were the only

magistrates present.

Ernie, who appeared with his head bandaged, admitted his mistake.

"Went to pass the time o day with my brother," he said. "And all he

done was to lean out of the window and crash the crockery down on the

roof o me head. Did upset me a bit, I admit."

"He meant murder all right," was Alf's testimony, sullenly given. "He

knows that."

Joe corroborated Ernie's statement.

He had been in the Saffrons on Saturday afternoon and had seen Ernie

coming down the hill from Old Town. Having a message to give him he

had started to meet him. Ernie had gone up the steps of his brother's

house; and as he did so, Alf had leaned out of the upper window and

thrown a jug down on his brother.

Alf's solicitor cross-examined the engineer at some length.

"What were you doing on the Saffrons?"

"Watching the football."

"You were watching the football; and yet you saw Caspar coming down

Church Street?"

"I did."

"I suggest that you did nothing of the sort; and that you only appeared

on the scene at the last moment."

"Well," retorted Joe, good-humouredly. "A don't blame you for that.

It's what you're paid to suggest."

A witness who was to have given evidence for Alf did not appear; and

the Bench agreed without retiring. Neither of the brothers had been up

before the magistrates before and both were let off with a caution,

Ernie having to pay costs.

"_Your_ tongue's altogether too long, Alfred Caspar," said Mr. Pigott,

the Chairman, and added--quite unjudicially--"always was. And _you're_

altogether too free with your fists, Ernest Caspar."

Ernie left the court rejoicing; for he knew he had escaped lightly.

Outside he waited to thank his friend for his support.

"Comin up along?" he coaxed.

"Nay, ma lad," retorted the engineer with the touch of brutality which

not seldom now marked his intercourse with the other. "You must face

the missus alone. Reck'n A've done enough for one morning."

Ern went off down Saffrons Road in the direction of Old Town,

crest-fallen as is the man whose little cocoon of self-defensive humbug

has suddenly been cleft by a steel blade.

Joe marched away down Grove Road. Alf caught him up. The little

chauffeur was smiling that curds-and-whey smile of his.

"Say, Burt!--you aren't half a liar, are you?" he whispered.

Joe grinned genially.

"The Church can't have it all to herself," he said. "Leave a few of

the lies to the laity."

Ern trudged back from the Town Hall, across Saffrons Croft, to the

Moot, in unenviable mood; for he was afraid, and he had cause.

Ruth was who standing in the door came stalking to meet him, holding

little Alice by the hand.

Ern slouched up with that admixture of bluff, lordly insouciance, and

aggrieved innocence that is the honoured defence of dog and man alike

on such occasions.

"You've done us," she said almost vengefully.

"What are I done then?" asked the accused, feigning abrupt indignation.

Ruth dismissed the child, and turned on Ernie.

"Got us turn into the street--me and my babies," she answered,

splendidly indignant. "A chap's been round arter the house, while you

was up before the beaks settlin whether you were for Lewes Gaol or not.

Says Alf's let it him a week from Saraday, and we got to go. I

wouldn't let him in."

"Ah," said Ernie stubbornly, "don't you worry. Alf's got to give us

notice first. And he daren't do that."

Ruth was not to be appeased.

"Why daren't he, then?" she asked.

"I'll tell you for why," answered Ernie. "He's goin up before the

Watch Committee come Thursday to get his licence for his blessed

Touring Syndicate. We've friends on that Committee, good friends--Mr.

Pigott, and the Colonel, not to say Mr. Geddes; and Alf knaws it. He

ain't goin to do anythink to annoy them just now. Knaws too much, Alf

do."

Ruth was not convinced.

"We got no friends," she said sullenly. "We shall lose em all over

this. O course we shall, and I don't blame em. A fair disgrace on

both of you, I call it. You're lucky not to have to do a stretch. And

as to Alf, they've sack him from sidesman over it, and he'll never

forgive us."

They were walking slowly back to the cottage, the man hang-dog, the

woman cold.

Outside the door she paused.

"All I know is this," she said. "If you're out again through your own

fault I'm done with it, and I'll tell you straight what I shall do,

Ern."

She was very quiet.

"What then?"

"I shall leave you with your children and go away with mine." She

stood with heaving bosom, immensely moved. "I ca-a'nt keep the lot.

But I can keep one. And you know which one that'll be."

Ernie, the colour of dew, went indoors without a word.

The rumour that Alf had been dismissed from his position as sidesman at

St. Michael's, owing to the incident in the Goffs, was not entirely

true, but there was something in it.

The Archdeacon had his faults, but there was no more zealous guardian

of the fair fame of the Church and all things appertaining to her.

Alf's appearance before the magistrates was discussed at the weekly

conference of the staff at the Rectory.

Both Mr. Spink and Bobby Chislehurst were present. The former stoutly

defended his protégé, and the Archdeacon heard him out. Then he turned

to Bobby.

"What d'you say, Chislehurst?" he asked.

Bobby, in fact, could say little.

Ernie had no scruples whatever in suggesting what was untrue to the

magistrates, who when on the Bench at all events were officials, and to

be treated accordingly, but he would never lie to a man who had won his

heart. He had, therefore, in answer to the Cherub's request given an

unvarnished account of what had occurred. Bobby now repeated it

reluctantly, but without modification.

"Exactly," said Mr. Spink. "There's not a tittle of evidence that

Alfred really did say what he's accused of saying. And he denies it,

point-blank."

"I think I'd better see him," said the Archdeacon.

Alf came, sore and sulking.

Mottled and sour of eye, he stood before the Archdeacon who flicked the

lid of his snuff-box, and asked whether he had indeed made the remark

attributed to him.

"I never said nothing of the sort," answered Alf warmly, almost rudely.

"Is it likely? me own sister-in-law and all! See here!" He produced

his rent-book. "I'm her landlord. She's months behind. See for

yourself! Any other man only me'd have turned her out weeks ago. But,

of course, she takes advantage. She would. She's that sort. I never

said a word against her."

"And there is plenty you could say," chimed in Mr. Spink, who had

escorted his friend.

"Maybe there is," muttered Alf.

The Archdeacon made a grimace. In the matter of sex indeed if in no

other, he was and always had been a genuine aristocrat--sensitive,

refined, fastidious.

"Two of them get soaking together in the _Star_," continued Alf. "Then

they start telling each other dirty stories and quarrellin. Ern

believes it all and comes and makes a fuss. Mr. Pigott's chairman on

the Bench. Course he lays it all on me--Mr. Pigott would. Ern can't

do no wrong in his eyes--never could. Won't listen to reason and

blames me along of him--because I'm a Churchman. See, he's never

forgiven me leaving the Chapel, Mr. Pigott hasn't; and that's the whole

story."

It was a good card to play; and it did its work.

"It's a cleah case to my mind of more sinned against than sinning,"

said the Archdeacon with a genuinely kind smile. "You had bad luck,

Caspar--but a good friend." He shook hands with both young men. "I

wish you well and offer you my sympathy. I think you should go and

have a word of explanation with our friend, Mr. Pigott, though."

"Yes, sir," said Alf. "I'm goin now. I couldn't let it rest there."

Alf went straight on to interview the erring chairman in the little

villa in Victoria Drive.

The latter, summing up his old pupil with shrewd blue eye in which

there was a hint of battle, refused to discuss the case or his judgment.

"What's done is done," he said. "The law's the law and there's no goin

back on it. You were lucky to get off so light; that's my notion of

it."

Alf stood before him, hang-dog and resentful.

"He'll kill me one of these days," he muttered. "Little better than a

bloody murderer."

There was a moment's pause, marked by a snort from Mr. Pigott.

Then the jolly, cosy man, with his trim white beard and neat little

paunch, rose and opened the window with some ostentation.

"First time that word's ever crossed my threshold," he said. "And I've

lived in this house ten year come Michaelmas." He turned with dignity

on the offender. "Is that what they teach you in the Church of

England, then, Alfred Caspar?" he asked. "It wasn't what we taught you

in the Wesleyan Chapel in which you was bred. Never heard the like of

it for language in all me life--never!" Before everything else in life

Mr. Pigott was a strong chapel-man; and in his judgment Ern's weakness

was as nothing to Alf's apostasy.

Alf looked foolish and deprecatory.

"I didn't mean in it the swearin way," he said--"not as Ernest would

have meant it. I never been in the Army meself. I only meant he'll be

the end o me one of these days. Good as said he would in the _Star_

Saturday."

Mr. Pigott turned away to hide the twinkle in his eye. He knew Alf

well, and his weakness.

"He don't like you, I do believe," he admitted. "And he's a very funny

fellow, Ern, when his hackle's up."

Alf's eyes blinked as they held the floor.

"And now," he said, "I suppose the Watch Committee'll not grant my

licence for the Road-Touring Syndicate when it comes up afore em on

Thursday. And I'll be a ruined man."

"I shouldn't be surprised," answered Mr. Pigott, who was an alderman

and a great man on the Town Council.

Alf was furious. He was so furious, indeed, that he did a thing he had

not done for years: he took his trouble to his mother.

"It's a regular plot," he said, "that's what it is. To get my licence

stopped and ruin me. Raised the money; ordered the buses; engaged the

staff and all. And then they spring this on me!--It ain't Ernie. I

will say that for him. I know who's at the bottom of it."

"Who then?" asked his mother, faintly interested.

"Her Ern keeps."

Mrs. Caspar roused instantly.

"Isn't she married to him then?" she cried, peering over her spectacles.

"Is she?" sneered Alf. "That's all."

He leaned forward, his ugly face dreadful with a sneer.

"Do you know where she'd be if everyone had his rights?"

"Where then?"

"Lewes Gaol."

His message delivered, he sat back with a nod to watch its effect.

"And she would be there too," continued Alf, "only for me."

