THE MARCH ON IVYWOOD
THAT storm-spirit, or eagle of liberty, which is the sudden soul in a
crowd, had descended upon London after a foreign tour of some centuries
in which it had commonly alighted upon other capitals. It is always
impossible to define the instant and the turn of mood which makes the
whole difference between danger being worse than endurance and endurance
being worse than danger. The actual outbreak generally has a symbolic or
artistic, or, what some would call whimsical cause. Somebody fires off a
pistol or appears in an unpopular uniform, or refers in a loud voice to
a scandal that is never mentioned in the newspapers; somebody takes off
his hat, or somebody doesn’t take off his hat; and a city is sacked
before midnight. When the ever-swelling army of revolt smashed a whole
street full of the shops of Mr. Crooke, the chemist, and then went on to
Parliament, the Tower of London and the road to the sea, the
sociologists hiding in their coal-cellars could think (in that
clarifying darkness) of many material and spiritual explanations of such
a storm in human souls; but of none that explained it quite enough.
Doubtless there was a great deal of sheer drunkenness when the urns and
goblets of Æsculapius were reclaimed as belonging to Bacchus: and many
who went roaring down that road were merely stored with rich wines and
liqueurs which are more comfortably and quietly digested at a City
banquet or a West End restaurant. But many of these had been blind drunk
twenty times without a thought of rebellion; you could not stretch the
material explanation to cover a corner of the case. Much more general
was a savage sense of the meanness of Crooke’s wealthy patrons, in
keeping a door open for themselves which they had wantonly shut on less
happy people. But no explanation can explain it; and no man can say when
it will come.
Dorian Wimpole was at the tail of the procession, which grew more and
more crowded every moment. For one space of the march he even had the
misfortune to lose it altogether; owing to the startling activity which
the rotund cheese when it escaped from his hands showed, in descending a
somewhat steep road toward the river. But in recent days he had gained a
pleasure in practical events which was like a second youth. He managed
to find a stray taxi-cab; and had little difficulty in picking up again
the trail of the extraordinary cortège. Inquiries addressed to a
policeman with a black eye outside the House of Commons informed him
sufficiently of the rebels’ line of retreat or advance, or whatever it
was; and in a very short time he beheld the unmistakable legion once
more. It was unmistakable, because in front of it there walked a
red-headed giant, apparently carrying with him a wooden portion of some
public building; and also because so big a crowd had never followed any
man in England for a long time past. But except for such things the
unmistakable crowd might well have been mistaken for another one. Its
aspect had been altered almost as much as if it had grown horns or
tusks; for many of the company walked with outlandish weapons like iron
teeth or horns, bills and pole axes, and spears with strangely shaped
heads. What was stranger still, whole rows and rows of them had rifles,
and even marched with a certain discipline; and yet again, others seemed
to have snatched up household or workshop tools, meat axes, pick axes,
hammers and even carving knives. Such things need be none the less
deadly because they are domestic. They have figured in millions of
private murders before they appeared in any public war.
Dorian was so fortunate as to meet the flame-haired Captain almost face
to face, and easily fell into step with him at the head of the march.
Humphrey Pump walked on the other side, with the celebrated cask
suspended round his neck by something resembling braces, as if it were a
drum. Mr. Wimpole had himself taken the opportunity of his brief
estrangement to carry the cheese somewhat more easily in a very large,
loose, waterproof knapsack on his shoulders. The effect in both cases
was to suggest dreadful deformities in two persons who happened to be
exceptionally cleanly built. The Captain, who seemed to be in tearing
and towering spirits, gained great pleasure from this. But Dorian had
his sources of amusement too.
“What have you been doing with yourselves since you lost my judicious
guidance?” he asked, laughing, “and why are parts of you a dull review
and parts of you a fancy dress ball? What have you been up to?”
