The prospects were so magnificent that t_Goslings

in making a party question of the Bill.

No time was to be lost, for the Bill was to be rushed, it was an

emergency measure, and it was proposed that it should become law

within four days. Preparations were already in hand to carry out the

provisions enacted.

An urgent rally of the Opposition was made, and when the Bill came up

for the second reading the Premier addressed a well-filled House. The

House was not crowded because a large number of people, including many

members of Parliament, were on their way to America. All the big liners

were packed on their outward voyage and were returning, contrary to

all precedent, in ballast--this ballast was exclusively food-stuffs.

The Premier introduced the Bill in a speech which was remarkable

for its sincerity and earnestness. He outlined the arrangements that

were being made to feed the community, and showed clearly that while

communication remained open with America, there was no fear of any

serious shortage. Pausing for a moment on this question of intercourse

with America, he made a point of the fact that American ports were

already closed to emigrants from all European countries with the one

exception of Great Britain, and that if a single case of plague were

reported in these islands the difficulties of obtaining food-stuffs

from America and the Colonies would be enormously increased. He wound

up by almost imploring the House not to make a party question of so

urgent and necessary a measure at a time when the safety of England

was so terribly threatened. He pleaded that at this critical moment,

unparalleled in the history of humanity, it was the duty of every man

to sink his own personal interests, to be ready to make any sacrifice,

for the sake of the community.

Mr Brampton, the leader of the Opposition, then completely destroyed

the undoubted effect which had been made upon the House. He did

not openly speak in a party spirit, but he hinted very plainly that

the Bill under consideration was a mere subterfuge to win votes. He

poured contempt upon the fear of the plague, which he characterized

throughout as the "Russian epidemic," and ended with the advice to

keep a cool head, to preserve the British spirit of sturdy resistance

instead of shutting our doors and bringing the country to commercial

ruin. "Are we all cravens," he concluded, "scurrying like rabbits to

our burrows at the first hint of alarm?"

The further debate, although lengthy, had comparatively little

influence; the House divided, and the Government was defeated by a

majority of nine.

The news was all over the country by ten o'clock that night, and it

was noticeable that a large percentage of the younger generation

still regarded the danger as "rather a lark." This threat of the

plague held a promise of high adventure; youth can only realize the

possibility of death in its relation to others.

"I say, if this bally old plague did come" ... remarked a young man

of twenty-two, who was sitting with a friend in the little private

bar of the "Dun Taw" Hotel.

His friend drew his feet up on to the rungs of his tall stool and

winked at the barmaid.

"Well, go on. What if it did?" remarked that young woman.

The young man considered for a moment and then said: "Those that got

left would have a rare old time."

"It's the women as'd get left, seems to me," replied the barmaid,

and scored a point.

"I say, surely you don't come from this part of the world?" was the

compliment evoked by her wit.

"Not me!" was the answer, "I'm a Londoner, I am. Only started

yesterday, and sha'n't stay long if to-day's a fair sample. There

'asn't been a dozen customers in all day, and they were in such a

'urry to get their tonic and go that I'm sure they couldn't 'ave told

you whether me 'air was black or ches'nut."

Both men immediately looked at the crown of pretty fair hair which

had been so churlishly slighted.

"First thing I noticed about you," said one.

The other, who had hardly spoken before, took the cigarette out of

his mouth and remarked: "You can never get that colour with peroxide."

The barmaid looked a little suspicious.

"Oh, he means it all right, kid," put in the younger man

quickly. "Dicky's one of the serious sort. Besides, he's in that line;

travels for a firm of wholesale chemists."

Dicky nodded gravely. "I could see at once it was natural," he remarked

with the air of an expert.

"Ah! you're one of them that keeps their eyes open," returned the

barmaid approvingly, and Dicky modestly acknowledged the compliment

by saying that his business necessitated close observation.

"Most men are as blind as bats," continued the barmaid, and the

examples she gave from her own experience led to an absorbing

conversation, which was presently interrupted by the shriek of the

swing door.

The new-comer was a small, fair man with a neatly waxed moustache. He

came up to the counter with the air of an habitué, and remarked,

"Hallo! where's Cis? You're new here, aren't you?"

The barmaid, recognizing the marks of a regular customer, quietly

admitted that this was only her second day at the "Dun Taw."

"I've been away for two months," explained the fair man, and ordered

"Scotch." He was evidently in the mood for company, for he brought

up a stool and, sitting a little way back from the bar, he began to

address his three hearers at large.

"Only came back from Europe this evening," he said, "and glad to be

home, I assure you." He raised his left hand with a gesture intended

to convey horror, and drank half his whisky at a gulp.

Dicky turned to give his serious attention to the narrative which

was plainly to follow, and somewhat ostentatiously observed the

details of the new-comer's dress. Dicky had a new-found reputation

to maintain. His friend looked bored and a little sulky, and tried

to continue his conversation with the barmaid, but that young woman,

appreciating the difference in value between a casual and a regular

customer, passed a broad hint by with a smile and said: "Europe? Just

fancy!"

"It's a place to get out of, I assure you," said the fair man. "I've

been over there for two months--Germany and Austria chiefly--but for

the last fortnight I've been wasting my time. There's nothing doing."

"Isn't there?" commented Dicky with great seriousness.

"Oh, we're sick to death of this bally plague," put in the other

young man quickly. "There's been simply nothing else in the papers

for the last I don't know how long. I want to forget it."

The fair man reached forward and put down his empty glass on the bar

counter. "Same again, Miss," he said, and then: "We'll all be more

sick of the plague before we've finished with it. It's a terror. If I

was to tell you a few of the things I've seen in the past fortnight,

I don't suppose you'd believe me."

"That's all right; I'd believe you quick enough," returned the young

man. "Point is, what's the good of getting yourself in a funk about

it? Personally I don't believe it's coming to England. If it was it

would have been here before this. What I say is ..."

His pronouncement of opinion ceased abruptly. The fair man's behaviour

riveted attention. He was gazing past the barmaid at the orderly rows

of shining glasses and various shaped bottles behind her. His mouth

was open. He gazed intensely, horribly.

The barmaid backed nervously and looked over her shoulder. The

two young men hastily rose and pushed back their stools. The same

thought was in all their minds. This neat, fair man was on the verge

of delirium tremens.

In a moment the air of intercourse and joviality that had pervaded the

little room was dissipated; in place of it had come shocked surprise

and fear.

There was an interval of slow desolating silence, and then the

convulsive grip of the fair man shattered the glass he held, and the

fragments fell tinkling to the floor.

"I say, what's up?" stammered the barmaid's admirer, while the barmaid

herself shrank back against the shelves and watched nervously. She

had had experience.

The fair man's head was being pulled slowly backwards by some invisible

force. His eyes, staring straight before him, appeared to watch with

fierce intensity some point that moved steadily up the wall of shelves

behind the counter; up till it reached the ceiling and began to move

over the ceiling toward him.

Then, quite suddenly, the horrible tension was relaxed; his head fell

loosely forward and he clapped both hands to the nape of his neck. He

was breathing loudly in short quick gasps.

"I say, do you think he's ill?" asked the young man. At the suggestion

Dicky made a step towards the sufferer; his knowledge of chemistry

gave him a professional air.

"He's come from Europe.... Suppose it's the plague," whispered the

barmaid.

And at that the two young men started back. As the words were spoken

realization swept upon them.

Mumbling something about "get a doctor," they rushed for the door. One

of them made a wide détour--he had to pass the man who sat doubled

forward in his chair, frantically gripping the base of his skull.

Hardly had the clatter of the swing door subsided before he fell

forward on to the floor. He was groaning now, groaning detestably.

The barmaid whimpered and stared. "Women don't get it." she said

aloud. But she kept to her own side of the counter.

Later the owner of the "Dun Taw" identified the fair man--from a

distance--as Mr Stewart, of the firm of Barker and Prince.

Thrale's "higher forces" had shown their hand.

The humble and rotund instrument of their choice had served his

purpose, and he was probably the first man in London to receive the

news--a delicate acknowledgment, perhaps, of his services.

The telegram was addressed to the firm, but as neither of the heads

of the house had arrived, Gosling opened it according to precedent.

"Gosh!" was his sole exclamation, but the tone of it stirred the

interest of Flack, who turned to see his colleague's rather protuberant

blue eyes staring with a fishy glare at a flimsy sheet of paper which

visibly trembled in the hold of two clusters of fat fingers.

Flack lifted his spectacles and holding them on a level with his

eyebrows, said, "Bad news?"