"What do you mean?" Mrs. Caspar asked.

"I mean," answered Alf, "as I keep her out of prison by keepin me mouth

shut." He dropped his voice. "And that ain't all. She's at it again

... Her home's a knockin-shop.... All the young men.... The police

ought to interfere.... I shall tell the Archdeacon.... A kept

woman.... That chap Burt.... That's how Ern makes good.... She makes

the money he spends at the _Star_.... And your grand-children brought

up in that atmosphere!" He struck the table. "But I'm her landlord

all the same; and I'll make her know it yet."

Anne Caspar was genuinely disturbed not for the sake of Ruth, but for

that of the children.

"You could never turn her out!" she said--"not your own sister-in-law

and four children! Look so bad and all--and you a sidesman too."

Alf snorted.

"Ah, couldn't I?" he said. "You never know what a man can do till he

tries."

That evening the Colonel and Mrs. Lewknor walked over to the

Manor-house to discuss Ern's latest misadventure. They found Mr.

Pigott there clearly on the same errand; but the old Nonconformist rose

to go with faintly exaggerated dignity on seeing his would-be enemy.

"There's only one thing'll save him now," he announced in his most

dogmatic style.

"What's that?" asked Mrs. Trupp.

"H'a h'earthquake," the other answered.

When the Colonel and his wife left the Manor-house half-an-hour later

there were three people walking abreast down the hill before them, just

as there had been on a previous occasion. Now, as then, the centre of

the three was Ruth. Now, as then, on her left was Joe. But on her

right instead of Ern was little Alice.

The Colonel pointed to the three.

"I'll back Caspar all the way," said Mrs. Lewknor firmly.

"Myself," replied the Colonel shrewdly, "I'll back the winner."

Then he paused to read a placard which gave the latest news of the

Ulster campaign.

PART II

TROUBLED DAWN

CHAPTER XXII

THE BETRAYAL

The Ulster Campaign was moving forward now with something of the shabby

and theatrical pomp of a travelling circus parading the outskirts of a

sea-side town before a performance. A dromedary with an elongated

upper lip, draped in the dirty trappings of a pseudo-Oriental satrap,

led the procession, savage and sulking. Behind the dromedary came the

mouldy elephant, the mangy bear, the fat woman exposing herself in

tights on a gilt-edged Roman chariot, the sham cow-boys with gaudy

cummerbunds, and Cockney accents, on untamed bronchos hired from the

local livery stables, the horse that was alleged to have won the Derby

in a by-gone century, etc. And the spectators gaped on the pavement,

uncertain whether to jeer or to applaud.

As the Campaign rolled on its way, the wiser Conservatives shook their

heads, openly maintaining that the whole business was a direct

abnegation of everything for which their party had stood in history,

while the Liberals became increasingly restive: Mr. Geddes, uneasy at

the inaction of the Government, Mr. Geddes truculent to meet the

truculence of the enemy. The only man who openly rejoiced was Joe Burt.

"The Tory Reds have lit such a candle by God's grace in England as'll

never be put out," he said to Ernie.

The engineer had always now a newspaper cutting in his waistcoat

pocket, and a quotation pat upon his lips.

"They're all shots for the locker in the only war that matters," he

told the Colonel. "And they'll all coom in handy one day. A paste em

into a lil book nights: _Tips for Traitors; an ammunition magazine_, A

call it."

For him Sir Edward Carson's famous confession of faith, _I despise the

Will of the People_--words Joe had inscribed as motto on the cover of

his ammunition magazine--gave the key to the whole movement. And he

never met the Colonel now but he discharged a broadside into the

helpless body of his victim.

It was not, however, till early in 1914, just when his pursuit of Ruth

was at the hottest, that he woke to the fact that the Tories were

tampering with the Army. That maddened Joe.

"If this goes on A shall go back to ma first love," he told Ruth with a

characteristic touch of impudence.

"And a good job too," she answered tartly. "I don't want you."

"And you can go back to your Ernie," continued the engineer, glad to

have got a rise.

"I shan't go back to him," retorted Ruth, "because I never left him."

The statement was not wholly true: for if Ruth had not left Ernie,

since the affair of the Goffs she had according to her promise turned

her back on him. When on the first opportunity that offered she had

announced his fate to the offender, he had blinked, refused to

understand, argued, insisted, coaxed--to no purpose.

"You got to be a man afoor I marry you again," she told him coldly.

"I'm no'hun of a no-man's woman."

Ernie at first refused to accept defeat. He became eloquent about his

rights.

"They're nothing to my wrongs," Ruth answered briefly; and turned a

deaf ear to all his pleas.

Thereafter Ernie found himself glad to escape the home haunted by the

woman he still loved, who tantalised and thwarted him. That was why

when Joe girded on his armour afresh and went forth to fight the old

enemy in the new disguise, Ernie accompanied him.

The pair haunted Unionist meetings, Ernie quiescent, the other

aggressive to rowdiness. Young Stanley Bessemere, who had returned

from Ireland (where he now spent all his leisure caracoling on a

war-horse at the distinguished tail of the caracoling Captain Smith) to

address a series of gatherings in his constituency in justification of

the Ulster movement, and his own share in it, was the favoured target

for his darts. Joe followed him round from the East-end to Meads, and

from Meads to Old Town, and even pursued him into the country. He

acquired a well-earned reputation as a heckler, and was starred as

dangerous by the Tory bloods. Mark that man! the word went round.

Joe knew it, and was only provoked to increased aggressiveness.

"Go on, ma lad!" he would roar from the back of the hall. "Yon's the

road to revolution aw reet!"

There came a climax at a meeting in the Institute, Old Town. Joe at

question time had proved himself unusually bland and provocative. The

stewards had tried to put him out; and there had been a rough and

tumble in the course of which somebody had hit the engineer a crack on

the head from behind with the handle of a motor-car. Joe dropped; and

Ernie stood over him in the ensuing scuffle. The news that there was

trouble drew a little crowd. Ruth, on her evening marketings in Church

Street, looked in. She found Joe sitting up against the wall, dazed;

and Ernie kneeling beside him and having words with Stanley Bessemere,

who was strolling towards the door.

"Brought his troubles on his own head," said the young member casually.

"Hit a man from behind!" retorted Ernie, quiet but rather white.

"English, ain't it?"

"It was your own brother, then!" volunteered an onlooker.

Joe rallied, rubbed his head, looked up, saw Ruth and reassured her.

"A'm maself," he said.

He rose unsteadily on Ernie's arm.

"He must come home along of us," said Ruth.

"Of course he must then," Ernie answered with the asperity of the

thwarted male.

The night-air revived the wounded man. Arrived at the cottage he sat

in the kitchen, still a little stupid, but amused with his adventure.

"They'd ha kicked me in stoomach when A was down only for you, Ern," he

said. "That's the Gentlemen of England's notion of politics, that is."

"You'd ha done the same by them, Joe, if you'd the chance," answered

Ern.

The other grinned.

"A would that, by Guy--and all for loov," he admitted.

Ruth brought him a hot drink. He sipped it, one eye still on his

saviour.

"I owe this to you, Ern. Here's to you!"

"Come to that, Joe, I owe you something," Ernie answered.

"What's that then?" Joe sat as a man with a stiff neck, screwing up his

eye at the other.

Ern nodded significantly at Ruth's back.

"Why that little bit o tiddley you done for me afore the beaks," he

whispered.

"That's nowt," answered Joe sturdily. "What was it Saul said to

Jonathan--_If a feller can't tiddle it a liddel bit for his pal, what

the hell use is he?_--Book o Judges."

Ruth in the background watched the two men. It was as though she were

weighing them in the balance. There was a touch of masterful

tenderness about Ern's handling of his damaged friend that surprised

and pleased her.

Joe made an effort to get up.

"A'd best be shiftin," he said.

"Never!" cried Ern, authoritatively. "You'll bide the night along o

us. She'll make you a bed on the couch here."

"Nay," said Ruth. "You'll sleep in the bed along o Ernie."

Joe eyed her.

"Where'll you sleep then?" he asked.

"In the spare room," Ruth answered, winking at Ernie.

There was no spare room; but she made up a shake-down for herself on

the settle in the kitchen. Ernie, after packing away the visitor

upstairs, came down to help her. It also gave him an opportunity to

ventilate his grievance.

"One thing. It won't make much difference to me," he said.

"Your own fault," Ruth answered remorselessly. "And you aren't the

only one, though I know you think you are. Men do ... We'd be out in

the street now, the lot of us, only for Joe telling lies for you."

Next morning she took her visitor breakfast in bed and kept him there

till Mr. Trupp had come, who told Joe he must not return to work for a

week.

The engineer got up that afternoon and was sitting in the kitchen still

rather shaky, when Alf, who had not fulfilled his threat and given Ruth

notice, called for the rent.

Ruth greeted him with unusual friendliness.

"Come in, won't you?" she said--"while I get the money."

Alf, who in some respects was simple almost as Ernie, entered the trap

to find Joe, huddled in a chair and glowering murder at him. He tried

to withdraw, but Ruth stood between him and the door, twice his size,

and with glittering eyes.

"There's a friend of yours," she said. "Saw him last night, at the

meeting, didn't you?--I thart you'd be glad to meet him."

Alf quaked.

"Been in the wars then?" he said shakily.

"What d'you know about it?" rumbled Joe.

"I don't know nothin," answered Alf sharply, almost shrilly.

Just then little Alice entered. Alf took advantage of her entrance to

establish his line of retreat. Once set in the door with a clear run

for the open his courage returned to him.

"And what may be your name?" he asked the child with deliberate

insolence.

"Alice Caspar," she answered, staring wide-eyed.

Alf sneered.

"That it ain't--I know," he said, and went out without his rent, and

laughing horribly.