“We’ve been shopping,” said Mr. Patrick Dalroy, with some pride. “We are
country cousins. I know all about shopping; let us see, what are the
phrases about it? Look at those rifles now! We got them quite at a
bargain. We went to all the best gunsmiths in London, and we didn’t pay
much. In fact, we didn’t pay anything. That’s what is called a bargain,
isn’t it? Surely, I’ve seen in those things they send to ladies
something about ‘giving them away.’ Then we went to a remnant sale. At
least, it was a remnant sale when we left. And we bought that piece of
stuff we’ve tied round the sign. Surely, it must be what ladies called
chiffon?”
Dorian lifted his eyes and perceived that a very coarse strip of red
rag, possibly collected from a dustbin, had been tied round the wooden
sign-post by way of a red flag of revolution.
“Not what ladies call chiffon?” inquired the Captain with anxiety.
“Well, anyhow, it is what _chiffoniers_ call it. But as I’m going to
call on a lady shortly, I’ll try to remember the distinction.”
“Is your shopping over, may I ask?” asked Mr. Wimpole.
“All but one thing,” answered the other. “I must find a music shop—you
know what I mean. Place where they sell pianos and things of that sort.”
“Look here,” said Dorian, “this cheese is pretty heavy as it is. Have I
got to carry a piano, too?”
“You misunderstand me,” said the Captain, calmly. And as he had never
thought of music shops until his eye had caught one an instant before,
he darted into the doorway. Returning almost immediately with a long
parcel under his arm, he resumed the conversation.
“Did you go anywhere else,” asked Dorian, “except to shops?”
“Anywhere else!” cried Patrick, indignantly, “haven’t you got any
country cousins? Of course we went to all the right places. We went to
the Houses of Parliament. But Parliament isn’t sitting; so there are no
eggs of the quality suitable for elections. We went to the Tower of
London—you can’t tire country cousins like us. We took away some
curiosities of steel and iron. We even took away the halberds from the
Beef-eaters. We pointed out that for the purpose of eating beef (their
only avowed public object) knives and forks had always been found more
convenient. To tell the truth, they seemed rather relieved to be
relieved of them.”
“And may I ask,” said the other with a smile, “where you are off to
now?”
“Another beauty spot!” cried the Captain, boisterously, “no tiring the
country cousin! I am going to show my young friends from the provinces
what is perhaps the finest old country house in England. We are going to
Ivywood, not far from that big watering place they call Pebblewick.”
“I see,” said Dorian; and for the first time looked back with
intelligent trouble on his face, on the marching ranks behind him.
“Captain Dalroy,” said Dorian Wimpole, in a slightly altered tone,
“there is one thing that puzzles me. Ivywood talked about having set the
police to catch us; and though this is a pretty big crowd, I simply
cannot believe that the police, as I knew them in my youth, could not
catch us. But where are the police? You seem to have marched through
half London with much (if you’ll excuse me) of the appearance of
carrying murderous weapons. Lord Ivywood threatened that the police
would stop us. Well, why didn’t they stop us?”
“Your subject,” said Patrick, cheerfully, “divides itself into three
heads.”
“I hope not,” said Dorian.
“There really are three reasons why the police should not be prominent
in this business; as their worst enemy cannot say that they were.”
He began ticking off the three on his own huge fingers; and seemed to be
quite serious about it.
“First,” he said, “you have been a long time away from town. Probably
you do not know a policeman when you see him. They do not wear helmets,
as our line regiments did after the Prussians had won. They wear fezzes,
because the Turks have won. Shortly, I have little doubt, they will wear
pigtails, because the Chinese have won. It is a very interesting branch
of moral science. It is called Efficiency.
“Second,” explained the Captain, “you have, perhaps, omitted to notice
that a very considerable number of those wearing such fezzes are walking
just behind us. Oh, yes, it’s quite true. Don’t you remember that the
whole French Revolution really began because a sort of City Militia
refused to fire on their own fathers and wives; and even showed some
slight traces of a taste for firing on the other side? You’ll see lots
of them behind; and you can tell them by their revolver belts and their
walking in step; but don’t look back on them too much. It makes them
nervous.”
“And the third reason?” asked Dorian.
“For the real reason,” answered Patrick, “I am not fighting a hopeless
fight. People who have fought in real fights don’t, as a rule. But I
noticed something singular about the very point you mention. Why are
there no more police? Why are there no more soldiers? I will tell you.