Gosling sat down, and in the fever of the moment wiped his forehead

with his snuff handkerchief, then discovered his mistake and laid

the handkerchief carelessly on the desk. This infringement of his

invariable practice produced even more effect upon Flack than the

staring eyes and wavering fingers. Gosling might be guilty of mild

histrionics, but not of such a touch as this. The utter neglect of

decency exhibited by the display of that shameful bandanna could only

portend calamity.

"Lord's sakes, man, what's the matter?" asked Flack, still taking an

observation under his spectacles.

"It's come, Flack," said Gosling feebly. "It's in Scotland. Our Mr

Stewart died of it in Dundee this mornin'."

Flack rose from his seat and grabbed the telegram, which was brief

and pregnant. "Stewart died suddenly five a.m. Feared plague. Macfie."

"Tchah!" said Flack, still staring at the telegram. "'Feared

plague.' Lost their 'eads, that's what they've done. Pull yourself

together, man. I don't believe a word of it."

Gosling swallowed elaborately, discovered his bandanna on the desk and

hastily pocketed it. "Might 'a been 'eart-disease, d'you think?" he

said eagerly.

"We-el," remarked Flack, "I never 'eard as 'is 'eart was affected,

did you?"

Gosling held out his hand for the telegram, and made a further

elaborate study of it, without, however, discovering any hitherto

unsuspected evidence relating to the unsoundness of Stewart's heart.

"It says 'feared,' of course," he remarked at last. "Macfie wouldn't

have said feared if 'e'd been sure."

"They'd 'ardly have mentioned plague in a telegram if they 'adn't

been pretty certain, though," argued Flack.

Gosling was so upset that he had to go out and get a nip of brandy,

a thing he had not done since the morning after Blanche was born.

The partners looked grave when they heard the news from Dundee, and

London generally looked very grave indeed, when they read the full

details an hour later in the Evening Chronicle.

Stewart, it appeared, had come straight through from Berlin to

London via Flushing and Port Victoria, and on landing in England he

had managed to escape quarantine. His was not an isolated case. For

some weeks it had been possible for British subjects to get past

the officials. There was nothing in the regulations to allow such an

evasion of the order, but it could be managed occasionally. Stewart

had been told to spare no expense.

The Evening Chronicle, although it made the most of its opportunity in

contents bill and headlines, said that there was no cause for alarm,

that these things were managed better in Great Britain than on the

Continent; that the case had been isolated from the first moment the

plague was recognized (about five hours before death), that the body

had been burned, and that the most extensive and elaborate process of

disinfection was being carried out--even the sleeping coach in which

Stewart had travelled from London to Dundee twelve hours before,

had been identified and burned also.

London still looked grave, but was nevertheless a little inclined to

congratulate itself on the thoroughness of British methods. "We'll

never get it in England, you see if we do," was the remark chiefly

in vogue among the great Gosling family.

But twelve hours or so too late, England was beginning to regret that

the Government had been defeated. It was rumoured that the Premier

had broken down, had immediately resigned his office, and would not

seek re-election as a private member.

This rumour was definitely confirmed in the later editions of the

evening papers. Mr Brampton had been summoned to Buckingham Palace

and was forming a temporary ministry which was to take office. In

the circumstances it was deemed inadvisable to plunge the country

into a general election at that moment.

Mr Stewart died in the small hours of Friday morning, and the next day,

Saturday, the 14th of April, was the first day of panic.

The day began with comparative quiet. No further case had been notified

in Great Britain, but telegraphic communication was interrupted between

London and Russia, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, and other continental

centres. In Germany matters were growing desperate. There had been

riots and looting. Military law had been declared in several towns; in

some cases the mob had been fired upon. Business was at a standstill,

and the plague was spreading like a fire. Between two and three hundred

cases were reported from Reims, and upwards of fifty from Paris....

Business houses were being closed in the City of London, and the

banks noted a marked tendency among their depositors to withdraw gold;

so marked, indeed, that many banks of high standing were glad to be

able to close their doors at one o'clock.

It was on this Saturday morning, also, that the bottom suddenly

fell out of the money market. For weeks past, prices had been falling

steadily, but now they dropped to panic figures. Every one was selling,

there were no buyers left. Consols were quoted at 53-1/2.

The air of London was heavy with foreboding, and throughout the

morning the gloom grew deeper. The depressed and worried faces to

be met at every turn contrasted strangely with the brilliance of the

weather. For April had come with clear skies and soft, warm winds.

As the day advanced the atmosphere of depression became continually

more marked, and how extraordinary was the effect upon all classes may

be judged from the fact that less than 5,000 people paid to witness

the third replay between Barnsley and Everton, in the semi-final of

the English cup....

In London, men and women hung aimlessly about the streets waiting

for the news they dreaded to hear. The theatres were deserted. The

feeling of gloom was so real that many women afterwards believed

that the sky had been overcast, whereas Nature was in one of her most

brilliant moods.

It was a few minutes past three when the pressure was exploded by the

report of the final catastrophe. "Two more cases of plague in Dundee

and one in Edinburgh," was the first announcement. That would have been

enough to show that all the vaunted precautions had been useless, and

within an hour came the notification of two further cases. Before six

o'clock, eight more were notified in Dundee, three more in Edinburgh,

and one in Newcastle.

The new plague had reached England. It was then that the panic began.

VII--PANIC

Gurney, when he left his office on that Saturday, was influenced by

the general depression. He went to lunch at the "White Vine," in the

Haymarket, quite determined to keep himself in hand, to argue himself

out of his low spirits.

He made a beginning at once.

"Every one seems to have a fit of the blues. Ernst," he remarked to

the waiter with a factitious cheerfulness.

Ernst, less polite than usual, shrugged his shoulders. "There is

enough cause already," he said.

"Have you had bad news from Germany?" asked Gurney, feeling that he

had probably been rather brutal.

"Ach Gott! 's'ist bald Keiner mehr da," blubbered Ernst, and he wept

without restraint as he arranged the table, occasionally wiping his

eyes with his napkin.

"I'm most awfully sorry," murmured the embarrassed Gurney, and

retreated behind the horror of his evening paper. He found small

cause for rejoicing there, however, and discarded it as soon as his

lunch had been brought by the red-eyed Ernst.

"I wonder what Mark Tapley would have done," Gurney reflected moodily

as he attacked his chop.

There were few other people in the restaurant, and they were all silent

and engrossed. That dreadful cloud hung over England, the spirit of

pestilence threatened to take substance, the air was full of horror

that might at any moment become a visible shape of destruction.

Gurney did not finish his lunch, he lighted a cigarette, left four

shillings on the table, and hurried out into the air.

He did not look up at the sky as he turned eastwards towards Fleet

Street; no one looked up at the sky that afternoon. Heads and shoulders

were burdened by an invisible weight which kept all eyes on the ground.

Fleet Street was full of people who crowded round the windows of

newspaper offices, not with the eagerness of a general election crowd,

but with a subdued surliness which ever and again broke out in spurts

of violent temper.

Gurney, still struggling to maintain his composure, found himself

unreasonably irritated when a motor-bus driver shouted at him to get

out of the way. It seemed to Gurney that to be knocked down and run

over was preferable to being shouted at. The noise of those infernal

buses was unbearable, so, also, was that dreadful patter of feet upon

the pavement and the dull murmur of mournful voices. Why, in the name

of God, could not people keep quiet?

He bumped into some one on the pavement as he scrambled out of the

way of the bus, and the man swore at him viciously. Gurney responded,

and then discovered that the man was known to him.

"Hallo!" he said. "You?"

"Hallo," responded the other.

For a moment they stood awkwardly, staring; then Gurney said, "Any

more news?"

The man, who was a sub-editor of the Westminster Gazette, shook his

head. "I'm just going back now," he said. "There was nothing ten

minutes ago."

"Pretty awful, isn't it?" remarked Gurney.

The sub-editor shrugged his shoulders and hurried away.

Presently Gurney found himself wedged among the crowd, watching the

Daily Chronicle window.

A few minutes after three, a young man with a very white face,

fastened a type-written message to the glass.

There was a rapid constriction of the crowd. Those behind, Gurney

among them, could not read the message, and pressed forward. There

were cries of "What is it?... I can't see.... Read it out...." Then

those in front gave way slightly, a wave of eagerness agitated the

mass of watchers, and the news ran back from the front. "Two more

cases of plague in Dundee; one in Edinburgh."

And with that the pressure of dread was suddenly dissipated, giving

place to something kinetic, dynamic. Now it was fear that took the

people by the throat: active, compelling fear. Men looked at each

other with terror and something of hate in their eyes, the crowd

broke and melted. Every man was going to his own home, possessed by

an instinct to fly before it was too late.

Gurney shouldered his way out, and stopped a taxi that was crawling

past.

"Jermyn Street," he said.

The driver leaned over and pointed to the Daily Chronicle

window. "What's the news?" he asked.