Little Alice ran out again.

"What's he mean?" asked Joe.

Ruth regarded him with wary curiosity.

"Didn't Ern never tell you then?" she asked.

"Never!" said Joe.

Ruth was thoughtful. That was nice of Ern--like Ern--the gentleman in

him coming out.

That night she softened to him. He noticed it in a flash and

approached her--only to be repulsed abruptly.

"No," she said. "I don't care about you no more. You've lost me.

That's where it is."

"O, I beg pardon," answered Ernie, quivering. "I thart we was married."

"So we was one time o day, I believe," Ruth answered. "And might be

again yet. Who knaws?"

He stood over her as she composed herself for the night on the settle.

"How long's that Joe going to stop in my house?" he asked.

"Just as long as I like," she answered coolly.

Next day when Joe came in for tea he found Ruth sitting in the kitchen,

nursing little Alice, who was crying her heart out on her mother's

shoulder.

"They've been tormenting her at school," Ruth explained. "It's Alf."

"I'll lay it is," muttered Joe. "Ern and me, we'll just go round when

he comes back from work."

Ruth looked frightened.

"Don't tell Ern for all's sake, Joe!" she whispered.

"Why not then?"

"He'd kill Alf."

Joe's face betrayed his scepticism.

"Ah, you don't knaw Ern, when he's mad," Ruth warned him.

An hour later Ernie came home. He was still, suppressed, as often now.

There was nobody in the kitchen but Ruth.

"Where's your Joe, then?" he asked.

"He's left," Ruth answered.

Ernie relaxed ever so little.

"He might ha stopped to say good-bye," he muttered.

Ruth rose.

"I got something to tell you, Ern," she said.

He turned on her abruptly.

"It's little Alice. They've been getting at her at

school--_that!_--you knaw."

Ernie was breathing hard.

"Who split?"

"Alf. He told Mrs. Ticehurst--I see him; and she told the lot."

Ern went out slowly, and slowly up the stairs in the dark to the

children's room.

A little voice called--"Daddy!"

"I'm comin, sweet-heart," he answered tenderly.

He felt his way to the child's bed, knelt beside it, and struck a

match. A tear like a star twinkled on her cheek. She put out her

little arms to him and clasped him round the neck.

"Daddy, you _are_ my daddy, aren't you?" she sobbed, her heart breaking

in her voice.

He laid his cheek against hers. Both were wet.

"Of course I am," he answered, the water floods sounding in his throat.

"I'm your daddy; and you're my darling. And if we got nobody else we

got each other, ain't we?"

Ruth, in the dark at the foot of the stairs, heard, gave a great gulp,

and crept back to the kitchen.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE COLONEL FACES DEFEAT

The Colonel, who throughout his life while making a great show of

radical opinions in the mess for the benefit of his brother-officers

had always voted quietly for the Conservative party on the ground that

they made upon the whole less of a hash of Imperial affairs than their

Liberal opponents was profoundly troubled by the proceedings in Ulster.

"The beggars are undermining the _morale_ of Ireland," he told Mr.

Trupp. "And only those who've been quartered there know what that

means."

"If you said they were undermining the foundations of Society I'd

agree," the other answered. "Geddes says they've poisoned the wells of

civilisation, and he's about right."

The Presbyterian minister, indeed, usually so sane and moderate, had

been roused to unusual vehemence by the general strike against the law

engineered by the Conservative leaders.

"It's a reckless gamble in anarchy with the country's destiny at

stake," he said.

"And financed by German Jews," added Joe Burt.

As the Campaign developed and the success of the Unionists in tampering

with the Army became always more apparent, the criticisms of the two

men intensified. They hung like wolves upon the flank of the Colonel,

pertinacious in pursuit, remorseless in attack.

"You can't get away from the fact that the whole Campaign is built on

the power of the Unionists to corrupt the officers of the Army," said

the minister. "Without that the whole thing collapses."

"And so far," chimed in Joe, "A must say it looks as if they were

building on a sure foundation."

The Colonel, outwardly gay, was inwardly miserable that his beloved

Service should be dragged in the mud.

"What can you say to them?" he groaned to Mr. Trupp.

"Why," said the old surgeon brusquely, "tell em to tell their own

rotten Government to govern or get out. Let em hang half a dozen

politicians for treason, and shoot the same number of soldiers for

sedition--and the thing's done."

And the bitterness of it was that it looked increasingly as if the

critics were right.

The Colonel came home one night from a rare visit to London in black

despair.

"The British officer never grows up," he complained to his wife. "He's

a perfect baby." His long legs writhed themselves into knots, as he

sucked at his pipe. "Do you remember that charming little feller

Cherry Dugdale, who commanded the Borderers at Umballa?"

"The shikari?--rather."

"He's joined the Ulster Volunteers as a private."

Mrs. Lewknor chuckled. She was a Covenanter sans phrase, fierce almost

as the Archdeacon and delighting in the embarrassments of the

Government.

"Just like him," she said. "Little duck!"

Then came the crash.

The Commander-in-Chief in Ireland sent for General Gough, commanding

the 3rd Cavalry Brigade at the Curragh, and asked him what his action

would be in the event of the Government giving him and his Brigade the

alternative of serving against Ulster or resigning. Gough forthwith

called a conference of his officers, and seventy out of seventy-five

signified their intention to resign.

"We would rather not shoot Irishmen," they said.

On the evening after the news came through the Colonel was walking down

Terminus Road when he heard a provocative voice behind him.

"What about it, Colonel?"

He turned to find Joe Burt at his heels.

"What about what?" asked the Colonel.

"This mutiny of the officers at the Curragh."

The Colonel affected a gaiety he by no means felt.

"Well, what's your view?"

Joe was enthusiastic.

"Why, it's the finest example of Direct Action ever seen in this

coontry. And it's been given by the Army officers!--That's what gets

me."

"What's Direct Action?" asked the Colonel. The phrase in those days

was unknown outside industrial circles.

"A strike, and especially a strike for political purposes," answered

Joe. "General Gough and his officers have struck to prevent Home Rule

being placed on the Statute Book. What if a Trade Union had tried to

hold up the coontry same road? It's what A've always said," the

engineer continued, joyously aggressive. "The officers of the British

Army aren't to be trusted except when their own party's in power."

The Colonel walked on to the club.

There he found young Stanley Bessemere, just back from Ireland, sitting

in a halo of cigar-smoke, the hero of an amused and admiring circle,

recording his latest military exploits.

"We've got the swine beat," he was saying confidently between puffs.

"The Army won't fight. And the Government can do nothing."

The Colonel turned a vengeful eye upon him.

"Young man," he said, "are you aware that Labour's watching you?

Labour's learning from you?"

"Labour be damned!" retorted the other with jovial brutality. "We'll

deal with Labour all right when we've got this lot of traitors out of

office."

"Traitors!" called Mr. Trupp, harshly from his chair. "You talk of

traitors!--you Tories!--I voted for you at the last General Election

for the first time in my life on the sole ground of national defence.

D'you think I or any self-respecting man would have done so if we'd

known the jackanape tricks you'd be up to?"

The two elderly men retired in dudgeon to the card-room.

"There's only one thing the matter with Ireland," grumbled the old

surgeon. "And its always been the same thing."

"What's that?" asked the Colonel.

"The English politician," replied the other--"Ireland's curse."

Hard on the heels of the Curragh affair came the landing of arms from

Krupp's, with the connivance, if not with the secret co-operation of

the German Government, at Larne under the cover of the rebel Army,

mobilised for the purpose. The Government wept a few patient tears

over the outrage and did nothing.

The Colonel was irritated; Mr. Trupp almost vituperative.

"Geddes may say what he likes," remarked the former. "But I can't

acquit the Government. They're encouraging the beggars to play it up."

"Acquit them!" fulminated the old surgeon. "I'd impeach them on the

spot. The law in abeyance! British ports seized under the guns of the

British fleet! Gangs of terrorists patrolling the roads and openly

boasting they'll assassinate any officer of the Crown who does his

duty; and the Episcopalian Church blessing the lot! And the Government

does nothing. It's a national disgrace!"

"It's all very well, Mr. Trupp," said Mr. Glynde, the senior member for

the Borough, who was present. "But Ulster has a case, and we must

consider it."

"Of course Ulster has a case," the other answered sharply. "Nobody but

a fool denies it. I'm attacking the Government, not Ulster. Let them

restore law and order in Ireland. That's their first job. When

they've done that it'll be time enough to consider Ulster's grievances.

Where's all this going to lead us?"

"Hell," said the Colonel gloomily.

He was, indeed, more miserable than he had ever been in his life.

Other old Service men he met, who loathed the Government, looked on

with amused or spiteful complacency at the part the Army was playing in

the huge conspiracy against the Crown. The Colonel saw nothing but the

shame of it, its possible consequences, and effect on opinion,

domestic, imperial and European.

He walked about as one in a maze: he could not understand.

Then Mr. Geddes came to see him.

The tall minister was very grave; and there was no question what he

came about--the Army Conspiracy.

The Colonel looked out of the window and twisted his long legs as he

heard the other out.

"Dear little Gough-y!" he murmured at the end. "The straightest thing

that walks the earth."

He felt curiously helpless, as he had felt throughout the Campaign;

unable to meet his adversaries except by the evasion and casuistical

tricks his spirit loathed.

Mr. Geddes rose.

"Well, Colonel," he said. "I see no alternative but to resign my

membership of the League. It's perfectly clear that if your scheme

goes through it must be run by officers at the War Office. And I'm

afraid I must add that it seems equally clear now that it will be run

for political purposes by men who put their party before their country."

The Colonel turned slowly round.

"You've very kindly lent us St. Andrew's Hall for a meeting of the

League next Friday. Do you cancel that?" he asked.

