The Restless Masses.
What sort of man was this? "A man of God" and yet a murderer! A man
without a spark of patriotism. A man without a country. What a curiosity
in these days, when at the first blast of war almost every man on earth
ranged himself beneath a nation's flag be it for strife or neutral!
Here was a man:--
Whose heart had ne'er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he had turned,
From wandering on a foreign strand--
And the rhyming lines kept jogging through my brain as I trudged behind
that long straight figure in black.
A turn of the road brought a house in sight and my companion quickened
his steps. I hung back as he went up to the house. He turned, looked
around, and waved me on. I passed by and waited some distance along the
road.
An hour later he came up. He brought some brown bread and salt meat to
me, and even better, some news of what was doing; and he told it to me
as I sat and ate upon the bank. I remember, as he talked, and I kept
watching far to the west where some aeroplanes hovered above the now
greening tops of the forest hills.
"You get the truth from country folk," he said. "They win their news
first hand from wounded fathers and sons. In the city the war news is
ground, sifted, and only what is of little interest is dispersed. There
have been great deeds. The German armies hold the line between Ghent and
Mulhausen and are wearing out the Allies by exhaustion. Many armies have
reinforced the British and the French, but the German lines hold fast
and wear out the Allies. The Russians are still upon the defensive in
Poland. London is in a panic as it has been attacked by Zeppelins, and
the German Fleet has come out from Kiel and claims a victory. That news,
of course, you can doubt, as it does not come first hand. The Allies,
however, threaten Constantinople and the Turkish armies are demoralised.
But the greatest of the news," and here the fire came into his face
again, "is that the workers of the world are uneasy. Strikes rage in
England, in Australia, in Canada, in the United States, and--yes in
Germany. The English shipyard workers on the Clyde and at Southampton
have at various times since March held up British naval construction;
and it is now August. There is a universal demand for shorter hours with
increased wages, and food prices are high. The Australian workers are
striking against their own Labor Governments, and refusing to fit out
troopships unless they get treble pay for night work, and in Germany the
workers are rising because they are tiring of forced employment. All the
civil, as well as military factories, have been working treble shifts;
and huge stocks of all kinds of manufactures have accumulated everywhere
and cannot be distributed. Workers are losing heart. This war is
stretching out too long for them. It was to be a short, sharp war, and
they now fear time is on the side of the Allies, so a general uprising
is threatened. But alas--alas!" he continued as if to himself, "this
news is a fortnight old."
Then he turned to me with anxious face.
"I knew not of these things when I went on this road to Coblenz," he
said. "For fourteen days I had been in silent seclusion in a monastery
at Deutz, as each of our brotherhood must do once a year; and now I must
retrace my steps. I feel this new rebellion is a call to me. Listen, my
new found friend," and he peered into my face. "I left the world two
years ago. I could see that a change in great human conditions was
inevitable. I was what you call a labor leader. I went into a monastery
for two purposes. I can confess to you. It is safe, as we will never
meet again, and all ideas of justice will upend in the coming cataclysm.
Listen I say," and he gripped my wrist with a vice-like clutch of his
bony fingers. "I went into a monastery to escape the suspicion that I
had removed one whom we felt would bring much unhappiness upon the
earth. I went into a monastery to think. The turmoil of a busy worker's
life gave little opportunity for serious thought. I felt the day was
coming when the workers of the world would rise. I wanted to study the
proposition and its possibilities with all the clearness of vision that
the calmness of a monastery could give. I feel now that the day is
coming fast. It is near. All the signs of the approaching storm are
being manifested. I am ready.
"Some clear-visioned people in high office saw the portents in the sky
and feared the toppling of the thrones, so threw this war into the ring
to give the toilers opportunity for their heated passions, but this war
will be like blood to a tiger, it will quicken up the fighting spirit of
the animal, and on those who forced this war it will recoil with awful
effect. They saw the labor storm approach and put off the evil day. It
was like neglecting to physic the human body--the longer deferred, the
worse the disease.
"I am going back again," he continued. "You had better go on into
France. Your trouble will be to cross the Rhine."
He paused awhile and looked pityingly at me.
"Alas!" he continued. "You're a poor fool in these wild parts with only
your English and your bad French."
He took a sheet of paper from his pocket and sketched a rough map upon
it.
"You can cross the Rhine," he went on, "just here at Neuwied, it is but
a mile along this road, then you go directly west to the Coblenz-Treves
Road, which follows the Mozelle. That road will take you to Luxembourg;
but keep away from Coblenz. They tell me at the farmhouse that it is
full of wounded soldiers and others are coming in by the Treves railway
that skirts the road you will take. Beyond the Rhine there is much
danger to you, but take this," and he wrote some words on the back of
the map. "God pardon me, for I know it is not all truth. Those words are
German--they say you are 'deaf and dumb' and that 'you are going to the
front.'"
"Then you are going back to Cologne?" I asked.
"Yes," he said, "and beyond. I know not yet--perhaps to Berlin."
A distant bell chimed.
"The Angelus," he said, standing and bowing his head in prayer. Though
not of his religion I also removed my hat and stood beside that man of
deep mystery. His steel grey hair and care-lined face seemed foreign to
his strong built frame and iron hand grip, and as he prayed upon the
road, my thoughts rolled back to Cologne and dwelt upon that brave girl
whose friendship had made so sweet my prison days in that City of the
Bridges. I pictured my last vision of her upon the hill, wafting me a
farewell.
The man of prayer interrupted my reverie.
"It is now good-bye, Australian," he said. "Though all countries are
alike to me, your nation seems to promise much. It leads the world in
justice for the men who toil, and perhaps that is why I would like to
see you safely out of this maelstrom of human passions; but our ways
must part just here--good-bye!"
He left me as the evening shadows began to encircle the hills, and
though I felt a strange feeling of loneliness as he passed up the road
and out of sight, I felt brave and cheerful--for my friend had taken a
love-letter to Cologne for me.