"The plague's in Dundee and Edinburgh," said Gurney, and climbed into

the cab and slammed the door.

"Gawd!" muttered the driver, as he drove recklessly westwards.

Sitting in the cab, finding some comfort in the feeling of headlong

speed, Gurney was debating whether he would not charter the man to

take him right out of London. But he must go home first for money.

At the door of the house in Jermyn Street he met Jasper Thrale.

"Have you heard?" asked Gurney excitedly.

"No. What?" said Thrale, without interest.

"There are two more cases in Dundee and one in Edinburgh," said

Gurney. The driver of the cab got down from his seat, and looked from

Gurney to Thrale with doubt and question.

Thrale nodded his head. "I knew it was sure to come," he remarked.

"Better get out of this," put in the driver.

"Yes, rather," agreed Gurney.

"Where to?" asked Thrale.

"Well, America."

Thrale laughed. "They'll have it in America before you get there,"

he said. "It'll go there via Japan and 'Frisco."

"You seem to know a lot about it," said the driver of the cab.

"Do you mean to tell me there's nowhere we can go to?" persisted

Gurney.

Thrale smiled. "Nowhere in this world," he said. "This plague has

come to destroy mankind." He spoke with a quiet assurance that

carried conviction.

The driver of the cab scowled. "May as well 'ave a run for my money

first, then," he said, and thus gave utterance to the thought that

was fermenting in many other minds.

There was no hope of escape for the mass, only the rich could seek

railway termini and take train for Liverpool, Southampton or any port

where there was the least hope of finding some ship to take them out

of Europe.

That night there was panic and riot. The wealthy classes were trying

to escape, the mob was trying to "get a run for its money." Yet very

little real mischief was done. Two or three companies of infantry

were sufficient to clear the streets, and not more than forty people

in all were seriously injured....

In Downing Street the new Premier sat alone with his head in his

hands, and wondered what could be done to stop the approach of the

pestilence. One of the evening papers had suggested that a great line

of fire should be built across the north of England. The Premier

wondered whether that scheme were feasible. He had never held high

office before; he did not know how to deal with these great issues. All

his political life he had learned only the art of party tactics. He

had learned that art very well, he was a master of debate, and he

had shown a wonderful ability to judge the bent of the public mind

and to make use of his judgments for party ends. But now that any

action of his was divorced from its accustomed object, he was as

a man suddenly forced into some new occupation. Whenever he tried

to think of some means to stay the progress of the plague his mind

automatically began to consider what influence the adoption of such

means would have upon the general election which must soon come....

"A line of fire across the north," he was thinking, "would shut

off the whole of Scotland. They would never forgive us for that. We

should lose the entire Scottish vote--it's bad enough as it is." He

sat up late into the night considering what policy he should put

before the Cabinet. He tried honestly to consider the position apart

from politics, but his mind refused to work in that way....

In Jermyn Street Thrale was arguing with Gurney, trying to persuade

him into a philosophic attitude.

"Yes, I suppose there's absolutely nothing to be done but sit down

and wait," said Gurney.

"Personally," returned Thrale, "I have no intention of spending my

time flying from country to country like a marked criminal. That way

leads to insanity. I've seen men become animals before now under the

influence of fear."

"Yes, of course, you're quite right," agreed Gurney. "One must exercise

self-control. After all, it's only death, and not such a terrible

death at that." He got up and began to pace the room restlessly,

then went to the window and looked out. Jermyn Street was almost

deserted, but distant sounds of shouting came from the direction of

Piccadilly. He left the window open and turned back into the room.

"It's so infernally hard just to sit still and wait," he said. "If

only one could do something."

"I doubt, now," said Thrale, quietly, "whether one could ever have

done anything. The public and the Government took my warnings in

the characteristic way, the only possible way in which you could

expect twentieth-century humanity to take a warning--a thrill of

fear, perhaps, in some cases; frank incredulity in others; but no

result either way that endured for an hour.... Belief in national

and personal security, inertia outside the routine of necessary,

stereotyped employment; these things are essential to the running of

the machine."

"I suppose they are," agreed Gurney absently He had sat down again

and was sucking automatically at an extinguished pipe.

"In a complex civilization," went on Thrale "any initiative on the part

of the individual outside his own tiny sphere of energy is just so much

grit in the machine. There are recognized methods, they may not be the

best, the most efficient, but they are accepted and understood. Every

clerk who has to calculate twelve pence to the shilling knows how

his work would be lightened if he had only to calculate ten, but he

accepts that difficulty, because he can do nothing as an individual to

introduce the decimal system. And that spirit of acceptance grows upon

him until the individual has the characteristics of the class. Only

when a man is stirred by too great discomfort does he open his eyes to

the possibility of initiative; then come labour strikes. If labour had

a sufficiency of ease and comfort, if its lot were not so violently

contrasted with that of even the middle-classes, labour would settle

down to complacency. But the contrast is too great, and to attain

that complacency of uninitiative we must level down. That was coming;

that would have come if this plague...."

"What was that?" asked Gurney excitedly, jumping to his feet. "Did

you hear firing?" He went to the window again, and leaned out. From

Piccadilly came the sound of an army of trampling feet, of confused

cries and shouting. "By God, there's a riot," exclaimed Gurney. He

spoke over his shoulder.

Thrale joined him at the window. "Panic," he said. "Senseless,

hysterical panic. It won't last."

"I think I shall go out of London," said Gurney. "I'd sooner ... I'd

sooner die in the country, I think." He withdrew from the window and

began to pace up and down the room again.

"Going to stampede with the rest of 'em?" asked

Thrale. "Extraordinarily infectious thing, panic."

"I don't think it's that exactly ..." hesitated Gurney.

"Animal fear," said Thrale. "The terror of the wild thing threatened

with the unknown. The runaway horse terrified and rushing to its own

destruction. Fly, fly, fly from the threat of peril as you did once

on the prairies, when to fly meant safety."

"It's so infernally depressing in London," said Gurney.

"All right, go and brood on death in the country," replied

Thrale. "That may cheer you up a bit. But, take my advice,

don't run. Walk at a snail's pace and check the least tendency to

hurry. Once you begin to quicken your pace, you will find yourself

hurrying desperately--and then stampede the hell of terror at your

heels. After all, you know, you may survive. It isn't likely that

every man will die."

Gurney caught eagerly at that. "No, no, of course it isn't," he

said. "But wouldn't one be much more likely to survive if one were

living in the country, or by the sea--in some fairly isolated place,

for example. I meant to go down to Cornwall for my holiday this year,

to a little cottage on the coast about four miles from Padstow;

don't you think in pure air and healthy surroundings like that,

one would stand a better chance?"

"Very likely," said Thrale carelessly. "But don't run. In any case

you'd better wait till the middle of the week. The first rush will

be over then."

"Yes. Perhaps. I'll go on Wednesday, or Tuesday...."

Thrale smiled grimly. "Well, good night," he said. "I'm going to bed."

When he had gone, Gurney went to the window again. The sounds of riot

from Piccadilly had died down to a low, confused murmur. A motor-car

whizzed by along Jermyn Street, and two people passed on foot, a man

and a woman; the woman was leaning heavily on the man's arm.

Gurney turned once more to his pacing of the room. He was trying to

realize the unrealizable fact that the world offered no refuge. For a

full hour he struggled with himself, with that new, strange instinct

which rose up and urged him to fly for his life. At last weary and

overborne he threw himself into a chair by the dying fire and began

to cry like a lost child; even as Ernst, the waiter, had cried....

The panic emigration lasted until Monday evening, and then came

news which checked and stayed the rush for the ports of Liverpool,

Southampton and Queenstown. The plague was already in America. It

had come, as Thrale had prophesied from the West. At the docks many

of those favoured emigrants who had secured berths, hesitated; if

it was to be a choice between death in America and death in England,

they preferred to die at home.

Yet, even on Tuesday morning, when doubt as to the coming of the

plague was no longer possible, when Dundee could only give approximate

figures of the seizures in that town, reporting them as not less than a

thousand, when it was evident that the whole of Scotland was becoming

infected with incredible rapidity, and two cases were notified as far

south as Durham, there remained still an enormous body of people who

stoutly maintained that, bad as things were, the danger was grossly

exaggerated, who believed that the danger would soon pass, and who,

steadfast to the habits of a lifetime, continued their routine wherever

it was possible so to do, determined to resist to the last.

To this body, possibly some two-fifths of the whole urban population,

was due the comparative maintenance of law and order. In face of

the growing destitution due to the wholesale closing of factories,

warehouses and offices, necessitated by the now complete cessation

of foreign trade and to the hoarding of food stores and gold which

was already so marked as to have seriously affected the commerce

not dependent on foreign sellers and buyers, a semblance of ordinary

life was still maintained. Newspapers were issued, trains and 'buses

were running, theatres and music-halls were open, and many normal

occupations were carried on.