"Certainly not, Colonel," answered the minister. "By all means hold

your meeting. I shall be present, and I shall speak." ...

It was not a happy meeting at St. Andrew's Hall, but it was a crowded

one: for the vultures had sniffed the battle from afar. The Liberals

came in force, headed by Mr. Pigott; while Joe Burt led his wolves from

the East-end. Ernie was there, very quiet now as always, with Ruth;

and Bobby Chislehurst, seeing them, took his seat alongside.

Fighting with his back to the wall, and well aware of it, the Colonel

was at his very best: witty, persuasive, reasonable. What the National

Service League advocated was not aggression in any shape, but insurance.

He sat down amid considerable and well-earned applause.

Then Mr. Geddes rose.

He had joined the League after Agadir, he said, after much perturbation

and questioning of spirit, because he had been reluctantly convinced at

last that the German menace was a reality. Yet what was the position

to-day? The Conservative Party, which had preached this menace for

years, had been devoting the whole of its energies now for some time

past to fomenting a civil war in Ireland. They had gone so far as to

arm a huge force that was in open rebellion against the Crown with

rifles and machine-guns from the very country which they affirmed was

about to attack us. And more remarkable still certain Generals at the

War Office--he wouldn't mention names--

"Why not?" shouted Mr. Pigott.

It was not expedient; but he had in his pocket a letter from Mr.

Redmond giving the name of the General who was primarily responsible

for the sedition among the officers of the Army--a very highly placed

officer indeed.

"Shame!" cried someone.

He thought so too. And this General, who was in the somewhat anomalous

position of being both technical military adviser to the rebel army in

Ulster and the trusted servant of the Government at the War Office, was

a man who for years past, so he understood, had preached the doctrine

that war with Germany was inevitable, and had been for many years

largely responsible for the preparation of our forces against attack

from that quarter. To suggest that this officer and his colleagues

were traitors was downright silly. What, then, was the only deduction

a reasonable man could draw? The minister paused: Why, that the German

peril was not a reality.

The conclusion was greeted with a howl of triumph from the wolves at

the back.

"Hear! hear!" roared Mr. Pigott.

Joe Burt had jumped up.

"A'll tell you the whole truth about the German Bogey!" he bawled.

"It's a put-up game by the militarists to force conscription on the

coontry for their own purposes. Now you've got it straight!"

As he sat down amid tumultuous applause at one end of the hall a figure

on the platform bobbed up as it were automatically. It was Alf.

"Am I not right in thinking that the gentleman at the back of the hall

is about to pay a visit to Germany?" he asked urbanely.

"Yes, you are!" shouted Joe. "And A wish all the workin-men in England

were comin too. That'd put the lid on the nonsense pretty sharp."

Then ensued something of a scene; the hub-bub pierced by Alf's shrill

scream,

"_Who's payin for your visit?_"

The Archdeacon, a most capable chairman, restored order; and Mr. Geddes

concluded his speech on a note of quiet strength. When he finally sat

down man after man got up and announced his intention of resigning his

membership of the League.

Outside the hall the Colonel stood out of the moon in the shadow of one

of those trees which make the streets of Beachbourne singular and

lovely at all times of the year. His work of the last six years had

been undone, and it was clear that he knew it.

Ruth, emerging from the hall, looked across at the forlorn old man

standing like a dilapidated pillar amid the drift of the dissipating

crowd. She had herself no understanding of the rights and wrongs of

the controversy to which she had just listened; her sympathies were not

enlisted by either side. Only the human element, and the clash of

personalities which had made itself apparent at the meeting, had

interested her. But she realised that the tall figure across the road

was the vanquished in the conflict; and her heart went out to him.

"They aren't worth the worrit he takes over them," she said

discontentedly. "Let them have their war if they want it, I says. And

when they've got it let those join in as likes it, and those as don't

stay out. That's what I say.... A nice man like that, too--so gentle

with it.... Ought to be ashamed of emselves; some of em."

Then she saw Mr. Chislehurst cross the road to his cousin, and she was

comforted.

"He'll walk home with him.--Come on, Ernie."

It was striking ten o'clock. Ruth, who was in a hurry to get back to

her babes, left in the charge of a neighbour, walked a-head. Ernie, on

the other hand, wished to saunter, enjoying the delicious freshness of

the spring night.

"Steady on then!" he said. "That's the Archdeacon in front, and Mr.

Trupp and all."

"I knaw that then," replied Ruth with the asperity she kept for Ernie

alone.

"Well, you don't want to catch them up."

They entered Saffrons Croft, which lay black or silver-blanched before

them, peopled now only with tall trees. The groups of elms, thickening

with blossoms, gathered the stars to their bosoms, and laid their

shadows like patterns along the smooth sward. Beyond the threadbare

tapestry of trees rose the solid earth-work of the Downs, upholding the

brilliant night, encircling them as in a cup, and keeping off the

hostile world. Ernie felt their strength, their friendship, the

immense and unfailing comfort of them. A great quiet was everywhere,

brooding, blessed. The earth lay still as the happy dead, caressed by

the moon. But behind the stillness the thrust and stir and aspiration

of new life quickening in the darkness, seeking expression, made itself

manifest. Ernie was deliciously aware of that secret urge. He opened

his senses to the rumour of it, and filled his being with the breath of

this mysterious renaissance.

He stopped and sniffed.

"It's coming," he said. "I can smell it."

"It's come more like," answered Ruth. "The lilacs are out in the

Manor-garden, and the brown birds singing in the ellums fit to choke

theirsalves."

They walked on slowly across the turf. The lights of the Manor-house

twinkled at them friendly across the ha-ha. Ernie's heart, which had

been hardening of late to meet Ruth's hardness, thawed at the touch of

spring. The doors of his being opened and his love leapt forth in

billows to surround her. The woman in front paused as if responding to

that profound sub-conscious appeal. Ern did not hurry his pace; but

she stayed for him in a pool of darkness made by the elms. Quietly he

came up alongside.

"Ruth," he began, shy and stealthy as a boy-lover.

She did not answer him, but the moon lay on her face, firm-set.

"Anything for me to-night?"

He came in upon her with a quiet movement as of wings. She elbowed him

off fiercely.

"A-done!" she said. "You're not half-way through yet--nor near it."

He pleaded, coaxing.

"I am a man, Ruth."

She was adamant.

"It's just what you are not," she retorted. He knew she was breathing

deep; he did not know how near to tears she was. "You was one time o

day--and you might be yet.--You got to work your ticket, my lad."

He drew back.

She walked on swiftly now, passing out of Saffrons Croft into the road.

He followed at some distance down the hill past the Greys to the _Star_

corner. A man standing there pointed. He turned round to see Joe

pounding after him.

"The tickets and badges coom to-night," the engineer explained. "A

meant to have given you yours, as A did Mr. Geddes, at the meeting.

But you got away. Good night! Friday! Three o'clock sharp! Don't

forget."

Ruth had turned and was coming swiftly back towards them.

"Ain't you coming along then, Joe?" she called after him.

"Not to-night, thank-you, Ruth. A got to square up afore we go."

"I am disappointed," said Ruth disconsolately, and turned away down

Borough Lane.

Ernie came up beside her quietly.

"That night!" he said. "Almost a pity you didn't stay where you was in

bed and let Joe take my place alongside you."

"Hap it's what I've thart myself times," Ruth answered sentimentally.

"Only thing," continued Ernie in that same strangely quiet voice, "Joe

wouldn't do it. D'is no fault of his'n. He is a man Joe is; even if

so be you're no'hun of a woman."

The two turned into the house that once had been their home.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE PILGRIMS

Spring comes to Beachbourne as it comes to no other city of earth,

however fair; say those of her children who after long sojourning in

other lands come home in the evenings of their days to sleep.

The many-treed town that lies between the swell of the hills and the

foam and sparkle of the sea sluicing deliciously the roan length of

Pevensey Bay unveils her rounded bosom in the dawn of the year to the

kind clear gaze of heaven and of those who to-day pass and repass along

its windy ways. Birds thrill and twitter in her streets. There

earlier than elsewhere the arabis calls the bee, and the hedge-sparrow

raises his thin sweet pipe to bid the hearts of men lift up: for winter

is passed. Chestnut and laburnum unfold a myriad lovely bannerets on

slopes peopled with gardens and gay with crocuses and the laughter of

children. The elms in Saffrons Croft, the beeches in Paradise, stir in

their sleep and wrap themselves about in dreamy raiment of mauve and

emerald. The air is like white wine, the sky of diamonds; and the

sea-winds come blowing over banks of tamarisk to purge and exhilarate.

On the afternoon of such a day of such a spring in May, 1914, at

Beachbourne station a little group waited outside the barrier that led

to the departure platform.

The group consisted of Joe Burt, Ernie, and Ruth.

Ruth was peeping through the bars on to the platform, at the far end of

which was a solitary figure, waiting clearly, he too, for the Lewes

train, and very smart in a new blue coat with a velvet collar.

"It's Alf," she whispered, keen and mischievous to Joe, "Ain't arf

smart and all."

Joe peered with her.

"He's the proper little Fat," said the engineer. "I'll get Will Dyson

draw a special cartoon of him for the _Leader_."

Ruth preened an imaginary moustache in mockery of her brother-in-law.

"I'm the Managing Director of Caspar's Touring Syndicate, I am, and

don't you forget it!" she said with a smirk.

"Where's he off to now?"

"Brighton, I believe, with the Colonel. Some meeting of the League,"

replied Ernie dully.

Just then Mr. Geddes joined them, and the four moved on to the platform.

The train came in and Alf disappeared into it.

A few minutes later the Colonel passed the barrier. He marked the

little group on the platform and at once approached them.

