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[Frontispiece: He Moved a Step Nearer the Steel Rail.]
THE
MEN WHO WROUGHT
By
RIDGWELL CULLUM
_Author of "The Night Riders," "The Way of the Strong," "The Law
Breakers," etc._
PHILADELPHIA
GEORGE W. JACOBS & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1916, by
George W. Jacobs & Company
_All rights reserved_
Printed in U. S. A.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
The Golden Woman
The Law-Breakers
The Way of the Strong
The Twins of Suffering Creek
The Night-Riders
The One-Way Trail
The Trail of the Axe
The Sheriff of Dyke Hole
The Watchers of the Plains
CONTENTS
I. The Danger
II. A Strange Meeting
III. The Mystery
IV. Mr. Charles Smith
V. The Lure
VI. The Old Mill Cove
VII. On the Grey North Sea
VIII. Borga
IX. The Friendly Deep
X. The Future
XI. Back at Dorby Towers
XII. Kuhlhafen
XIII. News
XIV. "Kamerads"
XV. The Ineradicable Strain
XVI. Enemy Movements
XVII. The Crouch of the Tiger
XVIII. From Beneath the Waters
XIX. The Tiger Springs
XX. Bar-Leighton
XXI. Enemy Movements
XXII. A Means of Escape
XXIII. The Wreck at Dorby
XXIV. Ruxton Arrives at a Great Decision
XXV. The Sweetness of Life
XXVI. Ruxton Wins a Trick
XXVII. The Week-End Begins
XXVIII. The Week-End
XXIX. The Close of the Week-End
XXX. Gazing Upon a New World
XXXI. After Twelve Months
ILLUSTRATIONS
He moved a step nearer the rail . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
Out of the grey waters rose the submersible
"Go on," he said sharply
THE MEN WHO WROUGHT
CHAPTER I
THE DANGER
"Amongst the many uncertainties which this deplorable, patched-up peace
has brought us, there is, at least, one significant certainty, my boy.
It's the inventor. He's buzzing about our heads like a fly in
summer-time, and he's just about as--sticky."
Sir Andrew Farlow sighed. His sigh was an expression of relief; relief
at the thought that he and his son, dining together at Dorby Towers for
the first time since the dissolution of Parliament had released the
latter from his political duties, had at last reached the end of a long
discussion of the position brought about by the hopelessly patched-up
peace, which, for the moment, had suspended the three years of terrible
hostilities which had hurled the whole of Europe headlong over the
precipice of ruin.
The great ship-owner toyed with the delicate stem of his liquor glass.
There was a smile in his keen blue eyes. But it was a smile without
lightness of heart to support it.
"Yes, I know. They've been busy enough throughout the war--and to some
purpose. Now we have a breathing space they'll spread like a--plague."
Ruxton Farlow sipped his coffee. The weight of the recent discussion
was still oppressing him. His mind was full of the appalling threat
which the whole world knew to be overshadowing the future.
The dinner was drawing to its close. The butler, grown old in Sir
Andrew's service, had finally withdrawn. The great Jacobean dining-hall
of Dorby Towers, with its aged oak beams and beautifully carved
panelling, was lost in the dim shadows cast by the carefully shaded
table lights. Father and son were occupying only the extreme end of the
dining-table, which had, at some far-distant age, served to bear the
burden of the daily meals of half a hundred monks. There were no other
lights in the room, and even the figures of the two diners were only
illuminated by the reflected glow from the spotless damask on the
table, a fashion to which the conservative habits of the household
still ardently clung. It was a fitting setting for such a meeting as
the present.
Sir Andrew Farlow, Baronet, was one of the greatest magnates of
shipping and ship-building in the country, and was also one of the
greatest sufferers by the German submarine warfare during the late war.
His extreme wealth, and the fact of the enormous Government contracts
in his ship-building yards, had left him practically immune from the
consequences of his losses, but the losses to his fleet had been felt
by the man, who was, before all things in the world, a shipmaster.
His son, and only partner, had spent those past three years in the
service of his country. Not in the actual fighting line but in the work
of organization, an important position which his wealth and capacity
had entitled him to.
Sir Andrew pierced and lit a cigar.