Yet everything was infected. It was as if the cloak of civilization

was worn more loosely. Crime was increasing and justice was

relaxed. Robberies of food were so common that there was no place for

the confinement of those who were convicted. Shopkeepers were becoming

at once more reliant upon their own defences, and less scrupulous in

their dealings with bona-fide customers. No longer could the protection

of the State be exclusively relied upon, the citizen was becoming lost

in the individual. Public opinion was being resolved into individual

opinion; and with the failing of the great restraint every man was

developing an unsuspected side of his character. Thrown upon his

own resources, he became continually less civilized, more conscious

of possibilities to fulfill long-thwarted tendencies and desires;

he began to understand that when it is a case of sauve qui peut,

the weakest are trampled under foot.

So the cloak of civilization gaped and showed the form of the naked

man, with all its blemishes and deformities. And women blenched

and shuddered. For woman, as yet, was little, if at all, altered

in character by the fear that was brutalizing man. Her faith in

the intrinsic rectitude of the beloved conventions was more deeply

rooted. Moreover woman fears the strictures of woman, more than man

fears the judgments of man.

VIII--GURNEY IN CORNWALL

Gurney's alternative to flying from the plague was to run away from

himself. He shirked the issue in his conversations with Thrale,

shuffled, sophisticated, and in a futile endeavour to convince his

companion, convinced himself that his reasoning was sound and his

motive unprejudiced.

It was not until the following Thursday, however, that he took train

to Cornwall. He had succeeded in realizing between two and three

hundred pounds in gold, and this he took with him. He intended to

lay in stores of flour, sugar and other primary necessities; to buy

and keep two or three cows, to rear chickens, to grow as much garden

produce as possible, especially potatoes; and generally to provide

against the coming scarcity of food and the cessation of transport.

The bungalow on the shores of Constantine Bay, to which he departed,

was a place well suited to the carrying out of these prudent

arrangements. It belonged to a friend of his, who was rich enough

to indulge his whims, and who had spent a considerable sum of money

in building the place and enclosing ground, but who rarely occupied

the bungalow himself, and was too careless to bother about letting

it. Gurney had the keys in his possession. When he had asked his

friend for permission to spend his summer holiday there, he had been

told to use the place as if it were his own. "Jolly good thing for me,

you know," his friend had said. "Keep it dry and all that."

Gurney was not an idle man. Arrived at his bungalow, he lost no time

in carrying out the arrangements he had schemed, and for nearly three

weeks he was so absorbed in this work, in learning new occupations

and perfecting his plan, that he did, indeed, achieve his purpose of

running away from himself.

He became imbued with a new feeling of security; he received neither

letters nor papers from the outside, and the old labourer who assisted

him in setting potatoes, who taught him to milk a cow and instructed

him generally in the primitive arts of self-supporting toil, seemed

to regard all rumours of the new plague which filtered through to the

village of St Merryn as some foreign nonsense which had little bearing

on life in the county of Cornwall, as represented by the twenty-five

or thirty square miles which were to him all the essential world.

Gurney began to believe that the plague would never cross the Tamar,

and one day in early May, when his provisions against a siege were

practically completed, he was stirred to attempt a journey across the

peninsula in order to visit an acquaintance in East Looe. Gurney had

become conscious of a longing for some companionship. Old Hawken was

very good at cows and potatoes, but he was rather deaf and his range

of ideas was severely restricted.

From Padstow to Looe is not an ideal journey by rail at the best of

times, involving as it does, a change of train at Wadebridge, Bodmin

Road and Liskeard; but Gurney was in no hurry, and the conversations

he overheard in his compartment were not destructive of his new-found

complacency. There was, indeed, some mention of the plague, but only in

relation to the scarcity of food supply and its effect on trade. One

passenger, very obviously a farmer, was congratulating himself that

he was getting higher prices for stock than he had ever known, and

that as luck would have it he had sown an unusual number of acres

with wheat that year. "I'll be gettun sixty or seventy a quarter,

sure 'nough," he boasted.

Dickenson--Gurney's friend in Looe--regarded the matter more seriously,

but he, too, seemed untouched by any fear of personal infection. He was

an ardent Liberal, and his chief cause for concern seemed to be that

the plague should have come at a time when so much progress was being

made with legislation. He was, also, very distressed at the reports

of poverty and starvation which abounded, and at the terrible blow to

trade generally. But he seemed hopeful that the trouble would pass

and be followed by a new era of enlightened government, founded on

sound Liberal principles.

Gurney stayed the night and the greater part of the next day at Looe.

On his return journey he had to wait at Liskeard to pick up the main

line train for London, which would take him to Bodmin Road.

It was a glorious May evening. The day had been hot, but now there

was a cool breeze from the sea, and the long shadow from the high

bank of the cutting enwrapped the whole station in a pleasant twilight.

Gurney, deliberately pacing the length of the platform, was conscious

of physical vigour and a great enjoyment of life. He had an imaginative

temperament, and in his moments of exaltation he found the world

both interesting and beautiful, an entirely desirable setting for

the essential Gurney.

So he strolled up and down the platform, regarded any female figure

with interest, and was in no way concerned that the train was already

an hour late. He had expected it to be late. His own train from Looe,

for no particular reason, had been half an hour late. If he missed

his connexion at Wadebridge he would only have some seven or eight

miles to walk.

Fifteen or twenty other people were waiting on the down platform,

and presently Gurney became conscious that his fellow-passengers were

no longer detached into parties of two and three, but were collected

in groups, discussing, apparently, some matter of peculiar interest.

Gurney had been lost in his dreams and had hardly noticed the passage

of time. He looked at his watch and found that the train was now two

hours overdue. The sun had set, but there was still light in the sky. A

man detached himself from one of the groups and Gurney approached him.

"Two hours late," he remarked by way of introducing himself, and

looked at his watch again.

The man nodded emphatically. "Funny thing is," he said, "that they've

had no information at the office. The stationmaster generally gets

advice when the train leaves Plymouth."

"Good lord," said Gurney. "Do you mean to say that the train hasn't

got to Plymouth yet?"

"Looks like it," said the stranger. "They say it's the plague. It's

dreadfully bad in London, they tell me."

"D'you mean it's possible the train won't come in at all?" asked

Gurney.

"Oh! I should hardly think that," replied the other. "Oh, no, I should

hardly think that, but goodness knows when it will come. Very awkward

for me. I want to get to St Ives. It's a long way from here. Have

you far to go?"

"Well, Padstow," said Gurney.

"Padstow!" echoed the stranger. "That's a good step."

"Further than I want to walk."

"I should say. Thirty miles or so, anyway?"

"About that," agreed Gurney. "I wonder where one could get any

information.

"It's very awkward," was all the help the stranger had to offer.

Gurney crossed the line and invaded the stationmaster's office. "Sorry

to trouble you," he said, "but do you think this train's been taken

off, for any reason?"

"Oh, it 'asn't been taken off," said the stationmaster with a wounded

air. "It may be a bit late."

Gurney smiled. "It's something over two hours behind now, isn't

it?" he said.

"Well, I can't 'elp it, can I?" asked the stationmaster. "You'll

'ave to 'ave patience."

"You've had no advice yet from Plymouth?" persisted Gurney, facing

the other's ill-temper.

"No, I 'aven't; something's gone wrong with the wire. We can't get

no answer," returned the stationmaster. "Now, if you please, I 'ave

my work to do."

Gurney returned to the down platform and joined a group of men,

among whom he recognized the man he had spoken to a few minutes before.

The afterglow was dying out of the sky, in the south-west a faint

young moon was setting behind the high bank of the cutting. A porter

had lighted the station lamps, but they were not turned full on.

"The stationmaster tells me that something has gone wrong with the

telegraphic communication," said Gurney, addressing the little knot

of passengers collectively. "He can't get any answer it seems."

"Been an accident likely," suggested some one.

"Or the engine-driver's got the plague," said another.

"They'd have put another man on."

"If they could find one."

"If we ain't careful we shall be gettin' the plague down 'ere."

After all why not? The horrible suggestion sprang up in Gurney's

mind with new force. That remote city seemed suddenly near. He saw in

imagination the train leaving Paddington, and only a journey of six or

seven hours divided that departure from its arrival at Liskeard. It

might come in at any moment, bearing the awful infection. Why should

he wait? There was an inn near the station. He might find a conveyance

there.

"Constantine Bay?" questioned the landlord.

"It's near St Merryn," said Gurney, but still the landlord shook

his head.

"Not far from Padstow," explained Gurney.