Something unusual about the men struck him at once. All three had

about them the generally degagé air of those on holiday bent. The

minister wore a cap instead of the habitual wide-awake; and carried a

rucksack on his back. Joe swung a parcel by a string, and Ernie had an

old kit-bag slung across his shoulder. Rucksack, parcel, and kit-bag

were all distinguished by a red label. The Colonel stalked the party

from the rear and with manifold contortions of a giraffe-like neck

contrived to read on the labels printed in large black letters, ADULT

SCHOOL PEACE PARTY. Then he speared the engineer under the fifth rib

with the point of his stick.

"Well, what y'up to now?" he asked sepulchrally.

"Just off to Berlin, Colonel," cried the other with aggressive

cheerfullness, "Mr. Geddes and I and this young gentleman"--thrusting

the reluctant Ernie forward--"one o your soldiers, who knows better

now."

The Colonel began to shake hands all round with elaborate solemnity.

"Returning to your spiritual home while there is yet time, Mr. Geddes,"

he said gravely. "Very wise, I think. You'll be happier there than in

our militarist land, you pacifist gentlemen."

The minister, who was in the best of spirits, laughed. The two men had

not met since the affair of St. Andrew's Hall: and each was relieved at

the open and friendly attitude of the other.

"Cheer up, Colonel," he said. "It's only a ten-days' trip." They

moved towards the train and Ernie got in.

Mr. Geddes was telling the Colonel something of the origin and aims of

the Adult School Union in general and of the Peace Party in particular.

"How many of you are going?" asked the Colonel.

"Round about a hundred," his informant answered--"working men and women

mostly, from every county in England. Most trades will be

represented." They would be billeted in Hamburg and Berlin on people

of their own class and their own ideals. And next year their visit

would be returned in strength by their hosts of this year.

"Interesting," said the Colonel. "But may I ask one question?--What

good do you think you'll do?"

"We hope it will do ourselves some good anyhow," Joe answered in fine

fighting mood. "Get to know each other. Draw the two peoples together.

_Nation to nation, land to land._

"Stand oop on the seat, Ernie, and sing em your little Red-Flag

piece.--He sings that nice he do.--And I'll give you a bit of

chocolate."

Ernie did not respond and the Colonel came to his rescue.

"Well, I wish you luck," he sighed. "I wish all well-meaning idealists

luck. But the facts of life are hard; and the idealists usually break

their teeth on them.--Now I must join my colleague."

He moved on, catching up Ruth who had prowled along the platform to see

if Alf was tucked safely away. The Colonel had not seen his companion

since her husband had been up before the Bench.

"Well, how's he getting on?" he asked; and turned shrewdly to Ruth.

"Have you been doing him down at home?" Something suppressed about

Ernie had struck him.

Ruth dropped her eyelids suddenly. For a moment she was silent. Then

she flashed up at him swift brown eyes in which the lovely lights

danced mischievously.

"See I've hung him on the nail," she murmured warily; and nodded her

head with the fierce determination of a child. "And I shan't take him

off yet a bit. He's got to learn, Ern has." She was in delicious

mood, sportive, sprightly, as a young hunter mare turned out into May

pastures after a hard season.

They had come to Alf's carriage. He had taken his seat in a corner and

pretended not to see them. Ruth tapped sharply at the window just

opposite his face.

"Hullo, Alf!" she called and fled.

The little chauffeur rose and followed her swift and retreating figure

down the platform. Far down the train Joe who was leaning out of a

window exchanged words with her as she came up.

"I don't like it, sir," Alf said, low. "Dirty business I call it.

Somebody ought to interfere if pore old Ern won't."

Joe now looked along the train at him with a scowl.

"Ah, you!" came the engineer's scolding voice, loud yet low. "Dirty

tyke! Drop it!"

"Well, between you she ought to be well looked after," muttered the

Colonel getting into the carriage.

A fortnight later the Colonel was being driven home by Alf from a

meeting of the League at Battle. Mrs. Lewknor, whose hostel was

thriving now, had stood him the drive and accompanied him. It was a

perfect evening as they slid along over Willingdon Levels and entered

the outskirts of the town. Opposite the Recreation Ground Alf slowed

down and, slewing round, pointed.

On a platform a man, bareheaded beneath the sky, was addressing a

larger crowd than usually gathered at that spot on Saturday evenings.

"What is it?" asked Mrs. Lewknor.

"The German party back," answered Alf. "That's Burt speaking, and Mr.

Geddes alongside him."

The engineer's voice, brazen from much bawling, and yet sounding

strangely small and unreal under the immense arch of heaven, came to

them across the open.

"We've ate with em; we've lived with em; we've talked with em; and we

can speak for em. I tell you _there can't be war and there won't be

war with such a people_. It'd be the crime of Cain. Brothers we are;

and brothers we remain. And not all the politicians and profiteers and

soldiers can make us other."

The Colonel and Mrs. Lewknor got down and joined the crowd. As they

did so the engineer, who had finished his harangue, was moving a

resolution: That this meeting believes in the Brotherhood of Man and

wishes well to Germany.

"I second that," said the Colonel from the rear of the crowd.

Just then Alf, who had left his car and followed the Colonel, put a

question.

"Did not Lord Roberts say in 1912 at Manchester that Germany would

strike when her hour struck?"

The man on the platform was so furious that he did not even rise from

his chair to reply.

"Yes he did!" he shouted. "And he'd no business to! Direct

provocation it was."

"Will not Germany's hour have struck when the Kiel Canal is open to

Dreadnoughts?" continued the inquisitor smoothly. "And is it not the

fact that the Canal is to be opened for this purpose in the next few

days?"

These questions were greeted with booings mingled with cheers.

Mr. Geddes was rising to reply when Joe Burt leapt to his feet, roused

and roaring.

He said men had the choice between two masters--Fear or Faith?--Which

were we for?--Were we the heirs of Eternity, the children of the

Future, or the slaves and victims of the Past?

"For maself A've made ma choice. A'm not a Christian in the ordinary

sense: A don't attend Church or Chapel, like soom folk. But A believe

we're all members one of another, and that the one prayer which

matters--if said from the heart of men who believe in it and work for

it--is _Our Father_: the Father of Jew and Gentile, English and German.

And ma recent visit to Germany has confirmed me in ma faith in the

people, although A couldna say as much for their rulers. Look about

you! What do you see?--The sons and daughters of God rotting away from

tuberculosis in every slum in Christendom, and the money and labour

that should go to redeeming them spent on altar-cloths and armaments.

Altar-cloths and armaments! Do your rulers never turn their thoughts

and eyes to Calvary? There are plenty of em in your midst and plenty

to see on em if you want to."

The engineer sat down.

"Muck!" said Mrs. Lewknor in her husband's ear.

"I'm not sure," replied the Colonel who had listened attentively; but

he didn't wholely like it. Joe had always been frothy; but of old

beneath the froth there had been sound liquor. Now somehow the Colonel

saw the froth but missed the liquor. To his subtle and critical mind

it seemed that the speaker's fury was neither entirely simulated nor

entirely real. Habit was as much the motive of it as passion. It

seemed to him the expression of an emotion once entirely genuine and

now only partly so. An alloy had corrupted the once pure metal. He

saw as clearly as a woman that Joe was no longer living simply for one

purpose. _Turgid_ his wife had once called the engineer. For the

first time the Colonel realised the aptness of the epithet.

Then he noticed Ruth on the fringe of the crowd. He was surprised: for

it was a long march from Old Town, and neither Ernie nor the children

were with her.

"Come to be converted by the apostles of pacifism, Mrs. Caspar?" he

chaffed.

"No, sir," answered Ruth simply, her eyes on the platform. "I just

come along to hear Joe. That's why I come." Her face lighted

suddenly, "There he is!" she cried.

The engineer had jumped down from the platform and was making straight

for her. Ruth joined him; and the two went off together, rubbing

shoulders.

The Colonel strolled back towards the car: he was thoughtful, even

grave.

Mrs. Lewknor met him with a little smile.

"It's all right, Jocko," she told him. "She's only playing with the

man."

The Colonel shook his head.

"She's put up the shutters, and said she's out--to her own husband.

It's a dangerous game."

"Trust Ruth," replied the other. "She knows her man."

"Perhaps," retorted the Colonel. "Does she know herself?"

CHAPTER XXV

RED IN THE MORNING

Joe Burt's rhetoric might not affect the Colonel greatly; but the

impressions of Mr. Geddes, conveyed to him quietly a few days later in

friendly conversation, were a different matter.

The Presbyterian minister was a scholar, broad-minded, open, honest.

He had moreover finished his education at Berlin University, and had,

as the Colonel knew, ever since his student days maintained touch with

his German friends. Mr. Geddes had come home convinced that Germany

was not seeking a quarrel.

"Hamburg stands to lose by war," he told the Colonel, "And Hamburg

knows it."

"What about Berlin?" the other asked.

"Berlin's militarist," the other admitted. "And Berlin's watching

Ulster as a cat watches a mouse--you find that everywhere; professors,

soldiers, men in the street, even my old host, Papa Schumacher, the

carpenter, was agog about it.--Was Ulster in Shetland?--Was the Ulster

Army black?--Would it attack England?--Well, our War Office must know

all about the stir there. And that makes me increasingly confident

that something's happened to eliminate whatever German menace there may

ever have been."

"Exactly what Trupp was saying the other day," the Colonel commented.

"Something's happened. You and I don't know what. You and I never do.

Bonar Law and the rest of em wouldn't be working up a Civil War on this

scale unless they were certain Germany was muzzled; and what's more the

Government wouldn't let em. The politicians may be fools, but they

aren't lunatics."

A few evenings after this talk as the Colonel sat after supper in the

loggia with his wife, overlooking the sea wandering white beneath the

moon, he ruminated between puffs upon the political situation, domestic

and international, with a growing sense of confidence at his heart.

