transcriber's note: minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. dialect spellings, contractions and discrepancies have been retained. ted and the telephone by sara ware bassett _the invention series_ paul and the printing press steve and the steam engine ted and the telephone [illustration: "would you like to go to college if you could?" persisted the elder man. frontispiece. _see page_ .] the invention series ted and the telephone by sara ware bassett with illustrations by william f. stecher boston little, brown, and company _copyright, _, by little, brown, and company. _all rights reserved_ published april, printed in the united states of america to the memory of edwin t. holmes who played a part in the wonderful telephone story, this book is affectionately inscribed. s. w. b. it gives me much pleasure to acknowledge the generosity of mr. thomas augustus watson, the associate of and co-worker with mr. alexander graham bell, who has placed at my disposal his "birth and babyhood of the telephone." also the courtesy of mrs. edwin t. holmes who has kindly allowed me to make use of her husband's book: "a wonderful fifty years." the author. contents chapter page i an unheralded champion ii ted renews old times iii going to housekeeping iv the first night in the shack v a visitor vi more guests vii mr. laurie viii diplomacy and its results ix the story of the first telephone x what came afterward xi the rest of the story xii conspirators xiii what ted heard xiv the fernalds win their point xv what came of the plot xvi another calamity xvii surprises illustrations "would you like to go to college if you could?" persisted the elder man _frontispiece_ "you can't be spreadin' wires an' jars an' things round my room!" protested mr. turner page soon he came within sight of the shack which stood at the water's edge " he heard an answering shout and a second later saw ted turner dash through the pines " ted and the telephone chapter i an unheralded champion ted turner lived at freeman's falls, a sleepy little town on the bank of a small new hampshire river. there were cotton mills in the town; in fact, had there not been probably no town would have existed. the mills had not been attracted to the town; the town had arisen because of the mills. the river was responsible for the whole thing, for its swift current and foaming cascades had brought the mills, and the mills in turn had brought the village. ted's father was a shipping clerk in one of the factories and his two older sisters were employed there also. some day ted himself expected to enter the great brick buildings, as the boys of the town usually did, and work his way up. perhaps in time he might become a superintendent or even one of the firm. who could tell? such miracles did happen. not that ted turner preferred a life in the cotton mills to any other career. not at all. deep down in his soul he detested the humming, panting, noisy place with its clatter of wheels, its monotonous piecework, and its limited horizon. but what choice had he? the mills were there and the only alternative before him. it was the mills or nothing for people seldom came to live at freeman's falls if they did not intend to enter the factories of fernald and company. it was fernald and company that had led his father to sell the tumble-down farm in vermont and move with his family to new hampshire. "there is no money in farming," announced he, after the death of ted's mother. "suppose we pull up stakes and go to some mill town where we can all find work." and therefore, without consideration for personal preferences, they had looked up mill towns and eventually settled on freeman's falls, not because they particularly liked its location but because labor was needed there. a very sad decision it was for ted who had passionately loved the old farm on which he had been born, the half-blind gray horse, the few hens, and the lean jersey cattle that his father asserted ate more than they were worth. to be cooped up in a manufacturing center after having had acres of open country to roam over was not an altogether joyous prospect. would there be any chestnut, walnut, or apple trees at freeman's falls, he wondered. alas, the question was soon answered. within the village there were almost no trees at all except a few sickly elms and maples whose foliage was pale for want of sunshine and grimy with smoke. in fact, there was not much of anything in the town save the long dingy factories that bordered the river; the group of cheap and gaudy shops on the main street; and rows upon rows of wooden houses, all identical in design, walling in the highway. it was not a spot where green things flourished. there was not room for anything to grow and if there had been the soot from the towering chimneys would soon have settled upon any venturesome leaf or flower and quickly shrivelled it beneath a cloak of cinders. even the river was coated with a scum of oil and refuse that poured from the waste pipes of the factories into the stream and washed up along the shores which might otherwise have been fair and verdant. of course, if one could get far enough away there was beauty in plenty for in the outlying country stretched vistas of splendid pines, fields lush with ferns and flowers, and the unsullied span of the river, where in all its mountain-born purity it rushed gaily down toward the village. here, well distant from the manufacturing atmosphere, were the homes of the fernalds who owned the mills, the great estates of mr. lawrence fernald and mr. clarence fernald who every day rolled to their offices in giant limousines. everybody in freeman's falls knew them by sight,--the big boss, as he was called, and his married son; and everybody thought how lucky they were to own the mills and take the money instead of doing the work. at least, that was what gossip said they did. unquestionably it was much nicer to live at aldercliffe, the stately colonial mansion of mr. lawrence fernald; or at pine lea, the home of mr. clarence fernald, where sweeping lawns, bright awnings, gardens, conservatories, and flashing fountains made a wonderland of the place. troupes of laughing guests seemed always to be going and coming at both houses and there were horses and motor-cars, tennis courts, a golf course, and canoes and launches moored at the edge of the river. freeman's falls was a very stupid spot when contrasted with all this jollity. it must be far pleasanter, too, when winter came to hurry off to new york for the holidays or to florida or california, as mr. clarence fernald frequently did. with money enough to do whatever one pleased, how could a person help being happy? and yet there were those who declared that both mr. lawrence and mr. clarence fernald would have bartered their fortunes to have had the crippled heir to the fernald millions strong like other boys. occasionally ted had caught a glimpse of this laurie fernald, a fourteen-year-old lad with thin, colorless face and eyes that were haunting with sadness. in the village he passed as "the poor little chap" or as "poor master laurie" and the employees always doffed their caps to him because they pitied him. whether one liked mr. fernald or mr. clarence or did not, every one united in being sorry for mr. laurie. perhaps the invalid realized this; at any rate, he never failed to return the greetings accorded him with a smile so gentle and sweet that it became a pleasure in the day of whomsoever received it. it was said at the factories that the reason the fernalds went to new york and florida and california was because of mr. laurie; that was the reason, too, why so many celebrated doctors kept coming to pine lea, and why both mr. fernald and mr. clarence were often so sharp and unreasonable. in fact, almost everything the fernalds did or did not do, said or did not say, could be traced back to mr. laurie. from the moment the boy was born--nay, long before--both mr. lawrence fernald for whom he was named, and his father, mr. clarence fernald, had planned how he should inherit the great mills and carry on the business they had founded. for years they had talked and talked of what should happen when mr. laurie grew up. and then had come the sudden and terrible illness, and after weeks of anxiety everybody realized that if mr. laurie lived he would be fortunate, and that he would never be able to carry on any business at all. in what hushed tones the townspeople talked of the tragedy and how they speculated on what the fernalds would do _now_. and how surprised the superintendent of one of the mills (who, by the way, had six husky boys of his own) had been to have mr. lawrence fernald bridle with rage when he said he was sorry for him. a proud old man was mr. fernald, senior. he did not fancy being pitied, as his employees soon found out. possibly mr. clarence fernald did not like it any better but whether he did or not he at least had the courtesy not to show his feelings. thus the years had passed and mr. laurie had grown from childhood to boyhood. he could now ride about in a motor-car if lifted into it; but he could still walk very little, although specialists had not given up hope that perhaps in time he might be able to do so. there was a rumor that he was strapped into a steel jacket which he was forced to wear continually, and the mill hands commented on its probable discomfort and wondered how the boy could always keep so even-tempered. for it was unavoidable that the large force of servants from aldercliffe and pine lea should neighbor back and forth with the townsfolk and in this way many a tale of mr. laurie's rare disposition reached the village. and even had not these stories been rife, anybody could easily have guessed the patience and sweetness of mr. laurie's nature from his smile. among the employees of fernald and company he was popularly known as the little master and between him and them there existed a friendliness which neither his father nor his grandfather had ever been able to call out. the difference was that for mr. lawrence fernald the men did only what they were paid to do; for mr. clarence they did fully what they were paid to do; and for mr. laurie they would gladly have done what they were paid to do and a great deal more. "the poor lad!" they murmured one to another. "the poor little chap!" of course it followed that no one envied mr. laurie his wealth. how could they? one might perhaps envy mr. fernald, senior, or mr. clarence; but never mr. laurie even though the fernald fortune and all the houses and gardens, with their miles of acreage, as well as the vast cotton mills would one day be his. even ted turner, poor as he was, and having only the prospect of the factories ahead of him, never thought of wishing to exchange his lot in life for that of mr. laurie. he would rather toil for fernald and company to his dying day than be this weak, dependent creature who was compelled to be carried about by those stronger than himself. nevertheless, in spite of this, there were intervals when ted did wish he might exchange houses with mr. laurie. not that ted turner coveted the big colonial mansion, or its fountains, its pergolas, its wide lawns; but he did love gardens, flowers, trees, and sky, and of these he had very little. he was, to be sure, fortunate in living on the outskirts of the village where he had more green and blue than did most of the mill workers. still, it was not like vermont and the unfenced miles of country to which he had been accustomed. a small tenement in freeman's falls, even though it had steam heat and running water, was in his opinion a poor substitute for all that had been left behind. but ted's father liked the new home better, far better, and so did ruth and nancy, his sisters. many a time the boy heard his father congratulating himself that he was clear of the farm and no longer had to get up in the cold of the early morning to feed and water the stock and do the milking. and ruth and nancy echoed these felicitations and rejoiced that now there was neither butter to churn nor hens to care for. even ted was forced to confess that freeman's falls had its advantages. certainly the school was better, and as his father had resolved to keep him in it at least a part of the high-school term, ted felt himself to be a lucky boy. he liked to study. he did not like all studies, of course. for example, he detested latin, french, and history; but he revelled in shop-work, mathematics, and the sciences. there was nothing more to his taste than putting things together, especially electrical things; and already he had tried at home several crude experiments with improvised telegraphs, telephones, and wireless contrivances. doubtless he would have had many more such playthings had not materials cost so much, money been so scarce, and ruth and nancy so timid. they did not like mysterious sparks and buzzings in the pantry and about the kitchen and told him so in no uncertain terms. "the next thing you know you'll be setting the house afire!" ruth had asserted. "besides, we've no room for wires and truck around here. you'll have to take your clutter somewhere else." and so ted had obediently bundled his precious possessions into the room where he slept with his father only to be as promptly ejected from that refuge also. "you can't be spreadin' wires an' jars an' things round my room!" protested mr. turner with annoyance. [illustration: "you can't be spreadin' wires an' jars an' things round my room!" protested mr. turner. _page_ .] it did not seem to occur to him that it was ted's room as well,--the only room the boy had. altogether, his treasures found no welcome anywhere in the tiny apartment, and at length convinced of this, ted took everything down and stowed it away in a box beneath the bed, henceforth confining his scientific adventures to the school laboratories where they might possibly have remained forever but for mr. wharton, the manager of the farms at aldercliffe and pine lea. chapter ii ted renews old times mr. wharton was about the last person on earth one would have connected with boxes of strings and wires hidden away beneath beds. he was a graduate of a massachusetts agricultural college; a keen-eyed, quick, impatient creature toward whom people in general stood somewhat in awe. he had the reputation of being a top-notch farmer and those who knew him declared with zest that there was nothing he did not know about soils, fertilizers, and crops. there was no nonsense when mr. wharton appeared on the scene. the men who worked for him soon found that out. you didn't lean on your hoe, light your pipe, and hazard the guess that there would be rain to-morrow; you just hoed as hard as you could and did not stop to guess anything. now it happened that it was haying time both at aldercliffe and pine lea and the rumor got abroad that the crop was an unusually heavy one; that mr. wharton was short of help and ready to hire at a good wage extra men from the adjoining village. mr. turner brought the tidings home from the mill one june night when he returned from work. "why don't you try for a job up at aldercliffe, my lad?" concluded he, after stating the case. "ever since you were knee-high to a grasshopper you had a knack for pitching hay. besides, you'd make a fine bit of money and the work would be no heavier than handling freight down at the mills. you've got to work somewhere through your summer vacation." he made the latter statement as a matter of course for a matter of course it had long since become. ted always worked when he was not studying. vacations, holidays, saturdays, he was always busy earning money for if he had not been, there would have been no chance of his going to school the rest of the time. sometimes he did errands for one of the dry-goods stores; sometimes, if there were a vacancy, he helped in fernald and company's shipping rooms; sometimes he worked at the town market or rode about on the grocer's wagon, delivering orders. by one means or another he had usually contrived, since he was quite a small boy, to pick up odd sums that went toward his clothes and "keep." as he grew older, these sums had increased until now they had become a recognized part of the family income. for it was understood that ted would turn in toward the household expenses all that he earned. his father had never believed in a boy having money to spend and even if he had every cent which the turners could scrape together was needed at home. ted knew well how much sugar and butter cost and therefore without demur he cheerfully placed in the hands of his sister ruth, who ran the house, every farthing that was given him. from childhood this sense of responsibility had always been in his background. he had known what it was to go hungry that he might have shoes and go without shoes that he might have underwear. money had been very scarce on the vermont farm, and although there was now more of it than there ever had been in the past, nevertheless it was not plentiful. therefore, as vacation was approaching and he must get a job anyway, he decided to present himself before mr. wharton and ask for a chance to help in harvesting the hay crops at aldercliffe and pine lea. "you are younger than the men i am hiring," mr. wharton said, after he had scanned the lad critically. "how old are you?" "fourteen." "i thought as much. what i want is men." "but i have farmed all my life," protested ted with spirit. "indeed!" the manager exclaimed not unkindly. "where?" "in vermont." "you don't say so! i was born in the green mountains," was the quick retort. "where did you live?" "newfane." instantly the man's face lighted. "i know that place well. and you came from newfane here? how did you happen to do that?" "my father could not make the farm pay and we needed money." "humph! were you sorry to give up farming?" "yes, sir. i didn't want to come to freeman's falls. but," added the boy brightening, "i like the school here." the manager paused, studying the sharp, eager face, the spare figure, and the fine carriage of the lad before him. "do you like haying?" asked he presently. "not particularly," ted owned with honesty. mr. wharton laughed. "i see you are a human boy," he said. "if you don't like it, why are you so anxious to do it now?" "i've got to earn some money or give up going to school in the fall." "oh, so that's it! and what are you working at in school that is so alluring?" demanded the man with a quizzical glance. "electricity." "electricity!" "wireless, telegraphs, telephones, and things like that," put in ted. for comment mr. wharton tipped back in his chair and once more let his eye wander over the boy's face; then he wheeled abruptly around to his desk, opened a drawer, and took out a yellow card across which he scrawled a line with his fountain pen. "you may begin work to-morrow morning," he remarked curtly. "if it is pleasant, stevens will be cutting the further meadow with a gang of men. come promptly at eight o'clock, prepared to stay all day, and bring this card with you." he waved the bit of pasteboard to and fro in the air an instant to be certain that the ink on it was dry and afterward handed it to ted. instinctively the boy's gaze dropped to the message written upon it and before he realized it he had read the brief words: "ted turner. he says he has farmed in vermont. if he shows any evidence of it keep him. if not turn him off. wharton." the man in the chair watched him as he read. "well?" said he. "i beg your pardon, sir. i did not mean to read it," ted replied with a start. "i'm very much obliged to you for giving me the job." "i don't see that you've got it yet." "but i shall have," asserted the lad confidently. "all i asked was a chance." "that's all the world gives any of us," responded the manager gruffly, as he drew forth a sheet of paper and began to write. "nobody can develop our brains, train our muscles, or save our souls but ourselves." with this terse observation he turned his back on the boy, and after loitering a moment to make sure that he had nothing more to say, the lad slipped away, triumphantly bearing with him the coveted morsel of yellow pasteboard. that its import was noncommittal and even contained a tang of skepticism troubled him not a whit. the chief thing was that he had wrested from the manager an opportunity, no matter how grudgingly accorded, to show what he was worth. he could farm and he knew it and he had no doubt that he could demonstrate the fact to any boss he might encounter. therefore with high courage he was promptly on hand the next morning and even before the time assigned he approached stevens, the superintendent. "what do you want, youngster?" demanded the man sharply. he was in a hurry and it was obvious that something had nettled him and that he was in no humor to be delayed. "i came to help with the haying." "we don't want any boys as young as you," stevens returned, moving away. "i've a card from mr. wharton." "a card, eh? why didn't you say so in the first place? shell it out." shyly ted produced his magic fragment of paper which the overseer read with disapproval in his glance. "well, since wharton wants you tried out, you can pitch in with the crowd," grumbled he. "but i still think you're too young. i've had boys your age before and never found them any earthly use. however, you won't be here long if you're not--that's one thing. you'll find a pitchfork in the barn. follow along behind the men who are mowing and spread the grass out." "i know." "oh, you do, do you! trust people your size for knowing everything." to the final remark the lad vouchsafed no reply. instead he moved away and soon returned, fork in hand. what a flood of old memories came surging back with the touch of the implement! again he was in vermont in the stretch of mowings that fronted the old white house where he was born. the scent of the hay in his nostrils stirred him like an elixir, and with a thrill of pleasure he set to work. he had not anticipated toiling out there in the hot sunshine at a task which he had always disliked; but to-day, by a strange miracle, it did not seem to be a task so much as a privilege. how familiar the scene was! as he approached the group of older men it took him only a second to see where he was needed and he thrust his pitchfork into the swath at his feet with a swing of easy grace. "guess you've done this job before," called a man behind him after he had worked for an interval. "yes, i have." "you show it," was the brief observation. they moved on in silence up the field. "where'd you learn to handle that fork, sonny?" another voice shouted, as they neared the farther wall. "in vermont," laughed ted. "i judged as much," grunted the speaker. "they don't train up farmers of your size in this part of the world." ted flushed with pleasure and for the first time he stopped work and mopped the perspiration from his forehead. he was hot and thirsty but he found himself strangely exhilarated by the exercise and the sweet morning air and sunshine. again he took up his fork and tossed the newly cut grass up into the light, spreading it on the ground with a methodical sweep of his young arm. the sun had risen higher now and its dazzling brilliance poured all about him. up and down the meadow he went and presently he was surprised to find himself alone near the point from which he had started. his fellow-laborers were no longer in sight. the field was very still and because it was, ted began to whistle softly to himself. he was startled to hear a quiet laugh at his elbow. "don't you ever eat anything, kid?" mr. wharton was standing beside him, a flicker of amusement in his gray eyes. "i didn't know it was noon," gasped ted. "we'll have to tie an alarm clock on you," chuckled the manager. "the gang stopped work a quarter of an hour ago." "i didn't notice they had." the boy flushed. he felt very foolish to have been discovered working there all by himself in this ridiculous fashion. "i wanted to finish this side of the field and i forgot about the time," he stammered apologetically. "have you done it to your satisfaction?" "yes, i'm just through." for the life of him ted could not tell whether the manager was laughing at him or not. he kicked the turf sheepishly. "aren't you tired?" inquired mr. wharton at length. "no--at least--well, i haven't thought about it. perhaps i am a little." "and well you may be. you've put in a stiff morning's work. you'd better go and wash up now and eat your lunch. take your full hour of rest. no matter if the others do get back here before you. stevens says you are worth any two of them, anyway." "it's just that i'm used to it," was the modest reply. "we'll let it go at that," mr. wharton returned ambiguously. "and one thing more before you go. you needn't worry about staying on. we can use you one way or another all summer. there'll always be work for a boy who knows how to do a job well." chapter iii going to housekeeping thus it came about that ted turner began the long, golden days of his summer vacation at the great estates of the fernalds, and soon he had made himself such an indispensable part of the farming staff that both mr. wharton and mr. stevens came to rely on him for many services outside of those usually turned over to the men. "just step over to the south lot at pine lea, ted, and see if those fellows are thinning the beets properly," mr. wharton would say. "i gave them their orders but they may not have taken them in. you know how the thing should be done. sing out to them if they are not doing the job right." or: "mr. stevens and i shall be busy this morning checking up the pay roll. suppose you have an eye on the hilling up of the potatoes, ted. show the men how you want it done and start them at it. i'll be over later to see how it's going." frequently, instead of working, the boy was called in to give an opinion on some agricultural matter with which he had had experience. "we are finding white grubs in the corner of the pine lea garden. they are gnawing off the roots of the plants and making no end of trouble. what did you do to get rid of them when you were up in vermont?" "salt and wood ashes worked better than anything else," ted would reply modestly. "it might not be any good here but we had luck with it at home." "we can try it, at least. you tell mr. stevens what the proportions are and how you applied it." and because the advice was followed by a successful extermination of the plague, the lad's prestige increased and he was summoned to future conclaves when troublesome conditions arose. now and then there was a morning when mr. stevens would remark to mr. wharton: "i've got to go to the falls to-day to see about some freight. ted turner will be round here, though, and i guess things will be all right. the men can ask him if they want anything." and so it went. first ted filled one corner, then another. he did errands for mr. wharton, very special errands, that required thought and care, and which the manager would not have entrusted to every one. sometimes he ventured valuable suggestions which mr. stevens, who really had had far less farming experience than he, was only too grateful to follow. if the boy felt at all puffed up by the dependence placed upon him, he certainly failed to show it. on the contrary he did his part enthusiastically, faithfully, generously, and without a thought of praise or reward. although he was young to direct others, when he did give orders to the men he was tactful and retiring enough to issue his commands in the form of wishes and immediately they were heeded without protest. he never shirked the hard work he asked others to perform but was always ready to roll up the sleeves of his blue jeans and pitch with vigor into any task, no matter how menial it was. had he been arrogant and made an overbearing use of his authority, the men would quickly have rated him as a conceited little popinjay, the pet of the boss, and made his life miserable; but as he remained quite unspoiled by the preference shown him and exhibited toward every one he encountered a kindly sympathy and consideration, the workmen soon accepted him as a matter of course and even began to turn to him whenever a dilemma confronted them. perhaps ted was too genuinely interested in what he was doing to think much about himself or realize that the place he held was an unusual one. at home he and his father had threshed out many a problem together and each given to it the best his brain had to offer, without thought of the difference in their ages. sometimes ted's way proved the better, sometimes mr. turner's. whichever plan promised to bring the more successful results was followed without regard for the years of him who had sponsored it. they were working together and for the same goal and what did it matter which of them had proposed the scheme they finally followed? to get the work completed and lay low the obstacles in their path were the only issues of importance. so it was now. things at aldercliffe and pine lea must be done and done well, and only what furthered that end counted. nevertheless, ted would not have been a human boy had he not been pleased when some idea of his was adopted and found to be of use; this triumph, however, was less because the programme followed was his own than because it put forward the enterprise in hand. there was a satisfaction in finding the key to a balking problem and see it cease to be a problem. it was fun, for example, to think about the potatoes and then say to mr. wharton: "do you know, mr. wharton, i believe if we tried a different spray on that crop that isn't doing well it might help matters." and when the new concoction was tried and it did help matters, what a glow of happiness came with the success! what wonder that as the days passed, the niche awarded the lad grew bigger and bigger! "there is no way you could come up here and live, is there, ted?" mr. wharton inquired one day. "i'd give a good deal to have you here on the spot. sometimes i want to talk with you outside working hours and i can't for the life of me lay hands on you. it's the deuce of a way to freeman's falls and you have no telephone. if you were here----" he paused meditatively, then continued, "there's a little shack down by the river which isn't in use. you may remember seeing it. it was started years ago as a boathouse for mr. laurie's canoes and then--well, it was never finished. it came to me the other day that we might clean it up, get some furnishings, and let you have it. how would the notion strike you?" ted's eyes sparkled. "i'd like it of all things, sir!" returned he instantly. "you wouldn't be timid about sleeping off there by yourself?" "no, indeed!" "well, well! i had no idea you would listen to such a plan, much less like it. suppose you go down there to-day and overhaul the place. find out what would be required to make you comfortable and we will see what we can do about it. i should want you fixed up so you would be all right, you know. while we could not afford to go into luxuries, there would be no need for you to put up with makeshifts." "but i am quite used to roughing it," protested ted. "i've often camped out." "camping is all very well for a while but after a time it ceases to be a joke. no, if you move up here to accommodate us, you must have decent quarters. both mr. fernald and mr. clarence would insist on that, i am certain. so make sure that the cabin is tight and write down what you think it would be necessary for you to have. then we'll see about getting the things for you." "you are mighty good, sir." "nonsense! it is for our own convenience," mr. wharton replied gruffly. "shall i--do you mean that i am to go over there after work to-night?" "no. go now. cut along right away." "but i was to help mr. stevens with the----" "stevens will have to get on without you. tell him so from me. you can say i've set you at another job." with springing step ted hurried away. he was not sorry to exchange the tedious task of hoeing corn for the delightful one of furnishing a domicile for himself. what sport it would be to have at last a place which he could call his own! he could bring his books from home, his box of electrical things--all his treasures--and settle down in his kingdom like a young lord. he did not care at all if he had only a hammock to sleep in. the great satisfaction would be to be his own master and monarch of his own realm, no matter how tiny it was. like lightning his imagination sped from one dream to another. if only mr. wharton would let him run some wires from the barn to the shack, what electrical contrivances he could rig up! he could then light the room and heat it, too; he could even cook by electricity. probably, however, mr. wharton would consider such a notion out of the question and much too ambitious. even though the fernalds had an electrical plant of their own, such a luxury was not to be thought of. a candle would do for lighting, of course. [illustration: soon he came within sight of the shack which stood at the water's edge. _page_ .] busy with these thoughts and others like them he sped across the meadow and through the woods toward the river. he was not content to walk the distance but like a child leaped and ran with an impatience not to be curbed. soon he came within sight of the shack which stood at the water's edge, mid-way between aldercliffe and pine lea, and was sheltered from view by a grove of thick pines. its bare, boarded walls had silvered from exposure to the weather until it was scarcely noticeable against the gray tree trunks. nevertheless, its crude, rough sides, its staring windows, and its tarred roof looked cheerless and deserted enough. but for ted turner it possessed none of these forbidding qualities. instead of being a hermitage it seemed a paradise, a fairy kingdom, the castle of a knight's tale! thrusting the key which mr. wharton had given him into the padlock, he rolled open the sliding door and intermingled odors of cedar, tar, and paint greeted him. the room was of good size and was neatly sheathed as an evident preparation for receiving a finish of stain which, however, had never been put on. there were four large windows closed in by lights of glass, a rough board floor, and a fireplace of field stone. everywhere was dirt, cobwebs, sawdust, and shavings; and scattered about so closely there was scarcely space to step was a litter of nails, fragments of boards, and a conglomeration of tin cans of various sizes. almost any one who beheld the chaos would have turned away discouraged. but not so ted! the disorder was of no consequence in his eyes. through all its dinginess and confusion he saw that the roof was tight, the windows whole, and the interior quite capable of being swept out, scrubbed and put in order. that was all he wanted to know. why, the place could be made into a little heaven! already he could see it transformed into a dwelling of the utmost comfort. he had remodelled many a worse spot,--the barn loft in vermont, for example, and made it habitable. one had only to secure a table, a chair or two, build a bunk and get a mattress, and the trick was turned. how proud he should be to have such a dwelling for his own! he could hardly restrain himself from rolling up his sleeves and going to work then and there. fearing, however, that mr. wharton might be awaiting his report, he reluctantly closed the door again, turned the key in it, and hurried back to the manager's office. "well," inquired the elder man, spinning around in his desk chair as the boy entered and noting the glow in the youthful face, "how did you find things at the shack? any hope in the place?" "hope!" repeated ted. "why, sir, the house is corking! of course, it is dirty now but i could clean it up and put it in bully shape. all i'd need would be to build a bunk, get a few pieces of furniture, and the place would be cosy as anything. if you'll say the word, i'll start right in to-night after work and----" "why wait until to-night?" came drily from the manager. "why--er--i thought perhaps--you see there is the corn----" "never mind the corn," mr. wharton interrupted. "you mean i could go right ahead now?" asked ted eagerly. "certainly. you are doing this for our accommodation, not for your own, and there is no earthly reason why you should perform the work outside your regular hours." "but it is for my accommodation, too," put in the lad with characteristic candor. "i am very glad if it happens to be," nodded mr. wharton. "so much the better. but at any rate, you are not going to take your recreation time for the job. now before you go, tell me your ideas as to furnishings. you will need some things, of course." "not much," ted answered quickly. "as i said, i can knock together a bunk and rough table myself. if i could just have a couple of chairs----" mr. wharton smiled at the modesty of the request. "suppose we leave the furnishing until later," said he, turning back to his desk with a gesture of dismissal. "i may drop round there some time to-day while you're working. we can then decide more fully upon what is necessary. you'll find brooms, mops, rags, and water in the barn, you know. now be off. i'm busy." away went ted, only too eager to obey. in no time he was laden with all the paraphernalia he desired. he stopped at stevens' cottage only long enough to add to his equipment a pail of steaming water and then, staggering under the weight of his burden of implements, made his way to the shack. once there he threw off his coat, removed his collar and tie, rolled up his sleeves, and went to work. first he cleared the bulk of rubbish from the room and set it outside; then he swept up the floor and mopped it with hot suds; afterwards he washed the windows and rubbed them until they shone. often he had watched his mother and sisters, who were well trained new england housekeepers, perform similar offices and therefore he knew exactly how such things should be done. it took him a solid morning to render the interior spotless and just as he was pausing to view his handiwork with weary satisfaction mr. wharton came striding in at the door. "mercy on us!" gasped the newcomer with amazement. "you have been busy! why, i had no idea there were such possibilities in this place. the room is actually a pretty one, isn't it? we shall be able to fix you up snug as a bug in a rug here." he ran his eye quickly about. "if you put your bunk between the windows, you will get plenty of air. you'll need window shades, some comfortable chairs, a bureau, a table----" "i think i can make a table myself," ted put in timidly. "that is, if i can have some boards." "no, no, no! there are boards enough. but you don't want a makeshift thing like that. if you are going to have books and perhaps read or study, you must have something that will stand solidly on four legs. i may be able to root a table out of some corner. then there will be bedding----" "i can bring that from home." "all right. we'll count on you to supply that if you are sure you have it to spare. i'll be responsible for the rest." he stopped an instant to glance into the boy's face then added kindly, "so you think you are going to like your new quarters, eh?" "you bet i am!" "that's good! and by the by, i have arranged for you to have your meals with stevens and his wife. they like you and were glad to take you in. only you must be prompt and not make them wait for you. should you prove yourself a bother they might turn you out." "i'll be on hand, sir." "see that you are. they have breakfast at seven, dinner at twelve, and supper at six. whenever you decide to spend sunday with your family, or take any meals elsewhere, you must, of course, be thoughtful enough to announce beforehand that you are to be away." "yes, sir." ted waited a few moments and then, as mr. wharton appeared to be on the point of leaving, he asked with hesitancy: "how--how--much will my meals cost?" an intonation of anxiety rang in the question. "your meals are our hunt," mr. wharton replied instantly. "we shall see to those." "but--but----" "you'll be worth your board to the fernald estates, never fear, my lad; so put it all out of your mind and don't think of it any more. all is, should we ask of you some little extra service now and then, i am sure you will willingly perform it, won't you?" "sure!" came with emphatic heartiness. "then i don't see but everything is settled," the manager declared, as he started back through the grove of pines. "i gave orders up at the toolhouse that you were to have whatever boards, nails, and tools you wanted, so don't hesitate to sail in and hunt up anything you need." "you are mighty kind, sir." "pooh, pooh. nonsense! aren't you improving the fernald property, i'd like to know?" mr. wharton laughed. "this boathouse has been an eyesore for years. we shall be glad enough to have it fixed up and used for something." chapter iv the first night in the shack throughout the long summer afternoon ted worked on, fitting up his new quarters. not only did he make a comfortable bunk for himself such as he had frequently constructed when at logging or sugaring-off camps in vermont, but having several boards left he built along the racks originally intended for canoes some shelves for the books he meant to bring from home. by late afternoon he had finished all it was possible for him to do and he decided to go to freeman's falls and join his own family at supper, and while there collect the possessions he wished to transfer to the shack. accordingly he washed up and started out. it was a little late when he reached the house and already his father and sisters were at table. "mercy on us, ted, what under the sun have you been doing until this time of night?" demanded mr. turner. "i should call from seven in the morning until seven at night a pretty long day." "oh, i haven't been working all this time," laughed the boy. "or at least, if i have, i have been having the time of my life doing it." eagerly, and with youthful enthusiasm, he poured out the tale of the day's happenings while the others listened. "so you are starting out housekeeping, are you?" chuckled mr. turner, when the narrative was finished. "it certainly ain't a bad idea. not that we're glad to get rid of you--although i will admit we ain't got the room here that i wish we had. it is the amount of time you'll save and the strength, too, that i'm thinking of. it must be a good three miles up to aldercliffe and pine lea is at least two miles farther. being on the spot is going to make a lot of difference. but how are you going to get along? what will you do for food? i ain't going to have you eating stuff out of tin cans." "oh, you needn't worry about me, dad. mr. wharton has arranged for me to take my meals with mr. and mrs. stevens who have a cottage on the place. stevens is the head farmer, you know." "a pretty penny that will cost you! what does the man think you are--a millionaire?" "mr. wharton told me the fernalds would see to the bill." "oh! that's another matter," ejaculated mr. turner, entirely mollified. "i will say it's pretty decent of mr. wharton. seems to me he is doing a good deal for you." "yes, he is." "well, all is you must do your full share in return so he won't lose anything by it." the elder man paused thoughtfully. "ain't there anything we could do to help out? perhaps we could donate something toward your furnishings." "mr. wharton said if i could supply my own bedding----" "we certainly can do that," put in ruth quickly. "there is a trunkful of extra comforters and blankets in the back room that i should be thankful enough to ship off somewhere else. and wouldn't you like some curtains? seems to me they'd make it cosy and homelike. i've a piece of old chintz we've never used. why not make it into curtains and do away with buying window shades?" "that would be great!" "it would be lots more cheerful," remarked nancy. "what kind of a bed have you got?" "i've built a wooden bunk-two bunks, in fact--one over the other like the berths in a ship. i thought perhaps sometime dad might want to come up and visit me; and while i was at it, it was no more work to make two beds than one." mr. turner smiled in friendly fashion into his son's eyes. the two were great pals and it pleased him that the lad should have included him in his plans. "beds like that will do all very well for a night or two; but for a steady thing they will be darned uncomfortable. cover 'em with pine boughs after a long tramp through the woods and they seem like heaven; but try 'em day after day and they cease to be a joke. wasn't there a wire spring round here somewhere, ruth? seems to me i remember it standing up against something. why wouldn't that be the very thing? you could fasten it in place and have a bed good as you have at home." "that's a corking idea, dad!" "i wish we could go up and see the place," ruth suggested. "i am crazy to know what it looks like. besides, i want to measure the windows." "maybe we could run up there to-night," her father replied rising. "it is not late and the maguires said they would take us out for a little spin in their ford before dark. they might enjoy riding up to aldercliffe and be quite willing we should take along the spring bed. mat is a kind soul and i haven't a doubt he'd be glad to do us a favor. run down and ask him, ted; or wait--i'll go myself." the maguires had the apartment just below the turner's and mat, a thrifty and good-humored irishman, was one of the night watchmen at the fernald mills. he had a plump little wife, but as there were no children he had been able to save more money than had some of his neighbors, and in consequence had purchased a small car which it was his delight to use for the benefit of his friends. in fact, he often called it the maguire jitney, and the joke never became threadbare to his simple mind, for every time he made it he laughed as heartily as if he had never heard it before, and so did everybody else. therefore no sooner had mr. turner proposed his plan than mat was all eagerness to further the project. "sure i'll take you--as many of you as can pile in, and the spring bed, too! if you don't mind the inconvenience of the luggage, i don't. and tell ted to bring along anything else he'd like to carry. we can pack you all in and the stuff on top of you. 'twill be easy enough. just make ready as soon as you can, so the dark won't catch us." you may be sure the turners needed no second bidding. ruth and nancy scrambled the supper dishes out of the way while ted and his father hauled the wire spring out, brushed it, and dragged it downstairs. afterward ted collected his box of electrical treasures, his books, and clothing. what he would do with all these things he did not stop to inquire. the chance to transfer them was at hand and he seized it with avidity. his belongings might as well be stored in the shack as anywhere else,--better, far better, for the space they left behind would be very welcome to the turner household. therefore with many a laugh, the party crowded into the waiting car and set out for aldercliffe; and when at length they arrived at the house in the pines and ted unlocked the sliding doors and pushed them wide open, ushering in his guests, what a landholder he felt! "my, but this is a tidy little place!" maguire ejaculated. "and it's not so little, either. why, it's a regular palace! look at the fireplace and the four windows! my eye! and the tier of bunks is neat as a ship's cabin. bear a hand here with the spring. i'm all of a quaver to see if it fits," cried the man. "i made the bunks regulation size, so i guess there won't be any trouble about that," ted answered. "the head on the lad!" the irishman cried. "ain't he the brainy one, though? you don't catch him wool-gathering! not he!" nevertheless he was not content until the spring had been hoisted into place and he saw with his own eyes that it was exactly the proper size. "could anything be cuter!" observed he with satisfaction. "now with a good mattress atop of that you will have a bed fit for a king. you'll be comfortable as if you were in a solid gold bedstead, laddie!" "i'm afraid i may be too comfortable," laughed ted. "what if i should oversleep and not get to breakfast, or to work, on time!" "that would never do," mr. turner said promptly. "you must have an alarm clock. 'twould be but a poor return for mr. wharton's kindness were you to come dawdling to work." "i guess you can trust ted to be on time," put in ruth soothingly. "he is seldom late--especially to _meals_. even if he were to be late at other places, i should always be sure he would show up when there was anything to eat." "you bet i would," announced the boy, with a good-humored grin. "i shall have enough chintz for curtains for all your windows," interrupted nancy, who had been busy taking careful measurements during the conversation. "we'll get some brass rods and make the hangings so they will slip back and forth easily; they will be much nicer than window shades." "ain't there nothin' i can donate?" inquired mat maguire anxiously. "a rag rug, now--why wouldn't that be a good thing? the missus makes 'em by the dozen and our house is full of 'em. we're breakin' our necks mornin', noon, and night on 'em. a couple to lay down here wouldn't be so bad, i'm thinking. you could put one beside your bed and another before the door to wipe your feet on. they'd cheer the room up as well as help keep you warm. just say the word, sonny, and you shall have 'em." "i'd like them tremendously." the kind-hearted irishman beamed with pleasure. "sure, they'll be better out of our house than in it," remarked he, trying to conceal his gratification. "you can try stumbling over 'em a spell instead of me. 'twill be interesting to see which of us breaks his neck first." it was amazing to see how furniture came pouring in at ted's bachelor quarters during the next few days. the chintz curtains were finished and hung; the maguire rugs made their appearance; mr. turner produced a shiny alarm clock; and nancy a roll of colored prints which she had cut from the magazines. "you'll be wanting some pictures," said she. "tack these up somewhere. they'll brighten up the room and cover the bare walls." thus it was that day by day the wee shack in the woods became more cheery and homelike. "i've managed to hunt up a few trap's for you," called mr. wharton one morning, as he met the boy going to work. "if you want to run over to the cabin now and unlock the door, i'll send a man over with them." want to! ted was off in a second, impatient to see what new treasures he was to receive. he had not long to wait, for soon one of the farm trucks came into sight, and the driver began to deposit its contents on the wooden platform which sloped from the door down to the river. as ted helped the man unload, his eyes shone with delight. could any gifts be rarer? to be sure the furniture was not new. in fact, some of it was old and even shabby with wear. but the things were all whole, and although they were simple they were serviceable and perhaps looked more in harmony with the old-fashioned curtains and the quaint rugs than if they had come fresh from the shop. there was a chest of drawers; a rocking chair, a leather armchair, and a straight wooden chair; a mirror with frame of faded gilt; a good-sized wooden table; and, best of all, a much scarred, flat-topped desk. ted had never owned a desk in all his life. often he had dreamed of sitting behind one when he grew to be a man. but to have it now--here! to have it for his own! how it thrilled him! after the furniture was in place and the teamster had gone, he arranged his few papers and pencils in the desk drawers a score of times, trying them first in one spot and then in another. it was marvelous how much room there was in such an article of furniture. what did men use to fill up such a mighty receptacle, anyway? stretch his possessions as he would, they only made a scattered showing at the bottom of three of the drawers. he laughed to see them lying there and hear them rattle about when he brought the drawers to with a click. however, it was very splendid to have a desk, whether one had anything to put in it or not, and perhaps in time he would be able to collect more pencils, rulers and blocks of paper. the contrast between not having any room at all for his things and then so much that he did not know what to do with it was amusing. now at last he was fully equipped to take up residence in his new abode and every instant he could snatch from his duties that day he employed in settling his furniture, making up his bed, filling his water pitcher from the river and completing his final preparations for residence at the boathouse. that night he moved in. nothing had been omitted that would contribute to his comfort. mr. wharton had given him screens for the windows and across the broad door he had tacked a curtain of netting that could be dropped or pushed aside at will. the candlelight glowing from a pair of old brass candlesticks on the shelf above the fireplace contributed rather than took away from the effect and to his surprise the room assumed under the mellow radiance a quality actually æsthetic and beautiful. "i don't believe aldercliffe or pine lea have anything better than this to offer," the boy murmured aloud, as he looked about him with pride. "i'd give anything to have mr. wharton see it now that it's done!" strangely enough, the opportunity to exhibit his kingdom followed on the very heels of his desire, for while he was arranging the last few books he had brought from home on the shelf above his desk he heard a tap at the door. "are you in bed, son?" called the manager. "i saw your light and just dropped round to see if you had everything you wanted." rushing to the door, ted threw it open. "i haven't begun to go to bed yet," returned he. "i've been too excited. how kind of you to come!" "curiosity! curiosity!" responded the man hastily. although ted knew well that the comment was a libel, he laughed as mr. wharton came in, drawing the door together behind him. "by jove!" burst out the manager, glancing about the room. "you like it?" "why--what in goodness have you done to the place? i--i--mercy on us!" "you do like it then?" the boy insisted eagerly. "like it! why, you've made it into a regular little palace. i'd no idea such a thing was possible. where did you get your candlesticks and your andirons?" "from home. we have radiators in the apartment and so my sisters had stored them away and were only too glad to have me take them." "humph! and your curtains came from home, too?" "yes, sir." "well, you've missed your calling, is all i can say. you belong in the interior decorating business," asserted mr. wharton. "wait until mr. clarence sees this place." again the elder man looked critically round the interior. "i wouldn't mind living here myself--hanged if i would. the only thing i don't like is those candles. there is a good deal of a draught here and you are too near the pines to risk a fire. electricity would be safer." whistling softly to himself, he began to walk thoughtfully about. "i suppose," he presently went on, "it would be a simple enough matter to run wires over here from the barn." "wouldn't that be bully!" "you'd like it?" "yes, siree!" the manager took up his hat. "well, we'll see what can be done," he answered, moving toward the door. but on the threshold he stopped once more and looked about. "i'm going to bring some of the fernalds over here to see the place," observed he. "for some time mr. clarence has been complaining that this shack was a blot on the estate and threatening to pull it down. he'd better have a peep at it now. you may find he'll be taking it away from you." he saw a startled look leap into the boy's eyes. "no, no, sonny! have no fears. i was only joking," he added. "nevertheless, the house will certainly be a surprise to anybody who saw it a week ago. i wouldn't have believed such a transformation was possible." then as he disappeared with his flash-light through the windings of the pine woods he called: "we'll see about that electric wiring. i imagine it won't be much of a job, and i should breathe easier to eliminate those candles, pretty as they are. until something is done, just be careful not to set yourself and us afire!" with that he was gone. ted dropped the screen and loitered a moment in the doorway, looking out into the night. before him stretched the river; so near was it that he could hear the musical lappings of its waters among the tall grasses that bordered the stream. from the ground, matted thickly with pine needles, rose a warm, sun-scorched fragrance heavy with sleep. the boy stretched his arms and yawned. then he rolled the doors together and began to undress. suddenly he paused with one shoe in his hand. a thought had come to him. if mr. wharton ran the electric wires over to the shack, what was to prevent him from utilizing the current for some of his own contrivances? why, he could, perhaps, put his wireless instruments into operation and rig up a telephone in his little dwelling. what fun it would be to unearth his treasures from the big wooden box in which they had been so long packed away and set them up here where they would interfere with no one but himself! he hoped with all his heart the manager would continue to be nervous about those candles. chapter v a visitor fervent as this wish was, it was several days before ted saw mr. wharton again and in the meantime the boy began to adapt himself to his new mode of living with a will. his alarm clock got him up in the morning in time for a plunge in the river and after a brisk rub-down he was off to breakfast with the stevens's, whose cottage was one of a tiny colony of bungalows where lived the chauffeurs, head gardener, electricians, and others who held important positions on the two estates. it did not take many days for ted to become thoroughly at home in the pretty cement house where he discovered many slight services he could perform for mrs. stevens during the scraps of leisure left him after meals. his farm training had rendered him very handy with tools and he was quick to see little things which needed to be done. moreover, the willingness to help, which from the moment of his advent to aldercliffe and pine lea had made him a favorite with mr. wharton and the men, speedily won for him a place with the kindly farmer's wife. had ted known it, she had been none too well pleased at the prospect of adopting into her home a ravenous young lad who might, nay, probably would be untidy and troublesome; but she did not dare oppose mr. wharton when the plan was suggested. nevertheless, although she consented, she grumbled not a little to her husband about the inconvenience of the scheme. the money offered her by the manager had been the only redeeming factor in the case. quite ignorant of these conditions, ted had made his advent into the house and she soon found to her amazement that the daily coming of her cheery boarder became an event which she anticipated with motherly interest. "he is such a well-spoken boy and so nice to have round," asserted she to mr. wharton. "not a mite of trouble, either. in fact, he's a hundred times handier than my own man, who although he can make a garden thrive can't drive a nail straight to save his life. and there's never any fussing about his food. he eats everything and enjoys it. i believe stevens and i were getting dreadful pokey all alone here by ourselves. the lad has brightened us up no end. we wouldn't part with him now for anything." thus it was that ted turner made his way. his password was usefulness. he never measured the hours he worked by the clock, never was too busy or too tired to fill in a gap; and although he was popular with everybody, and a favorite with those in authority, he never took advantage of his position to escape toil or obtain privileges. in fact, he worked harder if anything than did the other men, and as soon as his associates saw that the indulgence granted him did not transform him into a pig, they ceased any jealousy they cherished and accorded him their cordial goodwill. for ted was always modestly respectful toward older persons; and if he knew more about farming and some other things than did a good many of the laborers on the place, he did not push himself forward or boast of his superiority. consequently when he ventured to say, "i wonder if somebody would help me with this harrow?" he would receive a dozen eager responses, the men never suspecting that mr. wharton had given this little chap authority to order them to aid with the harrowing of the field. instead each workman thought his cooperation a free-will offering and enjoyed giving it. thus a fortnight passed and no one could have been happier than was ted turner on a certain clear june evening. he had finished his saturday night supper of baked beans and brown bread and after it was over had lingered to feed the stevens's hens, in order to let mr. stevens go early to freeman's falls to purchase the sunday dinner. as a result, it was later than usual when he started out for his camp on the river's brink. the long, busy day was over; he was tired and the prospect of his comfortable bed was very alluring. it was some distance to the shack, and before he was halfway through the pine woods that separated aldercliffe from pine lea darkness had fallen, and he was compelled to move cautiously along the narrow, curving trail. how black the night was! a storm must be brewing, thought he, as he glanced up into the starless heavens. stumbling over the rough and slippery ground on he went. then suddenly he rounded a turn in the path and stood arrested with terror. not more than a rod away, half concealed in the denseness of the sweeping branches rose his little shack, a blaze of light! a wave of consternation turned him cold and two solutions of the mystery immediately flashed into his mind--fire and marauders. either something had ignited in the interior of the house; or, since it was isolated and had long been known to be vacant, strolling mischief-makers had broken in and were ransacking it. he remembered now that he had left a window open when he had gone off in the morning. doubtless thieves were at this moment busy appropriating his possessions. of course it could not be any of the fernald workmen. they were too friendly and honorable to commit such a dastardly deed. no, it was some one from outside. was it not possible men had come down the river in a boat from melton, the village above, and spying the house had made a landing and encamped there for the night? well, live or die, he must know who his unwelcome guests were. it would be cowardly to leave them in possession of the place and make no attempt to discover their identity. for that invaders were inside the shack he was now certain. it was not a fire. there was neither smoke nor flame. softly he crept nearer, the thick matting of pine needles muffling his footsteps. but how his heart beat! suppose a twig should crack beneath his feet and warn the vandals of his approach? and suppose they rushed out, caught him, and--for a moment he halted with fear; then, summoning every particle of courage he possessed, he tiptoed on and contrived to reach one of the windows. there he halted, staring, his knees weak from surging reaction. instead of the company of bandits his mind had pictured, there in the rocker sat mr. wharton and opposite him, in the great leather armchair, was mr. clarence fernald. the latter fact would have been astounding enough. but the marvel did not cease there. the light suffusing the small room came from no flickering candles but glowed steadily from two strong, unblinking electric lights, one of which had been connected with a low lamp on his desk, and the other with a fixture in the ceiling. ted could scarcely believe his eyes. all day, during his absence, electricians must have been busy. how carefully they had guarded their secret. why, he had talked with tim toyer that very morning on his way to work and tim had breathed no word, although he was the head electrician and had charge of the dynamo which generated the current both for aldercliffe and pine lea. the fernalds had never depended on freeman's falls for their electricity; on the contrary, they maintained a small plant of their own and used the power for a score of purposes on the two estates. evidently either mr. wharton or mr. clarence fernald himself must have given the order which had with such aladdin-like magic been so promptly and mysteriously fulfilled. it certainly was kind of them to do this and ted determined they should not find him wanting in gratitude. pocketing his shyness, he opened the door and stepped into the room. "well, youngster, i thought it was about time the host made his appearance," exclaimed mr. wharton. "we could not have waited much longer. mr. fernald, this is ted turner, the lad i have been telling you about." ted waited. the mill-owner nodded, let his eye travel over the boy's flushed face, and then, as if satisfied by what he saw there, he put out his hand. "i have been hearing very excellent reports of you, turner," said he, "and i wished to investigate for myself the quarters they have given you to live in. you've made a mighty shipshape little den of this place." "it didn't need very much done to it," protested ted, blushing under the fixed gaze of the great man. "i just cleaned it up and arranged the furniture. mr. wharton was kind enough to give me most of it." "i can't claim any thanks," laughed the manager. "the traps i gave you were all cast-offs and not in use. it is what you have done with them that is the marvel." "you certainly have turned your donations to good purpose," mr. fernald observed. "i've been noticing your books in your absence and see that most of them are textbooks on electricity. i judge you are interested in that sort of thing." "yes, sir, i am." "humph!" the financier drummed reflectively on the arm of his chair. "how did you happen to go into that?" he asked presently. "i have been studying it at school. my father is letting me go through the high school--at least he hopes to let me finish my course there. i have been two years already. that is why i am working during the summer." "i see. and so you have been taking up electricity at school, eh?" "yes, sir. i really am taking a business course. the science work in the laboratory is an extra that i just run in because i like it. my father wanted me to fit myself for business. he thought it would be better for me," explained ted. "but you prefer the science?" "i am afraid i do, sir," smiled ted, with ingratiating honesty. "but i don't mean to let it interfere with my regular work. i try to remember it is only a side issue." mr. clarence fernald did not answer and during his interval of silence ted fell to speculating on what he was thinking. probably the magnate was disapproving of his still going to school and was saying to himself how much better it would have been had he been put into the mill and trained up there instead of having his head stuffed with stenography and electrical knowledge. "what did you do in electricity?" the elder man asked at length. "oh, i fussed around some with telephones, wireless, and telegraph instruments." mr. fernald smiled. "did you get where you could take messages?" inquired he with real interest. "by telegraph?" the financier nodded. "i did a little at it," replied ted. "of course i was slow." "and what about wireless?" "i got on better with that. i rigged up a small receiving station at home but when the war came i had to take it down." "so that outfit was yours, was it?" commented mr. fernald. "i noticed it one day when i was in the village. what luck did you have with it?" "oh, i contrived to pick up messages within a short radius. my outfit wasn't very powerful." "i suppose not. and the telephone?" they saw an eager light leap into the lad's eyes. "i've worked more at that than anything else," replied he. "you see one of the instruments at the school gave out and they set me to tinkering at it. in that way i got tremendously interested in it. afterward some of us fellows did some experimenting and managed to concoct a crude one in the laboratory. it wasn't much of a telephone but we finally got it to work." "they tell me you are a good farmer as well as an electrician," mr. fernald said. "oh, i was brought up on a farm, sir." the great man rose. "well, mind you don't let your electricity make you forget your farming," cautioned he, not unkindly. "we need you right where you are. still i will own electricity is a pleasant pastime. you will have a current to work with now whenever you want to play with it. just be sure you don't get a short circuit and blow out my dynamo." "do--do--you really mean i may use the current for experiments?" demanded ted. whether mr. fernald had made his remarks in jest or expected them to be taken seriously was not apparent; and if he were surprised at having the boy catch him up and hold him to account, he at least displayed not a trace of being taken unawares. for only an instant was he thoughtful, and that was while he paused and studied the countenance of the lad before him. "why, i don't know that i see any harm in your using the current for reasonable purposes," he answered slowly, after an interval of meditation. "you understand the dangers of running too many volts through your body and of crossing wires, don't you?" "oh, yes, sir," laughed ted. "i must confess i should not trust every boy with such a plaything," continued the magnate, "but you seem to have a good head on your shoulders and i guess we can take a chance on you." he moved silently across the room but on the threshold he turned and added with self-conscious hesitancy, "by the way my--my--son, mr. laurie, chances to be interested in electricity, too. perhaps some day he might drop in here and have a talk about this sort of thing." "i wish he would." with a quiet glance the father seemed to thank the lad for his simple and natural reply. both of them knew but too well that such an event could never be a casual happening, and that if poor mr. laurie ever _dropped in_ at the shack it would be only when he was brought there, either in his wheel-chair or in the arms of some of the servants from pine lea. nevertheless it was obvious that mr. fernald appreciated the manner in which ted ignored these facts and suppressed his surprise at the unusual suggestion. had mr. laurie's dropping in been an ordinary occurrence no one could have treated it with less ceremony than did ted. an echo of the gratitude the capitalist felt lingered in his voice when he said good night. it was both gentle and husky with emotion and the lad fell asleep marvelling that the men employed at the mills should assert that the fernalds were frigid and snobby. chapter vi more guests when with shining eyes ted told his father about mr. fernald's visit to the shack, mr. turner simply shrugged his shoulders and smiled indulgently. "likely mr. clarence's curiosity got the better of him," said he, "and he wanted to look your place over and see that it warn't too good; or mebbe he just happened to be going by. he never would have taken the trouble to go that far out of his way if he hadn't had something up his sleeve. when men like him are too pleasant, i'm afraid of 'em. and as for mr. laurie _dropping in_--why, his father and grandfather would no more let him associate with folks like us than they'd let him jump headfirst into the river. we ain't good enough for the fernalds. probably almost nobody on earth is. and when it comes to mr. laurie, why, in their opinion the boy doesn't live who is fit to sit in the same room with him." ted's bright face clouded with disappointment. "i never thought of mr. laurie feeling like that," answered he. "oh, i ain't saying mr. laurie himself is so high and mighty. he ain't. the poor chap has nothing to be high and mighty about and he knows it. anybody who is as dependent on others as he is can't afford to tilt his nose up in the air and put on lugs. for all i know to the contrary he may be simple as a baby. it's his folks that think he's the king-pin and keep him in cotton wool." mr. turner paused, his lip curling with scorn. "you'll never see mr. laurie at your shack, mark my words. his people would not let him come even if he wanted to." the light of eagerness in his son's countenance died entirely. "i suppose you're right," admitted he slowly and with evident reluctance. although he would not have confessed it, he had been anticipating, far more than he would have been willing to own, the coming of mr. laurie. over and over again he had lived in imagination his meeting with this fairy prince whose grave, wistful face and pleasant smile had so strongly attracted him. he had speculated to himself as to what the other boy was like and had coveted the chance to speak to him, never realizing that they were not on an equal plane. mr. fernald's suggestion of laurie visiting the shack seemed the most natural thing in the world, and immediately after it had been made ted's fancy had run riot, and he had leaped beyond the first formal preliminaries to a time when he and laurie fernald would really know one another, even come to be genuine friends, perhaps. what sport two lads, interested in the same things, could have together! ted had few companions who followed the bent of thought that he did. the fellows he knew either at school or in the town were ready enough to play football and baseball but almost none of them, for example, wanted to sacrifice a pleasant saturday to constructing a wireless outfit. one or two of them, it is true, had begun the job but they soon tired of it and either sat down to watch him work or had deserted him altogether. the only congenial companion he had been able to count on had been the young assistant in the laboratory at school who, although he was not at all aged, was nevertheless years older than ted. but with the mention of mr. laurie myriad dreams had flashed into his mind. here was no prim old scholar but a lad like himself, who probably did not know much more about electrical matters than he. you wouldn't feel ashamed to admit your ignorance before such a person, or own that you either did not know, or did not understand. you could blunder along with such a companion to your heart's content. such had been his belief until now, with a dozen words, ted saw his father shatter the illusion. no, of course mr. laurie would never come to the shack. it had been absurd to think it for a moment. and even if he did, it would only be as a lofty and unapproachable spectator. mr. fernald's words were a subtly designed flattery intended to put him in good humor because he wanted something of him. what could it be? perhaps he meant to oust him out of the boathouse and rebuild it, or possibly tear it down; or maybe he had taken a fancy to use it as it was and desired to be rid of ted in some sort of pleasant fashion. unquestionably the building belonged to mr. fernald and if he chose to reclaim it he had a perfect right to do so. poor ted! with a crash his air castles tumbled about his ears and the ecstasy of his mood gave way to apprehension and unhappiness. each day he waited, expecting to hear through mr. wharton that mr. clarence fernald had decided to use the shack for other purposes. time slipped along, however, and no such tidings came. in the meanwhile mr. wharton made no further mention of the fernalds and gradually ted's fears calmed down sufficiently for him to gain confidence enough to unpack his boxes of wire, his tools, and instruments. nevertheless, in spite of this, his first enthusiasm had seeped away and he did not attempt to go farther than to take the things out and look at them. before his father had withered his ambitions by his pessimism, a score of ideas had danced through his brain. he had thought of running a buzzer over to the stevens's bungalow in order that mrs. stevens might ring for him when she wanted him; and he had thought of connecting mr. wharton's office with the shack by telephone. he felt sure he could do both these things and would have liked nothing better than try them. but now what was the use? if a little later on mr. fernald intended to take the shack away from him, it would be foolish to waste toil and material for nothing. for the present, at least, he much better hold off and see what happened. yet notwithstanding this resolve, he did continue to improve the appearance of the boathouse. just why, he could not have told. perhaps it was a vent for his disquietude. at any rate, having some scraps of board left and hearing the gardener say there were more geraniums in the greenhouse than he knew what to do with, ted made some windowboxes for the stevens's and himself, painted them green, and filled them with flowering plants. they really were very pretty and added a surprising touch of beauty to the dull, weather-stained little dwelling in the woods. mr. wharton was delighted and said so frankly. "your camp looks as attractive as a teahouse," said he. "you have no idea how gay the red flowers look among these dark pine trees. how came you to think of window-boxes?" "oh, i don't know," was ted's reply. "the bits of board suggested it, i guess. then collins said the greenhouses were overstocked, and he seemed only too glad to get rid of his plants." "i'll bet he was," responded mr. wharton. "if there is anything he hates, it is to raise plants and not have them used. he always has to start more slips than he needs in case some of them do not root; when they do, he is swamped. evidently you have helped him solve his problem for no sooner did the owners of the other bungalows see stevens's boxes than everybody wanted them. they all are pestering the carpenter for boards. it made old mr. fernald chuckle, for he likes flowers and is delighted to have the cottages on the place made attractive. he asked who started the notion; and when i told him it was you he said he had heard about you and wanted to see you some time." this time ted was less thrilled by the remark than he would have been a few days before. a faint degree of his father's scepticism had crept into him and the only reply he vouchsafed was a polite smile. it was absurd to fancy for an instant that the senior member of the fernald company, the head of the firm, the owner of aldercliffe, the great and rich mr. lawrence fernald, would ever trouble himself to hunt up a boy who worked on the place. ridiculous! yet it was on the very day that he made these positive and scornful assertions to himself that he found this same mighty mr. lawrence fernald on his doorstep. it was early saturday afternoon, a time ted always had for a holiday. he had not been to see his family for some time and he had made up his mind to start out directly after luncheon and go to freeman's falls, where he would, perhaps, remain overnight. therefore he came swinging through the trees, latchkey in hand, and hurriedly rounding the corner of the shack, he almost jostled into the river mr. lawrence fernald who was loitering on the platform before the door. "i beg your pardon, sir!" he gasped. "i did not know any one was here." "nor did i, young man," replied the ruffled millionaire. "you came like a thief in the night." "it is the pine needles, sir," explained the boy simply. "unless you happen to step on a twig that cracks you don't hear a sound." the directness of the lad evidently pleased the elder man for he answered more kindly: "it is quiet here, isn't it? i did not know there was a spot within a radius of five miles that was so still. i was almost imagining myself in the heart of the maine woods before you came." "i never was in the maine woods," ventured ted timidly, "but if it is finer than this i'd like to see it." "you like your quarters then?" "indeed i do, sir." "and you're not afraid to stay way off here by yourself?" "oh, no!" mr. fernald peered over the top of his glasses at the boy before him. "would you--would you care to come inside the shack?" ted inquired after an interval of silence, during which mr. fernald had not taken his eyes from his face. "it is very cosy indoors--at least i think so." "since i am here i suppose i might just glance into the house," was the capitalist's rather magnificent retort. "i don't often get around to this part of the estate. to-day i followed the river and came farther away from aldercliffe than i intended. when i got to this point the sun was so pleasant here on the float that i lingered." nodding, ted fitted the key into the padlock, turned it, and rolled the doors apart, allowing mr. fernald to pass within. the mill owner was a large man and as he stalked about, peering at the fireplace with its andirons of wrought metal, examining the chintz hangings, and casting his eye over the books on the shelf, he seemed to fill the entire room. then suddenly, having completed his circuit of the interior, he failed to bow himself out as ted expected and instead dropped into the big leather armchair and proceeded to draw out a cigar. "i suppose you don't mind if i smoke," said he, at the same instant lighting a match. "oh, no. dad always smokes," replied the boy. "your father is in our shipping room, they tell me." "yes, sir." "where did you live before you came here?" "vermont." "vermont, eh?" commented the older man with interest. "i was born in vermont." "were you?" ted ejaculated. "i didn't know that." "yes, i was born in vermont," mused mr. fernald slowly. "born on a farm, as you no doubt were, and helped with the haying, milking, and other chores." "there were plenty of them," put in the boy, forgetting for the moment whom he was addressing. "that's right!" was the instant and hearty response. "there was precious little time left afterward for playing marbles or flying kites." the lad standing opposite chuckled understandingly and the capitalist continued to puff at his cigar. "spring was the best time," observed he after a moment, "to steal off after the plowing and planting were done and wade up some brook----" "where the water foamed over the rocks," interrupted the boy, with sparkling eyes. "we had a brook behind our house. there were great flat rocks in it and further up in the woods some fine, deep trout holes. all you had to do was to toss a line in there and the next you knew----" "something would jump for it," cried the millionaire, breaking in turn into the conversation and rubbing his hands. "i remember hauling a two-pounder out of just such a spot. jove, but he was a fighter! i can see him now, thrashing about in the water. i wasn't equipped with a rod of split bamboo, a reel, and scores of flies in those days. a hook, a worm, and a stick you'd cut yourself was your outfit. nevertheless i managed to land my fish for all that." lured by the subject ted came nearer. "any pickerel holes where you lived?" inquired mr. fernald boyishly. "you bet there were!" replied the lad. "we had a black, scraggy pond two miles away, dotted with stumps and rotting tree trunks. about sundown we fellows would steal a leaky old punt anchored there and pole along the water's edge until we reached a place where the water was deep, and then we'd toss a line in among the roots. it wasn't long before there would be something doing," concluded he, with a merry laugh. "how gamey those fish are!" observed mr. fernald reminiscently. "and bass are sporty, too." "i'd rather fish for bass than anything else!" asserted ted. "ever tried landlocked salmon?" "n--o. we didn't get those." "that's what you get in maine and new brunswick," explained mr. fernald. "i don't know, though, that they are any more fun to land than a good, spirited bass. i often think that all these fashionable camps with their guides, and canoes, and fishing tackles of the latest variety can't touch a vermont brook just after the ice has thawed. i'd give all i own to live one of those days of my boyhood over again!" "so would i!" echoed ted. "pooh, nonsense!" objected mr. fernald. "you are young and will probably scramble over the rocks for years to come. but i'm an old chap, too stiff in the joints now to wade a brook. still it is a pleasure to go back to it in your mind." his face became grave, then lighted with a quick smile. "i'll wager the material for those curtains of yours never was bought round here. didn't that come from vermont? and the andirons, too?" "yes, sir." "ah, i knew it! we had some of that old shiny chintz at home for curtains round my mother's four-poster bed." he rose and began to pace the room thoughtfully. "some day my son is going to bring his boy over here," he remarked. "he is interested in electricity and knows quite a bit about it. i was always attracted to science when i was a youngster. i----" he got no further for there was a stir outside, a sound of voices, and a snapping of dry twigs; and as ted glanced through the broad frame of the doorway he saw to his amazement mr. clarence fernald wheel up the incline just outside a rubber-tired chair in which sat laurie. "i declare if here isn't my grandson now!" exclaimed mr. fernald, bustling toward the entrance of the shack. ah, it needed no great perception on ted's part to interpret the pride, affection, and eagerness of the words; in the tones of the elder man's voice rang echoes of adoration, hope, fear, and disappointment. the millowner, however, speedily put them all to rout by crying heartily: "well, well! this seems to be a fernald reunion!" "grandfather! are you here?" cried the boy in the chair, extending his thin hand with the vivid smile ted so well remembered. "indeed i am! young turner and i were just speaking of you. i told him you were coming to see him some day." laurie glanced toward ted. "it is nice of you to let me come and visit you," he said, with easy friendliness. "what a pretty place you have and how gay the flowers are! and the river is beautiful! our view of it from pine lea is not half so lovely as this." "perhaps you might like to sit here on the platform for a while," suggested ted, coming forward rather shyly and smiling down into the lad's eyes. laurie returned the smile with delightful candor. "you're ted turner, aren't you?" inquired he. "they've told me about you and how many things you can do. i could not rest until i had seen the shack. besides, dad says you have some books on electricity; i want to see them. and i've brought you some of mine. they're in a package somewhere under my feet." "that was mighty kind of you," answered ted, as he stooped to secure the volumes. "not a bit. my tutor, mr. hazen, got them for me and some of them are corking--not at all dry and stupid as books often are. if you haven't seen them already, i know you'll like them." how easily and naturally it all came about! before they knew it, mr. fernald was talking, mr. clarence fernald was talking, laurie was talking, and ted himself was talking. sitting there so idly in the sunshine they joked, told stories, and watched the river as it crept lazily along, reflecting on its smooth surface the gold and azure of the june day. during the pauses they listened to the whispering music of the pines and drank in their sleepy fragrance. more than once ted pinched himself to make certain that he was really awake. it all seemed so unbelievable; and yet, withal, there was something so simple and suitable about it. by and by mr. clarence rose, stretched his arms, and began boyishly to skip stones across the stream; then ted tried his skill; and presently, not to be outdone by the others, grandfather fernald cast aside his dignity and peeling off his coat joined in the sport. how laurie laughed, and how he clapped his hands when one of his grandfather's pebbles skimmed the surface of the water six times before it disappeared amid a series of widening ripples. after this they all were simply boys together, calling, shouting, and jesting with one another in good-humored rivalry. what use was it then ever again to attempt to be austere and unapproachable fernalds? no use in the world! although mr. fernald, senior, mopped his brow and slipped back into his coat with a shadow of surprise when he came to and realized what he had been doing, he did not seem to mind greatly having lapsed from seventy years to seven. the fact that he had furnished laurie with amusement was worth a certain loss of dignity. ah, it would have taken an outsider days, weeks, months, perhaps years to have broken through the conventionalities and beheld the fernalds as ted saw them that day. it was the magic of the sunshine, the sparkle of the creeping river, the mysterious spell of the pines that had wrought the enchantment. perhaps, too, the memory of his vermont boyhood had risen freshly to grandfather fernald's mind. when the shadows lengthened and the glint of gold faded from the river, they went indoors and mr. laurie was wheeled about that he might inspect every corner of the little house of which he had heard so much. this he did with the keenest delight and it was only after both his father and his grandfather had promised to bring him again that he could be persuaded to be carried back to pine lea. as he disappeared among the windings of the trees, he waved his hand to ted and called: "i'll see you some day next week, ted. mr. hazen, my tutor, shall bring me round here some afternoon when you have finished work. i suppose you don't get through much before five, do you?" "no, i don't." "oh, any time you want to see ted i guess he can be let off early," cried both mr. fernald and mr. clarence in one breath. then as mr. clarence pushed the wheel-chair farther into the dusk of the pines, mr. fernald turned toward ted and added in an undertone: "it's done the lad good to come. i haven't seen him in such high spirits for days. we'll fix things up with wharton so that whenever he fancies to come here you can be on hand. the poor boy hasn't many pleasures and he sees few persons of his own age." chapter vii mr. laurie the visits of laurie during the following two weeks became very frequent; and such pleasure did they afford him that orders were issued for ted turner to knock off work each day at four o'clock and return to the shack, where almost invariably he found his new acquaintance awaiting him. it was long since laurie fernald had had a person of his own age to talk with. in fact, he had never before seen a lad whose friendship he desired. most boys were so well and strong that they had no conception of what it meant not to be so, and their very robustness and vitality overwhelmed a personality as sensitively attuned as was that of laurie fernald. he shrank from their pity, their blundering sympathy, their patronage. but in ted turner he immediately felt he had nothing to dread. he might have been a marathon athlete, so far as any hint to the contrary went. ted appeared never to notice his disability or to be conscious of any difference in their physical equipment; and when, as sometimes happened, he stooped to arrange a pillow, or lift the wheel-chair over the threshold, he did it so gently and yet in such a matter-of-fact manner that one scarcely noticed it. they were simply eager, alert, bubbling, interested boys together, and as the effect of the friendship showed itself in laurie's shining eyes, all the fernalds encouraged it. "why, that young turner is doing laurie more good than a dozen doctors!" asserted grandfather fernald. "if he did no work on the farm at all, ted would be worth his wages. money can't pay for what he has done already. i'm afraid laurie has been missing young friends more than we realized. he never complains and perhaps we did not suspect how lonely he was." mr. clarence nodded. "older people are pretty stupid about children sometimes, i guess," said he sadly. "well, he has ted turner now and certainly he is a splendid boy for him to be with. laurie's tutor, mr. hazen, likes him tremendously. what a blessing it is that wharton stumbled on him and brought him up here. had we searched the countryside i doubt if we could have found any one laurie would have liked so much. he doesn't care especially for strangers." with the fernald's sanction behind the friendship, and both laurie's tutor and his doctor urging it on, you may be sure it thrived vigorously. the boys were naturally companionable and now, with every barrier out of the way, and every fostering influence provided, the two soon found themselves on terms of genuine affection. if laurie went for a motor ride saturday afternoon, ted must go, too; if he had a new book, ted must share it, and when he was not as well as usual, or it was too stormy for him to be carried to the shack, nothing would do but ted turner must be summoned to pine lea to brighten the dreariness of the day. soon the servants came to know the newcomer and understand that he was a privileged person in the household. laurie's mother, a pretty southern woman, welcomed him kindly and it was not long before the two were united in a deep and affectionate conspiracy which placed them on terms of the greatest intimacy. "laurie isn't quite so well this afternoon, ted," mrs. fernald would say. "don't let him get too excited or talk too much." or sometimes it was, "laurie had a bad night last night and is dreadfully discouraged to-day. do try and cheer him up." not infrequently mr. hazen would voice an appeal: "i haven't been able to coax laurie to touch his french lesson this morning. don't you want to see if you can't get him started on it? he'll do anything for you." and when ted did succeed in getting the lesson learned, and not only that but actually made an amusing game out of it, how grateful mr. hazen was! for with all his sweetness laurie fernald had a stubborn streak in his nature which the volume of attention he had received had only served to accentuate. he was not really spoiled but there were times when he would do as he pleased, whether or no; and when such a mood came to the surface, no one but ted turner seemed to have any power against it. therefore, when it occasionally chanced that laurie refused to see the doctor, or would not take his medicine, or insisted on getting up when told to lie in bed, ted was made an ally and urged to promote the thing that made for the invalid's health and well-being. after being admitted into the family circle on such confidential terms, it followed that absolute equality was accorded ted and he came and went freely, both at aldercliffe and pine lea. he read with laurie, lunched with him, followed his lessons; and listened to his plans, his pleasures, and his disappointments. perhaps, too, laurie fernald liked and respected him the more that he had duties to perform and therefore was not always free to come at his beck and call as did everybody else. "i shan't be able to get round to see you to-day, old chap," ted would explain over the telephone. "there is a second crop of peas to plant in the further lot and as mr. stevens is short of men, i'm going to duff in and help, even if it isn't my job. of course i want to do my bit when they are in a pinch. i'll see you to-morrow." and although laurie grumbled a good deal, he recognized the present need, and becoming interested in the matter in spite of himself, wished to hear the following day all about the planting. that he should inquire greatly delighted both his father and his grandfather who had always been anxious that he should come into touch with the management of the estates. often they had tried to talk to him of crops and gardens, plowing and planting, but to the subject the heir had lent merely a deaf ear. now with ted turner's advent had come a new influence, the testimony of one who was practically interested in agricultural problems and thought farming anything but dull. the boy was genuinely eager that the work of the men should be a success and therefore when he hoped for fair weather for the haying and it seemed to make a real difference to him whether it was pleasant or not, how could laurie help being eager that it should not rain until the fields were mowed and the crop garnered into the great barns? or when ted was worrying about the pests that invaded the garden, one wouldn't have been a true friend not to ask how the warfare was progressing. before laurie knew it, he had learned much about the affairs of the estates and had become awake to the obstacles good farmers encounter in their strife with soil and weather conditions. as a result his outlook broadened, he became less introspective and more alive to the concerns of those about him; and he gained a new respect for his father's and grandfather's employees. one had much less time to be depressed and discouraged when one had so many things to think of. sometimes ted brought in seeds and showed them; and afterward a slender plant that had sprouted; and then mr. hazen would join in and tell the two boys of other plants,--strange ones that grew in novel ways. or perhaps the talk led to the chemicals the gardeners were mixing with the soil and wandered off into science. every topic seemed to reach so far and led into such fascinating mazes of knowledge! what a surprising place the world was! of course, had the fernalds so desired they could have relieved ted of all his farming duties, and indeed they were sorely tempted at times to do so; but when they saw how much better it was to keep the boy's visits a novelty instead of making of them a commonplace event, and sensed how much knowledge he was bringing into the invalid's room, they decided to let matters progress as they were going. they did, however, arrange occasional holidays for the lad and many a jolly outing did ted have in consequence. had they displayed less wisdom they might have wrecked the friendship altogether. as it was they strengthened it daily and the little shack among the pines became to both ted and to laurie the most loved spot in the world. frequently the servants from pine lea surprised the boys by bringing them their luncheon there; and sometimes mrs. fernald herself came hither with her tea-basket, and the entire family sat about before the great stone fireplace and enjoyed a picnic supper. it was after one of these camping teas that mr. clarence fernald bought for laurie a comfortable adirondack canoe luxuriously fitted up with cushions. the stream before the boathouse was broad and contained little or no current except down toward pine lea, where it narrowed into rapids that swept over the dam at freeman's falls. therefore if one kept along the edges of the upper part of the river, there was no danger and the canoe afforded a delightful recreation. both the elder fernalds and mr. hazen rowed well and ted pulled an exceptionally strong oar for a boy of his years. hence they took turns at propelling the boat and soon laurie was as much at home on the pillows in the stern as he was in his wheel-chair. he greatly enjoyed the smooth, jarless motion of the craft; and often, even when it was anchored at the float, he liked to be lifted into it and lie there rocking with the wash of the river. it made a change which he declared rested him, and it was through this simple and apparently harmless pleasure that a terrible catastrophe took place. on a fine warm afternoon mr. hazen and laurie went over to the shack to meet ted who usually returned from work shortly after four o'clock. the door of the little camp was wide open when they arrived but their host was nowhere to be seen. this circumstance did not trouble them, however, for on the days when laurie was expected ted always left the boathouse unlocked. what did disconcert them and make laurie impatient was to discover that through some error in reckoning they were almost an hour too early. "our clocks must have been ahead of time," fretted the boy. "we shall have to hang round here the deuce of a while." "wouldn't you like me to wheel you back through the grove?" questioned the tutor. "oh, there's no use in that. suppose you get out the pillows and help me into the boat. i'll lie there a while and rest." "all right." with a ready smile mr. hazen plunged into the shack and soon returned laden with the crimson cushions, which he arranged in the stern of the canoe with greatest care. afterward he picked laurie up in his arms as if he had been a feather and carried him to the boat. "how's that?" he asked, when the invalid was settled. "fine! great, thanks! you're a wonder with pillows, mr. hazen; you always get them just right," replied the lad. "now if i only had my book----" "i could go and get it." "oh, no. don't bother. ted will be here before long, won't he? what time is it?" "about half-past three." "only half-past three! great scott! i thought it must be nearly four by this time. then i have quite a while to wait, don't i? i don't see why you got me over here so early." "i don't either," returned mr. hazen pleasantly. "i'm afraid my watch must have been wrong." laurie moved restlessly on the pillows. he had passed a wretched night and was worn and nervous in consequence. "i guess perhaps you'd better run back to the house for my book," remarked he presently. "i shall be having a fit of the blues if i have to hang round here so long with nothing to do." "i'm perfectly willing to go back," mr. hazen said. "but are you sure----" "oh, i'm all right," cut in the boy sharply. "i guess i can sit in a boat by myself for a little while." "still, i'm not certain that i ought to----" "leave me? nonsense! what do you think i am, hazen? a baby? what on earth is going to happen to me, i'd like to know?" "nevertheless i don't like to----" "oh, do stop arguing. it makes me tired. cut along and get the book, can't you? why waste all this time fussing?" burst out the invalid fretfully. "how am i ever going to get well, or think i am well, if you keep reminding me every minute that i am a helpless wreck? it is enough to discourage anybody. why can't you treat me like other people? if you chose to sit in a boat alone for half an hour nobody'd throw a fit. why can't i?" "i suppose you can," retorted the tutor unwillingly. "only you know we never do----" "leave me? don't i know it? the way people tag at my heels drives me almost crazy sometimes. you wouldn't like to have some one dogging your footsteps from morning until night, would you?" "i'm afraid i shouldn't," admitted mr. hazen. for an interval laurie was silent; then he glanced up with one of his swift, appealing smiles. "there, there, mr. hazen!" he said with winning sincerity. "forgive me. i didn't mean to be cross. i do get so fiendishly impatient sometimes. how you can keep on being so kind to me i don't see. do please go and get the book, like a good chap. it's on the chair in my room or else on the library table. you'll find it somewhere. 'treasure island,' you know. i had to leave it in the middle of a most exciting chapter and i am crazy to know how it came out." reluctantly mr. hazen moved away. it was very hard to resist laurie fernald when he was in his present mood; besides, the young tutor was genuinely fond of his charge and would far rather gratify his wishes than refuse him anything. therefore he hurried off through the grove, resolving to return as fast as ever he could. in the meantime laurie threw his head back on the pillows and looked up at the sky. how blue it was and how lazily the clouds drifted by! was any spot on earth so still as this? why, you could not hear a sound! he yawned and closed his eyes, the fatigue of his sleepless night overcoming him. soon he was lost in dreams. * * * * * he never could tell just what it was that aroused him; perhaps it was a premonition of danger, perhaps the rocking of the boat. at any rate he was suddenly broad awake to find himself drifting out into the middle of the stream. in some way the boat must have become unfastened and the rising breeze carried it away from shore. not that it mattered very much now. the thing that was of consequence was that he was helplessly drifting down the river with no means of staying his progress. soon he would be caught in the swirl of the current and then there would be no help for him. what was he to do? must he lie there and be borne along until he was at last carried over the dam at his father's mills? he saw no escape from such a fate! there was not a soul in sight. the banks of the river were entirely deserted, for the workmen were far away, toiling in the fields and gardens, and they could not hear him even were he to shout his loudest. as for mr. hazen, he was probably still at pine lea searching for the book and wouldn't be back for some time. the boy's heart sank and he quivered with fear. must he be drowned there all alone? was there no one to aid him? thoroughly terrified, he began to scream. but his screams only reëchoed from the silent river banks. no one heard and no one came. he was in the current of the stream now and moving rapidly along. faster and faster he went. yes, he was going to be swept on to freeman's falls, going to be carried over the dam and submerged beneath that hideous roar of water that foamed down on the jagged rocks in a boiling torrent of noise and spray. nobody would know his plight until the catastrophe was over; and even should any of the mill hands catch sight of his frail craft as it sped past it would be too late for them to help him. before a boat could be launched and rescuers summoned he would be over the falls. yes, he was going to die, _to die_! again he screamed, this time less with a thought of calling for help than as a protest against the fate awaiting him. to his surprise he heard an answering shout and a second later saw ted turner dash through the pines, pause on the shore, and scan the stream. another instant and the boy had thrown off his coat and shoes and was in the water, swimming toward the boat with quick, overhand strokes. [illustration: he heard an answering shout and a second later saw ted turner dash through the pines. _page_ .] "keep perfectly still, laurie!" he panted. "you're all right. just don't get fussed." yet cheering as were the words, they could not conceal the fact that ted was frightened, terribly frightened. the canoe gained headway with the increasing current. it seemed now to leap along. and in just the proportion that its progress was accelerated, the speed of the pursuer lessened. it seemed as if ted would never overtake his prize. how they raced one another, the bobbing craft and the breathless boy! ted turner was a strong swimmer but the canoe with its solitary occupant was so light that it shot over the surface of the water like a feather. was the contest to be a losing one, after all? laurie, looking back at the wake of the boat, saw ted's arm move slower and slower and suddenly a wave of realization of the other's danger came upon him. they might both be drowned,--two of them instead of one! "give it up, old man!" he called bravely. "don't try any more. you may go down yourself and i should have to die with that misery on my soul. you've done your best. it's all right. just let me go! i'm not afraid." there was no answer from the swimmer but he did not stop. on the contrary, he kept stubbornly on, plowing with mechanical persistence through the water. then at length he, too, was in the current and was gaining surely and speedily. presently he was only a length away from the boat--he was nearer--nearer! his arm touched the stern and laurie fernald caught his hand in a firm grip. there he hung, breathing heavily. "i've simply got to stop a second or two and get my wind," said he. "then we'll start back." "ted!" "there are no oars, of course, but i can tie the rope around my body or perhaps catch it between my teeth. the canoe isn't heavy, you know. after we get out of the current and into quiet water, we shall have no trouble. we can cut straight across the stream and the distance to shore won't be great. i can do it all right." and do it he did, just how neither of the lads could have told. nevertheless he did contrive to bring the boat and laurie with it to a place of safety. shoulder-deep in the water stood the frenzied mr. hazen who had plunged in to meet them and drag them to land. they had come so far down the river that when the canoe was finally beached they found themselves opposite the sweeping lawns of pine lea. ted and the tutor were chilled and exhausted and laurie was weak from fright and excitement. it did not take long, you may be sure, to summon help and bundle the three into a motor car which carried them to pine lea. once there the invalid was put to bed and mr. hazen and ted equipped with dry garments. "i shall get the deuce from the fernalds for this!" commented the young tutor gloomily to ted. "if it had not been for you, that boy would certainly have been drowned. ugh! it makes me shudder to think of it! had anything happened to him, i believe his father and grandfather would have lynched me." "oh, laurie is going to take all the blame," replied ted, making an attempt to comfort the dejected young man. "he told me so himself." "that's all very well," rejoined mr. hazen, "but it won't help much. i shouldn't have left him. i had no right to do it, no matter what he said. i suppose the boat wasn't securely tied. it couldn't have been. then the breeze came up. goodness knows how the thing actually happened. i can't understand it now. but the point is, it did. jove! i'm weak as a rag! i guess there can't be much left of you, ted." "oh, i'm all right now," protested ted. "what got me was the fright of it. i didn't mind the swimming, for i've often crossed the river and back during my morning plunge. my work keeps me in pretty good training. but to-day i got panicky and my breath gave out. i was so afraid i wouldn't overtake the boat before----" "i know!" interrupted the tutor with a shiver. "well, it is all over now, thank god! you were a genuine hero and i shall tell the fernalds so." "stuff! don't tell them at all. what's the use of harrowing their feelings all up now that the thing is past and done with?" "but laurie--he is all done up and they will be at a loss to account for it," objected mr. hazen. "besides, the servants saw us come ashore and have probably already spread the story all over the place. and anyhow, i believe in being perfectly aboveboard. you do yourself, you know that. so i shall tell them the whole thing precisely as it happened. afterward they'll probably fire me." "no, they won't! cheer up!" "i deserve to be fired, too," went on the young tutor without heeding the interruption. "i ought not to have left laurie an instant." "perhaps not. but you won't do it again." "you bet i won't!" cried mr. hazen boyishly. it subsequently proved that mr. hazen knew far more of his employers than did ted, for after the story was told only the pleas of the young rescuer availed to soften the sentence imposed. "he's almighty sorry, mr. fernald," asserted ted turner. "don't tip him out. give him a second try. he won't ever do it again." "w--e--ll, for your sake i will," mr. clarence said, yielding reluctantly to the pleading of the lad who sat opposite. "it would be hard for me to deny you anything after what you've done. you've saved our boy's life. we never shall forget it, never. but hazen can thank you for his job--not me." and so, as a result of ted's intercession, mr. hazen stayed on. in fact, as mr. clarence said, they could deny the lad nothing. it seemed as if the fernalds never could do enough for him. grandfather fernald gave him a new watch with an illuminated face; and quite unknown to any one, laurie's father opened a bank account to his credit, depositing a substantial sum as a "starter." but the best of the whole thing was that laurie turned to ted with a deeper and more earnest affection and the foundation was laid for a strong and enduring friendship. chapter viii diplomacy and its results laurie, ted, and mr. hazen were in the shack on a saturday afternoon not long after the adventure on the river. a hard shower had driven them ashore and forced them to scramble into the shelter of the camp at the water's edge. how the rain pelted down on the low roof! it seemed as if an army were bombarding the little hut! within doors, however, all was tight, warm, and cosy and on the hearth before a roaring fire the damp coats were drying. in the meantime the two boys and the young tutor had dragged out some coils of wire and a pair of amateur telephone transmitters which ted had concocted while in school and for amusement were trying to run from one end of the room to the other a miniature telephone. thus far their attempts had not been successful and ted was becoming impatient. "we got quite a fair result at the laboratory after the things were adjusted," commented he. "i don't see why we can't work the same stunt here." "i'm afraid we haven't put time enough into it yet," replied mr. hazen. "don't you remember how long alexander graham bell, the inventor of the telephone, experimented before he got results?" laurie, who was busy shortening a bit of wire, glanced up with interest. "i can't for the life of me understand how he knew what he wanted to do, can you?" he mused. "think of starting out to make something perfectly new--a machine for which you had no pattern! i can imagine working out improvements on something already on the market. but to produce something nobody had ever seen before--that beats me! how did he ever get the idea in the first place?" the tutor smiled. "mr. bell did not set out to make a telephone, laurie," he answered. "what he was aiming to do was to perfect a harmonic telegraph, a scheme to which he had been devoting a good deal of his time. he and his father had studied carefully the miracle of speech--how the sounds of the human voice were produced and carried to others--and as a result of this training mr. bell had become an expert teacher of the deaf. he was also professor of vocal physiology at boston university where he had courses in lip reading, or a system of visible speech, which his father had evolved. this work kept him busy through the day so whatever experimenting he did with sounds and their vibrations had to be done at night." "so he stole time for electrical work, too, did he?" observed ted. "i'm afraid that his interest in sound vibration caused him a sorry loss of sleep," said the tutor. "but certainly his later results were worth the amount of rest he sacrificed. one of the first agencies he employed to work upon was a piano. have you ever tried singing a note into this instrument when the sustaining pedal is depressed? do it some time and notice what happens. you will find that the string tuned to the pitch of your voice will start vibrating while all the others remain quiet. you can even go farther and try the experiment of uttering several different pitches, if you want to, and the corresponding strings will give back your notes, each one singling out its own particular vibration from the air. now the results reached in these experiments with the piano strings meant a great deal more to alexander graham bell than they would have meant to you or to me. in the first place, his training had given him a very acute ear; and in the next place, he was able to see in the facts presented a significance which an unskilled listener would not have detected. he found that this law of sympathetic vibration could be repeated electrically and, if desired, from a distance by means of electromagnets placed under a group of piano strings; and if afterward a circuit was made by connecting the magnets with an electric battery, you immediately had the same singing of the keys and a similar searching of each for its own pitch." "i'd like to try that trick some time," exclaimed ted, leaning forward eagerly. "so should i!" echoed laurie. "i think we could quite easily make the experiment if laurie's mother would not object to our rigging up an attachment to her piano," mr. hazen responded. "oh, mater wouldn't mind," answered laurie confidently. "she never minds anything i want to do." "i know she is a very long-suffering person," smiled the tutor. "do you recall the white mice you had once, laurie, and how they got loose and ran all over the house?" "and the chameleons! and the baby alligator!" chuckled laurie. "mother did get her back up over that alligator. she didn't like meeting him in the hall unexpectedly. but she wouldn't mind a thing that wasn't alive." "you call an electric wire dead then," said ted with irony. "well, no--not precisely," grinned laurie. "still i'm certain mater would be less scared of it than she would of a mouse, even if the wire could kill her and the mouse couldn't." "let's return to mr. bell and his piano strings," ted remarked, after the laughter had subsided. mr. hazen's brow contracted thoughtfully and in his leisurely fashion he presently replied: "you can see, can't you, that if an interrupter caused the electric current to be made and broken at intervals, the number of times it interrupted per second would, for example, correspond to the rate of vibration in one of the strings? in other words, that would be the only string that would answer. now if you sang into the piano, you would have the rhythmic impulse that set the piano strings vibrating coming directly through the air, while with the battery the impulse would come through the wire and the electromagnets instead. in each case, however, the principle involved would be the same." "i can see that," said ted quickly. "can't you, laurie?" his chum nodded. "now," continued mr. hazen, "just as it was possible to start two or more different notes of the piano echoing varying pitches, so it is possible to have several sets of these _make-and-break_ or intermittent currents start their corresponding strings to answering. in this way one could send several messages at once, each message being toned to a different pitch. all that would be necessary would be to have differently keyed interrupters. this was the principle of the harmonic telegraph at which mr. bell was toiling outside the hours of his regular work and through which he hoped to make himself rich and famous. his intention was to break up the various sounds into the dots and dashes of the morse code and make one wire do what it had previously taken several wires to perform." "it seems simple enough," speculated laurie. "it was not so simple to carry out," declared mr. hazen. "of course, as i told you, mr. bell could not give his entire time to it. he had his teaching both at boston university and elsewhere to do. nor was he wholly free at the saunders's, with whom he boarded at salem, for he was helping the saunders's nephew, who was deaf, to study." "and in return poor mrs. saunders had to offer up her piano for experiments, i suppose," ted observed. "well, perhaps at first--but not for long," was mr. hazen's reply. "mr. bell soon abandoned piano strings and in their place resorted to flat strips of springy steel, keying them to different pitches by varying their length. one end of these strips he fastened to a pole of an electromagnet and the other he extended over the other pole and left free." "and the current interrupters?" queried ted. "those current interrupters are the things which have since become known as transmitters," explained mr. hazen. "those mr. bell made all alike except that in each one of them were springs kept in constant vibration by a magnet or point of metal placed above each spring so that the spring would touch it at every vibration, thus making and breaking the electric current the same number of times per second that corresponded to the pitch of the piece of steel. by tuning the springs of the receivers to the same pitch with the transmitters and running a wire between them equipped with signalling keys and a battery, bell reasoned he could send as many messages at one time as there were pitches." "did he get it to work?" laurie asked. "mr. bell didn't, no," replied the tutor. "what sounded logical enough on paper was not so easy to put into practise. the idea has been carried out successfully, however, since then. but mr. bell unfortunately had no end of troubles with his scheme, and we all may thank these difficulties for the telephone, for had his harmonic telegraph gone smoothly we might not and probably would not have had bell's other and far more important invention." "the discovery of the telephone was a 'happen,' then," ted ventured. "more or less of a happen," was the reply. "of course, the intelligent recognition of the law behind it was not a happen; nor was the patient and persistent toil that went into the perfecting of the instrument a matter of chance. alexander graham bell had the genius to recognize the value and significance of the truth on which he stumbled and turn it to practical purposes. many another might perhaps have heard the self-same sounds that came to him over that reach of wire and, detecting nothing unusual in the whining vibrations, have passed them by. but to mr. bell they were magic music, the sesame to a new country. strangely enough, too, it was the good luck of a boy not much older than ted to share with the discoverer the wonderful secret." "how?" demanded both laurie and ted in a breath. "i can't tell you that story to-day," mr. hazen expostulated. "it would take much too long. we must give over talking and put our minds on this telephone of our own which does not seem to be making any great progress. i begin to be afraid we haven't the proper outfit." as he spoke, a shadow crossed the window and in another instant mr. clarence fernald poked his head in at the door. "what are you three conspirators up to?" inquired he. "you look as if you were making bombs or some other deadly thing." "we are making a telephone, dad, and it won't work," was laurie's answer. mr. fernald smiled with amusement. "you seem to have plenty of wire," he said. "in fact, if i were permitted to offer a criticism, i should say you had more wire than anything else. how lengthy a circuit do you expect to cover?" "oh, we're not ambitious," laurie replied. "if we can cross the room we shall be satisfied, although now that you mention it, perhaps it wouldn't be such a bad thing if it could run from my room at home over here." he eyed his father furtively. "then when i happened to have to stay in bed i could talk to ted and he could cheer me up." "so he could!" echoed mr. fernald in noncommittal fashion. "it would be rather nice, too, for mr. wharton," went on the diplomat with his sidelong glance still fixed on his father. "he must sometimes wish he could reach ted without bothering to send a man way over here. and then there are the turners! of course a telephone to the shack would give them no end of pleasure. they must miss ted and often want to speak with him." he waited but there was no response from mr. fernald. "ted might be sick, too; or have an accident and wish to get help and----" at last the speaker was rewarded by having the elder man turn quickly upon him. "in other words, you young scoundrel, you want me to install a telephone in this shack for the joy and delight of you two electricians who can't seem to do it for yourselves," said mr. fernald gruffly. "now however do you suppose he guessed it?" exclaimed laurie delightedly, as he turned with mock gravity to ted. "isn't he the mind reader?" it was evident that laurie fernald thoroughly understood his father and that the two were on terms of the greatest affection. "did i say i wanted a telephone?" he went on meekly. "you said everything else," was the grim retort. "did i? well, well!" commented the boy mischievously. "i needn't have taken so much trouble after all, need i? but every one isn't such a sherlock holmes as you are, dad." mr. fernald's scowl vanished and he laughed. "what a young wheedler you are!" observed he, playfully rumpling up his son's fair hair. "you could coax every cent i have away from me if i did not lock my money up in the bank. i really think, though, that a telephone here in the hut would be an excellent idea. but what i don't see is why you don't do the job yourselves." "oh, we could do the work all right if there wasn't danger of our infringing the patent of the telephone company," was laurie's impish reply. "if we should get into a lawsuit there would be no end of trouble, you know. i guess we'd much better have the thing installed in the regular way." "i guess so too!" came from his father. "you'll really have it put in, dad?" cried laurie. "sure!" "that will be bully, corking!" laurie declared. "you're mighty good, dad." "pooh! nonsense!" his father protested, as he shot a quick glance of tenderness toward the boy. "a telephone over here will be a useful thing for us all. i may want to call ted up myself sometimes. we never can tell when an emergency may arise." within the following week the telephone was in place and although ted had not minded his seclusion, or thought he had not, he suddenly found that the instrument gave him a very comfortable sense of nearness to his family and to the household at pine lea. he and laurie chattered like magpies over the wire and were far worse, mrs. fernald asserted, than any two gossipy boarding-school girls. moreover, ted was now able to speak each day with his father at the fernald shipping rooms and by this means keep in closer touch with his family. as for mr. wharton, he marvelled that a telephone to the shack had not been put in at the outset. "it is not a luxury," he insisted. "it's a necessity! an indispensable part of the farm equipment!" certainly in the days to come it proved its worth! chapter ix the story of the first telephone "i am going down to freeman's falls this afternoon to get some rubber tape," ted remarked to laurie, as the two boys and the tutor were eating a picnic lunch in ted's cabin one saturday. "oh, make somebody else do your errand and stay here," laurie begged. "anybody can buy that stuff. some of the men must be going to the falls. ask wharton to make them do your shopping." "perhaps ted had other things to attend to," ventured mr. hazen. "no, i hadn't," was the prompt reply. "in that case i am sure any of the men would be glad to get whatever you please," the tutor declared. "save your energy, old man," put in laurie. "electrical supplies are easy enough to buy when you know what you want." "they are now," mr. hazen remarked, with a quiet smile, "but they have not always been. in fact, it was not so very long ago that it was almost impossible to purchase either books on electricity or electrical stuff of any sort. people's knowledge of such matters was so scanty that little was written about them; and as for shops of this type--why, they were practically unknown." "where did persons get what they wanted?" asked ted with surprise. "nobody wanted electrical materials," laughed mr. hazen. "there was no call for them. even had the shops supplied them, nobody would have known what to do with them." "but there must have been some who would," the boy persisted. "where, for example, did mr. bell get his things?" "practically all mr. bell's work was done at a little shop on court street, boston," answered mr. hazen. "this shop, however, was nothing like the electrical supply shops we have now. had alexander graham bell entered its doors and asked, for instance, for a telephone transmitter, he would have found no such thing in stock. on the contrary, the shop consisted of a number of benches where men or boys experimented or made crude electrical contrivances that had previously been ordered by customers. the shop was owned by charles williams, a clever mechanical man, who was deeply interested in electrical problems of all sorts. in a tiny showcase in the front part of the store were displayed what few textbooks on electricity he had been able to gather together and these he allowed the men in his employ to read at lunch time and to use freely in connection with their work. he was a person greatly beloved by those associated with him and he had the rare wisdom to leave every man he employed unhampered, thereby making individual initiative the law of his business." the tutor paused, then noticing that both the boys were listening intently, he continued: "if a man had an idea that had been carefully thought out, he was given free rein to execute it. tom watson, one of the boys at the shop, constructed a miniature electric engine, and although the feat took both time and material, there was no quarrel because of that. the place was literally a workshop, and so long as there were no drones in it and the men toiled intelligently, mr. williams had no fault to find. you can imagine what valuable training such a practical environment furnished. nobody nagged at the men, nobody drove them on. each of the thirty or forty employees pegged away at his particular task, either doing work for a specific customer or trying to perfect some notion of his own. if you were a person of ideas, it was an ideal conservatory in which to foster them." "gee! i'd have liked the chance to work in a place like that!" ted sighed. "it would not have been a bad starter, i assure you," agreed mr. hazen. "at that time there were, as i told you, few such shops in the country; and this one, simple and crude as it was, was one of the largest. there was another in chicago which was bigger and perhaps more perfectly organized; but williams's shop was about as good as any and certainly gave its men an excellent all-round education in electrical matters. many of them went out later and became leaders in the rapidly growing world of science and these few historic little shops thus became the ancestors of our vast electrical plants." "it seems funny to think it all started from such small beginnings, doesn't it," mused laurie thoughtfully. "it certainly is interesting," mr. hazen replied. "and if it interests us in this far-away time, think what it must have meant to the pioneers to witness the marvels half a century brought forth and look back over the trail they had blazed. for it was a golden era of discovery, that period when the new-born power of electricity made its appearance; and because williams's shop was known to be a nursery for ideas, into it flocked every variety of dreamer. there were those who dreamed epoch-making dreams and eventually made them come true; and there were those who merely saw visions too impractical ever to become realities. to work amid this mecca of minds must have been not only an education in science but in human nature as well. every sort of crank who had gathered a wild notion out of the blue meandered into williams's shop in the hope that somebody could be found there who would provide either the money or the labor to further his particular scheme. "now in this shop," went on mr. hazen, "there was, as i told you, a young neophyte by the name of thomas watson. tom had not found his niche in life. he had tried being a clerk, a bookkeeper, and a carpenter and none of these several occupations had seemed to fit him. then one fortunate day he happened in at williams's shop and immediately he knew this was the place where he belonged. he was a boy of mechanical tastes who had a real genius for tools and machinery. he was given a chance to turn castings by hand at five dollars a week and he took the job eagerly." "think how a boy would howl at working for that now," laurie exclaimed. "no doubt there were boys who would have howled then," answered mr. hazen, "although in those days young fellows expected to work hard and receive little pay until they had learned their trade. perhaps the youthful mr. watson had the common sense to cherish this creed; at any rate, there was not a lazy bone in his body, and as there were no such things to be had as automatic screw machines, he went vigorously to work making the castings by hand, trying as he did so not to blind his eyes with the flying splinters of metal." "then what happened?" demanded laurie. "well, watson stuck at his job and in the meantime gleaned right and left such scraps of practical knowledge as a boy would pick up in such a place. by the end of his second year he had had his finger in many pies and had worked on about every sort of electrical contrivance then known: call bells, annunciators, galvanometers; telegraph keys, sounders, relays, registers, and printing telegraph instruments. think what a rich experience his two years of apprenticeship had given him!" "you bet!" ejaculated ted appreciatively. "now as tom watson was not only clever but was willing to take infinite pains with whatever he set his hand to, never stinting nor measuring his time or strength, he became a great favorite with those who came to the shop to have different kinds of experimental apparatus made. many of the ideas brought to him to be worked out came from visionaries who had succeeded in capturing the financial backing of an unwary believer and convinced themselves and him that here was an idea that was to stir the universe. but too many of these schemes, alas, proved worthless and as their common fate was the rubbish heap, it is strange that the indefatigable thomas watson did not have his faith in pioneer work entirely destroyed. but youth is buoyed up by perpetual hope; and paradoxical as it may seem, his enthusiasm never lagged. each time he felt, with the inventor, that they might be standing on the brink of gigantic unfoldings and he toiled with energy to bring something practical out of the chaos. and when at length it became evident beyond all question that the idea was never to unfold into anything practical, he would, with the same zealous spirit, attack another seer's problem." "didn't he ever meet any successful inventors?" questioned ted. "yes, indeed," the tutor answered. "scattered among the cranks and castle builders were several brilliant, solid-headed men. there was moses g. farmer, for example, one of the foremost electricians of that time, who had many an excellent and workable idea and who taught young watson no end of valuable lessons. then one day into the workshop came alexander graham bell. in his hand he carried a mechanical contrivance watson had previously made for him and on espying tom in the distance he made a direct line for the workman's bench. after explaining that the device did not do the thing he was desirous it should, he told watson that it was the receiver and transmitter of his harmonic telegraph." "and that was the beginning of mr. watson's work with mr. bell?" asked ted breathlessly. "yes, that was the real beginning." "think of working with a man like that!" the boy cried with sparkling eyes. "it must have been tremendously interesting." "it was interesting," responded mr. hazen, "but nevertheless much of the time it must have been inexpressibly tedious work. a young man less patient and persistent than watson would probably have tired of the task. just why he did not lose his courage through the six years of struggle that followed i do not understand. for how was he to know but that this idea would eventually prove as hopeless and unprofitable as had so many others to which he had devoted his energy? beyond mr. bell's own magnetic personality there was only slender foundation for his faith for in spite of the efforts of both men the harmonic telegraph failed to take form. instead, like a tantalizing sprite, it danced before them, always beckoning, never materializing. in theory it was perfectly consistent but in practise it could not be coaxed into behaving as it logically should. had it but been possible for those working on it to realize that beyond their temporary failure lay a success glorious past all belief, think what the knowledge would have meant. but to always be following the gleam and never overtaking it, ah, that might well have discouraged prophets of stouter heart!" "were these transmitters and receivers made from electromagnets and strips of flat steel, as you told us the other day?" asked ted. "yes, their essential parts comprised just those elements--an electromagnet and a scrap of flattened clock spring which, as i have explained, was clamped by one end to the pole of the magnet and left free at the other to vibrate over the opposite pole. in addition the transmitter had make-and-break points such as an ordinary telephone bell has, and when these came in contact with the current, the springs inside continually gave out a sort of wail keyed to correspond with the pitch of the spring. as mr. bell had six of these instruments tuned to as many different pitches--and six receivers to answer them--you may picture to yourself the hideousness of the sounds amid which the experimenters labored." "i suppose when each transmitter sent out its particular whine its own similarly tuned receiver spring would wriggle in response," laurie said. "exactly so." "there must have been lovely music when all six of them began to sing!" laughed ted. "mr. watson wrote once that it was as if all the miseries of the world were concentrated in that workroom, and i can imagine it being true," answered the tutor. "well, young watson certainly did all he could to make the harmonic telegraph a reality. he made the receivers and transmitters exactly as mr. bell requested; but on testing them out, great was the surprise of the inventor to find that his idea, so feasible in theory, refused to work. nevertheless, his faith was not shaken. he insisted on trying to discover the flaw in his logic and correct it, and as watson had now completed some work that he had been doing for moses farmer, the two began a series of experiments that lasted all winter." "jove!" ejaculated laurie. "marvels of science are not born in a moment," answered mr. hazen. "yet i do not wonder that you gasp, for think of what it must have meant to toil for weeks and months at those wailing instruments! it is a miracle the men did not go mad. they were not always able to work together for mr. bell had his living to earn and therefore was compelled to devote a good measure of his time to his college classes and his deaf pupils. in consequence, he did a portion of his experimental work at salem while watson carried on his at the shop, fitting it in with other odd jobs that came his way. frequently mr. bell remained in boston in the evening and the two worked at the williams's shop until late into the night." "wasn't it lucky there were no labor unions in those days?" put in ted mischievously. "indeed it was!" responded mr. hazen. "the shop would then have been barred and bolted at five o'clock, i suppose, and alexander graham bell might have had a million bright ideas for all the good they would have done him. but at that golden period of our history, if an ambitious fellow like watson wished to put in extra hours of work, the more slothful ones had no authority to stand over him with a club and say he shouldn't. therefore the young apprentice toiled on with mr. bell, unmolested; and charles williams, the proprietor of the shop, was perfectly willing he should. one evening, when the two were alone, mr. bell remarked, 'if i could make a current of electricity vary in intensity precisely as the air varies in density during the production of sound, i should be able to transmit speech telegraphically.' this was his first allusion to the telephone but that the idea of such an instrument had been for some time in his mind was evident by the fact that he sketched in for watson the kind of apparatus he thought necessary for such a device and they speculated concerning its construction. the project never went any farther, however, because mr. thomas saunders and mr. gardiner hubbard, who were financing mr. bell's experiments, felt the chances of this contrivance working satisfactorily were too uncertain. already much time and money had been spent on the harmonic telegraph and they argued this scheme should be completed before a new venture was tried." "i suppose that point of view was quite justifiable," mused ted. "but wasn't it a pity?" "yes, it was," agreed mr. hazen. "yet here again we realize how man moves inch by inch, never knowing what is just around the turn of the road. he can only go it blindly and do the best he knows at the time. naturally neither mr. hubbard nor mr. saunders wanted to swamp any more money until they had received results for what they had spent already; and those results, alas, were not forthcoming. over and over again poor watson blamed himself lest some imperceptible defect in his part of the work was responsible for mr. bell's lack of success. the spring of came and still no light glimmered on the horizon. the harmonic telegraph seemed as far away from completion as ever. patiently the men plodded on. then on a june day, a day that began even less auspiciously than had other days, the heavens suddenly opened and alexander graham bell had his vision!" "what was it?" "tell us about it!" cried both boys in a breath. "it was a warm, close afternoon in the loft over the williams's shop and the transmitters and receivers were whining there more dolefully than usual. several of them, sensitive to the weather, were out of tune, and as mr. bell had trained his ear to sounds until it was abnormally acute, he was tuning the springs of the receivers to the pitch of the transmitters, a service he always preferred to perform himself. to do this he placed the receiver against his ear and called to watson, who was in the adjoining room, to start the current through the electromagnet of the corresponding transmitter. when this was done, mr. bell was able to turn a screw and adjust the instrument to the pitch desired. watson admits in a book he has himself written that he was out of spirits that day and feeling irritable and impatient. the whiners had got on his nerves, i fancy. one of the springs that he was trying to start appeared to stick and in order to force it to vibrate he gave it a quick snap with his finger. still it would not go and he snapped it sharply several times. immediately there was a cry from mr. bell who rushed into the hall, exclaiming, 'what did you do then? don't change anything. let me see.' "watson was alarmed. had he knocked out the entire circuit or what had he done in his fit of temper? well, there was no escape from confession now; no pretending he had not vented his nervousness on the mechanism before him. with honesty he told the truth and even illustrated his hasty action. the thing was simple enough. in some way the make-and-break points of the transmitter spring had become welded together so that even when watson snapped the instrument the circuit had remained unbroken, while by means of the piece of magnetized steel vibrating over the pole of the magnet an electric current was generated, the type of current that did exactly what mr. bell had dreamed of a current doing--a current of electricity that varied in intensity precisely as the air within the radius of that particular spring was varying in density. and not only did that undulatory current pass through the wire to the receiver mr. bell was holding, but as good luck would have it the mechanism was such that it transformed that current back into a faint but unmistakable echo of the sound issuing from the vibrating spring that generated it. but a fact more fortunate than all this was that the one man to whom the incident carried significance had the instrument at his ear at that particular moment. that was pure chance--a heaven-sent, miraculous coincidence! but that mr. bell recognized the value and importance of that whispered echo that reached him over the wire and knew, when he heard it, that it was the embodiment of the idea that had been haunting him--that was not chance; it was genius!" the room had been tensely still and now both boys drew a sigh of relief. "how strange!" murmured ted in an awed tone. "yes, it was like magic, was it not?" replied the tutor. "for the speaking telephone was born at that moment. whatever practical work was necessary to make the invention perfect (and there were many, many details to be solved) was done afterward. but on june , , the telephone as bell had dreamed it came into the world. that single demonstration on that hot morning in williams's shop proved myriad facts to the inventor. one was that if a mechanism could transmit the many complex vibrations of one sound it could do the same for any sound, even human speech. he saw now that the intricate paraphernalia he had supposed necessary to achieve his long-imagined result was not to be needed, for did not the simple contrivance in his hand do the trick? the two men in the stuffy little loft could scarcely contain their delight. for hours they went on repeating the experiment in order to make sure they were really awake. they verified their discovery beyond all shadow of doubt. one spring and then another was tried and always the same great law acted with invariable precision. heat, fatigue, even the dingy garret itself was forgotten in the flight of those busy, exultant hours. before they separated that night, alexander graham bell had given to thomas watson directions for making the first electric speaking telephone in the world!" chapter x what came afterward "was that first telephone like ours?" inquired ted later as, their lunch finished, they sat idly looking out at the river. "not wholly. time has improved the first crude instrument," mr. hazen replied. "the initial principle of the telephone, however, has never varied from mr. bell's primary idea. before young watson tumbled into bed on that epoch-making night, he had finished the instrument bell had asked him to have ready, every part of it being made by the eager assistant who probably only faintly realized the mammoth importance of his task. yet whether he realized it or not, he had caught a sufficient degree of the inventor's excitement to urge him forward. over one of the receivers, as mr. bell directed, he mounted a small drumhead of goldbeater's skin, joined the center of it to the free end of the receiver spring, and arranged a mouthpiece to talk into. the plan was to force the steel spring to answer the vibrations of the voice and at the same time generate a current of electricity that should vary in intensity just as the air varies in density during the utterance of speech sounds. not only did watson make this instrument as specified, but in his interest he went even farther, and as the rooms in the loft seemed too near together, the tireless young man ran a special wire from the attic down the two flights of stairs to the ground floor of the shop and ended it near his workbench at the rear of the building, thus constructing the first telephone line in history. "then the next day mr. bell came to test out his invention and, as you can imagine, there was great excitement." "i hope it worked," put in laurie. "it worked all right although at this early stage of the game it was hardly to be expected that the instrument produced was perfect. nevertheless, the demonstration proved that the principle behind it was sound and that was all mr. bell really wanted to make sure of. watson, as it chanced, got far more out of this initial performance than did mr. bell himself for because of the inventor's practical work in phonics the vibrations of his voice carried more successfully than did those of the assistant. yet the youthful watson was not without his compensations. nature had blessed him with unusually acute hearing and as a result he could catch bell's tones perfectly as they came over the wire and could almost distinguish his words; but shout as he would, poor mr. bell could not hear _him_. this dilemma nevertheless discouraged neither of them for watson had plenty of energy and was quite willing to leap up the two flights of stairs and repeat what he had heard; and this report greatly reassured mr. bell, who outlined a list of other improvements for another telephone that should be ready on the following day." "i suppose they kept remodelling the telephones all the time after that, didn't they?" inquired ted. "you may be sure they did," was mr. hazen's response. "the harmonic telegraph was entirely sidetracked and the interest of both men turned into this newer channel. mr. bell, in the meantime, was giving less and less energy to his teaching and more and more to his inventing. before many days the two could talk back and forth and hear one another's voices without difficulty, although ten full months of hard work was necessary before they were able to understand what was said. it was not until after this long stretch of patient toil that watson unmistakably heard mr. bell say one day, '_mr. watson, please come here, i want you._' the message was a very ordinary, untheatrical one for a moment so significant but neither of the enthusiasts heeded that. the thrilling fact was that the words had come clear-cut over the wire." "gee!" broke in laurie. "it certainly must have been a dramatic moment," mr. hazen agreed. "mr. bell, now convinced beyond all doubt of the value of his idea, hired two rooms at a cheap boarding-house situated at number exeter place, boston. in one of these he slept and in the other he equipped a laboratory. watson connected these rooms by a wire and afterward all mr. bell's experimenting was done here instead of at the williams's shop. it was at the exeter place rooms that this first wonderful message came to watson's ears. from this period on the telephone took rapid strides forward. by the summer of , it had been improved until a simple sentence was understandable if carefully repeated three or four times." "repeated three or four times!" gasped laurie in dismay. the tutor smiled at the boy's incredulousness. "you forget we are not dealing with a finished product," said he gently. "i am a little afraid you would have been less patient with the imperfections of an infant invention than were bell and watson." "i know i should," was the honest retort. "the telephone was a very delicate instrument to perfect," explained mr. hazen. "always remember that. an inventor must not only be a man who has unshaken faith in his idea but he must also have the courage to cling stubbornly to his belief through every sort of mechanical vicissitude. this mr. bell did. june of was the year of the great centennial at philadelphia, the year that marked the first century of our country's progress. as the exhibition was to be one symbolic of our national development in every line, mr. bell decided to show his telephone there; to this end he set watson, who was still at the williams's shop, to making exhibition telephones of the two varieties they had thus far worked out." "i'll bet watson was almighty proud of his job," ted interrupted. "i fancy he was and certainly he had a right to be," answered mr. hazen. "i have always been glad, too, that it fell to his lot to have this honor; for he had worked long and faithfully, and if there were glory to be had, he should share it. to his unflagging zeal and intelligence mr. bell owed a great deal. few men could so whole-heartedly have effaced their own personality and thrown themselves with such zest into the success of another as did thomas watson." the tutor paused. "up to this time," he presently went on, "the telephones used by bell and watson in their experiments had been very crude affairs; but those designed for the centennial were glorified objects. watson says that you could see your face in them. the williams's shop outdid itself and more splendid instruments never went forth from its doors. you can therefore imagine watson's chagrin when, after highly commending mr. bell's invention, sir william thompson added, '_this, perhaps, greatest marvel hitherto achieved by electric telegraph has been obtained by appliances of quite a homespun and rudimentary character._'" both ted and laurie joined in the laughter of the tutor. "and now the telephone was actually launched?" ted asked. "well, it was not really in clear waters," mr. hazen replied, with a dubious shrug of his shoulders, "but at least there was no further question as to which of his schemes mr. bell should perfect. both mr. hubbard and mr. saunders, who were assisting him financially, agreed that for the present it must be the telephone; and recognizing the value of watson's services, they offered him an interest in mr. bell's patents if he would give up his work at williams's shop and put in all his time on this device. nevertheless they did not entirely abandon the harmonic telegraph for bell's success with the other invention had only served to strengthen their confidence in his ability and genius. it was also decided that mr. bell should move from salem to boston, take an additional room at the exeter place house (which would give him the entire floor where his laboratory was), and unhampered by further teaching plunge into the inventive career for which heaven had so richly endowed him and which he loved with all his heart. you can picture to yourselves the joy these decisions gave him and the eagerness with which he and watson took up their labors together. "they made telephones of every imaginable size in their attempts to find out whether there was anything that would work more satisfactorily than the type they now had. but in spite of their many experiments they came back to the kind of instrument with which they had started, discovering nothing that was superior to their original plan. except that they compelled the transmitter to do double duty and act also as a receiver, the telephone that emerged from these many tests was practically similar in principle to the one of to-day." "had they made any long-distance trials up to this time?" questioned laurie. "no," mr. hazen admitted. "they had lacked opportunity to make such tests since no great span of wires was accessible to them. but on october , , the walworth manufacturing company gave them permission to try out their device on the company's private telegraph line that ran from boston to cambridge. the distance to be sure was only two miles but it might as well have been two thousand so far as the excitement of the two workers went. their baby had never been out of doors. now at last it was to take the air! fancy how thrilling the prospect was! as the wire over which they were to make the experiment was in use during the day, they were forced to wait until the plant was closed for the night. then watson, with his tools and his telephone under his arm, went to the cambridge office where he impatiently listened for mr. bell's signal to come over the morse sounder. when he had heard this and thereby made certain that bell was at the other end of the line, he cut out the sounder, connected the telephone he had brought with him, and put his ear to the transmitter." the hut was so still one could almost hear the breathing of the lads, who were listening intently. "go on!" laurie said quickly. "tell us what happened." "_nothing happened!_" answered the tutor. "watson listened but there was not a sound." "great scott!" "the poor assistant was aghast," went on mr. hazen. "he was at a complete loss to understand what was the matter. could it be that the contrivance which worked so promisingly in the boston rooms would not work under these other conditions? perhaps an electric current was too delicate a thing to carry sound very far. or was it that the force of the vibration filtered off at each insulator along the line until it became too feeble to be heard? all these possibilities flashed into watson's mind while at his post two miles away from mr. bell he struggled to readjust the instrument. then suddenly an inspiration came to his alert brain. might there not be another morse sounder somewhere about? if there were, that would account for the whole difficulty. springing up, he began to search the room and after following the wires, sure enough, he traced them to a relay with a high resistance coil in the circuit. feverishly he cut this out and rushed back to his telephone. plainly over the wire came bell's voice, '_ahoy! ahoy!_' for a few seconds both of them were too delighted to say much of anything else. then they sobered down and began this first long-distance conversation. now one of the objections mr. bell had constantly been forced to meet from the skeptical public was that while the telegraph delivered messages that were of unchallenged accuracy telephone conversations were liable to errors of misunderstanding. one could not therefore rely so completely on the trustworthiness of the latter as on that of the former. to refute this charge mr. bell had insisted that both he and watson carefully write out whatever they heard that the two records might afterward be compared and verified. '_that is_,' mr. bell had added with the flicker of a smile, '_if we succeed in talking at all_!' well, they did succeed, as you have heard. at first they held only a stilted dialogue and conscientiously jotted it down; but afterward their exuberance got the better of them and in sheer joy they chattered away like magpies until long past midnight. then, loath to destroy the connection, watson detached his telephone, replaced the company's wires, and set out for boston. in the meantime mr. bell, who had previously made an arrangement with the _boston advertiser_ to publish on the following morning an account of the experiment, together with the recorded conversations, had gone to the newspaper office to carry his material to the press. hence he was not at the exeter place rooms when the jubilant watson arrived. but the early morning hour did not daunt the young electrician; and when, after some delay, mr. bell came in, the two men rushed toward one another and regardless of everything else executed what mr. watson has since characterized as a _war dance_. certainly they were quite justified in their rejoicings and perhaps if their landlady had understood the cause of their exultations she might have joined in the dance herself. unluckily she had only a scant sympathy with inventive genius and since the victory celebration not only aroused her, but also wakened most of her boarders from their slumbers, her ire was great and the next morning she informed the two men that if they could not be more quiet at night they would have to leave her house." an appreciative chuckle came from the listeners. "if she had known what she was sheltering, i suppose she would have been proud as a peacock and promptly told all her neighbors," grinned ted. "undoubtedly! but she did not know, poor soul!" returned mr. hazen. "after this mr. bell and mr. watson must have shot ahead by leaps and bounds," commented laurie. "there is no denying that that two-mile test did give them both courage and assurance," responded the tutor. "they got chances to try out the invention on longer telegraph wires; and in spite of the fact that no such thing as hard-drawn copper wire was in existence they managed to get results even over rusty wires with their unsoldered joinings. through such experiments an increasingly wider circle of outside persons heard of the telephone and the marvel began to attract greater attention. mr. bell's modest little laboratory became the mecca of scientists and visitors of every imaginable type. moses g. farmer, well known in the electrical world, came to view the wonder and confessed to mr. bell that more than once he had lingered on the threshold of the same mighty discovery but had never been able to step across it into success. it amused both mr. bell and mr. watson to see how embarrassed persons were when allowed to talk over the wire. standing up and speaking into a box has long since become too much a matter of course with us to appear ridiculous; but those experiencing the novelty for the first time were so overwhelmed by self-consciousness that they could think of nothing to say. one day when mr. watson called from his end of the line, 'how do you do?' a dignified lawyer who was trying the instrument answered with a foolish giggle, 'rig-a-jig-jig and away we go!' the psychological reaction was too much for many a well-poised individual and i do not wonder it was, do you?" "it must have been almost as good as a vaudeville show to watch the people," commented ted. "better! lots better!" echoed laurie. "in april, , the first out-of-door telephone line running on its own private wires was installed in the shop of charles williams at number court street and carried from there out to his house at somerville. quite a little ceremony marked the event. both mr. bell and mr. watson attended the christening and the papers chronicled the circumstance in bold headlines the following day. immediately patrons who wanted telephones began to pop up right and left like so many mushrooms. but alas, where was the money to come from that should enable mr. bell and his associates to branch out and grasp the opportunities that now beckoned them? the inventor's own resources were at a low ebb; watson, like many another young man, had more brains than fortune; and neither mr. hubbard nor mr. saunders felt they could provide the necessary capital. already the western union had refused mr. hubbard's offer to sell all mr. bell's patents for one hundred thousand dollars, the company feeling that the price asked was much too high. two years later, however, they would willingly have paid twenty-five million dollars for the privilege they had so summarily scorned. what was to be done? money must be secured for without it all further progress was at a standstill. was success to be sacrificed now that the goal was well within sight? and must the telephone be shut away from the public and never take its place of service in the great world? why, if a thing was not to be used it might almost as well never have been invented! the spirits of the telephone pioneers sank lower and lower. the only way to raise money seemed to be to sell the telephone instruments outright and this mr. bell, who desired simply to lease them, was unwilling to do. then an avenue of escape from this dilemma presented itself to him." "what was it?" asked laurie. "he would give lectures, accompanying them with practical demonstrations of the telephone. this would bring in money and banish for a time, at least, the possibility of having to sell instead of rent telephones. the plan succeeded admirably. the first lecture was given at salem where, because of mr. bell's previous residence and many friends, a large audience packed the hall. then boston desired to know more of the invention and an appeal for a lecture signed by longfellow, oliver wendell holmes, and other distinguished citizens was forwarded to mr. bell. the boston lectures were followed by others in new york, providence, and the principal cities throughout new england." "it seems a shame mr. bell should have had to take his time to do that, doesn't it?" mused ted. "how did they manage the lectures?" "the lectures had a checkered existence," smiled mr. hazen. "many very amusing incidents centered about them. were i to talk until doomsday i could not begin to tell you the multitudinous adventures mr. bell and mr. watson had during their platform career; for although mr. watson was never really before the footlights as mr. bell was, he was an indispensable part of the show,--the power behind the scenes, the man at the other end of the wire, who furnished the lecture hall with such stunts as would not only convince an audience but also entertain them. it was a dull, thankless position, perhaps, to be so far removed from the excitement and glamor, to be always playing or singing into a little wooden box and never catching a glimpse of the fun that was going on at the other end of the line; but since mr. watson was a rather shy person it is possible he was quite as well pleased. after all, it was mr. bell whom everybody wanted to see and of course mr. watson understood this. therefore he was quite content to act his modest rôle and not only gather together at his end of the wire cornet soloists, electric organs, brass bands, or whatever startling novelties the occasion demanded, but talk or sing himself. the shyest of men can sometimes out-herod herod if not obliged to face their listeners in person. as watson had spoken so much over the telephone, he was thoroughly accustomed to it and played the parts assigned him far better than more gifted but less practically trained soloists did. it always amused him intensely after he had bellowed _pull for the shore_, _hold the fort_ or _yankee doodle_ into the transmitter to hear the applause that followed his efforts. probably singing before a large company was about the last thing tom watson expected his electrical career would lead him into. had he been told that such a fate awaited him, he would doubtless have jeered at the prophecy. but here he was, singing away with all his lung power, before a great hall full of people and not minding it in the least; nay, i rather think he may have enjoyed it. once, desiring to give a finer touch than usual to the entertainment, mr. bell hired a professional singer; but this soloist had never used a telephone and although he possessed the art of singing he was not able to get it across the wire. no one in the lecture hall could hear him. mr. bell promptly summoned watson (who was doubtless congratulating himself on being off duty) to render _hold the fort_ in his customary lusty fashion. after this mr. watson became the star soloist and no more singers were engaged." a ripple of amusement passed over the faces of the lads listening. "ironically enough, as mr. watson's work kept him always in the background furnishing the features of these entertainments, he never himself heard mr. bell lecture. he says, however, that the great inventor was a very polished, magnetic speaker who never failed to secure and hold the attention of his hearers. of course, every venture has its trials and these lecture tours were no exception to the general rule. once, for example, the northern lights were responsible for demoralizing the current and spoiling a telephone demonstration at lawrence; and although both watson and a cornetist strained their lungs to bursting, neither of them could be heard at the hall. then the sparks began to play over the wires and the show had to be called off. nevertheless such disasters occurred seldom, and for the most part the performances went smoothly, the people were delighted, and mr. bell increased not only his fame but his fortune." mr. hazen stopped a moment. "you must not for an instant suppose," he resumed presently, "that the telephone was a perfected product. transmitters of sufficient delicacy to do away with shouting and screaming had not yet made their appearance and in consequence when one telephoned all the world knew it; it was not until the blake transmitter came into use that a telephone conversation could be to any extent confidential. in its present state, the longer the range the more lung power was demanded; and probably had not this been the condition, people would have shouted anyway, simply from instinct. even with our own delicately adjusted instruments we are prone to forget and commit this folly. but in the early days one was forced to uplift his voice at the telephone and if he had no voice to uplift woe betide his telephoning. and apropos of this matter, i recall reading that once, when mr. bell was to lecture in new york, he thought what a drawing card it would be if he could have his music and other features of entertainment come from boston. therefore he arranged to use the wires of the atlantic and pacific telegraph company and to this end he and watson planned a dress rehearsal at midnight in order to try out the inspiration. now it chanced that the same inflexible landlady ruled at number exeter place, and remembering his former experience, mr. watson felt something must be done to stifle the shouting he foresaw he would be compelled to do at that nocturnal hour. so he gathered together all the blankets and rolled them into a sort of cone and to the small end of this he tied his telephone. then he crept into this stuffy, breathless shelter, the ancestor of our sound-proof telephone booth, and for nearly three hours shouted to mr. bell in new york--or tried to. but the experiment was not a success. he could be heard, it is true, but not distinctly enough to risk such an unsatisfactory demonstration before an uninitiated audience. hence the scheme was abandoned and mr. watson scrambled his things together and betook himself to a point nearer the center of action." "it must all have been great fun, mustn't it?" said laurie thoughtfully. "great fun, no doubt, but very hard work," was the tutor's answer. "many a long, discouraging hour was yet to follow before the telephone became a factor in the everyday world. yet each step of the climb to success had its sunlight as well as its shadow, its humor as well as its pathos; and it was fortunate both men appreciated this fact for it floated them over many a rough sea. man can spare almost any other attribute better than his sense of humor. without this touchstone he is ill equipped to battle with life," concluded mr. hazen whimsically. chapter xi the rest of the story "i should think," commented laurie one day, when ted and mr. hazen were sitting in his room, "that mr. bell's landlady would have fussed no end to have his telephone ringing all the time." "my dear boy, you do not for an instant suppose that the telephones of that period had bells, do you?" replied mr. hazen with amusement. "no, indeed! there was no method for signaling. unless two persons agreed to talk at a specified hour of the day or night and timed their conversation by the clock, or else had recourse to the morse code, there was no satisfactory way they could call one another. this did not greatly matter when you recollect how few telephones there were in existence. mr. williams used to summon a listener by tapping on the metal diaphragm of the instrument with his pencil, a practice none too beneficial to the transmitter; nor was the resulting sound powerful enough to reach any one who was not close at hand. furthermore, persons could not stand and hold their telephones and wait until they could arouse the party at the other end of the line for a telephone weighed almost ten pounds and----" "ten pounds!" repeated ted in consternation. mr. hazen nodded. "yes," answered he, "the early telephones were heavy, cumbersome objects and not at all like the trim, compact instruments we have to-day. in fact, they were quite similar to the top of a sewing-machine box, only, perhaps, they were a trifle smaller. you can understand that one would not care to carry on a very long conversation if he must in the meantime stand and hold in his arms a ten-pound object about ten inches long, six inches wide, and six inches high." "i should say not!" laurie returned. "it must have acted as a fine check, though, on people who just wanted to gabble." both ted and the tutor laughed. "of course telephone owners could not go on that way," ted said, after the merriment had subsided. "what did mr. bell do about it?" "the initial step for betterment was not taken by mr. bell but by mr. watson," mr. hazen responded. "he rigged a little hammer inside the box and afterwards put a button on the outside. this _thumper_ was the first calling device ever in use. later on, however, the assistant felt he could improve on this method and he adapted the buzzer of the harmonic telegraph to the telephone; this proved to be a distinct advance over the more primitive _thumper_ but nevertheless he was not satisfied with it as a signaling apparatus. so he searched farther still, and with the aid of one of the shabby little books on electricity that he had purchased for a quarter from williams's tiny showcase, he evolved the magneto-electric call bell such as we use to-day. this answered every purpose and nothing has ever been found that has supplanted it. it is something of a pity that watson did not think to affix his name to this invention; but he was too deeply interested in what he was doing and probably too busy to consider its value. his one idea was to help mr. bell to improve the telephone in every way possible and measuring what he was going to get out of it was apparently very far from his thought. of course, the first of these call bells were not perfect, any more than were the first telephones; by and by, however, their defects were remedied until they became entirely satisfactory." "so they now had telephones, transmitters, and call bells," reflected ted. "i should say they were pretty well ready for business." "you forget the switchboard," was mr. hazen's retort. "a one-party line was a luxury and a thing practically beyond the reach of the public. at best there were very few of them. no, some method for connecting parties who wished to speak to one another had to be found and it is at this juncture of the telephone's career that a new contributor to the invention's success comes upon the scene. "doing business at number washington street was a young new yorker by the name of edwin t. holmes, who had charge of his father's burglar-alarm office. as all the electrical equipment he used was made at williams's shop, he used frequently to go there and one day, when he entered, he came upon charles williams, the proprietor of the store, standing before a little box that rested on a shelf and shouting into it. hearing mr. holmes's step, he glanced over his shoulder, met his visitor's astonished gaze, and laughed. "'for heaven's sake, williams, what have you got in that box?' demanded mr. holmes. "'oh, this is what that fellow out there by watson's bench, mr. bell, calls a telephone,' replied mr. williams. "'so that's the thing i have seen squibs in the paper about!' observed the burglar-alarm man with curiosity. "'yes, he and watson have been working at it for some time.' "now mr. holmes knew tom watson well for the young electrician had done a great deal of work for him in the past; moreover, the new york man was a person who kept well abreast of the times and was always alert for novel ideas. therefore quite naturally he became interested in the embryo enterprise and dropped into williams's shop almost every day to see how the infant invention was progressing. in this way he met both mr. gardiner hubbard and mr. thomas saunders, who were mr. bell's financial sponsors. after mr. holmes had been a spectator of the telephone for some time, he remarked to mr. hubbard: "'if you succeed in getting two or three of those things to work and will lend them to me, i will show them to boston.' "'show them to boston,' repeated mr. hubbard. 'how will you do that?' "'well,' said mr. holmes, 'i have a central office down at number washington street from which i have individual wires running to most of the banks, many jeweler's shops, and other stores. i can ring a bell in a bank from my office and the bank can ring one to me in return. by using switches and giving a prearranged signal to the exchange bank, both of us could throw a switch which would put the telephones in circuit and we could talk together.' "after looking at mr. holmes for a moment with great surprise, mr. hubbard slapped him on the back and said, 'i will do it! get your switches and other things ready.' "of course mr. holmes was greatly elated to be the first one to show on his wires this wonderful new instrument and connect two or more parties through a central office. he immediately had a switchboard made (its actual size was five by thirty-six inches) through which he ran a few of his burglar-alarm circuits and by means of plugs he arranged so that he could throw the circuit from the burglar-alarm instruments to the telephone. he also had a shelf made to rest the telephones on and had others like it built at the exchange national and the hide and leather banks. in a few days the telephones, numbered , , and , arrived and were quickly installed, and the marvellous exhibition opened. soon two more instruments were added, one of which was placed in the banking house of brewster, bassett and company and the other in the shoe and leather bank. when the williams shop was connected, it gave mr. holmes a working exchange of five connections, the first telephone exchange in history." "i'll bet they had some queer times with it," asserted ted. "they did, indeed!" smiled mr. hazen. "the papers announced the event, although in very retiring type, and persons of every walk in life flocked to the holmes office to see the wonder with their own eyes. so many came that mr. holmes had a long bench made so that visitors could sit down and watch the show. one day a cornetist played from the holmes building so that the members of the boston stock exchange, assembled at the office of brewster, bassett and company, could hear the performance. considering the innovation a great boon, the new york man secured another instrument and after meditating some time on whom he would bestow it he decided to install it in the revere bank, thinking the bank people would be delighted to be recipients of the favor. his burglar-alarm department had pass-keys to all the banks and therefore, when banking hours were over, he and one of his men obtained entrance and put the telephone in place. the following morning he had word that the president of the bank wished to see him and expecting to receive thanks for the happy little surprise he had given the official, he hurried to the bank. instead of expressing gratitude, however, the president of the institution said in an injured tone: "'mr. holmes, what is that play toy you have taken the liberty of putting up out there in the banking room?' "'why, that is what they are going to call a telephone,' explained mr. holmes. "'a telephone! what's a telephone?' inquired the president. "with enthusiasm the new yorker carefully sketched in the new invention and told what could be done with it. "after he had finished he was greatly astonished to have the head of the bank reply with scorn: "'mr. holmes, you take that plaything out of my bank and don't ever take such liberties again.' "you may be sure the _plaything_ was quickly removed and the revere bank went on record as having the first telephone disconnection in the country. "having exhibited the telephones for a couple of weeks, mr. holmes went to mr. hubbard and suggested that he would like to continue to carry on the exchange but he should like it put on a business basis. "'have you any money?' asked mr. hubbard. "'mighty little,' was the frank answer. "'well, that's more than we have got,' mr. hubbard responded. 'however, if you have got enough money to do the business and build the exchange, we will rent you the telephones.' "by august, , when bell's patent was sixteen months' old, casson's history tells us there were seven hundred and seventy-eight telephones in use and the bell telephone association was formed. the organization was held together by an extremely simple agreement which gave bell, hubbard, and saunders a three-tenths' interest apiece in the patents and watson one-tenth. the business possessed no capital, as there was none to be had; and these four men at that time had an absolute monopoly of the telephone business,--and everybody else was quite willing they should have. "in addition to these four associates was charles williams, who had from the first been a believer in the venture, and mr. holmes who built the first telephone exchange with his own money, and had about seven hundred of the seven hundred and seventy-eight instruments on his wires. mr. robert w. devonshire joined the others in august, , as bookkeeper and general secretary and has since become an official in the american telephone and telegraph company. "mr. holmes rented the telephones for ten dollars a year and through his exchange was the first practical man who had the temerity to offer telephone service for sale. it was the arrival of a new idea in the business world. "now the business world is not a tranquil place and as soon as the new invention began to prosper, every sort of difficulty beset its path. "there were those who denied that mr. bell had been first in the field with the telephone idea, and they began to contest his right to the patents. other telephone companies sprang up and began to compete with the rugged-hearted pioneers who had launched the industry. lawsuits followed and for years mr. bell's days were one continual fight to maintain his claims and keep others from wresting his hard-earned prosperity from him. but in time smoother waters were reached and now alexander graham bell has been universally conceded to be the inventor of this marvel without which we of the present should scarcely know how to get on." "i don't believe we could live without telephones now, do you?" remarked laurie thoughtfully. "oh, i suppose we could keep alive," laughed mr. hazen, "but i am afraid our present order of civilization would have to be changed a good deal. we scarcely realize what a part the telephone plays in almost everything we attempt to do. certainly the invention helps to speed up our existence; and, convenient as it is, i sometimes am ungrateful enough to wonder whether we should not be a less highly strung and nervous nation without it. however that may be, the telephone is here, and here to stay, and you now have a pretty clear idea of its early history. how from these slender beginnings the industry spread until it spanned continents and circled the globe, you can easily read elsewhere. yet mighty as this factor has become in the business world, it is not from this angle of its greatness that i like best to view it. i would rather think of the lives it has saved; the good news it has often borne; the misunderstandings it has prevented; the better unity it has promoted among all peoples. just as the railroad was a gigantic agent in bringing north, south, east, and west closer together, so the telephone has helped to make our vast country, with its many diverse elements, 'one nation, indivisible.'" chapter xii conspirators with september a tint of scarlet crept into the foliage bordering the little creeks that stole from the river into the aldercliffe meadows; tangles of goldenrod and purple asters breathed of autumn, and the mornings were now too chilly for a swim. had it not been for the great fireplace the shack would not have been livable. for the first time both ted and laurie realized that the summer they had each enjoyed so heartily was at an end and they were face to face with a different phase of life. the harvest, with its horde of vegetables and fruit, had been gathered into the yawning barns and cellars and the earth that had given so patiently of its increase had earned the right to lay fallow until the planting of another spring. ted's work was done. he had helped deposit the last barrel of ruddy apples, the last golden pumpkins within doors, and now he had nothing more to do but to pack up his possessions preparatory to returning to freeman's falls, there to rejoin his family and continue his studies. once the thought that the drudgery of summer was over would have been a delightful one. why, he could remember the exultation with which he had burned the last cornstalks at the end of the season when at home in vermont. the ceremony had been a rite of hilarious rejoicing. but this year, strange to say, a dull sadness stole over him whenever he looked upon the devastated gardens and the reaches of bare brown earth. there was nothing to keep him longer either at aldercliffe or pine lea. his work henceforth lay at school. it was strange that a little sigh accompanied the thought for had he not always looked forward to this very prospect? what was the matter now? was not studying the thing he had longed to be free to do? why this regret and depression? and why was his own vague sadness reflected in laurie's eyes and in those of mr. hazen? summer could not last forever; it was childish to ask that it should. they all had known from the beginning that these days of companionship must slip away and come to an end. and yet the end had come so quickly. why, it had scarcely been midsummer before the twilight had deepened and the days mellowed into autumn. well, they had held many happy, happy hours for ted, at least. never had he dreamed of such pleasures. he had enjoyed his work, constant though it had been, and had come to cherish as much pride in the gardens of aldercliffe and pine lea, in the vast crops of hay that bulged from the barn lofts, as if they had been his own. and when working hours were over there was laurie fernald and the new and pleasant friendship that existed between them. as ted began to drag out from beneath his bunk the empty wooden boxes he purposed to pack his books in, his heart sank. soon the cosy house in which he had passed so many perfect hours would be quite denuded. frosts would nip the flowers nodding in a final glory of color outside the windows; the telephone would be disconnected; his belongings would once more be crowded into the stuffy little flat at home; and the door of the camp on the river's edge would be tightly locked on a deserted paradise. of course, everything had to come to an end some time and often when he had been weeding long, and what seemed interminable rows of seedlings and had been making only feeble progress at the task, the thought that termination of his task was an ultimate certainty had been a consolation mighty and sustaining. such an uninteresting undertaking could not last forever, he told himself over and over again; nothing ever did. and now with ironic conformity to law, his philosophy had turned on him, demonstrating beyond cavil that not only did the things one longed to be free of come to a sure finality but so did those one pined to have linger. although night was approaching, too intent had he been on his reveries to notice that the room was in darkness. how still everything was! that was the way the little hut would be after he was gone,--cold, dark, and silent. he wondered as he sat there whether he should ever come back. would the fernalds want him next season and again offer him the boathouse for a home? they had said nothing about it but if he thought he was to return another summer it would not be so hard to go now. it was leaving forever that saddened him. he must have remained immovable there in the twilight for a much longer time than he realized; and perhaps he would have sat there even longer had not a sound startled him into breathless attention. it was the rhythmic stroke of a canoe paddle and as it came nearer it was intermingled with the whispers of muffled voices. possibly he might have thought nothing of the happening had there not been a note of tense caution in the words that came to his ear. who could be navigating the river at this hour of the night? surely not pleasure-seekers, for it was very cold and an approaching storm had clouded in the sky until it had become a dome of velvet blackness. whoever was venturing out upon the river must either know the stream very well or be reckless of his own safety. ted did not move but listened intently. "let's take a chance and land," he heard a thick voice murmur. "the boy has evidently either gone to bed or he isn't here. whichever the case, he can do us no harm and i'm not for risking the river any farther. it's black as midnight. we might get into the current and have trouble." "what's the sense of running our heads into a noose by landing?" objected a second speaker. "we can't talk here--that's nonsense." "i tell you the boy isn't in the hut," retorted his comrade. "i remember now that i heard he was going back to the falls to school. likely he has gone already. in any case we can try the door and examine the windows; if the place is locked, we shall be sure he is not here. and should it prove to be inhabited, we can easy hatch up some excuse for coming. he'll be none the wiser. even if he should be here," added the man after a pause, "he is probably asleep. after a hard day's work a boy his age sleeps like a log. there'll be no waking him, so don't fret. come! let's steer for the float." "but i----" "great heavens, cronin! we've got to take some chances. you're not getting cold feet so soon, are you?" burst out the other scornfully. "n--o! of course not," his companion declared with forced bravado. "but i don't like taking needless risks. the boy might be awake and hear us." "what if he does? haven't i told you i will invent some yarn to put him off the scent? he wouldn't be suspecting mischief, anyhow. i tell you i'm not going drifting round this river in the dark any longer. next thing we know we may hit a snag and upset." "but you insisted on coming." "i know i did," snapped the sharp voice. "what chance had we to talk in a crowded boarding-house whose very walls had ears? or on the village streets? i knew the river would have no listeners and you see i was right; it hasn't. but i did expect there would be a trifle more light. it is like ink, isn't it? you can't see your hand before your face." "i don't believe we could find the float even if we tried for it," piped his friend with malicious satisfaction. "find it? of course we can. i've traveled this river too many times to get lost on it. i know every inch of the stream." "but aren't there boats at the landing?" "oh, they've been hauled in for the season long ago. i know that to be a fact." "then i guess young turner must have gone." "that's what i've been trying to tell you for the last half-hour," asserted the other voice with high-pitched irritation. "why waste all this time? let's land, talk things over, lay our plans, and be getting back to freeman's falls. we mustn't be seen returning to the town together too late for it might arouse suspicion." "you're right there." "then go ahead and paddle for the landing. i'll steer. just have your hand out so we won't bump." the lapping of the paddles came nearer and nearer. then there was a crash as the nose of the canoe struck the float. "you darned idiot, cronin! why didn't you fend her off as i told you to?" "i couldn't see. i----" "hush!" a moment of breathless silence followed and then there was a derisive laugh. "i told you the boy wasn't here," one of the men declared aloud. "if he had been he would have had his head out the window by now. we've made noise enough to wake the dead." "but he may be here for all that," cautioned the other speaker. "don't talk so loud." "nonsense!" his comrade retorted without lowering his tone. "i tell you the boy has gone back home and the hut is as empty as a last year's bird's nest. i'll stake my oath on it. the place is shut and locked tight as a drum. you'll see i'm right presently." instantly ted's brain was alert. the door was locked, that he knew, for when he came in he had bolted it for the night. one window, however, was open and he dared not attempt to close it lest he make some betraying sound; and even were he able to shut it noiselessly he reflected that the procedure would be an unwise one since it would cut him off from hearing the conversation. no, he must keep perfectly still and trust that his nocturnal visitors would not make too thorough an investigation of the premises. to judge from the scuffling of feet outside, both of them had now alighted from the canoe and were approaching the door. soon he heard a hand fumbling with the latch and afterward came a heavy knock. slipping breathlessly from his chair he crouched upon the floor, great beads of perspiration starting out on his forehead. "the door is locked, as i told you," he heard some one mutter. "he may be asleep." "we can soon make sure. ah, there! turner! turner!" once more a series of blows descended upon the wooden panel. "does that convince you, cronin?" "y--e--s," owned cronin reluctantly. "i guess he's gone." "of course he's gone! come, brace up, can't you?" urged his companion. "where's your backbone?" "i'm not afraid." "tell that to the marines! you're timid and jumpy as a girl. how are we ever to put this thing over if you don't pull yourself together? i might as well have a baby to help me," sneered the gruff voice. "don't be so hard on me, alf," whined his comrade. "i ain't done nothin'. ain't i right here and ready?" "you're here, all right," snarled the first speaker, "but whether you're ready or not is another matter. now i'm going to give you a last chance to pull out. do you want to go ahead or don't you? it's no good for us to be laying plans if you are going to be weak-kneed at the end and balk at carrying them out. do you mean to stand by me and see this thing to a finish or don't you?" "i--sure i do!" "cross your heart?" "cross my heart!" this time the words echoed with more positiveness. "you're not going to back out or squeal?" his pal persisted. "why, alf, how can you----" "because i've got to be sure before i stir another inch." "but ain't i told you over and over again that i----" "i don't trust you." "what makes you so hard on a feller, alf?" whimpered cronin. "i haven't been mixed up in as many of these jobs as you have and is it surprising that i'm a mite nervous? it's no sign that i'm crawling." "you're ready to stick it out, then?" "sure!" there was another pause. "well, let me just tell you this, jim cronin. if you swear to stand by me and don't do it, your miserable life won't be worth a farthing--understand? i'll wring your neck, wring it good and thorough. i'm not afraid to do it and i will. you know that, don't you?" "yes." the terror-stricken monosyllable made it perfectly apparent that cronin did know. "then suppose we get down to hard tacks," asserted his companion, the note of fierceness suddenly dying out of his tone. "come and sit down and we'll plan the thing from start to finish. we may as well be comfortable while we talk. there's no extra charge for sitting." as ted bent to put his ear to the crack of the door, the thud of a heavy body jarred the shack. "jove!" he heard cronin cry. "the ground is some way down, ain't it?" "and it's none to soft at that," came grimly from his comrade, as a second person slumped upon the planks outside. somebody drew a long breath and while the men were making themselves more comfortable on the float ted waited expectantly in the darkness. chapter xiii what ted heard "now the question is which way are we going to get the biggest results," alf began, when they were both comfortably settled with their backs to the door. "that must be the thing that governs us--that, and the sacrifice of as few lives as possible. not _their_ lives, of course. i don't care a curse for the fernalds; the more of them that go sky-high the better, in my estimation. it's the men i mean, our own people. some of them will have to die, i know that. it's unavoidable, since the factories are never empty. even when no night shifts are working, there are always watchmen and engineers on the job. but fortunately just now, owing to the dull season, there are no night gangs on duty. if we decide on the mills it can be done at night; if on the fernalds themselves, why we can set the bombs when we are sure that they are in their houses." ted bit his lips to suppress the sudden exclamation of horror that rose to them. he must not cry out, he told himself. terrible as were the words he heard, unbelievable as they seemed, if he were to be of any help at all he must know the entire plot. therefore he listened dumbly, struggling to still the beating of his heart. for a moment there was no response from cronin. "come, jim, don't sit there like a graven image!" the leader of the proposed expedition exclaimed impatiently. "haven't you a tongue in your head? what's your idea? out with it. i'm not going to shoulder all the job." the man called cronin cleared his throat. "as i see it, we gain nothing by blowing up the fernald houses," answered he deliberately. "so long as the mills remain, their income is sure. after they're gone, the young one will just rebuild and go on wringing money out of the people as his father and grandfather are doing." "but we mean to get him, too." a murmured protest came from cronin. "i'm not for injuring that poor, unlucky lad," asserted he. "he's nothing but a cripple who can't help himself. it would be like killing a baby." "nonsense! what a sentimental milksop you are, jim!" alf cut in. "you can't go letting your feelings run away with you like that, old man. i'm sorry for the young chap, too. he's the most decent one of the lot. but that isn't the point. he's a fernald and because he is----" "but he isn't to blame for that, is he?" "you make me tired, cronin, with all this cry-baby stuff!" alf ejaculated. "you've simply got to cut it out--shut your ears to it--if we are ever to accomplish anything. you can't let your sympathies run away with you like this." "i ain't letting my sympathies run away with me," objected cronin, in a surly tone. "and i'm no milksop, either. but i won't be a party to harming that unfortunate mr. laurie and you may as well understand that at the outset. i'm willing to do my share in blowing the fernald mills higher than a kite, and the two fernalds with 'em; or i'll blow the two fernalds to glory in their beds. i could do it without turning a hair. but to injure that helpless boy of theirs i can't and won't. that would be too low-down a deed for me, bad as i am. he hasn't the show the others have. they can fend for themselves." "you make me sick!" replied alf scornfully. "why, you might as well throw up the whole job as to only half do it. what use will it be to take the old men of the family if the young one still lives on?" "i ain't going to argue with you, alf," responded cronin stubbornly. "if i were to talk all night you likely would never see my point. but there i stand and you can take it or leave it. if you want to go on on these terms, well and good; if not, i wash my hands of the whole affair and you can find somebody else to help you." "of course i can't find somebody else," was the exasperated retort. "you know that well enough. do you suppose i would go on with a scheme like this and leave you wandering round to blab broadcast whatever you thought fit?" "i shouldn't blab, alf," declared cronin. "you could trust me to hold my tongue and not peach on a pal. i should just pull out, that's all. i warn you, though, that if our ways parted and you went yours, i should do what i could to keep mr. laurie out of your path." "you'd try the patience of job, cronin." "i'm sorry." "no, you're not," snarled alf. "you're just doing this whole thing to be cussed. you know you've got me where i can't stir hand or foot. i was a fool ever to have got mixed up with such a white-livered, puling baby. i might have known you hadn't an ounce of sand." "take care, sullivan," cautioned cronin in a low, tense voice. "but hang it all--why do you want to balk and torment me so?" "i ain't balking and tormenting you." "yes, you are. you're just pulling the other way from sheer contrariness. why can't you be decent and come across?" "haven't i been decent?" cronin answered. "haven't i fallen in with every idea you've suggested? you've had your way fully and freely. i haven't stood out for a single thing but this, have i?" "n--o. but----" "well, why not give in and let me have this one thing as i want it? it don't amount to much, one way or the other. the boy is sickly and isn't likely to live long at best." "but i can't for the life of me see why you should be so keen on sparing him. what is he to you?" cronin hesitated; then in a very low voice he said: "once, two years ago, my little kid got out of the yard and unbeknown to his mother wandered down by the river. we hunted high and low for him and were well-nigh crazy, for he's all the child we have, you know. it seems mr. laurie was riding along the shore in his automobile and he spied the baby creeping out on the thin ice. he stopped his car and called to the little one and coaxed him back until the chauffeur could get to him and lift him aboard the car. then they fetched the child to the village, hunted up where he lived, and brought him home to his mother. i--i've never forgotten it and i shan't." "that was mighty decent of mr. laurie--mighty decent," sullivan admitted slowly. "i've got a kid at home myself." for a few moments neither man spoke; then sullivan continued in quick, brisk fashion, as if he were trying to banish some reverie that plagued him: "well, have your way. we'll leave mr. laurie out of this altogether." "thank you, alf." sullivan paid no heed to the interruption. "now let's can all this twaddle and get down to work," he said sharply. "we've wasted too much time squabbling over that miserable cripple. let's brace up and make our plans. you are for destroying the mills, eh?" "it's the only thing that will be any use, it seems to me," cronin replied. "if the mills are blown up, it will not only serve as a warning to the fernalds but it will mean the loss of a big lot of money. they will rebuild, of course, but it will take time, and in the interval everything will be at a standstill." "it will throw several hundred men out of work," sullivan objected. "that can't be helped," retorted cronin. "they will get out at least with their lives and will be almighty thankful for that. they can get other jobs, i guess. but even if they are out of work, i figure some of them won't be so sorry to see the fernalds get what's coming to them," chuckled cronin. "you're right there, jim!" "i'll bet i am!" cried cronin. "then your notion would be to plant time bombs at the factories so they will go off in the night?" "yes," confessed cronin, a shadow of regret in his tone. "that will carry off only a few watchmen and engineers. mighty tough luck for them." "it can't be helped," sullivan said ruthlessly. "you can't expect to carry through a thing of this sort without some sacrifice. all we can do is to believe that the end justifies the means. it's a case of the greatest good to the greatest number." "i--suppose--so." "well, then, why hesitate?" "i ain't hesitating," announced cronin quickly. "i just happened to remember maguire. he's one of the night watchmen at the upper mill and a friend of mine." "but we can't remember him, cronin," sullivan burst out. "it is unlucky that he chances to be on duty, of course; but that is his misfortune. we'd spare him if we could." "i know, i know," cronin said. "it's a pitiless business." then, as if his last feeble compunction vanished with the words, he added, "it's to be the mills, then." "yes. we seem to be agreed on that," sullivan replied eagerly. "i have everything ready and i don't see why we can't go right ahead to-night and plant the machines with their fuses timed for early morning. i guess we can sneak into the factories all right--you to the upper mill and i to the lower. if you get caught you can say you are hunting for maguire; and if i do--well, i must trust to my wits to invent a story. but they won't catch me. i've never been caught yet, and i have handled a number of bigger jobs than this one," concluded he with pride. "anything more you want to say to me?" asked cronin. "no, i guess not. i don't believe i need to hand you any advice. just stiffen up, that's all. anything you want to say to me?" "no. i shan't worry my head about you, you old fox. you're too much of a master hand," cronin returned, with an inflection that sounded like a grin. "i imagine you can hold up your end." "i rather imagine i can," drawled sullivan. "then if there's nothing more to be said, i move we start back to town. it must be late," cronin asserted. "it's black enough to be midnight," grumbled sullivan. "we'd best go directly to our houses--i to mine and you to yours. the explosives and bombs i'll pack into two grips. yours i'll hide in your back yard underneath that boat. how'll that be?" "o. k." "you've got it straight in your head what you are to do?" "yes." "and i can count on you?" "sure!" "then let's be off." there was a splash as the canoe slipped into the water and afterward ted heard the regular dip of the paddles as the craft moved away. he listened until the sound became imperceptible and when he was certain that the conspirators were well out of earshot he sped to the telephone and called up the police station at freeman's falls. it did not take long for him to hurriedly repeat to an officer what he had heard. afterward, in order to make caution doubly sure, he called up the mills and got his old friend maguire at the other end of the line. it was not until all this had been done and he could do no more that he sank limply down on the couch and stared into the darkness. now that everything was over he found that he was shaking like a leaf. his hands were icy cold and he quivered in every muscle of his body. it was useless for him to try to sleep; he was far too excited and worried for that. therefore he lay rigidly on his bunk, thinking and waiting for--he knew not what. it might have been an hour later that he was aroused from a doze by the sharp reverberation of the telephone bell. dizzily he sprang to his feet and stood stupid and inert in the middle of the floor. again the signal rang and this time he was broad awake. he rushed forward to grasp the receiver. "turner? ted turner?" "yes, sir." "this is the police station at freeman's falls. we have your men--both of them--and the goods on them. they are safe and sound under lock and key. i just thought you might like to know it. we shall want to see you in the morning. you've done a good night's work, young one. the state police have been after these fellows for two years. sullivan has a record for deeds of this sort. mighty lucky we got a line on him this time before he did any mischief." "it was." "that's all, thanks to you, kid. i advise you to go to bed now and to sleep. i'll hunt you up to-morrow. i'll bet the fernalds will, too. they owe you something." chapter xiv the fernalds win their point the trial of alf sullivan and jim cronin was one of the most spectacular and thrilling events freeman's falls had ever witnessed. that two such notorious criminals should have been captured through the efforts of a young boy was almost inconceivable to the police, especially to the state detectives whom they had continually outwitted. and yet here they were in the dock and the town officers made not the slightest pretense that any part of the glory of their apprehension belonged to them. to ted turner's prompt action, and to that alone, the triumph was due. in consequence the boy became the hero of the village. he had always been a favorite with both young and old, for every one liked his father, and it followed that they liked his father's son. now, however, they had greater cause to admire that son for his own sake and cherish toward him the warmest gratitude. many a man and woman reflected that it was this slender boy who had stood between them and a calamity almost too horrible to be believed; and as a result their gratitude was tremendous. and if the townsfolk were sensible of this great obligation how much more keenly alive to it were the fernalds whose property had been thus menaced. "you have topped one service with another, ted," mr. lawrence fernald declared. "we do not see how we are ever to thank you. come, there must be something that you would like--some wish you would be happy to have gratified. tell us what it is and perhaps we can act as magicians and make it come true." "yes," pleaded mr. clarence fernald, "speak out, ted. do not hesitate. remember you have done us a favor the magnitude of which can never be measured and which we can never repay." "but i do not want to be paid, sir," the lad answered. "i am quite as thankful as you that the wretches who purposed harm were caught before they had had opportunity to destroy either life or property. certainly that is reward enough." "it _is_ a reward in its way," the elder mr. fernald asserted. "the thought that it was you who were the savior of an entire community will bring you happiness as long as you live. nevertheless we should like to give you something more tangible than pleasant thoughts. we want you to have something by which to remember this marvelous escape from tragedy. deep down in your heart there must be some wish you cherish. if you knew the satisfaction it would give us to gratify it, i am sure you would not be so reluctant to express it." ted colored, and after hesitating an instant, shyly replied: "since you are both so kind and really seem to wish to know, there is something i should like." "name it!" the fernalds cried in unison. "i should like to feel i can return to the shack next summer," the boy remarked timidly. "you see, i have become very fond of aldercliffe and pine lea, fond of laurie, of mr. hazen, and of the little hut. i have felt far more sorry than perhaps you realize to go away from here." his voice quivered. "you poor youngster!" mr. clarence exclaimed. "why in the name of goodness didn't you say so? there is no more need of your leaving this place than there is of my going, or laurie. we ought to have sensed your feeling and seen to it that other plans were made long ago. indeed, you shall come back to your little riverside abode next summer--never fear! and as for aldercliffe, pine lea, laurie and all the rest of it, you shall not be parted from any of them." "but i must go back to school now, sir." "what's the matter with your staying on at pine lea and having your lessons with laurie and mr. hazen instead?" "oh--why----" "should you like to?" "oh, mr. fernald, it would be----" laurie's father laughed. "i guess we do not need an answer to that question," grandfather fernald remarked, smiling. "his face tells the tale." "then the thing is as good as done," mr. clarence announced. "hazen will be as set up as an old hen to have two chicks. he likes you, ted." "and well he may," growled grandfather fernald. "but for ted's prayers and pleas he would not now be here." "yes, hazen will be much pleased," reiterated mr. clarence fernald, ignoring his father's comment. "as for laurie--i wonder we never thought of all this before. it is no more work to teach two boys than one, and in the meantime each will act as a stimulus for the other. the spur of rivalry will be a splendid incentive for laurie, to say nothing of the joy he will take in your companionship. he needs young people about him. it is a great scheme, a great scheme!" mused mr. fernald, rubbing his hands with increasing satisfaction as one advantage of the arrangement after another rotated through his mind. "if only my father does not object," murmured ted. "object! object!" blustered grandfather fernald. "and why, pray, should he object?" that a man of mr. turner's station in life should view the plan with anything but pride and complacency was evidently a new thought to the financier. "why, sir, my father and sisters are very fond of me and may not wish to have me remain longer away from home. they have missed me a lot this summer, i know that. you see i am the youngest one, the only boy." "humph!" interpolated the elder mr. fernald. "in spite of the fact that we are crowded at home and too busy to see much of one another, father likes to feel i'm around," continued ted. "i--suppose--so," came slowly from the old gentleman. "i am sure i can fix all that," asserted mr. clarence fernald briskly. "i will see your father and sisters myself, and i feel sure they will not stand in the way of your getting a fine education when it is offered you--that is, if they care as much for you as you say they do. on the contrary, they will be the first persons to realize that such a plan is greatly to your advantage." "it is going to be almightily to your advantage," mr. lawrence fernald added. "who can tell where it all may lead? if you do well at your studies, perhaps it may mean college some day, and a big, well-paid job afterward." ted's eyes shone. "would you like to go to college if you could?" persisted the elder man. "you bet i would--i mean yes, sir." the old gentleman chuckled at the fervor of the reply. "well, well," said he, "time must decide all that. first lay a good foundation. you cannot build anything worth building without something to build upon. you get your cellar dug and we will then see what we will put on top of it." with this parting remark he and his son moved away. when the project was laid before laurie, his delight knew no bounds. to have ted come and live at pine lea for the winter, what a lark! think of having some one to read and study with every day! nothing could be jollier! and mr. hazen was every whit as pleased. "it is the very thing!" he exclaimed to laurie's father. "ted will not be the least trouble. he is a fine student and it will be a satisfaction to work with him. besides, unless i greatly miss my guess, he will cheer laurie on to much larger accomplishments. ted's influence has never been anything but good." and what said laurie's mother? "it is splendid, clarence, splendid! we can refurnish that extra room that adjoins laurie's suite and let mr. hazen and the boys have that entire wing of the house. nothing could be simpler. i shall be glad to have ted here. not only is he a fine boy but he has proved himself a good friend to us all. if we can do anything for him, we certainly should do it. the lad has had none too easy a time in this world." yes, all went well with the plan so far as the fernalds were concerned; but the turners--ah, there was the stumbling block! "it's no doubt a fine thing you're offering to do for my son," ted's father replied to mr. clarence fernald, "and i assure you i am not unmindful of your kindness; but you see he is our only boy and when he isn't here whistling round the house we miss him. 