"We mustn't ridicule them, though," he said, in his hearty Yorkshire
way. "We've laughed at 'em too often in the past. It's a laugh which
cost our country a couple of thousand millions, and a world-wide
suffering which mankind will never forget." Then his manner lightened.
"Henceforth the inventor must be to us a rare and precious orchid. We
must spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on him, the same as I spend
thousands on my orchid houses. I count myself well repaid if I succeed
in raising one single perfect bloom on some rare plant. That is, if my
rivals have failed with the same plant. The inventor is the orchid of
modern civilization, and the perfect blooms he produces are very, very
precious and--rare."
"You are thinking of those diabolical engines of destruction which were
prepared for this war."
Ruxton helped himself to a cigar.
"On the contrary, I am thinking of the defence, not the offence, of
this old country of ours."
The younger man nodded as he lit his cigar.
"That is it. We must prepare--prepare. We have only a breathing space
for it."
"There must be no more slumbering."
"And no more sacrificing the country to self-seeking demagogues."
"Yes, and no more slavery to Party prejudices, as antique as the
timbers of this house."
"Nor the knaveries of men who seek power through dividing the country
into classes, and setting each at the other's throat."
"Nor must we ever again allow the nation's security, economic or
military, to be hurled into the cockpit of Party politics."
"Gad! It makes me shiver when I think how near--how near----"
"We were to destruction," added Sir Andrew gravely.
It was again a moment of intense thought. Each man was regarding from
his own view-point that intangible threat inspired by the
unsatisfactory termination of the war, which left the Teutonic races in
a position to brew further mischief with which to flood the world.
The pucker of thought, the drawn brows, completed the likeness of Sir
Andrew Farlow to England's national symbolic figure. His broad
shoulders and shortish figure; his round, strong, Yorkshire face, with
its crowning of snow-white, curly hair, and the old-fashioned, crisp
side whiskers made him a typical John Bull, even in his modern evening
dress.
In the case of his son Ruxton it was almost in every respect an
antithesis.
No foreigner would have taken Ruxton Farlow for anything but an
Englishman, just as no Englishman but would have charged him with
possessing foreign blood in his veins. And the Englishman would have
been right.
Sir Andrew Farlow had spent a brief married life of a few months over
one year with one of the most beautiful women amongst the Russian
nobility, and the birth of his son left him a widower.
From his mother young Ruxton had inherited all those characteristics
which foreign Europe assigns to the British born; his great size, his
fair, waving hair and his darkly serious eyes. These things all came
from his Russian mother, who had possessed them herself in a marked
degree. Furthermore he inherited other qualities which could never be
claimed for his Yorkshire father. The boy from his earliest childhood
was an idealist: an idealist of but a single purpose which developed
into a brilliant specimen of the modern product of an old-fashioned
patriotism.
But he brought more to bear upon his patriotism than the mere
passionate devotion to his country. He was a fine product of public
school and university with the backing of a keen, well-balanced brain,
and a natural aptitude for statecraft in relation to the rest of the
world. He saw with eyes wide open to those interests dearest to his
heart, and clearly, without one single smudge of the fog of personal
self-interest.
"It's never out of my thoughts, Dad," Ruxton said at last. "It is with
me at all times. It is the purpose of my life to devote myself to, and
associate myself with, only those who will place their country before
all else in life."
"An ideal difficult to realize in Great Britain," observed his father
drily.
"Do you think that? Do you really think that?"
Sir Andrew stirred impatiently.
"It is not what I think. It is not what any of us think. It is what we
see and hear--and _know_. This war has shown up so many weaknesses in
the armor of our social economy as well as the psychology of our people
that one hardly knows where to hurl one's condemnation the most
forcefully. So many weaknesses and failures stand out crying aloud for
the bitter castigations of national conscience that it is difficult to
point out one worthy feature. Oh, you think that too sweeping," cried
the baronet with flushed rugged cheeks and brow, as his son raised
questioning eyes in his direction. "That is what every other man and
woman in the country would say in their purblind vanity. But it is
true. True of the country. True of us all. There is one thing which
appeals to me as our greatest failure, however. One failure preeminent
over all others that has sunk deep down in my heart, and the scar of
which can never be obliterated. I was brought up in the early Victorian
days when patriotism was no mere head-line in a sensation-loving press.