Indeed there was much to confirm his hopes.

The year had started with Lloyd George's famous pronouncement that the

relations between Germany and England had never been brighter. Then

again there was the point Trupp had made: the astonishing attitude of

the Unionist leaders, and the still more astonishing tolerance of the

Government. Lastly, and far more significant from the old soldier's

point of view, there was the action of Mr. Geddes's mystery-man who was

no mystery-man at all. Everybody on the outermost edge of affairs knew

the name of the General in question. Every porter at the military

clubs could tell you who he was. Asquith had never made any bones

about it. Redmond and Dillon had named him to Mr. Geddes. Yet if

anybody could gauge the military situation on the Continent it was

surely the man who, as Mr. Geddes had truly pointed out, had

specialized in co-ordinating our Expeditionary Force with the Armies of

France in the case of an attack by Germany. There he was sitting at

the War Office, as he had sat for years past, in touch with the English

Cabinet, _lié_ with the French General Staff, his ear at the telephone

listening to every rumour in every camp in Europe, and primed by a

Secret Service so able that it had doped the public at home and every

chancellery abroad to believe that it was the last word in official

stupidity. This was the man who had thrown in his lot with the gang of

speculating politicians who had embarked upon the campaign that had so

undermined discipline in the commissioned ranks of the Army that for

the first time in history a British Government could no longer trust

its officers to do their duty without question.

Now no one could say this man was hot-headed; nobody could say he was a

fool. Moreover he was a distinguished soldier and to call his

patriotism in question was simply ridiculous, as even Geddes admitted.

The Colonel had throughout steadfastly refused to discuss with friend

or foe the ethics of this officer's attitude, and its effect on the

reputation of the Army. But of one thing he was certain. No man in

that officer's position of trust and responsibility would gamble with

the destinies of his country--a gamble that might involve hundreds and

thousands of innocent lives. His action might be reprehensible--many

people did not hesitate to describe it in plainer terms; but he would

never have taken it in view of its inevitable reaction on military and

political opinion on the Continent unless he had been certain that the

German attack, which he of all men had preached for so long as

inevitable, would not mature or would not mature as yet.

What then was the only possible inference?

"Something had happened."

The words his mind had been repeating uttered themselves aloud.

"What's that, my Jocko?" asked Mrs. Lewknor.

The Colonel stretched his long legs, took his pipe out of his mouth,

and sighed.

"If nothing has happened by Christmas 1915 I shall resign the

secretaryship of the League and return with joy to the garden and the

history of the regiment." He rose in the brilliant dusk like a

spectre. "Come on, my lass!" he said. "I would a plan unfold."

She took his arm and they strolled across the lawn past the hostel

towards the solid darkness of the Downs which enfolded them.

The long white house stood still and solitary in the great coombe that

brimmed with darkness and was crowned with multitudinous stars. Washed

by the moon, and warm with a suggestion of human busyness, the hostel

seemed to be stirring in a happy sleep, as though conscious of the good

work it was doing.

Mrs. Lewknor paused to look at it, a sense of comfort at her heart.

The children's beds out on the balcony could be seen; and the nurses

moving in the rooms behind. Groups of parents, down from London for

the week-end, strolled the lawn. A few older patients still lounged in

deck-chairs on the terrace, while from within the house came the sound

of laughter and someone playing rag-time. The little lady regarded the

work of her hands not without a just sense of satisfaction. The hostel

was booming. It was well-established now and had long justified

itself. She was doing good work and earning honest money. This year

she would not only pay for the grandson's schooling, but she hoped at

Christmas to make a start in reducing the mortgage.

"Well," she said, "what about it now, doubting Thomas?"

"Not so bad for a beginning," admitted the Colonel.

"Who's going to send Toby to Eton?" asked the lady, cruelly triumphant.

"And how?"

"Why, I am," replied the Colonel brightly--"out of my pension of five

bob a week minus income tax."

Hugging each other's arms, they climbed the bank to the vegetable

garden, which six years before had been turned up by the plough from

the turf which may have known the tread of Caesar's legionaries. The

raw oblong which had then patched the green with a lovely mauve was

already peopled with trees and bushes, and rank with green stuff. The

Colonel paused and sniffed.

"Mrs. Simpkins coming on ... I long to be back among my cabbages ... I

bet if I took these Orange Pippins in hand myself I'd win first prize

at the East Sussex Show.... That duffer, old Lingfield--He's no good."

They turned off into the yard where Mrs. Lewknor was erecting a garage,

now nearly finished. The Colonel paused and stared up at it.

"My dear," he said, "I've got an idea. We'll dig the Caspars out of

that hole in Old Town and put them in the rooms above the garage. I'll

take him on as gardener and odd-job man. He's a first-rate rough

gardener. He was showing me and Bobby his allotment only the other

day. And as you know, the solitary ambition of my old age has been to

have an old Hammer-man about me."

"And mine for you, my Jocko," mused Mrs. Lewknor, far more wary than

her impulsive husband. "There are only three rooms though, and she's

got four children already and is still only thirty or so."

The Colonel rattled on, undismayed.

"He'll be half a mile from the nearest pub here," he said.

"Yes," replied Mrs. Lewknor--"and further from the clutches of that

Burt man, who's twice as bad as any pub."

"Ha, ha!" jeered the Colonel. "So you're coming round to my way of

thinking at last, are you?"

Next evening, the Colonel, eager always as a youth to consummate his

purpose, bicycled with his wife through Paradise to Old Town.

At the corner opposite the Rectory they met Alf Caspar, who was clearly

in high feather. The Colonel dismounted for a word with the convener

of the League.

"Well, Caspar," he said. "So you've got your licence from the Watch

Committee, I hear."

Alf purred.

"Yes, sir. All O.K.--down to the men that'll blow the horn to give em

a bit o music."

"When do you start?"

"Bank Holiday, sir. I was just coming up to tell mother we were

through. Last char-a-banc came this afternoon--smart as paint."

The Colonel and Mrs. Lewknor walked on towards Church Street. At

Billing's Corner, waiting for the bus, was Edward Caspar. He was

peering at a huge placard advertising expeditions by Caspar's

Road-touring Syndicate, to start on August 3rd.

The Colonel, mischievous as a child, must cross the road to his old

Trinity compeer.

"Your boy's getting on, Mr. Caspar," he observed quietly.

The old man made a clucking like a disturbed hen.

"Dreadful," he said. "Dreadful."

Mrs. Lewknor laid two fingers on his arm.

"Mr. Caspar," she said.

He glanced down at her like a startled elephant. Then he seemed to

thrill as though a wind of the spirit was blowing through him. The

roses of a forgotten youth bloomed for a moment in his mottled cheeks.

An incredible delicacy and tenderness inspired the face of this flabby

old man.

"Miss Solomons!" he said, and lifting her little hand kissed it.

The Colonel withdrew discreetly; and in a moment his wife joined him,

the lights dancing in her eyes.

"Pretty stiff!" grinned the Colonel--"in the public street and all."

They turned down Borough Lane by the _Star_ and knocked Ruth up.

She was ironing and did not seem best pleased to see the visitors.

Neither did Joe Burt, who was sitting by the fire with little Alice on

his knees.

The little lady ignored the engineer.

"Where are the other children?" she asked Ruth pleasantly.

"Where they oughrer be," Joe answered--"in bed."

The Colonel came to the rescue.

"Is Caspar anywhere about?" he asked.

"He's on his allotment, I reck'n," Ruth answered coldly. "Mr. Burt

joins him there most in general every evening."

"Yes," said Joe, "and was on the road now when A was interfered with."

He kissed little Alice, put her down, and rose. "Good evening,

Colonel." And he went out sullenly.

Mrs. Lewknor, aware that negotiations had not opened auspiciously, now

broached her project. Ruth, steadily ironing, never lifted her eyes.

She was clearly on the defensive, suspicious in her questions, evasive

and noncommittal in her replies. The Colonel became impatient.

"Mrs. Caspar might accept our offer--to oblige," he said at last.

Ruth deliberately laid down her iron, and challenged him: she said

nothing.

Mrs. Lewknor felt the tension.

"Well, think it over, will you?" she said to Ruth. "There's no hurry."

She went out and the Colonel followed.

"That man's the biggest humbug unhung even for a Labour man," snapped

the little lady viciously. "Preaching the Kingdom of Heaven on earth

and then this!"

"I'm not sure," replied the Colonel, "not sure. I think he's much the

same as most of us--an honest man who's run off the rails."

They were bicycling slowly along Victoria Drive. On the far side of

the allotments right under the wall of the Downs, blue in the evening,

a solitary figure was digging.

"The out-cast," said the Colonel.

Mrs. Lewknor dismounted from her bicycle and began wheeling it along

the unfenced earthen path between the gardens, towards the digger.

Ernie barely looked up, barely answered her salutation, wiping the

sweat off his brow with the back of his hand as he continued his

labour. The lady retired along the way she had come.

"There's something Christ-like about the feller," said the Colonel

quietly as they reached the road.

"Yes," the little lady answered. "Only he's brought his troubles on

his own head."

The Colonel drew up in haste.

"Hullo," he said, and began to read a newspaper placard, for which

class of literature he had a consuming passion.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE AVALANCHE MOVES

The placard, seen by the Colonel, announced the opening of a new scene

in the Irish tragedy.

The King had summoned a Conference at Buckingham Palace in order if

possible to find a solution of the difficulty. When the Conference met

the King opened it in person and, speaking as a man weighed down by

anxiety, told the members that for weeks he had watched with deep

misgivings the trend of events in Ireland. "To-day the cry of Civil

War is on the lips of the most responsible of my people," he said; and

had added, so Mr. Trupp told the Colonel, in words not reported in the

Press, that the European situation was so ominous as imperatively to

demand a solution of our domestic differences in order that the nation

might present a solid front to the world.