'tain't as if we had him at home during his vacation. if he goes up to your place to work summers and stays there winters as well, we shall scarcely see him at all. all we have had of him this last year was an occasional teatime visit. folks don't like having their children go out from the family roof so young." "but, father," put in nancy, "think what such a chance as this will mean to ted. you yourself have said over and over again that there was nothing like having an education." "i know it," mused the man. "there's nothing can equal knowing something. i never did and look where i've landed. i'll never go ahead none. but i want it to be different with my boy. he's going to have some stock in trade in the way of training for life. it will be a kind of capital nothing can sweep away. as i figure it, it will be a sure investment--that is, if the boy has any stuff in him." "an education is a pretty solid investment," agreed the elder mr. fernald, "and you are wise to recognize its value, mr. turner. to plunge into life without such a weapon is like entering battle without a sword. i know, for i have tried it." "have you indeed, sir?" grandfather fernald nodded. "i was brought up on a vermont farm when i was a boy." "you don't say so! well, well!" "yes, i never had much schooling," went on the old man. "of course i picked up a lot of practical knowledge, as a boy will; and in some ways it has not been so bad. but it was a pretty mixed-up lot of stuff and i have been all my life sorting it out and putting it in order. i sometimes wonder when i think things over that i got ahead at all; it was more happen than anything else, i guess." "the vermonters have good heads on their shoulders," mr. turner remarked. "oh, you can't beat the green mountain state," laughed the senior mr. fernald, unbending into cordiality in the face of a common interest. "still, when it came to bringing up my boy i felt as you do. i wasn't satisfied to have him get nothing more than i had. so i sent him to college and gave him all the education i never got myself. it has stood him in good stead, too, and i've lived to be proud of what he's done with it." "and well you may be, sir," mr. turner observed. mr. clarence fernald flushed in the face of these plaudits and cut the conversation short by saying: "it is that kind of an education that we want to give your boy, mr. turner. we like the youngster and believe he has promise of something fine. we should like to prepare him for college or some technical school and send him through it. he has quite a pronounced bent for science and given the proper opportunities he might develop into something beyond the ordinary rank and file." "do you think so, sir?" asked mr. turner, glowing with pleasure. "well, i don't know but that he has a sort of knack with wire, nails, and queer machinery. he has tinkered with such things since he was a little lad. of late he has been fussing round with electricity and scaring us all to death here at home. his sisters were always expecting he'd meet his end or blow up the house with some claptraption he'd put together." nancy blushed; then added, with a shy glance toward the fernalds: "they say down at the school that ted is quite handy with telephones and such things." "mr. hazen, my son's tutor, thinks your brother has a knowledge of electricity far beyond his years," replied mr. clarence fernald. "that is why it seems a pity his talents in that direction should not be cultivated. who knows but he may be an embryo genius? you never can tell what may be inside a child." "you're right there, sir," mr. turner assented cordially. then after a moment of thought, he continued, "likely an education such as you are figuring on would cost a mint of money." the fernalds, both father and son, smiled at the naïve comment. "well--yes," confessed mr. clarence slowly. "it would cost something." "a whole lot?" "if you wanted the best." mr. turner scratched his head. "i'm afraid i couldn't swing it," declared he, regret in his tone. "but we are offering to do this for you," put in grandfather fernald. "i know you are, sir; i know you are and i'm grateful," ted's father answered. "but if i could manage it myself, i'd----" "come, mr. turner, i beg you won't say that," interrupted the elder mr. fernald. "think what we owe to your son. why, we never in all the world can repay what he has done for us. this is no favor. we are simply paying our debts. you like to pay your bills, don't you?" "indeed i do, sir!" was the hearty reply. "there's no happier moment than the one when i take my pay envelope and go to square up what i owe. true, i don't run up many bills; still, there is not always money enough on hand to make both ends meet without depending some on credit." "how much do you get in the shipping room?" "eighty dollars a month, sir." "and your daughters are working?" "they are in the spinning mills." mr. fernald glanced about over the little room. although scrupulously neat, it was quite apparent that the apartment was far too crowded for comfort. the furnishings also bespoke frugality in the extreme. it was not necessary to be told that the turners' life was a close arithmetical problem. "your family stand by us loyally," observed the financier. "we have your mills to thank for our daily bread, sir," mr. turner answered. "and your boy--if he does not go on with his studies shall you have him enter the factories?" mr. turner squared his shoulders with a swift gesture of protest. "no, sir--not if i can help it!" he burst out. then as if he suddenly sensed his discourtesy, he added, "i beg your pardon, gentlemen. i wasn't thinking who i was talking to. it isn't that i do not like the mills. it's only that there is so little chance for the lad to get ahead there. i wouldn't want the boy to spend his life grubbing away as i have." "and yet you are denying him the chance to better himself." "i am kinder going round in a circle, ain't i?" returned mr. turner gently. "like as not it is hard for you to understand how i feel. it's only that you hate to let somebody else do for your children. it seems like charity." "charity! charity--when we owe the life of our boy, the lives of many of our workmen, the safety of our mills to your son?" ejaculated mr. clarence fernald with unmistakable sincerity. "when you pile it up that way it does sound like a pretty big debt, doesn't it?" mused mr. turner. "of course it's a big debt--it is a tremendous one. now try, mr. turner, and see our point of view. we want to take our envelope in our hands and although we have not fortune enough in the world to wipe out all we owe, we wish to pay part of it, at least. no matter how much we may be able to do for ted in the future, we shall never be paying in full all that he has done for us. much of his service we must accept as an obligation and give in return for it nothing but gratitude and affection. but if you will grant us the privilege of doing this little, it will give us the greatest pleasure." if any one had told the stately mr. lawrence fernald weeks before that he would be in the home of one of his workmen, pleading for a favor, he would probably have shrugged his shoulders and laughed; and even mr. clarence fernald, who was less of an aristocrat than his father, would doubtless have questioned a prediction of his being obliged actually to implore one of the men in his employ to accept a benefaction from him. yet here they both were, almost upon their knees, theoretically, before this self-respecting artisan. in the face of such entreaty who could have remained obdurate? certainly not mr. turner who in spite of his pride was the kindest-hearted creature alive. "well, you shall have your way, gentlemen," he at length replied, "ted shall stay on at pine lea, since you wish it, and you shall plan his education as you think best. i know little of such matters and feel sure the problem is better in your hands than mine. i know you will work for the boy's good. and i beg you won't think me ungrateful because i have hesitated to accept your offer. we all have our scruples and i have mine. but now that i have put them in the background, i shall take whole-heartedly what you give and be most thankful for it." thus did the fernalds win their point. nevertheless they came away from the turner's humble home with a consciousness that instead of bestowing a favor, as they had expected to do, they had really received one. perhaps they did not respect ted's father the less because of his reluctance to take the splendid gift they had put within his reach. they themselves were proud men and they had a sympathy for the pride of others. there could be no question that the interview had furnished both of them with food for thought for as they drove home in their great touring car they did not speak immediately. by and by, however, grandfather fernald observed: "don't you think, clarence, turner's pay should be increased? eighty dollars isn't much to keep a roof over one's head and feed a family of three persons." "i have been thinking that, too," returned his son. "they tell me he is a very faithful workman and he has been here long enough to have earned a substantial increase in wages. i don't see why i never got round to doing something for him before. the fellow was probably too proud to ask for more money and unless some kick comes to me those things slip my mind. i'll see right away what can be done." there was a pause and then the senior mr. fernald spoke again: "do you ever feel that we ought to do something about furnishing better quarters for the men?" he asked. "i have had the matter on my conscience for months. look at that tenement of the turners! it is old, out of date, crowded and stuffy. there isn't a ray of sunshine in it. it's a disgrace to herd a family into such a place. and i suppose there are ever so many others like it in freeman's falls." "i'm afraid there are, father." "i don't like the idea of it," growled old mr. fernald. "the houses all look well enough until one goes inside. but they're terrible, terrible! why, they are actually depressing. i haven't shaken off the gloom of that room yet. we own land enough on the other side of the river. why couldn't we build a handsome bridge and then develop that unused area by putting up some decent houses for our people? it would increase the value of the property and at the same time improve the living conditions of our employees. what do you say to the notion?" "i am ready to go in on any such scheme!" cried mr. clarence fernald heartily. "i'd like nothing better. i have always wanted to take up the matter with you; but i fancied from something you said once when i suggested it that you----" "i didn't realize what those houses down along the water front were like," interrupted grandfather fernald. "ugh! at least sunshine does not cost money. we must see that our people get more of it." chapter xv what came of the plot the fernalds were as good as their word. all winter long father, son, and grandson worked at the scheme for the new cottages and by new year, with the assistance of an architect, they had on paper plans for a model village to be built on the opposite side of the river as soon as the weather permitted. the houses were gems of careful thought, no two of them being alike. nevertheless, although each tiny domain was individual in design, a general uniformity of construction existed between them which resulted in a delightfully harmonious ensemble. the entire fernald family was enthusiastic over the project. it was the chief topic of conversation both at aldercliffe and at pine lea. rolls of blue prints littered office and library table and cluttered the bureaus, chairs, and even the pockets of the elder men of each household. "we are going to make a little normandy on the other shore of the river before we have done with it," asserted grandfather fernald to laurie. "it will be as pretty a settlement as one would wish to see. i mean, too, to build coöperative stores, a clubhouse, and a theater; perhaps i may even go farther and put up a chapel. i have gone clean daft over the notion of a model village and since i am started i may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. i do not believe we shall be sinking our money, either, for in addition to bettering the living conditions of our men i feel we shall also draw to the locality a finer class of working people. this will boom our section of the country and should make property here more valuable. but even if it doesn't work out that way, i shall take pride in the proposed village. i have always insisted that our mills be spotless and up to date and the fact that they have been has been a source of great gratification. now i shall carry that idea farther and see that the new settlement comes up to our standards. i have gone over and over the plans to see if in any way they can be bettered; suppose you and i look at them together once more. some new inspiration may come to us--something that will be an improvement." patiently and for the twentieth time laurie examined the blue prints while his grandfather volubly explained just where each building of the many was to stand. "this little park, with a fountain in the middle and a bandstand near by, will slope down toward the river. as there are many fine trees along the shore it will be a cool and pleasant place to sit in summer. the stone bridge i am to put up will cross just above and serve as a sort of entrance to the park. we intend that everything shall be laid out with a view to making the river front attractive. as for the village itself--the streets are to be wide so that each dwelling shall have plenty of fresh air and sunshine. no more of those dingy flats such as the turners live in! each family is also to have land enough for a small garden, and each house will have a piazza and the best of plumbing; and because many of the women live in their kitchens more than in any other part of their abode, i am insisting that that room be as comfortable and airy as it can be made." "it is all bully, grandfather," laurie answered. "but isn't it going to cost a fortune to do the thing as you want it done?" "it is going to cost money," nodded the elder man. "i am not deceiving myself as to that. but i have the money and if i chose to spend it on this _fad_ (as one of my friends called it) i don't see why i shouldn't do it. since your grandmother died i have not felt the same interest in aldercliffe that i used to. when she was alive that was my hobby. i shall simply be putting out the money in a different direction, that is all. perhaps it will be a less selfish direction, too." "it certainly is a bully fine fad, grandfather," laurie exclaimed. "somehow i believe it is, laddie," the old gentleman answered thoughtfully. "your father thinks so. time only can tell whether i have chucked my fortune in a hole or really invested it wisely. i have been doing a good deal of serious thinking lately, thanks to those chaps who tried to blow up the mills. as i have turned matters over in my mind since the trial, and struggled to get their point of view, i have about come to the conclusion that they had a fair measure of right on their side. not that i approve of their methods," continued he hastily, raising a protesting hand, when laurie offered an angry interruption. "do not misunderstand me. the means they took was cowardly and criminal and i do not for a moment uphold it. but the thing that led them to act as they planned to act was that they honestly believed we had not given them and their comrades a square deal. as i have pondered over this conviction of theirs, i am not so sure but they were right in that belief." he paused to light a fresh cigar which he silently puffed for a few moments. "this village plan of mine has grown to some extent out of the thinking to which this tragedy has stimulated me. there can be no question that our fortunes have come to us as a result of the hard labor of our employees. i know that. and i also know that we have rolled up a far larger proportion of the profits than they have. in fact, i am not sure we have not accepted a larger slice than was our due; and i am not surprised that some of them are also of that opinion. i would not go so far as to say we have been actually dishonest but i am afraid we have not been generous. the matter never came to me before in precisely this light and i confess frankly i am sorry that i have blundered. nevertheless, as i tell your father, it is never too late to mend. if we have made mistakes we at least do not need to continue to make them. so i have resolved to pay up some of my past obligations by building this village and afterward your dad and i plan to raise the wages of the workers--raise them voluntarily without their asking. i figure we shall have enough to keep the wolf from the door, even then," he added, smiling, "and if we should find we had not why we should simply have to come back on you and ted turner to support us, that's all." laurie broke into a ringing laugh. "i would much rather you and dad spent the money this way than to have you leave it all to me," he said presently. "one person does not need so much money. it is more than his share of the world's profits--especially if he has earned none of it. besides, when a fortune is handed over to you, it spoils all the fun of making one for yourself." the boy's eyes clouded wistfully. "i suppose anyhow i never shall be able to work as hard as you and father have; still i----" "pooh! pooh! nonsense!" his grandfather interrupted huskily. "i believe i shall be able to earn enough to take care of myself," continued laurie steadily. "in any case i mean to try." "of course you will!" cried the elder man heartily. "why, aren't you expecting to be an engineer or something?" "i--i--hope--to," replied the boy. "certainly! certainly!" fidgeted grandfather fernald nervously. "you are going to be a great man some day, laurie--a consulting engineer, maybe; or a famous electrician, or something of the sort." "i wish i might," the lad repeated. "you see, grandfather, it is working out your own career that is the fun, making something all yourself. that is why i hate the idea of ever stepping into your shoes and having to manage the mills. all the interesting part is done already. you and dad had the pleasure----" "the damned hard work, you mean," cut in his grandfather. "well, the hard work, then," chuckled laurie, "of building the business up." "that is true, my boy," replied mr. fernald. "it was a great game, too. why, you know when i came here and we staked out the site for the mills, there wasn't a house in sight. there was nothing but that river. to one little wooden factory and that rushing torrent of water i pinned my faith. every cent i possessed in the world was in the venture. i must make good or go under. nobody will ever know how i slaved in those early days. for years i worked day and night, never giving myself time to realize that i was tired. but i was young and eager and although i got fagged sometimes a few hours of sleep sent me forth each morning with faith that i could slay whatever dragons i might encounter. as i look back on those years, hard though they were, they will always stand out as the happiest ones of my life. it was the fight that was the sport. now i am an old man and i have won the thing i was after--success. of course, it is a satisfaction to have done what you set out to do. but i tell you, laddie, that after your money is made, the zest of the game is gone. your fortune rolls up then without you and all you have to do is to sit back and watch it grow of itself. it doesn't seem to be a part of you any more. you feel old, and unnecessary, and out of it. you are on the shelf." "that is why i want to begin at the beginning and earn my own money, grandfather," laurie put in. "think what you would have missed if some one had deprived you of all your fun when you were young. you wouldn't have liked it." "you bet i wouldn't!" cried the old gentleman. "i don't want to lose my fun either," persisted laurie. "i want to win my way just as you and dad have done--just as ted turner is going to do. i want to find out what is in me and what i can do with it." grandfather fernald rubbed his hands. "bully for you, laurie! bully for you!" he ejaculated. "that's the true fernald spirit. it was that stuff that took me away from my father's farm in vermont and started me out in the world with only six dollars in my pocket. i was bound i would try my muscle and i did. i got some pretty hard knocks, too, while i was doing it. still, they were all in the day's work and i never have regretted them. but i didn't mean to have your father go through all i did and so i saw that he got an education and started different. he knew what he was fighting and was armed with the proper weapons instead of going blind into the scrimmage. that is what we are trying to do for you and what we mean to do for ted turner. we do not intend to take either of you out of the fray but we are going to put into your hands the things you need to win the battle. then the making good will depend solely on you." "i mean to try to do my part." "i know you do, laddie; and you'll do it, too." "i just wish i was stronger--as well as ted is," murmured the boy. "i wish you were," his grandfather responded gently, touching his grandson's shoulder affectionately with his strong hand. "if money could give you health you should have every farthing i possess. but there are things that money cannot do, laurie. i used to think it was all-powerful and that if i had it there was nothing i could not make mine. but i realize now that many of the best gifts of life are beyond its reach. we grow wiser as we grow older," he concluded, with a sad shake of his head. "sometimes i think we should have been granted two lives, one to experiment with and the other to live." he rose, a weary shadow clouding his eyes. "well, to live and learn is all we can do; and thank goodness it is never too late to profit by our errors. i have learned many things from ted turner; i have learned some more from his father; and i have added to all these certain things that those unlucky wretches, sullivan and cronin, have demonstrated to me. who knows but i may make freeman's falls a better place in consequence? we shall see." with these parting reflections the old gentleman slowly left the room. chapter xvi another calamity the winter was a long and tedious one with much cold weather and ice. great drifts leveled the fields about aldercliffe and pine lea, shrouding the vast expanse of fields along the river in a glistening cloak of ermine spangled with gold. the stream itself was buried so deep beneath the snow that it was difficult not to believe it had disappeared altogether. freeman's falls had never known a more severe season and among the mill employees there was much illness and depression. prices were high, business slack, and the work ran light. nevertheless, the fernalds refused to shorten the hours. there were no night shifts on duty, to be sure, but the hum of the machinery that ceased at twilight resumed its buzzing every morning and by its music gladdened many a home where anxiety might otherwise have reigned. that the factories were being operated at a loss rather than throw the men out of employment ted turner could not help knowing for since he had become a member of the fernald household he had been included so intimately in the family circle that it was unavoidable he should be cognizant of much that went on there. as a result, an entirely new aspect of manufacture came before him. up to this time he had seen but one side of the picture, that with which the working man was familiar. but now the capitalist's side was turned toward him and on confronting its many intricate phases he gained a very different conception of the mill-owner's conundrums. he learned now for the first time who it was that tided over business in its seasons of stress and advanced the money that kept bread in the mouths of the workers. he sensed, too, as he might never have done otherwise, who shouldered the burden of care not alone during working hours but outside of them; he glimpsed something of the struggles of competition; the problems of securing raw material; the work concerning credits. a very novel viewpoint it was to the boy, and as he regarded the complicated web, he found himself wondering how much of all this tangle was known to the men, and whether they were always fair to their employer. he had frequently overheard conversations at his father's when they had proclaimed how easy and care-free a life the rich led, and while they had envied and criticized and slandered the fernalds and asserted that they did nothing but enjoy themselves, he had listened. ah, how far from the truth this estimate had been! he speculated, as he reviewed the facts and vaguely rehearsed the capitalist's enigmas whether, if shown the actual conditions, the townsfolk would have been willing to exchange places with either of these men whose fortunes they so greedily coveted. for in very truth the fernalds seemed to ted persons to be pitied far more than envied. stripped of illusions, what was mr. lawrence fernald but an old man who had devoted himself to money-making until he had rolled up a fortune so large that its management left him no leisure to enjoy it? eager to accumulate more and ever more wealth, he toiled and worried quite as hard as he would have done had he had no money at all; he often passed sleepless nights and could never be persuaded to take a day away from his office. he slaved harder than any of those he paid to work for him and he had none of their respite from care. mr. clarence fernald, being of a younger generation, had perhaps learned greater wisdom. at any rate, he went away twice a year for extended pleasure trips. possibly the fact that his father had degenerated into a mere money-making machine was ever before him, serving as a warning against a similar fate. however that may have been, he did break resolutely away from business at intervals, or tried to. nevertheless, he never could contrive to be wholly free. telegrams pursued him wherever he went; his secretary often went in search of him; and many a time, like a defeated runaway whose escape is cut short, he was compelled to abandon his holiday and return to the mills, there to straighten out some unlooked-for complication. day and night the responsibilities of his position, the welfare of the hundreds of persons dependent on him, weighed down his shoulders. and even when he was at home in the bosom of his family, there was laurie, his son, his idol, who could probably never be well! what man in all freeman's falls could have envied him if acquainted with all the conditions of his life? this and many another such reflection engrossed ted, causing him to wonder whether there was not in the divine plan a certain element of equalization. in the meantime, his lessons with laurie and mr. hazen went steadily and delightfully on. how much more could be accomplished with a tutor who devoted all his time simply to two pupils! and how much greater pleasure one derived from studying under these intimate circumstances! in every way the arrangement was ideal. thus the winter passed with its balancing factors of work and play. the friendship between the two boys strengthened daily and in a similar proportion ted's affection for the entire fernald family increased. it was when the first thaw made its appearance late in march that trouble came. laurie was stricken with measles, and because of the contagion, ted's little shack near the river was hastily equipped for occupancy, and the lad was transferred there. "i can't have two boys sick," declared mr. clarence fernald, "and as you have not been exposed to the disease there is no sense in our thrusting you into its midst. plenty of wood will keep your fireplace blazing and as the weather is comparatively mild i fancy you can contrive to be comfortable. we will connect the telephone so you won't be lonely and so you can talk with laurie every day. the doctor says he will soon be well again and after the house has been fumigated you can come back to pine lea." accordingly, ted was once more ensconced in the little hut and how good it seemed to be again in that familiar haunt only he realized. before the first day was over, he felt as if he had never been away. pine lea might boast its conservatories, its sun parlors, its tiled baths, its luxuries of every sort; they all faded into nothingness beside the freedom and peace of the tiny shack at the river's margin. meanwhile, with the gradual approach of spring, the sun mounted higher and the great snow drifts settled and began to disappear. already the ice in the stream was breaking up and the turbid yellow waters went rushing along, carrying with them whirling blocks of snow. as the torrent swept past, it flooded the meadows and piled up against the dam opposite the factories great frozen, jagged masses of ice which ground and crashed against one another, so that the sounds could be distinctly heard within the mills. at some points these miniature icebergs blocked the falls and held the waters in check until, instead of cascading over the dam, they spread inland, inundating the shores. the float before ted's door was covered and at night, when all was still and his windows open, he could hear the roaring of the stream, and the impact of the bumping ice as it sped along. daily, as the snows on the far distant hillsides near the river's source melted, the flood increased and poured down in an ever rising tide its seething waters. yet notwithstanding the fact that each day saw the stream higher, no one experienced any actual anxiety from the conditions, although everybody granted they were abnormal. of course, there was more ice in the river than there had been for many years. even grandfather fernald, who had lived in the vicinity for close on to half a century, could not recall ever having witnessed such a spring freshet; nor did he deny that the weight of ice and water against the dam must be tremendous. however, the structure was strong and there was no question of its ability to hold, even though this chaos of grinding ice-cakes boomed against it with defiant reverberation. in spite of the conditions, ted felt no nervousness about remaining by himself in the shack and perhaps every premonition of evil might have escaped him had he not been awakened one morning very early by a ripple of lapping water that seemed near at hand. sleepily he opened his eyes and looked about him. the floor of the hut was wet and through the crack beneath the door a thread of muddy water was steadily seeping. in an instant he was on his feet and as he stood looking about him in bewilderment he heard the roar of the river and detected in the sound a threatening intonation that had not been there on the previous day. he hurried to the window and stared out into the grayness of the dawn. the scene that confronted him chilled his blood. the river had risen unbelievably during the night. not only were the little bushes along the shore entirely submerged but many of the pines standing upon higher ground were also under water. as he threw on his clothes, he tried to decide whether there was anything he ought to do. would it be well to call up the fernalds, or telephone to the mills, or to the village, and give warning of the conditions? it was barely four o'clock and the first streaks of light were but just appearing. nevertheless, there must be persons who were awake and as alert as he to the transformation the darkness had wrought. moreover, perhaps there was no actual danger, and should this prove to be the case, how absurd he would feel to arouse people at daybreak for a mere nothing. it was while he paused there indecisively that a sight met his eye which spurred hesitancy to immediate action. around the bend far up the stream came sweeping a tangle of wreckage--trees, and brush, and floating timber--and swirling along in its wake was a small lean-to which he recognized as one that had stood on the bank of the river at melton, the village located five miles above freeman's falls. if the water were high enough to carry away this building, it must indeed have risen to a menacing height and there was not a moment to be lost. he rushed to the telephone and called up mr. clarence fernald who replied to his summons in irritable, half-dazed fashion. "is there any way of lifting the water gates at the mills?" asked ted breathlessly. "the river has risen so high that it is sweeping away trees and even some of the smaller houses from the melton shore. if the debris piles up against the dam, the pressure may be more than the thing can stand. besides, the water will spread and flood both aldercliffe and pine lea. i thought i'd better tell you." mr. fernald was not dazed now; he was broad awake. "where are you?" inquired he sharply. "at the shack, sir. the water is ankle deep." "don't stay there another moment. it is not safe. at any instant the whole hut may be carried away. gather your traps together and call wharton or stevens--or both of them--to come and help you take them up to aldercliffe. i'll attend to notifying the mills. you've done us a good turn, my boy." during the next hour ted himself was too busy to appreciate the hectic rush of events that he had set moving, or realize the feverish energy with which the fernalds and their employees worked to avert a tragedy which, but for his warning, might have been a very terrible one. the mills were reached by wire and the sluices at the sides of the central dam immediately lifted to make way for the torrent of snow, ice, wreckage, and water. in what a fierce and maddened chaos it surged over the falls and dashed into the chasm beneath! all day the mighty current boiled and seethed, overflowing the outlying fields with its yellow flood. nevertheless, the great brick factories that bordered the stream stood firm and so did the residences at aldercliffe and pine lea, both of which were fortunately situated on high ground. ted had not made his escape from his little camp a moment too soon, for while he stood looking out on the freshet from one of the attic windows at pine lea, he shivered to behold his little hut bob past him amid the rushing waters and drift into an eddy on the opposite shore along with a mass of uprooted pines. a sob burst from him. "it's gone, mr. hazen--our little house!" he murmured brokenly to the young tutor who was standing beside him. "we never shall see it again." "you mustn't take it so to heart, ted," the teacher answered, laying his hand sympathetically on the lad's shoulder. "suppose you had been in it and borne away to almost certain death. that would have been a calamity indeed. what is an empty boathouse when we consider how many people are to suffer actual financial loss and perhaps forfeit everything they have, as a result of this tragedy. the villagers who live along the river will lose practically everything they own--boats, poultry, barns; and many of them both houses and furniture. we all loved the shack; but it is not as if its destruction left you with no other roof above your head. you can stay at aldercliffe, pine lea, or join your family at freeman's falls. three shelters are open to you. but these poor souls in the town----" "i had not thought about the villagers," blushed ted. "the fernalds have been in the settlement since dawn and along with every man they could summon have been working to save life and property. if i had not had to stay here with laurie, i should have gone to help, too." ted hung his head. "i'm ashamed to have been so selfish," said he. "instead of thinking only of myself, i ought to have been lending a hand to aid somebody else. it was rotten of me. why can't i go down to the village now? there must be things i can do. certainly i'm no use here." "no, there is nothing to be done here," the tutor agreed. "if you could stay with laurie and calm him down there would be some sense in your remaining; but as it is, i don't see why you shouldn't go along to the town and fill in wherever you can. i fancy there will be plenty to do. the fernalds, wharton, stevens, and the rest of the men are moving the families who lived along the water front out of their houses and into others. all our trucks and cars are busy at the job." "i know i could help," cried ted eagerly, his foot on the top step of the staircase. "i am sure you can," mr. hazen replied. "already by your timely warning you have helped more than you will ever know. i tremble to think what might have happened if you had not awakened mr. clarence just when you did. had the dam at the mills gone down, the whole town would have been devastated. mr. fernald told me so himself." "i'm mighty glad if i----" "so you see you have been far from selfish," continued the tutor, in a cheery tone. "as for the shack, it can be rebuilt, so i should not mourn about that." "i guess mr. fernald is glad now that he has his plans ready for his model village." "yes, he is. he said right away that it was providential. the snow will disappear after this thaw and as soon as the earth dries up enough to admit of building, the workmen will begin to break ground for the new settlement. the prospect of other and better houses than the old ones will encourage many of the mill people who have had their dwellings ruined to-day and in consequence been forced to move into temporary quarters where they are crowded and uncomfortable. we can all endure inconvenience when we know it is not to last indefinitely. mr. fernald told me over the telephone that the promise of new houses by summer or fall at the latest was buoying up the courage of all those who had suffered from this terrible disaster. he is going to grant special privileges to every family that has met with loss. they are to be given the first houses that are finished." "i do hope another freshet like this one won't sweep away the new village," reflected ted. "oh, we shall probably never again be treated to an excitement similar to this one," smiled mr. hazen reassuringly. "didn't you hear them say that it was the bursting of the melton reservoir which was largely responsible for this catastrophe? mr. fernald declared all along that this was no ordinary freshet. he has seen the river every spring for nearly forty years and watched it through all its annual thaws; and although it has often been high, it has never been a danger to the community. he told me over the telephone about the reservoir bursting. he had just got the news. it seems the reservoir above melton was an old one which the authorities have realized for some time must be rebuilt. they let it go one year too long. with the weight of water, snow, and ice, it could not bear the pressure put upon it and collapsed. i'm afraid it has been a severe lesson to the officials of the place for the chance they took has caused terrible damage." "were people killed?" asked ted in an awed whisper. "we have heard so--two or three who were trapped asleep in their houses. as for the town, practically all the buildings that fronted the river were destroyed. of course, as yet we have not been able to get very satisfactory details, for most of the wires were down and communication was pretty well cut off. i suppose that is why they did not notify us of our peril. people were probably too busy with their own affairs, too intent on saving their own lives and possessions to think of anything else. then, too, the thing came suddenly. if there hadn't been somebody awake here, i don't know where we should have been. i don't see how you happened to be astir so early." "nor i," returned ted modestly. "i think it must have been the sound of the water coming in that woke me. i just happened to hear it." "well, it was an almighty fortunate happen--that is all i can say," asserted mr. hazen, as the boy sped down the stairs. chapter xvii surprises during the next few days tidings of the melton disaster proved the truth of mr. hazen's charitable suppositions, for it was definitely learned that the calamity which befell the village came entirely without warning, and as the main part of the town was wiped out almost completely and the river front destroyed, all communication between the unfortunate settlement and the outside world had been cut off so that to send warnings to the communities below had been impossible. considering the enormity of the catastrophe, it was miraculous that there had not been greater loss of life and wider spread devastation. a week of demoralization all along the river followed the tragedy; but after the bulk of wreckage was cleared away and the stream had dropped to normal, the fernalds actually began to congratulate themselves on the direful event. "well, the thing has not been all to the bad, by any means," commented grandfather fernald. "we have at least got rid of those unsightly tenements bordering the water which were such a blot on freeman's falls; and once gone, i do not mean to allow them ever to be put back again. i have bought up the land and shall use it as the site of the new granite bridge i intend to build across the stream. and in case i have more land than is needed for this purpose, the extra area can be used for a park which will be an ornament to the spot rather than an eyesore. therefore, take it altogether, i consider that freshet a capital thing." he glanced at ted who chanced to be standing near by. "i suppose you, my lad, do not entirely agree with me," added he, a twinkle gleaming beneath his shaggy brows. "you are thinking of that playhouse of yours and laurie's that was carried off by the deluge." "i am afraid i was, sir." "pooh! nonsense!" blustered the old gentleman. "what's a thing like that? besides, laurie's father proposes to rebuild it for you. hasn't he told you?" questioned the man, noticing the surprise in the boy's face. "oh, yes, indeed! he is going to put up another house for you; and judging from his plans, you will find yourself far better off than you were in the first place for this time he is to give you a real cottage, not simply a made-over boathouse. yes, there is to be running water; a bedroom, study, and kitchenette; to say nothing of a bath and steam heat. he plans to connect it by piping with the central heating plant. so you see you will have a regular housekeeping bungalow instead of a camp." ted gasped. "but--but--i can't let mr. fernald do all this for me," he protested. "it's--it's--too much." "i shouldn't worry about him, if i were you," smiled the elder man. "it won't scrimp him, i imagine. furthermore, it will be an excellent investment, for should the time ever come when you did not need the house it could be rented to one of our tenants. he is to put a foundation under it this time and build it more solidly; and possibly he may decide to set it a trifle farther back from the water. in any case, he will see that it is right; you can trust him for that. it will not be carried away a second time." "i certainly hope not," ted agreed. "what a pity it was they did not have some way of notifying us from melton! if they had only had a wireless apparatus----" he broke off thoughtfully. "i doubt if all the wireless in the world could have saved your little hut," answered mr. fernald kindly. "it was nothing but a pasteboard house and wireless or no wireless it would have gone anyway. i often speculate as to how ships ever dared to go to sea before they had the protection of wireless communication. ignorance was bliss, i suppose. they knew nothing about it and therefore did not miss it. when we can boast no better way we are satisfied with the old. but think of the shipwrecks and accidents that might have been averted! you will be studying about all this some day when you go to technology or college." ted's face lighted at the words. "you have all been so kind to me, mr. fernald," he murmured. "when i think of your sending me to college it almost bowls me over." "you must never look upon it as an obligation, my boy," the old gentleman declared. "if there is any obligation at all (and there is a very real one) it is ours. the only obligation you have will be to do well at your studies and make us proud of you, and that you are doing all the time. mr. hazen tells me you are showing splendid progress. i hope by another week laurie will be out of the woods, pine lea will be fumigated, and you can resume your former way of living there without further interruptions from floods and illness. still, i shall be sorry to have your little visit at aldercliffe come to an end. you seem to have grown into the ways of the whole family and to fit in wherever you find yourself." mr. fernald smiled affectionately at the lad. "there is something that has been on my tongue's end to whisper to you for some time," he went on, after a brief interval of hesitancy. "i know you can keep a secret and so i mean to tell you one. in the spring we are going to take laurie over to new york to see a very celebrated surgeon who is coming from vienna to this country. we hear he has had great success with cases such as laurie's and we hope he may be able to do something for the boy. of course, no one knows this as yet, not even laurie himself." "oh, mr. fernald! do you mean there would be a chance that laurie could walk sometime?" ted cried. the old man looked into the young and shining face and nervously brushed the back of his hand across his eyes. "perhaps; perhaps!" responded he gruffly. "who can tell? this doctor has certainly performed some marvelous cures. who knows but the lad may some day not only walk about, but leap and run as you do!" "oh, sir--!" "but we must not be too sure or allow ourselves to be swept away by hope," cautioned grandfather fernald. "no one knows what can be done yet and we might be disappointed--sadly disappointed. still, there is no denying that there is a fighting chance. but keep this to yourself, ted. i must trust you to do that. if laurie were to know anything about it, it would be very unfortunate, for the ordeal will mean both pain and suffering for him and he must not be worried about it in advance. he will need all his nerve and courage when the time for action comes. moreover, we feel it would be cruel for him to glimpse such a vision and then find it only a mirage. so we have told him nothing. but i have told you because you are fond of him and i wanted you to share the secret." "it shall remain a secret, mr. fernald." "i feel sure of that," the man replied. "you are a good boy, ted. it was a lucky day that brought you to pine lea." "a lucky one for me, sir!" "for all of us, son! for all of us!" reiterated the old gentleman. "the year of your coming here will be one we never shall forget. it has been very eventful." certainly the final comment was no idle one. not only had the year been a red-letter one but it was destined to prove even more conspicuously memorable. with the spring the plans for the new village went rapidly forward and soon pretty little concrete houses with roofs of scarlet and trimmings of green dotted the slopes on the opposite side of the river. the laying out and building of this community became grandfather fernald's recreation and delight. morning, noon, and evening he could be seen either perusing curling sheets of blue prints, consorting with his architects, or rolling off in his car to inspect the progress of the venture. sometimes he took ted with him, sometimes his son, and when laurie was strong enough, the entire family frequently made the pilgrimage to the new settlement. it was very attractive, there was no denying that; and it seemed as if nothing that could give pleasure to its future residents had been omitted. the tiny library had been laurie's pet scheme, and not only had his grandfather eagerly carried out the boy's own plans but he had proudly ordered the lad's name to be chiselled across the front of the building. ted's plea had been for a playground and this request had also been granted, since it appeared to be a wise one. it was a wonderful playground, bordering on the river and having swings and sand boxes for the children; seats for tired mothers; and a large ball-field with bleachers for the men and boys. the inhabitants of freeman's falls had never dreamed of such an ideal realm in which to live, and as tidings of the paradise went forth, strangers began to flock into town in the hope of securing work in the mills and homes in the new settlement. the fernalds, however, soon made it plain that the preference was to be given to their old employees who had served them well and faithfully for so many years. therefore, as fast as the houses were completed, they were assigned to those who had been longest in the company's employ and soon the streets of the new village were no longer silent but teemed with life and the laughter of a happy people. and among those for whom a charming little abode was reserved were the turners, ted's family. then came the tearing down of the temporary bridge of wood and the opening of the beautiful stone structure that arched the stream. ah, what a holiday that was! the mills were closed, there was a band concert in the little park, dedication exercises, and fireworks in the evening. and great was ted's surprise when he spied cut in the stone the words "turner's bridge!" near the entrance was a modest bronze tablet stating that the memorial had been constructed in honor of theodore turner who, by his forethought in giving warning of the freshet of had saved the village of freeman's falls from inestimable calamity. how the boy blushed when mr. lawrence fernald mentioned him by name in the dedication speech! and yet he was pleased, too. and how the people cheered; and how proud his father and sisters were! perhaps, however, the most delighted person of all was laurie who had been in the secret all along and who now smiled radiantly to see his friend so honored. "the townspeople may not go to my library," he laughed, "but every one of them will use your bridge. they will have to; they can't help it!" the thought seemed to amuse him vastly and he always referred to the exquisite granite structure with its triple arch and richly carved piers of stone as _ted's bridge_. thus did the year with its varied experiences slip by and when june came the fernalds carried laurie to new york to consult the much heralded viennese surgeon. ah, those were feverish, anxious days, not only for the fernald family but for ted and mr. hazen as well. the boy and the tutor had remained at pine lea there to continue their studies and await the tidings laurie's father had promised to send them; and when the ominous yellow telegrams with their momentous messages began to arrive, they hardly knew whether to greet them with sorrow or rejoicing. they need not, however, have dreaded the news for after careful examination the eminent specialist had decided to take a single desperate chance and operate with the hope of success. laurie, they were told, was a monument of courage and had the spirit of a spartan. unquestionably he merited the good luck that followed for fortune did reward his heroism,--smiling fortune. of course, the miracle of health could not come all in a moment; months of convalescence must follow which would be unavoidably tedious with suffering. but beyond this arid stretch of pain lay the goal of recovery. no lips could tell what this knowledge meant to those who loved the boy. in time he was to be as strong as any one! it was unbelievable. nevertheless, the roseate promise was no dream. laurie was brought home to pine lea and immediately the mending process began. already one could read in the patient face the transformation hope had wrought. there was some day to be college, not alone for ted but for laurie himself,--college, and sports, and a career. in the fullness of time these long-anticipated joys began to arrive. health made its appearance and at its heels trouped success and happiness; and to balance them came gratitude, humility, and service. in the meantime, with every lengthening year, the friendship between laurie and ted toughened in fiber and became a closer bond. and it was not engineering or electricity that ultimately claimed the constructive interest of the two comrades but instead the fernald mills, which upon grandfather fernald's retirement called for younger men at their helm. so after going forth into the great world and whetting the weapons of their intellect they found the dragon they had planned to slay waiting for them at home in freeman's falls. yet notwithstanding its familiar environment, it was a very real dragon and resolutely the two young men attacked it, putting into their management of the extensive industry all the spirit of brotherhood that burned in their hearts and all the desire for service which they cherished. with the aim of bringing about a kindlier coöperation and fuller sympathy between capital and labor they toiled, and the world to which they gave their efforts was the better for it. nevertheless, they did not entirely abandon their scientific interests for on the border of the river stood a tiny shack equipped with a powerful wireless apparatus. here on a leisure afternoon ted turner and his comrade could often be found capturing from the atmosphere those magic sounds that spelled the intercourse of peoples, and the thought of nations; and often they spoke of alexander graham bell and those patient pioneers who, together with him, had made it possible for the speech of man to traverse continents and circle a universe. finis +------------------------------------------------------------+ | transcriber's note: | | | | obvious typographical errors have been corrected in | | this text. for a complete list, please see the bottom of | | this document. | +------------------------------------------------------------+ _an_ anarchist woman _by_ hutchins hapgood _author of "the autobiography of a thief," "the spirit of labor"_ _new york_ duffield & company copyright, , by duffield and company _"the best government is that which makes itself superfluous."_ goethe contents chapter page i. school and factory ii. domestic service iii. domestic service (continued) iv. adventures in sex v. marie's salvation vi. terry vii. the meeting viii. the rogues' gallery ix. the salon x. more of the salon xi. the end of the salon xii. marie's attempt xiii. marie's failure xiv. marie's revolt xv. terry's finish preface it is possible that in fifty years people now called "anarchists" will have in america as respectable a place as they now occupy in france. when we are more accustomed to social thought, we shall not regard those who radically differ from us, as mad dogs or malevolent idiots. we may, indeed, still look on them as mistaken, but what now seems to us their insanity or peculiar atrociousness will vanish with our growing understanding and experience. when we become less crude in civilisation, they will seem less crude to us. when, with growing culture, we see things more nearly as they are, the things we see, including the anarchists, will seem more sympathetic. this book is not an attempt to justify any person or set of persons. it is not a political or economic pamphlet. it represents an effort to throw light on what may be called the temperament of revolt; by portraying the mental life of an individual, and incidentally of more than one individual, i have hoped to make more clear the natural history of the anarchist; to show under what conditions, in connection with what personal qualities, the anarchistic habit of mind arises, and to point out, suggestively, rather than explicitly, the nature, the value, and the tragic limitation of the social rebel. an anarchist woman chapter i _school and factory_ when i first met the heroine of this tale, marie, she was twenty-three years old, yet had lived enough for a woman of more than twice her age; indeed, few women of any age ever acquire the amount of mental experience possessed by this factory hand and servant girl. she had more completely translated her life into terms of thought than any other woman of my acquaintance. she had been deeply helped to do this by a man of strange character, with whom she lived. she had also been deeply helped by vice and misery. the intensity of her nature showed in her anæmic body and her large eyes, dark and glowing, but more than all in the way she had of making everything her own, no matter from what source it came. everything she said, or wrote, or did, all fitted into her personality, had one note, her note. but perhaps the most intense quality of all was--and is--this never-failing though gracefully manifested energy, resulting in unity of character and temperament in expression. to keep everything in tone is a quality of art; it is also a sign of great, though not always obvious, energy. marie was born in a chicago slum in . her mother, half french and half german, was endowed with cruelty truly international. her father was a drunken machinist of german extraction, generally out of a job. both the parents beat the little girl, the mother because she was cruel, the father because he was a beast. her earliest memories are connected with the smoky streets of the west side. the smell of the stock yards suggests her youth to her, as the smell of walnuts brings back to the more fortunate country man the rich beauty of a natural childhood. the beatings she received from her parents and the joy of her escape to the street--these are the strongest impressions derived from her tender years. to her the street was paradise; her home, hell. she knew that when she returned to the house she would find a mother half crazy with poverty and unhappiness and a father half crazy with drink; and that, if for no other reason than for diversion and relief, they would beat her. the authorities finally succeeded in forcing the little girl's parents to send her to school, where she remained only two years. she was not quite ten years old at the time, and the memories she has of her school life are only a trifle less unpleasant than those of her home. the last day in school especially lives in her recollection; and she thus described it in a letter to me: "it was a warm morning toward the end of may, and room seven in the pullman school was pervaded with an intense excitement. for soon examination day would come and the pupils were being prepared for the occasion. the children fidgeted uneasily in their seats and even the teacher became nervous and impatient, glancing often at the big clock which ticked so monotonously and slowly. soon it would be twelve o'clock and teacher and pupils would have a respite for a few hours. if only those stupid children would solve those problems in arithmetic, the most difficult study, they would not have to stay after school. but it happened just as the teacher had feared: a dozen children, of whom two were boys, did not give correct answers. after the school was dismissed the stupids were ordered to go to the blackboard, and stay there until they saw the light. "meanwhile the teacher sat at her desk with a despairing look on her face and the general air of a martyr, as she noticed the futile efforts of those stupid children. but she was evidently determined not to help them out of their difficulty. after a while, one of the boys solved the problem and was dismissed. the other children looked at his work and quickly copied it before the teacher could erase it from the blackboard. not i, however, for i was at the other end of the room and my eyes were weak. i enviously watched the other children leaving the room, until i was alone with the teacher. i tried the terrible, senseless problem again and again and became so confused and nervous that i was on the verge of tears. all the little knowledge i had of mathematics left me completely. finally the teacher lost her patience and showed me how to get the answer. "'you stupid girl!' she said, 'you will never pass the examination.' "but i did not care. i ran from the school-house, and on my way home kept saying to myself: 'i don't have to pass, for i'm going to work next week, and i'm so glad. then i'll never, never have to study arithmetic any more. oh, how i wish next week were here already.' i was not quite twelve years old and i would have been working even then if my prospective employers had not instructed my parents to secure a certificate showing that i was fourteen years old. "the next monday morning, bright and early, with this new certificate, which was sworn to by my mother and duly attested by a notary, i presented myself at the office of messrs. hardwin & co., in south water street. they were wholesale dealers in miscellaneous household supplies, from bird-seed and flavouring extracts to bluing and lye, the latter the principal article. mr. hardwin, a benevolent looking old gentleman with a white beard and a skull-cap, glanced at the certificate, and patting stupid me kindly on the head, hired me for two dollars a week, and sent me upstairs where i was put to work washing old cans collected from the ash barrels and alleys of the city. after being cleansed, they were filled with lye, and new covers sealed on them. then they were covered with neat white labels, and packed in cases and delivered to all parts of the united states. "this sort of work was not what i had expected to do. but i was told by my mother that all people who worked for their living had to start in that way, and gradually work themselves upwards. so i waited patiently for the time when i might, perhaps, secure the position of labelling. then, too, i thought that great place would bring an increase of salary, for i had already learned that the lighter the work, the heavier the pay. "about this time the firm received large orders for lye, and all hands were put to work filling the cans with this corrosive material, for which purpose rubber gloves were used. as i was the latest addition to the factory, and the greenest girl in the place, it was easy for the older and more experienced girls to secure the best gloves for the work. the old, worn out ones, which were full of holes, fell to me, who was too young and timid to rebel against these conditions. after a week of this work my hands were all eaten by the lye and it was torturing agony to move them in any way. at night my mother used to put salve and bandages on them, but this treatment was of little avail because the next day my hands would be covered with that horrible stuff which ate deeper and deeper, until the pain became unbearable. "so, one morning, i went to mr. hardwin and begged him, with tears in my eyes, to let me work at something else until my hands were healed. he looked at my swollen fingers and said: 'my poor girl, you certainly shall work at something else. i will give you a nice easy job making bird-seed boxes.' "i was immediately put at my new work, which seemed really delightful to me, but i was rather lonely, as i was the only girl on that floor. i made thousands and thousands of those boxes, which were stacked in heaps upon the shelves above my head. directly behind me was a great belt, connected with the cutting machine up-stairs, which all day long cut out the round pieces of tin needed to cover the cans of lye after they were filled. this belt as it whirled round and round made a great noise. but i soon grew quite used to it. i became like a machine myself. all alone i sat there, day after day, while the great belt whirred out the same monotonous song. i kept time to its monotony by a few movements of the hands endlessly repeated, turning out boxes and boxes and boxes, all alike. i saw, heard, and felt almost nothing. my hands moved unconsciously and instinctively. at this time, i think, the first feeling of profound ennui came to me, that feeling which to shake off i would at a later time do anything, anything, no matter how violent and extreme it was. only at noon time when the whistle shrieked did i seem alive, and then i was dazed and trembling. "the great belt then stopped whirring for half an hour and i sat and ate my frugal meal, listening eagerly to the talk going on about me. sometimes the girls made me the butt of their jests, for they were envious of me, because of my easy job, and hinted that i was not getting this snap for nothing. all of this i did not in the least understand, for i was not much more than twelve years old. "one morning i was surprised and delighted to see mr. hardwin come in and ask me how my hands were, and if i still suffered much pain. i was so grateful that tears came to my eyes as i answered. that night i told my mother what an extremely kind and good man mr. hardwin was. he repeated these visits several mornings in succession, always asking me how i was getting along, and patting me on the head or shoulder as he went away. i had been working perhaps two months at this job, when one morning it happened that i was the first one of the employees to arrive at the factory. while i was in the dressing-room removing my wraps, a knock came on the door, and mr. hardwin entered. quickly seizing me in his arms, he covered my face with kisses, and did not quit until he heard someone approaching. he left hastily, saying 'don't tell!' the only words he uttered during the scene. i was so amazed that i did not even scream. nor did i understand, but i did feel troubled and ashamed. all that morning i was uneasy and nervous, and the following day i waited outside until some of the girls came, so that i should not have to go into the factory alone. the day following i received an envelope with my pay, and was told that my services were no longer required. "i got a beating at home as a result of my discharge, but as i soon found another job, my parents became comparatively kind to me again. this new work was in a candy factory, where i was both startled and amazed at the way the beautiful, sweet candies were made. i remained there about six months, when i was discharged because i had been late several times in one week. the next job was in a brewery, where i labelled beer bottles. this was the cleanest and most wholesome place i ever worked in. we had a whole hour for dinner, and the boys and girls were all so jolly. nearly every day after lunch we played on mouth organs and danced on the smooth floor until the whistle blew for work again. oh, there, it was good to work! three times a day each employee received a bottle of nice cold beer, which, after several hours of hard work, tasted lovely. the people there seemed to think it was not evil to be happy, and i naturally agreed with them against the good people outside. but one ill-fated day my parents heard that a brewery was an immoral place for a young girl to work in, and that if i remained there i might lose my character and reputation. so i was taken away and put to work in another place and then in another, but i am sure that i never again found a place that i liked half as well as the dear old bottled beer shop." chapter ii _domestic service_ when marie was about fifteen years old, her mother took her away from the factories and put her into domestic service. factory work was telling on the girl's health, and the night freedom it involved did not please her mother. the young woman for some time had felt the charms of associating with many boys and girls unchaperoned and untrammelled. she liked the streets at night better than her home. "when i got into the street," said marie, "i felt like a dog let loose." of course, she hated to go into domestic service, where the evenings would no longer be all her own, but her mother was still strong enough to have her way. "at that time," marie wrote me, "i was a poor, awkward girl, somewhat stupid, perhaps, but who would not be at my age and in the same environment? i had received most of my education in the factories and stores down-town, which was perhaps beneficial to everybody but me. even my mother, who in some ways was stupid and hard, noticed that this sort of education was likely to have what is called a demoralizing effect on me. so she induced a kind-hearted, philanthropic woman, mrs. belshow, to take me as servant girl. mrs. belshow was high in affairs of the hull house settlement workers, and generously paid my mother one dollar and a half a week for my services. "mrs. belshow had a beautiful house. at first these fine surroundings, to which i was entirely unused, made me more awkward than ever. but soon i got accustomed to the place and became very serviceable to my employer. i was lady's maid as well as general housekeeper, and my fine lady duly appreciated my work, for she never asked me to do service after half-past nine at night or before half-past five in the morning. besides, she allowed me sunday afternoon free, but only to go to church or sunday school. for the honourable lady told me very kindly that she did not wish to interfere with my religion in any way whatever. this advice i accepted meekly, as i was greatly in awe of her, though i should have much preferred to spend my half holiday in my home locality and to dance there with other stupid boys and girls in lammer's hall, where the entrancing strains of the concertina were to be heard every sunday afternoon. the young folks out that way were not strong on religion; or, if they were, they would receive all the soul's medicine necessary by attending church in the morning, no doubt thereby feeling more vigorous and fit for enjoying the dance afterwards. "but i, poor stupid, had learned from my mistress that dance-halls were vile and abominable. of course, i believed all that mrs. belshow told me. i had not the slightest idea that she did not know everything. why, she belonged to hull house, that big place in halsted street, which had flowers and lace curtains in all the windows, and big looking-glasses and carpets and silver things on the inside; and many beautiful ladies who wore grand silk dresses and big hats with feathers came to see my mistress nearly every day, and they all talked a great deal about the evils of dance-halls and saloons and theatres. i had always stupidly thought that those places were very nice, especially the dance-halls, because i always enjoyed myself there better than anywhere else. i had never been in a theatre, but i had often been in the saloons to rush the can for my father, and i had noticed that people seemed to enjoy themselves there. there were long green tables in the saloons on which men played pool, and there were books scattered about in which were jokes and funny pictures. and the men played cards and told stories and danced and sang and did about anything they wanted to. this seemed to me good, and i felt sure at the time that if i were a man i should like to be there, too. "but now i learned that these were terrible places, dens of vice and crime. what vice was, i did not know, but crime meant murdering somebody or doing something else dreadful. i thought about what i heard the fine ladies say until my poor little head became quite muddled. left to myself, i could not see anything so terrible about these places, but if these finely dressed ladies said they were terrible, why they must be so. they knew better than i did. but i wondered dreamily if all terrible places were as nice as dance-halls. "after the novelty of the situation wore away, life became rather wearisome to me, and i sometimes wished i were again working in the old factory. i thought of the evenings, when my day's work in the factory was done and i was walking in the streets with my chums, telling them, perhaps, of the small girls who worked with me in the factory, and of the guys who waited for them on saturday nights and took them to the show. and one of the girl's guys always used to give her a whole box of the swellest candy you ever tasted. "dreaming thus one day of all the happy times i had known, i loitered over my work, as i fear i often did, and was sharply reprimanded by my mistress, the honourable lady, who wanted to speak to me as soon as possible on a matter of grave importance. i finished making the bed in a hurry and went into the presence of mrs. belshow, who said to me: "'my dear child, how old are you?' "'past fifteen, ma'am.' "'fifteen! h'm, you're quite a big girl for your age. i'm astonished that you have no more self-respect, or your mother for you! how is it that she allows you to go about with such short dresses? why, it is shameful; i am surprised, for your mother seemed to me a sensible sort of a woman. i declare, i never would allow my daughter to expose herself in such a shameless manner, and i certainly will not allow anyone in my employ to do so. only the other day my attention was called by some of my friends to your most careless condition. they said they could not help noticing it, it was so dreadful. it is this kind of thing which causes a great part of the vice and immorality with which we are surrounded. unless a mother has common decency enough to clothe her child properly, it seems hopeless for us to accomplish anything. now, my dear child, i want you to go home this very night and tell your mother you must positively have some long dresses, or no self-respecting person would care to associate with you. and you must try to have at least one respectable garment by sunday, for i am ashamed to have you seen going out of my house in your present condition. run along now and don't be home later than ten this evening.' "during this long harangue i stood gazing on the floor, blushing painfully. i wanted to tell my mistress why i had no longer dresses, but could only stammer 'yes, ma'am' and 'no, ma'am,' and was very glad to escape from the room as soon as my lady had finished. "when my mother heard about the affair, she was very indignant, and demanded why mrs. belshow did not buy the dresses for me. 'for my part,' she said, 'i have no money to waste on such trash. i'm sure, what you are wearing now is all right. it's not so short, either, nearly down to your shoe tops. but i suppose i must get you something, or she will fire you. i'll give you a dress that'll be long enough all right--one that goes right down to the floor, and if mrs. belshow doesn't like it, she'll have to lump it. i can't afford to get you new dresses every year and you not through growing yet. gee, that mrs. belshow must think we're millionaires!' "when i made my appearance the next sunday morning in a neat long skirt, the honourable lady praised me very highly, saying that now i looked like a respectable young woman. 'why, you actually look pretty, my child,' she said. 'you must get a nice ribbon for your neck, and then you will be fine.' this remark made me very happy, for i had been secretly longing for a dress of this kind. now, at last, i was a real grown-up lady. perhaps i might soon have a fellow, who would take me to the show, just like the girls in the factory. i thrilled with joy. later i looked into the mirror a long while, admiring myself and dreaming of the afternoon, when i would be free. i decided that i would go to the dance, and pictured to myself how surprised and envious the other girls would be, when they saw me looking so fine. i would certainly not miss one single dance the whole afternoon, for i was sure the boys would be fascinated and that the swellest among them would see me home in the evening. "these joys made the morning an unforgettable one; but soon it was time to get ready to go. i went to my room and curled my hair, and then was more pleased with myself than ever. i really looked pretty! oh, the joy of it! i do not need to explain, even to a man. briefly, i looked sweller than ever. the only thing needed to complete my toilet were some bright ribbons to fix in my hair and around my throat. i recollected having seen some very pretty ribbons in my mistress's scrap-bag which would do admirably. so i brought the scrap bag from the store room and dumped the contents on my bed, and soon found just what i wanted--two beautiful bits of silk. i hastily stitched them together, and was all ready to go. i could return the silk to the bag the next morning and my mistress would never know they had been gone. i thought regretfully what a shame it was to throw such beautiful things into a scrap-bag. "poor, vain little me! i came home later than usual, that never-to-be-forgotten night!--very tired, but very happy. and i had been escorted all the way by the grandest young man i had ever known. i lay awake for a long time, reviewing everything that had happened. i had never dreamed it was possible to be so happy. it was because i was now a grown-up lady! i should never forget that all my happiness was due to my mistress, for it was through her that i had my long dress. i decided to be more serviceable than ever, not dream and dawdle over my work, and never to be angry when my mistress scolded me. i would disobey her only in one thing--about going to sunday school. at least, i would not go every week, perhaps every other sunday, so she would not notice. in the midst of these good and delightful thoughts i fell asleep, and slept so soundly that the alarm bell in the clock did not awaken me at the usual hour. "it did awaken mrs. belshow, however, who was just about to drop off to sleep again, when it occurred to her that she had not heard me moving about as usual, so she went to my room and aroused me in the midst of a beautiful dream about the handsomest boy you ever saw just as he was paying me the greatest attention! "jumping out of bed, i was horrified to find it was six o'clock, fully half an hour late. i rushed about my work, dreading the moment, yet wishing it were over, when my mistress should summon me for the scolding i was sure would come, for if there was one thing mrs. belshow hated more than anything else, it was being late. all too soon came the dreaded moment. breakfast was scarcely over, when i was requested to go to my room. that was rather surprising, for, as a rule, i received my scolding in the lady's room, while i was assisting her to pull on her stockings or comb her hair. "i had scarcely crossed the threshold of my room when my knees knocked together and i nearly fell over, for there, standing in the centre of the room, with a piece of silk in her hand and an ominous frown on her face, stood my mistress. she pointed an accusing finger at me and asked coldly, 'where did you get this?' receiving no answer, she continued, 'don't tell any lies, now, to add to your other crime.' i stood there, as if glued to the floor and could only gaze at her dumbly and appealingly. i tried to speak in vain; but even if i had been able to, she would not have given me a chance. she brought all her eloquence to bear upon the stupid girl before her; she wanted to make me see what a very evil act i had committed. "'oh, how sorry i am!' she cried, 'that this thing has happened. but you are very fortunate that it has occurred in my house, rather than in somebody else's, for i know what measures to take to cure you of the propensity to crime which you have so clearly shown. i shall, of course, have to send you away immediately; for i could never again trust you in my home, for although it is only a trifle that you have stolen,--yes, deliberately stolen,--yet anyone who takes only a pin that belongs to another, will take more when the opportunity offers. so, in order to cure you of this tendency, i myself will conduct you to your mother and impress upon her the necessity of guarding and watching you carefully, as a possible young criminal. i never should have expected this of you, for you have quite an honest look. now, dress yourself quickly and bundle up whatever belongs to you. i will remain in the room while you are packing. are you sure you have taken nothing else which does not belong to you?' "this question loosened my tongue, which hitherto had clung tightly to the roof of my mouth. dropping on my knees before my mistress, i fervently swore that i had taken nothing, that i had not meant to take anything. i had meant to wear the pieces of silk only once and then put them back where i had found them. with tears rolling down my face, i begged her not to tell my mother. "'i will work for you all my life without pay,' i cried, 'if you will only not tell my mother. indeed, i did not mean to steal, so please don't tell my mother!' "this i urged so vehemently and with such floods of tears that finally my kind-hearted mistress said: 'my dear child, if you will promise me faithfully never to do anything like this again, i will not tell your mother. but let this be a lesson to you; never to take anything again, not even a pin, that does not belong to you. you can never again say, with perfect truthfulness, that you have not stolen. i am glad to see that you have such respect for your mother that you do not want her to know of this, and for your sake i will not tell her. i have a meeting at hull house to attend in half an hour, and before i leave i wish you would scrub up the kitchen and your room and then you can go.' "so saying, the honourable lady left the room quite satisfied with herself for having (perhaps) rescued another human being from the paths of vice and crime. i went about my work with a heavy heart. forgotten were all the joys of yesterday! now, just as i was becoming used to my place, i must leave it. and i must tell my mother some reason for it. but i could not tell the truth. ah! yes, i would say that my mistress was about to close up the house and go south for the winter. that would be a fine excuse. i had heard and read that many rich people go south for a time in the cold weather, so surely my mother would not doubt it. i went away, feeling easier in my mind, and never saw my honourable mistress again. "many days have passed since then, and i have been serving several different ladies. i learned a lesson from each one of them; but i shall never forget what i learned from the kind-hearted, philanthropic mrs. belshow, a prominent settlement worker in a large city. it's a lesson that mrs. belshow will never learn, or could never understand. all of which shows, perhaps, that i was simple at the time rather than stupid; for i find that i am still receiving my education--not from books, but from the way people treat me, and from what i see as i pass through life." chapter iii _domestic service (continued)_ "nearly a year had passed," continued marie, "since i had began to work at service, and my experiences had not been of the sort that makes one love one's fellow-creatures. for the most part i had worked for people who were trying to make a good showing in society and had not the means to do so. how often during those weary days of drudgery i looked back at the dear old days when i used to work in the factories! then i could go to the dance! now, it was very difficult, even if my mother had not been so strongly against it. i could not understand why my mother so sternly forbade me to go. when i asked her why she objected, the only answer i received was: 'it is improper for a girl of your age.' 'why is it improper?' i asked myself, and could find no answer. so i disobeyed my mother and danced whenever i had the chance. whenever i did succeed in going, my heart almost broke from sheer happiness. oh, how supremely, wonderfully joyous i felt! how i forgot everything then--my mother, my drudgery, everything that made life disagreeable! whenever the music started, i felt as if i were floating in the air, i could not feel my feet touching the floor. all the lights merged into one dazzling glow and my heart kept time to the rhythm of the music. when the music stopped, the glorious illumination seemed to go out and leave only a little straggling light from a few badly smelling kerosene lamps. the beautiful, fantastic music had been in reality only a harsh horn accompanied by a concertina or some other stupid instrument jangling vile music. the young boys and girls were all a common, stupid lot, and the odour of the stock yards permeated the room. but when the mystical music begins again, and the dance starts, presto! change, and i am again floating in rhythmic space and the faces and dim lights have changed into one glorious central flame. "i shall never forget one awful night, when my mother, who had heard that i was at the dance, came into the hall, and there before all the boys and girls dragged me out and away to our home. i was so ashamed that i did not show myself in that dance-hall again for months. i cannot help thinking my mother was wrong, for i needed some outlet to my energy. like many a poor working girl, i had developed into womanhood early and consequently was full of life. the dance satisfied this life instinct, which, when that outlet was made difficult, sought some other way. "at that time i had a position as nurse-maid, my duties being to take care of two beautiful, but spoiled children, who had never received proper care, because their mother a wealthy woman, was too indolent, to make any effort in that direction, spending most of her time lying in bed with some novel in her hand. the house was filled with sensational, sentimental books. they were to be found in every room, stacked away in all the corners. "at first i attempted to do what i thought was my duty, that is, to keep the children neat and clean and try to train them to be more gentle and obedient, but i soon saw that what their mother wanted was for me to keep them out of her way. my ambition about them faded away, and i sought only to fulfil my mistress's wishes. i used to take the two children up into the store-room, in which were all sorts of miscellaneous things, including stacks and stacks of paper-covered novels, lock the door, and allow the children absolute liberty, while i sat down comfortably and examined the books. "here a new life opened before me. i read these novels constantly every day and half the night, and could hardly wait for the children to have their breakfast, so eager was i to get at my wonderful stories again. even when it was necessary to take the children out for an airing, a novel was always hidden in my clothes, which i would eagerly devour as soon as i was out of sight of the house. during the four weeks spent at this place i read more than forty novels. even on sunday, when i was free, i sprawled out on the bed and read these sensational books. i thought no more of my beloved dances, for i was living in a new world. here i was in a beautiful house, where i did almost nothing but loll in the easiest chairs and feed my soul on stories about beautiful, innocent maidens, who were wooed, and after almost insurmountable difficulties, won by gallant, devoted heroes. "but soon i became so absorbed that even the few duties i had, became very irksome to me, for they interfered somewhat with my reading. every morning i had to bathe and dress the little ones, who, not seeing the necessity for these operations, struggled and screamed and bit and kicked. i had accepted this daily scene as a matter of course, but every now and then it rather irritated me. one morning the hubbub was unusually long and loud, so much so that the noise disturbed the mother, who was breakfasting and reading in bed. she came to the room in a stew and asked me what was the matter. when i told her, she angrily said: 'when i engage a nurse girl for my children, i do not expect to hear them squealing every morning. remember that, and do not let me hear them again.' "the little boy, who was precocious for his age, heard what his mother had said, and seeing that he had not been scolded for his ill behaviour, began to scream and struggle more than ever, and his little sister imitated him, in a dutiful, feminine way. i then lost my patience, seized the little boy, dragged him to his mother and said: 'here's your boy. tend to him yourself; i cannot.' "i was, of course, told to bundle up my belongings at once and go. i did not forget to pack away among my things some of the novels, feeling that since they had all been read by madame, they were only in the way. when i said 'good-bye' to the children, madame came to me and said very kindly, 'marie, i'm really sorry this has occurred, for you are one of the best nurse girls i have ever had, and the children seemed to get along so nicely with you, too!' i was so surprised at this speech that i could make no answer and so i lost my chance of remaining, for it is quite certain she wanted me to stay. but it was fated to be otherwise, and once more i returned to the home of my parents. "my mother was not overjoyed to see me. it was a mystery to her why i did not keep my jobs longer. i promised to get another place as soon as possible and begged her to allow me to stay at home the rest of the week. to this she consented rather grudgingly, and i flew to my beloved books and read till supper time. i was beginning at it again in the evening when my mother rudely snatched the book from me saying, that it was not good for young girls to read such stuff. i begged earnestly to be allowed to finish just that one story and she finally said that perhaps i might read it the next day. in the morning i could hardly curb my impatience; it seemed as though my mother were inventing all sorts of useless things for me to do, just to keep me from the book. but at last i was free and, hastening to my room, was soon absorbed in another world. i was suddenly recalled to this earth by a sharp blow on my head, and the book was again snatched from me and thrown into the fire and burned. it seemed that mother had been calling me and that i had been too much absorbed to hear; that she had finally lost her temper and decided to punish me. "'don't ever again read such trash as this,' she cried in a rage. 'have you any more of them?' "'no,' i said, fearing to tell the truth, lest the rest of the books meet the same fate. "she then sent me on an errand. as i left the house i felt uneasy, thinking that my lie might be discovered. the moment i returned, i saw by the expression on my mother's face that my fears had been realised. the storm broke at once. "'oh, what an unfortunate woman i am!' she cried, 'to be treated thus by my own flesh and blood, by the child that i brought into the world with so much pain and suffering. o, god, what have i done to deserve this? o god, what have i done to be cursed with such a child?--so young, yet so full of lies. what will become of her? have i not always done my duty by her and tried to raise her the best i knew how? why did she not die when a baby? i like a fool, toiled and moiled for her night and day and this is my reward.' "i had heard these expressions often, for my mother was a hysterical woman in whom the slightest thing would cause the most violent emotions which demanded relief in such lamentations. and yet, frequent as they were, they never failed to arouse in me feelings of shame and rage--shame that i had caused my mother suffering, and rage that she reproached herself for having brought me into the world. that expression of hers never failed to make me wish that i had never been born--born into this miserable world where i had to toil as a child, and could not go to dances or even read without receiving a torrent of abuse and an avalanche of blows. what harm had i done by my reading? true, i had not heard my mother calling, but how often had i spoken to her without being heard, when she was engrossed in some newspaper or book! "so i remained quiet, when my mother railed at me for my lie, too ashamed and bitter to make defense or reply. this silence, as usual, made my mother still more angry and she shouted: 'you ungrateful wretch, i'll tell your father, and he'll fix you so you won't feel like lying to your mother for some time to come.' "that threat nearly paralysed me with dread, for my father was to me a strange man whom i had always feared; my mother, when she wanted to subdue me, only needed to say: 'i'll tell your father.' i remembered the last time my father had whipped me. i was a big girl at the time, more than fourteen years old, and working down town. i had to rise very early in the morning, and it often happened that i would fall asleep again after my mother had called me. on that particular morning mother had more difficulty than usual in arousing me, scolding me severely, and i replied rather impudently, i suppose. she waited till i had got out of bed and was standing in my bare arms and shoulders over the wash bowl, and then she told father, who came with a long leather strap, which i knew well, as it was kept only for one purpose, and beat me so severely that i carried the marks for a long time. the strap was about two inches broad, and with this in one hand, whilst he held me firmly with the other, he belaboured me in such a way that the end of the strap curled cunningly around my neck and under my arms and about my little breast, making big welts which swelled at once to about a fourth of an inch in diameter and were for a few days a most beautiful vivid scarlet in colour. then they toned down and new and milder tints came, and finally there was only a dull sort of green and blue effect. finally even these disappeared from my body, but not from me. "now, when i thought of the possible consequences of the lie i had told, i could feel those marks on my shoulders and arms. and, at my mother's threat, the thought that i might be beaten again made me flush with shame. a feeling of rebellion, of vivid revolt, came over me. why not resist, why not defend myself? i remembered what a factory girl had once told me--how she had defended herself against her brother by striking him with a chair. "that is what i will do, i said to myself, trembling with excitement, if my father tries to beat me again. i am too old to be whipped any more. i don't care if he kills me, i will do it. perhaps when i die, and they see my grave, they'll be sorry. "when father came home in the evening, he seemed to sense trouble at once, for suddenly coming down on the table with his fist, he demanded: 'what in hell is the matter? here you both are going around with faces as if you were at a funeral. i'm working hard all day, and when i come home at night, by god, i don't want to see such faces around me. what in hell is it, now tell me!' "mother told him, and he said: 'very well, just wait till i've had supper, for i'm damned hungry, then we'll have a little understanding with my lady, who's so mighty high-toned since she worked for those swells. i'll soon show her, though, she is no better than we are.' "when the important task of supper was over he called me to him. i was trembling in every limb, for i knew that my father was a man of few words and that he would without delay proceed to action. i managed to get a chair between him and me. he went to work deliberately, as if he were a prize-fighter. first, he spat on his hands, and was about to give me a knock-out-blow, when i, with the courage of desperation, raised the chair above my head, crying out, 'father, if you strike me, i'll hit you with this chair.' he was so astonished at my audacity that his arms fell to his sides and he gazed at me as if he had lost his senses. i took advantage of this pause to make for the door, but before i could escape, he seized me by the arm and hurled me back into the room, and then with blood-shot eyes and bull-like voice he cursed and cursed. my mother, fearing the effect of his terrible rage, tried to intercede, but he pushed her aside, shouting, 'oh, she's the daughter of her mother all right, and she'll turn out to be a damned ---- just like you!' "he then came up to me, where i was standing really expecting my death, and to my surprise only pressed his fist gently against my head saying: 'see how easily i could crush you. the next time i hear anything about you, i will.' cursing me and mother, he left the house and he took him to a nearby saloon where he drank himself insensible. toward morning he was brought home. poor man, he just couldn't bear to see long faces about him, especially after a hard day's work! "in a few days i secured another place, this time in a middle-class family. i remained there nearly a year and was considered by my mistress a model of willingness, patience, endurance, gentleness, and all the other slavish virtues. i never spoke except when spoken to and then i answered so respectfully! the children might kick and abuse me in any way they chose without any show of resentment from me. this my mistress noticed and duly commended. 'those dear children,' she said. 'you know they do not realise what they are about, and so one ought not to be harsh to the dear pets.' "i gave up reading books and even newspapers; partly i suppose because i had for the time satiated myself, especially with sentimental and trashy novels, and had not yet learned to know real literature, and partly because, in my state of humility, i listened to my mistress when she said reading took too much time, that it was better to sew, dust, and the like, when i was not busy with the children. everything i do, i must do passionately, it seems, even to being a slave. i gave up dances, too, and on my days out dutifully visited my parents. i had no friends or companions and was in all respects what one calls a perfect servant--so perfect that the friends of my mistress quite envied her the possession of so useful a slave. "i got pleasure out of doing the thing so thoroughly; but yet it would not have been so interesting to me if it had not been painful, too. i was enough of a sport to want as much depth of experience, while it lasted, in that direction as in any other--in spite of, perhaps partly because of, the pain. and what pain it was, at times! who knows of the bitter hatred surging in my heart, of the long nights spent in tears, of the terrible mental tortures i endured! sometimes it was as if an iron hand were squeezing my heart so that i almost died; sometimes as if a great lump of stone lay on my chest. and my mistress seemed each day somehow to make the iron hand squeeze tighter and tighter and the stone weigh heavier and heavier. if she had only known what a deadly hatred i bore her--a hatred that would not have been so severe if i had not been so good a servant--had given myself rope, had satisfied my emotions! if she had understood that my calm, modest bearing was only a mask which hid a passionate soul keenly alive to the suffering inflicted on me, she would have hesitated, i think, before she entrusted her precious darlings to my care. "this period of virtuous serving was the severest strain to which my nature, physical and moral, was ever put. i finally became very ill, and had to be removed to my mother's house, as completely broken in body as i had apparently been in spirit. * * * * * "i sat near the window gazing vacantly at the scene below. all the morning i had sat there with that empty feeling in my soul. from time to time my mother spoke to me, but i answered without turning my head. since my illness i seemed to have lost all interest in life, and this, although everybody was kind to me. my mother gave me novels to read and money to go to the dances. the books i scarcely glanced at, and what i did read seemed so silly to me! and the dances had lost their charm. i went once or twice, but the music did not awaken any emotion in me, and i sat dully in a corner watching, without any desire to join in. and this, when i was hardly past sixteen years of age! "the day before, i had been down town looking for a job in the stores, for my mother had told me that i might work in the shops or factories again, if i wished. although even this assurance failed to interest me, i had obediently tried to find a position, but oh! how weary i was and how i longed for some quiet corner where i might sit for ever and ever and ever without moving. this morning i was wearier than ever, my feet seemed weighted, and i could hardly drag them across the room. my mother asked me anxiously, if i were ill. 'no, no,' i said. 'then my child,' she replied, 'you must positively find work. you father is getting old and it would be a shame to have him support a big girl like you--big enough to make her own living. don't you want to go back to your last place? she would be very glad to have you, i am sure.' "this last remark aroused me, and i replied that i would never go back, even if i had to starve. 'don't worry, mother,' i said, 'i'll go now, and if i don't find a place, i won't come back.' 'oh, what a torture it is to have children,' moaned my mother. 'don't you know your father would kill me if you did not return?' "her words fell on heedless ears, for i was already half way down the stairs. i bought a paper and in it read this advertisement, 'wanted: a neat girl to do second work in suburb near chicago. apply to no. -- wabash avenue.' within an hour i presented myself at mr. eaton's office, was engaged by him, received a railroad ticket and instructions how to go to kenilworth the following evening. on my way home i made up my mind to tell nobody where i was going. i packed my few belongings and told my mother that i had secured a place with a certain mrs. so-and-so who lived in such-and-such a street. i lied to the best of my ability and satisfied my mother thoroughly. "the next morning i went away, and was soon speeding to kenilworth, where i was met at the station by my future mistress and her mother, two extremely aristocratic women, who received me kindly and walked with me to my new home, instructing me on the way in regard to my duties in the household. these consisted mainly in being scrupulously neat, answering the door-bell and waiting on the table. i began at once to work very willingly and obligingly, and also helped the other girl working in the household, and everybody was kind to me in return. i did not, however, take this kindness to heart as i would have done a year or two earlier, for i had learned to my cost that kindness of this kind was generally only on the surface. "but my new mistress soon proved to be a true gentlewoman, who treated her servants like human beings. to work for a mistress who did not try to interfere with my private life or regulate my religion or my morals was an unusual and pleasing experience for me. this lady was as tolerant and broad-minded toward her servants as she was toward herself, rather more so, i think, for cares and age had removed from her desires and temptations for which she still had sympathy when showing themselves in younger people. i soon saw, to my astonishment, that things which my mother and my other employers had told me were evil, and which i had learned almost to think were so, did not seem evil to this sweet lady. i remember how kindly and sadly she said to me once, when i had spent half the night out with a young man: 'little marie, it is a sad thing in life that what seems to us the sweetest and the best, and what indeed is the sweetest and the best, often leads to our harm and the harm of others. it would be foolish of me to pretend to know which of your actions is good and which is bad; but remember that life is very difficult and hard to lead right, and that you must be careful and always thoughtful of what is good and what is evil. i myself have never learned to know for sure what is good or evil, but as i grow older i am certain that we act always for the one or for the other.' "under these conditions, in the home of such a sweet and tolerant woman, all the throbbing joy of life and youth awoke again within me. cut off from the old scenes and companions, i entered upon a new existence. i made many friends with the young people in the neighbourhood, and for the first time felt free and without the opposition of anybody. i had not written my mother or in any way let her know where i was, and no disturbing word came from my past. i sang all day at my work, and in the evening i joined my new companions and together we roamed and frolicked to our hearts' content. i had many young men friends and could satisfy my desire to be in their society, talk to, dance with them, without arousing evil thoughts in others or, consequently, in ourselves. "under these happy influences i grew healthier and more wholesome in every way. people began to say i was pretty, and indeed i did grow to be very good-looking. my figure had reached its fullest development and the rosy bloom of youth and of health was in my cheeks. i was strong and vigorous, self-reliant and independent, and very happy. i became quite a favourite and the recognised leader in the mischievous frolics of the young people. hardly an evening passed that did not bring a scene of gaiety. it seemed to me that i had never lived before and that i was making up for all the pleasures i had not known. there was, indeed, something heartless and cruel in my happiness, for i never once wrote to my mother, selfishly fearing to have my present joy disturbed. "my fears had good reason, too, it seems, for i had lived in those pleasant surroundings only a few months when one evening, while i was enjoying myself at a moon-light picnic, i was approached by a sober, stern-looking man who drew me away from my friends and asked me my name. when i had told him, he showed me a newspaper clipping of an article with the head-lines, 'mysterious disappearance of a young girl.' for some moments i stood as if turned to stone, gazing stupidly at the paper. then troubled thoughts took possession of me. 'what shall i do? what will become of me?' i remembered my mother so often saying that if i ran away i would be put in the house of correction. at this thought i shuddered and exclaimed aloud, 'no, no.' the man had been watching me closely and he asked: 'is it true,' pointing to the article. i stared at him, for a moment too absorbed in my inner terror to be very conscious of him. when he repeated the question, i looked at him with a more intelligent expression in my eyes, and he, seeing my condition, spoke to me kindly and persuasively. "'tell me the truth,' he said, 'and i will help and advise you.' so i told him the whole story, and he reassured me, saying, 'don't be afraid, little girl, i have no doubt your mother will forgive you if you explain to her in the way you have to me. it is hard for children to understand their parents. i know, for i have children of my own, and sometimes they think me unkind when i am trying to do my best for them.' he was kind, but he was firm, too, and said that if i did not write my mother, he should do so himself. so i at last consented, and as a result went back to the city: for my mother, my unfortunate, cruel mother, wanted me for some strange reason, to be near her." chapter iv _adventures in sex_ when marie returned to her home, she found that her father had died. it made little difference, practical or otherwise, to her or to her mother, except to make her stay in the house less dangerous, though quite as irksome, as formerly. her mother had, of course, reproached her bitterly for her conduct in running away, and had kept up her complaint so constantly that marie could hardly endure her home even for the night and early morning. so for that reason, as well as for the need of making her living, marie went again into service, going quickly from one job to another in the city. and now there came for her a period of wildness, in the ordinary sense of the word. it was not the simple joys of her kenilworth experience. she had returned to her mother's home in a kind of despair. it seemed to her as if the innocent pleasures of life were not for her. she had been torn away from her happiness and had been compelled to go back to conditions she hated. her passions were strong and her seventeen-year-old senses were highly developed by premature work and an irritating and ungenial home. so, in a kind of gloomy intensity, she let herself go in the ordinary way of unguarded young girlhood. she gave herself to a young fellow she met in the street one evening, without joy but with deep seriousness. she did not even explain to him that it was her first experience. she wanted nothing from him but the passionate illusion of sex. and she parted from him without tenderness and without explanations, to take up with other men and boys in the same spirit of serious recklessness. she had for the time lost hope, and therefore, of course, care for herself, and her intense and passionate nature strove to live itself out to the limit: an instinct for life and at the same time for destruction. from this period of her life comes a story which she wrote for me, and which i quote as being typical of her attitude and as throwing light on her personality. "the southwest corner of state and madison streets is the regular rendezvous of all sorts of men. they can be seen standing there every afternoon and evening, gazing at the surging crowd which passes by. one sees day after day the same faces, and one wonders why they are there, for what they are looking. some of these men have brutal, sensual faces; others are cynical-looking and sneer. these, it seems, nothing can move or surprise. they have a look which says: 'oh, i know you, i have met your kind before. you do not move me, nothing can. i have tried everything, there is nothing new for me.' and yet they cannot tear themselves away from this corner, coming day after day and night after night, hoping against hope for some new adventure. "others stand there like owls, stupidly staring at the rushing tide of faces. they see nothing, and yet are seemingly hypnotised by the panorama of life. here, too, pass the girls with the blond hair and the painted faces; they ogle the men, and as they cross the street raise their silken skirts a trifle, showing a bit of gay stocking. here, too, is the secret meeting-place of lovers, who clasp hands furtively, glancing around with stealth. all this is seen by the sensual men, who glance enviously at the lovers, and by the cynical men whose cold smiles seem to say: 'bah! how tiresome! wait, and your silly meetings will not be so charming!' "on my evenings off i had sometimes stopped to gaze at this, to me, strangely moving sight. i saw in it then what i could not have seen a few months before; but not as much as i can see now. then it excited me with the sense of a possible adventure. strange, but i never went there when i was happy, only when i was uncommonly depressed. "on a chilly sunday evening in october i was waiting on this corner to take a car to the furnished room of a factory girl, named alice, whom i knew was out of town. as i was out of a job and did not want to go home, i had availed myself of her place for a few days. as i was waiting on this corner, i saw a face in the crowd that attracted me. it was, as i afterward learned, the face of a club man, who had, on this sunday evening, drifted with the crowd and landed at this spot. he, too, had stopped and gazed around him, idly. several times he started as if to move on, but he apparently thought this place as good as any other, and so remained. he seemed not to know what to do, to be tired of himself. his face was quite the ordinary american type, clean-cut features, rather thin and cold, with honest grey eyes, but, in his case, a mouth rather sensuous and a general air of curiosity and life which interested me. "i was sufficiently interested to allow several cars to pass by, while i watched him. i noticed by the way he looked at the women who passed that he was familiar with their kind. several gay girls tried to attract his attention, but he turned away, bored. finally i began to walk away, and then for the first time his face lighted up with interest. i was apparently something new. i wore a straw hat, and a thin coat buttoned tightly about my chest. my thin little face was almost ghastly with pallor, and it made a strange contrast with my full red lips, which were almost scarlet, and my big glowing black eyes. he probably saw that i was poor, dressed as i was at that season. why is it that for many rich men a working girl half fed and badly dressed is so much more attractive than a fine woman of the town or a nice lady? "as i passed him, he said, 'good evening,' in a low and timid tone, as if he thought i surely would not answer. i think it surprised him when i looked him full in the face and replied, 'good evening!' he still hesitated, until he saw in my face what i knew to be almost an appealing look. i knew that in the depths of my eyes a smile was lurking, and i wanted to bring it forth! a moment later, i smiled indeed, when he stepped forward, lifted his hat, and asked with assurance: 'may i walk with you? are you going anywhere?' "'yes, i am going somewhere,' i said, smiling. 'to a meeting place in adams street to hear a lecture.' "'oh, i say, girlie,' he cried, 'you're jollying. that must be a very dull thing for you, a lecture.' "'sometimes it's funny,' i said. but i did not say much about it, as i had never yet been to a lecture. i made up for that later in my life! i of course had no intention of going to this. "'come,' he urged, 'let's go in somewhere and have something to eat and drink.' "'yes, i will have something, not to eat, though, but let us go where there are lots of people and lights and all that sort of thing,' i finished, vaguely. "charley tucked my arm in his and we walked along state street until we came to a brilliantly lighted café. the place was crowded with well-dressed men and beautiful women, eating and drinking, chatting and laughing. waiters were hastening to and fro. an orchestra was playing gay music, as we wound our way through the crowd to a table. i was painfully conscious that my shabby coat and straw hat attracted attention. some of the women stared at me with a look of conscious superiority in their eyes, others with a look of still more galling pity. charley, too, i thought, seemed nervous. perhaps he did not relish being seen by some possible acquaintance with so dilapidated-looking a person! "but soon i lost consciousness of these things and gave myself up to the scene and the music. my sense of pleasure seemed to communicate itself to my companion, who ordered some drinks; i don't know what they were, but they tasted good--some kind of cordial. i took longer and longer sips: it was a new and very pleasant flavour. he ordered more of the same kind and watched me with interest as i drank and looked about me. "'oh,' i said, 'what beautiful women, and how happy they are! look at that one with the blond hair. isn't she beautiful, a real dream?' "charley replied in a tone of contempt: 'yes, she's beautiful, but i would not envy her, if i were you--neither her happiness nor her good looks. she needs those looks in her business. nearly all the women here belong to her class.' "charles looked at me intently as he said this. perhaps he thought i would be angry because he had brought me to such a place. but i watched the girls with even greater interest and said: 'ah, but they must be happy!' "charles shrugged his shoulders and said, with contempt and some pity in his eyes, 'a queer sort of happiness!' "i looked at him rather angrily. he did not seem just to me. "'you don't like them,' i said, 'you think they are vile and low. but you men seem to need them, just the same. oh! i think they are brave girls!' "charles looked at me in apparent astonishment. but then a thought seemed to strike him. he was thinking that i might be one of that class, for he asked me questions which showed me plainly enough what he was worrying about. he encouraged me to drink again, and said with a self-confident laugh, 'you're a cute one but you cannot fool me with any such tricks.' "i paid no attention to his remarks, and did not answer any of his personal questions. he could find out nothing about me. i would only smile and say, 'i don't want to know anything about you, why can't you treat me the same way?' "i could see that the less he knew, the more interested he became. he plied me with drinks, perhaps thinking that the sweet liquor would loosen my tongue. soon i began to feel a little queer and the room began to go round, taking with it the faces of the men and women. after this dizziness passed, i felt very happy indeed, and smiled at everybody in the room; and wanted to go and tell them all how much i liked them. but i did not dare trust my legs, they felt so heavy. i thought i would like to stay there always, listening to the music and watching the people. "i suppose my happiness heightened my colour, for charles said, 'what a beautiful mouth you have, what red lips. one would almost believe they were painted. how your upper lip lifts when you smile, marie! don't you want to go out now?' "'yes, yes,' i replied, hastily, 'i must go home now.' "i sprang from my chair, i made for the door, but he, quickly seizing his hat, followed me and took my arm. i went very slowly for my feet seemed weighted. they were inclined to go one way, while i went another. so when charles led me i was quite thankful. as we went out into the street he asked me where i was living, what i did, and if i were married, all in one breath. this made me laugh merrily, as i assured him i was not married. i told him i lived away out on the west side and that he could see me home, if he wanted; but not to, if it was out of his way, for i was used to going alone. he eagerly accepted, and we took a car. "i fell dreaming on the way, of all nice things. the days in kenilworth came back to me and i smiled to myself and wistfully hoped my present happiness would last. my companion eagerly devoured me with his eyes, and asked me many pressing questions. i answered only very vaguely, for my mind was full of other things. so finally charles, too, was silent, and merely watched me. "suddenly i woke to the fact that i was at alice's room, so i hastily arose and signalled to the car to stop. turning to charles i extended my hand in a good-bye and said: 'this is where i live.' but he quickly got off with me saying he would see me to the house. 'i don't like to leave you alone this time of night,' he said. as we stopped in front of the dilapidated-looking frame building where i was staying for a few days, he seemed much embarrassed and not to know what to say. pointing upwards, i said, 'that's where i live.' 'do you live alone?' he asked. 'yes, now, not always. good night--charles,' i answered, mischievously, but with a real and disturbing feeling taking possession of me. "but he seized me by the hand: 'don't leave me yet, girlie,' he pleaded. 'think how lonesome i'll be when you are gone!' he drew me to him in the darkness, and i did not object, why should i? my lips seemed to prepare themselves and after one long kiss that sad intensity seized me; and i sighed or sobbed, i don't know which, as we went up the stairs together. * * * * * "an hour later, as he was about to descend the stairs, i said: 'charles, when will you come again?' "'oh, i can't tell,' he replied 'but it will be soon.' "'well,' i said, 'remember i shall be here only a few days. alice will be back within the week. come wednesday evening.' "but he left with the remark that it might not be possible! i did not care for him deeply, of course, it was only an adventure, but this stung me deeply. the light way he took what he wanted and then seemed to want to have no tie remaining! i felt as he did, too, really, but i did not want him to feel so! i imagined in what a self-satisfied mood he must be, how he walked off, with his lighted cigar! he probably wondered what sort of a girl this was who had given herself so easily? partly, too, no doubt, he laid it to his charm and masculine virtue: though he knew women were weak creatures, he also knew that men were strong! ah! i could almost hear him muse aloud, in my imagination. his reveries, perhaps, would run about like this: "'i was rather lucky to happen along this evening! she was certainly worth while, though pretty weak, i must say. she had fine eyes and, by jove, what a mouth! she said, "wednesday." i think i will go, though it is never good policy to let girls be too sure of you. besides, how do i know she isn't playing me some game?' "i didn't know as much then as i do now about man's nature, but now i make no doubt that as the time passed between then and wednesday charles's desire grew: it began with indifference, but ended, i am sure, with intensity: for men are like that! their fancy works in the absence, not in the presence, of the girl. i am sure the girl with the red lips and the deep dark eyes haunted him more and more as time went on! "at the time, i didn't know just why, but i did know that i wanted nothing more of charley. he had never been anything but a man to me--he was a moment in my life, that was all. but i decided to meet him, for only in that way could i really finish the affair. otherwise, if i merely broke the engagement, he could imagine whatever he wanted to account for it. no, he must be under no illusion. he must know that i did not want him! "i waited for him in front of the house, and on the appointed hour he arrived, looking very happy and eager. he greeted me with much warmth, to which i responded coldly. he suggested going inside, but i said: 'no, i am going away. i have been waiting here to tell you so, in case you came to-night.' "'but,' he exclaimed in an aggrieved tone, 'did not you ask me to come, and now you say you are going away. is that fair to me?' "i shrugged my shoulders and said, 'i don't know, but i'm going. good-bye,' and i turned from him and started to walk away. his tone changed to anger, as he said: 'now, see here, marie, i won't stand for any nonsense of this kind. you can't treat me like this, you know. what right have you to act in this lying way?' "i had been walking away and he following, and as he stopped talking, he took my arm, which i jerked away and impatiently said: 'well, to be frank, i don't want you to-night. whether i have a right to act so, i don't know or care. why i asked you to come i don't know, unless it was because i felt different from what i do now.' "charles adopted a more conciliating tone and asked me when he might come. his interest in me seemed to grow with my resistance. "'i guess you'd better not come at all,' i said, coolly. "'but i want to,' he said. 'do name the night, any night you say.' "then i turned to him with angry eyes, and cried out, 'oh, how stupid you are! don't you understand that i don't want you at all?' "i again started to walk away, but he seized my arm and shouted angrily: 'you cannot leave me like this without explaining some things to me. in the first place, why did you pull me on last saturday night, and who are you to turn me down like this?' i answered, with flashing eyes, 'i owe you no explanation, but i will answer your questions. as to who the girl is who can dare to turn you down, you know very well she is not what you think, or you wouldn't so much object to being turned down, as you call it. as to pulling you on, you were the first to speak or, at any rate, it was mutual, so you need not demand any explanation. what you really want to know is why i don't want you now. if i were a man like you, i suppose i should never even think of explaining to anyone why i happened to change in feeling toward some persons, but as i'm a woman, it's different. i must explain!' "this speech i have no doubt made him angry, but his pride came to the rescue and he said with a show of indifference: 'i was angry, it is true, but only for a moment. it was irritating to me to have a girl like you show the nerve to throw me down; for i'm not accustomed to associate with your sort.' "at this insolence my face flushed hotly and i opened my mouth to make some indignant reply, but i thought better of it and only walked away, laughing softly to myself. as i went away, i heard him mutter, 'what a cat.' "but, i imagine, he didn't forget me so easily. i have no doubt that the girl with the red lips and deep dark eyes haunted him for a long time. who was this girl who had given herself to him once and only once? it is this kind of a mystery that makes a man dream and dream and curse himself. "probably for some time, as he joined the crowd at state and madison streets, he hoped to see me as i passed, but all things come to an end and his passion for me did, no doubt, too. but, in the routine course of his club life, moments came, perhaps, when he thought of little marie, her red lips, deep eyes, and pale, pale face. i doubt if he ever told this story to any of his boon companions." chapter v _marie's salvation_ on account of the irregularity of her life, marie lost job after job. her relations with her mother, never good, grew worse and worse. her profound need of experience, in which the demand of the senses and the curiosity of the mind were equally represented, impelled her to act after act of recklessness and abandon. but, as in almost all, perhaps all, human beings, there was in her soul a need of justification--of social justification, no matter how few persons constituted the approving group. the feeling that everybody was against her, that she was on the road to being what the world calls an outcast, gave to her life an element of sullenness and of despair. perhaps this added depth to her dissipation, but it took away from it all quality of joy as well as of peace. if her sensuality and her despair had been all there was in her, or if these had constituted her main characteristics, this story would never have been written. perhaps another tale might have been told, but it would have been the story of a submerged class, not prostitutes, white slaves; and then it would have been the story of a submerged class, not of an individual temperament. what was it that kept marie in all really essential ways out of this class of social victims? it was because, in the first place, of the fact that her nature demanded something better than what the life of the prostitute afforded. and it was natural that the greater quality of personality that she possessed should attract the kind of love and social support needed essentially to justify to herself her instincts. when she was very young marie secured the genuine love of two strong and remarkable personalities; and at a later time, there gathered about these three, other people who enlarged the group, which gave to each member of it the social support needed to remove essential despair and desperate self-disapproval. one of these two persons so necessary to marie's larger life was a woman whom she had met several years previous to this point in the story. this woman was a cook, katie by name. she was born in germany, and her young girlhood was spent in the old country. she had only a rudimentary education, and even now speaks broken english. but she was endowed with a healthy, independent nature, a spontaneous wit, and a strong demand to take care of something and to love. as natural as a young dog, she never thought of resisting a normal impulse. her life as a girl in germany was as free and untrammelled as a happy breeze. she lived in a little garrison town in the south, and the german soldiers did no essential harm to her and the other young girls of the place. these things were deemed laws of nature in her community. what would have been dreadful harm to a young american girl was only an occasional moment of anxiety to her. it never occurred to her that it was possible to resist a man. "i had to," she said, very simply, and did not seem to regret it any more than that she was compelled to eat. she is also very fond of her food. she came to america and worked as cook in private families. she was capable and strong and was never out of a job. she never took any "sass" from her mistress; in this respect she was quite up to date among american "help." at the time she first met marie she had been working for a family several years, and had reduced her employer to a state of wholesome awe. she remained, like a queen, in the kitchen, whence she banished all objectionable intruders. her mistress had a married daughter, also living in the house, who at first was wont to give orders to katie, and to interfere with her generally. one day katie drove her out of the kitchen with a volley of broken english. the daughter complained to the mother, who took katie's side. "you don't belong in the kitchen," she said to her indignant daughter. this episode filled katie with contempt for her mistress. "she ought to have taken her daughter's side against me," she said, "you bet i would have, if i had been in her place." the daughter had two young children. it was to take care of them that marie came into the household. marie's mistress liked to stay in bed and read novels, and this experience is the one described by marie in an earlier chapter, how she locked herself and the children in the store-room and read her mistress's books. katie fell in love with marie almost at once. she was fifteen years older than the young girl and as she had never had any children, all the instinctive love of an unusually instinctive nature seemed to be given to marie. she saw that marie was not practical or energetic, and this probably intensified the interest felt by the more active and capable woman. she took the young girl under her wing, and has been, and is, as entirely devoted to her as mothers sometimes are to their children. the german cook was about thirty years old at that time and had never loved a man, though she had had plenty of temporary and merely instinctive relations with the other sex. so it was her entire capacity for love, maternal and other, that she gave to marie. almost at once katie began to treat marie as her ward. she took her side against her mistress, when the latter scolded the girl on account of her indolence or slowness. "marie is so young," she would say, "almost a child; and we ought to go easy on her." she also looked after marie's morals and tried to prevent her being out late at night. this kind of care had its amusing side, as katie herself was none too strict about herself in this regard. for instance, katie fancied the butcher's boy who used to come to the kitchen every day with meat. he was only sixteen, and quite inexperienced in the ways of the world. "i did him no harm," said katie. "but i taught him everything there was to know. my life was so monotonous and i worked so hard then that i had to have him. i absolutely had to, but i think i did him no harm and he was certainly my salvation. but i didn't let marie know anything about it. she was too young. when she found out, years afterwards, she was quite cross with me about it." this kind of relation existed between katie and marie for several years. about the time the girl went to kenilworth and had her idyllic experience, katie married. nick was a good sort of a man, easy and happy, and a sober and constant labourer. katie had saved some money, in her careful german way, had even a bank-account of several hundred dollars. it was not an exciting marriage; neither of them was very young or very much in love, at least katie was not, but it was a good marriage of convenience, so to speak, and it might have lasted if it had not been, as we shall see, for marie, and katie's affection for her. when marie started in on her career of wildness, katie and nick, her husband, had a little home together. into this home marie was always welcomed by katie, but nick was not so cordial. they knew about the girl's looseness, and in their tolerant southern german way, they did not so much mind that, and katie was distinctly sympathetic: marie was old enough now, she thought. but nick did not like the hold the girl had on katie's affection. "you'll leave me for her, sometime," he would say to his wife, ominously. katie would laugh and call him an old fool. she couldn't foresee the circumstances that would one day realise her husband's fears. it was about this time that marie met the man who has influenced her more deeply than anyone else or anything else in her life, who gave her a social philosophy, though to be sure what would seem to most people a thoroughly perverse and subversive social philosophy; but by means of which she had a social background, and a saving justification--was saved from being a mere outcast. terry, at the time he and marie met, was about thirty-five years old and an accomplished and confirmed social rebel. he had worked for many years at his trade, and was an expert tanner. but, deeply sensitive to the injustice of organised society, he had quit work and had become what he called an anarchist. his character was at that time quite formed, while the young girl's was not. it was he who was to be the most important factor in the conscious part of her education. but to explain his influence on marie, it is necessary to explain him,--his character, and a part of his previous history. chapter vi _terry_ terry is a perfect type of the idealist. we shall see how, in the midst of what the world calls immorality and sordidness, this quality in him was ever present; even when it led to harshness to persons or facts. not fitting into the world, his attitude toward it, his actions in it, and his judgment of it, are keen and impassioned, but, not fitting the actual facts, sometimes unjust and cruel. tender and sensitive as a child, his indignation is so uncompromising that it often involves injustice and wrong. but the beauty in him is often startlingly pure, and reveals itself in unexpected conditions and environment. i cannot do better in an attempt to present him and his history than to quote voluminously from his letters to me, adding only what is necessary for the sake of clearness. he wrote for me the following poetic outline of his life:[ ] "the fate of the immigrant, sprung from peasant stock, is to grow up in the slums and tenements of the great city. such a fate was mine. to exchange the rack-rented but limitless fields of irish landlordism for the rickety and equally rack-rented tenements, with the checkerboard streets, where all must keep moving, is only adding sordidness to spare sadness. surely, the birthday's injury is felt in a deep sense by the poor. but the patient fatalism of the peasant (so fatal to himself) is equal to every calamity. "i came from an exceptionally well-to-do family of tenement-farmers, but a few generations of prolific birth rate, with the help of successive famines and successful landlordism, reduced us to the point of eviction. enough was saved from the wreck to pay for our passage in a sailing vessel to america. after being successfully landed, or stranded, on new york, my father, with the true instinct of the peasant, became a squatter on the prairies of goose island. here we put up, in the year , a frame shanty of one room, in which the nine of us tried to live. my father, the only bread-winner, made from seven to eight dollars a week. absolute communism in the deepest and most harmonious faithfulness prevailed. truly, as burns says: 'we had nae wish, save to be glad, nor want but when we thirsted; we hated naught but to be sad.' "i rejoice to say that i never got over this first blessed lesson in communism; even though it was on a small scale, the family contained the unity of a greek tragedy. the heart that throbs with little things may finally throb for the world. and i learned nothing in these days except the lessons of the heart. the only necessary thing of which we had almost enough was bread. the struggle for existence, began on one continent, has continued on the other, with the surviving members of the family standing shoulder to shoulder for lack of room. "armed with a throbbing faith in everything but myself, i boldly and voluntarily entered the arena of commercial activity at the pliable age of eight. my first job away from home was in a mattress factory. ah, that first job! i was a triumphant archimedes who had found his fulcrum. i helped move the world, for twelve hours a day and for two dollars a week. "then and later, i, like all people who possess nothing, found that my best visions have come to me while at work on something in which i had wistful faith; and when i lost faith i blindly followed the economists and philosophers who can never know the mystic power of work over the worker. and it may be that herein lies the secret of the philosopher's ignorance and the worker's slavery. a man stands to his job because of the visions that come to him only when at work. "though i helped move the world, i was not an atlas, and at last, i grew tired, for i found the world moved me out of all proportion to my capacity. even at an early age, i found that i had not the heart for the fray. stamped on my narrow forehead, on my whole being, perhaps, so clearly that every unsympathetic boss could understand at once, was the mark of the visionary. my pitiable willingness to work was truly tragic. "we were an eccentric family, especially in our peculiar aloofness from others. we clung desperately to one another long after the necessity was past. neither eviction nor commerce could disband us. only marriage or death could separate us. though we were catholics on the surface, we were pagans at bottom. i had fed my fill on the fairy tales of ireland. fortunately, these fairy tales were told to me, not read, and told in such a way that they led me to seek no individual foothold in a world at war with my heart: they helped to take away what the world calls personal ambition. they strengthened my natural quality as a dreamer, my tendency to care only for the welfare of the soul. if i could bring about no change in this world, it should effect no alteration in me. this, as i grew older, became a conscious passion with me: not to allow myself to be affected by the world, or its ideals. such was, at an early age, my romantic resolution. now, as the colour in my hair begins to match the grey in my eyes, and i look back over the changes of almost half a century, i detect in the wreck of my life almost a harmony, and something rises above the ruins. "on that frail foundation from fairy land my trembling imagination rested, even amid the sordid developments of my experience. how often did i take my youthful oath that the day should never come when i would out-grow my feeling for all the world! i have been put to the test, and, i hope, not found wanting. "the end of my first ten years of life found me regretfully divesting myself, one by one, of my beloved folk-lore tales, and reverently folding them away, in preparation for the fray. i worked, during my second ten years, as a journeyman tanner and currier; knocked by fate and the boss from shop to shop and from town to town. i naturally sought solidarity with my fellows. class feeling awoke in me, and voluntarily and enthusiastically i joined the union of my craft. though i strained at its narrow confines, i was at one with my class. during the ' 's and ' 's the eight hour movement laid me off on several strikes, long and short. this enforced leisure was not idleness for me, for in these periods the world of science, art and philosophy shot their stray gleams into my startled mind, and i found time to ponder on what leisure might do for the mob. what did it not do for me, and what has it not done for me since? and i in the very ecstasy of my being was one of this mob. "whole hours, whole nights, i stole from my needed rest to read and ponder on our human fate. sundays! things after a day's labour incomprehensible to my stunned brain were easily grasped on a glorious morning of religious leisure. the apathy of my fellows--how well i understood it when, with nerves unstrung and muscles relaxed, after a tense twelve hours of toil, i fell asleep over my beloved books! and how well, too, i understood their amusement--the appeal of the poor man's club!--when in gay carousal we tried to forget what we were. even in the saloon and dance-hall we told tales of the shop! oh, the irony of it! was there no escape from the madness of the mart, no surcease from the frenzy of the factory or the shibboleth of the shop! "yes! how well i recall the gay transformation in my shop-mates when the whistle blew on saturday night. the dullest and most morose showed intelligence then. the prospect of rest, be it ever so remote--even in the hereafter--roused them from their lethargy. how alert and cheerful we were on holidays, even the prolonged holiday of a strike brought its pinched joys. quite a number of my ancient comrades of industry looked forward to the poor house with a hopefulness born of thwarted toil. the luckiest ones out of the thousands whom i knew were those few who, overcome at last, could find some sheltering fireside and keep out of the way until nature laid them off for good; the living envied the dead. "i took part in the famous bread riots of ' , when i had to fly from the shop, before an infuriated mob armed with sticks, stones, pikes, and pitchforks. in the same year i saw from a distance the great battle of the viaduct, when the mob, armed as in the bread riots, faced the federal troops and were shot down and dispersed. it was about this time, too, that i stood by as the 'lehr und wehr verein' in their blue blouses of toil and shouldered rifles strode ominously onward. these men were the first fruits in america of bakunin's ideals and work in europe. they, too, were put down, by an act of legislature. "these proletarian protagonists whipped me into a fury. my father, too, had his rifle, and when drunk he invoked it, as it hung on the wall, thus: 'come down, my sweet rifle, how brightly you shine! what tyrant dare stifle that sweet voice of thine.' but my father was only a fenian revolutionist; and as it was only a step for me from ireland to internationalism, i was soon beyond his creed. "we had come to america during war times, with the spirit of revolt already germinating within us; and although we were against slavery, our sympathies were with the south. we were natural as well as political democrats, and even when the mob was in the wrong, i always became one of it. how finely elemental, how responsive to the best and the worst, is the mob when the crisis comes! "although my thoughts were forming through my readings and the larger events about me, the everyday life in the shop was perhaps the deepest cause of my growing revolt. the atmosphere of the frenzied factory is well calculated to produce a spirit of sullen and smouldering rebellion in the minds of its less hardened inmates. from the domineering boss down to the smallest understrapper, the spirit of the jailer and turnkey is dominant. much worse than solitary confinement is it to be sentenced to ten hours of silence and drudgery. the temptation to speak to the man at your side is well nigh irresistible. but to speak means to be marked, to have hurled at you a humiliating reprimand, or, as a last resort, to be discharged. "no lunching between meals is allowed, although it is a well-known fact that few workers have the appetite at dawn to eat sufficient food to last them till their cold lunch at noon. from this comes the terrible habit, among the older toilers, of the eye-opener, a gulp of rot-gut whiskey, taken to arouse the sleeping stomach and force sufficient food on it to last till noon. as a convalescent victim of this proletarian practice i am well aware of its ravages on body and mind. it is the will-of-the-wisp of false whiskey followed by false hope, leading into the fogs and bogs of the bourgeois and the quicksands of the capitalist. "to be a moment late, means to be docked and to have it rubbed in by an insult. to take a day off, well--death is taken as an excuse. there is no such thing in a shop as social equality between boss and men. in my last position as foreman i had charge of three hundred men. many of them were faithful comrades in many a brave strike, where starvation pressed hard, whence they had emerged with hollow cheeks and undaunted hearts. i soon came to know them all, personally, intimately, and liked them all, though i felt most strangely drawn to those who worked for one dollar a day. they all did their work faithfully, and there was no complaint from the front office. one day, however, the owner charged me with treating the hands as if they were my equals. i tried to make him see the human justification of it, but he would have none of it. he was a typical boss and also a millionaire banker. "it was about this time that i discovered the deepest tonic my nerves have ever known. the explosion of the haymarket bomb found a responsive chord, the vibrations of which will never cease in me, i hope. the unconscious in me was at last released, and i held my mad balance on the crater's edge and gazed into it. hereafter, i was to live on dangerous ground, at least in thought. no more doubt, no more shuffling now. i must try the chords of my heart, the sympathy of my soul, in open rebellion. the iniquities of civilisation had ruined a fine barbarian in me, and almost made of me a maudlin miscreant, willing to hang upon the skirts of a false society. the haymarket bomb made me strip again and for a nobler fray. "of what avail was it, i reflected, to raise one's voice in the wilderness of theories? how do any good by a social enthusiasm merely expressed in theory? such thin cerebral structures are shattered to pieces in the ordeal of life. ah, but this anonymous avatar, this man with the bomb! his instinct was right, but how far short it fell, and must always fall. he had settled the strife within him and become definite to himself: that was all he had done. i too must settle the strife within me. i was plunged into prolonged dreams from which i was aroused by hunger, hunger of many kinds, and driven into my former haunt, the shop. "but now, when i stripped for work in the factory and donned my vestments of toil, i stood forth without falsehood. i knew, if not what i was, at least what i wanted, rather what i did not want. i did not want this, this society! "each morning as i took my place in the shop i had the feeling of my boyhood--as if i were celebrating a high mass before the sacrifice of another day. there was much of the pontifical in me, for i was a rapt radical. each morning on my way to commercial calvary i saw another sacrifice; i overtook small shrivelled forms, children they were, by the dim dawn. how their immature coughings racked my heart and gave me that strange tightening of the chest! i could not keep my eyes from the ground whence came the sound of small telltale splashes, after each cough. many times i stopped to hold a child who was vomiting. "here was a woe too deep for tears; and i must look with dry eyes or i should fail to see. have you ever noticed the searching dry gaze of the poor? it is like the seeing, wistful look of a child--which few can bear without flinching. i had no need to read dante's imaginary 'inferno.' i was living in a real one which made all imagination seem trivial. 'the short and simple annals of the poor' seems like poetry, but only superficially, for it is not truth, but a fiction. it is false, for the annals of the aristocracy are not so long, neither are they so complex. "i am not trying to plead for anything. i am trying merely to express. prepared for everything, i have forgiven everything, even myself. everything that could happen has happened to me, perhaps the worst that happened did not come from without, but from within. my family came off safely enough from the fray of the factory. only two of us were maimed for life and five claimed for death--out of a family of eleven. that left half a dozen for the statistician to figure on." terry, a transcendental poet, who worked in the shop for many years, had quit it some time before he met marie. the above letter shows, in a general way, the mood which finally brought about his social self-exile, so to speak. the letter which follows gives a specific instance of the kind of experience which disgusted the idealist with the imperfect world. he had been living against society, had foregathered with outcasts and had thrown down the gauntlet generally to organised society, for some years, but he still from time to time worked at some job or other. an incident happening some years after the meeting with marie, which is still to be described, is sufficiently typical of what finally threw him entirely out from society to be truthfully illustrative at this point. "i was keeping open house for all comers, regardless of law or order, morality or money. i wished to hurl myself and my theories to the test, and gauntlet my defiance to a withered world. it was a happy time, looked back on now as a dream, in which, however, there was an undertone of nightmare. we had three little rooms up many mild flights of unbalustered stairs. our main furniture consisted of mattresses which, like morning clouds, were rolled away when the sun arose. "for the shocking salary of six dollars a week i was collector for the prudential insurance company. one rent day i lacked the necessary four dollars and a half. i telegraphed my other ego, my dear brother jim, in pittsburg. the same day brought from him a telegraph money-order for twenty-five dollars, and soon afterward a letter asking me to go to pittsburg and help him out. i had always been deemed an expert in the leather line, especially in locating anything wrong in the various processes. my brother was a member of a new millionaire leather firm, which was losing thousands of dollars every week because they were unable to locate the weakness in the process. jim wanted me to find the flaw. "it was with the utmost repugnance that i quit my happy slum life, but i loved jim, and it was the call of the ancient clan in my blood. when i arrived in pittsburg, without a trunk, and with other marks of the proletarian on me, mr. kirkman, the millionaire tanner, showered me with every luxury--every luxury except that of thought and true emotion. never before did i realise so intensely my indifference to what money can buy. my private office in the shop was stocked with wines and imported cigarettes: but i was not so well off as in my happy slum. "i toiled like a sleepless sisyphus, and one day, in a flash of intuition, i located and showed the flaw in an obscure process; i was completely successful. "i had put no price on my services. for jim's sake, i had worked like a trojan, physically and mentally, for a month. with unlimited money at my disposal, i had drawn only twenty dollars altogether, and this i sent to marie, to keep the wolf away from the rogues' gallery, our flat. "when the factory was running smoothly, i told mr. kirkman that i would break in a man for my place. he made me a tempting offer to take full charge of the shop. i told him i would not be a participant in exploiting his 'hands,' who were getting only $ to $ a week. furthermore, i said i would not stand for the discharge of any man for incompetency. i had never in the shop met any man i could not teach and learn something from in return; i had never discharged a man, and never would. the millionaire boss nevertheless continued to urge me to take the position, and my brother jim offered me two thousand dollars' worth of stock at par and a large yearly salary. well, i suppose, there's no use of anybody's trying to move me when jim has failed. "i quit pittsburg with nothing but the price of a ticket to chicago, though my brother told me the firm would send me a check for $ or $ , for my services as an expert. when, with a beating heart, i returned to my dear rogues' gallery, all was change and dispersion. no more happy times in our little balcony of fellowship, which had overlooked in its irresponsibility the jarring sects and insects of this world: the most delightful place in this world to me is a home without a boss, and this home was for the time gone. the possibility of being unfair to marie makes me draw a veil over the cause of the breaking-up of the rogues' gallery. "poor jim found that the firm would not pay me a cent for my really brilliant month's work, for the reason that i had refused to be a conventional boss and had no written or verbal contract or agreement. jim therefore resigned, forfeiting fifty dollars of weekly salary and twenty-five thousand dollars in stock, ten thousand of which he had offered me to stay. mr. kirkman thought all the world of jim and could not run the shop without him. nor could he recover from the blow, for he loved my brother, as everybody did. mr. kirkman died a few weeks afterward, and after a year or two the firm went into the hands of a receiver. all this happened because of a few paltry dollars, which i did not ask for, for which i did not care a damn--and this is business! i heartily rejoice, if not in mr. kirkman's death, at least in the dispersion of his family and their being forced into our ranks, where there is some hope for them. "my brother jim was one of the maimed ones in my family. twenty years ago, defective machinery and a surgeon's malpractice made one arm useless. the pittsburg affair broke up his beautiful home. he and his whole-souled wife and charming children, into whose eyes it was an entrancing rapture for me to look, were a family without a boss; they needed none, for they loved one another perfectly. jim is dead now, and the best i can do is to send you his last letter; it has the brevity of grief: "'i have no explanation to offer for my silence, more than a feeling which possessed me shortly after my arrival here--a desire to be considered a dead one, and am doing all but the one thing that will make my wish a reality. i am long tired of the game, and only continue to play because of the hardships my taking off would cause those who at present are not able to care for themselves. a way out of it would be to take them along, but i think if the matter were put before them, they would decline my proffered service; and take a chance as half-orphans. you calling up our boyhood days in "little hell" makes me question still further if i have any right to deny those dear to me the delights that only the young can feel and enjoy. i made a great mistake in coming to this ohio town. the chase for dollars which i am performing here seven days every week is very disgusting to me, and every day only adds to the pangs. i am out all day selling goods, pleading for trade and collecting for former weeks' business; and in the evening i must do the necessary office work. every day is the same, except sunday, when i make up the book-keeping for the whole week and prepare statements and the like, to begin the usual round on monday morning. it is a hell of a life and i wish it were done. i have some consolation in being able to call up at will those that i love. i have many a waking dream, while tramping the hills, about the comrades that have added to the joys of my former existence. let me hear from you occasionally, because a letter from you seems to revive some of the old feeling that formerly made life passable.' * * * * * "i suppose i shall recover in time from jim's death. i wish i could have been with him when he died. during his last half-unconscious moments the nurse proposed to send for a priest. jim's soul must have made a last effort, for raising himself erect, he flung these words: 'i hire no spiritual nurse,' and then asked his daughter of fourteen to bring him a volume of emerson and read to him. when she returned with the book, he was gone. "of course, the doctor and all the wise ones have diagnosed jim's case. but i think he sized up his case in that letter i sent you. he died of that great loneliness of soul which made of his wasted body a battered barricade against the stupidity which finally engulphed him. the soul of social and individual honour and commercial integrity, he had the misfortune to find few like himself. he yearned for the ideal; and i am sure he went down with that hope for humanity. let us trust that there is an ever increasing number of human beings who have jim's malady--'seekers after something in this world, that is there in no satisfying measure, or not at all.' if this letter seems boisterously blue, remember it is only the sullen marching of the black sap preceding the unfurling of the emerald banners of spring, when all things break into a 'shrill green.'" footnotes: [ ] terry's letter, like marie's, i give verbatim.--h. h. chapter vii _the meeting_ the mood of rebellious idealism sometimes expresses itself in actual anti-social conduct and life. so it was with terry. he is the most consistent anarchist i have known, in the sense that he more nearly rejects, practically, all social institutions and forms of conduct and morality. he is very sweet, and very gentle, loves children and is tender to every felt relation. there is a wistful look always in his eyes. he is tall, thin, and gaunt, his hair is turning grey; but there is nothing of the let-down of middle age in his nature, always tense, intense; scrupulously, deeply rebellious. even before his meeting with marie, his open acts of sympathy with what is rejected by society had put him more and more in the position of an outcast. some of the members of his family had become fairly successful in the ways of the world. terry might easily have taken his place in comfortable bourgeois society. but his temperament and his idealism led him to the disturbed life of the radical rejector. and he was rejected, in turn, by all, even by his family. between him and his mother there was perhaps an uncommon bond, but even she in the end cast him out. he wrote of her: "she taught me that i did not belong in this world; she did not know how deeply she was right. when she crossed my arms over my childish breast at night and bade me be prepared, she gave me the motive of my life. she told me i would weep salt tears in this world, and they have run into my mouth. she loved me, as i never have been loved before or since, even up to the hour of my social crucifixion: then she basely deserted me. but i rallied, and the motive she implanted in me remains. though a child without any childhood, i had my reason for existence, just the same. everything is meaningless and transitory, except to be prepared. and i finally became prepared for anything and everything. my life was and is a preparation--for what? for social crucifixion, i suppose, for i belong to those baffled beings who are compelled to unfold within because there is no place for them without. i am a remaining product of the slums, consciously desiring to be there. i know its few heights and many depths. there have i seen unsurpassed devotion and unbelievable atrocities, which i would not dare, even if i could, make known. the truth, how can we stand it, or stand for it? i think a sudden revelation has wofully unbalanced many a fine mind. hamlet, revealing himself to ophelia, drives distraught one of the sweetest of souls. fortunately we never know the whole truth, which may account for man being gregarious. one cannot help noticing that they who have a hopeless passion for truth are left largely alone--when nothing worse can be inflicted upon them." terry's experience in the slums was no other than many another's, but the effect it made upon his great sensibility was far from ordinary. in another letter, speaking of what he calls his "crucifixion," he wrote: "only great sorrow keeps us close, and that is why, the first night after one of my deepest quarrels with my mother, i picked out a five-cent lodging-house, overlooking my home, to pass the night of my damnation in sight of the lost paradise. i never had any reason, or i would have lost it. let me hope that i am guided by something deeper than that. all my life i have felt the undertone of society; it has swept me to the depths, which i touched lovingly and fearfully with my lips. "whenever and wherever i have touched the depths, and it has been frequent and prolonged, and have seen the proletarian face to face, naked spiritually and physically, the appeal in his eyes is irresistible and irrefutable. i must do something for him or else i am lost to myself. if i should ever let an occasion go by i am sure i never could recover from the feeling that something irreparable had happened to me. i should not mind failure, but to fail here and in my own eyes is to be forever lost and eternally damned. this looks like the religion of my youth under another guise, but i must find imperishable harmony somewhere. the apathy of the mass oppresses me into a hopeless helplessness which may account for my stagnation, my ineffectiveness, my impotence, my stupidity, my crudeness, and my despair. i have always felt lop-sided, physically, especially in youth. my awkwardness became, too, a state of mind at the mercy of any spark of suggestion. my subjectively big head i tried to compress into a little hat, my objectively large hands concealed themselves in subjective pockets, my poor generous feet went the way of the author of _pilgrim's progress_. the result is a lop-sided mind, developed monstrously in certain sensitive directions, otherwise not at all. a born stumbler in this world, i naturally lurched up against society--but, as often happens i have lost the thread of my thought: my thoughts, at the critical moment, frequently desert me, as my family did; they seem to carry on an alluring flirtation, and when i think them near they suddenly wave me from the distance. but, like a lover, i will follow on--follow on to platonic intercourse with my real mistress, the proletarian. and soul there is there. i have met as fathomless spirits among the workers as one will meet with anywhere. art never has fathomed them, and may never be able to do so. often have i stood dumbfounded before some simple day-labourer with whom i worked. art does not affect me, as this kind of grand simplicity in life does. i keep muttering to myself: there must be a meaning to our lives somewhere, or else we must sunder this social fabrication and create a meaning; and so my incantations go on endlessly. "the proletarian is that modern sphinx whose thundering interrogative society will be called upon to answer. you and i know too well that society hitherto has answered only with belching cannon and vain vapourings of law, religion, and duty. but the toiling sphinx, who has time only to ask terrible questions, will some day formulate an articulate reply to its own question, and then once more we shall see that our foundations are of sand--sand that will be washed away, by blood, if need be. some there are who will weep tears over the sand: the pleasures and the joy may die, for to me they are cold and false. my joy cannot find place within the four walls which shut out the misery and brutality of the world. "how be a mouthpiece for the poor? how can art master the master-problem? they who have nothing much to say, often say it well and in a popular form; they are unhampered by weighty matters. it takes an eagle to soar with a heavy weight in its grasp. the human being, rocking to and fro with his little grief, must give way in depth of meaning to him who is rocked with the grief of generations past, present, and to come. it is then that love might rise, love so close to agony that agony cannot last: the love that will search ceaselessly, in the slums, in the dives, throughout all life, for the inevitable, and will accept no alternative and no compromise." this was the man who met marie at a critical time of her life. he was about thirty-five years old, had experienced much, had become formed, had rejected society, but not the ideal. rather, as he dropped the one, he embraced more fervently the other. he had consorted with thieves, prostitutes, with all low human types; and for their failures and their weaknesses, their ideas and their instincts, he felt deep sympathy and even an æsthetic appreciation. marie, as we have seen, was only seventeen, unformed and wild, full of youthful passion and social despair, on the verge of what we call prostitution; reckless, hopeless, with a deep touch of sullenness and hatred. she was working at the time in the house of one of terry's brothers. katie, too, was employed there; although she lived with nick, her husband, she still occupied herself at times with her old occupation; and, as ever, she watched marie with a careful eye, rather vainly so just then, for this girl was as wild as a girl well could be. one day terry paid one of his infrequent visits to his brother's home, and saw the plump and pretty marie hanging clothes in the yard. he was at once attracted to her, and entered into conversation. he was deeply pleased; so was the girl; and they made an appointment. he soon saw what her character was, and this was to him an added attraction. "i had been looking for a girl like marie," he said, "for several years. i had made one or two trials, and they always got me into trouble with my family. but the other girls did not make good. they were too weak and conventional and could not stand the pace of life with me. i had early formed a contempt for the matrimonial relation. five years i had nursed my rebellion and waited for a chance to use it. as soon as i met marie i felt i had met one of my own kind. it was partly the fierce charm of a social experiment, the love for the proletarian and the outcast; for i felt marie was essentially that. this element of my interest in her marie never understood--this unconscious propaganda, as it were. she thought it was all sex and wanted it so." katie saw that terry was making up to her beloved marie, and tried to prevent their meetings; but in vain; the attraction was too strong. katie blackguarded terry on every occasion, until she finally saw it was hopeless, and then invited him into her house to meet the girl. there he began to go frequently and the intimacy grew. nick warned terry against the girl on account of her loose character. "i have often found her," he said, "misconducting herself with some fellow or other. why, she does so with everybody. only this evening i found her on the front door-step with young bladen. she is not the kind for you to be serious about. everybody knows how common she is." nick did not understand that an argument of that kind tended only to confirm terry in his interest in marie. terry answered him laconically: "that's all right, nick. when you don't want her, just send her to me." nick, as we have seen, was jealous of marie, because of katie's love for her; so he fomented trouble between the two women. katie, too, was at this time more exasperated with the girl's conduct than she had ever been before; and they had frequent quarrels. as the result of one of them, marie went off with terry to his family flat, where he was living alone at the time--to "have a fish dinner," telling the relenting katie that she would return in the evening. but she stayed there with terry all that night, for the first time. in the morning katie turned up bright and early, burst into the flat, and reproached terry so bitterly that they almost came to blows. but when marie took terry's side, katie, terribly disappointed and hurt, yet made up her mind that it was inevitable; and terry and marie began to live together. how did marie feel about all this? what was her condition at the time, and her attitude toward this strange man, so different from every other she had met? in a long letter to me she has given an account of it all. "i wrote you about my adventure with the club man. well that was only a single instance of what finally became frequent with me. i had grown so fearfully tired of the life i was leading in domestic service that the only problem for me was how to get away from it all. for a time, i had thought i could get away only by marriage. i was ready to marry anybody who offered me food and shelter, and i had even thought of prostitution as a means of escape from domestic drudgery. i had not the slightest idea of what prostitution in its accepted sense meant. i knew in a vague way that women sold their bodies to men for money, that they lived luxurious lives, went to theatres and balls, wore beautiful gowns and seemed to be gay and happy. i was willing to marry any man who offered me a home, without the least suspicion that in that way, too, i should prostitute myself. but no one at that time offered me this means of escape, so i was quite ready to take the only other way, as i thought, left to me. "about this time i met an old girl-friend whom i had not seen for several years; she was a domestic servant, too, but was in advance of me in her recklessness. when i met her again she was in the mood to lose all the little virtue left to her. she was quite willing to sell herself: she had done enough for love, she said, marriage was now an impossibility, and she might as well realise on her commercial value. to these ideas i agreed, and we arranged to meet in two weeks from that day and try an experiment. meanwhile she was to go back to her home, get her belongings, and tell her parents she had secured a place as a servant-girl in chicago. "i left my position, and finding things too disagreeable at home where i continually quarrelled with my mother, i went to visit kate, until my friend should return. "how my ideas and ideals had changed! when i first began to dislike the work i was forced to do, i dreamed that some charming fairy would come and release me: i had been taught such a view of life from the novels of bertha m. clay and e. d. e. n. southworth. some rich man, young and charming, possibly the owner of the factory i was working in, would fall passionately in love with me, marry me and carry me away to his palace! gradually, my ideas came down. i should have been glad to marry a foreman, then some good mechanic, and finally, some workman, however humble, whom i would love dearly. and now i was deliberately preparing for a life of prostitution! "it was then, while living with my dear friend kate, whom i sometimes helped in the work she did out, that i met my first, my last, my truest lover and friend, terry. we met just at the right moment. i was filled with rebellion at the powers that were crushing me, breaking me, without realising why, or how, or what i might make of myself, when he came along and taught me in his own quiet and gentle convincing way how cruel and unjust is this scheme of things, and pointed out to me the cruelty and tyranny of my parents and of all society. he showed me that marriage such as i had contemplated was a bad form of prostitution, and he told me why. of course, i did not grasp all the things he told me at once, but i listened and felt comforted; i began to feel that perhaps i might amount to something, might have some life of my own, and that my rebellion was perhaps justifiable. i began to understand why work was so objectionable to me and why i rebelled against the authority of my parents. my conceptions of freedom were crude, but i began to feel that my revolt was just, and was based upon the terrible injustice whereby the many must toil so that the few may live in splendour. i will not weary you with all the details of the things i learned at that time from terry. to you it might seem very raw and crude, and you no doubt have read some of the pamphlets written by socialists and anarchists dealing with the labour question in all of its aspects. but to me these ideas were quite new and they seemed grand and noble. "and terry revealed to me, too, almost at once, the great inspiring fact that there is such a thing as beauty of thought--that there is poetry and art and literature. this, too, of course, came little by little, but do you wonder i loved a man who showed me a new world and who taught me i was not bad? he put good books into my hands, and to my grateful joy i found i liked these books better than the trash i had hitherto read. "i felt so much better, after seeing so much of terry, that i decided to go to work again. terry was against this. 'try it,' he said, 'but i assure you you don't need to work. i have tried doing without work for many years, it is much easier than it seems.' nevertheless i got a job in a bicycle factory, but i only stayed a few days. it seemed like a stale existence to me! and besides, i was in love and wanted to be with terry all the time. 'by god,' i said to him that night, 'you are right! i'll never work again.' "my friend gertrude, the girl with whom i had intended to go in the last reckless experiment, came to terry's flat to see me, and get me to go with her. i had thought, after i gave up work, that terry might offer me marriage, but he told me quite frankly that it was against his principles to marry anybody. i was a little hurt and astonished at this, but as i was very much in love and was already beginning to imbibe his ideas, it did not matter so very much to me. "so, when gertrude came, i led her to terry and asked him what he thought about her plan. he said to us: 'the kind of prostitution you contemplate is no worse than the kind often called marriage. selling your body for a lifetime is perhaps worse than selling it for an hour or for a day. but the immediate result of this kind of prostitution which you plan is very terrible practically. it generally leads to frightful diseases which will waste your bodies and perhaps injure your minds. the girls you envy are not always as happy, gay, and careless as they seem. it is part of their business to seem so, but they are not, or only so for a very short time. perhaps you will be better off so than in domestic drudgery. it is a choice of evils, but if you are very brave and courageous you may perhaps get along without either. but if forced to one or the other, i recommend prostitution. it may be worse for you but, as a protest, it is better for society, in the long run.' "he pictured to us as truly as he could the life of the street-walker; he did not seem to think that morally it was worse than any other life under our social organisation, but he did not make it seem attractive; nor did he make the life of the domestic servant or factory-girl seem attractive. he seemed to feel that one might look on prostitution as, under the circumstances, a grim duty--but it was certainly grim. "we were rather incredulous at the picture terry had drawn of the life we had resolved to lead. gertrude turned up her pretty little nose and said it would not be like that with her. we talked about it all that day and night; and gertrude decided to have a try at it, while i was undecided. i was somewhat piqued at terry's attitude. i had expected him to oppose my plan, to do all in his power to prevent it. but i did not understand him. he knew that if i were determined, nothing would prevent me, and all he could do was to give us a faithful picture of what such a life would be. "things were happening of which we were ignorant for a time, but which helped to settle our immediate problem. i had often been seen going into terry's flat, and this was food for gossip. it was said that terry had started a bad house, and had done so in the flat belonging to his family, who were in the country at the time. these stories reached my mother's ears, and also were told to terry's mother and sisters, and the mischief began. i was forbidden ever to cross my mother's threshold again, and he was requested to leave the home of his virtuous sisters which he had polluted and contaminated by his debaucheries with that immoral person, myself." marie omitted, in the above letter, the details of the split with the two families. it seems that terry had, on hearing about the "rumours," gone to his family, then near chicago, and presented to them his philosophy of life; also his determination not to give up marie, and not to marry her. it was then that the last rung was put in the ladder of his family crucifixion, as he would call it. it was then that his mother "basely deserted him;" and terry left for good, rejecting the money offered him. "i passed them up," he said, scornfully, "and after spending the night in the lodging-house, i beat my way back to chicago. i had been gone several days, and when i got back to the flat, where i went only to get marie and clear out for god knows where, i found her gone, and no apparent way of finding her address. i went to see her mother, and had an awful scene with her. the violent woman was in hysterics and, after a long dispute, implored me to find her daughter. 'i'll find her,' i replied, 'for myself,' and left. "marie afterwards told me that she and gertrude had gone to see her mother, when i was in the country with my family, and that her mother had driven them away. perhaps, the mother realised the change in the girl. perhaps, too, she realised what must happen, if she drove her away. yet she did drive her daughter away. from her own point of view, it was diabolical to do so. her anger, her exasperation and her outraged desire to rule drove her to doing what she must have felt was the worst thing she could do. and she did it in the name of virtue! perhaps it was for the best: i believe it was, but she did not and i cannot see where her spiritual salvation comes in." terry finally found marie--found her in the midst of a short experiment, in company with gertrude, "in one of the social extremes,"--to be plain, leading the life of a prostitute. i ask the reader to pause here and reflect. pause, before you conclude that this book is an indecent and immoral book. reflect before you conclude that this woman is an immoral woman. i am engaged in telling a plain tale in such a way that certain social conditions and certain social considerations and individual truths may be illustrated thereby. consequently, i shall not pause, though i ask the reader to do so, in order to point a moral in any extended way. in return for the readers' courtesy and tolerance, i will here reassuringly assert that there will be found in these pages no detailed description of marie's life during her few months of prostitution; and nothing whatever, from cover to cover, of anything that in my judgment is either immoral or indecent. well, terry found her, and terry did not try to "reform" her. but he stood by her, and was more interested, more in love with her than ever. in addition to his personal interest, he felt an even stronger social interest in her. to live with a girl like that was unconscious propaganda. this passion, as he calls it, was now more deeply stirred than when he first met her. this deeply aroused his imagination and his keen desire to see what the naked constitution of the soul is, after it is stripped of all social prestige. if marie had been simply a low, commercial grafter, terry, the idealist, would not have been interested. but terry knew that marie cared nothing whatever for money. he regarded her as a social victim and in addition a vigorous and life-loving personality, an excellent companion for a life-long protest against things as they are. he saw she had the capacity for deep and excited interest in truth, an emotional love for ideated experience. these two human beings were wonderfully fitted to each other: no wonder they loved! terry, telling me about the girl's experience during the two weeks or so before he found her, dwelt especially upon how well she was treated. "she has a way of getting the interest, almost the deference, of many people. she and gertrude were often reduced to the proverbial thirty cents, but they had little difficulty in getting along. for instance, one day, almost broke, they went to a restaurant and ordered two cups of coffee. the negro waiter knew what they were, and offered them a nice steak, at his expense. nor did he try to 'ring in,' to make their acquaintance. he treated them with great respect. they went there several times afterward, and always found the negro waiter beaming with the desire to help them for quite disinterested reasons, and he never tried to meet them outside. marie always appreciated a thing like that. she took a delight in thinking about the fine qualities in human nature." marie is a frank woman, but it is natural that she could never bring herself to talk about this period of her life with entire openness. she has, however, written me a letter in which she tells the essential truth, although clothing it with a certain pathetic attempt to conceal the one episode in her life about which, to me, she was perhaps unreasonably reticent. she did not say that she and gertrude were separated from terry for a time, but she wanted to convey the impression that she and terry, from the start, struggled along together, which was essentially, though not literally, true. continuing her account, from the time the two families cast her and terry out, she wrote: "so there we were, thrown out into the harsh world, shelterless and almost moneyless. but we all three put our little capital together, amounting to about eleven dollars, went down town, and hired a furnished room. we managed to live a week on this capital, and then terry pawned his watch, which gave us five dollars. gertrude soon disappeared with an old rouê and went out of our lives. terry and i kept along as best we could. kate helped us as much as we would allow her to, and sometimes paid for our room, and i would sometimes eat at her house. "during this period i was in a curious state of mind and body. living in the midst of so-called vice, i was at first both attracted and repelled. yet my strongest feeling was a hatred of the life i had formerly led, and i was determined not to go back to it, happen what might. i should probably have gone much farther than i did, had it not been for my love for terry, which made me feel that i did not want to throw myself entirely away. so i did not know whether to go into the game entirely or keep out of it. terry did not try to influence me, but seemed to watch me, to make me feel that he would stand by me in any event. "for a time we were both of us dazed and stunned by our sudden change in life. the change was much greater for terry than for me. i don't know what his thoughts and feelings at that time were. they must have been terrible. for years he had lived, for the most part with his family, a quiet, studious life, the life of contemplation; and now he was suddenly plunged into the roar and din, with an ignorant and disreputable girl on his hands whom he would not desert. we were certainly on the verge of destruction. the inevitable would have happened, for no other choice was left me, and i should have drifted with the current and terry would do and could do nothing. "just at the crucial moment, terry met an old friend who offered him a political job, organising republican workingmen's clubs, and terry accepted it. no one can understand how bitter this was to terry. to work for a political organisation was to him great degradation. he did it for my sake, for the thirty-five dollars a week, so that i could be free to live as i wanted. i did not realise at the time how much his sensitive nature suffered, and i took poor advantage of the freedom his money and character gave me. what an intolerable burden i must have been to him, and yet he never even intimated a desire to leave me! "i had an opportunity now to satisfy my desire for pleasure. terry put no obstacles in my way. yet the cup already tasted bitter. i tried to deny to myself that this life of pleasure was an illusion, and so i plunged into the most reckless debaucheries: i really would be ashamed to tell you of the things i did. i had affairs with all sorts of men, many of whom i did not know whether i liked or hated--seeking always excitement, oblivion. i frequented cafés where the women and men of the town were to be found, and made many acquaintances. two or three of them proposed marriage to me. they no doubt wanted to 'save' me, and thought i was a prostitute. i did not care to disabuse them on the subject: in fact i don't know whether i was what they called me or not. "this life lasted only two or three months, but it seems like so many years to me. at the end of that time terry's work was over, and we left down town and roomed with a respectable radical family. my health had broken down. i weighed only a hundred pounds, although three months earlier i had weighed one hundred and forty. my beautiful, healthy body had wasted away. ah! how proud i used to be of this body of mine! how i used to glory in the vigorous, shapely limbs, the well-moulded breasts and throat. but all this passed away before my youth had passed away." marie here pathetically omits to state the immediate cause of her ill health--a long and terrible experience in the hospital, the result of her excesses, during which time terry was the only one to care for her, from which place she came broken in health, thin and pale, with large, dark, sad eyes, looking as she did when i first met her. chapter viii _the rogues' gallery_ "my terrible experiences during these months," continued marie, "had at least the advantage of bringing me nearer to him who was and is the inspirer of whatever is worthy or good in me. it helped me to appreciate him, and surely everything i suffered, everything i may still suffer, is not too much to pay for that. he has made for me an ideal, and, without that, life is but a sorry, sorry thing. during those wild months i, of course, thought little of those things, those wonderful new things which i had heard of from him, but now, when we were living quietly with our anarchist friends, and the surroundings were in harmony with the mood for thought, my interest awakened. i read a great deal and listened attentively to the talk of the people around me, and slowly my ideas became more and more clear. "it took a long time for me to learn, to really understand what the others were interested in. i did not dare to ask terry too many questions, especially there, where everybody admired him and looked up to him so. a new shyness came over me when i began to see him in the light of a philosopher and a poet. he seemed so far above me and i felt myself so small and unworthy. but it was not long before i really began to feel a strong interest in all that was said, in all these social theories, in these ideas about the proletaire, about art and literature; and i began to read books in a far different spirit from what i used--i began to see in them truth about life, and to love this truth, whatever it was. and i loved the freedom of the talk, and, above all, i loved the feeling that from the highest point of view i was not an outcast, and that the people who seemed to me the best did not so regard me. it helped to give me the self-respect which every human being needs, i think. "i thought for a long time that i was very lucky indeed to get admitted into this atmosphere. and, indeed, i know i _was_ lucky, but there came a time when, for a while, i was very unhappy, not in the society of the radicals--i always loved that--but among these particular people, because they could not, after all, rid themselves of some conservative prejudices. after a while i began to see that even those enlightened people really had contempt for what i had been, or for my ignorance, perhaps for both. "this family, with whom we were staying, was supposed to have broad and liberal ideas, and its members prided themselves on the fact that they really put their theories into practice. their home was run on a sort of communistic basis, and the men and women who lived there were not tied to each other by any legal bonds, for they believed in freedom of love. they never made much noise about their ideas, or rather their practice, and were what you might call refined or cultured anarchists. "terry and i had nothing in a worldly way, and we lived there on 'charity,' so to speak, though that word was, of course, never used. we did, however, what work there was to be done in the household, trying in this way to give some compensation in return for a bed to sleep on and the simple food necessary to keep our bodies alive. "now, after a while, i began to feel crushed, oppressed in this home, among these cold, cold, refined people, although they were anarchists. they could not help showing me their contempt: they made me feel inferior. they never said one word that indicated such a feeling, but i could feel it by their attitude, by the attitude even of the little child in the house. they looked upon me much in the same way as my former mistress used, when i was the servant in the house, except that they were bound by their theories to give me a nominal respect and to try charitably to improve my mind and make of me a philosophical anarchist. "it was painful to me to see these people, who were so humane, who could not bear to see the lowly oppressed, who could not bear to have injustice done, to see these people pass me by in insulting silence, look at me with cold, unsympathetic eyes! how it hurt me, not to receive the word of encouragement from the kind look of people i looked up to! so i crawled into my shell and did not go about much with the others. i think i was forgotten by nearly everybody for days at a time. terry shared the room with me, and brought me food, as i grew more and more unable to eat with the cold superior ones. he brought me tobacco, too, and here it was, sitting all day alone, that i began the cigarette habit: if it had not been for that, i think i should have gone mad. "i never ceased to love terry, but i had a bitter feeling against him, too. he was always kind and good to me, but he spent most of his time with his intellectual friends, and i began to feel that even he was being 'charitable' to me. so after much misery and despair, i accepted a proposal of marriage from a friend of my wild days and fled with him to st. louis. he took me to the home of his sisters and parents, where i lived in peace and quiet for three weeks, recovered some of my health and strength, and was able to review my past and think of my future; and reflect on my coming marriage. "the people i was with now were kind and sympathetic. they did not know about my past life--only my prospective husband knew--he, of course, knew all. the others thought i was a poor shop-girl, tired and overworked. they were refined people, fairly well-to-do, rather bourgeois, but with good hearts, and so innocent that they believed everything their son told them, and received me as a daughter and sister. "perhaps my nature is perverse, i don't know; but as soon as i got a little rest and peace, i began to think of what i had left and especially of terry. it was not only my love for him that called, but what my life with him had been and would be if i returned--a life that was not a commonplace life, a life of intelligence and freedom. already i was bored by the quiet goodness of the people i was with, and i wanted 'something doing'! "i saw terry again as i had seen him first, with the glamour of ardent love, the love that overleaps all barriers and, if only for an instant, stands face to face with love, unhesitating, tumultuous, and triumphant. the memory of even one perfect moment can never leave us, even if life be ever so dark and harsh and bitter, there will always be that single ray of light to illumine the darkness, and keep our steps from utter and complete stumbling. "i thought of terry day and night, and grew so melancholy that my new found friends were alarmed and suggested hastening the marriage, in order to let me go south with my husband. this alarmed me terribly and i begged that no such step should be taken. with much inward trembling, i proposed that the marriage should be postponed and that i return to chicago. they would not listen to this, and i could see in their honest faces the deepest amazement and a kind of suspicion. so i took refuge in tears, pleading ill-health and offering no more suggestions. "that same day i wrote terry a long letter, in which i told him that i still loved him, could not forget him, but had taken this step in desperation because i could no longer endure living among these people in chicago, his friends, but not mine; that here in st. louis i had found a certain measure of peace and quiet which had lately been disturbed by the realisation that soon i must decide to take a step which would perhaps separate us two irrevocably, that i longed more than words could tell to see him, to look into his face. i could never go back, i wrote, to that life i had been living, because what i had learned from him of what life is and what makes it worth living, had made that thing impossible for me. so, i wrote, i could not go back, and how, without him, could i go forward? so here i was, weak, perplexed, and i begged him to write me, to advise me what to do. "very soon his reply came--the truest, kindest reply that i could have received. he too had suffered since i left him, and comprehended only too well why i had done as i did. our suffering would help us to gain a more comprehensive knowledge of life and of each other. and if i still loved him, i should follow the inclination of my heart and return to him. we two might start out again, wiser and surer for what had passed. he assured me of his love, but warned me not to expect too much from him, that our material comforts would be few, for he was as poor as i, and however much he might wish to provide better, he knew that, for one reason or another, he could not. but if i would be content to share his crust and his love, much happiness and joy might be in store for us. he finished his letter with a quotation from browning's 'lost leader': 'just for a handful of silver he left us, just for a ribbon to tie in his coat.' "my hesitation disappeared at once, although it hurt me greatly to carry out my resolution to return to chicago. it cost me many a pang to shock and hurt the dear good people, to seem so ungrateful for all their love and kindness. but it had to be. i could not do otherwise. i returned to chicago two days after receiving the letter, and my lover and i met and clasped hands and gazed into one another's eyes. we were reunited, or rather united truly, for the first time, with better understanding on both sides. "since that day, now six years ago, we have travelled the rough road together, assisting one another as best we could, often stumbling and misunderstanding and hurting one another, for we continually tried to get deeper and deeper into real knowledge, real life, and it is hard to reconcile all things. generally to gain much, one must compromise, but terry and i did not wish to compromise. his and mine has been a difficult and dangerous relation, but an interesting one. very soon after my return to chicago, i felt much more at ease, no longer a stumbling-block in his way; and i gained confidence, strength, and knowledge. i met many people of the true communistic spirit, and by social intercourse with them developed in every way. i continued to read good books and attended lectures on the social problems of the day. so after a time i became what is called an anarchist, just as terry was. "the reasons my books and companions brought forward for the justification of anarchism were like meat and drink to me. i was filled with enthusiasm for the ideas of a freedom which i now think is perhaps impossible in our society. but i thought that the 'downtrodden,' the 'working classes,' held the fate of the world in their hands, if they could but realise it. as time passed, my enthusiasm waned, for i began to see many difficulties in the way of this beautiful idealism. at times, i even doubted if the 'mob' were worthy of liberty at all. such thoughts, however, passed away whenever i saw the crowds of workers streaming from the factories and stores, and looked upon their loutish, brutal faces, wherein there was never a gleam of pride, of the joy of creation, of intelligent effort. then i would think, surely, surely, humankind is not meant to be thus. why, even the little birds, the tiny little ants, what intelligence they display in their work; little kittens and dogs playing in the streets, what unrestrained joy is theirs! work ought to be a pleasure and a blessing: and it would be so if we could only choose our labour, if we could create, do those things for which we are fitted, voluntarily, because of the need within us, for the outward expression of our life, our hope and joy. so, work would cease to be the curse it is to-day. "and surely if we were free men and women, we would find our place in the scheme of things, surely each one of us would seek the place suited to his individual nature, and so perhaps at last everything would be a part of the harmonious whole. "when i think of things as they are and as they might be, i grow dizzy and sick at heart, that mankind can be so blind, so hopelessly ignorant, so unspeakably cruel, so weak and cowardly. i am only a novice, i know, and there is so much for me to know, to learn, to strive for--much that i, and hundreds and thousands of others, will never reach, for we are burdened with heavy chains which we cannot break. yet, there must be somewhere on this big earth, some little place fitted for me, some small corner where i must be of some value to myself. "to you, no doubt, my sufferings and struggles will seem petty and my ideas crude and commonplace; but, if so, the pity is all the greater. after the agony i went through, freedom seemed to me the noblest thing in the world, and i thought it the solution of everything. since then my ideas, perhaps, have become somewhat less 'crude,' but i have never for a moment lost faith in the thought that freedom is the most essential, the most necessary condition for us, if we are to endure life." it is certainly what marie calls "crude" to talk of liberty without careful definition. absolute freedom is inconceivable. but i am not interested in presenting an argument: i am interested in the description of a state of mind, of a section of society, of a certain emotional view of things. the value, however, of these general ideas is undoubted, in the spiritual improvement and moral comfort of thousands of people. i think that marie and terry and the other characters that will appear in this book are decidedly better off for the ideas they hold: that about these ideas, or rather ideals, perhaps, they have grouped a society in which they are not outcasts, in which their lives seem from some points of view justified. and even in my opinion, though i live in different circumstances, and see greater difficulties in the way of the realisation of any social ideal than they do, yet i feel that their way of looking at things is useful to the larger society of men, ultimately. and, i, like other people, have deep respect for a consistent and courageous life, based upon a principle or principles which i may not hold myself. the next scene in the life of marie and terry took place in what they called "the rogues' gallery." this was during the time that terry held a position in the prudential insurance company, whose employ he left, as we have seen, in order to go to pittsburg, to find the flaw in the tannery process, at his brother jim's request. he hired three little rooms, and up to the time he went to pittsburg, he welcomed to his home everybody who was "against" things. later on, he became more particular in his associates--that is to say, he demanded of them something more than mere disreputability, to use the conventional word. but at that time he loved everything that the world hated or cast out. that was his principle of action, his norm of judgment. seeking the truth with undivided passion, he rid himself at a later time, at least partially, of this prejudice, and became quite able to "pass up," as he calls it, that is reject, a human being even though he might be a thief, a practical anarchist, a prostitute, or a souteneur. but at the time of the existence of the rogues' gallery he loved everything rejected by society, without making too nice a use of his natural taste. there, in those three little slum rooms, gathered a strange society--a society held together on the basis of its utter rejection of the larger society of men. to be an acceptable member of this society, the individual must in some way be a social rebel--either practically or theoretically, or both. when terry saw in some being rejected by society a spark of thought or of feeling, he was excited and happy. it was obvious to him, as to all persons who think and have practical contact with many different kinds of people, that there are in life no heroes and no villains; it was obvious that in the lowest thief or prostitute there was that possibility of light and spiritual grace which all true souls desire. terry's function was to make them conscious of this; to organise, so to speak, the outcasts upon a philosophic and æsthetic basis and so save them to themselves, at least. this was his great experiment with marie, about which a large part of this book is to be concerned. but this interest, this effort, extended itself to many other individuals, and whenever terry could feel himself in contact with what he felt was essentially human, and, at the same time, to his sense beautiful, he was filled, as i have said, with that deep excitement of pleasure, which was both intellectual and moral. i remember, one day, he said to me: "how often, during the lifetime of the rogues' gallery, did i saunter down state street with the pleasing knowledge that i would find some 'low' person, girl or man, whom i knew i could get at, who would strip himself or herself bare to me in a spiritual sense, and would be revealed disinterestedly, would have no axe to grind and no contemptible small ends to gain, and no tradesman's commercial morality and no grafting conventionality, no moral cant based on self-interest--some being so near the 'limit' that he was intellectually and morally fearless and did not need to pose, from whom some truth could be derived, whose sincerity and power of straight-seeing was not warped and concealed by any bourgeois ambitions, by any respectability." from time to time terry would take one of these beings home with him--to his rogues' gallery and to marie and to the other intimates, mainly more or less self-conscious anarchists, all or nearly all derelicts of the labouring class. there they could stay as long as they æsthetically fitted, could share the communal cigarette, beds, beer, and food. and terry and marie and their friends would talk and read aloud--terry the teacher, giving transcendental light into the nature of the good, the beautiful, and the true. many an outcast here came first to a pleasing sense that from some points of view he was not altogether bad, nay, that he had unexpectedly good points. many of them to some philosophic intensity; conversation became a joy, strangely unknown hitherto. the educational character of this meeting place was marked, but, as i have said, terry's indiscriminating passion for the outcasts of the proletaire limited the intellectual development of his little society. at a later time, a much more developed society grew around terry and marie, as we shall see, when we get to the anarchist salon, or the intellectual drawing room of the anarchist proletaire. terry's main effort was, at this time, and for years afterwards, naturally directed toward marie's spiritual education. hitherto marie has revealed herself to the reader as a rather commonplace, very physical, rather lazy, and quite egoistic person, one of many, with no distinguished characteristics. but she was unusually endowed in some ways. eminently plastic, up to a certain point she rapidly assumed forms suggested by terry's spiritual touch. she derived from him her interest in all high things, in philosophy, art and literature, but there always remained an interesting distinction in the way she reacted to her education. terry remained always the rather transcendental philosopher, with a predominant ethical sense. marie, as she developed, showed a deeper and subtler feeling for expression and a surer sensing of human character, a juster psychology. her nature is essentially less beautiful, by far, than that of terry, but more real, in a way, more robust, and so constituted that in a long spiritual conflict she would wear out the finer qualities of her lover. but this is anticipating, except in so far as it is true that from the start marie's psychological vividness showed itself, often, of course, with base and physical concomitants. in this connection i will quote a letter which well illustrates this side of her character, and which also shows a contrast to some of her loftier but more conventional and less true qualities. she had been attending an anarchists' ball and she wrote: "i danced a great deal and felt very happy, without the aid of any stimulant either. i did not have any feeling of irritation or even indifference toward anybody, not even toward rose. i am fascinated by rose, and i sometimes think i hate her. i always like to be near her when there is no one else around. she reveals herself to me then; in fact quite throws off the mask which all women wear. in order to encourage her to do this, i apparently throw down my own mask. oh, how i gloat over her then, when she shows me a side of her life and betrays secret thoughts and feelings to me half unconsciously! sometimes i succeed in having her do this when there is a third person present, and the look of hatred which passes across her face when she perceives she has made a mistake, is a most interesting thing to see. but she immediately comes to my side and we kiss each other and call each other 'angel girls' and 'darlings.' thus we play with each other, and it is a stand-off which is cleverest. she is quite puzzled sometimes by my frankness about some things, for instance, about her looks. i notice she compliments me on my looks whenever i am decidedly off colour, when i wear a green ribbon, or a dowdy dress, or big shoes. but i am honest with her in these things, and i like to see her look well. the game is more interesting then. "well, at this ball, i wanted to dance with a certain man, but i did not wish to ask him myself. so i requested rose to do so, and she consented, and i was soon whirling around in his arms. i had felt curious about him for a long time: i did not know just what the state of my feeling toward him was. i did not know whether i liked or disliked him, but i had often experienced a sort of thrilling sensation when he happened to pass by or touch me, or even when he mentioned my name, which had occurred only once since i knew him. 'good evening, marie,' was all he said. but the name and the way he said it seemed new, and it kept recurring to me at unexpected times and always troubled me. when i fancy i hear that name in his voice i feel sad and lonely, and my heart aches. i see him often, mostly at our sunday evening lectures. we are very distant, and i am often rude to him, not answering when he speaks to me. "so when i danced with him the other night, i was agreeably surprised to find that i did not experience any unusual sensation at all. and i was relieved, too, for i had a sort of instinctive feeling that he was not worthy of any strong interest. after the dance was over, we went down-stairs together and he kissed me. you know, the radicals all kiss one another freely and it does not mean anything special, as a rule: often it is done without any feeling at all, just a common habit. but this time i was astonished to find that the moment he touched me i had the same thrilling sensation, only more intense, as when i heard him speak my name. i resisted however, and just then i heard rose's voice ring out exultantly, 'oh, if you knew how crazy marie is about you, how she raved when she first met you and so on.' you can imagine how i felt then. i managed to get away and drank and smoked and danced all the evening and never looked at him again. when we all went away rose and i kissed each other and called each other 'darling girl.' "in some moods i would like to be a big, beautiful, heartless woman like one or two i know. in such moods, how i would make men suffer! i was talking about this to little sadie the other day, and she assured me solemnly that she would do that when she was thirty, but not merely to make men suffer, but to develop them." as terry continued to read aloud and talk in his rogues' gallery, marie grew to reflect more and more the results of the reading of good things, and of the thinking and talking about these things. it shows how some temperaments are able to connect literature and philosophy with life, and thereby see their real meaning, quite independently of any merely conventional culture or education. one of the greatest prejudices of our time (and of all times) is the belief that intellectual culture, which is merely the perception in detail of how life and thought is expressed in form, is peculiarly dependent upon academic or conventional education. and yet, of course, somewhere or other, the nature capable of understanding form must come in contact with it, before the meaning of the whole thing is incorporated into its daily habit. terry was marie's point of contact with form, in its deep relation to life. marie felt this and loved him and was grateful, to the depths of her nature, so different from his, so animal, so unideal, in comparison! she wrote: "terry gave me a new way to express myself, and that, after all, is the only thing worth living for. and he gave me this new way without trying to make me give up any other way of self expression, my sensuality, for example. this sensuality i have sometimes regretted, but not directly through terry's influence, except that he has shown me the beauty of something else. he is a winged thing in comparison with me, but he is so wonderfully tolerant that he can see beauty in even the baser part of my nature. why should i regret what i am, anyway? i believe that the only purity that means anything is that which results from working one's nature out harmoniously, not suppressing it. terry must be a wonderful man, to have been able to encourage me in many new directions, and to take away the maiming sting of regret for what i inevitably was and could not help being. "i do not think an ordinary person could have made me see the beauty of anarchism. i know that the anarchistic ideas are rather shocking, even at their best, and of course they naturally appeal most to the man with the hoe, inciting him to rebel, while the man behind the idea is usually endowed with so much sensitiveness that he shrinks from the rebellion part of the programme himself; he is not a man of action, only a man of ideas. it is shameful, some think, to disturb the blissful ignorance of the man with the hoe, for when the gleam of intelligence shines in his eye and he is aroused to the knowledge of his degrading position, he is likely to rebel in the most healthy but brutal manner, so much so that the æsthetic reformer shrinks back from the consequences of the propagation of his own ideas. of course, the brutality of the proletariat is not nearly so subtle as that of the aristocracy, and it takes some cleverness to discover that the latter is brutality at all. it requires time and patience to drive into the thick heads of the workers that they are downtrodden, and that their oppressors are worthless parasites. when they finally do awaken to this idea and rebel, how terribly shocked the world is because these brutes have not the cleverness or delicacy to be more subtle in their brutalities. "in your last letter you wrote of the crudeness of most propagandists of anarchism, naming anatole france as one of the rare anarchists who express themselves otherwise than crudely. he rarely or never, you say, ever mentions the word 'anarchism,' although much of his writing is calculated to destroy belief in the value of organised society as it now exists. don't you think you are perhaps prejudiced too much against certain words because of their associations? i know that many words are objectionable to refined, cultured people because they have been so long associated with the coarse and brutal mob, the working class, as the socialists would say. but you must remember that anarchism is intended to appeal to this 'mob' especially; that its doctrines might not be needed by refined people who ought to have enough sensibility not to enjoy 'freedom' unless it is shared by the coarse and brutal workers. believe me, there is nothing so degrading as poverty. it makes the slave more slavish and the brute more brutal. it acts like a goad, spurring people on to do things which make them seem to themselves and others lower and lower, until they are truly no longer human beings but animals. "therefore it is that the propaganda of anarchism is generally crude. it is true that much good literature is permeated with the ideals of anarchism, for instance, shelley, whitman, thoreau, and emerson. such reading is excellent as a means of humanising and making anarchists of refined people, but how could you appeal to the rebellious workers with such books as these? for instance, my father, do you think he could read ibsen or any of the others? indeed not; but let him go to a meeting where he can hear emma goldman speak, or let him read jean grave, or bakunin, or some other writer of 'crude' pamphlets, and he might become interested, he might be able to understand. but since it seems that truly refined people cannot enjoy the pleasures of freedom without being, at any rate at times, worried because of the condition of the 'mass,' what is to be done? this objectionable crudity must remain until there is a demand for something more subtle on the part of the workers for whom is intended all propaganda. the rich and cultured presumably have brains which they can use to solve the problems for themselves or to digest the things written by anatole france and others. but how do you suppose that i, for instance, could a few years ago have relished anatole france? wouldn't you think it idiotic for anyone to have given me such books, at that time, with any expectation of my appreciating their refined and evanescent anarchism?" it must have been a strange sight that of terry sitting on his dilapidated bed in the rogues' gallery, with his eternal cigarette in his mouth, talking to marie and perhaps to some prostitute or pickpocket! we begin already to see the result on marie's education: that will appear complex and manifold, but it is likely that on many a half-formed creature who afterward passed out of terry's life, his words yet made an impression which perhaps in some later darkness revived an idea which explained and justified his miserable existence. chapter ix _the salon_ the rogues' gallery went the way of all good things: it ceased to exist when the creative spirit was gone. terry went to pittsburg, as we have seen, to find the flaw in the tanning process, and while he was away marie attempted to conduct the academy of anarchism. but she was too much interested in what is called "life" to make a sustained mental or moral effort without the inspiring presence of a man whose central passionate ideas never changed. the personal jealousies which terry's philosophic attitude and idealism tended to dissipate became, during his absence, too strong for the bond uniting the "rogues," and when terry returned he found that his little colony had dispersed and that marie, unable any longer to pay the rent, was living with her old friend katie. this was, to our idealist, a deep disappointment. on the heels of his final break in pittsburg with society came this sign of woman's weakness. terry might easily have expected it, but one of the limitations of an idealist is an insufficient knowledge of realities. to men of his temperament there is always a distinct shock envolved in coming face to face with an actuality. truth is the element of the idealist, but an abstract truth into which concrete realities seldom fit. terry did not, or tried not to, mind, at this time, this continued sexual freedom, or rather vagaries, of marie's life; for that fitted into his scheme of personal freedom: he zealously strove to respect the private inclinations of every human being. but the least sign, in any of his acquaintances, of a compromise with the integrity of the soul, of any essential weakness, met with no tolerance from him. "he passed him up," on the spot, with a scornful wafture of his hand. that marie had yielded to the stress of circumstances, had been unable to hold out in the rogues' gallery, galled the relatively uncompromising, exigent idealist. if she had resorted to temporary prostitution to hold the society together he would have admired her. but, instead, she weakly sought, like any merely conservative woman, the shelter of katie's roof. the first seed of the essential discord which finally resulted, at a much later time, in their relations was planted thus in this deep irritation of terry's soul; it did not, however, affect seriously his love for marie as a person or his interest in her as a social experiment. but it tended to make him feel more lonely and to render him more hopeless of any realisation of the ideal, as he saw it. when terry returned, without a job, and with no intention of trying for one, and found marie living with katie, he had a long talk with the two women. katie was still with her husband, nick, but she was willing to quit him in order to live with and take care of, her darling marie. she proposed to marie and terry to hire some rooms and all live together. she would work as cook in a restaurant and thus support the three of them. to this eager desire of katie's terry refused to consent; but he also refused to work. what was to be done? he was too proud willingly to live on katie, and he was principled against labour. katie wanted the luxury of her proposed arrangement. she quarrelled with terry, but he interested her. already she began to look on these two as her superior cultivated ones, aristocrats, with whom it was a joy to live and for whom it was a pleasure to work. to work for them, especially for marie, she would drop her old nick, good dull man, in a moment. an event which happened just at the right moment to decide things, finally brought about the union of the three. one night terry was drinking in a saloon, talking philosophy, and quoting literature. some rapid lines from swinburne had just left his lips when an elderly man, who had been listening to terry's talk approached him and said: "you are the man i'm looking for, won't you have a drink?" as he spoke, he flashed a fifty dollar bill over the bar and repeatedly treated the crowd, all in terry's honour. "before we separated that night," said terry, telling me the story, "i learned that the old guy had fifty thousand dollars and that he would soon go down and out, for he had all sorts of bad diseases. he knew it himself, but he was an old sport and he wanted his fling before he died. he liked me and wanted me to be bar-tender in a saloon he owned. he lived above the saloon and wanted a housekeeper to take care of the rooms. so i told kate here was her chance. the next day marie, katie, and i moved into the rooms, where the old man lived, too, and i began my work as a bar-tender. "i did not regard this job as work: it was really graft, for i had decided that my old friend, not long for this world, did not need all of his money and that i might as well turn part of it toward katie, to help maintain a common house for us all. so, every night, after the day's work, i turned the roll that i received behind the bar over to katie, who tucked it away in the bank. i don't know whether the old guy knew about it or not, if he did, he did not care. he died after two or three months, but katie had increased her bank account by three or four hundred dollars." terry is strenuous about this story. he is evidently anxious lest it be thought that he later became a mere parasite on katie. he prides himself on having taught her to steal from an unkind world, but he does not like the idea that she has slaved for him without any help in return. katie did not prove to be a good pupil. she was not naturally "wise," in the slang sense, but gained what she gained by hard labour. even while she was housekeeper for the old guy she felt she earned all the money she tucked away. "i worked hard for the old man," she said, "and i only got about one hundred and thirty dollars for all my work. i thought i made that much." there is a slight difference in the amount received, in terry's account and in katie's, but it is clear that it was not very much. it is interesting and characteristic that terry wants it to appear to have been "graft," while katie looks upon the money as honest wages, received in an unconventional way. nick was definitely deserted, and the new "salon" formed, with terry and marie as the bright particular stars and katie as the happy means of living, if not in luxury at least in independence. they lived on her eight or nine dollars a week with the comfortable feeling that there were several hundred dollars tucked away in the bank, the result of katie's savings and terry's ideas. the salon was of a more select and higher order intellectually than had been the rogues' gallery. the people who frequented the three little slummy rooms on the west side where terry, marie, and katie lived were mainly anarchists in theory, and occasionally one or another of them was so in practice. they mainly consisted of rebellious labourers who had educated themselves in the philosophy of anarchism.[ ] they had ideas about politics and government and the relation between the sexes. they were indeed all "free lovers," and quite naturally so; the rebellious temperament instinctively takes as its object of attack the strongest convention in society. anarchism in europe is mainly political; in america it is mainly sexual; for the reason that there is less freedom of expression about sex in america than in europe: so there is a stronger protest here against the conventions in this field--as the yoke is more severely felt. while i was in italy and france i met a number of anarchists who on the sex side were not ostentatiously rebellious. they were like the free sort of conservative people everywhere. but in political ideas they were more logical, sophisticated, and deeply revolutionary than is the case with the american anarchists, who, on the other hand both in their lives and their opinions, are extreme rebels against sex conventions. it is only another instance of how unreason in one extreme tends to bring about unreason in the other. our prudishness, hypocrisy and stupid conventionality in all sex matters is responsible for the unbalanced license of many a protesting spirit. so there was many an "orgie" in the salon--sexual and alcoholic: and many wild words were spoken and many wild things done. but these same extreme people were gentle and sensitive, too, and emotionally interested in ideas. they went to lectures on all sorts of social subjects, they read good books of literature and crude books on politics, they grouped together and enjoyed to a certain extent their communistic ideas. they published their anarchistic newspapers and they welcomed into their ranks people who otherwise could have attained to no consolatory philosophy--who would have had no society and no hope. and they did not do it for the sake of charity--hollow word!--but from a feeling of fellowship and love. you, reader, who may think ill of thieves and prostitutes--too ill of them, perhaps: if you can come to see that social differences are of slight value in comparison with the great primal things and the universal qualities of human nature, you will perhaps be better if not more "virtuous" than before, and may be kinder, less self-righteous, and do far more good, no matter how "charitable" you are now inclined to be. you have never been able to arouse the real interest of the proletariat, for the simple reason that you have never been really interested in them. but you do arouse their hatred and their contempt. they ought not, of course, to hate and despise anything, especially anything that means as well as you do. but they, though they are anarchists, are human, all too human, sometimes, like the rest of us. here are some of the ideas of the salon about you, about us, let me say, as voiced by terry and marie. to begin with, terry: about our "culture" he writes: "there is not much doubt about the sapping influence of culture. it seems that narrowness of range means intensity of emotion. this is seen in the savage, the child, and uncultivated men as well as other animals. i might even go farther and say we see it in such titans as balzac and wagner, who seek to compress all the arts into their own particular art. the mind that finds many outlets generally overflows in dissipation of energy instead of digging a deep single channel of its own. and yet to focus our feelings to one point may be a dangerous accomplishment. for instance, the fulminating fire of swinburne's radium rhymes, while harmless to himself, may become dangerous through me or some other 'conductor.' unfortunately, the inability to foretell the ultimate effect of any given idea produces that form of inhibition called conservatism, and to this vice people of so-called culture are especially prone. it takes recklessness to be a social experimentalist or really to get in touch with humanity. our careful humanitarians, our charitable ones, never do, for they stick to their conservatism. how we do fashion our own fetters, from chains to corsets, and from gods to governments. oh, how i wish i were a fine lean satirist!--with a great black-snake whip of sarcasm to scourge the smug and genial ones, the self-righteous, charitable, and respectable ones! how i would lay the lash on corpulent content and fat faith with folds in its belly; chin and hands[ ]; those who try to beat their breast-bone through layers of fat! oh, this rotund reverence of morality! 