It was something real. Something big. Something which gripped the sense
of duty and made our men and women yearn for active participation when
danger threatened our Empire, even to the sacrifice of all they held
dear in life. That national spirit was sick to death when this war
broke out. Our press was divided, our politicians were divided, and,
yes, our people were largely indifferent. But for the strength of a few
of our leaders, men who have deserved far better of our country than
our country has ever yielded them, thanks to indifference and Party
politics, the end of this war would have come with even more terrible
consequences to our Empire than all that is signified by the position,
almost approaching _in status quo ante_, in which we now find
ourselves. The ramifications of our lack of national spirit are so
multifarious that it is impossible to go into them as a whole. One or
two, however, are so prodigious, and have been so pronouncedly marked,
that the veriest optimist has not failed to observe. One which stood
out remarkably was the attitude of the reigning Government when war was
declared. Every newspaper cried aloud that our ranks had closed up to
meet the peril. They did close up, as far as the will of the country
was concerned, but our machinery was geared to certain movement, a
machine built through years of partizanship in politics. The result was
pitiful. When the party in power was faced with Labor troubles which
threatened our downfall in the war, they dared not face their task of
drastic remedy because they saw in the dim future the loss of votes
which would return their opponents to power at the next election. Hence
the political crisis, at a time when we could ill afford such crises,
and the formation of a coalition. Ten months were thus lost in drifting
while Labor played, and our soldiers, inadequately armed, went to their
deaths. The press, a divided press, mark you, sought a scapegoat in the
individual, when they, no less than our national machinery, were to
blame for the disaster. Is such a condition conceivable in a fervent
Latin race, or an iron-shod Teuton? No, no. Is it right to blame Labor,
who, for the past decade and more, has been coddled and pampered into
the belief that like any baby in its cradle it has only to cry loud
enough to obtain the alleviating fluid? It at least has cunning enough
to realize that its weight of vote in the country is sufficient to
control the destiny of the demagogues who seek place and power through
its ignorance. Man, but it makes me sweat to think of it. National
spirit? Faugh! Look at the manufacturers. Patriotism? They were full of
newspaper patriotism until those who were executing Government
contracts discovered that their profits were to be limited. The Army?
Our voluntary system? The Army was all right. Oh, yes, the Army was
great. But the system? The system was probably the most painful among
all our national systems. The most hopelessly inadequate. And, from a
national spirit view, was hideously grotesque. But the men who joined
and shed their blood upon those terrible battle-fields abroad were as
the worker in the vineyard who engaged for one penny. They gave their
all, and made up in the execution of their duty for those who sheltered
behind the skirts of their womenkind, and the race of shopkeepers they
left behind. The spirit of our country when the war broke out was a
sordid commercial spirit. 'Business as usual' was the cry. Then our
press, our wonderful divided press, said the country was not awake. It
was slumbering! I tell you it was a lie!" The old man banged his fist
upon the table and set the glasses jumping. "Our country was not
asleep. Every man, woman, and child capable of common understanding
realized our peril from the start. It was the hateful commercial mind
seeking to make gain out of the disaster which had overtaken the world,
that mind that has acquired for us the detestable sobriquet of 'a race
of shopkeepers,' that hindered and deterred us. We were not slumbering.
We were awake. Wide awake! To think that I have lived to see the day
when our women's fair hands should be called upon to distribute the
white feather. Our present-day musicians and our national bards will
tell you that the old songs of England are out of date. They are right.
Our girls and boys look askance at your Marryats, your Dickenses, your
Thackerays, your Stevensons, and all those great masters who found
their strength in our country's greatest ages. When war broke out we
were floundering in the mire of sensualism brought about by the years
of peace and security, and so we bred the cult of the sensualist
writers on sex problems, and all the accompaniment of the other arts to
match."
The white-haired veteran, who had spent his early youth fighting his
country's battles on the Empire's frontiers, and, in later days, had
devoted all his energies to the furthering of Britain's supremacy on
the seas, passed one strong hand over his lined brow. He swallowed like
a man choking back an emotion threatening to overwhelm him. Then the
flush died out of his rugged cheeks, and he smiled at the son he loved,
and who was his one remaining relative. "Forgive me, my boy, but--but
all I've said is true. I don't think many will deny it. Anyway those
who do are lying to their own consciences, or--or are purblind in their
insane egoism."