"And I bet he knows," ended the old surgeon, as he said good-bye on the

steps of the Manor-house.

"I bet he does," replied the Colonel. "Thank God there's one man in

the country who's above party politics." He climbed thoughtfully on to

the top of the bus outside the _Star_, and, as it chanced, found

himself sitting beside Ernie, who was deep in his paper and began to

talk.

"They ain't got it all their own way, then," he said, grimly. "I see

the Irish Guards turned out and lined the rails and cheered Redmond as

he came down Birdcage Walk back from the Conference."

"I don't like it," replied the Colonel gloomily. "Rotten discipline.

The Army has no politics."

"What about the officers at the Curragh?" asked Ernie almost

aggressively. "They begun it. Give the men a chance too."

"Two wrong things don't make a right," retorted the Colonel sharply.

Ernie got down at the station without a word. Was it an accident the

Colonel, sensitive as a girl, asked himself? was it a deliberate

affront? What was the world coming to? That man an old Hammer-man!

One of Bobby Bermondsey yahoos wouldn't treat him so!

Indeed the avalanche was now sliding gradually down the mountain-side,

gathering way as it went, to overwhelm the smiling villages sleeping

peacefully in the valley.

Next day oppressed by imminent catastrophe, the Colonel, climbing

Beau-nez in the afternoon to take up his habitual post of vigil by the

flag-staff, found Joe Burt and Mr. Geddes already there.

Both men, he marked, greeted him almost sombrely.

"It looks to me very serious," he said. "Austria means to go for

Serbia, that's clear; and if she does Russia isn't going to stand by

and see Serbia swallowed up. What d'you think, Mr. Geddes?"

The other answered him on that note of suppressed indignation which

characterised increasingly his utterance when he touched on this often

discussed subject.

"I think Colonel, what I've thought all along," he answered: "that if

we're in the eve of a European eruption the attitude of the officers of

the British Army is perfectly _inexplicable_."

He was firm almost to ferocity.

"Hear! hear!" growed Joe.

"But they don't know, poor beggars!" cried the Colonel, exasperated yet

appealing. He felt as he had felt throughout the controversy that he

was fighting with his hands tied behind his back. "Do be just, Mr.

Geddes. They are merely the playthings of the politicians. O, if you

only knew the regimental officer as I know him! He's like that St.

Bernard dog over there by the coast-guard station--the most foolish and

faithful creature on God's earth. Smith pats him on the head and tells

him he's a good dorg, and he'll straightway beg for the privilege of

being allowed to die for Smith. What's a poor ignorant devil of a

regimental officer quartered at Aldershot or the Curragh or Salisbury

Plain likely to know of the European situation?"

The tall minister was not to be appeased.

"Ignorance seems to me a poor justification for insubordination in an

Army officer," he said. "And even if one is to accept that excuse for

the regimental officers, one can't for a man like the Director of

Military Strategics, who is said to have specialised in war with

Germany. Yet that is the man who has co-operated, to put it at the

mildest, in arming a huge rebel force with guns from the very country

he has always affirmed _we're bound to fight_. It's stabbing the

Empire in the back, neither more nor less."

He was pale, almost dogmatic.

Then Joe barged in, surly and brutal.

"The whole truth is," he said, "that the officers of the British Army

to-day don't know how to spell the word Duty. Havelock did. Gordon

did. And all the world respected them accordingly. These men don't.

They've put their party before their coontry as A've always said they

would when the pinch came."

The Colonel was trembling slightly.

"If the test comes," he said, "we shall see."

"The test _has_ come," retorted the other savagely, "And we _have_

seen."

The Colonel walked swiftly away. In front of him half a mile from the

flag-staff, he marked a man standing waist-deep in a clump of gorse.

There was something so forlorn about the figure that the Colonel

approached, only to find that it was Ernie, who on his side, seeing the

other, quitted the ambush, and came slowly towards him. To the Colonel

the action seemed a cry of distress. All his resentment at the

incident on the bus melted away in a great compassion.

"She and me used to lay there week-ends when first we married," Ern

said dreamily, nodding towards the gorse he had just left.

"And she and you will live _there_ for many happy years, I hope,"

replied the Colonel warmly, pointing towards the garage in the coombe

beneath them.

Ernie regarded him inquiringly.

"What's that, sir?"

"Aren't you coming?"

"Where to?"

"My garage?"

Ernie did not understand and the Colonel explained.

"Didn't Mrs. Caspar tell you?"

"Ne'er a word," the other answered blankly.

The Colonel dropped down to Carlisle Road. There Mr. Trupp picked him

up and drove him on to the club for tea. Fresh news from Ulster was

just being ticked off on the tape. An hour or two before, a rebel

unit, the East Belfast regiment of volunteers, some 5,000 strong, armed

with Mausers imported from Germany, and dragging machine-guns warm from

Krupp's, had marched through the streets of Belfast. The police had

cleared the way for the insurgents; and soldiers of the King, officers

and men, had looked on with amusement.

The Colonel turned away.

"Roll up the map of Empire!" he said. "We'd better send a deputation

to Lajput Rai and the Indian Home Rulers and beg them to spare us a few

baboos to govern us. Its an abdication of Government."

He went into the ante-room.

There was Stanley Bessemere back from Ulster once more. As usual he

sat behind a huge cigar, retailing amidst roars of laughter to a

sympathetic audience his exploits and those of his caracoling chief.

The European situation had not overclouded him.

"There's going to be a Civil War and Smith and I are going to be in it.

We shall walk through the Nationalists like so much paper. They've got

no arms; and they've got no guts either." He laughed cheerily. "Bad

men. Bad men."

The Colonel stood, an accusing figure in the door, and eyed the

fair-haired giant with cold resentment.

"You know Kuhlmann from the German Embassy is over with your people in

Belfast?" he asked.

The other waved an airy cigar.

"You can take it from me, my dear Colonel, that he's not," he answered.

"I'll take nothing of the sort from you," the Colonel answered acridly.

"He's there none the less because he's there incognito."

The young man winced; and the Colonel withdrew.

"Jove!" he said. "I'd just like to know how far these beggars have

trafficked in treason with Germany."

"Not at all," replied Mr. Trupp. "They've humbugged emselves into

believing they're 'running great risks in a great cause,' as they

say--or doing the dirty to make a party score, as you and I'd put it.

That's all."

The Colonel walked home, oppressed. After supper, as he sat with his

wife in the loggia, he told her of Ruth's strange secretiveness in the

matter of the garage.

"There she is!" said Mrs. Lewknor quietly nodding over her work. Ruth,

indeed, was strolling slowly along the cliff from the direction of the

Meads in the gorgeous evening. Opposite the hostel a track runs down

to the beach beneath. At that point she paused as though waiting for

somebody; and then disappeared from view.

Ten minutes later Mrs. Lewknor spoke again in the same hushed voice.

"Here's the other!"

The Colonel looked up. Joe was coming rapidly along the cliff from the

direction of Beau-nez. He too disappeared down the way Ruth had

already taken.

The Colonel removed his glasses.

"I shall give em a quarter of an hour to make emselves quite

comfortable," he muttered "and then--"

"Spy," said Mrs. Lewknor.

A moment later, Anne, the parlour-maid, showed Mr. Alfred Caspar on to

the loggia.

The face of the Manager of Caspar's Syndicate was very long. Alf,

cherishing the simple faith that the Colonel because he had been a

soldier must be in the secrets certainly of the War Office and possibly

of the Government, had come to ask what he thought of the European

situation.

The Colonel was not reassuring, but he refused to commit himself. Alf

turned away almost sullenly.

"See, it matters to me," he said. "I start Bank Holiday. Don't want

no wars interfering with my Syndicate."

"It matters to us all a bit," replied the Colonel.

Alf departed aggrieved, and obviously suggesting that the Colonel was

to blame. He walked away with downward eyes. Suddenly the Colonel saw

him pause, creep to the cliff-edge, and peep over. Then he came back

to the hostel in a stealthy bustle.

"Go and look for yourself then, sir, if you don't believe me!" he cried

in the tone of one rebuffing an unjust accusation. "You're a

Magistrate. Police ought to stop it I say. Public 'arlotry I call it."

The Colonel's face became cold and very lofty. "No, Caspar. I don't

do that sort of thing," he said.

Alf, muttering excuses, departed. The Colonel watched him walk along

the dotted coast-guard track and disappear round the shoulder of the

coombe. Then he rose and strolled out to meet Ernie who was

approaching.

As he did so he heard voices from the beach beneath him and peeped

over. Ruth, on her hands and knees amid the chalk boulders at the foot

of the cliff, was smoothing the sand and spreading something on it.

A few yards away Joe was standing at the edge of the tide, which was

almost high, flinging pebbles idly into the water. Some earth

dislodged from the Colonel's feet and made a tiny land-slide. The

woman on her hands and knees in the growing dusk beneath looked up and

saw the man standing above her. She made no motion, kneeling there;

facing him, fighting him, mocking him.

"Having a nice time together?" he asked genially.

"Just going to, thank-you kindly," Ruth replied and resumed her

occupation of sweeping with her hands.

The Colonel turned to find Ernie standing beside him and burning his

battle-flare.

"Lucky I see you coming, sir," he said, trembling still. "Else I might

ha done him a mischief."

"Who?"

"Alf. Insultin her and me. Met him just along back there in Meads by

the _Ship_."

"Go easy, Caspar," said the Colonel quietly. "I remember that

left-handed punch of yours of old. It's a good punch too; but keep it

for the enemies of your country."

Ernie was hugging a big biscuit-box under his arm.