'meagre minds,' mutters george moore, and my gorge rises in stuttering rage to get action on them. verily such morality as your ordinary conservative person professes has an organic basis: it has its seat in those vestiges of muscles that would still wag our abortive tails, and often do wag our abortive tongues. "to arouse such fat ones to any onward flight it may take the tremendous impact of a revolution. it may take many upheavals of the seismic soul of man before the hobgoblins of authority are finally laid in the valley. "how many free spirits have been caught and hampered in the quagmire of conservatism. yet they have the homing instinct of all winged things: they return to the soul and seek to throw off the fat and heavy flesh of social stupidity. many great free spirits there have been who possess this orientation of the race and have brought us tidings of the promised land. how many thundering spirits have commanded us to march by the tongued and livid lightning of their prophetic souls, but how few of us have done so! why, to me, this world is a halting hell of hitching-posts and of truculent troughs for belching swineherds. the universe has no goal that we know of unless eternity be the aim; let us then have the modesty of the cosmos, and no other modesty, and be content to know our course, and be sure to run it. "i have tried for freedom, indeed, everywhere, but i find the 'good ones' always in my way. how well i know the cost of my attempt! my heavy heart and my parched and choking throat, they know! i may indeed beat my breast alone in the darkness in a silent prayer for freedom and hear no response from the haunting hollows of the night. such hungry freedom i had and have; and i could share it only with the outcasts of the world: the fat and rotund charitable ones would none of it. this freedom is possessed only by him who is afflicted over much with himself because he has been crazed by others and made mad by his escape from them. i suppose i am mad, for to believe myself perfectly sane in a greatly mad world is surely a subtle species of lunacy. and yet i am compelled to act towards others as if they were more sane than i. to feel as if one were eternally in a court-room trial, with lean lunatics for lawyers and fat philistines for judges, this is life. "i am only one of the human victims who studies his own malady because he likes universal history. the world has thrown me back upon myself and made me at times what is called mad. after being down-hearted for some time, i grow superstitious and imagine that some strange and fatal spell is hanging over us all. even my own acts and thoughts take on the futility of nightmare, and nirvana is very welcome, if i could be sure of it, but i had rather stay what i am than start life all over again in some other shape, with a possible creeping recollection of my former existence. i have at times startled intimations that i lived in vain in some former unhappy time; so i shall try to postpone the eternal recurrence as best i may." thus terry tries not only to reject the laws of "fat" society, but at times he strives against what he imagines to be the deep laws of the universe: he tries to stem the tide of fate, and this in the name of truth! it shows how far remote from reality is the truth of the idealist; and yet such an attitude is often forced upon a sensitive spirit by rough contact with imperfect society. although terry is the most perfect specimen of the anarchists i have known, yet they all have more or less the quality of idealism so marked in him. marie's letters teem with the spirit of revolt, which of course was the atmosphere of the salon. with her it is always less ideal, more personal, more egotistic than with terry. in one of her letters she told "how she was led to try to get a job again, in order to buy some pretty things." a few days' search, however, disgusted her and brought her back completely to the mood of the salon, and led her deeply to appreciate _hedda gabler_, and to condemn american morality and the "good" people. of hedda she wrote: "her character always did appeal to me, but last night i was in the mood especially to understand and sympathise with hedda, to be hedda, in fact. for a few hours i was as brave and wonderful in thought and feeling as she. it was the reaction from my stupid days in hunting a job. her disgust with everything, her search for something new and different, the fascination she felt for saying and doing dangerous and reckless things--this i could understand so thoroughly! i was in a very reckless and discontented mood, but i was able to get away from myself and become hedda for awhile; and this made me think of what a wonderful thing it is, what a power ibsen has, to produce such emotions by merely stringing a few words together. why, the very name hedda, hedda gabler! when eilert says it, what does it not convey! terry and i had a long talk about it, and about literature in general, so the result was that i became calm, quiet, and reflective--as i love to be, but which i can be only very seldom. i have an almost continuous craving for something new and strange, like hedda. but somehow reading and thinking about her calmed me. i can find new emotions in books, and this satisfies me for a time, but they are never vital enough to last me long. it is only sterile emotions we derive from literature, and so i turn again restlessly to life. "but when i turn to life i find for the most part people who are unwilling to give themselves up to life, who will not follow out their moods, or have none. when i am no longer capable of abandoning myself, why continue? most people seem to me to be dried up. they look as if they never felt anything, so expressionless, so automatic are they, as if they had been wound up to walk and talk, and eat and sleep in precisely the same way for a certain number of years. this seems to be the american type. i suppose you have read of the caruso affair--how he kissed a woman in central park, or wanted to, and the howl it made? the way they all jumped on him, in the name of morality! and you remember what happened to gorky, when he was here? why, these american stiffs, what do they mean by morality? since they are much too cold-blooded for immortality, what do they know about it? this country is composed of pie-eating, ice-water drinking, sour-faced business people. if one with emotions comes to this country, he is of course immoral. if there were no foreigners here, this country would resemble the north pole. "i'm glad i am not an american in blood, for then i would not be as interesting to myself as i am now. sometimes i stand before my mirror and look at myself for a long, long time; it always surprises me that i look so commonplace. surely, something of what i have in me ought to show in my face. but i know it's there, anyway. i know i'm altogether different from anyone else, i know it with a kind of fierce joy; not better, of course, but different. "for instance, this regularity and system they talk about! you wrote me to be more regular and the like of that, if i wanted to sleep better. you, too, are a typical american! just imagine me drinking milk to make me sleep or grow fat! the thought of such a thing makes me shudder. your remark about amorous sport being a soporific if performed regularly and without excitement made me double up with laughter. but i am quite sure that the performance of such a 'duty' would not induce sleep. i am only moved to such things by new lovers, and then i desire not sleep but wakefulness. and then, too, usually such desires come to me at noon, not at night, and who ever heard of sleeping at noon! "as for the other physical exercises that you recommend, i do walk along muddy, prosaic streets and work in our household until i grow weary and ask the gods what sins i have committed. my beloved cigarettes, which are as dear to me as sleep itself, my solace when sleep flies, my comfort, you would take these away from me! what would i do without them? i am without them sometimes, when terry takes some of my tobacco, and then i am angry at him! the only plan i have is to have enough tobacco. otherwise, i have nothing arranged, no plan. you think there is something fine in having logical arrangements for all things. i have never felt that way. i am only a poor creature of an hour, of a moment, and have never had plans. i would love to be where you are now, in paris, that home of the planless, the free and joyous and emotional people." what most people think is good, is worth while, is in good taste, the salon rejected; partly, of course, in the spirit of mere rejection, of revolt, but based nevertheless on a higher ideal of human love than obtains in our society. these anarchists are not historians or practical people and they are not as much interested in what society must be as in what society ought to be; and because they see that society is not what it ought to be, because they as unfortunate members of the labouring class feel that the origin of our society is the root of injustice, they rebel totally against that society, rejecting the good with the evil. they passionately believe that the real and radical evil in our social world is partly kept there by our very justice, by our very morality, our very religion--kept there not so much by what is called evil in our society as by what is called good. they see that much large kindness is prevented by the morality which is expressed in the idea of private property, that much large virtue is denied by the institution of marriage, that psychological truth and christian kindness at once are not considered by the social court, which looks only to the law--to the complex, historical law, so often meaningless and unjust to human feeling, so often based upon special "interests" and ancient prejudices. their situation, as proletarian interpreters of the working class, enables them to see whatever is true in this view with peculiar vividness. for, of course, it is to their interest to see this truth; for truth is only an impassioned statement of our fundamental needs. the salon was composed of the poor and the criminal, and what kept it together was the human desire to form a society, the norms of judgment of which should give value to the individual members--the deep need of justification. there were fakirs in the salon, unkind people, unjust people, vicious people; there were mere "climbers," persons who saw their only chance for recognition and livelihood in the espousal of anarchistic ideas. but there were also kind people, relatively just people, and moderate ones, honest and strenuous with themselves. there were none perfect, as there are none perfect in any society. we shall see how terry became disgusted finally with the anarchists themselves, preferring even insanity and probable death to them. and marie's letters are full of satire of her companions, of the perception of their weaknesses and inconsistencies. she never embraces or rejects them so completely as terry does, for she sees them more clearly; therefore she sees them more humorously, understands them better. her letters teem with "psychological gossip," so to speak, in which some of her companions seem portrayed with relative truth. one she wrote me, while i was seeing something in london, of an anarchist named nicoll, who was a friend of william morris and still edits morris's old paper, is full of both appreciation and satire of a number of "radicals": "an old friend of nicoll's used to talk to me by the hour about him. he, the friend, an ordinary, rather stupid fellow, once helped poor nicoll, got a room for him and gave him money, after he was released from prison. he felt proud to think that a man like nicoll would accept hospitality 'from a poor bloke like me,' as he put it. his friendship with nicoll has been the great event of his life. whenever anything occurs in the radical movement which recalls ever so slightly the affair of which nicoll was the scapegoat, his old friend will say, in his funny jewish cockney, 'that's always the wey, like nicoll's kise, for example.' then he launches forth into eloquent streams of denunciation, for he does not regard nicoll as at all insane, but on the contrary, 'the finest man ever downed' by aristocrats like turner and kropotkin. "this affair has made our friend pessimistic about anarchism, at times, and inclined to join the socialist party. his life is made miserable by the ceaseless debate of his mind and soul over which of these two philosophies is the best one for the race. he, suspiciously, is always looking for another case like nicoll's, and is doubtful about all movements, not only anarchism and socialism, but all which preach liberty, justice, and the like, such as theosophy, single tax, sun worshippers, spirit fruiters, holy rollers, upton sinclair's helicot colony, and parker sercombe's spencer-whitman centre. all these he has tested and found more or less wanting. life grows daily more melancholy for him, as he continues, on account of 'nicoll's kise,' to probe beneath the surface of all the cults and movements which profess boundless love for humanity, truth, justice and freedom. "p. r., whom you have also met in london, has got himself into trouble by making inflammatory speeches in germany. when they talked of arresting him, he immediately claimed american citizenship. but if he ever turned up in america again they would clap him in jail so quick it would make his head swim. he, together with mcqueen, was arrested here some years ago for helping start the new jersey riots, but he skipped his bonds, to the great disgust of the bondsmen, who were comrades in the movement. the movement in the whole united states, canada, europe, and asia was divided into factions over this affair, and very nearly went to pieces. but it was ridiculous to arrest him in the first place, for he could not incite a feather to riot. he is one of those flamboyant wind-bags, with a terrific command of high-sounding phrases, eloquent gestures, and fine eyes--the kind sixteen-year-old girls admire--to think i once loved him, or thought i did! he is a big little physical coward and prides himself on being the realisation of nietzsche's uebermensch. "the movement in chicago is about to resume its usual winter activity by the opening of the social science league this sunday evening. there are many cultured people in this city who think the social science league is too crude and vulgar to grace with their presence, therefore it has been resolved to establish another society of a more exclusive order, in which may be discussed important questions in a more subdued, rational, and artistic way. it is especially desired that only the 'artistic' anarchist be admitted to this new society. the crude element of anarchism is to be excluded as much as possible, but what cannot be excluded is to be subdued. if this is impossible, it shall be expelled. all illustrious lights will speak there. terry has been invited, but has refused on democratic grounds, and sticks to that 'bum' society, the s. s. league. "one of the girls who has gone over to the 'swells' is mary. she is a factory girl and an important little person, who prides herself on the amount of culture she possesses, and the famous people she has met and talked with. i introduced her once to a literary man, but she did not know he was so, at the time, and only nodded coldly. but when she found he was the famous mr. f---- she was angry at me for not putting her 'next' and was much distressed, for here was another famous man whom she had nearly talked with. "another girl whom i know has done a wonderful thing with a certain man. he is a great, strong german, who guzzles beer and bullies the other fellow in his arguments about anarchism. when i first knew him, several years ago, he was married to a nice non-resistant sort of a girl, whom he treated awfully bad--without intending to. for he is really generous and good-hearted, but is firmly imbued with the idea, which he thought was the beginning of anarchism, that one must be firm and have one's own way and do all that one wants to do, without allowing any scruple of conscience or morals or delicacy to interfere; that to be a man and an anarchist one must never allow a petticoat to come between you and your desire. so he did what he wanted, regardless of anybody. he was a sort of brutal overman; one could not help admiring the kind of barbaric splendour there was about him. and his poor wife idolised him and would stand everything from him. "now he is here with another girl. talk about a change! he has turned from a lion to a mouse. she is a little bit of a thing, only nineteen, rather silly and not very attractive. she is pretty in an outward way, but her features are unlit by any glimmer of feeling or thought, or even good nature--a slothful, empty sort of prettiness. she makes him walk a chalk-line, and it is contemptible and ridiculous and pitiful to see that big man cringe before this poor, pretty, empty little thing. once in a while he tears himself away, and a glimmer of his old self returns; for an hour or two he plays his old rôle again, but if she finds out about it, it is very unpleasant for him. it is strange how weak women can subdue at times these big, husky creatures. but the more they succeed, the more dissatisfied they grow, until at last they feel contempt for the man they have subdued. the girl in this case feels that way about this big, powerful man. if he would assert himself, she would love him, as she did when she saw how he bullied his wife and all others. but at bottom we women are pleased, for it is a triumph for our sex, though we feel a little jealous because not one of us could have been the lion-tamer, instead of this weak little creature. terry is wild about it, and tries to lead the enslaved hercules into evil ways and keep him out at night, but all these things have lost their charm for the big man, who now would rather stay at home with the little girl. she, however, finds things very tedious, particularly in the day time, when her big man is at the factory, for she has nothing to do. so she passes her time at esther's house. "i would go crazy were i in esther's place. poor esther, she doesn't know what to do, either, for she cannot be always ill. she takes pleasure in being an invalid, but she can't use this plea for sympathy all the time, people get tired of it. but esther is fortunate in having somebody to whom she can tell all her aches and pains and their history. she has found a unique occupation, in scrubbing. she starts monday mornings and finishes saturday afternoons, and then on monday starts again. i was with her a week, and that's the way she spent the days. perhaps she is like mary maclain and finds a peculiar inspiration in this fascinating task. if you were a woman i would write more about esther's scrubbing, which is very wonderful, but you probably would not understand. jay, her lover, comes home from work every evening, and, after eating the chaste evening meal of rice and beans, lights his corncob pipe, settles himself comfortably in his chair and listens carefully to the description of the aches and pains which have afflicted esther that day. these pains continue in spite of all the beautiful scrubbing. he suggests different remedies until his pipe is finished, then he calmly retires to his library and reviews a book and reads several pamphlets, writes an article for '_the demonstrator_' or '_the appeal to reason_' or some other radical paper and attends to his voluminous correspondence with the leading radicals of the day. then he retires for the night, also esther, after the farewell scrub of the dishes, table, and the rest, and the kids, too, go to roost. when i was there, i also went to bed, though it was only about half past eight. "about half past five in the morning a most infernal alarm clock emits a most hellish noise. jay and esther tumble from their couch, light the lamp, and resume their occupations. after a very chaste breakfast esther continues her scrubbing and jay finishes his correspondence and puts in the rest of the time until seven o'clock, when his work in the factory begins, in studying the new language, esperanto. oh, i spent a most charming and delightful week there; i could hardly tear myself away." one of marie's amorous episodes led her to detroit, with a "fake" anarchist, of whom there are many. after a week or two of dissipation and disillusionment, marie returned, very ill, to the "salon," where terry received her with his usual stoicism, and acted as trained nurse. repentant and disgusted, marie wrote me from her convalescent bed: "i am still far from well, but am much better. my illness was caused by too much dissipation, which i plunged into for relaxation. for some weeks previously i had got a particularly large dose of my environment. terry and i live in surroundings which would kill an ordinary person. our little home is not as bad in the summer time. we can have the windows and doors open, but now in this cold winter we must all live in one room, a very small room, where there is a stove. the dampness penetrates right through the walls and the wind comes through the holes in the window panes. sundays are the hardest days for me. then kate, queen of the kitchen, is here, and she delights in cooking all sorts of things on that day, so for the remaining six days our home smells of her culinary operations--most abominable, this odour of stale cookery! and what a mess our rooms are in on monday morning! you wouldn't comprehend, even if i told you. i have to clean up all this, and i wish i could fly away every sunday. at times i get so tired of this way of living. i hope some day i may find a large barn with a hay loft: i would immediately abolish kate and her cookery and would be comfortable for once in my life. "so i ran away, for a time, partly for relief, partly because i was rather taken with a detroit anarchist who was visiting us. though he was a comrade, he was really a philistine, which i did not see till afterwards. i saw only that he was young and lusty and wanted a lark, as i did, so i went with him on an awful tear, and returned terribly done up, as you know. "i have been lying here in this little room for three weeks. i thought surely i should die, and i was neither glad nor sorry. it was curious, this sensation of approaching death. all these days terry sat opposite me at a table reading or writing. i could see him distinctly at times, at other times everything was misty or completely dark, only his voice reached me from such a long, long distance. he sat there like an implacable fate, with calm, cold eyes, gazing above and beyond me. between two slow heart beats i felt it was almost a duty to call him and bid him farewell, but some strange sense of shyness held me back. i tried so hard to think of what i might do, and the most grotesque and comical things suggested themselves. at one lucid moment i had the brilliant idea of becoming a jockey! "other ways of passing my life revolved ceaselessly in my brain, and now at last perhaps i have found it. now that i am better i am reading swinburne aloud, in bed. the sound of my voice carried along with the music of his matchless rhythms is to me a delight and a wonder. i have discovered that the garden of proserpine should be read only when one is in a reclining position. then one's voice conveys more perfectly the weariness of all things mortal and the sweet delight of rest. i find i must practice breathing more deeply, if i wish to render the voluptuous, sinuous lines. don't you think this is a great ambition, to read swinburne well? i am so glad to find something to do, something i love to do. perhaps i may escape from all by this. "it is now five days since i started to write to you, but i still lie on my back and dream and have not found my place, and never shall. swinburne's never-ceasing, monotonous rhymes have palled upon me. even this is sordid, and then, if so, what is the rest?--the daily life filled with brutish and shallow men and women? when i can no longer endure poetry and daily life--it is then that i rush into brutal dissipation, from which i awake sick in mind and body, without hope or desire for anything but sleep: and then, once more, the garden of proserpine reveals itself to me, or some other thing of beauty. it is an eternal round. "i often think that the only way for me to be in harmony with the scheme of things would be to go down into the gutter. some years ago during my brief period of--prostitution, i suppose--i felt a strange importance. it was death to me, but something real, too. i was fulfilling a need of society, a horrible need, but a need. and then, too, all my men friends often go to these houses. all the nice, intellectual men are to be met there--men from all ranks of life--men a girl like me could never meet in any other way. during that brief time, at moments between a sleep and a drink, i used to have this fancy, which sometimes makes me shudder now, as i think of it, and yet somehow seems such a fine satisfying protest--a feeling that some day i would be seen waddling about the streets of chicago, known to all the denizens of the under world as drunken mary! i saw myself fat and repulsive, begging nickels from the passers-by and perhaps strangled at the end by some passing hobo for the few nickels in my stocking. and am i essentially worse than you, or my lady, or anyone whom society protects and honours? to me poet and pimp, politician, reformer, thief, aristocrat, prostitute are one. caste and class distinctions are too subtle for my poor brain and too outrageous for my heart, which still tries to beat with and for humanity." terry refers only in a line or two, characteristically, to this adventure and illness of marie. "she is seriously ill, the result of a mad adventure. as i exist for others when they are in pain, i am her trained nurse. she is now recovering from the drugs, the debauching, and the raving madness of sleepless nights. i will give you an account sometime of a strange piece of magic charlatanism, practiced under the guise of beautiful art!... "i think her growing recovery is largely due to the inability to secure a doctor to christen her disease. i feel rather worn with domestic drudgery, cooking, laundering, wrestling with disease without and demons within. still, as a trained nurse who can go sleepless for three weeks, i do not look upon myself as a failure." marie's health improved slowly, due in part to the unsanitary conditions of her home. she wrote: "the roof of this miserable shack leaks all the time. the other day the owner came around in his automobile. i was speechless. it made me mad to think of that hound, riding in his car which we had paid for. oh, the miserable people who live in these two houses: old, decrepit women who earn their living by washing clothes for others. it would make your blood boil to see them. and then to see that fat dog in his auto, accepting money from them and not ever giving them a whole roof in return. when i saw him i wanted to say so much. i could only choke. oh, when you hear of the brutality of the mob, don't believe it. the mob may indeed, under the impulse of the moment, burn and destroy; but think of the cold brutality of a judge sitting on his bench and calmly condemning some poor wretch to be killed, and this with no emotion. how can this be? the revolutionists in france were the kindest beings, in comparison. they had personal injuries to avenge, and all they did was to strike off an enemy's head and that was the end. there was even a chance of being saved, if the doomed one could find the right expression, some little sentence that would affect the brutal (?) people. but this could not happen before a judge! "the trouble with the poor is, they have not enough imagination. they are not refined in their cruelties. they could never invent the bull pen, but would only quickly destroy. it is raining to-day, and i have been moving about trying to find a dry spot where i can continue writing without having a large splash come down on my nose. but i guess i'll have to give it up. oh, that cursed landlord! i'd like to do something to him, not so much for myself as for those poor old things, they are all rheumatic and stiff, but continue to live here because, poor souls, they think the rent is low. ye gods, the place is not fit for dogs to live in, and yet he charges all the way from five dollars up for these filthy, worm-eaten, rotten holes. and yet the old decrepit inhabitants of this rich man's house unbend their stiff knees in profound salaams whenever he appears." but in these leaky rooms of kate's there was often much jollity and gaiety, when the "salon" had its sessions, and proletarians of the pale cast of thought sat and smoked their cigarettes, drank their beer, kissed their girls, and talked of philosophy and literature and social evil and possible regeneration. then they were always happy, whatever the subject of their talk. marie wrote me to my villa in italy: "you write of your beautiful gardens and seem quite happy. we too are well and happy in our little old joint; you are the only one missing to make our circle complete. but perhaps sometime you can be with us, with a can on the table and good talk going round, and then i'm sure you will not miss your italian garden. emma goldman and berkman have been visiting chicago, and we had some jolly good times while they were here. she is a good fellow, when she is alone with a few choice friends. then she lets herself out. the other day we gave a social for these two celebrated ones. positively, no police, reporters, or strangers were admitted. next day there was a hue and cry in all the papers, dark conspiracy, and so on! but all we did was to have a great time: everybody was drunk before morning, and everybody felt kindly toward the whole world, and would not have cursed even the greatest 'exploiter.' we finished the evening or rather the morning by an orgy of kissing. it was quite interesting and innocent. smith has at last begun to return my affection. i think he likes me a little now. at least, he calls here frequently, and he told me once he would like to tear me limb from limb! this remark made me shudder, not unpleasantly. it must be good to be torn in that way by such a nice man. "the rose-leaves you sent from italy retained some of their sweet smell. the rose is my favourite flower, and i like to imagine that perhaps some day my dust will be soil for roses. last summer i found a poor little stillborn thing which had been hastily thrown aside, near a place where terry and i were camping. some poor little 'fleur de mal' which i covered from sight, in the sand, and marked the place with some stones and flowers. the next year i found some wild white daisies growing there. this made a deep impression on me and strengthened my hope that i, too, might become soil for roses, flowers of love. "henry is a rose, too, in his way. he is getting more picturesque every day. at the emma goldman social he was ornamented with a new straw hat, which had a very high crown and narrow brim with little black ribbons for the side. also, an enormous tie, the ends of which fluttered gaily and coquettishly in the wind. his curling black locks nearly reached his shoulders, and he has vowed never again to cut his hair, as a protest against the conventions of society. i left the social with him, and as we walked down the street in the morning he was a target for all eyes. he was talking philosophy and love to me, but this changed to fury. he flung his arms about, and shouted to the crowd: 'oh, you monkeys, sheep, dogs,' and several other kinds of quadrupeds and birds. henry is a peculiar man, but he is as sincere as anybody living and is a friend of that wonderful man, kropotkin. when kropotkin was in chicago some years ago a reception was given him at hull house. poor henry eagerly hastened there to see his friend--dressed in unbecoming and informal attire. he had not seen kropotkin for years, and so anxious was he to meet him again that he forgot his raggedness. but the dear, sympathetic settlement workers were decidedly polite in showing henry the door. but, at the psychological moment, kropotkin appeared, threw his arms around henry, kissed him, and carried on like an emigrant who runs across an exile." footnotes: [ ] see "the spirit of labour," chapter , called "an anarchist salon," for a description of some of the principal members of this society.--h. h. [ ] this is worthy of some of the mythological-christian paintings of mantegna, where the vices are being scourged by the indignant virtues.--h. h. chapter x _more of the salon_ "i have been imagining you in paris," wrote marie, "having a delightful, bohemian time. my ideas of paris are all derived from reading balzac, who has certainly created the most delightful, gay and mysterious, sad, mystic, sordid, everything one could wish in a city of dreams and realities. "when terry brought me 'evelyn innes,' by george moore, the other day, i dug into it with zeal and delight, and was surprised and pleased with his subtle psychology, during the first part of the story; but psychology can be carried to the point where it becomes incomprehensible, stupefying and monotonous. i finally grew indescribably weary of the problems of evelyn's soul, but i kept on to the end, and then sank back on my pillow exhausted. i think i shall stop reading for a while, lest i have literary indigestion. i'll try to be satisfied for the time with swinburne and shelley. our anarchistic poet lectured on shelley, the poet of revolution, the other night, and i was disappointed. he did not do justice to shelley either as a revolutionary poet or as a poet of beauty. i think shelley should be spoken of with a delicate passion, which our anarchist poet lacks. he tried hard to speak with fervour, but there is no fire in him, and what is a poet without fire? perhaps it was as well, for what's the use in casting pearls before swine? for the critics in the audience arose and condemned shelley because he was a socialist, or because he was not one. some of these critics seized upon the word libidinous. oh! there was their clue! the lecturer arose like an outraged moralist to repudiate the scandalous charge of libidinousness. i was so disgusted i vowed i would never go to another meeting. "i have indeed been going to so many 'humanity lectures,' and clubs, such as the shelley club, where the divine anarchist b----misinterprets the great bard every week to his flock of female admirers, and had been reading so much swinburne and other sublime things that recently i have had a reaction, and there is nothing now at the salon except nietzsche. he is a relief, although i feel that if i were to keep on with him i should go mad. when i feel my brain begin to turn, i start scrubbing or some other stupid thing. "though nietzsche says some very bitter things about women, who have no place whatever in his scheme of things, except perhaps for the relaxation of the warriors, yet there is something dignified in his very denunciation. his attitude toward our sex is so different from that of schopenhauer, and many other philosophers. they usually take the 'rag and a bone and a hank of hair' attitude, and are disgusting. but nietzsche warns men that women are dangerous, and danger, in nietzsche's philosophy, is a sublime thing. also, we must become the mothers of his overmen. "terry, too, is much interested just now in nietzsche; quite naturally, for terry is one of those 'men of resolute indolence' who will not work without delight in his labour. he talks a great deal just now of a plan to seek some cave and there try to become an 'overman.' i pointed out to him that that was difficult, for to become an overman he must of course 'keep holy his highest thought,' without being disturbed by the struggle for existence, and that, like zarathustra, he must have an eagle and a serpent to minister to his wants. and i suggested that i might be his eagle, for zarathustra says that woman is still either a cat or a bird or at best a cow. i prefer to believe that i am a bird, and as such could minister to my sweet overman. but terry wouldn't have it so, and replied that of course i was a bird, in a way, but he would rather have me as a pussy, or as a combination of cat, bird, and cow. i thought that too cruel, so now i am determined to be none of them, but to become an overwoman, and so be a fitting relaxation for my warrior, my overman. 'tis but a step from the sublime to the ridiculous, and i think, in this letter, i have made that step." marie's moods are many, and in her next letter she wrote in quite a different vein: "i almost wept when reading your letter about the baby. perhaps it was because of the line, 'a little daughter was born to me.' it recalled to me this christmas time many years ago when i was a little child and i heard the story of the little jesus. 'and unto us a child was born.' how those words ring in my ears! so vividly come back to me the pity i felt when i heard the story of the poor little infant born to be crucified. it always made me cry--out of pity, the pity of it all! and i wonder if we are not all, all of us, born to be crucified. "but i suppose i must congratulate you on assuming the responsibility of fatherhood for the third time. you might long ago have studied pre-natal influences and the rights of the unborn. i hope you have not neglected these sacred duties. it surprised me that you wished for a girl, for not long ago you expressed the opinion that women were soulless creatures without memory! suppose your daughter should not be an exception, how would you feel then?... you have been very active. as for me, i fear my only activity will be that of a dreamer. i differ from the dreaming class only in one respect and that is, in making confidences, which dreamers never do. they shrivel up into themselves. they usually create their own sorrows, which have no remedy except the joys they also invent. they are natural only when alone, and talk well only to themselves." in the same letter she plunges into the gossip of the salon: "i don't blame scott for his carelessness. the poor fellow has been suffering terribly because of his wife, who has left him and gone off with a new love to a new home. scott has been quite heroic about it, but he suffers. you know how in our radical society men and women try to deny that they are jealous, try to give freedom to each other. but whatever our ideas may be, we cannot control our fundamental instincts, and poor scott is now a wounded thing, i can assure you. but he speaks beautifully of his wife--even packed up her things for her and escorted her to the new place. "scott came here the other night with your friend the journalist, fiske, who has become quite a part of our little society. i am sorry to say that he is quite sad, too, but for a different reason. the poor fellow seems to be suffering from lack of literary inspirations. he has a habit of asking people what shall he write about. he asks terry, and even me, and in pity i am trying to write up the old women in our tenement for him.... "i see a good deal of thompson and his wife minna. now that thompson, who was a famous radical, is more prosperous, he is growing careful and conservative. the glory of her husband is reflected in minna. i don't call at their home so much as i did, because i made what they call a break there the other day. i thoughtlessly introduced myself as _miss l----_ to someone of his relatives or relatives' friends, after she had already introduced me as _mrs. c----_. and thompson informed me next day that it was inconvenient to explain such things to conservative people, and that i ought to be more careful in dealing with the unenlightened ones. i suppose i ought to think more of the reputation of my friends." marie likes the jews of the salon, many of them, very much, but there are some she doesn't, as the following shows: "things are rather dead in the 'movement,' just now. but there is something doing among the jewish radicals, who, you know, are very important in any radical movement here in chicago. no wonder things are lively when the jews have such a leader as mr. kohen, whom one might believe to be the long wanted messiah, destined to lead his race into the promised land, which is evidently chicago. there was a hot time about three weeks ago in the masonic temple meeting when this modern prophet demonstrated to us who were not jews that they (he and his friends) were the chosen people who would not only liberate themselves but also us from the yoke of capitalist oppression; and contrary to all previous rules, they would do this without any consideration of moneys; all that mr. kohen expected in return was due appreciation. i suppose i ought to be grateful to mr. kohen, but somehow i am not. i ought, too, to be grateful to our jewish madonna, esther, but there again i am not. poor girl! she is really the madonna of the chicago movement. all the sorrows and troubles of the salon rest upon her poor shoulders, and she silently suffers, sacrifices and redeems. then there is little sara, another chosen one. it is she who is chosen to make men miserable for the good of their souls. she has been very pensive since the great poet b---- left, for now she has no one to worry about. i suggested to her that she might worry about terry, if she liked, and she said she would try, with a weary little sigh. it was she who one day explained to me at great length that all love except sensual love was of a transient character. if, she said, man swears he loves you, but does not show any physical interest in you, you can bet that his passion is of that intangible sort that has the radiant tints but also the evanescence of dew!... "i am going to a ball next sunday night. it's on the jewish holiday in memory of the time when poor moses led the jews from egypt and they had to eat unleavened bread. all the orthodox jews will spend the day praying in the synagogue, without tasting food or drink. they make up for it the next day, though, you bet. the ball is given every year by the radical jews, usually right in the ghetto, and nearly always the followers of holy moses jump on those who no longer follow, and there's a hot time. last year the radical jews, mostly anarchists, had to have police protection! the police are good for something, after all! what should we do without them? we would exterminate each other without delay!" perhaps marie's temporary "grouch" against the jews was partly due to the irruption into her society of three new and attractive israelites of her own sex--an event happening about that time. in one of these newcomers, terry, it appears, was somewhat interested, and marie has often admitted that her philosophy of freedom is powerless to overcome her "fundamental emotions." writing of miss b---- she said: "she is a regular little becky sharp, very demure and quiet, and proper and distinguished. all the women hate her, and the men flock about her, for she is pretty and a free lover, of course. she comes once or twice a week to our salon, and then terry is always present, and they get along famously. she talks of 'the realm of physics,' or 'of biology,' and i admit it bores me, her voice is so monotonous. she takes evident pleasure in terry's society. perhaps i am a little jealous, but it does not make me feel any different toward him, and that is the main thing, the only thing i really care about.... "i must admit that i grow tired at times of the 'movement.' kate says she has cut it out altogether, and terry goes to the meetings very seldom. i dutifully attend the lectures, where they talk about the same old things in the same old way, and also the socials and visit the comrades once in a while. but they do get on my nerves sometimes. i prefer to stay at home, in the inner circle of the salon, reading and sucking at my cigarette when i have one. i scrub the floor once in a while, just because of sheer weariness from not doing anything. "terry has been writing an article on 'the general strike,' but did not finish it. he is like me in lacking energy enough to carry out any plan or purpose unless great pressure is brought to bear upon him either from within or without. i am sure that if he continued to feel strongly about the general strike he would go on to finish it. but he has a great distrust, really, of the 'labour' movement and of labour leaders. he believes that all social improvement must come from the workers, but how many difficulties there are! one of the greatest is the lack of good leaders. i myself have not much hope for the workers as long as they remain sheep who are lost without leaders, are dependent and led either by honest men who know not clearly how, where, or why, or by intelligent men, whose intelligence usually takes the form of trickery and self-interest. the intelligent honest ones seem not to be cut out to be leaders, or successful in any way. sheep are led or driven most easily by those who can make the most noise, and they follow as readily over the precipice as over the road. the slightest thing serves to frighten and scatter them in all directions, in outward confusion and helplessness, unless the burly insistent watchers are for ever at their heels. leaders of such a herd must often be unscrupulous to have any success, must use their intelligence for all sorts of devices, often cruel and unjust, to keep their flocks from wandering: any means justifies the end, which is the good of the cause. "perhaps it is a good sign that people from the higher walks of life are beginning to take notice of the workingman's problem, and maybe the ideal leader will come from above, but even so i doubt if that will help much. i have a feeling that all movements dependent on leaders must necessarily fail. of course, i know that the people of the 'higher life' fear the stupidity and brutality of the mass of workers, and argue that leaders are necessary to guide and restrain them. this is only partly true; there is hardly any doubt about the stupidity of the mob, but they are not at all so brutal. true, during times of strike they will throw stones and slug strike-breakers, but they are not nearly as brutal as the 'scabs,' who are incited, aided, and protected by the employers and police, and who lack the emotional exaltation which often inspires the workers to this violence. "during the teamsters' strike i witnessed a scene where the strikers hustled the scabs, overturned several huge wagons loaded with beef, in the centre of one of the poorest districts of chicago, where the people were suffering from want of meat, but the wretches did not even have sense enough to help themselves from this plentiful store which was left on the street guarded only by one or two policemen. and there would have been no danger of arrest, for the policemen could easily have been swept aside by the rest of the mob. it made me mad. i felt like shouting at them, 'you fools, why don't you help yourselves?' how differently a hungry bunch of kids would have acted!" terry, in his very different way, wrote on the same subject: "i never knew a sincere, not to say honest, labour leader, from business agent up. poor proletaire! forever crucified between two sets of thieves--one rioting on his rights, the other carousing on his wrongs. labour plods while plunder plays, thus runs the world away. but if he should take it into his thick head to be his own walking delegate some day!" this strange master of the "salon," this poetic interpreter of the philosophy of the man who has nothing, has, in spite of his pessimisms, a profound mystic hope. he wrote: "that toiling humanity--the labour movement--to me is a thing so vast, that whatever other movements try to exclude themselves from it, they must be swallowed up in it. all other things are but the shadows cast behind or before the ever-marching phalanx of the unconquerable, the imperishable proletaire. this is the hope which sends its thrill through us when nothing else can. at the bottom of my heart i know i am living but for one thing, and my life has been nothing but a preparation for this. of and for myself i have accomplished nothing: for to be ever ready and alert is not accomplishment.... i see a profound hope in the proletaire, for to him is granted that intense, wistful awareness of his common lot and life with his fellows. his very crowding in factories and tenements, salons, unions, and brothels, brings it home to him. yes, this very lack of space must remorselessly rub it in, even by dumb, physical close contact. the friction resulting from ten living in one room must make one of them phosphorescent--and capable of giving light to humanity. the tenement houses are harmless boxes of lucifers as long as none is ignited. the inhabitants are wofully benighted, but they possess wonderfully the quality of brotherhood, of oneness, hence arises their wonderful psychology and their æsthetics, so full and overflowing with pathos, so piercing, it carries one to that borderland where comic and tragic make marriage. "this strange crowding in our consciousness of things that do not seem to come from us and yet are of us--this clamouring consciousness is what drives me to despair and makes me feel i have not the form or shadow of things, though i may have the substance. yet i am determined to strain my self-consciousness even to the breaking point; for though i know madness lies that way, there stands my ideal, beckoning. i must grasp this great common thing which comes from all of us, from us crowded proletarians, and yet is not in any one of us. together we enjoy and suffer more than any one of us alone. there is, i believe, something deeper than the deepest woe: our racial consciousness is there and we must find it. at moments of great insight we are suddenly made aware of this, the mysterious unity of the race, but it is flashed and gone and we must await another crisis. it is only in moments of sublime sorrow that the depths of the racial consciousness is heaved up to us. joy cannot do this, for joy is narrow and wants us to do away with sorrow; but sorrow never wants us to do away with joy. keats always beheld joy in an external attitude of farewell and this is profoundly and perfectly mystical and real: joy is swallowed up in something deeper, away down in the common racial consciousness. we must all strive to be men beyond essential harm; else, standing blindly before the meaning and destiny of the race, we should go mad. most of us try to think, intellectuals; fear to abandon ourselves to alarming states of feeling where reason is crowded to the wall. and yet i feel that by abandoning ourselves completely to mere feeling lies our only hope to find the logic of the race that no individual reason can master. "let me tell you of something that recently happened to me which shows how strong this race feeling is, as opposed to merely individual or family feeling. i heard that my mother was dying. i had become reconciled long ago, had seen many things more clearly; for if joy is of the heart, sorrow is of the soul, by which we see. i wonder if woman has a 'lake' in her heart. i used to think my mother had, and when i called to see her once more, the old love-longing caught me by the throat. my presence seemed to help her some, but, though moved, i had passed beyond the family boundary-line, and was engaged in stripping myself of everything not belonging to the soul. if i wish to be something more than myself, i must be prepared to lose all, even myself. and what is my family and my mother?" terry does not like to use the word "religion." but he certainly belongs to the type of the religious man. one of the most marked characteristics of the religious temperament is this abandonment of personal and family ties, this indifference and often hostility to social law, "this emotional devotion to something intangible." all the anarchists and social rebels i have known have, more or less, the religious temperament, although a large part of their activity is employed in scoffing at and reviling religion--as they think the god of theology has been largely responsible for the organisation of social and political injustice. but the deeply religious spirits have often been hostile to theology, as well as to all other complicated forms of society. here are some religious words: "there must be some meaning," wrote terry, "for all this ancient agony. oh, that i might expand my written words into an epic of the slums, into an iliad of the proletaire! if an oyster can turn its pain into a pearl, then, verily, when we have suffered enough, something must arise out of our torture--else the world has no meaning. on this theory, all my pangs are still to come. i too will arise out of my sacrificial self and look back on my former bondage in amaze, even as i now look down on the dizzy slums where i am and yet am not! it cannot be that i came up out of the depths for nothing. if i could pierce my heart and write red lines, i might perhaps tell the truth. but only a high silence meets me, and i do not understand. in letting myself down to the bottomless, i discovered i could not stand it long enough. i am dumbly dissatisfied. i feel like a diver who has nigh strangled himself to bring up a handful of seaweed, and so feels he must down again--and again--until he attains somewhere the holy meaning of life." terry feels that somehow deep in his life he has been crucified, that society has nailed him to the cross: "i was alone on the cross and with bloodshot, beseeching eyes beheld the world objectively. yet i was aware of a harmony beyond me, though not in me or around me." it is this "harmony beyond," this religious sense of "something far more deeply interfused" which, ever conscious in the idealist's mind, makes the concrete vision of everyday fact so ugly, leads to anarchism of feeling profound and constant. but in this world, which as a whole the heart rejects--"my heart," said terry, "is the last analysis of all things"--the idealist sees things of beauty which constitute for him the elements of perfection, elements which in some future state he dreams may be fully realised in a social whole. "i saw a fine thing from the window to-day," terry wrote, "a thing of sheer delight, the complete transfiguration of a human being. an italian street labourer came into the yard and sprawled on the grass to eat his own lunch. he was bandy-legged from being coaxed to stand alone too soon. but he had a most wonderful face; all the mobility which toil had banished from his form must have sought refuge in his eyes and his caressing countenance. catching sight of some children playing 'house,' he jumped up and in a most charming way offered them all of his cakes and went back to his luncheon. the children instinctively brought him back some of the cakes, which he not only refused, but offered them the rest of his food. they gathered in a semicircle while he spoke to them. there came something in his face and attitude which i have seen many 'cultured' people vainly attempt. he absolutely was one of them; the children stood spell-bound, dazed at the sudden transformation of a man into a child. the imagination that can become one with its object is a high form of unconscious art and rests upon the heart and the mass feeling of the race. the ancient folk-lore and ballads must have arisen from some such fusion as this. how unfair, at least unwise, it is to judge the individual action of the proletaire, when he is made for action in the mass." this vague philosophy and transcendental ethics pass naturally enough, at times, into the feeling of violent revolution, where bomb-throwing, if not advocated, is emotionally sympathetic. "just now," wrote terry, "there is strong predisposition among the 'reds' to resort to russian methods. it needs only the occasion, which must be waited for, and cannot be created. when the 'error' is great enough, the 'terror' will surely rise to the occasion. were it not for my faith in this, i should be glad to see humanity lapse back to whence it came." in the idealist there is a growing impatience with the world; in his attempt to react even against nature and some of the necessary qualities of men there is such inevitable failure that no moral revolutionist or anarchist can indefinitely endure the struggle. he is destroyed by his fundamental opposition to the world which he seeks to destroy. therefore, impatiently, weakly, he sometimes breaks out--with a bomb--even against his philosophy and his temperament. he is led into contradictions. one of them touches upon his feeling of "class consciousness." terry at times, as a transcendental moralist, rises above this feeling, but his special instinct as a "labour" man often asserts itself against and in contradiction to his passion for the oneness of the race. in my intimate association with him i sometimes saw that, much as he liked me, he felt that i was of another "class." in the work which resulted in my book, _the spirit of labour_, i frequently came in discouraging contact with this "class" distrust of me--in him and in others. marie alone seemed free of it, in her relation to me, and yet she wrote: "i think we have a peculiar sympathy for each other, and yet i realise that in some subtle way there is not that perfect understanding there ought to be. just think of what extremes we two come from--how different our social environment! i know you understand as nearly as is possible for one of your class, and yet i doubt if you can really sympathise with the ideas of anarchism which springs naturally from only one class--the labour class. do you not hesitate sometimes and doubt that all men are worthy of the better things of life, the coalheaver as well as the banker and artist? even i hesitate sometimes, when i see the coarseness and ignorance of these poor plodders of earth, and when i think of all the really great things that slavery has accomplished. but who knows how much greater things might be, if done freely by free men? when i remember that these poor plodders have never had a chance, i relent and feel so sorry and so hopeless. how often terry and i have walked along the boulevards, admiring the beautiful homes of the rich. oh, it used to make me wild! i felt that i belonged to humanity, and yet i could only enter these beautiful homes as a servant, an object of contempt--an object of contempt supposed, moreover, to have morals, and religion, too!" of "class consciousness," terry wrote: "class feeling has always been a deep problem to me: it emanates from profound depths. this reflection concerns you. many of your 'labour' friends here seem to regret that there were many things they could not tell you; not that they had any conscious lack of faith in you as an individual; indeed, they had great faith in you as a person. their distrust of you was a class distrust; they dreaded to betray the interests of their class. they felt a fundamental antagonism, not to you as an individual, but to you as a member of your class. from their social sinai they enunciate the eleventh commandment, 'thou shalt not be a scab!', and the other ten commandments do not seem to them so important. but you, they think, cannot feel this commandment as they do, so passionately, so fully. to them, it is the keynote of solidarity; to you, partly at least, a principle of division, of separation. "no wonder our class--the thinkers among them--rejects the morality of your class--property morality, and the rest meant only to make property morality as strong as a law of god. i made at one time the fatal mistake of the many simple labourers who are organically honest. i spent most of my best life in seeking a solution of our hard lot from those above me. after a loss of many feathers and some brave plumage, but no down, i must in all humility beat my way back to the traditional lost ideals of our organically incorporated class.... perhaps the most conscienceless class who seek to solve the insoluble is the 'cultured' class. but most of them seem to me like artistic undertakers officiating at the 'wake' of life. with their platitudes, their prudery, and their chastity, they make for death. these languid ones desire to have life served up to them in many courses. greed lies at the bottom of their being, and so they preach content to the masses, though for the workers they have nothing in their shallow souls but contempt. this cultured leisure class has had the time and cunning to perpetrate one great and tragic trick. they have made social falsehoods so complicated that they themselves neither understand nor wish to understand.... why is it that in all the great authors i detect an air of condescension, marking their contempt for those who make and keep them what they are? with what fine contempt the 'rube' is surveyed by the faker who has plucked him! must i put these classic souls of art in the same category? the art for art's sake people--these make me sick. it is at best an argumentative confusion springing from the fact that in the perfect work of art there is such a fusion of form and substance as to resist dissociation and defy analysis. perhaps this fact accounts for tolstoi's contempt for some of the classic art. it seems to me that most classic art is one of two things: either it smacks of smug content and over-fed geniality or it is permeated with a profound pessimism. the philosophers are worse than the artists; they are the ringleaders of the betrayers of humanity. art at least makes the atonement of beauty for its mistakes, but this cannot be said of philosophy. "herbert spencer, for instance, who represents the high-water mark of a philosophy that will not hold water, pours out the vials of his bottled-up wrath on the poor unfortunates of london who are compelled 'to make a living' by tips in opening the carriage doors or holding the horses of the wealthy. he had nothing but loathing for the pregnant girl who tries to break her 'fall' by taking advantage of the 'poor laws.' for the workingman, who sincerely tries, at least, to settle the 'affairs of state' in the pot-house over a mug of ale, spencer had nothing but contempt; but to the parliamentary people who settle the same 'affairs' over champagne and prostitutes, he played the lick-spittle.... the recantation of his 'social statics' is the worst case of intellectual cowardice on record.... he went down with final contempt for the workers who served him, gave him his daily bread, made his ink, pen, and paper and bound the twenty volumes of his philosophy of falsehood! may his 'works' rest in oblivion!... "in dismissing spencer, it is worthy of note that the very thing which made him pause in the righting of social wrongs is the thing which will cause the revolution, namely, the complicated nature of social falsehoods. in recanting his published truth on the land question, he admitted that, although the legal title to land was obtained by murder and dispossession of original occupants, the matter was now too complicated to be dealt with. if this be so, if justice cannot be done because of the difficulties in the way, then all hail to the simplicity and elemental justice of a red revolution!... "yes, sometimes i feel like the crudest of the revolutionists, although i call myself a philosophical anarchist. sometimes the jails seem to yearn for my reception, and i question my right to be at large. nothing but a decreasing cowardice leaves me at liberty. and if i could not do more for my soul behind the bars than i have done in front of them, then i am fit only for durance vile. i, who have out-fasted the very flies till they fled my room, dread but one thing in the life of a prison--that i should have no time for reflection and repose! but out of a born anarchist it would make of me a compulsory socialist, condemned to work for the state--a veritable dungeon of disgrace. "it is not so much that i love life, though as a rule the poor, who are so close to life, worship it in a way that puts all other things to scorn. i know nothing that reaches farther up or deeper down than this. it is only in the gutter that life is truly worshipped. and that is why i search for my last faith there--in the gutter, whence all faith really springs. "and yet to have faith even in the gutter is an act of deep imagination. in the rotting rooms beneath me lives a worker with a family of six girls and one boy. capitalism has crucified his carcass for fifty years and now 'laid him off.' he has been looking for work for the last month. i watch the insanity in his restless, aimless movements, and i feel desperate enough to try to get him a job. unfortunately, he does not drink; so his pipe, ever in his mouth, is the only obstacle between him and the mad-house, or the poor-house. every morning at six o'clock, his sandwich dinner concealed in his pocket, he makes a brave show of walking away briskly in his hopeless search for work; for there are too many younger men. his assumed activity is only put on till he turns the first corner, for he tries to conceal his lameness and decrepitude, especially from his wife, who strains her gaze after him. just before starting off he takes the superfluous precaution to put some shoe-blacking on his hair which shows white about the temples. he comes back after a six hours' search, about noon, his neglected dinner still in his pocket. he has tramped ten or twelve miles with no open shop for him. he does not blame anyone, but regards it all as an accident that has happened to him in some unfortunate way. he broods over this till i can see it in his eyes; but i don't dare say anything to him. he is too old, and i might only make his trouble worse. if i were a sculptor i would put him before the world in a material almost as hard and i hope more enduring than itself. his arms never hang down by his side, but seem to be set in the position required by his last job, shovelling. it reminds me of the time, thirty years ago, when i was laid off, and the madness first got in and crouched behind my eyes.... "yes, i suppose i am mad. it is true that if i cannot have the intellectual red that heralds the approach of dawn, then i want the red light of terror that ushers in the night. my feelings have been clamouring for many years against my cowardly better judgment. i believe some day they will break loose and throw me, as from a catapult, even up against the stone wall of atrocity we call society." thus the idealist becomes frenzied at times at the incredible difficulties in the way of a total revolt against society, even against nature. we shall see how the absolute nature of his anarchism led terry further and further along the path of rejection, "passing up" one thing after another, even letting anarchism as a social enthusiasm go by the board and making his continued relation with a human being, even with marie, a practical impossibility. chapter xi _the end of the salon_ terry's love for marie was partly due, as we have seen, to his passion for social propaganda: that she represented the "social limit" was a strong charm to him. she, woman-like, always insisted on the personal relation, and for a long time his interest in her personality as such, combined with his social enthusiasm, was strong enough to keep the bond intact. when, however, his social enthusiasm paled, and his merely individualistic anarchism became stronger, his interest in marie weakened. the times grew more frequent with him when he doubted the social side of anarchism itself--when this social propaganda seemed as hollow and as unlovely as society itself; and when he saw the weaknesses and vanities of his associates, how far they were from realising any ideal. then, more and more, he was thrown back upon himself, for as his hope in the new society weakened, his hope in marie as an embodiment of it weakened also. marie's sex interests, always freely and boldly expressed, played, at first, no part in the growing irritability of their relations. marie's occasional "affairs" with other men, sometimes taking her away from the salon for a time, were taken by terry in silence. even when he came face to face with the fact of marie's absence of restraint in this respect, lack of delicacy and feeling for him, he did not complain. to do so was against his principles of personal freedom; and the fling in the face of society envolved in marie's conduct pleased him rather than otherwise; also there was in him a subtle feeling of superiority over other men, in the fact that he was without physiological jealousy, or if not, that he could at least control it. even marie's jealousy of him, whenever he was in the society of another woman, he took with a patient shrug. terry's interest in other women was not a passionate one: in it was always an element of the pale cast of thought, and marie had no real cause for jealousy. but terry tolerantly took it as a feminine weakness and tried to shield marie from this unreasonable unhappiness. on her account he gave up many a desire to talk intimately with some female comrade. but marie had no such tolerance for him. not only was she quite free with other men and to the limit, but she often went into a real tantrum of jealousy. one day she followed terry all over town, fearing that he had an appointment with a well-known radical woman. marie often acknowledged to me her inconsistency. "but, you know," she would say, "our principles and ideas do not count much when our fundamental emotions are concerned." this was a true remark of marie's, and i have often had occasion to perceive the great degree of it throughout the radical world. men and women often try in that society to be tolerant; they give one another free rein sometimes for years, but generally in the end, the resistance of one or the other weakens; human nature or prejudice, whichever it is, asserts itself, and tragedy results. this i had occasion to see over and over again: how nature triumphed over the most resolute idealism and brought about in the end either ugly passion or pathetic unhappiness. as terry began to doubt his deepest hope, as he began to turn away from the ideas about which his salon was formed, he saw and felt more clearly the limitations of marie's personal character; and her acts began to hurt him. perhaps he began to lose faith in both--marie and the salon--at the same time. "i am afraid," he wrote, "that the days of the salon are numbered. i am of the opinion that most of our latter-day radicals are on a par with our latter-day christians. they have grown weary, or wary, of their original purpose. they seem to think liberty a beautiful goddess who will never come: they willingly believe in her as long as there is no danger of or in her 'coming.' how frantically most of the radicals signal back the 'waiting' reply: the track is not clear for the coming of liberty!--and they do not want to have it cleared!... "you will be surprised to know that i have dropped the radicals, with the exception of thomson, and i fear he too must walk the plank and go by the board. i am becoming quite implacable toward these intelligent people, and the salon will soon be void of my presence. the spirit of it has gone already and cannot be revived. that is why i left my mother's home--because the spirit of home had gone--and why i must leave the salon. i cannot submit to being a discordant spirit; therefore i must be a wandering one. "so i must leave katie and marie. if i could make a living i would work for it, as i did when i thought so. but i shall never work--or toil rather--for sheer subsistence except behind the bars. i am driven to be a parasite, for honest living there is none. the time is up, and i must leave. several years ago i ruined whatever robustness i had by tending bar so that katie might knock down some three hundred dollars. at one meal a day and a place to try to sleep, i think that she and i are about even; she also thinks so, though she never says so, to me. she is willing and able to take care of marie, for she has five hundred dollars in the bank and a great love for the girl." terry, sometimes terribly frank, is extremely reticent about marie; and the account of their misunderstanding comes mainly from her letters: "i have had such a bad misunderstanding with terry, or he with me, i don't know which it is. my god, but women can be brutal, though! you ought to read jack london's 'the call of the wild.' you might substitute women for dogs. some years ago i was a feast for the dogs (women), and now i see much of this same fierce brutality in myself, and poor terry is feeling it. i have been away with a man, and terry somehow feels it much more keenly than ever before. "and yet i love terry: surely if i ever knew what love means, i love him and have loved him always. though i am the most brutal person on earth, i am so without intention, without knowing it even, at times. and i am so tired that sometimes i have no feeling for anything, not even for terry, and he does not understand that. i feel out of harmony with every one just now. it is hardly indifference, rather a terrible weariness. perhaps my recent reading of nietzsche has helped to give me a feeling of weary hopelessness. and then, too, the spirit of our salon is gone; i don't know exactly why. even terry has changed very much in his feelings and ideas. he is not much interested in the things he used to be absorbed in. he is more cynical, especially of social science, and yet he seems to me to be making a very science of looking at things unscientifically. he seems to be holding his emotions in check, is less impulsive than ever, and is losing much of that delicacy of feeling and expression which was so admirable in him. "i too am growing cynical, and i hate to do so. i should like to accept people at their apparent value and not always look for motives, as i am getting more and more to do. i should like to approach everything and everybody with a perfectly open heart, as a child does, but i find that i no longer do that, that i am always prejudiced. i am sure that this is due to terry's influence, for he more and more excludes everything: nothing is good enough for him. he passes up one person after another and he has no joy in life. his personality is so much stronger than mine that i am like a little thin shadow, weaker than water, and he can always bring me around to see his way of looking at people and things." this note in marie--protest against terry's tendency to cut out the simple joy of life--grew very strong at a later time; now, however, it was only suggested, and played no important part. indeed, the idea of his leaving her was to her an intolerable thought; and yet there is many a letter which suggests the approaching dissolution of the salon and of their relation. they were both, at times, terribly tired of life: with no strenuous occupation, the word of nietzsche and of world pessimism, of excessive individuality, tortured their nerves and made everything seem of no avail. work takes one away from life, is a buffer between sensitive nerves and intensest experience. strong natures who for some reason are dislocated and therefore do not work, or work only fragmentarily, come too much in contact with life and often cannot bear it; it burns and palls at once. so it was with terry and marie. without either work or children, they were forced into strenuous personal relations with one another and into a feverish relation with "life." "i feel so depressed," she wrote; "so many things have happened this last year which seemed trivial at the time, but have had big results, while other things which seemed events have turned out to be only incidents, and very small ones. thus, a careless remark of mine resulted in a quarrel between terry and me which did not lessen with time, but grew larger and larger, until now the relations of us two idyllic lovers are anything but pleasant. and a very serious attack of love from which i suffered last summer has passed as quickly and lightly as a breath of wind, while another light love of mine, which came to me last february, has assumed large proportions simply because i have been abused for it by terry, whom no one could ever displace in my heart. i was bound to defend my lover from the attacks of terry, whom i had always regarded as above such a common display of irritation in such matters. so this other man became a sort of ideal lover in my mind, and all because of terry's opposition. this man had wooed me in a great, glorious, godless fashion. he was a big man in the labour world, and he flattered me immensely, but i should never have cared for him, if terry's nature had not suddenly seemed to weaken.... "i have been so uneasy about terry lately. he has been talking so much about joining the criminal class. he seems to be losing his interest in our movement and to be looking for some other way of escape, as he calls it. he says his liberty is only a figment of his mind, that he has now reached the time for which he had all along been unconsciously preparing himself. i am, of course, used to this kind of talk from terry. he has been in the depths of despondency often enough, but nothing ever came of it except a saloon brawl. he would usually seek harris; they would break a mirror or a few glasses in some saloon, and the next day terry would have a headache, after which he was usually content to browse around his philosophy in that mild and subtle way of his, for a week or so. "but now harris is gone, and terry does not know any other person quite so strenuous in the fine art of breaking glasses and barroom fixtures in general, so, finding no vent for his accumulated despondency, he may possibly do real things. i feel so sadly for him and wish i could help him. the lord knows i would be willing to break any amount of glassware with him, but he has not much confidence in my aim, i guess; women never can throw straight. in fact, he has little confidence in me in any way lately, for he never tells me the details of his schemes, but only throws out dark and terrible hints.... "truly, something may indeed happen this time. he is so anti-social. he positively won't go out anywhere to meet people, won't go to our picnics or socials, and in manner is very strange, distant, cold, and polite to katie and me. one would think he had been introduced to us just five minutes before. perhaps he thinks that katie and i want him to go to work--common, vulgar work, i mean, for katie has lost her job and we are living in the most economical way, for we don't know when another desirable job can be found. now, terry really ought to know that i shouldn't have him work for anything in the world. i know that katie has not said the least word to him, but he is so terribly sensitive that perhaps he suspects what she may be thinking. "katie is despondent, too, and nearly makes me crazy talking of her life, past, present, and future, in the most doleful way. last night, after talking to me for two hours about the misery of life, she made the startling proposal that she and i commit suicide. 'for,' said she, 'i cannot see anything ahead of me but work, work, like a cart-horse, until i am dead. i'd rather die now and be done with everything, and you had better come with me, for you haven't anything, and if i went alone, what would become of you, such a poor helpless creature; see how thin you are, i can almost look through your bones! who would take care of you?' "after talking in this strain for what seemed to me hours and hours, katie went to bed and to sleep, and then came terry from his solitary walk--he usually goes for a walk if there are any indications that katie will do any talking--and entertained me by carelessly, carefully hinting at one of his dark, mysterious plots. then he, too, went to bed, and i, too, had forty winks and seventy thousand nightmares." but marie, even in this growing strain, never failed in her love and admiration for the strange man with whom she lived. on the heels of the above came the following: "terry is one of those characters who has not lost any of his distinct individuality. his is a nature which will never become confounded or obliterated in one's memory. the instantaneous impression of large soul, sincerity, and truthfulness he made upon me at our first meeting has never left me. this impression must have been very strong, for generally these impressions grow weaker, if people live together so closely as poor people must. all his faults, as well as perhaps his virtues, come from the fact that he is not at all practical. in spite of his experience, he does not know the world, and is a dreamer of dreams. his wild outbursts are the result, i think, of his sedentary life. sometimes we two remain at our home for weeks without venturing out, without hardly speaking to each other, and then suddenly we burst out into the wildest extravagances of speech!" a few days later there was a wilder burst than ever, and terry left the salon. marie wrote: "last week we all had a row, and terry has not been seen or heard of since. the last words he uttered were that he should return for his belongings in a few days. i am dreadfully sorry about it, especially that we could not have parted good friends. i realise and always shall be sensible of the great good i had from him and shall always think of him with the best feeling and greatest respect. the parting has not been a great surprise to me, for it really has been taking place for a long time, ever since he withdrew his confidence from me, now months past, and i have been acting with other men without his knowledge. nothing mattered in our relation but mutual confidence, but when that went, it was, i suppose, only a question of time. and, at the same time that he withdrew spiritually from me, he seemed to lose his interest in the movement, and grew more and more solitary and hopeless. "i don't know what terry is doing, or where he has gone, and i am uneasy. i would not fancy this beautiful bohemian life alone with katie, and i don't know what to do." "terry is still away," she wrote a few days later, "and my horizon looks bleak and lonely. i want to be alone where i can collect my thoughts, but, even when katie is out, i cannot think, but sit by the window staring at the old women hanging up the clothes which everlastingly flap on the lines tied between the poor old gnarled willow trees. poor old trees, their fate has been very like that of the old women. they bear their burden uncomplainingly, groan dolefully in the wind, and shake their old palsied heads. even the sparrows, true hoboes of the air, disdain to seek shelter in their twisted arms. they will die as they have lived, withering away. "i try to interest myself in household affairs, but that is so stale and unprofitable. neither can i read: my thoughts wander away and terry intrudes himself constantly on my mind. i may get so desperate that i will seek a job as a possible remedy: perhaps in that way i could get tired enough to sleep.... "i have been trying to meet terry, but he is as elusive as any vagrant sunbeam. i feel it would do me a world of good to have a long heart-to-heart talk with him. if i could only see him once a week and have him sympathise with me in a brotherly fashion and hear him say, in his old way: 'cheer up, marie, the worst is yet to come,' i should be comparatively happy and satisfied." several more days passed, and with the lapse of time marie's mood grew blacker. her next letter to me had a deep note of sorrow and regret and remorse: "terry has been away since august thirteenth. he came, while i was out, for his things. i fear it is his farewell visit; for he has not shown the slightest disposition to meet me and talk things over. i have tried in every way to see him again, but he has thus far ignored my existence. i had an idea that we two were made for each other, but i have been an awful fool. last february, as you know, i had an affair, if it may be dignified by even that name, and just for the fun of the thing i went with this light love to detroit, and came home ill, as you already know. i returned to terry full of love and regret and most properly chastened by my illness and disappointment; for other men almost always disappoint me. but i found him positively beastly. the way he abused that poor man was terrible, and i had to defend him, for i know that terry was unjust to him. i begged him to blame me, not the other man, for it was all my doing, but that only made matters worse. "i know that some people can conceal their obnoxious qualities and show only the sweet and lovely side of themselves. i sometimes like to see the reverse side of the medal, and i expected terry, as a student of humanity and an anarchist, to welcome any phase of character which might enable him to understand me more completely. "i must hesitate in attributing terry's attitude to jealousy, for i have had some affairs before, and he never seemed to care about them in the least; indeed, i often felt piqued, and thought he did not mind because he did not care about me enough. the following two weeks were, i can truly say, the most infernal and awful that ever happened to me, and i wished thousands of times that i might die, and i did come very close to it. i cannot describe that hellish time or give you any idea of terry's conduct during those weeks. he was no longer the calm, philosophical terry that you know, but the most terribly cruel thing the mind of man can conceive. "now, i know these are strong words, and i don't know if you can imagine terry that way, or if you can believe me when i say it is so. i have thought of it so many times, and i have come to the conclusion that perhaps while i was away, he and harris had a great debauch together and that terry must have taken some dope which unbalanced him for a while." i do not think it needs "dope" to explain terry's conduct. marie, perhaps, could not understand the possible cruelty of a disappointed idealist. when terry began to see that neither the anarchists nor marie would ultimately fit into his scheme of things, when his idealistic hope began to break against the hard rocks of reality, he was capable, in his despair, of any hard, desperate, and cruel act. marie continued: "during this awful time i did not blame terry, dope or no dope. i considered it all coming to me, and even wished it would keep on coming until it killed. but i made up my mind right then and there that if it was fated that i should keep in the game, there should be no more 'affairs' for me. and so help me god i have not had any from that time--six months ago--till the day terry left me. and that other man's name has not once passed my lips in terry's presence, and when it was mentioned by others when he and i were there, i grew dizzy and sick. "in time, these dreadful things were thought of as little as might be, and terry and i became excellent, though platonic friends, a novel and fascinating relation, wherein sex had no part. night after night have we sat around this table, discussing books and people, trying to penetrate the mystery of things strange and new to us. i should rather say that he talked, and i was his eager listener. often, after tossing restlessly on our pillows, when no sleep would come 'to weight our eyelids down,' the rest of the night would be spent in reciting poetry, the inevitable cigarette in one hand, the other gesticulating in the most fanciful and fervid manner. he would recite in passionate whispers--so as not to awaken katie--for hours at a time, poems from shakespeare to shelley, and verlaine to whitman, poems tender and sweet, bitter and ironical and revolutionary, just as the mood suited him. his feeling for poetry and nature seemed to grow as his hope for human society grew less. "so our relations were ideally platonic--the kind you read about in books. nevertheless, some of the old bitterness remained in terry's heart, for at times he became depressed and melancholy and so sensitive about the least little thing that i was nervous and in hot water all the time for fear i might inadvertently say or do something to hurt him or make him angry. i admit i am not as placid as i look, and katie, too, is very inflammable, so you can understand how tense the atmosphere was at times. "not very long ago, at the breakfast table one sunday morning, i urged terry to come to a meeting of the 'radicals,' adding that he was becoming a regular hermit and that it would do him good to have more social pleasure. he turned on me savagely, called me a hypocrite, and a contemptible one at that, and made a few more remarks of the kind. after a few days of strained politeness on both sides i made bold to ask him for some explanation--and i have got it coming yet! "these are just the facts. i don't go into all the little details of our many little vulgar rows, about the most trivial things. i am sure, if terry writes you about this, that his innate delicacy would never permit him to go into these sordid details, too many of which i have perhaps told you. but i am made of rougher stuff than he. i am never quite as unreasonable as he can be at times, but i am commoner." terry did, indeed, express himself in a much more laconic way about the quarrel, than marie. on the day he left, august thirteenth, he wrote me the following note: "the premonition in my last letter is fulfilled: the salon knows me no more." a later talk i had with both katie and terry throws light upon the precipitating cause of terry's departure on the thirteenth of august. it was due to terry's sensitiveness about his money relationship to katie. on that morning terry was asleep on the couch, when katie got up, made breakfast, and she and marie asked terry to join them. "not me," said he. "i think you have been eating on me long enough," rejoined katie. "it's time you got out." katie had never allowed herself a remark of this kind before. but she had not found another job and the three had been on edge for some time. the remark brought about the climax so long preparing. "i'll go," he replied, "as soon as i have finished this cigarette." "in the wordy war that followed," said terry, "we all three went the limit in throwing things up to each other. i told katie that if it had not been for me and marie she would not have had anybody to steal for; that i was eating on her stealings and mine, too. and then i left." although, as we shall see, this was not the end of the relation between terry and marie, it was in reality the sordid end of the idealistic salon. chapter xii _marie's attempt_ while marie was trying to find some trace of terry, the latter was wandering about the country. "i have been tramping about the country," he wrote me, "living most of the time in the parks. this life, where you 'travel by hand,' crowds out consecutive meditation, but i like it because i can go away at the first shadow of uneasiness betrayed on either side. my existence now is so responsive and irresponsible that it comes very close to my heart. i am living a life of contrasts: one week i spent with a rare friend who has many good books and admires me for the thing for which all others condemn me. strange, is it not, that the one thing which redeems me in his far-seeing eyes is what places me beyond redemption in the minds of others. i have spent some sleepless nights in his fine home, kept awake by the seductions of social life tugging at my heart-strings. so one night i stole away from this seduction and slept with some drunken hoboes in the tall soft grass, where i could have no doubt about being welcome. i might as well doubt the grass as those pals, who without question hailed me as an equal. i, having the only swell 'front,' tackled a mansion, and the irish servant-girl, to whom i told the truth, gave me a whole hand-out in a basket, enough for all of us. my brother hoboes swore i should be the travelling agent of the gang. but a copper gave me the 'hot foot,' while i was 'pounding my ear' in the woods with the other 'boes, so i straightened and hiked to the stock yards, where i feel more at home with the hibernians. "never have i seen life more triumphant and rampant, more brimming over with hope and defiant of all conditions, hygienic and otherwise. i am rooming with an irish family whose floor space is limited, so we all have shake-downs, and in the morning can clear the decks for action with no bedsteads in the way. i am very 'crummy,' badly flea-bitten, overrun with bed bugs, somewhat fly-blown, but, redemption of it all, i am free and always drunk. still, i am really getting tired of playing the knock-about comedian and shall soon 'hit the road.' "i am willing to do anything for marie i can, except to love her as i once did, but never shall again. even spirits die, and the spirit of the salon is so dead that it is beyond resurrection." marie, however, would not believe that the spirit of the salon, or at any rate, as much of that spirit as depended on the relation between her and terry, was dead; she was more conscious than terry of the ups and downs of the human nerves and heart and the ever-present possibility of change, and she went to work in a wilful attempt to get back her lover. her next letter was a triumphant one: "i am a very happy girl to-day, and i must write to tell you so before the mood vanishes, for i have learned that good moods are very fleeting.... the cause of my happiness is, of course, that i have at last met terry and we have had a long, delightful talk together, and i hope our misunderstanding is all cleared up. only, now i am afraid i shall begin to pine and fret because we cannot be together always, though reason and philosophy and logic all tell me that the new relation between us two is the very best, noblest, most ideal--or at least they try to tell me so. it very nearly approaches the anarchistic standard, too. "there is something fascinating in this new state of affairs. it is just like falling in love all over again: the clandestine meetings, with the one little tremulous caress at parting--which is all we are bold enough to exchange--thrill me; it is the mysterious charm of the first love-affair! it makes my blood sing and dance. i lie awake the whole night thinking of our meetings and trying to bring them vividly back to me. "and, do you know, what makes me supremely glad is the feeling that terry is going to love me again, that i am going to win him back. he thinks that love is an enslaving thing and harmful to the soul, but my dear lovely idealist and dreamer has loved me once and he must love me again. i am so in love with love and almost as fanatical about it as the ecstatic artist is about art: love for love's sake, art for art's sake. i never did--and hope i never shall--get over that feeling of awe at the mystery and beauty and elusiveness of that great force in life--love. and i have always felt so sorry for people, sincere people, who told me honestly that they have felt that wonder-in-spring sensation only once in all their lives. it made me think that i had at least one thing to be very thankful for, that i was different from them, that i could experience the divine flame, and experience it continually. if you knew how often i have fallen in love with terry! "poor terry, i feel so sorry for him, too; he has no place to stay, though he could stay indefinitely at three or four houses that i know of, where his friends would feel only too glad to have him. but he says he does not want again to attach himself to any person, place, or cause, because the time would come when he should have to break away, and then he should have to experience death again. so he intends to move about whenever and wherever the whim suits. but i am sure this life will not satisfy terry for long, for there is really very much of the hermit in him.... "i am going to see him again in a few days, so i have the pleasantest things to dream of. if i am to win terry back, i must be extremely careful: one false move would be likely to queer the whole thing. oh, i am tremendously happy, for i am sure i shall win my dear terry back again!" the next letter, written about a month later, has a note of discouragement, and also a slight suggestion of an effort to steel herself against possible developments in the future: "when i go among the comrades and friends, i must keep such careful watch over myself. i don't want to show them how i feel about our separation. the movement had the strongest conviction that i was so wrapped up in terry--i was always so frantically jealous of him, you know--that i would surely die, or go crazy, if i were ever separated from him. so they are all guessing at present, and don't know just what to think of me. apparently i am just the same, in fact some better, for i laugh and talk more, much more than i ever did. "terry and i have met several times since i wrote you, and i am almost discouraged, and think at times it would be better for me not to see him at all. i have to be so careful, and it is awfully hard to control my impulses to tell him what i feel! but i dare not do that or he would never see me again, and i hardly think i could stand that. he is so very cold and friendly; of course, he does kiss me when we meet and at parting, but in such an indifferent way, and if i allow my lips to linger or cling to his for just the least part of a second, you ought to see how abruptly, almost roughly, he turns away. and i must not even notice it, and it hurts terribly. i don't understand how anyone can be so dreadfully cold. it makes me thrill all over when i see him bend his head toward me for the customary kiss, and i close my eyes so that i may enjoy more intensely that blissful eternity which i expect, and alas! only one short, perfunctory little peck, and it is all over--before my eyes are hardly closed. "however, hope has not entirely left me. after being so intimate with terry for seven years i ought surely to know something of his moods and disposition; and i do hope and expect that he will in time grow weary of roaming about and living the way he does now and that he will begin to yearn for feminine influences and caprices and tyrannies, and i hope, for mine in particular!... "i should be much happier if i did not care for him so much, and i hope that in time i may have only a strong friendly interest in him. at times i envy him: he is so care-free, without the slightest responsibility toward anything or anybody; he can break from old associations and habits so easily and light-heartedly. i never could have done that.... "i am awfully absent-minded these days; you would laugh at some of the funny things i do. i ride on the cars miles past my street, and wander about and forget where i am going. sometimes i think of things and then forget i was thinking." in another six weeks' time came still more gloomy news: "our meetings are as uncertain, unpremeditated, and unarranged as his wanderings about the city are. it happened that i was all alone for the whole of last week, eight precious days of freedom, especially from katie and her woes. i love her, as you know, but she does get on my nerves, at times. so i wrote terry, asking him to come and visit with me for several days. it must have been my jonah day, for the letter reached him, and he came and stayed here with me for the whole seven days. during this time we talked a great deal of our life together and of our life since we have not been together, and with his most calm and philosophical air he spoke of our circumstances, past and present. it seemed so pleasant and homelike, so much like the old days, to have dear terry here with me, and i felt such lazy content to see and hear him, that at times i awoke with a start, for i could not keep myself from the idea that our separation was only a horrid dream. "so, when he said things that ought to have hurt me dreadfully, i positively couldn't feel hurt. somehow, the sound of his voice was so pleasing that i missed the sting of some of his pessimistic reflections about our love; it seemed to me that he spoke of others, surely not of our two selves! but now, since he has gone, and i have been forced to think of the things he said, many of the easily accepted but only half understood reflections on our love have come back to me with all their sting. and i must now believe that i have passed out from terry's life utterly, and that there is no return, nor hope of return. the most i could possibly hope for is an indifferent friendship, for so he has willed it, or perhaps fate, rather, has so willed it. 'dead love can never return,' he said. and i am now only one of the people he knows! it is so terrible that i must avoid the blow, must seek an independence of my own. "and i had such high hopes, such dreams of pillowing his dear head on my bosom, and, alas! he would consider that intolerable. and, upon reflection, his head would, in fact, rest very uneasily on my scrawny breast! "so i am trying to resign myself and to readjust what is left of my life. it seems pitiful, though, that my life has been so commonplace all through. not one single exception, not one thing that ever happened to me, or that i ever did, has been different from the experiences of all the world. my life with terry, which i surely expected would be different, would be an exception to the commonplace love affairs of all people, has now ended the same way as everyone else's. "well, i have had seven years of life, that is perhaps a little more than some people have, and i ought to be satisfied with that. the biggest chapter of my life is over and done and closed for ever and i will try not to look back or think of it too much. and i shall tell you the same as if i were making some solemn vow, that i will not try any more to regain the love i have lost." this resolution of marie's seemed to have helped her considerably, for her later letters are not quite so exclusively concerned with the unhappy aspect of her relations with terry. the strong vitality of mind and temperament which enabled this factory girl and prostitute to adjust herself to a relatively intellectual and distinguished existence still stood her in good stead, and enabled her to meet the present deeply tragic situation step by step and not go under: her youth and vitality and her love of life triumphed, as we shall see, over even this terrible rupture; the consolatory philosophy of anarchism, which had educated her, largely fell away, with the love of the man who had created it for her. but the work of the social propagandist has been done on marie: the woman is a thoroughly self-conscious individual, as capable of leading her life as only are very few really distinguished personalities. her next letter shows again a more general interest, though still largely concerned with terry: "the other night terry spoke for the social science league on 'the lesson of the haymarket'--referring, as you know, to the hanging of the anarchists in . _the saturday evening post_ had quite a lengthy notice about it the day before the lecture, and nearly all the morning papers spoke of it the day after. the lecture hall was well filled with people who do not usually attend the s. s. league. and i think these people, who were not radical, were much shocked and disappointed, for terry was not a bit gentle and well-mannered, nor as philosophical as he nearly always is. i thought his lecture good, though there was something forced about it. perhaps because he no longer has so much faith was the cause of his greater violence. it was as if he was trying to remember what he had once felt; and that made the expression rougher than if it had been more spontaneous. i really do not believe that he is, at bottom, at all violent. but he tried to be so in this lecture. he advocated assassination and regicide and other most violent and blood-curdling things. his voice and manner, however, in saying these terrible things were not at all convincing. when replying to the critics, he was most violent, and was hissed and shamed, over half of the audience leaving the hall, very angry and indignant. i thought, for a while, that a regular free fist-fight would follow, and it very nearly did, but terry had a few friends with him, among them a german hen-pecked anarchist i must write you about, and your friend jimmy, both of whom were ready to stand by terry. "needless to say, terry was gloriously drunk, and utterly reckless, and after the meeting was over quite a bunch of us became as drunk as he, though not quite so gloriously. he was quite helpless toward the small hours, when our party broke up, and i took terry home with me, as katie was not there, and on the way i had the pleasure of acting as a referee when he and a stranger, who terry fancied had insulted him, did really have a fist-fight; i gathered up their hats and neck-ties and kept out of the way, ready to call assistance if need be, which fortunately was not necessary, for they only rolled around in the dirt a little, and terry only had his chin smashed slightly by the fall. "drunk as he was, he did not strike the other man, though being stronger he could have pounded the life out of him; he only tripped him up and rolled him on the ground. terry is certainly instinctively and naturally gentle and chivalrous, and i loved him as much as ever as i took him home and put him to bed. "i am beginning to think i am a genius in taking care of drunken men, for i have managed in some way to take home and care for quite a number of them, for instance, harris, who is the most unmanageable and perverse creature when drunk. i had an experience taking him home which i would not dare write you; and i can hardly realise to this day how i even succeeded in half carrying and half dragging him to our home from away down town. he certainly was the limit. "on monday the papers were all shrieking for terry's head--wanted him deported or persecuted or prosecuted. but terry has a good many friends and too much of a reputation as a philosopher; and his friends and his reputation prevented his becoming a martyr. two friends, both newspaper men, managed to eliminate the most objectionable parts of terry's terroristic utterances from their respective papers, and terry's sister, the lawyer, one sergeant of police, and the ferocious but humane tim quinn did the rest. for the present, therefore, terry's desire to be acquainted with the inside of a prison, or otherwise to suffer for the cause which he still half-heartedly believes in, is frustrated. "to me the most important aspect of the lecture was that he prepared it in our home. so, for another week, we enjoyed one another's company; and after the lecture he not only went home with me, as i have said, but he has remained ever since. i am trying not to build up any more hopes on this, because i know that terry has been in a particularly reckless mood, and does not care much where he is. i am sorry that he could not find a better outlet for his mood than lecturing for the social science league, but that perhaps is a better and more harmless way than getting in with the criminals, as he has wanted to do so often of late. you may be sure, however, that his talk on the platform will not be forgotten, and should anything happen, in any way like the mckinley affair, for instance, i am sure things would be made very unpleasant for him. so i hope nothing will happen. "terry is really harmless. he expends all of his energy in desiring and thinking and talking, and has nothing left over for action. whenever he had any scheme in mind i did not like, i used to encourage him to talk about it, knowing that he thus would be satisfied, without acting. he lives almost altogether in the head and in the imagination, and is really a teacher, in his own peculiar way, rather than an actor or practical man. that is why he takes offence at what seems to me such little things: they are not little to him, in his scheme of things, which is not the scheme of the world, and, alas! not even mine, i fear. he is so terribly alone, and growing more so, and i feel so awfully sorry for him. "especially since our rupture i have been compelled to be so careful not to hurt his feelings or trespass on his ideas of right and wrong; for he imagines he can feel what i am thinking and feeling, even if no words are said. he says words only conceal thought and do not express it. at times i feel so oppressed and depressed that i should experience the keenest ecstasy if i could hurt him in some physical way, use my muscles on him until i were exhausted. in imagination i sometimes know the fierce delight and exaltation of my flesh and spirit in hurting this man whom i love, in hurting him morally and physically--and i feel the lightness of my heart as the accumulated burden of my repression rolls away in the wildest, freest sensations. "of course, i have only felt this way at times; and at those times i know i was very passionate and unreasonable. i had regular fits of jealousy and anger, but at other times i had a boundless pity for him, there was something so pathetic about his gestures and his voice when he told me he knows just how i feel about him, that i could have cried out with the ache of my heart. it was so terrible to see how he suffered in his heroic attempt to suffice unto himself, to defy the world. he tries to think and feel deeper and higher than anyone else, but this is a terrible, terrible strain. it is all fearfully sad, and sometimes i wish i had never known him." about his speech, terry wrote: "i am one of the by-products that do not pay just now, until some process comes along and sets the seal of its approval on me. just now i am deemed worse than useless, and since my speech on 'the lesson of the haymarket riot' the authorities are looking for a law that will deport me. this will suit me, as i will swear that i am a citizen of no man's land. what i really need is not deportation, but solitary confinement, for the sake of my meditations. for even with my scant companionship i feel as if i were a circus animal. i still clutch convulsively to the idea that thought is the only reality and all expression of it merely a grading down of what was most high. if i am shut up i must cease talking and may think about real things, that is, ideal things. that would help me to put up with the world, which cannot put up with me unless i am in cold storage. there is a mental peace which passeth all understanding, and perhaps i might find that peace in prison. i have been insidiously poisoning my own mind for some time, and unless i can stop this i had better cease from talking, which does not seem to purge me of my unconscious pose, and retire to solitude behind the prison bars. there, undisturbed, i can meditate and often remember peacefully the beautiful things i have known in literature and nature. beauty is like rain to the desert, it is rare, but it vanishes only from the surface of things, and deep down who knows what secret springs it feeds? as my sands run out, the remembrance of the brief beauty i have known will break over me like the pleasant noise of far-off niagara waters on the stony desert of my life. "i once thought that i could help the mob to organise its own freedom. but now i see that we are all the mob, that all human beings are alike, and that all i or anyone can do is to save his own soul, to win his own freedom, and perhaps to teach others to do the same, not so much through social propaganda as by digging down to a deeper personal culture. though i sometimes think that just now the prison would help me, yet i also long at times to talk to the crowd. i wish to tell the smug ones that we waste our lives in holding on to things that in our hearts we hold contemptible. i wish to tell the mob just why there are thirty thousand steady men out of work in this city: to do this i may take to the curbstone." after his speech terry returned to the home of katie and marie, as has been described by marie, but on no basis of permanence. he thus speaks of it: "you may think that i, too, have 'cashed in' my ideals; for i am back at the salon--for how long nobody knows--by special proxy request of katie. i will spare myself and you any moralising on my relapse." katie, explaining terry's return, said: "when he went away, marie was sad all the time. she could not eat nor sleep and was looking for her lover every day. after weeks had passed i said to her: 'when you see terry at the social science league, bring him home.' 'do you mean it, katie?' asked marie, her eyes sparkling. she did so, and terry went quietly into his room, and the next morning i made coffee as usual and terry came out, and it was all right; it might have been all right for good, if this damned nietzsche business had not come up." but that is anticipating. it was after terry's return that the famous miner haywood, just after his acquittal from the charge of murder in connection with the idaho labour troubles, visited chicago, and spent most of his time at the salon with terry and marie and several of their friends. the salon was temporarily revived, like the flash in the pan, under haywood's stimulating influence. terry wrote of him: "haywood has the stern pioneer pride of the west. there is a mighty simplicity about him. he is walt whitman's works bound in flesh and blood. he is a man of few words, and of instinctive psychic force, and is the big blond beast of nietzsche. he knows just what he is doing and why, and has a great influence on the crowd: the mob went wild at his mere presence, and after his brief speech he came absolutely to be one of them. the swaying mass becomes, at his touch, in close contact with their instinctive leader. he is too much in touch with the people to agree with narrow trades-union policies. at a secret meeting in this city with mitchell and gompers he hinted that the western federation of miners would amalgamate with the american federation of labour on the ground of no trade agreements and the open shop, and warned them that no man and no organisation was strong enough to stand in the way of this development. the socialist party made him a big offer, but he replied that the labour movement was big enough for him." of haywood, marie wrote: "he is a giant in size, but as gentle as the most delicate woman. he has only one eye, but that a very good one which does not miss things. he has been made into a regular hero by the people here, but he is the most modest man i have ever met. he is sincere and unassuming, so calm, with no heroic bluster about him. his voice is quiet and gentle. we had a blow-out for him, and all those present were very discreet. we all forgot our years and our troubles and we showed him a good time. i hardly think that even you, with all your democracy, could have stood for all the things that happened. haywood is a big, good-natured boy, but quite sentimental, too. i think he liked me pretty well. i am sure he could have won many much more attractive girls than i, but somehow he took to me right from the start. i was introduced to him along with a whole bunch of girls, all good-lookers, too, but i sat back quietly and was the only one who did not say nice things to the hero." chapter xiii _marie's failure_ though terry was back in what was formerly the salon, and though the old spirit seemed at times to be still alive, yet it was more in appearance than in reality. it is difficult to regain an emotional atmosphere once lost; and it is especially difficult to live by the gospel of freedom, when once the eloquence of that gospel is no longer deeply felt. then there is nothing left to take its place--no prosaic sense of duty, no steady habit, no enduring interest in work. as these two human beings drifted further and further apart from their common love and their common interest, the idealistic man became more self-centred, more unsocial, more fiercely individual, and the emotional and sensual woman became more self-indulgent, more hostile to any philosophy--anarchism such as terry's, with its blighting idealism--which limited her simple joy in life and in mere existence. so their quarrels became more brutal, more abrupt. both intensely nervous, both highly individualised, their characters conflicted with the intensity of two real and opposing forces. a tragic aspect of it all was that it was due to terry's teaching that marie attained to the highly individualised character which was destined to rebel against the finally sterilising influence of her master. even physical violence became part of their life, and words that were worse than blows. the strong bond which still lingered held them for a time together, notwithstanding what was becoming the brutality of their relations. one day marie called terry to his coffee and he refused. a quarrel followed, in the course of which she hit terry on the head with a pitcher, and the resulting blood was smeared over them both. when calm came again she said to him: "terry, how can we live together?" "ain't we living together? doesn't this prove it?" he replied, grimly. and this man would use violence in return--and this was the delicate idealist, the idealist whose love for marie had at one time been part and parcel of his high dreams for humanity and perfection, a part of his propaganda, a part of his hope: during which period he had been scrupulous not to use force of any kind, spiritual or physical, on the girl whom he doubly loved--the girl whom he held in his arms every night for years with a passionate tenderness due to his feeling of her physical fragility and her social unhappiness, rather than to any other instinct. "marie," he said, "did not fully understand the character of my love for her. she loved me intellectually and sensually, but not with the soul. she wanted my ideas, and sex, and more sex, but not the invisible reality, the harmony of our spirits. from the day that i fully understood this, my confidence in her and in all things seemed to go. she felt that i had withdrawn something from her, and it made her harder. she began cruelly to fling the amours that i had tolerated as long as i hoped for the spiritual best in my face. it was a kind of revenge on her part." practical troubles, too, lent their disturbing element to the little remaining harmony of the three. "we shall probably be forced to leave our rooms in a short time," wrote marie. "our landlord has asked us to leave, without giving any other reasons than that he wanted a smaller family in these most desirable rooms! terry is indignant, for we have been quiet and orderly, and katie has always paid the rent in advance. we shall certainly stay until the police come and carry us out and our household goods with us. "it is true that we have had unusual difficulty in paying the rent and in getting enough to eat and smoke; and this has not added to our good-nature. you have no doubt read about the 'money stringency' in this country. times are indeed very hard, thousands of men are out of a job, and the so-called criminals are very much in evidence. for a long time katie could not find work to do and could not get any of her money from the bank, so that things looked very 'bohemian' around here for a while. she could not get anything to do in her own line, and finally had to go out to 'service.' but this she could not stand more than a week, for katie has fine qualities and is used to a certain amount of freedom, so she couldn't stand the slavishness of the servant life, though she had good wages and nice things to eat, which katie likes very much. "when katie started in on this venture she had the proverbial thirty cents, which she divided up with me--terry had not returned from his wanderings at that time--and i recklessly squandered ten cents of this going to and returning from the social science league. in a day or two there was nothing edible in our house but salt, so i squandered my remaining nickel for bread. i made that loaf last me nearly four days: i ate only when i was ravenously hungry, so that it would taste good, for i hate rye bread. i slept a good deal of the time. i suffered terribly, though, when my tobacco gave out, and i spent most of my time and energy hunting old stumps, and i found several very good ones in the unswept corners and under the beds. i even picked some out of the ashcan. these i carefully collected, picked out the tobacco and rolled it in fresh papers, as carefully as any professional hobo." when katie was temporarily hard up, that naturally put terry and marie "on the bum." but they remained "true blue" and did not go to work, marie being willing to put up with all sorts of discomfort rather than try for a job. she continued: "it is a strange thing that nobody came to our house during these six days. but on the sixth day, terry came, and then i had a good square meal, and he even left me carfare and some of the horrible stuff he calls tobacco. two more days elapsed before katie returned. until then i lived on that square meal. i had ten cents from terry, but i was sick of rye bread. on the day that katie returned, in fact only a few hours before, i was foolish enough to visit an anarchist friend, marna. i was awfully lonely and thought a little change would do me good. so i went to marna, but got there a little too late for supper. i must admit i was hungry. i hinted to marna that i was, said i'd been in town all day, and things like that, but she did not catch on and i was stubborn and wouldn't ask. stephen was there, and for a moment i thought i might eat. he had not had his supper, and he said that if marna was not too tired to cook, he would go and buy a steak. i tell you, the thought of that steak was awfully nice and i had to put my handkerchief to my mouth to keep the water from flowing over. i offered to cook it for him, but he passed it up. i made one more desperate bluff and asked him if he would get some beer for us! and i reached for my purse, and for one wild moment i thought sure he had called my bluff and would really take my only nickel, my carfare home. i nearly fell over with suspense, but in the nick of time he went out, refusing my money. and i even taunted him, asked him if he thought it was tainted! "when the beer came, i drank most of it. beer is a great filler, but of course it went straight to my head and feet--that is, my head got light and my feet heavy. but i managed to navigate to the street car and so on home, where i found katie, a cheerful fire and a delicious smell of cookery and coffee. "now, i must make you a confession. during these six days i had some thoughts of working, the only thing i could think of being a job as a waitress. but when a vision of ham and pert females and more impertinent males came to me my courage oozed away, and i did not even try. i don't think i'll ever work again. did you ever read yeats' story 'where there is nothing?' "i love marna, as you know, but when she talks to me about 'work,' 'health,' and the like, i feel like becoming even more solitary than i am. she says i am not ambitious! ye gods, i think i am ever so much more ambitious than she! i am more ambitious to live in these little squalid rooms than in the mansions of the rich. my kind of happiness--i mean ideally--is not marna's kind; and i am sure now that if i ever find it, it will be in the slums. here i can sit and muse, undisturbed by the ambition of the world. blake comes to me as an indulgent father to his tired and fretful child and sings to me his sunflower song. if i were in a castle i don't think even blake could soothe my restless spirit. "but, unfortunately, even in the slums one needs to eat. without warning i tumble from my air castles because some horrible monster gnaws at me, and will not let me be, however much i try to ignore him. that mean, sneaking thing is hunger. and because i am only mortal, and because the will to live is stronger than i, i must eat my bread. i often cry when i think of this contemptible weakness. i have often tried to overcome this annoying healthiness of my body. how can people be gourmands? even shelley and keats had to eat. what a repulsive word 'eat' is! i would i could eat my heart and drink my tears. the world is what it is because we must eat. see the whole universe eating and eating itself, over and over! if it were not for this fearful necessity, terry and i should not, perhaps, have failed in our high attempt! "'the chief thing,' said oscar wilde, 'that makes life a failure, from the artistic point of view, is the thing which lends to life its sordid security.' "but alas! to this sordid security, or to the care for it, we are driven by our need of bread. if terry and katie and i had never had this need, we might have become angels of virtue and insight. but on account of this we never could really attain freedom; that embittered our souls and turned us at times viciously against each other." terry's growing jealousy, which seemed to surprise marie, was a sign of the weakening of his philosophy, as far as it was social and not purely individual. it may seem strange that after his real love for her appeared to pass, his jealousy increased; but this was due to several causes: if his social interest in her--his propagandist interest--had continued, her sexual license would have continued to feed his passion for social protest. but when marie had ceased to interest him as a "case," or a "type," or a "victim," the only bond remaining must be that of the pure individual soul or of the body. terry's lack of sensuality--his predominating spiritual and mental character--precluded any strong tie of the physical kind. so there remained, as a possible tie, only a close spiritual relation between two individuals, a soul bond--and this marie's character and conduct tended to prevent. terry, if they were to be together, saw that the deeper personal relation must exist, now that there was no other--and so he was jealous of any conduct which showed in marie a lack of sensibility for the deeper spiritual life; hence the physiological jealousy, which he had not felt, or had controlled at one time, showed itself. no doubt his increasing nervousness was an added reason--nervousness due to the long strain, physical and mental, which his life and social experiment had involved. during these last weeks marie had another lover, and was especially careless in not concealing any of its manifestations. she, too, on her side, was subject to greater and greater strain. terry's growing loneliness and austerity, his melancholy and unsociability, his negative philosophy, all this tended more and more to inhibit her natural young joy in life and to give it violent expression. the philosophy of anarchism had increased her natural leaning to the free expression of her moods and passions, and now, with weakened nervous resources, she hardly cared to make any effort to restrain what she called her temperament. "yes, he became my lover," she wrote, "and we disappeared for a few days. did you ever read george moore's leaves from my lost life? in it is a story called 'the lovers of orelay.' my lover and i spent our few days together in much the same way as did the lovers in the story. we had our nice secluded cool rooms and beautiful flowers. i threw my petticoats over the chairs and scattered ribbons and things on the dressing table just like the girl in the story. and we had nice things to drink and good cigarettes, and had all our breakfasts and suppers served in our rooms. the little adventure turned out better than such things usually do; nothing awkward happened to mar our pleasure in any way, and i'm glad it happened--and is over and done with. "you may think me a very light-headed and heartless and altogether frivolous person from my actions. but i felt so humiliated and so sorry and so desperate about terry that i was ready to embrace any excitement, just to forget that our great relation had gone. this time it was to get away from myself, not in the old physically joyous mood--and to get away from terry's poisonous philosophy of life. "this lover of mine was so joyous, so healthy, so vigorous, so full of life! he was very different from terry, and i really needed him as a kind of tonic. and yet, of course, i did not care for him deeply at all. in fact, i want never again to have a deep relation to anybody, if this between terry and me must go. "this profound failure has made me reckless; terry is sensitive now, and knows from my manner and face and the way i express myself just how i am feeling toward any other man. the other day an old lover of mine turned up in chicago, and this brought about a scene with terry. "to explain this episode i must go back several years. i once knew a swiss boy, a typical tyrolean. the day i met him in chicago he had just arrived from his native land, and seemed so forlorn and lonely and miserable that my heart went right out to him. he was such a big, handsome child, too, about twenty years old. he could not understand a word of english, and no one talked to him, but me, who, as you know, had parents who spoke german. he was delighted and told me his whole life story, how he became emancipated and one of the comrades. his eyes sparkled so and his cute little blond curls jumped all over his head with the enthusiasm and joy of having found some one to talk to, that i was quite content to sit and watch and listen. and he thought me the most sympathetic person in the world. "had i only known the result of my impulse to say a few words to a lonely boy! for he did fall in love with me, and in such sturdy mountaineer fashion that i very nearly had nervous prostration--and he too--in trying to get away from his strenuous wooing. for he started out to win me in the same style that he would have used toward one of the cow-girls in his native alps. he waylaid me and followed me around everywhere, just camped on my trail; wanted to carry me away to some place out west, where there were mountains. the more i discouraged him, the more lovesick and forlorn he became, until finally he became the laughing-stock of the 'movement,' and i was chaffed about it unmercifully. he knew i had a lover, but that was no obstacle; and he told me several times with fine enthusiasm that he would not object to sharing his love with another man! he had read something about free love, and thought he should like to be an overman and superior to petty jealousies. "strange to say, my curly-headed swiss lover did not 'insult' me, as they call it, though i naturally enough supposed that he wanted to, but didn't have enough courage. but i was wrong, as i discovered later, when i grossly insulted him! perhaps a girl is loved only once in a lifetime in just that way, perhaps not at all, and i often think i made a mistake in being so cruel to my boy lover. i might in time have learned to love him in the right way, but i couldn't at that time, perhaps because i was so much occupied with terry, my own lover, and with the movement, which was new to me and very charming, for i had just discovered it. "at times i had an immense pity for the poor boy and would have done anything to help him feel better. i had not the slightest physical feeling for him, but i should have been quite willing to indulge him, if he had asked me. that was part of our philosophy and my kindness. but he did not ask me, though he often had the opportunity. he was quite content to be with me and kiss my hands, and beg me to love him a little. when he saw i did not like to have him kiss me so much, he would grow so sad and forlorn and tiresome. one day he was at the salon with others and annoyed me by hanging about me all the time, until i couldn't stand it any longer. i called him into another room and told him bluntly that i would indulge him, if that would help him, only he must for heaven's sake leave me alone! "now, this was a most indelicate thing for me to do, and i blush as i write of it, but i was so desperate and possibly a little under the influence of whiskey--a most convenient and universal excuse--and had tried all other means of ridding myself of this annoyance, even to slapping his face and forbidding him to come to the house! when i slapped him, he simply kissed the hand that smote him, and when i forbade him to return to the house, he followed me about the streets. if i told you all the silly and ridiculous things the youth did or all the mean, brutal things i did to cure him, you would scarcely believe me. "now when i made that abrupt proposal to him, he blushed to the tip of his ears, and then grew very angry, and called me an animal and a beast and said he had loved me because he thought i was different from that; that he did not want that kind of love from me. after a while his vehemence and anger turned to tears, and he kissed my hands and sobbed out his intention of going away. i was repentant and very sweet and kind to him while he stayed, but soon he did go west and i did not see him again till a few weeks ago, when, one saturday night, i found him waiting for me at our rooms. i was astonished and not too glad to see him, especially now that terry is so sensitive. "when terry came home, he looked suspiciously at me and at the poor swiss, but though i was quite innocent, i could not turn the poor fellow away, after he had come so far to see me. but i did not feel at all friendly to him, and i did not speak to him the next day, especially as terry went away for several days, to give me a chance, as he put it, to enjoy my love. then i told the swiss with heat that i never wanted to see him again, and he went away for good." marie, however, seemed about this time to have lost any sensibility about terry's emotion that she may have possessed. perhaps it was because, as i have said, she felt that the relation of mutual confidence was really broken and nothing very much mattered. anyway, she went so far in her carelessness that terry could not help coming in disagreeable contact with what was growing painful to him, though he would be far from admitting it. katie, describing these last weeks, said that terry grew more and more jealous and inclined to violence. he was very imaginative, and saw in marie's eyes "something wrong," as katie put it. marie could not be expressive to terry after an "affair," and katie saw that terry understood the meaning of this inexpressiveness. also, when terry went away for a day or two, without an explanation, marie was equally "imaginative." both were intensely proud, both intensely interested in their "individuality." one day terry went away, without an explanation, and returned, after a few days, "pleasantly piped," as he put it, sat down and began to undress. it was dark, and he had no idea that somebody else was there. but marie called out harshly, "you can't sleep here." "i understood," said terry. but katie replied, "that's all right," and she slept on the couch. "this kind of thing," said katie, "put them further and further apart. terry couldn't help feeling the sting there was in it. marie had done the same before, but it was in a different spirit. one of the last scenes was when h---- was visiting us. he and marie were having coffee in her room, and terry was in the other room. marie and h---- called katie to come and have coffee with them. terry was not invited and this later brought about a terrible quarrel. "but," said katie, "it was not really jealousy, though that was part of it, that brought about the last break. they calmed down, but then began to read nietzsche again, and i think went daffy over him. terry tried the overman theory on me and marie. americans cannot understand german philosophy." nietzsche's doctrine of the distinguished individual being "beyond good and evil," a man superior to the morality of society, his hatred of christian civilisation and christian ethics, his love of the big forcible blonde who takes his right by his strength only, all this was congenial to terry's character, and especially so after the weakening of his social philosophy. the aloofness of the overman, the individualistic teachings of zarathustra, appealed to the anti-social terry, to the man who more and more went back to his egotistic personality, to whom more and more the "communist" christian anarchists made little appeal, who more and more became what is called an individualist anarchist, with whom there is little possibility of relationship, who is essentially anti-social, whose philosophy is really that of social destruction. this indeed is the anarchist who lives in the public mind--a destroyer. but what the public mind does not see is that this destructive anarchist is the result of a lost hope in anarchistic communism, a lost hope of radical extension of social love, in absolute solidarity. chapter xiv _marie's revolt_ "the winners fall by the wayside," wrote terry, "while the losers must ever on--hearkening to some high request, hastening toward a nameless goal. i am loser, for my motives are large and my actions small. in my desire to embrace the universe i may neglect a comrade. i can be as hard as my life and as cruel as its finish. i have only an ideal, and whenever anything or anybody gets in the way of it i am ruthless in feeling. i must not give up all that i have--what is in my imagination: i have nothing else." yes, terry is hard. he "passes up" remorselessly not only the individual, but all society; but it is the hardness of the idealist, of the man who is still religious in the sense that he sees a beyond-world with which to compare this world and find it totally lacking. so, more and more he "passed up" marie, found her more and more lacking, more and more human. the fact of her being a social outcast no longer had its strong appeal. he became hard and cruel to her through idealism, just as she had been hard and cruel to him through sensuality and false philosophy. but her hardness never equalled his fine scorn. for a year or two preceding this point in the situation i had been living in europe, and had met a good many men and women who had given a larger part of their lives to the making of a social experiment. some of them, discouraged, had returned to a "bourgeois" manner of life, some even to a "bourgeois" philosophy. almost all of the anarchists i have known lost their philosophy and enthusiasm with middle age, and experience with the actual constitution of things, combined with disillusion regarding the ideal. most of them had been hurt or broken by their attempt, but they all retained a certain something, a certain remaining dignity of having struggled against the inevitable, and had acquired insight into some of the deeper things in life, though having lost some of the childlike simplicity which is a characteristic of the social rebel. i saw a great deal of an old frenchman, who had known bakunin, and had been astute in the dangerous work of the "international" in england and germany. an associate of william morris and the other english anarchists who at that time called themselves socialists, my friend came in contact with much that was distinguished in mind and energy; he afterward carried the propaganda of revolutionary socialism to germany, where he was arrested and imprisoned for five years. he is now a handsome, white-haired, well-preserved old man, with fine simple manners and joy in simple things, love of children and of long conversations with friends, good will and peace. he has retained a certain mild contempt for the "bourgeois," for people who prefer an easy time in this world to an attempt, even a foolish one, for radical improvement. but he knows the world now, and i fancy many of his illusions are gone. another of my radical friends is now only thirty-six years old; but already he is tired and discouraged, socially speaking. he is a frenchman, too, with all the easy mental grace and intellectual culture of his race. soon after his student days at the sorbonne, the social fever of our day, which burns in the blood of all who are sensitive, took possession of him. like terry, he was drawn emotionally to an interest in the social outcast; like terry, a girl in that class interested him, and he took up the cause of the girls, and led an attack against the _policiers des moeurs_, the special police who attempt to regulate prostitution in paris. he spent all the money he had in the attempt, lost his respectable friends, and, after several years of fruitless effort, hope left him. when i met him he was living quietly, in bohemian fashion, drawing a very small salary and devoting himself to abstract philosophy, to science, and to pessimistic memories of the days of his social enthusiasm, or what he now calls his social illusions. one of the most pathetic social experiments i have known was made by a young girl, whom i also knew at paris. she generously determined that she would have no sex prejudices; and for several years she strove against the terribly strong social feeling in that regard. not only theoretically but practically she persisted in thinking and acting in a way which the world calls immoral. she wanted to show that a girl could be good and yet not what the world calls chaste. she did not believe that sex-relations had anything to do with real morality. in one way, she has been successful. she is as good now--better--as when she began her experiment. she is broader and finer and bigger; but she has suffered. she has been disappointed in her idealism, disappointed in the way men have met her frank generosity, she has been injured in a worldly way. her strongest desires are those of all good women--she deeply wants the necessary shelter for children and social quiet and pleasure, and these essentials are denied her because of her idealism. she half feels this now and is tired and discouraged. another woman who has paid heavily for her "social" interests is in quite a different position. she is married to a man who is also a social idealist. he is so emotionally occupied with "society" that nature and life in its more eternal and necessary aspects touch him lightly. he hardly realises their existence. she tries to follow him in this direction; strains her woman's nature, which is a large one, to the uttermost. it is probable that the loss of his child was due to this idealistic contempt for old wisdom. not a moment must be lost, not a thought devoted to anything but the revolution; this necessitated social activity, and that exclusively. where was the opportunity for the quiet development and care of an infant? the children of the "radicals" are few, and as a rule do not grow up in the best conditions. this certainly is a terrible sacrifice entailed upon the social idealist. writers in france and in europe generally are much more interested in radical ideas of society and politics than they are in this country. the most distinguished among them are from the american point of view radical, at least. there is hardly a play of note produced in france or germany that does not in some way trench upon modern social problems. anatole france is a philosophical anarchist, and so is octave misbeau. it is not a disreputable thing to be so in france. an emma goldman there would be an object of respect. the prime minister of france was generally regarded as an anarchist before he went into office. a man of the type of hervê would be deemed a madman here. even a man as little radical as jaurès would be considered a terrible social danger in america and could not conceivably have the power he exerts in france, where they have a respect for ideas as such. but, combined with this interest in social things and this willingness to entertain the most radical ideas, there is a note of pessimism and disillusionment. anatole france's work shows this double tendency well. he reflects the social revolt and lack of respect for the old society in a most subtle way, but also he mirrors the failing hope of the social enthusiast. he has a deep sympathy for the social idealist, but nearly every book suggests the inevitable wreckage of enthusiasm on the rocks of actuality. when, after an absence of several years, i returned from europe and went again to chicago, i found terry alone, disheartened, and different from the terry i had known. soon i saw that in him had taken place a process not unlike that which had happened to my friends abroad and which was reflected in european literature. his letters and marie's had already indicated, as we have seen, his social disappointment. but i found him more bitter even than i had expected; cut off even from the anarchists, nourishing almost insanely his individuality, full of nietzsche's philosophy of egotism, rejecting everything passionately, turning from his friends, turning from himself. old society had long been dead for him and now he had no hope for the new! besides, marie was not with him: she had revolted and run away. i had expected to see her in chicago; she had written me that she would be there, but when i arrived i learned from terry and katie that she had gone away. during the few weeks preceding my return to chicago, the quarrels between the three had grown in poignancy. terry, unlike some of the disappointed anarchists i have known, could not settle back into an easy acceptance of life. with him it was all or nothing. more and more fiercely he rejected all society, even, as we have seen anarchist society. of course, marie came more and more in the way of this general anathema. she was young and pleasure-loving, and at last her nature could no longer stand this general rejection, the absence of the simple pleasures of life. it was not their quarrels, even when they came to blows, that determined her action. it was a revolt from the radical sterility of terry's philosophy. katie furnished her with the necessary money, and she went away to california. there this tired creature, this civilised product of the slums, this thoughtful prostitute, this striving human being full of the desire for life and as eager for excellence as is the moth for the star, went into camp, and there, in the bosom of nature, her terrible fatigue was well expressed in the great sense of relief that resulted: a new birth, as it were, a refreshing reaction from slum life and overstrained mental intensity. this new birth and this reaction from terry's philosophy are well expressed in her letters to terry and to me. to me she wrote: "i have not dared to write you before for fear of your anger toward me for my abrupt dismissal of our plans of meeting, but i could not help it. the life instinct in me would not be doomed, but was insistent in its demands and made me flee from insanity and death. so here i am, far away from civilisation, from the madding crowd, away up in the mountains, making a last effort to live the straight free life of nature's children, a suckling at the breasts of mother earth. and truly her milk is passing sweet and goes to the head like wine, for i feel intoxicated with the beauty and joy of all things here in this new, wonderful world. i did not know that such beauty existed, and my appreciation of it is so intense that it produces sensations of physical pain. i live much as the birds do, or at least try to--no thought of the morrow, or of the past, except when i receive a letter from dear old katie or from terry. katie asks me if i have found a job yet, and terry has some sweet reflections about death or dead things. but i recover in an amazingly short time from these blows, climb to the mountain-top, extend my arms to the heavens, and embrace passionately the great, grand, throbbing stillness. "i have been here now a whole month and have not yet wearied of it for a moment. each day brings a new, wonderful experience; and each day i feel a real part of the great wonderful scheme of things. indeed, i am becoming a part of nature. i have grown so straight and tall, and so beautifully thin and supple that i can dart in and out of the stream without bumping myself against the rocks, can climb steep hills, and let the winds blow me where they will. i should not be at all surprised to awaken some morning and find that i had become one of the tall reeds that sway to and fro along the banks of our mountain stream. "in one of my brief periods of returning civilisation, just after receiving a terrible letter from terry, i had myself weighed at the store and post-office of the town not far away from our camp; my weight was exactly eighty pounds! it seemed to me that i was fading away into something wild and strange. but i have never felt such physical and mental well-being since i can remember. i hardly need to eat, but our camp cook actually forces me to swallow something. he is a german 'radical' of the old school. frightfully tired of the radical bunch as i am, i like this simple old man. he is like a part of nature, has lived on her bosom all his life, and loves her and no other. we have visitors at our camp occasionally, and they bring things to eat and drink. when they are gone, the cook and i live on what is left and get along as best we may. there are lots of wild fruits and nuts growing about here and they are delicious. neither of us has any money nor care for the morrow. "after i arrived here, all the bitterness of life vanished. i thought and felt very beautifully of terry, and always shall, for i have made an ideal of him, and his grand, noble head, like a blazing tiger-lily perched upon a delicate and slender stem, will always be for me the greatest, most wonderful recollection of all the years. but i have no longer any desire to be with him, yet i do love and adore him, my own wonderful, sweet, great terry!" to terry she wrote: "i am intoxicated by all this beauty and love the very air and earth. i feel the ecstasy of the æsthetic fanatic. were i not disturbed by thoughts of you, i would indeed become another eve before the fall, though i have strange desires and my blood beats as in the veins of married women. but no lovers can quench my fever. all the tiresome males are far away and i feel new-born and free. the air is scented with balsam and bey, and a pure crystal stream flows through this valley between two hills covered with giant redwood trees, and rare orchids of the most curious shape and colour toss wantonly in the breeze on the tree and hilltops. birds and fishes and reptiles disport themselves in the sunshine, and giant butterflies of the most marvellous colours flutter so bravely among the ferns and flowers. there are no tents here in our camp, but we are covered with the fragrant branches of the spicy pines and nutmeg trees. it is a paradise, and i think of you always when i am in the midst of beauty. "my trip here included an eighteen-mile walk--in one day--think of that! i am getting as thin and strong as a greyhound. i don't wear clothes at all, but when i do, it is the old man's overalls, which i put on to go to town to get groceries or call for the mail. at night, our old cook builds a huge fire of redwood logs, and then his tongue loosens and he quotes poetry by the column or talks of his experience as a preacher, actor, village schoolmaster, and vagabond. without a cent he travels all over california, as strong and rugged as any redwood tree that grows in this wonderful valley. "it is so secluded here that no one would suspect campers were about. the trail leads down a steep descent. how stately it is between the huge stems of the trees, along our beautiful creek, cool and clear as crystal, and filled with trout and other fishes. there i sit in the sun and allow the water to pour over my shoulders." in another letter to terry she writes: "our sylvan retreat has been somewhat disturbed by the advent of mrs. johns, her children and her dog. annie is also here, but they will not remain long, it is too quiet, too lonely, and the nights are too mysterious and uncanny, strange noises to disturb the slumbers of the timid. and besides there is nothing to do, no hurry or bustle or activity. the spirit of repose, of rest, of sweet laziness broods over this spot, inviting us to dream away the hours among the spicy pine trees. and for two such active ladies it is very dull here. even when they go to town they return disgusted and weary in spirit because of the slowness of the natives, who are half spanish, half mexican. even the beautiful trail winding in and out among the mountains does not compensate them for the dreadful slowness of the natives. i, however, love this slowness and converse amicably with the natives. and when i am a little active i go fishing, or climb about, or take a lesson in spanish from my old philosopher-cook. i am now learning a little peasant song, the refrain being, 'hula, tula, palomita,' and it does sound so beautiful that i repeat it over and over. it means, 'fly, fly, little dove!' "the fishing i do not care for much. it is exciting for a time, but soon grows a bit too strenuous for my lazy temper. the little stream is filled with trout; one has flies for bait which have to be kept on the move continually. walking and jerking the lines out of the water continually soon makes my arms and legs tired. i like best of all to lie in a bed of fragrant leaves, my head in the shade and the rest of me in the sun, the murmur of the brook in my ears, the skies mirrored in my eyes, fantastic dreams in my mind--in these you are seldom absent. at night i sleep as i have never slept--a deep, dreamless slumber. i awake to a cold plunge in the stream. oh, it just suits me! i am tired of people, tired of tears and laughter, of men that 'laugh and weep,' and 'of what may come hereafter, for men that sow to reap.'" a letter from terry came like a dart into her solitude and for a moment disturbed her mood--her deeply hygienic, fruitful mood. she wrote to him: "your letter was a dreadful, an overwhelming shock. it aroused passions in me which i thought were laid to rest. but, after getting very drunk, i had sense enough to sleep over it, so that this morning i am almost my new self again. last night i felt like cursing you with all the wrath of the earth and heaven. the last three weeks i have been camping here, caught in the spell of the wonder and beauty of nature. i have written you the half crazy rhapsodies of a girl intoxicated with the joy of life and health. now i do indeed think that life is beautiful and worth the living. no, i do not worry about you. i am as happy and care-free as the birds, and live in and for the moment. everything in the past is dead. only when your letter came, these old things of my old self raised their heads for a little time, but they too shall die speedily, if i mistake not. life is too wonderful, too beautiful to be marred thus by the ends of frayed and worn-out passions, by memories or regrets of you. i have become happy, healthy, and free, free without hardness, and in my freedom and joy i have found my love, my beautiful terry, whom i may love passionately, tenderly and for ever, the dear ideal one. is it not wonderful? i crown myself with flowers and go forth to meet him every day. i kneel at his feet and caress his dear hands. for i love him dearly, this very new terry. yet, my dear, if you should come near me, i mean, you, my old poisonous terry, i would flee from you as from a pest. i would loath myself and the sun and flowers and all the other beautiful things of earth. i do not think of you at all, my old terry, but i think of you and love and adore you, my new, wonderful terry, and i make myself beautiful for you. so, my dear old terry, i will leave you to 'lice and liberty,' to your 'hard free life,' and i will now lave myself with the pure crystal waters and make myself clean again, and then look on the sun once more and dream again of my own adorable terry." in this letter, marie said, by implication, a deep truth about social revolt. she could never have lived her life without him, this strange, poetic man. he awoke in this outcast, rather vicious girl, a keen longing for the excellent, for the pleasures of the intelligence and the temperament; he gave her an assured sense of her own essential dignity and worth; defended her against the society that rejected her. this was a truly christ-like thing to do, and this she could never forget or do without. so, in her wilderness, she holds fast to her ideal terry. but with this idealist she could not live, practically. the growing irritation felt by him because of his radical mal-adjustment to this world rendered him step by step more impossible to live with. harshness, injustice, became forced upon him as qualities of his acts. how could he be fair when he had no understanding of the nature of actuality? it is probable that no woman can ever get so far away from actuality as a few rare idealists of the male sex. marie's relative good sense, her vitality and love of life, finally rebelled against an idealism so exquisite that it became cruelty and almost madness. and this is the way with the world. the world cannot, in the end, endure the idealist, though it has great need of him. the world can endure a certain amount of irritation, a certain amount of fundamental revolt, but when that revolt reaches the point of absolute rejection, the world rebels, the worm turns. marie represents the world and the worm. plato said there should be no poets in his republic. poets are too disturbing, they fit into no social organisation, for the truth they see is larger and often other than the truth of mankind's housekeeping, of human society. so they are against society. they are for nature, both god's nature and man's nature, but man's organisation arouses their passionate hostility. therefore, said plato, let us have no poets in our republic. but plato was a poet, and he probably knew that poets, though inimical to the actual working of any actual society, yet are necessary to keep alive the deeper ideals of humankind, to arouse perpetually the instinct for something better than what we have, something deeply better, something radically better, not the mere improvements, palliatives, of the practical man and the conservative, bourgeois reformer. chapter xv _terry's finish_ terry had given marie life, and she had finally used this vitality to free herself from him and his too exigent idealism. the result of his relation to her seems from this point of view pathetically ironical; but it is only a symbol of the ironical pathos of his relation to society in general; he and his kind act as a stimulant and a tonic to the society which rejects and crushes them. the anarchist is in a double sense the victim of society. he is, in the first place, generally a "labour" victim, is generally the maimed result of our factory system; and, in the second place, his philosophy, needed by society, reacts against himself and turns the world against him. so he is a double victim, a reiterated social sacrifice. when i went to chicago this last time i found terry, as i have said, despondent and disillusioned; and intensely savage in his rejection, not only of capitalistic society, but apparently of all society. in a way, he had left his old moorings, the "proletariat" no longer appealed to him. this mood was not a part of his philosophy: it was an expression of his disappointment, of his disillusionment. he talked about his own life and marie's with an almost brutal frankness. he seemed to take a sad pleasure in stripping the illusion of human worth and beauty to the bare bones. in spite of his words, in spite of his previous letters, it seemed clear to me that marie had not lost her hold on him entirely, and that he deeply felt her defection. through her he had failed socially and personally. around her much of his life, intellectual and personal, had been wound. lingeringly he talked of her, of her qualities; he seemed to try to steel himself against all need of human relation; incidentally he rejected me and other friends, finding us wanting. marie, too, was not perfect, and must be "passed up"; but his mind rested, in spite of himself, on this woman and his life with her. some of the things he said and wrote to me about this time indicate his present mood toward me, marie, the anarchists, proletariat, and the world in general. a year or two ago he wrote me: "no one, very close to me geographically, can ever get much out of me. this is a family trait and is too deep for me. so don't be downcast if we should ever meet again and you should find me as stoical as some crustacean of the past. some such antediluvian feeling animates me to take advantage of your distance and clamour up out of the depths." he did, indeed, "clamour up out of the depths" very eloquently, but when i saw him in chicago i found that i had somehow "lost touch," like the rest of the world, with him. he felt it and wrote me: "while you were in italy, i sent you a letter in which i represented myself as one clamouring up out of the depths of his being to you who might understand. now i sincerely and deeply regret having made this attempt with you. in the same letter i predicted that your return might find me back in the depths of my being, where i belong. i regret i did not stay there when you came along. this feeling is due to no fault of yours or mine; but points to the fact that i must become still more exclusive and circumspect." of marie he wrote: "this attachment between two human beings is in all circumstances very terrible. the bond between marie and myself was as strong as death, and partly so because of our great and essential differences. the first night we spent together struck one of the deep things in our discord. i was too nervous and sensitive to touch her that night, and in the morning she bitterly reproached me. the first book that really aroused her to the meaning of life was '_mademoiselle de maupin_.' deeper than this difference was her galling interference in my affairs which never prompted me to meddle in hers. and her failure to appreciate or reciprocate my respect for the integrity of her personality is the hardest blow she can ever give to me. i have the same fatal charge to make against almost all men; the exceptions are so few and doubtful that i doubt whether i can ever gain from another that intense receptive attitude which i am willing to bestow. fortunately for me, this illusion that there are such intense perceivers re-creates itself out of the veriest dust and dross of humanity. like shelley's 'cloud,' my illusion may change, but it cannot die. now i am in a state of mind when i am willing to let everything go by default--everything except my last illusion, that i can never let myself out to anyone. to marie--and to you--and one or two others--i have been sorely tempted to lay myself out--but not even the moon can seduce me to reveal myself. my dead and buried self is my first and last seduction. this is crazy, of course, but i am heartily sick of all the 'sense' i know or can know. i believe, however, that i have lived so close to the 'truth' that its shadow has been cast over all my life. if, in the last analysis, all is illusion, i shall stick to the most powerful one--myself. my feeling for marie arises largely from the fact that she is an expression of the irreparable part of my life--of its deepest essence. "a year ago to-day, on the thirteenth of august," he wrote, "occurred my first, last, and only breakaway from the best pal i have ever hoped to have, marie. now that it has passed, i see it in its proper proportions, just as if it had happened to someone else, but to one as near and dear to me as myself. i have broken away from the mob, too. my sympathy for what is called the people has been worn down to a mere thread that might easily be broken and turn me against them. when one has been stoned long enough, one may easily turn into something as hard as stone itself. i am like the knight of old, turned inside out. i am developing a coating of internal mail, as so many of the attacks come from within. but worse than attacks from within or without is the sordid security and mental inertia of all the people about me: they are strangling me just as surely as if they put a rope around my neck. by day they hurry on like ghosts about their business, and by night they gather in the little tombs of many rooms they call their homes. "you may call it madness, this my cutting off of all things. i know that i have kept off madness a long while now. i have shrunk from 'business' to social anarchy and pure beings, from these again i have shrunk to books and poetry, from these again into the solitude of myself where only i am really at home. though i have lost my general bearings, i still stand at the helm of myself. i am going to pieces on the rocks of the world, but i still inhabit the realm of the soul. "when i could no longer see my ideals rise out of my work, i quit that work; for then the work was no longer an expression of myself. this is the origin of all modern problems. a man stands to his job because of the visions that come to him only when at work. he sees in imagery his own possibilities arise out of the thing on which he is at work, and easily links himself to his fellows. thus does the worker make of his eternal cerebral rehearsals an endless chain of imaged solidarity binding him in a maze from which he can never think his way out. the fixed gaze of those who try to grasp the abstract is proof of this. "when i could no longer see my ideals arise out of human solidarity, i quit my fanatical belief in the possibility of a utopia. so that now i am not even an anarchist. i am ready to pass it all up." when i saw terry for the last time, and found him in this almost crazy crisis of extreme individualism, where he hopelessly "passed up" everything--human society, love and friendship, all the things his warm and loving irish heart really desired, i felt that here indeed was a complete expression of the spirit of revolt. it was so extreme that i and no one else could follow him in it. it had passed beyond the point where social rebellion may be useful or stimulating or suggestive poetically and had reached the sad absurdity of all extreme attitudes. one lesson terry's proud and strenuous soul has never learned: that the deeper and simpler things in social growth we must take on faith. we cannot demand an ideal reason or justification for all social organisation, for the ways that human beings have of living together. the elementary social forms at least must be instinctively and blindly accepted. to go beyond in one's rejection the anarchism of the social communist into what is called individualistic anarchism is mere egotistic madness and has as its only value the possible poetry of a unified personal expression. into this it was that terry fell, and of course he could find no support for it except in his own soul, which could not bear the strain. no soul could, for, struggle as we may, we are largely social and cannot stand alone. terry's life well shows the sympathetic source of social rebellion and its justification, but it also shows the ultimate sterility of its extreme expression. the latest word i have about marie is that she is at work "keeping house for a respectable family" in san francisco. her experience in camping-out seems to have rendered her normal to, for her, an extreme degree. going to work certainly represented as radical a reaction from terry and his philosophy as well could be imagined. a friend of mine in san francisco writes of her: "she is now to all appearances a good, respectable girl. she wants to live a new life, is working hard, and is trying to break away from smoking. sometimes she feels the restraint severely, and comes to our house where she knows she can smoke and express herself. she is in better health, and i think now is in close enough touch with nature not to want to go back for nourishment to ideas and the slum." the latest word i have from terry shows him faithful to the end--faithful to his character and his mood: "there is a rumour that marie has got a job at general housework. this gave me the blues--after all our life together, this the end! i'd rather have her do general prostitution, with the chance of having an occasional rest in the hospital. but perhaps her drudgery will kill her enthusiasm for 'vita nuova!' "i should have answered your letter had i not been suffering from an old malady of mine which is accompanied by such mental depression that i could not answer the communication of even a lost soul. i had to seek surcease in my old remedy of hasheesh and chloroform, which was a change from suffering to stupidity. but i shall not swell the cosmic chorus of woe by raising my cracked voice against impending fate. i am more and more alone, more and more conscious of a growing something that is keeping me apart from all whom i can possibly avoid." terry is nearing his logical end, while marie is still struggling for life, life given her in the beginning by this strange man, whose influence was then to take it away from her; and from this, like the world, she rebelled. "anarchism" she embraced as long as it enhanced her being; as long as this deeply emotional philosophy added to the fulness of her life, she saw its meaning and its use; when it finally tended to sterilise her new existence, its "pragmatic" value was nothing. this is the test of all social theory: how it works out. in marie's case, as in the case of many proletarians, it worked out well, as a general civilising and consoling philosophy, for a time, but when carried to an "idealistic" extreme, it tended rapidly towards general death--from which all live things react. so it was with marie: she left her "poisonous" terry and sought for another vitalising experience. goethe said that the best government is that which makes itself superfluous. terry's spiritual influence on marie, important for her in the beginning as rendering her self-respecting and mentally ambitious, had become superfluous. but it had been of great value to the girl. so, too, with our society. the extreme rebellious attitude educates us--sometimes to the point where rebellion is superfluous. the end _the_ autobiography _of a_ thief a true story of the life of a criminal taken down and edited by mr. hapgood. _cloth. pp. $ . postpaid._ comments of the critics "the book as a whole impresses the reader as an accurate presentation of the thief's personal point of view, a vivid picture of the society in which he lived and robbed and of the influences, moral and political, by which he was surrounded. the story indeed has something of the quality of defoe's 'colonel jacque'; it is filled with convincing details."--_new york evening post._ "to one reader at least--one weary reader of many books which seem for the most part 'flat, stale and unprofitable'--this is a book that seems eminently 'worth while.' indeed, every word of the book, from cover to cover, is supremely, vitally interesting. most novels are tame beside it, and few recent books of any kind are so rich in suggestiveness."--_interior._ "what is the value of such an autobiography of a thief as mr. hapgood has given us? it is this. professional crime is one of the overprosperous branches of industry in our large cities. as a nation we are casting around for means to check it, or, in other words, to divert the activities of the professional criminals into some other industry in which these men can satisfy their peculiar talents and at the same time get a living with less inconvenience to the mass of citizens. the criminal, being as much a human being as the rest of us, must be known as he is before we can either influence him personally or legislate for him effectually. if we treat him as we would the little girl who stole her brother's candy mice or as the man who under great stress of temptation yields to the impulse to steal against his struggling will, we will fail, for we overlook the very essence of the matter--his professionalism. it is safe to say that perusal of mr. hapgood's book will help many a student of criminology to find his way through the current tangle of statistics, reform plans, analyses of 'graft' and what not, by the very light of humanity that is in it."--_chicago record-herald._ "the manner and style of 'the autobiography of a thief' is that which attracts even the fastidious lovers of literature. it is the life-story of a real thief unmistakably impressive in its force and truth. as a matter of course, the book is on the hinge of a novel, but it contains the gem and sparkle of genuineness and its complication has the flavor of accuracy."--_new orleans item._ "it is not only a powerful plea for the reform of abuses in our penitentiaries, but it is an extraordinary revelation of the life of a criminal from his birth up, and an explanation of the conditions which impelled him first to crime and later to attempted reformation."--_new york herald._ "the truth found in 'the autobiography of a thief' is not only stranger but far more interesting than much of the present day fiction. the autobiography of 'light-fingered jim' is absorbing, in many pages startling, in its graphicness.... in spite of its naturalness, daring and directness, the work has a marked literary style--a finish that could not have been given by an unexperienced hand. but this adds to rather than detracts from the charm of the book."--_philadelphia public ledger._ "no more realistic book has been written for a long time than hutchins hapgood's 'the autobiography of a thief.' no books on criminology and no statistics regarding penal institutions can carry the weight of truth and conviction which this autobiography conveys."--_chicago chronicle._ "as a study in sociology it is splendid; as a human story it will hold attention, every page of it."--_nashville american._ "it is a clear and graphic insight into the lives of the lower world and is written with impressive force. it is a remarkable addition to the literature of the season."--_grand rapids herald._ "an illuminating and truly instructive book, and one of terrible fascination."--_christian endeavor world._ "as a contribution to the study of sociology as illustrated from life and not from mere text-books, the story recorded by mr. hapgood will be welcomed by all philanthropic people."--_new york observer._ "it is an absorbing story of the making of a criminal, and is rightly classed by the publishers as a 'human document.' it is absorbing alike to the reader who reads for the diversion of reading and to those who are really thoughtful students of the forces which are working in the life round about them."--_brooklyn life._ "those in whom the sense of human oneness and social responsibility is strong will be intensely interested in these genuine experiences and in the naïve, if perverted, viewpoint of a pick-pocket, thief and burglar who has served three terms in state's prison."--_booklovers' library._ "it may be that 'jim' puts things strongly sometimes, but the spirit of truth at least is plain in every chapter of the book. that, in general, it is the real thing is the feeling the reader has after he has finished with 'the autobiography of a thief.' it is not a pleasant book; it is anything but a book such as the young person should receive as a birthday gift. it is a book however which the man anxious to keep track of life in this country should read and ponder over."--josiah flynt, _in the bookman_. duffield and company east st st. new york * * * * * "_the_ spirit _of_ labor" _$ . net_ "a straightforward narrative which has the tremendous advantage of disclosing more things about the greater life of chicago--and more which are not generally known to the more sheltered classes--than any book of its size ever written. those who wish to be written down as loving their fellow-men should read this volume with care. it is a real book, and worth anybody's while."--_the interior, chicago._ "much of the story is set down in this man's own words, and the whole is made vividly interesting and really meaningful by the author's broad understanding and sincerity of purpose."--_life, new york._ "mr. hapgood's portrayal of the american workingman is a 'moving picture' in two senses of this equivocal phrase. it is kinetoscopic, first of all, in its lifelikeness and the convincing reality of the actions it pictures. then, again, it is emotionally moving; for the character of anton, the big, honest, alert and energetic chicago laborer, can hardly fail to arouse in the reader intense admiration, lively sympathy and not a little amusement free from all cynicism and class feeling. in 'the spirit of labor' we are brought into living contact with the men and women we meet on the streets, the great american public with whom every business man, every pastor and every politician has daily to reckon. teamsters, masons, unionists, saloonkeepers, policemen, wash-women, newsboys, walking delegates, waitresses, ward heelers, local bosses, anarchists--the procession seems endless and the medley beyond all hope of disentanglement. but it is real life and no parade of puppets."--_new york tribune._ "we cannot doubt, however, that anton is a true type and represents a large portion of the men of this land with whom workers and students in social matters must meet. the book deals intimately with the questions arising between labor and capital, and is especially interesting in its analysis of the chicago spirit as it relates to these matters."--_the christian advocate, new york._ "the story of anton and his socialistic, anarchistic, and trade union comrades is a faithful and photographic picture of aspects of the urban activity of vast multitudes of industrials combining to assist each one in his fellow in the struggle for existence and fullness of life. the forces revealed are full of danger, the temper is ugly, the manners are always urbane, the judgment not always well informed, the range of knowledge often limited; but there is wondrous power, vigor, and the chaotic promise of a better and larger morality than anything the churches yet have taught, or the mere book students have ever dreamed. miss jane addams has discovered this larger morality in seeming coarseness and evil, and mr. hapgood has given us glimpses of it in the biography of his man of toil and rebellion. the philistine needs the anarchist to wake him, as hume did kant, from his dogmatic slumbers, and the philistine may (let us hope rarely) wear cap and gown."--_the dial, chicago._ +--------------------------------------------------------------+ | transcriber's notes: | | | | page : woman amended to women | | page : acount amended to account | | page : interst amended to interest | | page : pamplets amended to pamphlets | | page : envolved _sic_ | | page : senstive amended to sensitive | | page : inconsistences amended to inconsistencies | | page : beause amended to because | | page : concious amended to conscious | | | | punctuation has been standardised. | | | | where a word is hyphenated and unhyphenated an equal number | | of times, both versions have been retained: pickpocket/ | | pick-pocket; upstairs/up-stairs. | +--------------------------------------------------------------+ hippodrome by rachel hayward george h. doran company new york copyright, , by george h. doran company to edyth and arthur applin with love and homage. "car vois-tu chaque jour je t'aime davantage, aujourd'hui plus qu'hier, et bien moins que demain." (_rosemonde rostand_) the hippodrome chapter i "aujourd'hui le primtetemps, ninon, demain l'hiver. quoi! tu nas pas l'étoile, est tu vas sur la mer!" de musset. count emile poleski was obliged to be at the barcelona station at five o'clock in the afternoon one hot friday in may. his business, having to do with that which was known to himself and his associates as "the cause," necessitated careful attention, and required the performance of certain manoeuvres in such a way that they should be unobserved by the various detectives to whom he was an object of interest. he looked round, scowling, till he found the man he wanted, and who was to all outward appearances the driver of one of the row of _fiacres_ that waited outside the station. cigarettes were exchanged, and a tiny slip of paper passed imperceptibly from hand to hand, then he turned ostensibly to watch the incoming train from port-bou. as he was on the platform it would be better to look as if he had come to meet someone, and as he had nothing particular to do just then it would make a distraction to watch the various types of humanity arriving at this continental buenos ayres, the city of romance, anarchy, commerce and varied vices. emile poleski called it _l'entresol de l'enfer_, and certainly he was not there by his own choice. it was the centre of intrigue, and to intrigue his life, intellect, and the little money he had left from his polish estates, were devoted. to him life meant "the cause," and that exigeant mistress left little room for other and more natural affections. in his career women did not count, at least they did not count as women. if they had money to spend, or brains and energies that could be utilised, that was a different matter. he had a trick of studying people as one studies natural history through a microscope. it was all very interesting, but when one had done with the specimens one threw them away and looked about for fresh material. the train came in, slackened speed and stopped, and its contents resolved themselves into little groups of people all hunting with more or less excitement for their luggage, and porters to convey the same to cabs. the figure of a girl who had just alighted and was standing alone, caught and held his roving eyes. the pose of her abnormally slim body had all the grace of a figure on a grecian vase in its clean curves and easy balance. her head was beautifully set upon a long throat, and her feet were conspicuously slender and delicate in their high french boots of champagne-coloured kid. her face, which as far as he could see was of a startling pallor, was obscured by a white lace veil tied loosely round her panama hat, and left to fall down her back in floating ends; and she wore a rather crumpled, cream-coloured dress. she stood, looking round, as if uncertain how to act, evidently in expectation of someone to meet her. no one appeared and she moved off in search of a porter. emile followed at a reasonable distance. books he found desperately dull, but humanity in any shape or form was attractive to him, and the girl's appearance appealed to a deeply embedded love of the exotic and mysterious. he watched with cynical amusement as she tried to explain her wishes in french to a porter, who spoke only the dialect of catalonia. her voice finally decided emile on his line of conduct. low-pitched it was, with subtle inflections, and with a hoarseness in the lower notes such as one hears in the voices of jewish women. a woman, whose vocal notes were of that enchanting _timbre_, was likely to prove interesting. he advanced a few steps nearer, saying in french, "i speak the language. can i be of any use?" the girl turned, giving him a comprehensive glance, and bowed slightly in acknowledgment. "many thanks, _monsieur_! i know scarcely any spanish. perhaps you would tell me where one could get lodgings. it seems rather hopeless for this man and myself to continue arguing in different languages, so if you would not mind--" when they were both in the _fiacre_ she did not speak, but leaned back, her hands in her lap, her feet crossed, looking straight in front of her with hazel-green eyes, expressionless as those of the sphinx. count poleski congratulated himself in silence over his discovery. here was a woman so unique that she asked no questions, did not volunteer after the manner of most women a flood of voluble information, apparently took everything for granted, and was in no way embarrassed by himself or his company. in some respects she appeared a young girl, but her composure was certainly not youthful. "so you're out from england," he said at last. "from paris," she answered him serenely. "i'm arithelli of the hippodrome." there was a girlish pride in her accents, and she looked at him sideways to observe the effect of her announcement. "_ma foi_! so it's that, is it? then i've heard something about you. i know the manager pretty well. he said you were _un peu bizarre_." "_peut être plus qu'un peu_," arithelli retorted quickly. "i see you think he's right." arrived at the lodgings she sat still, waiting in the cab with the same apparent indifference while emile wrangled with the landlady. at length he came back to her: "you had better try these for a week," he said. "they're forty _pesetas_. she will want the rent in advance as you have no recommendation." for the first time arithelli seemed disturbed. "i'm afraid i can't pay it. i'm to have five pounds a week at the hippodrome, but of course i can't ask for that in advance. i had a second-class ticket out here, and now i've only got four-and-sixpence left." she held out a small blue satin bag, displaying a few coins. "perhaps i'd better go and explain to the manager." emile shrugged his shoulders. obviously the girl was very young. "on the whole i think you'd better not," he said. "you know nothing about either myself or the manager, and it seems you've got to trust one of us so it may as well be me." when he had arranged matters he departed, saying casually, "i'll come in again to-night about nine o'clock to see how you are getting on. don't do anything insane, such as wandering about the streets, because you feel dull. it won't hurt you to put up with the dulness for a bit. you'll have plenty of excitement if you're going to live in barcelona." "_tiens_!" said arithelli to herself. "what manners and what dirty nails! _c'est un homme épouvantable_, but very useful. but for him i should have been prancing round this place all night, looking for rooms." she dragged her trunk towards her, and proceeded to unpack the collection of gaudy dresses that she had bought with so much pride at the _bon marché_ in paris, and which were all in the worst possible taste. perhaps she had been impelled to a choice of lively colours as being symbolical in their brightness of the new life on which she was about to embark. there was a green cloth rendered still more hideous by being inlet with medallions of pink silk, a cornflower blue with much silver braid already becoming tarnished in the few times it had been worn, and a mauve and orange adorned with flamboyant eastern embroidery. when she had tumbled them all out they showed a vivid patch of ill-assorted tints. arithelli shivered as she sat back on her heels on the floor, and looked round the sordid room. the excitement of her arrival had worn off, and the element of depression reigned supreme in her mind. certainly the apartment, which was supposed to be a bed-sitting-room, but which was merely a bedroom, was not enlivening to contemplate. no carpet, dirty boards, a large four-poster bed canopied with faded draperies against the wall facing the window. there was a feeble attempt at a washstand in a small alcove on the left, furnished with the usual doll's house crockery affected on the continent,--no wardrobe and no dressing table. it all looked hopeless, she told herself disgustedly. surely there were better rooms to be found in barcelona for forty _pesetas_ a week! either lodgings must be very dear or else emile poleski had meant to take a large commission for his trouble in finding them! she was stiff and tired after the long journey and want of proper food, and every trifle took upon itself huge dimensions. she was daintily fastidious as to cleanliness, and everything seemed to her filthy beyond belief. the universal squalor customary in spanish life had come as an unpleasant shock. when she started from paris she had conjured visions of a triumphal entry into her new career. now she felt rather frightened and desperately lonely, and the horrible room appeared like a bad omen for the future. but, she reflected, after all, things might have been worse. she had found one friend already. certainly he had disagreeable manners, especially after the artificial and invariable politeness of the frenchmen she had met while travelling, but at least he promised to be useful. she picked herself up off the floor and began to consider the disposal of her garments. three or four wooden pegs, the only accommodation to be seen, were obviously not sufficient to hold all her clothes. presently there was an interlude, provided by the advent of the landlady. her dishevelment accorded well with the general look of the house; her slippers clicked on the carpetless boards at every shuffling step, and she carried a half-cold, slopped-over cup of coffee. to arithelli's relief the woman was mistress of a limited amount of french patois, and in answer to a demand for a wardrobe of some kind, said she would send up her son. he was a carpenter and would doubtless arrange something. she gave a curious glance at the girl's witch-like beauty, a mixture of suspicion and barely-admitted pity in her thoughts. as to emile's share in the drama she had naturally formed conclusions. after a respectable interval her son arrived, and having delivered himself of a remark in spanish and being answered in french, proceeded to hammer a row of enormous nails into the wall at regular intervals. arithelli sat upon her trunk, which she considered cleaner than the chairs, and watched the process, her green eyes assuming a curious veiled expression, a hank of copper-tinted hair falling upon her shoulders. there was something uncanny in her capacity for keeping still, and she had none of the usual and natural fidgetiness of a young girl. in whatever position of sitting or standing she found herself she was capable of remaining for an indefinite period. when the carpenter's manipulations had ceased she hung up her dresses carefully, put the rest of her things back into the trunk, as being the safest place, and sitting down again began to cry in a low, painful way, utterly unlike the light april shower emotion of the ordinary woman. here she was in barcelona, and the fulfilled desire seemed likely to become already dead sea fruit. supposing she got ill, or failed to satisfy the audience. she would see her name to-morrow when she went out in large letters on the posters of the hippodrome: "_arithelli, the beautiful english equestrienne_," and underneath some appalling picture of herself in columbine skirts, or jockey's silk jacket and cap and top boots. she had been crazy with delight over her success in getting the engagement from the manager in paris, and it had not occurred to her that her appearance had had a great deal to do with her having been accepted. she had signed a contract for a year; and looking forward a year seemed a very long time. there had been opposition at home. her father had said, "i don't approve, but at the same time i don't know in the least what else you can do. it's hobson's choice. you can ride, and you've got looks of the sort to take in a public career." her mother had been frankly brutal. now that there was no money, she said, she could not have three great girls at home doing nothing. she had given them all a good education and they must try and make some use of it. neither of the younger sisters, isobel and valèrie, were old enough to do anything for themselves, so arithelli at the age of twenty-four had taken her courage, which was the indomitable courage of her race, in both hands, and launched herself on the world. the bare-backed riding of her early days in galway had proved a valuable asset, and there was not a horse she could not manage. her slim figure seemed born to the saddle, and her nerve was as yet unshaken. the man who had engaged her had been more than a little astonished at the composure with which she showed off the horses' paces, and went through various tricks. as she was young and inexperienced, he would get her cheaply; she could be taught all the stereotyped acts with very little trouble, and her morbid style of beauty would be a draw in spain. there was nothing of the english miss about her appearance and few people would have believed her to be only twenty-four. she had no freshness, no _beautè de diable_. her beauty was that of line and modelling. her quietness was partly the result of a convent education. an old irish nun had told her once that good looks were a snare and a delusion of the devil, and that hers would never bring her happiness. at least they had got her an engagement, and a circus had always represented to her the very height of romance. she wondered how she could manage for money till she got her five pounds next friday. it was lucky that all her habits, and so on, were provided by the management. she wished to-morrow would arrive, for she felt eager to begin work, and see the horses. she had quite forgotten all about emile's promised visit, and was just pulling down the rest of her hair preparatory to getting ready for bed, when he walked in without any preliminary knock. "how are you getting on? all right?" then after a momentary inspection of the many garments that festooned the dirty walls, he added: "i don't think you've got very good taste in clothes!" chapter ii "all women are good; good for something, or good for nothing." cervantes. the next morning emile made his entrance with the same complete disregard of ceremony. arithelli was still in bed and only half awake. she raised herself slightly and looked at him with sleepy eyes. "oh!" she said. "i didn't hear you knock." there was the same entire lack of embarrassment in her manner that she had shown on the previous night. almost before she had finished her sentence she shut her eyes again, and leant back yawning. it seemed a matter of the greatest indifference to her whether he was there or not. emile's interest rose by several degrees as he sat down on the edge of the bed. "i didn't knock," he said, speaking english fluently enough, but with the hard, clipped accents of the slav. "i can't bother about all that humbug. if you're straight with me i'll be straight with you, and we may as well be friends. i dare say you think you're very good-looking and all that, but it doesn't make any difference to me. you're here, and i'm here, so we may as well be here together." "i'm so sorry," arithelli replied, "but i'm always so stupid and sleepy in the mornings. do you mind saying it all over again?" and very much to his own surprise emile poleski repeated his remarks. it struck him that there was something of the boy, the _gamin_, about her in spite of her exotic appearance. that was so much the better and would suit admirably with his schemes for her. it was better that she should not be too much of a woman; for in the realms of anarchy there is no sex, though comradeship is elevated to the dignity of a fine art. for chivalry and love making there is neither the time nor the desire, and those who are wedded to _la liberté_ find her an all-sufficient idol for purposes of worship. human life is held of small account, to join the cause being equivalent to the signing of one's own death warrant. one would probably have to die to-morrow if not to-day, and whether it were sooner or later mattered little. emile's fierce devotion to the cause of his oppressed country had been the means of leaving him stranded in barcelona at the age of forty, without hopes, illusions or ideals. his estates in russia had been confiscated, his parents were dead, the woman he had loved was married. now he lived in a dirty back street, in a single room, on two pounds a week, morbid, suspicious, cynical, keeping his own counsel, owning no friends, and occupying body and brain with plots, secret meetings, ciphers and the usual accompaniments of intrigue. the brotherhood consisted of fifteen men, though occasionally the number varied. two or three would disappear, another one come. there was no feminine element. an anarchist seldom marries. to him a woman is either a machine or the lightest of light episodes. emile had not the least desire to make love to the girl whom he had for his own purposes befriended. he was a quick and subtle judge of character, and had seen at a glance that in her he would find a study of pronounced interest. also she might prove of some utility. it was one of the tenets of the fraternity to which he belonged never to waste any material that might come to hand. in the finely-cut face before him, with its oriental modelling and impassivity, he read brains, refinement and endurance. her hair was plaited in two long braids, and drawn down over her ears, showing the contour of a sleek, smooth little head. she had relapsed into silence after disposing of the slovenly meal he had induced the landlady to provide. the only thing that seemed to worry her was the superfluous dirt that adorned the cups. at length she spoke: "and what sort of a place is this barcelona?" "_l'entresol de l'enfer_," answered emile curtly. "what are your people doing to allow you to come here alone?" "they don't know i am here. i ran away, you see. if i get on well, i'll write and let them know, and if not--" "_alors_?" "oh, i don't know. but i will get on. don't you think i ought to make a success at the hippodrome?" emile ignored the _naïve_ conceit of the last remark. "but what are you doing at the hippodrome at all?" he demanded. "i am riding," she answered with an elfish smile in which her eyes took no part. "obviously! what are you going to do about _déjeuner_? the landlady won't bring you up all your meals." "i don't know," was the unconcerned answer. "you'll have to go to one of the _cafés_, and you had better let me show you which are the most desirable ones. _enfin_! have you any intention of getting up this morning?" arithelli yawned again. "i suppose i must go round and present myself to the manager. i'm to rehearse a fortnight before i make my appearance in public." "then i had better come with you," emile replied with decision. "as i told you yesterday, i know the manager fairly well." an hour later they walked together through the streets on their way to the hippodrome. emile was a bad advertisement for the secrecy of his profession, for he looked a typical desperado. his velvet coat had the air of having been slept in for weeks, and had certainly never been on terms of acquaintanceship with a brush; and, besides the usual anarchist badge, a red tie, a blood red carnation flamed defiance in his buttonhole. under a battered sombrero he scowled upon the world; a dark skin, fierce moustache, and arching black eyebrows over hard, grey eyes. there are few people who look their parts in life, but emile might without addition or alteration, have been transferred to the stage as the typical villain of a melodrama. arithelli had arrayed herself in the cornflower blue frock, which she carried with a negligent ease, and she still wore the panama hat with the flowing veil. as a matter of fact it was the only piece of headgear she possessed; for she had been reckless over dresses and boots in paris and had found herself drawn up with a jerk in the midst of her purchases by her small stock of money coming to an abrupt end. of her carriage and general deportment, which were noticeably good even among spanish women, emile approved. the crude blue of her dress, the tags and ends of tinselled braid set his teeth on edge. in his "count poleski" days he had known the quiet and exquisite taste of the _mondaines_ of vienna and st. petersburg, and like most men he preferred dark clothes in the street. later on he proposed to himself the pleasure of supervising her wardrobe, except her boots, which met with his fullest approbation. he noticed that she did not talk much but observed in silence. he felt that nothing escaped those heavy-lidded, curious eyes. "is everything dirty in spain?" she said at last. "how fussy you are about dirt!" retorted emile disagreeably. "yes. my mother is a jewess, you know. i expect we notice these things more than the dirty gentiles." her calm assertion of the superior cleanliness of the tribe of israel, amused emile, who had been accustomed to hear the usual contempt of the english-speaking races for anyone possessing a strain of jewish blood. so it was the jewess in her that accounted for her haunting voice. the manager was a hatchet-faced and haggard man who looked as if he went to bed about once a week, on an average, and existed principally on cigarettes and _absinthe_. the simultaneous arrival of emile and arithelli roused him from his normal condition of bored cynicism to comparative animation. like the landlady he naturally made his own conclusions. "when did you arrive?" he demanded of arithelli. emile, not being afflicted with a sense of the necessity for elaborate explanation, removed himself a few paces and began to roll a cigarette. arithelli stood her ground, listened to the comments on her appearance which the manager felt himself entitled to use, returned his cynical survey with a level glance, and answered his questions with an unruffled composure. it was arranged that she should rehearse every day for two hours in the morning, and another two hours between the afternoon and evening performances. for the first act she could wear a habit of any colour she cared to choose, and a smart hat; for the second act, which included jumping over gates, and the presence of the inevitable clown, she would have to wear short skirts. "_they_ won't suit me," she said. "you see how long and thin i am, and look at my long feet. i shall look a burlesque." the manager glared at her. "i quite believe you will," he snapped. "i suppose you think you're going to do the leaping act in a court train and feathers! is there anything more you would like to suggest?" the intended sarcasm was not a success. arithelli considered gravely. "i don't think so, thank you," she said at last. "but if i _do_ think of anything else i'll tell you. and i _should_ like to see the horses." she was filled with a genuine delight by the four cream-coloured pure-bred andalusians, el rey, don quixote, cavaliero and don juan. they turned intelligent eyes upon her as she entered their stalls, neighing gently as if they recognised a friend. both the men experienced the same feeling of surprise at her evident knowledge and understanding of animals. in five minutes she had shown that she knew as much about their harness and food as a competent groom. the astute manager, upon whom no sign of intelligence was wasted, saw a good opportunity for getting a little extra work out of his youthful leading lady. he informed her that she must be down at the stables every morning at eight o'clock to inspect the horses and see them fed and watered. as a matter of fact the inspection should have been one of his own duties, but the girl was not likely to cavil at any little additional work that had not been exactly specified in her contract. besides, if she did, he could soon make it uncomfortable for her. arithelli made no objection. though she hated getting up early she would never have grudged a sacrifice of comfort made on behalf of any animal. when all the business was completed, emile took her to the café colomb for lunch. before they left he knew the details of her history. the big house in ireland, with its stud of horses and unlimited hospitality, and the rapidly vanishing fortune. her mother, a viennese by birth, a cosmopolitan by travel and education, a fine horsewoman, and extravagance incarnate. her father, good-natured, careless, manly, as sportsmanlike and unbusinesslike as most irishmen. when his horses died he bought more, keeping always open house for a colony of men as shiftless and as easy-going as himself. as the children grew up the money became less and less. they were sent to convent schools in france and belgium, then to cheap schools in england. at length the final crash came, and the big, picturesque, rambling house in galway was sold, and they came to london with an infinitesimal income partly derived from the grudging charity of relatives. arithelli cleaned the doorsteps and the kitchen stove, blackleaded the grates and prepared the meals, which more often than not consisted only of potatoes and tea. their mother, who hated all domestic work, and could never be induced to see that their loss of money was due to her own extravagance, retired to bed, where she spent her days in reading plato in the original, and writing charming french lyrics. when arithelli ran away she had gone straight to an old friend of her mother's, the widow of an ambassador in paris. she had made up her mind to earn her own living. she would carve out for herself a career. having decided that riding was her most saleable accomplishment, she had gone round to the riding school where the managers of the hippodromes of vienna, buda-pesth and barcelona waited to select _equestriennes_. luck, youthful confidence, and her tragic, unyouthful beauty, had all ranged themselves together to procure her the much desired engagement. "i made up my mind to get taken on," she concluded. "_et me voilà_! i did all sorts of desperate jumps that day. i felt desperate. if i hadn't got it, there was only the morgue. i couldn't have gone home." emile listened in silence, and drank _absinthe_ and considered. that night at a meeting of the brotherhood he took the leader, sobrenski, aside and said: "it was decided the other day that we wanted someone to take messages and run errands. someone who could go unnoticed into places where it would be suspicious for us to be seen. you suggested a boy. fate has been so kind as to show me a woman who seems to be in every way suitable--or at least with a little training she will become so." "a woman!" echoed the other. "are you mad?" "i conclude her to be a woman because of her clothes. otherwise she seems to be a mixture of a boy and wood-elf. the combination appears to me to be a fascinating one. she is of good family, half irish, speaks three languages, asks no questions, and seems to have an extraordinary capacity for holding her tongue. it is on that account that i questioned her sex. her appearance is excessively feminine. of course i do not propose to enrol her among us at once. as i have said before, there are many ways in which a woman would be useful." sobrenski pulled doubtfully at his reddish, pointed beard. "does she know anything about the cause?" "i fancy not, but she appears to have the right ideas, and after i have judiciously fanned the flame!--girls of that age are always wildly enthusiastic over something--so she may as well devote her enthusiasm to us." chapter iii "out of the uttermost end of things on the side of life that is seamier, there lies a land, so its poet sings, whose people call it bohemia. "it is not old, it is not new, it is not false, it is not true, and they will not answer for what they do, far away in bohemia." "love in bohemia," dolf wyllarde. "i think," arithelli said with deliberation, "that all your friends are very fatiguing. they have such bad tempers, and do nothing but argue." "they live for the serious things of life," retorted emile. "not to play the fool." "thanks! is this one of the serious things of life, do you suppose?" she stuck the large needle with which she had been awkwardly cobbling a tear in her skirt, into the seat of a chair. "what are you doing that for?" demanded emile. "oh, pardon, i forgot." she extracted the needle. "i don't think i'm unwomanly but i'm not a good sewer. emile! don't you think we might have some music? i really am beginning to sing '_le rêve_' quite well." her education in anarchy had commenced with the teaching of revolutionary songs. emile, who was himself music-mad, had discovered her to be possessed of a rough contralto voice of a curious mature quality. it would have been an absurd voice for ballads in a drawing-room, but it suited fiery declamations in praise of _la liberté_! they were sitting in emile's room now, for they made use of each other's lodgings alternately, and there was a battered and rather out-of-tune piano. sometimes, after the evening performance, there would be a gathering of the conspirators, all more or less morose, unshaven and untidy; and while emile played for her, arithelli would stand in the middle of the room, her green eyes blazing out of her pale face, her arms folded, singing with a fervour which surprised even her teacher, the lovely impassioned "_rêve du prisonnier_" of rubinstein. she was always pleased with her own performances, and not in the least troubled with shyness. also she was invariably eager to practise. she shook down her skirt, went across to the piano and began to pick out the notes. "_s'il faut, ah, prends ma vie. mais rends-moi la liberté!_" emile was sewing on buttons. though he did not look in the least domesticated, he was far more dexterous at such work than the long-fingered arithelli. in fact it was only at his suggestion that she ever mended anything at all. "do you ever by chance realise what you are singing about?" he demanded. "of course i do. i'm a red hot socialist. i've read tolstoi's books and lots of others. i got in an awful scrape over political things just the little time i was in paris. it was when the dreyfus case was on. madame bertrand was terrified at the way i aired my opinions. you see politics are so different abroad to what they are in england." emile agreed. the girl was developing even more than he had hoped. "ah! this is the first time i've ever heard about your political opinions." "you've never asked me before. one doesn't know everything about a person at once." again emile agreed. then he said abruptly, "well, if you have all these ideas you'd better join the cause." "i'd love to! shall i have to go to meetings with sobrenski and all the rest of them?" "probably. but you'll not be expected to talk. you may be told to do some writing or carry messages." "is that all?" she seemed rather disappointed. emile felt for a moment almost inclined to develop scruples. she evidently regarded anarchy at large as a species of particularly exciting diversion. "who are the other women mixed up with it?" she asked. "there are no other women. you should feel honoured that we are having you." emile stood up, having completed his renovating operations. "you want to sing, eh?" arithelli assented eagerly. "you will work?" emile demanded. "yes!" her eyes had become suddenly like green jewels, and she looked almost animated. she was more interested in emile's music than in any other part of him. his wild russian ballads sung with his strange clipped accent and fiery emphasis, fascinated her. she was content to listen for an indefinite period of time, her long body in a restful attitude, her feet crossed, her hands in her lap, as absolutely immovable as one who is hypnotised. emile, for his part, was equally interested in her exploits in vocalism, which he found as extraordinary and unexpected as everything else about her. her singing voice was so curiously unlike her speaking voice that it might have belonged to another person. it had tremendous possibilities and a large range, but it was hoarse and harsh, and yet full of an uncanny attraction. in such a voice a sorceress of old might have crooned her incantations. where did this girl get her soul, her passion, he wondered; she who was only just beginning life. he flung over an untidy pile of music, and dragged out the magnificently devilish "_enchantement_" of massenet. "try this," he said abruptly. "it's _your_ kind of song." for half-an-hour he exhorted, bullied and instructed, losing both his composure and his temper. arithelli lost neither. "i don't understand music," she observed calmly. "but show me what to do and i'll do it. mine's a queer voice, isn't it? a regular croak." "you've got a voice; yes, that's true, but you don't know how to produce it, and you've no technique. you want plenty of scales." "wouldn't that take all the rough off, and make it just like anyone's voice?" emile stared angrily at the exponent of such heresy, and was about to annihilate her with sarcasm, when he suddenly changed his mind. after all, she was right. it was what she called "the rough" that helped to make her voice unlike the voices of most women. "is that your idea? a good excuse for being lazy! if you don't sing scales then you must work hard at songs." "yes, i know." she put her hands behind her back and leant against the piano. "there was a man in paris, a friend of the manager. he heard me sing once. he knew i wanted to take up a profession, and he offered to train me for nothing, and bring me out on the stage. i was to sing those queer, dramatic, half-monotone songs in which one almost _speaks_ the words. he meant to write them specially for me, and i was to wear an oriental costume. he said that every other voice would sound _fâde_ after mine." emile glanced at her sharply, but her tone and manner was both absolutely void of conceit. "well, why didn't you accept his offer?" "i don't know. i suppose because it was fated i should come here. he wanted me to make my _début_ at the _cafés chantants_, but i didn't like the idea somehow. he said my voice was only fit for the stage, and would sound horrible in a room." emile twisted his moustache upwards, and his eyebrows climbed in the same direction. "so! do you think then that your life at the hippodrome is going to be more what you english call respectable, than the _cafés chantants_?" "there are the horses here. if i don't like anything else i can always like them." emile decided that the man in paris had been apt in his judgment of this fantastic voice. clever of him also to have noticed that she was oriental. the setting of her green eyes was of the east. and horses were the only things she cared about--so far. like most people whose lives are a complicated tangle of plots, emile was not particularly interested in animals. his life, thoughts and environment were morbid, and the dumb creation too normal and healthy to appeal greatly to him. he discovered that his pupil was able to play in much the same inconsistent fashion that she sang. with a beautiful touch, full of temperament and expression, she possessed a profound ignorance of the rudiments of music. she could not read the notes, she said, but she could copy anything he played if she heard it two or three times. emile found her astonishingly intelligent as well as amiable, and though the music lessons were not conducted on scientific principles, they produced good results. he would give her plenty of music with which to occupy herself till the time came when she would be fully occupied in serving the cause. as he had said, there were no other female conspirators in their circle. sobrenski, the red-haired leader, detested women, and thought them all fools, who generally added the sin of treachery to their foolishness. emile himself had taken no interest in any woman since he had lived in barcelona. he too had found them treacherous. since he had lost his little childish goddess, marie roumanoff, he had had no desire to play the role of lover. if he wanted companionship he preferred men, for as companions women bored him. but arithelli was not a woman--yet. she appeared able to keep own counsel, to do as she was told, and to judge by the way she rode, her courage would be capable of standing a severe test. also it had occurred to him that she possessed the art of being a good comrade. it would amuse him to watch her develop. at present she was full of illusions about the charm of life in general. everything for her showed rose-tinged. well, it was not his business to dispel illusions. at present it was all "_le rêve_," but after the dream would come awakening. he took care to leave her very little alone during the first few days, and arranged her time according to his own ideas, and escorted her backwards and forwards from her rehearsals at the hippodrome. when she was free he took her for long walks up the hills where they could look down upon the gorgeous city, which, as far as natural loveliness went, might have been compared to paradise rather than to the hell to which he invariably likened it. the beautiful harbour, the dry air, the sunlight and splashes of vivid colour--everything was intoxicating to her. she said very little, but emile felt that she missed nothing, and lacked nothing in appreciation. for himself the place must be always hateful, for he was in exile. what was the golden sunlight to him when he longed for the snows and frozen wastes of russia, that sombre country so like the hearts of those by whom it is peopled. one day he took her for an excursion to montserrat, three hours' journey from barcelona. they left the train at monistrol, and started to walk through the vineyards and pine woods towards the famous mountain that towers up to heaven in grey rugged terraces of rock. all round, for miles, were undulating waves of green, here and there the brown towers of some ancient castle, or the buildings of a farmstead; and below on the plain the glitter of the winding river. they climbed to the wooded slopes of olese, where they sat down to rest. arithelli threw herself on the short, dry grass, with her arms under her head, and drew a long breath of pleasure and relief. "i love all this; it makes me feel so free." emile sat with his back against a huge plane tree, and rolled cigarettes, watching her under his heavy eyebrows. she looked in her proper place here, he thought. there was something wild and animal-like about the grace of her attitude. "so you're out of a convent?" he said, hurling out the remark with his usual abruptness. "_tiens_! it's absurd!" "but it's true. convent schools are cheap, you see, that's why we were sent there. no, i'm not a catholic. most of the girls made their abjurations, but i never did. they told lies there, and they spied. i hated that. the nuns spied on the children of mary, and the children of mary spied on the ones who were not the children of mary, and--" she stopped. emile told her to continue. "i should like to hear more about your--your religious experiences," he said. "besides, it will do you more good to talk than to go to sleep." arithelli complied at once, with unruffled good nature. "oh, of course i'll tell you if you like," she said amiably. "i stopped because i thought you would probably be bored, _ennuyé_, you know." she described the nuns mumbling their prayers, and punctuating them with irate commands to the children; the many and various rules, the _mére supérieure_, the food, the clothes, the eccentricities of _monsieur le directeur_. she had the rare and unwomanlike art of witty description, though it assorted badly with her tragic face and unsmiling eyes. as she talked her voice rippled and broke into suppressed laughter. "it was all rather dull, _n'est-ce-pas_?" said emile, who felt more amusement than he had any intention of showing. "you'll find the cause more exciting." before any practical steps were taken to make her a member of the band it was necessary to stimulate her enthusiasm, her imagination. he knew that for all her outward calmness she had no lack of fire. the coldest countries sometimes produced the most raging volcanoes. "it's the only thing you care about--isn't it--the cause?" she said. "tell me more about it. as i'm going in for it i ought to understand. of course i like anything that's 'agin the government.' all the irish have always been rebels and patriots. we've helped your country too." emile did not require a second invitation to induce him to expound his views. "i suppose you think we throw bombs about by way of a little distraction?" he asked sarcastically. "what have we suffered before we took to throwing bombs? before i came here i saw men and women, old and young together, shot down in the streets of st. petersburg. because they rioted? no! because they wished to offer a protest against the brutalities of the government officials. are our petitions ever read, our entreaties ever answered? there were other things too, but they didn't generally get into the newspapers. women stripped in barrack rooms,--and that in winter,--the russian winter,--and beaten by common soldiers. not women of the streets and slums, but women of the higher classes. mock trials held with closed doors, the crime,--to have incurred the displeasure of someone in favour at the court,--the end,--siberia! a student is known to be quiet, a great reader and interested in the condition of the serfs. he is watched, arrested, and on the false evidence of the police ends his days in the mines. entreaties, reason, appeal! have we not tried them? now we have only one weapon left--retaliation. sometimes we are able to avenge our martyrs. the two fiends who guarded marie spiridonova were shot by the members of her society. she was only a girl too--about the same age as you. we anarchists do not serenade women and make them compliments, but we think it an honour to kiss the hand of such as marie spiridonova. she was tortured, starved, outraged, and came through worse than death to be transported to a convict settlement. now she is in the malzoff prison. she will never see the world again, but it may be years before the life is ground out of her by labour and privations. her case will soon be forgotten, except by a few, and thousands of other women have gone the same road. the details of the tragedy may be a little different, the thing itself is the same. one day i shall go back to my own country. in the meantime i carry on the campaign here. "it's a losing cause. but if we lose we pay. we don't ask for mercy!" * * * * * * they sat together that evening at a _café_ on the rambla, the strolling place of the spanish beauties, who promenaded there in an endless stream, with waving fans and rustling draperies, carnations and roses burning in dark, elaborately dressed hair. tziganes made wild, witch music. at the _cafés_ people laughed and drank. suddenly arithelli leant across the little table, raising her glass. "to the cause!" she whispered under her breath. for an instant the two pairs of eyes flamed into each other; then those of the man, hard and steel-grey, softened into something like admiration. their glasses clinked softly together. "to the cause!" he repeated. "_mon camarade_!" chapter iv "these were things she came to know, and to take their measure, when the play was played out so for one man's pleasure." swinburne. a few days later, arithelli was duly initiated, and given the badge of the cause, a massive buckle with a woman's figure, and on either side the words _honneur et patrie_. at the suggestion of the leader emile had been made responsible for her behaviour. if she betrayed them in any way his life was to pay forfeit. there was a fellow conspirator working with her at the hippodrome, a young austrian of high rank named vardri. his father had turned him out of doors, penniless, because of his political views; and he was now, half-starved, consumptive and reckless, employed in harnessing the horses and attending to the stables. there were two men under thirty, but the majority were middle-aged. they all seemed to arithelli to have the same wild, restless eyes. they called her "_camarade_," and "_amigo_," and treated her not unkindly, but with an utter indifference to her sex. all their sayings showed the most absolute disregard for human life. "if a vase is cracked, break it. if your glove is worn out, throw it away." if they heard that some member of the band had found his way to the fortress of montjuich there was callous laughter and a speculation as to whose turn it would be next. their meetings were held in divers places. sometimes they would engage a room at the hotel catalonia and hold what were supposed to be classes for astronomy. sobrenski was the lecturer, the rest posing as students. if anyone came in unexpectedly it all looked beautifully innocent--the big telescope by the open window, the books and papers and charts, and arithelli at the desk at the end of the room taking shorthand notes of the lecture. there were seldom more than three or four _rendezvous_ held in the same place, and more than once there were alarms and rumours of a visit from the police. as the days wore on emile found new reason to congratulate himself upon his discovery of "fatalité," as he had nicknamed the girl. she had shown herself possessed of a charming temper, a fine intelligence, and a most complete understanding of the law of obedience. she made no comments on anything she was asked to do, but delivered messages and ran errands after the manner of a machine in good working order. even sobrenski, who hated all women, was obliged to admit her usefulness. she was on pleasant terms with everybody down to the strappers,--the men who harnessed the hippodrome horses,--who adored her. even the cynical manager was impressed by her pluck and skill, though he considered it his privilege to regale her with comments on her personal peculiarities. the time arrived for her first performance at the hippodrome. she made her appearance in the ring in a turquoise blue habit, trimmed hussar-fashion with much braid, and a plumed cavalier hat, the dusky shadows under her eyes accentuated, and her face powdered. the manager would not allow her to use rouge, so under the glaring electric lights she appeared more than ever spiritual and unearthly. her type, he said, did not require colour; and the people preferred anything morbid in the shape of looks. emile, who was among the audience on the first night, thought she looked like a thorough-bred racer as she made a dignified entrance to a clanging stately gavotte crashed out by the band. he had given her dresser a couple of _pesetas_ to have her well turned out, and the result was exceedingly satisfactory even to his critical eyes. her little head with its piled red hair was carried marvellously high, and she swayed daintily on the back of the high-stepping don juan. she bowed gravely to the various parts of the house, but she had no stereotyped smile either for the boxes or for the lower seats. her slender figure gave the impression of great strength for a young girl. "steel in a velvet sheath, _ma foi_! body and soul!" was emile's inward comment. "so much the better for the cause." a spanish crowd usually gives but a languid reception unless roused by something either horrible or sensational, but her bizarre appearance had the effect which the manager had foreseen. in the second act she apparently changed her personality with her clothes, and whirled in astride over two horses with neither saddle nor bridle, guiding them and keeping them together by the pressure of her feet. she had full skirts, to her knees, of white satin, and pearl-coloured silk stockings. her satin bodice was cut heart-shaped and there was a high jewelled band round her long throat. her hair hung down in a thick plait, tied with a bow of blue velvet. the horses tore round the ring at full gallop; she jumped over gates and through hoops, and ended her performance by leaping off one of the horses which was caught by a groom, and flinging herself on to the other, face to the tail, for a final reckless canter round the arena. the brilliance and nerve with which she carried through the trick, roused the enthusiasm it deserved, and arithelli passed out panting and triumphant to the accompaniment of music and cheers, and showered roses and carnations. the part of her work that she most abhorred was the eight o'clock compulsory visit to the stables. a circus life is not prone to encourage the virtue of early rising, and she was by nature indolent in a panther-like fashion, and was never in bed till half-past one or two in the morning. if she had known a little more she could have protested on the grounds that her position of leading lady did not involve the feeding of her animals. she did it as she had done other things without complaint, and presently emile came to the rescue. he knew as much about the habits and requirements of horses as he knew about shop-keeping, being entirely ignorant of both. "how much are the brutes to have?" he asked of the manager. "and what on earth do you give them?" "oh, i generally give 'em fish," was the sarcastic answer. "what are you doing here, poleski? this is the girl's business. i thought she was keen on her horses." "she is also keen on her bed," emile answered. "she does her share of work." the manager grumbled, but the new arrangement was allowed to stand. arithelli did not consort with the other female members of the hippodrome. the one exception was estelle the dancer, with whom emile allowed her a slight acquaintance. he neither approved of women in general nor of their friendships. estelle was the _bonne amie_ of the sardonic manager, who occasionally beat her, after which ceremony it was her custom to drink _absinthe_. sometimes, for this reason, she was unable to appear on the stage. she would come into arithelli's dressing room and weep, and smoke innumerable cigarettes, and when things had been going well, they made a _partie carrée_ at the café colomb. by way of advertising herself and her performance arithelli was given a high, smartly painted carriage in which she drove in the fashionable promenade of barcelona, the paséo de gracia, with three of the cream-coloured horses lightly harnessed and jingling with bells. on these occasions emile played the part of lady's maid and escort. he selected her dress, fastened it, scolded her for putting her hat on crooked, and laced up her preposterously high boots. then he adjusted the battered sombrero, lit a cigarette and drove beside her, scowling as usual. the appearance of both was sufficiently arresting. arithelli drove as she rode, recklessly, and yet with science. her thin wrists and long girlish arms were capable of controlling the most fiery animal. she had made emile her banker, and always handed over to him her weekly salary, some of which went to the expenses of the cause as well as a certain portion in fines, for she had no idea of time and was never ready for anything. nearly every night before she was half-way into her habit the call-boy came screaming down the passage, calling with the free-and-easy manners prevalent behind the scenes: "hurry up, arithelli, or there'll be a row!" the question of a disguise for her was discussed at one of the meetings of the brotherhood, and it was decided that she should appear as a boy. her height would be an advantage, and her long hands and feet would also help the illusion in a country where every woman possesses small, plump and highly arched extremities. besides, when they had to ride out to places at night, she would be less noticeable. one girl among a crowd of men might attract suspicion, though in the daytime she was more useful as a woman. it naturally fell upon emile to provide the details of her transformation, and he presented himself at her lodgings one afternoon, bearing an ungainly parcel which he deposited on the table. "you'd better try these on," he said. "there is a complete suit of boy's clothes, a wig and everything you'll want. you will have to put your own hair out of the way somehow." it was the drowsy hour of the _siesta_, when no one moved out if he could help it, and all work and play were at a standstill. arithelli was sitting, as was her custom, absorbed in her own thoughts and dreams. for a moment she stared with uncomprehending eyes. she felt tired, she wanted to be alone, and she had not heard a single word. emile shrugged irritably and repeated his remarks. "oh, yes," said arithelli. she rose slowly, took up the parcel and retired into seclusion behind the curtains, with which she had screened off the alcove and so made herself an improvised dressing room. the rest of the apartment she had altered to look as much like a sitting room as possible, with the exception of the obtrusive four-poster, which could not be hidden and which upon entering appeared the most salient feature visible. there was some tawdry jewellery lying about, and several pairs of the pale-hued parisian boots she invariably affected. emile made and lighted the inevitable cigarette, while he fidgeted about, turning over the few french and english novels he could find with an air of disapproval; for her taste in literature did not commend itself to him any more than did her taste in finery. at one period of his life he had steeped himself in books, knowing the poetry and romance of nearly every nation. now he disliked them. if she wanted books he would choose them for her. she would read the love-songs of the revolutionists to their goddess liberty, the haunting words of those who had suffered for a time, and escaped the siberian ice-hell. the fanaticism of his race and temperament flamed into his cold eyes as he sat and brooded, and he hardly noticed that arithelli had slid into the room in her noiseless fashion, and was standing before him. emile, though little given to being astonished, marvelled at the unconcern with which she submitted to his critical inspection. she stood and walked easily, and looked neither uncomfortable nor unnatural in her boyish array, in which the perfect poise of her body showed triumphantly. the black wig, under which she had skilfully hidden her red hair, made her look more pale than ever. the wide sombrero, tilted backwards, made a picturesque framing to her oval face, and the _manta_ or heavy cloak, worn by all spaniards at night, hung, loosely draped over her left shoulder. emile promptly twisted it off. "this won't do," he said. "the _manta_ is never worn like that. besides it's not enough of a disguise. watch how i put it on." with a few rough yet dexterous movements he arranged the dark folds so as to hide her shoulders and the upper part of her body. then he stood back a few paces. "but your green eyes! a disguise for _them_ will be impossible. one sees them always." "_les yeux verts. vont à l'enfer!