"Pard-stow!" exclaimed the landlord on a rising note. "Drive over to

Pard-stow at this time o' night?" He appeared to think that Gurney

was joking.

"Well, Bodmin, then," suggested Gurney.

"Aw, why not take the train?" asked the landlord.

Gurney shrugged his shoulders. "The train doesn't seem to be coming,"

he said.

"Bad job, that," answered the landlord. "Been an accident, sure

'nough; this new plague or something." He was evidently prepared to

accept the matter philosophically.

"You can't drive me then?" asked Gurney.

The landlord shook his head with a grin. He was inclined to look upon

this foreigner as rather more foolish than the majority of his kind.

Gurney came out of the little inn, and looked down into the

station. The number of waiting passengers seemed to be decreasing,

but the light was so dim that he could not see into the shadows.

"I must keep hold of myself," he was saying. "I mustn't run."

A man was coming up the steep incline towards him, and Gurney moved

slowly to meet him. He found that it was the stranger he had spoken

to on the platform.

"Any news?" asked Gurney.

"Yes, they've got a message through from Saltash," replied the

stranger. "It's the plague right enough. They say they don't know

when there'll be another train...."

Days grew into weeks, and still there were no trains. Trade was at a

standstill, and the prices of home produce mounted steadily. Fish there

was, but not in great abundance, and the towns inland, such as Truro

and Bodmin, organized a motor service with coast fishing villages,

a service which only lasted for a week, by reason of the failure of

the petrol supply. After that there was a less effective horse service.

Within three weeks after that last train arrived from outside, a new

system of exchange was coming into vogue. In this little congeries of

communities in Cornwall, men were beginning to learn the uselessness

of gold, silver and bronze coins as tokens. Credit had collapsed,

and a system of barter was being introduced, mainly between farmer and

fisherman. In time it was possible that Cornwall might have become a

self-supporting community, for its proportionately few inhabitants

were rapidly being depleted by want and starvation; but, although

it was the last place in the British Isles to become infected, the

plague came there, too, in the end.

A steamer sent out from Cardiff on a plundering expedition carried

the plague to the Scillies, and a fishing vessel from St Ives carried

it on to Newlyn....

IX--THE DEVOLUTION OF GEORGE GOSLING

The progress of the plague through London and the world in general was

marked, in the earlier stages, by much the same developments as are

reported of the plague of 1665. The closed houses, the burial pits,

the deserted streets, the outbreaks of every kind of excess, the

various symptoms of fear, cowardice, fortitude and courage, evidenced

little change in the average of humanity between the seventeenth and

the twentieth centuries. The most notable difference during these

earlier stages was in the enormously increased rapidity with which

the population of London was reduced to starvation point. Even before

the plague had reached England, want had become general, so general,

indeed, as to have demonstrated very clearly the truth of the great

economist's contention that England could not exist for three months

with closed doors.

The coming of the plague threw London on to its own very limited

resources. That vast city, which produced nothing but the tokens of

wealth, and added nothing to the essentials that support life, was

instantly reduced to the state of Paris in the winter of 1870-71; with

the difference, however, that London's population could be decreased

rapidly by emigration, and was, also, even more rapidly decreased

by pestilence. Yet there was a large section of the population which

clung with blind obstinacy to the only life it knew how to live.

There was, for instance, George Gosling, more fortunate in many

respects than the average citizen, who clung desperately to his house

in Wisteria Grove until forced out of it by the lack of water.

On the ninth day after the first coming of the plague to London--it

appeared simultaneously in a dozen places and spread with fearful

rapidity--Gosling broke one of the great laws he had hitherto observed

with such admirable prudence. The offices and warehouse in Barbican

had been shut up (temporarily, it was supposed), and the partners had

disappeared from London. But Gosling had a duplicate set of keys, and,

inspired by the urgency of his family's need, he determined to dare

a journey into the City in order to borrow (he laid great stress on

the word) a few necessaries of life from the well-stored warehouse

of his firm.

In this scheme, planned with some shrewdness, he co-operated with a

friend, a fellow-sidesman at the Church of St John the Evangelist. This

friend was a coal merchant, and thus fortunately circumstanced in

the possession of wagons and horses.

These two arranged the details of their borrowing expedition between

them. Economically, it was a deal on the lines of the revived

methods of exchange and barter. Gosling was willing to exchange

certain advantages of knowledge and possession for the hire of wagons

and horses. It was decided, for obvious reasons, to admit no other

conspirator into the plot, and Boost, the coal merchant, drove one

cart and Gosling drove the other. Perhaps it should rather be said

that he led the other, for, after a preliminary trial, he decided

that he was safer at the horses' heads than behind their tails.

The raid was conducted with perfect success. Boost had a head

for essentials. The invaluable loads of tinned meats, fruits and

vegetables were screened by tarpaulins from the possibly too envious

eyes of hungry passers-by--quite a number of vagrants were to be

seen in the streets on that day--and Boost and Gosling, disguised in

coal-begrimed garments, made the return journey lugubriously calling,

"Plague, plague," the cry of the drivers of the funeral carts which

had even then become necessary. Their only checks were the various

applications they received for the cartage of corpses; applications

easily put on one side by pointing to the piled-up carts--they had

spent six laborious hours in packing them. "No room; no room," they

cried, and on that day the applicants who accosted Boost and Gosling

were not the only ones who had to wait for the disposal of their dead.

Gosling arrived at Wisteria Grove, hot and outwardly jubilant,

albeit with a horrible fear lurking in his mind that he had been

in dangerous proximity to those tendered additions to his load. His

booty was stored in one of the downstairs rooms--with the assistance

of Mrs Gosling and the two girls they managed the unpacking without

interruption in two hours and a half--and then, with boarded windows

and locked doors, the Goslings sat down to await the passing of horror.

Boost died of the plague forty-eight hours after the great adventure,

but as he had a wife and four daughters his plunder was not wasted.

For nearly a fortnight after the raid the Goslings lay snug in their

little house in Wisteria Grove, for they, in company with the majority

of English people at this time, had not yet fully appreciated the

fact that women were almost immune from infection. In all, not more

than eight per cent of the whole female population was attacked, and

of this proportion the mortality was almost exclusively among women

over fifty years of age. When the first faint rumours of the plague

had come to Europe, this curious, almost unprecedented, immunity of

women had been given considerable prominence. It had made good copy,

theories on the subject had appeared, and the point had aroused more

interest than that of the mortality among males--infectious diseases

were commonplace enough; this new phase had a certain novelty and

piquancy. But the threat of European infection had overwhelmed the

interest in the odd predilection of the unknown bacterium, and the more

vital question had thrown this peculiarity into the background. Thus

the Goslings and most other women feared attack no less than their

husbands, brothers and sons, and found justification for their fears

in the undoubted fact that women had died of the plague.

The Goslings had always jogged along amiably enough; their home life

would have passed muster as a tolerably happy one. The head of the

family was out of the house from 8.15 a.m. to 7.15 p.m. five days of

the week, and it was only occasionally in the evening of some long

wet Sunday that there was any open bickering.

Now, confinement in that little house, aggravated by fear and by the

absence of any interest or diversion coming from outside, showed the

family to one another in new aspects. Before two days had passed the

air was tense with the suppressed irritation of these four people,

held together by scarcely any tie other than that of a conventional

affection.

By the third day the air was so heavily charged that some explosion

was inevitable. It came early in the morning.

Gosling had run out of tobacco, and he thought in the circumstances

that it would be wiser to send Blanche or Millie than to go

himself. So, with an air of exaggerated carelessness, he said:

"Look here, Millie, my gel, I wish you'd just run out and see if you

can get me any terbaccer."

"Not me," replied Millie, with decision.

"And why not?" asked Gosling.

Millie shrugged her shoulders, and called her sister, who was in the

passage. "I say, B., father wants us to go out shopping for him. Are

you on?"

Blanche, duster in hand, appeared at the doorway.

"Why doesn't he go himself?" she asked.

"Because," replied her father, getting very red, and speaking with

elaborate care, "men's subject to the infection and women is not."

"That's all my eye," returned Millie. "Lots of women have got it."

"It's well known," said Gosling, still keeping himself in hand,

"a matter of common knowledge, that women is comparatively immune."

"Oh, that's a man's yarn, that is," said Blanche, "just to save

themselves. We all know what men are--selfish brutes!"

"Are you going to fetch me that terbaccer or are you not?" shouted

Mr Gosling suddenly.

"No, we aren't," said Millie, defiantly. "It isn't safe for girls to

go about the streets, let alone the risk of infection." She had heard

her father shout before, and she was not, as yet, at all intimidated.