Ruxton smiled responsively and thrust back his chair.
"There's no forgiveness needed, Dad," he said. "You have quoted but a
few of the hundred signs, of which we all have proof, that when war
broke out patriotism had only the smallest possible part in the life of
this country. From the beginning to the end of this war England has had
to pay out of her coffers, to those of her people whose services she
needed, a price so extortionate that one wonders if it is not all some
hideous nightmare and in truth unreal. But tell me, Dad," he went on
after a pause, "you spoke just now of inventors, and your manner
suggested that there was something--important."
Sir Andrew rose from the table and led the way towards the distant
folding doors.
"Well, I don't know if it will prove to be anything--worth while."
He fumbled at an inner pocket of his dinner coat, and produced a letter
written on thin paper. When they reached the great hall and stood under
the brilliant electrolier he unfolded it and held it out for his son's
perusal.
"I get lots of them," he said almost apologetically, "and few enough
turn out worth while. This one reads a little different. That's all."
"Sir,
"You are a great shipmaster. You owned a fleet of merchant shipping
when war broke out of forty-two coastwise and thirty-five ocean-going
ships. At the end of the war you owned thirteen coastwise and
twenty-one ocean-going traders. I have a means of saving you any such
loss by submarine in the future. May I be permitted to show you my
invention?
"Truly yours,
"Charles Smith.
"P.S.--Absolute secrecy is necessary. A simple 'yes' addressed by wire
to Veevee, London, will be sufficient."
"The wording of it is so unusual that it--interested me," Sir Andrew
went on, as Ruxton began to read the letter a second time.
Presently the younger man looked up from his reading.
"That's your imagination working, Dad," he said, smiling. Then he
added: "Let it work. Let it run riot. That's what we want in
England--now. I should see this man. I think he is a foreigner--in
spite of his English name."
The John Bull face of the elder man wreathed into a warm smile as he
looked up at his towering son.
"I had decided to," he said quietly.
Ruxton handed him back the letter. Then he moved across to the great
mullioned window and looked out upon the perfect summer night. The moon
was shining at its full and not a cloud was visible anywhere.
"I have some letters to write, my boy," Sir Andrew went on. "If you
want me I shall be in the library. What are you going to do?"
"I think I shall take a stroll along the cliffs. It'll do me good, Dad.
I want to feel our beloved Yorkshire cliffs under my feet again, and
make sure they're--still there."
Ruxton laughed.
"The General Election is on August 21st, isn't it?" his father enquired
presently. "You've got seven weeks in which to recuperate, and get the
cobwebs blown off you."
"I always get rid of bad fancies up here in my native air," Ruxton said
lightly. "I'm glad we haven't a strenuous campaign."
"No. We shall win all right."
"Win?" Ruxton laughed. "The National Party will sweep the polls. Labor
will be opposed to us as Labor will oppose any party. They will always
be with us. But even if the extreme Radicals were to link forces with
them, they couldn't obtain a twenty-five per cent. representation. No,
Dad, whatever the country failed to realize during the first two years
of war, it's been all brought home to it now. The English housewife has
been driven to a sweeping and garnishing of her home. We've driven her
to that, and the National Party is--_going to see she does it
thoroughly_."
The younger man's enthusiasm drew an approving smile from his father.
Also a world of pride in this great, fair-haired idealist shone in his
eyes.
"Sweep and garnish. That's it, boy," he said ardently. "And what a
sweeping, what a garnishing is needed. I wonder. Can it be done?"
"That is what we intend to test. It is to that great effort my
colleagues have pledged their lives. I have pledged mine to another. I
tell you, Dad, that the sweeping and garnishing isn't sufficient. That
is only the moral side of the campaign that lies before us, and without
it the other side can never be achieved. But all my future is to be
given up to the material security side of the problem. It may be only
my dreaming, but I seem to see a terrible threat sweeping up over the
eastern horizon. A threat so appalling for us as to make the late war
almost insignificant. Some day, if you have the patience to listen to a
dreamer, I will tell you of the dread that persistently haunts me.
Meanwhile we have that--breathing space."
Without troubling himself to get a hat Ruxton Farlow passed through the
entrance hall, out into the brilliant, warm summer night, and strode on
towards his destiny.