_" "do you know that, _mon enfant_?" "i've heard it before. they've already come as far as _l'entresol_, according to you." emile grinned. he enjoyed skirmishing, and felt that he had met his match in words. before he could think of another retort she added: "i can see in the dark with my green eyes, so they're useful at all events." "then you'll find plenty of use for them when you're working for us--and the cause. when you have to ride upon the hills at night you will find them of great service. you'll have to ride astride too, so it is better for you in every way to be dressed like this." presently he left her with a few words of praise for her successful appearance. his first feeling of surprise at her coolness still lingered. he had expected a scene in a quiet way, a refusal, at least expostulation. all his first impressions of her were being verified. well, he hoped she would continue in her present ways. undoubtedly she was an original, certainly she gave no trouble. when she heard the street door shut arithelli sat down, hiding her face in her hands. once she shivered involuntarily. directly she found herself alone the mask of her assumed nonchalance had fallen suddenly. as long as there was an audience she had worn a disguise on her soul as well as her body. she had been feeling moody and depressed all day, and this last episode was the climax. everything she had was to be her own no longer. it was all to be for the cause--even her green eyes! what power it possessed over these men. they admitted it to be a losing cause, yet it was all they thought about, the sole thing for which they lived--and died. she had not thought it would be like this at first. she remembered how gaily she had discoursed of tolstoi and prince kropotkin, and of their writings which had revealed to her a new world. her first interview with sobrenski had shown the relentlessness of the man she was to serve. she felt that he would sacrifice all alike, men and women, to his idol, and would never stop to care whether the victim were willing or unwilling. the fact of her sex would gain her no consideration at his hands. lately she had been impressed with the sensation of being surrounded by an impassable barrier drawn round her, a circle that was gradually becoming narrowed. she had begun to know that she was being incessantly watched. if emile were occupied with the business of the society, and could not fetch her from the hippodrome himself, he never failed to send an understudy in the shape of one of his allies, generally one of the older men. when she emerged from the performers' entrance a silent figure would come forward to meet her. often they exchanged no words throughout the walk home, but she was never left till her own door was reached. if she went anywhere to please herself, to a shop, or to see estelle, she was expected to give a full account of her doings. it was an understood thing that she should not go to the _cafés_ or public gardens alone, nor speak to anyone not already known and approved by emile. with all these conditions she had complied. already one illusion had vanished. she had thought to find freedom in barcelona. she had indeed found "_la liberté_." but the fates had chosen to be in an ironical mood, and while making the discovery she had herself become a slave. in all her day there was no hour that she could call her own. chapter v "i have gained her! her soul's mine!" browning. "you slouched last night in the ring, fatalité," emile said. arithelli flung up her head. "i didn't!" "you looked like a monkey on a stick," proceeded emile stolidly. "you were all hunched up. i wonder don juan didn't put you off his back on to the tan." "don juan knows better! you see animals are usually more kind than people." she was too proud to admit that the long hours, hard work, and want of proper food and sleep had lately given her furious backaches, which were a thing unknown to her before, and a cause of bitter resentment. she had a healthy distaste for illness either in theory or practice. that night she sat don juan erect as a lance, passing emile in his accustomed place in the lower tier of seats with a shrug and scornful eyebrows. she had felt more than usually inclined to play the coward during the last few weeks. the heat, worry and over-fatigue had begun, as they must have done eventually, to affect her nerves. when she had felt more than usually depressed and listless emile had taken her to one of the _cafés_ and given her _absinthe_ which had made her feel recklessly well for the moment, and ten times more miserable the next day. he had also advised her to smoke, saying that it was good for people who had whims and fancies, but smoking did not appeal to her, and she never envied the spanish woman her eternal cigarette. she felt as if she would like to sleep, sleep for an indefinite period. she was wearied to death of the cause, and the brotherhood, with their intrigues and plots and interminable cipher messages. she had been three months in barcelona, and now fully justified emile's name for her. tragic as a veritable mask of fate, she looked ten years older than the girl he had met on the station platform. the longer she worked for the cause the more she realised that anarchy was no plaything for spare moments, but a juggling with life and death. at first they had given her but little to do--a few documents to copy, some cipher messages to carry. then the demands upon her leisure had become more frequent. she found she was expected to make no demur at being sent for miles, and once or twice there had been dreadful midnight excursions to a hut up in the mountains. the realisation of the folly of trying to escape from the burden that had been laid upon her affected her nerve and seat during her performances in the ring. for the first time she felt her courage failing her when she entered sobrenski's house in answer to his summons. when he had given her the despatch she made an objection on the grounds that the time taken in conveying it would absorb her few hours of rest. "it's too far," she protested. "i can't go there to-day." "then you can go to-morrow," answered sobrenski in the accents of finality. he had never cared about the girl's inclusion in their plots, and took his revenge in exacting from her considerably more than his pound of flesh. moreover he suspected her of treachery, and disliked her for the quickness of her wit in argument. even his unseeing eyes told him she looked both ill and haggard, but if she were there, well, she must work like the rest of them. arithelli hesitated for a moment, and when she spoke for all her pluck her voice was a little rough and uneven. "i'm tired of being an errand boy!" sobrenski looked at her, drawing his eyebrows together. everyone of the band had a nickname for her, and his own very unpleasant one was "deadly nightshade." some of the others were "sapho" and "becky sharp," which latter emile had also adopted as being particularly appropriate. "oh, very well," he answered. "shall it be the messages or a bullet? you can take your choice. perhaps you would prefer the latter. it makes no difference to me. this comes of employing women. when poleski brought you here first i was opposed to having you. women always give trouble." "would you have got a man to do half the work i do?" she flashed out with desperate courage. "then _do_ your work and don't talk about it," retorted sobrenski sharply. "if you are absolutely ill and in bed, of course we can't expect you to go to various places, but as long as you can ride every night at the hippodrome, you can certainly carry messages." he turned his back on her and took up some papers from the table, and arithelli went out, beaten and raging. emile found her lying on the bed, her hands clenched by her side, her proud mouth set in bitter lines. as he came in she turned away from him, to face the wall. "_tiens_!" he observed, "you are a lazy little trollop." emile was proud of his english slang. finding there was no answer he changed his tone. "hysterics, eh? they won't do here. turn over, i want to talk to you." the girl moved mechanically, and emile surveyed her. there were slow tears forcing themselves under her heavy eyelids. "i wish i were dead!" "probably you will be soon. so will the rest of us." "what brutes you all are!" "because we don't care whether we die to-day or to-morrow? _souvent femme varie_! just now you seemed so anxious,--besides, if one belongs to the cause one knows what to expect." emile strolled towards the uncomfortable piece of furniture by the window, that purported to be an armchair, and sat down. "i loathe the cause! i didn't belong to it from choice. why did you make me join?" "because i thought you would be useful. you _are_ useful and probably will be more so." "suppose i refuse to do anything more?" "they will not give you the choice of refusing twice." "emile, i believe you are trying to frighten me. tell me what they would do." "as i introduced you to the brotherhood, i should naturally be the one chosen to execute judgment on you. _enfin_, my dear arithelli, i should be called upon to shoot you. we don't forgive traitors. if we let everyone draw back from their work simply because they happened to be afraid, what would become of the cause? also let me remind you how you came to me boasting of your love of freedom. 'i'm a red-hot socialist.' that's what you said, didn't you? perhaps you have forgotten it. well, i haven't. socialism doesn't consist of standing up in a room to sing." arithelli made no answer. she lay like a dead thing, and after a pause the slow cynical voice went on. "there was another woman in our affair about two years ago. her name was félise rivaz. she got engaged to one of the men, and then it suddenly occurred to her that comfortable matrimony and anarchy didn't seem likely to be enjoyed at one and the same time. so she persuaded the man to turn traitor and run away to england with her, where they proposed to get married. "their plans came out,--naturally,--those things generally do. we all spy upon each other. they both felt so secure that they came together to a last meeting--i can show you the house if you like. it's down in the parelelo, the revolutionary quarter. "they strangled the woman, and cut off her arm above the elbow--i remember she had a thick gold bracelet round it with a date (a _gage d'amour_ from her lover i suppose)--and they made him drink the blood. he went mad afterwards. the best thing he could do under the circumstances." emile shrugged. "there are plenty more similar _histoires_. but perhaps i have told you enough to convince you of the futility of attempting to draw back from what you have undertaken." still there was neither movement nor answer. emile got up, and came to the bed. "_allons_! it's time you were dressing. you'll be late again, and one of these days you'll find yourself dismissed. you must just go on and put up with it all. life mostly consists of putting up with things." but even this consoling philosophy failed to have a rousing effect. for the first time in her life arithelli had fainted. * * * * * * when she came to her senses that evening emile sent the landlady with a message to the hippodrome, telling the manager to substitute another turn, and then made arithelli get into bed. her dress and boots came off and reposed upon the floor. the rest of her clothes were left on. these details did not worry emile. then he found a book and sat reading till she had drifted into a heavy sleep, the sleep of exhaustion. in his own way he was sorry for her, and his feelings were by no means as brutal as his words. at the same time he did not believe in a display of sympathy. according to his ideas it was demoralising, and cured no one of complaints, imaginary or otherwise. also it was likely to make people hysterical. therefore when arithelli woke at six o'clock in the morning, and sat up panting, with a hand at her left side, he elevated both shoulders and eyebrows. "_qu'est ce-qu vous avez donc_? you're all right now." he knew perfectly well that there was no pretence of illness. the strained eyes, the blue shadows round the mouth told their own tale. "oh, emile, my heart feels so queer! i'm sure it must be all wrong." "_ma foi_! _ces femmes la_! _il y a tou jours quelque chose_! first a faint, then a heart! how often am i to tell you, arithelli, that that part of your--your--how do you say it?--anatomy--is quite without use here? have you any brandy in the room?" "there's eau de cologne on the washstand." he mixed water with the spirit and gave her a liberal dose that soon helped her to look less ghastly. she lay back feeling almost comfortable, wishing emile would see fit to depart, but count poleski returned again to the subject of her misbehaviour. like most men he was not at his best in the early morning, and the night's vigil had not improved his temper. he sat scowling after his manner, black eyebrows meeting over grey eyes, hard as flint. "if you are going in for this kind of performance, what will be the use of you?" he enquired sarcastically. perhaps after all sobrenski had been right in employing no women. "even the best machine will get out of order sometimes," the girl replied wearily. "and when that happens one sets to work to find another machine to take its place." "i didn't know about the horrors; you ought to have told me. it isn't fair." there was neither passion nor resentment in the low voice. "what shall i do?" she went on, after waiting for emile to speak. "put up with it, or better still go in for the cause seriously." "don't you call this serious? blood and brutalities and slave-driving? you talked about _l'entresol de l'enfer_, but i'm beginning to think i've stepped over the threshold." "_ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute_!" arithelli bit her lips. "i don't feel in the mood for arguing now. i wish you would leave me alone." "on condition that you won't go in for any more hysterics, i'll go and settle with the manager that you don't have to appear to-night. it's lucky there happens to be a new turn with those trapeze people. the audience won't miss you. has sobrenski given you anything to do to-day?" "i don't know. i can't remember. oh, yes, i was to go to the baroni's at two o'clock." "i'll see to that. a cipher message?" "yes. it's fastened under my hair." she dragged herself into a sitting position and extracted the little wad of paper with shaking hands. emile took it. "good! i shall be back at five o'clock. you can get up later and come round to my rooms. do you understand?" "yes!" when he had gone she cowered down into the big bed shivering. every bone in her body ached as if she had been beaten. she had the sensation of one who has been awakened from a bad dream. was it all real or not? last night and its doings seemed centuries ago. she still heard emile's voice as if from a distance, telling the story of the lovely siren woman who had been strangled, and then the room rocked, and the walls closed in upon her. his words worked in her brain: "_go in for the cause seriously. remember it's liberty we are fighting for. a life more or less--what's that? yours or mine? what does it matter? do you wonder we don't make love to women? it's a goddess and not a woman before whom we burn incense. blood and tears, money and life! is there any sacrifice too great for her altar?_" and she had been both frightened and fascinated. this was what anarchism made of men like the cynical emile. it had never occurred to her before that even sobrenski, whom she regarded solely as a brutal task-master, was himself a living sacrifice. she drowsed and brooded through the day, and having arrived at emile's room and finding it empty, she "prowled," as she herself would have expressed it, among his few belongings, for she possessed a very feminine curiosity. under a pile of loose music she found the portrait of a little blond woman, beautiful of curve and outline, in a lace robe that could only have been made in paris or vienna. the picture was signed _marie roumanoff_, and on the back was written "_tout passe, tout casse, tout lasse!_" there were songs too scrawled with love-messages in emile's handwriting. she pored over them with a vivid interest quite unmingled with any thought of jealousy. emile always said that no revolutionist ever wasted time or thought on women. after all, if she were shot to-morrow who would care? she had written to her people and sent them photographs and newspapers with the accounts of her triumph. success was a sure road to approbation. if she had failed she would not have written. the hippodrome engagement could not last forever. a little carelessness, a loss of nerve, and her career would be at an end. sometimes when she had been singing "_le rêve_," she had really meant it all. "_s'il faut, ah, prends ma vie_!" only a few days ago emile had stormed at her in his rasping french, because she had, with the vehemence of youth, denounced the anarchist leader as a relentless brute. "you think yourself over-worked and ill-used--you!" he said as he strode up and down the room twisting his fiercely pointed moustache. "look at sobrenski. he works us all, but does he ever spare himself? look at vardri? rich, well-born, starving at the hippodrome on a few _pesetas_ a week. i thought you had better stuff in you. are you going to turn out english milk-and-water? you're _not_ english, you say? no, i suppose you're not, or you wouldn't talk about 'dirty gentiles.' if you think anarchy is all '_le rêve_' you'll soon find yourself mistaken. if some of us dream dreams we have also to face actions and realities." perhaps the episode of marie roumanoff belonged to the days before he joined the brotherhood and became an exile from his country. she knew that once upon a time he had owned land and estates in russia, and emile the anarchist of barcelona had been known as count poleski. she kept her discoveries to herself, and when emile returned he found her crooning over the piano. she appeared to have quite recovered her boyish good spirits, and demanded a singing lesson, for under his tuition her passion for music had developed and increased. "it's so nice to have a change from the heat and dust and those horrible electric lights," she said. "let's enjoy ourselves and try over all your music. what a lot you have, and it all seems to have been bought in different places. rome, paris, vienna, dieppe, london! fancy your having been in london!" emile's collection of songs covered a wide field and ranged from the gypsy ballad of "the lost horse," to "the bridge," in the performance of which he revelled. arithelli sat in a corner and rocked with inward laughter over his atrocious english, and evident enjoyment of the morbid sentiments. for in spite of her face arithelli had a fine sense of the ridiculous. "you don't say the words properly," she said. "you make such mouthfuls out of them!" "and what of you?" emile retorted in great wrath. "you with your french all soft, soft like oil!" "yes, that's the irish half of me." "and your italian so _raûque_ so hard--!" "that's the jewish half of me. oh, don't let's quarrel! i do want to learn to sing properly." "then don't fold your arms," her instructor said sharply. "i suppose you think it looks dramatic, but how can you learn to sing what you call 'properly,' with your chest all crushed up like that?" chapter vi "when i look back on the days long fled, the memory grows still dreamier. oh! what fantastic lives they led, far away in bohemia. "there were laws that were only made to break, in a world that never seems half awake till the lamps were lit--there were souls at stake. far away in bohemia." dolf wyllarde. barcelona in august was like the hell to which emile likened it. the rich escaped from the heat to their villas up in the mountains, those whom business, or lack of money, kept in the city, existed in a parched and sweltering condition. arithelli still kept her place among the performers at the hippodrome, though after the fashion of circus artists her name had been changed. she was now "madame mignonne" from paris, and wore a golden wig, and came on the stage riding a lion in the character of a heathen goddess in the spectacular display which always ended the performance. she pined for the _haute école_ and trick riding in which she so excelled, and felt unholy pangs when she saw her beloved white horses being driven in a chariot by a fat, vulgar english woman, arrayed in scanty pink tunic and tights. she was not afraid of the lion, who was old and toothless enough to be absolutely safe, but her new role was not a great success. the golden hair did not suit her any better than did the classical draperies, and she grew daily thinner. as a matter of fact she was practically going through the process of slow starvation. she had never, even in her healthily hungry days, been able to eat the abominable spanish dishes--meat floating in oil, and other things which she classed together under the heading of _cochonneries_. she generally lived on fruit, a little black bread, coffee, and _absinthe_. emile would try and bully her into eating more, and occasionally essayed his talents as a _chef_, and cooked weird looking things in his rooms over a vilely smelling english oil stove, but the jewess in arithelli found him wanting in the "divers washings" she required of the saucepans, and they generally ended these bohemian repasts with a quarrel. she went about her work in a half-stupefied state, as one who is perpetually in a trance. she was past fear now. nothing mattered. midnight rides on a mule up in the mountains, meetings in the low quarter of the town, the danger of being arrested while carrying a despatch. "_c'est ainsi que la vie_!" emile's motto had become also her own. she was once more a perfect machine. even the only thing that sobrenski could find to say against her was that her appearance was too conspicuous for a conspirator and that her hands and feet would betray her through any disguise. emile, though still outwardly as unsympathetic as ever, was not blind to the change in her looks and manner. putting the cause out of the question, he did not wish "fatalité" to get ill. her company amused and distracted him. he liked to hear her views on life, and to colour them with his own cynicism, and he enjoyed teaching her to sing and hearing her argue. for all her quiet she was curiously magnetic and had a way of making her absence felt. she was never noisy or exacting and had none of the pride or vices of her sex, and though she was often depressed she was never bored, and in consequence bored no one. they had many traits in common, including fatalism and morbidity, for the slav temperament is in a hundred ways akin to that of the celt. in spite of his jeering remarks emile thoroughly appreciated the girl's pluck, and knew that if she failed it would be purely from physical reasons. "iron in a velvet sheath," he had described her, and iron did not bend--it broke. after some consideration he approached the very unapproachable manager. "it's time you gave your leading _equestrienne_ a holiday," he observed. "she's getting ill. if you don't let her have a rest soon she'll be falling off in public, or having some fiasco. she was half dead the other night after the performance." the manager made profane remarks in the dialect of silesia, of which place he was a native. he was fresh from quarrelling for the hundredth time with estelle, and was in the last frame of mind to desire rest or peace for any inhabitant of the globe. by himself and everyone else at the hippodrome, arithelli was considered the property of the anarchist, and emile had taken very good care to disabuse no one of the idea, but had rather been at some pains to create such an impression. for her it was the best protection, and kept her free from the insults and attentions of other men. bouquets and jewellery he was willing that she should receive; they did no harm and the latter could always be sold. in cold and dispassionate argument he explained to the irate manager the folly of ruining good material by injudicious use. "you pay her as little as you can considering she is a draw. she does the work of three people, including keeping the books when you are not in a condition to wrestle with arithmetic. if you had your way she would be cleaning out the stables." "bah!" sneered the other. "it would do her good--take the devil out of her--hard work doesn't hurt that type. she's all wire and whipcord, your she-wolf, poleski. has she been snarling at you?" "you'd better give her a week off," proceeded emile, unmoved. "the audience will be getting tired of her if you're not careful; she has been on too long without a break. get a fresh _artiste_ and take it out of her salary. i shall give her a week's cruise round the harbour and see what that will do." "well, try and put a little flesh on her bones," said the manager rudely. "i never saw such lean flanks! she's got the expression of a death's head. it's a good thing the spanish don't care for cheerful grins or she wouldn't be here two days." and so it came to pass that on the following sunday arithelli found herself sitting on the deck of a yacht anchored far out in the harbour, with the shores of barcelona only a faint outline in the distance. they had come aboard the previous day. emile had made her no explanations beyond saying that he was going to take her for a sea trip, and after her custom she had asked no questions. the yacht, which was an uncanny looking craft, painted black and called "_the witch_," she knew by reputation, and had often seen it slipping into the harbour after dusk. it was the property of two russian aristocrats, friends of emile's, who helped the cause by conveying bombs and infernal machines, and taking off such members of the band as had suddenly found spain an undesirable residence. arithelli was not in the least interested in either of the men, the dark, handsome, saturnine vladimir, or the fair-haired, pretty, effeminate youth to whom he was comrade and hero. but she liked their smartness and well-groomed air, and their spotless clothes, after emile and his dirty nails and slovenly habits, and she appreciated to the full the surrounding refinement and comfort, and enjoyed the daintily served meals, the shining glass and silver and the deft, silent waiting of the sailors. she had been given a luxurious cabin which seemed a paradise after her dirty, carpetless bedroom, and in it she could laze and lounge in peace without the eternal practising and rehearsals and running errands that her soul loathed. the hot sun glared down upon her, as she sat watching the racing waves. she was a fantastic, slim, _bizarre_ figure with her coppery hair, over which a lace scarf was tied, and high-heeled slippers on her beautiful slender feet. in her ears dangled huge turquoises, showing vividly against the white skin that was coated thickly with scented powder. the manager had told her that she must not get tanned or red or it would spoil her type, and she now "made-up" habitually in the daytime. her whole array was tawdry and theatrical, and utterly out of keeping with her surroundings. the two owners of the yacht, who wore immaculate white linen clothes and canvas shoes, expressed to each other their disapproval of her whole get-up, and particularly of her clicking heels. in common with most men, they abominated an _outré_ style of dressing and too much jewellery, and above all such finery at sea. the girl must be mad! didn't she know that a schooner was not a circus ring? if she were such a fool poleski should have taught her better before bringing her on board. they agreed that he had sense enough in other things, and had certainly trained her not to be a nuisance. after _déjeuner_ emile had hunted up the least doubtful of the french novels they possessed and sent her up on deck to get the benefit of the sea air of which she was supposed to stand in need. "_va t'en_, arithelli," he said. "you don't want to be suffocating yourself down in a stuffy cabin. you're here to get lots of ozone and make yourself look a little less like a corpse. besides, we want to talk." she felt very much depressed and neglected as she sat dangling "_les confessions d'une femme mariée_," which were virtuous to dulness and interested her not at all, in a listless hand, long and delicate like her feet, and decorated with too many turquoise rings. below, in the cabin, she could hear the noise of the men as they argued and shouted at each other in a polyglot of three different languages. arithelli felt more than a little resentful. why had they shut her out and prevented her from hearing their discussions? the men at the other meetings had always wanted her in the room. she had been entrusted with all their secrets and there was no question of betrayal. she knew too much about the consequences now to try that. when emile came up from below she asked him why he had insulted her by turning her out. did he not trust her, or did he think she had not enough intelligence. for answer he laughed cynically, "i'll make use of you and your intelligence fast enough--when i want them. you were cavilling at being overworked the other day." of vladimir and paul she saw nothing in the daytime, for they both ignored her, but in the evenings they all sat together up on deck, and paul sang and played the guitar while arithelli would listen entranced and faint with pleasure. a love of melody was the birthright of her race, and the boy had a genius for music. he seemed to have but two ideas in life--that, and a devotion which almost amounted to idolatry for the older man. they would walk up and down for hours, vladimir with his hand on paul's shoulder talking, gesticulating and commanding, while the other, his eyes on the ground, listened and assented. sometimes vladimir would speak to him in russian with an accent that was in itself a caress, and arithelli, who watched them curiously, noticed and wondered to see the boy flush and colour like a woman. she always looked forward with the keenest pleasure to those evenings. the days bored her, inasmuch as she was capable of being bored, and she hated the glare and glitter of the sun and sky. it was too much like the blue-white lights of the hippodrome. with night came the glamour of fairyland, that magic country in which ireland still believes, and which is ever there for those who seek it, "east o' the sun, and west o' the moon." the yacht drifting idly at anchor in smooth water, the stars in their bed of velvet black, the magic of air and space. the incense-like scent of turkish cigarettes and black coffee, the little group of men lounging in their deck chairs, the resonant, full notes of the guitar, and paul's voice rising out of the shadows. if he had sung standing on the platform of a brightly lit concert hall half the charm would have vanished in that distraction which the personality of a singer creates. in the illusion of his surroundings the man himself did not exist. there was only the voice--the singer. hungarian folk-songs that fired her blood and made her restless with strange longings; "_la vie est vaine_," eternally sweet and haunting; then some wickedly witty song of the _cafés_, and melodies of gounod full of infinite charm. last of all came always "_le rêve_," in which emile and vladimir joined as if it were some national anthem, and which left her quivering with excitement. chapter vii "there would no man do for your sake, i think, what i would have done for the least word said; i had wrung life dry for your lips to drink-- broken it up for your daily bread." swinburne. when the week of dreams and rest was over she went back to the hippodrome with somewhat of relief in her feelings. at least the work prevented her from thinking. though she was physically less languid, the sea air had neither succeeded in putting any more flesh on what the manager called her "lean flanks," nor had it made her look much more cheerful. he had the sense to let her take her place as _equestrienne_ once more, and had announced her reappearance in flaming posters. the stablemen and helpers were all delighted to see her again, and in token of their satisfaction presented her with a hideous and unwieldy bouquet, in which all colours were arranged together so as to give the effect of a kaleidoscope. they liked her for her sweet temper and invariable courtesy, and respected her for her knowledge of horses. estelle came and embraced her and was voluble over the failings of her "_bon ami_," the sardonic manager. arithelli received a hearty round of applause as she rode into the ring on her favourite "don juan," whose wavy tail and mane were decorated with turquoise ribbons that matched her habit. at least she was happy on horseback, and she loved the animals and they her. even the performing sheep and monkey, and the toothless lion came in for a share in her affections. she had a new and difficult trick to go through that night, but this particular sort of danger only made her feel exhilarated. emile's stories of blood and horrors had sickened her, but the chance of breaking her neck over a high jump held no terrors. she made her exit, gaily waving her silver-handled whip, and vardri, who was standing at the entrance of the ring, came forward quickly to lift her off her horse before the groom could reach her. "you're wanted to-night in the calle de pescadores," he whispered, as she rested her hand on his shoulder to jump down. "as soon as possible, and go in carefully--there's a scare about spies." he felt her body stiffen and the little smile that came so rarely died in an instant, leaving her once more "fatalité." she nodded by way of assent and bent down to gather up her habit. the ring-master was only a few feet away, and they could never be certain as to who was to be trusted. vardri stood looking after her as she walked away with her head well up and her shoulders thrown back as usual. the two had become good friends with the comradeship induced by the similarity in their misfortunes. both were young, reckless and without money beyond what they earned, though, whereas arithelli had been more or less tricked into her present position, vardri had been infatuated with the cause from the time he was old enough to take an interest in anything. the worship of the goddess liberty had left with him room also for the adoration of a human being, and in a boyish chivalrous way he had tried to make things easier for arithelli. he managed to bring her occasional flowers and music out of his starvation wages, and was always jealously careful of the way in which her horses were groomed and turned out. they had a curious resemblance to each other, and when arithelli was dressed in boy's clothes for her journeys up in the mountains, they might have been two brothers. one was dark and the other fair, but both had the same haggard, well-modelled faces, the same pale skins, and thin, supple figures. they were exactly of a height, too, and when arithelli disguised herself, she pushed her red hair under a sombrero and black wig. even sobrenski's lynx eyes had been at fault in the semi-darkness of the hut, and he had sworn at her in mistake for vardri. as the dresser took off her habit, she asked the woman whether monsieur poleski had been behind the scenes during her turn, and was there a note or message? it appeared that there had been no sign of emile, and she hesitated for a moment, hardly knowing what to do. the order for her presence in the calle de pescadores, which of course had been sent by sobrenski, had told her to come at once. on the other hand, emile had always told her to wait for him in her room till he came to fetch her. if she went through the streets alone there would be a row, and if she were late at the _rendezvous_ there would also be a row. "_c'est ainsi que la vie!_" she lifted her thin shoulders after the manner of emile and decided to start at once. she wiped all the make-up from her face with a damp towel, swaying a little as she stood before the glass. the excitement of her reception and the ensuing episode had made her heart beat at distressing speed. "you're not ill," she adjured her pale reflection. "it's all imagination. emile says all these complaints are. any way, you're not going to give in to it." she shut both ears and eyes as she sped through the restless city that even at this hour was astir with life. she was only glad that there was no moon. roused for once out of her naturally slow and indolent walk, she was soon in the poor quarter and climbing the stairs to the third floor of a horrible little house, the back of which looked out on the dark slums of the quarter of the parelelo, the breeding-place of revolutions; the district between the rambla and the harbour. the house was like the one that emile had described when telling her of the murdered woman, félise rivaz. the very air reeked of intrigue and hidden deeds. she looked round first of all for emile, but he was not there, and only half the usual number of conspirators were assembled. vardri, who had left the hippodrome the minute he had delivered his message, was sitting on the end of the table swinging his feet and whistling softly. he had bribed one of the "strappers" to finish his work, and slipped out, only arriving a few minutes before her. he had risked dismissal, but that was no great matter. the cause came first, and he feared danger for arithelli, knowing that if there was anything specially risky to be done she would be the one chosen. sobrenski was always harder on her than on the others. he watched her with the hungry, faithful eyes of an animal, and got up from his seat with instinctive courtesy. like all the rest he wore the anarchist badge, a red tie, and the hot, vivid colour showed up the lines of ill-health and suffering about his eyes and mouth. in spite of his disreputable clothes and wild hair, there still remained in him the indefinable signs of breeding, in the thin, shapely hands that rested on his knee, and in the modulations of his boyish and eager voice. none of the others took the least notice of the girl's entrance. nearly all of them were as well-born as the young austrian, but to them she was simply a comrade, a fellow, worker, not a woman. she gave him a little friendly gesture and went quietly to a seat against the wall, where she sat in one of her characteristic attitudes, her feet crossed, and showing under her short dark blue skirt. emile had made her buy this one plain and unnoticeable garment for use on these occasions. after she had been in the room a minute, sobrenski turned from the man to whom he had been talking in a careful under-tone, and bolted the door. "listen, all of you," he said. "we have received information that this house will be watched to-night. whether the spy is one who was formerly one of us, we do not know--yet. it appears that it is poleski who is the suspect. they have some evidence against him that is dangerous. if he is seen coming in here to-night, they will arrest him. the next time we will change the place, but for the present all that can be done is to warn him against coming here. fortunately he will be later than usual, because he does not leave the café colomb till after midnight. someone must be sent there to stop him. it will not do for any of us to be seen coming out, so she"--he indicated arithelli--"must go." arithelli wasted no time in response. she was only too eager to get out of the abominable place, and was already half way to the door when sobrenski stopped her. "not that way!" he said. "what are you thinking of? you will walk straight into the arms of the spies who are probably watching the house by this time. no, you must go by the window at the back; the rest of us will stay here all night." "this house gives on the quay by a lucky chance," remarked one of the older men; "we should be well trapped otherwise. there are several feet between it and the water." vardri's eyes had never moved from the girl's face. he knew that her heart was affected, and she had told him once that she would never attempt to go on the tight-rope or trapeze because the mere thought of a height always terrified her. in answer to sobrenski's gesture, she moved towards the window, which another of the conspirators was cautiously opening. vardri pushed himself forward into the group. "she can't go down there," he said hoarsely, "it's not safe--look at the height!" "she'll go down well enough if she holds onto the rope." "the rope may break or fray through on the sill." "she takes her chance like the rest of us." "the rest of us--we're _men_!" "there are neither men nor women in the cause. do you need to be taught that now? stand back!" "i'll go down in her place." "you will do nothing of the kind. which of us is the leader here?" sobrenski had twisted the girl's arms behind her back, and he was holding her by the wrists. he expected her to scream or struggle, but she remained absolutely passive. one of the men was making a slip-knot in a coil of rope. vardri's blood was hot as he looked on. blind with helpless rage, he was conscious of nothing but the little set face and defiant head. he had come suddenly into his heritage of manhood at the sight of her alone, defenceless and roughly handled by brute beasts who called themselves men. he was mad, too, with a man's jealousy. from the earliest moment he had seen arithelli he had given her homage as a woman. the _gamin_, the "becky sharp" that emile and the others knew, he had never seen, and he had always resented her numerous irreverent nicknames. he could do nothing, nothing! get himself shot or strangled, perhaps, and what use would that be to her? "come!" said sobrenski, turning her towards the window. for the first time since she had entered the room, arithelli spoke: "leave me alone for a minute. no, i won't move--_parole d'honneur_!" when she was released, she put out her left hand. "_mon ami_, what's the use of arguing? i'm the errand boy, _vois-tu_? my work is to carry messages. if you make a scene it's only the worse for me. it's good of you to want to go instead. i shall not forget." the voice, subtle and sweet as ever, the intimacy implied by the familiar "thou" acted like a charm to the boy's wild fury. before her courage and dignity it seemed out of place to make any further protest. he crushed the long and lovely hand against his lips with mingled passion and reverence. there was a red streak across the wrist. "a fine melodrama!" sneered sobrenski. "keep all that for the stage, it isn't needed here. _allons_! we can't waste any more time, there has been too much wasted already." vardri walked to the furthest end of the room, turning his back upon the group at the window, and thrust his fingers into his ears to deaden the sound of the scream for which he waited in tortured anticipation. excitable and neurotic, like all consumptives, his imagination made of those waiting moments a veritable hell. she would never get down in safety--an old and hastily knotted rope, a disregard of all ordinary precautions, and her body in the hands of men who handled human lives more carelessly than most people would handle stones. he bit his lip till the blood ran down to his chin. here he stood doing nothing, he who would have been tortured to save her! the window was shut and one of the men said: "she's down all right after all. i thought by the look of her she would have fainted. she has some pluck, mademoiselle fatalité!" "yes," answered sobrenski. "here's the coward and traitor." vardri wheeled round, looking straight into the cold eyes of his leader. he had heard the last words. she was safe, that was all that mattered, and for himself he was reckless. "traitor, am i? yes, if the cause is to include the ill-treatment of women!" "women? again women? are our meetings to be used as love trysts. there was a certain episode two years ago--gaston de barrés and félise rivaz--you remember it? ah, i thought so! then let it be a warning--in the future you will be suspected and watched. there is no need for me to dilate upon the punishment for treachery, all that you knew when you joined us. you may consider yourself lucky to have escaped so easily to-night. through the few minutes' delay you have caused, poleski may have been arrested." vardri shrugged and sat down. like arithelli, he recognized the futility of mere words upon certain occasions. moreover, now that the flame of his indignation had died down, he had begun to feel wretchedly ill and spiritless with the reaction that comes after any great excitement. he sat shivering and coughing till the dawn, while the other men talked in low voices or played cards. one or two slept fitfully in uncomfortable attitudes on the floor. no one grumbled at the discomfort or weariness of the vigil. they who looked forward to ultimate prison and perhaps death itself were not wont to quarrel with such minor inconveniences as the loss of sleep. sobrenski had pulled the solitary candle in the room towards him and sat writing rapidly and frowning to himself. his fox-like face framed in its red hair and beard looked more relentless and crafty than ever in the revealing light, and the boy shivered anew, but not from physical cold. he did not fear the leader of the brotherhood for himself, but for arithelli--arithelli, the drudge, the tool, the "errand boy," as she had called herself. perhaps in time even she would become a heartless machine. human life had seemed so cheap and of so little account to him once, but since he had loved her-- she could never live among such people and in such scenes, and still remain unscarred. again the little desperate face rose before him. if they did not succeed in killing her soon by their brutalities, she would commit suicide to escape from the horrors that surrounded her. it had never occurred to vardri to be jealous of emile. with the curious insight that love gives he had formed a true idea of the relationship between the oddly-assorted pair. he had never thought of himself as her lover. to him she was always the ideal, the divinity enthroned. he was content to kiss her feet, and to lay before them service and sacrifice. yet, though he might build a wall of love around her, he knew it could give her no protection against the realities of her present life. she had given him dreams, and in them he could forget all other things, the things that the world calls real. everything had vanished as a mist--the dirty room, the chill of the dawn, his own physical wretchedness. he heard only the honey-sweet voice, saw only the outstretched hand of friendship. "_mon ami_," she had called him, he who had never aspired higher than to be known as her servant. chapter viii "for all things born one gate opens, . . . and no man sees beyond the gods and fate." swinburne. when emile arrived at the hippodrome, only a few minutes after his usual time, he found no one but the dresser, who was clearing away the litter of clothes, jewellery, powder-puffs and flowers. arithelli had vanished. she had never before failed to wait for him, and he knew she would not have started alone without some very good reason. he questioned the dresser and found she knew nothing beyond that "la nina," as she called the girl affectionately, had left immediately after her last turn. she had asked if the señor had been in yet, but hearing he had not, she had dressed and gone at once. she had not even stayed to put on a cloak, and had left her hair still in a plait, and only a _velo_ over it. she had seemed in great haste (but that was always so with the english!) and had looked ill. the señor must not be alarmed, she added, folding arithelli's blue habit with wrinkled, careful hands. true, barcelona was an evil place for one so young as "la nina," but the blessed saints-- emile gave her a _peseta_, and left her to her invocations. in the long passage that led from the dressing-rooms he ran into estelle, who was just sufficiently drunk to be excitable and quarrelsome. she still had on her dancer's costume of short skirts of poppy-coloured tulle, and scarlet shoes and tights. she was further adorned with long, dangling, coral ear-rings, and a black bruise on the left side of her face under the eye, the outward and visible sign of her last encounter with the manager. she saluted emile with a vindictive glare from her black eyes, and tried to push past him. she hated him in a spiteful feminine way for his complete appropriation of arithelli, of whom, thanks to him, she now saw very little. she had quarrelled with all the other women employed in the circus, but arithelli had always helped her to dress, and given her cigarettes and listened to her woes. emile blocked the way, catching the dancer by the wrist as she attempted to slip by, leaving his question unanswered. he repeated it, and after a minute's sullen refusal to speak, estelle stamped her foot savagely upon the floor, and collapsed into a state of hysterical volubility. no, she had seen nothing, nothing! she protested in french. scarcely ever did she see her little friend now, and whose fault was that? would monsieur poleski answer her? as monsieur poleski did nothing of the kind, she continued to rage. all men were brutes! yes, all! she had no friends now and if she did console herself--what would he have? emile decided that she was speaking the truth, and that there was no use wasting time in making other enquiries. one thing seemed certain--that arithelli had left the building. from the hippodrome he went next to her lodgings, also with no result. he could only now suppose that sobrenski had sent her off at a moment's notice on some unusual errand. the possibility of her having gone to the house in the calle de pescadores did not occur to him. according to the last arrangement they were not expected there till after midnight. it was only eleven now. he would go to the café colomb, and spend the hour there. it was no use to search for her further, and as he assured himself there was not the least reason to become alarmed. she was not likely to lose her head, and she knew her way about the place. the colomb was more or less a recognised resort of the many revolutionaries with whom the city abounded. the proprietor was known to be in sympathy with their schemes, though he took no active part in them himself. he was considered trustworthy, for notes and messages were often left in his charge, and his private room was at the disposal of those who wished for a few minutes' secret interview. when emile entered he was greeted by several of the men who sat in groups of two and three at little tables, busy with monte and other card games. the smoke of many cigarettes obscured their figures, and clouded the mirrors with which the place was lined from floor to ceiling. emile sat down alone and ordered an _absinthe_. when called upon to join in the play, he refused with a scowl and a rasping oath in his native tongue, and as the evening grew on towards midnight he was left to himself and his meditations. his thoughts were still with arithelli, the weird witch-girl, whose eyes were like those of swinburne's fair woman, "coloured like a water-flower, and deeper than the green sea's glass." he, who now never opened a book, had once known that most un-english of all poets by heart. in her many phases arithelli passed before him, as he stared moodily at the shifting opal-coloured liquid in his glass. he thought of her as he had often seen her, fighting through her work at the hippodrome, the little weary head always gallantly carried, and then when she had dismounted and was in her dressing-room, the rings round her eyes, her shaking hands and utter weariness. he remembered her consideration for her horses, her loathing of the ill-treatment of all dumb things so common here. once he had found her in the market-place, remonstrating in her broken spanish with the country women for the inhuman manner in which they carried away their purchases of live fowl, tied neck to neck, and slung across a mule, to die of slow strangulation under the blazing sun. all the animals at the hippodrome had been better treated since she had been there. it was characteristic of the man that he laughed at her to her face for her campaign against the national cruelty, and in secret thought of her with admiration. in many ways sexless, in others purely a woman, to every mood she brought the charm of individuality. _tiens_! he was falling in love, he jeered to himself, cynically. in love with that tall, silent creature, who was never in a hurry and never in a temper, and who walked as if she had been bred in andalusia. absurd! he was only interested. she had brains, and she never bored him. besides, she was only twenty-four, and one could hardly allow a girl of that age to be thrown warm and living to the wolves and vampires of barcelona. perhaps he had been wrong in letting her do some things--drink _absinthe_, for example. one lost one's sense of mental and moral perspective in a place like this. at least he had guarded her well. if he had not met her that day at the station, she might have fallen into worse hands than his own. things could not go on indefinitely as they had been going. what was to be the end of it all? eventually she would fall in love, and a woman was no more use to the cause once that happened. no vows would be strong enough to keep her from a man's arms once she cared. she would not love lightly or easily, and where would she find love, here in barcelona? half unconsciously, he found himself comparing arithelli with the woman who had betrayed him. emile never lied, even to himself, and he knew now that marie roumanoff had almost become a shadow. a plaything she had been, a child, a doll, a being made for caresses and admiration. to a woman of her type camaraderie would have been impossible. he had not wanted it, and it had not been in her nature to give it. a man, who had been sitting opposite, got up, gesticulated, put on his hat at a reckless angle, and, with a noisy farewell to his companions, swaggered out. in the mirror that faced him emile saw the quick furtive glance bestowed upon him, though he sat apparently unconscious of it. something at the back of his brain suggested to him that he knew the man's face, that he had seen him before. a spy probably. it was nothing unusual for any of them to be "shadowed," and for their out-goings and in-comings to be noted. the highly gilded french clock on the mantel-piece at the far end of the room announced the hour as being a quarter to twelve. emile stooped down to pick up his sombrero which had tumbled off a chair on to the floor, when he remained with outstretched hand, arrested by the sound of a woman's voice which came through the partly opened door of the proprietor's private room and office. a woman's voice? it was arithelli's unmistakably. he recovered himself and the sombrero together, and twisted round in his seat so as to get a view of the door, which was on his left hand, half way down the long room. it had a glass top, across which a dark green curtain was drawn. emile knew that it was possible to enter this room without passing through the _café_. there was another door which led into a passage through the kitchen and back part of the house, and from thence into a side-street, or rather a small alley. he had often been that way, and it was generally used by the frequenters of the place when they had reason to guard their movements. he listened again. the voice was even more hoarse than usual and more uncertain. though he could not hear the words, the broken sentences gave an impression of breathlessness. when she stopped speaking he heard the voice of the proprietor raised in an emphatic stage-whisper. yes, monsieur poleski was within. mademoiselle was fortunately in time to find him. if mademoiselle would give herself the trouble to wait but for one moment--. the little man fancied himself an adept at intrigue, and his methods were often a cause of anxiety to those he befriended. his nods and gestures and meaning glances as he emerged would have been enough to arouse suspicion in the most guileless. he stood blinking his short-sighted eyes through the haze in his effort to attract emile's attention without being detected. the latter got up and sauntered towards him. "_bon soir, monsieur lefévre_," he said carelessly. "we have a little account to settle, you and i, is it not so?" fat monsieur lefevre rose gallantly to the occasion. he bowed emile into the room, locked the door by which they had entered, and with another bow and a muttered apology scuttled through the passage into the back regions. two minutes later he made his reappearance in the _café_ by the front way, and went to his place behind the counter with the satisfied face of a successful diplomatist. his little sanctum was typical in its arrangement of the parisian _bourgeois_. numerous picture post-cards of a famous chanteuse of the folies bergeres proclaimed monsieur's taste in beauty. for the rest, everything was neat and rather bare of furniture. there were chairs symmetrically arranged like sentinels along the walls, tinted lace curtains, a gilded mirror, and a few doubtful coloured pictures, all of women. an unshaded electric light flared in a corner. arithelli stood resting one hand on the round polished table in the centre of the apartment. her dark blue dress was torn in two places, and smeared with patches of dust. the _velo_, or piece of drapery worn on ordinary occasions instead of the mantilla, hung down her back in company with the long plait of hair, which had come untwisted at the ends. her face was strained and haggard, and the tense attitude spoke of tortured nerves. she was still struggling for breath, and appeared almost unable to speak, but emile was not minded to allow her much time for recovery. patience was not numbered among such virtues as he possessed. "_tiens_!" he began. "what is it now, fatalité? you look as if you had been having adventures. have you been getting into mischief? and where have you been?" "in the calle de pescadores out at barcelonetta. sobrenski sent me with a message to you. the place is being watched. if they see you go in you may be arrested. the others got to hear about the spies, and went early. they are going to stay there all night because it isn't safe to leave." her tone was that of one who repeats a well-learned lesson. emile shrugged. "spies? so that's it! there was a man just now in the _café_ who looked like it. probably he is waiting to go outside now to 'shadow' me. he may wait till--! and how did you get out?" "they let me down from a window at the back of the house. i got on to the quay and came here by the long way and through the rambla." there was a pause, and then she said in the same mechanical voice, "sobrenski said i was to tell you not to come. it isn't safe." emile did not answer. he could see that she was trembling violently and on the verge of an hysterical crisis. he rather hoped she would break down. it would seem more natural. women were privileged to cry and scream, not that it was possible to imagine her screaming. he dragged forward a chair from the immaculate row against the wall. as he did so he noticed that she kept her left hand behind her back as if to conceal something. "sit down," he ordered. "what's the matter with your hand? are you hurt?" the girl retreated before him. "no!" she answered defiantly. but emile's quick eyes had seen a crumpled handkerchief flecked with red stains. "don't tell lies, fatalité!" he said sharply. "give me your hand at once." arithelli obeyed, holding it out palm upwards. emile looked, and ripped out a fiery exclamation. the smooth flesh was scarred and torn across in several places, and was still bleeding. the mark of sobrenski's grip on her wrist had turned from crimson to a dull discoloured hue. "it doesn't hurt so very much," she said. "only i can't bear the sight of blood. all jewish people are like that. i can't help it. it makes me feel queer all over." she turned her head aside with a shudder. emile muttered another expletive, adding: "then if you feel like that, don't look." he told her again to sit down, tore her handkerchief into strips, soaked them in water from a carafe, and bandaged up the wounds in a rough but effectual fashion. she said nothing during the process, but kept her head still turned away so that he could not see her face. "voilà!" said emile. "that will be all right to-morrow. what did they do to you?" "i cut my fingers on the window sill when they let me down. there was a piece of iron or a nail or something. i don't remember. it didn't hurt at the time." "h'm!" commented emile. "but this?" he touched her wrist lightly. "it looks like--" "that? oh, sobrenski did that. he--" "well?" said emile. he waited but there came no answer, so he continued the interrogation. "you didn't make a scene, fatalité?" he heard her flinch and draw in her breath as she covered her face with her free hand. her low painful sobbing reminded him of the inarticulate moaning of an animal. even in her grief, her abandonment, she was unlike all other women. emile stood beside her in watchful silence, and neither attempted to interfere nor to console her. he was wise enough to know that to a highly strung nature like hers too much self-repression might be dangerous, and he was humane enough to be glad that she had the relief of tears. at length he said quietly, "i didn't know you could cry, fatalité. i didn't know you were human enough for that." she still fought desperately for composure, thrusting a fold of the torn _velo_ between her teeth. the naked light shone on her bent head, and on her glittering rope of hair. a strange impulse suddenly moved emile to finger a loose strand with a touch that had in it something of a caress. gamin she had been, _equestrienne_, heroine, and now she was only a sorrowful dolores. at last words came. she stood up and faced him, shaking back her hair. "emile! emile! i must give it up. i can't go on!" "and you can't turn back, _mon enfant_." "i'll run away." "do you think they wouldn't find you? you know enough about our organisation now. no one who has once joined us is ever allowed to escape. you would be found sooner or later, and then--you remember what i told you once? that i am responsible for you to the brotherhood?" he spoke calmly, patiently, as if he were explaining things to a child. if his associates could have seen the cynical emile poleski of ordinary life they would have found reason to marvel! the gesture of uncontrollable horror told him that she understood only too well. what should the upholders of the cause care for ties, for friendships, for pity? if she were recaptured emile would be her executioner. he might refuse, but that would not save her and he would be shot as well. why should he suffer because she had lost her courage and turned traitress? she tried to collect her senses, and to think properly. everything felt blurred and far off. one thing alone seemed certain--that there was no way out of the _impasse_. emile had walked to the glass-door and unlocked it. then he came back to her. "it's time we were going," he said. "it will not do to be here too long. as our friend the spy is patrolling the street outside in readiness for my appearance, we will go out the other way. the calle santa teresa is nearly always deserted. it's just as well you should be seen with me. they don't know yet that you are working for us, so it will look less as if i were _en route_ for a meeting. but before we start, have you decided to be wise and to save me from an unpleasant duty?" "yes. i'll stay. at least while you are here." "while i am here?" the man echoed. "et alors--?" "then?" she threw out her arms in a hopeless gesture. "who knows? who can read the future? and after all, as you have said, 'what does one life more or less matter?'" chapter ix "ninon, ninon, que fais-tu de la vie!" de musset. arithelli awoke next day in her comfortless room, and lay wondering over the waking nightmare of the past hours. everything seemed so different in the morning. there was no thrill of excitement now, nothing to make her blood run quickly. she only felt flat, dull, stupid, and disinclined to move. how strange and unlike himself emile had been. she had lost her nerve, raved, and threatened to run away, and he had neither sneered nor abused her. her hand, still wrapped in stained linen, had now begun to burn and smart considerably, and was proof sufficient of the reality of her experience. her spine and the soles of her feet tingled as she lived again through the horror of the descent from the window. she could never endure a repetition of that ordeal. next time she would refuse and they could add one more murder to the list of their crimes. she dragged herself up and dressed slowly. she remembered that there was to be a gala performance at the hippodrome that night in honour of the presence of one of the infantas, her husband and suite, who were passing through the town, and had announced their intention of being present. for all the performers it meant more work and an extra rehearsal. when emile came in they shared their coffee and rolls together. she was thankful that he made no reference to her passionate outburst of the night before. he was outwardly as curt and dictatorial as ever, and neither of them discussed the affairs of the brotherhood. "i must go down to practise," arithelli said after a while. "shall you be there to-night? you know there is to be a grand performance in honour of the loyalties?" "no," answered emile, "i shall be busy. besides, the royalties will be safer if i'm _not_ there! we don't trouble ourselves about these particular ones though. they're not important enough." "i'm sorry you're not coming," arithelli answered. emile ungratefully disregarded the implied compliment, and threw out a blunt, "why?" "i don't quite know. i think there is going to be something unlucky." "you're going to tumble off, you mean? better not! you don't want to get turned out, do you?" arithelli turned to a mirror on the wall. "do i look very ghastly?" she asked. "not much more than usual. none of us look very fresh out here, do we? do you think your hat is on straight, you untidy little trollop? well, it isn't! hurry up,--it's late. no, i'm not going down there with you. i'll stay here, and do some writing." the rehearsal that morning seemed interminable. for the first time since she had ridden in public arithelli bungled over her tricks. she jumped short, miscalculated distances, and once barely saved herself from a severe fall. the ring-master, with whom she was a great favourite, shook his head reproachfully at her, as he paused to rest and wipe his heated countenance. he was a greasy and affable personage, whose temper was as easy as his morals. he was more soft-hearted than most of his compatriots, and he honestly liked arithelli and admired her riding. "what have you there, mademoiselle?" he enquired pathetically. "never have i seen you like this before. you fear the grand people, is it not so? you have no heart, no courage! but again! again!" in the midst of his exhortation the manager descended suddenly upon the scene. as a matter of fact he had been watching for the last ten minutes from one of the entrances, and he had seen her failure to accomplish her jumps successfully. "this won't do for to-night," he said angrily. "we want your best work, not your worst. do you suppose i'm going to stand your laziness?" arithelli was sitting at ease upon don juan's back as he paced slowly round the ring. she did not look up or answer, which enraged the manager still further. her silence was one of the things about her that always annoyed him most? she was the only woman he had never been able to bully into a state of collapse. he turned on the ring-master, who was grinning to himself. "_allez-vous en_! i'll see to this." señor valdez looked uncomfortable. for an instant he felt almost inclined to expostulate on arithelli's behalf, but the manager's rages were well known to his employes, and the little man had no intention of losing his present position. he flung down his long whip, and retired muttering vengeance. the manager strode into the centre of the ring, picked up the lash and drew it through his fingers. he swore at arithelli, he swore at don juan, and he started the rehearsal all over again. arithelli clenched her teeth and rode doggedly forward. the arena swam before her, and her limbs felt weak and heavy as those of one who is drugged, and her lacerated hand added to her difficulties. that she should presume to be ill, had not entered into the manager's calculations. if he had realised the fact he would have said that people who were ill were of no use in a circus, and the sooner she left it the better. the treadmill continued until arithelli would have welcomed an accident as a break in the grinding monotony. the exercise instead of making her hot, had made her shiver as if with great cold. she felt as if she had been practising for days instead of hours. it was of no use! she could not go on any longer. she slipped from her standing position on the broad pad saddle to don juan's back, and without waiting for the word of command, reined him to a standstill in front of the manager. "you must let me go," she said. "i can't do any better now." the manager stepped back a pace, and dropped his whip with sheer astonishment. for an instant he stared with open mouth, then he found speech. "you sit there, do you, and tell me you refuse to work! you with your insolence! when you fall and that long neck of yours goes _crack_" (he snapped a finger and thumb together in expressive pantomime), "then i shall laugh--_nom d'un chien_!--how i shall laugh." arithelli waited in silence, a faint smile curling her lips. one hand, laden with rings, moved caressingly up and down don juan's silky mane. she had hitherto answered abuse with maddening indifference. now she flung back her head and mocked him. "so you hope i'll fall," she said. "perhaps i hope so too. do you think i care, that i'm afraid of breaking my neck?" her voice was not raised a tone from its ordinary level, but passion and contempt vibrated in every accent. an unwilling admiration stirred the man's dull brutality. he could dismiss her to-morrow, but he would never find another woman who would be her match for physique and endurance. besides, others would know their value and demand a larger salary. he pointed to the performers' exit. "_allez_!" as she rode past, arithelli made him a little bow. it was the salute of a courteous duellist to his adversary. to his profound surprise the manager found himself acknowledging it, with like dignity. at eight o'clock that evening she sat before the glass in her dressing-room and awaited the shouted summons of the impish call-boy, who respected no one on earth, and to whom she was never "mamzelle" or "señora," but only arithelli. the dresser had gone out for an instant, leaving the door ajar, and a noisy burst of applause swept along the passage. the audience was in a particularly good temper, and ready to be amused at anything. in view of the royal guests the manager had provided several exciting novelties. there was a wonderful troupe of performing horses who did everything that a horse is popularly supposed to be incapable of doing; there was a gypsy girl from seville with a marvellous bear, whose intelligence appeared to be of a superior quality to that of the average human being; there were new jokes, new tricks, fresh costumes. as arithelli rode in she heard her name called, and her state of frozen misery suddenly gave way to a hot thrill of excitement. her head went up like a stag, and her nostrils dilated. she inhaled again the familiar warm scent of freshly strewn tan and hay and animals. it had intoxicated her as a child of twelve, when she had been taken to see a travelling circus in ireland, and it intoxicated her now. the seats were a packed mass of people, and in the upper places and from the royal box, bright colours flamed, and jewels and restless fans glittered and moved. in honour of the occasion every woman had draped herself in the graceful mantilla, either black or white, and even the poorest wore a scarlet or orange silk-fringed _crêpe_ shawl. the usual precautions as to detectives and a guard of soldiers had been taken, but the buxom and amiable infanta was popular among the lower orders, so that no revolutionist outbreak was feared. her charities were famous, her diamonds and paris toilettes equally so. she smiled graciously at arithelli as horse and rider bowed before her, and pulling out a few blossoms from the bouquet that rested on the ledge, threw them into the arena. as the girl looked up and the level unsmiling gaze met hers, the older woman started back. "_santa vierge_!" she muttered, hastily crossing herself. "she looks in purgatory already, with those strange eyes!" chapter x "the nights that were days, and the days that were nights, griefs and glories and vain delights, with fame before us in fancy flights, we mocked each other and cried 'all's well'!" love in bohemia. of her first act arithelli had no fear. she knew that she was safe in trusting to the skill and training of her horse to accomplish successfully all the stereotyped movements of the _haute école_. she had only to sit still and look graceful, and guide him through his paces as he waltzed, turned or knelt. she carried a whip for show, but she had never used it. a word, a caress had always been enough, and she would have been beaten herself rather than touch the beautiful creature that carried her. in the next act it would be all different. everything depended on her own balance and accuracy. it would be all trick work then, not riding. as she slid out of her habit and into the ugly ballet-skirts she loathed, her courage vanished and she trembled as she faced the audience for the second time, transformed in white satin and pale blue, the thinness of her neck and arms painfully apparent. the flying rush through the air as she jumped the hurdles and gates made her feel horribly dazed and giddy, and unable to collect her senses in time for the next leap. as she descended lightly in her heelless silk slippers upon don juan's back after the fourth hurdle had been passed, she swayed and only by a violent effort recovered herself. her heart seemed to be beating right up in her throat and choking her. she put up one hand and pulled at her turquoise collar till the clasp gave way and thrust the blue stones into the low-cut bodice. the band sounded louder than ever, the light danced and waved. round and round and round again, while the ring-master's whip cracked monotonously. the rhythm of the waltz beat in her brain as the music in some delirious dream. she wondered dully why there was so little applause now. was she doing so badly? once she had jumped too low and knocked against a hurdle instead of clearing it properly. the grooms had helped her by lowering everything as much as possible, but all they could do had not been able to disguise her unwonted awkwardness. she would have a few minutes' rest when the clown came on, and perhaps that would help her to go through the rest of the act without an absolute breakdown. the interlude was all too short, the signal came and she sprang up and poised herself mechanically. again the waltz music struck up and don juan's hoofs fell with a soft thud upon the tan. the hurdles and gates had all been cleared successfully, and now she must dismount and let her steed go round alone while she ran across from the opposite side of the ring and vaulted from the ground to the saddle. it was the trick she had found impossible to get through at the rehearsal, the trick she most dreaded. everything depended on her coolness and steadiness. she must start exactly at the right time, and measure the distance with unerring precision. for the first time in her life she feared the audience. she knew too well the fickle nature of a spanish crowd. to a performer who failed to please them they would be merciless. people who screamed aloud for more blood when the sport had been tame at a bull-fight, people who habitually tortured their animals, were not likely to show consideration to one who was paid to entertain them. they would applaud furiously one minute and hiss furiously the next. as she stood alone, waiting, she glanced instinctively towards the place where emile always sat, and wished he had been there. he would be angry with her if she failed, but she felt somehow that he would be sorry for her as well. perhaps he might even make excuses for her, for he was the only person who knew about the episode of the previous night, and her injured hand. sometimes she had loved the swaying crowd of human beings for whose amusement she risked her life and limbs. now she hated the eager watching faces. they only wanted to see her fall, she told herself. she ran blindly across the open space. the next instant she was on her feet on the ground again and don juan had stopped short. her upward leap had carried her on to his back, but she had not been able to keep her balance. there was dead silence and then the hissing in the audience broke out, vehement and unrestrained. that she had pleased them hitherto went for nothing in her favour now. she had been clumsy, ungraceful, had failed--that was enough. arithelli herself scarcely heard the sounds of execration, as she stood swaying with one hand over her eyes to shut out the horrible glare. she was conscious only of that and the strident noise of the band, and the sensation of choking she had felt once before. the instinct of all animals to hide themselves in the dark when ill, was strong upon her. the fat little ring-master who alone had the sense to see there was something wrong, advanced and spoke to her in an agitated whisper. she gave him her hand and he led her out, leaving her hurriedly to go back and apologise to the irate spectators, and to claim their indulgence on the score of her sudden faintness. * * * * * * would she ever get to her room, arithelli wondered, as she struggled down the passage. it had never seemed so long before. her hand went up to her throat again. she longed for something cool to drink to relieve the aching and dryness. it must be caused by the heat and dust of the ring, she thought. a man's voice sounded behind her, and then hurrying footsteps. she pulled her long blue cloak round her and went on without answering or turning her head. it could only be the manager coming to upbraid her. an arm was flung round her protectingly and she turned with the face of a hunted animal, and looked up into the wild dark eyes of vardri. "what has happened? you're ill! it's no wonder. _mon dieu_, those brutes last night . . ." he pulled her head back against his shoulder, dropping his voice to a murmur of exquisite gentleness. "_mon enfant--ma petite enfant_!" "you saw me fall?" she whispered. "the men told me when they brought don juan out. i didn't see what happened. were you hurt or only faint?" "oh, my hand? that's nothing. emile says it will heal in a day or two. but i felt so stupid. . . . vardri, you don't think i'm going to be ill, do you? i've never been ill in my life . . . never!" the boy made some incoherent answer. her piteous entreaty tore at his heart. every fibre in his starved body ached with the desire to give her the rest and peace she needed above all things. what could he do without money? his own miserable wages barely served for necessities. he was only a useless vagabond, an outcast. he ground his teeth together at the thought of his own impotence. "courage, little one. they will cheer you again to-morrow. they are cruel, these spaniards, and fickle. you must not care." it did not seem strange to either of them that he should be holding her in his arms. after last night everything had changed. love, youth, and nature were hard at work weaving the bonds that drew them together. the fact that she suffered his caresses had given him the right of manhood to protect her, to be her champion, to fight her battles. if he could do nothing else for her, at least he could fight. for him the crown of happiness could be found in loyal service. of love-making in its ordinary sense, vardri neither thought nor dreamed. to have found his ideal, the one woman, surely that was enough. the innate fastidiousness that goes with good breeding had kept his life clean, his hands unsoiled. he had hated the other women in the circus, and felt sorry for them at the same time; and on their side they liked him and regarded him somewhat as a fool. their voices, their coarse expressions, their light jokes all jarred on him. he pitied them, for their lives were as hard as his own, and when he could he helped them, for among the wanderers in bohemia there is an ever-abiding comradeship. the element of fanaticism in his nature, which had once been absorbed by the cause, now spent itself upon a human being. the firm yet gentle clasp in which he held her, was the outward symbol of the love and courage that made him tense as steel. to every man there comes his hour, and his was now. both for her sake and his own he dare not keep her with him. that they had been left undisturbed so long was a miracle. besides, as she was ill, the sooner she was in bed the better. he half led, half carried her to the door of her dressing room, and she thanked him with a smile, a gesture. her throat hurt so much that all speech was an effort. "you must go now," she whispered. "you will get into trouble again through me." the boy threw a quick furtive glance along the whitewashed passage. with characteristic recklessness he had forgotten that the chances of his summary dismissal were looming exceedingly near. he had left half his work undone the previous night, he had appeared late that morning, and now he was in a part of the building to which all the grooms and stable helpers were forbidden entrance. "you'll let me bring you home," he pleaded. arithelli shook her head. "you can't." "is emile coming for you? you shall not go alone, that i swear!" "emile will send someone. they never let me go alone. if you will, you may do this. if i am not down at the stables at half-past eight to-morrow, will you find emile and ask him to come to me. he will be there doing my work." "and you will sleep and be well to-morrow? to-morrow you will ride again, and there will be the applause." even as he spoke he knew his words were foolishness. the feverish skin, dry lips and eyes that were like burning holes in the thin oval face were signs and tokens enough for the most unseeing of men. and vardri had suffered sufficiently himself to be able to recognise genuine illness. she slipped from his arms. the little dreary laugh made him shiver. "_mille remerciments, mon camarade_. i'm a failure, and failures are best left alone. _c'est ainsi que la vie_!" * * * * * * hers was the sole fiasco in an otherwise successful performance. the final spectacle was a lurid representation of the destruction of sodom and gomorrah. this species of scriptural tableaux was frequently given, and was greatly to the taste of the spectators. such scenes were regularly presented in the theatres and heartily enjoyed by the superstitious and devout populace, who found in them nothing incongruous or repulsive to their piety. in this particular display the manager had excelled himself, and achieved above all things a most vivid realism. the gentleman who impersonated the patriarch lot had a distinctly modern air, and resembled a third-rate anarchist in depressing circumstances. he was dark and swarthy, and possessed a ferocious expression, and on the whole suggested a caricature of emile in his worst frame of mind. he appeared in company with his reluctant spouse, whom he dragged along by the hand, she meanwhile obviously unwilling to leave the urban delights of the cities of the plain for a pastoral and dull existence in the desert, and as she was several sizes larger than her husband, she seemed likely to get the best of the encounter. she was the same fat englishwoman who had driven arithelli's horses in the chariot. she was by no means young, she had applied her rouge with a lavish hand, and her golden wig was an outrage. her airs and graces were those of a well-fed operatic soprano. she advanced in jerks, she clutched at her plump anatomy and she rolled her eyes appealingly at the gallery, which responded with delighted yells. in her train came a small flock of dejected-looking, but real sheep, which were seemingly inspired by sufficient intelligence to wish to avoid the coming catastrophe. the city (or cities) was represented by coarsely-painted scenery, and, owing to some defect in the perspective, appeared to be only a few feet from the travellers, though doubtless intended to fill the distant horizon. the fleeing pair jerked slowly across the stage in time to subdued but brassy music from the hippodrome band, the sheep followed, and thunder and lightning were heard and seen. flashes and bangs resounded, the doomed city rocked upon its foundations, and the audience joined in the uproar. sacks full of flour descended from heaven and burst, converting the fleshly mrs. lot into the traditional pillar of salt, and the house and the curtain were brought down together. restored to good-humour, the audience had forgotten the disgrace and failure of their favourite _equestrienne_. chapter xi "i am tired of tears and laughter and men that laugh and weep, of what may come hereafter for men that sow and reap. i am weary of days and hours, blown buds of barren flowers, desires and dreams and powers, and everything but sleep." swinburne. if anyone had told arithelli that she was in for a sharp attack of diphtheria, she would have felt surprised and not very much enlightened. her ignorance of everything connected with illness was supreme, and since childhood she had had no recollection of medicine and doctors. her parents indulged in theories on the subject of complaints, the principal one being a large disbelief in their existence. to them anything unhealthy or ailing was an aversion, a thing to be avoided rather than pitied. for accidents, sprains and breakages their pharmacopoeia suggested and did not go beyond two ideas,--salt and water and nature. the oriental strain in her character helped her to endure where an ordinary woman would have fussed, cried, or grumbled. at home if she had had a fall or did not look her best she had been expected to consider herself in disgrace, and to keep out of the way till such time as she had completely recovered her looks and spirits. when she returned to her lodgings, it did not occur to her to rouse the landlady and demand remedies or attentions. the walk home had been a nightmare, and now she had all she wanted--solitude and the blessed darkness. she threw off her dress and boots, and walked the room hour after hour. she still heard the brazen band, and saw the flaming lights and her ears echoed to the dreadful sounds of hissing. sometimes she had drunk feverishly of the very doubtful water against which emile had so often cautioned her. when it was nearly dawn she gave in, and lay huddled up on the bed, half-delirious with the pain and feeling of suffocation. two streets away, and in a room more squalid than her own, vardri was also enduring his own private purgatory. hers was physical, his mental. that was all the difference. long before half-past eight he was down at the stables and there received the dismissal he had fully expected, being ordered off the premises by the head groom, who had received directions the night before to give vardri a week's wages, and turn him out of the place without delay. it was no use protesting. the manager was not yet visible, and even if he had been vardri knew there was no appeal. there had been complaints about his negligence more than once, and of course he had been missed on the previous evening. none of the "strappers" would have reported him, but one of the clowns, a spaniard with whom he had fought for ill-treating a horse, had seen him leaving the vicinity of the dressing-rooms, and had carried the information to headquarters. the informer had chosen his time well, and had found the manager raging over arithelli's mishap, and ready to dismiss anyone with or without reason. vardri turned his back on the place whistling defiance, and with his courage fallen below zero. he would have liked to say good-bye to the horses, and to some of the men who were his friends. he had never disliked the actual work, and it was at the hippodrome that he had first met arithelli. her misfortune and his had come together. at any other time it would not have been quite so bad. a few months ago he would not have cared whether he lost his place or not. there had been nothing much in life then, and one could always find a short way out of it _via_ the water or an overdose of something. but now the world was changed, and he craved for life and the fulness of life, for he had tasted happiness and stood for a moment in the outer courts of the house of love. he had no friends who could have helped him, and no qualifications for earning his living at any other trade or profession. he had begun life with a luxurious home, a refined and useless education, and the mind of a dreamer, an idealist. none of these things were valuable assets in his present career. like arithelli he spoke several languages more or less fluently, and like her again possessed both understanding and a love of horses, but what avail were these things when he had neither money, references nor influence, and as a further disadvantage he was known to be an associate of the revolutionaries, and his tendency to consumption would keep him out of many kinds of employment. he turned over the few coins in his hand. just enough to keep him for a week and then--the deluge! he waited, prowling up and down the street, impatiently until emile appeared in the distance. a few minutes later, the two men were at the door of arithelli's lodgings. the landlady met them on the stairs, hag-like in the disarray of the early morning, and evidently terrified out of such humanity as she possessed by the fear of infection. she had gone up with the early morning coffee and found arithelli raving aloud and tearing at her throat. her first thought had been to turn the girl out of doors, or, as she was obviously incapable of moving, to send for a priest and a nursing sister, and have her taken to the public hospital. a wholesome fear of emile prevented her from giving utterance to these charitable impulses. she invoked every saint in the calendar, whose name she could remember, and crossed herself with automaton-like energy. she could not, she protested, be expected to nurse such a dangerous case of fever as this undoubtedly was. there was her son, the adored of her old age. _santa maria_! if he also were stricken! emile pushed her on one side. "i'll talk to you presently," he said in her own dialect. "if you are going into hysterics with fright you'll catch anything that is catching. if you behave sensibly you won't." the window was fully open and the green shutters thrown back, and the fierce sunlight streamed into arithelli's room, which showed more than its normal disorder. the tray with the _café complet_ was on the floor where the landlady had left it on her hasty stampede downstairs, half-a-dozen turquoise rings lay strewn over a little table, where they had been thrown when they were dragged off, boys' clothes trailed over the back of one chair, and a blue skirt over another. the only orderly thing visible was the immaculate row of fine kid boots, long, narrow, pearl-grey, tan and champagne-coloured. arithelli lay on the big bed under the faded canopy. she had wrapped herself in a thin blue _peignoir_, and her face was half hidden in tangled hair. the tumbled bed-clothes were pulled to one side and dragging on the dusty boards. she was quite unconscious of anyone's presence, and moaned softly in a strangled fashion. the two men stood without speaking, and watched the writhing, restless figure. vardri turned away first with a smothered exclamation. would he always be obliged to see her tortured in some way or another? the fates were sending him more than any man could bear to look upon. "what are you going to do?" he said roughly in french, "i can't stand seeing this!" emile showed no signs of surprise at the other's manifest anxiety, possibly because his own was as deep, though his method of expressing it was different. he felt helpless, and, being a man, resented the feeling, so by consequence his always rugged manner became even more unpleasant than usual. "well," he rejoined, "what can you expect in this filthy place? this street isn't so bad, but of course she has so often been down in those slums in the parelelo. the calle de pescadores alone is enough to give anyone a fever. i think sobrenski has made a point of sending her down every poisonous street in the place. ireland's a clean country, you see, compared with this, so she hasn't much chance, and as she starves herself half the time that won't make things any better." "she must have some woman to look after her. i suppose the landlady here will be no good?" "not unless you pay her.--who's going to do that?" "there's estelle." "estelle!" emile exploded a fierce russian oath. "do you want _more_ hysterics?" vardri was tramping up and down the room with the noiseless agility of an animal, his fingers mechanically at work at a cigarette. "she must have a doctor too. isn't there an english doctor here?" "probably. do you propose to pay him too?" the dryly sarcastic voice, the practical question brought vardri down from the clouds to the hard facts of life. illnesses and doctors were expensive things. he had no money, and emile very little. "i'll get a _soeur de charité_ from one of the convents. she'll come for nothing. nursing is their work. i was--i mean i'm a catholic. she's a catholic, too, isn't she?" "no, she hates them. she was educated in a convent, where as far as i can gather from her own account she acquired more learning than piety. under the present circumstances i can only suggest the horse-doctor." "what's the use of--?" "i believe he began by doctoring human beings, but like the rest of us out here, he is a little under a cloud. he prefers animals now. they don't tell tales. human beings do. besides, he's english, or rather, irish. better go and tell him to come up. you know his rooms. tell him it's infectious, and he can bring up a few cigarettes for me if he feels generous. don't trouble about your _soeur de charité_. i'll see that the woman here makes herself useful." vardri flung himself out of the room and down the rickety stairs at breakneck speed, thankful beyond measure for the relief of action. emile subsided into a chair and smoked furiously and meditated upon the untoward situation. being of a practical turn of mind he began to make calculations. vardri had told him briefly of how arithelli had failed in the trick-riding, fallen off her horse, and been hissed out of the ring. the loss of popularity might mean the end of her career. in any case he could see she was desperately ill, and there was small chance of her being about under three weeks, and even then she would not be able to work at once. meanwhile they had exactly two pounds a week to live upon. truly women added to the complications of life! he might borrow money, but that was a thing to be resorted to only in the last extremity. most of the members of his circle were as poor as himself or poorer. they were all bound together by the tie of brotherhood, and no one would have grudged or refused a loan, but emile scrupled to borrow from those who were in greater privation than himself. sobrenski was fairly well off, but he lived like an ascetic and gave everything to the cause; besides, sobrenski was out of the question. to appeal to him on arithelli's behalf would only be to give him a chance for refusal and a jeer at female conspirators. her turquoise rings emile collected from the table, and put them into his pocket; her collar of turquoises he rescued from the floor, where it had fallen when she took off her bodice. the jewels could all be turned into the money they needed so badly. of course she had not saved a single _peseta_. emile had the handling of her salary, and he knew that anything left over from the expenses of food and lodging went in clothes and her particular vanity, dainty boots. she was lavishly generous to the hippodrome staff, and there was always a certain tribute claimed from all its adherents by the cause. he did not hunt further for valuables. if there was either money or jewellery in arithelli's possession it was sure to be found in quite a conspicuous place. the varied life of the city surged to and fro beneath the window, the varied noises floated up into the room, and under the faded red brocade curtains, arithelli turned from side to side and moaned with closed eyes. a seller of fruit passed, crying his wares. emile went down into the street and bought a couple of oranges, and squeezed the juice into the cup that had been destined for the coffee. he had not the least idea as to what particular malady arithelli had developed, but he knew that fever and delirium always went together, and that with fever there is invariably thirst. he lifted her up and pushed the pillow higher to relieve her breathing, but he could hardly do more than moisten her parched and bitten lips. then he "tidied" the bed with masculine pulls and jerks till it was even more untidy than before, and went back to his chair. there was nothing more to be done for her in the way of alleviation till the doctor came. he took up a book, and tried to shut his ears and distract his thoughts. as he stared unseeingly at the printed pages, there suddenly flashed into his brain the name of count vladimir, the owner of "_the witch_." here was the very man to whom he could confidently apply for help in the present difficulties, for the russian had made it his business in life to bestow his wealth in assisting the revolutionaries. emile decided that he would write tomorrow, when he had acquired certain particulars as to the address he wanted. fatalité had done good work for the cause, he argued, therefore let those who supported the organisation keep her till she was able to work again. the next task he would have to undertake would be that of bullying or bribing the landlady into a promise to undertake at least some of the duties of a sick-room. the rest of the nursing he proposed to do himself. he grinned as he lit another evil-smelling cigarette, at the thought of vardri's proposal. he possessed an artistic sense of the fitness of things, and the suggested _soeur de charité_ appealed to him as being quite out of the picture. besides arithelli had no respect for priests or nuns; emile remembered her inimitable descriptions of the spying "children of mary," and she should not be worried with either if he could help it. yes, certainly the incapable old landlady would be preferable to a white-capped _religeuse_, for the latter, though not likely by virtue of her training to be scared by the physical atmosphere, would undoubtedly be appalled by the mental and moral one. most likely she would take advantage of arithelli's weakness to persuade her of the danger of her present way of living. the church of rome is never slow at seizing the chance of making a convert, and the power of the church in spain is a byword. though emile had a profound scorn for conventions, he had at one time had his place among that class of human beings that calls itself "society," and he knew its rules and ways as he despised its hypocrisies. he could look at arithelli's position quite judicially, and as an outsider. the world, religious and otherwise, would certainly not give her the benefit of the doubt. she was young, she was possessed of a weird and haunting beauty, she had no women friends, no relations, and no companions but a set of law-breakers, all of whom were men. no one would believe that she was untouched, unawakened, that she had been treated as a boy, and her womanhood not so much respected as ignored. if anyone put the wrong ideas into her head, emile reflected, it was sure to be one of her own sex. having matured his plans he descended to the kitchen regions, manufacturing impressive threats _en route_. here an answer to his problem presented itself, or rather herself. the landlady had a niece who came in daily to assist in household matters, and take part in a duet of feminine gossip. she was a solid young woman of unmoved countenance, who was quite prepared to nurse the ten plagues of egypt, providing she received sufficient remuneration. she proposed to get married at the earliest opportunity and what emile offered her would be of great assistance in providing her bridal finery. the two came to an agreement rapidly, and emile climbed the stairs again, triumphant. he began to feel anxious about the doctor. two hours had passed and there was no sight of him. he might be out, or he might be drunk. emile knew the little weakness of michael furness, and as vardri had not returned it meant that he was still searching. at last the horse-doctor arrived, grunting and ruffling up his crest of curly black hair. he had a large heart by way of counterbalance to his many failings, and he was interested in arithelli, for he had come across her once or twice in the stables, and had heard various picturesque stories of her exploits. he might have been a success in his own profession, but for the two temptations that beset every irishman--whisky and horses. he had left his practice in the city of cork, as emile had said, somewhat under a cloud, and had given up whisky for the _absinthe_ of the _cafés_, and had not regretted the exchange. he made his examination quickly, handling the girl with a surprising skill and deftness, in spite of his big clumsy-looking hands. when he touched her she opened her eyes. "_mais, où suis je_?" she murmured, painfully dragging out the words. then followed emile's name. the doctor laid her back gently, and stood holding one of her wrists. "she thinks it's you, poleski! 'tis diphtheria. a bad case, too. shall want some looking afther. who's seeing to her?" "i am," responded emile, coolly. "the divil ye are!" the irishman's long upper lip twitched humorously. "well, treat her gintly then, me bhoy! you're wise to be smoking. less chance of infection. i'll keep you company." he produced a couple of thin black cigars, and handed one to emile. "see, now," michael furness added seriously, "i may as well be telling you the truth. your little friend there hasn't a very big chance. she's been going to bits for some time. if it hadn't been this it would have been something else. she's got a grand physique, so there's hope. if she's worse by to-morrow she ought to have an operation. only i can't undertake it, ye see. there's the trouble. my hand isn't as steady as it was, and i haven't the instruments." emile nodded. he knew nothing of the operation of tracheotomy, and though he spoke english well he found it difficult to follow michael's soft, thick, county cork speech. "she's a grand heap of a girl, isn't she?" continued that gentleman, regarding arithelli with kindly eyes. he had all the celt's love of romance, and the ingrained reverence of the irish catholic for women. "this isn't the place for girls, at all, at all! and they tell me she's from the old country. will i be sending up one of the good sisthers to see after her, and put things to rights a bit?" for the second time that day emile ungratefully rejected the ministrations of the church. he knew that no one else in spain ever thought of employing anyone but the religious orders as nurses, but he preferred to arrange things in his own way and said so. "ah, well then!" said michael amiably, "give her something to drink if she wants it. that's all. i'll look in again this evening. she'll have taken a turn then one way or the other. it's a quick thing, this." arithelli's ministering angels left in each other's company. michael drifted back to his favourite _café_, while emile betook himself to the hippodrome to wage war with that amiable functionary, the manager. the strife was both noisy and prolonged, and resulted in only a partial victory for emile. with many picturesque oaths the manager accused himself of folly unspeakable in not dismissing arithelli at once. she had a contract? yes! but in it there was no allowance made for incompetence and non-appearance. it only stipulated that she should be paid for doing her work. she had not done it, and moreover she had refused to practise. that he should be expected to continue to pay her a salary even of the smallest description while she lay in bed was a monstrous impertinence. would he not have the trouble and expense of getting another artiste to fill her place? there must be an _equestrienne_ in the programme. if she found herself taken back again to finish her time after this illness or whatever it was, then she should be more than grateful, but as for paying salaries to _employés_ who did not work, why, did people consider him an imbecile? emile shrugged and sneered at intervals throughout this tirade. he had wisely begun by asking more than he knew he was at all likely to get, and was now obliged to be satisfied with the compromise. disappointment followed his search for the whereabouts of count vladimir. the owner of "_the witch_" was expected back in barcelona in a month or so, no one knew exactly when. letters might be addressed poste restante, corfu, for he was cruising in his phantom craft through those sapphire seas that lie round about the ionian islands. there was nothing to do but to write and wait. one piece of ill-luck was following close upon another, and emile felt that he needed all the consolations that his cynical philosophy could afford. his anxiety on arithelli's behalf was fast becoming an obsession. when she had first come into his life he had wondered sometimes how she would stand the late hours and all the hardships of a circus training, but after her one outburst she had never complained again. he thought the sea-trip had done her good. of course she always looked pale, but then that was her type. he had also been impressed with the unwonted seriousness of michael, knowing that in spite of his erratic ways the doctor understood his craft. emile's instinct prompted him vigorously to go back now and see how she was getting on, but he dared not neglect the work of his society. there were letters to be written, arrangements to be made, all the usual paraphernalia of intrigue to be kept going. he returned to his own rooms and began to write savagely, using all his will to expel from his brain the vision of the girl as he had seen her last, semi-conscious, and yet with his name on her lips. michael had promised to see her again at six o'clock. it would be time enough if he also went then. besides, the cause came first always, and there were many women in the world. his pen tore fiercely over the paper as something whispered: "women? yes. but another arithelli--?" chapter xii "i have something more to think of than love. all the women in the world would not make me waste an hour." saying of napoleon. the stolid niece blundered heavily about the room, doing things that were entirely unnecessary, and raising much dust. she was a conscientious person in her own way, and felt that she must get through a certain amount of work in return for the anticipated reward. she banged chairs and table about, folded up scattered clothes, investigated them with much interest, and fingered and re-arranged the row of boots with muttered ejaculations and covetous eyes. she had previously contrived to get arithelli into a night dress, had brushed her hair back and plaited it, and pulled the green shutters together to keep out the midday glare. as she looked at the livid face patched with scarlet against the coarse linen, maria began to feel a little perturbed. something in the atmosphere of the room had penetrated even the brick wall of her stolidity. she hoped the two señors would soon return and relieve her of the responsibility of her charge. the stillness oppressed her, for arithelli had ceased her moaning and muttering for a merciful stupor. as the hours went on the fever increased, and the horrible fungus in her throat spread with an appalling rapidity. as michael furness had prophesied, the crisis would soon be reached, and she had everything save youth against her in the fight for life. maria crossed herself perfunctorily and mumbled a few prayers. doubtless the señora was like all the english, a heretic, and therefore, according to the comfortable tenets of the roman faith, eternally damned, but a little prayer would do no harm, and would be counted to herself as an act of charity. that ceremony over, more mundane considerations engrossed her mind. she could smell the pungent odour of the _olla podrida_, or national stew, insinuating itself through the half-open door, and she knew that if she were not present at the meal, there would be more than one hungry mouth ready to devour her share. she drew a breath of relief as she marched heavily downstairs to the more congenial surroundings of the kitchen. she had done her duty. señor poleski had not told her to stay in the room all the time he was away, and she could easily be back again before he came in. michael was the first to appear, almost aggressively sober, and carrying a small wooden box. his interest in his case was as much human as professional, and instead of wasting the afternoon, after his usual custom, loafing and drinking, he had gone, after one modest glass of the rough _val de peñas_, to search in out-of-the-way streets for a certain herbalist of repute. this was an aged spanish jew, unclean and cadaverous, with patriarchal grey beard and piercing eyes, a man renowned for his marvellous cures among the peasantry. he was regarded more or less as a wizard, though his wizardry consisted solely in a knowledge of natural remedies, and the exercise of a power which would have been described at the paris salpêtriére as hypnotic suggestion. by the aid of this he was able to inspire his patients with the faith so necessary to a successful treatment. michael was not fettered in any way by the ordinary conventions of a practitioner. he had neither drugs nor instruments of his own wherewith to effect a cure on ordinary lines, and what he had seen of herbalists in spain had inspired him with a vast respect for the simplicity and success of their methods. the wooden box contained a quantity of leaves which, steeped in scalding water, and applied to the patient's throat, possessed the power of reducing the inflammation and drawing out the poison through the pores of the skin. of their efficacy michael entertained not the slightest doubt. he walked straight to the bed, and glanced at arithelli's throat, now almost covered with white patches of membrane. there was no time to waste if she was to be saved from the ghastliness of slow suffocation. he went to the head of the stairs and yelled lustily for maria, whom he commanded to produce boiling water immediately, thus further adding to the reputation of the mad english for haste and unreasonableness. then he took off his coat, rolled up his sleeves, and began busily to clear a space on the table, on which he emptied the contents of the box. all his movements had suddenly become alert and energetic. the joy of the true physician, the healer, had awakened in him at the prospect of a duel with death, and he was no longer merely the slouching, good-natured wastrel who doctored horses at the hippodrome. he possessed for the moment the dignity of a leader, of the master of a situation. he smiled to himself as he moved about humming a verse of "let ireland remember," and swept away a _débris_ of books, a rouge pot, some dead flowers, and a large over-trimmed hat. "shure 'tis back in the surgery again i am," he told himself, while his lean, ugly face beamed with satisfaction. no one who knew michael furness had ever suspected the regret by which he was for ever haunted, regret at the loss of his profession. his rollicking manner made it impossible to believe him capable of any depth of feeling, and he had a trick of talking least about the things for which he cared most. the failing that banned him from his work was an inherited one. he suffered for the sins of his fathers, for the indulgences of many generations of hard riding, hard living, reckless hot-blooded celts. he was too old to reform now, he would say. perhaps later on he would be "making his soul"; in the meantime he drifted. emile, maria and the boiling water all made their entrée together. the eyes of the former travelled first of all to the bed and then to the heap of vegetation. "_qu 'est-ce que c'est que ca_?" he demanded. "she is better, eh?" "no, she's worse," answered michael. he seized upon the leaves and began to bundle them into the steaming basin. "we shouldn't have been gone so long. what's this did ye say, poleski? well, 'tis the only thing i can do for her. after i left you i went and got these. they're great believers in herbs in this counthry, and by the light of what i have seen, so am i. the poor people never use anything else, and i've seen some fine cures. it's unprofessional, but it's giving her a chance and as i told you i can't operate." he withdrew his fingers hurriedly. "faith, that jade with the dark eyes knew what she was doing when she made this water hot! they're ready now, and i'll want a piece of stuff to lay them on. find me a piece of the colleen's finery, something old that she won't be wanting to use any more." he pronounced the last two words as "annie moore," and would have been furious if the fact had been pointed out to him, for like all irishmen he would never admit the possession of a brogue. a pale blue silk scarf was found, and ruthlessly utilised as a bandage. then emile lifted the inert figure, while the doctor wound it round her throat and fastened it securely. "lift her higher, man," he adjured emile. "there's only one pillow?--then use this." he rolled up his coat, and put it behind her head. "we've done all we can now, and must just wait till this begins to draw. it will make her uncomfortable, and we must watch that she doesn't pull it off. give me a cigarette if ye have one, poleski. 'tis hot work this." he sat down on the bed and took up arithelli's thin wrist. in his shirt sleeves, with his hair well on end, and his robust voice very little subdued below its usual pitch, michael did not convey the impression that he was capable of taking either life or death in a serious spirit. he talked on gaily, in no way depressed by his unsympathetic audience, telling tales of his own escapades in the matter of fighting and love-making, of wild midnight steeplechases ridden across unknown country, and the delights of the fair town by the river lee. once he stopped talking for a few minutes to boil some more water on the stove that arithelli sometimes used for making coffee, and to renew the application of leaves. the fact that his patient was in exactly the same condition of stupor, and had not stirred, did not discourage michael's optimistic views of her recovery. "ye must give it time, me bhoy," he told emile. "there's no hurry in spain, ye know, with anything. be careful that ye watch her and keep her hands off her throat. she'll not be lying so quiet presently." emile growled out an inaudible response. he was in a smouldering condition of wrath and impatience. reserved and limited of words as he himself always was, and now rendered savage by anxiety, he found it impossible to understand the other man's mercurial temperament. by this time he was without hope, and certainly without faith in either michael or his remedies. the doctor having skilfully extracted his crumpled outer garment from under arithelli's shoulders, regretfully prepared to depart. he was obliged to be somewhere about the premises of the hippodrome during every performance in case of accident to any of the animals, and careless as he was where his own benefit was concerned, he had sufficient wisdom to be always within call. when he had vanished emile walked to the window, and threw open the now useless shutters. he guessed instinctively that arithelli needed more air, and he had himself begun to find the temperature almost unbearable, for the building was lofty, and the room they were in near the roof. he rested his folded arms upon the sill and leaned his head and shoulders far out. the house stood at a corner, and while the side of it was in a small street, the front overlooked one of the many wide and beautiful _paséos_, with which the city abounded. a little breeze borne of the incoming tide in the harbour came sweeping along, and its coolness stirred him into fresh vitality. it was the hour of pleasure, when the inhabitants threw off their sun-begotten sloth and thronged the _cafés_ and public gardens and promenades. on the rambla, once the bed of a river, the military bands played waltz music, and the favourite operas, and hot blood moved faster to the unfailing enchantment of the habernera, and the newest works of massenet and charpentier. it was now dark, and the stars blazed down upon the never-resting city, with its sinister record of outrages and crimes, and its charm which was as the alluring of some wild gypsy queen. men fleeing from the justice or vengeance of their own country could find here a city of refuge. here the tide of life ran swiftly, and churches and cruelty walked hand in hand, and hate trod close upon the heels of love. here no man's life was safe, for from time to time an epidemic of bomb throwing would break out. infernal machines would be hurled in an apparently purposeless fashion wherever there was a large gathering of people in street or square. a few policemen, soldiers, or onlookers would be killed or mutilated, and a panic created, but few arrests were ever made. the whole of the press would unite to lift up its voice in an indignant appeal to the government, and then everything would be forgotten till the next explosion. people in barcelona lived from day to day and accepted lawlessness as a matter of course. emile's own particular circle had no hand in these promiscuous destructions of life. their own attempts were invariably well organised and directed towards some definite end. they did not destroy life for mere wanton cruelty, and their victims were marked out and hunted down with an accurate aim. it suddenly occurred to emile that during the last few months he had looked upon barcelona with a changed vision. he had always seen her beauties and hated them, as a man may hate the fair body of a despised mistress, while he yet sees it fair. now the thought that he might at any time, and at a few days' notice, be forced to leave the place, struck him with a feeling of blankness and desolation. the sense of exile was almost gone, the nostalgia for his own land no longer keen. had he turned traitor to his own country, the country for whose woes he was now suffering--? there he had neither home, parents, friends nor lover. here he possessed at least interests. a rustling sound behind him made him turn quickly. in the gloom he could only see the outline of a white moving figure. he groped for the matches, struck one and lit a candle. arithelli sat upright in bed; she had pushed back the clothes, and her long fingers were dragging at the blue scarf. it was knotted at the back under her plait of hair, and she had almost succeeded in loosening it. the fatal inertia was passed, and she was beside herself with heat and pain and the fight for breath. a couple of strides brought emile to the bedside. he caught her hands between his own and drew them down. "listen, arithelli," he said quietly. "you mustn't do that. this is to cure your throat. it may hurt you now, but to-morrow you will be better, _voyez-vous_?" the girl writhed in his grasp, turning her head from side to side. the wild eyes, the tense, quivering body, made emile think of some forest animal in a trap. the bandage had fallen from her throat and therefore was useless, and the aromatic scent of the crushed herbs was pungent in the air. he remembered michael's injunction, "see that she keeps it on. it's her only chance." she was still struggling frantically, and he needed both hands. for a moment he meditated tying her wrists together, but he decided to trust to his influence over her to make her do as he wished, she had always obeyed him hitherto, and he knew that she was perfectly conscious now, and capable of understanding what he wanted. he set his teeth and tightened his grip, and spoke again in the same quiet voice. "look at me! that's right. put your hands down, and keep them so. you must not touch your throat." he held her eyes with his own as he spoke, and after a momentary struggle and shrinking she grew quiet, and he felt her body relax. her eyes closed and she sank down against the pillow, turning her face towards him. "_pauvre enfant_!" emile muttered. he released her hands and they lay still, and she made no movement to hinder him as he re-adjusted the bandage. he stood looking down upon her. a vast compassion shone in the grey eyes, that she had only seen hard and penetrating. the gesture of mute abandonment, the ready compliance had appealed to his complex nature, which he kept hidden under an armour of coldness and cynicism. for an instant his years of outlawry and poverty were blotted out and he had gone back to the days in russia when he had first come into his kingdom, and had believed women faithful and their honour a thing on which to stake one's own. as sweet and yielding marie roumanoff had seemed when she had lain in his arms. a few years hence if arithelli did not succeed in breaking her neck in the ring, she would probably also make paradise and hell for some man. he could see that the dangerous crisis was over. she would live and eventually go back to her work again. the swift intelligence, the wit and charm of her--_À quoi bon_? she had been saved, and to what end? for a dangerous and toilsome profession, and, in secret, another and still greater peril. husband and children, and the average woman's uneventful, if happy, fate could never be hers. her very beauty was of the type almost repellent to the strictly normal and healthy man. she would no doubt have her hour of triumph, of passion. some _connoisseur_ of beauty would purchase her as a rare jewel is bought to catalogue among his treasures. in paris she might achieve notoriety. not now, perhaps, but later when she had developed into a woman and knew her own power. paris loved all things strange, and gave homage to the woman who was among her fellows as the orchid among flowers. "_fatalitÉ_," he had named her in jest. truly a name to bring misfortune to any woman. her fate had been in his own hands a few minutes ago. he could so easily have denied her her chance, her chance of life. perhaps the time might come when she would reproach him for having helped her to live. he thrust back the thought and stooped over her. "_mon enfant_, do you want anything to drink? you are thirsty, _n'est ce pas_?" "yes. and emile--you won't--go away--yet?" "_ma foi_, no! drink this and go to sleep." he was the emile of every-day life once more, brusque, blunt and practical. as he turned away to put the glass back on the table, he was debating whether it would not be wise to call up maria. a woman would understand better what to do for another woman. he knew that arithelli would never ask for anything under any circumstances. he had taught her too well his own depressing theory that life "mostly consisted of putting up with things," and in practice thereof the pupil had outshone her master. the rigid tension of her arms and hands as they lay on the coverlet told of her effort for composure, and he noticed for the first time that beautiful as the latter still were in shape and colour, one of the nails was broken, and the finger tips had spread and widened. when there had been meetings up in the hills at night she had always been left to see to the unharnessing of the horses and mules, and these disfigurements were the result of her struggles with saddle-girths and straps. her work was usually well done, and if it did not happen to be satisfactory, she came in for the united grumbles of the whole party. emile bit into his cigarette as his eyes caught the discoloured lines of sobrenski's sign-manual on her wrist. it was entirely through him, emile, that she had in the first place joined the league of conspirators, and this was one of the results. sobrenski's judgment had been more far-seeing than his own. one girl in a roomful of fanatics, (he was one himself, but that did not make any difference,) would naturally stand a very poor chance if she was foolish enough to oppose them. with masculine thoughtlessness emile had set the candle close beside the bed, where it flared full into arithelli's eyes. they were wide open now. the look of desperation had faded, and there was in them only the appeal of one human being to another for help and sympathy. "_eh, bien_, fatalité?" she shifted her position wearily and stretched out her hands towards him, murmuring, "_je veux dormir_." if emile had possessed either chloroform or any other narcotic he would at once have given it to her without much thought of the possible consequences. an inspiration seized him to use the power for soothing and alleviating provided by nature. he knew that arithelli would be an easy subject for the exercise of animal magnetism, and her morbid condition would make it even easier for him to send her to sleep. he moved away the candle, so as to leave her face in shadow, and leaning forward he laid his hand across her forehead and eyes, and began a series of regular and monotonous passes, always in a downward direction. once he rested his thumbs lightly on her eyeballs, remaining so for a few seconds, while his will went out to her, bidding her sleep and find unconsciousness. chapter xiii "there is a woman at the beginning of all great things." lamartine. the whizzing rush and discordant scream of the electric trams, the sun warm upon his face, aroused emile from a restless, fitful sleep of a few hours. the street cries had begun to swell into a volume of sound, and at the earliest dawn the whole place teemed with stir and life. there was no hour in all the night in which barcelona really slept. some of the shops did not close before midnight, and people were continually passing through the rambla, and entering and leaving the _posadas_, which were open for the sale of wine and bread soon after three o'clock in the morning. emile yawned and stretched, and pulled himself up slowly from the chair by the open window in which he had fallen asleep. he was cramped and stiff from his uncomfortable position. anxiety and strain had deepened the lines on his face, and his eyes were dull and sunken. he looked less hard, less alert, and altogether more human and approachable. a glance at the bed assured him that arithelli was still asleep and in exactly the same attitude as he had left her. though her sleep was not a natural one, at least it was better than drugs, and he had given her a respite, a time of forgetfulness. in a few minutes he would have to arouse her again to more pain and discomfort, and the inevitable weariness of convalescence. he stood inhaling the wonderful soft air and gathering up his energies to face the work of another day. arithelli's affairs had to be put straight, and vardri provided for in some way. he did not in the least know how this was all to be accomplished, and at present the problems of the immediate future seemed likely to prove a little difficult. he was not by nature optimistic, and the events of the last few days had made him even less so than ordinary. he felt that he must go back to his rooms, and finish out his _siesta_ before he could work out any more plans. arithelli awoke at once when he touched her and called her name, but before she had realised where she was emile was half way downstairs in search of maria. as it happened it was sunday morning, and being at least outwardly devout, the damsel was just on the point of starting for an early mass, and was arrayed in her church-going uniform of black gown and _velo_, and armed with missal and rosary. her round eyes widened and her round mouth grew sulky when she heard that she was expected to go upstairs without further delay and attend to arithelli. juan would be waiting for her outside the church door, maria reflected, and perhaps if she did not come he would seek others. there was dolores, of the cigarette factory, for example. the english señora could surely wait a few minutes. her expression, and her obvious unwillingness, supplied emile with material for cynical reflections upon the working value of religion. he did not trouble to communicate his views to maria, but merely gave orders and instructions. his tone and manner were convincing. like all the rest of her sex maria respected a man who knew what he wanted, and showed that he intended to get it. emile made his way into the cool, shady rambla, where a double avenue of plane trees met overhead, and where a grateful darkness could always be found even at mid-day. on either side of the promenade were the finest shops, the gaiest _cafés_. a band of students passed him, waving a scarlet flag and shouting a revolutionary _chanson_ of the most fiery description. emile scowled angrily. he had not the least sympathy with these childish exhibitions of defiance, which he considered utterly futile and a great waste of time. they did harm to the serious aims and intentions of the anarchist community, and were often the means of getting quite the wrong people arrested. at the flower market (la rambla de las flores) he paused to look at the heaped roses, gorgeous against the grey stones. daily they were brought there in thousands, dew-drenched and fresh from the gardens of sária. he took up a loose handful from the piled mass of sweetness and laid it down again. red roses were not for fatalité. they would not suit her, and she had good reason to loathe the colour that was symbolical of blood and sacrifice. he chose instead a sheaf of lilies, long-stalked and heavily scented, and despatched them in the care of a picturesque _gamin_. sobrenski and the others would certainly have considered him hopelessly mad if they had known. it was many years since he had sent flowers to a woman. his present life did not encourage little courtesies and graceful actions. it was in the natural course of events that all the comrades should help one another in every possible way, but none of them made any virtue out of it. it was all done in the most matter-of-fact way possible. as he had told arithelli when they had talked up at montserrat, one only kissed the hands of a marie spiridonova. and he was sending bouquets as to some _mondaine_ of the vanished world and of his youth. he shrugged and walked slowly on. in passing the house where michael furness lodged, he stopped to leave a message as to arithelli's condition, and the advisability of another visit. when "_the witch_" touched at corfu for letters count vladimir found among them one that twisted afresh the thread of two destinies--his own and that of a woman. his companion had still the same features and colouring of the boy who had sung at night under the stars in the harbour of barcelona. pauline souvaroff still sang through the hours between dusk and dawn, but her disguise had been discarded, and now soft skirts trailed as she passed, and the cropped fair hair had grown and twisted into little rings. her secret had been no secret to emile, though arithelli with her trick of taking everything for granted had never guessed that paul, the singer, was other than the boy he professed to be. besides the two women had never talked together alone, and seldom even seen each other by daylight, for pauline had sought no one's company. there was for her but one being in the world, and when she could not be with the man she worshipped she was content to be with her thoughts and dreams. at first she had, like many another russian woman, yearned to make an oblation of herself in the service of her horror-ridden country, but with the coming of love she had put aside all thoughts of vengeance. the cause was identified for her with the person of her lover. she toiled willingly at it still, but from entirely different motives. his interests were hers, and while he worked for the revolutionary party, so also must she. pauline souvaroff had loved much and given freely. all that she possessed of beauty and charm, her whole body and soul she had laid at the feet of the man at whose lightest word she flushed and paled, and on whom she looked with soft, adoring eyes. she lived in dreams, a life of drugged content in which there was neither past nor future. in all the brotherhood no one could be considered a free agent, and the ordering of no man's life was in his own hands. the private actions of each member were almost as well known as his public ones, for each man spied systematically upon his companions. if the devotion of two people to one another seemed likely to outrival their devotion to the cause, then separation came swiftly. nothing would be said, no accusations made, but each would receive orders that sent them in opposite directions. the supporters of the red flag movement were always particularly ingenious in arranging affairs to suit themselves. an anarchist could form no lasting ties. some time in the future there was always separation to be faced. it was in vladimir's power to settle matters in his own way by ignoring emile's letter, and remaining where he was in enjoyment of the present idyll. as long as they kept out to sea they were safe. but he had pledged his word to answer any summons and to give his help, and with him, as with all men, love came only second to his work. emile had also explained vardri's position, and it would be impossible to adjust anything without being on the spot. he read the letter over again, slowly and carefully. it hinted and suggested more than it had said. emile had just come from an interview with sobrenski, and there had been a talk of an entire re-organization of the band. some of the members would be required to carry on the propaganda in other countries, russia, for example. they all knew what that meant--! as he climbed the ladder by the yacht's side, and swung himself onto the deck, the girl ran up to him with outstretched hands, her white skirts fluttering behind her in the wind. she was as incapable of disguising her feelings as a child, and she was a joyous pagan in her happiness. vladimir slipped his hand under the warm round arm. "have i been long, _petite_? come and walk up and down. i want to talk to you." "you have found letters, _mon ami_?" pauline asked carelessly. "from poleski. yes. i'm afraid they are rather important ones. we shall have to talk them over later on." "when you like. vladimir, do you remember the girl monsieur poleski brought on board once for a few days. i never knew her real name. she always looked so ill and miserable. do you remember?" "it is about this very girl that he has written." pauline looked up quickly. "she is dead?" "no! no! i suppose you think that because she always looked such a tragedy. however, she is very ill, out of danger now, but of course not able to ride--she was in the hippodrome, you know--and apparently she has no money, so one must do something for them. poleski has barely enough for two, especially under these circumstances." "i am sorry," pauline said gently. "i remember how she used to sit all day and look at the sea. monsieur poleski left her too much alone, and always spoke so roughly, but i think he loved her." vladimir gave a short laugh. "you're wrong there, child. no, i'm sure that's not the case with poleski." "but she loves him?" "possibly! she always seemed to me uncanny with those extraordinary eyes, and that voice. poleski has certainly failed to educate her as regards taste in clothes. you saw how she was dressed when she came on board--!" half an hour later the anchor was up, and they were cutting through the white-crested waves. the girl pointed to a green headland on the left that rose suddenly and overhung the water like a sentinel on guard. "i have been watching that all the morning in the distance, and i could think of nothing but the winged victory in the louvre. you remember how she stands on a rough-hewn pedestal at the head of the marble staircase, and she is all alone against a dull red background. and as one looks one goes back all those centuries, and sees her as she was on the day the greeks set her up to celebrate their great sea-victory. it must have all looked just as it does to-day, those centuries ago in the island of samothrace. there was a strong wind blowing, and the waves met and raced and leapt together, and the sky was the same wonderful colour that it is now, and there were wild birds hovering and screaming round her." "what will you say to me, when i take you away from all this,--when we have to go back to barcelona?" "but i shall go with you?" the blue eyes were searching his face, and there was fear as well as a question in them. "do you suppose i shall leave you here alone, child?" he hated himself for the evasive answer. he turned her thoughts to other things, bidding her talk of those days they had spent together in paris. she had named it paradise, and to her it had been indeed a place of enchantment, for she saw it for the first time, and vladimir was always with her. she had seen its treasures of art, and abandoned herself to its glamour with the enthusiasm and the freshness of a child. she had looked out of place in the artificial atmosphere of the boulevards, among the gas-lit _cafés_, dazzling shop-windows, _flâneurs_ and gaily dressed women. a man who wrote poetry, and starved on what he received for his verses in the quartier latin, had stood beside her for a few moments in the rue de rivoli, and had gone home to his garret inspired to produce some lines in which he compared her to the delicate narcissus blooms that died so quickly in the flower sellers' baskets. together she and vladimir had strolled among the wonders of the louvre, he critical and unmoved, but indulgent and gratified at her pleasure as at the pleasure of a child. pauline had never been able to express what she felt. she could only worship dumbly before the changeless unfading beauty of these relics of the fairy-cities, of athens, and rome, and alexandria. she had loved the greek marbles best. the weird shapes in the corridor of pan, the glorious torso of the venus accroupie with the two deep lines in her side that make her more human and alive than any other venus, more divine even than the milo, faultless in her "serpentining beauty rounds on rounds," serene and gracious in the shadow of her crimson-hung alcove. and vladimir was wise, for he allowed her to dream, and did not show her more than he could help of modern paris. from there they had gone to brussels, then to vienna, and last, and most beautiful of all, buda-pesth, the city among the hills. they had seen it first of all as buda-pesth should be seen, at night, hanging between earth and sky, and with her million lights sparkling against the soft darkness of the surrounding hills. pauline's eyes had never become satiated with the sight of beautiful things. perhaps, as she had told vladimir, it was her love for him that had given her this gift of clear-seeing. without love she might have allowed herself to be blindfolded as many other women are, by ambition, or money, or intellect. chapter xiv "la vie est vaine, un peu d'amour, un peu de haine, et puis bon jour." in the process of arithelli's convalescence, comedy fought for place with tragedy. for the first time in her life she felt irritable, and inclined to grumble, and her racked nerves made the lonely hours appear doubly long and lonely. day after day, each one seemingly more unending than the last, the sun poured into her room, and the dust and litter accumulated in all four corners, and she lay and gazed at the hideous meandering pattern of the stained wall-paper, and the cracks and blistering paint on the door. the nights were less terrible, for the darkness veiled all sordid details, and there was a star-lit patch of sky visible through the open window. the attendance she received could only be described as casual. neither emile nor maria possessed one idea on the subject of hygiene between them. the methods of the former were, as might be expected, a little crude, and maria combined a similar failing with a vast ignorance. moreover, she was not original. at the beginning of arithelli's illness pineapple juice had seemed to maria a happy inspiration, and she continued to provide it daily. what was good to drink on sunday, she argued, must also be good on monday. arithelli's throat had healed quickly, but the depression and weakness clung to her persistently. she fought it and was ashamed of it, true to her spartan traditions, but was forced to realise that it was not in her own power to hurry her return to the world and work. michael furness, who was much elated by the success of the jewish herbalist's remedy, continued his treatment on the same lines, giving her various tisanes of leaves and flowers, which if they tasted unpleasant were at least harmless. he had grown fond of his patient, and she always looked for his visits with pleasure. he treated her with a genuine, almost fatherly kindness, and they were drawn together by the kin feeling of race, so strong among all celts. in many respects michael was not ideal as a medical attendant. he smoked vile tobacco,--he dropped some things and knocked over others, he shaved apparently only on _festas_, and if he happened to arrive late in the day his speech was thick and his manner excitable. upon one occasion arithelli had complained that her mane of untended hair made her uncomfortably hot, and michael brought out a pocket knife, clubbed it all together in his hand like a horse's tail, and obligingly offered to relieve her by cutting it off. emile had arrived only just in time to prevent the holocaust, and the two men exchanged fiery words for the next ten minutes. another day, prompted by a desire to amuse her, michael introduced into her room a fat mongrel puppy with disproportionate legs and an alarmed expression. his wish to provide her with what he was pleased to call a "divarsion" was, like many of his other good intentions, not entirely successful. he had deposited the excited animal on the bed, and in the course of its frantic gambols it overbalanced and fell sprawling to the floor on its back. the ancient canopied bed was high, and the puppy was frightened as well as hurt, and lifted up its voice in anguished yells. when michael had rescued it, and put it outside the door and finished laughing, he came back to find arithelli weeping helplessly with her face buried in the pillow. his alarmed suggestion that he should fetch emile helped her to recover more quickly than any amount of sympathy could have done. sometimes there were other visitors. the grooms and strappers from the hippodrome came often to enquire, and estelle, forbidden by the manager to come at all on account of infection, sat on the stairs and showered effusive speeches in a high-pitched voice through the open door. arithelli had sent no word of her illness to her parents in london. she knew their views on the subject of complaints. they would consider the whole thing due to imagination, there would be unpleasant letters, and it was perfectly certain that they would send no assistance in the shape of money. emile had wished to write, but she had begged him not to do so, and for once he had yielded to what he called her "whims." from the scraps of information she had received from time to time it appeared that the uncomfortable _ménage_ of her kindred had become even more disorganised. her father had turned for consolation to the whisky of his country, her mother spent whole days in bed reading, and weaving futile dreams of a recovered fortune, and isobel and valerie grew taller and hungrier, and fought and wrangled after the manner of hooligans. lazy and shiftless, they envied arithelli the life she had chosen, but had neither the pluck nor the brains necessary to emulate her example. emile's manner had troubled her of late, for he had been strangely bad-tempered and variable in his moods. she had become more or less accustomed to his eccentricities of behaviour and speech, but this was something different, indefinable. one day he would be extraordinarily kind and considerate, the next almost brutal, either hardly speaking at all, or else finding fault with everything she said and did. she often felt a presentiment that he had something important to tell her, but he would come and go without imparting any news, and, as always, she did not worry him with questions as many women would have done. she wondered if he were feeling harassed over "_les affaires politiques_," or whether he was afraid that the manager's small stock of patience would be exhausted before she was able to appear in the ring again, and that he would cancel her contract. if that happened she felt that the end of all things would have indeed arrived. she could not struggle against the fates any longer, obviously she could not return home, and it was not fair that emile should continue to keep her. he came in one evening about eight o'clock to find her up for the first time since her illness, and sitting on the edge of the bed draped in the long blue cloak she used for covering her circus attire. her hair was parted over her ears, and divided into two long sleek braids drawn forward and falling over her shoulders, the ends resting on her lap. she looked up, as he entered, with the haunting sea-green eyes that showed larger than ever in contrast to her hollowed cheeks. something in her pose, in the arrangement of her hair, reminded emile vividly of her first morning in barcelona, when he had come in early in the morning to find her dazed with sleep. he remembered also how she had asked him to repeat his remarks, and how carelessly nonchalant had been her manner. "you look like a witch sitting crouched up there, fatalité," he snapped. "what's the matter? you don't seem very cheerful." "i don't feel very cheerful," the girl responded. she spoke with grave deliberation, and without moving a muscle. emile grunted and sat down. "there has been another explosion of bombs on the rambla," he said. "a market woman killed and two work people injured--i believe one has since died. of course a got-up affair of the government. they hope by doing this sort of thing often enough to make the populace take vengeance on us." "then the anarchists didn't do it?" "my dear fatalité, we don't blow up harmless people simply _pour passer le temps_. i've told you that before, and being inside the movement yourself you ought to know. it is a favourite trick of the officials to excite public feeling against us. they have been doing it now for the last three years, letting off bombs in various parts of the city. they take care always to choose the most frequented places and to kill someone who doesn't matter, and then all the republican journals have four columns of indignation with large head-lines, 'latest anarchist outrage.' they like to get their exploits well talked about. everything seems to be against us now. sobrenski will have it that there is treachery inside our circle as well as outside. you know whom he suspects?" "no." "vardri." "that is my fault," arithelli said quietly. "sobrenski has felt like that since the night vardri made a scene about my being lowered down from the window. he just stood up for me because i'm a woman. i'm only a machine to the rest of you." she spoke without a touch of resentment. it was purely a statement of fact. "ah, that's just the point. the feminine side of you is exactly what we don't want. one félise rivaz is enough, most of us think. try and keep the elfish boy you were when you arrived. it will be less trouble, fatalité, _ma chère_. with the other thing there are always complications. no, i'm not accusing you of falling in love with vardri. i only say, be careful. even an elf-child can develop suddenly into a woman once she arrives at a knowledge of the fact that there is a man ready to make love to her. perhaps you do not know it yourself, but you have changed lately. you are losing your fearlessness, your indifference. i have watched you sometimes when you have not known, and have seen your eyes soften, your face change. you started when i spoke just now." "how did you learn things about women? from books?" "books? _ma foi_, no! i liked them well enough at one time, when i hadn't studied _la vie_. now they're _fâde_." arithelli was silent for a little while. she knew only too well that emile had spoken the truth, had put into blunt words what to herself was only a vague, half-formed idea. her illness had been vardri's golden harvest time, for it had given him the chance of being often alone with her. he had read to her, waited upon her, served her with the utmost chivalry and devotion. he had made of her a madonna, a goddess, she who was fair game for all other men in barcelona. emile's voice broke in upon her meditations. "you shouldn't worry, fatalité. it's not becoming. have a cigarette to make yourself a little distraction." she shook her head. "no, thank you, emile. i never wanted to smoke, and any way it would not give me a distraction to-night." "then what are you worrying about?" "i've only been wondering what will be the end of me." "what has made you suddenly become so anxious about your end?" emile looked at her keenly. the wide eyes raised to his were tragedy incarnate. the long nervous fingers were tightly locked together. "i'm a coward to-night," the soft hoarse voice went on. "i've never grumbled before, have i, emile? i seem to have suddenly realised how hopeless everything looks for me in the future. i've had time enough to think it all out since i've been lying in bed. when i first came here i thought i was going to do all sorts of wonderful things, but now i see that this life leads to nothing, and i may go on being just a circus rider for years. when i get well and finish out this contract i shall have to try and get another engagement in paris or vienna. the english consul and all the other men wait to see me come out, and throw me flowers and rings, but when they see me driving with you in the paséo de gracia, they look the other way, especially if they are with their wives and families. they like 'arithelli of the hippodrome' in her proper place,--the ring. gas and glare, paint and glitter! that is my life. and they always hope that i shall fall off. i can feel it. it's the roman arena all over again. for a long time before i had that accident i didn't know how to get through the rehearsals. i nearly fell off two or three times, but there was no one there to see. the more i practised the more cold i got, and i used to have horrible shivering fits. it's so queer. i don't believe i'm made like other people. estelle gets hot and scarlet when she practises." "poor little child!" "why are you so nice to me? you've never said anything like that before." "because if when you first came here i had begun to pity you it would have made you realise your position sooner than need be. you were like one in a dream. it was not my place to awaken you. i left that for life, '_la vie_' that you were so anxious to experience. you made yourself '_chateaux en espagne_.' we all do that at some time or other." "nobody really cares what becomes of me except--" she broke off the sentence and continued steadily. "my people don't mind whether i am here or not. they won't like it if i come back a failure." in his heart emile cursed the fates. her awakening had been a complete one. at first novelty and excitement had served as merciful anaesthetics, but they could not last for ever. he was not in love with her, he still told himself, but he would miss her. women like the roumanoff were the women to whom men made passionate love, but arithelli was unique. she had become part of his life in barcelona. their lives had touched and mingled till it was impossible to believe that he had only known her for a few short months. a future without her would be one without interest. for her he could see no future. she would have to go to the devil some way or another eventually, and there would be plenty of people ready and willing to provide her with an escort. he threw away his cigarette, and came across the room to her, and his hands fell heavily upon her shoulders. "look here, fatalité," he said roughly; "we thought you were dying a little while ago, and i helped to fight for your life, and all the time, at the back of my brain i wished you were dead. yes, you needn't look so horrified." he gave her a fierce shake. "i hoped to see you in your coffin. can't you understand, fatalité? no, of course you can't, and you think me a brute. one of these days perhaps you will think differently. probably you imagine i don't care for you, but if i didn't should i mind whether you were alive or dead? you've always been saying that you feel something is going to happen. it seems you are right. there have been several unexpected developments during the last few days. it is most likely that i may be chosen to go back to russia with despatches to one of the secret societies there. here i cannot be arrested, there i can. of course it means siberia--eventually. that's only what we all expect." "then i shall be here alone." "yes, and there's no future for a woman in this vile place. you know the proverb they have, 'can any good thing come out of barcelona?' your looks are against you too." "there's always the river." "then when the time comes choose that--if you still have the courage. you've been _bonne camarade_ to me, fatalité. the men you will meet later on may not want that." chapter xv "i kiss you and the world begins to fade." w. b. yeats. count vladimir and emile met and consulted together, the immediate result of the interview being that vardri was offered the post of private secretary to the former. emile had gone out leaving them together, and vladimir had hardly finished speaking when he found himself faced by an unexpected situation. "i accept with pleasure," vardri said, "but on one condition--that it means my remaining in barcelona." vladimir hesitated. "well, i had not contemplated that. naturally one requires one's secretary to be--" "i understand, monsieur. i hope you will not consider me ungrateful, but there is a reason." "it's a woman?" vardri bowed gravely. "exactly, monsieur. it's a woman." "you are risking a great deal for her. poleski has told me something of your circumstances, and it appears that if you do not get some appointment very soon, you will starve." vardri straightened himself, throwing back his head with a characteristic gesture. he looked the older man in the eyes, his own alight and eloquent under finely drawn brows. "that's as it may be! i'll take my chance of work. in any case i cannot leave barcelona. of course, i regret greatly that it is impossible for me to fall in with your arrangements." vladimir smiled and shrugged. he knew the type with which he had to deal. quixotic and generous to the verge of folly, the type that will sacrifice itself without reserve for an illusion, an ideal; the type that filled monasteries, and siberian prisons, and made a jest for half the world. such men were valuable to the cause, because they gave ungrudgingly, and never counted cost. the russian was a man of affairs, cautious, cynical and given to analysis, and he was also a student of human nature. he was moreover interested in the unknown woman. if he had been told that she was arithelli the circus-rider, who had sat silently upon the deck of his yacht dressed in gaudy raiment, and indifferent almost to stupidity, then his smile would have been contemptuous instead of tolerant. he was interested too in the unknown woman's champion. something in vardri's attitude of courteous defiance appealed to him by the law that will attract strongly one man's mind to another, diverse in every way. he could see that vardri was plainly consumptive, and that the disease was in its advanced stages. even with the aid of good food and an easier life he could not last more than a year or two, so one might as well make things a little more smooth for him during the time. "i see you have the illusions of youth, my friend," he said carelessly. "i trust they may remain long unbroken. myself i am sorry to have lived beyond the age when they content one. sit down and talk to me." he motioned vardri towards a chair. "well, since you have refused to entertain my plan, we must think of something else. i'm at present writing a series of articles on '_militarism in france_,' and should like to have them translated for publication in an english journal. you speak the language well, better even than poleski, for you have a better accent. i have been a good deal in london and i notice the difference. i suppose you also write it easily?" "yes, i had an english tutor." "good! then you will undertake this work, and you shall fix the price of payment. i'm not in the least afraid of your asking more than i care to give. you are the type that gets rid of money, not the type that acquires it. also i will give you an introduction which will enable you to get on the staff of _le combat_. they want another man there who is a good linguist, as there is a great deal of correspondence with other countries. as i have an interest in the paper, you may consider it settled. no, don't thank me. your thanks are due to--a woman. she is unknown to me, but perhaps that is the reason i--i also owe you something, monsieur vardri. your example has made me feel young again." a week later vardri went swinging quickly down the calle san antonio, on his way to emile's rooms. he was in exuberant spirits, and whistled as he walked keeping step to the dancing gaiety of '_la petite tonquinoise_.' his headgear, which vied in picturesque disorder with emile's historical sombrero, was pushed to the back of his head, exposing his thick, unruly hair, and over one ear, spanish fashion, he had stuck a carnation. there was more money in his pocket than he had possessed since his days of luxury in the austrian chateau, and for him the sun was shining in a metaphorical as well as a literal sense. during the last few days he had been happier than he could have believed possible. he felt in better health, for he had been able to go to bed at a reasonable time, and though he missed the horses and the free life of the hippodrome, and found the work of a newspaper office somewhat trying, there were shorter hours and other advantages. he had also the joy of knowing that arithelli was almost well again. she had not been out yet, but michael furness had declared her to be practically recovered. one day vardri hoped to take her along the sea-front towards the old quarter of the town, where the fishermen and sailors lived, and where she could sit on the stone parapet and look across the harbour, and let the sea-air blow strength and vitality into her. after all he told himself, life was good even if one were a vagabond. life with adventure, a little money, and love. he burst open the door of emile's sitting-room, and entered headlong. the sun-blinds were all drawn, making everything appear pitch dark after the blinding glare of the streets. "i want some matches, poleski! by luck, i've got some cigarettes. one never has both matches and cigarettes at the same time." he had come to a dead stop and stood staring. "fatalité! fatalité! the gods are kind for once! if only i had known you were here sooner." the half-full box of cigarettes descended to the floor, and its contents went in all directions, and he was kneeling beside her chair and holding both her hands. it was arithelli not "fatalité" who smiled back at him. the little mask-like face changed and grew soft till she looked more a girl, less an embodied tragedy. vardri's wild spirits were infectious, and, as on the night of the hippodrome fiasco, youth called and love made answer. "_mon ami_, i am so glad you have come." "is this the first time you have been out? who said you could get up? the doctor?" "no, it was emile." vardri nodded towards the communicating door of the bedroom. "poleski is here then?" "no, and he doesn't know i'm here. he has gone to sária and will not be back till late. i was horribly irritable this morning, so he thinks i'm all right now." a ripple of amusement broke her voice as their eyes met. "my sweet, you must ask me to believe some other little _histoire_." "oh! but it's true. you should have heard us! i knew that it was funny afterwards, but there was no one to laugh with at the time. it was about that dreadful old coat of emile's. he threw it on my bed, and--i can't help being a jewess, can i? and i so loathe dust and dirt, and i said so. emile was furious. 'very well,' he said. 'if you are strong enough to grumble, you are strong enough to get up.' so when he had gone i dressed and came here. i was so glad to get away from that room." "not as glad as i am to see you here. and i've heard you laugh, fatalité. you're a little girl today." "i have moods, dear. i shall depress you sometimes." vardri smiled scornfully, and slid down to the floor, his head resting against her knee. "_je suis bien content_! what cool hands you have, and how still you keep. no other woman in the world was ever so restful. you love to be quiet, don't you? i know you better to-day than i ever did. you were always in the wrong atmosphere at the hippodrome." "and i have to go back to it," the girl said under her breath. "and i may be hissed again. you will not be there now, and we shall miss you. i and don juan and cavaliero, and el rey, and don quixote. some of the grooms are horrible, and the animals get so badly treated." "it seems to me that everything gets badly treated here," vardri muttered. "women and horses, it's all the same. don't let us talk about it. it drives me mad to think, i shan't be able to be near you. i was some use to you there." he jumped up and began to move about the room collecting the scattered cigarettes. "shall i play to you, _mon ange_? i suppose the piano hasn't been tuned yet." he struck a few notes, and made a rueful grimace. "it's worse than ever." "i'm afraid it never will be tuned now that i've been ill and caused so much expense. emile always says he will go without cigarettes to afford it, and i say i will go without powder, but neither of us keep our heroic resolutions, and the piano gets worse and worse." vardri shut down the lid with a bang. "well, anyway it doesn't matter," he said, "i don't want to play or do anything; i just want to be with you." "bring up a chair, and sit and smoke, _mon camarade_." she held out her hand with a gesture of invitation, and vardri took it and kissed it, and went back to his former position at her feet. "shall i read to you?" he asked. "ah! i'd forgotten there was something i wanted to tell you. i found a poem the other day, a love-song of de musset. do you know that you lived in this very city years ago, fatalité, and he saw you and loved you? how else could he have written this? "_avez-vous vu en barcelone, une andalouse au sein bruni, pâle comme un beau soir d'autômne, c'est ma maitresse, ma lionne, la marchesa d'amagui._" arithelli listened, her eyes dilating, and a little flame of colour creeping up under the magnolia skin that made her likeness to the woman of the poem. her awakening senses thrilled to the eager voice, the riotous challenging words: "_j'ai fait bien de chansons pour elle_." he broke off abruptly and continued: "i hate all the rest of it. the woman isn't like you, further on, and the lover laughs at his own passion, and the whole thing jars. that first verse haunted me for days after i'd read it."--the sentence was finished by a convulsive fit of coughing, which he vainly tried to stifle. "this is the first time to-day," he gasped, between the paroxysms. "i'm quite well really. it's the cigarette. they often have that effect. don't look so worried, or i shall think you hate me for being a nuisance." "if you talk so foolishly i shall go." she made an attempt to rise, but vardri caught at her skirts. "you won't go! you don't want to make me worse, do you? think how sorry you'll be if i cough and worry you all the evening!" "can't i get you anything? if only i were not so stupid about illness. don't try to talk if it makes you worse." "i won't--if you'll stay." to arithelli caresses did not come easily, but during the last few weeks she had learnt many things. she stroked the dark head that rested against her knee, wondering how it was that she had never before noticed till to-day how feverishly brilliant vardri's eyes were, and how his skin burnt. she had often heard him coughing before, but he had always gone away and left her when an attack came on, with some laughing excuse about the horrible noise he made. after a while he shifted his position, and smiled up at her. "you're getting tired, fatalité!" "no. tell me, have you anything important to do to-night?" "no, dear, and if i had i shouldn't do it. do you feel well enough to come out and have dinner with me somewhere? i'll take you to some place where it's quiet." "why not let us stay here all the evening, and have supper together?" arithelli suggested. "we'll take emile's things. he loves cooking _cochonneries_, and there is sure to be a _quelque chose_ somewhere in the cupboard." vardri scrambled to his feet. "_bon_! sit still, and i'll go and _acheter les_--things! we'll leave emile's _cochonneries_ alone. i'm rich now, so we will have luxuries." "yes, and i'll hunt for plates and dishes, and wash them properly (not like the gentiles do) while you go and _acheter les_--things!" arithelli mocked. "what a dreadful mixture of languages we all use! i used to speak german quite well when i was at the convent, but now i have forgotten nearly all of it. this place is bad for both one's french and english, and emile says that when i try and speak spanish it sounds like someone sawing wood." vardri went out still coughing, and came back flushed and excitable, laden with various untidy parcels, from which some of the contents were protruding. long rolls, the materials for a salad, a _pâté_, flowers, and an enormous cluster of grapes. they pledged each other in the yellow wine of the country, and presently vardri set about the manufacture of what he inaccurately described as turkish coffee. that the result of his efforts was half cold and evil-tasting mattered not to either of them. arithelli's red hair was crowned with vine leaves that he had stripped from the grape-cluster and twisted into a bacchante wreath. she leant her elbow on the table, resting her chin upon her hand. her eyes glowed jewel-like, almost the same colour as her garland. the flame of love had melted into warmth her statue-like coldness, and given her the one thing she had lacked--expression. yet the mystery, the charm that surrounded her clung to her even when she appeared most womanly. to the boy lover gazing with devouring eyes she seemed that night more than a woman. he thought of the tales he had heard as a child from the peasants on winter nights in his own country. tales of the forests and legends of the hartz mountains, of lonely places haunted by nixies and wood maidens, fairy shapes with streaming hair and vaporous robes, seeing which a man would become for ever after mad with longing, and desire no mortal woman. arithelli's long limbs appeared nymphlike in her plain blue high-waisted gown of emile's choosing, that had no superfluous bow or trimming, and left free her beauty of outline. she possessed no jewellery now wherewith to deck herself, and there was no trace of artificial red on face and lips. the candles on the table flickered to and fro in the draught from the open window and she shivered in the midst of some laughing speech and glanced over her shoulder at the door behind her. vardri, reading her thoughts, said, "you're afraid of something, dear, what is it?" "nothing, at least i thought someone was listening, was coming in. we are always talking of spies till one gets absurdly nervous and imagines all sorts of foolish things. i have never said so to anyone else, but there is always the feeling of being watched. it is so difficult to know who is for and who against us, and so easy to give evidence without meaning to be a traitor. just before i got ill, sobrenski sent me to a little newspaper shop down in the parelelo quarter. i was to ask if they sold '_le flambeau_.' the man looked at me hard and asked if there was any connection between that journal and the one published at number calle de pescadores. the sun must have made me feel stupid, and i answered _yes_, without thinking. i had taken it for granted that the man was one of us, and then i knew suddenly that he wasn't." vardri bent forward across the table. "did you tell anyone what you had said?" "not sobrenski; i told emile. he looked me up and down, and said something that i couldn't hear, and then, 'i thought you could hold your tongue, fatalité. it seems, after all, you are a woman and can't!' and then he walked out of the room. vardri, did you ever feel as i do when you first began to work for the cause? perhaps one gets used to it in the end and doesn't care." "yes," the boy answered between his teeth, "yes! one gets used to it. dear, your hands are trembling. do you think anyone can hurt you while i'm here? you are nervous because you've been ill, that's all. this is the first time you've been out and you are overtired. i'll take you back soon. you were all right a few minutes ago. you thing of moods!" she tried to smile, "i warned you, _mon ami_." "i know. it wasn't any use. that wreath makes you look like the statue of ariadne in rome." "i wish you would talk to me about yourself." "myself!" vardri shrugged expressively, "_ma foi_!" "tell me what made you join the cause." "because of a man i believed in. you have heard of guerchouni who died early in the year? there was a great funeral in paris. it was in all the papers." arithelli nodded, "yes, i heard the men talking about it at one of the meetings. i wasn't interested enough to listen then. was he--?" "he was one of our greatest leaders. his death meant something to me, because it was really through him that i joined the red flag. he had a life sentence in eastern siberia and he escaped from there and got to america. for some time none of us knew exactly where he was, and then we heard rumours that he was dangerously ill at geneva. then came news of his death and his funeral in paris. his friends had decided to bring the body there, so that all the comrades might be present, for there are many anarchists in paris. they gave him a guard of honour of russian students, men and women surrounding the coffin with linked hands, and there were hundreds of red roses and red carnations, though it was in the winter--there had been snow on the ground a few days before. there was a crown of thorns from those who had been his companions in prison, and the canopy of the hearse was a red flag. if only i could have been there to do him homage! "there are all sorts of wild stories about his escape from siberia. i suppose he bewitched the jailers as he bewitched other men. he was the first man i ever heard speak about the cause. he came to vienna and held meetings for the propaganda and collected enormous crowds. i had just begun to take life seriously then, to think about things and to hate injustice. "my father drank and wasted money and treated his servants brutally. my mother was dead, and when she was alive she was an invalid, and could do nothing. most of the people i knew seemed to think the serfs no better than animals. i remember how sometimes when we were starting off in the early morning for a boar hunt in the forest, they would come begging and whining round the horses' heels. "they seldom got anything except a kick or a curse. they looked scarcely human, yet it was ourselves who were the brutes really. "well, guerchouni spoke and i went and listened to him. a friend with whom i had gone to the meetings gave me an introduction to him. i was mad on the cause long before the interview was over. he was a man that! if he had looked at me twice, i would have walked through flames to please him. oh, i wasn't the only one! we all felt like that more or less with guerchouni. i couldn't describe him. he was not a tall man, but he carried himself well, and he was dark and pale with wonderful blazing eyes. one knew him at once, and talked as if one had known him for years. "of course i accepted all his theories and doctrines except two. i don't believe in '_l'union fibre_.' (they all do, you know, or nearly all) and i never was an atheist. "a catholic and an anarchist! it sounds impossible, doesn't it, but"--he flushed boyishly--"i believe in _le bon dieu_, and the _union libre_ is hard on women. yes, i adored guerchouni. he worked day and night, he feared nothing, he did impossibilities himself and he made us do impossibilities." "he was like sobrenski." "yes, he was like sobrenski in some ways. he will be a loss to the cause." for a few moments there was silence, and then arithelli spoke. "tell me one more thing. now we are alone, we can speak the truth to each other, you and i. vardri, do you still care for the cause--in the same way you did before?" she whispered the question fearfully, yet knowing well what the answer must be. "i don't feel the same about it since i have known you." "i have not tried to make you a traitor, have i? sobrenski always suspects me of that." "my sweet, you have done nothing. i love you, therefore i must feel differently about the cause. why? because i'm afraid of it for you. because these men have no consideration for you as a woman, because they always make you take the greatest risks. it is always so in this work. look what happens to the women in russia. when there is a political 'execution' there, nine times out of ten it is a woman who throws the bomb. look at the things they have done lately. at the printing office we see all the anarchist journals, and the comrades get news privately. the men do little in risking their lives compared to the women, and some of them are so young. an article in '_les temps nouveaux_' of last week said that, '_beside the men these young girls are as artistes beside artisans_.' the last case was sophia pervesky. she was arrested for being in charge of a secret printing-press. before the police seized her she nearly found time to put her lighted cigarette down on a pile of explosives. they wounded her in two places, threw her down, and stamped on her injuries. then they took her to the hospital and kept her there till she had recovered. she waited two months for death and then they brought her out one morning in the dawn and hanged her. "'you shall see how a russian woman dies,' she told them as she ran up the ladder and flung herself into space. "you women shame us with your courage. now every time i hear of a thing like that, i think of you. you may have to run some great risk here for a caprice of sobrenski's." "vardri, vardri, i wonder what will be the end of it all?" chapter xvi the walls of the hippodrome were no longer adorned with gaudy posters whereon flared a travestied portrait of "_the beautiful english equestrienne_." no longer for arithelli were showered roses, the tribute of head-lines in the weekly journals, and the welcome of many voices. she had been absent for nearly a month, therefore she might as well have been dead as far as the spanish public was concerned. the manager had known this and had been careful to provide his patrons with a new toy, who had come, even as arithelli herself, from paris. this was a female contortionist with a serpent's grace, and a serpent's flat head, and wicked slit eyes. she had proved a success, so he could afford to exult, and estelle dangled in triumph a new pair of diamond earrings. he had lost nothing and the once famous arithelli, the "_she-wolf_" who had been mad enough to defy him, was now simply one of the crowd. her name did not appear on the programme. she was not even madame mignonne now, but merely a unit among the many other women who were grouped in the grand spectacle, or a rider in a procession with twenty others. he had reduced her salary to a third of what it had been formerly, and every saturday she was required to assist with the correspondence and weekly accounts. if she did not like this arrangement, he explained, she could fight out the terms of her contract in the courts. doubtless she had a great opinion of her own capabilities, but as she could see for herself her place had been easily filled. the world was large, and there were plenty of women--_sacré_, too many! as usual he was disappointed in the effect of his remarks. whether her silence meant indifference or sheer stupidity he was never quite sure. as arithelli had no vanity the loss of her position meant little to her. the loss of a private dressing-room meant a great deal. it was a refined torture to her to be herded among the other women, with their noise and quarrelling and coarse jokes. she found changes too. her friend the toothless lion had succumbed to old age, several of the helpers had been changed, and vardri was no longer near at hand to lift her on to her horse and wait to help her dismount. whenever he could get away from vladimir and the newspaper office, he was among the spectators, and their thoughts and glances met across the wide arena's space. emile did not come regularly now though he took care there was always someone sent to bring her home. since the night of the alarms in the calle de pescadores, the brotherhood had decided in council that they must change their place of meeting, at any rate for a time, and that no part of the city itself could be considered safe for the purposes of a meeting place. they must keep to the hut up in the mountains. this had been seldom used on account of the difficulty in getting there, and the waste of time involved by the distance. in all respects it was safer. if they were surprised it was not likely they would all be caught, for in the open there was always a chance of escape. the distance and lonely situation were all in their favour. in a small house in a narrow street they were like trapped animals. the custom was to start at midnight on the outskirts of the town, collecting by degrees, and when they were well on their way the cavalcade joined together and formed into indian file. some were on horseback and some on the more sure-footed mules. not one among the conspirators could ride with the exception of vardri and emile, and the knowledge of the art possessed by the latter was poor enough. the steeds of the general company went at whatever pace they chose and in what direction they saw fit, and occasionally two or three got wedged together in some narrow place and there was an interlude of kicking and squealing. then "fatalité" was called to the rescue as being the only one among them capable of managing horseflesh. when not required in her office of peacemaker she was sent on in front as guide to the procession, dressed in her boy's disguise and astride the most vicious of the mules. these excursions meant less rest for her than ever for the party seldom returned till five o'clock in the morning. emile had told her that she must get her sleep up in the hut. "you have two hours to yourself," he said. "you can't sleep up there? nonsense! make up your mind to do it and then you will." the building in question, which was more like an outhouse than anything else, she had christened, "the black hole of calcutta." the upper part, which was approached by a ladder as a loft would be, was used as a meeting-room, while the ground floor became a temporary stable for the horses and mules, of which she was left in charge. since the scene in that upper room in the calle de pescadores she had put herself outside all consideration; and sobrenski now excluded her from all work other than the merest drudgery. vardri was also kept under surveillance. it was felt by all that in some quarter treachery lurked as yet undiscovered, and every man suspected his comrades. there were indications that someone, hitherto a sworn ally of the cause, had turned spy and sold certain information to the authorities. even sobrenski's iron nerves were stretched to breaking point. the rest tried to drown anxiety in _absinthe_, and all grew daily more morose and uncertain of temper. the first sensation came in the shape of a rumour that count vladimir's companion, pauline souvaroff, had disappeared. only three people knew that she had vanished utterly and completely on the same day that she had received a communication from the leader. the note had been brought to her by vladimir himself. he could guess at its contents, but pauline had revealed nothing. two hours afterwards when he went on shore she was shut up in her cabin, and he had not interrupted her, thinking she was asleep. when he returned, and found her door unlocked, and her cabin empty, a suspicion of the truth occurred to him. everything was left in perfect order, but there was no letter, no word of explanation. he questioned the crew, and heard that she had been rowed to shore by two of them soon after he left. she had given the men orders not to wait, but to return at once to the yacht. for a week vladimir hunted through street and slum. at the end of that time he knew that alive or dead he would never see pauline souvaroff again. the missive he had brought her from sobrenski had probably meant a journey for her to one of the great centres of the movement--amsterdam, geneva, or perhaps even london. alphonse of spain was now in england, having escaped two attempts upon his life in paris, and in his own capital. his every moment would be watched and noted by the destroyers of monarchy. probably she had been chosen to obtain information, because women made better spies than men, and their movements were not so likely to be noticed by the police. many a high official whose name was on the list of those condemned to death by a revolutionary tribunal had been tracked from city to city by female agents. yet, if she had been sent on such an errand, what reason could she have had for going in secret, alone and without a word of farewell? he had supposed it impossible that she could have kept anything from him; of course there must eventually be separation. he had warned her of that. and when it came he had expected scenes, tears and a frantic appeal. that she should vanish in silence was inconceivable. perhaps she had not cared for him so much after all. in any case the episode had been a charming one, and to him no woman could ever have been more than an episode. he had shown her some of the many beautiful things and places of the world, and by her own words he had made her happy. now their play time was over. he had his work and she hers. she had come into his life as a piece of driftwood floats to shore on the edge of a wave, and gone out of it as noiselessly. vladimir did not discuss his private affairs, so that among all the conspirators emile alone knew, and it was emile alone who guessed the truth. chapter xvii "tout passe, tout casse, tout lasse." for some days arithelli had not seen emile, and she had wondered. since the night she had sat with vardri in his room, he had scarcely spoken to her except for a few moments on business matters. she thought he looked haggard and worried, and there was a change that she could not define in his manner towards her. she wondered if he knew about vardri, if he thought she was deceiving him. she wanted to tell of this new, wonderful thing that had befallen her, but he had given her no chance, and she had begun to think that he did not even take sufficient interest in her to care what she thought or felt as long as she performed her allotted tasks and did not worry him with complaints or questions. the feeling of a barrier between them troubled her vaguely, and she was glad when she found him one night waiting for her outside the stage door. half an hour later he was smoking a cigarette in her room while she brushed her hair. they had been silent for some time, and both started when the door was assaulted by a sudden thump, and the scarecrow-like visage of the depressed landlady appeared in the opening. having delivered herself of a small cardboard box, and a few grumbling comments upon the indecent hours and ways of circus performers, she withdrew, and arithelli proceeded to cut the string and remove the lid. "i can't see what it is in this light," she said; "emile, may i have the candle a little nearer? flowers? no one sends me flowers now. but these are--" her voice broke and stopped. emile, who had been on the alert from the moment of the landlady's entrance, sprang up and pulled the girl to one side. a mysterious parcel at that hour of the night, too late for any post. one might have guessed what it meant. "what is it?" he asked sharply. the answer was an incoherent one, and he could see that she was paralysed with terror. the opening of the box had revealed a sinister-looking bouquet of artificial black roses tied with blood-red ribbons. in barcelona there are many strange and ingenious ways of conveying death by explosives. a clock, a painted casket which might contain bon-bons; a coffee-pot, a _casserole_--any apparently harmless and common utensil. a bunch of flowers was one of the most common mediums for a bomb. the anarchist colours showed clearly that it must either have been sent by an enemy who had been formerly one of the band, and who was now revenging himself by an attempt to see his former associates "hoist with their own petard," or else it was an affair of the police. in any case, supposing the thing to be harmless, it was a warning of danger. emile's wits worked swiftly, and he was used to emergencies. he looked round, and found a jug of water, and the floral tribute floated harmlessly therein. as it did not sink at once he concluded that there was no concealed bomb. then he turned his attention to arithelli, and gave her a vigorous shaking, which was probably, under the circumstances, the best possible restorative. "you'll die more than once in imagination before your time comes, fatalité. probably the next parcel you receive will not need as much investigation." she tried to smile. "i'm sorry! they looked so uncanny, and when i saw red i thought--emile, what does it all mean?" "it means danger, my dear. it means that you are suspected. you yourself best know whether the suspicion is deserved or not. of course it may be only one of the police tricks, but i don't think so. anyway whether it was charged or not it's safe enough now. look in the box and on the floor to see if there's any note or message. there isn't? _eh bien_! i suppose they thought this would speak with sufficient eloquence." he fished the bedraggled bouquet out of the water and hung it like a trophy across arithelli's mirror, which was a fetish of its owner and the one valuable thing she now possessed. it had been the gift of michael furness, who had bought it from the jewish herbalist. it was of antique silver gilt in oval shape, and rimmed with rough topaz set in silver, and was alleged by its former owner to have been the property of agnès sorél. arithelli had often declared that in it she could see visions as in a crystal. over it emile carefully arranged the flowers so that the stained red ribbons hung limply across the polished surface. then he sat down again and lighted another cigarette. "you ought not to be afraid of this sort of thing, you know," he said. "sudden death is part of our business. in the oath we take we swear to 'slay or be slain,' if by so doing we can advance the cause one small step forward." she caught at her breast with a sudden gesture of passion. death--could they talk and think of nothing else? and she was a woman now, not a weapon, and she wanted life. "you don't seem very enthusiastic," the cold voice continued. "a few months ago the dangerous side of the game was rather an attraction to you than otherwise. now you shrink and shiver at everything. you do your work, yes, because, you can't help doing that, but is there any heart in what you do?" "none! every day i live, i loathe it more!" "take care!" "i'm past caring. when i came out here first i was a child playing at a new game." emile's back was turned to her, and if his answering speech was brutal, it was because his conscience was awake and crying fiercely. he would not be likely to make the mistake of interfering with people's lives a second time. he had seen in her an instrument to be handled at will, and had charged himself with the burden of her destiny, and now he supposed she was about to reproach him. "you are hysterical. that's the worst of women. they always are--more or less. you had better go to bed, and not talk nonsense. if you were a child only a few months ago you are not too old to be treated as one now." it hurt him more than it hurt her, but she would never know that. his pulses hammered furiously as she dropped at his side with a soft rustle of garments. her clasped hands rested on his knee; the strong, slender hands that had grown rough with work. "emile," she whispered, "can't you see that i've altered? i'm a woman now. you said i should be one soon. i've wanted to tell you all along, but i always hoped you had guessed." "perhaps i did, but i preferred that you should tell me yourself. and since when have you become what you call 'a woman'? no, you needn't answer. when i knew that you and vardri had been together in my rooms, i was certain i had not warned you without reason." "you knew before i did myself." "_mon enfant_, i'm neither blind nor a fool. as they say in this country, 'love and a cough cannot be hidden.' i was sure about vardri, but about you;--no, one couldn't say. when you came out here you were a sexless creature with a brain. it did not seem likely that you would develop into the ordinary girl with a lover." it was the only way he could keep a hold upon himself, by keeping up a pose of cynicism. the fragrance of her hair, the curved mouth so close to his own, maddened him. he who could have been her lover had been only her guardian, her taskmaster. and now she was ready to give herself to a boy, who thought life was a romance, and who would probably sit at her feet reading poetry while they both starved. "you have been together often?" her head drooped. "yes. i should have told you before." "what plans have you made? i suppose it will be the usual mad scheme of running away. i ought to betray you, of course, but--" "we haven't arranged anything yet; there is plenty of time." "plenty of time--mon dieu!" the man rasped out. "how like you, fatalité! what a pair! vardri always living _au clair de la lune_, and you half asleep, and full of illusions. _les illusions sont les hirondelles_. how often have i told you that?" "they make life possible," arithelli answered softly. again the man stared and marvelled. verily, here was another being who was neither "becky sharp" nor "fatalité." the exultation, the triumph of one loved and desired, was hers for the moment. who, seeing her now, could have the heart to warn her of inevitable disillusion, the doubts and fears, the clinging and the torments that are the heritage of all womenkind. he, too, had once dreamed foolish dreams. he gripped her by the shoulder and forced her to look at him. "vardri is your lover? you shall answer me before i leave this room." she did not flinch, or blush, or look away. "i love him." joy shone in her widely open eyes. love hovered about her mouth, and the passion that had stirred in him momentarily shrank back ashamed. he pushed back her hair with a rough caress. "it's all right, _ma chère_. you needn't be afraid. i shall not be here to advise you soon, and all i have to say now is, never imagine yourself secure for an instant. sobrenski is bound to discover this in the course of time, and he has seen this sort of thing before, which will not make him any more merciful. he has watched human nature long enough to know that where there is what you would call love, people want to create, they no longer want to destroy. if, as you say, you have made no plans, then make them. and now you'd better go to bed, unless you want to look more like a ghost than usual to-morrow." as he went out into the moonlit street emile knew that he had taken the first step on his _via crucis_. he did not call it that, for of religion in the orthodox sense he possessed nothing, but he knew that his feet were set upon the path where snow and blood would mingle in his footprints. he was going back to russia, where death would be a thing to be welcomed and desired. he had listened to the tales of escaped prisoners, and he knew that no words could exaggerate this frozen hell in which flourished vices unnamable, where men rotted alive, and women strangled themselves with their own hair, or cut their throats with a scrap of glass to escape the brutalities of a gaoler or cossack guard. he wondered whether it would be akatui, or the mines, for him. it was no use to try and delude himself that he could escape the police. he had got out of russia by the skin of his teeth last time, and, even if he managed to get his despatches safely delivered, there would be a raid on the newspaper office, an arrest in the street. of course there was always the hope that he might come in for a chance shot in a scrimmage, but that was too much luck to expect. he had nothing to wait for now after what he had heard to-night, and the sooner he put himself out of the way, the better. he would volunteer at once for the st. petersburg mission. the usual custom was to cast lots, unless some enthusiast begged for the privilege of a speedy doom. by virtue of his long service he had a right to claim that privilege. if he could go to-morrow so much the better. after what arithelli had confessed it would be dangerous for them both if he stayed. for a moment the primaeval man in him leapt up, telling him that he had only to pit himself against vardri, and the victory would be assuredly his own. his rival was only a boy, and emile knew that if there came the struggle between male and male, the odds were all in his own favour. arithelli had grown into the habit of obedience to him, and if he wished it he could make it practically impossible for her to see vardri without his knowledge and consent. she would sorrow for her lover at first, but he was a man, and he could make her forget. a thousand little devils crowded close, whispering how easy it would be to get vardri sent out of the way. a few words to sobrenski, and the whole thing would be done. his sense of justice reminded him that he least of all people had a right to grudge her a few hours of happiness. if he obliterated himself he was only making her a deserved reparation for some of the things she had suffered. through him she had joined the anarchist ranks, and through him she had taken vows that despoiled her of the hopes and joys of womanhood, and transformed her into an instrument of vengeance. she had apparently never realised that she had been in any way injured, for she had never blamed him, and been invariably grateful for anything he had done for her physical comfort. she loved vardri, or imagined that she did. emile told himself savagely that he was a fool who deserved no pity, for he had had his own chance and missed it. he had been with her by night and day, and her life had been in his own hands all these months, but he had never made love to her. he had only bullied her, taught her, made her work, looked after her clothes and food, and, he knew it now too late, loved her. she had never suspected it, and the secret should remain his own. love and love-making were two very different things. she did not know that now, but later on she would, when she was ten years older, perhaps, and then it would not matter to him, for he would be under two or three feet of snow in a siberian convict settlement. he had gone about persuading himself that she was still a child, and this austrian boy, this wastrel and dreamer, had awakened her. it was no use wasting time in sentiment and regrets. _À la guerre, comme à la guerre_. the episode was finished. he would have work enough to divert his mind soon. there was nothing left to him now but the cause. he would see sobrenski to-morrow, and hurry on all arrangements for departure. after all, as he had once told arithelli, in any venture it is only the first step that counts. chapter xviii "would i lose you now? would i take you then? if i lose you now that my heart has need, and come what may after death to men, what thing worth this will the dead years breed?" the triumph of time. three days later the early morning post brought arithelli a letter. she sat up in bed eagerly to receive it, and with the heaviness of sleep still upon her eyes. as she read, the lace at her throat trembled with her quickened breathing, and her heart called back an answer to the tender, reckless phrases. vardri was idealist as well as lover, and graceful turns of expression came to his pen readily and without effort. in many pages of characteristic, hurried, irregular writing he set forth wild and unpractical schemes for their future. he urged her to take the dangerous step of leaving barcelona and cutting herself free of the bonds of her allegiance to the cause. if there was risk in going, he wrote, there was infinitely more risk in remaining. if he abandoned his political views it was more than likely that his father would receive him. their quarrel and parting four years ago had been solely on those grounds, and he was the only son, and there were large estates to be inherited. if it were the price of gaining her he was prepared to renounce all his theories, socialist and revolutionist. he had been able to save a little money lately, enough for their journey to austria. he was sure of a welcome among the officials and work-people of his former home. the wife of the steward had been his mother's maid, and she and her husband would give him shelter till he could see his father and make terms. if things turned out well then his life and arithelli's would be one long fairy-tale, which should begin where all other fairy-tales ended. if his father refused to see him then surely they could both find some engagement in another circus or hippodrome. she had the advantage of the reputation she had gained here, and he could work in the stables again, and they would be free and together. arithelli kissed the letter, before she put it down, and lay back with her hands over her eyes, trying to think. she had begun her adventures by running away from home, and now for the second time her only course was flight. even emile had told her not to waste time in going. for her it seemed there was never to be any peace or rest. if they could only find some haven away from all the world, she thought. a forest or desert, some unknown spot where there was air and space and natural savage beauty, a tent to dwell in, a horse to ride, complete freedom, the life of her remote ancestors, simple, dignified. once she had craved for change. now she feared it. she knew what vardri had ignored, that the moment they both left barcelona they would become fugitives. if they were discovered they would be treated simply as deserters from the ranks of an army. instinctively her thoughts turned to emile. it was he who must help her to decide. she slid out of bed, and commenced her toilet, while she recalled to mind the things that must be got through during the day. there was a manuscript to be delivered to sobrenski, an article of jean grave's from _les temps nouveaux_ which she had copied for reproduction. she finished dressing her hair, and pushed the window more widely open, for the sound of music in the distance had caught her ear. though it was now autumn, and in england there would have been mist and gloom and fogs, here the sun shone, and the air was sweet and mild. the parching, exhausting heat of the summer was gone, and everything smelt fresh and clean, without any touch of winter cold. down below in the calle catriona the music swelled louder and higher till her attic room was filled with the dancing notes. along the pavement two men walked slowly with guitar and flageolet. they walked turning in opposite directions, their heads thrown back, their feet keeping step, two black-haired, supple vagabonds of gypsy breed, who had come down to the city from their mountain home on the heights of montserrat. the guitar twanged merrily, the reed-like notes of the flute were true and clear as the song of a thrush. the melody turned and climbed and twisted, rose to a climax, and re-commenced again the same phrase. arithelli listened, hypnotised and bewitched, as she always was by music. something wild and primitive in her responded to the shrill, sweet, insistent call. she had felt like that before, listening to the tziganes on the rambla, and it was as if the heart were being dragged out of her body. she thought of the childish story of the piper of hamelin. she could understand now what had made the children follow him with dancing footsteps, through street to street, on, on from dawn till dusk. the guitar-player glanced up in passing and mocked her with laughing eyes. an orange-coloured scarf left his brown throat exposed, and there were gold rings in his ears. she kissed her hand and called down greetings in spanish, and stood at the window, watching and listening and longing to run out into the street and follow as the children followed through the town of hamelin. all the joy of life was in those oft-repeated and alluring phrases, the fall of water, the hum of bees, the shiver of aspen leaves, the slow music of a breaking wave. she strained to hear the last faint echoes till all sound was hidden by a turn of the road, and the brief enchantment was at an end, leaving her to the realities of life. she dressed slowly, singing under her breath as she plaited her hair before agnès sorél's mirror. before she left the room she thrust the loose sheets of vardri's letter between the folds of her blouse, leaving the envelope lying among the bed clothes. late in the afternoon one of the "comrades" brought her a cipher message, warning her of a meeting arranged to take place in the "black hole" up in the hills. half an hour after she left the hippodrome she was in boy's clothes and riding out to the _rendezvous_ to wait till the others appeared. she had hoped for the chance of a talk with emile, but to her surprise he was not among those who mustered outside the town. she had never known him to be absent from a meeting before, but it was not her business to ask questions. while the rest of the company occupied themselves with long and bloodthirsty orations, and hatched fresh schemes for the destruction of their fellow-creatures, and the regeneration of the whole earth, she went quietly about her duties as stable boy. when she had finished she set the lantern at the furthest end of the stable, and pulling off her hat and black curly wig stretched herself wearily at full length on a truss of hay in a dark corner among the tethered horses. the ways of men she had begun to fear and hate, but of the beasts she had no fear, for they were always grateful to those who cared for them, and they also had suffered at the hands of their masters. a lethargy had taken possession of her whole body, and her limbs felt heavily weighted. she closed her eyes and sank inertly into the bed of soft and fragrant hay. her loose shirt of faded dusky red had fallen open at the throat, and showed the dead-white skin. her feet, in riding boots of brown leather, were crossed beneath the dark drapery of her cloak. a leather strap served as a belt for the slender hips that were more like those of a boy than a woman. the horses fidgeted and stamped, and a mule dragged at its halter with laid-back ears and vicious sidelong glances. sometimes a stirrup or a bit clashed against another with a musical ring and jingle. arithelli heard nothing till she awoke to find herself in vardri's arms, and being lifted into a sitting position with her back against the wall. in answer to her sleepy murmur of surprise, a hand was laid over her mouth with a whispered--"_gare à toi petite! ne fais pas de bruit_." she sat up fully awake, and swept the veil of hair out of her eyes. "oh! it's you, _mon ami_! is it time to go? i must get up and see to the horses." but he held her kneeling by her side. "no, no! lie still, dear. there's time enough. yes, sobrenski is still talking. can't you hear him? you had my letter safely?" she laid her hand on her breast. "it's here." "thank you! how long is it since i've seen you? it seems like a century. those brutes up there were driving me mad with their cold-blooded arrangements for wholesale murder. the latest idea is to explode a bomb outside one of the big _cafés_ when alfonso comes here next week to inspect the troops. they might as well leave him alone. what harm has he done them? as long as they can see people flying into atoms with the help of a little nitroglycerine they are quite happy. vengeance, vengeance! that is their eternal cry. of course in russia it's a different thing. one must either be an autocrat and slave-driver or a nihilist out there, but here--they are mad, all of them! they have just settled to draw lots to-morrow night. i wonder who will have the 'honour' of becoming executioner? i suppose they can't do it to-night because poleski isn't here." arithelli shook her head. "that is not the reason. they have given emile other work to do in russia. he is leaving here very soon. i thought you knew." "who told you that poleski is going away? it may not be true." "emile himself. oh! it's true enough. i don't know when he will go. he doesn't know himself, but soon." "will you trust me to take care of you when poleski is gone?" "i'll trust you always." "promise me you'll come away with me. if you care you'll come. i'll give up the cause for your sake. i've told you so in my letter and now i say it again." "so i've made you a traitor. sobrenski was right." "my sweet, how can i live with violence and death and misery since i have known you? i want to get away from men and back to nature to be healed. it doesn't follow that because i have grown to hate some of the revolutionist methods that i am against all their theories. i believe they are right in sharing things, in fighting for those who are trodden down by the rich, but you and i can still believe all that without becoming inhuman. think of sobrenski. he's a werewolf, not a man! promise me that you'll come soon. let me take you away before they make you one of their 'angels of vengeance,' as they call these women of the revolution." excitement and the feverish devil of consumption had turned his blood to fire. he would take no denial, pay no heed to arithelli's entreaties for time to think, and to consult emile. for once he forgot to be gentle, and dragged her head back roughly, whispering passionate words, his face pressed against her own. for a moment he saw no longer the goddess on her ivory throne, but a woman of flesh and blood, warm, living, and fragrant and to be desired after a man's fashion. arithelli closed her eyes and leant back, yielding herself to his caresses. the pressure of his hand across her throat hurt her, but in some strange way it