There really are very few policemen or soldiers left in England today.”
“Surely, that,” said Wimpole, “is an unusual complaint.”
“But very clear,” said the Captain, gravely, “to anyone who has ever
seen sailors or soldiers. I will tell you the truth. Our rulers have
come to count on the bare bodily cowardice of a mass of Englishmen, as a
sheep dog counts on the cowardice of a flock of sheep. Now, look here,
Mr. Wimpole, wouldn’t a shepherd be wise to limit the number of his dogs
if he could make his sheep pay by it? At the end you might find millions
of sheep managed by a solitary dog. But that is because they are sheep.
Suppose the sheep were turned by a miracle into wolves. There are very
few dogs they could not tear in pieces. But, what is my practical point,
there are really very few dogs to tear.”
“You don’t mean,” said Dorian, “that the British Army is practically
disbanded?”
“There are the sentinels outside Whitehall,” replied Patrick, in a low
voice. “But, indeed, your question puts me in a difficulty. No; the army
is not entirely disbanded, of course. But the _British_ army—. Did you
ever hear, Wimpole, of the great destiny of the Empire?”
“I seem to have heard the phrase,” replied his companion.
“It is in four acts,” said Dalroy. “Victory over barbarians. Employment
of barbarians. Alliance with barbarians. Conquest by barbarians. That is
the great destiny of Empire.”
“I think I begin to see what you mean,” returned Dorian Wimpole. “Of
course Ivywood and the authorities do seem very prone to rely on the
sepoy troops.”
“And other troops as well,” said Patrick. “I think you will be surprised
when you see them.”
He tramped on for a while in silence and then said, with some air of
abruptness, which yet did not seem to be entirely a changing of the
subject,
“Do you know the man who lives now on the estate next to Ivywood?”
“No,” replied Dorian, “I am told he keeps himself very much to himself.”
“And his estate, too,” said Patrick, rather gloomily. “If you would
climb his garden-wall, Wimpole, I think you would find an answer to a
good many of your questions. Oh, yes, the right honourable gentlemen are
making full provision for public order and national defence—in a way.”
He fell into an almost sullen silence again; and several villages had
been passed before he spoke again.
They tramped through the darkness; and dawn surprised them somewhere in
the wilder and more wooded parts where the roads began to rise and roam.
Dalroy gave an exclamation of pleasure and pointed ahead, drawing the
attention of Dorian to the distance. Against the silver and scarlet bars
of the daybreak could be seen afar a dark purple dome, with a crown of
dark green leaves; the place they had called Roundabout.
Dalroy’s spirit seemed to revive at the sight, with the customary
accompaniment of the threat of vocalism.
“Been making any poems lately?” he asked of Wimpole.
“Nothing particular,” replied the poet.
“Then,” said the Captain, portentously, clearing his throat, “you shall
listen to one of mine, whether you like it or not—nay, the more you
dislike it the longer and longer it will be. I begin to understand why
soldiers want to sing when on the march; and also why they put up with
such rotten songs.
“The Druids waved their golden knives
And danced around the Oak,
When they had sacrificed a man;
But though the learnèd search and scan
No single modern person can
Entirely see the joke;
But though they cut the throats of men
They cut not down the tree,
And from the blood the saplings sprang
Of oak-woods yet to be.
But Ivywood, Lord Ivywood,
He rots the tree as ivy would,
He clings and crawls as ivy would
About the sacred tree.
“King Charles he fled from Worcester fight
And hid him in an Oak;
In convent schools no man of tact
Would trace and praise his every act,
Or argue that he was in fact
A strict and sainted bloke;
But not by him the sacred woods
Have lost their fancies free,
And though he was extremely big,
He did not break the tree.
But Ivywood, Lord Ivywood,
He breaks the tree as ivy would
And eats the woods as ivy would
Between us and the sea.
“Great Collingwood walked down the glade
And flung the acorns free,
That oaks might still be in the grove
As oaken as the beams above
When the great Lover sailors love
Was kissed by Death at sea.
But though for him the oak-trees fell
To build the oaken ships,
The woodman worshipped what he smote
And honoured even the chips.