"Well, then, I say you are!" shouted her father. "Lazy,

good-for-nothing creatures, the pair of you! 'Oose paid for everything

you've eat or drunk or wore ever since you was born? An' now you

won't even go an errand." Then, seeing the ready retort rising to his

daughters' lips, he grew desperate, and, advancing a step towards them,

he said savagely: "If you don't go, I'll find a way to make yer!"

This was a new aspect, and the two girls were a little

frightened. Natural instinct prompted them to scream for their mother.

She had been listening at the top of the stairs, and she answered

the call for help with great promptitude.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Gosling," she said, on a high

note. "The streets isn't safe for gels, as you know well enough;

and why should my gels risk their lives for the sake of your nasty,

dirty, wasteful 'abit of smoking, I should like to know?"

Gosling's new-found courage was evaporating at the attack of this

third enemy. He had been incensed against his daughters, but he had

not yet overcome the habit of giving in to his wife, for the sake of

peace. She had managed him very capably for a quarter of a century,

but on the occasions when she had found it necessary to use what

she called the "rough side of her tongue" she had demonstrated very

clearly which of the two was master.

"I should have thought I might 'a been allowed a little terbaccer,"

he said, resentfully. "'Oo risked his life to lay in provisions, I

should like to know? An' it's a matter o' common knowledge as women

is immune from this plague."

"And Mrs Carter, three doors off, carried out dead of it the day

before yesterday!" remarked Mrs Gosling, triumphantly.

"Oh, 'ere and there, a case or two," replied her husband. "But not

one woman to a thousand men gets it, as every one knows."

"And how do you know I mightn't be the one?" asked Millie, bold now

under her mother's protection.

For that morning, the matter remained in abeyance; but Gosling,

muttering and grumbling, nursed his injury and meditated on the

fact that his daughters had been afraid of him. Things were altered

now. There was no convention to tie his hands. He would work himself

into a protective passion and defy the three of them. Also, there

was an unopened bottle of whisky in the sideboard.

Nevertheless, he would have put off the trial of his strength if he

had had to seek an opportunity. He was, as yet, too civilized to take

the initiative in cold blood.

The opportunity, however, soon presented itself in that house. The air

had been little cleared by the morning's outbreak, and before evening

the real explosion came. A mere trifle originated it--a warning from

Gosling that their store of provisions would not last for ever, and a

sharp retort from Millie to the effect that her father did not stint

himself, followed by a reminder from Mrs Gosling that the raid might

be repeated.

"Oh! yes, you'd be willing enough for me to die of the plague, I've no

doubt!" broke out Gosling. "I can walk six mile to get you pervisions,

but you can't go to the corner of the street for my terbaccer."

"Pervisions is necessary, terbaccer ain't," said Mrs Gosling. She was

not a clever woman. She judged this to be the right opportunity to

keep her husband in his place, and relied implicitly on the quelling

power of her tongue. Her intuitions were those of the woman who had

lived all her life in a London suburb; they did not warn her that

she was now dealing with a specimen of half-decivilized humanity.

"Oh! ain't it?" shouted Gosling, getting to his feet. His face was

purple, and his pale blue eyes were starting from his head. "I'll soon

show you what's necessary and what ain't, and 'oose master in this

'ouse. And I say terbaccer is necessary, an' what's more, one o'

you three's goin' to fetch it quick! D'ye 'ear--one--o'--you--three!"

This inclusion of Mrs Gosling was, indeed, to declare war.

Millie and Blanche screamed and backed, but their mother rose to

the occasion. She did not reserve herself; she began on her top

note; but Gosling did not allow her to finish. He strode over to

her and shook her by the shoulders, shouting to drown her strident

recriminations. "'Old your tongue! 'old your tongue!" he bawled, and

shook her with increasing violence. He was feeling his power, and when

his wife crumpled up and fell to the floor in shrieking hysterics,

he still strode on to victory. Taking the cowed and terrified Millie

by the arm, he dragged her along the passage, unlocked and opened

the front door and pushed her out into the street. "And don't you

come back without my terbaccer!" he shouted.

"How much?" quavered the shrinking Millie.

"'Alf-a-crown's worth," replied Gosling fiercely, and tossed the coin

down on the little tiled walk that led up to the front door.

After Millie had gone he stood at the door for a moment, thankful for

the coolness of the air on his heated face. "I got to keep this up,"

he murmured to himself, with his first thought of wavering. Behind

him he heard the sound of uncontrolled weeping and little cries of the

"first time in twenty-four years" and "what the neighbours'll think,

I don't know."

"Neighbours," muttered Gosling, contemptuously, "there aren't any

neighbours--not to count."

A distant sound of slow wheels caught his ear. He listened attentively,

and there came to him the remote monotonous chant of a dull voice

crying: "Plague! Plague!"

He stepped in quickly and closed the door.

Millie found the Kilburn High Road deserted. No traffic of any kind

was to be seen in the street, and the rare foot-passengers, chiefly

women, had all a furtive air. Starvation had driven them out to

raid. No easy matter, as Millie soon found, for all shutters were

down, and in many cases shop-fronts were additionally protected by

great sheets of strong hoarding.

Millie, recovering from her fright, was growing resentful. Her little

conventional mind was greatly occupied by the fact that she was out in

the High Road wearing house-shoes without heels, in an old print dress,

and with no hat to hide the carelessness of her hair-dressing. At

the corner of Wisteria Grove she stopped and tried to remedy this

last defect; she had red hair, abundant and difficult to control.

The sight of the deserted High Road did not inspire her with

self-confidence; she still feared the possibility of meeting some

one who might recognize her. How could one account for one's presence

in a London thoroughfare at seven o'clock on a bright May evening in

such attire? Certainly not by telling the truth.

The air was wonderfully clear. Coal was becoming very scarce, and

few fires had been lighted that day to belch forth their burden of

greasy filth into the atmosphere. The sun was sinking, and Millie

instinctively clung to the shadow of the pavement on the west side of

the road. She, too, slunk along with the evasive air that was common to

the few other pedestrians, the majority of them on this same shadowed

pavement. That warm, radiant light on the houses opposite seemed to

hold some horror for them.

So preoccupied was Millie with her resentment that she wandered for

two or three hundred yards up the road without any distinct idea of

what she was seeking. When realization of the futility of her search

came to her, she stopped in the shadow of a doorway. "What is the

good of going on?" she argued. "All the shops are shut up." But the

thought of her father in his new aspect of muscular tyrant intimidated

her. She dared not return without accomplishing her errand. "I'll

have another look, anyway," she said; and then: "Who'd have thought

he was such a brute?" She rubbed the bruise on her arm; her mouth was

twisted into an ugly expression of spiteful resentment. Her thoughts

were busy with plans of revenge even as she turned to prosecute her

search for the tyrant's tobacco.

Here and there shops had been forcibly, burglariously entered,

plate-glass windows smashed, and interiors cleared of everything

eatable; the debris showed plainly enough that these rifled shops

had all belonged to grocers or provision merchants. Into each of

these ruins Millie stared curiously, hoping foolishly that she might

find what she sought. She ventured into one and carried away a box of

soap--they were running short of soap at home. A sense of moving among

accessible riches stirred within her, a desire for further pillage.

She came at last to a shop where the shutters were still intact, but

the door hung drunkenly on one hinge. A little fearfully she peered in

and discovered that fortune had been kind to her. The shop had belonged

to a tobacconist, and the contents were almost untouched--there had

been more crying needs to satisfy in the households of raiders than

the desire for tobacco.

It was very dark inside, and for some seconds Millie stared into what

seemed absolute blackness, but as her eyes became accustomed to the

gloom, she saw the interior begin to take outline, and when she moved

a couple of steps into the place and allowed more light to come in

through the doorway, various tins, boxes and packets in the shelves

behind the counter were faintly distinguishable.

Once inside, the spirit of plunder took hold of her, and she began

to take down boxes of cigars and cigarettes and packets of tobacco,

piling them up in a heap on the counter. But she had no basket in which

to carry the accumulation she was making, and she was feeling under

the counter for some box into which to put her haul, when the shadows

round her deepened again into almost absolute darkness. Cautiously

she peered up over the counter and saw the silhouette of a woman

standing in the doorway.

For ten breathless seconds Millie hung motionless, her eyes fixed on

the apparition. She was very civilized still, and she was suddenly

conscious of committing a crime. She feared horribly lest the figure

in the doorway might discover Millicent Gosling stealing tobacco. But

the intruder, after recognizing the nature of the shop's contents,

moved away with a sigh. Millie heard her dragging footsteps shuffle

past the window.

That scare decided her movements. She hastily looped up the front of

her skirt, bundled into it as much plunder as she could conveniently

carry, and made her way out into the street again.