also gave her pleasure. love, the schoolmaster, again stood by her side teaching her the lesson learnt sooner or later by all women, that pain at the hands of one beloved is a thing close akin to joy. she felt incapable of any struggle or resistance, bodily or mental. she had given her heart therefore her body was also his to use as he willed, and feeling her thus abandoned to him all the boy's chivalry was stirred anew, and the hunger for possession was lost in the desire to serve and protect. possibly if he had been forty instead of twenty-eight, he would perhaps have demanded a man's rights. being, however, according to the world's standard, a fool and a dreamer, he chose to let the moment pass, to refuse what the gods offered, to think of arithelli rather than of himself. "i'm hurting you, dear." his voice shook a little, in spite of his efforts to control it. "no. nothing hurts now. and i'm glad you love me." "i hurt you a minute ago. i was mad and a beast. will you forgive me? you are not frightened?" "no. i was only thinking of the future of tomorrow." "let us forget to-morrow," the boy pleaded. "can you not forget for once?" "we have to-day, and each other. '_aujourd'hui le printemps, ninon_.' it's summer for us now, fatalité! when one loves there is always summer." he drew her out into the starlight as he heard the noise of the men pushing back their seats and moving about overhead. several voices were raised in angry altercation. he raged inwardly as he thought how in a few minutes he would have to see her at the orders of them all, sent here and there, at everyone's call, and forced to work without either thanks or reward. "let me go in, dear," arithelli said. "they will expect to find things ready." but vardri held her back. "let them expect! give them the trouble of looking for you. they keep you up all night, so they can afford to waste a few minutes extra." it was both a foolish and useless protest and arithelli knew that she would pay afterwards for these snatched moments, but she did not grudge the price, for to her they seemed worth the payment required. she was glad of the air too. she turned a little in vardri's arms, lifting her face to the soft night wind. the coolness and the dark were like the touch of a soothing hand. the branches of the tree under which they stood rustled softly, and the undergrowth stirred with the startled movements of some awakened bird or small animal. a bat flew past, almost brushing them with its velvet wings. from the marsh lands below the dangerous white mist hovered like a fairy veil. "i love the night," arithelli whispered. "it makes me want to do all sorts of things. do you remember the story of marguerite of france, who heard the gypsies singing under her window and leant out and called to them to take her away. i feel like that. do you understand?" vardri drew her closer. "i know, my heart. tell me more." "there were some gypsies singing under my window this morning," arithelli went on. "i wished i could have gone out and followed them 'over the hills and far away' like the children in the old rhymes. the irish and jewish people have always been wanderers. perhaps that is why i am fated never to stay long in one place." he answered her in the same mood. "we'll start at once, shall we, fatalité? we'll saddle two of the horses and ride, ride day and night till we come to montserrat, and there we shall find your gypsies and their tribe. when you come to my country there'll be gypsies too, and they shall play and sing for you, and you'll know what music is for the first time." "how foolish we are!" her eyes were wet, but she was smiling. "if emile heard me talking like this he would be so angry." "he talked like this once," vardri replied. "poleski was young too not so very long ago, and he loved someone." "yes, i know." she found it almost impossible to think of emile as a lover in spite of the photograph she had found, and the words in his own writing upon his songs. she knew them by heart. "_emile à marie. sans toi la mort_." and on another, "_etoile de mon âme! je vous adore de tout mon coeur, ton emile_." perhaps it was the memory of this passion of his youth that had made him kind to her. while they talked and lingered, sobrenski was descending the rickety ladder that served as a staircase. he had noticed vardri's exit from the room, as he noticed everything else. all the other men had been too excited to care whether one more or less was there or not. in the hot argument that raged in the upper room, the absence of one of the members of the brotherhood was apparently forgotten. their leader, however, did not lose his head or his powers of observation even when matters of life or death were in the balance. whatever he did was always done deliberately and in cold blood. all the time he had been apparently presiding over the discussion he had also been thinking rapidly. it would be to his ultimate advantage not to interfere with arithelli and vardri just now, but to let them be together, to see as much of each other as possible. it was as well that vardri should become thoroughly infatuated, as then he would be certain to take some step that would bring things to a crisis. they would be sure to try to escape out of the country and hide themselves somewhere. they would not be the first people who had tried that sort of thing before. in the course of his life he had known others who had flung the cause and their vows to the winds from fear or passion and tried to hide themselves under some disguise. if they happened to be clever and have plenty of money their escape had been fairly easy, and they had even been safe for perhaps a year or so. then just as they had begun to feel secure and had grown careless, the vengeance of their own particular circle had overtaken them. there had been accounts in the newspapers of a mysterious tragedy to which no motive could be assigned, and for which no one could be brought to justice, and that was all. they were all monotonously alike, these affairs! sobrenski had said little to anyone else of his suspicions. no need to declare anyone a traitor till it was proven. such things had a demoralising effect, and treachery was an infectious disease. he descended the uneven rungs of the ladder, treading soft-footed as a cat. there was no noise of talking, so of course she was asleep. _sacré_, these lazy women! so she could not keep awake even for a lover! the place was dark except for the glimmering light at the far end, and he was obliged to feel his way to avoid the mules, who had an evil trick of lashing out with their heels at anything in the vicinity. at the foot of the steps he trod on a riding whip, which he recognised as one belonging to vardri. in the dim circle of light cast by the smoky lamp there was only a truss of hay disordered as if someone had lain upon it, and the _manta_, and other things belonging to arithelli. there was one thing more, a sheet of paper covered closely with an untidy scrawl. the lynx eyes flashed, and sobrenski bent eagerly forward. bad as the light was it had not taken him long to recognise the writing. he held it close to the lamp, and smiled with satisfaction. nothing could be better from his point of view. in the first sentence there was all, even more, than he wanted. he smoothed it out between his pointed fingers, folded it, and bestowed it carefully in an inside pocket. it was just the kind of thing he would have expected from a girl of arithelli's type,--to go about dropping letters. she had not method enough even to put on her clothes decently; they always looked as if they were falling off, and her hair as if it was coming down. _sapristi_! a fine agent for the cause! and one fit to be trusted with important documents. poleski must have been quite mad when he suggested introducing her to the brotherhood, and he himself deserved even more blame for having as much as listened to the suggestion. a girl of that age, picked up from nowhere, and like the rest of her sex a mass of lies and vanity. he held the lantern above his head, and peered round. surely they had not been so utterly insane as to have attempted to escape to-night? all the horses and mules were there safe enough, and obviously they would not attempt to walk. he strode towards the door, meeting them on the threshold, and in spite of himself could not help being impressed by the uncanny likeness between the two, in form and outline. they had even the same trick of movement. the thought of what he had found made him feel almost good-humoured, although he took good care that no one else should benefit by this unusual mood. "you have found yourself a little distraction, _hein_?" he said, ignoring arithelli's presence. "we are not up here for amusement all the same. there's nothing done. i supposed you had come down to see to the horses." vardri strolled across to a rack, and took down an armful of saddles and stirrups. "i have," he answered laconically. "they'll be ready in five minutes." sobrenski turned to the girl, and spoke to her in an undertone. "what are you wasting time for? see to your work." vardri raised his head from the adjustment of a girth. "i'm doing mademoiselle arithelli's work. there is no need for her to trouble." his accents possessed both dignity and command. for an instant their positions were reversed. the leader smothered an oath; but said no more. he reflected that he could well afford to wait for his revenge. the game was absolutely in his own hands if only they had known it. he could see that they were both perfectly unconscious of the fact that they had lost anything. when they discovered they would most likely conclude it had happened during the ride up. when arithelli had dragged herself up into her bedroom the sky was lighting with the dawn. they had mistaken the road and gone a mile or two out of the way, and one of the men had been thrown off and twisted his ankle, and made another halt and delay. she drew the curtains closely and lay down without undressing. before she slept she put her hand into her breast, and felt the rustle of the thin paper on which vardri's letter had been written. it was not until the landlady had nearly battered down her door that she stirred four hours later, and then she unfastened her blouse and drew out instead of the original two sheets, only one. she did not feel particularly alarmed; supposing it had been put with the envelope that she had left about in the morning. her things so often got lost, and it was emile who generally found them. chapter xix "must a man have hope to fight? can a man not fight in despair?" "a polish insurgent," james thompson. how he lived through his last day in barcelona emile never quite knew. a strong will, strong tobacco, and plenty of work were all aids in helping him to preserve his sanity. he soon arranged things with sobrenski, and found no difficulty in obtaining the post of messenger in the st. petersburg affair. he walked to the hippodrome while the _matinée_ performance was in progress, and left a message for arithelli at the stage door. then he went back to his rooms in the calle san antonio, and began to make the few necessary preparations for departure. he was not encumbered with worldly goods, and his wardrobe was not extensive, so there remained only to look through and destroy all documents, books, or letters that could not be carried about or that might involve the safety of others. certain songs and pieces of music he put together in a pile, the rest he tore across and threw into a corner. he would have no need of these amusements now. cultivation of the fine arts is not encouraged in the political prisons. at five o'clock arithelli entered the room, her clothes put on carelessly, the grey pallor of intense weariness upon her face. she had been working early and late during the past two days, and the thought of the missing letter worried her from time to time. sometimes she felt almost certain that she had dropped it in changing from her circus clothes, and that it had been appropriated out of curiosity by one of the women who shared the dressing-room. as it was written in english, they would probably throw it away at once in disgust, annoyed at being deprived of the excitement of a romance or scandal. she knew it would be useless to make enquiries. if it had been left there it had been done late at night, and the dressing-rooms were always cleaned early next morning, and it would have been swept away with the other rubbish. she had not said anything about her loss to vardri. it would make him even more anxious than herself, and she must bear the penalty of her own carelessness. she hoped that after all it would come to light in some box or drawer among her clothes. she came forward noiselessly across the polished, carpetless floor. "_bon jour_, emile! you wanted me?" he pointed to a chair. "sit down! your hat is on crooked--as usual! are you so little of a woman that you never use a mirror?" a gleam of fun lit up her eyes. "you covered mine up the other night with that horrible wreath and streamers. i can only see myself in little bits now." "well, sit down and i'll talk to you presently." emile returned to the sorting and destruction of his correspondence, and arithelli lay back in her chair with a sigh of content, and closed her eyes. when she opened them again he was standing beside her with a glass of red wine in his hand. "drink this," he said, giving it to her. "it isn't _absinthe_, is it?" she asked. "i can't see in this light, and i don't want--" "it doesn't matter what it is or what you want. don't argue, but finish it. how fond you women are of talking!" he waited till she had obeyed him. "you see that music? well, you can take it back with you. i shall not have any more use for music when i leave here. and listen to me now, and don't go to sleep for the next five minutes if you can help it." he kept full control of himself and his feelings. if anything his voice was a little more rasping than usual, and his dry words of counsel and advice were spoken in his ordinary hard, practical manner. an outsider would have found it difficult to say which was the more indifferent in appearance of these two who had been so strangely intimate for half a year, and who were now about to part. the girl was apathetic from physical fatigue and past emotions. she thought as she looked round the familiar room how impossible it was to believe that she would never be there again after to-day, and that emile would never again come to her. the wine cleared her brain and made her blood run more quickly. she roused herself to listen to what emile was saying, and to answer the questions he was asking her about her own arrangements. she thought he seemed relieved when she told him of vardri's scheme, and she restrained a strong desire to tell him also about the missing letter. he gave her an address in the russian capital to which she could write during the next month, warning her at the same time to be careful in what she said, to mention no names, and to avoid all references to politics, as his correspondence would run the risk of being edited by the police. inside the envelope on which the address was written he had enclosed forty francs. "you'll probably find a little money useful one of these days," he said. "keep it till you really want it. you can't wear more than one pair of boots at once, and there are other things more important. i don't want you to thank me. you can go and sing something instead, and do your best as it's for the last time." arithelli rose at once and went to the piano, eager to do something that might give him pleasure. she could play for herself now. emile had succeeded in teaching her a few easy accompaniments, so that he could listen without distraction. she hesitated for a minute, turning over his big music book, and then chose the popular song of the _café-chantants_ and streets, the famous "_la colombe_" with its lilting time, and mingled gaiety and sorrow. one heard it everywhere, sung in spanish, in the local patois, and in french, by _artistes_ in the theatres, by factory girls, and sailors, and market people. the _gamins_ and beggars whistled and hummed it in the streets and squares. emile walked up and down the room as he listened. he had made her sing in the hope of lessening in a small degree the strain he was enduring, but what had possessed her to choose this song of all others? the words told of one who was about to set sail, and lingered bidding adieu to his nina, the woman he loved. "_le jour où quittant la terre pour l'océan, je dis, priez dieu, priez dieu pour votre enfant. avant que nous mettre en route je crus revoir, nina! qui pleurait sans doute de désespoir._" one could hear the rocking of the boat at anchor, the rippling of the out-going tide. in the second verse the time was changed, the words were hurried and insistent. "_nina! si je succombe, el qu'un beau soir, une blanche colombe vient te voir, ouvre-lui ta fenêtre car ce sera, mon âme qui peut-être te reviendra._" her voice had grown weaker since her illness, and she sang with visible exertion and faulty breathing, but it was still the golden voice of the israelitish woman, and there was the same _tîmbre_ that had attracted him, and made him speak to her that afternoon in may at the station. and all that had only happened six months ago! when she had finished he said nothing in approval, but he asked her to sing again, and she understood, and was pleased. "you may thank the fates for having given you a voice," he told her. "it's better than a face. it lasts longer. no man having once heard you would listen to another woman." it was the first compliment he had ever made her, but arithelli did not answer. her back was turned towards him as she gathered together the music. he could see that her whole body was trembling with repressed sobs. if he could only have been sure they were for him, he would have taken her in his arms. she was sorry he was going, perhaps, in a way, but not in the way he wanted. she had become dependent upon him, and he had filled a certain place in her life. if she made a scene it was entirely his own fault. farewells were always a mistake, and he had been foolish enough to allow her to sing sentimental verses about doves and people's wandering souls. she was over-tired and over-wrought, and a woman's tears were more often due to physical than to mental reasons. so he argued, trying to convince himself, yet knowing all the time that arithelli was not one of the women whose emotions are on the surface. once before he had seen her cry, and now as then he stood apart. it was for vardri to dry her tears. he glanced at the clock. of course it was wrong, but he knew by the shadows that filled the room that it must be time for her to leave if she was to appear in public again to-night. he must hurry the interview to a close, for he could not play his part much longer. "you ought to be glad to get rid of me, arithelli. _vous avez la chance_! what have i given you but work and grumbles, eh?" the soft, broken voice answered him: "i shall feel afraid without you." "you will have vardri,--your lover." his tone was brutal as the blow of a knife. the natural animal jealousy of a man had risen in him again. when he was between stone walls, she would have the warmth of a lover's arms; every nerve in his own body would know it, and long for that which he had himself resigned. he would have long hours to sit and think the thoughts that drive men to insanity or self-destruction. "yes, but one can care in different ways, and you have done so many things for me." the man drew in his breath sharply. the knife was in her hand now, but she had stabbed unconsciously. he knew that she spoke quite simply, thinking only of his care for her physical well-being. truly he had done things, things that he would have given several years of life to undo. now he had that for which he craved,--the assurance that she cared, that she would miss him. still he did not delude himself. he knew that what she felt towards him was not the love between a woman and her mate, but the affection of dependence, of habit. yet for such as it was his soul uttered thanksgiving. any other woman gifted with a less sweet nature would have felt for him nothing but hatred, but in fatalité's mind neither spite nor malice ever found a place. the petty vices of womankind had never been hers. he knew now that he had been something to her, and that knowledge would make sunshine for him even in the shadow of a prison. it gave him courage also to play out the tragi-comedy to the end, to make a brave jest, to lie convincingly. "we needn't make each other eternal adieux, _mon enfant_. you must not take all i said about siberian dungeons _au serieux_. russia isn't quite as dangerous as it's made out to be. of course the police keep a watch more or less on the 'suspects,' but we know all their tricks, and how to avoid them. plenty of us go to st. petersburg and even to kara and come back again. the schlusselburg fortress is about the only place we haven't succeeded in getting out of yet. it's fairly easy to manage a false passport. you can write to me at the address i've given you." * * * * * * it was all over now, and he was alone. he had taken both her hands for an instant, and felt the convulsive clinging of the thin fingers. he had longed to kiss them, but dared not trust himself. his words were only such as might have been used by anyone of the brotherhood. "_au revoir, camarade_!" "_au revoir_!" her tears were falling still, though she answered him steadily enough. then she turned away, pulling down her veil, and he saw her grope blindly for the fastening of the door. it shut gently behind her, and he was alone. he sat down by the table with its litter of books and newspapers, and stared dully round the room which her passing had left more hopeless and ugly than ever. life itself would be more _fâde_ and ugly now. as well for him that after to-day he would have no time to sit and brood. it would be all stern reality soon, enough to cure him of lovesickness. first the work and risks of a secret printing press in some cellar or sordid room behind a shop, and later on the inevitable police-raid, a trial that would be no trial with the condemnation signed before-hand, and afterwards the _travaux forcés_, the long marches, the agonies of farewell at the siberian boundary-post--not for him, for his were said, but for his companions in misery--the miseries of the sick and dying, the partial starvation, and the horrors of dirt and vermin. there were sure to be some women too among the "politicals," and he would be obliged to watch their sufferings. there would be no imaginary grievances in that life at all events. on the floor, as it had dropped from among the music there lay a photograph, face downwards. he picked it up and looked back at the childish, smiling face, the tiny, rounded figure of marie roumanoff. "_tout passe, tout casse, tout lasse_." his mouth twisted into a cynical smile. she had been a true prophetess when she had written that. he tore the picture across, and threw it upon the rest of the _débris_. the roumanoff would never haunt his dreams again. her portrait was easily destroyed. a flimsy thing of print and paper, as slight and fragile as herself. of arithelli he possessed no tangible likeness, but he would have her always with him, for her image was seared deep upon both heart and brain. _the witch_ sailed out of barcelona harbour with the early morning tide. besides emile and vladimir, and a small picked crew, she carried an assortment of strangely-shaped machines, things that looked like the inside of a clock, and were full of wheels and cogs, firearms, and ammunition, some copies of a revolutionist manual on street fighting tactics, and other inflammatory literature. their plan was to enter russia by way of finland, leaving all the things there to be smuggled through by degrees. when they came to the frontier they would part company. emile would make his way towards the city that holds its trembling autocrat as closely guarded in his palace as any convict in the mines, while vladimir was to go back to spain overland to report success or failure in the landing and disposal of their dangerous cargo. all day the two men sat together, talking, plotting, preparing for all contingencies. there were no feminine voices to be heard on board the yacht now, no singing on deck in the evenings, no hint of the presence of a woman, either as wife, mistress, or companion. they neither discussed nor recalled these vanished days, though one had hours of memory and regret, and the other was consumed with a savage hunger for that which he had lost. both had taken upon themselves vows that put them outside the pale of human ties and affections. the goddess whom they both served had risen, claiming their allegiance, their service, and with the lives and ways of mortal women they had no concern. the cause had triumphed. chapter xx "do you not know i am a woman?" as you like it. sobrenski was a man who wasted no time in making up his mind. his success as a leader had depended upon his swiftness of action and unscrupulousness, and his latest manoeuvres had turned out an admirable success, upon which he might safely congratulate himself. the day following the resolution of the committee, he had written to arithelli, telling her to come to his flat to receive instructions. she would arrive in due time, and then he would explain things. he wondered whether she would faint or scream or perhaps refuse, but probably she would be easier to manage now that poleski was safely out of the way. he had schemed that business well too, and could now spare all his attention for vardri and the girl. as to the amount of work they both did, they would be no great loss, for he could easily supply their places by other human machines who would carry out his desires without question. the majority of the men who composed the circle were completely dominated by him, and incapable of opposing his will or argument, and by some he was worshipped as a hero. callous of suffering in others, he was equally indifferent to it for himself, and if he did not spare his tools he also slaved incessantly day and night. the large bare room in which he sat possessed very little furniture and no signs of comfort. there were a quantity of books piled on the floor and mantelpiece, and the centre space was filled by an enormous bureau heaped with a mass of printed and written papers, for besides his extensive correspondence he was part-editor of one of the anarchist journals, which he enlivened by daring and sarcastic contributions. the fragment of the letter that arithelli had dropped, lay open in front of him. he read it through again and smiled to himself. "i'll give up even the cause for your sake," vardri had written. "seeing how these men have made you suffer has changed my views. there must be something wrong about our ideas if they produce this cruelty to women. sobrenski and the others are killing you slowly. i wanted struggle and excitement at one time, and whether it meant life or death it was all the same. there was no one to care. now i want life and love and you!" another madman like gaston de barrés! how alike all these effusions were, all in the same strain. they had found a pile of ravings when they had searched among the property of the heroine of that affair. these were the people who did an incredible amount of harm, who were even more dangerous than the ordinary traitor. he pushed the letter underneath some others, and arithelli had knocked more than once, before he called "_entrez_!" he saluted her with a cold scrutiny, telling her to wait till he had finished. he invariably made a point of using no title in addressing her, and never even gave her the customary anarchist greeting of _camarade_. he did not invite her to sit down, and she would have been surprised if he had done so. there was another chair at the far end of the room, and she did not trouble to fetch it. her heart was still further weakened by her illness, and she was breathless after climbing two long flights of stairs. she leant up against the wall, breathing quickly, and thankful for a few moments' respite. she supposed she was required to play "errand-boy" as usual, and to go through the well-known routine: a crumpled-up slip of paper, which she must hide in her hair or dress, a long walk, or a ride in the electric tram if she happened to have any money, and then perhaps at the end of it she would find the man for whom she was seeking absent, and then she would have to wait till he returned. it was never safe to leave a message. everything had to be given directly into the hands of those for whom it was intended, and she had spent many weary hours in the rooms of sobrenski's followers. she studied his face as he rapidly stamped his letters, flinging them on to a pile of others that lay ready. it crossed her mind how emile had once likened a certain group of the conspirators to a pack of court cards, saying that they were alternately red and black. sobrenski's hair and small peaked beard were of a curiously unpleasant colour, and his thin lips, pointed teeth and long sloping jaw gave him a wolfish appearance. his eyes, deep-set and narrow, were too close together to satisfy a student of lavater as to his capacity for truthfulness. the forehead alone was good, and showed reasoning and intellect. he was about fifty, and like all fair men looked less than his age. he was better dressed, and altogether more careful of his appearance than most of the other men, though he spent nothing on luxuries and never touched the _absinthe_, to which most of them were addicted. the sole luxuries in which he indulged were work and power. "probably you have heard a great deal of talk about spies lately," he began, addressing arithelli in french. "for some time i have suspected one of our own number of treachery. however, one cannot condemn without proofs. for these i have been waiting and they have now come into my hands. i'm perfectly satisfied that the man i have all along suspected is a traitor, and there is no need to delay action any longer. i suppose poleski has informed you of how we treat those who are unwise enough to betray us?" "yes." she was on her guard now, and stood upright, all her languor gone. why could he not say what he meant at once? she wondered why he had taken the trouble to seek for proofs of anyone's guilt. enough for a man of his type to find an obstruction in his path. he would need no authority but his own for removing it. she hated him all the more for his parade of justice. it had not occurred to her that his speech was a prelude to anything that concerned vardri. if anyone was implied she imagined it was herself. these men were never happy unless they were suspecting evil of someone. the anarchist leader found in her incomprehension merely another sign of feminine stupidity. her outward air of indifference was as irritating to him as it had been to the hippodrome manager. sobrenski's blood had never stirred for any woman, however charming, and arithelli's type of looks was repulsive to him. he loathed her thinness and pallor, her silence and immobility of expression. he vowed inwardly that she should look less indifferent before he had finished with her. "you do not appear to have the least idea of the identity of the man to whom i am referring," he continued. "your friend vardri is not a very careful person. he is young, and shall we say, a little foolish. it is always risky to say or write anything against the cause one is supposed to be serving." "to say _or write_." it dawned upon her all at once. the piece of the letter she had missed, had been dropped in the stable up in the hills and found by sobrenski. it was all her own fault, sheer rank carelessness. emile had so often warned her against her fatal habit of leaving everything about. she never locked up anything, jewellery, clothes, money or papers. perhaps in the hurry of dressing that night, she had only taken with her the first page, and when she was out her rooms had been searched, and the rest stolen. sobrenski would stop at nothing to get the evidence he wanted. if she accused him of having taken it he would simply deny the charge, and to seem anxious would be further evidence that the letter contained something that would compromise either vardri or herself. in any case it appeared that the mischief was done. to expect either justice or mercy from her enemy was out of the question. she would try and fight him with his own weapon, feign ignorance, tell lies if necessary. "vardri? what has he done?" the note of surprise in her voice was well assumed and she could control her face, but her hands betrayed her. sobrenski had seen the blue veins stand out and the knuckles whiten unnaturally with the pressure on the black fan she carried to shield her eyes in the street. "done?" he echoed contemptuously. "nothing so far. he has only talked and written. it is to provide against his doing anything important that the committee have decided upon his removal. there was a meeting held last night and the voting was unanimous. vardri has been condemned as a traitor to his vows, and a danger to everyone connected with our work." "condemned without a hearing!" the girl flamed out. "_mon dieu_! your justice! what has he done?" "have you a right to question the judgment of the committee?" the voice was like a scourge falling on bare flesh. arithelli drew her shoulders together involuntarily. "no!" she answered. "yet you do it! these womanly inconsistencies are a little fatiguing." sobrenski caressed his beard with a narrow, bloodless hand, on the middle finger of which was a curious ring of twisted gold wire. he waited to see if she would make any further protest, but she set her lips firmly and refused to speak. there was nothing more to be said on her side. evidently sobrenski had found the letter, and when or where it had been found mattered not at all. he continued: "the sentence has been passed and it falls upon you to execute it." the answer came back swiftly: "and if i refuse?" for once in his life sobrenski was taken aback, and experienced a new sensation, that of surprise. he looked at her with almost approval. if he was cruel he was also courageous, and able to appreciate the virtue in others. "you know what your refusal implies?" he questioned, more gently than he had yet spoken. "you refused some time ago to carry a message. you will perhaps remember that i gave you the choice between doing as you were told, or--" he gesticulated expressively. "you were wise then. i hope you will be wise now." arithelli's thoughts were going at racing speed. no one could be long in a room alone with sobrenski without being impressed by his overpowering personality. he affected her in a way that no one else ever did, in provoking her to futile outbursts of defiance and anger. she had never lost her head with anyone else, but he always made her incapable of reasoning, raging one minute, and cowed the next. hitherto emile had always been there to screen and protect her, to stand between her and her enemy. she knew now why he had so often hoped to see her in her coffin. "i can't murder! i undertook to work for the cause, but not that--_mon dieu_! not that!" "we don't talk about murder," sobrenski sneered. "we merely 'remove' those who have proved themselves untrustworthy. you undertook to obey orders, i believe. you may contradict me if i am incorrect." he leant forward with the glittering eyes of the fanatic. "you talk of murder and forget that to us human life is nothing. do you think you will save vardri by refusing? am i to suppose that he has infected you also with the taint of disloyalty? it is your business to loathe a traitor as we do. you wear your badge, but do you never read the words on it? poleski used to tell me great things of your enthusiasm, your devotion. now i am putting you to the test. you like to act a picturesque part, it seems, to wear boy's clothes, to sing, to be the only woman among us, to act the heroine. we do not want acting here. this is life, not the stage. now you are asked to give a practical proof of your loyalty!" the pitiless tongue lashed, and arithelli shrank against the wall, her hands over her eyes. there had been stories current among the younger members of the barcelona anarchists that sobrenski possessed the power of hypnotism and did not scruple to use it. some of the most daring and successful outrages of the past years had been carried out under his direction, and executed by these youths. he always made a point of choosing men who were highly strung and impressionable. he was known to boast that after three interviews with him he could make anyone, either man or woman, into a will-less automaton. he exhorted, jeered, encouraged and derided, finally giving arithelli five minutes in which to make her decision. she did not keep him waiting, though he could scarcely hear the murmured words of assent. her nerve was broken at last. she would promise anything, do anything if only he would let her go. dazed with fear and misery, she watched him get up, unlock a drawer of the bureau and come across to her holding out something. "i shall arrange for you to be together one night up in the hut. i don't know whether you have any idea of shooting, but you can hardly miss at such close range." the brutal words steadied her, and drove back the feeling of mental paralysis. she realised suddenly all that her promise meant. vardri had given her love, and in return she was to give him death! her own dawning love had enabled her to see more clearly what his devotion meant. with the growth of a woman's soul she had also begun to experience womanly emotions, fear, anxiety, the need of sympathy and affection. she snatched the pistol from sobrenski's hand, and he stepped back a pace, throwing up his arm instinctively as she raised, levelled and fired. the weapon clicked harmlessly, her hand dropped to her side, and she stood shivering, and wondering at her own madness. the whole thing had been done without thinking, as an animal driven into a corner turns, snarling and showing its teeth. sobrenski recovered himself first and laughed. "so you thought it was loaded?" he said. "do you take me for a fool? allow me to congratulate you on your--failure!" then changing his tone of sarcasm to command: "you must hide that pistol carefully. put it inside your dress or somewhere safe. i suppose you would like to march down the paséo de gracia, carrying it in your hand, and wearing a tragic expression,--and get locked up by the first agent de police you meet! you have pluck enough, but you should avoid these exhibitions of hysteria." he gripped her by the shoulder, swung her round, and pointed to the door, "_allez_!" chapter xxi "my crown is without leaves, for she sits in the dust and grieves, now we are come to our kingdom." "anthony and cleopatra," kipling. once more the procession of conspirators toiled on its way up the irregular mountain path. the horses slipped and stumbled under their unskilful riders, the mules climbed steadily upwards. no one spoke. as usual arithelli led the way. vardri, who had arrived last of all, rode forward to join her, but was curtly ordered to the rear by sobrenski. they should see enough of each other later on,--when it was time. before they started on their ride he spoke to arithelli alone, and gave her his final instructions, and saw for himself that the pistol she wore at her belt was properly charged. he never left anything to chance, especially in important undertakings such as the present one. "there will not be a long meeting to-night," he said. "you will have an hour free to do your work. you hear?" his eyes were fixed on hers, compelling an answer. none came, though she bowed her head in token of acquiescence, and though he could hear no word sobrenski was satisfied. he had seen that shrinking attitude, that mechanical gesture before. in the plot to assassinate general morales there had been a young spanish student who had given some trouble. he had developed a conscience at the last minute, and vowed that he could not kill an old and defenceless man, that he would rather die himself. he had died, and so had morales, and both by the explosion of the bomb that had been launched by the hand of the former. sobrenski held rightly that those who meddled with politics on either side must dispense with such useless things as scruples. the night was still and sultry, with a full moon hanging low in the sky. the weather had been unnaturally warm for the time of year, all day, down in the city. they were all glad when they had mounted above the sea-level. there was a little breeze met them, and the tired and patiently plodding horses raised their heads. arithelli drew a long breath of relief as she shifted in her saddle, and glanced back to see if they were all in sight. the _manta_ in which she was wrapped stifled her, and the weight of her own hair under the wig and sombrero made her head ache and throb violently. as they rode she rehearsed her plans in her own mind, telling herself over and over again the things that she must say and do when she was alone with vardri. to-night would see sobrenski's triumph, his grand coup, and when it was all over perhaps she would have peace. how slowly they all seemed to ride, she thought. she wondered how many of the other men knew that she was chosen to act the part of murderess. some of them had been kind to her in a rough way, especially the older ones. but even if they did pity her a little, not one among them but would expect her to do the thing that they would consider obviously her duty. no one would raise a voice on her behalf, whatever their private sentiments. the majority of them would probably look upon her as a heroine, for she would have rid them of a spy, a traitor. she could only hope that she might keep her brain clear, her courage firm till the supreme moment. once in the course of that awful day her nerves had given out in physical collapse, and her shaking hands had let fall the mirror of agnès sorél. it lay on the floor in her bedroom, broken in three places. her early days in ireland had given her a belief in the omens of good and evil, for in the "emerald gem of the western world" superstition runs riot. the faith in it was in her blood, though it needed no broken mirror to tell her what dread thing awaited her, towards which she must advance, urged by fate. she had only written one letter, and that one was to emile. now that he was gone there was no one else who cared. something told her now that his last words had only been an attempt to comfort her, to ease her mind, and that she would wait in vain for his return. estelle would weep for a little while, and drink a great deal to drown her tears, and then forget. they were nearly at the hut now. she could see it, a grotesque shadow thrown across the silvered earth. she slipped off and walked, leading her mule by the bridle. behind her were subdued curses, the rattle of slipping hoofs and falling stones, as the animals climbed the last and steepest piece of road, which ended in the plateau on which the building stood. in front of it was a single large tree, but most of the ground close by bore nothing higher than dwarf shrubs and long grass. when the cavalcade drew up and dismounted, vardri was discovered to be missing. he had been late in starting, lagged behind the others and dropped out of sight before they were scarcely clear of the town. being the last of the file his disappearance had not at first been remarked. sobrenski refused to allow of time being wasted in a search. he ordered the rest of the men up into the loft, and arithelli to her work of unharnessing. he himself remained standing in the shadow of the doorway, his eyes narrowed with anger, his thin lips compressed till they were merely a line. here was a complication that he had not foreseen. for the first time in his life his wit and cunning had been at fault. he must have been mad not to have kept a sharper lookout on vardri, but he had reckoned he was secure with arithelli as decoy. could it be possible that she had been mad enough to warn vardri? if so, then why was she here herself? either she had more courage or else she was more foolish even than he could have believed it possible for a female creature to be. women took good care of their own skins in general! if vardri meant to try and escape, surely they would have gone together. perhaps his, sobrenski's, detailed descriptions of the fate of others who had attempted flight had made her decide that it would be safer to remain and throw herself on the mercy of himself and his companions. he might have miscalculated the force of her attraction for vardri, but he felt perfectly certain that she was reduced to a state of mechanical imbecility. she could not escape now at all events, even if she suddenly changed her mind. he would give them both five minutes, and then if vardri did not appear--! he began to walk up and down outside, like some prowling animal awaiting its prey. at regular intervals his shadow crossed and recrossed the patch of light from the open door. meanwhile vardri was riding leisurely up the slope, reining back his horse, and stopping at intervals to put a fair distance between himself and the others. he intended to make a chance of seeing arithelli alone again, so he meant to wait till the whole crew, and especially sobrenski, were safely embarked on their eternal discussions. then he would slip in and help her with the animals, and live in paradise again for a little space of time. he had been to her rooms earlier in the day but she had sent down a message to beg him to excuse her. she had a headache, and was lying down, so he had been obliged to go away unsolaced, and longing for the evening. now that she had given him her promise to go with him to austria, there was only to arrange the day and the hour of their departure. for once he was alive to the necessity for prompt action. there was her safety to be considered now. when he had been alone it had not mattered how anything was done or not done, but now everything was different. the world itself was another place. he had already actually written and posted a tentative letter to his father, such a letter as he could never have written if only his interests had been concerned, but he found any sacrifice an easy one now, even the sacrifice of pride. there was no reason why they should not start to-morrow. it would be safer to get out of the place by going round by the mediterranean and thence across by way of italy. water-travelling was cheaper, too. he laughed to himself to think how practical he was becoming. how strange it would seem to live in a civilised fashion again, to not be obliged to look at every sou before it was spent, to have servants to wait upon one; enough to eat and drink, and the luxury of cleanliness. yet the vagabond life had had its charm, too. he had encountered kindness often, generally from those in more evil plight than his own, and there had been flowers and music and sunshine. true, he had felt horribly ill and dejected on some days, and his wretched cough was an annoyance to himself and to other people, but at times he felt ready for anything, and more energetic than any three of those lazy spaniards. love and arithelli would be a sure antidote for any misery or disease. for her he had created a house of dreams, and now the dreams were on the verge of becoming realities. instead of the sand and stones of that desert that men call life, a rainbow-coloured future lay stretched out before him. sunshine and the summertime of love, all that he had ever hoped for, were coming nearer. and joy was hovering near at hand, till he could almost touch her flying robe. soon he would hold her in his arms, would possess her entirely. how different arithelli was from all other women! with her there was never caprice or fickleness. whatever she said was his law, whatever she wished to do was the right thing. now he had abjured the revolution, his father would be only too glad to have him back, to see him married to a woman of arithelli's charm and breeding. there had never been any quarrel with his family, except when he had joined the red flag party, and it was only natural that they should quarrel over that. love or the revolution? there would never be any more doubt now as to which he would choose. in the old days he had preferred starvation, and the freedom to act, and think as he liked. he had gloried in being an outcast, in suffering for the cause. life had been hard at times, but he had known men of ideals and enthusiasms and there had been a certain fascination in the excitement of being hunted. but now that was all over and a new day was dawning for them both, for himself and for arithelli. he spoke to his horse and stirred it into a quicker pace. they must be well out of the way and she would think he was never coming. inside the stable arithelli, tall and straight in her scarlet shirt, moved to and fro at her work, hanging up saddles and bridles, carrying pails of water, ranging on either side of the hut the horses and the mules. tortured as she was with anxiety, she did not forget the wants of her friends the animals. it came across her mind how once when she had said to vardri, "let us see to the horses first," he had said half in jest, "if i were a spaniard i should be jealous. you always think of the animals before everything else." one by one the rest of the conspirators tramped heavily up the ladder, leaving her alone with sobrenski, who stood with his back to the doorway, following her with his eyes as she moved to and fro in the shadows cast by the solitary lamps. before he mounted the ladder in his turn, he came across the hut, took her by the shoulder and spoke to her. "be careful how you do your work, for if it is not well done others will do it for you." she could not answer; she shuddered at his touch; her hands went up and covered her face. sobrenski turned and mounted the worn rungs of the narrow ladder with a lithe, active step. he was quite sure of her now. she would not fail to carry out his will. chapter xxii "il n'y a que l'amour et la mort." for a few minutes after he had gone, arithelli stood motionless, still with her hands pressed tightly over her eyes, trying to command her brain to work clearly. her will and her limbs seemed paralysed. she could only wait for vardri's approach. once she prayed an inarticulate wordless prayer, that inspiration might be sent her to find a way out of this _impasse_ in which there seemed neither light nor opening. time was passing, and every moment was bringing her nearer the most appalling destiny that could ever be meted out to any woman. if she did sobrenski's bidding she would be not only a murderess, but the murderess of the being she loved most in the world. vardri, who was so different from all the other men; vardri, who could never bear anything to be hurt, or even to be made uncomfortable. she knew that it was perfectly useless for both of them to attempt to escape. someone was most likely posted at the window of the loft, they would get no distance on foot without being overtaken, and if she attempted to lead out any of the horses or mules, the noise would probably attract attention. her hands fell to her side, and her head went up as she listened intently. so he was coming, after all. in that undisturbed space and clear dry air, sound travelled quickly, and she could hear the approaching hoof-beats while he was still some way off. with the knowledge of his approach the blood flowed again warmly in her veins and courage and decision came back to her. her senses, unnaturally acute, told her that vardri had now dismounted and was leading his horse. she could distinguish his footsteps, and then the monotonous regular footfalls of his mount. she ran out into the patch of moonlight, casting a hurried backward glance at the side of the hut. thank god! the window was on the other side! vardri was coming slowly towards her, his horse's bridle over his arm. before she covered the distance between them she made a gesture that enjoined silence and stopped his greeting. "don't bring your horse in," she whispered. "tie him up out of the way over there, a good way off the hut. i'll explain presently." in another moment vardri was beside her in the hut and had her in his arms. "what is it, _mon petit_? there must be something wrong. has sobrenski--?" "no, no, he has done nothing. it's just that i don't want you to be up here too long to-night. i want you to do something for me. will you, vardri?" "do you think you'll need to ask me twice to do anything for you, dear?" he stood with his hands on her shoulders, his dark eyes gazing down at her hungrily. "did you think i was never coming? i stayed behind on purpose. i felt that sobrenski intended to prevent our talking together." arithelli snatched eagerly at his words. they had given her the clue she wanted. "yes, that's it. it's dangerous for me if we are seen often together. i've done something so mad and foolish, vardri, you must help me to put it right,--you _can_. those letters you have written me saying all sorts of things against the cause,--i left a piece of one about somewhere,--i don't know where,--and sobrenski found it. he has just told me that in about half an hour's time before all the rest of them leave, he is going to send on one of the men in advance. he will get down to the town before us, go to my rooms and yours and collect all the letters that have passed between us; and use them, as then he will have what he has always wanted,--the proofs that we are what he would call traitors. and when he has these proofs, neither of us will be safe for an instant. it will mean death to both of us sooner or later. but even sobrenski can't murder us without sufficient evidence. he will be obliged to make some formal parade of justice to put it all before the rest of the society. if he doesn't get our letters he will not have sufficient evidence." "but if we go away together to-night, as we intended? we've got a start. we can take the best horses. that is the best plan." arithelli shook her head. "listen to me, dear, and believe in a woman's wisdom for once. if we go to-night and together, we are bound to be recaptured before we are out of barcelona. by doing what i suggest we avoid suspicion, we give ourselves breathing-space, time to arrange a disguise, to think of all sorts of things that we have overlooked. we have everything in our favour to-night, sobrenski does not know you are here yet. if you go soon you will get away without his having seen you at all. here is the key of my room. go there first, and you will find all your own letters in a wooden box in my big trunk. that isn't locked. open it and burn them all. then go on to your own room, do the same with yours and stay there. if they raid my room, they will find nothing suspicious. you could pretend you were ill, and that's the only reason you haven't come tonight, and i am here doing my work as usual. nothing could be less suspicious. then when they are off their guard we can escape." the minutes were flying. death thrusting his lean face before the rosy face of love. sobrenski's phrase sounded in her ears like the tolling of a bell. "you have an hour free to do your work." an hour, only an hour! how long had they been there already? time and all else alike seemed blurred. all her will must be concentrated upon one thing--to make vardri leave her as quickly as possible. yet she dare not show a sign of haste or emotion lest he should suspect something amiss and refuse to go. "dear, it is a wonderful plan this, of yours," vardri was saying. "but how can i leave you here alone with these devils? it makes me cold to think of it." "you'll leave me because i shall be safer alone. you _must_ see that, _mon ami_." she clung to him, putting up her face towards his. every art of womanhood must be used to weave a spell to send him from her and to save him. "will you not do as i ask you?" "i'll do anything in the world for you," the boy broke out eagerly; "i'd have my hand cut off to save you a minute's pain." "i know, _mon ami_. and this is such a little thing, and so much depends upon its being done quickly." what was that? a step on the ladder? she could not control a violent start. no, it was only a creaking rung, a stamp from one of the mules. "but you haven't broken your promise to me. you swear to come away with me soon?" "to-morrow if you will. once the letters are burnt we are almost safe. only one day more. it doesn't make any difference." "it does to me, _mon petit_. every moment, every hour without you is time wasted." "but you'll go, dear, before sobrenski sees us together?" "my sweet, if it is for your good, of course i will go. you're right about the letters; i ought to have known it wasn't safe to keep them. as you say, they've got no circumstantial evidence if those are destroyed, and it only means a few more hours' delay in our getting off. i'll go, darling. i'll get down the hills in no time. it's the best horse of the lot, that one outside. but before i go give me yourself for a few minutes." arithelli let him lead her unresisting towards the corner of the hut, and lay her gently back upon a truss of hay that he had covered with a cloak. she had not the strength to deny him their last few minutes together. every fibre in her own nature, the lover, the mother, the child, were all crying out for him. how gentle he had been, how he had always cared for her. no one had ever touched her like this before, spoken to her in this caressing voice. emile had been kind in his way, but he had been always rough. her own emotions had always lain buried deeply, and now they had been called to life she longed for the natural expression of her love through the medium of physical things, by word and touch. "now for my reward," vardri said. "i want to take your hair down." arithelli bent her head towards him without speaking and he drew the pins, and undid the braid with deft fingers, spreading it out till it covered her as with a veil. "if only i could paint you! how beautiful you are to-night, but how still and cold! fatalité, tell me you love me a little, _mon coeur_!" she put her arms round his neck, laying her cheek against his. "_mon ami_, i love you!" he held her in his arms as one holds a child, rocking her to and fro. "_voilà chérie_!" he whispered. "after to-morrow i shall have you always, i shall never let you go again. my dream is coming true." arithelli listened with dry eyes and an aching heart. she was past crying, and her brain felt curiously reasonable and alert. she could not send him from her at once, yet with every passing second death drew stealthily nearer and nearer. time swept on relentless and inflexible. "perhaps you will be disappointed in me one of these days, find me depressing and full of moods. i've always been so lonely, you know, till i met you. _je suis une âme detachée_." "never again while i'm alive! i think of you and with you. when you are happy i know it, and when you are miserable i know it too. fatalité! fatalité! believe that i don't want anything in return. i'll wait on you, work for you, lie, starve, steal, do anything. i only want to know you're there, to have the right to serve you, to feel you don't hate me. i couldn't go on living it i lost you. since the first day i saw you at the hippodrome you've haunted me. i led don juan down to the entrance to the ring. you don't remember? how should you? i've never forgotten! you smiled and thanked me. you looked so strange beside estelle and those other women." he was kneeling beside her, his lips pressed against the hollow of her arm, from which the loose red sleeve had slipped back to above the elbow. under his passionate words arithelli sat like a being entranced, unseeing, unhearing. the inscrutable eyes set in the rigid face gave her the likeness to some carven thing. "fatalité! fatalité!" the sound of his voice came to her as from a distance. she roused herself, and tried to smile. "_mon ami_, i'm a little tired to-night, a little nervous; i was thinking about the letters! i shall feel so much safer when they're burnt." "i'll go at once--just one moment. arithelli, you do believe that i love you, and that i want nothing? see, i'll not even touch your hand if it doesn't please you." the soft hand was laid gently on his. "but if it _does_ please me, _mon camarade_--" "_dieu_! how sweet you are! but don't call me '_camarade_,' _mon petit_. those wolves above call each other that!" "i won't, if you hate it. yes, that's really love to give all and take nothing." arithelli spoke dreamily. "emile made me sing to him before he went away; you remember 'l'adieu' of schubert? he loved it. "la mort est une amie, qui rend la liberté." "c'est bien vrai ca! i used to sing it without thinking at one time. how alike all those songs are. always death;--death and liberty!" "don't talk of those things, dear. it's going to be life for both of us--after to-morrow." "i was thinking of poor emile." "he was always fond of you. he'll be glad when he hears you're married and safe." "yes, he'll be glad. don't talk any more for a minute, dear, then just say _au revoir_ to me and go as quickly as you can. i want to be quiet. it's good to be loved. how gentle you are! emile was always so rough when he touched me." vardri hung over her, caressing her with infinite tenderness. of all men in the world he was surely the happiest to have known this sweet and womanly arithelli, the arithelli that no one else had ever seen. he kissed the heavy, closed lids and stroked back the hair from her forehead. a faint intoxicating odour of jasmine hovered about her, for she was eastern in her love of perfumes. the stifling, dirty hut became a paradise while she lay thus in his arms. once again they kissed and clung together. though arithelli's lips burnt, they scorched with the fires of despair rather than with those of passion. in silence vardri helped her to her feet, and they walked together to the door. "you'll come to me to-morrow," arithelli said. "to-morrow we shall be safe. we'll be out of this hell altogether in another day or two, _à la bonne heure_! you're not afraid, fatalité?" "i shan't be--when the letters are safe. take care of yourself, _mon ami, et à bientot_!" "_mon dieu_! what pluck you have! how i love you for it! go back and rest, dear, till those brutes come down. give me your hand again, fatalité, _bien aimée! gardez-vous, mais gardez-vous_!" she answered him steadily. "_À demain_. _adieu, mon ami_. ride as quickly as you can, but lead your horse for the first few minutes." chapter xxiii "le jeu est fait, rien ne vas plus!" he was gone, and arithelli was back in the hut again, and now the worst of it all was still to come. if vardri was to have a fair start she must wait out the hour alone, realising every moment of the time what awaited her at the end of it. a mad impulse seized her to rush up the steps to the loft, interrupt the meeting, defy them all and boast how she had schemed her lover's escape, and laugh at them and their plots, goad them into shooting her at once and finishing it all quickly. she felt that she could not endure any more suspense and strain. anything would be better than this interminable, awful waiting in the semi-darkness and loneliness, with neither friend nor lover at hand, no single human to take her part or defend her. emile had gone and now vardri, and she must face everything alone. if she waited vardri would have perhaps half an hour's grace and while they were dealing with her it would give him still another few minutes, and every minute counted. she fought down the temptation, and began to move about, speaking to the mules and, horses, taking down saddles and bridles. she must not be too quiet, or they might suspect something, and come down sooner to see if she were still there. she must pretend to be busy, play out the play to the end. she unhooked the lantern from its nail and placed it on the ground, and then stood still again to listen. the smothered hum of voices grew louder overhead. it stopped suddenly, and she could only hear sobrenski's slow, incisive tones. no doubt they were listening to him as to one inspired while he preached his gospel of destruction. arithelli shivered, pressing her hands over her ears that she might shut out the sound of that hated voice that had bidden her outrage her sex. she stumbled towards the bed of hay, still warm with the impress of her own figure, and flung herself upon it face downwards and lay there whispering to herself over and over again vardri's name as one whispers a charm. would he forget her one of these days and marry someone else? had it been real, anything of this that she had lived through during these months in spain? was she still that same "arithelli of the hippodrome" who had come gaily into barcelona with her ridiculous dresses and her belief in herself and her career? she had known an hour of love and passion, and that had been worth all the rest emile had always told her that people were not meant to be happy long _ici-bas_. she must pay now for her hour. the gods were angry and must have a sacrifice. after she had been out in barcelona only a week, emile had taken her to one of the gambling-hells of the place, where the lights and mirrors and gilding hurt her tired eyes, and the croupiers called incessantly through the strained silence, "_le jeu est fait_. _rien ne vas plus_!" it was like that with her now, "_le jeu est fait_." how that sentence heat in her brain! she wondered if she were becoming delirious. then she was on her feet, and her hand went to the browning pistol at her belt. sobrenski's figure had appeared at the top of the ladder. he was shading his eyes with his hand, and peering forward into the gloom. only one of them there! the girl or vardri, which was it? then the whole place was in darkness, for arithelli had overturned and extinguished the solitary lamp. the excited whinny of a horse mingled with the sound of two shots fired in rapid succession, a rustling noise among the hay, a groan, and silence. before he set foot on the ladder sobrenski shouted to the rest of the conspirators to bring a light. he did not wait to look at the prone figure, but made straight for the door. his business it was first to see whether his quarry were still in sight. all the other men were hustling each other in a hasty descent. "_que diable_!" one of them said. "what is it now? a spy?" the man who had lowered arithelli from the window of the house in the calle de pescadores, made his way first to where arithelli lay and stood beside her. he could only see dimly the outline of a figure which might have been either that of a man or woman. "bring a light here," valdez called impatiently. "which of them is it?" though he was a revolutionist he was still a human being, and he had always been as sorry for her as he had dared allow himself to be, and he hoped it was not the girl. another man came up carrying a lantern, and flashed the light on what rested motionless at their feet. arithelli lay on her face as she had fallen. her hair streamed over her shoulders and mingled with the dark folds of the cloak. the hand that still held the pistol was flung wide. "it's not vardri," the other man said. "is it--?" sobrenski cut across the question. "a traitor," he said. "what does it matter about the name? get back all of you and see to the horses. there should be two of them and there's only one here. we've got to find the other one." with a sudden brusque movement valdez knelt down, turned the limp body over, and rested the head upon his knee. "_pardieu_!" he ejaculated as he let it fall gently back. "it's fatalité!" [illustration: university of delaware library] prison memoirs of an anarchist by alexander berkman new york mother earth publishing association published september, second edition, graphic press, new york to all those who in and out of prison fight against their bondage "but this i know, that every law that men have made for man, since first man took his brother's life, and the sad world began, but straws the wheat and saves the chaff with a most evil fan." oscar wilde [illustration: alexander berkman photo by marcia stein] as introductory i wish that everybody in the world would read this book. and my reasons are not due to any desire on my part that people should join any group of social philosophers or revolutionists. i desire that the book be widely read because the general and careful reading of it would definitely add to true civilization. it is a contribution to the writings which promote civilization; for the following reasons: it is a human document. it is a difficult thing to be sincere. more than that, it is a valuable thing. to be so, means unusual qualities of the heart and of the head; unusual qualities of character. the books that possess this quality are unusual books. there are not many deliberately autobiographical writings that are markedly sincere; there are not many direct human documents. this is one of these few books. not only has this book the interest of the human document, but it is also a striking proof of the power of the human soul. alexander berkman spent fourteen years in prison; under perhaps more than commonly harsh and severe conditions. prison life tends to destroy the body, weaken the mind and pervert the character. berkman consciously struggled with these adverse, destructive conditions. he took care of his body. he took care of his mind. he did so strenuously. it was a moral effort. he felt insane ideas trying to take possession of him. insanity is a natural result of prison life. it always tends to come. this man felt it, consciously struggled against it, and overcame it. that the prison affected him is true. it always does. but he saved himself, essentially. society tried to destroy him, but failed. if people will read this book carefully it will tend to do away with prisons. the public, once vividly conscious of what prison life is and must be, would not be willing to maintain prisons. this is the only book that i know which goes deeply into the corrupting, demoralizing psychology of prison life. it shows, in picture after picture, sketch after sketch, not only the obvious brutality, stupidity, ugliness permeating the institution, but, very touching, it shows the good qualities and instincts of the human heart perverted, demoralized, helplessly struggling for life; beautiful tendencies basely expressing themselves. and the personality of berkman goes through it all; idealistic, courageous, uncompromising, sincere, truthful; not untouched, as i have said, by his surroundings, but remaining his essential self. what lessons there are in this book! like all truthful documents it makes us love and hate our fellow men, doubt ourselves, doubt our society, tends to make us take a strenuous, serious attitude towards life, and not be too quick to judge, without going into a situation painfully, carefully. it tends to complicate the present simplicity of our moral attitudes. it tends to make us more mature. the above are the main reasons why i should like to have everybody read this book. but there are other aspects of the book which are interesting and valuable in a more special, more limited way; aspects in which only comparatively few persons will be interested, and which will arouse the opposition and hostility of many. the russian nihilistic origin of berkman, his anarchistic experience in america, his attempt on the life of frick--an attempt made at a violent industrial crisis, an attempt made as a result of a sincere if fanatical belief that he was called on by his destiny to strike a psychological blow for the oppressed of the community--this part of the book will arouse extreme disagreement and disapproval of his ideas and his act. but i see no reason why this, with the rest, should not rather be regarded as an integral part of a human document, as part of the record of a life, with its social and psychological suggestions and explanations. why not try to understand an honest man even if he feels called on to kill? there, too, it may be deeply instructive. there, too, it has its lessons. read it not in a combative spirit. read to understand. do not read to agree, of course, but read to see. hutchins hapgood. contents chapter page part i: the awakening and its toll i. the call of homestead ii. the seat of war iii. the spirit of pittsburgh iv. the attentat v. the third degree vi. the jail vii. the trial part ii: the penitentiary i. desperate thoughts ii. the will to live iii. spectral silence iv. a ray of light v. the shop vi. my first letter vii. wingie viii. to the girl ix. persecution x. the yegg xi. the route sub rosa xii. "zuchthausbluethen" xiii. the judas xiv. the dip xv. the urge of sex xvi. the warden's threat xvii. the "basket" cell xviii. the solitary xix. memory-guests xx. a day in the cell-house xxi. the deeds of the good to the evil xxii. the grist of the prison-mill xxiii. the scales of justice xxiv. thoughts that stole out of prison xxv. how shall the depths cry? xxvi. hiding the evidence xxvii. love's dungeon flower xxviii. for safety xxix. dreams of freedom xxx. whitewashed again xxxi. "and by all forgot, we rot and rot" xxxii. the deviousness of reform law applied xxxiii. the tunnel xxxiv. the death of dick xxxv. an alliance with the birds xxxvi. the underground xxxvii. anxious days xxxviii. "how men their brothers maim" xxxix. a new plan of escape xl. done to death xli. the shock at buffalo xlii. marred lives xliii. "passing the love of woman" xliv. love's daring xlv. the bloom of "the barren staff" xlvi. a child's heart-hunger xlvii. chum xlviii. last days part iii: the workhouse part iv: the resurrection illustrations alexander berkman (frontispiece) the author at the time of the homestead strike western penitentiary of pennsylvania facsimile of prison letter "zuchthausbluethen" cell ranges the tunnel part i the awakening and its toll [illustration] chapter i the call of homestead i clearly every detail of that day is engraved on my mind. it is the sixth of july, . we are quietly sitting in the back of our little flat--fedya and i--when suddenly the girl enters. her naturally quick, energetic step sounds more than usually resolute. as i turn to her, i am struck by the peculiar gleam in her eyes and the heightened color. "have you read it?" she cries, waving the half-open newspaper. "what is it?" "homestead. strikers shot. pinkertons have killed women and children." she speaks in a quick, jerky manner. her words ring like the cry of a wounded animal, the melodious voice tinged with the harshness of bitterness--the bitterness of helpless agony. i take the paper from her hands. in growing excitement i read the vivid account of the tremendous struggle, the homestead strike, or, more correctly, the lockout. the report details the conspiracy on the part of the carnegie company to crush the amalgamated association of iron and steel workers; the selection, for the purpose, of henry clay frick, whose attitude toward labor is implacably hostile; his secret military preparations while designedly prolonging the peace negotiations with the amalgamated; the fortification of the homestead steel-works; the erection of a high board fence, capped by barbed wire and provided with loopholes for sharpshooters; the hiring of an army of pinkerton thugs; the attempt to smuggle them, in the dead of night, into homestead; and, finally, the terrible carnage. i pass the paper to fedya. the girl glances at me. we sit in silence, each busy with his own thoughts. only now and then we exchange a word, a searching, significant look. ii it is hot and stuffy in the train. the air is oppressive with tobacco smoke; the boisterous talk of the men playing cards near by annoys me. i turn to the window. the gust of perfumed air, laden with the rich aroma of fresh-mown hay, is soothingly invigorating. green woods and yellow fields circle in the distance, whirl nearer, close, then rush by, giving place to other circling fields and woods. the country looks young and alluring in the early morning sunshine. but my thoughts are busy with homestead. the great battle has been fought. never before, in all its history, has american labor won such a signal victory. by force of arms the workers of homestead have compelled three hundred pinkerton invaders to surrender, to surrender most humbly, ignominiously. what humiliating defeat for the powers that be! does not the pinkerton janizary represent organized authority, forever crushing the toiler in the interest of the exploiters? well may the enemies of the people be terrified at the unexpected awakening. but the people, the workers of america, have joyously acclaimed the rebellious manhood of homestead. the steel-workers were not the aggressors. resignedly they had toiled and suffered. out of their flesh and bone grew the great steel industry; on their blood fattened the powerful carnegie company. yet patiently they had waited for the promised greater share of the wealth they were creating. like a bolt from a clear sky came the blow: wages were to be reduced! peremptorily the steel magnates refused to continue the sliding scale previously agreed upon as a guarantee of peace. the carnegie firm challenged the amalgamated association by the submission of conditions which it knew the workers could not accept. foreseeing refusal, it flaunted warlike preparations to crush the union under the iron heel. perfidious carnegie shrank from the task, having recently proclaimed the gospel of good will and harmony. "i would lay it down as a maxim," he had declared, "that there is no excuse for a strike or a lockout until arbitration of differences has been offered by one party and refused by the other. the right of the workingmen to combine and to form trades-unions is no less sacred than the right of the manufacturer to enter into association and conference with his fellows, and it must sooner or later be conceded. manufacturers should meet their men _more than half-way_." with smooth words the great philanthropist had persuaded the workers to indorse the high tariff. every product of his mills protected, andrew carnegie secured a reduction in the duty on steel billets, in return for his generous contribution to the republican campaign fund. in complete control of the billet market, the carnegie firm engineered a depression of prices, as a seeming consequence of a lower duty. but _the market price of billets was the sole standard of wages in the homestead mills_. the wages of the workers must be reduced! the offer of the amalgamated association to arbitrate the new scale met with contemptuous refusal: there was nothing to arbitrate; the men must submit unconditionally; the union was to be exterminated. and carnegie selected henry c. frick, the bloody frick of the coke regions, to carry the program into execution. must the oppressed forever submit? the manhood of homestead rebelled: the millmen scorned the despotic ultimatum. then frick's hand fell. the war was on! indignation swept the country. throughout the land the tyrannical attitude of the carnegie company was bitterly denounced, the ruthless brutality of frick universally execrated. * * * * * i could no longer remain indifferent. the moment was urgent. the toilers of homestead had defied the oppressor. they were awakening. but as yet the steel-workers were only blindly rebellious. the vision of anarchism alone could imbue discontent with conscious revolutionary purpose; it alone could lend wings to the aspirations of labor. the dissemination of our ideas among the proletariat of homestead would illumine the great struggle, help to clarify the issues, and point the way to complete ultimate emancipation. * * * * * my days were feverish with anxiety. the stirring call, "labor, awaken!" would fire the hearts of the disinherited, and inspire them to noble deeds. it would carry to the oppressed the message of the new day, and prepare them for the approaching social revolution. homestead might prove the first blush of the glorious dawn. how i chafed at the obstacles my project encountered! unexpected difficulties impeded every step. the efforts to get the leaflet translated into popular english proved unavailing. it would endanger me to distribute such a fiery appeal, my friend remonstrated. impatiently i waived aside his objections. as if personal considerations could for an instant be weighed in the scale of the great cause! but in vain i argued and pleaded. and all the while precious moments were being wasted, and new obstacles barred the way. i rushed frantically from printer to compositor, begging, imploring. none dared print the appeal. and time was fleeting. suddenly flashed the news of the pinkerton carnage. the world stood aghast. the time for speech was past. throughout the land the toilers echoed the defiance of the men of homestead. the steel-workers had rallied bravely to the defence; the murderous pinkertons were driven from the city. but loudly called the blood of mammon's victims on the hanks of the monongahela. loudly it calls. it is the people calling. ah, the people! the grand, mysterious, yet so near and real, people.... * * * * * in my mind i see myself back in the little russian college town, amid the circle of petersburg students, home for their vacation, surrounded by the halo of that vague and wonderful something we called "nihilist." the rushing train, homestead, the five years passed in america, all turn into a mist, hazy with the distance of unreality, of centuries; and again i sit among superior beings, reverently listening to the impassioned discussion of dimly understood high themes, with the oft-recurring refrain of "bazarov, hegel, liberty, chernishevsky, _v naród_." to the people! to the beautiful, simple people, so noble in spite of centuries of brutalizing suffering! like a clarion call the note rings in my ears, amidst the din of contending views and obscure phraseology. the people! my greek mythology moods have often pictured him to me as the mighty atlas, supporting on his shoulders the weight of the world, his back bent, his face the mirror of unutterable misery, in his eye the look of hopeless anguish, the dumb, pitiful appeal for help. ah, to help this helplessly suffering giant, to lighten his burden! the way is obscure, the means uncertain, but in the heated student debate the note rings clear: to the people, become one of them, share their joys and sorrows, and thus you will teach them. yes, that is the solution! but what is that red-headed misha from odessa saying? "it is all good and well about going to the people, but the energetic men of the deed, the rakhmetovs, blaze the path of popular revolution by individual acts of revolt against--" * * * * * "ticket, please!" a heavy hand is on my shoulder. with an effort i realize the situation. the card-players are exchanging angry words. with a deft movement the conductor unhooks the board, and calmly walks away with it under his arm. a roar of laughter greets the players. twitted by the other passengers, they soon subside, and presently the car grows quiet. i have difficulty in keeping myself from falling back into reverie. i must form a definite plan of action. my purpose is quite clear to me. a tremendous struggle is taking place at homestead: the people are manifesting the right spirit in resisting tyranny and invasion. my heart exults. this is, at last, what i have always hoped for from the american workingman: once aroused, he will brook no interference; he will fight all obstacles, and conquer even more than his original demands. it is the spirit of the heroic past reincarnated in the steel-workers of homestead, pennsylvania. what supreme joy to aid in this work! that is my natural mission. i feel the strength of a great undertaking. no shadow of doubt crosses my mind. the people--the toilers of the world, the producers--comprise, to me, the universe. they alone count. the rest are parasites, who have no right to exist. but to the people belongs the earth--by right, if not in fact. to make it so in fact, all means are justifiable; nay, advisable, even to the point of taking life. the question of moral right in such matters often agitated the revolutionary circles i used to frequent. i had always taken the extreme view. the more radical the treatment, i held, the quicker the cure. society is a patient; sick constitutionally and functionally. surgical treatment is often imperative. the removal of a tyrant is not merely justifiable; it is the highest duty of every true revolutionist. human life is, indeed, sacred and inviolate. but the killing of a tyrant, of an enemy of the people, is in no way to be considered as the taking of a life. a revolutionist would rather perish a thousand times than be guilty of what is ordinarily called murder. in truth, murder and _attentat_[ ] are to me opposite terms. to remove a tyrant is an act of liberation, the giving of life and opportunity to an oppressed people. true, the cause often calls upon the revolutionist to commit an unpleasant act; but it is the test of a true revolutionist--nay, more, his pride--to sacrifice all merely human feeling at the call of the people's cause. if the latter demand his life, so much the better. [ ] an act of political assassination. could anything be nobler than to die for a grand, a sublime cause? why, the very life of a true revolutionist has no other purpose, no significance whatever, save to sacrifice it on the altar of the beloved people. and what could be higher in life than to be a true revolutionist? it is to be a _man_, a complete man. a being who has neither personal interests nor desires above the necessities of the cause; one who has emancipated himself from being merely human, and has risen above that, even to the height of conviction which excludes all doubt, all regret; in short, one who in the very inmost of his soul feels himself revolutionist first, human afterwards. * * * * * such a revolutionist i feel myself to be. indeed, far more so than even the extreme radicals of my own circle. my mind reverts to a characteristic incident in connection with the poet edelstadt. it was in new york, about the year . edelstadt, one of the tenderest of souls, was beloved by every one in our circle, the _pioneers of liberty_, the first jewish anarchist organization on american soil. one evening the closer personal friends of edelstadt met to consider plans for aiding the sick poet. it was decided to send our comrade to denver, some one suggesting that money be drawn for the purpose from the revolutionary treasury. i objected. though a dear, personal friend of edelstadt, and his former roommate, i could not allow--i argued--that funds belonging to the movement be devoted to private purposes, however good and even necessary those might be. the strong disapproval of my sentiments i met with this challenge: "do you mean to help edelstadt, the poet and man, or edelstadt the revolutionist? do you consider him a true, active revolutionist? his poetry is beautiful, indeed, and may indirectly even prove of some propagandistic value. aid our friend with your private funds, if you will; but no money from the movement can be given, except for direct revolutionary activity." * * * * * "do you mean that the poet is less to you than the revolutionist?" i was asked by tikhon, a young medical student, whom we playfully dubbed "lingg," because of his rather successful affectation of the celebrated revolutionist's physical appearance. "i am revolutionist first, man afterwards," i replied, with conviction. "you are either a knave or a hero," he retorted. * * * * * "lingg" was quite right. he could not know me. to his _bourgeois_ mind, for all his imitation of the chicago martyr, my words must have sounded knavish. well, some day he may know which i am, knave or revolutionist. i do not think in the term "hero," for though the type of revolutionist i feel myself to be might popularly be so called, the word has no significance for me. it merely means a revolutionist who does his duty. there is no heroism in that: it is neither more nor less than a revolutionist should do. rakhmetov did more, too much. in spite of my great admiration for chernishevsky, who had so strongly influenced the russian youth of my time, i can not suppress the touch of resentment i feel because the author of "what's to be done?" represented his arch-revolutionist rakhmetov as going through a system of unspeakable, self-inflicted torture to prepare himself for future exigencies. it was a sign of weakness. does a real revolutionist need to prepare himself, to steel his nerves and harden his body? i feel it almost a personal insult, this suggestion of the revolutionist's mere human clay. no, the thorough revolutionist needs no such self-doubting preparations. for i know _i_ do not need them. the feeling is quite impersonal, strange as it may seem. my own individuality is entirely in the background; aye, i am not conscious of any personality in matters pertaining to the cause. i am simply a revolutionist, a terrorist by conviction, an instrument for furthering the cause of humanity; in short, a rakhmetov. indeed, i shall assume that name upon my arrival in pittsburgh. * * * * * the piercing shrieks of the locomotive awake me with a start. my first thought is of my wallet, containing important addresses of allegheny comrades, which i was trying to memorize when i must have fallen asleep. the wallet is gone! for a moment i am overwhelmed with terror. what if it is lost? suddenly my foot touches something soft. i pick it up, feeling tremendously relieved to find all the contents safe: the precious addresses, a small newspaper lithograph of frick, and a dollar bill. my joy at recovering the wallet is not a whit dampened by the meagerness of my funds. the dollar will do to get a room in a hotel for the first night, and in the morning i'll look up nold or bauer. they will find a place for me to stay a day or two. "i won't remain there long," i think, with an inward smile. * * * * * we are nearing washington, d. c. the train is to make a six-hour stop there. i curse the stupidity of the delay: something may be happening in pittsburgh or homestead. besides, no time is to be lost in striking a telling blow, while public sentiment is aroused at the atrocities of the carnegie company, the brutality of frick. yet my irritation is strangely dispelled by the beautiful picture that greets my eye as i step from the train. the sun has risen, a large ball of deep red, pouring a flood of gold upon the capitol. the cupola rears its proud head majestically above the pile of stone and marble. like a living thing the light palpitates, trembling with passion to kiss the uppermost peak, striking it with blinding brilliancy, and then spreading in a broadening embrace down the shoulders of the towering giant. the amber waves entwine its flanks with soft caresses, and then rush on, to right and left, wider and lower, flashing upon the stately trees, dallying amid leaves and branches, finally unfolding themselves over the broad avenue, and ever growing more golden and generous as they scatter. and cupola-headed giant, stately trees, and broad avenue quiver with new-born ecstasy, all nature heaves the contented sigh of bliss, and nestles closer to the golden giver of life. * * * * * at this moment i realize, as perhaps never before, the great joy, the surpassing gladness, of being. but in a trice the picture changes. before my eyes rises the monongahela river, carrying barges filled with armed men. and i hear a shot. a boy falls to the gangplank. the blood gushes from the centre of his forehead. the hole ploughed by the bullet yawns black on the crimson face. cries and wailing ring in my ears. i see men running toward the river, and women kneeling by the side of the dead. the horrible vision revives in my mind a similar incident, lived through in imagination before. it was the sight of an executed nihilist. the nihilists! how much of their precious blood has been shed, how many thousands of them line the road of russia's suffering! inexpressibly near and soul-kin i feel to those men and women, the adored, mysterious ones of my youth, who had left wealthy homes and high station to "go to the people," to become one with them, though despised by all whom they held dear, persecuted and ridiculed even by the benighted objects of their great sacrifice. clearly there flashes out upon my memory my first impression of nihilist russia. i had just passed my second year's gymnasium examinations. overflowing with blissful excitement, i rushed into the house to tell mother the joyful news. how happy it will make her! next week will be my twelfth birthday, but mother need give me no present. i have one for her, instead. "mamma, mamma!" i called, when suddenly i caught her voice, raised in anger. something has happened, i thought; mother never speaks so loudly. something very peculiar, i felt, noticing the door leading from the broad hallway to the dining-room closed, contrary to custom. in perturbation i hesitated at the door. "shame on you, nathan," i heard my mother's voice, "to condemn your own brother because he is a nihilist. you are no better than"--her voice fell to a whisper, but my straining ear distinctly caught the dread word, uttered with hatred and fear--"a _palátch_."[ ] [ ] hangman. i was struck with terror. mother's tone, my rich uncle nathan's unwonted presence at our house, the fearful word _palátch_--something awful must have happened. i tiptoed out of the hallway, and ran to my room. trembling with fear, i threw myself on the bed. what has the _palátch_ done? i moaned. "_your_ brother," she had said to uncle. her own youngest brother, my favorite uncle maxim. oh, what has happened to him? my excited imagination conjured up horrible visions. there stood the powerful figure of the giant _palátch_, all in black, his right arm bare to the shoulder, in his hand the uplifted ax. i could see the glimmer of the sharp steel as it began to descend, slowly, so torturingly slowly, while my heart ceased beating and my feverish eyes followed, bewitched, the glowing black coals in the _palátch's_ head. suddenly the two fiery eyes fused into a large ball of flaming red; the figure of the fearful one-eyed cyclop grew taller and stretched higher and higher, and everywhere was the giant--on all sides of me was he--then a sudden flash of steel, and in his monster hand i saw raised a head, cut close to the neck, its eyes incessantly blinking, the dark-red blood gushing from mouth and ears and throat. something looked ghastly familiar about that head with the broad white forehead and expressive mouth, so sweet and sad. "oh, maxim, maxim!" i cried, terror-stricken: the next moment a flood of passionate hatred of the _palátch_ seized me, and i rushed, head bent, toward the one-eyed monster. nearer and nearer i came,--another quick rush, and then the violent impact of my body struck him in the very centre, and he fell, forward and heavy, right upon me, and i felt his fearful weight crushing my arms, my chest, my head.... "sasha! sashenka! what is the matter, _golubchik_?" i recognize the sweet, tender voice of my mother, sounding far away and strange, then coming closer and growing more soothing. i open my eyes. mother is kneeling by the bed, her beautiful black eyes bathed in tears. passionately she showers kisses upon my face and hands, entreating: "_golubchik_, what is it?" "mamma, what happened to uncle maxim?" i ask, breathlessly watching her face. her sudden change of expression chills my heart with fear. she turns ghostly white, large drops of perspiration stand on her forehead, and her eyes grow large and round with terror. "mamma!" i cry, throwing my arms around her. her lips move, and i feel her warm breath on my cheek; but, without uttering a word, she bursts into vehement weeping. "who--told--you? you--know?" she whispers between sobs. * * * * * the pall of death seems to have descended upon our home. the house is oppressively silent. everybody walks about in slippers, and the piano is kept locked. only monosyllables, in undertone, are exchanged at the dinner-table. mother's seat remains vacant. she is very ill, the nurse informs us; no one is to see her. the situation bewilders me. i keep wondering what has happened to maxim. was my vision of the _palátch_ a presentiment, or the echo of an accomplished tragedy? vaguely i feel guilty of mother's illness. the shock of my question may be responsible for her condition. yet there must be more to it, i try to persuade my troubled spirit. one afternoon, finding my eldest brother maxim, named after mother's favorite brother, in a very cheerful mood, i call him aside and ask, in a boldly assumed confidential manner: "maximushka, tell me, what is a nihilist?" "go to the devil, _molokossoss_[ ] you!" he cries, angrily. with a show of violence, quite inexplicable to me, maxim throws his paper on the floor, jumps from his seat, upsetting the chair, and leaves the room. [ ] literally, milk-sucker. a contemptuous term applied to inexperienced youth. * * * * * the fate of uncle maxim remains a mystery, the question of nihilism unsolved. i am absorbed in my studies. yet a deep interest, curiosity about the mysterious and forbidden, slumbers in my consciousness, when quite unexpectedly it is roused into keen activity by a school incident. i am fifteen now, in the fourth grade of the classic gymnasium at kovno. by direction of the ministry of education, compulsory religious instruction is being introduced in the state schools. special classes have been opened at the gymnasium for the religious instruction of jewish pupils. the parents of the latter resent the innovation; almost every jewish child receives religious training at home or in _cheidar_.[ ] but the school authorities have ordered the gymnasiasts of jewish faith to attend classes in religion. [ ] schools for instruction in jewish religion and laws. the roll-call at the first session finds me missing. summoned before the director for an explanation, i state that i failed to attend because i have a private jewish tutor at home, and,--anyway, i do not believe in religion. the prim director looks inexpressibly shocked. "young man," he addresses me in the artificial guttural voice he affects on solemn occasions. "young man, when, permit me to ask, did you reach so profound a conclusion?" his manner disconcerts me; but the sarcasm of his words and the offensive tone rouse my resentment. impulsively, defiantly, i discover my cherished secret. "since i wrote the essay, 'there is no god,'" i reply, with secret exultation. but the next instant i realize the recklessness of my confession. i have a fleeting sense of coming trouble, at school and at home. yet somehow i feel i have acted like a _man_. uncle maxim, the nihilist, would act so in my position. i know his reputation for uncompromising candor, and love him for his bold, frank ways. "oh, that is interesting," i hear, as in a dream, the unpleasant guttural voice of the director. "when did you write it?" "three years ago." "how old were you then?" "twelve." "have you the essay?" "yes." "where?" "at home." "bring it to me to-morrow. without fail, remember." his voice grows stern. the words fall upon my ears with the harsh metallic sound of my sister's piano that memorable evening of our musicale when, in a spirit of mischief, i hid a piece of gas pipe in the instrument tuned for the occasion. "to-morrow, then. you are dismissed." the educational board, in conclave assembled, reads the essay. my disquisition is unanimously condemned. exemplary punishment is to be visited upon me for "precocious godlessness, dangerous tendencies, and insubordination." i am publicly reprimanded, and reduced to the third class. the peculiar sentence robs me of a year, and forces me to associate with the "children" my senior class looks down upon with undisguised contempt. i feel disgraced, humiliated. * * * * * thus vision chases vision, memory succeeds memory, while the interminable hours creep towards the afternoon, and the station clock drones like an endless old woman. iii over at last. "all aboard!" on and on rushes the engine, every moment bringing me nearer to my destination. the conductor drawling out the stations, the noisy going and coming produce almost no conscious impression on my senses. seeing and hearing every detail of my surroundings, i am nevertheless oblivious to them. faster than the train rushes my fancy, as if reviewing a panorama of vivid scenes, apparently without organic connection with each other, yet somehow intimately associated in my thoughts of the past. but how different is the present! i am speeding toward pittsburgh, the very heart of the industrial struggle of america. america! i dwell wonderingly on the unuttered sound. why in america? and again unfold pictures of old scenes. * * * * * i am walking in the garden of our well-appointed country place, in a fashionable suburb of st. petersburg, where the family generally spends the summer months. as i pass the veranda, dr. semeonov, the celebrated physician of the resort, steps out of the house and beckons to me. "alexander ossipovitch," he addresses me in his courtly manner, "your mother is very ill. are you alone with her?" "we have servants, and two nurses are in attendance," i reply. "to be sure, to be sure," the shadow of a smile hovers about the corners of his delicately chiseled lips. "i mean of the family." "oh, yes! i am alone here with my mother." "your mother is rather restless to-day, alexander ossipovitch. could you sit up with her to-night?" "certainly, certainly," i quickly assent, wondering at the peculiar request. mother has been improving, the nurses have assured me. my presence at her bedside may prove irksome to her. our relations have been strained since the day when, in a fit of anger, she slapped rose, our new chambermaid, whereupon i resented mother's right to inflict physical punishment on the servants. i can see her now, erect and haughty, facing me across the dinner-table, her eyes ablaze with indignation. "you forget you are speaking to your mother, al-ex-an-der"; she pronounces the name in four distinct syllables, as is her habit when angry with me. "you have no right to strike the girl," i retort, defiantly. "you forget yourself. my treatment of the menial is no concern of yours." i cannot suppress the sharp reply that springs to my lips: "the low servant girl is as good as you." i see mother's long, slender fingers grasp the heavy ladle, and the next instant a sharp pain pierces my left hand. our eyes meet. her arm remains motionless, her gaze directed to the spreading blood stain on the white table-cloth. the ladle falls from her hand. she closes her eyes, and her body sinks limply to the chair. anger and humiliation extinguish my momentary impulse to rush to her assistance. without uttering a word, i pick up the heavy saltcellar, and fling it violently against the french mirror. at the crash of the glass my mother opens her eyes in amazement. i rise and leave the house. * * * * * my heart beats fast as i enter mother's sick-room. i fear she may resent my intrusion: the shadow of the past stands between us. but she is lying quietly on the bed, and has apparently not noticed my entrance. i sit down at the bedside. a long time passes in silence. mother seems to be asleep. it is growing dark in the room, and i settle down to pass the night in the chair. suddenly i hear "sasha!" called in a weak, faint voice. i bend over her. "drink of water." as i hold the glass to her lips, she slightly turns away her head, saying very low, "ice water, please." i start to leave the room. "sasha!" i hear behind me, and, quickly tiptoeing to the bed, i bring my face closely, very closely to hers, to catch the faint words: "help me turn to the wall." tenderly i wrap my arms around the weak, emaciated body, and an overpowering longing seizes me to touch her hand with my lips and on my knees beg her forgiveness. i feel so near to her, my heart is overflowing with compassion and love. but i dare not kiss her--we have become estranged. affectionately i hold her in my arms for just the shadow of a second, dreading lest she suspect the storm of emotion raging within me. caressingly i turn her to the wall, and, as i slowly withdraw, i feel as if some mysterious, yet definite, something has at the very instant left her body. in a few minutes i return with a glass of ice water. i hold it to her lips, but she seems oblivious of my presence. "she cannot have gone to sleep so quickly," i wonder. "mother!" i call, softly. no reply. "little mother! mamotchka!" she does not appear to hear me. "dearest, _golubchick_!" i cry, in a paroxysm of sudden fear, pressing my hot lips upon her face. then i become conscious of an arm upon my shoulder, and hear the measured voice of the doctor: "my boy, you must bear up. she is at rest." iv "wake up, young feller! whatcher sighin' for?" bewildered i turn around to meet the coarse, yet not unkindly, face of a swarthy laborer in the seat back of me. "oh, nothing; just dreaming," i reply. not wishing to encourage conversation, i pretend to become absorbed in my book. how strange is the sudden sound of english! almost as suddenly had i been transplanted to american soil. six months passed after my mother's death. threatened by the educational authorities with a "wolf's passport" on account of my "dangerous tendencies"--which would close every professional avenue to me, in spite of my otherwise very satisfactory standing--the situation aggravated by a violent quarrel with my guardian, uncle nathan, i decided to go to america. there, beyond the ocean, was the land of noble achievement, a glorious free country, where men walked erect in the full stature of manhood,--the very realization of my youthful dreams. and now i am in america, the blessed land. the disillusionment, the disappointments, the vain struggles!... the kaleidoscope of my brain unfolds them all before my view. now i see myself on a bench in union square park, huddled close to fedya and mikhail, my roommates. the night wind sweeps across the cheerless park, chilling us to the bone. i feel hungry and tired, fagged out by the day's fruitless search for work. my heart sinks within me as i glance at my friends. "nothing," each had morosely reported at our nightly meeting, after the day's weary tramp. fedya groans in uneasy sleep, his hand groping about his knees. i pick up the newspaper that had fallen under the seat, spread it over his legs, and tuck the ends underneath. but a sudden blast tears the paper away, and whirls it off into the darkness. as i press fedya's hat down on his head, i am struck by his ghastly look. how these few weeks have changed the plump, rosy-cheeked youth! poor fellow, no one wants his labor. how his mother would suffer if she knew that her carefully reared boy passes the nights in the.... what is that pain i feel? some one is bending over me, looming unnaturally large in the darkness. half-dazed i see an arm swing to and fro, with short, semicircular backward strokes, and with every movement i feel a sharp sting, as of a lash. oh, it's in my soles! bewildered i spring to my feet. a rough hand grabs me by the throat, and i face a policeman. "are you thieves?" he bellows. mikhail replies, sleepily: "we russians. want work." "git out o' here! off with you!" quickly, silently, we walk away, fedya and i in front, mikhail limping behind us. the dimly lighted streets are deserted, save for a hurrying figure here and there, closely wrapped, flitting mysteriously around the corner. columns of dust rise from the gray pavements, are caught up by the wind, rushed to some distance, then carried in a spiral upwards, to be followed by another wave of choking dust. from somewhere a tantalizing odor reaches my nostrils. "the bakery on second street," fedya remarks. unconsciously our steps quicken. shoulders raised, heads bent, and shivering, we keep on to the lower bowery. mikhail is steadily falling behind. "dammit, i feel bad," he says, catching up with us, as we step into an open hallway. a thorough inspection of our pockets reveals the possession of twelve cents, all around. mikhail is to go to bed, we decide, handing him a dime. the cigarettes purchased for the remaining two cents are divided equally, each taking a few puffs of the "fourth" in the box. fedya and i sleep on the steps of the city hall. * * * * * "pitt-s-burgh! pitt-s-burgh!" the harsh cry of the conductor startles me with the violence of a shock. impatient as i am of the long journey, the realization that i have reached my destination comes unexpectedly, overwhelming me with the dread of unpreparedness. in a flurry i gather up my things, but, noticing that the other passengers keep their places, i precipitately resume my seat, fearful lest my agitation be noticed. to hide my confusion, i turn to the open window. thick clouds of smoke overcast the sky, shrouding the morning with sombre gray. the air is heavy with soot and cinders; the smell is nauseating. in the distance, giant furnaces vomit pillars of fire, the lurid flashes accentuating a line of frame structures, dilapidated and miserable. they are the homes of the workers who have created the industrial glory of pittsburgh, reared its millionaires, its carnegies and fricks. the sight fills me with hatred of the perverse social justice that turns the needs of mankind into an inferno of brutalizing toil. it robs man of his soul, drives the sunshine from his life, degrades him lower than the beasts, and between the millstones of divine bliss and hellish torture grinds flesh and blood into iron and steel, transmutes human lives into gold, gold, countless gold. the great, noble people! but is it really great and noble to be slaves and remain content? no, no! they are awakening, awakening! chapter ii the seat of war contentedly peaceful the monongahela stretches before me, its waters lazily rippling in the sunlight, and softly crooning to the murmur of the woods on the hazy shore. but the opposite bank presents a picture of sharp contrast. near the edge of the river rises a high board fence, topped with barbed wire, the menacing aspect heightened by warlike watch-towers and ramparts. the sinister wall looks down on me with a thousand hollow eyes, whose evident murderous purpose fully justifies the name of "fort frick." groups of excited people crowd the open spaces between the river and the fort, filling the air with the confusion of many voices. men carrying winchesters are hurrying by, their faces grimy, eyes bold yet anxious. from the mill-yard gape the black mouths of cannon, dismantled breastworks bar the passages, and the ground is strewn with burning cinders, empty shells, oil barrels, broken furnace stacks, and piles of steel and iron. the place looks the aftermath of a sanguinary conflict,--the symbol of our industrial life, of the ruthless struggle in which the _stronger_, the sturdy man of labor, is always the victim, because he acts _weakly_. but the charred hulks of the pinkerton barges at the landing-place, and the blood-bespattered gangplank, bear mute witness that for once the battle went to the _really strong, to the victim who dared_. a group of workingmen approaches me. big, stalwart men, the power of conscious strength in their step and bearing. each of them carries a weapon: some winchesters, others shotguns. in the hand of one i notice the gleaming barrel of a navy revolver. "who are you?" the man with the revolver sternly asks me. "a friend, a visitor." "can you show credentials or a union card?" presently, satisfied as to my trustworthiness, they allow me to proceed. in one of the mill-yards i come upon a dense crowd of men and women of various types: the short, broad-faced slav, elbowing his tall american fellow-striker; the swarthy italian, heavy-mustached, gesticulating and talking rapidly to a cluster of excited countrymen. the people are surging about a raised platform, on which stands a large, heavy man. i press forward. "listen, gentlemen, listen!" i hear the speaker's voice. "just a few words, gentlemen! you all know who i am, don't you?" "yes, yes, sheriff!" several men cry. "go on!" "yes," continues the speaker, "you all know who i am. your sheriff, the sheriff of allegheny county, of the great commonwealth of pennsylvania." "go ahead!" some one yells, impatiently. "if you don't interrupt me, gentlemen, i'll go ahead." "s-s-sh! order!" the speaker advances to the edge of the platform. "men of homestead! it is my sworn duty, as sheriff, to preserve the peace. your city is in a state of lawlessness. i have asked the governor to send the militia and i hope--" "no! no!" many voices protest. "to hell with you!" the tumult drowns the words of the sheriff. shaking his clenched fist, his foot stamping the platform, he shouts at the crowd, but his voice is lost amid the general uproar. "o'donnell! o'donnell!" comes from several sides, the cry swelling into a tremendous chorus, "o'donnell!" i see the popular leader of the strike nimbly ascend the platform. the assembly becomes hushed. "brothers," o'donnell begins in a flowing, ingratiating manner, "we have won a great, noble victory over the company. we have driven the pinkerton invaders out of our city--" "damn the murderers!" "silence! order!" "you have won a big victory," o'donnell continues, "a great, significant victory, such as was never before known in the history of labor's struggle for better conditions." vociferous cheering interrupts the speaker. "but," he continues, "you must show the world that you desire to maintain peace and order along with your rights. the pinkertons were invaders. we defended our homes and drove them out; rightly so. but you are law-abiding citizens. you respect the law and the authority of the state. public opinion will uphold you in your struggle if you act right. now is the time, friends!" he raises his voice in waxing enthusiasm, "now is the time! welcome the soldiers. they are not sent by that man frick. they are the people's militia. they are our friends. let us welcome them as friends!" applause, mixed with cries of impatient disapproval, greets the exhortation. arms are raised in angry argument, and the crowd sways back and forth, breaking into several excited groups. presently a tall, dark man appears on the platform. his stentorian voice gradually draws the assembly closer to the front. slowly the tumult subsides. "don't you believe it, men!" the speaker shakes his finger at the audience, as if to emphasize his warning. "don't you believe that the soldiers are coming as friends. soft words these, mr. o'donnell. they'll cost us dear. remember what i say, brothers. the soldiers are no friends of ours. i know what i am talking about. they are coming here because that damned murderer frick wants them." "hear! hear!" "yes!" the tall man continues, his voice quivering with emotion, "i can tell you just how it is. the scoundrel of a sheriff there asked the governor for troops, and that damned frick paid the sheriff to do it, i say!" "no! yes! no!" the clamor is renewed, but i can hear the speaker's voice rising above the din: "yes, bribed him. you all know this cowardly sheriff. don't you let the soldiers come, i tell you. first _they_'ll come; then the blacklegs. you want 'em?" "no! no!" roars the crowd. "well, if you don't want the damned scabs, keep out the soldiers, you understand? if you don't, they'll drive you out from the homes you have paid for with your blood. you and your wives and children they'll drive out, and out you will go from these"--the speaker points in the direction of the mills--"that's what they'll do, if you don't look out. we have sweated and bled in these mills, our brothers have been killed and maimed there, we have made the damned company rich, and now they send the soldiers here to shoot us down like the pinkerton thugs have tried to. and you want to welcome the murderers, do you? keep them out, i tell you!" amid shouts and yells the speaker leaves the platform. "mcluckie! 'honest' mcluckie!" a voice is heard on the fringe of the crowd, and as one man the assembly takes up the cry, "'honest' mcluckie!" i am eager to see the popular burgess of homestead, himself a poorly paid employee of the carnegie company. a large-boned, good-natured-looking workingman elbows his way to the front, the men readily making way for him with nods and pleasant smiles. "i haven't prepared any speech," the burgess begins haltingly, "but i want to say, i don't see how you are going to fight the soldiers. there is a good deal of truth in what the brother before me said; but if you stop to think on it, he forgot to tell you just one little thing. the _how_? how is he going to do it, to keep the soldiers out? that's what i'd like to know. i'm afraid it's bad to let them in. the blacklegs _might_ be hiding in the rear. but then again, it's bad _not_ to let the soldiers in. you can't stand up against 'em: they are not pinkertons. and we can't fight the government of pennsylvania. perhaps the governor won't send the militia. but if he does, i reckon the best way for us will be to make friends with them. guess it's the only thing we can do. that's all i have to say." the assembly breaks up, dejected, dispirited. chapter iii the spirit of pittsburgh i like a gigantic hive the twin cities jut out on the banks of the ohio, heavily breathing the spirit of feverish activity, and permeating the atmosphere with the rage of life. ceaselessly flow the streams of human ants, meeting and diverging, their paths crossing and recrossing, leaving in their trail a thousand winding passages, mounds of structure, peaked and domed. their huge shadows overcast the yellow thread of gleaming river that curves and twists its painful way, now hugging the shore, now hiding in affright, and again timidly stretching its arms toward the wrathful monsters that belch fire and smoke into the midst of the giant hive. and over the whole is spread the gloom of thick fog, oppressive and dispiriting--the symbol of our existence, with all its darkness and cold. this is pittsburgh, the heart of american industrialism, whose spirit moulds the life of the great nation. the spirit of pittsburgh, the iron city! cold as steel, hard as iron, its products. these are the keynote of the great republic, dominating all other chords, sacrificing harmony to noise, beauty to bulk. its torch of liberty is a furnace fire, consuming, destroying, devastating: a country-wide furnace, in which the bones and marrow of the producers, their limbs and bodies, their health and blood, are cast into bessemer steel, rolled into armor plate, and converted into engines of murder to be consecrated to mammon by his high priests, the carnegies, the fricks. * * * * * the spirit of the iron city characterizes the negotiations carried on between the carnegie company and the homestead men. henry clay frick, in absolute control of the firm, incarnates the spirit of the furnace, is the living emblem of his trade. the olive branch held out by the workers after their victory over the pinkertons has been refused. the ultimatum issued by frick is the last word of caesar: the union of the steel-workers is to be crushed, completely and absolutely, even at the cost of shedding the blood of the last man in homestead; the company will deal only with individual workers, who must accept the terms offered, without question or discussion; he, frick, will operate the mills with non-union labor, even if it should require the combined military power of the state and the union to carry the plan into execution. millmen disobeying the order to return to work under the new schedule of reduced wages are to be discharged forthwith, and evicted from the company houses. ii in an obscure alley, in the town of homestead, there stands a one-story frame house, looking old and forlorn. it is occupied by the widow johnson and her four small children. six months ago, the breaking of a crane buried her husband under two hundred tons of metal. when the body was carried into the house, the distracted woman refused to recognize in the mangled remains her big, strong "jack." for weeks the neighborhood resounded with her frenzied cry, "my husband! where's my husband?" but the loving care of kind-hearted neighbors has now somewhat restored the poor woman's reason. accompanied by her four little orphans, she recently gained admittance to mr. frick. on her knees she implored him not to drive her out of her home. her poor husband was dead, she pleaded; she could not pay off the mortgage; the children were too young to work; she herself was hardly able to walk. frick was very kind, she thought; he had promised to see what could be done. she would not listen to the neighbors urging her to sue the company for damages. "the crane was rotten," her husband's friends informed her; "the government inspector had condemned it." but mr. frick was kind, and surely he knew best about the crane. did he not say it was her poor husband's own carelessness? she feels very thankful to good mr. frick for extending the mortgage. she had lived in such mortal dread lest her own little home, where dear john had been such a kind husband to her, be taken away, and her children driven into the street. she must never forget to ask the lord's blessing upon the good mr. frick. every day she repeats to her neighbors the story of her visit to the great man; how kindly he received her, how simply he talked with her. "just like us folks," the widow says. she is now telling the wonderful story to neighbor mary, the hunchback, who, with undiminished interest, hears the recital for the twentieth time. it reflects such importance to know some one that had come in intimate contact with the iron king; why, into his very presence! and even talked to the great magnate! "'dear mr. frick,' says i," the widow is narrating, "'dear mr. frick,' i says, 'look at my poor little angels--'" a knock on the door interrupts her. "must be one-eyed kate," the widow observes. "come in! come in!" she calls out, cheerfully. "poor kate!" she remarks with a sigh. "her man's got the consumption. won't last long, i fear." a tall, rough-looking man stands in the doorway. behind him appear two others. frightened, the widow rises from the chair. one of the children begins to cry, and runs to hide behind his mother. "beg pard'n, ma'am," the tall man says. "have no fear. we are deputy sheriffs. read this." he produces an official-looking paper. "ordered to dispossess you. very sorry, ma'am, but get ready. quick, got a dozen more of--" there is a piercing scream. the deputy sheriff catches the limp body of the widow in his arms. iii east end, the fashionable residence quarter of pittsburgh, lies basking in the afternoon sun. the broad avenue looks cool and inviting: the stately trees touch their shadows across the carriage road, gently nodding their heads in mutual approval. a steady procession of equipages fills the avenue, the richly caparisoned horses and uniformed flunkies lending color and life to the scene. a cavalcade is passing me. the laughter of the ladies sounds joyous and care-free. their happiness irritates me. i am thinking of homestead. in mind i see the sombre fence, the fortifications and cannon; the piteous figure of the widow rises before me, the little children weeping, and again i hear the anguished cry of a broken heart, a shattered brain.... and here all is joy and laughter. the gentlemen seem pleased; the ladies are happy. why should they concern themselves with misery and want? the common folk are fit only to be their slaves, to feed and clothe them, build these beautiful palaces, and be content with the charitable crust. "take what i give you," frick commands. why, here is his house! a luxurious place, with large garden, barns, and stable. that stable there,--it is more cheerful and habitable than the widow's home. ah, life could be made livable, beautiful! why should it not be? why so much misery and strife? sunshine, flowers, beautiful things are all around me. that is life! joy and peace.... no! there can be no peace with such as frick and these parasites in carriages riding on our backs, and sucking the blood of the workers. fricks, vampires, all of them--i almost shout aloud--they are all one class. all in a cabal against _my_ class, the toilers, the producers. an impersonal conspiracy, perhaps; but a conspiracy nevertheless. and the fine ladies on horseback smile and laugh. what is the misery of the people to _them?_ probably they are laughing at me. laugh! laugh! you despise me. i am of the people, but you belong to the fricks. well, it may soon be our turn to laugh.... * * * * * returning to pittsburgh in the evening, i learn that the conferences between the carnegie company and the advisory committee of the strikers have terminated in the final refusal of frick to consider the demands of the millmen. the last hope is gone! the master is determined to crush his rebellious slaves. chapter iv the attentat the door of frick's private office, to the left of the reception-room, swings open as the colored attendant emerges, and i catch a flitting glimpse of a black-bearded, well-knit figure at a table in the back of the room. "mistah frick is engaged. he can't see you now, sah," the negro says, handing back my card. i take the pasteboard, return it to my case, and walk slowly out of the reception-room. but quickly retracing my steps, i pass through the gate separating the clerks from the visitors, and, brushing the astounded attendant aside, i step into the office on the left, and find myself facing frick. for an instant the sunlight, streaming through the windows, dazzles me. i discern two men at the further end of the long table. "fr--," i begin. the look of terror on his face strikes me speechless. it is the dread of the conscious presence of death. "he understands," it flashes through my mind. with a quick motion i draw the revolver. as i raise the weapon, i see frick clutch with both hands the arm of the chair, and attempt to rise. i aim at his head. "perhaps he wears armor," i reflect. with a look of horror he quickly averts his face, as i pull the trigger. there is a flash, and the high-ceilinged room reverberates as with the booming of cannon. i hear a sharp, piercing cry, and see frick on his knees, his head against the arm of the chair. i feel calm and possessed, intent upon every movement of the man. he is lying head and shoulders under the large armchair, without sound or motion. "dead?" i wonder. i must make sure. about twenty-five feet separate us. i take a few steps toward him, when suddenly the other man, whose presence i had quite forgotten, leaps upon me. i struggle to loosen his hold. he looks slender and small. i would not hurt him: i have no business with him. suddenly i hear the cry, "murder! help!" my heart stands still as i realize that it is frick shouting. "alive?" i wonder. i hurl the stranger aside and fire at the crawling figure of frick. the man struck my hand,--i have missed! he grapples with me, and we wrestle across the room. i try to throw him, but spying an opening between his arm and body, i thrust the revolver against his side and aim at frick, cowering behind the chair. i pull the trigger. there is a click--but no explosion! by the throat i catch the stranger, still clinging to me, when suddenly something heavy strikes me on the back of the head. sharp pains shoot through my eyes. i sink to the floor, vaguely conscious of the weapon slipping from my hands. "where is the hammer? hit him, carpenter!" confused voices ring in my ears. painfully i strive to rise. the weight of many bodies is pressing on me. now--it's frick's voice! not dead?... i crawl in the direction of the sound, dragging the struggling men with me. i must get the dagger from my pocket--i have it! repeatedly i strike with it at the legs of the man near the window. i hear frick cry out in pain--there is much shouting and stamping--my arms are pulled and twisted, and i am lifted bodily from the floor. police, clerks, workmen in overalls, surround me. an officer pulls my head back by the hair, and my eyes meet frick's. he stands in front of me, supported by several men. his face is ashen gray; the black beard is streaked with red, and blood is oozing from his neck. for an instant a strange feeling, as of shame, comes over me; but the next moment i am filled with anger at the sentiment, so unworthy of a revolutionist. with defiant hatred i look him full in the face. "mr. frick, do you identify this man as your assailant?" frick nods weakly. * * * * * the street is lined with a dense, excited crowd. a young man in civilian dress, who is accompanying the police, inquires, not unkindly: "are you hurt? you're bleeding." i pass my hand over my face. i feel no pain, but there is a peculiar sensation about my eyes. "i've lost my glasses," i remark, involuntarily. "you'll be damn lucky if you don't lose your head," an officer retorts. chapter v the third degree i the clanking of the keys grows fainter and fainter; the sound of footsteps dies away. the officers are gone. it is a relief to be alone. their insolent looks and stupid questions, insinuations and threats,--how disgusting and tiresome it all is! a sense of complete indifference possesses me. i stretch myself out on the wooden bench, running along the wall of the cell, and at once fall asleep. i awake feeling tired and chilly. all is quiet and dark around me. is it night? my hand gropes blindly, hesitantly. something wet and clammy touches my cheek. in sudden affright i draw back. the cell is damp and musty; the foul air nauseates me. slowly my foot feels the floor, drawing my body forward, all my senses on the alert. i clutch the bars. the feel of iron is reassuring. pressed close to the door, my mouth in the narrow opening, i draw quick, short breaths. i am hot, perspiring. my throat is dry to cracking; i cannot swallow. "water! i want water!" the voice frightens me. was it i that spoke? the sound rolls up; it rises from gallery to gallery, and strikes the opposite corner under the roof; now it crawls underneath, knocks in the distant hollows, and abruptly ceases. "holloa, there! whatcher in for?" the voice seems to issue at once from all sides of the corridor. but the sound relieves me. now the air feels better; it is not so difficult to breathe. i begin to distinguish the outline of a row of cells opposite mine. there are dark forms at the doors. the men within look like beasts restlessly pacing their cages. "whatcher in for?" it comes from somewhere alongside. "can't talk, eh? 'sorderly, guess." what am i in for? oh, yes! it's frick. well, i shall not stay _here_ long, anyhow. they will soon take me out--they will lean me against a wall--a slimy wall like this, perhaps. they will bandage my eyes, and the soldiers there.... no: they are going to hang me. well, i shall be glad when they take me out of here. i am so dry. i'm suffocating.... ... the upright irons of the barred door grow faint, and melt into a single line; it adjusts itself crosswise between the upper and side sills. it resembles a scaffold, and there is a man sinking the beam into the ground. he leans it carefully against the wall, and picks up a spade. now he stands with one foot in the hole. it is the carpenter! he hit me on the head. from behind, too, the coward. if he only knew what he had done. he is one of the people: we must go to them, enlighten them. i wish he'd look up. he doesn't know his real friends. he looks like a russian peasant, with his broad back. what hairy arms he has! if he would only look up.... now he sinks the beam into the ground; he is stamping down the earth. i will catch his eye as he turns around. ah, he didn't look! he has his eyes always on the ground. just like the _muzhik_. now he is taking a few steps backward, critically examining his work. he seems pleased. how peculiar the cross-piece looks. the horizontal beam seems too long; out of proportion. i hope it won't break. i remember the feeling i had when my brother once showed me the picture of a man dangling from the branch of a tree. underneath was inscribed, _the execution of stenka razin_. "didn't the branch break?" i asked. "no, sasha," mother replied, "stenka--well, he weighed nothing"; and i wondered at the peculiar look she exchanged with maxim. but mother smiled sadly at me, and wouldn't explain. then she turned to my brother: "maxim, you must not bring sashenka such pictures. he is too young." "not too young, mamotchka, to learn that stenka was a great man." "what! you young fool," father bristled with anger, "he was a murderer, a common rioter." but mother and maxim bravely defended stenka, and i was deeply incensed at father, who despotically terminated the discussion. "not another word, now! i won't hear any more of that peasant criminal." the peculiar divergence of opinion perplexed me. anybody could tell the difference between a murderer and a worthy man. why couldn't they agree? he must have been a good man, i finally decided. mother wouldn't cry over a hanged murderer: i saw her stealthily wipe her eyes as she looked at that picture. yes, stenka razin was surely a noble man. i cried myself to sleep over the unspeakable injustice, wondering how i could ever forgive "them" the killing of the good stenka, and why the weak-looking branch did not break with his weight. why didn't it break?... the scaffold they will prepare for me might break with my weight. they'll hang me like stenka, and perhaps a little boy will some day see the picture--and they will call me murderer--and only a few will know the truth--and the picture will show me hanging from.... no, they shall not hang me! my hand steals to the lapel of my coat, and a deep sense of gratification comes over me, as i feel the nitro-glycerine cartridge secure in the lining. i smile at the imaginary carpenter. useless preparations! i have, myself, prepared for the event. no, they won't hang me. my hand caresses the long, narrow tube. go ahead! make your gallows. why, the man is putting on his coat. is he done already? now he is turning around. he is looking straight at me. why, it's frick! alive?... my brain is on fire. i press my head against the bars, and groan heavily. alive? have i failed? failed?... ii heavy footsteps approach nearer; the clanking of the keys grows more distinct. i must compose myself. those mocking, unfriendly eyes shall not witness my agony. they could allay this terrible uncertainty, but i must seem indifferent. would i "take lunch with the chief"? i decline, requesting a glass of water. certainly; but the chief wishes to see me first. flanked on each side by a policeman, i pass through winding corridors, and finally ascend to the private office of the chief. my mind is busy with thoughts of escape, as i carefully note the surroundings. i am in a large, well-furnished room, the heavily curtained windows built unusually high above the floor. a brass railing separates me from the roll-top desk, at which a middle-aged man, of distinct irish type, is engaged with some papers. "good morning," he greets me, pleasantly. "have a seat," pointing to a chair inside the railing. "i understand you asked for some water?" "yes." "just a few questions first. nothing important. your pedigree, you know. mere matter of form. answer frankly, and you shall have everything you want." his manner is courteous, almost ingratiating. "now tell me, mr. berkman, what is your name? your real name, i mean." "that's my real name." "you don't mean you gave your real name on the card you sent in to mr. frick?" "i gave my real name." "and you are an agent of a new york employment firm?" "no." "that was on your card." "i wrote it to gain access to frick." "and you gave the name 'alexander berkman' to gain access?" "no. i gave my real name. whatever might happen, i did not want anyone else to be blamed." "are you a homestead striker?" "no." "why did you attack mr. frick?" "he is an enemy of the people." "you got a personal grievance against him?" "no. i consider him an enemy of the people." "where do you come from?" "from the station cell." "come, now, you may speak frankly, mr. berkman. i am your friend. i am going to give you a nice, comfortable cell. the other--" "worse than a russian prison," i interrupt, angrily. "how long did you serve there?" "where?" "in the prison in russia." "i was never before inside a cell." "come, now, mr. berkman, tell the truth." he motions to the officer behind my chair. the window curtains are drawn aside, exposing me to the full glare of the sunlight. my gaze wanders to the clock on the wall. the hour-hand points to v. the calendar on the desk reads, july-- --saturday. only three hours since my arrest? it seemed so long in the cell.... "you can be quite frank with me," the inquisitor is saying. "i know a good deal more about you than you think. we've got your friend rak-metov." with difficulty i suppress a smile at the stupidity of the intended trap. in the register of the hotel where i passed the first night in pittsburgh, i signed "rakhmetov," the name of the hero in chernishevsky's famous novel. "yes, we've got your friend, and we know all about you." "then why do you ask me?" "don't you try to be smart now. answer my questions, d'ye hear?" his manner has suddenly changed. his tone is threatening. "now answer me. where do you live?" "give me some water. i am too dry to talk." "certainly, certainly," he replies, coaxingly. "you shall have a drink. do you prefer whiskey or beer?" "i never drink whiskey, and beer very seldom. i want water." "well, you'll get it as soon as we get through. don't let us waste time, then. who are your friends?" "give me a drink." "the quicker we get through, the sooner you'll get a drink. i am having a nice cell fixed up for you, too. i want to be your friend, mr. berkman. treat me right, and i'll take care of you. now, tell me, where did you stop in pittsburgh?" "i have nothing to tell you." "answer me, or i'll--" his face is purple with rage. with clenched fist he leaps from his seat; but, suddenly controlling himself, he says, with a reassuring smile: "now be sensible, mr. berkman. you seem to be an intelligent man. why don't you talk sensibly?" "what do you want to know?" "who went with you to mr. frick's office?" impatient of the comedy, i rise with the words: "i came to pittsburgh alone. i stopped at the merchants' hotel, opposite the b. and o. depot. i signed the name rakhmetov in the register there. it's a fictitious name. my real name is alexander berkman. i went to frick's office alone. i had no helpers. that's all i have to tell you." "very good, very good. take your seat, mr. berkman. we're not in any hurry. take your seat. you may as well stay here as in the cell; it's pleasanter. but i am going to have another cell fixed up for you. just tell me, where do you stay in new york?" "i have told you all there is to tell." "now, don't be stubborn. who are your friends?" "i won't say another word." "damn you, you'll think better of it. officers, take him back. same cell." * * * * * every morning and evening, during three days, the scene is repeated by new inquisitors. they coax and threaten, they smile and rage in turn. i remain indifferent. but water is refused me, my thirst aggravated by the salty food they have given me. it consumes me, it tortures and burns my vitals through the sleepless nights passed on the hard wooden bench. the foul air of the cell is stifling. the silence of the grave torments me; my soul is in an agony of uncertainty. chapter vi the jail i the days ring with noisy clamor. there is constant going and coming. the clatter of levers, the slamming of iron doors, continually reverberates through the corridors. the dull thud of a footfall in the cell above hammers on my head with maddening regularity. in my ears is the yelling and shouting of coarse voices. "cell num-ber ee-e-lev-ven! to court! right a-way!" a prisoner hurriedly passes my door. his step is nervous, in his look expectant fear. "hurry, there! to court!" "good luck, jimmie." the man flushes and averts his face, as he passes a group of visitors clustered about an overseer. "who is that, officer?" one of the ladies advances, lorgnette in hand, and stares boldly at the prisoner. suddenly she shrinks back. a man is being led past by the guards. his face is bleeding from a deep gash, his head swathed in bandages. the officers thrust him violently into a cell. he falls heavily against the bed. "oh, don't! for jesus' sake, don't!" the shutting of the heavy door drowns his cries. the visitors crowd about the cell. "what did he do? he can't come out now, officer?" "no, ma'am. he's safe." the lady's laugh rings clear and silvery. she steps closer to the bars, eagerly peering into the darkness. a smile of exciting security plays about her mouth. "what has he done, officer?" "stole some clothes, ma'am." disdainful disappointment is on the lady's face. "where is that man who--er--we read in the papers yesterday? you know--the newspaper artist who killed--er--that girl in such a brutal manner." "oh, jack tarlin. murderers' row, this way, ladies." ii the sun is slowly nearing the blue patch of sky, visible from my cell in the western wing of the jail. i stand close to the bars to catch the cheering rays. they glide across my face with tender, soft caress, and i feel something melt within me. closer i press to the door. i long for the precious embrace to surround me, to envelop me, to pour its soft balm into my aching soul. the last rays are fading away, and something out of my heart is departing with them.... but the lengthening shadows on the gray flagstones spread quiet. gradually the clamor ceases, the sounds die out. i hear the creaking of rusty hinges, there is the click of a lock, and all is hushed and dark. * * * * * the silence grows gloomy, oppressive. it fills me with mysterious awe. it lives. it pulsates with slow, measured breathing, as of some monster. it rises and falls; approaches, recedes. it is misery asleep. now it presses heavily against my door. i hear its quickened breathing. oh, it is the guard! is it the death watch? his outline is lost in the semi-darkness, but i see the whites of his eyes. they stare at me, they watch and follow me. i feel their gaze upon me, as i nervously pace the floor. unconsciously my step quickens, but i cannot escape that glint of steel. it grimaces and mocks me. it dances before me: it is here and there, all around me. now it flits up and down; it doubles, trebles. the fearful eyes stare at me from a hundred depressions in the wall. on every side they surround me, and bar my way. i bury my head in the pillow. my sleep is restless and broken. ever the terrible gaze is upon me, watching, watching, the white eyeballs turning with my every movement. iii the line of prisoners files by my cell. they walk in twos, conversing in subdued tones. it is a motley crowd from the ends of the world. the native of the western part of the state, the "pennsylvania dutchman," of stolid mien, passes slowly, in silence. the son of southern italy, stocky and black-eyed, alert suspicion on his face, walks with quick, nervous step. the tall, slender spaniard, swarthy and of classic feature, looks about him with suppressed disdain. each, in passing, casts a furtive glance into my cell. the last in the line is a young negro, walking alone. he nods and smiles broadly at me, exposing teeth of dazzling whiteness. the guard brings up the rear. he pauses at my door, his sharp eye measuring me severely, critically. "you may fall in." the cell is unlocked, and i join the line. the negro is at my side. he loses no time in engaging me in conversation. he is very glad, he assures me, that they have at last permitted me to "fall in." it was a shame to deprive me of exercise for four days. now they will "call de night-dog off. must been afeared o' soocide," he explains. his flow of speech is incessant; he seems not a whit disconcerted by my evident disinclination to talk. would i have a cigarette? may smoke in the cell. one can buy "de weed" here, if he has "de dough"; buy anything 'cept booze. he is full of the prison gossip. that tall man there is jack tinford, of homestead--sure to swing--threw dynamite at the pinkertons. that little "dago" will keep jack company--cut his wife's throat. the "dutchy" there is "bugs"--choked his son in sleep. presently my talkative companion volunteers the information that he also is waiting for trial. nothing worse than second degree murder, though. can't hang him, he laughs gleefully. "his" man didn't "croak" till after the ninth day. he lightly waves aside my remark concerning the ninth-day superstition. he is convinced they won't hang him. "can't do't," he reiterates, with a happy grin. suddenly he changes the subject. "wat am yo doin' heah? only murdah cases on dis ah gal'ry. yuh man didn' croak!" evidently he expects no answer, immediately assuring me that i am "all right." "guess dey b'lieve it am mo' safe foah yo. but can't hang yo, can't hang yo." he grows excited over the recital of his case. minutely he describes the details. "dat big niggah, guess 'e t'ot i's afeared of 'm. he know bettah now," he chuckles. "dis ah chile am afeared of none ov'm. ah ain't. 'gwan 'way, niggah,' ah says to 'm; 'yo bettah leab mah gahl be.' an' dat big black niggah grab de cleaveh,--we's in d'otel kitchen, yo see. 'niggah, drop dat,' ah hollos, an' he come at me. den dis ah coon pull his trusty li'lle brodeh," he taps his pocket significantly, "an' ah lets de ornery niggah hab it. plum' in de belly, yassah, ah does, an' he drop his cleaveh an' ah pulls mah knife out, two inches, 'bout, an' den ah gives it half twist like, an' shoves it in 'gen." he illustrates the ghastly motion. "dat bad niggah neveh botheh _me_ 'gen, noh nobody else, ah guess. but dey can't hang me, no sah, dey can't, 'cause mah man croak two weeks later. ah's lucky, yassah, ah is." his face is wreathed in a broad grin, his teeth shimmer white. suddenly he grows serious. "yo am strikeh? no-o-o? not a steel-woikeh?" with utter amazement. "what yo wan' teh shoot frick foah?" he does not attempt to disguise his impatient incredulity, as i essay an explanation. "afeared t' tell. yo am deep all right, ahlick--dat am yuh name? but yo am right, yassah, yo am right. doan' tell nobody. dey's mos'ly crooks, dat dey am, an' dey need watchin' sho'. yo jes' membuh dat." * * * * * there is a peculiar movement in the marching line. i notice a prisoner leave his place. he casts an anxious glance around, and disappears in the niche of the cell door. the line continues on its march, and, as i near the man's hiding place, i hear him whisper, "fall back, aleck." surprised at being addressed in such familiar manner, i slow down my pace. the man is at my side. "say, berk, you don't want to be seen walking with that 'dinge.'" the sound of my shortened name grates harshly on my ear. i feel the impulse to resent the mutilation. the man's manner suggests a lack of respect, offensive to my dignity as a revolutionist. "why?" i ask, turning to look at him. he is short and stocky. the thin lips and pointed chin of the elongated face suggest the fox. he meets my gaze with a sharp look from above his smoked-glass spectacles. his voice is husky, his tone unpleasantly confidential. it is bad for a white man to be seen with a "nigger," he informs me. it will make feeling against me. he himself is a pittsburgh man for the last twenty years, but he was "born and raised" in the south, in atlanta. they have no use for "niggers" down there, he assures me. they must be taught to keep their place, and they are no good, anyway. i had better take his advice, for he is friendly disposed toward me. i must be very careful of appearances before the trial. my inexperience is quite evident, but he "knows the ropes." i must not give "them" an opportunity to say anything against me. my behavior in jail will weigh with the judge in determining my sentence. he himself expects to "get off easy." he knows some of the judges. mostly good men. he ought to know: helped to elect one of them; voted three times for him at the last election. he closes the left eye, and playfully pokes me with his elbow. he hopes he'll "get before that judge." he will, if he is lucky, he assures me. he had always had pretty good luck. last time he got off with three years, though he nearly killed "his" man. but it was in self-defence. have i got a chew of tobacco about me? don't use the weed? well, it'll be easier in the "pen." what's the pen? why, don't i know? the penitentiary, of course. i should have no fear. frick ain't going to die. but what did i want to kill the man for? i ain't no pittsburgh man, that he could see plain. what did i want to "nose in" for? help the strikers? i must be crazy to talk that way. why, it was none of my "cheese." didn't i come from new york? yes? well, then, how could the strike concern me? i must have some personal grudge against frick. ever had dealings with him? no? sure? then it's plain "bughouse," no use talking. but it's different with his case. it was his partner in business. he knew the skunk meant to cheat him out of money, and they quarreled. did i notice the dark glasses he wears? well, his eyes are bad. he only meant to scare the man. but, damn him, he croaked. curse such luck. his third offence, too. do i think the judge will have pity on him? why, he is almost blind. how did he manage to "get his man"? why, just an accidental shot. he didn't mean to-- the gong intones its deep, full bass. "all in!" the line breaks. there is a simultaneous clatter of many doors, and i am in the cell again. iv within, on the narrow stool, i find a tin pan filled with a dark-brown mixture. it is the noon meal, but the "dinner" does not look inviting: the pan is old and rusty; the smell of the soup excites suspicion. the greasy surface, dotted here and there with specks of vegetable, resembles a pool of stagnant water covered with green slime. the first taste nauseates me, and i decide to "dine" on the remnants of my breakfast--a piece of bread. * * * * * i pace the floor in agitation over the conversation with my fellow-prisoners. why can't they understand the motives that prompted my act? their manner of pitying condescension is aggravating. my attempted explanation they evidently considered a waste of effort. not a striker myself, i could and should have had no interest in the struggle,--the opinion seemed final with both the negro and the white man. in the purpose of the act they refused to see any significance,--nothing beyond the mere physical effect. it would have been a good thing if frick had died, because "he was bad." but it is "lucky" for me that he didn't die, they thought, for now "they" can't hang me. my remark that the probable consequences to myself are not to be weighed in the scale against the welfare of the people, they had met with a smile of derision, suggestive of doubt as to my sanity. it is, of course, consoling to reflect that neither of those men can properly be said to represent the people. the negro is a very inferior type of laborer; and the other--he is a _bourgeois_, "in business." he is not worth while. besides, he confessed that it is his third offence. he is a common criminal, not an honest producer. but that tall man--the homestead steel-worker whom the negro pointed out to me--oh, _he_ will understand: he is of the real people. my heart wells up in admiration of the man, as i think of his participation in the memorable struggle of homestead. he fought the pinkertons, the myrmidons of capital. perhaps he helped to dynamite the barges and drive those hessians out of town. he is tall and broad-shouldered, his face strong and determined, his body manly and powerful. he is of the true spirit; the embodiment of the great, noble people: the giant of labor grown to his full stature, conscious of his strength. fearless, strong, and proud, he will conquer all obstacles; he will break his chains and liberate mankind. v next morning, during exercise hour, i watch with beating heart for an opportunity to converse with the homestead steel-worker. i shall explain to him the motives and purpose of my attempt on frick. he will understand me; he will himself enlighten his fellow-strikers. it is very important _they_ should comprehend my act quite clearly, and he is the very man to do this great service to humanity. he is the rebel-worker; his heroism during the struggle bears witness. i hope the people will not allow the enemy to hang him. he defended the rights of the homestead workers, the cause of the whole working class. no, the people will never allow such a sacrifice. how well he carries himself! erect, head high, the look of conscious dignity and strength-- "cell num-b-ber fi-i-ve!" the prisoner with the smoked glasses leaves the line, and advances in response to the guard's call. quickly i pass along the gallery, and fall into the vacant place, alongside of the steel-worker. "a happy chance," i address him. "i should like to speak to you about something important. you are one of the homestead strikers, are you not?" "jack tinford," he introduces himself. "what's your name?" he is visibly startled by my answer. "the man who shot frick?" he asks. an expression of deep anxiety crosses his face. his eye wanders to the gate. through the wire network i observe visitors approaching from the warden's office. "they'd better not see us together," he says, impatiently. "fall in back of me. then we'll talk." pained at his manner, yet not fully realizing its significance, i slowly fall back. his tall, broad figure completely hides me from view. he speaks to me in monosyllables, unwillingly. at the mention of homestead he grows more communicative, talking in an undertone, as if conversing with his neighbor, the sicilian, who does not understand a syllable of english. i strain my ear to catch his words. the steel-workers merely defended themselves against armed invaders, i hear him say. they are not on strike: they've been locked out by frick, because he wants to non-unionize the works. that's why he broke the contract with the amalgamated, and hired the damned pinkertons two months before, when all was peace. they shot many workers from the barges before the millmen "got after them." they deserved roasting alive for their unprovoked murders. well, the men "fixed them all right." some were killed, others committed suicide on the burning barges, and the rest were forced to surrender like whipped curs. a grand victory all right, if that coward of a sheriff hadn't got the governor to send the militia to homestead. but it was a victory, you bet, for the boys to get the best of three hundred armed pinkertons. he himself, though, had nothing to do with the fight. he was sick at the time. they're trying to get the pinkertons to swear his life away. one of the hounds has already made an affidavit that he saw him, jack tinford, throw dynamite at the barges, before the pinkertons landed. but never mind, he is not afraid. no pittsburgh jury will believe those lying murderers. he was in his sweetheart's house, sick abed. the girl and her mother will prove an alibi for him. and the advisory committee of the amalgamated, too. they know he wasn't on the shore. they'll swear to it in court, anyhow-- abruptly he ceases, a look of fear on his face. for a moment he is lost in thought. then he gives me a searching look, and smiles at me. as we turn the corner of the walk, he whispers: "too bad you didn't kill him. some business misunderstanding, eh?" he adds, aloud. could he be serious, i wonder. does he only pretend? he faces straight ahead, and i am unable to see his expression. i begin the careful explanation i had prepared: "jack, it was for you, for your people that i--" impatiently, angrily he interrupts me. i'd better be careful not to talk that way in court, he warns me. if frick should die, i'd hang myself with such "gab." and it would only harm the steel-workers. they don't believe in killing; they respect the law. of course, they had a right to defend their homes and families against unlawful invaders. but they welcomed the militia to homestead. they showed their respect for authority. to be sure, frick deserves to die. he is a murderer. but the mill-workers will have nothing to do with anarchists. what did i want to kill him for, anyhow? i did not belong to the homestead men. it was none of my business. i had better not say anything about it in court, or-- the gong tolls. "all in!" vi i pass a sleepless night. the events of the day have stirred me to the very depths. bitterness and anger against the homestead striker fill my heart. my hero of yesterday, the hero of the glorious struggle of the people,--how contemptible he has proved himself, how cravenly small! no consciousness of the great mission of his class, no proud realization of the part he himself had acted in the noble struggle. a cowardly, overgrown boy, terrified at to-morrow's punishment for the prank he has played! meanly concerned only with his own safety, and willing to resort to lying, in order to escape responsibility. the very thought is appalling. it is a sacrilege, an insult to the holy cause, to the people. to myself, too. not that lying is to be condemned, provided it is in the interest of the cause. all means are justified in the war of humanity against its enemies. indeed, the more repugnant the means, the stronger the test of one's nobility and devotion. all great revolutionists have proved that. there is no more striking example in the annals of the russian movement than that peerless nihilist--what was his name? why, how peculiar that it should escape me just now! i knew it so well. he undermined the winter palace, beneath the very dining-room of the tsar. what debasement, what terrible indignities he had to endure in the rôle of the servile, simple-minded peasant carpenter. how his proud spirit must have suffered, for weeks and months,--all for the sake of his great purpose. wonderful man! to be worthy of your comradeship.... but this homestead worker, what a pigmy by comparison. he is absorbed in the single thought of saving himself, the traitor. a veritable judas, preparing to forswear his people and their cause, willing to lie and deny his participation. how proud i should be in his place: to have fought on the barricades, as he did! and then to die for it,--ah, could there be a more glorious fate for a man, a real man? to serve even as the least stone in the foundation of a free society, or as a plank in the bridge across which the triumphant people shall finally pass into the land of promise? a plank in the bridge.... in the _most_.[ ] what a significant name! how it impressed me the first time i heard it! no, i saw it in print, i remember quite clearly. mother had just died. i was dreaming of the new world, the land of freedom. eagerly i read every line of "american news." one day, in the little kovno library--how distinctly it all comes back to me--i can see myself sitting there, perusing the papers. must get acquainted with the country. what is this? "anarchists hanged in chicago." there are many names--one is "most." "what is an anarchist?" i whisper to the student near by. he is from peter,[ ] he will know. "s--sh! same as nihilists." "in free america?" i wondered. [ ] russian for "bridge." [ ] popular abbreviation of st. petersburg. how little i knew of america then! a free country, indeed, that hangs its noblest men. and the misery, the exploitation,--it's terrible. i must mention all this in court, in my defence. no, not defence--some fitter word. explanation! yes, my explanation. i need no defence: i don't consider myself guilty. what did the warden mean? fool for a client, he said, when i told him that i would refuse legal aid. he thinks i am a fool. well, he's a _bourgeois_, he can't understand. i'll tell him to leave me alone. he belongs to the enemy. the lawyers, too. they are all in the capitalist camp. i need no lawyers. they couldn't explain my case. i shall not talk to the reporters, either. they are a lying pack, those journalistic hounds of capitalism. they always misrepresent us. and they know better, too. they wrote columns of interviews with most when he went to prison. all lies. i saw him off myself; he didn't say a word to them. they are our worst enemies. the warden said that they'll come to see me to-morrow. i'll have nothing to say to them. they're sure to twist my words, and thus impair the effect of my act. it is not complete without my explanation. i shall prepare it very carefully. of course, the jury won't understand. they, too, belong to the capitalist class. but i must use the trial to talk to the people. to be sure, an _attentat_ on a frick is in itself splendid propaganda. it combines the value of example with terroristic effect. but very much depends upon my explanation. it offers me a rare opportunity for a broader agitation of our ideas. the comrades outside will also use my act for propaganda. the people misunderstand us: they have been prejudiced by the capitalist press. they must be enlightened; that is our glorious task. very difficult and slow work, it is true; but they will learn. their patience will break, and then--the good people, they have always been too kind to their enemies. and brave, even in their suffering. yes, very brave. not like that fellow, the steel-worker. he is a disgrace to homestead, the traitor.... * * * * * i pace the cell in agitation. the judas-striker is not fit to live. perhaps it would be best they should hang him. his death would help to open the eyes of the people to the real character of legal justice. legal justice--what a travesty! they are mutually exclusive terms. yes, indeed, it would be best he should be hanged. the pinkerton will testify against him. he saw jack throw dynamite. very good. perhaps others will also swear to it. the judge will believe the pinkertons. yes, they will hang him. the thought somewhat soothes my perturbation. at least the cause of the people will benefit to some extent. the man himself is not to be considered. he has ceased to exist: his interests are exclusively personal; he can be of no further benefit to the people. only his death can aid the cause. it is best for him to end his career in the service of humanity. i hope he will act like a man on the scaffold. the enemy should not gloat over his fear, his craven terror. they'll see in him the spirit of the people. of course, he is not worthy of it. but he must die like a rebel-worker, bravely, defiantly. i must speak to him about it. the deep bass of the gong dispels my reverie. vii there is a distinct sense of freedom in the solitude of the night. the day's atmosphere is surcharged with noisome anxiety, the hours laden with impending terrors. but the night is soothing. for the first time i feel alone, unobserved. the "night-dog has been called off." how refinedly brutal is this constant care lest the hangman be robbed of his prey! a simple precaution against suicide, the warden told me. i felt the naïve stupidity of the suggestion like the thrust of a dagger. what a tremendous chasm in our mental attitudes! his mind cannot grasp the impossibility of suicide before i have explained to the people the motive and purpose of my act. suicide? as if the mere death of frick was my object! the very thought is impossible, insulting. it outrages me that even a _bourgeois_ should so meanly misjudge the aspirations of an active revolutionist. the insignificant reptile, frick,--as if the mere man were worth a terroristic effort! i aimed at the many-headed hydra whose visible representative was frick. the homestead developments had given him temporary prominence, thrown this particular hydra-head into bold relief, so to speak. that alone made him worthy of the revolutionist's attention. primarily, as an object lesson; it would strike terror into the soul of his class. they are craven-hearted, their conscience weighted with guilt,--and life is dear to them. their strangling hold on labor might be loosened. only for a while, no doubt. but that much would be gained, due to the act of the _attentäter_. the people could not fail to realize the depth of a love that will give its own life for their cause. to give a young life, full of health and vitality, to give all, without a thought of self; to give all, voluntarily, cheerfully; nay, enthusiastically--could any one fail to understand such a love? but this is the first terrorist act in america. the people may fail to comprehend it thoroughly. yet they will know that an anarchist committed the deed. i will talk to them from the courtroom. and my comrades at liberty will use the opportunity to the utmost to shed light on the questions involved. such a deed must draw the attention of the world. this first act of voluntary anarchist sacrifice will make the workingmen think deeply. perhaps even more so than the chicago martyrdom. the latter was preëminently a lesson in capitalist justice. the culmination of a plutocratic conspiracy, the tragedy of lacked the element of voluntary anarchist self-sacrifice in the interests of the people. in that distinctive quality my act is initial. perhaps it will prove the entering wedge. the leaven of growing oppression is at work. it is for us, the anarchists, to educate labor to its great mission. let the world learn of the misery of homestead. the sudden thunderclap gives warning that beyond the calm horizon the storm is gathering. the lightning of social protest-- * * * * * "quick, ahlick! plant it." something white flutters between the bars. hastily i read the newspaper clipping. glorious! who would have expected it? a soldier in one of the regiments stationed at homestead called upon the line to give "three cheers for the man who shot frick." my soul overflows with beautiful hopes. such a wonderful spirit among the militia; perhaps the soldiers will fraternize with the strikers. it is by no means an impossibility: such things have happened before. after all, they are of the people, mostly workingmen. their interests are identical with those of the strikers, and surely they hate frick, who is universally condemned for his brutality, his arrogance. this soldier--what is his name? iams, w. l. iams--he typifies the best feeling of the regiment. the others probably lack his courage. they feared to respond to his cheers, especially because of the colonel's presence. but undoubtedly most of them feel as iams does. it would be dangerous for the enemy to rely upon the tenth pennsylvania. and in the other homestead regiments, there must also be such noble iamses. they will not permit their comrade to be court-martialed, as the colonel threatens. iams is not merely a militia man. he is a citizen, a native. he has the right to express his opinion regarding my deed. if he had condemned it, he would not be punished. may he not, then, voice a favorable sentiment? no, they can't punish him. and he is surely very popular among the soldiers. how manfully he behaved as the colonel raged before the regiment, and demanded to know who cheered for "the assassin of mr. frick," as the imbecile put it. iams stepped out of the ranks, and boldly avowed his act. he could have remained silent, or denied it. but he is evidently not like that cowardly steel-worker. he even refused the colonel's offer to apologize. brave boy! he is the right material for a revolutionist. such a man has no business to belong to the militia. he should know for what purpose it is intended: a tool of capitalism in the enslavement of labor. after all, it will benefit him to be court-martialed. it will enlighten him. i must follow the case. perhaps the negro will give me more clippings. it was very generous of him to risk this act of friendship. the warden has expressly interdicted the passing of newspapers to me, though the other prisoners are permitted to buy them. he discriminates against me in every possible way. a rank ignoramus: he cannot even pronounce "anarchist." yesterday he said to me: "the anachrists are no good. what do they want, anyhow?" i replied, angrily: "first you say they are no good, then you ask what they want." he flushed. "got no use for them, anyway." such an imbecile! not the least sense of justice--he condemns without knowing. i believe he is aiding the detectives. why does he insist i should plead guilty? i have repeatedly told him that, though i do not deny the act, i am innocent. the stupid laughed outright. "better plead guilty, you'll get off easier. you did it, so better plead guilty." in vain i strove to explain to him: "i don't believe in your laws, i don't acknowledge the authority of your courts. i am innocent, morally." the aggravating smile of condescending wisdom kept playing about his lips. "plead guilty. take my advice, plead guilty." * * * * * instinctively i sense some presence at the door. the small, cunning eyes of the warden peer intently through the bars. i feel him an enemy. well, he may have the clipping now if he wishes. but no torture shall draw from me an admission incriminating the negro. the name rakhmetov flits through my mind. i shall be true to that memory. "a gentleman in my office wishes to see you," the warden informs me. "who is he?" "a friend of yours, from pittsburgh." "i know no one in pittsburgh. i don't care to see the man." the warden's suave insistence arouses my suspicions. why should he be so much interested in my seeing a stranger? visits are privileges, i have been told. i decline the privilege. but the warden insists. i refuse. finally he orders me out of the cell. two guards lead me into the hallway. they halt me at the head of a line of a dozen men. six are counted off, and i am assigned to the seventh place. i notice that i am the only one in the line wearing glasses. the warden enters from an inner office, accompanied by three visitors. they pass down the row, scrutinizing each face. they return, their gaze fixed on the men. one of the strangers makes a motion as if to put his hand on the shoulder of the man on my left. the warden hastily calls the visitors aside. they converse in whispers, then walk up the line, and pass slowly back, till they are alongside of me. the tall stranger puts his hand familiarly on my shoulder, exclaiming: "don't you recognize me, mr. berkman? i met you on fifth avenue, right in front of the telegraph building."[ ] [ ] the building in which the offices of the carnegie company were located. "i never saw you before in my life." "oh, yes! you remember i spoke to you--" "no, you did not," i interrupt, impatiently. "take him back," the warden commands. i protest against the perfidious proceeding. "a positive identification," the warden asserts. the detective had seen me "in the company of two friends, inspecting the office of mr. frick." indignantly i deny the false statement, charging him with abetting the conspiracy to involve my comrades. he grows livid with rage, and orders me deprived of exercise that afternoon. * * * * * the warden's rôle in the police plot is now apparent to me. i realize him in his true colors. ignorant though he is, familiarity with police methods has developed in him a certain shrewdness: the low cunning of the fox seeking its prey. the good-natured smile masks a depth of malice, his crude vanity glorying in the successful abuse of his wardenship over unfortunate human beings. this new appreciation of his character clarifies various incidents heretofore puzzling to me. my mail is being detained at the office, i am sure. it is impossible that my new york comrades should have neglected me so long: it is now over a week since my arrest. as a matter of due precaution, they would not communicate with me at once. but two or three days would be sufficient to perfect a _deckadresse_.[ ] yet not a line has reached me from them. it is evident that my mail is being detained. [ ] a "disguise" address, to mask the identity of the correspondent. my reflections rouse bitter hatred of the warden. his infamy fills me with rage. the negro's warning against the occupant of the next cell assumes a new aspect. undoubtedly the man is a spy; placed there by the warden, evidently. little incidents, insignificant in themselves, add strong proof to justify the suspicion. it grows to conviction as i review various circumstances concerning my neighbor. the questions i deemed foolish, prompted by mere curiosity, i now see in the light of the warden's rôle as volunteer detective. the young negro was sent to the dungeon for warning me against the spy in the next cell. but the latter is never reported, notwithstanding his continual knocking and talking. specially privileged, evidently. and the warden, too, is hand-in-glove with the police. i am convinced he himself caused the writing of those letters he gave me yesterday. they were postmarked homestead, from a pretended striker. they want to blow up the mills, the letter said; good bombs are needed. i should send them the addresses of my friends who know how to make effective explosives. what a stupid trap! one of the epistles sought to involve some of the strike leaders in my act. in another, john most was mentioned. well, i am not to be caught with such chaff. but i must be on my guard. it is best i should decline to accept mail. they withhold the letters of my friends, anyhow. yes, i'll refuse all mail. * * * * * i feel myself surrounded by enemies, open and secret. not a single being here i may call friend; except the negro, who, i know, wishes me well. i hope he will give me more clippings,--perhaps there will be news of my comrades. i'll try to "fall in" with him at exercise to-morrow.... oh! they are handing out tracts. to-morrow is sunday,--no exercise! viii the lord's day is honored by depriving the prisoners of dinner. a scanty allowance of bread, with a tincupful of black, unsweetened coffee, constitutes breakfast. supper is a repetition of the morning meal, except that the coffee looks thinner, the tincup more rusty. i force myself to swallow a mouthful by shutting my eyes. it tastes like greasy dishwater, with a bitter suggestion of burnt bread. exercise is also abolished on the sacred day. the atmosphere is pervaded with the gloom of unbroken silence. in the afternoon, i hear the creaking of the inner gate. there is much swishing of dresses: the good ladies of the tracts are being seated. the doors on murderers' row are opened partly, at a fifteen-degree angle. the prisoners remain in their cells, with the guards stationed at the gallery entrances. all is silent. i can hear the beating of my heart in the oppressive quiet. a faint shadow crosses the darksome floor; now it oscillates on the bars. i hear the muffled fall of felt-soled steps. silently the turnkey passes the cell, like a flitting mystery casting its shadow athwart a troubled soul. i catch the glint of a revolver protruding from his pocket. suddenly the sweet strains of a violin resound in the corridor. female voices swell the melody, "nearer my god to thee, nearer to thee." slowly the volume expands; it rises, grows more resonant in contact with the gallery floor, and echoes in my cell, "nearer to thee, to thee." the sounds die away. a deep male voice utters, "let us pray." its metallic hardness rings like a command. the guards stand with lowered heads. their lips mumble after the invisible speaker, "our father who art in heaven, give us this day our daily bread.... forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us----" "like hell you do!" some one shouts from the upper gallery. there is suppressed giggling in the cells. pellmell the officers rush up the stairs. the uproar increases. "order!" yells and catcalls drown the warden's voice. doors are violently opened and shut. the thunder of rattling iron is deafening. suddenly all is quiet: the guards have reached the galleries. only hasty tiptoeing is heard. the offender cannot be found. the gong rings the supper hour. the prisoners stand at the doors, cup in hand, ready to receive the coffee. "give the s---- of b---- no supper! no supper!" roars the warden. sabbath benediction! the levers are pulled, and we are locked in for the night. ix in agitation i pace the cell. frick didn't die! he has almost recovered. i have positive information: the "blind" prisoner gave me the clipping during exercise. "you're a poor shot," he teased me. the poignancy of the disappointment pierces my heart. i feel it with the intensity of a catastrophe. my imprisonment, the vexations of jail life, the future--all is submerged in the flood of misery at the realization of my failure. bitter thoughts crowd my mind; self-accusation overwhelms me. i failed! failed!... it might have been different, had i gone to frick's residence. it was my original intention, too. but the house in the east end was guarded. besides, i had no time to wait: that very morning the papers had announced frick's intended visit to new york. i was determined he should not escape me. i resolved to act at once. it was mainly his cowardice that saved him--he hid under the chair! played dead! and now he lives, the vampire.... and homestead? how will it affect conditions there? if frick had died, carnegie would have hastened to settle with the strikers. the shrewd scot only made use of frick to destroy the hated union. he himself was absent, he could not be held accountable. the author of "triumphant democracy" is sensitive to adverse criticism. with the elimination of frick, responsibility for homestead conditions would rest with carnegie. to support his rôle as the friend of labor, he must needs terminate the sanguinary struggle. such a development of affairs would have greatly advanced the anarchist propaganda. however some may condemn my act, the workers could not be blind to the actual situation, and the practical effects of frick's death. but his recovery.... yet, who can tell? it may perhaps have the same results. if not, the strike was virtually lost when the steel-workers permitted the militia to take possession of homestead. it afforded the company an opportunity to fill the mills with scabs. but even if the strike be lost,--our propaganda is the chief consideration. the homestead workers are but a very small part of the american working class. important as this great struggle is, the cause of the whole people is supreme. and their true cause is anarchism. all other issues are merged in it; it alone will solve the labor problem. no other consideration deserves attention. the suffering of individuals, of large masses, indeed, is unavoidable under capitalist conditions. poverty and wretchedness must constantly increase; it is inevitable. a revolutionist cannot be influenced by mere sentimentality. we bleed for the people, we suffer for them, but we know the real source of their misery. our whole civilization, false to the core as it is, must be destroyed, to be born anew. only with the abolition of exploitation will labor gain justice. anarchism alone can save the world. these reflections somewhat soothe me. my failure to accomplish the desired result is grievously exasperating, and i feel deeply humiliated. but i shall be the sole sufferer. properly viewed, the merely physical result of my act cannot affect its propagandistic value; and that is, always, the supreme consideration. the chief purpose of my _attentat_ was to call attention to our social iniquities; to arouse a vital interest in the sufferings of the people by an act of self-sacrifice; to stimulate discussion regarding the cause and purpose of the act, and thus bring the teachings of anarchism before the world. the homestead situation offered the psychologic social moment. what matter the personal consequences to frick? the merely physical results of my _attentat_? the conditions necessary for propaganda are there: the act is accomplished. as to myself--my disappointment is bitter, indeed. i wanted to die for the cause. but now they will send me to prison--they will bury me alive.... involuntarily my hand reaches for the lapel of my coat, when suddenly i remember my great loss. in agony, i live through again the scene in the police station, on the third day after my arrest.... rough hands seize my arms, and i am forced into a chair. my head is thrust violently backward, and i face the chief. he clutches me by the throat. "open your mouth! damn you, open your mouth!" everything is whirling before me, the desk is circling the room, the bloodshot eyes of the chief gaze at me from the floor, his feet flung high in the air, and everything is whirling, whirling.... "now, doc, quick!" there is a sharp sting in my tongue, my jaws are gripped as by a vise, and my mouth is torn open. "what d'ye think of _that_, eh?" the chief stands before me, in his hand the dynamite cartridge. "what's this?" he demands, with an oath. "candy," i reply, defiantly. x how full of anxiety these two weeks have been! still no news of my comrades. the warden is not offering me any more mail; he evidently regards my last refusal as final. but i am now permitted to purchase papers; they may contain something about my friends. if i could only learn what propaganda is being made out of my act, and what the girl and fedya are doing! i long to know what is happening with them. but my interest is merely that of the revolutionist. they are so far away,--i do not count among the living. on the outside, everything seems to continue as usual, as if nothing had happened. frick is quite well now; at his desk again, the press reports. nothing else of importance. the police seem to have given up their hunt. how ridiculous the chief has made himself by kidnaping my friend mollock, the new york baker! the impudence of the authorities, to decoy an unsuspecting workingman across the state line, and then arrest him as my accomplice! i suppose he is the only anarchist the stupid chief could find. my negro friend informed me of the kidnaping last week. but i felt no anxiety: i knew the "silent baker" would prove deaf and dumb. not a word, could they draw from him. mollock's discharge by the magistrate put the chief in a very ludicrous position. now he is thirsting for revenge, and probably seeking a victim nearer home, in allegheny. but if the comrades preserve silence, all will be well, for i was careful to leave no clew. i had told them that my destination was chicago, where i expected to secure a position. i can depend on bauer and nold. but that man e., whom i found living in the same house with nold, impressed me as rather unreliable. i thought there was something of the hang-dog look about him. i should certainly not trust him, and i'm afraid he might compromise the others. why are they friendly, i wonder. he is probably not even a comrade. the allegheny anarchists should have nothing in common with him. it is not well for us to associate with the _bourgeois_-minded. * * * * * my meditation is interrupted by a guard, who informs me that i am "wanted at the office." there is a letter for me, but some postage is due on it. would i pay? "a trap," it flits through my mind, as i accompany the overseer. i shall persist in my refusal to accept decoy mail. "more letters from homestead?" i turn to the warden. he quickly suppresses a smile. "no, it is postmarked, brooklyn, n. y." i glance at the envelope. the writing is apparently a woman's, but the chirography is smaller than the girl's. i yearn for news of her. the letter is from brooklyn--perhaps a _deckadresse_! "i'll take the letter, warden." "all right. you will open it here." "then i don't want it." i start from the office; when the warden detains me: "take the letter along, but within ten minutes you must return it to me. you may go now." i hasten to the cell. if there is anything important in the letter, i shall destroy it: i owe the enemy no obligations. as with trembling hand i tear open the envelope, a paper dollar flutters to the floor. i glance at the signature, but the name is unfamiliar. anxiously i scan the lines. an unknown sympathizer sends greetings, in the name of humanity. "i am not an anarchist," i read, "but i wish you well. my sympathy, however, is with the man, not with the act. i cannot justify your attempt. life, human life, especially, is sacred. none has the right to take what he cannot give." * * * * * i pass a troubled night. my mind struggles with the problem presented so unexpectedly. can any one understanding my motives, doubt the justification of the _attentat_? the legal aspect aside, can the morality of the act be questioned? it is impossible to confound law with right; they are opposites. the law is immoral: it is the conspiracy of rulers and priests against the workers, to continue their subjection. to be law-abiding means to acquiesce, if not directly participate, in that conspiracy. a revolutionist is the truly moral man: to him the interests of humanity are supreme; to advance them, his sole aim in life. government, with its laws, is the common enemy. all weapons are justifiable in the noble struggle of the people against this terrible curse. the law! it is the arch-crime of the centuries. the path of man is soaked with the blood it has shed. can this great criminal determine right? is a revolutionist to respect such a travesty? it would mean the perpetuation of human slavery. no, the revolutionist owes no duty to capitalist morality. he is the soldier of humanity. he has consecrated his life to the people in their great struggle. it is a bitter war. the revolutionist cannot shrink from the service it imposes upon him. aye, even the duty of death. cheerfully and joyfully he would die a thousand times to hasten the triumph of liberty. his life belongs to the people. he has no right to live or enjoy while others suffer. * * * * * how often we had discussed this, fedya and i. he was somewhat inclined to sybaritism; not quite emancipated from the tendencies of his _bourgeois_ youth. once in new york--i shall never forget--at the time when our circle had just begun the publication of the first jewish anarchist paper in america, we came to blows. we, the most intimate friends; yes, actually came to blows. nobody would have believed it. they used to call us the twins. if i happened to appear anywhere alone, they would inquire, anxiously, "what is the matter? is your chum sick?" it was so unusual; we were each other's shadow. but one day i struck him. he had outraged my most sacred feelings: to spend twenty cents for a meal! it was not mere extravagance; it was positively a crime, incredible in a revolutionist. i could not forgive him for months. even now,--two years have passed,--yet a certain feeling of resentment still remains with me. what right had a revolutionist to such self-indulgence? the movement needed aid; every cent was valuable. to spend twenty cents for a single meal! he was a traitor to the cause. true, it was his first meal in two days, and we were economizing on rent by sleeping in the parks. he had worked hard, too, to earn the money. but he should have known that he had no right to his earnings while the movement stood in such need of funds. his defence was unspeakably aggravating: he had earned ten dollars that week--he had given seven into the paper's treasury--he needed three dollars for his week's expenses--his shoes were torn, too. i had no patience with such arguments. they merely proved his _bourgeois_ predilections. personal comforts could not be of any consideration to a true revolutionist. it was a question of the movement; _its_ needs, the first issue. every penny spent for ourselves was so much taken from the cause. true, the revolutionist must live. but luxury is a crime; worse, a weakness. one could exist on five cents a day. twenty cents for a single meal! incredible. it was robbery. poor twin! he was deeply grieved, but he knew that i was merely just. the revolutionist has no personal right to anything. everything he has or earns belongs to the cause. everything, even his affections. indeed, these especially. he must not become too much attached to anything. he should guard against strong love or passion. the people should be his only great love, his supreme passion. mere human sentiment is unworthy of the real revolutionist: he lives for humanity, and he must ever be ready to respond to its call. the soldier of revolution must not be lured from the field of battle by the siren song of love. great danger lurks in such weakness. the russian tyrant has frequently attempted to bait his prey with a beautiful woman. our comrades there are careful not to associate with any woman, except of proved revolutionary character. aye, her mere passive interest in the cause is not sufficient. love may transform her into a delilah to shear one's strength. only with a woman consecrated to active participation may the revolutionist associate. their perfect comradeship would prove a mutual inspiration, a source of increased strength. equals, thoroughly solidaric, they would the more successfully serve the cause of the people. countless russian women bear witness--sophia perovskaya, vera figner, zassulitch, and many other heroic martyrs, tortured in the casemates of schlüsselburg, buried alive in the petropavlovka. what devotion, what fortitude! perfect comrades they were, often stronger than the men. brave, noble women that fill the prisons and _étapes_, tramp the toilsome road.... the siberian steppe rises before me. its broad expanse shimmers in the sun's rays, and blinds the eye with white brilliancy. the endless monotony agonizes the sight, and stupefies the brain. it breathes the chill of death into the heart, and grips the soul with the terror of madness. in vain the eye seeks relief from the white monster that slowly tightens his embrace, and threatens to swallow you in his frozen depth.... there, in the distance, where the blue meets the white, a heavy line of crimson dyes the surface. it winds along the virgin bosom, grows redder and deeper, and ascends the mountain in a dark ribbon, twining and wreathing its course in lengthening pain, now disappearing in the hollow, and again rising on the height. behold a man and a woman, hand in hand, their heads bent, on their shoulders a heavy cross, slowly toiling the upward way, and behind them others, men and women, young and old, all weary with the heavy task, trudging along the dismal desert, amid death and silence, save for the mournful clank, clank of the chains.... * * * * * "get out now. exercise!" * * * * * as in a dream i walk along the gallery. the voice of my exercise mate sounds dully in my ears. i do not understand what he is saying. does he know about the nihilists, i wonder? "billy, have you ever read anything about nihilists?" "sure, berk. when i done my last bit in the dump below, a guy lent me a book. a corker, too, it was. let's see, what you call 'em again?" "nihilists." "yes, sure. about some nihirists. the book's called aivan strodjoff." "what was the name?" "somethin' like that. aivan strodjoff or strogoff." "oh, you mean ivan strogov, don't you?" "that's it. funny names them foreigners have. a fellow needs a cast-iron jaw to say it every day. but the story was a corker all right. about a rooshan patriot or something. he was hot stuff, i tell you. overheard a plot to kill th' king by them fellows--er--what's you call 'em?" "nihilists?" "yep. nihilist plot, you know. well, they wants to kill his nibs and all the dookes, to make one of their own crowd king. see? foxy fellows, you bet. but aivan was too much for 'em. he plays detective. gets in all kinds of scrapes, and some one burns his eyes out. but he's game. i don't remember how it all ends, but--" "i know the story. it's trash. it doesn't tell the truth about--" "oh, t'hell with it! say, berk, d'ye think they'll hang me? won't the judge sympathize with a blind man? look at me eyes. pretty near blind, swear to god, i am. won't hang a blind man, will they?" the pitiful appeal goes to my heart, and i assure him they will not hang a blind man. his eyes brighten, his face grows radiant with hope. why does he love life so, i wonder. of what value is it without a high purpose, uninspired by revolutionary ideals? he is small and cowardly: he lies to save his neck. there is nothing at all wrong with his eyes. but why should _i_ lie for his sake? my conscience smites me for the moment of weakness. i should not allow inane sentimentality to influence me: it is beneath the revolutionist. "billy," i say with some asperity, "many innocent people have been hanged. the nihilists, for instance--" "oh, damn 'em! what do _i_ care about 'em! will they hang _me_, that's what i want to know." "may be they will," i reply, irritated at the profanation of my ideal. a look of terror spreads over his face. his eyes are fastened upon me, his lips parted. "yes," i continue, "perhaps they will hang you. many innocent men have suffered such a fate. i don't think you are innocent, either; nor blind. you don't need those glasses; there is nothing the matter with your eyes. now understand, billy, i don't want them to hang you. i don't believe in hanging. but i must tell you the truth, and you'd better be ready for the worst." gradually the look of fear fades from his face. rage suffuses his cheeks with spots of dark red. "you're crazy! what's the use talkin' to you, anyhow? you are a damn anarchist. i'm a good catholic, i want you to know that! i haven't always did right, but the good father confessed me last week. i'm no damn murderer like you, see? it was an accident. i'm pretty near blind, and this is a christian country, thank god! they won't hang a blind man. don't you ever talk to _me_ again!" xi the days and weeks pass in wearying monotony, broken only by my anxiety about the approaching trial. it is part of the designed cruelty to keep me ignorant of the precise date. "hold yourself ready. you may be called any time," the warden had said. but the shadows are lengthening, the days come and go, and still my name has not appeared on the court calendar. why this torture? let me have over with it. my mission is almost accomplished,--the explanation in court, and then my life is done. i shall never again have an opportunity to work for the cause. i may therefore leave the world. i should die content, but for the partial failure of my plans. the bitterness of disappointment is gnawing at my heart. yet why? the physical results of my act cannot affect its propagandistic value. why, then, these regrets? i should rise above them. but the gibes of officers and prisoners wound me. "bad shot, ain't you?" they do not dream how keen their thoughtless thrusts. i smile and try to appear indifferent, while my heart bleeds. why should i, the revolutionist, be moved by such remarks? it is weakness. they are so far beneath me; they live in the swamp of their narrow personal interests; they cannot understand. and yet the croaking of the frogs may reach the eagle's aerie, and disturb the peace of the heights. * * * * * the "trusty" passes along the gallery. he walks slowly, dusting the iron railing, then turns to give my door a few light strokes with the cat-o'-many-tails. leaning against the outer wall, he stoops low, pretending to wipe the doorsill,--there is a quick movement of his hand, and a little roll of white is shot between the lower bars, falling at my feet. "a stiff," he whispers. indifferently i pick up the note. i know no one in the jail; it is probably some poor fellow asking for cigarettes. placing the roll between the pages of a newspaper, i am surprised to find it in german. from whom can it be? i turn to the signature. carl nold? it's impossible; it's a trap! no, but that handwriting,--i could not mistake it: the small, clear chirography is undoubtedly nold's. but how did he smuggle in this note? i feel the blood rush to my head as my eye flits over the penciled lines: bauer and he are arrested; they are in the jail now, charged with conspiracy to kill frick; detectives swore they met them in my company, in front of the frick office building. they have engaged a lawyer, the note runs on. would i accept his services? i probably have no money, and i shouldn't expect any from new york, because most--what's this?--because most has repudiated the act-- the gong tolls the exercise hour. with difficulty i walk to the gallery. i feel feverish: my feet drag heavily, and i stumble against the railing. "is yo sick, ahlick?" it must be the negro's voice. my throat is dry; my lips refuse to move. hazily i see the guard approach. he walks me to the cell, and lowers the berth. "you may lie down." the lock clicks, and i'm alone. * * * * * the line marches past, up and down, up and down. the regular footfall beats against my brain like hammer strokes. when will they stop? my head aches dreadfully--i am glad i don't have to walk--it was good of the negro to call the guard--i felt so sick. what was it? oh, the note! where is it? the possibility of loss dismays me. hastily i pick the newspaper up from the floor. with trembling hands i turn the leaves. ah, it's here! if i had not found it, i vaguely wonder, were the thing mere fancy? the sight of the crumpled paper fills me with dread. nold and bauer here! perhaps--if they act discreetly--all will be well. they are innocent; they can prove it. but most! how can it be possible? of course, he was displeased when i began to associate with the autonomists. but how can that make any difference? at such a time! what matter personal likes and dislikes to a revolutionist, to a most--the hero of my first years in america, the name that stirred my soul in that little library in kovno--most, the bridge of liberty! my teacher--the author of the _kriegswissenschaft_--the ideal revolutionist--he to denounce me, to repudiate propaganda by deed? it's incredible! i cannot believe it. the girl will not fail to write to me about it. i'll wait till i hear from her. but, then, nold is himself a great admirer of most; he would not say anything derogatory, unless fully convinced that it is true. yet--it is barely conceivable. how explain such a change in most? to forswear his whole past, his glorious past! he was always so proud of it, and of his extreme revolutionism. some tremendous motive must be back of such apostasy. it has no parallel in anarchist annals. but what can it be? how boldly he acted during the haymarket tragedy--publicly advised the use of violence to avenge the capitalist conspiracy. he must have realized the danger of the speech for which he was later doomed to blackwell's island. i remember his defiant manner on the way to prison. how i admired his strong spirit, as i accompanied him on the last ride! that was only a little over a year ago, and he is just out a few months. perhaps--is it possible? a coward? has that prison experience influenced his present attitude? why, it is terrible to think of most--a coward? he who has devoted his entire life to the cause, sacrificed his seat in the reichstag because of uncompromising honesty, stood in the forefront all his life, faced peril and danger,--_he_ a coward? yet, it is impossible that he should have suddenly altered the views of a lifetime. what could have prompted his denunciation of my act? personal dislike? no, that was a matter of petty jealousy. his confidence in me, as a revolutionist, was unbounded. did he not issue a secret circular letter to aid my plans concerning russia? that was proof of absolute faith. one could not change his opinion so suddenly. moreover, it can have no bearing on his repudiation of a terrorist act. i can find no explanation, unless--can it be?--fear of personal consequences. afraid _he_ might be held responsible, perhaps. such a possibility is not excluded, surely. the enemy hates him bitterly, and would welcome an opportunity, would even conspire, to hang him. but that is the price one pays for his love of humanity. every revolutionist is exposed to this danger. most especially; his whole career has been a duel with tyranny. but he was never before influenced by such considerations. is he not prepared to take the responsibility for his terrorist propaganda, the work of his whole life? why has he suddenly been stricken with fear? can it be? can it be?... my soul is in the throes of agonizing doubt. despair grips my heart, as i hesitatingly admit to myself the probable truth. but it cannot be; nold has made a mistake. may be the letter is a trap; it was not written by carl. but i know his hand so well. it is his, his! perhaps i'll have a letter in the morning. the girl--she is the only one i can trust--she'll tell me-- my head feels heavy. wearily i lie on the bed. perhaps to-morrow ... a letter.... xii "your pards are here. do you want to see them?" the warden asks. "what 'pards'?" "your partners, bauer and nold." "my comrades, you mean. i have no partners." "same thing. want to see them? their lawyers are here." "yes, i'll see them." of course, i myself need no defence. i will conduct my own case, and explain my act. but i shall be glad to meet my comrades. i wonder how they feel about their arrest,--perhaps they are inclined to blame me. and what is their attitude toward my deed? if they side with most-- my senses are on the alert as the guard accompanies me into the hall. near the wall, seated at a small table, i behold nold and bauer. two other men are with them; their attorneys, i suppose. all eyes scrutinize me curiously, searchingly. nold advances toward me. his manner is somewhat nervous, a look of intense seriousness in his heavy-browed eyes. he grasps my hand. the pressure is warm, intimate, as if he yearns to pour boundless confidence into my heart. for a moment a wave of thankfulness overwhelms me: i long to embrace him. but curious eyes bore into me. i glance at bauer. there is a cheerful smile on the good-natured, ruddy face. the guard pushes a chair toward the table, and leans against the railing. his presence constrains me: he will report to the warden everything said. i am introduced to the lawyers. the contrast in their appearance suggests a lifetime of legal wrangling. the younger man, evidently a recent graduate, is quick, alert, and talkative. there is an air of anxious expectancy about him, with a look of semitic shrewdness in the long, narrow face. he enlarges upon the kind consent of his distinguished colleague to take charge of my case. his demeanor toward the elder lawyer is deeply respectful, almost reverential. the latter looks bored, and is silent. "do you wish to say something, colonel?" the young lawyer suggests. "nothing." he ejects the monosyllable sharply, brusquely. his colleague looks abashed, like a schoolboy caught in a naughty act. "you, mr. berkman?" he asks. i thank them for their interest in my case. but i need no defence, i explain, since i do not consider myself guilty. i am exclusively concerned in making a public statement in the courtroom. if i am represented by an attorney, i should be deprived of the opportunity. yet it is most vital to clarify to the people the purpose of my act, the circumstances-- the heavy breathing opposite distracts me. i glance at the colonel. his eyes are closed, and from the parted lips there issues the regular respiration of sound sleep. a look of mild dismay crosses the young lawyer's face. he rises with an apologetic smile. "you are tired, colonel. it's awfully close here." "let us go," the colonel replies. * * * * * depressed i return to the cell. the old lawyer,--how little my explanation interested him! he fell asleep! why, it is a matter of life and death, an issue that involves the welfare of the world! i was so happy at the opportunity to elucidate my motives to intelligent americans,--and he was sleeping! the young lawyer, too, is disgusting, with his air of condescending pity toward one who "will have a fool for a client," as he characterized my decision to conduct my own case. he may think such a course suicidal. perhaps it is, in regard to consequences. but the length of the sentence is a matter of indifference to me: i'll die soon, anyway. the only thing of importance now is my explanation. and that man fell asleep! perhaps he considers me a criminal. but what can i expect of a lawyer, when even the steel-worker could not understand my act? most himself-- with the name, i recollect the letters the guard had given me during the interview. there are three of them; one from the girl! at last! why did she not write before? they must have kept the letter in the office. yes, the postmark is a week old. she'll tell me about most,--but what is the use? i'm sure of it now; i read it plainly in nold's eyes. it's all true. but i must see what she writes. how every line breathes her devotion to the cause! she is the real russian woman revolutionist. her letter is full of bitterness against the attitude of most and his lieutenants in the german and jewish anarchist circles, but she writes words of cheer and encouragement in my imprisonment. she refers to the financial difficulties of the little commune consisting of fedya, herself, and one or two other comrades, and closes with the remark that, fortunately, i need no money for legal defence or attorneys. the staunch girl! she and fedya are, after all, the only true revolutionists i know in our ranks. the others all possess some weakness. i could not rely on them. the german comrades,--they are heavy, phlegmatic; they lack the enthusiasm of russia. i wonder how they ever produced a reinsdorf. well, he is the exception. there is nothing to be expected from the german movement, excepting perhaps the autonomists. but they are a mere handful, quite insignificant, kept alive mainly by the most and peukert feud. peukert, too, the life of their circle, is chiefly concerned with his personal rehabilitation. quite natural, of course. a terrible injustice has been done him.