But Ivywood, Lord Ivywood,
He hates the tree as ivy would,
As the dragon of the ivy would,
That has us in his grips.”
They were ascending a sloping road, walled in on both sides by solemn
woods, which somehow seemed as watchful as owls awake. Though daybreak
was going over them with banners, scrolls of scarlet and gold, and with
a wind like trumpets of triumph, the dark woods seemed to hold their
secret like dark, cool cellars; nor was the strong sunlight seen in
them, save in one or two brilliant shafts, that looked like splintered
emeralds.
“I should not wonder,” said Dorian, “if the ivy does not find the tree
knows a thing or two also.”
“The tree does,” assented the Captain. “The trouble was that until a
little while ago the tree did not know that it knew.”
There was a silence; and as they went up the incline grew steeper and
steeper, and the tall trees seemed more and more to be guarding
something from sight, as with the grey shields of giants.
“Do you remember this road, Hump?” asked Dalroy of the innkeeper.
“Yes,” answered Humphrey Pump, and said no more; but few have ever heard
such fulness in an affirmative.
They marched on in silence and about two hours afterward, toward eleven
o’clock, Dalroy called a halt in the forest, and said that everybody had
better have a few hours’ sleep. The impenetrable quality in the woods
and the comparative softness of the carpet of beech-mast, made the spot
as appropriate as the time was inappropriate. And if anyone thinks that
common people, casually picked up in a street, could not follow a random
leader on such a journey or sleep at his command in such a spot, given
the state of the soul, then someone knows no history.
“I’m afraid,” said Dalroy, “you’ll have to have your supper for
breakfast. I know an excellent place for having breakfast, but it’s too
exposed for sleep. And sleep you must have; so we won’t unpack the
stores just now. We’ll lie down like Babes in the Wood, and any bird of
an industrious disposition is free to start covering me with leaves.
Really, there are things coming, before which you will want sleep.”
When they resumed the march it was nearly the middle of the afternoon;
and the meal which Dalroy insisted buoyantly on describing as breakfast
was taken about that mysterious hour when ladies die without tea. The
steep road had consistently grown steeper and steeper; and steeper; and
at last, Dalroy said to Dorian Wimpole,
“Don’t drop that cheese again just here, or it will roll right away down
into the woods. I know it will. No scientific calculations of grades and
angles are necessary; because I have seen it do so myself. In fact, I
have run after it.”
Wimpole realised they were mounting to the sharp edge of a ridge, and in
a few moments he knew by the oddness in the shape of the trees what it
had been that the trees were hiding.
They had been walking along a swelling, woodland path beside the sea. On
a particular high plateau, projecting above the shore, stood some
dwarfed and crippled apple-trees, of whose apples no man alive would
have eaten, so sour and salt they must be. All the rest of the plateau
was bald and featureless, but Pump looked at every inch of it, as if at
an inhabited place.
“This is where we’ll have breakfast,” he said, pointing to the naked
grassy waste. “It’s the best inn in England.”
Some of his audience began to laugh, but somehow suddenly ceased doing
so, as Dalroy strode forward and planted the sign of “The Old Ship” on
the desolate sea-shore.
“And now,” he said, “you have charge of the stores we brought, Hump, and
we will picnic. As it said in a song I once sang,
“The Saracen’s Head out of Araby came,
King Richard riding in arms like flame,
And where he established his folk to be fed
He set up his spear, and the Saracen’s Head.”
It was nearly dusk before the mob, much swelled by the many discontented
on the Ivywood estates, reached the gates of Ivywood House.
Strategically, and for the purposes of a night surprise, this might have
done credit to the Captain’s military capacity. But the use to which he
put it actually was what some might call eccentric. When he had disposed
his forces, with strict injunctions of silence for the first few
minutes, he turned to Pump, and said,
“And now, before we do anything else, I’m going to make a noise.”
And he produced from under brown paper what appeared to be a musical
instrument.
“A summons to parley?” inquired Dorian, with interest, “a trumpet of
defiance, or something of that kind?”
“No,” said Patrick, “a serenade.”
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