She was nearly at the corner of Wisteria Grove before she was molested,

and then an elderly woman came suddenly out of a doorway and laid a

hand on Millie's arm.

"Whacher got?" asked the woman savagely.

Millie, shrinking and terrified, displayed her plunder.

"Cigars," muttered the woman. "Whacher want with cigars?" She opened

the boxes and stirred up the contents of Millie's improvised bundle

in an eager search for something to eat. "Gawd's truth! yer must be

crazy, yer thievin' little slut!" she grumbled, and pushed the girl

fiercely from her.

Millie made good her escape, dropping a box of cigars in her

flight. Her one thought now was the fear of meeting a policeman. In

three minutes she was beating fiercely on the door of the little

house in Wisteria Grove, and, disregarding her father's exclamations

of pleased surprise when he let her in, she tumbled in a heap on to

the mat in the passage.

Gosling's first declaration of male superiority had been splendidly

successful.

A few minutes after Millie's return, Mrs Gosling, red-eyed and

timidly vicious, interrupted her husband's perfect enjoyment of the

long-desired cigar by the announcement: "The gas is off!"

Gosling got up, struck a match, and held it to the sitting-room

burner. The match burned steadily. There was no pressure even of air

in the pipes.

"Turned off at the meter!" snapped Gosling. "'Ere, lemme go an'

see!" He spoke with the air of the superior male, strong in his

comprehension of the mechanical artifices which so perplex the feminine

mind. Mrs Gosling sniffed, and stood aside to let him pass. She had

already examined the meter.

"Well, we got lamps!" snarled Gosling when he returned. He had always

preferred a lamp to read by in the evening.

"No oil," returned Mrs Gosling, gloomily. She'd teach him to shake her!

Gosling meditated. His parochial mind was full of indignation. Vague

thoughts of "getting some one into trouble for this"--even of

that last, desperate act of coercion, writing to the papers about

it--flitted through his mind. Plainly something must be done. "'Aven't

you got any candles?" he asked.

"One or two. They won't last long," replied his studiously patient

partner.

"Well, we'll 'ave to use them to-night and go to bed early," was

Gosling's final judgment. His wife left the room with a shrug of

forbearing contempt.

When she had gone, the head of the house went upstairs and peered

out into the street. The sun had set, and an unprecedented mystery

of darkness was falling over London. The globes of the tall electric

standards, catching a last reflection from the fading sky, glimmered

faintly, but were not illuminated from within by any fierce glare of

violet light. Darkness and silence enfolded the great dim organism that

sprawled its vast being over the earth. The spirit of mystery caught

Gosling in its spell. "All dark," he murmured, "and quiet! Lord! how

still it is!" Even in his own house there was silence. Downstairs,

three injured, resentful women were talking in whispers.

Gosling, still sucking his cigar, stood entranced, peering into the

darkness; he had ventured so far as to throw up the sash. "It's the

stillness of death!" he muttered. Then he cocked his head on one side,

for he caught the sound of distant shouting. Somewhere in the Kilburn

Road another raid was in progress.

"No light," murmured Gosling, "and no fire!" An immediate association

suggested itself. "By gosh! and no water!" he added. For some seconds

he contemplated with fearful awe the failure of the great essential

of life.

In the cistern room he was reassured by the sound of a delicious

trickle from the ball-cock. "Still going," he said to himself;

"but we'll 'ave to be careful. Surely they'll keep the water goin',

though; whatever 'appens, they'd surely keep the water on?"

Nothing but the failure of the water could have driven them from

Wisteria Grove. Half-a-dozen times every day Gosling would climb up

to the top of the house to reassure himself. And at last came the day

when a dreadful silence reigned under the slates, when no delicious

tinkle of water gave promise of maintained security from water famine.

"It'll come on again at night," said Gosling to himself. "We'll

'ave to be careful, that's all."

He went downstairs and issued orders that no more water was to be

drawn that day.

"Well, we must wash up the breakfast things," was his wife's reply.

"You mustn't wash up nothing," said Gosling, "not one blessed

thing. It's better to go dirty than die o' thirst. Hevery drop o'

the water in that cistern must be saved for drinkin'."

Mrs Gosling noisily put down the kettle she was holding. "Oh! very

well, my lord!" she remarked, sarcastically. She looked at her two

daughters with a twist of her mouth. There were only two sides in

that house; the women were as yet united against the common foe.

When Gosling, fatuously convinced of his authority, had gone, his

wife quietly filled the kettle and proceeded with her washing up.

"Your father thinks 'e knows everything these days," remarked the

mother to her allies.

There was much whispering for some time.

Gosling spent most of the day in the roof, but not until the afternoon

did he realize that the cistern was slowly being emptied. His first

thought was that one of the pipes leaked, his second that it was

time to make a demonstration of force. He found a walking-stick in

the hall....

But even when that precious half-cistern of water was only called

upon to supply the needs of thirst, and the Goslings, sinking further

into the degradation of savagedom, slunk furtive and filthy about

the gloomy house, it became evident that a move must be made sooner

or later. Two alternatives were presented: they might go north and

east to the Lea, or south to the Thames.

Gosling chose the South. He knew Putney; he had been born there. He

knew nothing of Clapton and its neighbourhood.

So one bright, clear day at the end of May, the Goslings set out on

their great trek. The head of the house, driven desperate by fear of

thirst, raided his late partner's coal sheds and found one living

horse and several dead ones. The living horse was partly revived

by water from an adjacent butt, and the next day it was harnessed

to a coal cart and commandeered to convey the Goslings' provisions

to Putney. It died half-a-mile short of their destination, but they

were able, by the exercise of their united strength, to get the cart

and its burden down to the river.

They found an empty house without difficulty, but they had an

unpleasant half-hour in removing what remained of one of the previous

occupants. Gosling hoped it was not a case of plague. As the body was

that of a woman, and terribly emaciated, there were some grounds for

his optimism.

Gosling was in a state of some bewilderment. When water had been

fetched in buckets from the river, and the three women had explored,

criticized and sniffed over their new home somewhat in the manner

of strange cats, the head of the house settled down to a cigar and

a careful consideration of his perplexities.

In the first place, he wondered why those horses of Boost's had not

been used for food; in the second, he wondered why he had not seen

a single man during the whole of the long trek from Brondesbury to

Putney. By degrees an unbelievable explanation presented itself:

no men were left. He remembered that the few needy-looking women

he had seen had looked at him curiously; in retrospect he fancied

their regard had had some quality of amazement. Gosling scratched

the bristles of his ten-days'-old beard and smoked thoughtfully. He

almost regretted that he had stared so fiercely and threateningly at

every chance woman they had seen; he might have got some news. But the

whole journey had been conducted in a spirit of fear; they had been

defending their food, their lives; they had been primitive creatures

ready to fight desperately at the smallest provocation.

"No man left," said Gosling to himself, and was not convinced. If

that indeed were the solution of his perplexity, he was faced with

an awful corollary; his own time would come. He thought of Barbican,

E.C., of Flack, of Messrs Barker and Prince, of the office staff,

and the office itself. He had not been able to rid his mind of the

idea that in a few weeks he would be back in the City again. He had

several times rehearsed his surprise when he should be told of the

depredations in the warehouse; he had wondered only yesterday if he

dared go to the office in his beard.

But to-night the change of circumstance, the breaking up of old

associations, was opening his eyes to new horizons. There might

never be an office again for him to go to. If he survived--and he

was distinctly hopeful on that score--he might be almost the only

man left in London; there might not be more than a few thousand in

the whole of England, in Europe....

For a time he dwelt on this fantastic vision. Who would do the

work? What work would there be to do?

"Got to get food," murmured Gosling, and wondered vaguely how food was

"got" when there were no shops, no warehouses, no foreign agents. His

mind turned chiefly to meat, since that had been his trade. "'Ave to

rear sheep and cattle, I suppose," said Gosling. As an afterthought

he added: "An' grow wheat."

He sighed heavily. He realized that he had no knowledge on the subject

of rearing cattle and growing wheat; he also realized that he was

craving for ordinary food again--milk, eggs, and fresh vegetables. He

had a nasty-looking place on his leg which he rightly attributed to

unwholesome diet.

After forty-eight hours' residence in the new house, Gosling began

to pluck up his courage and to dare the perils of the streets. He

was beginning to have faith in his luck, to believe that the plague

had passed away and left him untouched.

And as day succeeded day he ventured further afield; he went in search

of milk, eggs and vegetables, but he only found young nettles, which

he brought home and helped to eat when they had been boiled over a

wood fire. They were all glad to eat nettles, and were the better for

them. Occasionally he met women on these excursions, and stayed to

talk to them. Always they had the same tale to tell--their men were

dead, and themselves dying of starvation.