"What you got there?" asked the other.

Ernie grinned a thought sheepishly.

"It's Joe's birthday," he said. "We are having a bit of a do under the

cliff."

He hovered a moment as though about to impart a confidence to the

other; and then disappeared down the little track to the beach beneath

at the trot, his shoulders back, and heels digging in, carrying a

slither of chalk with him.

"'Come into my parlour,' said the spider to the fly," muttered the

Colonel as he turned into Undercliff. "Poor fly!"

CHAPTER XXVII

THE GROWING ROAR

The avalanche, once started, was moving fast now. The Irish

Nationalists who had lost faith in the power of the Government and the

will of the Army to protect them, had decided at last to arm in view of

the default of the law that they might resist invasion from the

North-East.

On the very day after the parade of insurrectionaries in Belfast a

famous Irishman, soldier, sailor, statesman, man of letters, who in his

young manhood had served throughout the long-drawn South African War

the Empire which had refused liberty to his country alone of all her

Colonies, and in the days to come, though now in his graying years, was

to be the hero of one of the most desperate ventures of the Great War,

ran the little _Asgarde_, her womb heavy with strange fruit, into Howth

Harbour while the Sunday bells peeled across the quiet waters, calling

to church.

The arms were landed and marched under Nationalist escort towards

Dublin. The police and a company of King's Own Scottish Borderers met

the party and blocked the way. After a parley the Nationalists

dispersed and the soldiers marched back to Dublin through a hostile

demonstration. Mobbed, pelted, provoked to the last degree, at

Bachelor's Walk, on the quay, where owing to the threatening attitude

of the crowd they had been halted, the men took the law into their own

hands and fired without the order of their officer. Three people were

killed.

The incident led to the first quarrel that had taken place between

Ernie and Joe Burt in a friendship now of some years standing.

"Massacre by the military," said Joe. "That's what it is."

The old soldier in Ernie leapt to the alert.

"Well, what would you have had em do?" he cried hotly. "Lay down and

let emselves be kicked to death?"

"If the soldiers want to shoot at all let em shoot the armed rebels,"

retorted Joe.

"Let em shoot the lot, I says," answered Ernie. "I'm sick of it.

Ireland! Ireland! Ireland all the time. No one's no time to think of

poor old England. Yet we've our troubles too, I reck'n."

Joe went out surlily without saying good-night. When he was gone, Ruth

who had been listening, looked up at Ernie, a faint glow of amusement,

interest, surprise, in her eyes.

"First time ever I knaw'd you and Joe get acrarst each other," she said.

Ernie, biting home on his pipe, did not meet her gaze.

"First," he said. "Not the last, may be."

She put down dish-cloth and dish, came to him, and put her hand on his

shoulder.

"Let me look at you, Ern!"

His jaw was set, almost formidable: he did not speak.

"Kiss me, Ern," she said.

For a moment his eyes hovered on her face.

"D'you mean anything?" he asked.

"Not that," she answered and dropped her hand.

"Then to hell with you!" he cried with a kind of desperate savagery and

thrust her brutally away. "Sporting with a man!"

He put on his cap and went out.

In a few minutes he was back. Paying no heed to her, he sat down at

the kitchen-table and wrote a note, which he put on the mantel-piece.

"You can give this to Alf next time he comes round for the rent," he

said.

"What is it?" asked Ruth.

"Notice," Ern answered. "We're going to shift to the Colonel's garage."

Ruth gave battle instantly.

"Who are?" she cried, facing him.

He met her like a hedge of bayonets.

"I am," he answered. "Me and my children."

The volley fired on Bachelor's Walk, as it echoed down the long valleys

of the world, seemed to serve the purpose of Joshua's trumpet.

Thereafter all the walls of civilisation began to crash down one after

another with the roar of ruined firmaments.

Forty-eight hours later Austria declared war.

On Thursday Mr. Asquith, speaking in a crowded and quiet house,

proposed the postponement of the Home Rule Bill.

Even the hotheads were sober now.

Stanley Bessemere discarded his uniform of an Ulster Volunteer in

haste, and turned up at the club in chastened mood. He was blatant

still, a little furtive, notably less truculent. The martial refrain

_Smith and I_ had given place to the dulcet coo _We must all pull

together_.

"Is he ashamed?" Mrs. Lewknor asked her husband, hushed herself, and

perhaps a little guilty.

"My dear," the Colonel replied. "Shame is not a word known to your

politician. He's thoroughly frightened. All the politicians are.

There're bluffing for all they're worth."

On the Saturday morning the Colonel went to the club. The junior

member for Beachbourne, who was there, and for once uncertain of

himself, showed himself childishly anxious to forget and forgive.

"Now look here, Colonel!" he said, charming and bright. "If there's an

almighty bust-up now, shall you _really_ blame it all on Ulster?

Honest Injun!"

The Colonel met him with cold flippancy.

"Every little helps," he said. "A whisper'll start an avalanche, as

any mountaineer could tell you."

He took up the _Nation_ of August 1st and began to read the editor's

impassioned appeal to the country to stand out. The Colonel read the

article twice over. There could be no question of the white-hot

sincerity of the writer, and none that he voiced the sentiments of an

immense and honest section of the country.

He put the paper down and walked home.

"If we don't go in," he said calmly to his wife at luncheon, "all I can

say is, that I shall turn my back on England for ever and go and hide

my head for the rest of my days on the borders of Thibet."

In those last days of peace good men and true agonised in their various

ways. Few suffered more than the Colonel; none but his wife knew the

agony of his doubt.

Then Mr. Trupp telephoned to say that Germany had sent an ultimatum to

Russia, and that France was mobilising. Mr. Cambon had interviewed the

King. The Government was still wavering.

The Colonel's course was evident. The little organisation for which he

was responsible must express itself, if only in the shrill sharp voice

of a mosquito. A meeting of the League must be convened. Tingling

with hope, doubt, fear, shame, he set off in the evening to interview

Alfred Caspar. Swiftly he crossed the golf-links and turned into

Saffrons Croft. There he paused.

It was one of those unforgettable evenings magnificently calm, which

marked with triumphant irony the end of the world. The green park with

its cluster of elms presented its usual appearance on a Saturday

afternoon. The honest thump of the ball upon the bat, so dear to

English hearts, resounded on every side: the following cry--Run it out!

the groups of youths sprawling about the scorers, the lounging

spectators. Not a rumour of the coming storm had touched those serene

hearts. Close to him a bevy of women and children were playing a kind

of rounders. The batter was a big young woman whom he recognised at

once as Ruth.

One of the the fielders was little Alice scudding about the surface of

green on thin black legs like a water-beetle on a pond. Then Ernie saw

him and came sauntering towards him, a child clinging solemnly to one

finger of each hand. There was an air of strain about the old

Hammer-man, as of one waiting on the alert for a call, that

distinguished him, so the Colonel thought, from the gay throng.

"What about it, sir?" he asked gravely.

"It's coming, Caspar," the Colonel answered. "That's my belief."

"And I shan't be sorry if it does," said Ernie with a quiet

vindictiveness.

"Shall you go?" asked the Colonel. He knew the other's time as a

reservist was up.

"Sha'n't I?" Ernie answered with something like a snort.

The Colonel was not deceived. It was not the patriot, not the old

soldier, who had uttered that cry of distress: it was the human being,

bruised and suffering, and anxious to vent his pain in violence on

something or somebody, no matter much who.

"Yes, sir, I shall go, if it's only as cook in the Army Service Corps."

The Colonel shook his head.

"If it comes," he said, "every fighting man'll be wanted in his right

place. Would you like to rejoin the old battalion at Aldershot, if I

can work it for you? Then you'd go out with the Expeditionary Force."

Ernie's eyes gleamed.

"Ah, just wouldn't I?" he said.

Just then there was a shout from the players. Ruth was out and

retired. She came towards them, glowing, laughing, her fingers

touching her hair to order. She was thirty now, but at that moment she

did not look twenty-five. Then she saw the Colonel and deliberately

turned away. Susie and Jenny pursued their mother.

The Colonel walked off through the groups of white-clad players towards

Alf's garage in the Goffs. A tall man was standing at the gate on to

Southfields Road, contemplating the English scene with austere gaze.

It was Royal--the man who would know.

"You think it's going to be all right?" asked the Colonel so keen as to

forget his antipathy.

"Heaven only knows with this Government," the other replied. "I've

just been on the telephone. Haldane's going back to the War Office,

they say."

"Thank God for it!" cried the Colonel.

His companion shrugged.

"Henry Wilson's in touch with Maxse and the Conservative press," he

said. "He's getting at the Opposition. There's to be a meeting at

Lansdowne House to-night. H.W.'s going to ginger em."

The Colonel looked away.

"And what are you doing down here?" he asked.

"They sent me down to Newhaven last night--embarkation. I'm off in two

minutes." He jerked his head towards a racing car standing outside the

garage, white with dust. "Got to catch the 7 o'clock at Lewes, and be

back at the War Office at 9 p.m. An all-night sitting, I expect."

That austere gaze of his returned to the playing-fields. "Little they

know what they're in for," he said, as though to himself.

For the first time the Colonel found something admirable, almost

comforting, in the hardness of his old adjutant. He followed the

other's gaze and then said quietly, almost tenderly, as one breathing a

secret in the ear of a dying man.

"That's the child, Royal--that one in the white frock and black legs

running over by the elms. And that's her mother in the brown

dress--the one waving. And there's her husband under the trees--that

shabby feller."

Royal arched his fine eyebrows in faint surprise.

"Is she married?" he asked coolly.

"Yes," replied the Colonel. "The feller who seduced her wouldn't do

the straight thing by her."

Again the eyebrows spoke, this time with an added touch of sarcasm,

almost of insolence.