[ ] it is remarkable that the false accusations have not driven him into obscurity. there is great perseverance, aye, moral courage of no mean order, in his survival in the movement. it was that which first awakened my interest in him. most's explanation, full of bitter invective, suggested hostile personal feeling. what a tremendous sensation i created at the first jewish anarchist conference by demanding that the charges against peukert be investigated! the result entirely failed to substantiate the accusations. but the mostianer were not convinced, blinded by the vituperative eloquence of most. and now ... now, again, they will follow, as blindly. to be sure, they will not dare take open stand against my act; not the jewish comrades, at least. after all, the fire of russia still smolders in their hearts. but most's attitude toward me will influence them: it will dampen their enthusiasm, and thus react on the propaganda. the burden of making agitation through my act will fall on the girl's shoulders. she will stand a lone soldier in the field. she will exert her utmost efforts, i am convinced. but she will stand alone. fedya will also remain loyal. but what can he do? he is not a speaker. nor the rest of the commune circle. and most? we had all been so intimate.... it's his cursed jealousy, and cowardice, too. yes, mostly cowardice--he can't be jealous of me now! he recently left prison,--it must have terrorized him. the weakling! he will minimize the effect of my act, perhaps paralyze its propagandistic influence altogether.... now i stand alone--except for the girl--quite alone. it is always so. was not "he" alone, my beloved, "unknown" grinevitzky, isolated, scorned by his comrades? but his bomb ... how it thundered... [ ] joseph peukert, at one time a leading anarchist of austria, was charged with betraying the german anarchist neve into the hands of the police. neve was sentenced to ten years' prison. peukert always insisted that the accusation against him originated with some of his political enemies among the socialists. it is certain that the arrest of neve was not due to calculated treachery on the part of peukert, but rather to indiscretion. i was just a boy then. let me see,--it was in . i was about eleven years old. the class was assembling after the noon recess. i had barely settled in my seat, when the teacher called me forward. his long pointer was dancing a fanciful figure on the gigantic map of russia. "what province is that?" he demanded. "astrakhan." "mention its chief products." products? the name chernishevsky flitted through my mind. he was in astrakhan,--i heard maxim tell mother so at dinner. "nihilists," i burst out. the boys tittered; some laughed aloud. the teacher grew purple. he struck the pointer violently on the floor, shivering the tapering end. suddenly there broke a roll of thunder. one--two-- with a terrific crash, the window panes fell upon the desks; the floor shook beneath our feet. the room was hushed. deathly pale, the teacher took a step toward the window, but hastily turned, and dashed from the room. the pupils rushed after him. i wondered at the air of fear and suspicion on the streets. at home every one spoke in subdued tunes. father looked at mother severely, reproachfully, and maxim was unusually silent, but his face seemed radiant, an unwonted brilliancy in his eye. at night, alone with me in the dormitory, he rushed to my bed, knelt at my side, and threw his arms around me and kissed me, and cried, and kissed me. his wildness frightened me. "what is it, maximotchka?" i breathed softly. he ran up and down the room, kissing me and murmuring, "glorious, glorious! victory!" between sobs, solemnly pledging me to secrecy, he whispered mysterious, awe-inspiring words: will of the people--tyrant removed--free russia.... xiii the nights overwhelm me with the sense of solitude. life is so remote, so appallingly far away--it has abandoned me in this desert of silence. the distant puffing of fire engines, the shrieking of river sirens, accentuate my loneliness. yet it feels so near, this monster life, huge, palpitating with vitality, intent upon its wonted course. how unmindful of myself, flung into the darkness,--like a furnace spark belched forth amid fire and smoke into the blackness of night. the monster! its eyes are implacable; they watch every gate of life. every approach they guard, lest i enter back--i and the others here. poor unfortunates, how irritated and nervous they are growing as their trial day draws near! there is a hunted look in their eyes; their faces are haggard and anxious. they walk weakly, haltingly, worn with the long days of waiting. only "blackie," the young negro, remains cheerful. but i often miss the broad smile on the kindly face. i am sure his eyes were moist when the three italians returned from court this morning. they had been sentenced to death. joe, a boy of eighteen, walked to the cell with a firm step. his brother pasquale passed us with both hands over his face, weeping silently. but the old man, their father--as he was crossing the hallway, we saw him suddenly stop. for a moment he swayed, then lurched forward, his head striking the iron railing, his body falling limp to the floor. by the arms the guards dragged him up the stairway, his legs hitting the stone with a dull thud, the fresh crimson spreading over his white hair, a glassy torpor in his eyes. suddenly he stood upright. his head thrown back, his arms upraised, he cried hoarsely, anguished, "o santa maria! sio innocente inno--" the guard swung his club. the old man reeled and fell. "ready! death-watch!" shouted the warden. "in-no-cente! death-watch!" mocked the echo under the roof. * * * * * the old man haunts my days. i hear the agonized cry; its black despair chills my marrow. exercise hour has become insupportable. the prisoners irritate me: each is absorbed in his own case. the deadening monotony of the jail routine grows unbearable. the constant cruelty and brutality is harrowing. i wish it were all over. the uncertainty of my trial day is a ceaseless torture. i have been waiting now almost two months. my court speech is prepared. i could die now, but they would suppress my explanation, and the people thus remain ignorant of my aim and purpose. i owe it to the cause--and to the true comrades--to stay on the scene till after the trial. there is nothing more to bind me to life. with the speech, my opportunities for propaganda will be exhausted. death, suicide, is the only logical, the sole possible, conclusion. yes, that is self-evident. if i only knew the date of my trial,--that day will be my last. the poor old italian,--he and his sons, they at least know when they are to die. they count each day; every hour brings them closer to the end. they will be hanged here, in the jail yard. perhaps they killed under great provocation, in the heat of passion. but the sheriff will murder them in cold blood. the law of peace and order! i shall not be hanged--yet i feel as if i were dead. my life is done; only the last rite remains to be performed. after that--well, i'll find a way. when the trial is over, they'll return me to my cell. the spoon is of tin: i shall put a sharp edge on it--on the stone floor--very quietly, at night-- "number six, to court! num-ber six!" did the turnkey call "six"? who is in cell six? why, it's _my_ cell! i feel the cold perspiration running down my back. my heart beats violently, my hands tremble, as i hastily pick up the newspaper. nervously i turn the pages. there must be some mistake: my name didn't appear yet in the court calendar column. the list is published every monday--why, this is saturday's paper--yesterday we had service--it must be monday to-day. oh, shame! they didn't give me the paper to-day, and it's monday--yes, it's monday-- the shadow falls across my door. the lock clicks. "hurry, to court!" chapter vii the trial the courtroom breathes the chill of the graveyard. the stained windows cast sickly rays into the silent chamber. in the sombre light the faces look funereal, spectral. anxiously i scan the room. perhaps my friends, the girl, have come to greet me.... everywhere cold eyes meet my gaze. police and court attendants on every side. several newspaper men draw near. it is humiliating that through them i must speak to the people. "prisoner at the bar, stand up!" the commonwealth of pennsylvania--the clerk vociferates--charges me with felonious assault on h. c. frick, with intent to kill; felonious assault on john g. a. leishman; feloniously entering the offices of the carnegie company on three occasions, each constituting a separate indictment; and with unlawfully carrying concealed weapons. "do you plead guilty or not guilty?" i protest against the multiplication of the charges. i do not deny the attempt on frick, but the accusation of having assaulted leishman is not true. i have visited the carnegie offices only-- "do you plead guilty or not guilty?" the judge interrupts. "not guilty. i want to explain--" "your attorneys will do that." "i have no attorney." "the court will appoint one to defend you." "i need no defence. i want to make a statement." "you will be given an opportunity at the proper time." impatiently i watch the proceedings. of what use are all these preliminaries? my conviction is a foregone conclusion. the men in the jury box there, they are to decide my fate. as if they could understand! they measure me with cold, unsympathetic looks. why were the talesmen not examined in my presence? they were already seated when i entered. "when was the jury picked?" i demand. "you have four challenges," the prosecutor retorts. the names of the talesmen sound strange. but what matter who are the men to judge me? they, too, belong to the enemy. they will do the master's bidding. yet i may, even for a moment, clog the wheels of the juggernaut. at random, i select four names from the printed list, and the new jurors file into the box. the trial proceeds. a police officer and two negro employees of frick in turn take the witness stand. they had seen me three times in the frick office, they testify. they speak falsely, but i feel indifferent to the hired witnesses. a tall man takes the stand. i recognize the detective who so brazenly claimed to identify me in the jail. he is followed by a physician who states that each wound of frick might have proved fatal. john g. a. leishman is called. i attempted to kill him, he testifies. "it's a lie!" i cry out, angrily, but the guards force me into the seat. now frick comes forward. he seeks to avoid my eye, as i confront him. the prosecutor turns to me. i decline to examine the witnesses for the state. they have spoken falsely; there is no truth in them, and i shall not participate in the mockery. "call the witnesses for the defence," the judge commands. i have no need of witnesses. i wish to proceed with my statement. the prosecutor demands that i speak english. but i insist on reading my prepared paper, in german. the judge rules to permit me the services of the court interpreter. "i address myself to the people," i begin. "some may wonder why i have declined a legal defence. my reasons are twofold. in the first place, i am an anarchist: i do not believe in man-made law, designed to enslave and oppress humanity. secondly, an extraordinary phenomenon like an _attentat_ cannot be measured by the narrow standards of legality. it requires a view of the social background to be adequately understood. a lawyer would try to defend, or palliate, my act from the standpoint of the law. yet the real question at issue is not a defence of myself, but rather the _explanation_ of the deed. it is mistaken to believe _me_ on trial. the actual defendant is society--the system of injustice, of the organized exploitation of the people." the voice of the interpreter sounds cracked and shrill. word for word he translates my utterance, the sentences broken, disconnected, in his inadequate english. the vociferous tones pierce my ears, and my heart bleeds at his meaningless declamation. "translate sentences, not single words," i remonstrate. with an impatient gesture he leaves me. "oh, please, go on!" i cry in dismay. he returns hesitatingly. "look at my paper," i adjure him, "and translate each sentence as i read it." the glazy eyes are turned to me, in a blank, unseeing stare. the man is blind! "let--us--continue," he stammers. "we have heard enough," the judge interrupts. "i have not read a third of my paper," i cry in consternation. "it will do." "i have declined the services of attorneys to get time to--" "we allow you five more minutes." "but i can't explain in such a short time. i have the right to be heard." "we'll teach you differently." i am ordered from the witness chair. several jurymen leave their seats, but the district attorney hurries forward, and whispers to them. they remain in the jury box. the room is hushed as the judge rises. "have you anything to say why sentence should not be passed upon you?" "you would not let me speak," i reply. "your justice is a farce." "silence!" in a daze, i hear the droning voice on the bench. hurriedly the guards lead me from the courtroom. "the judge was easy on you," the warden jeers. "twenty-two years! pretty stiff, eh?" part ii the penitentiary [illustration: western penitentiary of pennsylvania--main building] chapter i desperate thoughts i "make yourself at home, now. you'll stay here a while, huh, huh!" as in a dream i hear the harsh tones. is the man speaking to me, i wonder. why is he laughing? i feel so weary, i long to be alone. now the voice has ceased; the steps are receding. all is silent, and i am alone. a nameless weight oppresses me. i feel exhausted, my mind a void. heavily i fall on the bed. head buried in the straw pillow, my heart breaking, i sink into deep sleep. * * * * * my eyes burn as with hot irons. the heat sears my sight, and consumes my eyelids. now it pierces my head; my brain is aflame, it is swept by a raging fire. oh! i wake in horror. a stream of dazzling light is pouring into my face. terrified, i press my hands to my eyes, but the mysterious flow pierces my lids, and blinds me with maddening torture. "get up and undress. what's the matter with you, anyhow?" the voice frightens me. the cell is filled with a continuous glare. beyond, all is dark, the guard invisible. "now lay down and go to sleep." silently i obey, when suddenly all grows black before my eyes. a terrible fear grips my heart. have i gone blind? i grope for the bed, the wall ... i can't see! with a desperate cry i spring to the door. a faint click reaches my tense ear, the streaming lightning burns into my face. oh, i can see! i can see! "what t' hell's the matter with you, eh? go to sleep. you hear?" quiet and immovable i lie on the bed. strange horrors haunt me.... what a terrible place this must be! this agony---- i cannot support it. twenty-two years! oh, it is hopeless, hopeless. i must die. i'll die to-night.... with bated breath i creep from the bed. the iron bedstead creaks. in affright i draw back, feigning sleep. all remains silent. the guard did not hear me. i should feel the terrible bull's-eye even with closed lids. slowly i open my eyes. it is dark all around. i grope about the cell. the wall is damp, musty. the odors are nauseating.... i cannot live here. i must die. this very night.... something white glimmers in the corner. cautiously i bend over. it is a spoon. for a moment i hold it indifferently; then a great joy overwhelms me. now i can die! i creep back into bed, nervously clutching the tin. my hand feels for my heart. it is beating violently. i will put the narrow end of the spoon over here--like this--i will force it in--a little lower--a steady pressure--just between the ribs.... the metal feels cold. how hot my body is! caressingly i pat the spoon against my side. my fingers seek the edge. it is dull. i must press it hard. yes, it is very dull. if i only had my revolver. but the cartridge might fail to explode. that's why frick is now well, and i must die. how he looked at me in court! there was hate in his eyes, and fear, too. he turned his head away, he could not face me. i saw that he felt guilty. yet he lives. i didn't crush him. oh, i failed, i failed.... "keep quiet there, or i'll put you in the hole." the gruff voice startles me. i must have been moaning. i'll draw the blanket over my head, so. what was i thinking about? oh, i remember. he is well, and i am here. i failed to crush him. he lives. of course, it does not really matter. the opportunity for propaganda is there, as the result of my act. that was the main purpose. but i meant to kill him, and he lives. my speech, too, failed. they tricked me. they kept the date secret. they were afraid my friends would be present. it was maddening the way the prosecuting attorney and the judge kept interrupting me. i did not read even a third of my statement. and the whole effect was lost. how that man interpreted! the poor old man! he was deeply offended when i corrected his translation. i did not know he was blind. i called him back, and suffered renewed torture at his screeching. i was almost glad when the judge forced me to discontinue. that judge! he acted as indifferently as if the matter did not concern him. he must have known that the sentence meant death. twenty-two years! as if it is possible to survive such a sentence in this terrible place! yes, he knew it; he spoke of making an example of me. the old villain! he has been doing it all his life: making an example of social victims, the victims of his own class, of capitalism. the brutal mockery of it--had i anything to say why sentence should not be passed? yet he wouldn't permit me to continue my statement. "the court has been very patient!" i am glad i told him that i didn't expect justice, and did not get it. perhaps i should have thrown in his face the epithet that sprang to my lips. no, it was best that i controlled my anger. else they would have rejoiced to proclaim the anarchists vulgar criminals. such things help to prejudice the people against us. we, criminals? we, who are ever ready to give our lives for liberty, criminals? and they, our accusers? they break their own laws: they knew it was not legal to multiply the charges against me. they made six indictments out of one act, as if the minor "offences" were not included in the major, made necessary by the deed itself. they thirsted for blood. legally, they could not give me more than seven years. but i am an anarchist. i had attempted the life of a great magnate; in him capitalism felt itself attacked. of course, i knew they would take advantage of my refusal to be legally represented. twenty-two years! the judge imposed the maximum penalty on each charge. well, i expected no less, and it makes no difference now. i am going to die, anyway. i clutch the spoon in my feverish hand. its narrow end against my heart, i test the resistance of the flesh. a violent blow will drive it between the ribs.... one, two, three--the deep metallic bass floats upon the silence, resonant, compelling. instantly all is motion: overhead, on the sides, everything is vibrant with life. men yawn and cough, chairs and beds are noisily moved about, heavy feet pace stone floors. in the distance sounds a low rolling, as of thunder. it grows nearer and louder. i hear the officers' sharp command, the familiar click of locks, doors opening and shutting. now the rumbling grows clearer, more distinct. with a moan the heavy bread-wagon stops at my cell. a guard unlocks the door. his eyes rest on me curiously, suspiciously, while the trusty hands me a small loaf of bread. i have barely time to withdraw my arm before the door is closed and locked. "want coffee? hold your cup." between the narrow bars, the beverage is poured into my bent, rusty tin can. in the semi-darkness of the cell the steaming liquid overflows, scalding my bare feet. with a cry of pain i drop the can. in the dimly-lit hall the floor looks stained with blood. "what do you mean by that?" the guard shouts at me. "i couldn't help it." "want to be smart, don't you? well, we'll take it out of you. hey, there, sam," the officer motions to the trusty, "no dinner for a , you hear!" "yes, sir. yes, sir!" "no more coffee, either." "yes, sir." the guard measures me with a look of scornful hatred. malice mirrors in his face. involuntarily i step back into the cell. his gaze falls on my naked feet. "ain't you got no shoes?" "yes." "ye-e-s! can't you say 'sir'? got shoes?" "yes." "put 'em on, damn you." his tongue sweeps the large quid of tobacco from one cheek to the either. with a hiss, a thick stream of brown splashes on my feet. "damn you, put 'em on." * * * * * the clatter and noises have ceased; the steps have died away. all is still in the dark hall. only occasional shadows flit by, silent, ghostlike. ii "forward, march!" the lung line of prisoners, in stripes and lockstep, resembles an undulating snake, wriggling from side to side, its black-and-gray body moving forward, yet apparently remaining in the same spot. a thousand feet strike the stone floor in regular tempo, with alternate rising and falling accent, as each division, flanked by officers, approaches and passes my cell. brutal faces, repulsive in their stolid indifference or malicious leer. here and there a well-shaped head, intelligent eye, or sympathetic expression, but accentuates the features of the striped line: coarse and sinister, with the guilty-treacherous look of the ruthlessly hunted. head bent, right arm extended, with hand touching the shoulder of the man in front, all uniformly clad in horizontal black and gray, the men seem will-less cogs in a machine, oscillating to the shouted command of the tall guards on the flanks, stern and alert. * * * * * the measured beat grows fainter and dies with the hollow thud of the last footfall, behind the closed double door leading into the prison yard. the pall of silence descends upon the cell-house. i feel utterly alone, deserted and forsaken amid the towering pile of stone and iron. the stillness overwhelms me with almost tangible weight. i am buried within the narrow walls; the massive rock is pressing down upon my head, my sides. i cannot breathe. the foul air is stifling. oh, i can't, i can't live here! i can't suffer this agony. twenty-two years! it is a lifetime. no, it's impossible. i must die. i will! now! * * * * * clutching the spoon, i throw myself on the bed. my eyes wander over the cell, faintly lit by the light in the hall: the whitewashed walls, yellow with damp--the splashes of dark-red blood at the head of the bed--the clumps of vermin around the holes in the wall--the small table and the rickety chair--the filthy floor, black and gray in spots.... why, it's stone! i can sharpen the spoon. cautiously i crouch in the corner. the tin glides over the greasy surface, noiselessly, smoothly, till the thick layer of filth is worn off. then it scratches and scrapes. with the pillow i deaden the rasping sound. the metal is growing hot in my hand. i pass the sharp edge across my finger. drops of blood trickle down to the floor. the wound is ragged, but the blade is keen. stealthily i crawl back into bed. my hand gropes for my heart. i touch the spot with the blade. between the ribs--here--i'll be dead when they find me.... if frick had only died. so much propaganda could be made--that damned most, if he hadn't turned against me! he will ruin the whole effect of the act. it's nothing but cowardice. but what is he afraid of? they can't implicate him. we've been estranged for over a year. he could easily prove it. the traitor! preached propaganda by deed all his life--now he repudiates the first _attentat_ in this country. what tremendous agitation he could have made of it! now he denies me, he doesn't know me. the wretch! he knew me well enough and trusted me, too, when together we set up the secret circular in the _freiheit_ office. it was in william street. we waited for the other compositors to leave; then we worked all night. it was to recommend me: i planned to go to russia then. yes, to russia. perhaps i might have done something important there. why didn't i go? what was it? well, i can't think of it now. it's peculiar, though. but america was more important. plenty of revolutionists in russia. and now.... oh, i'll never do anything more. i'll be dead soon. they'll find me cold--a pool of blood under me--the mattress will be red--no, it will be dark-red, and the blood will soak through the straw.... i wonder how much blood i have. it will gush from my heart--i must strike right here--strong and quick--it will not pain much. but the edge is ragged--it may catch--or tear the flesh. they say the skin is tough. i must strike hard. perhaps better to fall against the blade? no, the tin may bend. i'll grasp it close--like this--then a quick drive--right into the heart--it's the surest way. i must not wound myself--i would bleed slowly--they might discover me still alive. no, no! i must die at once. they'll find me dead--my heart--they'll feel it--not beating--the blade still in it--they'll call the doctor--"he's dead." and the girl and fedya and the others will hear of it--she'll be sad--but she will understand. yes, she will be glad--they couldn't torture me here--she'll know i cheated them--yes, she.... where is she now? what does she think of it all? does she, too, think i've failed? and fedya, also? if i'd only hear from her--just once. it would be easier to die. but she'll understand, she-- "git off that bed! don't you know the rules, eh? get out o' there!" horrified, speechless, i spring to my feet. the spoon falls from my relaxed grip. it strikes the floor, clinking on the stone loudly, damningly. my heart stands still as i face the guard. there is something repulsively familiar about the tall man, his mouth drawn into a derisive smile. oh, it's the officer of the morning! "foxy, ain't you? gimme that spoon." the coffee incident flashes through my mind. loathing and hatred of the tall guard fill my being. for a second i hesitate. i must hide the spoon. i cannot afford to lose it--not to this brute-- "cap'n, here!" i am dragged from the cell. the tall keeper carefully examines the spoon, a malicious grin stealing over his face. "look, cap'n. sharp as a razor. pretty desp'rate, eh?" "take him to the deputy, mr. fellings." iii in the rotunda, connecting the north and south cell-houses, the deputy stands at a high desk. angular and bony, with slightly stooped shoulders, his face is a mass of minute wrinkles seamed on yellow parchment. the curved nose overhangs thin, compressed lips. the steely eyes measure me coldly, unfriendly. "who is this?" the low, almost feminine, voice sharply accentuates the cadaver-like face and figure. the contrast is startling. "a ." "what is the charge, officer?" "two charges, mr. mcpane. layin' in bed and tryin' soocide." a smile of satanic satisfaction slowly spreads over the deputy's wizened face. the long, heavy fingers of his right hand work convulsively, as if drumming stiffly on an imaginary board. "yes, hm, hm, yes. a , two charges. hm, hm. how did he try to, hm, hm, to commit suicide?" "with this spoon, mr. mcpane. sharp as a razor." "yes, hm, yes. wants to die. we have no such charge as, hm, hm, as trying suicide in this institution. sharpened spoon, hm, hm; a grave offence. i'll see about that later. for breaking the rules, hm, hm, by lying in bed out of hours, hm, hm, three days. take him down, officer. he will, hm, hm, cool off." i am faint and weary. a sense of utter indifference possesses me. vaguely i am conscious of the guards leading me through dark corridors, dragging me down steep flights, half undressing me, and finally thrusting me into a black void. i am dizzy; my head is awhirl. i stagger and fall on the flagstones of the dungeon. * * * * * the cell is filled with light. it hurts my eyes. some one is bending over me. "a bit feverish. better take him to the cell." "hm, hm, doctor, he is in punishment." "not safe, mr. mcpane." "we'll postpone it, then. hm, hm, take him to the cell, officers." "git up." my legs seem paralyzed. they refuse to move. i am lifted and carried up the stairs, through corridors and halls, and then thrown heavily on a bed. * * * * * i feel so weak. perhaps i shall die now. it would be best. but i have no weapon! they have taken away the spoon. there is nothing in the cell that i could use. these iron bars--i could beat my head against them. but oh! it is such a horrible death. my skull would break, and the brains ooze out.... but the bars are smooth. would my skull break with one blow? i'm afraid it might only crack, and i should be too weak to strike again. if i only had a revolver; that is the easiest and quickest. i've always thought i'd prefer such a death--to be shot. the barrel close to the temple--one couldn't miss. some people have done it in front of a mirror. but i have no mirror. i have no revolver, either.... through the mouth it is also fatal.... that moscow student--russov was his name; yes, ivan russov--he shot himself through the mouth. of course, he was foolish to kill himself for a woman; but i admired his courage. how coolly he had made all preparations; he even left a note directing that his gold watch be given to the landlady, because--he wrote--after passing through his brain, the bullet might damage the wall. wonderful! it actually happened that way. i saw the bullet imbedded in the wall near the sofa, and ivan lay so still and peaceful, i thought he was asleep. i had often seen him like that in my brother's study, after our lessons. what a splendid tutor he was! i liked him from the first, when mother introduced him: "sasha, ivan nikolaievitch will be your instructor in latin during vacation time." my hand hurt all day; he had gripped it so powerfully, like a vise. but i was glad i didn't cry out. i admired him for it; i felt he must be very strong and manly to have such a handshake. mother smiled when i told her about it. her hand pained her too, she said. sister blushed a little. "rather energetic," she observed. and maxim felt so happy over the favorable impression made by his college chum. "what did i tell you?" he cried, in glee; "ivan nikolaievitch _molodetz_![ ] think of it, he's only twenty. graduates next year. the youngest alumnus since the foundation of the university. _molodetz_!" but how red were maxim's eyes when he brought the bullet home. he would keep it, he said, as long as he lived: he had dug it out, with his own hands, from the wall of ivan nikolaievitch's room. at dinner he opened the little box, unwrapped the cotton, an i showed me the bullet. sister went into hysterics, and mamma called max a brute. "for a woman, an unworthy woman!" sister moaned. i thought he was foolish to take his life on account of a woman. i felt a little disappointed: ivan nikolaievitch should have been more manly. they all said she was very beautiful, the acknowledged belle of kovno. she was tall and stately, but i thought she walked too stiffly; she seemed self-conscious and artificial. mother said i was too young to talk of such things. how shocked she would have been had she known that i was in love with nadya, my sister's chum. and i had kissed our chambermaid, too. dear little rosa,--i remember she threatened to tell mother. i was so frightened, i wouldn't come to dinner. mamma sent the maid to call me, but i refused to go till rosa promised not to tell.... the sweet girl, with those red-apple cheeks. how kind she was! but the little imp couldn't keep the secret. she told tatanya, the cook of our neighbor, the latin instructor at the gymnasium. next day he teased me about the servant girl. before the whole class, too. i wished the floor would open and swallow me. i was so mortified. [ ] clever, brave lad. * * * * * ... how far off it all seems. centuries away. i wonder what has become of her. where is rosa now? why, she must be here, in america. i had almost forgotten,--i met her in new york. it was such a surprise. i was standing on the stoop of the tenement house where i boarded. i had then been only a few months in the country. a young lady passed by. she looked up at me, then turned and ascended the steps. "don't you know me, mr. berkman? don't you really recognize me?" some mistake, i thought. i had never before seen this beautiful, stylish young woman. she invited me into the hallway. "don't tell these people here. i am rosa. don't you remember? why, you know, i was your mother's--your mother's maid." she blushed violently. those red cheeks--why, certainly, it's rosa! i thought of the stolen kiss. "would i dare it now?" i wondered, suddenly conscious of my shabby clothes. she seemed so prosperous. how our positions were changed! she looked the very _barishnya_,[ ] like my sister. "is your mother here?" she asked. "mother? she died, just before i left." i glanced apprehensively at her. did she remember that terrible scene when mother struck her? "i didn't know about your mother." her voice was husky; a tear glistened in her eye. the dear girl, always generous-hearted. i ought to make amends to her for mother's insult. we looked at each other in embarrassment. then she held out a gloved hand. very large, i thought; red, too, probably. "good-bye, _gospodin_[ ] berkman," she said. "i'll see you again soon. please don't tell these people who i am." i experienced a feeling of guilt and shame. _gospodin_ berkman--somehow it echoed the servile _barinya_[ ] with which the domestics used to address my mother. for all her finery, rosa had not gotten over it. too much bred in, poor girl. she has not become emancipated. i never saw her at our meetings; she is conservative, no doubt. she was so ignorant, she could not even read. perhaps she has learned in this country. now she will read about me, and she'll know how i died.... oh, i haven't the spoon! what shall i do, what shall i do? i can't live. i couldn't stand this torture. perhaps if i had seven years, i would try to serve the sentence. but i couldn't, anyhow. i might live here a year, or two. but twenty-two, twenty-two years! what is the use? no man could survive it. it's terrible, twenty-two years! their cursed justice--they always talk of law. yet legally i shouldn't have gotten more than seven years. legally! as if _they_ care about "legality." they wanted to make an example of me. of course, i knew it beforehand; but if i had seven years--perhaps i might live through it; i would try. but twenty-two--it's a lifetime, a whole lifetime. seventeen is no better. that man jamestown got seventeen years. he celled next to me in the jail. he didn't look like a highway robber, he was so small and puny. he must be here now. a fool, to think he could live here seventeen years. in this hell--what an imbecile he is! he should have committed suicide long ago. they sent him away before my trial; it's about three weeks ago. enough time; why hasn't he done something? he will soon die here, anyway; it would be better to suicide. a strong man might live five years; i doubt it, though; perhaps a very strong man might. _i_ couldn't; no, i know i couldn't; perhaps two or three years, at most. we had often spoken about this, the girl, fedya, and i. i had then such a peculiar idea of prison: i thought i would be sitting on the floor in a gruesome, black hole, with my hands and feet chained to the wall; and the worms would crawl over me, and slowly devour my face and my eyes, and i so helpless, chained to the wall. the girl and fedya had a similar idea. she said she might bear prison life a few weeks. i could for a year, i thought; but was doubtful. i pictured myself fighting the worms off with my feet; it would take the vermin that long to eat all my flesh, till they got to my heart; that would be fatal.... and the vermin here, those big, brown bedbugs, they must be like those worms, so vicious and hungry. perhaps there are worms here, too. there must be in the dungeon: there is a wound on my foot. i don't know how it happened. i was unconscious in that dark hole--it was just like my old idea of prison. i couldn't live even a week there: it's awful. here it is a little better; but it's never light in this cell,--always in semidarkness. and so small and narrow; no windows; it's damp, and smells so foully all the time. the walls are wet and clammy; smeared with blood, too. bedbugs--augh! it's nauseating. not much better than that black hole, with my hands and arms chained to the wall. just a trifle better,--my hands are not chained. perhaps i could live here a few years: no more than three, or may be five. but these brutal officers! no, no, i couldn't stand it. i want to die! i'd die here soon, anyway; they will kill me. but i won't give the enemy the satisfaction; they shall not be able to say that they are torturing me in prison, or that they killed me. no! i'd rather kill myself. yes, kill myself. i shall have to do it--with my head against the bars--no, not now! at night, when it's all dark,--they couldn't save me then. it will be a terrible death, but it must be done.... if i only knew about "them" in new york--the girl and fedya--it would be easier to die then.... what are they doing in the case? are they making propaganda out of it? they must be waiting to hear of my suicide. they know i can't live here long. perhaps they wonder why i didn't suicide right after the trial. but i could not. i thought i should be taken from the court to my cell in jail; sentenced prisoners usually are. i had prepared to hang myself that night, but they must have suspected something. they brought me directly here from the courtroom. perhaps i should have been dead now-- [ ] young lady. [ ] mister. [ ] lady. "supper! want coffee? hold your tin!" the trusty shouts into the door. suddenly he whispers, "grab it, quick!" a long, dark object is shot between the bars into the cell, dropping at the foot of the bed. the man is gone. i pick up the parcel, tightly wrapped in brown paper. what can it be? the outside cover protects two layers of old newspaper; then a white object comes to view. a towel! there is something round and hard inside--it's a cake of soap. a sense of thankfulness steals into my heart, as i wonder who the donor may be. it is good to know that there is at least one being here with a friendly spirit. perhaps it's some one i knew in the jail. but how did he procure these things? are they permitted? the towel feels nice and soft; it is a relief from the hard straw bed. everything is so hard and coarse here--the language, the guards.... i pass the towel over my face; it soothes me somewhat. i ought to wash up--my head feels so heavy--i haven't washed since i got here. when did i come? let me see; what is to-day? i don't know, i can't think. but my trial--it was on monday, the nineteenth of september. they brought me here in the afternoon; no, in the evening. and that guard--he frightened me so with the bull's-eye lantern. was it last night? no, it must have been longer than that. have i been here only since yesterday? why, it seems such a long time! can this be tuesday, only tuesday? i'll ask the trusty the next time he passes. i'll find out who sent this towel too. perhaps i could get some cold water from him; or may be there is some here-- my eyes are growing accustomed to the semi-darkness of the cell. i discern objects quite clearly. there is a small wooden table and an old chair; in the furthest corner, almost hidden by the bed, is the privy; near it, in the center of the wall opposite the door, is a water spigot over a narrow, circular basin. the water is lukewarm and muddy, but it feels refreshing. the rub-down with the towel is invigorating. the stimulated blood courses through my veins with a pleasing tingle. suddenly a sharp sting, as of a needle, pricks my face. there's a pin in the towel. as i draw it out, something white flutters to the floor. a note! with ear alert for a passing step, i hastily read the penciled writing: be shure to tare this up as soon as you reade it, it's from a friend. we is going to make a break and you can come along, we know you are on the level. lay low and keep your lamps lit at night, watch the screws and the stools they is worse than bulls. dump is full of them and don't have nothing to say. so long, will see you tomorrow. a true friend. i read the note carefully, repeatedly. the peculiar language baffles me. vaguely i surmise its meaning: evidently an escape is being planned. my heart beats violently, as i contemplate the possibilities. if i could escape.... oh, i should not have to die! why haven't i thought of it before? what a glorious thing it would be! of course, they would ransack the country for me. i should have to hide. but what does it matter? i'd be at liberty. and what tremendous effect! it would make great propaganda: people would become much interested, and i--why, i should have new opportunities-- the shadow of suspicion falls over my joyous thought, overwhelming me with despair. perhaps a trap! i don't know who wrote the note. a fine conspirator i'd prove, to be duped so easily. but why should they want to trap me? and who? some guard? what purpose could it serve? but they are so mean, so brutal. that tall officer--the deputy called him fellings--he seems to have taken a bitter dislike to me. this may be his work, to get me in trouble. would he really stoop to such an outrage? these things happen--they have been done in russia. and he looks like a _provocateur_, the scoundrel. no, he won't get me that way. i must read the note again. it contains so many expressions i don't understand. i should "keep my lamps lit." what lamps? there are none in the cell; where am i to get them? and what "screws" must i watch? and the "stools,"--i have only a chair here. why should i watch it? perhaps it's to be used as a weapon. no, it must mean something else. the note says he will call to-morrow. i'll be able to tell by his looks whether he can be trusted. yes, yes, that will be best. i'll wait till to-morrow. oh, i wish it were here! chapter ii the will to live i the days drag interminably in the semidarkness of the cell. the gong regulates my existence with depressing monotony. but the tenor of my thoughts has been changed by the note of the mysterious correspondent. in vain i have been waiting for his appearance,--yet the suggestion of escape has germinated hope. the will to live is beginning to assert itself, growing more imperative as the days go by. i wonder that my mind dwells upon suicide more and more rarely, ever more cursorily. the thought of self-destruction fills me with dismay. every possibility of escape must first be exhausted, i reassure my troubled conscience. surely i have no fear of death--when the proper time arrives. but haste would be highly imprudent; worse, quite unnecessary. indeed, it is my duty as a revolutionist to seize every opportunity for propaganda: escape would afford me many occasions to serve the cause. it was thoughtless on my part to condemn that man jamestown. i even resented his seemingly unforgivable delay in committing suicide, considering the impossible sentence of seventeen years. indeed, i was unjust: jamestown is, no doubt, forming his plans. it takes time to mature such an undertaking: one must first familiarize himself with the new surroundings, get one's bearings in the prison. so far i have had but little chance to do so. evidently, it is the policy of the authorities to keep me in solitary confinement, and in consequent ignorance of the intricate system of hallways, double gates, and winding passages. at liberty to leave this place, it would prove difficult for me to find, unaided, my way out. oh, if i possessed the magic ring i dreamed of last night! it was a wonderful talisman, secreted--i fancied in the dream--by the goddess of the social revolution. i saw her quite distinctly: tall and commanding, the radiance of all-conquering love in her eyes. she stood at my bedside, a smile of surpassing gentleness suffusing the queenly countenance, her arm extended above me, half in blessing, half pointing toward the dark wall. eagerly i looked in the direction of the arched hand--there, in a crevice, something luminous glowed with the brilliancy of fresh dew in the morning sun. it was a heart-shaped ring cleft in the centre. its scintillating rays glorified the dark corner with the aureole of a great hope. impulsively i reached out, and pressed the parts of the ring into a close-fitting whole, when, lo! the rays burst into a fire that spread and instantly melted the iron and steel, and dissolved the prison walls, disclosing to my enraptured gaze green fields and woods, and men and women playfully at work in the sunshine of freedom. and then ... something dispelled the vision. oh, if i had that magic heart now! to escape, to be free! may be my unknown friend will yet keep his word. he is probably perfecting plans, or perhaps it is not safe for him to visit me. if my comrades could aid me, escape would be feasible. but the girl and fedya will never consider the possibility. no doubt they refrain from writing because they momentarily expect to hear of my suicide. how distraught the poor girl must be! yet she should have written: it is now four days since my removal to the penitentiary. every day i anxiously await the coming of the chaplain, who distributes the mail.--there he is! the quick, nervous step has become familiar to my ear. expectantly i follow his movements; i recognize the vigorous slam of the door and the click of the spring lock. the short steps patter on the bridge connecting the upper rotunda with the cell-house, and pass along the gallery. the solitary footfall amid the silence reminds me of the timid haste of one crossing a graveyard at night. now the chaplain pauses: he is comparing the number of the wooden block hanging outside the cell with that on the letter. some one has remembered a friend in prison. the steps continue and grow faint, as the postman rounds the distant corner. he passes the cell-row on the opposite side, ascends the topmost tier, and finally reaches the ground floor containing my cell. my heart beats faster as the sound approaches: there must surely be a letter for me. he is nearing the cell--he pauses. i can't see him yet, but i know he is comparing numbers. perhaps the letter is for me. i hope the chaplain will make no mistake: range k, cell , number a . something light flaps on the floor of the next cell, and the quick, short step has passed me by. no mail for me! another twenty-four hours must elapse before i may receive a letter, and then, too, perhaps the faint shadow will not pause at my door. ii the thought of my twenty-two-year sentence is driving me desperate. i would make use of any means, however terrible, to escape from this hell, to regain liberty. liberty! what would it not offer me after this experience? i should have the greatest opportunity for revolutionary activity. i would choose russia. the mostianer have forsaken me. i will keep aloof, but they shall learn what a true revolutionist is capable of accomplishing. if there is a spark of manhood in them, they will blush for their despicable attitude toward my act, their shameful treatment of me. how eager they will then be to prove their confidence by exaggerated devotion, to salve their guilty conscience! i should not have to complain of a lack of financial aid, were i to inform our intimate circles of my plans regarding future activity in russia. it would be glorious, glorious! s--sh-- it's the chaplain. perhaps he has mail for me to-day.... may be he is suppressing letters from my friends; or probably it is the warden's fault: the mailbag is first examined in his office.--now the chaplain is descending to the ground floor. he pauses. it must be cell getting a letter. now he is coming. the shadow is opposite my door,--gone! "chaplain, one moment, please." "who's calling?" "here, chaplain. cell k." "what is it, my boy?" "chaplain, i should like something to read." "read? why, we have a splendid library, m' boy; very fine library. i will send you a catalogue, and you can draw one book every week." "i missed library day on this range. i'll have to wait another week. but i'd like to have something in the meantime, chaplain." "you are not working, m' boy?" "no." "you have not refused to work, have you?" "no, i have not been offered any work yet." "oh, well, you will be assigned soon. be patient, m' boy." "but can't i have something to read now?" "isn't there a bible in your cell?" "a bible? i don't believe in it, chaplain." "my boy, it will do you no harm to read it. it may do you good. read it, m' boy." for a moment i hesitate. a desperate idea crosses my mind. "all right, chaplain, i'll read the bible, but i don't care for the modern english version. perhaps you have one with greek or latin annotations?" "why, why, m' boy, do you understand latin or greek?" "yes, i have studied the classics." the chaplain seems impressed. he steps close to the door, leaning against it in the attitude of a man prepared for a long conversation. we talk about the classics, the sources of my knowledge, russian schools, social conditions. an interesting and intelligent man, this prison chaplain, an extensive traveler whose visit to russia had impressed him with the great possibilities of that country. finally he motions to a guard: "let a come with me." with a suspicious glance at me, the officer unlocks the door. "shall i come along, chaplain?" he asks. "no, no. it is all right. come, m' boy." past the tier of vacant cells, we ascend the stairway to the upper rotunda, on the left side of which is the chaplain's office. excited and alert, i absorb every detail of the surroundings. i strive to appear indifferent, while furtively following every movement of the chaplain, as he selects the rotunda key from the large bunch in his hand, and opens the door. passionate longing for liberty is consuming me. a plan of escape is maturing in my mind. the chaplain carries all the keys--he lives in the warden's house, connected with the prison--he is so fragile--i could easily overpower him--there is no one in the rotunda--i'd stifle his cries--take the keys-- "have a seat, my boy. sit down. here are some books. look them over. i have a duplicate of my personal bible, with annotations. it is somewhere here." with feverish eyes i watch him lay the keys on the desk. a quick motion, and they would be mine. that large and heavy one, it must belong to the gate. it is so big,--one blow would kill him. ah, there is a safe! the chaplain is taking some books from it. his back is turned to me. a thrust--and i'd lock him in.... stealthily, imperceptibly, i draw nearer to the desk, my eyes fastened on the keys. now i bend over them, pretending to be absorbed in a book, the while my hand glides forward, slowly, cautiously. quickly i lean over; the open book in my hands entirely hides the keys. my hand touches them. desperately i clutch the large, heavy bunch, my arm slowly rises-- "my boy, i cannot find that bible just now, but i'll give you some other book. sit down, my boy. i am so sorry about you. i am an officer of the state, but i think you were dealt with unjustly. your sentence is quite excessive. i can well understand the state of mind that actuated you, a young enthusiast, in these exciting times. it was in connection with homestead, is it not so, m' boy?" * * * * * i fall back into the chair, shaken, unmanned. that deep note of sympathy, the sincerity of the trembling voice--no, no, i cannot touch him.... iii at last, mail from new york! letters from the girl and fedya. with a feeling of mixed anxiety and resentment, i gaze at the familiar handwriting. why didn't they write before? the edge of expectancy has been dulled by the long suspense. the girl and the twin, my closest, most intimate friends of yesterday,--but the yesterday seems so distant in the past, its very reality submerged in the tide of soul-racking events. there is a note of disappointment, almost of bitterness, in the girl's letter. the failure of my act will lessen the moral effect, and diminish its propagandistic value. the situation is aggravated by most. owing to his disparaging attitude, the germans remain indifferent. to a considerable extent, even the jewish revolutionary element has been influenced by him. the twin, in veiled and abstruse russian, hints at the attempted completion of my work, planned, yet impossible of realization. i smile scornfully at the "completion" that failed even of an attempt. the damningly false viewpoint of the girl exasperates me, and i angrily resent the disapproving surprise i sense in both letters at my continued existence. i read the lines repeatedly. every word drips bitterness into my soul. have i grown morbid, or do they actually presume to reproach me with my failure to suicide? by what right? impatiently i smother the accusing whisper of my conscience, "by the right of revolutionary ethics." the will to live leaps into being peremptorily, more compelling and imperative at the implied challenge. no, i will struggle and fight! friend or enemy, they shall learn that i am not so easily done for. i will live, to escape, to conquer! chapter iii spectral silence the silence grows more oppressive, the solitude unbearable. my natural buoyancy is weighted down by a nameless dread. with dismay i realize the failing elasticity of my step, the gradual loss of mental vivacity. i feel worn in body and soul. the regular tolling of the gong, calling to toil or meals, accentuates the enervating routine. it sounds ominously amid the stillness, like the portent of some calamity, horrible and sudden. unshaped fears, the more terrifying because vague, fill my heart. in vain i seek to drown my riotous thoughts by reading and exercise. the walls stand, immovable sentinels, hemming me in on every side, till movement grows into torture. in the constant dusk of the windowless cell the letters dance before my eyes, now forming fantastic figures, now dissolving into corpses and images of death. the morbid pictures fascinate my mind. the hissing gas jet in the corridor irresistibly attracts me. with eyes half shut, i follow the flickering light. its diffusing rays form a kaleidoscope of variegated pattern, now crystallizing into scenes of my youth, now converging upon the image of my new york life, with grotesque illumination of the tragic moments. now the flame is swept by a gust of wind. it darts hither and thither, angrily contending with the surrounding darkness. it whizzes and strikes into its adversary, who falters, then advances with giant shadow, menacing the light with frenzied threats on the whitewashed wall. look! the shadow grows and grows, till it mounts the iron gates that fall heavily behind me, as the officers lead me through the passage. "you're home now," the guard mocks me. i look back. the gray pile looms above me, cold and forbidding, and on its crest stands the black figure leering at me in triumph. the walls frown upon me. they seem human in their cruel immobility. their huge arms tower into the night, as if to crush me on the instant. i feel so small, unutterably weak and defenceless amid all the loneliness,--the breath of the grave is on my face, it draws closer, it surrounds me, and shuts the last rays from my sight. in horror i pause.... the chain grows taut, the sharp edges cut into my wrist. i lurch forward, and wake on the floor of the cell. * * * * * restless dream and nightmare haunt the long nights. i listen eagerly for the tolling of the gong, bidding darkness depart. but the breaking day brings neither hope nor gladness. gloomy as yesterday, devoid of interest as the to-morrows at its heels, endlessly dull and leaden: the rumbling carts, with their loads of half-baked bread; the tasteless brown liquid; the passing lines of striped misery; the coarse commands; the heavy tread; and then--the silence of the tomb. why continue the unprofitable torture? no advantage could accrue to the cause from prolonging this agony. all avenues of escape are closed; the institution is impregnable. the good people have generously fortified this modern bastille; the world at large may sleep in peace, undisturbed by the anguish of calvary. no cry of tormented soul shall pierce these walls of stone, much less the heart of man. why, then, prolong the agony? none heeds, none cares, unless perhaps my comrades,--and they are far away and helpless. helpless, quite helpless. ah, if our movement were strong, the enemy would not dare commit such outrages, knowing that quick and merciless vengeance would retaliate for injustice. but the enemy realizes our weakness. to our everlasting shame, the crime of chicago has not yet been avenged. _vae victis!_ they shall forever be the victims. only might is respected; it alone can influence tyrants. had we strength,--but if the judicial murders of failed to arouse more than passive indignation, can i expect radical developments in consequence of my brutally excessive sentence? it is unreasonable. five years, indeed, have passed since the haymarket tragedy. perhaps the people have since been taught in the bitter school of oppression and defeat. oh, if labor would realize the significance of my deed, if the worker would understand my aims and motives, he could be roused to strong protest, perhaps to active demand. ah, yes! but when, when will the dullard realize things? when will he open his eyes? blind to his own slavery and degradation, can i expect him to perceive the wrong suffered by others? and who is to enlighten him? no one conceives the truth as deeply and clearly as we anarchists. even the socialists dare not advocate the whole, unvarnished truth. they have clothed the goddess of liberty with a fig-leaf; religion, the very fountain-head of bigotry and injustice, has officially been declared _privatsache_. henceforth these timid world-liberators must be careful not to tread upon the toes of prejudice and superstition. soon they will grow to _bourgeois_ respectability, a party of "practical" politics and "sound" morality. what a miserable descent from the peaks of nihilism that proclaimed defiance of all established institutions, _because_ they were established, hence wrong. indeed, there is not a single institution in our pseudo-civilization that deserves to exist. but only the anarchists dare wage war upon all and every form of wrong, and they are few in number, lacking in power. the internal divisions, too, aggravate our weakness; and now, even most has turned apostate. the jewish comrades will be influenced by his attitude. only the girl remains. but she is young in the movement, and almost unknown. undoubtedly she has talent as a speaker, but she is a woman, in rather poor health. in all the movement, i know of no one capable of propaganda by deed, or of an avenging act, except the twin. at least i can expect no other comrade to undertake the dangerous task of a rescue. the twin is a true revolutionist; somewhat impulsive and irresponsible, perhaps, with slight aristocratic leanings, yet quite reliable in matters of revolutionary import. but he would not harbor the thought. we held such queer notions of prison: the sight of a police uniform, an arrest, suggested visions of a bottomless pit, irrevocable disappearance, as in russia. how can i broach the subject to the twin? all mail passes through the hands of the censor; my correspondence, especially--a long-timer and an anarchist--will be minutely scrutinized. there seems no possibility. i am buried alive in this stone grave. escape is hopeless. and this agony of living death--i cannot support it.... chapter iv a ray of light i yearn for companionship. even the mere sight of a human form is a relief. every morning, after breakfast, i eagerly listen for the familiar swish-swash on the flagstones of the hallway: it is the old rangeman[ ] "sweeping up." the sensitive mouth puckered up in an inaudible whistle, the one-armed prisoner swings the broom with his left, the top of the handle pressed under the armpit. [ ] prisoner taking care of a range or tier of cells. "hello, aleck! how're you feeling to-day?" he stands opposite my cell, at the further end of the wall, the broom suspended in mid-stroke. i catch an occasional glance of the kind blue eyes, while his head is in constant motion, turning to right and left, alert for the approach of a guard. "how're you, aleck?" "oh, nothing extra." "i know how it is, aleck, i've been through the mill. keep up your nerve, you'll be all right, old boy. you're young yet." "old enough to die," i say, bitterly. "s--sh! don't speak so loud. the screw's got long ears." "the screw?" a wild hope trembles in my heart. the "screw"! the puzzling expression in the mysterious note,--perhaps this man wrote it. in anxious expectancy, i watch the rangeman. his back turned toward me, head bent, he hurriedly plies the broom with the quick, short stroke of the one-armed sweeper. "s--sh!" he cautions, without turning, as he crosses the line of my cell. i listen intently. not a sound, save the regular swish-swash of the broom. but the more practiced ear of the old prisoner did not err. a long shadow falls across the hall. the tall guard of the malicious eyes stands at my door. "what you pryin' out for?" he demands. "i am not prying." "don't you contradict me. stand back in your hole there. don't you be leanin' on th' door, d'ye hear?" down the hall the guard shouts: "hey you, cripple! talkin' there, wasn't you?" "no, sir." "don't you dare lie to me. you was." "swear to god i wasn't." "w-a-all, if i ever catch you talkin' to that s---- of a b----, i'll fix you." * * * * * the scratching of the broom has ceased. the rangeman is dusting the doors. the even strokes of the cat-o'-nine-tails sound nearer. again the man stops at my door, his head turning right and left, the while he diligently plies the duster. "aleck," he whispers, "be careful of that screw. he's a ----. see him jump on me?" "what would he do to you if he saw you talking to me?" "throw me in the hole, the dungeon, you know. i'd lose my job, too." "then better don't talk to me." "oh, i ain't scared of him. he can't catch _me_, not he. he didn't see me talkin'; just bluffed. can't bluff _me_, though." "but be careful." "it's all right. he's gone out in the yard now. he has no biz in the block,[ ] anyhow, 'cept at feedin' time. he's jest lookin' for trouble. mean skunk he is, that cornbread tom." [ ] cell-house. "who?" "that screw fellings. we call him cornbread tom, b'cause he swipes our corn dodger." "what's corn dodger?" "ha, ha! toosdays and satoordays we gets a chunk of cornbread for breakfast. it ain't much, but better'n stale punk. know what punk is? not long on lingo, are you? punk's bread, and then some kids is punk." he chuckles, merrily, as at some successful _bon mot_. suddenly he pricks up his ears, and with a quick gesture of warning, tiptoes away from the cell. in a few minutes he returns, whispering: "all o. k. road's clear. tom's been called to the shop. won't be back till dinner, thank th' lord. only the cap is in the block, old man mitchell, in charge of this wing. north block it's called." "the women are in the south block?" "nope. th' girls got a speshal building. south block's th' new cell-house, just finished. crowded already, an' fresh fish comin' every day. court's busy in pittsburgh all right. know any one here?" "no." "well, get acquainted, aleck. it'll give you an interest. guess that's what you need. i know how you feel, boy. thought i'd die when i landed here. awful dump. a guy advised me to take an interest an' make friends. i thought he was kiddin' me, but he was on the level, all right. get acquainted, aleck; you'll go bugs if you don't. must vamoose now. see you later. my name's wingie." "wingie?" "that's what they call me here. i'm an old soldier; was at bull run. run so damn fast i lost my right wing, hah, hah, hah! s'long." * * * * * eagerly i look forward to the stolen talks with wingie. they are the sole break in the monotony of my life. but days pass without the exchange of a word. silently the one-armed prisoner walks by, apparently oblivious of my existence, while with beating heart i peer between the bars for a cheering sign of recognition. only the quick wink of his eye reassures me of his interest, and gives warning of the spying guard. by degrees the ingenuity of wingie affords us more frequent snatches of conversation, and i gather valuable information about the prison. the inmates sympathize with me, wingie says. they know i'm "on th' level." i'm sure to find friends, but i must be careful of the "stool pigeons," who report everything to the officers. wingie is familiar with the history of every keeper. most of them are "rotten," he assures me. especially the captain of the night watch is "fierce an' an ex-fly."[ ] only three "screws" are on night duty in each block, but there are a hundred overseers to "run th' dump" during the day. wingie promises to be my friend, and to furnish "more pointers bymby." [ ] fly or fly-cop, a detective. chapter v the shop i i stand in line with a dozen prisoners, in the anteroom of the deputy's office. humiliation overcomes me as my eye falls, for the first time in the full light of day, upon my striped clothes. i am degraded to a beast! my first impression of a prisoner in stripes is painfully vivid: he resembled a dangerous brute. somehow the idea is associated in my mind with a wild tigress,--and i, too, must now look like that. the door of the rotunda swings open, admitting the tall, lank figure of the deputy warden. "hands up!" the deputy slowly passes along the line, examining a hand here and there. he separates the men into groups; then, pointing to the one in which i am included, he says in his feminine accents: "none crippled. officers, take them, hm, hm, to number seven. turn them over to mr. hoods." "fall in! forward, march!" my resentment at the cattle-like treatment is merged into eager expectation. at last i am assigned to work! i speculate on the character of "number seven," and on the possibilities of escape from there. flanked by guards, we cross the prison yard in close lockstep. the sentinels on the wall, their rifles resting loosely on crooked arm, face the striped line winding snakelike through the open space. the yard is spacious and clean, the lawn well kept and inviting. the first breath of fresh air in two weeks violently stimulates my longing for liberty. perhaps the shop will offer an opportunity to escape. the thought quickens my observation. bounded north, east, and south by the stone wall, the two blocks of the cell-house form a parallelogram, enclosing the shops, kitchen, hospital, and, on the extreme south, the women's quarters. "break ranks!" we enter number seven, a mat shop. with difficulty i distinguish the objects in the dark, low-ceilinged room, with its small, barred windows. the air is heavy with dust; the rattling of the looms is deafening. an atmosphere of noisy gloom pervades the place. the officer in charge assigns me to a machine occupied by a lanky prisoner in stripes. "jim, show him what to do." considerable time passes, without jim taking the least notice of me. bent low over the machine, he seems absorbed in the work, his hands deftly manipulating the shuttle, his foot on the treadle. presently he whispers, hoarsely: "fresh fish?" "what did you say?" "you bloke, long here?" "two weeks." "wotcher doin'?" "twenty-one years." "quitcher kiddin'." "it's true." "honest? holy gee!" the shuttle flies to and fro. jim is silent for a while, then he demands, abruptly: "wat dey put you here for?" "i don't know." "been kickin'?" "no." "den you'se bugs." "why so?" "dis 'ere is crank shop. dey never put a mug 'ere 'cept he's bugs, or else dey got it in for you." "how do _you_ happen to be here?" "me? de god damn ---- got it in for me. see dis?" he points to a deep gash over his temple. "had a scrap wid de screws. almost knocked me glimmer out. it was dat big bull[ ] dere, pete hoods. i'll get even wid _him_, all right, damn his rotten soul. i'll kill him. by god, i will. i'll croak 'ere, anyhow." [ ] guard. "perhaps it isn't so bad," i try to encourage him. "it ain't, eh? wat d'_you_ know 'bout it? i've got the con bad, spittin' blood every night. dis dust's killin' me. kill you, too, damn quick." as if to emphasize his words, he is seized with a fit of coughing, prolonged and hollow. the shuttle has in the meantime become entangled in the fringes of the matting. recovering his breath, jim snatches the knife at his side, and with a few deft strokes releases the metal. to and fro flies the gleaming thing, and jim is again absorbed in his task. "don't bother me no more," he warns me, "i'm behind wid me work." every muscle tense, his long body almost stretched across the loom, in turn pulling and pushing, jim bends every effort to hasten the completion of the day's task. the guard approaches. "how's he doing?" he inquires, indicating me with a nod of the head. "he's all right. but say, hoods, dis 'ere is no place for de kid. he's got a twenty-one spot."[ ] [ ] sentence. "shut your damned trap!" the officer retorts, angrily. the consumptive bends over his work, fearfully eyeing the keeper's measuring stick. as the officer turns away, jim pleads: "mr. hoods, i lose time teachin'. won't you please take off a bit? de task is more'n i can do, an' i'm sick." "nonsense. there's nothing the matter with you, jim. you're just lazy, that's what you are. don't be shamming, now. it don't go with _me_." at noon the overseer calls me aside. "you are green here," he warns me, "pay no attention to jim. he wanted to be bad, but we showed him different. he's all right now. you have a long time; see that you behave yourself. this is no playhouse, you understand?" as i am about to resume my place in the line forming to march back to the cells for dinner, he recalls me: "say, aleck, you'd better keep an eye on that fellow jim. he is a little off, you know." he points toward my head, with a significant rotary motion. ii the mat shop is beginning to affect my health: the dust has inflamed my throat, and my eyesight is weakening in the constant dusk. the officer in charge has repeatedly expressed dissatisfaction with my slow progress in the work. "i'll give you another chance," he cautioned me yesterday, "and if you don't make a good mat by next week, down in the hole you go." he severely upbraided jim for his inefficiency as instructor. as the consumptive was about to reply, he suffered an attack of coughing. the emaciated face turned greenish-yellow, but in a moment he seemed to recover, and continued working. suddenly i saw him clutch at the frame, a look of terror spread over his face, he began panting for breath, and then a stream of dark blood gushed from his mouth, and jim fell to the floor. the steady whir of the looms continued. the prisoner at the neighboring machine cast a furtive look at the prostrate form, and bent lower over his work. jim lay motionless, the blood dyeing the floor purple. i rushed to the officer. "mr. hoods, jim has--" "back to your place, damn you!" he shouted at me. "how dare you leave it without permission?" "i just--" "get back, i tell you!" he roared, raising the heavy stick. i returned to my place. jim lay very still, his lips parted, his face ashen. slowly, with measured step, the officer approached. "what's the matter here?" i pointed at jim. the guard glanced at the unconscious man, then lightly touched the bleeding face with his foot. "get up, jim, get up!" the nerveless head rolled to the side, striking the leg of the loom. "guess he isn't shamming," the officer muttered. then he shook his finger at me, menacingly: "don't you ever leave your place without orders. remember, you!" after a long delay, causing me to fear that jim had been forgotten, the doctor arrived. it was mr. rankin, the senior prison physician, a short, stocky man of advanced middle age, with a humorous twinkle in his eye. he ordered the sick prisoner taken to the hospital. "did any one see the man fall?" he inquired. "this man did," the keeper replied, indicating me. while i was explaining, the doctor eyed me curiously. presently he asked my name. "oh, the celebrated case," he smiled. "i know mr. frick quite well. not such a bad man, at all. but you'll be treated well here, mr. berkman. this is a democratic institution, you know. by the way, what is the matter with your eyes? they are inflamed. always that way?" "only since i am working in this shop." "oh, he is all right, doctor," the officer interposed. "he's only been here a week." mr. rankin cast a quizzical look at the guard. "you want him here?" "y-e-s: we're short of men." "well, _i_ am the doctor, mr. hoods." then, turning to me, he added: "report in the morning on sick list." iii the doctor's examination has resulted in my removal to the hosiery department. the change has filled me with renewed hope. a disciplinary shop, to which are generally assigned the "hard cases"--inmates in the first stages of mental derangement, or exceptionally unruly prisoners--the mat shop is the point of special supervision and severest discipline. it is the best-guarded shop, from which escape is impossible. but in the hosiery department, a recent addition to the local industries. i may find the right opportunity. it will require time, of course; but my patience shall be equal to the great object. the working conditions, also, are more favorable: the room is light and airy, the discipline not so stringent. my near-sightedness has secured for me immunity from machine work. the deputy at first insisted that my eyes were "good enough" to see the numerous needles of the hosiery machine. it is true, i could see them; but not with sufficient distinctness to insure the proper insertion of the initial threads. to admit partial ability would result, i knew, in being ordered to produce the task; and failure, or faulty work, would be severely punished. necessity drove me to subterfuge: i pretended total inability to distinguish the needles. repeated threats of punishment failing to change my determination, i have been assigned the comparatively easy work of "turning" the stockings. the occupation, though tedious, is not exacting. it consists in gathering the hosiery manufactured by the knitting machines, whence the product issues without soles. i carry the pile to the table provided with an iron post, about eighteen inches high, topped with a small inverted disk. on this instrument the stockings are turned "inside out" by slipping the article over the post, then quickly "undressing" it. the hosiery thus "turned" is forwarded to the looping machines, by which the product is finished and sent back to me, once more to be "turned," preparatory to sorting and shipment. * * * * * monotonously the days and weeks pass by. practice lends me great dexterity in the work, but the hours of drudgery drag with heavy heel. i seek to hasten time by forcing myself to take an interest in the task. i count the stockings i turn, the motions required by each operation, and the amount accomplished within a given time. but in spite of these efforts, my mind persistently reverts to unprofitable subjects: my friends and the propaganda; the terrible injustice of my excessive sentence; suicide and escape. my nights are restless. oppressed with a nameless weight, or tormented by dread, i awake with a start, breathless and affrighted, to experience the momentary relief of danger past. but the next instant i am overwhelmed by the consciousness of my surroundings, and plunged into rage and despair, powerless, hopeless. thus day succeeds night, and night succeeds day, in the ceaseless struggle of hope and discouragement, of life and death, amid the externally placid tenor of my pennsylvania nightmare. chapter vi my first letter i direct to box a , allegheny city, pa., october th, . dear sister:[ ] it is just a month, a month to-day, since my coming here. i keep wondering, can such a world of misery and torture be compressed into one short month?... how i have longed for this opportunity! you will understand: a month's stay is required before we are permitted to write. but many, many long letters i have written to you--in my mind, dear sonya. where shall i begin now? my space is very limited, and i have so much to say to you and to the twin.--i received your letters. you need not wait till you hear from me: keep on writing. i am allowed to receive all mail sent, "of moral contents," in the phraseology of the rules. and i shall write whenever i may. dear sonya, i sense bitterness and disappointment in your letter. why do you speak of failure? you, at least, you and fedya, should not have your judgment obscured by the mere accident of physical results. your lines pained and grieved me beyond words. not because you should write thus; but that you, even you, should _think_ thus. need i enlarge? true morality deals with motives, not consequences. i cannot believe that we differ on this point. i fully understand what a terrible blow the apostasy of wurst[ ] must have been to you. but however it may minimize the effect, it cannot possibly alter the fact, or its character. this you seem to have lost sight of. in spite of wurst, a great deal could have been accomplished. i don't know whether it has been done: your letter is very meagre on this point. yet it is of supreme interest to me. but i know, sonya,--of this one thing, at least, i am sure--you will do all that is in your power. perhaps it is not much--but the twin and part of orchard street[ ] will be with you. why that note of disappointment, almost of resentment, as to tolstogub's relation to the darwinian theory?[ ] you must consider that the layman cannot judge of the intricacies of scientific hypotheses. the scientist would justly object to such presumption. i embrace you both. the future is dark; but, then, who knows?... write often. tell me about the movement, yourself and friends. it will help to keep me in touch with the outside world, which daily seems to recede further. i clutch desperately at the thread that still binds me to the living--it seems to unravel in my hands, the thin skeins are breaking, one by one. my hold is slackening. but the sonya thread, i know, will remain taut and strong. i have always called you the immutable. alex. [ ] the girl; also referred to as sonya, musick, and sailor. [ ] john most. [ ] orchard street--the hall in which the first jewish anarchist gatherings were held in new york. an allusion to the aid of the jewish comrades. [ ] tolstogub--the author's russian nickname. the expression signifies the continued survival of the writer. [illustration: facsimile of prison letter, reduced one-third] ii i posted the letter in the prisoners' mail-box when the line formed for work this morning. but the moment the missive left my hands, i was seized with a great longing. oh, if some occult means would transform me into that slip of paper! i should now be hidden in that green box--with bated breath i'd flatten myself in the darkest recess, and wait for the chaplain to collect the mail.... my heart beats tumultuously as the wild fancy flutters in my brain. i am oblivious of the forming lines, the sharp commands, the heavy tread. automatically i turn the hosiery, counting one, two, one pair; three, four, two pair. whose voice is it i hear? i surely know the man--there is something familiar about him. he bends over the looping machines and gathers the stockings. now he is counting: one, two, one pair; three, four, two pair. just like myself. why, he looks like myself! and the men all seem to think it is i. ha, ha, ha! the officer, also. i just heard him say, "aleck, work a little faster, can't you? see the piles there, you're falling behind." he thinks it's i. what a clever substitution! and all the while the real "me" is snugly lying here in the green box, peeping through the keyhole, on the watch for the postman. s-sh! i hear a footstep. perhaps it is the chaplain: he will open the box with his quick, nervous hands, seize a handful of letters, and thrust them into the large pocket of his black serge coat. there are so many letters here--i'll slip among them into the large pocket--the chaplain will not notice me. he'll think it's just a letter, ha, ha! he'll scrutinize every word, for it's the letter of a long-timer; his first one, too. but i am safe, i'm invisible; and when they call the roll, they will take that man there for me. he is counting nineteen, twenty, ten pair; twenty-one, twenty-two.... what was that? twenty-two--oh, yes, twenty-two, that's my sentence. the imbeciles, they think i am going to serve it. i'd kill myself first. but it will not be necessary, thank goodness! it was such a lucky thought, this going out in my letter. but what has become of the chaplain? if he'd only come--why is he so long? they might miss me in the shop. no, no! that man is there--he is turning the stockings--they don't know i am here in the box. the chaplain won't know it, either: i am invisible; he'll think it's a letter when he puts me in his pocket, and then he'll seal me in an envelope and address--i must flatten myself so his hand shouldn't feel--and he'll address me to sonya. he'll not know whom he is sending to her--he doesn't know who she is, either--the _deckadresse_ is splendid--we must keep it up. keep it up? why? it will not be necessary: after he mails me, we don't need to write any more--it is well, too--i have so much to tell sonya--and it wouldn't pass the censor. but it's all right now--they'll throw the letters into the mail-carrier's bag--there'll be many of them--this is general letter day. i'll hide in the pile, and they'll pass me through the post-office, on to new york. dear, dear new york! i have been away so long. only a month? well, i must be patient--and not breathe so loud. when i get to new york, i shall not go at once into the house--sonya might get frightened. i'll first peep in through the window--i wonder what she'll be doing--and who will be at home? yes, fedya will be there, and perhaps claus and sep. how surprised they'll all be! sonya will embrace me--she'll throw her arms around my neck--they'll feel so soft and warm-- "hey, there! are you deaf? fall in line!" dazed, bewildered, i see the angry face of the guard before me. the striped men pass me, enveloped in a mist. i grasp the "turner." the iron feels cold. chills shake my frame, and the bundle of hosiery drops from my hand. "fall in line, i tell you!" "sucker!" some one hisses behind me. "workin' after whistle. 'fraid you won't get 'nough in yer twenty-two spot, eh? you sucker, you!" chapter vii wingie the hours at work help to dull the acute consciousness of my environment. the hosiery department is past the stage of experiment; the introduction of additional knitting machines has enlarged my task, necessitating increased effort and more sedulous application. the shop routine now demands all my attention. it leaves little time for thinking or brooding. my physical condition alarms me: the morning hours completely exhaust me, and i am barely able to keep up with the line returning to the cell-house for the noon meal. a feeling of lassitude possesses me, my feet drag heavily, and i experience great difficulty in mastering my sleepiness. * * * * * i have grown indifferent to the meals; the odor of food nauseates me. i am nervous and morbid: the sight of a striped prisoner disgusts me; the proximity of a guard enrages me. the shop officer has repeatedly warned me against my disrespectful and surly manner. but i am indifferent to consequences: what matter what happens? my waning strength is a source of satisfaction: perhaps it indicates the approach of death. the thought pleases me in a quiet, impersonal way. there will be no more suffering, no anguish. the world at large is non-existent; it is centered in me; and yet i myself stand aloof, and see it falling into gradual peace and quiet, into extinction. * * * * * back in my cell after the day's work, i leave the evening meal of bread and coffee untouched. my candle remains unlit. i sit listlessly in the gathering dusk, conscious only of the longing to hear the gong's deep bass,--the three bells tolling the order to retire. i welcome the blessed permission to fall into bed. the coarse straw mattress beckons invitingly; i yearn for sleep, for oblivion. * * * * * occasional mail from friends rouses me from my apathy. but the awakening is brief: the tone of the letter is guarded, their contents too general in character, the matters that might kindle my interest are missing. the world and its problems are drifting from my horizon. i am cast into the darkness. no ray of sunshine holds out the promise of spring. * * * * * at times the realization of my fate is borne in upon me with the violence of a shock, and i am engulfed in despair, now threatening to break down the barriers of sanity, now affording melancholy satisfaction in the wild play of fancy.... existence grows more and more unbearable with the contrast of dream and reality. weary of the day's routine, i welcome the solitude of the cell, impatient even of the greeting of the passing convict. i shrink from the uninvited familiarity of these men, the horizontal gray and black constantly reviving the image of the tigress, with her stealthy, vicious cunning. they are not of _my_ world. i would aid them, as in duty bound to the victims of social injustice. but i cannot be friends with them: they do not belong to the people, to whose service my life is consecrated. unfortunates, indeed; yet parasites upon the producers, less in degree, but no less in kind than the rich exploiters. by virtue of my principles, rather than their deserts, i must give them my intellectual sympathy; they touch no chord in my heart. only wingie seems different. there is a gentle note about his manner that breathes cheer and encouragement. often i long for his presence, yet he seldom finds opportunity to talk with me, save sundays during church service, when i remain in the cell. perhaps i may see him to-day. he must be careful of the block captain, on his rounds of the galleries, counting the church delinquents.[ ] the captain is passing on the range now. i recognize the uncertain step, instantly ready to halt at the sight of a face behind the bars. now he is at the cell. he pencils in his note-book the number on the wooden block over the door, a . [ ] inmates of catholic faith are excused from attending protestant service, and _vice versa_. "catholic?" he asks, mechanically. then, looking up, he frowns on me. "you're no catholic, berkman. what d'you stay in for?" "i am an atheist." "a what?" "an atheist, a non-believer." "oh, an infidel, are you? you'll be damned, shore 'nough." the wooden stairs creak beneath the officer's weight. he has turned the corner. wingie will take advantage now. i hope he will come soon. perhaps somebody is watching-- "hello, aleck! want a piece of pie? here, grab it!" "pie, wingie?" i whisper wonderingly. "where do you get such luxuries?" "swiped from the screw's poke, cornbread tom's dinner-basket, you know. the cheap guy saved it after breakfast. rotten, ain't he?" "why so?" "why, you greenie, he's a stomach robber, that's what he is. it's _our_ pie, aleck, made here in the bakery. that's why our punk is stale, see; they steals the east[ ] to make pies for th' screws. are you next? how d' you like the grub, anyhow?" [ ] yeast. "the bread is generally stale, wingie. and the coffee tastes like tepid water." "coffee you call it? he, he, coffee hell. it ain't no damn coffee; 'tnever was near coffee. it's just bootleg, aleck, bootleg. know how't's made?" "no." "well, i been three months in th' kitchen. you c'llect all the old punk that the cons dump out with their dinner pans. only the crust's used, see. like as not some syph coon spit on 't. some's mean enough to do't, you know. makes no diff, though. orders is, cut off th' crusts an' burn 'em to a good black crisp. then you pour boiling water over it an' dump it in th' kettle, inside a bag, you know, an' throw a little dirty chic'ry in--there's your _coffee_. i never touch th' rotten stuff. it rooins your stummick, that's what it does, aleck. you oughtn't drink th' swill." "i don't care if it kills me." "come, come, aleck. cheer up, old boy. you got a tough bit, i know, but don' take it so hard. don' think of your time. forget it. oh, yes, you can; you jest take my word for't. make some friends. think who you wan' to see to-morrow, then try t' see 'm. that's what you wan' to do, aleck. it'll keep you hustlin'. best thing for the blues, kiddie." for a moment he pauses in his hurried whisper. the soft eyes are full of sympathy, the lips smile encouragingly. he leans the broom against the door, glances quickly around, hesitates an instant, and then deftly slips a slender, delicate hand between the bars, and gives my cheek a tender pat. involuntarily i step back, with the instinctive dislike of a man's caress. yet i would not offend my kind friend. but wingie must have noticed my annoyance: he eyes me critically, wonderingly. presently picking up the broom, he says with a touch of diffidence: "you are all right, aleck. i like you for 't. jest wanted t' try you, see?" "how 'try me,' wingie?" "oh, you ain't next? well, you see--" he hesitates, a faint flush stealing over his prison pallor, "you see, aleck, it's--oh, wait till i pipe th' screw." poor wingie, the ruse is too transparent to hide his embarrassment. i can distinctly follow the step of the block captain on the upper galleries. he is the sole officer in the cell-house during church service. the unlocking of the yard door would apprise us of the entrance of a guard, before the latter could observe wingie at my cell. i ponder over the flimsy excuse. why did wingie leave me? his flushed face, the halting speech of the usually loquacious rangeman, the subterfuge employed to "sneak off,"--as he himself would characterize his hasty departure,--all seem very peculiar. what could he have meant by "trying" me? but before i have time to evolve a satisfactory explanation, i hear wingie tiptoeing back. "it's all right, aleck. they won't come from the chapel for a good while yet." "what did you mean by 'trying' me, wingie?" "oh, well," he stammers, "never min', aleck. you are a good boy, all right. you don't belong here, that's what _i_ say." "well, i _am_ here; and the chances are i'll die here." "now, don't talk so foolish, boy. i 'lowed you looked down at the mouth. now, don't you fill your head with such stuff an' nonsense. croak here, hell! you ain't goin' t'do nothin' of the kind. don't you go broodin', now. you listen t'me, aleck, that's your friend talkin', see? you're so young, why, you're just a kid. twenty-one, ain't you? an' talkin' about dyin'! shame on you, shame!" his manner is angry, but the tremor in his voice sends a ray of warmth to my heart. impulsively i put my hand between the bars. his firm clasp assures me of returned appreciation. "you must brace up, aleck. look at the lifers. you'd think they'd be black as night. nit, my boy, the jolliest lot in th' dump. you seen old henry? no? well, you ought' see 'im. he's the oldest man here; in fifteen years. a lifer, an' hasn't a friend in th' woild, but he's happy as th' day's long. an' you got plenty friends; true blue, too. i know you have." "i have, wingie. but what could they do for me?" "how you talk, aleck. could do anythin'. you got rich friends, i know. you was mixed up with frick. well, your friends are all right, ain't they?" "of course. what could they do, wingie?" "get you pard'n, in two, three years may be, see? you must make a good record here." "oh, i don't care for a pardon." "wha-a-t? you're kiddin'." "no, wingie, quite seriously. i am opposed to it on principle." "you're sure bugs. what you talkin' 'bout? principle fiddlesticks. want to get out o' here?" "of course i do." "well, then, quit your principle racket. what's principle got t' do with 't? your principle's 'gainst get-tin' out?" "no, but against being pardoned." "you're beyond me, aleck. guess you're joshin' me." "now listen, wingie. you see, i wouldn't apply for a pardon, because it would be asking favors from the government, and i am against it, you understand? it would be of no use, anyhow, wingie." "an' if you could get a pard'n for the askin', you won't ask, aleck. that's what you mean?" "yes." "you're hot stuff, aleck. what they call you, narchist? hot stuff, by gosh! can't make you out, though. seems daffy. lis'n t' me, aleck. if i was you, i'd take anythin' i could get, an' then tell 'em to go t'hell. that's what _i_ would do, my boy." he looks at me quizzically, searchingly. the faint echo of the captain's step reaches us from a gallery on the opposite side. with a quick glance to right and left, wingie leans over toward the door. his mouth between the bars, he whispers very low: "principles opposed to a get-a-way, aleck?" the sudden question bewilders me. the instinct of liberty, my revolutionary spirit, the misery of my existence, all flame into being, rousing a wild, tumultuous beating of my heart, pervading my whole being with hope, intense to the point of pain. i remain silent. is it safe to trust him? he seems kind and sympathetic-- "you may trust me, aleck," wingie whispers, as if reading my thoughts. "i'm your friend." "yes, wingie, i believe you. my principles are not opposed to an escape. i have been thinking about it, but so far--" "s-sh! easy. walls have ears." "any chance here, wingie?" "well, it's a damn tough dump, this 'ere is; but there's many a star in heaven, aleck, an' you may have a lucky one. hasn't been a get-a-way here since paddy mcgraw sneaked over th' roof, that's--lemme see, six, seven years ago, 'bout." "how did he do it?" i ask, breathlessly. "jest irish luck. they was finishin' the new block, you know. paddy was helpin' lay th' roof. when he got good an' ready, he jest goes to work and slides down th' roof. swiped stuff in the mat shop an' spliced a rope together, see. they never got 'im, either." "was he in stripes, wingie?" "sure he was. only been in a few months." "how did he manage to get away in stripes? wouldn't he be recognized as an escaped prisoner?" "_that_ bother you, aleck? why, it's easy. get planted till dark, then hold up th' first bloke you see an' take 'is duds. or you push in th' back door of a rag joint; plenty of 'em in allegheny." "is there any chance now through the roof?" "nit, my boy. nothin' doin' _there_. but a feller's got to be alive. many ways to kill a cat, you know. remember the stiff[ ] you got in them things, tow'l an' soap?" [ ] note. "you know about it, wingie?" i ask, in amazement. "do i? he, he, you little--" the click of steel sounds warning. wingie disappears. chapter viii to the girl direct to box a , allegheny city, pa., november , . my dear sonya: it seems an age since i wrote to you, yet it is only a month. but the monotony of my life weights down the heels of time,--the only break in the terrible sameness is afforded me by your dear, affectionate letters, and those of fedya. when i return to the cell for the noon meal, my step is quickened by the eager expectation of finding mail from you. about eleven in the morning, the chaplain makes his rounds; his practiced hand shoots the letter between the bars, toward the bed or on to the little table in the corner. but if the missive is light, it will flutter to the floor. as i reach the cell, the position of the little white object at once apprises me whether the letter is long or short. with closed eyes i sense its weight, like the warm pressure of your own dear hand, the touch reaching softly to my heart, till i feel myself lifted across the chasm into your presence. the bars fade, the walls disappear, and the air grows sweet with the aroma of fresh air and flowers,--i am again with you, walking in the bright july moonlight.... the touch of the _velikorussian_ in your eyes and hair conjures up the volga, our beautiful _bogatir_,[ ] and the strains of the _dubinushka_,[ ] trembling with suffering and yearning, float about me.... the meal remains untouched. i dream over your letter, and again i read it, slowly, slowly, lest i reach the end too quickly. the afternoon hours are hallowed by your touch and your presence, and i am conscious only of the longing for my cell,--in the quiet of the evening, freed from the nightmare of the immediate, i walk in the garden of our dreams. and the following morning, at work in the shop, i pass in anxious wonder whether some cheering word from my own, my real world, is awaiting me in the cell. with a glow of emotion i think of the chaplain: perhaps at the very moment your letter is in his hands. he is opening it, reading. why should strange eyes ... but the chaplain seems kind and discreet. now he is passing along the galleries, distributing the mail. the bundle grows meagre as the postman reaches the ground floor. oh! if he does not come to my cell quickly, he may have no letters left. but the next moment i smile at the childish thought,--if there is a letter for me, no other prisoner will get it. yet some error might happen.... no, it is impossible--my name and prison number, and the cell number marked by the chaplain across the envelope, all insure the mail against any mistake in delivery. now the dinner whistle blows. eagerly i hasten to the cell. there is nothing on the floor! perhaps on the bed, on the table.... i grow feverish with the dread of disappointment. possibly the letter fell under the bed, or in that dark corner. no, none there,--but it can't be that there is no mail for me to-day! i must look again--it may have dropped among the blankets.... no, there is no letter! * * * * * thus pass my days, dear friend. in thought i am ever with you and fedya, in our old haunts and surroundings. i shall never get used to this life, nor find an interest in the reality of the moment. what will become of me, i don't know. i hardly care. we are revolutionists, dear: whatever sacrifices the cause demands, though the individual perish, humanity will profit in the end. in that consciousness we must find our solace. alex. [ ] brave knight--affectionately applied to the great river. [ ] folk-song. _sub rosa_, last day of november, . beloved girl: i thought i would not survive the agony of our meeting, but human capacity for suffering seems boundless. all my thoughts, all my yearnings, were centered in the one desire to see you, to look into your eyes, and there read the beautiful promise that has filled my days with strength and hope.... an embrace, a lingering kiss, and the gift of lingg[ ] would have been mine. to grasp your hand, to look down for a mute, immortal instant into your soul, and then die at your hands, beloved, with the warm breath of your caress wafting me into peaceful eternity--oh, it were bliss supreme, the realization of our day dreams, when, in transports of ecstasy, we kissed the image of the social revolution. do you remember that glorious face, so strong and tender, on the wall of our little houston street hallroom? how far, far in the past are those inspired moments! but they have filled my hours with hallowed thoughts, with exulting expectations. and then you came. a glance at your face, and i knew my doom to terrible life. i read it in the evil look of the guard. it was the deputy himself. perhaps you had been searched! he followed our every moment, like a famished cat that feigns indifference, yet is alert with every nerve to spring upon the victim. oh, i know the calculated viciousness beneath that meek exterior. the accelerated movement of his drumming fingers, as he deliberately seated himself between us, warned me of the beast, hungry for prey.... the halo was dissipated. the words froze within me, and i could meet you only with a vapid smile, and on the instant it was mirrored in my soul as a leer, and i was filled with anger and resentment at everything about us--myself, the deputy (i could have throttled him to death), and--at you, dear. yes, sonya, even at you: the quick come to bury the dead.... but the next moment, the unworthy throb of my agonized soul was stilled by the passionate pressure of my lips upon your hand. how it trembled! i held it between my own, and then, as i lifted my face to yours, the expression i beheld seemed to bereave me of my own self: it was you who were i! the drawn face, the look of horror, your whole being the cry of torture--were _you_ not the real prisoner? or was it my visioned suffering that cemented the spiritual bond, annihilating all misunderstanding, all resentment, and lifting us above time and place in the afflatus of martyrdom? mutely i held your hand. there was no need for words. only the prying eyes of the catlike presence disturbed the sacred moment. then we spoke--mechanically, trivialities.... what though the cadaverous deputy with brutal gaze timed the seconds, and forbade the sound of our dear russian,--nor heaven nor earth could violate the sacrament sealed with our pain. the echo accompanied my step as i passed through the rotunda on my way to the cell. all was quiet in the block. no whir of loom reached me from the shops. thanksgiving day: all activities were suspended. i felt at peace in the silence. but when the door was locked, and i found myself alone, all alone within the walls of the tomb, the full significance of your departure suddenly dawned on me. the quick had left the dead.... terror of the reality seized me and i was swept by a paroxysm of anguish-- i must close. the friend who promised to have this letter mailed _sub rosa_ is at the door. he is a kind unfortunate who has befriended me. may this letter reach you safely. in token of which, send me postal of indifferent contents, casually mentioning the arrival of news from my brother in moscow. remember to sign "sister." with a passionate embrace, your sasha. [ ] louis lingg, one of the chicago martyrs, who committed suicide with a dynamite cartridge in a cigar given him by a friend. chapter ix persecution i suffering and ever-present danger are quick teachers. in the three months of penitentiary life i have learned many things. i doubt whether the vague terrors pictured by my inexperience were more dreadful than the actuality of prison existence. in one respect, especially, the reality is a source of bitterness and constant irritation. notwithstanding all its terrors, perhaps because of them, i had always thought of prison as a place where, in a measure, nature comes into its own: social distinctions are abolished, artificial barriers destroyed; no need of hiding one's thoughts and emotions; one could be his real self, shedding all hypocrisy and artifice at the prison gates. but how different is this life! it is full of deceit, sham, and pharisaism--an aggravated counterpart of the outside world. the flatterer, the backbiter, the spy,--these find here a rich soil. the ill-will of a guard portends disaster, to be averted only by truckling and flattery, and servility fawns for the reward of an easier job. the dissembling soul in stripes whines his conversion into the pleased ears of the christian ladies, taking care he be not surprised without tract or bible,--and presently simulated piety secures a pardon, for the angels rejoice at the sinner's return to the fold. it sickens me to witness these scenes. the officers make the alternative quickly apparent to the new inmate: to protest against injustice is unavailing and dangerous. yesterday i witnessed in the shop a characteristic incident--a fight between johnny davis and jack bradford, both recent arrivals and mere boys. johnny, a manly-looking fellow, works on a knitting machine, a few feet from my table. opposite him is jack, whose previous experience in a reformatory has "put him wise," as he expresses it. my three months' stay has taught me the art of conversing by an almost imperceptible motion of the lips. in this manner i learned from johnny that bradford is stealing his product, causing him repeated punishment for shortage in the task. hoping to terminate the thefts, johnny complained to the overseer, though without accusing jack. but the guard ignored the complaint, and continued to report the youth. finally johnny was sent to the dungeon. yesterday morning he returned to work. the change in the rosy-cheeked boy was startling: pale and hollow-eyed, he walked with a weak, halting step. as he took his place at the machine, i heard him say to the officer: "mr. cosson, please put me somewhere else." "why so?" the guard asked. "i can't make the task here. i'll make it on another machine, please, mr. cosson." "why can't you make it here?" "i'm missing socks." "ho, ho, playing the old game, are you? want to go to th' hole again, eh?" "i couldn't stand the hole again, mr. cosson, swear to god, i couldn't. but my socks's missing here." "missing hell! who's stealing your socks, eh? don't come with no such bluff. nobody can't steal your socks while i'm around. you go to work now, and you'd better make the task, understand?" late in the afternoon, when the count was taken, johnny proved eighteen pairs short. bradford was "over." i saw mr. cosson approach johnny. "eh, thirty, machine thirty," he shouted. "you won't make the task, eh? put your coat and cap on." fatal words! they meant immediate report to the deputy, and the inevitable sentence to the dungeon. "oh, mr. cosson," the youth pleaded, "it ain't my fault, so help me god, it isn't." "it ain't, eh? whose fault is it; mine?" johnny hesitated. his eyes sought the ground, then wandered toward bradford, who studiously avoided the look. "i can't squeal," he said, quietly. "oh, hell! you ain't got nothin' to squeal. get your coat and cap." johnny passed the night in the dungeon. this morning he came up, his cheeks more sunken, his eyes more hollow. with desperate energy he worked. he toiled steadily, furiously, his gaze fastened upon the growing pile of hosiery. occasionally he shot a glance at bradford, who, confident of the officer's favor, met the look of hatred with a sly winking of the left eye. once johnny, without pausing in the work, slightly turned his head in my direction. i smiled encouragingly, and at that same instant i saw jack's hand slip across the table and quickly snatch a handful of johnny's stockings. the next moment a piercing shriek threw the shop into commotion. with difficulty they tore away the infuriated boy from the prostrate bradford. both prisoners were taken to the deputy for trial, with senior officer cosson as the sole witness. impatiently i awaited the result. through the open window i saw the overseer return. he entered the shop, a smile about the corners of his mouth. i resolved to speak to him when he passed by. "mr. cosson," i said, with simulated respectfulness, "may i ask you a question?" "why, certainly, burk, i won't eat you. fire away!" "what have they done with the boys?" "johnny got ten days in the hole. pretty stiff, eh? you see, he started the fight, so he won't have to make the task. oh, i'm next to _him_ all right. they can't fool me so easy, can they, burk?" "well, i should say not, mr. cosson. did you see how the fight started?" "no. but johnny admitted he struck bradford first. that's enough, you know. 'brad' will be back in the shop to-morrow. i got 'im off easy, see; he's a good worker, always makes more than th' task. he'll jest lose his supper. guess he can stand it. ain't much to lose, is there, burk?" "no, not much," i assented. "but, mr. cosson, it was all bradford's fault." "how so?" the guard demanded. "he has been stealing johnny's socks." "you didn't see him do 't." "yes, mr. cosson. i saw him this--" "look here, burk. it's all right. johnny is no good anyway; he's too fresh. you'd better say nothing about it, see? my word goes with the deputy." * * * * * the terrible injustice preys on my mind. poor johnny is already the fourth day in the dreaded dungeon. his third time, too, and yet absolutely innocent. my blood boils at the thought of the damnable treatment and the officer's perfidy. it is my duty as a revolutionist to take the part of the persecuted. yes, i will do so. but how proceed in the matter? complaint against mr. cosson would in all likelihood prove futile. and the officer, informed of my action, will make life miserable for me: his authority in the shop is absolute. the several plans i revolve in my mind do not prove, upon closer examination, feasible. considerations of personal interest struggle against my sense of duty. the vision of johnny in the dungeon, his vacant machine, and bradford's smile of triumph, keep the accusing conscience awake, till silence grows unbearable. i determine to speak to the deputy warden at the first opportunity. several days pass. often i am assailed by doubts: is it advisable to mention the matter to the deputy? it cannot benefit johnny; it will involve me in trouble. but the next moment i feel ashamed of my weakness. i call to mind the much-admired hero of my youth, the celebrated mishkin. with an overpowering sense of my own unworthiness, i review the brave deeds of hippolyte nikitich. what a man! single-handed he essayed to liberate chernishevsky from prison. ah, the curse of poverty! but for that, mishkin would have succeeded, and the great inspirer of the youth of russia would have been given back to the world. i dwell on the details of the almost successful escape, mishkin's fight with the pursuing cossacks, his arrest, and his remarkable speech in court. sentenced to ten years of hard labor in the siberian mines, he defied the russian tyrant by his funeral oration at the grave of dmokhovsky, his boldness resulting in an additional fifteen years of _kátorga_.[ ] minutely i follow his repeated attempts to escape, the transfer of the redoubtable prisoner to the petropavloskaia fortress, and thence to the terrible schlüsselburg prison, where mishkin braved death by avenging the maltreatment of his comrades on a high government official. ah! thus acts the revolutionist; and i--yes, i am decided. no danger shall seal my lips against outrage and injustice. [ ] hard labor in the mines. * * * * * at last an opportunity is at hand. the deputy enters the shop. tall and gray, slightly stooping, with head carried forward, he resembles a wolf following the trail. "mr. mcpane, one moment, please." "yes." "i think johnny davis is being punished innocently." "you think, hm, hm. and who is this innocent johnny, hm, davis?" his fingers drum impatiently on the table; he measures me with mocking, suspicious eyes. "machine thirty, deputy." "ah, yes; machine thirty; hm, hm, reddy davis. hm, he had a fight." "the other man stole his stockings. i saw it, mr. mcpane." "so, so. and why, hm, hm, did you see it, my good man? you confess, then, hm, hm, you were not, hm, attending to your own work. that is bad, hm, very bad. mr. cosson!" the guard hastens to him. "mr. cosson, this man has made a, hm, hm, a charge against you. prisoner, don't interrupt me. hm, what is your number?" "a ." "mr. cosson, a makes a, hm, complaint against the officer, hm, in charge of this shop. please, hm, hm, note it down." both draw aside, conversing in low tones. the words "kicker," "his kid," reach my ears. the deputy nods at the overseer, his steely eyes fastened on me in hatred. ii i feel helpless, friendless. the consolation of wingie's cheerful spirit is missing. my poor friend is in trouble. from snatches of conversation in the shop i have pieced together the story. "dutch" adams, a third-timer and the deputy's favorite stool pigeon, had lost his month's allowance of tobacco on a prize-fight bet. he demanded that wingie, who was stakeholder, share the spoils with him. infuriated by refusal, "dutch" reported my friend for gambling. the unexpected search of wingie's cell discovered the tobacco, thus apparently substantiating the charge. wingie was sent to the dungeon. but after the expiration of five days my friend failed to return to his old cell, and i soon learned that he had been ordered into solitary confinement for refusing to betray the men who had trusted him. the fate of wingie preys on my mind. my poor kind friend is breaking down under the effects of the dreadful sentence. this morning, chancing to pass his cell, i hailed him, but he did not respond to my greeting. perhaps he did not hear me, i thought. impatiently i waited for the noon return to the block. "hello, wingie!" i called. he stood at the door, intently peering between the bars. he stared at me coldly, with blank, expressionless eyes. "who are you?" he whimpered, brokenly. then he began to babble. suddenly the terrible truth dawned on me. my poor, poor friend, the first to speak a kind word to me,--he's gone mad! chapter x the yegg i weeks and months pass without clarifying plans of escape. every step, every movement, is so closely guarded, i seem to be hoping against hope. i am restive and nervous, in a constant state of excitement. conditions in the shop tend to aggravate my frame of mind. the task of the machine men has been increased; in consequence, i am falling behind in my work. my repeated requests for assistance have been ignored by the overseer, who improves every opportunity to insult and humiliate me. his feet wide apart, arms akimbo, belly disgustingly protruding, he measures me with narrow, fat eyes. "oh, what's the matter with you," he drawls, "get a move on, won't you, burk?" then, changing his tone, he vociferates, "don't stand there like a fool, d'ye hear? nex' time i report you, to th' hole you go. that's _me_ talkin', understand?" often i feel the spirit of cain stirring within me. but for the hope of escape, i should not be able to bear this abuse and persecution. as it is, the guard is almost overstepping the limits of my endurance. his low cunning invents numerous occasions to mortify and harass me. the ceaseless dropping of the poison is making my days in the shop a constant torture. i seek relief--forgetfulness rather--in absorbing myself in the work: i bend my energies to outdo the efforts of the previous day; i compete with myself, and find melancholy pleasure in establishing and breaking high records for "turning." again, i tax my ingenuity to perfect means of communication with johnny davis, my young neighbor. apparently intent upon our task, we carry on a silent conversation with eyes, fingers, and an occasional motion of the lips. to facilitate the latter method, i am cultivating the habit of tobacco chewing. the practice also affords greater opportunity for exchanging impressions with my newly-acquired assistant, an old-timer, who introduced himself as "boston red." i owe this development to the return of the warden from his vacation. yesterday he visited the shop. a military-looking man, with benevolent white beard and stately carriage, he approached me, in company with the superintendent of prison manufactures. "is this the celebrated prisoner?" he asked, a faint smile about the rather coarse mouth. "yes, captain, that's berkman, the man who shot frick." "i was in naples at the time. i read about you in the english papers there, berkman. how is his conduct, superintendent?" "good." "well, he should have behaved outside." but noticing the mountain of unturned hosiery, the warden ordered the overseer to give me help, and thus "boston red" joined me at work the next day. * * * * * my assistant is taking great pleasure in perfecting me in the art of lipless conversation. a large quid of tobacco inflating his left cheek, mouth slightly open and curved, he delights in recounting "ghost stories," under the very eyes of the officers. "red" is initiating me into the world of "de road," with its free life, so full of interest and adventure, its romance, joys and sorrows. an interesting character, indeed, who facetiously pretends to "look down upon the world from the sublime heights of applied cynicism." "why, red, you can talk good english," i admonish him. "why do you use so much slang? it's rather difficult for me to follow you." "i'll learn you, pard. see, i should have said 'teach' you, not 'learn.' that's how they talk in school. have i been there? sure, boy. gone through college. went through it with a bucket of coal," he amplifies, with a sly wink. he turns to expectorate, sweeping the large shop with a quick, watchful eye. head bent over the work, he continues in low, guttural tones: "don't care for your classic language. i can use it all right, all right. but give me the lingo, every time. you see, pard, i'm no gun;[ ] don't need it in me biz. i'm a yegg." [ ] professional thief. "what's a yegg, red?" "a supercilious world of cheerful idiots applies to my kind the term 'tramp.'" "a yegg, then, is a tramp. i am surprised that you should care for the life of a bum." a flush suffuses the prison pallor of the assistant. "you are stoopid as the rest of 'em," he retorts, with considerable heat, and i notice his lips move as in ordinary conversation. but in a moment he has regained composure, and a good-humored twinkle plays about his eyes. "sir," he continues, with mock dignity, "to say the least, you are not discriminative in your terminology. no, sir, you are not. now, lookee here, pard, you're a good boy, but your education has been sadly neglected. catch on? don't call me that name again. it's offensive. it's an insult, entirely gratuitous, sir. indeed, sir, i may say without fear of contradiction, that this insult is quite supervacaneous. yes, sir, that's _me_. i ain't no bum, see; no such damn thing. eliminate the disgraceful epithet from your vocabulary, sir, when you are addressing yours truly. i am a yagg, y--a--double g, sir, of the honorable clan of yaggmen. some spell it y--e--double g, but i insist on the a, sir, as grammatically more correct, since the peerless word has no etymologic consanguinity with hen fruit, and should not be confounded by vulgar misspelling." "what's the difference between a yegg and a bum?" "all the diff in the world, pard. a bum is a low-down city bloke, whose intellectual horizon, sir, revolves around the back door, with a skinny hand-out as his center of gravity. he hasn't the nerve to forsake his native heath and roam the wide world, a free and independent gentleman. that's the yagg, me bye. he dares to be and do, all bulls notwithstanding. he lives, aye, he lives,--on the world of suckers, thank you, sir. of them 'tis wisely said in the good book, 'they shall increase and multiply like the sands of the seashore,' or words to that significant effect. a yagg's the salt of the earth, pard. a real, true-blood yagg will not deign to breathe the identical atmosphere with a city bum or gaycat. no, sirree." i am about to ask for an explanation of the new term, when the quick, short coughs of "red" warn me of danger. the guard is approaching with heavy, measured tread, head thrown back, hands clasped behind,--a sure indication of profound self-satisfaction. "how are you, reddie?" he greets the assistant. "so, so." "ain't been out long, have you?" "two an' some." "that's pretty long for you." "oh, i dunno. i've been out four years oncet." "yes, you have! been in columbus[ ] then, i s'pose." [ ] the penitentiary at columbus, ohio. "not on your life, mr. cosson. it was sing sing." "ha, ha! you're all right, red. but you'd better hustle up, fellers. i'm putting in ten more machines, so look lively." "when's the machines comin', mr. cosson?" "pretty soon, red." the officer passing on, "red" whispers to me: "aleck, 'pretty soon' is jest the time i'll quit. damn his work and the new machines. i ain't no gaycat to work. think i'm a nigger, eh? no, sir, the world owes me a living, and i generally manage to get it, you bet you. only mules and niggers work. i'm a free man; i can live on my wits, see? i don't never work outside; damme if i'll work here. i ain't no office-seeker. what d' i want to work for, eh? can you tell me _that_?" "are you going to refuse work?" "refuse? me? nixie. that's a crude word, that. no, sir, i never refuse. they'll knock your damn block off, if you refuse. i merely avoid, sir, discriminately end with steadfast purpose. work is a disease, me bye. one must exercise the utmost care to avoid contagion. it's a regular pest. _you_ never worked, did you?" the unexpected turn surprises me into a smile, which i quickly suppress, however, observing the angry frown on "red's" face. "you bloke," he hisses, "shut your face; the screw'll pipe you. you'll get us in th' hole for chewin' th' rag. whatcher hehawin' about?" he demands, repeating the manoeuvre of pretended expectoration. "d'ye mean t' tell me you work?" "i am a printer, a compositor," i inform him. "get off! you're an anarchist. i read the papers, sir. you people don't believe in work. you want to divvy up. well, it is all right, i'm with you. rockefeller has no right to the whole world. he ain't satisfied with that, either; he wants a fence around it." "the anarchists don't want to 'divvy up,' red. you got your misinformation--" "oh, never min', pard. i don' take stock in reforming the world. it's good enough for suckers, and as holy writ says, sir, 'blessed be they that neither sow nor hog; all things shall be given unto them.' them's wise words, me bye. moreover, sir, neither you nor me will live to see a change, so why should i worry me nut about 't? it takes all my wits to dodge work. it's disgraceful to labor, and it keeps me industriously busy, sir, to retain my honor and self-respect. why, you know, pard, or perhaps you don't, greenie, columbus is a pretty tough dump; but d'ye think i worked the four-spot there? not me; no, sirree!" "didn't you tell cosson you were in sing sing, not in columbus?" "'corse i did. what of it? think i'd open my guts to my lord bighead? i've never been within thirty miles of the york pen. it was hail columbia all right, but that's between you an' i, savvy. don' want th' screws to get next." "well, red, how did you manage to keep away from work in columbus?" "manage? that's right, sir. 'tis a word of profound significance, quite adequately descriptive of my humble endeavors. just what i did, buddy. i managed, with a capital m. to good purpose, too, me bye. not a stroke of work in a four-spot. how? i had billie with me, that's me kid, you know, an' a fine boy he was, too. i had him put a jigger on me; kept it up for four years. there's perseverance and industry for you, sir." "what's 'putting a jigger on'?" "a jigger? well, a jigger is--" the noon whistle interrupts the explanation. with a friendly wink in my direction, the assistant takes his place in the line. in silence we march to the cell-house, the measured footfall echoing a hollow threat in the walled quadrangle of the prison yard. ii conversation with "boston red," young davis, and occasional other prisoners helps to while away the tedious hours at work. but in the solitude of the cell, through the long winter evenings, my mind dwells in the outside world. friends, the movement, the growing antagonisms, the bitter controversies between the _mostianer_ and the defenders of my act, fill my thoughts and dreams. by means of fictitious, but significant, names, russian and german words written backward, and similar devices, the girl keeps me informed of the activities in our circles. i think admiringly, yet quite impersonally, of her strenuous militancy in championing my cause against all attacks. it is almost weak on my part, as a terrorist of russian traditions, to consider her devotion deserving of particular commendation. she is a revolutionist; it is her duty to our common cause. courage, whole-souled zeal, is very rare, it is true. the girl. fedya, and a few others,--hence the sad lack of general opposition in the movement to most's attitude.... but communications from comrades and unknown sympathizers germinate the hope of an approaching reaction against the campaign of denunciation. with great joy i trace the ascending revolutionary tendency in _der arme teufel_. i have persuaded the chaplain to procure the admission of the ingenious robert reitzel's publication. all the other periodicals addressed to me are regularly assigned to the waste basket, by orders of the deputy. the latter refused to make an exception even in regard to the _knights of labor journal_. "it is an incendiary anarchist sheet," he persisted. * * * * * the arrival of the _teufel_ is a great event. what joy to catch sight of the paper snugly reposing between the legs of the cell table! tenderly i pick it up, fondling the little visitor with quickened pulse. it is an animate, living thing, a ray of warmth in the dreary evenings. what cheering message does reitzel bring me now? what beauties of his rich mind are hidden to-day in the quaint german type? reverently i unfold the roll. the uncut sheet opens on the fourth page, and the stirring paean of hope's prophecy greets my eye,-- gruss an alexander berkman! for days the music of the dawn rings in my ears. again and again recurs the refrain of faith and proud courage, schon rüstet sich der freiheit schaar zur heiligen entscheidungschlacht; es enden "zweiundzwanzig" jahr' vielleicht in e i n e r sturmesnacht! but in the evening, when i return to the cell, reality lays its heavy hand upon my heart. the flickering of the candle accentuates the gloom, and i sit brooding over the interminable succession of miserable days and evenings and nights.... the darkness gathers around the candle, as i motionlessly watch its desperate struggle to be. its dying agony, ineffectual and vain, presages my own doom, approaching, inevitable. weaker and fainter grows the light, feebler, feebler--a last spasm, and all is utter blackness. three bells. "lights out!" alas, mine did not last its permitted hour.... * * * * * the sun streaming into the many-windowed shop routs the night, and dispels the haze of the fire-spitting city. perhaps my little candle with its bold defiance has shortened the reign of darkness,--who knows? perhaps the brave, uneven struggle coaxed the sun out of his slumbers, and hastened the coming of day. the fancy lures me with its warming embrace, when suddenly the assistant startles me: "say, pard, slept bad last night? you look boozy, me lad." surprised at my silence, he admonishes me: "young man, keep a stiff upper lip. just look at me! permit me to introduce to you, sir, a gentleman who has sounded the sharps and flats of life, and faced the most intricate network, sir, of iron bars between york and frisco. always acquitted himself with flying colors, sir, merely by being wise and preserving a stiff upper lip; see th' point?" "what are you driving at, red?" "they'se goin' to move me down on your row,[ ] now that i'm in this 'ere shop. dunno how long i shall choose to remain, sir, in this magnificent hosiery establishment, but i see there's a vacant cell next yours, an' i'm goin' to try an' land there. are you next, me bye? i'm goin' to learn you to be wise, sonny. i shall, so to speak, assume benevolent guardianship over you; over you and your morals, yes, sir, for you're my kid now, see?" [ ] gallery. "how, your kid?" "how? my kid, of course. that's just what i mean. any objections, sir, as the learned gentlemen of the law say in the honorable courts of the blind goddess. you betcher life she's blind, blind as an owl on a sunny midsummer day. not in your damn smoky city, though; sun's ashamed here. but 'way down in my kentucky home, down by the suanee river, sua-a-nee-ee riv--" "hold on, red. you are romancing. you started to tell me about being your 'kid'. now explain, what do you mean by it?" "really, you--" he holds the unturned stocking suspended over the post, gazing at me with half-closed, cynical eyes, in which doubt struggles with wonder. in his astonishment he has forgotten his wonted caution, and i warn him of the officer's watchful eye. "really, alex; well, now, damme, i've seen something of this 'ere round globe, some mighty strange sights, too, and there ain't many things to surprise me, lemme tell you. but _you_ do, alex; yes, me lad, you do. haven't had such a stunnin' blow since i first met cigarette jimmie in oil city. innocent? well, i should snicker. he was, for sure. never heard a ghost story; was fourteen, too. well, i got 'im all right, ah right. now he's doin' a five-bit down in kansas, poor kiddie. well, he certainly was a surprise. but many tempestuous billows of life, sir, have since flown into the shoreless ocean of time, yes, sir, they have, but i never got such a stunner as you just gave me. why, man, it's a body-blow, a reg'lar knockout to my knowledge of the world, sir, to my settled estimate of the world's supercilious righteousness. well, damme, if i'd ever believe it. say, how old are you, alex?" "i'm over twenty-two, red. but what has all this to do with the question i asked you?" "everythin', me bye, everythin'. you're twenty-two and don't know what a kid is! well, if it don't beat raw eggs, i don't know what does. green? well, sir, it would be hard to find an adequate analogy to your inconsistent immaturity of mind; aye, sir, i may well say, of soul, except to compare it with the virtuous condition of green corn in the early summer moon. you know what 'moon' is, don't you?" he asks, abruptly, with an evident effort to suppress a smile. i am growing impatient of his continuous avoidance of a direct answer. yet i cannot find it in my heart to be angry with him; the face expressive of a deep-felt conviction of universal wisdom, the eyes of humorous cynicism, and the ludicrous manner of mixing tramp slang with "classic" english, all disarm my irritation. besides, his droll chatter helps to while away the tedious hours at work; perhaps i may also glean from this experienced old-timer some useful information regarding my plans of escape. "well, d'ye know a moon when you see 't?" "red" inquires, chaffingly. "i suppose i do." "i'll bet you my corn dodger you don't. sir, i can see by the tip of your olfactory organ that you are steeped in the slough of densest ignorance concerning the supreme science of moonology. yes, sir, do not contradict me. i brook no sceptical attitude regarding my undoubted and proven perspicacity of human nature. how's that for classic style, eh? that'll hold you down a moment, kid. as i was about to say when you interrupted--eh, what? you didn't? oh, what's the matter with you? don't yer go now an' rooin the elegant flight of my rhetorical pegasus with an insignificant interpolation of mere fact. none of your lip, now, boy, an' lemme develop this sublime science of moonology before your wondering gaze. to begin with, sir, moonology is an exclusively aristocratic science. not for the pretenders of broad street and fifth avenue. nixie. but for the only genuine aristocracy of de road, sir, for the pink of humankind, for the yaggman, me lad, for yours truly and his clan. yes, sirree!" "i don't know what you are talking about." "i know you don't. that's why i'm goin' to chaperon you, kid. in plain english, sir, i shall endeavor to generate within your postliminious comprehension a discriminate conception of the subject at issue, sir, by divesting my lingo of the least shadow of imperspicuity or ambiguity. moonology, my marktwainian innocent, is the truly christian science of loving your neighbor, provided he be a nice little boy. understand now?" "how can you love a boy?" "are you really so dumb? you are not a ref boy, i can see that." "red, if you'd drop your stilted language and talk plainly, i'd understand better." "thought you liked the classic. but you ain't long on lingo neither. how can a self-respecting gentleman explain himself to you? but i'll try. you love a boy as you love the poet-sung heifer, see? ever read billy shakespeare? know the place, 'he's neither man nor woman; he's punk.' well, billy knew. a punk's a boy that'll...." "what!" "yes, sir. give himself to a man. now we'se talkin' plain. savvy now, innocent abroad?" "i don't believe what you are telling me, red." "you don't be-lie-ve? what th' devil--damn me soul t' hell, what d' you mean, you don't b'lieve? gee, look out!" the look of bewilderment on his face startles me. in his excitement, he had raised his voice almost to a shout, attracting the attention of the guard, who is now hastening toward us. "who's talkin' here?" he demands, suspiciously eyeing the knitters. "you, davis?" "no, sir." "who was, then?" "nobody here, mr. cosson." "yes, they was. i heard hollerin'." "oh, that was me," davis replies, with a quick glance at me. "i hit my elbow against the machine." "let me see 't." the guard scrutinizes the bared arm. "wa-a-ll," he says, doubtfully, "it don't look sore." "it hurt, and i hollered." the officer turns to my assistant: "has he been talkin', reddie?" "i don't think he was, cap'n." pleased with the title, cosson smiles at "red," and passes on, with a final warning to the boy: "don't you let me catch you at it again, you hear!" * * * * * during the rest of the day the overseers exercise particular vigilance over our end of the shop. but emboldened by the increased din of the new knitting machinery, "red" soon takes up the conversation again. "screws can't hear us now," he whispers, "'cept they's close to us. but watch your lips, boy; the damn bulls got sharp lamps. an' don' scare me again like that. why, you talk so foolish, you make me plumb forget myself. say, that kid is all to the good, ain't he? what's his name, johnny davis? yes, a wise kid all right. just like me own billie i tole you 'bout. he was no punk, either, an' don't you forget it. true as steel, he was; stuck to me through my four-spot like th' bark to a tree. say, what's that you said, you don't believe what i endeavored so conscientiously, sir, to drive into your noodle? you was only kiddin' me, wasn't you?" "no, red, i meant it quite seriously. you're spinning ghost stories, or whatever you call it. i don't believe in this kid love." "an' why don't you believe it?" "why--er--well, i don't think it possible." "_what_ isn't possible?" "you know what i mean. i don't think there can be such intimacy between those of the same sex." "ho, ho! _that's_ your point? why, alex, you're more of a damfool than the casual observer, sir, would be apt to postulate. you don't believe it possible, you don't, eh? well, you jest gimme half a chance, an i'll show you." "red, don't you talk to me like that," i burst out, angrily. "if you--" "aisy, aisy, me bye," he interrupts, good-naturedly. "don't get on your high horse. no harm meant, alex. you're a good boy, but you jest rattle me with your crazy talk. why, you're bugs to say it's impossible. man alive, the dump's chuckful of punks. it's done in every prison, an' on th' road, everywhere. lord, if i had a plunk for every time i got th' best of a kid, i'd rival rockefeller, sir; i would, me bye." "you actually confess to such terrible practices? you're disgusting. but i don't really believe it, red." "confess hell! i confess nothin'. terrible, disgusting! you talk like a man up a tree, you holy sky-pilot." "are there no women on the road?" "pshaw! who cares for a heifer when you can get a kid? women are no good. i wouldn't look at 'em when i can have my prushun.[ ] oh, it is quite evident, sir, you have not delved into the esoteric mysteries of moonology, nor tasted the mellifluous fruit on the forbidden tree of--" [ ] a boy serving his apprenticeship with a full-fledged tramp. "oh, quit!" "well, you'll know better before _your_ time's up, me virtuous sonny." * * * * * for several days my assistant fails to appear in the shop on account of illness. he has been "excused" by the doctor, the guard informs me. i miss his help at work; the hours drag heavier for lack of "red's" companionship. yet i am gratified by his absence. his cynical attitude toward woman and sex morality has roused in me a spirit of antagonism. the panegyrics of boy-love are deeply offensive to my instincts. the very thought of the unnatural practice revolts and disgusts me. but i find solace in the reflection that "red's" insinuations are pure fabrication; no credence is to be given them. man, a reasonable being, could not fall to such depths; he could not be guilty of such unspeakably vicious practices. even the lowest outcast must not be credited with such perversion, such depravity. i should really take the matter more calmly. the assistant is a queer fellow; he is merely teasing me. these things are not credible; indeed, i don't believe they are possible. and even if they were, no human being would be capable of such iniquity. i must not suffer "red's" chaffing to disturb me. chapter xi the route sub rosa march , . girl and twin: i am writing with despair in my heart. i was taken to pittsburgh as a witness in the trial of nold and bauer. i had hoped for an opportunity--you understand, friends. it was a slender thread, but i clung to it desperately, prepared to stake everything on it. it proved a broken straw. now i am back, and i may never leave this place alive. i was bitterly disappointed not to find you in the courtroom. i yearned for the sight of your faces. but you were not there, nor any one else of our new york comrades. i knew what it meant: you are having a hard struggle to exist. otherwise perhaps something could be done to establish friendly relations between rakhmetov and mr. gebop.[ ] it would require an outlay beyond the resources of our own circle; others cannot be approached in this matter. nothing remains but the "inside" developments,--a terribly slow process. this is all the hope i can hold out to you, dear friends. you will think it quite negligible; yet it is the sole ray that has again and again kindled life in moments of utmost darkness.... i did not realize the physical effects of my stay here (it is five months now) till my return from court. i suppose the excitement of being on the outside galvanized me for the nonce.... my head was awhirl; i could not collect my thoughts. the wild hope possessed me,--_pobeg_! the click of the steel, as i was handcuffed to the deputy, struck my death-knell.... the unaccustomed noise of the streets, the people and loud voices in the courtroom, the scenes of the trial, all absorbed me in the moment. it seemed to me as if i were a spectator, interested, but personally unconcerned, in the surroundings; and these, too, were far away, of a strange world in which i had no part. only when i found myself alone in the cell, the full significance of the lost occasion was borne in upon me with crushing force. but why sadden you? there is perhaps a cheerier side, now that nold and bauer are here. i have not seen them yet, but their very presence, the circumstance that somewhere within these walls there are _comrades_, men who, like myself, suffer for an ideal--the thought holds a deep satisfaction for me. it brings me closer, in a measure, to the environment of political prisoners in europe. whatever the misery and torture of their daily existence, the politicals--even in siberia--breathe the atmosphere of solidarity, of appreciation. what courage and strength there must be for them in the inspiration radiated by a common cause! conditions here are entirely different. both inmates and officers are at loss to "class" me. they have never known political prisoners. that one should sacrifice or risk his life with no apparent personal motives, is beyond their comprehension, almost beyond their belief. it is a desert of sordidness that constantly threatens to engulf one. i would gladly exchange places with our comrades in siberia. the former _podpoilnaya_[ ] was suspended, because of the great misfortune that befell my friend wingie, of whom i wrote to you before. this dove will be flown by mr. tiuremshchick,[ ] an old soldier who really sympathizes with wingie. i believe they served in the same regiment. he is a kindly man, who hates his despicable work. but there is a family at home, a sick wife--you know the old, weak-kneed tale. i had a hint from him the other day: he is being spied upon; it is dangerous for him to be seen at my cell, and so forth. it is all quite true; but what he means is, that a little money would be welcome. you know how to manage the matter. leave no traces. i hear the felt-soled step. it's the soldier. i bid my birdie a hasty good-bye. sasha. [ ] reading backward, _pobeg_; russian for "escape." [ ] _sub rosa_ route. [ ] russian for "guard." chapter xii "zuchthausbluethen" i a dense fog rises from the broad bosom of the ohio. it ensnares the river banks in its mysterious embrace, veils tree and rock with sombre mist, and mocks the sun with angry frown. within the house of death is felt the chilling breath, and all is quiet and silent in the iron cages. only an occasional knocking, as on metal, disturbs the stillness. i listen intently. nearer and more audible seem the sounds, hesitating and apparently intentional i am involuntarily reminded of the methods of communication practiced by russian politicals, and i strive to detect some meaning in the tapping. it grows clearer as i approach the back wall of the cell, and instantly i am aware of a faint murmur in the privy. is it fancy, or did i hear my name? "halloa!" i call into the pipe. the knocking ceases abruptly. i hear a suppressed, hollow voice: "that you, aleck?" "yes. who is it?" "never min'. you must be deaf not to hear me callin' you all this time. take that cott'n out o' your ears." "i didn't know you could talk this way." "you didn't? well, you know now. them's empty pipes, no standin' water, see? fine t' talk. oh, dammit to--" the words are lost in the gurgle of rushing water. presently the flow subsides, and the knocking is resumed. i bend over the privy. "hello, hello! that you, aleck?" "git off that line, ye jabberin' idiot!" some one shouts into the pipe. "lay down, there!" "take that trap out o' the hole." "quit your foolin', horsethief." "hey, boys, stop that now. that's me, fellers. it's bob, horsethief bob. i'm talkin' business. keep quiet now, will you? are you there, aleck? yes? well, pay no 'tention to them dubs. 'twas that crazy southside slim that turned th' water on--" "who you call crazy, damn you," a voice interrupts. "oh, lay down, slim, will you? who said you was crazy? nay, nay, you're bugs. hey, aleck, you there?" "yes, bob." "oh, got me name, have you? yes, i'm bob, horsethief bob. make no mistake when you see me; i'm big bob, the horsethief. can you hear me? it's you, aleck?" "yes, yes." "sure it's you? got t' tell you somethin'. what's your number?" "a ." "right you are. what cell?" " k." "an' this is me, big bob, in--" "windbag bob," a heavy bass comments from above. "shut up, curley, i'm on th' line. i'm in f, aleck, top tier. call me up any time i'm in, ha, ha! you see, pipe's runnin' up an' down, an' you can talk to any range you want, but always to th' same cell as you're in, cell , understand? now if you wan' t' talk to cell , to shorty, you know--" "i don't want to talk to shorty. i don't know him, bob." "yes, you do. you list'n what i tell you, aleck, an' you'll be all right. that's me talkin', big bob, see? now, i say if you'd like t' chew th' rag with shorty, you jest tell me. tell brother bob, an' he'll connect you all right. are you on? know who's shorty?" "no." "yo oughter. that's carl, carl nold. know _him_, don't you?" "what!" i cry in astonishment. "is it true, bob? is nold up there on your gallery?" "sure thing. cell ." "why didn't you say so at once? you've been talking ten minutes now. did you see him?" "what's your hurry, aleck? _you_ can't see 'im; not jest now, anyway. p'r'aps bimeby, mebbe. there's no hurry, aleck. _you_ got plenty o' time. a few years, _rather_, ha, ha, ha!" "hey, there, horsethief, quit that!" i recognize "curley's" deep bass. "what do you want to make the kid feel bad for?" "no harm meant, curley," bob returns, "i was jest joshin' him a bit." "well, quit it." "you don' min' it, aleck, do you?" i hear bob again, his tones softened, "i didn' mean t' hurt your feelin's. i'm your friend, aleck, you can bet your corn dodger on that. say, i've got somethin' for you from shorty, i mean carl, you savvy?" "what have you, bob?" "nixie through th' hole, ain't safe. i'm coffee-boy on this 'ere range. i'll sneak around to you in the mornin', when i go t' fetch me can of bootleg. now, jiggaroo,[ ] screw's comin'." [ ] look out. ii the presence of my comrades is investing existence with interest and meaning. it has brought to me a breeze from the atmosphere of my former environment; it is stirring the graves, where lie my soul's dead, into renewed life and hope. the secret exchange of notes lends color to the routine. it is like a fresh mountain streamlet joyfully rippling through a stagnant swamp. at work in the shop, my thoughts are engrossed with our correspondence. again and again i review the arguments elucidating to my comrades the significance of my _attentat_: they, too, are inclined to exaggerate the importance of the purely physical result. the exchange of views gradually ripens our previously brief and superficial acquaintance into closer intimacy. there is something in carl nold that especially attracts me: i sense in him a congenial spirit. his spontaneous frankness appeals to me; my heart echoes his grief at the realization of most's unpardonable behavior. but the ill-concealed antagonism of bauer is irritating. it reflects his desperate clinging to the shattered idol. presently, however, a better understanding begins to manifest itself. the big, jovial german has earned my respect; he braved the anger of the judge by consistently refusing to betray the man who aided him in the distribution of the anarchist leaflet among the homestead workers. on the other hand, both carl and henry appreciate my efforts on the witness stand, to exonerate them from complicity in my act. their condemnation, as acknowledged anarchists, was, of course, a foregone conclusion, and i am gratified to learn that neither of my comrades had entertained any illusions concerning the fate that awaited them. indeed, both have expressed surprise that the maximum revenge of the law was not visited upon them. their philosophical attitude exerts a soothing effect upon me. carl even voices satisfaction that the sentence of five years will afford him a long-needed vacation from many years of ceaseless factory toil. he is facetiously anxious lest capitalist industry be handicapped by the loss of such a splendid carpenter as henry, whom he good-naturedly chaffs on the separation from his newly affianced. * * * * * the evening hours have ceased to drag: there is pleasure and diversion in the correspondence. the notes have grown into bulky letters, daily cementing our friendship. we compare views, exchange impressions, and discuss prison gossip. i learn the history of the movement in the twin cities, the personnel of anarchist circles, and collect a fund of anecdotes about albrecht, the philosophic old shoemaker whose diminutive shop in allegheny is the center of the radical _inteligenzia_. with deep contrition bauer confesses how narrowly he escaped the rôle of my executioner. my unexpected appearance in their midst, at the height of the homestead struggle, had waked suspicion among the allegheny comrades. they sent an inquiry to most, whose reply proved a warning against me. unknown to me, bauer shared the room i occupied in nold's house. through the long hours of the night he lay awake, with revolver cocked. at the first sign of a suspicious move on my part, he had determined to kill me. the personal tenor of our correspondence is gradually broadening into the larger scope of socio-political theories, methods of agitation, and applied tactics. the discussions, prolonged and often heated, absorb our interest. the bulky notes necessitate greater circumspection; the difficulty of procuring writing materials assumes a serious aspect. every available scrap of paper is exhausted; margins of stray newspapers and magazines have been penciled on, the contents repeatedly erased, and the frayed tatters microscopically covered with ink. even an occasional fly-leaf from library books has been sacrilegiously forced to leave its covers, and every evidence of its previous association dexterously removed. the problem threatens to terminate our correspondence and fills us with dismay. but the genius our faithful postman, of proud horsethieving proclivities, proves equal to the occasion: bob constitutes himself our commissary, designating the broom shop, in which he is employed, as the base of our future supplies. the unexpected affluence fills us with joy. the big rolls requisitioned by "horsethief" exclude the fear of famine; the smooth yellow wrapping paper affords the luxury of larger and more legible chirography. the pride of sudden wealth germinates ambitious projects. we speculate on the possibility of converting our correspondence into a magazinelet, and wax warm over the proposed list of readers. before long the first issue of the _zuchthausblüthen_[ ] is greeted with the encouraging approval of our sole subscriber, whose contribution surprises us in the form of a rather creditable poem on the blank last page of the publication. elated at the happy acquisition, we unanimously crown him _meistersinger_, with dominion over the department of poetry. soon we plan more pretentious issues: the outward size of the publication is to remain the same, three by five inches, but the number of pages is to be enlarged; each issue to have a different editor, to ensure equality of opportunity; the readers to serve as contributing editors. the appearance of the _blüthen_ is to be regulated by the time required to complete the circle of readers, whose identity is to be masked with certain initials, to protect them against discovery. henceforth bauer, physically a giant, is to be known as "g"; because of my medium stature, i shall be designated with the letter "m"; and nold, as the smallest, by "k."[ ] the poet, his history somewhat shrouded in mystery, is christened "d" for _dichter_. "m," "k," "g," are to act, in turn, as editor-in-chief, whose province it is to start the _blüthen_ on its way, each reader contributing to the issue till it is returned to the original editor, to enable him to read and comment upon his fellow contributors. the publication, its contents growing transit, is finally to reach the second contributor, upon whom will devolve the editorial management of the following issue. [ ] prison blossoms. [ ] initial of the german _klein_, small. the unique arrangement proves a source of much pleasure and recreation. the little magazine is rich in contents and varied in style. the diversity of handwriting heightens the interest, and stimulates speculation on the personality of our increasing readers-contributors. in the arena of the diminutive publication, there rages the conflict of contending social philosophies; here a political essay rubs elbows with a witty anecdote, and a dissertation on "the nature of things" is interspersed with prison small-talk and personal reminiscence. flashes of unstudied humor and unconscious rivalry of orthography lend peculiar charm to the unconventional editorials, and waft a breath of josh billings into the manuscript pages. [illustration: special spring edition of the z. blüthen.] but the success of the _zuchthausblüthen_ soon discovers itself a veritable frankenstein, which threatens the original foundation and aims of the magazinelet. the popularity of joint editorship is growing at the cost of unity and tendency; the bard's astonishing facility at versification, coupled with his jules vernian imagination, causes us grave anxiety lest his untamable pegasus traverse the limits of our paper supply. the appalling warning of the commissary that the improvident drain upon his resources is about to force him on a strike, imperatively calls a halt. we are deliberating policies of retrenchment and economy, when unexpectedly the arrival of two homestead men suggests an auspicious solution. iii the presence of hugh f. dempsey and robert j. beatty, prominent in the knights of labor organization, offers opportunity for propaganda among workers representing the more radical element of american labor. accused of poisoning the food served to the strike-breakers in the mills, dempsey and beatty appear to me men of unusual type. be they innocent or guilty, the philosophy of their methods is in harmony with revolutionary tactics. labor can never be unjust in its demands: is it not the creator of all the wealth in the world? every weapon may be employed to return the despoiled people into its rightful ownership. is not the terrorizing of scabbery, and ultimately of the capitalist exploiters, an effective means of aiding the struggle? therefore dempsey and beatty deserve acclaim. morally certain of their guilt, i respect them the more for it, though i am saddened by their denial of complicity in the scheme of wholesale extermination of the scabs. the blackleg is also human, it is true, and desires to live. but one should starve rather than turn traitor to the cause of his class. moreover, the individual--or any number of them--cannot be weighed against the interests of humanity. * * * * * infinite patience weaves the threads that bring us in contact with the imprisoned labor leaders. in the ceaseless duel of vital need against stupidity and malice, caution and wit are sharpened by danger. the least indiscretion, the most trifling negligence, means discovery, disaster. but perseverance and intelligent purpose conquer: by the aid of the faithful "horsethief," communication with dempsey and beatty is established. with the aggressiveness of strong conviction i present to them my views, dwelling on the historic rôle of the _attentäter_ and the social significance of conscious individual protest. the discussion ramifies, the interest aroused soon transcending the limits of my paper supply. presently i am involved in a correspondence with several men, whose questions and misinterpretations regarding my act i attempt to answer and correct with individual notes. but the method proves an impossible tax on our opportunities, and "kgm" finally decide to publish an english edition of the _zuchthausblüthen_. the german magazinelet is suspended, and in its place appears the first issue of the _prison blossoms_. chapter xiii the judas "ah, there, sporty!" my assistant greets me in the shop. "stand treat on this festive occasion?" "yes, red. have a chew," i reply with a smile, handing him my fresh plug of tobacco. his eyes twinkle with mischievous humor as he scrutinizes my changed suit of dark gray. the larger part of the plug swelling out his cheek, he flings to me the remnant across the table, remarking: "don't care for't. take back your choo, i'll keep me honor,--your plug, i mean, sonny. a gentleman of my eminence, sir, a natural-born navigator on the high seas of social life,--are you on, me bye?--a gentleman, i repeat, sir, whose canoe the mutations of all that is human have chucked on this here dry, thrice damned dry latitude, sir, this nocuous plague-spot of civilization,--say, kid, what t' hell am i talkin' about? damn if i ain't clean forgot." "i'm sure i don't know, red." "like hell you don't! it's your glad duds, kid. offerin' _me_ a ch-aw tob-b-bac-co! christ, i'm dyin' for a drop of booze. this magnificent occasion deserves a wetting, sir. and, say, aleck, it won't hurt your beauty to stretch them sleeves of yours a bit. you look like a scarecrow in them high-water pants. ain't old sandy the king of skinners, though!" "whom do you mean, red?" "who i mean, you idjot! who but that skunk of a warden, the honorable captain edward s. wright, if you please, sir. captain of rotten old punks, that's what he is. you ask th' screws. he's never smelt powder; why, he's been _here_ most o' his life. but some o' th' screws been here longer, borned here, damn 'em; couldn't pull 'em out o' here with a steam engine, you couldn't. they can tell you all 'bout the cap, though. old sandy didn' have a plugged nickel to his name when he come 'ere, an' now the damn stomach-robber is rich. reg'lar gold mine this dump's for 'im. only gets a lousy five thousan' per year. got big fam'ly an' keeps carriages an' servants, see, an' can 'ford t' go to europe every year, an' got a big pile in th' bank to boot, all on a scurvy five thousan' a year. good manager, ain't he? a reg'lar church member, too, damn his rotten soul to hell!" "is he as bad as all that, red?" "is he? a hypocrite dyed in th' wool, that's what he is. plays the humanitarian racket. he had a great deal t' say t' the papers why he didn't believe in the brutal way iams was punished by that homestead colonel--er--what's 'is name?" "colonel streator, of the tenth pennsylvania." "that's the cur. he hung up private iams by the thumbs till th' poor boy was almost dead. for nothin', too. suppose you remember, don't you? iams had called for 'three cheers for the man who shot frick,' an' they pretty near killed 'im for 't, an' then drummed 'im out of th' regiment with 'is head half shaved." "it was a most barbarous thing." "an' that damn sandy swore in th' papers he didn't believe in such things, an' all th' while th' lyin' murderer is doin' it himself. not a day but some poor con is 'cuffed up' in th' hole. that's th' kind of humanitarian _he_ is! it makes me wild t' think on 't. why, kid, i even get a bit excited, and forget that you, young sir, are attuned to the dulcet symphonies of classic english. but whenever that skunk of a warden is the subject of conversation, sir, even my usually imperturbable serenity of spirit and tranquil stoicism are not equal to 'patience on a monument smiling at grief.' watch me, sonny, that's yours truly spielin'. why, look at them dingy rags of yours. i liked you better in th' striped duds. they give you the hand-me-downs of that nigger that went out yesterday, an' charge you on th' books with a bran' new suit. see where sandy gets his slice, eh? an' say, kid, how long are you here?" "about eight months, red." "they beat you out o' two months all right. suppose they obey their own rules? nit, sir. you are aware, my precious lamb, that you are entitled to discard your polychromic vestments of zebra hue after a sojourn of six months in this benevolent dump. i bet you that fresh fish at the loopin' machine there, came up 'ere some days ago, _he_ won't be kept waitin' more'n six months for 'is black clothes." i glance in the direction of the recent arrival. he is a slender man, with swarthy complexion and quick, shifting eye. the expression of guilty cunning is repelling. "who is that man?" i whisper to the assistant. "like 'im, don't you? permit me, sir, to introduce to you the handiwork of his maker, a mealy-mouthed, oily-lipped, scurvy gaycat, a yellow cur, a snivelling, fawning stool, a filthy, oozy sneak, a snake in the grass whose very presence, sir, is a mortal insult to a self-respecting member of my clan,--mr. patrick gallagher, of the honorable pinkerton family, sir." "gallagher?" i ask, in astonishment. "the informer, who denounced dempsey and beatty?" "the very same. the dirty snitch that got those fellows railroaded here for seven years. dempsey was a fool to bunch up with such vermin as gallagher and davidson. he was master workman of some district of the knights of labor. why in hell didn't he get his own men to do th' job? goes to work an' hires a brace of gaycats; sent 'em to the scab mills, you savvy, to sling hash for the blacklegs and keep 'im posted on the goings on, see? s'pose you have oriented yourself, sir, concerning the developments in the culinary experiment?" "yes. croton oil is supposed to have been used to make the scabs sick with diarrhoea." "make 'em sick? why, me bye, scores of 'em croaked. i am surprised, sir, at your use of such a vulgar term as diarrhoea. you offend my aestheticism. the learned gentlemen who delve deeply into the bowels of earth and man, sir, ascribed the sudden and phenomenal increase of unmentionable human obligations to nature, the mysterious and extravagant popularity of the houses of ill odor, sir, and the automatic obedience to their call, as due entirely to the dumping of a lot o' lousy bums, sir, into filthy quarters, or to impurities of the liquid supply, or to--pardon my frankness, sir--to intestinal effeminacy, which, in flaccid excitability, persisted in ill-timed relaxation unseemly in well-mannered christians. some future day, sir, there may arise a poet to glorify with beauteous epic the heroic days of the modern bull run--an' i kin tell you, laddie, they run and kept runnin', top and bottom--or some lyric bard may put to hudibrastic verse--watch me climbin' th' parnassus, kid--the poetic feet, the numbers, the assonance, and strain of the inspiring days when croton oil was king. yes, sirree; but for yours truly, me hand ain't in such pies; and moreover, sir, i make it an invariable rule of gentlemanly behavior t' keep me snout out o' other people's biz." "dempsey may be innocent, red." "well, th' joory didn't think so. but there's no tellin'. honest t' god, aleck, that rotten scab of a gallagher has cast the pale hue of resolution, if i may borrow old billy shake's slang, sir, over me gener'ly settled convictions. you know, in the abundant plenitude of my heterogeneous experience with all sorts and conditions of rats and gaycats, sir, fortified by a natural genius of no mean order, of vintage, damme if i ever run across such an acute form of confessionitis as manifested by the lout on th' loopin' machine there. you know what he done yesterday?" "what?" "sent for th' distric' attorney and made another confesh." "really? how do you know?" "night screw's a particular fren' o' mine, kid. i shtands in, see? the mick's a reg'lar yahoo, can't hardly spell 'is own name. he daily requisitions upon my humble but abundant intelligence, sir, to make out his reports. catch on, eh? i've never earned a hand-out with more dignified probity, sir. it's a cinch. last night he gimme a great slice of corn dodger. it was a , i tell you, an' two hard boiled eggs and half a tomato, juicy and luscious, sir. didn't i enjoy it, though! makes your mouth water, eh, kid? well, you be good t' me, an' you kin have what i got. i'll divvy up with you. we-ll! don' stand there an' gape at me like a wooden injun. has the unexpected revelation of my magnanimous generosity deprived you of articulate utterance, sir?" the sly wink with which he emphasizes the offer, and his suddenly serious manner, affect me unpleasantly. with pretended indifference, i decline to share his delicacies. "you need those little extras for yourself, red," i explain. "you told me you suffer from indigestion. a change of diet now and then will do you good. but you haven't finished telling me about the new confession of gallagher." "oh, you're a sly one, aleck; no flies on you. but it's all right, me bye, mebbe i can do somethin' for you some day. i'm your friend, aleck; count on me. but that mutt of a gallagher, yes, sirree, made another confession; damme if it ain't his third one. ever hear such a thing? i got it straight from th' screw all right. i can't make the damn snitch out. unreservedly i avow, sir, that the incomprehensible vacillations of the honorable gentleman puzzle me noodle, and are calculated to disturb the repose of a right-thinking yagg in the silken lap of morpheus. what's 'is game, anyhow? shall we diagnoze the peculiar mental menstruation as, er--er--what's your learned opinion, my illustrious colleague, eh? what you grinnin' for, four eyes? it's a serious matter, sir; a highly instructive phenomenon of intellectual vacuity, impregnated with the pernicious virus of pinkertonism, sir, and transmuted in the alembic of carnegie alchemy. a judicious injection of persuasive germs by the sagacious jurisconsults of the house of dempsey, and lo! three brand-new confessions, mutually contradictory and exclusive. does that strike you in th' right spot, sonny?" "in the second confession he retracted his accusations against dempsey. what is the third about, red?" "retracts his retraction, me bye. guess why, aleck." "i suppose he was paid to reaffirm his original charges." "you're not far off. after that beauty of a judas cleared the man, sandy notified reed and knox. them's smart guys, all right; the attorneys of the carnegie company to interpret madame justicia, sir, in a manner--" "i know, red," i interrupt him, "they are the lawyers who prosecuted me. even in court they were giving directions to the district attorney, and openly whispering to him questions to be asked the witnesses. he was just a figurehead and a tool for them, and it sounded so ridiculous when he told the jury that he was not in the service of any individual or corporation, but that he acted solely as an officer of the commonwealth, charged with the sacred duty of protecting its interests in my prosecution. and all the time he was the mouthpiece of frick's lawyers." "hold on, kid. i don't get a chance to squeeze a word in edgewise when you start jawin'. think you're on th' platform haranguing the long-haired crowd? you can't convert _me_, so save your breath, man." "i shouldn't want to convert you, red. you are intelligent, but a hopeless case. you are not the kind that could be useful to the cause." "glad you're next. got me sized up all right, eh? well, me saintly bye, i'm johnny-on-the-spot to serve the cause, all right, all right, and the cause is me, with a big m, see? a fellow's a fool not t' look out for number one. i give it t' you straight, aleck. what's them high-flown notions of yours--oppressed humanity and suffering people--fiddlesticks! there you go and shove your damn neck into th' noose for the strikers, but what did them fellows ever done for you, eh? tell me that! they won't do a darned thing fer you. catch _me_ swinging for the peo-pul! the cattle don't deserve any better than they get, that's what _i_ say." "i don't want to discuss these questions with you, red. you'll never understand, anyhow." "git off, now. you voice a sentiment, sir, that my adequate appreciation of myself would prompt me to resent on the field of honor, sir. but the unworthy spirit of acerbity is totally foreign to my nature, sir, and i shall preserve the blessed meekness so becoming the true christian, and shall follow the bidding of the master by humbly offering the other cheek for that chaw of th' weed i gave you. dig down into your poke, kid." i hand him the remnant of my tobacco, remarking: "you've lost the thread of our conversation, as usual, red. you said the warden sent for the carnegie lawyers after gallagher had recanted his original confession. well, what did they do?" "don't know what _they_ done, but i tole you that the muttonhead sent for th' district attorney the same day, an' signed a third confesh. why, dempsey was tickled to death, 'cause--" he ceases abruptly. his quick, short coughs warn me of danger. accompanied by the deputy and the shop officer, the warden is making the rounds of the machines, pausing here and there to examine the work, and listen to the request of a prisoner. the youthfully sparkling eyes present a striking contrast to the sedate manner and seamed features framed in grayish-white. approaching the table, he greets us with a benign smile: "good morning, boys." casting a glance at my assistant, the warden inquires: "your time must be up soon, red?" "been out and back again, cap'n," the officer laughs. "yes, he is, hm, hm, back home." the thin feminine accents of the deputy sound sarcastic. "didn't like it outside, red?" the warden sneers. a flush darkens the face of the assistant. "there's more skunks out than in," he retorts. the captain frowns. the deputy lifts a warning finger, but the warden laughs lightly, and continues on his rounds. we work in silence for a while. "red" looks restive, his eyes stealthily following the departing officials. presently he whispers: "see me hand it to 'im, aleck? he knows i'm on to 'im, all right. didn't he look mad, though? thought he'd burst. sobered 'im up a bit. pipe 'is lamps, kid?" "yes. very bright eyes." "bright eyes your grandmother! dope, that's what's th' matter. think i'd get off as easy if he wasn't chuck full of th' stuff? i knowed it the minute i laid me eyes on 'im. i kin tell by them shinin' glimmers and that sick smile of his, when he's feelin' good; know th' signals, all right. always feelin' fine when he's hit th' pipe. that's th' time you kin get anythin' you wan' of 'im. nex' time you see that smirk on 'im, hit 'im for some one t' give us a hand here; we's goin' t' be drowned in them socks, first thing you know." "yes, we need more help. why didn't _you_ ask him?" "me? me ask a favor o' the damn swine? not on your tintype! you don' catch me to vouchsafe the high and mighty, sir, the opportunity--" "all right, red. i won't ask him, either." "i don't give a damn. for all i care, aleck, and--well, confidentially speaking, sir, they may ensconce their precious hosiery in the infundibular dehiscence of his nibs, which, if i may venture my humble opinion, young sir, is sufficiently generous in its expansiveness to disregard the rugosity of a stocking turned inside out, sir. do you follow the argument, me bye?" "with difficulty, red," i reply, with a smile. "what are you really talking about? i do wish you'd speak plainer." "you do, do you? an' mebbe you don't. got to train you right; gradual, so to speak. it's me dooty to a prushun. but we'se got t' get help here. i ain't goin' t' kill meself workin' like a nigger. i'll quit first. d' you think--s-s-ss!" the shop officer is returning. "damn your impudence, red," he shouts at the assistant. "why don't you keep that tongue of yours in check?" "why, mr. cosson, what's th' trouble?" "you know damn well what's the trouble. you made the old man mad clean through. you ought t' know better'n that. he was nice as pie till you opened that big trap of yourn. everythin' went wrong then. he gave me th' dickens about that pile you got lyin' aroun' here. why don't you take it over to th' loopers, burk?" "they have not been turned yet," i reply. "what d' you say? not turned!" he bristles. "what in hell are you fellows doin', i'd like t' know." "we're doin' more'n we should," "red" retorts, defiantly. "shut up now, an' get a move on you." "on that rotten grub they feed us?" the assistant persists. "you better shut up, red." "then give us some help." "i will like hell!" the whistle sounds the dinner hour. chapter xiv the dip for a week "boston red" is absent from work. my best efforts seem ineffectual in the face of the increasing mountain of unturned hosiery, and the officer grows more irritable and insistent. but the fear of clogging the industrial wheel presently forces him to give me assistance, and a dapper young man, keen-eyed and nervous, takes the vacant place. "he's a dip,"[ ] johnny davis whispers to me. "a top-notcher," he adds, admiringly. [ ] pickpocket. i experience a tinge of resentment at the equality implied by the forced association. i have never before come in personal contact with a professional thief, and i entertain the vaguest ideas concerning his class. but they are not producers; hence parasites who deliberately prey upon society, upon the poor, mostly. there can be nothing in common between me and this man. * * * * * the new helper's conscious superiority is provoking. his distant manner piques my curiosity. how unlike his scornful mien and proudly independent bearing is my youthful impression of a thief! vividly i remember the red-headed kolya, as he was taken from the classroom by a fierce gendarme. the boys had been missing their lunches, and kolya confessed the theft. we ran after the prisoner, and he hung his head and looked frightened, and so pale i could count each freckle on his face. he did not return to school, and i wondered what had become of him. the terror in his eyes haunted my dreams, the brown spots on his forehead shaping themselves into fiery letters, spelling the fearful word _vor_.[ ] [ ] thief. "that's a snap," the helper's voice breaks in on my reverie. he speaks in well-modulated tones, the accents nasal and decided. "you needn't be afraid to talk," he adds, patronizingly. "i am not afraid," i impatiently resent the insinuation. "why should i be afraid of you?" "not of me; of the officer, i meant." "i am not afraid of him, either." "well, then, let's talk about something. it will help while away the time, you know." his cheerful friendliness smooths my ruffled temper. the correct english, in striking contrast with the peculiar language of my former assistant, surprises me. "i am sorry," he continues, "they gave you such a long sentence, mr. berkman, but--" "how do you know my name?" i interrupt. "you have just arrived." "they call me 'lightning al'," he replies, with a tinge of pride. "i'm here only three days, but a fellow in my line can learn a great deal in that time. i had you pointed out to me." "what do you call your line? what are you here for?" for a moment he is silent. with surprise i watch his face blush darkly. "you're a dead give-away. oh, excuse me, mr. berkman," he corrects himself, "i sometimes lapse into lingo, under provocation, you know. i meant to say, it's easy to see that you are not next to the way--not familiar, i mean, with such things. you should never ask a man what he is in for." "why not?" "well, er--" "you are ashamed." "not a bit of it. ashamed to fall, perhaps,--i mean, to be caught at it--it's no credit to a gun's rep, his reputation, you understand. but i'm proud of the jobs i've done. i'm pretty slick, you know." "but you don't like to be asked why you were sent here." "well, it's not good manners to ask such questions." "against the ethics of the trade, i suppose?" "how sarcastic we can be, mr. berkman. but it's true, it's not the ethics. and it isn't a trade, either; it's a profession. oh, you may smile, but i'd rather be a gun, a professional, i mean, than one of your stupid factory hands." "they are honest, though. honest producers, while you are a thief." "oh, there's no sting in that word for _me_. i take pride in being a thief, and what's more, i _am_ an a number one gun, you see the point? the best dip in the states." "a pickpocket? stealing nickels off passengers on the street cars, and--" "me? a hell of a lot _you_ know about it. take me for such small fry, do you? i work only on race tracks." "you call it work?" "sure. damned hard work, too. takes more brains than a whole shopful of your honest producers can show." "and you prefer that to being honest?" "do i? i spend more on gloves than a bricklayer makes in a year. think i'm so dumb i have to slave all week for a few dollars?" "but you spend most of your life in prison." "not by a long shot. a real good gun's always got his fall money planted,--i mean some ready coin in case of trouble,--and a smart lawyer will spring you most every time; beat the case, you know. i've never seen the fly-cop you couldn't fix if you got enough dough; and most judges, too. of course, now and then, the best of us may fall; but it don't happen very often, and it's all in the game. this whole life is a game, mr. berkman, and every one's got his graft." "do you mean there are no honest men?" i ask, angrily. "pshaw! i'm just as honest as rockefeller or carnegie, only they got the law with them. and i work harder than they, i'll bet you on that. i've got to eat, haven't i? of course," he adds, thoughtfully, "if i could be sure of my bread and butter, perhaps--" * * * * * the passing overseer smiles at the noted pickpocket, inquiring pleasantly: "how're you doin', al?" "tip-top, mr. cosson. hope you are feeling good to-day." "never better, al." "a friend of mine often spoke to me about you, mr. cosson." "who was that?" "barney. jack barney." "jack barney! why, he worked for me in the broom shop." "yes, he did a three-spot. he often said to me, 'al, it you ever land in riverside,' he says, 'be sure you don't forget to give my best to mr. cosson, mr. ed. cosson,' he says, 'he's a good fellow.'" the officer looks pleased. "yes, i treated him white, all right," he remarks, continuing on his rounds. "i knew he'd swallow it," the assistant sneers after him. "always good to get on the right side of them," he adds, with a wink. "barney told me about him all right. said he's the rottenest sneak in the dump, a swell-head yap. you see, mr. berkman,--may i call you aleck? it's shorter. well, you see, aleck, i make it a point to find things out. it's wise to know the ropes. i'm next to the whole bunch here. that jimmy mcpane, the deputy, he's a regular brute. killed his man, all right. barney told me all about it; he was doing his bit, then,--i mean serving his sentence. you see, aleck," he lowers his voice, confidentially, "i don't like to use slang; it grows on one, and every fly-cop can spot you as a crook. it's necessary in my business to present a fine front and use good english, so i must not get the lingo habit. well, i was speaking of barney telling me about the deputy. he killed a con in cold blood. the fellow was bughouse, d. t., you know; saw snakes. he ran out of his cell one morning, swinging a chair and hollering 'murder! kill 'em!' the deputy was just passing along, and he out with his gat--i mean his revolver, you know--and bangs away. he pumped the poor loony fellow full of holes; he did, the murderer. killed him dead. never was tried, either. warden told the newspapers it was done in self-defence. a damn lie. sandy knew better; everybody in the dump knew it was a cold-blooded murder, with no provocation at all. it's a regular ring, you see, and that old warden is the biggest grafter of them all; and that sky-pilot, too, is an a fakir. did you hear about the kid born here? before your time. a big scandal. since then the holy man's got to have a screw with him at sunday service for the females, and i tell you he needs watching all right." the whistle terminates the conversation. chapter xv the urge of sex sunday night: my new cell on the upper gallery is hot and stuffy; i cannot sleep. through the bars, i gaze upon the ohio. the full moon hangs above the river, bathing the waters in mellow light. the strains of a sweet lullaby wander through the woods, and the banks are merry with laughter. a girlish cadence rings like a silvery bell, and voices call in the distance. life is joyous and near, terribly, tantalizingly near,--but all is silent and dead around me. for days the feminine voice keeps ringing in my ears. it sounded so youthful and buoyant, so fondly alluring. a beautiful girl, no doubt. what joy to feast my eye on her! i have not beheld a woman for many months: i long to hear the soft accents, feel the tender touch. my mind persistently reverts to the voice on the river, the sweet strains in the woods; and fancy wreathes sad-toned fugues upon the merry carol, paints vision and image, as i pace the floor in agitation. they live, they breathe! i see the slender figure with the swelling bosom, the delicate white throat, the babyish face with large, wistful eyes. why, it is luba! my blood tingles violently, passionately, as i live over again the rapturous wonder at the first touch of her maiden breast. how temptingly innocent sounded the immodest invitation on the velvety lips, how exquisite the suddenness of it all! we were in new haven then. one by one we had gathered, till the little new york commune was complete. the girl joined me first, for i felt lonely in the strange city, drudging as compositor on a country weekly, the evenings cold and cheerless in the midst of a conservative household. but the girl brought light and sunshine, and then came the twin and manya. luba remained in new york; but manya, devoted little soul, yearned for her sister, and presently the three girls worked side by side in the corset factory. all seemed happy in the free atmosphere, and luba was blooming into beautiful womanhood. there was a vague something about her that now and then roused in me a fond longing, a rapturous desire. once--it was in new york, a year before--i had experienced a sudden impulse toward her. it seized me unheralded, unaccountably. i had called to try a game of chess with her father, when he informed me that luba had been ill. she was recovering now, and would be pleased to see me. i sat at the bedside, conversing in low tones, when i noticed the pillows slipping from under the girl's head. bending over, i involuntarily touched her hair, loosely hanging down the side. the soft, dark chestnut thrilled me, and the next instant i stooped and stealthily pressed the silken waves to my lips. the momentary sense of shame was lost in the feeling of reverence for the girl with the beautiful hair, that bewildered and fascinated me, and a deep yearning suddenly possessed me, as she lay in exquisite disarray, full of grace and beauty. and all the while we talked, my eyes feasted on her ravishing form, and i felt envious of her future lover, and hated the desecration. but when i left her bedside, all trace of desire disappeared, and the inspiration of the moment faded like a vision affrighted by the dawn. only a transient, vague inquietude remained, as of something unattainable. then came that unforgettable moment of undreamed bliss. we had just returned from the performance of _tosca_, with sarah bernhardt in her inimitable rôle. i had to pass through luba's room on my way to the attic, in the little house occupied by the commune. she had already retired, but was still awake. i sat down on the edge of the bed, and we talked of the play. she glowed with the inspiration of the great tragedienne; then, somehow, she alluded to the _décolleté_ of the actresses. "i don't mind a fine bust exposed on the stage," i remarked. "but i had a powerful opera glass: their breasts looked fleshy and flabby. it was disgusting." "do you think--mine nice?" she asked, suddenly. for a second i was bewildered. but the question sounded so enchantingly unpremeditated, so innocently eager. "i never--let me see them," i said, impulsively. "no, no!" she cried, in aroused modesty; "i can't, i can't!" "i wont look, luba. see, i close my eyes. just a touch." "oh, i can't, i'm ashamed! only over the blanket, please, sasha," she pleaded, as my hand softly stole under the covers. she gripped the sheet tightly, and my arm rested on her side. the touch of the firm, round breast thrilled me with passionate ecstasy. in fear of arousing her maidenly resistance, i strove to hide my exultation, while cautiously and tenderly i released the coverlet. "they are very beautiful, luba," i said, controlling the tremor of my voice. "you--like them, really, sasha?" the large eyes looked lustrous and happy. "they are greek, dear," and snatching the last covering aside, i kissed her between the breasts. "i'm so glad i came here," she spoke dreamily. "were you very lonesome in new york?" "it was terrible, sasha." "you like the change?" "oh, you silly boy! don't you know?" "what, luba?" "i wanted _you_, dear." her arms twined softly about me. i felt appalled. the girl, my revolutionary plans, flitted through my mind, chilling me with self-reproach. the pale hue of the attained cast its shadow across the spell, and i lay cold and quiet on luba's breast. the coverlet was slipping down, and, reaching for it, my hand inadvertently touched her knee. "sasha, how _can_ you!" she cried in alarm, sitting up with terrified eyes. "i didn't mean to, luba. how could you _think_ that of me?" i was deeply mortified. my hand relaxed on her breast. we lay in silent embarrassment. "it is getting late, sasha." she tenderly drew my head to her bosom. "a little while yet, dear," and again the enchantment of the virgin breasts was upon me, and i showered wild kisses on them, and pressed them passionately, madly, till she cried out in pain. "you must go now, dear." "good night, luba." "good night, dearest. you haven't kissed me, sashenka." i felt her detaining lips, as i left. * * * * * in the wakeful hours of the night, the urge of sex grows more and more insistent. scenes from the past live in my thoughts; the cell is peopled with familiar faces. episodes long dead to memory rise animated before me; they emerge from the darkest chambers of my soul, and move with intense reality, like the portraits of my sires come to life in the dark, fearful nights of my childhood. pert masha smiles at me from her window across the street, and a bevy of girls pass me demurely, with modestly averted gaze, and then call back saucily, in thinly disguised voices. again i am with my playmates, trailing the schoolgirls on their way to the river, and we chuckle gleefully at their affright and confusion, as they discover the eyes glued to the peep-holes we had cut in the booth. inwardly i resent nadya's bathing in her shirt, and in revenge dive beneath the boards, rising to the surface in the midst of the girls, who run to cover in shame and terror. but i grow indignant at vainka who badgers the girls with "tsiba,[ ] tsiba, ba-aa!" and i soundly thrash kolya for shouting nasty epithets across the school yard at little nunya, whom i secretly adore. [ ] goat: derisively applied to schoolgirls. * * * * * but the note of later days returns again and again, and the scenes of youth recede into their dim frames. clearer and more frequently appear sonya and luba, and the little sweetheart of my first months in america. what a goose she was! she would not embrace me, because it's a great sin, unless one is married. but how slyly she managed to arrange kissing games at the sunday gatherings at her home, and always lose to me! she must be quite a woman now, with a husband, children ... quickly she flits by, the recollection even of her name lost in the glow of anarchist emotionalism and the fervent enthusiasm of my orchard street days. there flames the light that irradiates the vague longings of my russian youth, and gives rapt interpretation to obscurely pulsating idealism. it sheds the halo of illuminating justification upon my blindly rebellious spirit, and visualizes my dreams on the sunlit mountains. the sordid misery of my "greenhorn" days assumes a new aspect. ah, the wretchedness of those first years in america!... and still time's woof and warp unroll the tapestry of life in the new world, its joys and heart-throbs. i stand a lone stranger, bewildered by the flurry of castle garden, yet strong with hope and courage to carve my fate in freedom. the tsar is far away, and the fear of his hated cossacks is past. how inspiring is liberty! the very air breathes enthusiasm and strength, and with confident ardor i embrace the new life. i join the ranks of the world's producers, and glory in the full manhood conferred by the dignity of labor. i resent the derision of my adopted country on the part of my family abroad,--resent it hotly. i feel wronged by the charge of having disgraced my parents' respected name by turning "a low, dirty workingman." i combat their snobbishness vehemently, and revenge the indignity to labor by challenging comparison between the old and the new world. behold the glory of liberty and prosperity, the handiwork of a nation that honors labor!... the loom of time keeps weaving. lone and friendless, i struggle in the new land. life in the tenements is sordid, the fate of the worker dreary. there is no "dignity of labor." sweatshop bread is bitter. oppression guards the golden promise, and servile brutality is the only earnest of success. then like a clarion note in the desert sounds the call of the ideal. strong and rousing rolls the battle-cry of revolution. like a flash in the night, it illumines my groping. my life becomes full of new meaning and interest, translated into the struggle of a world's emancipation. fedya joins me, and together we are absorbed in the music of the new humanity. * * * * * it is all far, far--yet every detail is sharply etched upon my memory. swiftly pass before me the years of complete consecration to the movement, the self-imposed poverty and sacrifices, the feverish tide of agitation in the wake of the chicago martyrdom, the evenings of spirited debate, the nights of diligent study. and over all loom the fridays in the little dingy hall in the ghetto, where the handful of russian refugees gather; where bold imprecations are thundered against the tyranny and injustice of the existing, and winged words prophesy the near approach of a glorious dawn. beshawled women, and men, long-coated and piously bearded, steal into the hall after synagogue prayers, and listen with wondering eyes, vainly striving to grasp the strange jewish, so perplexedly interspersed with the alien words of the new evangel. how our hearts rejoice, as, with exaggerated deference, we eagerly encourage the diffident questioner, "do you really mean--may the good lord forgive me--there is no one in heaven above?"... late in the evening the meeting resolves into small groups, heatedly contending over the speaker's utterances, the select circle finally adjourning to "the corner." the obscure little tea room resounds with the joust of learning and wit. fascinating is the feast of reason, impassioned the flow of soul, as the passage-at-arms grows more heated with the advance of the night. the alert-eyed host diplomatically pacifies the belligerent factions, "gentlemen, gentlemen, s-sh! the police station is just across the street." there is a lull in the combat. the angry opponents frown at each other, and in the interim the austrian student in his mellow voice begins an interminable story of personal reminiscence, apropos of nothing and starting nowhere, but intensely absorbing. with sparkling eyes he holds us spellbound, relating the wonderful journey, taking us through the nevsky in st. petersburg, thence to the caucasus, to engage in the blood-feuds of the tcherkessi; or, enmeshed in a perilous flirtation with an albanian beauty in a moslem harem, he descants on the philosophy of mohammed, imperceptibly shifting the scene to the nile to hunt the hippopotamus, and suddenly interrupting the amazing adventures by introducing an acquaintance of the evening, "my excellent friend, the coming great italian virtuoso, from odessa, gentlemen. he will entertain us with an aria from _trovatore_." but the circle is not in a musical mood: some one challenges the student's familiarity with the moslem philosophy, and the twin hints at the gossiped intimacy of the austrian with christian missionaries. there are protestations, and loud clamor for an explanation. the student smilingly assents, and presently he is launched upon the chinese sea, in the midst of a strange caravan, trading tea at yachta, and aiding a political to escape to vladivostok.... the night pales before the waking sun, the twin yawns, and i am drowsy with-- "cof-fee! want coffee? hey, git up there! didn't you hear th' bell?" chapter xvi the warden's threat i the dying sun grows pale with haze and fog. slowly the dark-gray line undulates across the shop, and draws its sinuous length along the gloaming yard. the shadowy waves cleave the thickening mist, vibrate ghostlike, and are swallowed in the yawning blackness of the cell-house. "aleck, aleck!" i hear an excited whisper behind me, "quick, plant it. the screw's goin' t' frisk[ ] me." [ ] search. something small and hard is thrust into my coat pocket. the guard in front stops short, suspiciously scanning the passing men. "break ranks!" the overseer approaches me. "you are wanted in the office, berk." the warden, blear-eyed and sallow, frowns as i am led in. "what have you got on you?" he demands, abruptly. "i don't understand you." "yes, you do. have you money on you?" "i have not." "who sends clandestine mail for you?" "what mail?" "the letter published in the anarchist sheet in new york." i feel greatly relieved. the letter in question passed through official channels. "it went through the chaplain's hands," i reply, boldly. "it isn't true. such a letter could never pass mr. milligan. mr. cosson," he turns to the guard, "fetch the newspaper from my desk." the warden's hands tremble as he points to the marked item. "here it is! you talk of revolution, and comrades, and anarchism. mr. milligan never saw _that_, i'm sure. it's a nice thing for the papers to say that you are editing--from the prison, mind you--editing an anarchist sheet in new york." "you can't believe everything the papers say." i protest. "hm, this time the papers, hm, hm, may be right," the deputy interposes. "they surely didn't make the story, hm, hm, out of whole cloth." "they often do," i retort. "didn't they write that i tried to jump over the wall--it's about thirty feet high--and that the guard shot me in the leg?" a smile flits across the warden's face. impulsively i blurt out: "was the story inspired, perhaps?" "silence!" the warden thunders. "you are not to speak, unless addressed, remember. mr. mcpane, please search him." the long, bony fingers slowly creep over my neck and shoulders, down my arms and body, pressing in my armpits, gripping my legs, covering every spot, and immersing me in an atmosphere of clamminess. the loathsome touch sickens me, but i rejoice in the thought of my security: i have nothing incriminating about me. suddenly the snakelike hand dips into my coat pocket. "hm, what's this?" he unwraps a small, round object. "a knife, captain." "let me see!" i cry in amazement. "stand back!" the warden commands. "this knife has been stolen from the shoe shop. on whom did you mean to use it?" "warden, i didn't even know i had it. a fellow dropped it into my pocket as we--" "that'll do. you're not so clever as you think." "it's a conspiracy!" i cry. he lounges calmly in the armchair, a peculiar smile dancing in his eyes. "well, what have you got to say?" "it's a put-up job." "explain yourself." "some one threw this thing into my pocket as we were coming--" "oh, we've already heard that. it's too fishy." "you searched me for money and secret letters--" "that will do now. mr. mcpane, what is the sentence for the possession of a dangerous weapon?" "warden," i interrupt, "it's no weapon. the blade is only half an inch, and--" "silence! i spoke to mr. mcpane." "hm, three days, captain." "take him down." * * * * * in the storeroom i am stripped of my suit of dark gray, and again clad in the hateful stripes. coatless and shoeless, i am led through hallways and corridors, down a steep flight of stairs, and thrown into the dungeon. * * * * * total darkness. the blackness is massive, palpable,--i feel its hand upon my head, my face. i dare not move, lest a misstep thrust me into the abyss. i hold my hand close to my eyes--i feel the touch of my lashes upon it, but i cannot see its outline. motionless i stand on one spot, devoid of all sense of direction. the silence is sinister; it seems to me i can hear it. only now and then the hasty scrambling of nimble feet suddenly rends the stillness, and the gnawing of invisible river rats haunts the fearful solitude. slowly the blackness pales. it ebbs and melts; out of the sombre gray, a wall looms above; the silhouette of a door rises dimly before me, sloping upward and growing compact and impenetrable. the hours drag in unbroken sameness. not a sound reaches me from the cell-house. in the maddening quiet and darkness i am bereft of all consciousness of time, save once a day when the heavy rattle of keys apprises me of the morning: the dungeon is unlocked, and the silent guards hand me a slice of bread and a cup of water. the double doors fall heavily to, the steps grow fainter and die in the distance, and all is dark again in the dungeon. the numbness of death steals upon my soul. the floor is cold and clammy, the gnawing grows louder and nearer, and i am filled with dread lest the starving rats attack my bare feet. i snatch a few unconscious moments leaning against the door; and then again i pace the cell, striving to keep awake, wondering whether it be night or day, yearning for the sound of a human voice. utterly forsaken! cast into the stony bowels of the underground, the world of man receding, leaving no trace behind.... eagerly i strain my ear--only the ceaseless, fearful gnawing. i clutch the bars in desperation--a hollow echo mocks the clanking iron. my hands tear violently at the door--"ho, there! any one here?" all is silent. nameless terrors quiver in my mind, weaving nightmares of mortal dread and despair. fear shapes convulsive thoughts: they rage in wild tempest, then calm, and again rush through time and space in a rapid succession of strangely familiar scenes, wakened in my slumbering consciousness. exhausted and weary i droop against the wall. a slimy creeping on my face startles me in horror, and again i pace the cell. i feel cold and hungry. am i forgotten? three days must have passed, and more. have they forgotten me?... * * * * * the clank of keys sends a thrill of joy to my heart. my tomb will open--oh, to see the light, and breathe the air again.... "officer, isn't my time up yet?" "what's your hurry? you've only been here one day." the doors fall to. ravenously i devour the bread, so small and thin, just a bite. only _one_ day! despair enfolds me like a pall. faint with anguish, i sink to the floor. ii the change from the dungeon to the ordinary cell is a veritable transformation. the sight of the human form fills me with delight, the sound of voices is sweet music. i feel as if i had been torn from the grip of death when all hope had fled me,--caught on the very brink, as it were, and restored to the world of the living. how bright the sun, how balmy the air! in keen sensuousness i stretch out on the bed. the tick is soiled, the straw protrudes in places, but it is luxury to rest, secure from the vicious river rats and the fierce vermin. it is almost liberty, freedom! but in the morning i awake in great agony. my eyes throb with pain; every joint of my body is on the rack. the blankets had been removed from the dungeon; three days and nights i lay on the bare stone. it was unnecessarily cruel to deprive me of my spectacles, in pretended anxiety lest i commit suicide with them. it is very touching, this solicitude for my safety, in view of the flimsy pretext to punish me. some hidden motive must be actuating the warden. but what can it be? probably they will not keep me long in the cell. when i am returned to work, i shall learn the truth. * * * * * the days pass in vain expectation. the continuous confinement is becoming distressing. i miss the little comforts i have lost by the removal to the "single" cell, considerably smaller than my previous quarters. my library, also, has disappeared, and the pictures i had so patiently collected for the decoration of the walls. the cell is bare and cheerless, the large card of ugly-printed rules affording no relief from the irritating whitewash. the narrow space makes exercise difficult: the necessity of turning at every second and third step transforms walking into a series of contortions. but some means must be devised to while away the time. i pace the floor, counting the seconds required to make ten turns. i recollect having heard that five miles constitutes a healthy day's walk. at that rate i should make , turns, the cell measuring seven feet in length. i divide the exercise into three parts, adding a few extra laps to make sure of five miles. carefully i count, and am overcome by a sense of calamity when the peal of the gong confuses my numbers. i must begin over again. the change of location has interrupted communication with my comrades. i am apprehensive of the fate of the _prison blossoms_: strict surveillance makes the prospect of restoring connections doubtful. i am assigned to the ground floor, my cell being but a few feet distant from the officers' desk at the yard door. watchful eyes are constantly upon me; it is impossible for any prisoner to converse with me. the rangeman alone could aid me in reaching my friends, but i have been warned against him: he is a "stool" who has earned his position as trusty by spying upon the inmates. i can expect no help from him; but perhaps the coffee-boy may prove of service. i am planning to approach the man, when i am informed that prisoners from the hosiery department are locked up on the upper gallery. by means of the waste pipe, i learn of the developments during my stay in the dungeon. the discontent of the shop employees with the insufficient rations was intensified by the arrival of a wagon-load of bad meat. the stench permeated the yard, and several men were punished for passing uncomplimentary remarks about the food. the situation was aggravated by an additional increase of the task. the knitters and loopers were on the verge of rebellion. twice within the month had the task been enlarged. they sent to the warden a request for a reduction; in reply came the appalling order for a further increase. then a score of men struck. they remained in the cells, refusing to return to the shop unless the demand for better food and less work was complied with. with the aid of informers, the warden conducted a quiet investigation. one by one the refractory prisoners were forced to submit. by a process of elimination the authorities sifted the situation, and now it is whispered about that a decision has been reached, placing responsibility for the unique episode of a strike in the prison. an air of mystery hangs about the guards. repeatedly i attempt to engage them in conversation, but the least reference to the strike seals their lips. i wonder at the peculiar looks they regard me with, when unexpectedly the cause is revealed. iii it is sunday noon. the rangeman pushes the dinner wagon along the tier. i stand at the door, ready to receive the meal. the overseer glances at me, then motions to the prisoner. the cart rolls past my cell. "officer," i call out, "you missed me." "smell the pot-pie, do you?" "where's my dinner?" "you get none." the odor of the steaming delicacy, so keenly looked forward to every second sunday, reaches my nostrils and sharpens my hunger. i have eaten sparingly all week in expectation of the treat, and now--i am humiliated and enraged by being so unceremoniously deprived of the rare dinner. angrily i rap the cup across the door; again and again i strike the tin against it, the successive falls from bar to bar producing a sharp, piercing clatter. a guard hastens along. "stop that damn racket," he commands. "what's the matter with you?" "i didn't get dinner." "yes, you did." "i did not." "well, i s'pose you don't deserve it." as he turns to leave, my can crashes against the door--one, two, three-- "what t'hell do you want, eh?" "i want to see the warden." "you can't see 'im. you better keep quiet now." "i demand to see the warden. he is supposed to visit us every day. he hasn't been around for weeks. i must see him now." "if you don't shut up, i'll--" the captain of the block approaches. "what do you want, berkman?" "i want to see the warden." "can't see him. it's sunday." "captain," i retort, pointing to the rules on the wall of the cell, "there is an excerpt here from the statutes of pennsylvania, directing the warden to visit each prisoner every day--" "never mind, now," he interrupts. "what do you want to see the warden about?" "i want to know why i got no dinner." "your name is off the list for the next four sundays." "what for?" "that you'll have to ask the boss. i'll tell him you want to see him." presently the overseer returns, informing me in a confidential manner that he has induced "his nibs" to grant me an audience. admitted to the inner office, i find the warden at the desk, his face flushed with anger. "you are reported for disturbing the peace," he shouts at me. "there is also, hm, hm, another charge against him," the deputy interposes. "two charges," the warden continues. "disturbing the peace and making demands. how dare you demand?" he roars. "do you know where you are?" "i wanted to see you." "it is not a question of what you want or don't want. understand that clearly. you are to obey the rules implicitly." "the rules direct you to visit--" "silence! what is your request?" "i want to know why i am deprived of dinner." "it is not, hm, for _you_ to know. it is enough, hm, hm, that _we_ know," the deputy retorts. "mr. mcpane," the warden interposes, "i am going to speak plainly to him. from this day on," he turns to me, "you are on 'pennsylvania diet' for four weeks. during that time no papers or books are permitted you. it will give you leisure to think over your behavior. i have investigated your conduct in the shop, and i am satisfied it was you who instigated the trouble there. you shall not have another chance to incite the men, even if you live as long as your sentence. but," he pauses an instant, then adds, threateningly, "but you may as well understand it now as later--your life is not worth the trouble you give us. mark you well, whatever the cost, it will be at _your_ expense. for the present you'll remain in solitary, where you cannot exert your pernicious influence. officers, remove him to the 'basket.'" chapter xvii the "basket" cell four weeks of "pennsylvania diet" have reduced me almost to a skeleton. a slice of wheat bread with a cup of unsweetened black coffee is my sole meal, with twice a week dinner of vegetable soup, from which every trace of meat has been removed. every saturday i am conducted to the office, to be examined by the physician and weighed. the whole week i look forward to the brief respite from the terrible "basket" cell. the sight of the striped men scouring the floor, the friendly smile on a stealthily raised face as i pass through the hall, the strange blue of the sky, the sweet-scented aroma of the april morning--how quickly it is all over! but the seven deep breaths i slowly inhale on the way to the office, and the eager ten on my return, set my blood aglow with renewed life. for an instant my brain reels with the sudden rush of exquisite intoxication, and then--i am in the tomb again. * * * * * the torture of the "basket" is maddening; the constant dusk is driving me blind. almost no light or air reaches me through the close wire netting covering the barred door. the foul odor is stifling; it grips my throat with deathly hold. the walls hem me in; daily they press closer upon me, till the cell seems to contract, and i feel crushed in the coffin of stone. from every point the whitewashed sides glare at me, unyielding, inexorable, in confident assurance of their prey. * * * * * the darkness of despondency gathers day by day; the hand of despair weighs heavier. at night the screeching of a crow across the river ominously voices the black raven keeping vigil in my heart. the windows in the hallway quake and tremble in the furious wind. bleak and desolate wakes the day--another day, then another-- * * * * * weak and apathetic i lie on the bed. ever further recedes the world of the living. still day follows night, and life is in the making, but i have no part in the pain and travail. like a spark from the glowing furnace, flashing through the gloom, and swallowed in the darkness, i have been cast upon the shores of the forgotten. no sound reaches me from the island prison where beats the fervent heart of the girl, no ray of hope falls across the bars of desolation. but on the threshold of nirvana life recoils; in the very bowels of torment it cries out _to be_! persecution feeds the fires of defiance, and nerves my resolution. were i an ordinary prisoner, i should not care to suffer all these agonies. to what purpose, with my impossible sentence? but my anarchist ideals and traditions rise in revolt against the vampire gloating over its prey. no, i shall not disgrace the cause, i shall not grieve my comrades by weak surrender! i will fight and struggle, and not be daunted by threat or torture. * * * * * with difficulty i walk to the office for the weekly weighing. my step falters as i approach the scales, and i sway dizzily. as through a mist i see the doctor bending over me, his head pressing against my body. somehow i reach the "basket," mildly wondering why i did not feel the cold air. perhaps they did not take me through the yard--is it the block captain's voice? "what did you say?" "return to your old cell. you're on full diet now." chapter xviii the solitary i direct to box a , allegheny city, pa., march , . dear fedya: this letter is somewhat delayed: for certain reasons i missed mail-day last month. prison life, too, has its ups and downs, and just now i am on the down side. we are cautioned to refrain from referring to local affairs; therefore i can tell you only that i am in solitary, without work. i don't know how long i am to be kept "locked up." it may be a month, or a year, i hope it will not be the latter. i was not permitted to receive the magazines and delicacies you sent.... we may subscribe for the daily papers, and you can easily imagine how religiously i read them from headline to the last ad: they keep me in touch, to some extent, with the living.... blessed be the shades of guttenberg! hugo and zola, even gogol and turgenev, are in the library. it is like meeting an old friend in a strange land to find our own bazarov discoursing--in english.... page after page unfolds the past--the solitary is forgotten, the walls melt away, and again i roam with leather stocking in the primitive forest, or sorrow with poor oliver twist. but the "captain's daughter" irritates me, and pugatchev, the rebellious soul, has turned a caricature in the awkward hands of the translator. and now comes tarass bulba--is it our own tarass, the fearless warrior, the scourge of turk and tartar? how grotesque is the brave old hetman storming maledictions against the hated moslems--in long-winded german periods! exasperated and offended, i turn my back upon the desecration, and open a book of poems. but instead of the requested robert burns, i find a volume of wordsworth. posies bloom on his pages, and rosebuds scent his rhymes, but the pains of the world's labor wake no chord in his soul.... science and romance, history and travel, religion and philosophy--all come trooping into the cell in irrelevant sequence, for the allowance of only one book at a time limits my choice. the variety of reading affords rich material for reflection, and helps to perfect my english. but some passage in the "starry heavens" suddenly brings me to earth, and the present is illumined with the direct perception of despair, and the anguished question surges through my mind, what is the use of all this study and learning? and then--but why harrow you with this tenor. i did not mean to say all this when i began. it cannot be undone: the sheet must be accounted for. therefore it will be mailed to you. but i know, dear friend, you also are not bedded on roses. and the poor sailor? my space is all. alex. ii the lengthening chain of days in the solitary drags its heavy links through every change of misery. the cell is suffocating with the summer heat; rarely does the fresh breeze from the river steal a caress upon my face. on the pretext of a "draught" the unfriendly guard has closed the hall windows opposite my cell. not a breath of air is stirring. the leaden hours of the night are insufferable with the foul odor of the perspiration and excrement of a thousand bodies. sleepless, i toss on the withered mattress. the ravages of time and the weight of many inmates have demoralized it out of all semblance of a bedtick. but the block captain persistently ignores my request for new straw, directing me to "shake it up a bit." i am fearful of repeating the experiment: the clouds of dust almost strangled me; for days the cell remained hazy with the powdered filth. impatiently i await the morning: the yard door will open before the marching lines, and the fresh air be wafted past my cell. i shall stand ready to receive the precious tonic that is to give me life this day. and when the block has belched forth its striped prey, and silence mounts its vigil, i may improve a favorable moment to exchange a greeting with johnny davis. the young prisoner is in solitary on the tier above me. thrice his request for a "high gear" machine has been refused, and the tall youth forced to work doubled over a low table. unable to exert his best efforts in the cramped position, johnny has repeatedly been punished with the dungeon. last week he suffered a hemorrhage; all through the night resounds his hollow cough. desperate with the dread of consumption, johnny has refused to return to work. the warden, relenting in a kindly mood, permitted him to resume his original high machine. but the boy has grown obdurate: he is determined not to go back to the shop whose officer caused him so much trouble. the prison discipline takes no cognizance of the situation. regularly every monday the torture is repeated: the youth is called before the deputy, and assigned to the hosiery department; the unvarying refusal is followed by the dungeon, and then johnny is placed in the solitary, to be cited again before the warden the ensuing monday. i chafe at my helplessness to aid the boy. his course is suicidal, but the least suggestion of yielding enrages him. "i'll die before i give in," he told me. from whispered talks through the waste pipe i learn the sad story of his young life. he is nineteen, with a sentence of five years before him. his father, a brakeman, was killed in a railroad collision. the suit for damages was dragged through years of litigation, leaving the widow destitute. since the age of fourteen young johnny had to support the whole family. lately he was employed as the driver of a delivery wagon, associating with a rough element that gradually drew him into gambling. one day a shortage of twelve dollars was discovered in the boy's accounts: the mills of justice began to grind, and johnny was speedily clad in stripes. * * * * * in vain i strive to absorb myself in the library book. the shoddy heroes of laura jean wake no response in my heart; the superior beings of corelli, communing with mysterious heavenly circles, stalk by, strange and unhuman. here, in the cell above me, cries and moans the terrible tragedy of reality. what a monstrous thing it is that the whole power of the commonwealth, all the machinery of government, is concentrated to crush this unfortunate atom! innocently guilty, too, the poor boy is. ensnared by the gaming spirit of the time, the feeble creature of vitiating environment, his fate is sealed by a moment of weakness. yet his deviation from the path of established ethics is but a faint reflection of the lives of the men that decreed his doom. the hypocrisy of organized society! the very foundation of its existence rests upon the negation and defiance of every professed principle of right and justice. every feature of its face is a caricature, a travesty upon the semblance of truth; the whole life of humanity a mockery of the very name. political mastery based on violence and jesuitry; industry gathering the harvest of human blood; commerce ascendant on the ruins of manhood--such is the morality of civilization. and over the edifice of this stupendous perversion the law sits enthroned, and religion weaves the spell of awe, and varnishes right and puzzles wrong, and bids the cowering helot intone, "thy will be done!" devoutly johnny goes to church, and prays forgiveness for his "sins." the prosecutor was "very hard" on him, he told me. the blind mole perceives only the immediate, and is embittered against the persons directly responsible for his long imprisonment. but greater minds have failed fully to grasp the iniquity of the established. my beloved burns, even, seems inadequate, powerfully as he moves my spirit with his deep sympathy for the poor, the oppressed. but "man's inhumanity to man" is not the last word. the truth lies deeper. it is economic slavery, the savage struggle for a crumb, that has converted mankind into wolves and sheep. in liberty and communism, none would have the will or the power "to make countless thousands mourn." verily, it is the system, rather than individuals, that is the source of pollution and degradation. my prison-house environment is but another manifestation of the midas-hand, whose cursed touch turns everything to the brutal service of mammon. dullness fawns upon cruelty for advancement; with savage joy the shop foreman cracks his whip, for his meed of the gold-transmuted blood. the famished bodies in stripes, the agonized brains reeling in the dungeon night, the men buried in "basket" and solitary,--what human hand would turn the key upon a soul in utter darkness, but for the dread of a like fate, and the shadow it casts before? this nightmare is but an intensified replica of the world beyond, the larger prison locked with the levers of greed, guarded by the spawn of hunger. * * * * * my mind reverts insistently to the life outside. it is a herculean task to rouse apathy to the sordidness of its misery. yet if the people would but realize the depths of their degradation and be informed of the means of deliverance, how joyously they would embrace anarchy! quick and decisive would be the victory of the workers against the handful of their despoilers. an hour of sanity, freed from prejudice and superstition, and the torch of liberty would flame 'round the world, and the banner of equality and brotherhood be planted upon the hills of a regenerated humanity. ah, if the world would but pause for one short while, and understand, and become free! involuntarily i am reminded of the old rabbinical lore: only one instant of righteousness, and messiah would come upon earth. the beautiful promise had strongly appealed to me in the days of childhood. the merciful god requires so little of us, i had often pondered. why will we not abstain from sin and evil, for just "the twinkling of an eye-lash"? for weeks i went about weighed down with the grief of impenitent israel refusing to be saved, my eager brain pregnant with projects of hastening the deliverance. like a divine inspiration came the solution: at the stroke of the noon hour, on a preconcerted day, all the men and women of the jewry throughout the world should bow in prayer. for a single stroke of time, all at once--behold the messiah come! in agonizing perplexity i gazed at my hebrew tutor shaking his head. how his kindly smile quivered dismay into my thrilling heart! the children of israel could not be saved thus,--he spoke sadly. nay, not even in the most circumspect manner, affording our people in the farthest corners of the earth time to prepare for the solemn moment. the messiah will come, the good tutor kindly consoled me. it had been promised. "but the hour hath not arrived," he quoted; "no man hath the power to hasten the steps of the deliverer." with a sense of sobering sadness, i think of the new hope, the revolutionary messiah. truly the old rabbi was wise beyond his ken: it hath been given to no man to hasten the march of delivery. out of the people's need, from the womb of their suffering, must be born the hour of redemption. necessity, necessity alone, with its iron heel, will spur numb misery to effort, and waken the living dead. the process is tortuously slow, but the gestation of a new humanity cannot be hurried by impatience. we must bide our time, meanwhile preparing the workers for the great upheaval. the errors of the past are to be guarded against: always has apparent victory been divested of its fruits, and paralyzed into defeat, because the people were fettered by their respect for property, by the superstitious awe of authority, and by reliance upon leaders. these ghosts must be cast out, and the torch of reason lighted in the darkness of men's minds, ere blind rebellion can rend the midway clouds of defeat, and sight the glory of the social revolution, and the beyond. iii a heavy nightmare oppresses my sleep. confused sounds ring in my ears, and beat upon my head. i wake in nameless dread. the cell-house is raging with uproar: crash after crash booms through the hall; it thunders against the walls of the cell, then rolls like some monstrous drum along the galleries, and abruptly ceases. in terror i cower on the bed. all is deathly still. timidly i look around. the cell is in darkness, and only a faint gas light flickers unsteadily in the corridor. suddenly a cry cuts the silence, shrill and unearthly, bursting into wild laughter. and again the fearful thunder, now bellowing from the cell above, now muttering menacingly in the distance, then dying with a growl. and all is hushed again, and only the unearthly laughter rings through the hall. "johnny, johnny!" i call in alarm. "johnny!" "th' kid's in th' hole," comes hoarsely through the privy. "this is horsethief. is that you, aleck?" "yes. what _is_ it, bob?" "some one breakin' up housekeepin'." "who?" "can't tell. may be smithy." "what smithy, bob?" "crazy smith, on crank row. look out now, they're comin'." the heavy doors of the rotunda groan on their hinges. shadowlike, giant figures glide past my cell. they walk inaudibly, felt-soled and portentous, the long riot clubs rigid at their sides. behind them others, and then the warden, a large revolver gleaming in his hand. with bated breath i listen, conscious of the presence of other men at the doors. suddenly wailing and wild laughter pierce the night: there is the rattling of iron, violent scuffling, the sickening thud of a falling body, and all is quiet. noiselessly the bread cart flits by, the huge shadows bending over the body stretched on the boards. * * * * * the gong booms the rising hour. the morning sun glints a ray upon the bloody trail in the hall, and hides behind the gathering mist. a squad of men in gray and black is marched from the yard. they kneel on the floor, and with sand and water scour the crimson flagstones. * * * * * with great relief i learn that "crazy smithy" is not dead. he will recover, the rangeman assures me. the doctor bandaged the man's wounds, and then the prisoner, still unconscious, was dragged to the dungeon. little by little i glean his story from my informant. smith has been insane, at times violently, ever since his imprisonment, about four years ago. his "partner," burns, has also become deranged through worry over his sentence of twenty-five years. his madness assumed such revolting expression that the authorities caused his commitment to the insane asylum. but smith remains on "crank row," the warden insisting that he is shamming to gain an opportunity to escape. iv the rare snatches of conversation with the old rangeman are events in the monotony of the solitary. owing to the illness of bob, communication with my friends is almost entirely suspended. in the forced idleness the hours grow heavy and languid, the days drag in unvarying sameness. by violent efforts of will i strangle the recurring thought of my long sentence, and seek forgetfulness in reading. volume after volume passes through my hands, till my brain is steeped with the printed word. page by page i recite the history of the holy church, the lives of the fathers and the saints, or read aloud, to hear a human voice, the mythology of greece and india, mingling with it, for the sake of variety, a few chapters from mill and spencer. but in the midst of an intricate passage in the "unknowable," or in the heart of a difficult mathematical problem, i suddenly become aware of my pencil drawing familiar figures on the library slate: � = . what is this, i wonder. and immediately i proceed, in semiconscious manner, to finish the calculation: � = , days. , � = , hours. , � = , , minutes. , , � = , , seconds. but the next moment i am aghast at the realization that my computation allows only days per month, whereas the year consists of , sometimes even of days. and again i repeat the process, multiplying by , and am startled to find that i have almost , , seconds to pass in the solitary. from the official calendar alongside of the rules the cheering promise faces me, good conduct shortens time. but i have been repeatedly reported and punished--they will surely deprive me of the commutation. with great care i figure out my allowance: one month on the first year, one on the second; two on the third and fourth; three on the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth; four months' "good time" on each succeeding year. i shall therefore have to serve fifteen years and three months in this place, and then eleven months in the workhouse. i have been here now two years. it still leaves me years and months, or more than , days. appalled by the figures, i pace the cell in agitation. it is hopeless! it is folly to expect to survive such a sentence, especially in view of the warden's persecution, and the petty tyranny of the keepers. thoughts of suicide and escape, wild fancies of unforeseen developments in the world at large that will somehow result in my liberation, all struggle in confusion, leaving me faint and miserable. my absolute isolation holds no promise of deliverance; the days of illness and suffering fill me with anguish. with a sharp pang i observe the thinning of my hair. the evidence of physical decay rouses the fear of mental collapse, insanity.... i shudder at the terrible suggestion, and lash myself into a fever of irritation with myself, the rangeman, and every passing convict, my heart seething with hatred of the warden, the guards, the judge, and that unembodied, shapeless, but inexorable and merciless, thing--the world. in the moments of reacting calm i apply myself to philosophy and science, determinedly, with the desperation born of horror. but the dread ghost is ever before me; it follows me up and down the cell, mocks me with the wild laughter of "crazy smith" in the stillness of the night, and with the moaning and waking of my neighbor suddenly gone mad. chapter xix memory-guests often the chaplain pauses at my door, and speaks words of encouragement. i feel deeply moved by his sympathy, but my revolutionary traditions forbid the expression of my emotions: a cog in the machinery of oppression, he might mistake my gratitude for the obsequiousness of the fawning convict. but i hope he feels my appreciation in the simple "thank you." it is kind of him to lend me books from his private library, and occasionally also permit me an extra sheet of writing paper. correspondence with the girl and the twin, and the unfrequent exchange of notes with my comrades, are the only links that still bind me to the living. i feel weary and life-worn, indifferent to the trivial incidents of existence that seem to hold such exciting interest for the other inmates. "old sammy," the rangeman, grown nervous with the approach of liberty, inverts a hundred opportunities to unburden his heart. all day long he limps from cell to cell, pretending to scrub the doorsills or dust the bars, meanwhile chattering volubly to the solitaries. listlessly i suffer the oft-repeated recital of the "news," elaborately discussed and commented upon with impassioned earnestness. he interrupts his anathemas upon the "rotten food" and the "thieving murderers," to launch into enthusiastic details of the meal he will enjoy on the day of release, the imprisoned friends he will remember with towels and handkerchiefs. but he grows pensive at the mention of the folks at home: the "old woman" died of a broken heart, the boys have not written a line in three years. he fears they have sold the little farmhouse, and flown to the city. but the joy of coming freedom drives away the sad thought, and he mumbles hopefully, "i'll see, i'll see," and rejoices in being "alive and still good for a while," and then abruptly changes the conversation, and relates minutely how "that poor, crazy dick" was yesterday found hanging in the cell, and he the first to discover him, and to help the guards cut him down. and last week he was present when the physician tried to revive "the little dago," and if the doctor had only returned quicker from the theatre, poor joe might have been saved. he "took a fit" and "the screws jest let 'im lay; 'waitin' for the doc,' they says. hope they don't kill _me_ yet," he comments, hobbling away. * * * * * the presence of death daunts the thought of self-destruction. ever stronger asserts itself the love of life; the will to be roots deeper. but the hope of escape recedes with the ebbing of my vitality. the constant harassing has forced the discontinuation of the _blossoms_. the eccentric warden seems to have conceived a great fear of an anarchist conspiracy: special orders have been issued, placing the trio under extraordinary surveillance. suspecting our clandestine correspondence, yet unable to trace it, the authorities have decided to separate us in a manner excluding all possibility of communication. apparently i am to be continued in the solitary indefinitely, while nold is located in the south wing, and bauer removed to the furthest cell on an upper gallery in the north block. the precious magazine is suspended, and only the daring of the faithful "horsethief" enables us to exchange an occasional note. amid the fantastic shapes cast by the dim candle light, i pass the long winter evenings. the prison day between a. m. and p. m. i divide into three parts, devoting four hours each to exercise, english, and reading, the remaining two hours occupied with meals and "cleaning up." surrounded by grammars and dictionaries, borrowed from the chaplain, i absorb myself in a sentence of shakespeare, dissecting each word, studying origin and derivation, analyzing prefix and suffix. i find moments of exquisite pleasure in tracing some simple expression through all the vicissitudes of its existence, to its latin or greek source. in the history of the corresponding epoch, i seek the people's joys and tragedies, contemporary with the fortunes of the word. philology, with the background of history, leads me into the pastures of mythology and comparative religion, through the mazes of metaphysics and warring philosophies, to rationalism and evolutionary science. oblivious of my environment, i walk with the disciples of socrates, flee athens with the persecuted diagoras, "the atheist," and listen in ecstasy to the sweet-voiced lute of arion; or with suetonius i pass in review the twelve caesars, and weep with the hostages swelling the triumph of the eternal city. but on the very threshold of cleopatra's boudoir, about to enter with the intrepid mark antony, i am met by three giant slaves with the command: "a , hands up! step out to be searched!" * * * * * for days my enfeebled nerves quiver with the shock. with difficulty i force myself to pick up the thread of my life amid the spirits of the past. the placid waters have been disturbed, and all the miasma of the quagmire seethes toward the surface, and fills my cup with the bitterness of death. the release of "old sammy" stirs me to the very depths. many prisoners have come and gone during my stay; with some i merely touched hands as they passed in the darkness and disappeared, leaving no trace in my existence. but the old rangeman, with his smiling eyes and fervid optimism, has grown dear to me. he shared with me his hopes and fears, divided his extra slice of cornbread, and strove to cheer me in his own homely manner. i miss his genial presence. something has gone out of my life with him, leaving a void, saddening, gnawing. in thought i follow my friend through the gates of the prison, out into the free, the alluring "outside," the charmed circle that holds the promise of life and joy and liberty. like a horrible nightmare the sombre walls fade away, and only a dark shadow vibrates in my memory, like a hidden menace, faint, yet ever-present and terrible. the sun glows brilliant in the heavens, shell-like wavelets float upon the azure, and sweet odors are everywhere about me. all the longing of my soul wells up with violent passion, and in a sudden transport of joy i fling myself upon the earth, and weep and kiss it in prayerful bliss.... * * * * * the candle sputters, hisses, and dies. i sit in the dark. silently lifts the veil of time. the little new york flat rises before me. the girl is returning home, the roses of youth grown pallid amid the shadows of death. only her eyes glow firmer and deeper, a look of challenge in her saddened face. as on an open page, i read the suffering of her prison experience, the sharper lines of steadfast purpose.... the joys and sorrows of our mutual past unfold before me, and again i live in the old surroundings. the memorable scene of our first meeting, in the little café at sachs', projects clearly. the room is chilly in the november dusk, as i return from work and secure my accustomed place. one by one the old habitués drop in, and presently i am in a heated discussion with two russian refugees at the table opposite. the door opens, and a young woman enters. well-knit, with the ruddy vigor of youth, she diffuses an atmosphere of strength and vitality. i wonder who the newcomer may be. two years in the movement have familiarized me with the personnel of the revolutionary circles of the metropolis. this girl is evidently a stranger; i am quite sure i have never met her at our gatherings. i motion to the passing proprietor. he smiles, anticipating my question. "you want to know who the young lady is?" he whispers. "i'll see, i'll see."--somehow i find myself at her table. without constraint, we soon converse like old acquaintances, and i learn that she left her home in rochester to escape the stifling provincial atmosphere. she is a dressmaker, and hopes to find work in new york. i like her simple, frank confidence; the "comrade" on her lips thrills me. she is one of us, then. with a sense of pride in the movement, i enlarge upon the activities of our circle. there are important meetings she ought to attend, many people to meet; hasselmann is conducting a course in sociology; schultze is giving splendid lectures. "have you heard most?" i ask suddenly. "no? you must hear our grand old man. he speaks to-morrow; will you come with me?"