One day at the beginning of June he went as far as Petersham, and

there at the door of a farmhouse he saw a fine, tall young woman. She

was such a contrast to the women he usually met on his expeditions

that he paused and regarded her with curiosity.

"What do you want?" asked the young woman, suspiciously.

"I suppose you 'aven't any milk or butter or eggs to sell?" asked

Gosling.

"Sell?" echoed the girl, contemptuously. "What 'ave you got to give

us as is worth food?"

"Well, money," replied Gosling.

"Money!" came the echo again. "What's the good of money when there's

nothing to buy with it? I wouldn't sell you eggs at a pound apiece."

Gosling scratched his beard--it looked quite like a beard by this

time. "Rum go, ain't it?" he asked, and smiled.

His new acquaintance looked him up and down, and then smiled in return,

"You're right," she said. "You're the first man I've seen since father

died, a month back."

"'Oo's livin' with you?" asked Gosling, pointing to the house.

"Mother and sister, that's all."

"'Ard work for you to get a livin', I suppose?"

"So, so. We're used to farm-work. The trouble's to keep the other

women off."

"Ah!" replied Gosling reflectively, and the two looked at one another

again.

"You 'ungry?" asked the girl.

"Not to speak of," replied Gosling. "But I'm fair pinin' for a change

o' diet. Been livin' on tinned things for five weeks or more."

"Come in and have an egg," said the girl.

"Thank you," said Gosling, "I will, with pleasure."

They grew friendly over that meal--two eggs and a glass of milk. He

ate the eggs with butter, but there was no bread. It seemed that the

young woman's mother and sister were at work on the farm, but that

one of them had always to stay at home and keep guard.

They discussed the great change that had come over England, and

wondered what would be the end of it; and after a little time, Gosling

began to look at the girl with a new expression in his pale blue eyes.

"Ah! Hevrything's changed," he said. "Nothin' won't be the same any

more, as far as we can see. There's no neighbours now, f'rinstance,

and no talk of what's going on--or anythin'."

The girl looked at him thoughtfully. "What we miss is some man to

look after the place," she said. "We're robbed terrible."

Gosling had not meant to go as far as that. He was not unprepared for

a pleasant flirtation, now that there were no neighbours to report him

at home, but the idea that he could ever separate himself permanently

from his family had not occurred to him.

"Yes," he said, "you want a man about these days."

"Ever done any farm work?" asked the girl.

Gosling shook his head.

"Well, you'd soon learn," she went on.

"I must think it over," said Gosling suddenly. "Shall you be 'ere

to-morrow?"

"One of us will," said the girl.

"Ah! but shall you?"

"Why me?"

"Well, I've took a fancy to you."

"Very kind of you, I'm sure," said the girl, and laughed.

Gosling kissed her before he left.

He returned the next afternoon and helped to cut and stack sainfoin,

and afterwards he watched the young woman milk the cows. It was so

late by the time everything was finished that he was persuaded to

stay the night.

In the new Putney house three women wondered what had happened to

"father." They grew increasingly anxious for some days, and even

tried in a feeble way to search for him. By the end of the week they

accepted the theory that he too had died of the plague.

They never saw him again.

X--EXODUS

In West Hampstead a Jewess, who had once been fat, looked out of the

windows of her gaudy house. She was partly dressed in a garish silk

negligé. Her face was exceedingly dirty, but the limp, pallid flesh

was revealed in those places where she had wiped away her abundant

tears. Her body was bruised and stiff, for in a recent raid on a house

suspected of containing provisions she had been hardly used by her

sister women. She had made the mistake of going out too well dressed;

she had imagined that expensive clothes would command respect....

As she looked out she wept again, bewailing her misery. From her

earliest youth she had been pampered and spoilt. She had learnt that

marriage was her sole object in life, and she had sold herself at

a very respectable price. She had received the applause and favour

of her family for marrying the man she had chosen as most likely to

provide her with the luxury which she regarded as her birth-right.

Two days ago she had cooked and eaten the absurdly expensive but

diminutive dog upon which she had lavished the only love of which

she had been capable. She had wept continuously as she ate her idol,

but for the first time she had regretted his littleness.

Hunger and thirst were driving her out of the house of which she had

been so vain; the primitive pains were awakening in her primitive

instincts that had never stirred before. From her window she could

see naught but endless streets of brick, stone and asphalt, but

beyond that dry, hot, wilderness she knew there were fields--she

had seen them out of the corner of her eye when she had motored to

Brighton. Fields had never been associated in her mind with food until

the strange new stirring of that unsuspected instinct. Food for her

meant shops. One went to shops and bought food and bought the best

at the lowest price possible. With all her pride of position, she

had never hesitated to haggle with shopkeepers. And when the first

pinch had come, when her husband had selfishly died of the plague,

and her household had deserted her, it was to the shops she had gone,

autocratically demanding her rights. She had learned by experience

now that she had no longer any rights.

She dressed herself in her least-conspicuous clothes, dabbed her

face with powder to cover some of the dirt--there was no water,

and in any case she did not feel inclined to wash--carefully stowed

away all her money and the best of her jewels in a small leather bag,

and set out to find the country where food grew out of the ground.

Instinct set her face to the north. She took the road towards

Hendon....

In every quarter of London, in every great town and city throughout

Europe, women were setting their faces towards the country.

By the autumn London was empty. The fallen leaves in park squares

and suburban streets were swept into corners by the wind, and when

the rain came the leaves clung together and rotted, and so continued

the long routine of decay and birth.

When spring came again, Nature returned with delicate, strong hands

to claim her own. For hundreds of years she had been defied in the

heart of this great, hard, stone place. Her little tentative efforts

had been rudely repulsed, no tender thread of grass had been allowed

to flourish for an hour under the feet of the crushing multitude. Yet

she had fought with a steady persistence that never relaxed a moment's

effort. Whenever men had given her a moment's opportunity, even in

the very heart of that city of burning struggle, she had covered

the loathed sterility with grass and flowers, dandelions, charlock,

grounsel and other life that men call weeds.

Now, when her full opportunity came, she set to work in her slow,

patient way to wreck and cover the defilement of earth. Her winds

swept dust into every corner, and her rain turned it into a shallow

bed of soil, ready to receive and nurture the tiny seeds that sailed

on little feathered wings, or were carried by bird and insect to

some quiet refuge in which they might renew life, and, dying, add

fertility to the mother who had brought them forth.

Nature came, also, with her hurricanes, her lightnings and her frosts,

to rend and destroy. She stripped slates from roofs, thrust out gables

and overturned solid walls. She came with fungi to undermine and with

the seeds of trees to split asunder.

She asked for but a few hundred years of patient, continuous work in

order to make of London once more a garden; where the nightingale

might sing in Oxford Street and the children of a new race pluck

sweet wild flowers over the site of the Bank of England....

The spirit of London had gone out of her, and her body was crumbling

and rotting. There was no life in all that vast sprawl of bricks and

mortar; the very dogs and cats, deserted by humanity, left her to

seek their only food, to seek those other living things which were

their natural quarry.

In her prime, London had been the chief city of the world. Men and

women spoke of her as an entity, wrote of her as of a personality,

loved her as a friend. This aggregate of streets and parks, this

strange confusion of wealth and squalor, had stood to men and women for

something definitely lovable. It was not her population they loved, not

the polyglot crowd that swarmed in her streets, but she herself and all

the beauty and intoxication of life she had gathered into her embrace.

Now she was dead. Whatever fine qualities she had possessed, whatever

vices, had gone from her. She sprawled in all her naked ugliness,

a huge corpse rotting among the hills, awaiting the slow burial which

Nature was tediously preparing.

All those wonderful buildings, the great emporiums in the West End,

the magnificent banks and insurance offices, museums and picture

galleries, regarded as the storehouses of incalculable wealth, vast

hotels, palatial private residences, the thundering railway termini,

Government offices, Houses of Parliament, theatres, churches and

cathedrals, all had become meaningless symbols. All had represented

some activity, some ambition of man, and man had fled to the country

for food, leaving behind the worthless tokens of wealth that had

intrigued him for so many centuries.

Gold and silver grew tarnished in huge safes that none wished to rifle,

banknotes became mildewed, damp and fungus crept into the museums and

picture galleries, and in the whole of Great Britain there was none

to grieve. Every living man and woman was back at the work of their

ancestors, praying once more to Ceres or Demeter, working with bent

back to produce the first essentials of life.

Each individual must produce until such time as there was once more

a superfluity, until barns were filled and wealth re-created, until

the strong had seized from the weak and demanded labour in return for

the use of the stolen instrument, until civilization had sprung anew

from the soil.

Meanwhile London was not a city of the dead, but a dead city.

The prospects were so magnificent that there could be no hesitation