--eagerly i look forward to the next evening, and hasten to the café. it is frosty outdoors as i walk the narrow, dark streets in animated discussion with "comrade rochester." the ancient sidewalks are uneven and cracked, in spots crusted with filth. as we cross delancey street, the girl slips and almost falls, when i catch her in my arms just in time to prevent her head striking the curbstone. "you have saved my life," she smiles at me, her eyes dancing vivaciously.... with great pride i introduce my new friend to the _inteligentzia_ of the ghetto, among the exiles of the colony. ah, the exaltation, the joy of being!... the whole history of revolutionary russia is mirrored in our circles; every shade of temperamental nihilism and political view is harbored there. i see hartman, surrounded by the halo of conspirative mystery; at his side is the _velikorussian_, with flowing beard and powerful frame, of the older generation of the _narodovoiltzy_; and there is schewitsch, big and broad of feature, the typical _dvoryanin_ who has cast in his lot with the proletariat. the line of contending faiths is not drawn sharply in the colony: cahan is among us, stentorian of voice and bristling with aggressive vitality; solotaroff, his pale student face peculiarly luminous; miller, poetically eloquent, and his strangely-named brother brandes, looking consumptive from his experience in the odessa prison. timmermann and aleinikoff, rinke and weinstein--all are united in enthusiasm for the common cause. types from turgenev and chernishevski, from dostoyevski and nekrassov, mingle in the seeming confusion of reality, individualized with varying shade and light. and other elements are in the colony, the splashed quivers of the simmering waters of tsardom. shapes in the making, still being kneaded in the mold of old tradition and new environment. who knows what shall be the amalgam, some day to be recast by the master hand of a new turgenev?... * * * * * often the solitary hours are illumined by scenes of the past. with infinite detail i live again through the years of the inspiring friendship that held the girl, the twin, and myself in the closest bonds of revolutionary aspiration and personal intimacy. how full of interest and rich promise was life in those days, so far away, when after the hours of humiliating drudgery in the factory i would hasten to the little room in suffolk street! small and narrow, with its diminutive table and solitary chair, the cage-like bedroom would be transfigured into the sanctified chamber of fate, holding the balance of the world's weal. only two could sit on the little cot, the third on the rickety chair. and if somebody else called, we would stand around the room, filling the air with the glowing hope of our young hearts, in the firm consciousness that we were hastening the steps of progress, advancing the glorious dawn. * * * * * the memory of the life "outside" intensifies the misery of the solitary. i brood over the uselessness of my suffering. my mission in life terminated with the _attentat_. what good can my continued survival do? my propagandistic value as a living example of class injustice and political persecution is not of sufficient importance to impose upon me the duty of existence. and even if it were, the almost three years of my imprisonment have served the purpose. escape is out of consideration, so long as i remain constantly under lock and key, the subject of special surveillance. communication with nold and bauer, too, is daily growing more difficult. my health is fast failing; i am barely able to walk. what is the use of all this misery and torture? what is the use?... in such moments, i stand on the brink of eternity. is it sheer apathy and languor that hold the weak thread of life, or nature's law and the inherent spirit of resistance? were i not in the enemy's power, i should unhesitatingly cross the barrier. but as a pioneer of the cause, i must live and struggle. yet life without activity or interest is terrifying.... i long for sympathy and affection. with an aching heart i remember my comrades and friends, and the girl. more and more my mind dwells upon tender memories. i wake at night with a passionate desire for the sight of a sweet face, the touch of a soft hand. a wild yearning fills me for the women i have known, as they pass in my mind's eye from the time of my early youth to the last kiss of feminine lips. with a thrill i recall each bright look and tender accent. my heart beats tumultuously as i meet little nadya, on the way to school, pretending i do not see her. i turn around to admire the golden locks floating in the breeze, when i surprise her stealthily watching me. i adore her secretly, but proudly decline my chum's offer to introduce me. how foolish of me! but i know no timid shrinking as i wait, on a cold winter evening, for our neighbor's servant girl to cross the yard; and how unceremoniously i embrace her! she is not a _barishnya_; i need not mask my feelings. and she is so primitive; she accuses me of knowing things "not fit for a boy" of my age. but she kisses me again, and passion wakes at the caress of the large, coarse hand.... my eldridge street platonic sweetheart stands before me, and i tingle with every sensual emotion of my first years in new york.... out of the new haven days rises the image of luba, sweeping me with unutterable longing for the unattained. and again i live through the experiences of the past, passionately visualizing every detail with images that flatter my erotic palate and weave exquisite allurement about the urge of sex. chapter xx a day in the cell-house i to k. & g. good news! i was let out of the cell this morning. the coffee-boy on my range went home yesterday, and i was put in his place. it's lucky the old deputy died--he was determined to keep me in solitary. in the absence of the warden, benny greaves, the new deputy, told me he will "risk" giving me a job. but he has issued strict orders i should not be permitted to step into the yard. i'll therefore still be under special surveillance, and i shall not be able to see you. but i am in touch with our "faithful," and we can now resume a more regular correspondence. over a year in solitary. it's almost like liberty to be out of the cell! m. ii my position as coffee-boy affords many opportunities for closer contact with the prisoners. i assist the rangeman in taking care of a row of sixty-four cells situated on the ground floor, and lettered k. above it are, successively, i, h, g, and f, located on the yard side of the cell-house. on the opposite side, facing the river, the ranges are labelled a, b, c, d, and e. the galleries form parallelograms about each double cell-row; bridged at the centre, they permit easy access to the several ranges. the ten tiers, with a total of six hundred and forty cells, are contained within the outer stone building, and comprise the north block of the penitentiary. it connects with the south wing by means of the rotunda. [illustration: cell ranges--south block] the bottom tiers a and k serve as "receiving" ranges. here every new arrival is temporarily "celled," before he is assigned to work and transferred to the gallery occupied by his shop-fellows. on these ranges are also located the men undergoing special punishment in basket and solitary. the lower end of the two ranges is designated "bughouse row." it contains the "cranks," among whom are classed inmates in different stages of mental aberration. my various duties of sweeping the hall, dusting the cell doors, and assisting at feeding, enable me to become acquainted and to form friendships. i marvel at the inadequacy of my previous notions of "the criminal." i resent the presumption of "science" that pretends to evolve the intricate convolutions of a living human brain out of the shape of a digit cut from a dead hand, and labels it "criminal type." daily association dispels the myth of the "species," and reveals the individual. growing intimacy discovers the humanity beneath fibers coarsened by lack of opportunity, and brutalized by misery and fear. there is "reddie" butch, a rosy-cheeked young fellow of twenty-one, as frank-spoken a boy as ever honored a striped suit. a jolly criminal is butch, with his irrepressible smile and gay song. he was "just dying to take his girl for a ride," he relates to me. but he couldn't afford it; he earned only seven dollars per week, as butcher's boy. he always gave his mother every penny he made, but the girl kept taunting him because he couldn't spend anything on her. "and i goes to work and swipes a rig, and say, aleck, you ought to see me drive to me girl's house, big-like. in i goes. 'put on your glad duds, kate,' i says, says i, 'i'll give you the drive of your life.' and i did; you bet your sweet life, i did, ha, ha, ha!" but when he returned the rig to its owner, butch was arrested. "'just a prank, your honor,' i says to the judge. and what d' you think, aleck? thought i'd die when he said three years. i was foolish, of course; but there's no use crying over spilt milk, ha, ha, ha! but you know, the worst of it is, me girl went back on me. wouldn't that jar you, eh? well, i'll try hard to forget th' minx. she's a sweet girl, though, you bet, ha, ha, ha!" * * * * * and there is young rush, the descendant of the celebrated family of the great american physician. the delicate features, radiant with spirituality, bear a striking resemblance to shelley; the limping gait recalls the tragedy of byron. he is in for murder! he sits at the door, an open book in his hands,--the page is moist with the tears silently trickling down his face. he smiles at my approach, and his expressive eyes light up the darkened cell, like a glimpse of the sun breaking through the clouds. he was wooing a girl on a summer night: the skiff suddenly upturned, "right opposite here,"--he points to the river,--"near mckees rocks." he was dragged out, unconscious. they told him the girl was dead, and that he was her murderer! he reaches for the photograph on his table, and bursts into sobs. * * * * * daily i sweep the length of the hall, advancing from cell to cell with deliberate stroke, all the while watching for an opportunity to exchange a greeting, with the prisoners. my mind reverts to poor wingie. how he cheered me in the first days of misery; how kind he was! in gentler tones i speak to the unfortunates, and encourage the new arrivals, or indulge some demented prisoner in a harmless whim. the dry sweeping of the hallway raises a cloud of dust, and loud coughing follows in my wake. taking advantage of the old block captain's "cold in the head," i cautiously hint at the danger of germs lurking in the dust-laden atmosphere. "a little wet sawdust on the floor, mr. mitchell, and you wouldn't catch colds so often." a capital idea, he thinks, and thereafter i guard the precious supply under the bed in my cell. in little ways i seek to help the men in solitary. every trifle means so much. "long joe," the rangeman, whose duty it is to attend to their needs, is engrossed with his own troubles. the poor fellow is serving twenty-five years, and he is much worried by "wild bill" and "bighead" wilson. they are constantly demanding to see the warden. it is remarkable that they are never refused. the guards seem to stand in fear of them. "wild bill" is a self-confessed invert, and there are peculiar rumors concerning his intimacy with the warden. recently bill complained of indigestion, and a guard sent me to deliver some delicacies to him. "from the warden's table," he remarked, with a sly wink. and wilson is jocularly referred to as "the deputy," even by the officers. he is still in stripes, but he seems to wield some powerful influence over the new deputy; he openly defies the rules, upbraids the guards, and issues orders. he is the warden's "runner," clad with the authority of his master. the prisoners regard bill and wilson as stools, and cordially hate them; but none dare offend them. poor joe is constantly harassed by "deputy" wilson; there seems to be bitter enmity between the two on account of a young prisoner who prefers the friendship of joe. worried by the complex intrigues of life in the block, the rangeman is indifferent to the unfortunates in the cells. butch is devoured by bedbugs, and "praying" andy's mattress is flattened into a pancake. the simple-minded life-timer is being neglected: he has not yet recovered from the assault by johnny smith, who hit him on the head with a hammer. i urge the rangeman to report to the captain the need of "bedbugging" butch's cell, of supplying andy with a new mattress, and of notifying the doctor of the increasing signs of insanity among the solitaries. iii breakfast is over; the lines form in lockstep, and march to the shops. broom in hand, rangemen and assistants step upon the galleries, and commence to sweep the floors. officers pass along the tiers, closely scrutinizing each cell. now and then they pause, facing a "delinquent." they note his number, unlock the door, and the prisoner joins the "sick line" on the ground floor. one by one the men augment the row; they walk slowly, bent and coughing, painfully limping down the steep flights. from every range they come; the old and decrepit, the young consumptives, the lame and asthmatic, a tottering old negro, an idiotic white boy. all look withered and dejected,--a ghastly line, palsied and blear-eyed, blanched in the valley of death. the rotunda door opens noisily, and the doctor enters, accompanied by deputy warden greaves and assistant deputy hopkins. behind them is a prisoner, dressed in dark gray and carrying a medicine box. dr. boyce glances at the long line, and knits his brow. he looks at his watch, and the frown deepens. he has much to do. since the death of the senior doctor, the young graduate is the sole physician of the big prison. he must make the rounds of the shops before noon, and visit the patients in the hospital before the warden or the deputy drops in. mr. greaves sits down at the officers' desk, near the hall entrance. the assistant deputy, pad in hand, places himself at the head of the sick line. the doctor leans against the door of the rotunda, facing the deputy. the block officers stand within call, at respectful distances. "two-fifty-five!" the assistant deputy calls out. a slender young man leaves the line and approaches the doctor. he is tall and well featured, the large eyes lustrous in the pale face. he speaks in a hoarse voice: "doctor, there is something the matter with my side. i have pains, and i cough bad at night, and in the morning--" "all right," the doctor interrupts, without looking up from his notebook. "give him some salts," he adds, with a nod to his assistant. "next!" the deputy calls. "will you please excuse me from the shop for a few days?" the sick prisoner pleads, a tremor in his voice. the physician glances questioningly at the deputy. the latter cries, impatiently, "next, next man!" striking the desk twice, in quick succession, with the knuckles of his hand. "return to the shop," the doctor says to the prisoner. "next!" the deputy calls, spurting a stream of tobacco juice in the direction of the cuspidor. it strikes sidewise, and splashes over the foot of the approaching new patient, a young negro, his neck covered with bulging tumors. "number?" the doctor inquires. "one-thirty-seven. a one-thirty-seven!" the deputy mumbles, his head thrown back to receive a fresh handful of "scrap" tobacco. "guess ah's got de big neck, ah is, mistah boyce," the negro says hoarsely. "salts. return to work. next!" "a one-twenty-six!" a young man with parchment-like face, sere and yellow, walks painfully from the line. "doctor, i seem to be gettin' worser, and i'm afraid--" "what's the trouble?" "pains in the stomach. gettin' so turrible, i--" "give him a plaster. next!" "plaster hell!" the prisoner breaks out in a fury, his face growing livid. "look at this, will you?" with a quick motion he pulls his shirt up to his head. his chest and back are entirely covered with porous plasters; not an inch of skin is visible. "damn yer plasters," he cries with sudden sobs, "i ain't got no more room for plasters. i'm putty near dyin', an' you won't do nothin' fer me." the guards pounce upon the man, and drag him into the rotunda. * * * * * one by one the sick prisoners approach the doctor. he stands, head bent, penciling, rarely glancing up. the elongated ascetic face wears a preoccupied look; he drawls mechanically, in monosyllables, "next! numb'r? salts! plaster! salts! next!" occasionally he glances at his watch; his brows knit closer, the heavy furrow deepens, and the austere face grows more severe and rigid. now and then he turns his eyes upon the deputy warden, sitting opposite, his jaws incessantly working, a thin stream of tobacco trickling down his chin, and heavily streaking the gray beard. cheeks protruding, mouth full of juice, the deputy mumbles unintelligently, turns to expectorate, suddenly shouts "next!" and gives two quick knocks on the desk, signaling to the physician to order the man to work. only the withered and the lame are temporarily excused, the deputy striking the desk thrice to convey the permission to the doctor. dejected and forlorn, the sick line is conducted to the shops, coughing, wheezing, and moaning, only to repeat the ordeal the following morning. quite often, breaking down at the machine or fainting at the task, the men are carried on a stretcher to the hospital, to receive a respite from the killing toil,--a short intermission, or a happier, eternal reprieve. the lame and the feeble, too withered to be useful in the shops, are sent back to their quarters, and locked up for the day. only these, the permitted delinquents, the insane, the men in solitary, and the sweepers, remain within the inner walls during working hours. the pall of silence descends upon the house of death. iv the guards creep stealthily along the tiers. officer george dean, lank and tall, tiptoes past the cells, his sharply hooked nose in advance, his evil-looking eyes peering through the bars, scrutinizing every inmate. suddenly the heavy jaws snap. "hey, you, eleven-thirty-nine! on the bed again! wha-at? sick, hell! no dinner!" noisily he pretends to return to the desk "in front," quietly steals into the niche of a cell door, and stands motionless, alertly listening. a suppressed murmur proceeds from the upper galleries. cautiously the guard advances, hastily passes several cells, pauses a moment, and then quickly steps into the center of the hall, shouting: "cells forty-seven k, i, h! talking through the pipe! got you this time, all right." he grins broadly as he returns to the desk, and reports to the block captain. the guards ascend the galleries. levers are pulled, doors opened with a bang, and the three prisoners are marched to the office. for days their cells remain vacant: the men are in the dungeon. * * * * * gaunt and cadaverous, guard hughes makes the rounds of the tiers, on a tour of inspection. with bleary eyes, sunk deep in his head, he gazes intently through the bars. the men are out at work. leisurely he walks along, stepping from cell to cell, here tearing a picture off the wall, there gathering a few scraps of paper. as i pass along the hall, he slams a door on the range above, and appears upon the gallery. his pockets bulge with confiscated goods. he glances around, as the deputy enters from the yard. "hey, jasper!" the guard calls. the colored trusty scampers up the stairs. "take this to the front." the officer hands him a dilapidated magazine, two pieces of cornbread, a little square of cheese, and several candles that some weak-eyed prisoner had saved up by sitting in the dark for weeks. "show 't to the deputy," the officer says, in an undertone. "i'm doing business, all right!" the trusty laughs boisterously, "yassah, yassah, dat yo sure am." the guard steps into the next cell, throwing a quick look to the front. the deputy is disappearing through the rotunda door. the officer casts his eye about the cell. the table is littered with magazines and papers. a piece of matting, stolen from the shops, is on the floor. on the bed are some bananas and a bunch of grapes,--forbidden fruit. the guard steps back to the gallery, a faint smile on his thin lips. he reaches for the heart-shaped wooden block hanging above the cell. it bears the legend, painted in black, a . on the reverse side the officer reads, "collins hamilton, dated----." his watery eyes strain to decipher the penciled marks paled by the damp, whitewashed wall. "jasper!" he calls, "come up here." the trusty hastens to him. "you know who this man is, jasper? a four-eighty." "ah sure knows. dat am hamilton, de bank 'bezleh." "where's he working?" "wat _he_ wan' teh work foh? he am de cap'n's clerk. in de awfice, _he_ am." "all right, jasper." the guard carefully closes the clerk's door, and enters the adjoining cell. it looks clean and orderly. the stone floor is bare, the bedding smooth; the library book, tin can, and plate, are neatly arranged on the table. the officer ransacks the bed, throws the blankets on the floor, and stamps his feet upon the pillow in search of secreted contraband. he reaches up to the wooden shelf on the wall, and takes down the little bag of scrap tobacco,--the weekly allowance of the prisoners. he empties a goodly part into his hand, shakes it up, and thrusts it into his mouth. he produces a prison "plug" from his pocket, bites off a piece, spits in the direction of the privy, and yawns; looks at his watch, deliberates a moment, spurts a stream of juice into the corner, and cautiously steps out on the gallery. he surveys the field, leans over the railing, and squints at the front. the chairs at the officers' desk are vacant. the guard retreats into the cell, yawns and stretches, and looks at his watch again. it is only nine o'clock. he picks up the library book, listlessly examines the cover, flings the book on the shelf, spits disgustedly, then takes another chew, and sprawls down on the bed. v at the head of the hall, senior officer woods and assistant deputy hopkins sit at the desk. of superb physique and glowing vitality, mr. woods wears his new honors as captain of the block with aggressive self-importance. he has recently been promoted from the shop to the charge of the north wing, on the morning shift, from a. m. to p. m. every now and then he leaves his chair, walks majestically down the hallway, crosses the open centre, and returns past the opposite cell-row. with studied dignity he resumes his seat and addresses his superior, the assistant deputy, in measured, low tones. the latter listens gravely, his head slightly bent, his sharp gray eyes restless above the heavy-rimmed spectacles. as mr. hopkins, angular and stoop-shouldered, rises to expectorate into the nearby sink, he espies the shining face of jasper on an upper gallery. the assistant deputy smiles, produces a large apple from his pocket, and, holding it up to view, asks: "how does this strike you, jasper?" "looks teh dis niggah like a watahmelon, cunnel." woods struggles to suppress a smile. hopkins laughs, and motions to the negro. the trusty joins them at the desk. "i'll bet the coon could get away with this apple in two bites," the assistant deputy says to woods. "hardly possible," the latter remarks, doubtfully. "you don't know this darky, scot," hopkins rejoins. "i know him for the last--let me see--fifteen, eighteen, twenty years. that's when you first came here, eh, jasper?" "yassah, 'bout dat." "in the old prison, then?" woods inquires. "yes, of course. you was there, jasper, when 'shoe-box' miller got out, wasn't you?" "yo 'member good, cunnel. dat ah was, sure 'nuf. en mighty slick it was, bress me, teh hab imsef nailed in dat shoebox, en mek his get-away." "yes, yes. and this is your fourth time since then, i believe." "no, sah, no, sah; dere yo am wrong, cunnel. youh remnishent am bad. dis jus' free times, jus' free." "come off, it's four." "free, cunnel, no moah." "do you think, mr. hopkins, jasper could eat the apple in two bites?" woods reminds him. "i'm sure he can. there's nothing in the eating line this coon couldn't do. here, jasper, you get the apple if you make it in two bites. don't disgrace me, now." the negro grins, "putty big, cunnel, but ah'm a gwine teh try powful hard." with a heroic effort he stretches his mouth, till his face looks like a veritable cavern, reaching from ear to ear, and edged by large, shimmering tusks. with both hands he inserts the big apple, and his sharp teeth come down with a loud snap. he chews quickly, swallows, repeats the performance, and then holds up his hands. the apple has disappeared. the assistant deputy roars with laughter. "what did i tell you, eh, scot? what did i tell you, ho, ho, ho!" the tears glisten in his eye. * * * * * they amuse themselves with the negro trusty by the hour. he relates his experiences, tells humorous anecdotes, and the officers are merry. now and then deputy warden greaves drops in. woods rises. "have a seat, mr. greaves." "that's all right, that's all right, scot," the deputy mumbles, his eye searching for the cuspidor. "sit down, scot: i'm as young as any of you." with mincing step he walks into the first cell, reserved for the guards, pulls a bottle from his hip pocket, takes several quick gulps, wabbles back to the desk, and sinks heavily into woods's seat. "jasper, go bring me a chew," he turns to the trusty. "yassah. scrap, dep'ty?" "yah. a nip of plug, too." "yassah, yassah, immejitly." "what are you men doing here?" the deputy blusters at the two subordinates. woods frowns, squares his shoulders, glances at the deputy, and then relaxes into a dignified smile. assistant hopkins looks sternly at the deputy warden from above his glasses. "that's all right, greaves," he says, familiarly, a touch of scorn in his voice. "say, you should have seen that nigger jasper swallow a great, big apple in two bites; as big as your head, i'll swear." "that sho?" the deputy nods sleepily. the negro comes running up with a paper of scrap in one hand, a plug in the other. the deputy slowly opens his eyes. he walks unsteadily to the cell, remains there a few minutes, and returns with both hands fumbling at his hip pocket. he spits viciously at the sink, sits down, fills his mouth with tobacco, glances at the floor, and demands, hoarsely: "where's all them spittoons, eh, you men?" "just being cleaned, mr. greaves," woods replies. "cleaned, always th' shame shtory. i ordered--ya--ordered--hey, bring shpittoon, jasper." he wags his head drowsily. "he means he ordered spittoons by the wagonload," hopkins says, with a wink at woods. "it was the very first order he gave when he became deputy after jimmie mcpane died. i tell you, scot, we won't see soon another deputy like old jimmie. he was deputy all right, every inch of him. wouldn't stand for the old man, the warden, interfering with him, either. not like this here," he points contemptuously at the snoring greaves. "here, benny," he raises his voice and slaps the deputy on the knee, "here's jasper with your spittoon." greaves wakes with a start, and gazes stupidly about; presently, noticing the trusty with the large cuspidor, and spurts a long jet at it. "say, jasper," hopkins calls to the retiring negro, "the deputy wants to hear that story you told us a while ago, about you got the left hind foot of a she-rabbit, on a moonlit night in a graveyard." "who shaid i want to hear 't?" the deputy bristles, suddenly wide awake. "yes, you do, greaves," hopkins asserts. "the rabbit foot brings good luck, you know. this coon here wears it on his neck. show it to the deputy, jasper." * * * * * prisoner wilson, the warden's favorite messenger, enters from the yard. with quick, energetic step he passes the officers at the desk, entirely ignoring their presence, and walks nonchalantly down the hall, his unnaturally large head set close upon the heavy, almost neckless shoulders. "hey, you, wilson, what are you after?" the deputy shouts after him. without replying, wilson continues on his way. "dep'ty wilson," the negro jeers, with a look of hatred and envy. assistant deputy hopkins rises in his seat. "wilson," he calls with quiet sternness, "mr. greaves is speaking to you. come back at once." his face purple with anger, wilson retraces his steps. "what do you want, deputy?" he demands, savagely. the deputy looks uneasy and fidgets in his chair, but catching the severe eye of hopkins, he shouts vehemently: "what do you want in the block?" "on captain edward s. wright's business," wilson replies with a sneer. "well, go ahead. but next time i call you, you better come back." "the warden told me to hurry. i'll report to him that you detained me with an idle question," wilson snarls back. "that'll do, wilson," the assistant deputy warns him. "wait till i see the captain," wilson growls, as he departs. "if i had my way, i'd knock his damn block off," the assistant mutters. "such impudence in a convict cannot be tolerated," woods comments. "the cap'n won't hear a word against wilson," the deputy says meekly. hopkins frowns. they sit in silence. the negro busies himself, wiping the yellow-stained floor around the cuspidor. the deputy ambles stiffly to the open cell. woods rises, steps back to the wall, and looks up to the top galleries. no one is about. he crosses to the other side, and scans the bottom range. long and dismal stretches the hall, in melancholy white and gray, the gloomy cell-building brooding in the centre, like some monstrous hunchback, without life or motion. woods resumes his seat. "quiet as a church," he remarks with evident satisfaction. "you're doing well, scot," the deputy mumbles. "doing well." a faint metallic sound breaks upon the stillness. the officers prick up their ears. the rasping continues and grows louder. the negro trusty tiptoes up the tiers. "it's somebody with his spoon on the door," the assistant deputy remarks, indifferently. the block captain motions to me. "see who's rapping there, will you?" i walk quickly along the hall. by keeping close to the wall, i can see up to the doors of the third gallery. here and there a nose protrudes in the air, the bleached face glued to the bars, the eyes glassy. the rapping grows louder as i advance. "who is it?" i call. "up here, c." "is that you, ed?" "yes. got a bad hemorrhage. tell th' screw i must see the doctor." i run to the desk. "mr. woods," i report, " c got a hemorrhage. can't stop it. he needs the doctor." "let him wait," the deputy growls. "doctor hour is over. he should have reported in the morning," the assistant deputy flares up. "what shall i tell him. mr. woods?" i ask. "nothing! get back to your cell." "perhaps you'd better go up and take a look, scot," the deputy suggests. mr. woods strides along the gallery, pauses a moment at c, and returns. "nothing much. a bit of blood. i ordered him to report on sick list in the morning." * * * * * a middle-aged prisoner, with confident bearing and polished manner, enters from the yard. it is the "french count," one of the clerks in the "front office." "good morning, gentlemen," he greets the officers. he leans familiarly over the deputy's chair, remarking: "i've been hunting half an hour for you. the captain is a bit ruffled this morning. he is looking for you." the deputy hurriedly rises. "where is he?" he asks anxiously. "in the office, mr. greaves. you know what's about?" "what? quick, now." "they caught wild bill right in the act. out in the yard there, back of the shed." the deputy stumps heavily out into the yard. "who's the kid?" the assistant deputy inquires, an amused twinkle in his eye. "bobby." "who? that boy on the whitewash gang?" "yes, fatty bobby." * * * * * the clatter on the upper tier grows loud and violent. the sick man is striking his tin can on the bars, and shaking the door. woods hastens to c . "you stop that, you hear!" he commands angrily. "i'm sick. i want th' doctor." "this isn't doctor hour. you'll see him in the morning." "i may be dead in the morning. i want him now." "you won't see him, that's all. you keep quiet there." furiously the prisoner raps on the door. the hall reverberates with hollow booming. the block captain returns to the desk, his face crimson. he whispers to the assistant deputy. the latter nods his head. woods claps his hands, deliberately, slowly--one, two, three. guards hurriedly descend from the galleries, and advance to the desk. the rangemen appear at their doors. "everybody to his cell. officers, lock 'em in!" woods commands. "you can stay here, jasper," the assistant deputy remarks to the trusty. the rangemen step into their cells. the levers are pulled, the doors locked. i hear the tread of many feet on the third gallery. now they cease, and all is quiet. "c , step out here!" the door slams, there is noisy shuffling and stamping, and the dull, heavy thuds of striking clubs. a loud cry and a moan. they drag the prisoner along the range, and down the stairway. the rotunda door creaks, and the clamor dies away. a few minutes elapse in silence. now some one whispers through the pipes; insane solitaries bark and crow. loud coughing drowns the noises, and then the rotunda door opens with a plaintive screech. the rangemen are unlocked. i stand at the open door of my cell. the negro trusty dusts and brushes the officers, their hacks and arms covered with whitewash, as if they had been rubbed against the wall. their clothes cleaned and smoothed, the guards loll in the chairs, and sit on the desk. they look somewhat ruffled and flustered. jasper enlarges upon the piquant gossip. "wild bill," notorious invert and protégé of the warden, he relates, had been hanging around the kids from the stocking shop; he has been after "fatty bobby" for quite a while, and he's forever pestering "lady sally," and young davis, too. the guards are astir with curiosity; they ply the negro with questions. he responds eagerly, raises his voice, and gesticulates excitedly. there is merriment and laughter at the officers' desk. vi dinner hour is approaching. officer gerst, in charge of the kitchen squad, enters the cell-house. behind him, a score of prisoners carry large wooden tubs filled with steaming liquid. the negro trusty, his nostrils expanded and eyes glistening, sniffs the air, and announces with a grin: "dooke's mixchoor foh dinneh teh day!" the scene becomes animated at the front. tables are noisily moved about, the tinplate rattles, and men talk and shout. with a large ladle the soup is dished out from the tubs, and the pans, bent and rusty, stacked up in long rows. the deputy warden flounces in, splutters some orders that remain ignored, and looks critically at the dinner pans. he produces a pocket knife, and ambles along the tables, spearing a potato here, a bit of floating vegetable there. guard hughes, his inspection of the cells completed, saunters along, casting greedy eyes at the food. he hovers about, waiting for the deputy to leave. the latter stands, hands dug into his pockets, short legs wide apart, scraggy beard keeping time with the moving jaws. guard hughes winks at one of the kitchen men, and slinks into an open cell. the prisoner fusses about, pretends to move the empty tubs out of the way, and then quickly snatches a pan of soup, and passes it to the guard. negro jasper, alert and watchful, strolls by woods, surreptitiously whispering. the officer walks to the open cell and surprises the guard, his head thrown back, the large pan covering his face. woods smiles disdainfully, the prisoners giggle and chuckle. * * * * * "chief jim," the head cook, a pittsburgh saloonkeeper serving twelve years for murder, promenades down the range. large-bellied and whitecapped, he wears an air of prosperity and independence. with swelling chest, stomach protruding, and hand wrapped in his dirty apron, the chief walks leisurely along the cells, nodding and exchanging greetings. he pauses at a door: it's cell a,--the "fat kid." jim leans against the wall, his back toward the dinner tables; presently his hand steals between the bars. now and then he glances toward the front, and steps closer to the door. he draws a large bundle from his bosom, hastily tears it open, and produces a piece of cooked meat, several raw onions, some cakes. one by one he passes the delicacies to the young prisoner, forcing them through the narrow openings between the bars. he lifts his apron, fans the door sill, and carefully wipes the ironwork; then he smiles, casts a searching look to the front, grips the bars with both hands, and vanishes into the deep niche. as suddenly he appears to view again, takes several quick steps, then pauses at another cell. standing away from the door, he speaks loudly and laughs boisterously, his hands fumbling beneath the apron. soon he leaves, advancing to the dinner tables. he approaches the rangeman, lifts his eyebrows questioningly, and winks. the man nods affirmatively, and retreats into his cell. the chief dives into the bosom of his shirt, and flings a bundle through the open door. he holds out his hand, whispering: "two bits. broke now? be sure you pay me to-morrow. that steak there's worth a plunk." * * * * * the gong tolls the dinner hour. the negro trusty snatches two pans, and hastens away. the guards unlock the prisoners, excepting the men in solitary who are deprived of the sole meal of the day. the line forms in single file, and advances slowly to the tables; then, pan in hand, the men circle the block to the centre, ascend the galleries, and are locked in their cells. the loud tempo of many feet, marching in step, sounds from the yard. the shop workers enter, receive the pan of soup, and walk to the cells. some sniff the air, make a wry face, and pass on, empty-handed. there is much suppressed murmuring and whispering. gradually the sounds die away. it is the noon hour. every prisoner is counted and locked in. only the trusties are about. vii the afternoon brings a breath of relief. "old jimmie" mitchell, rough-spoken and kind, heads the second shift of officers, on duty from till p. m. the venerable captain of the block trudges past the cells, stroking his flowing white beard, and profusely swearing at the men. but the prisoners love him: he frowns upon clubbing, and discourages trouble-seeking guards. head downward, he thumps heavily along the hall, on his first round of the bottom ranges. presently a voice hails him: "oh, mr. mitchell! come here, please." "damn your soul t' hell," the officer rages, "don't you know better than to bother me when i'm counting, eh? shut up now, god damn you. you've mixed me all up." he returns to the front, and begins to count again, pointing his finger at each occupied cell. this duty over, and his report filed, he returns to the offending prisoner. "what t' hell do you want, butch?" "mr. mitchell, my shoes are on th' bum. i am walking on my socks." "where th' devil d' you think you're going, anyhow? to a ball?" "papa mitchell, be good now, won't you?" the youth coaxes. "go an' take a--thump to yourself, will you?" the officer walks off, heavy-browed and thoughtful, but pauses a short distance from the cell, to hear butch mumbling discontentedly. the block captain retraces his steps, and, facing the boy, storms at him: "what did you say? 'damn the old skunk!' that's what you said, eh? you come on out of there!" with much show of violence he inserts the key into the lock, pulls the door open with a bang, and hails a passing guard: "mr. kelly, quick, take this loafer out and give 'im--er--give 'im a pair of shoes." he starts down the range, when some one calls from an upper tier: "jimmy, jimmy! come on up here!" "i'll jimmy you damn carcass for you," the old man bellows, angrily, "where th' hell are you?" "here, on b, b. right over you." the officer steps back to the wall, and looks up toward the second gallery. "what in th' name of jesus christ do you want, slim?" "awful cramps in me stomach. get me some cramp mixture, jim." "cramps in yer head, that's what you've got, you big bum you. where the hell did you get your cramp mixture, when you was spilling around in a freight car, eh?" "i got booze then," the prisoner retorts. "like hell you did! you were damn lucky to get a louzy hand-out at the back door, you ornery pimple on god's good earth." "th' hell you say! the hand-out was a damn sight better'n th' rotten slush i get here. i wouldn't have a belly-ache, if it wasn't for th' hogwash they gave us to-day." "lay down now! you talk like a horse's rosette." it's the old man's favorite expression, in his rich vocabulary of picturesque metaphor and simile. but there is no sting in the brusque speech, no rancor in the scowling eyes. on the way to the desk he pauses to whisper to the block trusty: "john, you better run down to the dispensary, an' get that big stiff some cramp mixture." happening to glance into a cell, mitchell notices a new arrival, a bald-headed man, his back against the door, reading. "hey you!" the block captain shouts at him, startling the green prisoner off his chair, "take that bald thing out of there, or i'll run you in for indecent exposure." he chuckles at the man's fright, like a boy pleased with a naughty prank, and ascends the upper tiers. * * * * * duster in hand, i walk along the range. the guards are engaged on the galleries, examining cells, overseeing the moving of the newly-graded inmates to the south wing, or chatting with the trusties. the chairs at the officers' desk are vacant. keeping alert watch on the rotunda doors, i walk from cell to cell, whiling away the afternoon hours in conversation. johnny, the friendly runner, loiters at the desk, now and then glancing into the yard, and giving me "the office" by sharply snapping his fingers, to warn me of danger. i ply the duster diligently, while the deputy and his assistants linger about, surrounded by the trusties imparting information gathered during the day. gradually they disperse, called into a shop where a fight is in progress, or nosing about the kitchen and assiduously killing time. the "coast is clear," and i return to pick up the thread of interrupted conversation. but the subjects of common interest are soon exhausted. the oft-repeated tirade against the "rotten grub," the "stale punk," and the "hogwash"; vehement cursing of the brutal "screws," the "stomach-robber of a warden" and the unreliability of his promises; the exchange of gossip, and then back again to berating the food and the treatment. within the narrow circle runs the interminable tale, colored by individual temperament, intensified by the length of sentence. the whole is dominated by a deep sense of unmerited suffering and bitter resentment, often breathing dire vengeance against those whom they consider responsible for their misfortune, including the police, the prosecutor, the informer, the witnesses, and, in rare instances, the trial judge. but as the longed-for release approaches, the note of hope and liberty rings clearer, stronger, with the swelling undercurrent of frank and irrepressible sex desire. chapter xxi the deeds of the good to the evil the new arrivals are forlorn and dejected, a look of fear and despair in their eyes. the long-timers among them seem dazed, as if with some terrible shock, and fall upon the bed in stupor-like sleep. the boys from the reformatories, some mere children in their teens, weep and moan, and tremble at the officer's footstep. only the "repeaters" and old-timers preserve their composure, scoff at the "fresh fish," nod at old acquaintances, and exchange vulgar pleasantries with the guards. but all soon grow nervous and irritable, and stand at the door, leaning against the bars, an expression of bewildered hopelessness or anxious expectancy on their faces. they yearn for companionship, and are pathetically eager to talk, to hear the sound of a voice, to unbosom their heavy hearts. i am minutely familiar with every detail of their "case," their life-history, their hopes and fears. through the endless weeks and months on the range, their tragedies are the sole subject of conversation. a glance into the mournful faces, pressed close against the bars, and the panorama of misery rises before me,--the cell-house grows more desolate, bleaker, the air gloomier and more depressing. there is joe zappe, his bright eyes lighting up with a faint smile as i pause at his door. "hello, alick," he greets me in his sweet, sad voice. he knows me from the jail. his father and elder brother have been executed, and he commuted to life because of youth. he is barely eighteen, but his hair has turned white. he has been acting queerly of late: at night i often hear him muttering and walking, walking incessantly and muttering. there is a peculiar look about his eyes, restless, roving. "alick," he says, suddenly, "me wanna tell you sometink. you no tell nobody, yes?" assured i'll keep his confidence, he begins to talk quickly, excitedly: "nobody dere, alick? no scroo? s-sh! lassa night me see ma broder. yes, see gianni. jesu cristo, me see ma poor broder in da cella 'ere, an' den me fader he come. broder and fader day stay der, on da floor, an so quieta, lika dead, an' den dey come an lay downa in ma bed. oh, jesu christo, me so fraida, me cry an' pray. you not know wat it mean? no-o-o? me tell you. it mean me die, me die soon." his eyes glow with a sombre fire, a hectic flush on his face. he knits his brows, as i essay to calm him, and continues hurriedly: "s-sh! waita till me tell you all. you know watta for ma fader an' gianni come outa da grave? me tell you. dey calla for ravange, 'cause dey innocente. me tell you trut. see, we all worka in da mine, da coal mine, me an' my fader an' gianni. all worka hard an' mek one dollar, maybe dollar quater da day. an' bigga american man, him come an' boder ma fader. ma fader him no wanna trouble; him old man, no boder nobody. an' da american man him maka two dollars an mebbe two fifty da day an' him boder my fader, all da time, boder 'im an' kick 'im to da legs, an' steal ma broder's shovel, an' hide fader's hat, an' maka trouble for ma countrymen, an' call us 'dirty dagoes.' an' one day him an' two arish dey all drunk, an' smash ma fader, an' american man an arish holler, 'dago s---- b---- fraida fight,' an' da american man him take a bigga pickax an' wanna hit ma fader, an' ma fader him run, an' me an' ma broder an' friend we fight, an' american man him fall, an' we all go way home. den p'lice come an' arresta me an' fader an' broder, an' say we killa american man. me an' ma broder no use knife, mebbe ma friend do. me no know; him no arresta; him go home in italia. ma fader an' broder dey save nineda-sev'n dollar, an' me save twenda-fife, an' gotta laiyer. him no good, an' no talk much in court. we poor men, no can take case in oder court, an' fader him hang, an' gianni hang, an' me get life. ma fader an' broder dey come lassa night from da grave, cause dey innocente an' wanna ravange, an' me gotta mek ravange, me no rest, gotta--" the sharp snapping of johnny, the runner, warns me of danger, and i hastily leave. * * * * * the melancholy figures line the doors as i walk up and down the hall. the blanched faces peer wistfully through the bars, or lean dejectedly against the wall, a vacant stare in the dim eyes. each calls to mind the stories of misery and distress, the scenes of brutality and torture i witness in the prison house. like ghastly nightmares, the shadows pass before me. there is "silent nick," restlessly pacing his cage, never ceasing, his lips sealed in brutish muteness. for three years he has not left the cell, nor uttered a word. the stolid features are cut and bleeding. last night he had attempted suicide, and the guards beat him, and left him unconscious on the floor. there is "crazy hunkie," the austrian. every morning, as the officer unlocks his door to hand in the loaf of bread, he makes a wild dash for the yard, shouting, "me wife! where's me wife?" he rushes toward the front and desperately grabs the door handle. the double iron gate is securely locked. a look of blank amazement on his face, he slowly returns to the cell. the guards await him with malicious smile. suddenly they rush upon him, blackjacks in hand. "me wife, me seen her!" the austrian cries. the blood gushing from his mouth and nose, they kick him into the cell. "me wife waiting in de yard," he moans. in the next cell is tommy wellman; adjoining him, jim grant. they are boys recently transferred from the reformatory. they cower in the corner, in terror of the scene. with tearful eyes, they relate their story. orphans in the slums of allegheny, they had been sent to the reform school at morganza, for snatching fruit off a corner stand. maltreated and beaten, they sought to escape. childishly they set fire to the dormitory, almost in sight of the keepers. "i says to me chum, says i," tommy narrates with boyish glee, "'kid,' says i, 'let's fire de louzy joint; dere'll be lots of fun, and we'll make our get-away in de' 'citement.'" they were taken to court and the good judge sentenced them to five years to the penitentiary. "glad to get out of dat dump," tommy comments; "it was jest fierce. dey paddled an' starved us someting' turrible." in the basket cell, a young colored man grovels on the floor. it is lancaster, number . he was serving seven years, and working every day in the mat shop. slowly the days passed, and at last the longed-for hour of release arrived. but lancaster was not discharged. he was kept at his task, the warden informing him that he had lost six months of his "good time" for defective work. the light hearted negro grew sullen and morose. often the silence of the cell-house was pierced by his anguished cry in the night, "my time's up, time's up. i want to go home." the guards would take him from the cell, and place him in the dungeon. one morning, in a fit of frenzy, he attacked captain mcvey, the officer of the shop. the captain received a slight scratch on the neck, and lancaster was kept chained to the wall of the dungeon for ten days. he returned to the cell, a driveling imbecile. the next day they dressed him in his citizen clothes, lancaster mumbling, "going home, going home." the warden and several officers accompanied him to court, on the way coaching the poor idiot to answer "yes" to the question, "do you plead guilty?" he received seven years, the extreme penalty of the law, for the "attempted murder of a keeper." they brought him back to the prison, and locked him up in a basket cell, the barred door covered with a wire screen that almost entirely excludes light and air. he receives no medical attention, and is fed on a bread-and-water diet. the witless negro crawls on the floor, unwashed and unkempt, scratching with his nails fantastic shapes on the stone, and babbling stupidly, "going, jesus going to jerusalem. see, he rides the holy ass; he's going to his father's home. going home, going home." as i pass he looks up, perplexed wonder on his face; his brows meet in a painful attempt to collect his wandering thoughts, and he drawls with pathetic sing-song, "going home, going home; jesus going to father's home." the guards raise their hands to their nostrils as they approach the cell: the poor imbecile evacuates on the table, the chair, and the floor. twice a month he is taken to the bathroom, his clothes are stripped, and the hose is turned on the crazy negro. * * * * * the cell of "little sammy" is vacant. he was number , a young man from altoona. i knew him quite well. he was a kind boy and a diligent worker; but now and then he would fall into a fit of melancholy. he would then sit motionless on the chair, a blank stare on his face, neglecting food and work. these spells generally lasted two or three days, sammy refusing to leave the cell. old jimmy mcpane, the dead deputy, on such occasions commanded the prisoner to the shop, while sammy sat and stared in a daze. mcpane would order the "stubborn kid" to the dungeon, and every time sammy got his "head workin'," he was dragged, silent and motionless, to the cellar. the new deputy has followed the established practice, and last evening, at "music hour," while the men were scraping their instruments, "little sammy" was found on the floor of the cell, his throat hacked from ear to ear. at the coroner's inquest the warden testified that the boy was considered mentally defective; that he was therefore excused from work, and never punished. * * * * * returning to my cell in the evening, my gaze meets the printed rules on the wall: "the prison authorities desire to treat every prisoner in their charge with humanity and kindness. * * * the aim of all prison discipline is, by enforcing the law, to restrain the evil and to protect the innocent from further harm; to so apply the law upon the criminal as to produce a cure from his moral infirmities, by calling out the better principles of his nature." chapter xxii the grist of the prison-mill i the comparative freedom of the range familiarizes me with the workings of the institution, and brings me in close contact with the authorities. the personnel of the guards is of very inferior character. i find their average intelligence considerably lower than that of the inmates. especially does the element recruited from the police and the detective service lack sympathy with the unfortunates in their charge. they are mostly men discharged from city employment because of habitual drunkenness, or flagrant brutality and corruption. their attitude toward the prisoners is summed up in coercion and suppression. they look upon the men as will-less objects of iron-handed discipline, exact unquestioning obedience and absolute submissiveness to peremptory whims, and harbor personal animosity toward the less pliant. the more intelligent among the officers scorn inferior duties, and crave advancement. the authority and remuneration of a deputy wardenship is alluring to them, and every keeper considers himself the fittest for the vacancy. but the coveted prize is awarded to the guard most feared by the inmates, and most subservient to the warden,--a direct incitement to brutality, on the one hand, to sycophancy, on the other. a number of the officers are veterans of the civil war; several among them had suffered incarceration in libby prison. these often manifest a more sympathetic spirit. the great majority of the keepers, however, have been employed in the penitentiary from fifteen to twenty-five years; some even for a longer period, like officer stewart, who has been a guard for forty years. this element is unspeakably callous and cruel. the prisoners discuss among themselves the ages of the old guards, and speculate on the days allotted them. the death of one of them is hailed with joy: seldom they are discharged; still more seldom do they resign. the appearance of a new officer sheds hope into the dismal lives. new guards--unless drafted from the police bureau--are almost without exception lenient and forbearing, often exceedingly humane. the inmates vie with each other in showing complaisance to the "candidate." it is a point of honor in their unwritten ethics to "treat him white." they frown upon the fellow-convict who seeks to take advantage of the "green screw," by misusing his kindness or exploiting his ignorance of the prison rules. but the older officers secretly resent the infusion of new blood. they strive to discourage the applicant by exaggerating the dangers of the position, and depreciating its financial desirability for an ambitious young man; they impress upon him the warden's unfairness to the guards, and the lack of opportunity for advancement. often they dissuade the new man, and he disappears from the prison horizon. but if he persists in remaining, the old keepers expostulate with him, in pretended friendliness, upon his leniency, chide him for a "soft-hearted tenderfoot," and improve every opportunity to initiate him into the practices of brutality. the system is known in the prison as "breaking in": the new man is constantly drafted in the "clubbing squad," the older officers setting the example of cruelty. refusal to participate signifies insubordination to his superiors and the shirking of routine duty, and results in immediate discharge. but such instances are extremely rare. within the memory of the oldest officer, mr. stewart, it happened only once, and the man was sickly. slowly the poison is instilled into the new guard. within a short time the prisoners notice the first signs of change: he grows less tolerant and chummy, more irritated and distant. presently he feels himself the object of espionage by the favorite trusties of his fellow-officers. in some mysterious manner, the warden is aware of his every step, berating him for speaking unduly long to this prisoner, or for giving another half a banana,--the remnant of his lunch. in a moment of commiseration and pity, the officer is moved by the tearful pleadings of misery to carry a message to the sick wife or child of a prisoner. the latter confides the secret to some friend, or carelessly brags of his intimacy with the guard, and soon the keeper faces the warden "on charges," and is deprived of a month's pay. repeated misplacement of confidence, occasional betrayal by a prisoner seeking the good graces of the warden, and the new officer grows embittered against the species "convict." the instinct of self-preservation, harassed and menaced on every side, becomes more assertive, and the guard is soon drawn into the vortex of the "system." ii daily i behold the machinery at work, grinding and pulverizing, brutalizing the officers, dehumanizing the inmates. far removed from the strife and struggle of the larger world, i yet witness its miniature replica, more agonizing and merciless within the walls. a perfected model it is, this prison life, with its apparent uniformity and dull passivity. but beneath the torpid surface smolder the fires of being, now crackling faintly under a dun smothering smoke, now blazing forth with the ruthlessness of despair. hidden by the veil of discipline rages the struggle of fiercely contending wills, and intricate meshes are woven in the quagmire of darkness and suppression. intrigue and counter plot, violence and corruption, are rampant in cell-house and shop. the prisoners spy upon each other, and in turn upon the officers. the latter encourage the trusties in unearthing the secret doings of the inmates, and the stools enviously compete with each other in supplying information to the keepers. often they deliberately inveigle the trustful prisoner into a fake plot to escape, help and encourage him in the preparations, and at the critical moment denounce him to the authorities. the luckless man is severely punished, usually remaining in utter ignorance of the intrigue. the _provocateur_ is rewarded with greater liberty and special privileges. frequently his treachery proves the stepping-stone to freedom, aided by the warden's official recommendation of the "model prisoner" to the state board of pardons. the stools and the trusties are an essential element in the government of the prison. with rare exception, every officer has one or more on his staff. they assist him in his duties, perform most of his work, and make out the reports for the illiterate guards. occasionally they are even called upon to help the "clubbing squad." the more intelligent stools enjoy the confidence of the deputy and his assistants, and thence advance to the favor of the warden. the latter places more reliance upon his favorite trusties than upon the guards. "i have about a hundred paid officers to keep watch over the prisoners," the warden informs new applicant, "and two hundred volunteers to watch both." the "volunteers" are vested with unofficial authority, often exceeding that of the inferior officers. they invariably secure the sinecures of the prison, involving little work and affording opportunity for espionage. they are "runners," "messengers," yard and office men. other desirable positions, clerkships and the like, are awarded to influential prisoners, such as bankers, embezzlers, and boodlers. these are known in the institution as holding "political jobs." together with the stools they are scorned by the initiated prisoners as "the pets." * * * * * the professional craftiness of the "con man" stands him in good stead in the prison. a shrewd judge of human nature, quick-witted and self-confident, he applies the practiced cunning of his vocation to secure whatever privileges and perquisites the institution affords. his evident intelligence and aplomb powerfully impress the guards; his well-affected deference to authority flatters them. they are awed by his wonderful facility of expression, and great attainments in the mysterious world of baccarat and confidence games. at heart they envy the high priest of "easy money," and are proud to befriend him in his need. the officers exert themselves to please him, secure light work for him, and surreptitiously favor him with delicacies and even money. his game is won. the "con" has now secured the friendship and confidence of his keepers, and will continue to exploit them by pretended warm interest in their physical complaints, their family troubles, and their whispered ambition of promotion and fear of the warden's discrimination. the more intelligent officers are the easiest victims of his wiles. but even the higher officials, more difficult to approach, do not escape the confidence man. his "business" has perfected his sense of orientation; he quickly rends the veil of appearance, and scans the undercurrents. he frets at his imprisonment, and hints at high social connections. his real identity is a great secret: he wishes to save his wealthy relatives from public disgrace. a careless slip of the tongue betrays his college education. with a deprecating nod he confesses that his father is a state senator; he is the only black sheep in his family; yet they are "good" to him, and will not disown him. but he must not bring notoriety upon them. eager for special privileges and the liberty of the trusties, or fearful of punishment, the "con man" matures his campaign. he writes a note to a fellow-prisoner. with much detail and thorough knowledge of prison conditions, he exposes all the "ins and outs" of the institution. in elegant english he criticizes the management, dwells upon the ignorance and brutality of the guards, and charges the warden and the board of prison inspectors with graft, individually and collectively. he denounces the warden as a stomach-robber of poor unfortunates: the counties pay from twenty-five to thirty cents per day for each inmate; the federal government, for its quota of men, fifty cents per person. why are the prisoners given qualitatively and quantitatively inadequate food? he demands. does not the state appropriate thousands of dollars for the support of the penitentiary, besides the money received from the counties?--with keen scalpel the "con man" dissects the anatomy of the institution. one by one he analyzes the industries, showing the most intimate knowledge. the hosiery department produces so and so many dozen of stockings per day. they are not stamped "convict-made," as the law requires. the labels attached are misleading, and calculated to decoy the innocent buyer. the character of the product in the several mat shops is similarly an infraction of the statutes of the great state of pennsylvania for the protection of free labor. the broom shop is leased by contract to a firm of manufacturers known as lang brothers: the law expressly forbids contract labor in prisons. the stamp "convict-made" on the brooms is pasted over with a label, concealing the source of manufacture. thus the "con man" runs on in his note. with much show of secrecy he entrusts it to a notorious stool, for delivery to a friend. soon the writer is called before the warden. in the latter's hands is the note. the offender smiles complacently. he is aware the authorities are terrorized by the disclosure of such intimate familiarity with the secrets of the prison house, in the possession of an intelligent, possibly well-connected man. he must be propitiated at all cost. the "con man" joins the "politicians." * * * * * the ingenuity of imprisoned intelligence treads devious paths, all leading to the highway of enlarged liberty and privilege. the "old-timer," veteran of oft-repeated experience, easily avoids hard labor. he has many friends in the prison, is familiar with the keepers, and is welcomed by them like a prodigal coming home. the officers are glad to renew the old acquaintance and talk over old times. it brings interest into their tedious existence, often as gray and monotonous as the prisoner's. the seasoned "yeggman," constitutionally and on principle opposed to toil, rarely works. generally suffering a comparatively short sentence, he looks upon his imprisonment as, in a measure, a rest-cure from the wear and tear of tramp life. above average intelligence, he scorns work in general, prison labor in particular. he avoids it with unstinted expense of energy and effort. as a last resort, he plays the "jigger" card, producing an artificial wound on leg or arm, having every appearance of syphilitic excrescence. he pretends to be frightened by the infection, and prevails upon the physician to examine him. the doctor wonders at the wound, closely resembling the dreaded disease. "ever had syphilis?" he demands. the prisoner protests indignantly. "perhaps in the family?" the medicus suggests. the patient looks diffident, blushes, cries, "no, never!" and assumes a guilty look. the doctor is now convinced the prisoner is a victim of syphilis. the man is "excused" from work, indefinitely. the wily yegg, now a patient, secures a "snap" in the yard, and adapts prison conditions to his habits of life. he sedulously courts the friendship of some young inmate, and wins his admiration by "ghost stories" of great daring and cunning. he puts the boy "next to de ropes," and constitutes himself his protector against the abuse of the guards and the advances of other prisoners. he guides the youth's steps through the maze of conflicting rules, and finally initiates him into the "higher wisdom" of "de road." * * * * * the path of the "gun" is smoothed by his colleagues in the prison. even before his arrival, the _esprit de corps_ of the "profession" is at work, securing a soft berth for the expected friend. if noted for success and skill, he enjoys the respect of the officers, and the admiration of a retinue of aspiring young crooks, of lesser experience and reputation. with conscious superiority he instructs them in the finesse of his trade, practices them in nimble-fingered "touches," and imbues them with the philosophy of the plenitude of "suckers," whom the good god has put upon the earth to afford the thief an "honest living." his sentence nearing completion, the "gun" grows thoughtful, carefully scans the papers, forms plans for his first "job," arranges dates with his "partners," and gathers messages for their "moll buzzers."[ ] he is gravely concerned with the somewhat roughened condition of his hands, and the possible dulling of his sensitive fingers. he maneuvers, generally successfully, for lighter work, to "limber up a bit," "jollies" the officers and cajoles the warden for new shoes, made to measure in the local shops, and insists on the ten-dollar allowance to prisoners received from counties outside of allegheny[ ]. he argues the need of money "to leave the state." often he does leave. more frequently a number of charges against the man are held in reserve by the police, and he is arrested at the gate by detectives who have been previously notified by the prison authorities. [ ] women thieves. [ ] upon their discharge, prisoners tried and convicted in the county of allegheny--in which the western penitentiary is located--receive only five dollars. * * * * * the great bulk of the inmates, accidental and occasional offenders direct from the field, factory, and mine, plod along in the shops, in sullen misery and dread. day in, day out, year after year, they drudge at the monotonous work, dully wondering at the numerous trusties idling about, while their own heavy tasks are constantly increased. from cell to shop and back again, always under the stern eyes of the guards, their days drag in deadening toil. in mute bewilderment they receive contradictory orders, unaware of the secret antagonisms between the officials. they are surprised at the new rule making attendance at religious service obligatory; and again at the succeeding order (the desired appropriation for a new chapel having been secured) making church-going optional. they are astonished at the sudden disappearance of the considerate and gentle guard, byers, and anxiously hope for his return, not knowing that the officer who discouraged the underhand methods of the trusties fell a victim to their cabal. iii occasionally a bolder spirit grumbles at the exasperating partiality. released from punishment, he patiently awaits an opportunity to complain to the warden of his unjust treatment. weeks pass. at last the captain visits the shop. a propitious moment! the carefully trimmed beard frames the stern face in benevolent white, mellowing the hard features and lending dignity to his appearance. his eyes brighten with peculiar brilliancy as he slowly begins to stroke his chin, and then, almost imperceptibly, presses his fingers to his lips. as he passes through the shop, the prisoner raises his hand. "what is it?" the warden inquires, a pleasant smile on his face. the man relates his grievance with nervous eagerness. "oh, well," the captain claps him on the shoulder, "perhaps a mistake; an unfortunate mistake. but, then, you might have done something at another time, and not been punished." he laughs merrily at his witticism. "it's so long ago, anyhow; we'll forget it," and he passes on. but if the captain is in a different mood, his features harden, the stern eyes scowl, and he says in his clear, sharp tones: "state your grievance in writing, on the printed slip which the officer will give you." the written complaint, deposited in the mail-box, finally reaches the chaplain, and is forwarded by him to the warden's office. there the deputy and the assistant deputy read and classify the slips, placing some on the captain's file and throwing others into the waste basket, according as the accusation is directed against a friendly or an unfriendly brother officer. months pass before the prisoner is called for "a hearing." by that time he very likely has a more serious charge against the guard, who now persecutes the "kicker." but the new complaint has not yet been "filed," and therefore the hearing is postponed. not infrequently men are called for a hearing, who have been discharged, or died since making the complaint. the persevering prisoner, however, unable to receive satisfaction from the warden, sends a written complaint to some member of the highest authority in the penitentiary--the board of inspectors. these are supposed to meet monthly to consider the affairs of the institution, visit the inmates, and minister to their moral needs. the complainant waits, mails several more slips, and wonders why he receives no audience with the inspectors. but the latter remain invisible, some not visiting the penitentiary within a year. only the secretary of the board, mr. reed, a wealthy jeweler of pittsburgh, occasionally puts in an appearance. tall and lean, immaculate and trim, he exhales an atmosphere of sanctimoniousness. he walks leisurely through the block, passes a cell with a lithograph of christ on the wall, and pauses. his hands folded, eyes turned upwards, lips slightly parted in silent prayer, he inquires of the rangeman: "whose cell is this?" "a , mr. reed," the prisoner informs him. it is the cell of jasper, the colored trusty, chief stool of the prison. "he is a good man, a good man, god bless him," the inspector says, a quaver in his voice. he steps into the cell, puts on his gloves, and carefully adjusts the little looking-glass and the rules, hanging awry on the wall. "it offends my eye," he smiles at the attending rangeman, "they don't hang straight." young tommy, in the adjoining cell, calls out: "mr. officer, please." the inspector steps forward. "this is inspector reed," he corrects the boy. "what is it you wish?" "oh. mr. inspector, i've been askin' t' see you a long time. i wanted--" "you should have sent me a slip. have you a copy of the rules in the cell, my man?" "yes, sir." "can you read?" "no, sir." "poor boy, did you never go to school?" "no, sir. me moder died when i was a kid. dey put me in de orphan an' den in de ref." "and your father?" "i had no fader. moder always said he ran away before i was born'd." "they have schools in the orphan asylum. also in the reformatory, i believe." "yep. but dey keeps me most o' de time in punishment. i didn' care fer de school, nohow." "you were a bad boy. how old are you now?" "sev'nteen." "what is your name?" "tommy wellman." "from pittsburgh?" "allegheny. me moder use'ter live on de hill, near dis 'ere dump." "what did you wish to see me about?" "i can't stand de cell, mr. inspector. please let me have some work." "are you locked up 'for cause'?" "i smashed a guy in de jaw fer callin' me names." "don't you know it's wrong to fight, my little man?" "he said me moder was a bitch, god damn his--" "don't! don't swear! never take the holy name in vain. it's a great sin. you should have reported the man to your officer, instead of fighting." "i ain't no snitch. will you get me out of de cell, mr. inspector?" "you are in the hands of the warden. he is very kind, and he will do what is best for you." "oh, hell! i'm locked up five months now. dat's de best _he's_ doin' fer me." "don't talk like that to me," the inspector upbraids him, severely. "you are a bad boy. you must pray; the good lord will take care of you." "you get out o' here!" the boy bursts out in sudden fury, cursing and swearing. mr. reed hurriedly steps back. his face, momentarily paling, turns red with shame and anger. he motions to the captain of the block. "mr. woods, report this man for impudence to an inspector," he orders, stalking out into the yard. the boy is removed to the dungeon. * * * * * oppressed and weary with the scenes of misery and torture, i welcome the relief of solitude, as i am locked in the cell for the night. iv reading and study occupy the hours of the evening. i spend considerable time corresponding with nold and bauer: our letters are bulky--ten, fifteen, and twenty pages long. there is much to say! we discuss events in the world at large, incidents of the local life, the maltreatment of the inmates, the frequent clubbings and suicides, the unwholesome food. i share with my comrades my experiences on the range; they, in turn, keep me informed of occurrences in the shops. their paths run smoother, less eventful than mine, yet not without much heartache and bitterness of spirit. they, too, are objects of prejudice and persecution. the officer of the shop where nold is employed has been severely reprimanded for "neglect of duty": the warden had noticed carl, in the company of several other prisoners, passing through the yard with a load of mattings. he ordered the guard never to allow nold out of his sight. bauer has also felt the hand of petty tyranny. he has been deprived of his dark clothes, and reduced to the stripes for "disrespectful behavior." now he is removed to the north wing, where my cell also is located, while nold is in the south wing, in a "double" cell, enjoying the luxury of a window. fortunately, though, our friend, the "horsethief," is still coffee-boy on bauer's range, thus enabling me to reach the big german. the latter, after reading my notes, returns them to our trusted carrier, who works in the same shop with carl. our mail connections are therefore complete, each of us exercising utmost care not to be trapped during the frequent surprises of searching our cells and persons. again the _prison blossoms_ is revived. most of the readers of the previous year, however, are missing. dempsey and beatty, the knights of labor men, have been pardoned, thanks to the multiplied and conflicting confessions of the informer, gallagher, who still remains in prison. "d," our poet laureate, has also been released, his short term having expired. his identity remains a mystery, he having merely hinted that he was a "scientist of the old school, an alchemist," from which we inferred that he was a counterfeiter. gradually we recruit our reading public from the more intelligent and trustworthy element: the duquesne strikers renew their "subscriptions" by contributing paper material; with them join frank shay, the philosophic "second-story man"; george, the prison librarian; "billy" ryan, professional gambler and confidence man; "yale," a specialist in the art of safe blowing, and former university student; the "attorney-general," a sharp lawyer; "magazine alvin," writer and novelist; "jim," from whose ingenuity no lock is secure, and others. "m" and "k" act as alternate editors; the rest as contributors. the several departments of the little magazinelet are ornamented with pen and ink drawings, one picturing dante visiting the inferno, another sketching a "pete man," with mask and dark lantern, in the act of boring a safe, while a third bears the inscription: i sometimes hold it half a sin to put in words the grief i feel,-- for words, like nature, half reveal and half conceal the soul within. the editorials are short, pithy comments on local events, interspersed with humorous sketches and caricatures of the officials; the balance of the _blossoms_ consists of articles and essays of a more serious character, embracing religion and philosophy, labor and politics, with now and then a personal reminiscence by the "second-story man," or some sex experience by "magazine alvin." one of the associate editors lampoons "billygoat benny," the deputy warden; "k" sketches the "shop screw" and "the trusted prisoner"; and "g" relates the story of the recent strike in his shop, the men's demand for clear pump water instead of the liquid mud tapped from the river, and the breaking of the strike by the exile of a score of "rioters" to the dungeon. in the next issue the incident is paralleled with the pullman car strike, and the punished prisoners eulogized for their courageous stand, some one dedicating an ultra-original poem to the "noble sons of eugene debs." but the vicissitudes of our existence, the change of location of several readers, the illness and death of two contributors, badly disarrange the route. during the winter, "k" produces a little booklet of german poems, while i elaborate the short "story of luba," written the previous year, into a novelette, dealing with life in new york and revolutionary circles. presently "g" suggests that the manuscripts might prove of interest to a larger public, and should be preserved. we discuss the unique plan, wondering how the intellectual contraband could be smuggled into the light of day. in our perplexity we finally take counsel with bob, the faithful commissary. he cuts the gordian knot with astonishing levity: "youse fellows jest go ahead an' write, an' don't bother about nothin'. think i can walk off all right with a team of horses, but ain't got brains enough to get away with a bit of scribbling, eh? jest leave that to th' horsethief, an' write till you bust th' paper works, see?" thus encouraged, with entire confidence in our resourceful friend, we give the matter serious thought, and before long we form the ambitious project of publishing a book by "mkg"! in high elation, with new interest in life, we set to work. the little magazine is suspended, and we devote all our spare time, as well as every available scrap of writing material, to the larger purpose. we decide to honor the approaching day, so pregnant with revolutionary inspiration, and as the sun bursts in brilliant splendor on the eastern skies, the _first of may, _, he steals a blushing beam upon the heading of the first chapter--"the homestead strike." chapter xxiii the scales of justice i the summer fades into days of dull gray; the fog thickens on the ohio; the prison house is dim and damp. the river sirens sound sharp and shrill, and the cells echo with coughing and wheezing. the sick line stretches longer, the men looking more forlorn and dejected. the prisoner in charge of tier "k" suffers a hemorrhage, and is carried to the hospital. from assistant, i am advanced to his position on the range. but one morning the levers are pulled, the cells unlocked, and the men fed, while i remain under key. i wonder at the peculiar oversight, and rap on the bars for the officers. the block captain orders me to desist. request to see the warden, but am gruffly told that he cannot be disturbed in the morning. in vain i rack my brain to fathom the cause of my punishment. i review the incidents of the past weeks, ponder over each detail, but the mystery remains unsolved. perhaps i have unwittingly offended some trusty, or i may be the object of the secret enmity of a spy. the chaplain, on his daily rounds, hands me a letter from the girl, and glances in surprise at the closed door. "not feeling well, m' boy?" he asks. "i'm locked up, chaplain." "what have you done?" "nothing that i know of." "oh, well, you'll be out soon. don't fret, m' boy." but the days pass, and i remain in the cell. the guards look worried, and vent their ill-humor in profuse vulgarity. the deputy tries to appear mysterious, wobbles comically along the range, and splutters at me: "nothin'. shtay where you are." jasper, the colored trusty, flits up and down the hall, tremendously busy, his black face more lustrous than ever. numerous stools nose about the galleries, stop here and there in confidential conversation with officers and prisoners, and whisper excitedly at the front desk. assistant deputy hopkins goes in and out of the block, repeatedly calls jasper to the office, and hovers in the neighborhood of my cell. the rangemen talk in suppressed tones. an air of mystery pervades the cell-house. finally i am called to the warden. with unconcealed annoyance, he demands: "what did you want?" "the officers locked me up--" "who said you're locked up?" he interrupts, angrily. "you're merely locked _in_." "where's the difference?" i ask. "one is locked up 'for cause.' you're just kept in for the present." "on what charge?" "no charge. none whatever. take him back, officers." * * * * * close confinement becomes increasingly more dismal and dreary. by contrast with the spacious hall, the cell grows smaller and narrower, oppressing me with a sense of suffocation. my sudden isolation remains unexplained. notwithstanding the chaplain's promise to intercede in my behalf, i remain locked "in," and again return the days of solitary, with all their gloom and anguish of heart. ii a ray of light is shed from new york. the girl writes in a hopeful vein about the progress of the movement, and the intense interest in my case among radical circles. she refers to comrade merlino, now on a tour of agitation, and is enthusiastic about the favorable labor sentiment toward me, manifested in the cities he had visited. finally she informs me of a plan on foot to secure a reduction of my sentence, and the promising outlook for the collection of the necessary funds. from merlino i receive a sum of money already contributed for the purpose, together with a letter of appreciation and encouragement, concluding: "good cheer, dear comrade; the last word has not yet been spoken." my mind dwells among my friends. the breath from the world of the living fans the smoldering fires of longing; the tone of my comrades revibrates in my heart with trembling hope. but the revision of my sentence involves recourse to the courts! the sudden realization fills me with dismay. i cannot be guilty of a sacrifice of principle to gain freedom; the mere suggestion rouses the violent protest of my revolutionary traditions. in bitterness of soul, i resent my friends' ill-advised waking of the shades. i shall never leave the house of death.... and yet mail from my friends, full of expectation and confidence, arrives more frequently. prominent lawyers have been consulted; their unanimous opinion augurs well: the multiplication of my sentences was illegal; according to the statutes of pennsylvania, the maximum penalty should not have exceeded seven years; the supreme court would undoubtedly reverse the judgment of the lower tribunal, specifically the conviction on charges not constituting a crime under the laws of the state. and so forth. i am assailed by doubts. is it consequent in me to decline liberty, apparently within reach? john most appealed his case to the supreme court, and the girl also took advantage of a legal defence. considerable propaganda resulted from it. should i refuse the opportunity which would offer such a splendid field for agitation? would it not be folly to afford the enemy the triumph of my gradual annihilation? i would without hesitation reject freedom at the price of my convictions; but it involves no denial of my faith to rob the vampire of its prey. we must, if necessary, fight the beast of oppression with its own methods, scourge the law in its own tracks, as it were. of course, the supreme court is but another weapon in the hands of authority, a pretence of impartial right. it decided against most, sustaining the prejudiced verdict of the trial jury. they may do the same in my case. but that very circumstance will serve to confirm our arraignment of class justice. i shall therefore endorse the efforts of my friends. but before long i am informed that an application to the higher court is not permitted. the attorneys, upon examination of the records of the trial, discovered a fatal obstacle, they said. the defendant, not being legally represented, neglected to "take exceptions" to rulings of the court prejudicial to the accused. because of the technical omission, there exists no basis for an appeal. they therefore advise an application to the board of pardons, on the ground that the punishment in my case is excessive. they are confident that the board will act favorably, in view of the obvious unconstitutionality of the compounded sentences,--the five minor indictments being indispensible parts of the major charge and, as such, not constituting separate offences. the unexpected development disquiets me: the sound of "pardon" is detestable. what bitter irony that the noblest intentions, the most unselfish motives, need seek pardon! aye, of the very source that misinterprets and perverts them! for days the implied humiliation keeps agitating me; i recoil from the thought of personally affixing my name to the meek supplication of the printed form, and finally decide to refuse. an accidental conversation with the "attorney general" disturbs my resolution. i learn that in pennsylvania the applicant's signature is not required by the pardon board. a sense of guilty hope steals over me. yet--i reflect--the pardon of the chicago anarchists had contributed much to the dissemination of our ideas. the impartial analysis of the trial-evidence by governor altgeld completely exonerated our comrades from responsibility for the haymarket tragedy, and exposed the heinous conspiracy to destroy the most devoted and able representatives of the labor movement. may not a similar purpose be served by my application for a pardon? i write to my comrades, signifying my consent. we arrange for a personal interview, to discuss the details of the work. unfortunately, the girl, a _persona non grata_, cannot visit me. but a mutual friend, miss garrison, is to call on me within two months. at my request, the chaplain forwards to her the necessary permission, and i impatiently await the first friendly face in two years. iii as unaccountably as my punishment in the solitary, comes the relief at the expiration of three weeks. the "k" hall-boy is still in the hospital, and i resume the duties of rangeman. the guards eye me with suspicion and greater vigilance, but i soon unravel the tangled skein, and learn the details of the abortive escape that caused my temporary retirement. the lock of my neighbor, johnny smith, had been tampered with. the youth, in solitary at the time, necessarily had the aid of another, it being impossible to reach the keyhole from the inside of the cell. the suspicion of the warden centered upon me, but investigation by the stools discovered the men actually concerned, and "dutch" adams, spencer, smith, and jim grant were chastised in the dungeon, and are now locked up "for cause," on my range. by degrees johnny confides to me the true story of the frustrated plan. "dutch," a repeater serving his fifth "bit," and favorite of hopkins, procured a piece of old iron, and had it fashioned into a key in the machine shop, where he was employed. he entrusted the rude instrument to grant, a young reformatory boy, for a preliminary trial. the guileless youth easily walked into the trap, and the makeshift key was broken in the lock--with disastrous results. the tricked boys now swear vengeance upon the _provocateur_, but "dutch" is missing from the range. he has been removed to an upper gallery, and is assigned to a coveted position in the shops. the newspapers print vivid stories of the desperate attempt to escape from riverside, and compliment captain wright and the officers for so successfully protecting the community. the warden is deeply affected, and orders the additional punishment of the offenders with a bread-and-water diet. the deputy walks with inflated chest; hopkins issues orders curtailing the privileges of the inmates, and inflicting greater hardships. the tone of the guards sounds haughtier, more peremptory; jasper's face wears a blissful smile. the trusties look pleased and cheerful, but sullen gloom shrouds the prison. iv i am standing at my cell, when the door of the rotunda slowly opens, and the warden approaches me. "a lady just called; miss garrison, from new york. do you know her?" "she is one of my friends." "i dismissed her. you can't see her." "why? the rules entitle me to a visit every three months. i have had none in two years. i want to see her." "you can't. she needs a permit." "the chaplain sent her one at my request." "a member of the board of inspectors rescinded it by telegraph." "what inspector?" "you can't question me. your visitor has been refused admittance." "will you tell me the reason, warden?" "no reason, no reason whatever." he turns on his heel, when i detain him: "warden, it's two years since i've been in the dungeon. i am in the first grade now," i point to the recently earned dark suit. "i am entitled to all the privileges. why am i deprived of visits?" "not another word." he disappears through the yard door. from the galleries i hear the jeering of a trusty. a guard near by brings his thumb to his nose, and wriggles his fingers in my direction. humiliated and angry, i return to the cell, to find the monthly letter-sheet on my table. i pour out all the bitterness of my heart to the girl, dwell on the warden's discrimination against me, and repeat our conversation and his refusal to admit my visitor. in conclusion, i direct her to have a pittsburgh lawyer apply to the courts, to force the prison authorities to restore to me the privileges allowed by the law to the ordinary prisoner. i drop the letter in the mail-box, hoping that my outburst and the threat of the law will induce the warden to retreat from his position. the girl will, of course, understand the significance of the epistle, aware that my reference to a court process is a diplomatic subterfuge for effect, and not meant to be acted upon. but the next day the chaplain returns the letter to me. "not so rash, my boy," he warns me, not unkindly. "be patient; i'll see what i can do for you." "but the letter, chaplain?" "you've wasted your paper, aleck. i can't pass this letter. but just keep quiet, and i'll look into the matter." weeks pass in evasive replies. finally the chaplain advises a personal interview with the warden. the latter refers me to the inspectors. to each member of the board i address a request for a few minutes' conversation, but a month goes by without word from the high officials. the friendly runner, "southside" johnny, offers to give me an opportunity to speak to an inspector, on the payment of ten plugs of tobacco. unfortunately, i cannot spare my small allowance, but i tender him a dollar bill of the money the girl had sent me artfully concealed in the buckle of a pair of suspenders. the runner is highly elated, and assures me of success, directing me to keep careful watch on the yard door. several days later, passing along the range engaged in my duties, i notice "southside" entering from the yard, in friendly conversation with a strange gentleman in citizen clothes. for a moment i do not realize the situation, but the next instant i am aware of johnny's violent efforts to attract my attention. he pretends to show the man some fancy work made by the inmates, all the while drawing him closer to my door, with surreptitious nods at me. i approach my cell. "this is berkman, mr. nevin, the man who shot frick," johnny remarks. the gentleman turns to me with a look of interest. "good morning, berkman," he says pleasantly. "how long are you doing?" "twenty-two years." "i'm sorry to hear that. it's rather a long sentence. you know who i am?" "inspector nevin, i believe." "yes. you have never seen me before?" "no. i sent a request to see you recently." "when was that?" "a month ago." "strange. i was in the office three weeks ago. there was no note from you on my file. are you sure you sent one?" "quite sure. i sent a request to each inspector." "what's the trouble?" i inform him briefly that i have been deprived of visiting privileges. somewhat surprised, he glances at my dark clothes, and remarks: "you are in the first grade, and therefore entitled to visits. when did you have your last visitor?" "two years ago." "two years?" he asks, almost incredulously. "did the lady from new york have a permit?" the warden hurriedly enters from the yard. "mr. nevin," he calls out anxiously, "i've been looking for you." "berkman was just telling me about his visitor being sent away, captain," the inspector remarks. "yes, yes," the warden smiles, forcedly, "'for cause.'" "oh!" the face of mr. nevin assumes a grave look. "berkman," he turns to me, "you'll have to apply to the secretary of the board, mr. reed. i am not familiar with the internal affairs." the warden links his arm with the inspector, and they walk toward the yard door. at the entrance they are met by "dutch" adams, the shop messenger. "good morning, mr. nevin," the trusty greets him. "won't you issue me a special visit? my mother is sick; she wants to see me." the warden grins at the ready fiction. "when did you have your last visit?" the inspector inquires. "two weeks ago." "you are entitled to one only every three months." "that is why i asked you for an extra, mr. inspector," "dutch" retorts boldly. "i know you are a kind man." mr. nevin smiles good-naturedly and glances at the warden. "dutch is all right," the captain nods. the inspector draws his visiting card, pencils on it, and hands it to the prisoner. chapter xxiv thoughts that stole out of prison april , . my dear girl: i have craved for a long, long time to have a free talk with you, but this is the first opportunity. a good friend, a "lover of horseflesh," promised to see this "birdie" through. i hope it will reach you safely. in my local correspondence you have been christened the "immutable." i realize how difficult it is to keep up letter-writing through the endless years, the points of mutual interest gradually waning. it is one of the tragedies in the existence of a prisoner. "k" and "g" have almost ceased to expect mail. but i am more fortunate. the twin writes very seldom nowadays; the correspondence of other friends is fitful. but you are never disappointing. it is not so much the contents that matter: these increasingly sound like the language of a strange world, with its bewildering flurry and ferment, disturbing the calm of cell-life. but the very arrival of a letter is momentous. it brings a glow into the prisoner's heart to feel that he is remembered, actively, with that intimate interest which alone can support a regular correspondence. and then your letters are so vital, so palpitating with the throb of our common cause. i have greatly enjoyed your communications from paris and vienna, the accounts of the movement and of our european comrades. your letters are so much part of yourself, they bring me nearer to you and to life. the newspaper clippings you have referred to on various occasions, have been withheld from me. nor are any radical publications permitted. i especially regret to miss _solidarity_. i have not seen a single copy since its resurrection two years ago. i have followed the activities of chas. w. mowbray and the recent tour of john turner, so far as the press accounts are concerned. i hope you'll write more about our english comrades. i need not say much of the local life, dear. that you know from my official mail, and you can read between the lines. the action of the pardon board was a bitter disappointment to me. no less to you also, i suppose. not that i was very enthusiastic as to a favorable decision. but that they should so cynically evade the issue,--i was hardly prepared for _that_. i had hoped they would at least consider the case. but evidently they were averse to going on record, one way or another. the lawyers informed me that they were not even allowed an opportunity to present their arguments. the board ruled that "the wrong complained of is not actual"; that is, that i am not yet serving the sentence we want remitted. a lawyer's quibble. it means that i must serve the first sentence of seven years, before applying for the remission of the other indictments. discounting commutation time, i still have about a year to complete the first sentence. i doubt whether it is advisable to try again. little justice can be expected from those quarters. but i want to submit another proposition to you; consult with our friends regarding it. it is this: there is a prisoner here who has just been pardoned by the board, whose president, the lieutenant-governor, is indebted to the prisoner's lawyer for certain political services. the attorney's name is k---- d---- of pittsburgh. he has intimated to his client that he will guarantee my release for $ , . , the sum to be deposited in safe hands and to be paid _only_ in case of success. of course, we cannot afford such a large fee. and i cannot say whether the offer is worth considering; still, you know that almost anything can be bought from politicians. i leave the matter in your hands. the question of my visits seems tacitly settled; i can procure no permit for my friends to see me. for some obscure reason, the warden has conceived a great fear of an anarchist plot against the prison. the local "trio" is under special surveillance and constantly discriminated against, though "k" and "g" are permitted to receive visits. you will smile at the infantile terror of the authorities: it is bruited about that a "certain anarchist lady" (meaning you, i presume; in reality it was henry's sweetheart, a jolly devil-may-care girl) made a threat against the prison. the gossips have it that she visited inspector reed at his business place, and requested to see me. the inspector refusing, she burst out: "we'll blow your dirty walls down." i could not determine whether there is any foundation for the story, but it is circulated here, and the prisoners firmly believe it explains my deprivation of visits. that is a characteristic instance of local conditions. involuntarily i smile at kennan's naïve indignation with the brutalities he thinks possible only in russian and siberian prisons. he would find it almost impossible to learn the true conditions in the american prisons: he would be conducted the rounds of the "show" cells, always neat and clean for the purpose; he would not see the basket cell, nor the bull rings in the dungeon, where men are chained for days; nor would he be permitted to converse for hours, or whole evenings, with the prisoners, as he did with the exiles in siberia. yet if he succeeded in learning even half the truth, he would be forced to revise his views of american penal institutions, as he did in regard to russian politicals. he would be horrified to witness the brutality that is practised here as a matter of routine, the abuse of the insane, the petty persecution. inhumanity is the keynote of stupidity in power. your soul must have been harrowed by the reports of the terrible tortures in montjuich. what is all indignation and lamenting, in the face of the revival of the inquisition? is there no nemesis in spain? chapter xxv how shall the depths cry? i the change of seasons varies the tone of the prison. a cheerier atmosphere pervades the shops and the cell-house in the summer. the block is airier and lighter; the guards relax their stern look, in anticipation of their vacations; the men hopefully count the hours till their approaching freedom, and the gates open daily to release some one going back to the world. but heavy gloom broods over the prison in winter. the windows are closed and nailed; the vitiated air, artificially heated, is suffocating with dryness. smoke darkens the shops, and the cells are in constant dusk. tasks grow heavier, the punishments more severe. the officers look sullen; the men are morose and discontented. the ravings of the insane become wilder, suicides more frequent; despair and hopelessness oppress every heart. the undercurrent of rebellion, swelling with mute suffering and repression, turbulently sweeps the barriers. the severity of the authorities increases, methods of penalizing are more drastic; the prisoners fret, wax more querulous, and turn desperate with blind, spasmodic defiance. but among the more intelligent inmates, dissatisfaction manifest more coherent expression. the lexow investigation in new york has awakened an echo in the prison. a movement is quietly initiated among the solitaries, looking toward an investigation of riverside. i keep busy helping the men exchange notes maturing the project. great care must be exercised to guard against treachery: only men of proved reliability may be entrusted with the secret, and precautions taken that no officer or stool scent our design. the details of the campaign are planned on "k" range, with billy ryan, butch, sloane, and jimmie grant, as the most trustworthy, in command. it is decided that the attack upon the management of the penitentiary is to be initiated from the "outside." a released prisoner is to inform the press of the abuses, graft, and immorality rampant in riverside. the public will demand an investigation. the "cabal" on the range will supply the investigators with data and facts that will rouse the conscience of the community, and cause the dismissal of the warden and the introduction of reforms. a prisoner, about to be discharged, is selected for the important mission of enlightening the press. in great anxiety and expectation we await the newspapers, the day following his liberation; we scan the pages closely. not a word of the penitentiary! probably the released man has not yet had an opportunity to visit the editors. in the joy of freedom, he may have looked too deeply into the cup that cheers. he will surely interview the papers the next day. but the days pass into weeks, without any reference in the press to the prison. the trusted man has failed us! the revelation of the life at riverside is of a nature not to be ignored by the press. the discharged inmate has proved false to his promise. bitterly the solitaries denounce him, and resolve to select a more reliable man among the first candidates for liberty. one after another, a score of men are entrusted with the mission to the press. but the papers remain silent. anxiously, though every day less hopefully, we search their columns. ryan cynically derides the faithlessness of convict promises; butch rages and at the traitors. but sloane is sternly confident in his own probity, and cheers me as i pause at his cell: "never min' them rats, aleck. you just wait till i go out. here's the boy that'll keep his promise all right. what i won't do to old sandy ain't worth mentionin'." "why, you still have two years, ed," i remind him. "not on your tintype, aleck. only one and a stump." "how big is the stump?" "wa-a-ll," he chuckles, looking somewhat diffident, "it's one year, elev'n months, an' twenty-sev'n days. it ain't no two years, though, see?" jimmy grant grows peculiarly reserved, evidently disinclined to talk. he seeks to avoid me. the treachery of the released men fills him with resentment and suspicion of every one. he is impatient of my suggestion that the fault may lie with a servile press. at the mention of our plans, he bursts out savagely: "forget it! you're no good, none of you. let me be!" he turns his back to me, and angrily paces the cell. his actions fill me with concern. the youth seems strangely changed. fortunately, his time is almost served. ii like wildfire the news circles the prison. "the papers are giving sandy hell!" the air in the block trembles with suppressed excitement. jimmy grant, recently released, had sent a communication to the state board of charities, bringing serious charges against the management of riverside. the press publishes startlingly significant excerpts from grant's letter. editorially, however, the indictment is ignored by the majority of the pittsburgh papers. one writer comments ambiguously, in guarded language, suggesting the improbability of the horrible practices alleged by grant. another eulogizes warden wright as an intelligent and humane man, who has the interest of the prisoners at heart. the detailed accusations are briefly dismissed as unworthy of notice, because coming from a disgruntled criminal who had not found prison life to his liking. only the _leader_ and the _dispatch_ consider the matter seriously, refer to the numerous complaints from discharged prisoners, and suggest the advisability of an investigation; they urge upon the warden the necessity of disproving, once for all, the derogatory statements regarding his management. within a few days the president of the board of charities announces his decision to "look over" the penitentiary. december is on the wane, and the board is expected to visit riverside after the holidays. iii k. & g.: of course, neither of you has any more faith in alleged investigations than myself. the lexow investigation, which shocked the whole country with its exposé of police corruption, has resulted in practically nothing. one or two subordinates have been "scapegoated"; those "higher up" went unscathed, as usual; the "system" itself remains in _statu quo_. the one who has mostly profited by the spasm of morality is goff, to whom the vice crusade afforded an opportunity to rise from obscurity into the national limelight. parkhurst also has subsided, probably content with the enlarged size of his flock and--salary. to give the devil his due, however, i admired his perseverance and courage in face of the storm of ridicule and scorn that met his initial accusations against the glorious police department of the metropolis. but though every charge has been proved in the most absolute manner, the situation, as a whole, remains unchanged. it is the history of all investigations. as the germans say, you can't convict the devil in the court of his mother-in-law. it has again been demonstrated by the congressional "inquiry" into the carnegie blow-hole armor plate; in the terrible revelations regarding superintendent brockway, of the elmira reformatory--a veritable den for maiming and killing; and in numerous other instances. warden wright also was investigated, about ten years ago; a double set of books was then found, disclosing peculation of appropriations and theft of the prison product; brutality and murder were uncovered--yet sandy has remained in his position. * * * * * we can, therefore, expect nothing from the proposed investigation by the board of charities. i have no doubt it will be a whitewash. but i think that we--the anarchist trio--should show our solidarity, and aid the inmates with our best efforts; we must prevent the investigation resulting in a farce, so far as evidence against the management is concerned. we should leave the board no loophole, no excuse of a lack of witnesses or proofs to support grant's charges. i am confident you will agree with me in this. i am collecting data for presentation to the investigators; i am also preparing a list of volunteer witnesses. i have seventeen numbers on my range and others from various parts of this block and from the shops. they all seem anxious to testify, though i am sure some will weaken when the critical moment arrives. several have already notified me to erase their names. but we shall have a sufficient number of witnesses; we want preferably such men as have personally suffered a clubbing, the bull ring, hanging by the wrists, or other punishment forbidden by the law. i have already notified the warden that i wish to testify before the investigation committee. my purpose was to anticipate his objection that there are already enough witnesses. i am the first on the list now. the completeness of the case against the authorities will surprise you. fortunately, my position as rangeman has enabled me to gather whatever information i needed. i will send you to-morrow duplicates of the evidence (to insure greater safety for our material). for the present i append a partial list of our "exhibits": * * * * * ( ) cigarettes and outside tobacco; bottle of whiskey and "dope"; dice, playing cards, cash money, several knives, two razors, postage stamps, outside mail, and other contraband. (these are for the purpose of proving the warden a liar in denying to the press the existence of gambling in the prison, the selling of bakery and kitchen provisions for cash, the possession of weapons, and the possibility of underground communication.) ( ) prison-made beer. a demonstration of the staleness of our bread and the absence of potatoes in the soup. (the beer is made from fermented yeast stolen by the trusties from the bakery; also from potatoes.) ( ) favoritism; special privileges of trusties; political jobs; the system of stool espionage. ( ) pennsylvania diet; basket; dungeon; cuffing and chaining up; neglect of the sick; punishment of the insane. ( ) names and numbers of men maltreated and clubbed. ( ) data of assaults and cutting affrays in connection with "kid-business," the existence of which the warden absolutely denies. ( ) special case of a- , who attacked the warden in church, because of jealousy of "lady goldie." ( ) graft: (_a_) hosiery department: fake labels, fictitious names of manufacture, false book entries. (_b_) broom-shop: convict labor hired out, contrary to law, to lang bros., broom manufacturers, of allegheny, pa. goods sold to the united states government, through sham middleman. labels bear legend, "union broom." sample enclosed. [illustration] (_c_) mats, mattings, mops--product not stamped. (_d_) shoe and tailor shops: prison materials used for the private needs of the warden, the officers, and their families. (_e_) $ , , appropriated by the state ( ) for a new chapel. the bricks of the old building used for the new, except one outside layer. all the work done by prisoners. architect, mr. a. wright, the warden's son. actual cost of chapel, $ , . the inmates _forced_ to attend services to overcrowd the old church; after the desired appropriation was secured, attendance became optional. (_f_) library: the c. tax, exacted from every unofficial visitor, is supposed to go to the book fund. about visitors per day, the year round. no new books added to the library in years. old duplicates donated by the public libraries of pittsburgh are catalogued as purchased new books. (_g_) robbing the prisoners of remuneration for their labor. see copy of act of , p. l. . law on prison labor and wages of convicts (act of , june th, p. l. ) section --at the expiration of existing contracts wardens are directed to employ the convicts under their control for and in behalf of the state. section --no labor shall be hired out by contract. section --all convicts under the control of the state and county officers, and all inmates of reformatory institutions engaged in the manufacture of articles for general consumption, shall receive quarterly wages equal to the amount of their earnings, to be fixed from time to time by the authorities of the institution, from which board, lodging, clothing, and costs of trial shall be deducted, and the balance paid to their families or dependents; in case none such appear, the amount shall be paid to the convict at the expiration of his term of imprisonment. the prisoners receive no payment whatever, even for overtime work, except occasionally a slice of pork for supper. k. g., plant this and other material i'll send you, in a safe place. m. chapter xxvi hiding the evidence i it is new year's eve. an air of pleasant anticipation fills the prison; to-morrow's feast is the exciting subject of conversation. roast beef will be served for dinner, with a goodly loaf of currant bread, and two cigars for dessert. extra men have been drafted for the kitchen; they flit from block to yard, looking busy and important, yet halting every passer-by to whisper with secretive mien, "don't say i told you. sweet potatoes to-morrow!" the younger inmates seem skeptical, and strive to appear indifferent, the while they hover about the yard door, nostrils expanded, sniffing the appetizing wafts from the kitchen. here and there an old-timer grumbles: we should have had sweet "murphies" for christmas. "'too high-priced,' sandy said," they sneer in ill humor. the new arrivals grow uneasy; perhaps they are still too expensive? some study the market quotations on the delicacy. but the chief cook drops in to visit "his" boy, and confides to the rangeman that the sweet potatoes are a "sure thing," just arrived and counted. the happy news is whispered about, with confident assurance, yet tinged with anxiety. there is great rejoicing among the men. only sol, the lifer, is querulous: he doesn't care a snap about the "extra feed"--stomach still sour from the christmas dinner--and, anyhow, it only makes the week-a-day "grub" more disgusting. the rules are somewhat relaxed. the hallmen converse freely; the yard gangs lounge about and cluster in little groups, that separate at the approach of a superior officer. men from the bakery and kitchen run in and out of the block, their pockets bulging suspiciously. "what are you after?" the doorkeeper halts them. "oh, just to my cell; forgot my handkerchief." the guard answers the sly wink with an indulgent smile. "all right; go ahead, but don't be long." if "papa" mitchell is about, he thunders at the chief cook, his bosom swelling with packages: "wotch 'er got there, eh? big family of kids _you_ have, jim. first thing you know, you'll swipe the hinges off th' kitchen door." the envied bakery and kitchen employees supply their friends with extra holiday tidbits, and the solitaries dance in glee at the sight of the savory dainty, the fresh brown bread generously dotted with sweet currants. it is the prelude of the promised culinary symphony. * * * * * the evening is cheerful with mirth and jollity. the prisoners at first converse in whispers, then become bolder, and talk louder through the bars. as night approaches, the cell-house rings with unreserved hilarity and animation,--light-hearted chaff mingled with coarse jests and droll humor. a wag on the upper tier banters the passing guards, his quips and sallies setting the adjoining cells in a roar, and inspiring imitation. * * * * * slowly the babel of tongues subsides, as the gong sounds the order to retire. some one shouts to a distant friend, "hey, bill, are you there? ye-es? stay there!" it grows quiet, when suddenly my neighbor on the left sing-songs, "fellers, who's goin' to sit up with me to greet new year's." a dozen voices yell their acceptance. "little frenchy," the spirited grayhead on the top tier, vociferates shrilly, "me, too, boys. i'm viz you all right." all is still in the cell-house, save for a wild indian whoop now and then by the vigil-keeping boys. the block breathes in heavy sleep; loud snoring sounds from the gallery above. only the irregular tread of the felt-soled guards falls muffled in the silence. * * * * * the clock in the upper rotunda strikes the midnight hour. a siren on the ohio intones its deep-chested bass. another joins it, then another. shrill factory whistles pierce the boom of cannon; the sweet chimes of a nearby church ring in joyful melody between. instantly the prison is astir. tin cans rattle against iron bars, doors shake in fury, beds and chairs squeak and screech, pans slam on the floor, shoes crash against the walls with a dull thud, and rebound noisily on the stone. unearthly yelling, shouting, and whistling rend the air; an inventive prisoner beats a wild tatto with a tin pan on the table--a veritable bedlam of frenzy has broken loose in both wings. the prisoners are celebrating the advent of the new year. * * * * * the voices grow hoarse and feeble. the tin clanks languidly against the iron, the grating of the doors sounds weaker. the men are exhausted with the unwonted effort. the guards stumbled up the galleries, their forms swaying unsteadily in the faint flicker of the gaslight. in maudlin tones they command silence, and bid the men retire to bed. the younger, more daring, challenge the order with husky howls and catcalls,--a defiant shout, a groan, and all is quiet. daybreak wakes the turmoil and uproar. for twenty-four hours the long-repressed animal spirits are rampant. no music or recreation honors the new year; the day is passed in the cell. the prisoners, securely barred and locked, are permitted to vent their pain and sorrow, their yearnings and hopes, in a saturnalia of tumult. ii the month of january brings sedulous activity. shops and block are overhauled, every nook and corner is scoured, and a special squad detailed to whitewash the cells. the yearly clean-up not being due till spring, i conclude from the unusual preparations that the expected visit of the board of charities is approaching. * * * * * the prisoners are agog with the coming investigation. the solitaries and prospective witnesses are on the _qui vive_, anxious lines on their faces. some manifest fear of the ill will of the warden, as the probable result of their testimony. i seek to encourage them by promising to assume full responsibility, but several men withdraw their previous consent. the safety of my data causes me grave concern, in view of the increasing frequency of searches. deliberation finally resolves itself into the bold plan of secreting my most valuable material in the cell set aside for the use of the officers. it is the first cell on the range; it is never locked, and is ignored at searches because it is not occupied by prisoners. the little bundle, protected with a piece of oilskin procured from the dispensary, soon reposes in the depths of the waste pipe. a stout cord secures it from being washed away by the rush of water, when the privy is in use. i call officer mitchell's attention to the dusty condition of the cell, and offer to sweep it every morning and afternoon. he accedes in an offhand manner, and twice daily i surreptitiously examine the tension of the water-soaked cord, renewing the string repeatedly. other material and copies of my "exhibits" are deposited with several trustworthy friends on the range. everything is ready for the investigation, and we confidently await the coming of the board of charities. iii the cell-house rejoices at the absence of scot woods. the block captain of the morning has been "reduced to the ranks." the disgrace is signalized by his appearance on the wall, pacing the narrow path in the chilly winter blasts. the guards look upon the assignment as "punishment duty" for incurring the displeasure of the warden. the keepers smile at the indiscreet scot interfering with the self-granted privileges of "southside" johnny, one of the warden's favorites. the runner who afforded me an opportunity to see inspector nevin, came out victorious in the struggle with woods. the latter was upbraided by captain wright in the presence of johnny, who is now officially authorized in his perquisites. sufficient time was allowed to elapse, to avoid comment, whereupon the officer was withdrawn from the block. i regret his absence. a severe disciplinarian, woods was yet very exceptional among the guards, in that he sought to discourage the spying of prisoners on each other. he frowned upon the trusties, and strove to treat the men impartially. mitchell has been changed to the morning shift to fill the vacancy made by the transfer of woods. the charge of the block in the afternoon devolves upon officer mcilvaine, a very corpulent man, with sharp, steely eyes. he is considerably above the average warder in intelligence, but extremely fond of jasper, who now acts as his assistant, the obese turnkey rarely leaving his seat at the front desk. * * * * * changes of keepers, transfers from the shops to the two cell-houses are frequent; the new guards are alert and active. almost daily the warden visits the ranges, leaving in his wake more stringent discipline. rarely do i find a chance to pause at the cells; i keep in touch with the men through the medium of notes. but one day, several fights breaking out in the shops, the block officers are requisitioned to assist in placing the combatants in the punishment cells. the front is deserted, and i improve the opportunity to talk to the solitaries. jasper, "southside," and bob runyon, the "politicians," also converse at the doors, bob standing suspiciously close to the bars. suddenly officer mcilvaine appears in the yard door. his face is flushed, his eyes filling with wrath as they fasten on the men at the cells. "hey, you fellows, get away from there!" he shouts. "confound you all, the 'old man' just gave me the deuce; too much talking in the block. i won't stand for it, that's all," he adds petulantly. within half an hour i am haled before the warden. he looks worried, deep lines of anxiety about his mouth. "you are reported for standing at the doors," he snarls at me. "what are you always telling the men?" "it's the first time the officer--" "nothing of the kind," he interrupts; "you're always talking to the prisoners. they are in punishment, and you have no business with them." "why was _i_ picked out? others talk, too." "ye-e-s?" he drawls sarcastically; then, turning to the keeper, he says: "how is that, officer? the man is charging you with neglect of duty." "i am not charging--" "silence! what have you to say, mr. mcilvaine?" the guard reddens with suppressed rage. "it isn't true, captain," he replies; "there was no one except berkman." "you hear what the officer says? you are always breaking the rules. you're plotting; i know you,--pulling a dozen wires. you are inimical to the management of the institution. but i will break your connections. officers, take him directly to the south wing, you understand? he is not to return to his cell. have it searched at once, thoroughly. lock him up." "warden, what for?" i demand. "i have not done anything to lose my position. talking is not such a serious charge." "very serious, very serious. you're too dangerous on the range. i'll spoil your infernal schemes by removing you from the north block. you've been there too long." "i want to remain there." "the more reason to take you away. that will do now." "no, it won't," i burst out. "i'll stay where i am." "remove him, mr. mcilvaine." i am taken to the south wing and locked up in a vacant cell, neglected and ill-smelling. it is number , range m--the first gallery, facing the yard; a "double" cell, somewhat larger than those of the north block, and containing a small window. the walls are damp and bare, save for the cardboard of printed rules and the prison calendar. it is the th of february, , but the calendar is of last year, indicating that the cell has not been occupied since the previous november. it contains the usual furnishings: bedstead and soiled straw mattress, a small table and a chair. it feels cold and dreary. in thought i picture the guards ransacking my former cell. they will not discover anything: my material is well hidden. the warden evidently suspects my plans: he fears my testimony before the investigation committee. my removal is to sever my connections, and now it is impossible for me to reach my data. i must return to the north block; otherwise all our plans are doomed to fail. i can't leave my friends on the range in the lurch: some of them have already signified to the chaplain their desire to testify; their statements will remain unsupported in the absence of my proofs. i must rejoin them. i have told the warden that i shall remain where i was, but he probably ignored it as an empty boast. i consider the situation, and resolve to "break up housekeeping." it is the sole means of being transferred to the other cell-house. it will involve the loss of the grade, and a trip to the dungeon; perhaps even a fight with the keepers: the guards, fearing the broken furniture will be used for defence, generally rush the prisoner with blackjacks. but my return to the north wing will be assured,--no man in stripes can remain in the south wing. alert for an approaching step, i untie my shoes, producing a scrap of paper, a pencil, and a knife. i write a hurried note to "k," briefly informing him of the new developments, and intimating that our data are safe. guardedly i attract the attention of the runner on the floor beneath; it is bill say, through whom carl occasionally communicates with "g." the note rolled into a little ball, i shoot between the bars to the waiting prisoner. now everything is prepared. it is near supper time; the men are coming back from work. it would be advisable to wait till everybody is locked in, and the shop officers depart home. there will then be only three guards on duty in the block. but i am in a fever of indignation and anger. furiously snatching up the chair, i start "breaking up." chapter xxvii love's dungeon flower the dungeon smells foul and musty; the darkness is almost visible, the silence oppressive; but the terror of my former experience has abated. i shall probably be kept in the underground cell for a longer time than on the previous occasion,--my offence is considered very grave. three charges have been entered against me: destroying state property, having possession of a knife, and uttering a threat against the warden. when i saw the officers gathering at my back, while i was facing the captain, i realized its significance. they were preparing to assault me. quickly advancing to the warden, i shook my fist in his face, crying: "if they touch me, i'll hold you personally responsible." he turned pale. trying to steady his voice, he demanded: "what do you mean? how dare you?" "i mean just what i say. i won't be clubbed. my friends will avenge me, too." he glanced at the guards standing rigid, in ominous silence. one by one they retired, only two remaining, and i was taken quietly to the dungeon. * * * * * the stillness is broken by a low, muffled sound. i listen intently. it is some one pacing the cell at the further end of the passage. "halloo! who's there?" i shout. no reply. the pacing continues. it must be "silent nick"; he never talks. i prepare to pass the night on the floor. it is bare; there is no bed or blanket, and i have been deprived of my coat and shoes. it is freezing in the cell; my feet grow numb, hands cold, as i huddle in the corner, my head leaning against the reeking wall, my body on the stone floor. i try to think, but my thoughts are wandering, my brain frigid. * * * * * the rattling of keys wakes me from my stupor. guards are descending into the dungeon. i wonder whether it is morning, but they pass my cell: it is not yet breakfast time. now they pause and whisper. i recognize the mumbling speech of deputy greaves, as he calls out to the silent prisoner: "want a drink?" the double doors open noisily. "here!" "give me the cup," the hoarse bass resembles that of "crazy smithy." his stentorian voice sounds cracked since he was shot in the neck by officer dean. "you can't have th' cup," the deputy fumes. "i won't drink out of your hand, god damn you. think i'm a cur, do you?" smithy swears and curses savagely. the doors are slammed and locked. the steps grow faint, and all is silent, save the quickened footfall of smith, who will not talk to any prisoner. i pass the long night in drowsy stupor, rousing at times to strain my ear for every sound from the rotunda above, wondering whether day is breaking. the minutes drag in dismal darkness.... the loud clanking of the keys tingles in my ears like sweet music. it is morning! the guards hand me the day's allowance--two ounces of white bread and a quart of water. the wheat tastes sweet; it seems to me i've never eaten anything so delectable. but the liquid is insipid, and nauseates me. at almost one bite i swallow the slice, so small and thin. it whets my appetite, and i feel ravenously hungry. at smith's door the scene of the previous evening is repeated. the deputy insists that the man drink out of the cup held by a guard. the prisoner refuses, with a profuse flow of profanity. suddenly there is a splash, followed by a startled cry, and the thud of the cell bucket on the floor. smith has emptied the contents of his privy upon the officers. in confusion they rush out of the dungeon. presently i hear the clatter of many feet in the cellar. there is a hubbub of suppressed voices. i recognize the rasping whisper of hopkins, the tones of woods, mcilvaine, and others. i catch the words, "both sides at once." several cells in the dungeon are provided with double entrances, front and back, to facilitate attacks upon obstreperous prisoners. smith is always assigned to one of these cells. i shudder as i realize that the officers are preparing to club the demented man. he has been weakened by years of unbroken solitary confinement, and his throat still bleeds occasionally from the bullet wound. almost half his time he has been kept in the dungeon, and now he has been missing from the range twelve days. it is.... involuntarily i shut my eyes at the fearful thud of the riot clubs. * * * * * the hours drag on. the monotony is broken by the keepers bringing another prisoner to the dungeon. i hear his violent sobbing from the depth of the cavern. "who is there?" i hail him. i call repeatedly, without receiving an answer. perhaps the new arrival is afraid of listening guards. "ho, man!" i sing out, "the screws have gone. who are you? this is aleck, aleck berkman." "is that you, aleck? this is johnny." there is a familiar ring about the young voice, broken by piteous moans. but i fail to identify it. "what johnny?" "johnny davis--you know--stocking shop. i've just--killed a man." in bewilderment i listen to the story, told with bursts of weeping. johnny had returned to the shop; he thought he would try again: he wanted to earn his "good" time. things went well for a while, till "dutch" adams became shop runner. he is the stool who got grant and johnny smith in trouble with the fake key, and davis would have nothing to do with him. but "dutch" persisted, pestering him all the time; and then-- "well, you know, aleck," the boy seems diffident, "he lied about me like hell: he told the fellows he _used_ me. christ, my mother might hear about it! i couldn't stand it, aleck; honest to god, i couldn't. i--i killed the lying cur, an' now--now i'll--i'll swing for it," he sobs as if his heart would break. a touch of tenderness for the poor boy is in my voice, as i strive to condole with him and utter the hope that it may not be so bad, after all. perhaps adams will not die. he is a powerful man, big and strong; he may survive. johnny eagerly clutches at the straw. he grows more cheerful, and we talk of the coming investigation and local affairs. perhaps the board will even clear him, he suggests. but suddenly seized with fear, he weeps and moans again. more men are cast into the dungeon. they bring news from the world above. an epidemic of fighting seems to have broken out in the wake of recent orders. the total inhibition of talking is resulting in more serious offences. "kid tommy" is enlarging upon his trouble. "you see, fellers," he cries in a treble, "dat skunk of a pete he pushes me in de line, and i turns round t' give 'im hell, but de screw pipes me. got no chance t' choo, so i turns an' biffs him on de jaw, see?" but he is sure, he says, to be let out at night, or in the morning, at most. "them fellers that was scrappin' yesterday in de yard didn't go to de hole. dey jest put 'em in de cell. sandy knows de committee's comin' all right." johnny interrupts the loquacious boy to inquire anxiously about "dutch" adams, and i share his joy at hearing that the man's wound is not serious. he was cut about the shoulders, but was able to walk unassisted to the hospital. johnny overflows with quiet happiness; the others dance and sing. i recite a poem from nekrassov; the boys don't understand a word, but the sorrow-laden tones appeal to them, and they request more russian "pieces." but tommy is more interested in politics, and is bristling with the latest news from the magee camp. he is a great admirer of quay,--"dere's a smart guy fer you, fellers; owns de whole keystone shebang all right, all right. he's boss quay, you bet you." he dives into national issues, rails at bryan, " to bill, you jest list'n to 'm, he'll give sixteen dollars to every one; he will, nit!" and the boys are soon involved in a heated discussion of the respective merits of the two political parties, tommy staunchly siding with the republican. "me gran'fader and me fader was republicans," he vociferates, "an' all me broders vote de ticket. me fer de gran' ole party, ev'ry time." some one twits him on his political wisdom, challenging the boy to explain the difference in the money standards. tommy boldly appeals to me to corroborate him; but before i have an opportunity to speak, he launches upon other issues, berating spain for her atrocities in cuba, and insisting that this free country cannot tolerate slavery at its doors. every topic is discussed, with tommy orating at top speed, and continually broaching new subjects. unexpectedly he reverts to local affairs, waxes reminiscent over former days, and loudly smacks his lips at the "great feeds" he enjoyed on the rare occasions when he was free to roam the back streets of smoky city. "say, aleck, my boy," he calls to me familiarly, "many a penny i made on _you_, all right. how? why, peddlin' extras, of course! say, dem was fine days, all right; easy money; papers went like hot cakes off the griddle. wish you'd do it again, aleck." * * * * * invisible to each other, we chat, exchange stories and anecdotes, the boys talking incessantly, as if fearful of silence. but every now and then there is a lull; we become quiet, each absorbed in his own thoughts. the pauses lengthen--lengthen into silence. only the faint steps of "crazy smith" disturb the deep stillness. * * * * * late in the evening the young prisoners are relieved. but johnny remains, and his apprehensions reawaken. repeatedly during the night he rouses me from my drowsy torpor to be reassured that he is not in danger of the gallows, and that he will not be tried for his assault. i allay his fears by dwelling on the warden's aversion to giving publicity to the sex practices in the prison, and remind the boy of the captain's official denial of their existence. these things happen almost every week, yet no one has ever been taken to court from riverside on such charges. johnny grows more tranquil, and we converse about his family history, talking in a frank, confidential manner. with a glow of pleasure, i become aware of the note of tenderness in his voice. presently he surprises me by asking: "friend aleck, what do they call you in russian?" he prefers the fond "sashenka," enunciating the strange word with quaint endearment, then diffidently confesses dislike for his own name, and relates the story he had recently read of a poor castaway cuban youth; felipe was his name, and he was just like himself. "shall i call you felipe?" i offer. "yes, please do, aleck, dear; no, sashenka." the springs of affection well up within me, as i lie huddled on the stone floor, cold and hungry. with closed eyes, i picture the boy before me, with his delicate face, and sensitive, girlish lips. "good night, dear sashenka," he calls. "good night, little felipe." * * * * * in the morning we are served with a slice of bread and water. i am tormented with thirst and hunger, and the small ration fails to assuage my sharp pangs. smithy still refuses to drink out of the deputy's hand; his doors remain unopened. with tremulous anxiety johnny begs the deputy warden to tell him how much longer he will remain in the dungeon, but greaves curtly commands silence, applying a vile epithet to the boy. "deputy," i call, boiling over with indignation, "he asked you a respectful question. i'd give him a decent answer." "you mind your own business, you hear?" he retorts. but i persist in defending my young friend, and berate the deputy for his language. he hastens away in a towering passion, menacing me with "what smithy got." johnny is distressed at being the innocent cause of the trouble. the threat of the deputy disquiets him, and he warns me to prepare. my cell is provided with a double entrance, and i am apprehensive of a sudden attack. but the hours pass without the deputy returning, and our fears are allayed. the boy rejoices on my account, and brims over with appreciation of my intercession. the incident cements our intimacy; our first diffidence disappears, and we become openly tender and affectionate. the conversation lags: we feel weak and worn. but every little while we hail each other with words of encouragement. smithy incessantly paces the cell; the gnawing of the river rats reaches our ears; the silence is frequently pierced by the wild yells of the insane man, startling us with dread foreboding. the quiet grows unbearable, and johnny calls again: "what are you doing, sashenka?" "oh, nothing. just thinking, felipe." "am i in your thoughts, dear?" "yes, kiddie, you are." "sasha, dear, i've been thinking, too." "what, felipe?" "you are the only one i care for. i haven't a friend in the whole place." "do you care much for me, felipe?" "will you promise not to laugh at me, sashenka?" "i wouldn't laugh at you." "cross your hand over your heart. got it, sasha?" "yes." "well, i'll tell you. i was thinking--how shall i tell you? i was thinking, sashenka--if you were here with me--i would like to kiss you." an unaccountable sense of joy glows in my heart, and i muse in silence. "what's the matter, sashenka? why don't you say something? are you angry with me?" "no, felipe, you foolish little boy." "you are laughing at me." "no, dear; i feel just as you do." "really?" "yes." "oh, i am so glad, sashenka." * * * * * in the evening the guards descend to relieve johnny; he is to be transferred to the basket, they inform him. on the way past my cell, he whispers: "hope i'll see you soon, sashenka." a friendly officer knocks on the outer blind door of my cell. "that you thar, berkman? you want to b'have to th' dep'ty. he's put you down for two more days for sassin' him." i feel more lonesome at the boy's departure. the silence grows more oppressive, the hours of darkness heavier. * * * * * seven days i remain in the dungeon. at the expiration of the week, feeling stiff and feeble, i totter behind the guards, on the way to the bathroom. my body looks strangely emaciated, reduced almost to a skeleton. the pangs of hunger revive sharply with the shock of the cold shower, and the craving for tobacco is overpowering at the sight of the chewing officers. i look forward to being placed in a cell, quietly exulting at my victory as i am led to the north wing. but, in the cell-house, the deputy warden assigns me to the lower end of range a, insane department. exasperated by the terrible suggestion, my nerves on edge with the dungeon experience, i storm in furious protest, demanding to be returned to "the hole." the deputy, startled by my violence, attempts to soothe me, and finally yields. i am placed in number , the "crank row" beginning several cells further. upon the heels of the departing officers, the rangeman is at my door, bursting with the latest news. the investigation is over, the warden whitewashed! for an instant i am aghast, failing to grasp the astounding situation. slowly its full significance dawns on me, as bill excitedly relates the story. it's the talk of the prison. the board of charities had chosen its secretary, j. francis torrance, an intimate friend of the warden, to conduct the investigation. as a precautionary measure, i was kept several additional days in the dungeon. mr. torrance has privately interviewed "dutch" adams, young smithy, and bob runyon, promising them their full commutation time, notwithstanding their bad records, and irrespective of their future behavior. they were instructed by the secretary to corroborate the management, placing all blame upon me! no other witnesses were heard. the "investigation" was over within an hour, the committee of one retiring for dinner to the adjoining residence of the warden. several friendly prisoners linger at my cell during the afternoon, corroborating the story of the rangeman, and completing the details. the cell-house itself bears out the situation; the change in the personnel of the men is amazing. "dutch" adams has been promoted to messenger for the "front office," the most privileged "political" job in the prison. bob runyon, a third-timer and notorious "kid man," has been appointed a trusty in the shops. but the most significant cue is the advancement of young smithy to the position of rangeman. he has but recently been sentenced to a year's solitary for the broken key discovered in the lock of his door. his record is of the worst. he is a young convict of extremely violent temper, who has repeatedly attacked fellow-prisoners with dangerous weapons. since his murderous assault upon the inoffensive "praying andy," smithy was never permitted out of his cell without the escort of two guards. and now this irresponsible man is in charge of a range! * * * * * at supper, young smithy steals up to my cell, bringing a slice of cornbread. i refuse the peace offering, and charge him with treachery. at first he stoutly protests his innocence, but gradually weakens and pleads his dire straits in mitigation. torrance had persuaded him to testify, but he avoided incriminating me. that was done by the other two witnesses; he merely exonerated the warden from the charges preferred by james grant. he had been clubbed four times, but he denied to the committee that the guards practice violence; and he supported the warden in his statement that the officers are not permitted to carry clubs or blackjacks. he feels that an injustice has been done me, and now that he occupies my former position, he will be able to repay the little favors i did him when he was in solitary. indignantly i spurn his offer. he pleads his youth, the torture of the cell, and begs my forgiveness; but i am bitter at his treachery, and bid him go. officer mcilvaine pauses at my door. "oh, what a change, what an awful change!" he exclaims, pityingly. i don't know whether he refers to my appearance, or to the loss of range liberty; but i resent his tone of commiseration; it was he who had selected me as a victim, to be reported for talking. angrily i turn my back to him, refusing to talk. somebody stealthily pushes a bundle of newspapers between the bars. whole columns detail the report of the "investigation," completely exonerating warden edward s. wright. the base charges against the management of the penitentiary were the underhand work of anarchist berkman, mr. torrance assured the press. one of the papers contains a lengthy interview with wright, accusing me of fostering discontent and insubordination among the men. the captain expresses grave fear for the safety of the community, should the pardon board reduce my sentence, in view of the circumstance that my lawyers are preparing to renew the application at the next session. in great agitation i pace the cell. the statement of the warden is fatal to the hope of a pardon. my life in the prison will now be made still more unbearable. i shall again be locked in solitary. with despair i think of my fate in the hands of the enemy, and the sense of my utter helplessness overpowers me. chapter xxviii for safety dear k.: i know you must have been worried about me. give no credence to the reports you hear. i did not try to suicide. i was very nervous and excited over the things that happened while i was in the dungeon. i saw the papers after i came up--you know what they said. i couldn't sleep; i kept pacing the floor. the screws were hanging about my cell, but i paid no attention to them. they spoke to me, but i wouldn't answer: i was in no mood for talking. they must have thought something wrong with me. the doctor came, and felt my pulse, and they took me to the hospital. the warden rushed in and ordered me into a strait-jacket. "for safety," he said. you know officer erwin; he put the jacket on me. he's a pretty decent chap; i saw he hated to do it. but the evening screw is a rat. he called three times during the night, and every time he'd tighten the straps. i thought he'd cut my hands off; but i wouldn't cry for mercy, and that made him wild. they put me in the "full size" jacket that winds all around you, the arms folded. they laid me, tied in the canvas, on the bed, bound me to it feet and chest, with straps provided with padlocks. i was suffocating in the hot ward; could hardly breathe. in the morning they unbound me. my legs were paralyzed, and i could not stand up. the doctor ordered some medicine for me. the head nurse (he's in for murder, and he's rotten) taunted me with the "black bottle." every time he passed my bed, he'd say: "you still alive? wait till i fix something up for you." i refused the medicine, and then they took me down to the dispensary, lashed me to a chair, and used the pump on me. you can imagine how i felt. that went on for a week; every night in the strait-jacket, every morning the pump. now i am back in the block, in a. a peculiar coincidence,--it's the same cell i occupied when i first came here. don't trust bill say. the warden told me he knew about the note i sent you just before i smashed up. if you got it, bill must have read it and told sandy. only dear old horsethief can be relied upon. how near the boundary of joy is misery! i shall never forget the first morning in the jacket. i passed a restless night, but just as it began to dawn i must have lost consciousness. suddenly i awoke with the most exquisite music in my ears. it seemed to me as if the heavens had opened in a burst of ecstasy.... it was only a little sparrow, but never before in my life did i hear such sweet melody. i felt murder in my heart when the convict nurse drove the poor birdie from the window ledge. a. chapter xxix dreams of freedom i like an endless _miserere_ are the days in the solitary. no glimmer of light cheers the to-morrows. in the depths of suffering, existence becomes intolerable; and as of old, i seek refuge in the past. the stages of my life reappear as the acts of a drama which i cannot bring myself to cut short. the possibilities of the dark motive compel the imagination, and halt the thought of destruction. misery magnifies the estimate of self; the vehemence of revolt strengthens to endure. despair engenders obstinate resistance; in its spirit hope is trembling. slowly it assumes more definite shape: escape is the sole salvation. the world of the living is dim and unreal with distance; its voice reaches me like the pale echo of fantasy; the thought of its turbulent vitality is strange with apprehension. but the present is bitter with wretchedness, and gasps desperately for relief. the efforts of my friends bring a glow of warmth into my life. the indefatigable girl has succeeded in interesting various circles: she is gathering funds for my application for a rehearing before the pardon board in the spring of ' , when my first sentence of seven years will have expired. with a touch of old-time tenderness, i think of her loyalty, her indomitable perseverance in my behalf. it is she, almost she alone, who has kept my memory green throughout the long years. even fedya, my constant chum, has been swirled into the vortex of narrow ambition and self-indulgence, the plaything of commonplace fate. resentment at being thus lightly forgotten tinges my thoughts of the erstwhile twin brother of our ideal-kissed youth. by contrast, the girl is silhouetted on my horizon as the sole personification of revolutionary persistence, the earnest of its realization. beyond, all is darkness--the mystic world of falsehood and sham, that will hate and persecute me even as its brutal high priests in the prison. here and there the gloom is rent: an unknown sympathizer, or comrade, sends a greeting; i pore eagerly over the chirography, and from the clear, decisive signature, "voltairine de cleyre," strive to mold the character and shape the features of the writer. to the girl i apply to verify my "reading," and rejoice in the warm interest of the convent-educated american, a friend of my much-admired comrade dyer d. lum, who is aiding the girl in my behalf. but the efforts for a rehearing wake no hope in my heart. my comrades, far from the prison world, do not comprehend the full significance of the situation resulting from the investigation. my underground connections are paralyzed; i cannot enlighten the girl. but nold and bauer are on the threshold of liberty. within two months carl will carry my message to new york. i can fully rely on his discretion and devotion; we have grown very intimate through common suffering. he will inform the girl that nothing is to be expected from legal procedure; instead, he will explain to her the plan i have evolved. my position as rangeman has served me to good advantage. i have thoroughly familiarized myself with the institution; i have gathered information and explored every part of the cell-house offering the least likelihood of an escape. the prison is almost impregnable; tom's attempt to scale the wall proved disastrous, in spite of his exceptional opportunities as kitchen employee, and the thick fog of the early morning. several other attempts also were doomed to failure, the great number of guards and their vigilance precluding success. no escape has taken place since the days of paddy mcgraw, before the completion of the prison. entirely new methods must be tried: the road to freedom leads underground! but digging _out_ of the prison is impracticable in the modern structure of steel and rock. we must force a passage _into_ the prison: the tunnel is to be dug from the outside! a house is to be rented in the neighborhood of the penitentiary, and the underground passage excavated beneath the eastern wall, toward the adjacent bath-house. no officers frequent the place save at certain hours, and i shall find an opportunity to disappear into the hidden opening on the regular biweekly occasions when the solitaries are permitted to bathe. the project will require careful preparation and considerable expense. skilled comrades will have to be entrusted with the secret work, the greater part of which must be carried on at night. determination and courage will make the plan feasible, successful. such things have been done before. not in this country, it is true. but the act will receive added significance from the circumstance that the liberation of the first american political prisoner has been accomplished by means similar to those practised by our comrades in russia. who knows? it may prove the symbol and precursor of russian idealism on american soil. and what tremendous impression the consummation of the bold plan will make! what a stimulus to our propaganda, as a demonstration of anarchist initiative and ability! i glow with the excitement of its great possibilities, and enthuse carl with my hopes. if the preparatory work is hastened, the execution of the plan will be facilitated by the renewed agitation within the prison. rumors of a legislative investigation are afloat, diverting the thoughts of the administration into different channels. i shall foster the ferment to afford my comrades greater safety in the work. * * * * * during the long years of my penitentiary life i have formed many friendships. i have earned the reputation of a "square man" and a "good fellow," have received many proofs of confidence, and appreciation of my uncompromising attitude toward the generally execrated management. most of my friends observe the unwritten ethics of informing me of their approaching release, and offer to smuggle out messages or to provide me with little comforts. i invariably request them to visit the newspapers and to relate their experiences in riverside. some express fear of the warden's enmity, of the fatal consequences in case of their return to the penitentiary. but the bolder spirits and the accidental offenders, who confidently bid me a final good-bye, unafraid of return, call directly from the prison on the pittsburgh editors. presently the _leader_ and the _dispatch_ begin to voice their censure of the hurried whitewash by the state board of charities. the attitude of the press encourages the guards to manifest their discontent with the humiliating eccentricities of the senile warden. they protest against the whim subjecting them to military drill to improve their appearance, and resent captain wright's insistence that they patronize his private tailor, high-priced and incompetent. serious friction has also arisen between the management and mr. sawhill, superintendent of local industries. the prisoners rejoice at the growing irascibility of the warden, and the deeper lines on his face, interpreting them as signs of worry and fear. expectation of a new investigation is at high pitch as judge gordon, of philadelphia, severely censures the administration of the eastern penitentiary, charging inhuman treatment, abuse of the insane, and graft. the labor bodies of the state demand the abolition of convict competition, and the press becomes more assertive in urging an investigation of both penitentiaries. the air is charged with rumors of legislative action. ii the breath of spring is in the cell-house. my two comrades are jubilant. the sweet odor of may wafts the resurrection! but the threshold of life is guarded by the throes of new birth. a tone of nervous excitement permeates their correspondence. anxiety tortures the sleepless nights; the approaching return to the living is tinged with the disquietude of the unknown, the dread of the renewed struggle for existence. but the joy of coming emancipation, the wine of sunshine and liberty tingles in every fiber, and hope flutters its disused wings. our plans are complete. carl is to visit the girl, explain my project, and serve as the medium of communication by means of our prearranged system, investing apparently innocent official letters with _sub rosa_ meaning. the initial steps will require time. meanwhile "k" and "g" are to make the necessary arrangements for the publication of our book. the security of our manuscripts is a source of deep satisfaction and much merriment at the expense of the administration. the repeated searches have failed to unearth them. with characteristic daring, the faithful bob had secreted them in a hole in the floor of his shop, almost under the very seat of the guard. one by one they have been smuggled outside by a friendly officer, whom we have christened "schraube."[ ] by degrees nold has gained the confidence of the former mill-worker, with the result that sixty precious booklets now repose safely with a comrade in allegheny. i am to supply the final chapters of the book through mr. schraube, whose friendship carl is about to bequeath to me. [ ] german for "screw." * * * * * the month of may is on the wane. the last note is exchanged with my comrades. dear bob was not able to reach me in the morning, and now i read the lines quivering with the last pangs of release, while nold and bauer are already beyond the walls. how i yearned for a glance at carl, to touch hands, even in silence! but the customary privilege was refused us. only once in the long years of our common suffering have i looked into the eyes of my devoted friend, and stealthily pressed his hand, like a thief in the night. no last greeting was vouchsafed me to-day. the loneliness seems heavier, the void more painful. the routine is violently disturbed. reading and study are burdensome: my thoughts will not be compelled. they revert obstinately to my comrades, and storm against my steel cage, trying to pierce the distance, to commune with the absent. i seek diversion in the manufacture of prison "fancy work," ornamental little fruit baskets, diminutive articles of furniture, picture frames, and the like. the little momentos, constructed of tissue-paper rolls of various design, i send to the girl, and am elated at her admiration of the beautiful workmanship and attractive color effects. but presently she laments the wrecked condition of the goods, and upon investigation i learn from the runner that the most dilapidated cardboard boxes are selected for my product. the rotunda turnkey, in charge of the shipments, is hostile, and i appeal to the chaplain. but his well-meant intercession results in an order from the warden, interdicting the expressage of my work, on the ground of probable notes being secreted therein. i protest against the discrimination, suggesting the dismembering of every piece to disprove the charge. but the captain derisively remarks that he is indisposed to "take chances," and i am forced to resort to the subterfuge of having my articles transferred to a friendly prisoner and addressed by him to his mother in beaver, pa., thence to be forwarded to new york. at the same time the rotunda keeper detains a valuable piece of ivory sent to me by the girl for the manufacture of ornamental toothpicks. the local ware, made of kitchen bones bleached in lime, turns yellow in a short time. my request for the ivory is refused on the plea of submitting the matter to the warden's decision, who rules against me. i direct the return of it to my friend, but am informed that the ivory has been mislaid and cannot be found. exasperated, i charge the guard with the theft, and serve notice that i shall demand the ivory at the expiration of my time. the turnkey jeers at the wild impossibility, and i am placed for a week on "pennsylvania diet" for insulting an officer. chapter xxx whitewashed again christmas, . my dear carl: i have been despairing of reaching you _sub rosa_, but the holidays brought the usual transfers, and at last friend schraube is with me. dear carolus, i am worn out with the misery of the months since you left, and the many disappointments. your official letters were not convincing. i fail to understand why the plan is not practicable. of course, you can't write openly, but you have means of giving a hint as to the "impossibilities" you speak of. you say that i have become too estranged from the outside, and so forth--which may be true. yet i think the matter chiefly concerns the inside, and of that i am the best judge. i do not see the force of your argument when you dwell upon the application at the next session of the pardon board. you mean that the other plan would jeopardize the success of the legal attempt. but there is not much hope of favorable action by the board. you have talked all this over before, but you seem to have a different view now. why? only in a very small measure do your letters replace in my life the heart-to-heart talks we used to have here, though they were only on paper. but i am much interested in your activities. it seems strange that you, so long the companion of my silence, should now be in the very niagara of life, of our movement. it gives me great satisfaction to know that your experience here has matured you, and helped to strengthen and deepen your convictions. it has had a similar effect upon me. you know what a voluminous reader i am. i have read--in fact, studied--every volume in the library here, and now the chaplain supplies me with books from his. but whether it be philosophy, travel, or contemporary life that falls into my hands, it invariably distils into my mind the falsity of dominant ideas, and the beauty, the inevitability of anarchism. but i do not want to enlarge upon this subject now; we can discuss it through official channels. you know that tony and his nephew are here. we are just getting acquainted. he works in the shop; but as he is also coffee-boy, we have an opportunity to exchange notes. it is fortunate that his identity is not known; otherwise he would fall under special surveillance. i have my eyes on tony,--he may prove valuable. i am still in solitary, with no prospect of relief. you know the policy of the warden to use me as a scapegoat for everything that happens here. it has become a mania with him. think of it, he blames me for johnny davis' cutting "dutch." he laid everything at my door when the legislative investigation took place. it was a worse sham than the previous whitewash. several members called to see me at the cell,--unofficially, they said. they got a hint of the evidence i was prepared to give, and one of them suggested to me that it is not advisable for one in my position to antagonize the warden. i replied that i was no toady. he hinted that the authorities of the prison might help me to procure freedom, if i would act "discreetly." i insisted that i wanted to be heard by the committee. they departed, promising to call me as a witness. one senator remarked, as he left: "you are too intelligent a man to be at large." when the hearing opened, several officers were the first to take the stand. the testimony was not entirely favorable to the warden. then mr. sawhill was called. you know him; he is an independent sort of man, with an eye upon the wardenship. his evidence came like a bomb; he charged the management with corruption and fraud, and so forth. the investigators took fright. they closed the sessions and departed for harrisburg, announcing through the press that they would visit moyamensing[ ] and then return to riverside. but they did not return. the report they submitted to the governor exonerated the warden. the men were gloomy over the state of affairs. a hundred prisoners were prepared to testify, and much was expected from the committee. i had all my facts on hand: bob had fished out for me the bundle of material from its hiding place. it was in good condition, in spite of the long soaking. (i am enclosing some new data in this letter, for use in our book.) now that he is "cleared," the warden has grown even more arrogant and despotic. yet _some_ good the agitation in the press has accomplished: clubbings are less frequent, and the bull ring is temporarily abolished. but his hatred of me has grown venomous. he holds us responsible (together with dempsey and beatty) for organizing the opposition to convict labor, which has culminated in the muehlbronner law. it is to take effect on the first of the year. the prison administration is very bitter, because the statute, which permits only thirty-five per cent. of the inmates to be employed in productive labor, will considerably minimize opportunities for graft. but the men are rejoicing: the terrible slavery in the shops has driven many to insanity and death. the law is one of the rare instances of rational legislation. its benefit to labor in general is nullified, however, by limiting convict competition only within the state. the inspectors are already seeking a market for the prison products in other states, while the convict manufactures of new york, ohio, illinois, etc., are disposed of in pennsylvania. the irony of beneficent legislation! on the other hand, the inmates need not suffer for lack of employment. the new law allows the unlimited manufacture, within the prison, of products for local consumption. if the whine of the management regarding the "detrimental effect of idleness on the convict" is sincere, they could employ five times the population of the prison in the production of articles for our own needs. at present all the requirements of the penitentiary are supplied from the outside. the purchase of a farm, following the example set by the workhouse, would alone afford work for a considerable number of men. i have suggested, in a letter to the inspectors, various methods by which every inmate of the institution could be employed,--among them the publication of a prison paper. of course, they have ignored me. but what can you expect of a body of philanthropists who have the interest of the convict so much at heart that they delegated the president of the board, george a. kelly, to oppose the parole bill, a measure certainly along advanced lines of modern criminology. owing to the influence of inspector kelly, the bill was shelved at the last session of the legislature, though the prisoners have been praying for it for years. it has robbed the moneyless lifetimers of their last hope: a clause in the parole bill held out to them the promise of release after years of good behavior. dark days are in store for the men. apparently the campaign of the inspectors consists in forcing the repeal of the muehlbronner law, by raising the hue and cry of insanity and sickness. they are actually causing both by keeping half the population locked up. you know how quickly the solitary drives certain classes of prisoners insane. especially the more ignorant element, whose mental horizon is circumscribed by their personal troubles and pain, speedily fall victims. think of men, who cannot even read, put _incommunicado_ for months at a time, for years even! most of the colored prisoners, and those accustomed to outdoor life, such as farmers and the like quickly develop the germs of consumption in close confinement. now, this wilful murder--for it is nothing else--is absolutely unnecessary. the yard is big and well protected by the thirty-foot wall, with armed guards patrolling it. why not give the unemployed men air and exercise, since the management is determined to keep them idle? i suggested the idea to the warden, but he berated me for my "habitual interference" in matters that do not concern me. i often wonder at the enigma of human nature. there's the captain, a man years old. he should bethink himself of death, of "meeting his maker," since he pretends to believe in religion. instead, he is bending all his energies to increase insanity and disease among the convicts, in order to force the repeal of the law that has lessened the flow of blood money. it is almost beyond belief; but you have yourself witnessed the effect of a brutal atmosphere upon new officers. wright has been warden for thirty years; he has come to regard the prison as his undisputed dominion; and now he is furious at the legislative curtailment of his absolute control. this letter will remind you of our bulky notes in the "good" old days when "kg" were here. i miss our correspondence. there are some intelligent men on the range, but they are not interested in the thoughts that seethe within me and call for expression. just now the chief topic of local interest (after, of course, the usual discussion of the grub, women, kids, and their health and troubles) is the spanish war and the new dining-room, in which the shop employees are to be fed _en masse_, out of chinaware, think of it! some of the men are tremendously patriotic; others welcome the war as a sinecure affording easy money and plenty of excitement. you remember young butch and his partners, murtha, tommy, etc. they have recently been released, too wasted and broken in health to be fit for manual labor. all of them have signified their intention of joining the insurrection; some are enrolling in the regular army for the war. butch is already in cuba. i had a letter from him. there is a passage in it that is tragically characteristic. he refers to a skirmish he participated in. "we shot a lot of spaniards, mostly from ambush," he writes; "it was great sport." it is the attitude of the military adventurer, to whom a sacred cause like the cuban uprising unfortunately affords the opportunity to satisfy his lust for blood. butch was a very gentle boy when he entered the prison. but he has witnessed much heartlessness and cruelty during his term of three years. letter growing rather long. good night. a. [ ] the eastern penitentiary at philadelphia, pa. chapter xxxi "and by all forgot. we rot and rot" i a year of solitary has wasted my strength, and left me feeble and languid. my expectations of relief from complete isolation have been disappointed. existence is grim with despair, as day by day i feel my vitality ebbing; the long nights are tortured with insomnia; my body is racked with constant pains. all my heart is dark. a glimmer of light breaks through the clouds, as the session of the pardon board approaches. i clutch desperately at the faint hope of a favorable decision. with feverish excitement i pore over the letters of the girl, breathing cheer and encouraging news. my application is supported by numerous labor bodies, she writes. comrade harry kelly has been tireless in my behalf; the success of his efforts to arouse public sympathy augurs well for the application. the united labor league of pennsylvania, representing over a hundred thousand toilers, has passed a resolution favoring my release. together with other similar expressions, individual and collective, it will be laid before the pardon board, and it is confidently expected that the authorities will not ignore the voice of organized labor. in a ferment of anxiety and hope i count the days and hours, irritable with impatience and apprehension as i near the fateful moment. visions of liberty flutter before me, glorified by the meeting with the girl and my former companions, and i thrill with the return to the world, as i restlessly pace the cell in the silence of the night. the thought of my prison friends obtrudes upon my visions. with the tenderness born of common misery i think of their fate, resolving to brighten their lives with little comforts and letters, that mean so much to every prisoner. my first act in liberty shall be in memory of the men grown close to me with the kinship of suffering, the unfortunates endeared by awakened sympathy and understanding. for so many years i have shared with them the sorrows and the few joys of penitentiary life, i feel almost guilty to leave them. but henceforth their cause shall be mine, a vital part of the larger, social cause. it will be my constant endeavor to ameliorate their condition, and i shall strain every effort for my little friend felipe; i must secure his release. how happy the boy will be to join me in liberty!... the flash of the dark lantern dispels my fantasies, and again i walk the cell in vehement misgiving and fervent hope of to-morrow's verdict. at noon i am called to the warden. he must have received word from the board,--i reflect on the way. the captain lounges in the armchair, his eyes glistening, his seamed face yellow and worried. with an effort i control my impatience as he offers me a seat. he bids the guard depart, and a wild hope trembles in me. he is not afraid,--perhaps good news! "sit down, berkman," he speaks with unwonted affability. "i have just received a message from harrisburg. your attorney requests me to inform you that the pardon board has now reached your case. it is probably under consideration at this moment." i remain silent. the warden scans me closely. "you would return to new york, if released?" he inquires. "yes." "what are your plans?" "well, i have not formed any yet." "you would go back to your anarchist friends?" "certainly." "you have not changed your views?" "by no means." a turnkey enters. "captain, on official business," he reports. "wait here a moment, berkman," the warden remarks, withdrawing. the officer remains. in a few minutes the warden returns, motioning to the guard to leave. "i have just been informed that the board has refused you a hearing." i feel the cold perspiration running down my back. the prison rumors of the warden's interference flash through my mind. the board promised a rehearing at the previous application,--why this refusal? "warden," i exclaim, "you objected to my pardon!" "such action lies with the inspectors," he replies evasively. the peculiar intonation strengthens my suspicions. a feeling of hopelessness possesses me. i sense the warden's gaze fastened on me, and i strive to control my emotion. "how much time have you yet?" he asks. "over eleven years." "how long have you been locked up this time?" "sixteen months." "there is a vacancy on your range. the assistant hallman is going home to-morrow. you would like the position?" he eyes me curiously. "yes." "i'll consider it." i rise weakly, but he detains me: "by the way, berkman, look at this." he holds up a small wooden box, disclosing several casts of plaster of paris. i wonder at the strange proceeding. "you know what they are?" he inquires. "plaster casts, i think." "of what? for what purpose? look at them well, now." i glance indifferently at the molds bearing the clear impression of an eagle. "it's the cast of a silver dollar, i believe." "i am glad you speak truthfully. i had no doubt you would know. i examined your library record and found that you have drawn books on metallurgy." "oh, you suspect me of this?" i flare up. "no, not this time," he smiles in a suggestive manner. "you have drawn practically every book from the library. i had a talk with the chaplain, and he is positive that you would not be guilty of counterfeiting, because it would be robbing poor people." "the reading of my letters must have familiarized the chaplain with anarchist ideas." "yes, mr. milligan thinks highly of you. you might antagonize the management, but he assures me you would not abet such a crime." "i am glad to hear it." "you would protect the federal government, then?" "i don't understand you." "you would protect the people from being cheated by counterfeit money?" "the government and the people are not synonymous." flushing slightly, and frowning, he asks: "but you would protect the poor?" "yes, certainly." his face brightens. "oh, quite so, quite so," he smiles reassuringly. "these molds were found hidden in the north block. no; not in a cell, but in the hall. we suspect a certain man. it's ed sloane; he is located two tiers above you. now, berkman, the management is very anxious to get to the bottom of this matter. it's a crime against the people. you may have heard sloane speaking to his neighbors about this." "no. i am sure you suspect an innocent person." "how so?" "sloane is a very sick man. it's the last thing he'd think of." "well, we have certain reasons for suspecting him. if you should happen to hear anything, just rap on the door and inform the officers you are ill. they will be instructed to send for me at once." "i can't do it, warden." "why not?" he demands. "i am not a spy." "why, certainly not, berkman. i should not ask you to be. but you have friends on the range, you may learn something. well, think the matter over," he adds, dismissing me. bitter disappointment at the action of the board, indignation at the warden's suggestion, struggle within me as i reach my cell. the guard is about to lock me in, when the deputy warden struts into the block. "officer, unlock him," he commands. "berkman, the captain says you are to be assistant rangeman. report to mr. mcilvaine for a broom." ii the unexpected relief strengthens the hope of liberty. local methods are of no avail, but now my opportunities for escape are more favorable. considerable changes have taken place during my solitary, and the first necessity is to orient myself. some of my confidants have been released; others were transferred during the investigation period to the south wing, to disrupt my connections. new men are about the cell-house and i miss many of my chums. the lower half of the bottom ranges a and k is now exclusively occupied by the insane, their numbers greatly augmented. poor wingie has disappeared. grown violently insane, he was repeatedly lodged in the dungeon, and finally sent to an asylum. there my unfortunate friend had died after two months. his cell is now occupied by "irish mike," a good-natured boy, turned imbecile by solitary. he hops about on all fours, bleating: "baah, baah, see the goat. i'm the goat, baah, baah." i shudder at the fate i have escaped, as i look at the familiar faces that were so bright with intelligence and youth, now staring at me from the "crank row," wild-eyed and corpse-like, their minds shattered, their bodies wasted to a shadow. my heart bleeds as i realize that sid and nick fail to recognize me, their memory a total blank; and patsy, the pittsburgh bootblack, stands at the door, motionless, his eyes glassy, lips frozen in an inane smile. from cell to cell i pass the graveyard of the living dead, the silence broken only by intermittent savage yells and the piteous bleating of mike. the whole day these men are locked in, deprived of exercise and recreation, their rations reduced because of "delinquency." new "bughouse cases" are continually added from the ranks of the prisoners forced to remain idle and kept in solitary. the sight of the terrible misery almost gives a touch of consolation to my grief over johnny davis. my young friend had grown ill in the foul basket. he begged to be taken to the hospital; but his condition did not warrant it, the physician said. moreover, he was "in punishment." poor boy, how he must have suffered! they found him dead on the floor of his cell. * * * * * my body renews its strength with the exercise and greater liberty of the range. the subtle hope of the warden to corrupt me has turned to my advantage. i smile with scorn at his miserable estimate of human nature, determined by a lifetime of corruption and hypocrisy. how saddening is the shallowness of popular opinion! warden wright is hailed as a progressive man, a deep student of criminology, who has introduced modern methods in the treatment of prisoners. as an expression of respect and appreciation, the national prison association has selected captain wright as its delegate to the international congress at brussels, which is to take place in . and all the time the warden is designing new forms of torture, denying the pleadings of the idle men for exercise, and exerting his utmost efforts to increase sickness and insanity, in the attempt to force the repeal of the "convict labor" law. the puerility of his judgment fills me with contempt: public sentiment in regard to convict competition with outside labor has swept the state; the efforts of the warden, disastrous though they be to the inmates, are doomed to failure. no less fatuous is the conceit of his boasted experience of thirty years. the so confidently uttered suspicion of ed sloane in regard to the counterfeiting charge, has proved mere lip-wisdom. the real culprit is bob runyon, the trusty basking in the warden's special graces. his intimate friend, john smith, the witness and protégé of torrane, has confided to me the whole story, in a final effort to "set himself straight." he even exhibited to me the coins made by runyon, together with the original molds, cast in the trusty's cell. and poor sloane, still under surveillance, is slowly dying of neglect, the doctor charging him with eating soap to produce symptoms of illness. iii the year passes in a variety of interests. the girl and several newly-won correspondents hold the thread of outside life. the twin has gradually withdrawn from our new york circles, and is now entirely obscured on my horizon. but the girl is staunch and devoted, and i keenly anticipate her regular mail. she keeps me informed of events in the international labor movement, news of which is almost entirely lacking in the daily press. we discuss the revolutionary expressions of the times, and i learn more about pallas and luccheni, whose acts of the previous winter had thrown europe into a ferment of agitation. i hunger for news of the agitation against the tortures in montjuich, the revival of the inquisition rousing in me the spirit of retribution and deep compassion for my persecuted comrades in the spanish bastille. beneath the suppressed tone of her letters, i read the girl's suffering and pain, and feel the heart pangs of her unuttered personal sorrows. presently i am apprised that some prominent persons interested in my case are endeavoring to secure carnegie's signature for a renewed application to the board of pardons. the girl conveys the information guardedly; the absence of comment discovers to me the anguish of soul the step has caused her. what terrible despair had given birth to the suggestion, i wonder. if the project of the underground escape had been put in operation, we should not have had to suffer such humiliation. why have my friends ignored the detailed plan i had submitted to them through carl? i am confident of its feasibility and success, if we can muster the necessary skill and outlay. the animosity of the prison authorities precludes the thought of legal release. the underground route, very difficult and expensive though it be, is the sole hope. it must be realized. my _sub rosa_ communications suspended during the temporary absence of mr. schraube, i hint these thoughts in official mail to the girl, but refrain from objecting to the carnegie idea. other matters of interest i learn from correspondence with friends in philadelphia and pittsburgh. the frequent letters of carl, still reminiscent of his sojourn at riverside, thrill with the joy of active propaganda and of his success as public speaker. voltairine de cleyre and sarah patton lend color to my existence by discursive epistles of great charm and rebellious thought. often i pause to wonder at the miracle of my mail passing the censorial eyes. but the chaplain is a busy man; careful perusal of every letter would involve too great a demand upon his time. the correspondence with mattie i turn over to my neighbor pasquale, a young italian serving sixteen years, who has developed a violent passion for the pretty face on the photograph. the roguish eyes and sweet lips exert but a passing impression upon me. my thoughts turn to johnny, my young friend in the convict grave. deep snow is on the ground; it must be cold beneath the sod. the white shroud is pressing, pressing heavily upon the lone boy, like the suffocating night of the basket cell. but in the spring little blades of green will sprout, and perhaps a rosebud will timidly burst and flower, all white, and perfume the air, and shed its autumn tears upon the convict grave of johnny. chapter xxxii the deviousness of reform law applied february , . dear carolus: the greeks thought the gods spiteful creatures. when things begin to look brighter for man, they grow envious. you'll be surprised,--mr. schraube has turned into an enemy. mostly my own fault; that's the sting of it. it will explain to you the failure of the former _sub rosa_ route. the present one is safe, but very temporary. it happened last fall. from assistant i was advanced to hallman, having charge of the "crank row," on range a. a new order curtailed the rations of the insane,--no cornbread, cheese, or hash; only bread and coffee. as rangeman, i help to "feed," and generally have "extras" left on the wagon,--some one sick, or refusing food, etc. i used to distribute the extras, "on the q. t.," among the men deprived of them. one day, just before christmas, an officer happened to notice patsy chewing a piece of cheese. the poor fellow is quite an imbecile; he did not know enough to hide what i gave him. well, you are aware that "cornbread tom" does not love me. he reported me. i admitted the charge to the warden, and tried to tell him how hungry the men were. he wouldn't hear of it, saying that the insane should not "overload" their stomachs. i was ordered locked up. within a month i was out again, but imagine my surprise when schraube refused even to talk to me. at first i could not fathom the mystery; later i learned that he was reprimanded, losing ten days' pay for "allowing" me to feed the demented. he knew nothing about it, of course, but he was at the time in special charge of "crank row." the schraube has been telling my friends that i got him in trouble wilfully. he seems to nurse his grievance with much bitterness; he apparently hates me now with the hatred we often feel toward those who know our secrets. but he realizes he has nothing to fear from me. many changes have taken place since you left. you would hardly recognize the block if you returned (better stay out, though). no more talking through the waste pipes; the new privies have standing water. electricity is gradually taking the place of candles. the garish light is almost driving me blind, and the innovation has created a new problem: how to light our pipes. we are given the same monthly allowance of matches, each package supposed to contain , but usually have ; and last month i received only . i made a kick, but it was in vain. the worst of it is, fully a third of the matches are damp and don't light. while we used candles we managed somehow, borrowing a few matches occasionally from non-smokers. but now that candles are abolished, the difficulty is very serious. i split each match into four; sometimes i succeed in making six. there is a man on the range who is an artist at it: he can make eight cuts out of a match; all serviceable, too. even at that, there is a famine, and i have been forced to return to the stone age: with flint and tinder i draw the fire of prometheus. the mess-room is in full blast. the sight of a thousand men, bent over their food in complete silence, officers flanking each table, is by no means appetizing. but during the spanish war, the place resembled the cell-house on new year's eve. the patriotic warden daily read to the diners the latest news, and such cheering and wild yelling you have never heard. especially did the hobson exploit fire the spirit of jingoism. but the enthusiasm suddenly cooled when the men realized that they were wasting precious minutes hurrahing, and then leaving the table hungry when the bell terminated the meal. some tried to pocket the uneaten beans and rice, but the guards detected them, and after that the warden's war reports were accompanied only with loud munching and champing. another innovation is exercise. your interviews with the reporters, and those of other released prisoners, have at last forced the warden to allow the idle men an hour's recreation. in inclement weather, they walk in the cell-house; on fine days, in the yard. the reform was instituted last autumn, and the improvement in health is remarkable. the doctor is enthusiastically in favor of the privilege; the sick-line has been so considerably reduced that he estimates his time-saving at two hours daily. some of the boys tell me they have almost entirely ceased masturbating. the shop employees envy the "idlers" now; many have purposely precipitated trouble in order to be put in solitary, and thus enjoy an hour in the open. but sandy "got next," and now those locked up "for cause" are excluded from exercise. here are some data for our book. the population at the end of last year was --the lowest point in over a decade. the warden admits that the war has decreased crime; the inspectors' report refers to the improved economic conditions, as compared with the panicky times of the opening years in the 's. but the authorities do not appear very happy over the reduction in the riverside population. you understand the reason: the smaller the total, the less men may be exploited in the industries. i am not prepared to say whether there is collusion between the judges and the administration of the prison, but it is very significant that the class of offenders formerly sent to the workhouse are being increasingly sentenced to the penitentiary, and an unusual number are transferred here from the reformatory at huntington and the reform school of morganza. the old-timers joke about the warden telephoning to the criminal court, to notify the judges how many men are "wanted" for the stocking shop. the unions might be interested in the methods of nullifying the convict labor law. in every shop twice as many are employed as the statute allows; the "illegal" are carried on the books as men working on "state account"; that is, as cleaners and clerks, not as producers. thus it happens that in the mat shop, for instance, more men are booked as clerks and sweepers than are employed on the looms! in the broom shop there are supposed clerks and cleaners, to a total of producers legally permitted. this is the way the legislation works on which the labor bodies have expended such tremendous efforts. the broom shop is still contracted to lang bros., with their own foreman in charge, and his son a guard in the prison. enough for to-day. when i hear of the safe arrival of this letter, i may have more intimate things to discuss. a. chapter xxxiii the tunnel i the adverse decision of the board of pardons terminates all hope of release by legal means. had the board refused to commute my sentence after hearing the argument, another attempt could be made later on. but the refusal to grant a rehearing, the crafty stratagem to circumvent even the presentation of my case, reveals the duplicity of the previous promise and the guilty consciousness of the illegality of my multiplied sentences. the authorities are determined that i should remain in the prison, confident that it will prove my tomb. realizing this fires my defiance, and all the stubborn resistance of my being. there is no hope of surviving my term. at best, even with the full benefit of the commutation time--which will hardly be granted me, in view of the attitude of the prison management--i still have over nine years to serve. but existence is becoming increasingly more unbearable; long confinement and the solitary have drained my vitality. to endure the nine years is almost a physical impossibility. i must therefore concentrate all my energy and efforts upon escape. my position as rangeman is of utmost advantage. i have access to every part of the cell-house, excepting the "crank row." the incident of feeding the insane has put an embargo upon my communication with them, a special hallboy having been assigned to care for the deranged. but within my area on the range are the recent arrivals and the sane solitaries; the division of my duties with the new man merely facilitates my task, and affords me more leisure. * * * * * the longing for liberty constantly besets my mind, suggesting various projects. the idea of escape daily strengthens into the determination born of despair. it possesses me with an exclusive passion, shaping every thought, molding every action. by degrees i curtail correspondence with my prison chums, that i may devote the solitude of the evening to the development of my plans. the underground tunnel masters my mind with the boldness of its conception, its tremendous possibilities. but the execution! why do my friends regard the matter so indifferently? their tepidity irritates me. often i lash myself into wild anger with carl for having failed to impress my comrades with the feasibility of the plan, to fire them with the enthusiasm of activity. my _sub rosa_ route is sporadic and uncertain. repeatedly i have hinted to my friends the bitter surprise i feel at their provoking indifference; but my reproaches have been studiously ignored. i cannot believe that conditions in the movement preclude the realization of my suggestion. these things have been accomplished in russia. why not in america? the attempt should be made, if only for its propagandistic effect. true, the project will require considerable outlay, and the work of skilled and trustworthy men. have we no such in our ranks? in parsons and lum, this country has produced her zheliabovs; is the genius of america not equal to a hartman?[ ] the tacit skepticism of my correspondents pain me, and rouses my resentment. they evidently lack faith in the judgment of "one who has been so long separated" from their world, from the interests and struggles of the living. the consciousness of my helplessness without aid from the outside gnaws at me, filling my days with bitterness. but i will persevere: i will compel their attention and their activity; aye, their enthusiasm! [ ] hartman engineered the tunnel beneath the moscow railway, undermined in an unsuccessful attempt to kill alexander ii., in . with utmost zeal i cultivate the acquaintance of tony. the months of frequent correspondence and occasional personal meetings have developed a spirit of congeniality and good will. i exert my ingenuity to create opportunities for stolen interviews and closer comradeship. through the aid of a friendly officer, i procure for tony the privilege of assisting his rangeman after shop hours, thus enabling him to communicate with me to greater advantage. gradually we become intimate, and i learn the story of his life, rich in adventure and experience. an alsatian, small and wiry, tony is a man of quick wit, with a considerable dash of the frenchman about him. he is intelligent and daring--the very man to carry out my plan. for days i debate in my mind the momentous question: shall i confide the project to tony? it would be placing myself in his power, jeopardizing the sole hope of my life. yet it is the only way; i must rely on my intuition of the man's worth. my nights are sleepless, excruciating with the agony of indecision. but my friend's sentence is nearing completion. we shall need time for discussion and preparation, for thorough consideration of every detail. at last i resolve to take the decisive step, and next day i reveal the secret to tony. his manner allays apprehension. serene and self-possessed, he listens gravely to my plan, smiles with apparent satisfaction, and briefly announces that it shall be done. only the shining eyes of my reticent comrade betray his elation at the bold scheme, and his joy in the adventure. he is confident that the idea is feasible, suggesting the careful elaboration of details, and the invention of a cipher to insure greater safety for our correspondence. the precaution is necessary; it will prove of inestimable value upon his release. with great circumspection the cryptogram is prepared, based on a discarded system of german shorthand, but somewhat altered, and further involved by the use of words of our own coinage. the cipher, thus perfected, will defy the skill of the most expert. but developments within the prison necessitate changes in the project. the building operations near the bathhouse destroy the serviceability of the latter for my purpose. we consider several new routes, but soon realize that lack of familiarity with the construction of the penitentiary gas and sewer systems may defeat our success. there are no means of procuring the necessary information: tony is confined to the shop, while i am never permitted out of the cell-house. in vain i strive to solve the difficulty; weeks pass without bringing light. my providence comes unexpectedly, in the guise of a fight in the yard. the combatants are locked up on my range. one of them proves to be "mac," an aged prisoner serving a third term. during his previous confinement, he had filled the position of fireman, one of his duties consisting in the weekly flushing of the sewers. he is thoroughly familiar with the underground piping of the yard, but his reputation among the inmates is tinged with the odor of sycophancy. he is, however, the only means of solving my difficulty, and i diligently set myself to gain his friendship. i lighten his solitary by numerous expressions of my sympathy, often secretly supplying him with little extras procured from my kitchen friends. the loquacious old man is glad of an opportunity to converse, and i devote every propitious moment to listening to his long-winded stories of the "great jobs" he had accomplished in "his" time, the celebrated "guns" with whom he had associated, the "great hauls" he had made and "blowed in with th' fellers." i suffer his chatter patiently, encouraging the recital of his prison experiences, and leading him on to dwell upon his last "bit." he becomes reminiscent of his friends in riverside, bewails the early graves of some, others "gone bugs," and rejoices over his good chum patty mcgraw managing to escape. the ever-interesting subject gives "mac" a new start, and he waxes enthusiastic over the ingenuity of patty, while i express surprise that he himself had never attempted to take french leave. "what!" he bristles up, "think i'm such a dummy?" and with great detail he discloses his plan, "'way in th' 's" to swim through the sewer. i scoff at his folly, "you must have been a chump, mac, to think it could be done," i remark. "i was, was i? what do you know about the piping, eh? now, let me tell you. just wait," and, snatching up his library slate, he draws a complete diagram of the prison sewerage. in the extreme southwest corner of the yard he indicates a blind underground alley. "what's this?" i ask, in surprise. "nev'r knew _that_, did yer? it's a little tunn'l, connectin' th' cellar with th' females, see? not a dozen men in th' dump know 't; not ev'n a good many screws. passage ain't been used fer a long time." in amazement i scan the diagram. i had noticed a little trap door at the very point in the yard indicated in the drawing, and i had often wondered what purpose it might serve. my heart dances with joy at the happy solution of my difficulty. the "blind alley" will greatly facilitate our work. it is within fifteen feet, or twenty at most, of the southwestern wall. its situation is very favorable: there are no shops in the vicinity; the place is never visited by guards or prisoners. the happy discovery quickly matures the details of my plan: a house is to be rented opposite the southern wall, on sterling street. preferably it is to be situated very near to the point where the wall adjoins the cell-house building. dug in a direct line across the street, and underneath the south wall, the tunnel will connect with the "blind alley." i shall manage the rest. ii slowly the autumn wanes. the crisp days of the indian summer linger, as if unwilling to depart. but i am impatient with anxiety, and long for the winter. another month, and tony will be free. time lags with tardy step, but at last the weeks dwarf into days, and with joyful heart we count the last hours. to-morrow my friend will greet the sunshine. he will at once communicate with my comrades, and urge the immediate realization of the great plan. his self-confidence and faith will carry conviction, and stir them with enthusiasm for the undertaking. a house is to be bought or rented without loss of time, and the environs inspected. perhaps operations could not begin till spring; meanwhile funds are to be collected to further the work. unfortunately, the girl, a splendid organizer, is absent from the country. but my friends will carefully follow the directions i have entrusted to tony, and through him i shall keep in touch with the developments. i have little opportunity for _sub rosa_ mail; by means of our cipher, however, we can correspond officially, without risk of the censor's understanding, or even suspecting, the innocent-looking flourishes scattered through the page. with the trusted tony my thoughts walk beyond the gates, and again and again i rehearse every step in the project, and study every detail. my mind dwells in the outside. in silent preoccupation i perform my duties on the range. more rarely i converse with the prisoners: i must take care to comply with the rules, and to retain my position. to lose it would be disastrous to all my hopes of escape. as i pass the vacant cell, in which i had spent the last year of my solitary, the piteous chirping of a sparrow breaks in upon my thoughts. the little visitor, almost frozen, hops on the bar above. my assistant swings the duster to drive it away, but the sparrow hovers about the door, and suddenly flutters to my shoulder. in surprise i pet the bird; it seems quite tame. "why, it's dick!" the assistant exclaims. "think of him coming back!" my hands tremble as i examine the little bird. with great joy i discover the faint marks of blue ink i had smeared under its wings last summer, when the warden had ordered my little companion thrown out of the window. how wonderful that it should return and recognize the old friend and the cell! tenderly i warm and feed the bird. what strange sights my little pet must have seen since he was driven out into the world! what struggles and sorrows has he suffered! the bright eyes look cheerily into mine, speaking mute confidence and joy, while he pecks from my hand crumbs of bread and sugar. foolish birdie, to return to prison for shelter and food! cold and cruel must be the world, my little dick; or is it friendship, that is stronger than even love of liberty? so may it be. almost daily i see men pass through the gates and soon return again, driven back by the world--even like you, little dick. yet others there are who would rather go cold and hungry in freedom, than be warm and fed in prison--even like me, little dick. and still others there be who would risk life and liberty for the sake of their friendship--even like you and, i hope, tony, little dick. chapter xxxiv the death of dick _sub rosa_, jan. , . tony: i write in an agony of despair. i am locked up again. it was all on account of my bird. you remember my feathered pet, dick. last summer the warden ordered him put out, but when cold weather set in, dick returned. would you believe it? he came back to my old cell, and recognized me when i passed by. i kept him, and he grew as tame as before--he had become a bit wild in the life outside. on christmas day, as dick was playing near my cell, bob runyon--the stool, you know--came by and deliberately kicked the bird. when i saw dick turn over on his side, his little eyes rolling in the throes of death, i rushed at runyon and knocked him down. he was not hurt much, and everything could have passed off quietly, as no screw was about. but the stool reported me to the deputy, and i was locked up. mitchell has just been talking to me. the good old fellow was fond of dick, and he promises to get me back on the range. he is keeping the position vacant for me, he says; he put a man in my place who has only a few more weeks to serve. then i'm to take charge again. i am not disappointed at your information that "the work" will have to wait till spring. it's unavoidable, but i am happy that preparations have been started. how about those revolvers, though? you haven't changed your mind, i hope. in one of your letters you seem to hint that the matter has been attended to. how can that be? jim, the plumber--you know he can be trusted--has been on the lookout for a week. he assures me that nothing came, so far. why do you delay? i hope you didn't throw the package through the cellar window when jim wasn't at his post. hardly probable. but if you did, what the devil could have become of it? i see no sign here of the things being discovered: there would surely be a terrible hubbub. look to it, and write at once. a. chapter xxxv an alliance with the birds i the disappearance of the revolvers is shrouded in mystery. in vain i rack my brain to fathom the precarious situation; it defies comprehension and torments me with misgivings. jim's certainty that the weapons did not pass between the bars of the cellar, momentarily allays my dread. but tony's vehement insistence that he had delivered the package, throws me into a panic of fear. my firm faith in the two confidants distracts me with uncertainty and suspense. it is incredible that tony should seek to deceive me. yet jim has kept constant vigil at the point of delivery; there is little probability of his having missed the package. but supposing he has, what has become of it? perhaps it fell into some dark corner of the cellar. the place must be searched at once. desperate with anxiety, i resort to the most reckless means to afford jim an opportunity to visit the cellar. i ransack the cell-house for old papers and rags; with miserly hand i gather all odds and ends, broken tools, pieces of wood, a bucketful of sawdust. trembling with fear of discovery, i empty the treasure into the sewer at the end of the hall, and tightly jam the elbow of the waste pipe. the smell of excrement fills the block, the cell privies overrun, and inundate the hall. the stench is overpowering; steadily the water rises, threatening to flood the cell-house. the place is in a turmoil: the solitaries shout and rattle on the bars, the guards rush about in confusion. the block captain yells, "hey, jasper, hurry! call the plumber; get jim. quick!" but repeated investigation of the cellar fails to disclose the weapons. in constant dread of dire possibilities, i tremble at every step, fancying lurking suspicion, sudden discovery, and disaster. but the days pass; the calm of the prison routine is undisturbed, giving no indication of untoward happening or agitation. by degrees my fears subside. the inexplicable disappearance of the revolvers is fraught with danger; the mystery is disquieting, but it has fortunately brought no results, and must apparently remain unsolved. * * * * * unexpectedly my fears are rearoused. called to the desk by officer mitchell for the distribution of the monthly allowance of matches, i casually glance out of the yard door. at the extreme northwestern end, assistant deputy hopkins loiters near the wall, slowly walking on the grass. the unusual presence of the overseer at the abandoned gate wakes my suspicion. the singular idling of the energetic guard, his furtive eyeing of the ground, strengthens my worst apprehensions. something must have happened. are they suspecting the tunnel? but work has not been commenced; besides, it is to terminate at the very opposite point of the yard, fully a thousand feet distant. in perplexity i wonder at the peculiar actions of hopkins. had the weapons been found, every inmate would immediately be subjected to a search, and shops and cell-house ransacked. in anxious speculation i pass a sleepless night; morning dawns without bringing a solution. but after breakfast the cell-house becomes strangely quiet; the shop employees remain locked in. the rangemen are ordered to their cells, and guards from the yard and shops march into the block, and noisily ascend the galleries. the deputy and hopkins scurry about the hall; the rotunda door is thrown open with a clang, and the sharp command of the warden resounds through the cell-house, "general search!" i glance hurriedly over my table and shelf. surprises of suspected prisoners are frequent, and i am always prepared. but some contraband is on hand. quickly i snatch my writing material from the womb of the bedtick. in the very act of destroying several sketches of the previous year, a bright thought flashes across my mind. there is nothing dangerous about them, save the theft of the paper. "prison types," "in the streets of new york," "parkhurst and the prostitute," "libertas--a study in philology," "the slavery of tradition"--harmless products of evening leisure. let them find the booklets! i'll be severely reprimanded for appropriating material from the shops, but my sketches will serve to divert suspicion: the warden will secretly rejoice that my mind is not busy with more dangerous activities. but the sudden search signifies grave developments. general overhaulings, involving temporary suspension of the industries and consequent financial loss, are rare. the search of the entire prison is not due till spring. its precipitancy confirms my worst fears: the weapons have undoubtedly been found! jim's failure to get possession of them assumes a peculiar aspect. it is possible, of course, that some guard, unexpectedly passing through the cellar, discovered the bundle between the bars, and appropriated it without attracting jim's notice. yet the latter's confident assertion of his presence at the window at the appointed moment indicates another probability. the thought is painful, disquieting. but who knows? in an atmosphere of fear and distrust and almost universal espionage, the best friendships are tinged with suspicion. it may be that jim, afraid of consequences, surrendered the weapons to the warden. he would have no difficulty in explaining the discovery, without further betrayal of my confidence. yet jim, a "pete man"[ ] of international renown, enjoys the reputation of a thoroughly "square man" and loyal friend. he has given me repeated proof of his confidence, and i am disinclined to accuse a possibly innocent man. it is fortunate, however, that his information is limited to the weapons. no doubt he suspects some sort of escape; but i have left him in ignorance of my real plans. with these tony alone is entrusted. [ ] safe blower. the reflection is reassuring. even if indiscretion on tony's part is responsible for the accident, he has demonstrated his friendship. realizing the danger of his mission, he may have thrown in the weapons between the cellar bars, ignoring my directions of previously ascertaining the presence of jim at his post. but the discovery of the revolvers vindicates the veracity of tony, and strengthens my confidence in him. my fate rests in the hands of a loyal comrade, a friend who has already dared great peril for my sake. * * * * * the general search is over, bringing to light quantities of various contraband. the counterfeit outfit, whose product has been circulating beyond the walls of the prison, is discovered, resulting in a secret investigation by federal officials. in the general excitement, the sketches among my effects have been ignored, and left in my possession. but no clew has been found in connection with the weapons. the authorities are still further mystified by the discovery that the lock on the trapdoor in the roof of the cell-house building had been tampered with. with an effort i suppress a smile at the puzzled bewilderment of the kindly old mitchell, as, with much secrecy, he confides to me the information. i marvel at the official stupidity that failed to make the discovery the previous year, when, by the aid of jim and my young friend russell, i had climbed to the top of the cell-house, while the inmates were at church, and wrenched off the lock of the trapdoor, leaving in its place an apparent counterpart, provided by jim. with the key in our possession, we watched for an opportunity to reach the outside roof, when certain changes in the block created insurmountable obstacles, forcing the abandonment of the project. russell was unhappy over the discovery, the impulsive young prisoner steadfastly refusing to be reconciled to the failure. his time, however, being short, i have been urging him to accept the inevitable. the constant dwelling upon escape makes imprisonment more unbearable; the passing of his remaining two years would be hastened by the determination to serve out his sentence. the boy listens quietly to my advice, his blue eyes dancing with merriment, a sly smile on the delicate lips. "you are right, aleck," he replies, gravely, "but say, last night i thought out a scheme; it's great, and we're sure to make our get-a-way." with minute detail he pictures the impossible plan of sawing through the bars of the cell at night, "holding up" the guards, binding and gagging them, and "then the road would be clear." the innocent boy, for all his back-country reputation of "bad man," is not aware that "then" is the very threshold of difficulties. i seek to explain to him that, the guards being disposed of, we should find ourselves trapped in the cell-house. the solid steel double doors leading to the yard are securely locked, the key in the sole possession of the captain of the night watch, who cannot be reached except through the well-guarded rotunda. but the boy is not to be daunted. "we'll have to storm the rotunda, then," he remarks, calmly, and at once proceeds to map out a plan of campaign. he smiles incredulously at my refusal to participate in the wild scheme. "oh, yes, you will, aleck. i don't believe a word you say. i know you're keen to make a get-a-way." his confidence somewhat shaken by my resolution, he announces that he will "go it alone." the declaration fills me with trepidation: the reckless youth will throw away his life; his attempt may frustrate my own success. but it is in vain to dissuade him by direct means. i know the determination of the boy. the smiling face veils the boundless self-assurance of exuberant youth, combined with indomitable courage. the redundance of animal vitality and the rebellious spirit have violently disturbed the inertia of his rural home, aggravating its staid descendants of dutch forbears. the taunt of "ne'er-do-well" has dripped bitter poison into the innocent pranks of russell, stamping the brand of desperado upon the good-natured boy. i tax my ingenuity to delay the carrying out of his project. he has secreted the saws i had procured from the girl for the attempt of the previous year, and his determination is impatient to make the dash for liberty. only his devotion to me and respect for my wishes still hold the impetuous boy in leash. but each day his restlessness increases; more insistently he urges my participation and a definite explanation of my attitude. at a loss to invent new objections, i almost despair of dissuading russell from his desperate purpose. from day to day i secure his solemn promise to await my final decision, the while i vaguely hope for some development that would force the abandonment of his plan. but nothing disturbs the routine, and i grow nervous with dread lest the boy, reckless with impatience, thwart my great project. ii the weather is moderating; the window sashes in the hall are being lowered: the signs of approaching spring multiply. i chafe at the lack of news from tony, who had departed on his mission to new york. with greedy eyes i follow the chaplain on his rounds of mail delivery. impatient of his constant pauses on the galleries, i hasten along the range to meet the postman. "any letters for me, mr. milligan?" i ask, with an effort to steady my voice. "no, m' boy." my eyes devour the mail in his hand. "none to-day, aleck," he adds; "this is for your neighbor pasquale." i feel apprehensive at tony's silence. another twenty-four hours must elapse before the chaplain returns. perhaps there will be no mail for me to-morrow, either. what can be the matter with my friend? so many dangers menace his every step--he might be sick--some accident.... anxious days pass without mail. russell is becoming more insistent, threatening a "break." the solitaries murmur at my neglect. i am nervous and irritable. for two weeks i have not heard from tony; something terrible must have happened. in a ferment of dread, i keep watch on the upper rotunda. the noon hour is approaching: the chaplain fumbles with his keys; the door opens, and he trips along the ranges. stealthily i follow him under the galleries, pretending to dust the bars. he descends to the hall. "good morning, chaplain," i seek to attract his attention, wistfully peering at the mail in his hand. "good morning, m' boy. feeling good to-day?" "thank you; pretty fair." my voice trembles at his delay, but i fear betraying my anxiety by renewed questioning. he passes me, and i feel sick with disappointment. now he pauses. "aleck," he calls, "i mislaid a letter for you yesterday. here it is." with shaking hand i unfold the sheet. in a fever of hope and fear, i pore over it in the solitude of the cell. my heart palpitates violently as i scan each word and letter, seeking hidden meaning, analyzing every flourish and dash, carefully distilling the minute lines, fusing the significant dots into the structure of meaning. glorious! a house has been rented-- sterling street--almost opposite the gate of the south wall. funds are on hand, work is to begin at once! with nimble step i walk the range. the river wafts sweet fragrance to my cell, the joy of spring is in my heart. every hour brings me nearer to liberty: the faithful comrades are steadily working underground. perhaps within a month, or two at most, the tunnel will be completed. i count the days, crossing off each morning the date on my calendar. the news from tony is cheerful, encouraging: the work is progressing smoothly, the prospects of success are splendid. i grow merry at the efforts of uninitiated friends in new york to carry out the suggestions of the attorneys to apply to the superior court of the state for a writ, on the ground of the unconstitutionality of my sentence. i consult gravely with mr. milligan upon the advisability of the step, the amiable chaplain affording me the opportunity of an extra allowance of letter paper. i thank my comrades for their efforts, and urge the necessity of collecting funds for the appeal to the upper court. repeatedly i ask the advice of the chaplain in the legal matter, confident that my apparent enthusiasm will reach the ears of the warden: the artifice will mask my secret project and lull suspicion. my official letters breathe assurance of success, and with much show of confidence i impress upon the trusties my sanguine expectation of release. i discuss the subject with officers and stools, till presently the prison is agog with the prospective liberation of its fourth oldest inmate. the solitaries charge me with messages to friends, and the deputy warden offers advice on behavior beyond the walls. the moment is propitious for a bold stroke. confined to the cell-house, i shall be unable to reach the tunnel. the privilege of the yard is imperative. it is june. unfledged birdies frequently fall from their nests, and i induce the kindly runner, "southside" johnny, to procure for me a brace of sparlings. i christen the little orphans dick and sis, and the memory of my previous birds is revived among inmates and officers. old mitchell is in ecstasy over the intelligence and adaptability of my new feathered friends. but the birds languish and waste in the close air of the block; they need sunshine and gravel, and the dusty street to bathe in. gradually i enlist the sympathies of the new doctor by the curious performances of my pets. one day the warden strolls in, and joins in admiration of the wonderful birds. "who trained them?" he inquires. "this man," the physician indicates me. a slight frown flits over the warden's face. old mitchell winks at me, encouragingly. "captain," i approach the warden, "the birds are sickly for lack of air. will you permit me to give them an airing in the yard?" "why don't you let them go? you have no permission to keep them." "oh, it would be a pity to throw them out," the doctor intercedes. "they are too tame to take care of themselves." "well, then," the warden decides, "let jasper take them out every day." "they will not go with any one except myself," i inform him. "they follow me everywhere." the warden hesitates. "why not let berkman go out with them for a few moments," the doctor suggests. "i hear you expect to be free soon," he remarks to me casually. "your case is up for revision?" "yes." "well, berkman," the warden motions to me, "i will permit you ten minutes in the yard, after your sweeping is done. what time are you through with it?" "at . a. m." "mr. mitchell, every morning, at . , you will pass berkman through the doors. for ten minutes, on the watch." then turning to me, he adds: "you are to stay near the greenhouse; there is plenty of sand there. if you cross the dead line of the sidewalk, or exceed your time a single minute, you will be punished." chapter xxxvi the underground may , . my dear tony: your letters intoxicate me with hope and joy. no sooner have i sipped the rich aroma than i am athirst for more nectar. write often, dear friend; it is the only solace of suspense. do not worry about this end of the line. all is well. by stratagem i have at last procured the privilege of the yard. only for a few minutes every morning, but i am judiciously extending my prescribed time and area. the prospects are bright here; every one talks of my application to the superior court, and peace reigns--you understand. a pity i cannot write directly to my dear, faithful comrades, your coworkers. you shall be the medium. transmit to them my deepest appreciation. tell "yankee" and "ibsen" and our italian comrades what i feel--i know i need not explain it further to you. no one realizes better than myself the terrible risks they are taking, the fearful toil in silence and darkness, almost within hearing of the guards. the danger, the heroic self-sacrifice--what money could buy such devotion? i grow faint with the thought of their peril. i could almost cry at the beautiful demonstration of solidarity and friendship. dear comrades, i feel proud of you, and proud of the great truth of anarchism that can produce such disciples, such spirit. i embrace you, my noble comrades, and may you speed the day that will make me happy with the sight of your faces, the touch of your hands. a. june . dear tony: your silence was unbearable. the suspense is terrible. was it really necessary to halt operations so long? i am surprised you did not foresee the shortage of air and the lack of light. you would have saved so much time. it is a great relief to know that the work is progressing again, and very fortunate indeed that "yankee" understands electricity. it must be hellish work to pump air into the shaft. take precautions against the whir of the machinery. the piano idea is great. keep her playing and singing as much as possible, and be sure you have all windows open. the beasts on the wall will be soothed by the music, and it will drown the noises underground. have an electric button connected from the piano to the shaft; when the player sees anything suspicious on the street or the guards on the wall, she can at once notify the comrades to stop work. i am enclosing the wall and yard measurements you asked. but why do you need them? don't bother with unnecessary things. from house beneath the street, directly toward the southwestern wall. for that you can procure measurements outside. on the inside you require none. go under wall, about - feet, till you strike wall of blind alley. cut into it, and all will be complete. write of progress without delay. greetings to all. a. june . tony: your letters bewilder me. why has the route been changed? you were to go to southwest, yet you say now you are near the east wall. it's simply incredible, tony. your explanation is not convincing. if you found a gas main near the gate, you could have gone around it; besides, the gate is out of your way anyhow. why did you take that direction at all? i wish, tony, you would follow my instructions and the original plan. your failure to report the change immediately, may prove fatal. i could have informed you--once you were near the southeastern gate--to go directly underneath; then you would have saved digging under the wall; there is no stone foundation, of course, beneath the gate. now that you have turned the south-east corner, you will have to come under the wall there, and it is the worst possible place, because that particular part used to be a swamp, and i have learned that it was filled with extra masonry. another point; an old abandoned natural-gas well is somewhere under the east wall, about feet from the gate. tell our friends to be on the lookout for fumes; it is a very dangerous place; special precautions must be taken. [illustration: a--house on sterling street from which the tunnel started. b--point at which the tunnel entered under the east wall. c--mat shop, near which the author was permitted to take his birds for ten minutes every day, for exercise. d--north block, where the author was confined at the time of the tunnel episode. e--south block.] do not mind my brusqueness, dear tony. my nerves are on edge, the suspense is driving me mad. and i must mask my feelings, and smile and look indifferent. but i haven't a moment's peace. i imagine the most terrible things when you fail to write. please be more punctual. i know you have your hands full; but i fear i'll go insane before this thing is over. tell me especially how far you intend going along the east wall, and where you'll come out. this complicates the matter. you have already gone a longer distance than would have been necessary per original plan. it was a grave mistake, and if you were not such a devoted friend, i'd feel very cross with you. write at once. i am arranging a new _sub rosa_ route. they are building in the yard; many outside drivers, you understand. a. dear tony: i'm in great haste to send this. you know the shed opposite the east wall. it has only a wooden floor and is not frequented much by officers. a few cons are there, from the stone pile. i'll attend to them. make directly for that shed. it's a short distance from wall. i enclose measurements. a. tony: you distract me beyond words. what has become of your caution, your judgment? a hole in the grass _will not do_. i am absolutely opposed to it. there are a score of men on the stone pile and several screws. it is sure to be discovered. and even if you leave the upper crust intact for a foot or two, how am i to dive into the hole in the presence of so many? you don't seem to have considered that. there is only _one_ way, the one i explained in my last. go to the shed; it's only a little more work, - feet, no more. tell the comrades the grass idea is impossible. a little more effort, friends, and all will be well. answer at once. a. dear tony: why do you insist on the hole in the ground? i tell you again it will not do. i won't consider it for a moment. i am on the inside--you must let me decide what can or cannot be done here. i am prepared to risk everything for liberty, would risk my life a thousand times. i am too desperate now for any one to block my escape; i'd break through a wall of guards, if necessary. but i still have a little judgment, though i am almost insane with the suspense and anxiety. if you insist on the hole, i'll make the break, though there is not one chance in a hundred for success. i beg of you, tony, the thing must be dug to the shed; it's only a little way. after such a tremendous effort, can we jeopardize it all so lightly? i assure you, the success of the hole plan is unthinkable. they'd all see me go down into it; i'd be followed at once--what's the use talking. besides, you know i have no revolvers. of course i'll have a weapon, but it will not help the escape. another thing, your change of plans has forced me to get an assistant. the man is reliable, and i have only confided to him parts of the project. i need him to investigate around the shed, take measurements, etc. i am not permitted anywhere near the wall. but you need not trouble about this; i'll be responsible for my friend. but i tell you about it, so that you prepare two pair of overalls instead of one. also leave two revolvers in the house, money, and cipher directions for us where to go. none of our comrades is to wait for us. let them all leave as soon as everything is ready. but be sure you don't stop at the hole. go to the shed, absolutely. a. tony: the hole will not do. the more i think of it, the more impossible i find it. i am sending an urgent call for money to the editor. you know whom i mean. get in communication with him at once. use the money to continue work to shed. a. direct to box a , allegheny city, pa., june , . dear comrade: the chaplain was very kind to permit me an extra sheet of paper, on urgent business. i write to you in a very great extremity. you are aware of the efforts of my friends to appeal my case. read carefully, please. i have lost faith in their attorneys. i have engaged my _own_ "lawyers." lawyers in quotation marks--a prison joke, you see. i have utmost confidence in _these_ lawyers. they will, absolutely, procure my release, even if it is not a pardon, you understand. i mean, we'll go to the superior court, different from a pardon board--another prison joke. my friends are short of money. we need some _at once_. the work is started, but cannot be finished for lack of funds. mark well what i say: _i'll not be responsible for anything_--the worst may happen--unless money is procured _at once_. you have influence. i rely on you to understand and to act promptly. your comrade, alexander berkman. my poor tony: i can see how this thing has gone on your nerves. to think that you, you the cautious tony, should be so reckless--to send me a telegram. you could have ruined the whole thing. i had trouble explaining to the chaplain, but it's all right now. of course, if it must be the hole, it can't be helped. i understood the meaning of your wire: from the seventh bar on the east wall, ten feet to west. we'll be there on the minute-- p. m. but july th won't do. it's a holiday: no work; my friend will be locked up. can't leave him in the lurch. it will have to be next day, july th. it's only three days more. i wish it was over; i can't bear the worry and suspense any more. may it be my independence day! a. july . tony: it's terrible. it's all over. couldn't make it. went there on time, but found a big pile of stone and brick right on top of the spot. impossible to do anything. i warned you they were building near there. i was seen at the wall--am now strictly forbidden to leave the cell-house. but my friend has been there a dozen times since--the hole can't be reached: a mountain of stone hides it. it won't be discovered for a little while. telegraph at once to new york for more money. you must continue to the shed. i can force my way there, if need be. it's the only hope. don't lose a minute. a. july . tony: a hundred dollars was sent to the office for me from new york. i told chaplain it is for my appeal. i am sending the money to you. have work continued at once. there is still hope. nothing suspected. but the wire that you pushed through the grass to indicate the spot, was not found by my friend. too much stone over it. go to shed at once. a. july . tunnel discovered. lose no time. leave the city immediately. i am locked up on suspicion. a. chapter xxxvii anxious days the discovery of the tunnel overwhelms me with the violence of an avalanche. the plan of continuing the work, the trembling hope of escape, of liberty, life--all is suddenly terminated. my nerves, tense with the months of suspense and anxiety, relax abruptly. with torpid brain i wonder, "is it possible, is it really possible?" * * * * * an air of uneasiness, as of lurking danger, fills the prison. vague rumors are afloat: a wholesale jail delivery had been planned, the walls were to be dynamited, the guards killed. an escape has actually taken place, it is whispered about. the warden wears a look of bewilderment and fear; the officers are alert with suspicion. the inmates manifest disappointment and nervous impatience. the routine is violently disturbed: the shops are closed, the men locked in the cells. the discovery of the tunnel mystifies the prison and the city authorities. some children, at play on the street, had accidentally wandered into the yard of the deserted house opposite the prison gates. the piles of freshly dug soil attracted their attention; a boy, stumbling into the cellar, was frightened by the sight of the deep cavern; his mother notified the agent of the house, who, by a peculiar coincidence, proved to be an officer of the penitentiary. but in vain are the efforts of the prison authorities to discover any sign of the tunnel within the walls. days pass in the fruitless investigation of the yard--the outlet of the tunnel within the prison cannot be found. perhaps the underground passage does not extend to the penitentiary? the warden voices his firm conviction that the walls have not been penetrated. evidently it was not the prison, he argues, which was the objective point of the diggers. the authorities of the city of allegheny decide to investigate the passage from the house on sterling street. but the men that essay to crawl through the narrow tunnel are forced to abandon their mission, driven back by the fumes of escaping gas. it is suggested that the unknown diggers, whatever their purpose, have been trapped in the abandoned gas well and perished before the arrival of aid. the fearful stench no doubt indicates the decomposition of human bodies; the terrible accident has forced the inmates of sterling street to suspend their efforts before completing the work. the condition of the house--the half-eaten meal on the table, the clothing scattered about the rooms, the general disorder--all seem to point to precipitate flight. the persistence of the assertion of a fatal accident disquiets me, in spite of my knowledge to the contrary. yet, perhaps the reckless tony, in his endeavor to force the wire signal through the upper crust, perished in the well. the thought unnerves me with horror, till it is announced that a negro, whom the police had induced to crawl the length of the tunnel, brought positive assurance that no life was sacrificed in the underground work. still the prison authorities are unable to find the objective point, and it is finally decided to tear up the streets beneath which the tunnel winds its mysterious way. * * * * * the undermined place inside the walls at last being discovered after a week of digging at various points in the yard, the warden reluctantly admits the apparent purpose of the tunnel, at the same time informing the press that the evident design was the liberation of the anarchist prisoner. he corroborates his view by the circumstance that i had been reported for unpermitted presence at the east wall, pretending to collect gravel for my birds. assistant deputy warden hopkins further asserts having seen and talked with carl nold near the "criminal" house, a short time before the discovery of the tunnel. the developments, fraught with danger to my friends, greatly alarm me. fortunately, no clew can be found in the house, save a note in cipher which apparently defies the skill of experts. the warden, on his sunday rounds, passes my cell, then turns as if suddenly recollecting something. "here, berkman," he says blandly, producing a paper, "the press is offering a considerable reward to any one who will decipher the note found in the sterling street house. it's reproduced here. see if you can't make it out." i scan the paper carefully, quickly reading tony's directions for my movements after the escape. then, returning the paper, i remark indifferently, "i can read several languages, captain, but this is beyond me." the police and detective bureaus of the twin cities make the announcement that a thorough investigation conclusively demonstrates that the tunnel was intended for william boyd, a prisoner serving twelve years for a series of daring forgeries. his "pals" had succeeded in clearing fifty thousand dollars on forged bonds, and it is they who did the wonderful feat underground, to secure the liberty of the valuable penman. the controversy between the authorities of allegheny and the management of the prison is full of animosity and bitterness. wardens of prisons, chiefs of police, and detective departments of various cities are consulted upon the mystery of the ingenious diggers, and the discussion in the press waxes warm and antagonistic. presently the chief of police of allegheny suffers a change of heart, and sides with the warden, as against his personal enemy, the head of the pittsburgh detective bureau. the confusion of published views, and my persistent denial of complicity in the tunnel, cause the much-worried warden to fluctuate. a number of men are made the victims of his mental uncertainty. following my exile into solitary, pat mcgraw is locked up as a possible beneficiary of the planned escape. in he had slipped through the roof of the prison, the warden argues, and it is therefore reasonable to assume that the man is meditating another delivery. jack robinson, cronin, "nan," and a score of others, are in turn suspected by captain wright, and ordered locked up during the preliminary investigation. but because of absolute lack of clews the prisoners are presently returned to work, and the number of "suspects" is reduced to myself and boyd, the warden having discovered that the latter had recently made an attempt to escape by forcing an entry into the cupola of the shop he was employed in, only to find the place useless for his purpose. a process of elimination and the espionage of the trusties gradually center exclusive suspicion upon myself. in surprise i learn that young russell has been cited before the captain. the fear of indiscretion on the part of the boy startles me from my torpor. i must employ every device to confound the authorities and save my friends. fortunately none of the tunnelers have yet been arrested, the controversy between the city officials and the prison management having favored inaction. my comrades cannot be jeopardized by russell. his information is limited to the mere knowledge of the specific person for whom the tunnel was intended; the names of my friends are entirely unfamiliar to him. my heart goes out to the young prisoner, as i reflect that never once had he manifested curiosity concerning the men at the secret work. desperate with confinement, and passionately yearning for liberty though he was, he had yet offered to sacrifice his longings to aid my escape. how transported with joy was the generous youth when i resolved to share my opportunity with him! he had given faithful service in attempting to locate the tunnel entrance; the poor boy had been quite distracted at our failure to find the spot. i feel confident russell will not betray the secret in his keeping. yet the persistent questioning by the warden and inspectors is perceptibly working on the boy's mind. he is so young and inexperienced--barely nineteen; a slip of the tongue, an inadvertent remark, might convert suspicion into conviction. every day russell is called to the office, causing me torments of apprehension and dread, till a glance at the returning prisoner, smiling encouragingly as he passes my cell, informs me that the danger is past for the day. with a deep pang, i observe the increasing pallor of his face, the growing restlessness in his eyes, the languid step. the continuous inquisition is breaking him down. with quivering voice he whispers as he passes, "aleck, i'm afraid of them." the warden has threatened him, he informs me, if he persists in his pretended ignorance of the tunnel. his friendship for me is well known, the warden reasons; we have often been seen together in the cell-house and yard; i must surely have confided to russell my plans of escape. the big, strapping youth is dwindling to a shadow under the terrible strain. dear, faithful friend! how guilty i feel toward you, how torn in my inmost heart to have suspected your devotion, even for that brief instant when, in a panic of fear, you had denied to the warden all knowledge of the slip of paper found in your cell. it cast suspicion upon me as the writer of the strange jewish scrawl. the warden scorned my explanation that russell's desire to learn hebrew was the sole reason for my writing the alphabet for him. the mutual denial seemed to point to some secret; the scrawl was similar to the cipher note found in the sterling street house, the warden insisted. how strange that i should have so successfully confounded the inspectors with the contradictory testimony regarding the tunnel, that they returned me to my position on the range. and yet the insignificant incident of russell's hieroglyphic imitation of the hebrew alphabet should have given the warden a pretext to order me into solitary! how distracted and bitter i must have felt to charge the boy with treachery! his very reticence strengthened my suspicion, and all the while the tears welled into his throat, choking the innocent lad beyond speech. how little i suspected the terrible wound my hasty imputation had caused my devoted friend! in silence he suffered for months, without opportunity to explain, when at last, by mere accident, i learned the fatal mistake. in vain i strive to direct my thoughts into different channels. my misunderstanding of russell plagues me with recurring persistence; the unjust accusation torments my sleepless nights. it was a moment of intense joy that i experienced as i humbly begged his pardon to-day, when i met him in the captain's office. a deep sense of relief, almost of peace, filled me at his unhesitating, "oh, never mind, aleck, it's all right; we were both excited." i was overcome by thankfulness and admiration of the noble boy, and the next instant the sight of his wan face, his wasted form, pierced me as with a knife-thrust. with the earnest conviction of strong faith i sought to explain to the board of inspectors the unfortunate error regarding the jewish writing. but they smiled doubtfully. it was too late: their opinion of a prearranged agreement with russell was settled. but the testimony of assistant deputy hopkins that he had seen and conversed with nold a few weeks before the discovery of the tunnel, and that he saw him enter the "criminal" house, afforded me an opportunity to divide the views among the inspectors. i experienced little difficulty in convincing two members of the board that nold could not possibly have been connected with the tunnel, because for almost a year previously, and since, he had been in the employ of a st. louis firm. they accepted my offer to prove by the official time-tables of the company that nold was in st. louis on the very day that hopkins claimed to have spoken with him. the fortunate and very natural error of hopkins in mistaking the similar appearance of tony for that of carl, enabled me to discredit the chief link connecting my friends with the tunnel. the diverging views of the police officials of the twin cities still further confounded the inspectors, and i was gravely informed by them that the charge of attempted escape against me had not been conclusively substantiated. they ordered my reinstatement as rangeman, but the captain, on learning the verdict, at once charged me before the board with conducting a secret correspondence with russell. on the pretext of the alleged hebrew note, the inspectors confirmed the warden's judgment, and i was sentenced to the solitary and immediately locked up in the south wing. chapter xxxviii "how men their brothers maim" i the solitary is stifling with the august heat. the hall windows, high above the floor, cast a sickly light, shrouding the bottom range in darksome gloom. at every point, my gaze meets the irritating white of the walls, in spots yellow with damp. the long days are oppressive with silence; the stone cage echoes my languid footsteps mournfully. once more i feel cast into the night, torn from the midst of the living. the failure of the tunnel forever excludes the hope of liberty. terrified by the possibilities of the planned escape, the warden's determination dooms my fate. i shall end my days in strictest seclusion, he has informed me. severe punishment is visited upon any one daring to converse with me; even officers are forbidden to pause at my cell. old evans, the night guard, is afraid even to answer my greeting, since he was disciplined with the loss of ten days' pay for being seen at my door. it was not his fault, poor old man. the night was sultry; the sashes of the hall window opposite my cell were tightly closed. almost suffocated with the foul air, i requested the passing evans to raise the window. it had been ordered shut by the warden, he informed me. as he turned to leave, three sharp raps on the bars of the upper rotunda almost rooted him to the spot with amazement. it was a. m. no one was supposed to be there at night. "come here, evans!" i recognized the curt tones of the warden. "what business have you at that man's door?" i could distinctly hear each word, cutting the stillness of the night. in vain the frightened officer sought to explain: he had merely answered a question, he had stopped but a moment. "i've been watching you there for half an hour," the irate warden insisted. "report to me in the morning." since then the guards on their rounds merely glance between the bars, and pass on in silence. i have been removed within closer observation of the nightly prowling captain, and am now located near the rotunda, in the second cell on the ground floor, range y. the stringent orders of exceptional surveillance have so terrorized my friends that they do not venture to look in my direction. a special officer has been assigned to the vicinity of my door, his sole duty to keep me under observation. i feel buried alive. communication with my comrades has been interrupted, the warden detaining my mail. i am deprived of books and papers, all my privileges curtailed. if only i had my birds! the company of my little pets would give me consolation. but they have been taken from me, and i fear the guards have killed them. deprived of work and exercise i pass the days in the solitary, monotonous, interminable. ii by degrees anxiety over my friends is allayed. the mystery of the tunnel remains unsolved. the warden reiterates his moral certainty that the underground passage was intended for the liberation of the anarchist prisoner. the views of the police and detective officials of the twin cities are hopelessly divergent. each side asserts thorough familiarity with the case, and positive conviction regarding the guilty parties. but the alleged clews proving misleading, the matter is finally abandoned. the passage has been filled with cement, and the official investigation is terminated. the safety of my comrades sheds a ray of light into the darkness of my existence. it is consoling to reflect that, disastrous as the failure is to myself, my friends will not be made victims of my longing for liberty. at no time since the discovery of the tunnel has suspicion been directed to the right persons. the narrow official horizon does not extend beyond the familiar names of the girl, nold, and bauer. these have been pointed at by the accusing finger repeatedly, but the men actually concerned in the secret attempt have not even been mentioned. no danger threatens them from the failure of my plans. in a communication to a local newspaper, nold has incontrovertibly proved his continuous residence in st. louis for a period covering a year previous to the tunnel and afterwards. bauer has recently married; at no time have the police been in ignorance of his whereabouts, and they are aware that my former fellow-prisoner is to be discounted as a participator in the attempted escape. indeed, the prison officials must have learned from my mail that the big german is regarded by my friends as an ex-comrade merely. but the suspicion of the authorities directed toward the girl--with a pang of bitterness, i think of her unfortunate absence from the country during the momentous period of the underground work. with resentment i reflect that but for that i might now be at liberty! her skill as an organizer, her growing influence in the movement, her energy and devotion, would have assured the success of the undertaking. but tony's unaccountable delay had resulted in her departure without learning of my plans. it is to him, to his obstinacy and conceit, that the failure of the project is mostly due, staunch and faithful though he is. in turn i lay the responsibility at the door of this friend and that, lashing myself into furious rage at the renegade who had appropriated a considerable sum of the money intended for the continuation of the underground work. yet the outbursts of passion spent, i strive to find consolation in the correctness of the intuitive judgment that prompted the selection of my "lawyers," the devoted comrades who so heroically toiled for my sake in the bowels of the earth. half-naked they had labored through the weary days and nights, stretched at full length in the narrow passage, their bodies perspiring and chilled in turn, their hands bleeding with the terrible toil. and through the weeks and months of nerve-racking work and confinement in the tunnel, of constant dread of detection and anxiety over the result, my comrades had uttered no word of doubt or fear, in full reliance upon their invisible friend. what self-sacrifice in behalf of one whom some of you had never even known! dear, beloved comrades, had you succeeded, my life could never repay your almost superhuman efforts and love. only the future years of active devotion to our great common cause could in a measure express my thankfulness and pride in you, whoever, wherever you are. nor were your heroism, your skill and indomitable perseverance, without avail. you have given an invaluable demonstration of the elemental reality of the ideal, of the marvelous strength and courage born of solidaric purpose, of the heights devotion to a great cause can ascend. and the lesson has not been lost. almost unanimous is the voice of the press--only anarchists could have achieved the wonderful feat! * * * * * the subject of the tunnel fascinates my mind. how little thought i had given to my comrades, toiling underground, in the anxious days of my own apprehension and suspense! with increasing vividness i visualize their trepidation, the constant fear of discovery, the herculean efforts in spite of ever-present danger. how terrible must have been _their_ despair at the inability to continue the work to a successful termination!... my reflections fill me with renewed strength. i must live! i must live to meet those heroic men, to take them by the hand, and with silent lips pour my heart into their eyes. i shall be proud of their comradeship, and strive to be worthy of it. iii the lines form in the hallway, and silently march to the shops. i peer through the bars, for the sight of a familiar face brings cheer, and the memory of the days on the range. many friends, unseen for years, pass by my cell. how big jack has wasted! the deep chest is sunk in, the face drawn and yellow, with reddish spots about the cheekbones. poor jack, so strong and energetic, how languid and weak his step is now! and jimmy is all broken up with rheumatism, and hops on crutches. with difficulty i recognize harry fisher. the two years have completely changed the young morganza boy. he looks old at seventeen, the rosy cheeks a ghastly white, the delicate features immobile, hard, the large bright eyes dull and glassy. vividly my friends stand before me in the youth and strength of their first arrival. how changed their appearance! my poor chums, readers of the _prison blossoms_, helpers in our investigation efforts, what wrecks the torture of hell has made of you! i recall with sadness the first years of my imprisonment, and my coldly impersonal valuation of social victims. there is evans, the aged burglar, smiling furtively at me from the line. far in the distance seems the day when i read his marginal note upon a magazine article i sent him, concerning the stupendous cost of crime. i had felt quite piqued at the flippancy of his comment, "we come high, but they must have us." with the severe intellectuality of revolutionary tradition, i thought of him and his kind as inevitable fungus growths, the rotten fruit of a decaying society. unfortunate derelicts, indeed, yet parasites, almost devoid of humanity. but the threads of comradeship have slowly been woven by common misery. the touch of sympathy has discovered the man beneath the criminal; the crust of sullen suspicion has melted at the breath of kindness, warming into view the palpitating human heart. old evans and sammy and bob,--what suffering and pain must have chilled their fiery souls with the winter of savage bitterness! and the resurrection trembles within! how terrible man's ignorance, that forever condemns itself to be scourged by its own blind fury! and these my friends, davis and russell, these innocently guilty,--what worse punishment could society inflict upon itself, than the loss of their latent nobility which it had killed?... not entirely in vain are the years of suffering that have wakened my kinship with the humanity of _les misérables_, whom social stupidity has cast into the valley of death. chapter xxxix a new plan of escape i my new neighbor turns my thoughts into a different channel. it is "fighting" tom, returned after several years of absence. by means of a string attached to a wire we "swing" notes to each other at night, and tom startles me by the confession that he was the author of the mysterious note i had received soon after my arrival in the penitentiary. an escape was being planned, he informs me, and i was to be "let in," by his recommendation. but one of the conspirators getting "cold feet," the plot was betrayed to the warden, whereupon tom "sent the snitch to the hospital." as a result, however, he was kept in solitary till his release. in the prison he had become proficient as a broom-maker, and it was his intention to follow the trade. there was nothing in the crooked line, he thought; and he resolved to be honest. but on the day of his discharge he was arrested at the gate by officers from illinois on an old charge. he swore vengeance against assistant deputy hopkins, before whom he had once accidentally let drop the remark that he would never return to illinois, because he was "wanted" there. he lived the five years in the joliet prison in the sole hope of "getting square" with the man who had so meanly betrayed him. upon his release, he returned to pittsburgh, determined to kill hopkins. on the night of his arrival he broke into the latter's residence, prepared to avenge his wrongs. but the assistant deputy had left the previous day on his vacation. furious at being baffled, tom was about to set fire to the house, when the light of his match fell upon a silver trinket on the bureau of the bedroom. it fascinated him. he could not take his eyes off it. suddenly he was seized with the desire to examine the contents of the house. the old passion was upon him. he could not resist. hardly conscious of his actions, he gathered the silverware into a tablecloth, and quietly stole out of the house. he was arrested the next day, as he was trying to pawn his booty. an old offender, he received a sentence of ten years. since his arrival, eight months ago, he has been kept in solitary. his health is broken; he has no hope of surviving his sentence. but if he is to die--he swears--he is going to take "his man" along. aware of the determination of "fighting" tom, i realize that the safety of the hated officer is conditioned by tom's lack of opportunity to carry out his revenge. i feel little sympathy for hopkins, whose craftiness in worming out the secrets of prisoners has placed him on the pay-roll of the pinkerton agency; but i exert myself to persuade tom that it would be sheer insanity thus deliberately to put his head in the noose. he is still a young man; barely thirty. it is not worth while sacrificing his life for a sneak of a guard. however, tom remains stubborn. my arguments seem merely to rouse his resistance, and strengthen his resolution. but closer acquaintance reveals to me his exceeding conceit over his art and technic, as a second-story expert. i play upon his vanity, scoffing at the crudity of his plans of revenge. would it not be more in conformity with his reputation as a skilled "gun," i argue, to "do the job" in a "smoother" manner? tom assumes a skeptical attitude, but by degrees grows more interested. presently, with unexpected enthusiasm, he warms to the suggestion of "a break." once outside, well--"i'll get 'im all right," he chuckles. ii the plan of escape completely absorbs us. on alternate nights we take turns in timing the rounds of the guards, the appearance of the night captain, the opening of the rotunda door. numerous details, seemingly insignificant, yet potentially fatal, are to be mastered. many obstacles bar the way of success, but time and perseverance will surmount them. tom is thoroughly engrossed with the project. i realize the desperation of the undertaking, but the sole alternative is slow death in the solitary. it is the last resort. with utmost care we make our preparations. the summer is long past; the dense fogs of the season will aid our escape. we hasten to complete all details, in great nervous tension with the excitement of the work. the time is drawing near for deciding upon a definite date. but tom's state of mind fills me with apprehension. he has become taciturn of late. yesterday he seemed peculiarly glum, sullenly refusing to answer my signal. again and again i knock on the wall, calling for a reply to my last note. tom remains silent. occasionally a heavy groan issues from his cell, but my repeated signals remain unanswered. in alarm i stay awake all night, in the hope of inducing a guard to investigate the cause of the groaning. but my attempts to speak to the officers are ignored. the next morning i behold tom carried on a stretcher from his cell, and learn with horror that he had bled to death during the night. iii the peculiar death of my friend preys on my mind. was it suicide or accident? tom had been weakened by long confinement; in some manner he may have ruptured a blood vessel, dying for lack of medical aid. it is hardly probable that he would commit suicide on the eve of our attempt. yet certain references in his notes of late, ignored at the time, assume new significance. he was apparently under the delusion that hopkins was "after him." once or twice my friend had expressed fear for his safety. he might be poisoned, he hinted. i had laughed the matter away, familiar with the sporadic delusions of men in solitary. close confinement exerts a similar effect upon the majority of prisoners. some are especially predisposed to auto-suggestion; young sid used to manifest every symptom of the diseases he read about. perhaps poor tom's delusion was responsible for his death. spencer, too, had committed suicide a month before his release, in the firm conviction that the warden would not permit his discharge. it may be that in a sudden fit of despondency, tom had ended his life. perhaps i could have saved my friend: i did not realize how constantly he brooded over the danger he believed himself threatened with. how little i knew of the terrible struggle that must have been going on in his tortured heart! yet we were so intimate; i believed i understood his every feeling and emotion. * * * * * the thought of tom possesses my mind. the news from the girl about bresci's execution of the king of italy rouses little interest in me. bresci avenged the peasants and the women and children shot before the palace for humbly begging bread. he did well, and the agitation resulting from his act may advance the cause. but it will have no bearing on my fate. the last hope of escape has departed with my poor friend. i am doomed to perish here. and bresci will perish in prison, but the comrades will eulogize him and his act, and continue their efforts to regenerate the world. yet i feel that the individual, in certain cases, is of more direct and immediate consequence than humanity. what is the latter but the aggregate of individual existences--and shall these, the best of them, forever be sacrificed for the metaphysical collectivity? here, all around me, a thousand unfortunates daily suffer the torture of calvary, forsaken by god and man. they bleed and struggle and suicide, with the desperate cry for a little sunshine and life. how shall they be helped? how helped amid the injustice and brutality of a society whose chief monuments are prisons? and so we must suffer and suicide, and countless others after us, till the play of social forces shall transform human history into the history of true humanity,--and meanwhile our bones will bleach on the long, dreary road. * * * * * bereft of the last hope of freedom, i grow indifferent to life. the monotony of the narrow cell daily becomes more loathsome. my whole being longs for rest. rest, no more to awaken. the world will not miss me. an atom of matter, i shall return to endless space. everything will pursue its wonted course, but i shall know no more of the bitter struggle and strife. my friends will sorrow, and yet be glad my pain is over, and continue on their way. and new brescis will arise, and more kings will fall, and then all, friend and enemy, will go my way, and new generations will be born and die, and humanity and the world be whirled into space and disappear, and again the little stage will be set, and the same history and the same facts will come and go, the playthings of cosmic forces renewing and transforming forever. how insignificant it all is in the eye of reason, how small and puny life and all its pain and travail!... with eyes closed, i behold myself suspended by the neck from the upper bars of the cell. my body swings gently against the door, striking it softly, once, twice,--just like pasquale, when he hanged himself in the cell next to mine, some months ago. a few twitches, and the last breath is gone. my face grows livid, my body rigid; slowly it cools. the night guard passes. "what's this, eh?" he rings the rotunda bell. keys clang; the lever is drawn, and my door unlocked. an officer draws a knife sharply across the rope at the bars: my body sinks to the floor, my head striking against the iron bedstead. the doctor kneels at my side; i feel his hand over my heart. now he rises. "good job, doc?" i recognize the deputy's voice. the physician nods. "damn glad of it," hopkins sneers. the warden enters, a grin on his parchment face. with an oath i spring to my feet. in terror the officers rush from the cell. "ah, i fooled you, didn't i, you murderers!" * * * * * the thought of the enemy's triumph fans the embers of life. it engenders defiance, and strengthens stubborn resistance. chapter xl done to death i in my utter isolation, the world outside appears like a faint memory, unreal and dim. the deprivation of newspapers has entirely severed me from the living. letters from my comrades have become rare and irregular; they sound strangely cold and impersonal. the life of the prison is also receding; no communication reaches me from my friends. "pious" john, the rangeman, is unsympathetic; he still bears me ill will from the days of the jail. only young russell still remembers me. i tremble for the reckless boy as i hear his low cough, apprising me of the "stiff" he unerringly shoots between the bars, while the double file of prisoners marches past my door. he looks pale and haggard, the old buoyant step now languid and heavy. a tone of apprehension pervades his notes. he is constantly harassed by the officers, he writes; his task has been increased; he is nervous and weak, and his health is declining. in the broken sentences, i sense some vague misgiving, as of impending calamity. with intense thankfulness i think of russell. again i live through the hopes and fears that drew us into closer friendship, the days of terrible anxiety incident to the tunnel project. my heart goes out to the faithful boy, whose loyalty and discretion have so much aided the safety of my comrades. a strange longing for his companionship possesses me. in the gnawing loneliness, his face floats before me, casting the spell of a friendly presence, his strong features softened by sorrow, his eyes grown large with the same sweet sadness of "little felipe." a peculiar tenderness steals into my thoughts of the boy; i look forward eagerly to his notes. impatiently i scan the faces in the passing line, wistful for the sight of the youth, and my heart beats faster at his fleeting smile. how sorrowful he looks! now he is gone. the hours are weary with silence and solitude. listlessly i turn the pages of my library book. if only i had the birds! i should find solace in their thoughtful eyes: dick and sis would understand and feel with me. but my poor little friends have disappeared; only russell remains. my only friend! i shall not see him when he returns to the cell at noon: the line passes on the opposite side of the hall. but in the afternoon, when the men are again unlocked for work, i shall look into his eyes for a happy moment, and perhaps the dear boy will have a message for me. he is so tender-hearted: his correspondence is full of sympathy and encouragement, and he strives to cheer me with the good news: another day is gone, his sentence is nearing its end; he will at once secure a position, and save every penny to aid in my release. tacitly i concur in his ardent hope,--it would break his heart to be disillusioned. ii the passing weeks and months bring no break in the dreary monotony. the call of the robin on the river bank rouses no echo in my heart. no sign of awakening spring brightens the constant semi-darkness of the solitary. the dampness of the cell is piercing my bones; every movement racks my body with pain. my eyes are tortured with the eternal white of the walls. sombre shadows brood around me. i long for a bit of sunshine. i wait patiently at the door: perhaps it is clear to-day. my cell faces west; may be the setting sun will steal a glance upon me. for hours i stand with naked breast close to the bars: i must not miss a friendly ray; it may suddenly peep into the cell and turn away from me, unseen in the gloom. now a bright beam plays on my neck and shoulders, and i press closer to the door to welcome the dear stranger. he caresses me with soft touch,--perhaps it is the soul of little dick pouring out his tender greeting in this song of light,--or may be the astral aura of my beloved uncle maxim, bringing warmth and hope. sweet conceit of oriental thought, barren of joy in life.... the sun is fading. it feels chilly in the twilight,--and now the solitary is once more bleak and cold. * * * * * as his release approaches, the tone of native confidence becomes more assertive in russell's letter. the boy is jubilant and full of vitality: within three months he will breathe the air of freedom. a note of sadness at leaving me behind permeates his communications, but he is enthusiastic over his project of aiding me to liberty. eagerly every day i anticipate his mute greeting, as he passes in the line. this morning i saw him hold up two fingers, the third crooked, in sign of the remaining "two and a stump." a joyous light is in his eyes, his step firmer, more elastic. but in the afternoon he is missing from the line. with sudden apprehension i wonder at his absence. could i have overlooked him in the closely walking ranks? it is barely possible. perhaps he has remained in the cell, not feeling well. it may be nothing serious; he will surely be in line to-morrow. for three days, every morning and afternoon, i anxiously scrutinize the faces of the passing men; but russell is not among them. his absence torments me with a thousand fears. may be the warden has renewed his inquisition of the boy--perhaps he got into a fight in the shop--in the dungeon now--he'll lose his commutation time.... unable to bear the suspense, i am about to appeal to the chaplain, when a friendly runner surreptitiously hands me a note. with difficulty i recognize my friend's bold handwriting in the uneven, nervous scrawl. russell is in the hospital! at work in the shop, he writes, he had suffered a chill. the doctor committed him to the ward for observation, but the officers and the convict nurses accuse him of shamming to evade work. they threaten to have him returned to the shop, and he implores me to have the chaplain intercede for him. he feels weak and feverish, and the thought of being left alone in the cell in his present condition fills him with horror. i send an urgent request to see the chaplain. but the guard informs me that mr. milligan is absent; he is not expected at the office till the following week. i prevail upon the kindly mitchell, recently transferred to the south block, to deliver a note to the warden, in which i appeal on behalf of russell. but several days pass, and still no reply from captain wright. finally i pretend severe pains in the bowels, to afford frank, the doctor's assistant, an opportunity to pause at my cell. as the "medicine boy" pours the prescribed pint of "horse salts" through the funnel inserted between the bars, i hastily inquire: "is russell still in the ward, frank? how is he?" "what russell?" he asks indifferently. "russell schroyer, put four days ago under observation," "oh, that poor kid! why, he is paralyzed." for an instant i am speechless with terror. no, it cannot be. some mistake. "frank, i mean young schroyer, from the construction shop. he's number ." "your friend russell; i know who you mean. i'm sorry for the boy. he is paralyzed, all right." "but.... no, it can't be! why, frank, it was just a chill and a little weakness." "look here, aleck. i know you're square, and you can keep a secret all right. i'll tell you something if you won't give me away." "yes, yes, frank. what is it?" "sh--sh. you know flem, the night nurse? doing a five spot for murder. his father and the warden are old cronies. that's how he got to be nurse; don't know a damn thing about it, an' careless as hell. always makes mistakes. well, doc ordered an injection for russell. now don't ever say i told you. flem got the wrong bottle; gave the poor boy some acid in the injection. paralyzed the kid; he did, the damn murderer." * * * * * i pass the night in anguish, clutching desperately at the faint hope that it cannot be--some mistake--perhaps frank has exaggerated. but in the morning the "medicine boy" confirms my worst fears: the doctor has said the boy will die. russell does not realize the situation: there is something wrong with his legs, the poor boy writes; he is unable to move them, and suffers great pain. it can't be fever, he thinks; but the physician will not tell him what is the matter.... the kindly frank is sympathetic; every day he passes notes between us, and i try to encourage russell. he will improve, i assure him; his time is short, and fresh air and liberty will soon restore him. my words seem to soothe my friend, and he grows more cheerful, when unexpectedly he learns the truth from the wrangling nurses. his notes grow piteous with misery. tears fill my eyes as i read his despairing cry, "oh, aleck, i am so young. i don't want to die." he implores me to visit him; if i could only come to nurse him, he is sure he would improve. he distrusts the convict attendants who harry and banter the country lad; their heartless abuse is irritating the sick boy beyond patience. exasperated by the taunts of the night nurse, russell yesterday threw a saucer at him. he was reported to the doctor, who threatened to send the paralyzed youth to the dungeon. plagued and tormented, in great suffering, russell grows bitter and complaining. the nurses and officers are persecuting him, he writes; they will soon do him to death, if i will not come to his rescue. if he could go to an outside hospital, he is sure to recover. every evening frank brings sadder news: russell is feeling worse; he is so nervous, the doctor has ordered the nurses to wear slippers; the doors in the ward have been lined with cotton, to deaden the noise of slamming; but even the sight of a moving figure throws russell into convulsions. there is no hope, frank reports; decomposition has already set in. the boy is in terrible agony; he is constantly crying with pain, and calling for me. distraught with anxiety and yearning to see my sick friend, i resolve upon a way to visit the hospital. in the morning, as the guard hands me the bread ration and shuts my cell, i slip my hand between the sill and door. with an involuntary cry i withdraw my maimed and bleeding fingers. the overseer conducts me to the dispensary. by tacit permission of the friendly "medicine boy" i pass to the second floor, where the wards are located, and quickly steal to russell's bedside. the look of mute joy on the agonized face subdues the excruciating pain in my hand. "oh, dear aleck," he whispers, "i'm so glad they let you come. i'll get well if you'll nurse me." the shadow of death is in his eyes; the body exudes decomposition. bereft of speech, i gently press his white, emaciated hand. the weary eyes close, and the boy falls into slumber. silently i touch his dry lips, and steal away. in the afternoon i appeal to the warden to permit me to nurse my friend. it is the boy's dying wish; it will ease his last hours. the captain refers me to the inspectors, but mr. reed informs me that it would be subversive of discipline to grant my request. thereupon i ask permission to arrange a collection among the prisoners: russell firmly believes that he would improve in an outside hospital, and the pardon board might grant the petition. friendless prisoners are often allowed to circulate subscription lists among the inmates, and two years previously i had collected a hundred and twenty-three dollars for the pardon of a lifetimer. but the warden curtly refuses my plea, remarking that it is dangerous to permit me to associate with the men. i suggest the chaplain for the mission, or some prisoner selected by the authorities. but this offer is also vetoed, the warden berating me for having taken advantage of my presence in the dispensary to see russell clandestinely, and threatening to punish me with the dungeon. i plead with him for permission to visit the sick boy who is hungry for a friendly presence, and constantly calling for me. apparently touched by my emotion, the captain yields. he will permit me to visit russell, he informs me, on condition that a guard be present at the meeting. for a moment i hesitate. the desire to see my friend struggles against the fear of irritating him by the sight of the hated uniform; but i cannot expose the dying youth to this indignity and pain. angered by my refusal, perhaps disappointed in the hope of learning the secret of the tunnel from the visit, the warden forbids me hereafter to enter the hospital. * * * * * late at night frank appears at my cell. he looks very grave, as he whispers: "aleck, you must bear up." "russell--?" "yes, aleck." "worse? tell me, frank." "he is dead. bear up, aleck. his last thought was of you. he was unconscious all afternoon, but just before the end--it was . --he sat up in bed so suddenly, he frightened me. his arm shot out, and he cried, 'good bye, aleck.'" chapter xli the shock at buffalo i july , . dear girl: this is from the hospital, _sub rosa_. just out of the strait-jacket, after eight days. for over a year i was in the strictest solitary; for a long time mail and reading matter were denied me. i have no words to describe the horror of the last months.... i have passed through a great crisis. two of my best friends died in a frightful manner. the death of russell, especially, affected me. he was very young, and my dearest and most devoted friend, and he died a terrible death. the doctor charged the boy with shamming, but now he says it was spinal meningitis. i cannot tell you the awful truth,--it was nothing short of murder, and my poor friend rotted away by inches. when he died they found his back one mass of bedsores. if you could read the pitiful letters he wrote, begging to see me, and to be nursed by me! but the warden wouldn't permit it. in some manner his agony seemed to affect me, and i began to experience the pains and symptoms that russell described in his notes. i knew it was my sick fancy; i strove against it, but presently my legs showed signs of paralysis, and i suffered excruciating pain in the spinal column, just like russell. i was afraid that i would be done to death like my poor friend. i grew suspicious of every guard, and would barely touch the food, for fear of its being poisoned. my "head was workin'," they said. and all the time i knew it was my diseased imagination, and i was in terror of going mad.... i tried so hard to fight it, but it would always creep up, and get hold of me stronger and stronger. another week of solitary would have killed me. i was on the verge of suicide. i demanded to be relieved from the cell, and the warden ordered me punished. i was put in the strait-jacket. they bound my body in canvas, strapped my arms to the bed, and chained my feet to the posts. i was kept that way eight days, unable to move, rotting in my own excrement. released prisoners called the attention of our new inspector to my case. he refused to believe that such things were being done in the penitentiary. reports spread that i was going blind and insane. then the inspector visited the hospital and had me released from the jacket. i am in pretty bad shape, but they put me in the general ward now, and i am glad of the chance to send you this note. sasha. ii direct to box a , allegheny city, pa., july th, . dear sonya: i cannot tell you how happy i am to be allowed to write to you again. my privileges have been restored by our new inspector, a very kindly man. he has relieved me from the cell, and now i am again on the range. the inspector requested me to deny to my friends the reports which have recently appeared in the papers concerning my condition. i have not been well of late, but now i hope to improve. my eyes are very poor. the inspector has given me permission to have a specialist examine them. please arrange for it through our local comrades. there is another piece of very good news, dear friend. a new commutation law has been passed, which reduces my sentence by - / years. it still leaves me a long time, of course; almost years here, and another year to the workhouse. however, it is a considerable gain, and if i should not get into solitary again, i may--i am almost afraid to utter the thought--i may live to come out. i feel as if i am being resurrected. the new law benefits the short-timers proportionately much more than the men with longer sentences. only the poor lifers do not share in it. we were very anxious for a while, as there were many rumors that the law would be declared unconstitutional. fortunately, the attempt to nullify its benefits proved ineffectual. think of men who will see something unconstitutional in allowing the prisoners a little more good time than the commutation statute of years ago. as if a little kindness to the unfortunates--really justice--is incompatible with the spirit of jefferson! we were greatly worried over the fate of this statute, but at last the first batch has been released, and there is much rejoicing over it. there is a peculiar history about this new law, which may interest you; it sheds a significant side light. it was especially designed for the benefit of a high federal officer who was recently convicted of aiding two wealthy philadelphia tobacco manufacturers to defraud the government of a few millions, by using counterfeit tax stamps. their influence secured the introduction of the commutation bill and its hasty passage. the law would have cut their sentences almost in two, but certain newspapers seem to have taken offence at having been kept in ignorance of the "deal," and protests began to be voiced. the matter finally came up before the attorney general of the united states, who decided that the men in whose special interest the law was engineered, could not benefit by it, because a state law does not affect u. s. prisoners, the latter being subject to the federal commutation act. imagine the discomfiture of the politicians! an attempt was even made to suspend the operation of the statute. fortunately it failed, and now the "common" state prisoners, who were not at all meant to profit, are being released. the legislature has unwittingly given some unfortunates here much happiness. i was interrupted in this writing by being called out for a visit. i could hardly credit it: the first comrade i have been allowed to see in nine years! it was harry gordon, and i was so overcome by the sight of the dear friend, i could barely speak. he must have prevailed upon the new inspector to issue a permit. the latter is now acting warden, owing to the serious illness of captain wright. perhaps he will allow me to see my sister. will you kindly communicate with her at once? meantime i shall try to secure a pass. with renewed hope, and always with green memory of you, alex. iii _sub rosa_, dec. , . dearest girl: i know how your visit and my strange behavior have affected you.... the sight of your face after all these years completely unnerved me. i could not think, i could not speak. it was as if all my dreams of freedom, the whole world of the living, were concentrated in the shiny little trinket that was dangling from your watch chain.... i couldn't take my eyes off it, i couldn't keep my hand from playing with it. it absorbed my whole being.... and all the time i felt how nervous you were at my silence, and i couldn't utter a word. perhaps it would have been better for us not to have seen each other under the present conditions. it was lucky they did not recognize you: they took you for my "sister," though i believe your identity was suspected after you had left. you would surely not have been permitted the visit, had the old warden been here. he was ill at the time. he never got over the shock of the tunnel, and finally he has been persuaded by the prison physician (who has secret aspirations to the wardenship) that the anxieties of his position are a menace to his advanced age. considerable dissatisfaction has also developed of late against the warden among the inspectors. well, he has resigned at last, thank goodness! the prisoners have been praying for it for years, and some of the boys on the range celebrated the event by getting drunk on wood alcohol. the new warden has just assumed charge, and we hope for improvement. he is a physician by profession, with the title of major in the pennsylvania militia. it was entirely uncalled for on the part of the officious friend, whoever he may have been, to cause you unnecessary worry over my health, and my renewed persecution. you remember that in july the new inspector released me from the strait-jacket and assigned me to work on the range. but i was locked up again in october, after the mckinley incident. the president of the board of inspectors was at the time in new york. he inquired by wire what i was doing. upon being informed that i was working on the range, he ordered me into solitary. the new warden, on assuming office, sent for me. "they give you a bad reputation," he said; "but i will let you out of the cell if you'll promise to do what is right by me." he spoke brusquely, in the manner of a man closing a business deal, with the power of dictating terms. he reminded me of bismarck at versailles. yet he did not seem unkind; the thought of escape was probably in his mind. but the new law has germinated the hope of survival; my weakened condition and the unexpected shortening of my sentence have at last decided me to abandon the idea of escape. i therefore replied to the warden: "i will do what is right by you, if you treat _me_ right." thereupon he assigned me to work on the range. it is almost like liberty to have the freedom of the cell-house after the close solitary. and you, dear friend? in your letters i feel how terribly torn you are by the events of the recent months. i lived in great fear for your safety, and i can barely credit the good news that you are at liberty. it seems almost a miracle. i followed the newspapers with great anxiety. the whole country seemed to be swept with the fury of revenge. to a considerable extent the press fanned the fires of persecution. here in the prison very little sincere grief was manifested. out out of hearing of the guards, the men passed very uncomplimentary remarks about the dead president. the average prisoner corresponds to the average citizen--their patriotism is very passive, except when stimulated by personal interest, or artificially excited. but if the press mirrored the sentiment of the people, the nation must have suddenly relapsed into cannibalism. there were moments when i was in mortal dread for your very life, and for the safety of the other arrested comrades. in previous letters you hinted that it was official rivalry and jealousy, and your absence from new york, to which you owe your release. you may be right; yet i believe that your attitude of proud self-respect and your admirable self-control contributed much to the result. you were splendid, dear; and i was especially moved by your remark that you would faithfully nurse the wounded man, if he required your services, but that the poor boy, condemned and deserted by all, needed and deserved your sympathy and aid more than the president. more strikingly than your letters, that remark discovered to me the great change wrought in us by the ripening years. yes, in us, in both, for my heart echoed your beautiful sentiment. how impossible such a thought would have been to us in the days of a decade ago! we should have considered it treason to the spirit of revolution; it would have outraged all our traditions even to admit the humanity of an official representative of capitalism. is it not very significant that we two--you living in the very heart of anarchist thought and activity, and i in the atmosphere of absolute suppression and solitude--should have arrived at the same evolutionary point after a decade of divergent paths? you have alluded in a recent letter to the ennobling and broadening influence of sorrow. yet not upon every one does it exert a similar effect. some natures grow embittered, and shrink with the poison of misery. i often wonder at my lack of bitterness and enmity, even against the old warden--and surely i have good cause to hate him. is it because of greater maturity? i rather think it is temperamentally conditioned. the love of the people, the hatred of oppression of our younger days, vital as these sentiments were with us, were mental rather than emotional. fortunately so, i think. for those like fedya and lewis and pauline, and numerous others, soon have their emotionally inflated idealism punctured on the thorny path of the social protestant. only aspirations that spontaneously leap from the depths of our soul persist in the face of antagonistic forces. the revolutionist is born. beneath our love and hatred of former days lay inherent rebellion, and the passionate desire for liberty and life. in the long years of isolation i have looked deeply into my heart. with open mind and sincere purpose, i have revised every emotion and every thought. away from my former atmosphere and the disturbing influence of the world's turmoil, i have divested myself of all traditions and accepted beliefs. i have studied the sciences and the humanities, contemplated life, and pondered over human destiny. for weeks and months i would be absorbed in the domain of "pure reason," or discuss with leibnitz the question of free will, and seek to penetrate, beyond spencer, into the unknowable. political science and economics, law and criminology--i studied them with unprejudiced mind, and sought to slacken my soul's thirst by delving deeply into religion and theology, seeking the "key to life" at the feet of mrs. eddy, expectantly listening for the voice of disembodied, studying koreshanity and theosophy, absorbing the _prana_ of knowledge and power, and concentrating upon the wisdom of the yogi. and after years of contemplation and study, chastened by much sorrow and suffering, i arise from the broken fetters of the world's folly and delusions, to behold the threshold of a new life of liberty and equality. my youth's ideal of a free humanity in the vague future has become clarified and crystallized into the living truth of anarchy, as the sustaining elemental force of my every-day existence. often i have wondered in the years gone by, was not wisdom dear at the price of enthusiasm? at one is not so reckless, not so fanatical and one-sided as at . with maturity we become more universal; but life is a shylock that cannot be cheated of his due. for every lesson it teaches us, we have a wound or a scar to show. we grow broader; but too often the heart contracts as the mind expands, and the fires are burning down while we are learning. at such moments my mind would revert to the days when the momentarily expected approach of the social revolution absorbed our exclusive interest. the raging present and its conflicting currents passed us by, while our eyes were riveted upon the dawn, in thrilling expectancy of the sunrise. life and its manifold expressions were vexatious to the spirit of revolt; and poetry, literature, and art were scorned as hindrances to progress, unless they sounded the tocsin of immediate revolution. humanity was sharply divided in two warring camps,--the noble people, the producers, who yearned for the light of the new gospel, and the hated oppressors, the exploiters, who craftily strove to obscure the rising day that was to give back to man his heritage. if only "the good people" were given an opportunity to hear the great truth, how joyfully they would embrace anarchy and walk in triumph into the promised land! the splendid naivety of the days that resented as a personal reflection the least misgiving of the future; the enthusiasm that discounted the power of inherent prejudice and predilection! magnificent was the day of hearts on fire with the hatred of oppression and the love of liberty! woe indeed to the man or the people whose soul never warmed with the spark of prometheus,--for it is youth that has climbed the heights.... but maturity has clarified the way, and the stupendous task of human regeneration will be accomplished only by the purified vision of hearts that grow not cold. and you, my dear friend, with the deeper insight of time, you have yet happily kept your heart young. i have rejoiced at it in your letters of recent years, and it is especially evident from the sentiments you have expressed regarding the happening at buffalo. i share your view entirely; for that very reason, it is the more distressing to disagree with you in one very important particular: the value of leon's act. i know the terrible ordeal you have passed through, the fiendish persecution to which you have been subjected. worse than all must have been to you the general lack of understanding for such phenomena; and, sadder yet, the despicable attitude of some would-be radicals in denouncing the man and his act. but i am confident you will not mistake my expressed disagreement for condemnation. we need not discuss the phase of the _attentat_ which manifested the rebellion of a tortured soul, the individual protest against social wrong. such phenomena are the natural result of evil conditions, as inevitable as the flooding of the river banks by the swelling mountain torrents. but i cannot agree with you regarding the social value of leon's act. i have read of the beautiful personality of the youth, of his inability to adapt himself to brutal conditions, and the rebellion of his soul. it throws a significant light upon the causes of the _attentat_. indeed, it is at once the greatest tragedy of martyrdom, and the most terrible indictment of society, that it forces the noblest men and women to shed human blood, though their souls shrink from it. but the more imperative it is that drastic methods of this character be resorted to only as a last extremity. to prove of value, they must be motived by social rather than individual necessity, and be directed against a real and immediate enemy of the people. the significance of such a deed is understood by the popular mind--and in that alone is the propagandistic, educational importance of an _attentat_, except if it is exclusively an act of terrorism. now, i do not believe that this deed was terroristic; and i doubt whether it was educational, because the social necessity for its performance was not manifest. that you may not misunderstand, i repeat: as an expression of personal revolt it was inevitable, and in itself an indictment of existing conditions. but the background of social necessity was lacking, and therefore the value of the act was to a great extent nullified. in russia, where political oppression is popularly felt, such a deed would be of great value. but the scheme of political subjection is more subtle in america. and though mckinley was the chief representative of our modern slavery, he could not be considered in the light of a direct and immediate enemy of the people; while in an absolutism, the autocrat is visible and tangible. the real despotism of republican institutions is far deeper, more insidious, because it rests on the popular delusion of self-government and independence. that is the subtle source of democratic tyranny, and, as such, it cannot be reached with a bullet. in modern capitalism, exploitation rather than oppression is the real enemy of the people. oppression is but its handmaid. hence the battle is to be waged in the economic rather than the political field. it is therefore that i regard my own act as far more significant and educational than leon's. it was directed against a tangible, real oppressor, visualized as such by the people. as long as misery and tyranny fill the world, social contrasts and consequent hatreds will persist, and the noblest of the race--our czolgoszes--burst forth in "rockets of iron." but does this lightning really illumine the social horizon, or merely confuse minds with the succeeding darkness? the struggle of labor against capital is a class war, essentially and chiefly economic. in that arena the battles must be fought. it was not these considerations, of course, that inspired the nation-wide man-hunt, or the attitude even of alleged radicals. their cowardice has filled me with loathing and sadness. the brutal farce of the trial, the hypocrisy of the whole proceeding, the thirst for the blood of the martyr,--these make one almost despair of humanity. i must close. the friend to smuggle out this letter will be uneasy about its bulk. send me sign of receipt, and i hope that you may be permitted a little rest and peace, to recover from the nightmare of the last months. sasha. chapter xlii marred lives i the discussion with the girl is a source of much mortification. harassed on every side, persecuted by the authorities, and hounded even into the street, my friend, in her hour of bitterness, confounds my appreciative disagreement with the denunciation of stupidity and inertia. i realize the inadequacy of the written word, and despair at the hopelessness of human understanding, as i vainly seek to elucidate the meaning of the buffalo tragedy to friendly guards and prisoners. continued correspondence with the girl accentuates the divergence of our views, painfully discovering the fundamental difference of attitude underlying even common conclusions. by degrees the stress of activities reacts upon my friend's correspondence. our discussion lags, and soon ceases entirely. the world of the outside, temporarily brought closer, again recedes, and the urgency of the immediate absorbs me in the life of the prison. ii a spirit of hopefulness breathes in the cell-house. the new commutation law is bringing liberty appreciably nearer. in the shops and yard the men excitedly discuss the increased "good time," and prisoners flit about with paper and pencil, seeking a tutored friend to "figure out" their time of release. even the solitaries, on the verge of despair, and the long-timers facing a vista of cheerless years, are instilled with new courage and hope. the tenor of conversation is altered. with the appointment of the new warden the constant grumbling over the food has ceased. pleasant surprise is manifest at the welcome change in "the grub." i wonder at the tolerant silence regarding the disappointing christmas dinner. the men impatiently frown down the occasional "kicker." the warden is "green," they argue; he did not know that we are supposed to get currant bread for the holidays; he will do better, "jest give 'im a chanc't." the improvement in the daily meals is enlarged upon, and the men thrill with amazed expectancy at the incredible report, "oysters for new year's dinner!" with gratification we hear the major's expression of disgust at the filthy condition of the prison, his condemnation of the basket cell and dungeon as barbarous, and the promise of radical reforms. as an earnest of his régime he has released from solitary the men whom warden wright had punished for having served as witnesses in the defence of murphy and mong. greedy for the large reward, hopkins and his stools had accused the two men of a mysterious murder committed in elk city several years previously. the criminal trial, involving the suicide of an officer[ ] whom the warden had forced to testify against the defendants, resulted in the acquittal of the prisoners, whereupon captain wright ordered the convict-witnesses for the defence to be punished. [ ] officer robert g. hunter, who committed suicide august , , in clarion, pa. (where the trial took place). he left a written confession, in which he accused warden e. s. wright of forcing him to testify against men whom he knew to be innocent. the new warden, himself a physician, introduces hygienic rules, abolishes the "holy-stoning"[ ] of the cell-house floor because of the detrimental effect of the dust, and decides to separate the consumptive and syphilitic prisoners from the comparatively healthy ones. upon examination, per cent. of the population are discovered in various stages of tuberculosis, and per cent. insane. the death rate from consumption is found to range between and per cent. at light tasks in the block and the yard the major finds employment for the sickly inmates; special gangs are assigned to keeping the prison clean, the rest of the men at work in the shop. with the exception of a number of dangerously insane, who are to be committed to an asylum, every prisoner in the institution is at work, and the vexed problem of idleness resulting from the anti-convict labor law is thus solved. [ ] the process of whitening stone floors by pulverizing sand into their surfaces. the change of diet, better hygiene, and the abolition of the dungeon, produce a noticeable improvement in the life of the prison. the gloom of the cell-house perceptibly lifts, and presently the men are surprised at music hour, between six and seven in the evening, with the strains of merry ragtime by the newly organized penitentiary band. iii new faces greet me on the range. but many old friends are missing. billy ryan is dead of consumption; "frenchy" and ben have become insane; little mat, the duquesne striker, committed suicide. in sad remembrance i think of them, grown close and dear in the years of mutual suffering. some of the old-timers have survived, but broken in spirit and health. "praying" andy is still in the block, his mind clouded, his lips constantly moving in prayer. "me innocent," the old man reiterates, "god him know." last month the board has again refused to pardon the lifetimer, and now he is bereft of hope. "me have no more money. my children they save and save, and bring me for pardon, and now no more money." aleck killain has also been refused by the board at the same session. he is the oldest man in the prison, in point of service, and the most popular lifer. his innocence of murder is one of the traditions of riverside. in the boat he had rented to a party of picnickers, a woman was found dead. no clew could be discovered, and aleck was sentenced to life, because he could not be forced to divulge the names of the men who had hired his boat. he pauses to tell me the sad news: the authorities have opposed his pardon, demanding that he furnish the information desired by them. he looks sere with confinement, his eyes full of a mute sadness that can find no words. his face is deeply seamed, his features grave, almost immobile. in the long years of our friendship i have never seen aleck laugh. once or twice he smiled, and his whole being seemed radiant with rare sweetness. he speaks abruptly, with a perceptible effort. "yes, aleck," he is saying, "it's true. they refused me." "but they pardoned mac," i retort hotly. "he confessed to a cold-blooded murder, and he's only been in four years." "good luck," he remarks. "how, good luck?" "mac's father accidentally struck oil on his farm." "well, what of it?" "three hundred barrels a day. rich. got his son a pardon." "but on what ground did they dismiss your application? they know you are innocent." "district attorney came to me. 'you're innocent, we know. tell us who did the murder.' i had nothing to tell. pardon refused." "is there any hope later on, aleck?" "when the present administration are all dead, perhaps." slowly he passes on, at the approach of a guard. he walks weakly, with halting step. * * * * * "old sammy" is back again, his limp heavier, shoulders bent lower. "i'm here again, friend aleck," he smiles apologetically. "what could i do? the old woman died, an' my boys went off somewhere. th' farm was sold that i was borned in," his voice trembles with emotion. "i couldn't find th' boys, an' no one wanted me, an' wouldn't give me any work. 'go to th' pogy',[ ] they told me. i couldn't, aleck. i've worked all me life; i don't want no charity. i made a bluff," he smiles between tears,--"broke into a store, and here i am." [ ] poorhouse. with surprise i recognize "tough" monk among the first-grade men. for years he had been kept in stripes, and constantly punished for bad work in the hosiery department. he was called the laziest man in the prison: not once in five years had he accomplished his task. but the new warden transferred him to the construction shop, where monk was employed at his trade of blacksmith. "i hated that damn sock makin'," he tells me. "i've struck it right now, an' the major says i'm the best worker in th' shop. wouldn't believe it, eh, would you? major promised me a ten-spot for the fancy iron work i did for them 'lectric posts in th' yard. says it's artistic, see? that's me all right; it's work i like. i won't lose any time, either. warden says old sandy was a fool for makin' me knit socks with them big paws of mine. th' major is aw' right, aw' right." * * * * * with a glow of pleasure i meet "smiling" al, my colored friend from the jail. the good-natured boy looks old and infirm. his kindness has involved him in much trouble; he has been repeatedly punished for shouldering the faults of others, and now the inspectors have informed him that he is to lose the greater part of his commutation time. he has grown wan with worry over the uncertainty of release. every morning is tense with expectation. "might be ah goes to-day, aleck," he hopefully smiles as i pause at his cell. but the weeks pass. the suspense is torturing the young negro, and he is visibly failing day by day. * * * * * a familiar voice greets me. "hello, berk, ain't you glad t' see an old pal?" big dave beams on me with his cheerful smile. "no, davy. i hoped you wouldn't come back." he becomes very grave. "yes, i swore i'd swing sooner than come back. didn't get a chanc't. you see," he explains, his tone full of bitterness, "i goes t' work and gets a job, good job, too; an' i keeps 'way from th' booze an' me pals. but th' damn bulls was after me. got me sacked from me job three times, an' den i knocked one of 'em on th' head. damn his soul to hell, wish i'd killed 'im. 'old offender,' they says to the jedge, and he soaks me for a seven spot. i was a sucker all right for tryin' t' be straight." iv in the large cage at the centre of the block, the men employed about the cell-house congregate in their idle moments. the shadows steal silently in and out of the inclosure, watchful of the approach of a guard. within sounds the hum of subdued conversation, the men lounging about the sawdust barrel, absorbed in "snakes" wilson's recital of his protracted struggle with "old sandy." he relates vividly his persistent waking at night, violent stamping on the floor, cries of "murder! i see snakes!" with admiring glances the young prisoners hang upon the lips of the old criminal, whose perseverance in shamming finally forced the former warden to assign "snakes" a special room in the hospital, where his snake-seeing propensities would become dormant, to suffer again violent awakening the moment he would be transferred to a cell. for ten years the struggle continued, involving numerous clubbings, the dungeon, and the strait-jacket, till the warden yielded, and "snakes" was permanently established in the comparative freedom of the special room. little groups stand about the cage, boisterous with the wit of the "four-eyed yegg," who styles himself "bill nye," or excitedly discussing the intricacies of the commutation law, the chances of pittsburgh winning the baseball pennant the following season, and next sunday's dinner. with much animation, the rumored resignation of the deputy warden is discussed. the major is gradually weeding out the "old gang," it is gossiped. a colonel of the militia is to secure the position of assistant to the warden. this source of conversation is inexhaustible, every detail of local life serving for endless discussion and heated debate. but at the 'lookout's' whimpered warning of an approaching guard, the circle breaks up, each man pretending to be busy dusting and cleaning. officer mitchell passes by; with short legs wide apart, he stands surveying the assembled idlers from beneath his fierce-looking eyebrows. "quiet as me grandmother at church, ain't ye? all of a sudden, too. and mighty busy, every damn one of you. you 'snakes' there, what business you got here, eh?" "i've jest come in fer a broom." "you old reprobate, you, i saw you sneak in there an hour ago, and you've been chawin' the rag to beat the band. think this a barroom, do you? get to your cells, all of you." he trudges slowly away, mumbling: "you loafers, when i catch you here again, don't you dare talk so loud." one by one the men steal back into the cage, jokingly teasing each other upon their happy escape. presently several rangemen join the group. conversation becomes animated; voices are raised in dispute. but anger subsides, and a hush falls upon the men, as blind charley gropes his way along the wall. bill nye reaches for his hand, and leads him to a seat on the barrel. "feelin' better to-day, charley?" he asks gently. "ye-es. i--think a little--better," the blind man says in an uncertain, hesitating manner. his face wears a bewildered expression, as if he has not yet become resigned to his great misfortune. it happened only a few months ago. in company with two friends, considerably the worse for liquor, he was passing a house on the outskirts of allegheny. it was growing dark, and they wanted a drink. charley knocked at the door. a head appeared at an upper window. "robbers!" some one suddenly cried. there was a flash. with a cry of pain, charley caught at his eyes. he staggered, then turned round and round, helpless, in a daze. he couldn't see his companions, the house and the street disappeared, and all was utter darkness. the ground seemed to give beneath his feet, and charley fell down upon his face moaning and calling to his friends. but they had fled in terror, and he was alone in the darkness,--alone and blind. "i'm glad you feel better, charley," bill nye says kindly. "how are your eyes?" "i think--a bit--better." the gunshot had severed the optic nerves in both eyes. his sight is destroyed forever; but with the incomplete realization of sudden calamity, charley believes his eyesight only temporarily injured. "billy," he says presently, "when i woke this morning it--didn't seem so--dark. it was like--a film over my eyes. perhaps--it may--get better yet," his voice quivers with the expectancy of having his hope confirmed. "ah, whatcher kiddin' yourself for," "snakes" interposes. "shut up, you big stiff," bill flares up, grabbing "snakes" by the throat. "charley," he adds, "i once got paralyzed in my left eye. it looked just like yours now, and i felt as if there was a film on it. do you see things like in a fog, charley?" "yes, yes, just like that." "well, that's the way it was with me. but little by little things got to be lighter, and now the eye is as good as ever." "is that right, billy?" charley inquires anxiously. "what did you do?" "well, the doc put things in my eye. the croaker here is giving you some applications, ain't he?" "yes; but he says it's for the inflammation." "that's right. that's what the doctors told me. you just take it easy, charley; don't worry. you'll come out all right, see if you don't." bill reddens guiltily at the unintended expression, but quickly holds up a warning finger to silence the giggling "snowball kid." then, with sudden vehemence, he exclaims: "by god, charley, if i ever meet that judge of yours on a dark night, i'll choke him with these here hands, so help me! it's a damn shame to send you here in this condition. you should have gone to a hospital, that's what i say. but cheer up, old boy, you won't have to serve your three years; you can bet on that. we'll all club together to get your case up for a pardon, won't we, boys?" with unwonted energy the old yegg makes the rounds of the cage, taking pledges of contributions. "doctor george" appears around the corner, industriously polishing the brasswork, and bill appeals to him to corroborate his diagnosis of the blind man's condition. a smile of timid joy suffuses the sightless face, as bill nye slaps him on the shoulder, crying jovially, "what did i tell you, eh? you'll be o. k. soon, and meantime keep your mind busy how to avenge the injustice done you," and with a violent wink in the direction of "snakes," the yegg launches upon a reminiscence of his youth. as far as he can remember, he relates, the spirit of vengeance was strong within him. he has always religiously revenged any wrong he was made to suffer, but the incident that afforded him the greatest joy was an experience of his boyhood. he was fifteen then, and living with his widowed mother and three elder sisters in a small country place. one evening, as the family gathered in the large sitting-room, his sister mary said something which deeply offended him. in great rage he left the house. just as he was crossing the street, he was met by a tall, well-dressed gentleman, evidently a stranger in the town. the man guardedly inquired whether the boy could direct him to some address where one might pass the evening pleasantly. "quick as a flash a brilliant idea struck me," bill narrates, warming to his story. "never short of them, anyhow," he remarks parenthetically, "but here was my revenge! 'you mean a whore-house, don't you?' i ask the fellow. yes, that's what was wanted, my man says. 'why,' says i to him, kind of suddenly, 'see the house there right across the street? that's the place you want,' and i point out to him the house where the old lady and my three sisters are all sitting around the table, expectant like--waiting for me, you know. well, the man gives me a quarter, and up he goes, knocks on the door and steps right in. i hide in a dark corner to see what's coming, you know, and sure enough, presently the door opens with a bang and something comes out with a rush, and falls on the veranda, and mother she's got a broom in her hand, and the girls, every blessed one of them, out with flatiron and dustpan, and biff, baff, they rain it upon that thing on the steps. i thought i'd split my sides laughing. by an' by i return to the house, and mother and sisters are kind of excited, and i says innocent-like, 'what's up, girls?' well, you ought to hear 'em! talk, did they? 'that beast of a man, the dirty thing that came to the house and insulted us with--' they couldn't even mention the awful things he said; and mary--that's the sis i got mad at--she cries, 'oh, billie, you're so big and strong, i wish you was here when that nasty old thing came up.'" the boys are hilarious over the story, and "doctor george" motions me aside to talk over "old times." with a hearty pressure i greet my friend, whom i had not seen since the days of the first investigation. suspected of complicity, he had been removed to the shops, and only recently returned to his former position in the block. his beautiful thick hair has grown thin and gray; he looks aged and worn. with sadness i notice his tone of bitterness. "they almost killed me, aleck!" he says; "if it wasn't for my wife, i'd murder that old warden." throughout his long confinement, his wife had faithfully stood by him, her unfailing courage and devotion sustaining him in the hours of darkness and despair. "the dear girl," he muses, "i'd be dead if it wasn't for her." but his release is approaching. he has almost served the sentence of sixteen years for alleged complicity in the bank robbery at leechburg, during which the cashier was killed. the other two men convicted of the crime have both died in prison. the doctor alone has survived, "thanks to the dear girl," he repeats. but the six months at the workhouse fill him with apprehension. he has been informed that the place is a veritable inferno, even worse than the penitentiary. however, his wife is faithfully at work, trying to have the workhouse sentence suspended, and full liberty may be at hand. chapter xliii "passing the love of woman" the presence of my old friend is a source of much pleasure. george is an intelligent man; the long years of incarceration have not circumscribed his intellectual horizon. the approach of release is intensifying his interest in the life beyond the gates, and we pass the idle hours conversing over subjects of mutual interest, discussing social theories and problems of the day. he has a broad grasp of affairs, but his temperament and catholic traditions are antagonistic to the ideas dear to me. yet his attitude is free from personalities and narrow prejudice, and our talks are conducted along scientific and philosophical lines. the recent death of liebknecht and the american lecture tour of peter kropotkin afford opportunity for the discussion of modern social questions. there are many subjects of mutual interest, and my friend, whose great-grandfather was among the signers of the declaration, waxes eloquent in denunciation of his country's policy of extermination in the philippines and the growing imperialistic tendencies of the republic. a democrat of the jeffersonian type, he is virulent against the old warden on account of his favoritism and discrimination. his prison experience, he informs me, has considerably altered the views of democracy he once entertained. "why, aleck, there _is_ no justice," he says vehemently; "no, not even in the best democracy. ten years ago i would have staked my life on the courts. to-day i know they are a failure; our whole jurisprudence is wrong. you see, i have been here nine years. i have met and made friends with hundreds of criminals. some were pretty desperate, and many of them scoundrels. but i have to meet one yet in whom i couldn't discover some good quality, if he's scratched right. look at that fellow there," he points to a young prisoner scrubbing an upper range, "that's 'johnny the hunk.' he's in for murder. now what did the judge and jury know about him? just this: he was a hard-working boy in the mills. one saturday he attended a wedding, with a chum of his. they were both drunk when they went out into the street. they were boisterous, and a policeman tried to arrest them. johnny's chum resisted. the cop must have lost his head--he shot the fellow dead. it was right near johnny's home, and he ran in and got a pistol, and killed the policeman. must have been crazy with drink. well, they were going to hang him, but he was only a kid, hardly sixteen. they gave him fifteen years. now he's all in--they've just ruined the boy's life. and what kind of a boy is he, do you know? guess what he did. it was only a few months ago. some screw told him that the widow of the cop he shot is hard up; she has three children, and takes in washing. do you know what johnny did? he went around among the cons, and got together fifty dollars on the fancy paper-work he is making; he's an artist at it. he sent the woman the money, and begged her to forgive him." "is that true, doctor?" "every word. i went to milligan's office on some business, and the boy had just sent the money to the woman. the chaplain was so much moved by it, he told me the whole story. but wait, that isn't all. you know what that woman did?" "what?" "she wrote to johnny that he was a dirty murderer, and that if he ever goes up for a pardon, she will oppose it. she didn't want anything to do with him, she wrote. but she kept the money." "how did johnny take it?" "it's really wonderful about human nature. the boy cried over the letter, and told the chaplain that he wouldn't write to her again. but every minute he can spare he works on that fancy work, and every month he sends her money. that's the _criminal_ the judge sentenced to fifteen years in this hell!" my friend is firmly convinced that the law is entirely impotent to deal with our social ills. "why, look at the courts!" he exclaims, "they don't concern themselves with crime. they merely punish the criminal, absolutely indifferent to his antecedents and environment, and the predisposing causes." "but, george," i rejoin, "it is the economic system of exploitation, the dependence upon a master for your livelihood, want and the fear of want, which are responsible for most crimes." "only partly so, aleck. if it wasn't for the corruption in our public life, and the commercial scourge that holds everything for sale, and the spirit of materialism which has cheapened human life, there would not be so much violence and crime, even under what you call the capitalist system. at any rate, there is no doubt the law is an absolute failure in dealing with crime. the criminal belongs to the sphere of therapeutics. give him to the doctor instead of the jailer." "you mean, george, that the criminal is to be considered a product of anthropological and physical factors. but don't you see that you must also examine society, to determine to what extent social conditions are responsible for criminal actions? and if that were done, i believe most crimes would be found to be misdirected energy--misdirected because of false standards, wrong environment, and unenlightened self-interest." "well, i haven't given much thought to that phase of the question. but aside of social conditions, see what a bitch the penal institutions are making of it. for one thing, the promiscuous mingling of young and old, without regard to relative depravity and criminality, is converting prisons into veritable schools of crime and vice. the blackjack and the dungeon are surely not the proper means of reclamation, no matter what the social causes of crime. restraint and penal methods can't reform. the very idea of punishment precludes betterment. true reformation can emanate only from voluntary impulse, inspired and cultivated by intelligent advice and kind treatment. but reformation which is the result of fear, lacks the very essentials of its object, and will vanish like smoke the moment fear abates. and you know, aleck, the reformatories are even worse than the prisons. look at the fellows here from the various reform schools. why, it's a disgrace! the boys who come from the outside are decent fellows. but those kids from the reformatories--one-third of the cons here have graduated there--they are terrible. you can spot them by looking at them. they are worse than street prostitutes." my friend is very bitter against the prison element variously known as "the girls," "sallies," and "punks," who for gain traffic in sexual gratification. but he takes a broad view of the moral aspect of homosexuality; his denunciation is against the commerce in carnal desires. as a medical man, and a student, he is deeply interested in the manifestations of suppressed sex. he speaks with profound sympathy of the brilliant english man-of-letters, whom the world of cant and stupidity has driven to prison and to death because his sex life did not conform to the accepted standards. in detail, my friend traces the various phases of his psychic development since his imprisonment, and i warm toward him with a sense of intense humanity, as he reveals the intimate emotions of his being. a general medical practitioner, he had not come in personal contact with cases of homosexuality. he had heard of pederasty; but like the majority of his colleagues, he had neither understanding for nor sympathy with the sex practices he considered abnormal and vicious. in prison he was horrified at the perversion that frequently came under his observation. for two years the very thought of such matters filled him with disgust; he even refused to speak to the men and boys known to be homosexual, unconditionally condemning them--"with my prejudices rather than my reason," he remarks. but the forces of suppression were at work. "now, this is in confidence, aleck," he cautions me. "i know you will understand. probably you yourself have experienced the same thing. i'm glad i can talk to some one about it; the other fellows here wouldn't understand it. it makes me sick to see how they all grow indignant over a fellow who is caught. and the officers, too, though you know as well as i that quite a number of them are addicted to these practices. well, i'll tell you. i suppose it's the same story with every one here, especially the long-timers. i was terribly dejected and hopeless when i came. sixteen years--i didn't believe for a moment i could live through it. i was abusing myself pretty badly. still, after a while, when i got work and began to take an interest in this life, i got over it. but as time went, the sex instinct awakened. i was young: about twenty-five, strong and healthy. sometimes i thought i'd get crazy with passion. you remember when we were celling together on that upper range, on r; you were in the stocking shop then, weren't you? don't you remember?" "of course i remember, george. you were in the cell next mine. we could see out on the river. it was in the summer: we could hear the excursion boats, and the girls singing and dancing." "that, too, helped to turn me back to onanism. i really believe the whole blessed range used to 'indulge' then. think of the precious material fed to the fishes," he smiles; "the privies, you know, empty into the river." "some geniuses may have been lost to the world in those orgies." "yes, orgies; that's just what they were. as a matter of fact, i don't believe there is a single man in the prison who doesn't abuse himself, at one time or another." "if there is, he's a mighty exception. i have known some men to masturbate four and five times a day. kept it up for months, too." "yes, and they either get the con, or go bugs. as a medical man i think that self-abuse, if practised no more frequently than ordinary coition, would be no more injurious than the latter. but it can't be done. it grows on you terribly. and the second stage is more dangerous than the first." "what do you call the second?" "well, the first is the dejection stage. hopeless and despondent, you seek forgetfulness in onanism. you don't care what happens. it's what i might call mechanical self-abuse, not induced by actual sex desire. this stage passes with your dejection, as soon as you begin to take an interest in the new life, as all of us are forced to do, before long. the second stage is the psychic and mental. it is not the result of dejection. with the gradual adaptation to the new conditions, a comparatively normal life begins, manifesting sexual desires. at this stage your self-abuse is induced by actual need. it is the more dangerous phase, because the frequency of the practice grows with the recurring thought of home, your wife or sweetheart. while the first was mechanical, giving no special pleasure, and resulting only in increasing lassitude, the second stage revolves about the charms of some loved woman, or one desired, and affords intense joy. therein is its allurement and danger; and that's why the habit gains in strength. the more miserable the life, the more frequently you will fall back upon your sole source of pleasure. many become helpless victims. i have noticed that prisoners of lower intelligence are the worst in this respect." "i have had the same experience. the narrower your mental horizon, the more you dwell upon your personal troubles and wrongs. that is probably the reason why the more illiterate go insane with confinement." "no doubt of it. you have had exceptional opportunities for observation of the solitaries and the new men. what did you notice, aleck?" "well, in some respects the existence of a prisoner is like the life of a factory worker. as a rule, men used to outdoor life suffer most from solitary. they are less able to adapt themselves to the close quarters, and the foul air quickly attacks their lungs. besides, those who have no interests beyond their personal life, soon become victims of insanity. i've always advised new men to interest themselves in some study or fancy work,--it's their only salvation." "if you yourself have survived, it's because you lived in your theories and ideals; i'm sure of it. and i continued my medical studies, and sought to absorb myself in scientific subjects." for a moment george pauses. the veins of his forehead protrude, as if he is undergoing a severe mental struggle. presently he says: "aleck, i'm going to speak very frankly to you. i'm much interested in the subject. i'll give you my intimate experiences, and i want you to be just as frank with me. i think it's one of the most important things, and i want to learn all i can about it. very little is known about it, and much less understood." "about what, george?" "about homosexuality. i have spoken of the second phase of onanism. with a strong effort i overcame it. not entirely, of course. but i have succeeded in regulating the practice, indulging in it at certain intervals. but as the months and years passed, my emotions manifested themselves. it was like a psychic awakening. the desire to love something was strong upon me. once i caught a little mouse in my cell, and tamed it a bit. it would eat out of my hand, and come around at meal times, and by and by it would stay all evening to play with me. i learned to love it. honestly, aleck, i cried when it died. and then, for a long time, i felt as if there was a void in my heart. i wanted something to love. it just swept me with a wild craving for affection. somehow the thought of woman gradually faded from my mind. when i saw my wife, it was just like a dear friend. but i didn't feel toward her sexually. one day, as i was passing in the hall, i noticed a young boy. he had been in only a short time, and he was rosy-cheeked, with a smooth little face and sweet lips--he reminded me of a girl i used to court before i married. after that i frequently surprised myself thinking of the lad. i felt no desire toward him, except just to know him and get friendly. i became acquainted with him, and when he heard i was a medical man, he would often call to consult me about the stomach trouble he suffered. the doctor here persisted in giving the poor kid salts and physics all the time. well, aleck, i could hardly believe it myself, but i grew so fond of the boy, i was miserable when a day passed without my seeing him. i would take big chances to get near him. i was rangeman then, and he was assistant on a top tier. we often had opportunities to talk. i got him interested in literature, and advised him what to read, for he didn't know what to do with his time. he had a fine character, that boy, and he was bright and intelligent. at first it was only a liking for him, but it increased all the time, till i couldn't think of any woman. but don't misunderstand me, aleck; it wasn't that i wanted a 'kid.' i swear to you, the other youths had no attraction for me whatever; but this boy--his name was floyd--he became so dear to me, why, i used to give him everything i could get. i had a friendly guard, and he'd bring me fruit and things. sometimes i'd just die to eat it, but i always gave it to floyd. and, aleck--you remember when i was down in the dungeon six days? well, it was for the sake of that boy. he did something, and i took the blame on myself. and the last time--they kept me nine days chained up--i hit a fellow for abusing floyd: he was small and couldn't defend himself. i did not realize it at the time, aleck, but i know now that i was simply in love with the boy; wildly, madly in love. it came very gradually. for two years i loved him without the least taint of sex desire. it was the purest affection i ever felt in my life. it was all-absorbing, and i would have sacrificed my life for him if he had asked it. but by degrees the psychic stage began to manifest all the expressions of love between the opposite sexes. i remember the first time he kissed me. it was early in the morning; only the rangemen were out, and i stole up to his cell to give him a delicacy. he put both hands between the bars, and pressed his lips to mine. aleck, i tell you, never in my life had i experienced such bliss as at that moment. it's five years ago, but it thrills me every time i think of it. it came suddenly; i didn't expect it. it was entirely spontaneous: our eyes met, and it seemed as if something drew us together. he told me he was very fond of me. from then on we became lovers. i used to neglect my work, and risk great danger to get a chance to kiss and embrace him. i grew terribly jealous, too, though i had no cause. i passed through every phase of a passionate love. with this difference, though--i felt a touch of the old disgust at the thought of actual sex contact. that i didn't do. it seemed to me a desecration of the boy, and of my love for him. but after a while that feeling also wore off, and i desired sexual relation with him. he said he loved me enough to do even that for me, though he had never done it before. he hadn't been in any reformatory, you know. and yet, somehow i couldn't bring myself to do it; i loved the lad too much for it. perhaps you will smile, aleck, but it was real, true love. when floyd was unexpectedly transferred to the other block, i felt that i would be the happiest man if i could only touch his hand again, or get one more kiss. you--you're laughing?" he asks abruptly, a touch of anxiety in his voice. "no, george. i am grateful for your confidence. i think it is a wonderful thing; and, george--i had felt the same horror and disgust at these things, as you did. but now i think quite differently about them." "really, aleck? i'm glad you say so. often i was troubled--is it viciousness or what, i wondered; but i could never talk to any one about it. they take everything here in such a filthy sense. yet i knew in my heart that it was a true, honest emotion." "george, i think it a very beautiful emotion. just as beautiful as love for a woman. i had a friend here; his name was russell; perhaps you remember him. i felt no physical passion toward him, but i think i loved him with all my heart. his death was a most terrible shock to me. it almost drove me insane." silently george holds out his hand. chapter xliv love's daring castle on the ohio, aug. , . my dear carolus: you know the saying, "der eine hat den beutel, der andere das geld." i find it a difficult problem to keep in touch with my correspondents. i have the leisure, but theirs is the advantage of the paper supply. thus runs the world. but you, a most faithful correspondent, have been neglected a long while. therefore this unexpected _sub rosa_ chance is for you. my dear boy, whatever your experiences since you left me, don't fashion your philosophy in the image of disappointment. all life is a multiplied pain; its highest expressions, love and friendship, are sources of the most heart-breaking sorrow. that has been my experience; no doubt, yours also. and you are aware that here, under prison conditions, the disappointments, the grief and anguish, are so much more acute, more bitter and lasting. what then? shall one seal his emotions, or barricade his heart? ah, if it were possible, it would be wiser, some claim. but remember, dear carl, mere wisdom is a barren life. i think it a natural reaction against your prison existence that you feel the need of self-indulgence. but it is a temporary phase, i hope. you want to live and enjoy, you say. but surely you are mistaken to believe that the time is past when we cheerfully sacrificed all to the needs of the cause. the first flush of emotional enthusiasm may have paled, but in its place there is the deeper and more lasting conviction that permeates one's whole being. there come moments when one asks himself the justification of his existence, the meaning of his life. no torment is more excruciating and overwhelming than the failure to find an answer. you will discover it neither in physical indulgence nor in coldly intellectual pleasure. something more substantial is needed. in this regard, life outside does not differ so very much from prison existence. the narrower your horizon--the more absorbed you are in your immediate environment, and dependent upon it--the sooner you decay, morally and mentally. you can, in a measure, escape the sordidness of life only by living for something higher. perhaps that is the secret of my survival. wider interests have given me strength. and other phases there are. from your own experience you know what sustaining satisfaction is found in prison in the constant fight for the feeling of human dignity, because of the constant attempt to strangle your sense of self-respect. i have seen prisoners offer most desperate resistance in defence of their manhood. on my part it has been a continuous struggle. do you remember the last time i was in the dungeon? it was on the occasion of comrade kropotkin's presence in this country, during his last lecture tour. the old warden was here then; he informed me that i would not be permitted to see our grand old man. i had a tilt with him, but i did not succeed in procuring a visiting card. a few days later i received a letter from peter. on the envelope, under my name, was marked, "political prisoner." the warden was furious. "we have no political prisoners in a free country," he thundered, tearing up the envelope. "but you have political grafters," i retorted. we argued the matter heatedly, and i demanded the envelope. the warden insisted that i apologize. of course i refused, and i had to spend three days in the dungeon. there have been many changes since then. your coming to pittsburgh last year, and the threat to expose this place (they knew you had the facts) helped to bring matters to a point. they assigned me to a range, and i am still holding the position. the new warden is treating me more decently. he "wants no trouble with me," he told me. but he has proved a great disappointment. he started in with promising reforms, but gradually he has fallen into the old ways. in some respects his régime is even worse than the previous one. he has introduced a system of "economy" which barely affords us sufficient food. the dungeon and basket, which he had at first abolished, are in operation again, and the discipline is daily becoming more drastic. the result is more brutality and clubbings, more fights and cutting affairs, and general discontent. the new management cannot plead ignorance, for the last th of july the men gave a demonstration of the effects of humane treatment. the warden had assembled the inmates in the chapel, promising to let them pass the day in the yard, on condition of good behavior. the inspectors and the old guards advised against it, arguing the "great risk" of such a proceeding. but the major decided to try the experiment. he put the men on their honor, and turned them loose in the yard. he was not disappointed; the day passed beautifully, without the least mishap; there was not even a single report. we began to breathe easier, when presently the whole system was reversed. it was partly due to the influence of the old officers upon the warden; and the latter completely lost his head when a trusty made his escape from the hospital. it seems to have terrorized the warden into abandoning all reforms. he has also been censured by the inspectors because of the reduced profits from the industries. now the tasks have been increased, and even the sick and consumptives are forced to work. the labor bodies of the state have been protesting in vain. how miserably weak is the giant of toil, because unconscious of his strength! the men are groaning, and wishing old sandy back. in short, things are just as they were during your time. men and wardens may come and go, but the system prevails. more and more i am persuaded of the great truth: given authority and the opportunity for exploitation, the results will be essentially the same, no matter what particular set of men, or of "principles," happens to be in the saddle. fortunately i am on the "home run." i'm glad you felt that the failure of my application to the superior court would not depress me. i built no castles upon it. yet i am glad it has been tried. it was well to demonstrate once more that neither lower courts, pardon boards, nor higher tribunals, are interested in doing justice. my lawyers had such a strong case, from the legal standpoint, that the state pardon board resorted to every possible trick to avoid the presentation of it. and now the superior court thought it the better part of wisdom to ignore the argument that i am being illegally detained. they simply refused the application, with a few meaningless phrases that entirely evade the question at issue. well, to hell with them. i have " an' a stump" (stump, months) and i feel the courage of perseverance. but i hope that the next legislature will not repeal the new commutation law. there is considerable talk of it, for the politicians are angry that their efforts in behalf of the wealthy u. s. grafters in the eastern penitentiary failed. they begrudge the "common" prisoner the increased allowance of good time. however, i shall "make" it. of course, you understand that both french leave and dutch act are out of the question now. i have decided to stay--till i can _walk_ through the gates. in reference to french leave, have you read about the biddle affair? i think it was the most remarkable attempt in the history of the country. think of the wife of the jail warden helping prisoners to escape! the boys here were simply wild with joy. every one hoped they would make good their escape, and old sammy told me he prayed they shouldn't be caught. but all the bloodhounds of the law were unchained; the biddle boys got no chance at all. the story is this. the brothers biddle, jack and ed, and walter dorman, while in the act of robbing a store, killed a man. it was dorman who fired the shot, but he turned state's evidence. the state rewards treachery. dorman escaped the noose, but the two brothers were sentenced to die. as is customary, they were visited in the jail by the "gospel ladies," among them the wife of the warden. you probably remember him--soffel; he was deputy warden when we were in the jail, and a rat he was, too. well, ed was a good-looking man, with soft manners, and so forth. mrs. soffel fell in love with him. it was mutual, i believe. now witness the heroism a woman is capable of, when she loves. mrs. soffel determined to save the two brothers; i understand they promised her to quit their criminal life. every day she would visit the condemned men, to console them. pretending to read the gospel, she would stand close to the doors, to give them an opportunity to saw through the bars. she supplied them with revolvers, and they agreed to escape together. of course, she could not go back to her husband, for she loved ed, loved him well enough never even to see her children again. the night for the escape was set. the brothers intended to separate immediately after the break, subsequently to meet together with mrs. soffel. but the latter insisted on going with them. ed begged her not to. he knew that it was sheer suicide for all of them. but she persisted, and ed acquiesced, fully realizing that it would prove fatal. don't you think it showed a noble trait in the boy? he did not want her to think that he was deserting her. the escape from the jail was made successfully; they even had several hours' start. but snow had fallen, and it was easy to trace two men and a woman in a sleigh. the brutality of the man-hunters is past belief. when the detectives came upon the boys, they fired their winchesters into the two brothers. even when the wounded were stretched on the ground, bleeding and helpless, a detective emptied his revolver into ed, killing him. jack died later, and mrs. soffel was placed in jail. you can imagine the savage fury of the respectable mob. mrs. soffel was denounced by her husband, and all the good christian women cried "unclean!" and clamored for the punishment of their unfortunate sister. she is now here, serving two years for aiding in the escape. i caught a glimpse of her when she came in. she has a sympathetic face, that bears signs of deep suffering; she must have gone through a terrible ordeal. think of the struggle before she decided upon the desperate step; then the days and weeks of anxiety, as the boys were sawing the bars and preparing for the last chance! i should appreciate the love of a woman whose affection is stronger than the iron fetters of convention. in some ways this woman reminds me of the girl--the type that possesses the courage and strength to rise above all considerations for the sake of the man or the cause held dear. how little the world understands the vital forces of life! a. chapter xlv the bloom of "the barren staff" i it is september the nineteenth. the cell-house is silent and gray in the afternoon dusk. in the yard the rain walks with long strides, hastening in the dim twilight, hastening whither the shadows have gone. i stand at the door, in reverie. in the sombre light, i see myself led through the gate yonder,--it was ten years ago this day. the walls towered menacingly in the dark, the iron gripped my heart, and i was lost in despair. i should not have believed then that i could survive the long years of misery and pain. but the nimble feet of the rain patter hopefully; its tears dissipate the clouds, and bring light; and soon i shall step into the sunshine, and come forth grown and matured, as the world must have grown in the struggle of suffering-- "fresh fish!" a rangeman announces, pointing to the long line of striped men, trudging dejectedly across the yard, and stumbling against each other in the unaccustomed lockstep. the door opens, and aleck killain, the lifetimer, motions to me. he walks with measured, even step along the hall. rangeman "coz" and harry, my young assistant, stealthily crowd with him into my cell. the air of mystery about them arouses my apprehension. "what's the matter, boys?" i ask. they hesitate and glance at each other, smiling diffidently. "you speak, killain," harry whispers. the lifetimer carefully unwraps a little package, and i become aware of the sweet scent of flowers perfuming the cell. the old prisoner stammers in confusion, as he presents me with a rose, big and red. "we swiped it in the greenhouse," he says. "fer you, aleck," harry adds. "for your tenth anniversary," corrects "coz." "good luck to you, aleck." mutely they grip my hand, and steal out of the cell. * * * * * in solitude i muse over the touching remembrance. these men--they are the shame society hides within the gray walls. these, and others like them. daily they come to be buried alive in this grave; all through the long years they have been coming, and the end is not yet. robbed of joy and life, their being is discounted in the economy of existence. and all the while the world has been advancing, it is said; science and philosophy, art and letters, have made great strides. but wherein is the improvement that augments misery and crowds the prisons? the discovery of the x-ray will further scientific research, i am told. but where is the x-ray of social insight that will discover in human understanding and mutual aid the elements of true progress? deceptive is the advance that involves the ruthless sacrifice of peace and health and life; superficial and unstable the civilization that rests upon the treacherous sands of strife and warfare. the progress of science and industry, far from promoting man's happiness and social harmony, merely accentuates discontent and sharpens the contrasts. the knowledge gained at so much cost of suffering and sacrifice bears bitter fruit, for lack of wisdom to apply the lessons learned. there are no limits to the achievements of man, were not humanity divided against itself, exhausting its best energies in sanguinary conflict, suicidal and unnecessary. and these, the thousands stepmothered by cruel stupidity, are the victims castigated by society for her own folly and sins. there is young harry. a child of the slums, he has never known the touch of a loving hand. motherless, his father a drunkard, the heavy arm of the law was laid upon him at the age of ten. from reform school to reformatory the social orphan has been driven about.--"you know, aleck," he says, "i nev'r had no real square meal, to feel full, you know; 'cept once, on christmas, in de ref." at the age of nineteen, he has not seen a day of liberty since early childhood. three years ago he was transferred to the penitentiary, under a sentence of sixteen years for an attempted escape from the morganza reform school, which resulted in the death of a keeper. the latter was foreman in the tailor shop, in which harry was employed together with a number of other youths. the officer had induced harry to do overwork, above the regular task, for which he rewarded the boy with an occasional dainty of buttered bread or a piece of corn-cake. by degrees harry's voluntary effort became part of his routine work, and the reward in delicacies came more rarely. but when they entirely ceased the boy rebelled, refusing to exert himself above the required task. he was reported, but the superintendent censured the keeper for the unauthorized increase of work. harry was elated; but presently began systematic persecution that made the boy's life daily more unbearable. in innumerable ways the hostile guard sought to revenge his defeat upon the lad, till at last, driven to desperation, harry resolved upon escape. with several other inmates the fourteen-year-old boy planned to flee to the rocky mountains, there to hunt the "wild" indians, and live the independent and care-free life of jesse james. "you know, aleck," harry confides to me, reminiscently, "we could have made it easy; dere was eleven of us. but de kids was all sore on de foreman. he 'bused and beat us, an' some of de boys wouldn' go 'cept we knock de screw out first. it was me pal nacky that hit 'im foist, good an' hard, an' den i hit 'im, lightly. but dey all said in court that i hit 'im both times. nacky's people had money, an' he beat de case, but i got soaked sixteen years." his eyes fill with tears and he says plaintively: "i haven't been outside since i was a little kid, an' now i'm sick, an' will die here mebbe." ii conversing in low tones, we sweep the range. i shorten my strokes to enable harry to keep pace. weakly he drags the broom across the floor. his appearance is pitifully grotesque. the sickly features, pale with the color of the prison whitewash, resemble a little child's. but the eyes look oldish in their wrinkled sockets, the head painfully out of proportion with the puny, stunted body. now and again he turns his gaze on me, and in his face there is melancholy wonder, as if he is seeking something that has passed him by. often i ponder, is there a crime more appalling and heinous than the one society has committed upon him, who is neither man nor youth and never was child? crushed by the heel of brutality, this plant had never budded. yet there is the making of a true man in him. his mentality is pathetically primitive, but he possesses character and courage, and latent virgin forces. his emotional frankness borders on the incredible; he is unmoral and unsocial, as a field daisy might be, surrounded by giant trees, yet timidly tenacious of its own being. it distresses me to witness the yearning that comes into his eyes at the mention of the "outside." often he asks: "tell me, aleck, how does it feel to walk on de street, to know that you're free t' go where you damn please, wid no screw to foller you?" ah, if he'd only have a chance, he reiterates, he'd be so careful not to get into trouble! he would like to keep company with a nice girl, he confides, blushingly; he had never had one. but he fears his days are numbered. his lungs are getting very bad, and now that his father has died, he has no one to help him get a pardon. perhaps father wouldn't have helped him, either; he was always drunk, and never cared for his children. "he had no business t' have any children," harry comments passionately. and he can't expect any assistance from his sister; the poor girl barely makes a living in the factory. "she's been workin' ev'r so long in the pickle works," harry explains. "that feller, the boss there, must be rich; it's a big factory," he adds, naïvely, "he oughter give 'er enough to marry on." but he fears he will die in the prison. there is no one to aid him, and he has no friends. "i never had no friend," he says, wistfully; "there ain't no real friends. de older boys in de ref always used me, an' dey use all de kids. but dey was no friends, an' every one was against me in de court, an' dey put all de blame on me. everybody was always against me," he repeats bitterly. * * * * * alone in the cell, i ponder over his words. "everybody was always against me," i hear the boy say. i wake at night, with the quivering cry in the darkness, "everybody against me!" motherless in childhood, reared in the fumes of brutal inebriation, cast into the slums to be crushed under the wheels of the law's juggernaut, was the fate of this social orphan. is this the fruit of progress? this the spirit of our christian civilization? in the hours of solitude, the scheme of existence unfolds in kaleidoscope before me. in variegated design and divergent angle it presents an endless panorama of stunted minds and tortured bodies, of universal misery and wretchedness, in the elemental aspect of the boy's desolate life. and i behold all the suffering and agony resolve themselves in the dominance of the established, in tradition and custom that heavily encrust humanity, weighing down the already fettered soul till its wings break and it beats helplessly against the artificial barriers.... the blanched face of misery is silhouetted against the night. the silence sobs with the piteous cry of the crushed boy. and i hear the cry, and it fills my whole being with the sense of terrible wrong and injustice, with the shame of my kind, that sheds crocodile tears while it swallows its helpless prey. the submerged moan in the dark. i will echo their agony to the ears of the world. i have suffered with them, i have looked into the heart of pain, and with its voice and anguish i will speak to humanity, to wake it from sloth and apathy, and lend hope to despair. * * * * * the months speed in preparation for the great work. i must equip myself for the mission, for the combat with the world that struggles so desperately to defend its chains. the day of my resurrection is approaching, and i will devote my new life to the service of my fellow-sufferers. the world shall hear the tortured; it shall behold the shame it has buried within these walls, yet not eliminated. the ghost of its crimes shall rise and harrow its ears, till the social conscience is roused to the cry of its victims. and perhaps with eyes once opened, it will behold the misery and suffering in the world beyond, and man will pause in his strife and mad race to ask himself, wherefore? whither? chapter xlvi a child's heart-hunger i with deep gratification i observe the unfoldment of harry's mind. my friendship has wakened in him hope and interest in life. merely to please me, he smilingly reiterated, he would apply himself to reading the mapped-out course. but as time passed he became absorbed in the studies, developing a thirst for knowledge that is transforming his primitive intelligence into a mentality of great power and character. often i marvel at the peculiar strength and aspiration springing from the depths of a prison friendship. "i did not believe in friendship, aleck," harry says, as we ply our brooms in the day's work, "but now i feel that i wouldn't be here, if i had had then a real friend. it isn't only that we suffer together, but you have made me feel that our minds can rise above these rules and bars. you know, the screws have warned me against you, and i was afraid of you. i don't know how to put it, aleck, but the first time we had that long talk last year, i felt as if something walked right over from you to me. and since then i have had something to live for. you know, i have seen so much of the priests, i have no use for the church, and i don't believe in immortality. but the idea i got from you clung to me, and it was so persistent, i really think there is such a thing as immortality of an idea." for an instant the old look of helpless wonder is in his face, as if he is at a loss to master the thought. he pauses in his work, his eyes fastened on mine. "i got it, aleck," he says, an eager smile lighting up his pallid features. "you remember the story you told me about them fellers--oh,"--he quickly corrects himself--"when i get excited, i drop into my former bad english. well, you know the story you told me of the prisoners in siberia; how they escape sometimes, and the peasants, though forbidden to house them, put food outside of their huts, so that an escaped man may not starve to death. you remember, aleck?" "yes, harry. i'm glad you haven't forgotten it." "forgotten? why, aleck, a few weeks ago, sitting at my door, i saw a sparrow hopping about in the hall. it looked cold and hungry. i threw a piece of bread to it, but the warden came by and made me pick it up, and drive the bird away. somehow i thought of the peasants in siberia, and how they share their food with escaped men. why should the bird starve as long as i have bread? now every night i place a few pieces near the door, and in the morning, just when it begins to dawn, and every one is asleep, the bird steals up and gets her breakfast. it's the immortality of an idea, aleck." ii the inclement winter has laid a heavy hand upon harry. the foul hot air of the cell-house is aggravating his complaint, and now the physician has pronounced him in an advanced stage of consumption. the disease is ravaging the population. hygienic rules are ignored, and no precautions are taken against contagion. harry's health is fast failing. he walks with an evident effort, but bravely straightens as he meets my gaze. "i feel quite strong, aleck," he says, "i don't believe it's the con. it's just a bad cold." he clings tenaciously to the slender hope; but now and then the cunning of suspicion tests my faith. pretending to wash his hands, he asks: "can i use your towel, aleck? sure you're not afraid?" my apparent confidence seems to allay his fears, and he visibly rallies with renewed hope. i strive to lighten his work on the range, and his friend "coz," who attends the officers' table, shares with the sick boy the scraps of fruit and cake left after their meals. the kind-hearted italian, serving a sentence of twenty years, spends his leisure weaving hair chains in the dim light of the cell, and invests the proceeds in warm underwear for his consumptive friend. "i don't need it myself, i'm too hot-blooded, anyhow," he lightly waves aside harry's objections. he shudders as the hollow cough shakes the feeble frame, and anxiously hovers over the boy, mothering him with unobtrusive tenderness. * * * * * at the first sign of spring, "coz" conspires with me to procure for harry the privilege of the yard. the consumptives are deprived of air, immured in the shop or block, and in the evening locked in the cells. in view of my long service and the shortness of my remaining time, the inspectors have promised me fifteen minutes' exercise in the yard. i have not touched the soil since the discovery of the tunnel, in july , almost four years ago. but harry is in greater need of fresh air, and perhaps we shall be able to procure the privilege for him, instead. his health would improve, and in the meantime we will bring his case before the pardon board. it was an outrage to send him to the penitentiary, "coz" asserts vehemently. "harry was barely fourteen then, a mere child. think of a judge who will give such a kid sixteen years! why, it means death. but what can you expect! remember the little boy who was sent here--it was somewhere around ' --he was just twelve years old, and he didn't look more than ten. they brought him here in knickerbockers, and the fellows had to bend over double to keep in lockstep with him. he looked just like a baby in the line. the first pair of long pants he ever put on was stripes, and he was so frightened, he'd stand at the door and cry all the time. well, they got ashamed of themselves after a while, and sent him away to some reformatory, but he spent about six months here then. oh, what's the use talking," "coz" concludes hopelessly; "it's a rotten world all right. but may be we can get harry a pardon. honest, aleck, i feel as if he's my own child. we've been friends since the day he came in, and he's a good boy, only he never had a chance. make a list, aleck. i'll ask the chaplain how much i've got in the office. i think it's twenty-two or may be twenty-three dollars. it's all for harry." * * * * * the spring warms into summer before the dime and quarter donations total the amount required by the attorney to carry harry's case to the pardon board. but the sick boy is missing from the range. for weeks his dry, hacking cough resounded in the night, keeping the men awake, till at last the doctor ordered him transferred to the hospital. his place on the range has been taken by "big swede," a tall, sallow-faced man who shuffles along the hall, moaning in pain. the passing guards mimic him, and poke him jocularly in the ribs. "hey, you! get a move on, and quit your shammin'." he starts in affright; pressing both hands against his side, he shrinks at the officer's touch. "you fakir, we're next to _you_, all right." an uncomprehending, sickly smile spreads over the sere face, as he murmurs plaintively, "yis, sir, me seek, very seek." chapter xlvii chum i the able-bodied men have been withdrawn to the shops, and only the old and decrepit remain in the cell-house. but even the light duties of assistant prove too difficult for the swede. the guards insist that he is shamming. every night he is placed in a strait-jacket, and gagged to stifle his groans. i protest against the mistreatment, and am cited to the office. the deputy's desk is occupied by "bighead," the officer of the hosiery department, now promoted to the position of second assistant deputy. he greets me with a malicious grin. "i knew you wouldn't behave," he chuckles; "know you too damn well from the stockin' shop." the gigantic colonel, the new deputy, loose-jointed and broad, strolls in with long, swinging step. he glances over the report against me. "is that all?" he inquires of the guard, in cold, impassive voice. "yes, sir." "go back to your work, berkman." but in the afternoon, officer "bighead" struts into the cell-house, in charge of the barber gang. as i take my turn in the first chair, the guard hastens toward me. "get out of that chair," he commands. "it ain't your turn. you take _that_ chair," pointing toward the second barber, a former boilermaker, dreaded by the men as a "butcher." "it _is_ my turn in this chair," i reply, keeping my seat. "dat so, mr. officer," the negro barber chimes in. "shut up!" the officer bellows. "will you get out of that chair?" he advances toward me threateningly. "i won't," i retort, looking him squarely in the eye. suppressed giggling passes along the waiting line. the keeper turns purple, and strides toward the office to report me. ii "this is awful, aleck. i'm so sorry you're locked up. you were in the right, too," "coz" whispers at my cell. "but never min', old boy," he smiles reassuringly, "you can count on me, all right. and you've got other friends. here's a stiff some one sends you. he wants an answer right away. i'll call for it." the note mystifies me. the large, bold writing is unfamiliar; i cannot identify the signature, "jim m." the contents are puzzling. his sympathies are with me, the writer says. he has learned all the details of the trouble, and feels that i acted in the defence of my rights. it is an outrage to lock me up for resenting undeserved humiliation at the hands of an unfriendly guard; and he cannot bear to see me thus persecuted. my time is short, and the present trouble, if not corrected, may cause the loss of my commutation. he will immediately appeal to the warden to do me justice; but he should like to hear from me before taking action. i wonder at the identity of the writer. evidently not a prisoner; intercession with the warden would be out of the question. yet i cannot account for any officer who would take this attitude, or employ such means of communicating with me. presently "coz" saunters past the cell. "got your answer ready?" he whispers. "who gave you the note, coz?" "i don't know if i should tell you." "of course you must tell me. i won't answer this note unless i know to whom i am writing." "well, aleck," he hesitates, "he didn't say if i may tell you." "then better go and ask him first." * * * * * considerable time elapses before "coz" returns. from the delay i judge that the man is in a distant part of the institution, or not easily accessible. at last the kindly face of the italian appears at the cell. "it's all right, aleck," he says. "who is he?" i ask impatiently. "i'll bet you'll never guess." "tell me, then." "well, i'll tell you. he is not a screw." "can't be a prisoner?" "no." "who, then?" "he is a fine fellow, aleck." "come now, tell me." "he is a citizen. the foreman of the new shop." "the weaving department?" "that's the man. here's another stiff from him. answer at once." iii dear mr. j. m.: i hardly know how to write to you. it is the most remarkable thing that has happened to me in all the years of my confinement. to think that you, a perfect stranger--and not a prisoner, at that--should offer to intercede in my behalf because you feel that an injustice has been done! it is almost incredible, but "coz" has informed me that you are determined to see the warden in this matter. i assure you i appreciate your sense of justice more than i can express it. but i most urgently request you not to carry out your plan. with the best of intentions, your intercession will prove disastrous, to yourself as well as to me. a shop foreman, you are not supposed to know what is happening in the block. the warden is a martinet, and extremely vain of his authority. he will resent your interference. i don't know who you are, but your indignation at what you believe an injustice characterizes you as a man of principle, and you are evidently inclined to be friendly toward me. i should be very unhappy to be the cause of your discharge. you need your job, or you would not be here. i am very, very thankful to you, but i urge you most earnestly to drop the matter. i must fight my own battles. moreover, the situation is not very serious, and i shall come out all right. with much appreciation, a. b. dear mr. m.: i feel much relieved by your promise to accede to my request. it is best so. you need not worry about me. i expect to receive a hearing before the deputy, and he seems a decent chap. you will pardon me when i confess that i smiled at your question whether your correspondence is welcome. your notes are a ray of sunshine in the darkness, and i am intensely interested in the personality of a man whose sense of justice transcends considerations of personal interest. you know, no great heroism is required to demand justice for oneself, in the furtherance of our own advantage. but where the other fellow is concerned, especially a stranger, it becomes a question of "abstract" justice--and but few people possess the manhood to jeopardize their reputation or comfort for that. since our correspondence began, i have had occasion to speak to some of the men in your charge. i want to thank you in their name for your considerate and humane treatment of them. "coz" is at the door, and i must hurry. trust no one with notes, except him. we have been friends for years, and he can tell you all you wish to know about my life here. cordially, b. my dear m.: there is no need whatever for your anxiety regarding the effects of the solitary upon me. i do not think they will keep me in long; at any rate, remember that i do not wish you to intercede. you will be pleased to know that my friend harry shows signs of improvement, thanks to your generosity. "coz" has managed to deliver to him the tid-bits and wine you sent. you know the story of the boy. he has never known the love of a mother, nor the care of a father. a typical child of the disinherited, he was thrown, almost in infancy, upon the tender mercies of the world. at the age of ten the law declared him a criminal. he has never since seen a day of liberty. at twenty he is dying of prison consumption. was the spanish inquisition ever guilty of such organized child murder? with desperate will-power he clutches at life, in the hope of a pardon. he is firmly convinced that fresh air would cure him, but the new rules confine him to the hospital. his friends here have collected a fund to bring his case before the pardon board; it is to be heard next month. that devoted soul, "coz," has induced the doctor to issue a certificate of harry's critical condition, and he may be released soon. i have grown very fond of the boy so much sinned against. i have watched his heart and mind blossom in the sunshine of a little kindness, and now--i hope that at least his last wish will be gratified: just once to walk on the street, and not hear the harsh command of the guard. he begs me to express to his unknown friend his deepest gratitude. b. dear m.: the deputy has just released me. i am happy with a double happiness, for i know how pleased you will be at the good turn of affairs. it is probably due to the fact that my neighbor, the big swede--you've heard about him--was found dead in the strait-jacket this morning. the doctor and officers all along pretended that he was shamming. it was a most cruel murder; by the warden's order the sick swede was kept gagged and bound every night. i understand that the deputy opposed such brutal methods, and now it is rumored that he intends to resign. but i hope he will remain. there is something big and broad-minded about the gigantic colonel. he tries to be fair, and he has saved many a prisoner from the cruelty of the major. the latter is continually inventing new modes of punishment; it is characteristic that his methods involve curtailment of rations, and consequent saving, which is not accounted for on the books. he has recently cut the milk allowance of the hospital patients, notwithstanding the protests of the doctor. he has also introduced severe punishment for talking. you know, when you have not uttered a word for days and weeks, you are often seized with an uncontrollable desire to give vent to your feelings. these infractions of the rules are now punished by depriving you of tobacco and of your sunday dinner. every sunday from to men are locked up on the top range, to remain without food all day. the system is called "killicure" (kill or cure) and it involves considerable graft, for i know numbers of men who have not received tobacco or a sunday dinner for months. warden wm. johnston seems innately cruel. recently he introduced the "blind" cell,--door covered with solid sheet iron. it is much worse than the basket cell, for it virtually admits no air, and men are kept in it from to days. prisoner varnell was locked up in such a cell days, becoming paralyzed. but even worse than these punishments is the more refined brutality of torturing the boys with the uncertainty of release and the increasing deprivation of good time. this system is developing insanity to an alarming extent. amid all this heartlessness and cruelty, the chaplain is a refreshing oasis of humanity. i noticed in one of your letters the expression, "because of economic necessity," and--i wondered. to be sure, the effects of economic causes are not to be underestimated. but the extremists of the materialistic conception discount character, and thus help to vitiate it. the factor of personality is too often ignored by them. take the chaplain, for instance. in spite of the surrounding swamp of cupidity and brutality, notwithstanding all disappointment and ingratitude, he is to-day, after years of incumbency, as full of faith in human nature and as sympathetic and helpful, as years ago. he has had to contend against the various administrations, and he is a poor man; necessity has not stifled his innate kindness. and this is why i wondered. "economic necessity"--has socialism pierced the prison walls? b. dear, dear comrade: can you realize how your words, "i am socialistically inclined," warmed my heart? i wish i could express to you all the intensity of what i feel, my dear _friend_ and _comrade_. to have so unexpectedly found both in you, unutterably lightens this miserable existence. what matter that you do not entirely share my views,--we are comrades in the common cause of human emancipation. it was indeed well worth while getting in trouble to have found you, dear friend. surely i have good cause to be content, even happy. your friendship is a source of great strength, and i feel equal to struggling through the ten months, encouraged and inspired by your comradeship and devotion. every evening i cross the date off my calendar, joyous with the thought that i am a day nearer to the precious moment when i shall turn my back upon these walls, to join my friends in the great work, and to meet you, dear chum, face to face, to grip your hand and salute you, my friend and comrade! most fraternally, alex. chapter xlviii last days on the homestretch, _sub rosa_, april , . my dear girl: the last spring is here, and a song is in my heart. only three more months, and i shall have settled accounts with father penn. there is the year in the workhouse, of course, and that prison, i am told, is even a worse hell than this one. but i feel strong with the suffering that is past, and perhaps even more so with the wonderful jewel i have found. the man i mentioned in former letters has proved a most beautiful soul and sincere friend. in every possible way he has been trying to make my existence more endurable. with what little he may, he says, he wants to make amends for the injustice and brutality of society. he is a socialist, with a broad outlook upon life. our lengthy discussions (per notes) afford me many moments of pleasure and joy. it is chiefly to his exertions that i shall owe my commutation time. the sentiment of the inspectors was not favorable. i believe it was intended to deprive me of two years' good time. think what it would mean to us! but my friend--my dear chum, as i affectionately call him--has quietly but persistently been at work, with the result that the inspectors have "seen the light." it is now definite that i shall be released in july. the date is still uncertain. i can barely realize that i am soon to leave this place. the anxiety and restlessness of the last month would be almost unbearable, but for the soothing presence of my devoted friend. i hope some day you will meet him,--perhaps even soon, for he is not of the quality that can long remain a helpless witness of the torture of men. he wants to work in the broader field, where he may join hands with those who strive to reconstruct the conditions that are bulwarked with prison bars. but while necessity forces him to remain here, his character is in evidence. he devotes his time and means to lightening the burden of the prisoners. his generous interest kept my sick friend harry alive, in the hope of a pardon. you will be saddened to hear that the board refused to release him, on the ground that he was not "sufficiently ill." the poor boy, who had never been out of sight of a guard since he was a child of ten, died a week after the pardon was refused. but though my chum could not give freedom to harry, he was instrumental in saving another young life from the hands of the hangman. it was the case of young paul, typical of prison as the nursery of crime. the youth was forced to work alongside of a man who persecuted and abused him because he resented improper advances. repeatedly paul begged the warden to transfer him to another department; but his appeals were ignored. the two prisoners worked in the bakery. early one morning, left alone, the man attempted to violate the boy. in the struggle that followed the former was killed. the prison management was determined to hang the lad, "in the interests of discipline." the officers openly avowed they would "fix his clock." permission for a collection, to engage an attorney for paul, was refused. prisoners who spoke in his behalf were severely punished; the boy was completely isolated preparatory to his trial. he stood absolutely helpless, alone. but the dear chum came to the rescue of paul. the work had to be done secretly, and it was a most difficult task to secure witnesses for the defence among the prisoners terrorized by the guards. but chum threw himself into the work with heart and soul. day and night he labored to give the boy a chance for his life. he almost broke down before the ordeal was over. but the boy was saved; the jury acquitted him on the ground of self-defence. * * * * * the proximity of release, if only to change cells, is nerve-racking in the extreme. but even the mere change will be a relief. meanwhile my faithful friend does everything in his power to help me bear the strain. besides ministering to my physical comforts, he generously supplies me with books and publications. it helps to while away the leaden-heeled days, and keeps me abreast of the world's work. the chum is enthusiastic over the growing strength of socialism, and we often discuss the subject with much vigor. it appears to me, however, that the socialist anxiety for success is by degrees perverting essential principles. it is with much sorrow i have learned that political activity, formerly viewed merely as a means of spreading socialist ideas, has gradually become an end in itself. straining for political power weakens the fibres of character and ideals. daily contact with authority has strengthened my conviction that control of the governmental power is an illusory remedy for social evils. inevitable consequences of false conceptions are not to be legislated out of existence. it is not merely the conditions, but the fundamental ideas of present civilization, that are to be transvalued, to give place to new social and individual relations. the emancipation of labor is the necessary first step along the road of a regenerated humanity; but even that can be accomplished only through the awakened consciousness of the toilers, acting on their own initiative and strength. on these and other points chum differs with me, but his intense friendship knows no intellectual distinctions. he is to visit you during his august vacation. i know you will make him feel my gratitude, for i can never repay his boundless devotion. sasha. dearest chum: it seemed as if all aspiration and hope suddenly went out of my life when you disappeared so mysteriously. i was tormented by the fear of some disaster. your return has filled me with joy, and i am happy to know that you heard and responded unhesitatingly to the call of a sacred cause. i greatly envy your activity in the p. circle. the revolution in russia has stirred me to the very depths. the giant is awakening, the mute giant that has suffered so patiently, voicing his misery and agony only in the anguish-laden song and on the pages of his gorkys. dear friend, you remember our discussion regarding plehve. i may have been in error when i expressed the view that the execution of the monster, encouraging sign of individual revolutionary activity as it was, could not be regarded as a manifestation of social awakening. but the present uprising undoubtedly points to widespread rebellion permeating russian life. yet it would probably be too optimistic to hope for a very radical change. i have been absent from my native land for many years; but in my youth i was close to the life and thought of the peasant. large, heavy bodies move slowly. the proletariat of the cities has surely become impregnated with revolutionary ideas, but the vital element of russia is the agrarian population. i fear, moreover, that the dominant reaction is still very strong, though it has no doubt been somewhat weakened by the discontent manifesting in the army and, especially, in the navy. with all my heart i hope that the revolution will be successful. perhaps a constitution is the most we can expect. but whatever the result, the bare fact of a revolution in long-suffering russia is a tremendous inspiration. i should be the happiest of men to join in the glorious struggle. long live the revolution! a. dear chum: thanks for your kind offer. but i am absolutely opposed to having any steps taken to eliminate the workhouse sentence. i have served these many years and i shall survive one more, i will ask no favors of the enemy. they will even twist their own law to deprive me of the five months' good time, to which i am entitled on the last year. i understand that i shall be allowed only two months off, on the preposterous ground that the workhouse term constitutes the first year of a _new_ sentence! but i do not wish you to trouble about the matter. you have more important work to do. give all your energies to the good cause. prepare the field for the mission of tchaikovsky and babushka, and i shall be with you in spirit when you embrace our brave comrades of the russian revolution, whose dear names were a hallowed treasure of my youth. may success reward the efforts of our brothers in russia. a. chum: just got word from the deputy that my papers are signed. i didn't wish to cause you anxiety, but i was apprehensive of some hitch. but it's positive and settled now,--i go out on the th. just one more week! this is the happiest day in thirteen years. shake, comrade. a. dearest chum: my hand trembles as i write this last good-bye. i'll be gone in an hour. my heart is too full for words. please send enclosed notes to my friends, and embrace them all as i embrace you now. i shall live in the hope of meeting you all next year. good-bye, dear, devoted friend. with my whole heart, your comrade and chum. july , . dearest girl: it's wednesday morning, the th, at last! geh stiller meines herzens schlag und schliesst euch alle meine alten wunden, denn dieses ist mein letzter tag und dies sind seine letzten stunden. my last thoughts within these walls are of you, my dear, dear sonya, the immutable! sasha. part iii the workhouse the workhouse i the gates of the penitentiary open to leave me out, and i pause involuntarily at the fascinating sight. it is a street: a line of houses stretches before me; a woman, young and wonderfully sweet-faced, is passing on the opposite side. my eyes follow her graceful lines, as she turns the corner. men stand about. they wear citizen clothes, and scan me with curious, insistent gaze.... the handcuff grows taut on my wrist, and i follow the sheriff into the waiting carriage. a little child runs by. i lean out of the window to look at the rosy-cheeked, strangely youthful face. but the guard impatiently lowers the blind, and we sit in gloomy silence. * * * * * the spell of the civilian garb is upon me. it gives an exhilarating sense of manhood. again and again i glance at my clothes, and verify the numerous pockets to reassure myself of the reality of the situation. i am free, past the dismal gray walls! free? yet even now captive of the law. the law!... * * * * * the engine puffs and shrieks, and my mind speeds back to another journey. it was thirteen years and one week ago this day. on the wings of an all-absorbing love i hastened to join the struggle of the oppressed people. i left home and friends, sacrificed liberty, and risked life. but human justice is blind: it will not see the soul on fire. only the shot was heard, by the law that is deaf to the agony of toil. "vengeance is mine," it saith. to the uttermost drop it will shed the blood to exact its full pound of flesh. twelve years and ten months! and still another year. what horrors await me at the new prison? poor, faithful "horsethief" will nevermore smile his greeting: he did not survive six months in the terrible workhouse. but my spirit is strong; i shall not be daunted. this garb is the visible, tangible token of resurrection. the devotion of staunch friends will solace and cheer me. the call of the great cause will give strength to live, to struggle, to conquer. ii humiliation overwhelms me as i don the loathed suit of striped black and gray. the insolent look of the guard rouses my bitter resentment, as he closely scrutinizes my naked body. but presently, the examination over, a sense of gratification steals over me at the assertiveness of my self-respect. * * * * * the ordeal of the day's routine is full of inexpressible anguish. accustomed to prison conditions, i yet find existence in the workhouse a nightmare of cruelty, infinitely worse than the most inhuman aspects of the penitentiary. the guards are surly and brutal; the food foul and inadequate; punishment for the slightest offence instantaneous and ruthless. the cells are even smaller than in the penitentiary, and contain neither chair nor table. they are unspeakably ill-smelling with the privy buckets, for the purposes of which no scrap of waste paper is allowed. the sole ablutions of the day are performed in the morning, when the men form in the hall and march past the spigot of running water, snatching a handful in the constantly moving line. absolute silence prevails in cell-house and shop. the slightest motion of the lips is punished with the blackjack or the dungeon, referred to with caustic satire as the "white house." the perverse logic of the law that visits the utmost limit of barbarity upon men admittedly guilty of minor transgressions! throughout the breadth of the land the workhouses are notoriously more atrocious in every respect than the penitentiaries and state prisons, in which are confined men convicted of felonies. the allegheny county workhouse of the great commonwealth of pennsylvania enjoys infamous distinction as the blackest of hells where men expiate the sins of society. * * * * * at work in the broom shop, i find myself in peculiarly familiar surroundings. the cupidity of the management has evolved methods even more inhuman than those obtaining in the state prison. the tasks imposed upon the men necessitate feverish exertion. insufficient product or deficient work is not palliated by physical inability or illness. in the conduct of the various industries, every artifice prevalent in the penitentiary is practised to evade the law limiting convict competition. the number of men employed in productive work by far exceeds the legally permitted percentage; the provisions for the protection of free labor are skilfully circumvented; the tags attached to the shop products are designed to be obliterated as soon as the wares have left the prison; the words "convict-made" stamped on the broom-handles are pasted over with labels giving no indication of the place of manufacture. the anti-convict-labor law, symbolic of the political achievements of labor, is frustrated at every point, its element of protection a "lame and impotent conclusion." how significant the travesty of the law in its holy of holies! here legal justice immures its victims; here are buried the disinherited, whose rags and tatters annoy respectability; here offenders are punished for breaking the law. and here the law is daily and hourly violated by its pious high priests. iii the immediate is straining at the leash that holds memory in the environment of the penitentiary, yet the veins of the terminated existence still palpitate with the recollection of friends and common suffering. the messages from riverside are wet with tears of misery, but johnny, the young magyar, strikes a note of cheer: his sentence is about to expire; he will devote himself to the support of the little children he had so unwittingly robbed of a father. meanwhile he bids me courage and hope, enclosing two dollars from the proceeds of his fancy work, "to help along." he was much grieved, he writes, at his inability to bid me a last farewell, because the warden refused the request, signed by two hundred prisoners, that i be allowed to pass along the tiers to say good-bye. but soon, soon we shall see each other in freedom. words of friendship glow brightly in the darkness of the present, and charm my visions of the near future. coming liberty casts warming rays, and i dwell in the atmosphere of my comrades. the girl and the chum are aglow with the fires of young russia. busily my mind shapes pictures of the great struggle that transplant me to the days of my youth. in the little tenement flat in new york we had sketched with bold stroke the fortunes of the world--the girl, the twin, and i. in the dark, cage-like kitchen, amid the smoke of the asthmatic stove, we had planned our conspirative work in russia. but the need of the hour had willed it otherwise. homestead had sounded the prelude of awakening, and my heart had echoed the inspiring strains. * * * * * the banked fires of aspiration burst into life. what matter the immediate outcome of the revolution in russia? the yearning of my youth wells up with spontaneous power. to live is to struggle! to struggle against caesar, side by side with the people: to suffer with them, and to die, if need be. that is life. it will sadden me to part with chum even before i had looked deeply into the devoted face. but the girl is aflame with the spirit of russia: it will be joyous work in common. the soil of monongahela, laden with years of anguish, has grown dear to me. like the moan of a broken chord wails the thought of departure. but no ties of affection will strain at my heartstrings. yet--the sweet face of a little girl breaks in on my reverie, a look of reproaching sadness in the large, wistful eyes. it is little stella. the last years of my penitentiary life have snatched many a grace from her charming correspondence. often i have sought consolation in the beautiful likeness of her soulful face. with mute tenderness she had shared my grief at the loss of harry, her lips breathing sweet balm. gray days had warmed at her smile, and i lavished upon her all the affection with which i was surcharged. it will be a violent stifling of her voice in my heart, but the call of the _muzhik_ rings clear, compelling. yet who knows? the revolution may be over before my resurrection. in republican russia, with her enlightened social protestantism, life would be fuller, richer than in this pitifully _bourgeois_ democracy. freedom will present the unaccustomed problem of self-support, but it is premature to form definite plans. long imprisonment has probably incapacitated me for hard work, but i shall find means to earn my simple needs when i have cast off the fetters of my involuntary parasitism. the thought of affection, the love of woman, thrills me with ecstasy, and colors my existence with emotions of strange bliss. but the solitary hours are filled with recurring dread lest my life forever remain bare of woman's love. often the fear possesses me with the intensity of despair, as my mind increasingly dwells on the opposite sex. thoughts of woman eclipse the memory of the prison affections, and the darkness of the present is threaded with the silver needle of love-hopes. iv the monotony of the routine, the degradation and humiliation weigh heavier in the shadow of liberty. my strength is failing with the hard task in the shop, but the hope of receiving my full commutation sustains me. the law allows five months' "good time" on every year beginning with the ninth year of a sentence. but the superintendent has intimated to me that i may be granted the benefit of only two months, as a "new" prisoner, serving the first year of a workhouse sentence. the board of directors will undoubtedly take that view, he often taunts me. exasperation at his treatment, coupled with my protest against the abuse of a fellow prisoner, have caused me to be ordered into the solitary. dear chum is insistent on legal steps to secure my full commutation; notwithstanding my unconditional refusal to resort to the courts, he has initiated a _sub rosa_ campaign to achieve his object. the time drags in torturing uncertainty. with each day the solitary grows more stifling, maddening, till my brain reels with terror of the graveyard silence. like glad music sounds the stern command, "exercise!" in step we circle the yard, the clanking of charley's chain mournfully beating time. he had made an unsuccessful attempt to escape, for which he is punished with the ball and chain. the iron cuts into his ankle, and he trudges painfully under the heavy weight. near me staggers billy, his left side completely paralyzed since he was released from the "white house." all about me are cripples. i am in the midst of the social refuse: the lame and the halt, the broken in body and spirit, past work, past even crime. these were the blessed of the nazarene; these a christian world breaks on the wheel. they, too, are within the scope of my mission, they above all others--these the living indictments of a leprous system, the excommunicated of god and man. * * * * * the threshold of liberty is thickly sown with misery and torment. the days are unbearable with nervous restlessness, the nights hideous with the hours of agonizing stillness,--the endless, endless hours. feverishly i pace the cell. the day will pass, it _must_ pass. with reverent emotion i bless the shamed sun as he dips beyond the western sky. one day nearer to the liberty that awaits me, with unrestricted sunshine and air and life beyond the hated walls of gray, out in the daylight, in the open. the open world!... the scent of fresh-mown hay is in my nostrils; green fields and forests stretch before me; sweetly ripples the mountain spring. up to the mountain crest, to the breezes and the sunshine, where the storm breaks in its wild fury upon my uncovered head. welcome the rain and the wind that sweep the foul prison dust off my heart, and blow life and strength into my being! tremblingly rapturous is the thought of freedom. out in the woods, away from the stench of the cannibal world i shall wander, nor lift my foot from soil or sod. close to the breath of nature i will press my parched lips, on her bosom i will pass my days, drinking sustenance and strength from the universal mother. and there, in liberty and independence, in the vision of the mountain peaks, i shall voice the cry of the social orphans, of the buried and the disinherited, and visualize to the living the yearning, menacing face of pain. part iv the resurrection the resurrection i all night i toss sleeplessly on the cot, and pace the cell in nervous agitation, waiting for the dawn. with restless joy i watch the darkness melt, as the first rays herald the coming of the day. it is the th of may--my last day, my very last! a few more hours, and i shall walk through the gates, and drink in the warm sunshine and the balmy air, and be free to go and come as i please, after the nightmare of thirteen years and ten months in jail, penitentiary, and workhouse. my step quickens with the excitement of the outside, and i try to while away the heavy hours thinking of freedom and of friends. but my brain is in a turmoil; i cannot concentrate my thoughts. visions of the near future, images of the past, flash before me, and crowd each other in bewildering confusion. * * * * * again and again my mind reverts to the unnecessary cruelty that has kept me in prison three months over and above my time. it was sheer sophistry to consider me a "new" prisoner, entitled only to two months' commutation. as a matter of fact, i was serving the last year of a twenty-two-year sentence, and therefore i should have received five months time off. the superintendent had repeatedly promised to inform me of the decision of the board of directors, and every day, for weeks and months, i anxiously waited for word from them. none ever came, and i had to serve the full ten months. ah, well, it is almost over now! i have passed my last night in the cell, and the morning is here, the precious, blessed morning! * * * * * how slowly the minutes creep! i listen intently, and catch the sound of bars being unlocked on the bottom range: it is the night captain turning the kitchen men out to prepare breakfast-- a. m.! two and a half hours yet before i shall be called; two endless hours, and then another thirty long minutes. will they ever pass?... and again i pace the cell. ii the gong rings the rising hour. in great agitation i gather up my blankets, tincup and spoon, which must be delivered at the office before i am discharged. my heart beats turbulently, as i stand at the door, waiting to be called. but the guard unlocks the range and orders me to "fall in for breakfast." the striped line winds down the stairs, past the lynx-eyed deputy standing in the middle of the hallway, and slowly circles through the centre, where each man receives his portion of bread for the day and returns to his tier. the turnkey, on his rounds of the range, casts a glance into my cell. "not workin'," he says mechanically, shutting the door in my face. "i'm going out," i protest. "not till you're called," he retorts, locking me in. * * * * * i stand at the door, tense with suspense. i strain my ear for the approach of a guard to call me to the office, but all remains quiet. a vague fear steals over me: perhaps they will not release me to-day; i may be losing time.... a feeling of nausea overcomes me, but by a strong effort i throw off the dreadful fancy, and quicken my step. i must not think--not think.... * * * * * at last! the lever is pulled, my cell unlocked, and with a dozen other men i am marched to the clothes-room, in single file and lockstep. i await my turn impatiently, as several men are undressed and their naked bodies scrutinized for contraband or hidden messages. the overseer flings a small bag at each man, containing the prisoner's civilian garb, shouting boisterously: "hey, you! take off them clothes, and put your rags on." i dress hurriedly. a guard accompanies me to the office, where my belongings are returned to me: some money friends had sent, my watch, and the piece of ivory the penitentiary turnkey had stolen from me, and which i had insisted on getting back before i left riverside. the officer in charge hands me a railroad ticket to pittsburgh (the fare costing about thirty cents), and i am conducted to the prison gate. iii the sun shines brightly in the yard, the sky is clear, the air fresh and bracing. now the last gate will be thrown open, and i shall be out of sight of the guard, beyond the bars,--alone! how i have hungered for this hour, how often in the past years have i dreamed of this rapturous moment--to be alone, out in the open, away from the insolent eyes of my keepers! i'll rush away from these walls and kneel on the warm sod, and kiss the soil and embrace the trees, and with a song of joy give thanks to nature for the blessings of sunshine and air. the outer door opens before me, and i am confronted by reporters with cameras. several tall men approach me. one of them touches me on the shoulder, turns back the lapel of his coat, revealing a police officer's star, and says: "berkman, you are to leave the city before night, by order of the chief." * * * * * the detectives and reporters trailing me to the nearby railway station attract a curious crowd. i hasten into a car to escape their insistent gaze, feeling glad that i have prevailed upon my friends not to meet me at the prison. my mind is busy with plans to outwit the detectives, who have entered the same compartment. i have arranged to join the girl in detroit. i have no particular reason to mask my movements, but i resent the surveillance. i must get rid of the spies, somehow; i don't want their hateful eyes to desecrate my meeting with the girl. * * * * * i feel dazed. the short ride to pittsburgh is over before i can collect my thoughts. the din and noise rend my ears; the rushing cars, the clanging bells, bewilder me. i am afraid to cross the street; the flying monsters pursue me on every side. the crowds jostle me on the sidewalk, and i am constantly running into the passers-by. the turmoil, the ceaseless movement, disconcerts me. a horseless carriage whizzes close by me; i turn to look at the first automobile i have ever seen, but the living current sweeps me helplessly along. a woman passes me, with a child in her arms. the baby looks strangely diminutive, a rosy dimple in the laughing face. i smile back at the little cherub, and my eyes meet the gaze of the detectives. a wild thought to escape, to get away from them, possesses me, and i turn quickly into a side street, and walk blindly, faster and faster. a sudden impulse seizes me at the sight of a passing car, and i dash after it. * * * * * "fare, please!" the conductor sings out, and i almost laugh out aloud at the fleeting sense of the material reality of freedom. conscious of the strangeness of my action, i produce a dollar bill, and a sense of exhilarating independence comes over me, as the man counts out the silver coins. i watch him closely for a sign of recognition. does he realize that i am just out of prison? he turns away, and i feel thankful to the dear chum for having so thoughtfully provided me with a new suit of clothes. it is peculiar, however, that the conductor has failed to notice my closely cropped hair. but the man in the seat opposite seems to be watching me. perhaps he has recognized me by my picture in the newspapers; or may be it is my straw hat that has attracted his attention. i glance about me. no one wears summer headgear yet; it must be too early in the season. i ought to change it: the detectives could not follow me so easily then. why, there they are on the back platform! at the next stop i jump off the car. a hat sign arrests my eye, and i walk into the store, and then slip quietly through a side entrance, a dark derby on my head. i walk quickly, for a long, long time, board several cars, and then walk again, till i find myself on a deserted street. no one is following me now; the detectives must have lost track of me. i feel worn and tired. where could i rest up, i wonder, when i suddenly recollect that i was to go directly from the prison to the drugstore of comrade m----. my friends must be worried, and m---- is waiting to wire to the girl about my release. * * * * * it is long past noon when i enter the drugstore. m---- seems highly wrought up over something; he shakes my hand violently, and plies me with questions, as he leads me into his apartments in the rear of the store. it seems strange to be in a regular room: there is paper on the walls, and it feels so peculiar to the touch, so different from the whitewashed cell. i pass my hand over it caressingly, with a keen sense of pleasure. the chairs, too, look strange, and those quaint things on the table. the bric-a-brac absorbs my attention--the people in the room look hazy, their voices sound distant and confused. "why don't you sit down, aleck?" the tones are musical and tender; a woman's, no doubt. "yes," i reply, walking around the table, and picking up a bright toy. it represents undine, rising from the water, the spray glistening in the sun.... "are you tired, aleck?" "n--no." "you have just come out?" "yes." it requires an effort to talk. the last year, in the workhouse, i have barely spoken a dozen words; there was always absolute silence. the voices disturb me. the presence of so many people--there are three or four about me--is oppressive. the room reminds me of the cell, and the desire seizes me to rush out into the open, to breathe the air and see the sky. "i'm going," i say, snatching up my hat. iv the train speeds me to detroit, and i wonder vaguely how i reached the station. my brain is numb; i cannot think. field and forest flit by in the gathering dusk, but the surroundings wake no interest in me. "i am rid of the detectives"--the thought persists in my mind, and i feel something relax within me, and leave me cold, without emotion or desire. * * * * * with an effort i descend to the platform, and sway from side to side, as i cross the station at detroit. a man and a girl hasten toward me, and grasp me by the hand. i recognize carl. the dear boy, he was a most faithful and cheering correspondent all these years since he left the penitentiary. but who is the girl with him, i wonder, when my gaze falls on a woman leaning against a pillar. she looks intently at me. the wave of her hair, the familiar eyes--why, it's the girl! how little she has changed! i take a few steps forward, somewhat surprised that she did not rush up to me like the others. i feel pleased at her self-possession: the excited voices, the quick motions, disturb me. i walk slowly toward her, but she does not move. she seems rooted to the spot, her hand grasping the pillar, a look of awe and terror in her face. suddenly she throws her arms around me. her lips move, but no sound reaches my ear. we walk in silence. the girl presses a bouquet into my hand. my heart is full, but i cannot talk. i hold the flowers to my face, and mechanically bite the petals. v detroit, chicago, and milwaukee pass before me like a troubled dream. i have a faint recollection of a sea of faces, restless and turbulent, and i in its midst. confused voices beat like hammers on my head, and then all is very still. i stand in full view of the audience. eyes are turned on me from every side, and i grow embarrassed. the crowd looks dim and hazy; i feel hot and cold, and a great longing to flee. the perspiration is running down my back; my knees tremble violently, the floor is slipping from under my feet--there is a tumult of hand clapping, loud cheers and bravos. we return to carl's house, and men and women grasp my hand and look at me with eyes of curious awe. i fancy a touch of pity in their tones, and am impatient of their sympathy. a sense of suffocation possesses me within doors, and i dread the presence of people. it is torture to talk; the sound of voices agonizes me. i watch for an opportunity to steal out of the house. it soothes me to lose myself among the crowds, and a sense of quiet pervades me at the thought that i am a stranger to every one about me. i roam the city at night, and seek the outlying country, conscious only of a desire to be alone. vi i am in the waldheim, the girl at my side. all is quiet in the cemetery, and i feel a great peace. no emotion stirs me at the sight of the monument, save a feeling of quiet sadness. it represents a woman, with one hand placing a wreath on the fallen, with the other grasping a sword. the marble features mirror unutterable grief and proud defiance. i glance at the girl. her face is averted, but the droop of her head speaks of suffering. i hold out my hand to her, and we stand in mute sorrow at the graves of our martyred comrades.... i have a vision of stenka razin, as i had seen him pictured in my youth, and at his side hang the bodies of the men buried beneath my feet. why are they dead? i wonder. why should i live? and a great desire to lie down with them is upon me. i clutch the iron post, to keep from falling. * * * * * steps sound behind me, and i turn to see a girl hastening toward us. she is radiant with young womanhood; her presence breathes life and the joy of it. her bosom heaves with panting; her face struggles with a solemn look. "i ran all the way," her voice is soft and low; "i was afraid i might miss you." the girl smiles. "let us go in somewhere to rest up, alice." turning to me, she adds, "she ran to see--you." how peculiar the girl should conceive such an idea! it is absurd. why should alice be anxious to see me? i look old and worn; my step is languid, unsteady.... bitter thoughts fill my mind, as we ride back on the train to chicago. "you are sad," the girl remarks. "alice is very much taken with you. aren't you glad?" "you are mistaken," i reply. "i'm sure of it," the girl persists. "shall i ask her?" she turns to alice. "oh, i like you so much, sasha," alice whispers. i look up timidly at her. she is leaning toward me in the abandon of artless tenderness, and a great joy steals over me, as i read in her eyes frank affection. vii new york looks unexpectedly familiar, though i miss many old landmarks. it is torture to be indoors, and i roam the streets, experiencing a thrill of kinship when i locate one of my old haunts. i feel little interest in the large meeting arranged to greet me back into the world. yet i am conscious of some curiosity about the comrades i may meet there. few of the old guard have remained. some dropped from the ranks; others died. john most will not be there. i cherished the hope of meeting him again, but he died a few months before my release. he had been unjust to me; but who is free from moments of weakness? the passage of time has mellowed the bitterness of my resentment, and i think of him, my first teacher of anarchy, with old-time admiration. his unique personality stands out in strong relief upon the flat background of his time. his life was the tragedy of the ever unpopular pioneer. a social lear, his whitening years brought only increasing isolation and greater lack of understanding, even within his own circle. he had struggled and suffered much; he gave his whole life to advance the cause, only to find at the last that he who crosses the threshold must leave all behind, even friendship, even comradeship. * * * * * my old friend, justus schwab, is also gone, and brady, the big austrian. few of the comrades of my day have survived. the younger generation seems different, unsatisfactory. the ghetto i had known has also disappeared. primitive orchard street, the scene of our pioneer meetings, has conformed to business respectability; the historic lecture hall, that rang with the breaking chains of the awakening people, has been turned into a dancing-school; the little café "around the corner," the intellectual arena of former years, is now a counting-house. the fervid enthusiasm of the past, the spontaneous comradeship in the common cause, the intoxication of world-liberating zeal--all are gone with the days of my youth. i sense the spirit of cold deliberation in the new set, and a tone of disillusioned wisdom that chills and estranges me. * * * * * the girl has also changed. the little sailor, my companion of the days that thrilled with the approach of the social revolution, has become a woman of the world. her mind has matured, but her wider interests antagonize my old revolutionary traditions that inspired every day and colored our every act with the direct perception of the momentarily expected great upheaval. i feel an instinctive disapproval of many things, though particular instances are intangible and elude my analysis. i sense a foreign element in the circle she has gathered about her, and feel myself a stranger among them. her friends and admirers crowd her home, and turn it into a sort of salon. they talk art and literature; discuss science and philosophize over the disharmony of life. but the groans of the dungeon find no gripping echo there. the girl is the most revolutionary of them all; but even she has been infected by the air of intellectual aloofness, false tolerance and everlasting pessimism. i resent the situation, the more i become conscious of the chasm between the girl and myself. it seems unbridgeable; we cannot recover the intimate note of our former comradeship. with pain i witness her evident misery. she is untiring in her care and affection; the whole circle lavishes on me sympathy and tenderness. but through it all i feel the commiserating tolerance toward a sick child. i shun the atmosphere of the house, and flee to seek the solitude of the crowded streets and the companionship of the plain, untutored underworld. * * * * * in a bowery resort i come across dan, my assistant on the range during my last year in the penitentiary. "hello, aleck," he says, taking me aside, "awful glad to see you out of hell. doing all right?" "so, so, dan. and you?" "rotten, aleck, rotten. you know it was my first bit, and i swore i'd never do a crooked job again. well, they turned me out with a five-spot, after four years' steady work, mind you, and three of them working my head off on a loom. then they handed me a pair of kentucky jeans, that any fly-cop could spot a mile off. my friends went back on me--that five-spot was all i had in the world, and it didn't go a long way. liberty ain't what it looks to a fellow through the bars, aleck, but it's hell to go back. i don't know what to do." "how do you happen here, dan? could you get no work at home, in oil city?" "home, hell! i wish i had a home and friends, like you, aleck. christ, d'you think i'd ever turn another trick? but i got no home and no friends. mother died before i came out, and i found no home. i got a job in oil city, but the bulls tipped me off for an ex-con, and i beat my way here. i tried to do the square thing, aleck, but where's a fellow to turn? i haven't a cent and not a friend in the world." poor dan! i feel powerless to help him, even with advice. without friends or money, his "liberty" is a hollow mockery, even worse than mine. five years ago he was a strong, healthy young man. he committed a burglary, and was sent to prison. now he is out, his body weakened, his spirit broken; he is less capable than ever to survive in the struggle. what is he to do but commit another crime and be returned to prison? even i, with so many advantages that dan is lacking, with kind comrades and helpful friends, i can find no place in this world of the outside. i have been torn out, and i seem unable to take root again. everything looks so different, changed. and yet i feel a great hunger for life. i could enjoy the sunshine, the open, and freedom of action. i could make my life and my prison experience useful to the world. but i am incapacitated for the struggle. i do not fit in any more, not even in the circle of my comrades. and this seething life, the turmoil and the noises of the city, agonize me. perhaps it would be best for me to retire to the country, and there lead a simple life, close to nature. viii the summer is fragrant with a thousand perfumes, and a great peace is in the woods. the hudson river shimmers in the distance, a solitary sail on its broad bosom. the palisades on the opposite side look immutable, eternal, their undulating tops melting in the grayish-blue horizon. puffs of smoke rise from the valley. here, too, has penetrated the restless spirit. the muffled thunder of blasting breaks in upon the silence. the greedy hand of man is desecrating the palisades, as it has desecrated the race. but the big river flows quietly, and the sailboat glides serenely on the waters. it skips over the foaming waves, near the spot i stand on, toward the great, busy city. now it is floating past the high towers, with their forbidding aspect. it is sing sing prison. men groan and suffer there, and are tortured in the dungeon. and i--i am a useless cog, an idler, while others toil; and i keep mute, while others suffer. * * * * * my mind dwells in the prison. the silence rings with the cry of pain; the woods echo the agony of the dungeon. i start at the murmur of the leaves; the trees with their outstretched arms bar my way, menacing me like the guards on the prison walls. their monster shapes follow me in the valley. at night i wake in cold terror. the agonized cry of crazy smithy is in my ears, and again i hear the sickening thud of the riot clubs on the prisoner's head. the solitude is harrowing with the memory of the prison; it haunts me with the horrors of the basket cell. away, i must away, to seek relief amidst the people! * * * * * back in the city, i face the problem of support. the sense of dependence gnaws me. the hospitality of my friends is boundless, but i cannot continue as the beneficiary of their generosity. i had declined the money gift presented to me on my release by the comrades: i felt i could not accept even their well-meant offering. the question of earning my living is growing acute. i cannot remain idle. but what shall i turn to? i am too weak for factory work. i had hoped to secure employment as a compositor, but the linotype has made me superfluous. i might be engaged as a proof-reader. my former membership in the typographical union will enable me to join the ranks of labor. my physical condition, however, precludes the immediate realization of my plans. meanwhile some comrades suggest the advisability of a short lecture tour: it will bring me in closer contact with the world, and serve to awaken new interest in life. the idea appeals to me. i shall be doing work, useful work. i shall voice the cry of the depths, and perhaps the people will listen, and some may understand! ix with a great effort i persevere on the tour. the strain is exhausting my strength, and i feel weary and discontented. my innate dread of public speaking is aggravated by the necessity of constant association with people. the comrades are sympathetic and attentive, but their very care is a source of annoyance. i long for solitude and quiet. in the midst of people, the old prison instinct of escape possesses me. once or twice the wild idea of terminating the tour has crossed my mind. the thought is preposterous, impossible. meetings have already been arranged in various cities, and my appearance widely announced. it would disgrace me, and injure the movement, were i to prove myself so irresponsible. i owe it to the cause, and to my comrades, to keep my appointments. i must fight off this morbid notion. * * * * * my engagement in pittsburgh aids my determination. little did i dream in the penitentiary that i should live to see that city again, even to appear in public there! looking back over the long years of imprisonment, of persecution and torture, i marvel that i have survived. surely it was not alone physical capacity to suffer--how often had i touched the threshold of death, and trembled on the brink of insanity and self-destruction! whatever strength and perseverance i possessed, they alone could not have saved my reason in the night of the dungeon, or preserved me in the despair of the solitary. poor wingie, ed sloane, and "fighting" tom; harry, russell, crazy smithy--how many of my friends have perished there! it was the vision of an ideal, the consciousness that i suffered for a great cause, that sustained me. the very exaggeration of my self-estimate was a source of strength: i looked upon myself as a representative of a world movement; it was my duty to exemplify the spirit and dignity of the ideas it embodied. i was not a prisoner, merely; i was an anarchist in the hands of the enemy; as such, it devolved upon me to maintain the manhood and self-respect my ideals signified. the example of the political prisoners in russia inspired me, and my stay in the penitentiary was a continuous struggle that was the breath of life. was it the extreme self-consciousness of the idealist, the power of revolutionary traditions, or simply the persistent will to be? most likely, it was the fusing of all three, that shaped my attitude in prison and kept me alive. and now, on my way to pittsburgh, i feel the same spirit within me, at the threat of the local authorities to prevent my appearance in the city. some friends seek to persuade me to cancel my lecture there, alarmed at the police preparations to arrest me. something might happen, they warn me: legally i am still a prisoner out on parole. i am liable to be returned to the penitentiary, without trial, for the period of my commutation time--eight years and two months--if convicted of a felony before the expiration of my full sentence of twenty-two years. but the menace of the enemy stirs me from apathy, and all my old revolutionary defiance is roused within me. for the first time during the tour, i feel a vital interest in life, and am eager to ascend the platform. an unfortunate delay on the road brings me into pittsburgh two hours late for the lecture. comrade m---- is impatiently waiting for me, and we hasten to the meeting. on the way he informs me that the hall is filled with police and prison guards; the audience is in a state of great suspense; the rumor has gone about that the authorities are determined to prevent my appearance. i sense an air of suppressed excitement, as i enter the hall, and elbow my way through the crowded aisle. some one grips my arm, and i recognize "southside" johnny, the friendly prison runner. "aleck, take care," he warns me, "the bulls are layin' for you." x the meeting is over, the danger past. i feel worn and tired with the effort of the evening. my next lecture is to take place in cleveland, ohio. the all-night ride in the stuffy smoker aggravates my fatigue, and sets my nerves on edge. i arrive in the city feeling feverish and sick. to engage a room in a hotel would require an extra expense from the proceeds of the tour, which are intended for the movement; moreover, it would be sybaritism, contrary to the traditional practice of anarchist lecturers. i decide to accept the hospitality of some friend during my stay in the city. for hours i try to locate the comrade who has charge of arranging the meetings. at his home i am told that he is absent. his parents, pious jews, look at me askance, and refuse to inform me of their son's whereabouts. the unfriendly attitude of the old folks drives me into the street again, and i seek out another comrade. his family gathers about me. their curious gaze is embarrassing; their questions idle. my pulse is feverish, my head heavy. i should like to rest up before the lecture, but a constant stream of comrades flows in on me, and the house rings with their joy of meeting me. the talking wearies me; their ardent interest searches my soul with rude hands. these men and women--they, too, are different from the comrades of my day; their very language echoes the spirit that has so depressed me in the new ghetto. the abyss in our feeling and thought appalls me. with failing heart i ascend the platform in the evening. it is chilly outdoors, and the large hall, sparsely filled and badly lit, breathes the cold of the grave upon me. the audience is unresponsive. the lecture on crime and prisons that so thrilled my pittsburgh meeting, wakes no vital chord. i feel dispirited. my voice is weak and expressionless; at times it drops to a hoarse whisper. i seem to stand at the mouth of a deep cavern, and everything is dark within. i speak into the blackness; my words strike metallically against the walls, and are thrown back at me with mocking emphasis. a sense of weariness and hopelessness possesses me, and i conclude the lecture abruptly. the comrades surround me, grasp my hand, and ply me with questions about my prison life, the joy of liberty and of work. they are undisguisedly disappointed at my anxiety to retire, but presently it is decided that i should accept the proffered hospitality of a comrade who owns a large house in the suburbs. the ride is interminable, the comrade apparently living several miles out in the country. on the way he talks incessantly, assuring me repeatedly that he considers it a great privilege to entertain me. i nod sleepily. finally we arrive. the place is large, but squalid. the low ceilings press down on my head; the rooms look cheerless and uninhabited. exhausted by the day's exertion, i fall into heavy sleep. awakening in the morning, i am startled to find a stranger in my bed. his coat and hat are on the floor, and he lies snoring at my side, with overshirt and trousers on. he must have fallen into bed very tired, without even detaching the large cuffs, torn and soiled, that rattle on his hands. the sight fills me with inexpressible disgust. all through the years of my prison life, my nights had been passed in absolute solitude. the presence of another in my bed is unutterably horrifying. i dress hurriedly, and rush out of the house. a heavy drizzle is falling; the air is close and damp. the country looks cheerless and dreary. but one thought possesses me: to get away from the stranger snoring in my bed, away from the suffocating atmosphere of the house with its low ceilings, out into the open, away from the presence of man. the sight of a human being repels me, the sound of a voice is torture to me. i want to be alone, always alone, to have peace and quiet, to lead a simple life in close communion with nature. ah, nature! that, too, i have tried, and found more impossible even than the turmoil of the city. the silence of the woods threatened to drive me mad, as did the solitude of the dungeon. a curse upon the thing that has incapacitated me for life, made solitude as hateful as the face of man, made life itself impossible to me! and is it for this i have yearned and suffered, for this spectre that haunts my steps, and turns day into a nightmare--this distortion, life? oh, where is the joy of expectation, the tremulous rapture, as i stood at the door of my cell, hailing the blush of the dawn, the day of resurrection! where the happy moments that lit up the night of misery with the ecstasy of freedom, which was to give me back to work and joy! where, where is it all? is liberty sweet only in the anticipation, and life a bitter awakening? the rain has ceased. the sun peeps through the clouds, and glints its rays upon a shop window. my eye falls on the gleaming barrel of a revolver. i enter the place, and purchase the weapon. i walk aimlessly, in a daze. it is beginning to rain again; my body is chilled to the bone, and i seek the shelter of a saloon on an obscure street. in the corner of the dingy back room i notice a girl. she is very young, with an air of gentility about her, that is somewhat marred by her quick, restless look. we sit in silence, watching the heavy downpour outdoors. the girl is toying with a glass of whiskey. angry voices reach us from the street. there is a heavy shuffling of feet, and a suppressed cry. a woman lurches through the swinging door, and falls against a table. the girl rushes to the side of the woman, and assists her into a chair. "are you hurt, madge?" she asks sympathetically. the woman looks up at her with bleary eyes. she raises her hand, passes it slowly across her mouth, and spits violently. "he hit me, the dirty brute," she whimpers, "he hit me. but i sha'n't give him no money; i just won't, frenchy." the girl is tenderly wiping her friend's bleeding face. "sh-sh, madge, sh--sh!" she warns her, with a glance at the approaching waiter. "drunk again, you old bitch," the man growls. "you'd better vamoose now." "oh, let her be, charley, won't you?" the girl coaxes. "and, say, bring me a bitters." "the dirty loafer! it's money, always gimme money," the woman mumbles; "and i've had such bad luck, frenchy. you know it's true. don't you, frenchy?" "yes, yes, dear," the girl soothes her. "don't talk now. lean your head on my shoulder, so! you'll be all right in a minute." the girl sways to and fro, gently patting the woman on the head, and all is still in the room. the woman's breathing grows regular and louder. she snores, and the young girl slowly unwinds her arms and resumes her seat. i motion to her. "will you have a drink with me?" "with pleasure," she smiles. "poor thing," she nods toward the sleeper, "her fellow beats her and takes all she makes." "you have a kind heart, frenchy." "we girls must be good to each other; no one else will. some men are so mean, just too mean to live or let others live. but some are nice. of course, some twirls are bad, but we ain't all like that and--" she hesitates. "and what?" "well, some have seen better days. i wasn't always like this," she adds, gulping down her drink. her face is pensive; her large black eyes look dreamy. she asks abruptly: "you like poetry?" "ye--es. why?" "i write. oh, you don't believe me, do you? here's something of mine," and with a preliminary cough, she begins to recite with exaggerated feeling: mother dear, the days were young when posies in our garden hung. upon your lap my golden head i laid, with pure and happy heart i prayed. "i remember those days," she adds wistfully. we sit in the dusk, without speaking. the lights are turned on, and my eye falls on a paper lying on the table. the large black print announces an excursion to buffalo. "will you come with me?" i ask the girl, pointing to the advertisement. "to buffalo?" "yes." "you're kidding." "no. will you come?" "sure." alone with me in the stateroom, "frenchy" grows tender and playful. she notices my sadness, and tries to amuse me. but i am thinking of the lecture that is to take place in cleveland this very hour: the anxiety of my comrades, the disappointment of the audience, my absence, all prey on my mind. but who am i, to presume to teach? i have lost my bearings; there is no place for me in life. my bridges are burned. the girl is in high spirits, but her jollity angers me. i crave to speak to her, to share my misery and my grief. i hint at the impossibility of life, and my superfluity in the world, but she looks bored, not grasping the significance of my words. "don't talk so foolish, boy," she scoffs. "what do you care about work or a place? you've got money; what more do you want? you better go down now and fetch something to drink." returning to the stateroom, i find "frenchy" missing. in a sheltered nook on the deck i recognize her in the lap of a stranger. heart-sore and utterly disgusted, i retire to my berth. in the morning i slip quietly off the boat. * * * * * the streets are deserted; the city is asleep. in the fog and rain, the gray buildings resemble the prison walls, the tall factory chimneys standing guard like monster sentinels. i hasten away from the hated sight, and wander along the docks. the mist weaves phantom shapes, and i see a multitude of people and in their midst a boy, pale, with large, lustrous eyes. the crowd curses and yells in frenzied passion, and arms are raised, and blows rain down on the lad's head. the rain beats heavier, and every drop is a blow. the boy totters and falls to the ground. the wistful face, the dreamy eyes--why, it is czolgosz! accursed spot! i cannot die here. i must to new york, to be near my friends in death! xi loud knocking wakes me. "say, mister," a voice calls behind the door, "are you all right?" "yes." "will you have a bite, or something?" "no." "well, as you please. but you haven't left your room going on two days now." * * * * * two days, and still alive? the road to death is so short, why suffer? an instant, and i shall be no more, and only the memory of me will abide for a little while in this world. _this_ world? is there another? if there is anything in spiritualism, carl will learn of it. in the prison we had been interested in the subject, and we had made a compact that he who is the first to die, should appear in spirit to the other. pretty fancy of foolish man, born of immortal vanity! hereafter, life after death--children of earth's misery. the disharmony of life bears dreams of peace and bliss, but there is no harmony save in death. who knows but that even then the atoms of my lifeless clay will find no rest, tossed about in space to form new shapes and new thoughts for aeons of human anguish. and so carl will not see me after death. our compact will not be kept, for nothing will remain of my "soul" when i am dead, as nothing remains of the sum when its units are gone. dear carl, he will be distraught at my failure to come to detroit. he had arranged a lecture there, following cleveland. it is peculiar that i should not have thought of wiring him that i was unable to attend. he might have suspended preparations. but it did not occur to me, and now it is too late. the girl, too, will be in despair over my disappearance. i cannot notify her now--i am virtually dead. yet i crave to see her once more before i depart, even at a distance. but that also is too late. i am almost dead. * * * * * i dress mechanically, and step into the street. the brilliant sunshine, the people passing me by, the children playing about, strike on my consciousness with pleasing familiarity. the desire grips me to be one of them, to participate in their life. and yet it seems strange to think of myself as part of this moving, breathing humanity. am i not dead? i roam about all day. at dusk i am surprised to find myself near the girl's home. the fear seizes me that i might be seen and recognized. a sense of guilt steals over me, and i shrink away, only to return again and again to the familiar spot. i pass the night in the park. an old man, a sailor out of work, huddles close to me, seeking the warmth of my body. but i am cold and cheerless, and all next day i haunt again the neighborhood of the girl. an irresistible force attracts me to the house. repeatedly i return to my room and snatch up the weapon, and then rush out again. i am fearful of being seen near the "den," and i make long detours to the battery and the bronx, but again and again i find myself watching the entrance and speculating on the people passing in and out of the house. my mind pictures the girl, with her friends about her. what are they discussing, i wonder. "why, myself!" it flits through my mind. the thought appalls me. they must be distraught with anxiety over my disappearance. perhaps they think me dead! i hasten to a telegraph office, and quickly pen a message to the girl: "come. i am waiting here." in a flurry of suspense i wait for the return of the messenger. a little girl steps in, and i recognize tess, and inwardly resent that the girl did not come herself. "aleck," she falters, "sonya wasn't home when your message came. i'll run to find her." the old dread of people is upon me, and i rush out of the place, hoping to avoid meeting the girl. i stumble through the streets, retrace my steps to the telegraph office, and suddenly come face to face with her. her appearance startles me. the fear of death is in her face, mute horror in her eyes. "sasha!" her hand grips my arm, and she steadies my faltering step. xii i open my eyes. the room is light and airy; a soothing quiet pervades the place. the portières part noiselessly, and the girl looks in. "awake, sasha?" she brightens with a happy smile. "yes. when did i come here?" "several days ago. you've been very sick, but you feel better now, don't you, dear?" several days? i try to recollect my trip to buffalo, the room on the bowery. was it all a dream? "where was i before i came here?" i ask. "you--you were--absent," she stammers, and in her face is visioned the experience of my disappearance. * * * * * with tender care the girl ministers to me. i feel like one recovering from a long illness: very weak, but with a touch of joy in life. no one is permitted to see me, save one or two of the girl's nearest friends, who slip in quietly, pat my hand in mute sympathy, and discreetly retire. i sense their understanding, and am grateful that they make no allusion to the events of the past days. the care of the girl is unwavering. by degrees i gain strength. the room is bright and cheerful; the silence of the house soothes me. the warm sunshine is streaming through the open window; i can see the blue sky, and the silvery cloudlets. a little bird hops upon the sill, looks steadily at me, and chirps a greeting. it brings back the memory of dick, my feathered pet, and of my friends in prison. i have done nothing for the agonized men in the dungeon darkness--have i forgotten them? i have the opportunity; why am i idle? * * * * * the girl calls cheerfully: "sasha, our friend philo is here. would you like to see him?" i welcome the comrade whose gentle manner and deep sympathy have endeared him to me in the days since my return. there is something unutterably tender about him. the circle had christened him "the philosopher," and his breadth of understanding and non-invasive personality have been a great comfort to me. his voice is low and caressing, like the soft crooning of a mother rocking her child to sleep. "life is a problem," he is saying, "a problem whose solution consists in trying to solve it. schopenhauer may have been right," he smiles, with a humorous twinkle in his eyes, "but his love of life was so strong, his need for expression so compelling, he had to write a big book to prove how useless is all effort. but his very sincerity disproves him. life is its own justification. the disharmony of life is more seeming than real; and what is real of it, is the folly and blindness of man. to struggle against that folly, is to create greater harmony, wider possibilities. artificial barriers circumscribe and dwarf life, and stifle its manifestations. to break those barriers down, is to find a vent, to expand, to express oneself. and that is life, aleck: a continuous struggle for expression. it mirrors itself in nature, as in all the phases of man's existence. look at the little vine struggling against the fury of the storm, and clinging with all its might to preserve its hold. then see it stretch toward the sunshine, to absorb the light and the warmth, and then freely give back of itself in multiple form and wealth of color. we call it beautiful then, for it has found expression. that is life, aleck, and thus it manifests itself through all the gradations we call evolution. the higher the scale, the more varied and complex the manifestations, and, in turn, the greater the need for expression. to suppress or thwart it, means decay, death. and in this, aleck, is to be found the main source of suffering and misery. the hunger of life storms at the gates that exclude it from the joy of being, and the individual soul multiplies its expressions by being mirrored in the collective, as the little vine mirrors itself in its many flowers, or as the acorn individualizes itself a thousandfold in the many-leafed oak. but i am tiring you, aleck." "no, no, philo. continue; i want to hear more." "well, aleck, as with nature, so with man. life is never at a standstill; everywhere and ever it seeks new manifestations, more expansion. in art, in literature, as in the affairs of men, the struggle is continual for higher and more intimate expression. that is progress--the vine reaching for more sunshine and light. translated into the language of social life, it means the individualization of the mass, the finding of a higher level, the climbing over the fences that shut out life. everywhere you see this reaching out. the process is individual and social at the same time, for the species lives in the individual as much as the individual persists in the species. the individual comes first; his clarified vision is multiplied in his immediate environment, and gradually permeates through his generation and time, deepening the social consciousness and widening the scope of existence. but perhaps you have not found it so, aleck, after your many years of absence?" "no, dear philo. what you have said appeals to me very deeply. but i have found things so different from what i had pictured them. our comrades, the movement--it is not what i thought it would be." "it is quite natural, aleck. a change has taken place, but its meaning is apt to be distorted through the dim vision of your long absence. i know well what you miss, dear friend: the old mode of existence, the living on the very threshold of the revolution, so to speak. and everything looks strange to you, and out of joint. but as you stay a little longer with us, you will see that it is merely a change of form; the essence is the same. we are the same as before, aleck, only made deeper and broader by years and experience. anarchism has cast off the swaddling bands of the small, intimate circles of former days; it has grown to greater maturity, and become a factor in the larger life of society. you remember it only as a little mountain spring, around which clustered a few thirsty travelers in the dreariness of the capitalist desert. it has since broadened and spread as a strong current that covers a wide area and forces its way even into the very ocean of life. you see, dear aleck, the philosophy of anarchism is beginning to pervade every phase of human endeavor. in science, in art, in literature, everywhere the influence of anarchist thought is creating new values; its spirit is vitalizing social movements, and finding interpretation in life. indeed, aleck, we have not worked in vain. throughout the world there is a great awakening. even in this socially most backward country, the seeds sown are beginning to bear fruit. times have changed, indeed; but encouragingly so, aleck. the leaven of discontent, ever more conscious and intelligent, is moulding new social thought and new action. to-day our industrial conditions, for instance, present a different aspect from those of twenty years ago. it was then possible for the masters of life to sacrifice to their interests the best friends of the people. but to-day the spontaneous solidarity and awakened consciousness of large strata of labor is a guarantee against the repetition of such judicial murders. it is a most significant sign, aleck, and a great inspiration to renewed effort." * * * * * the girl enters. "are you crooning sasha to sleep, philo?" she laughs. "oh, no!" i protest, "i'm wide awake and much interested in philo's conversation." "it is getting late," he rejoins. "i must be off to the meeting." "what meeting?" i inquire, "the czolgosz anniversary commemoration." "i think--i'd like to come along." "better not, sasha," my friend advises. "you need some light distraction." "perhaps you would like to go to the theatre," the girl suggests. "stella has tickets. she'd be happy to have you come, sasha." * * * * * returning home in the evening, i find the "den" in great excitement. the assembled comrades look worried, talk in whispers, and seem to avoid my glance. i miss several familiar faces. "where are the others?" i ask. the comrades exchange troubled looks, and are silent. "has anything happened? where are they?" i insist. "i may as well tell you," philo replies, "but be calm, sasha. the police have broken up our meeting. they have clubbed the audience, and arrested a dozen comrades." "is it serious, philo?" "i am afraid it is. they are going to make a test case. under the new 'criminal anarchy law' our comrades may get long terms in prison. they have taken our most active friends." * * * * * the news electrifies me. i feel myself transported into the past, the days of struggle and persecution. philo was right! the enemy is challenging, the struggle is going on!... i see the graves of waldheim open, and hear the voices from the tomb. * * * * * a deep peace pervades me, and i feel a great joy in my heart. "sasha, what is it?" philo cries in alarm. "my resurrection, dear friend. i have found work to do." scanned images of public domain material from the google books project.) [illustration: liberty enlightening the world.] the rise and fall of anarchy in america. from its incipient stage to the first bomb thrown in chicago. a comprehensive account of the great conspiracy culminating in the haymarket massacre, may th, . a minute account of the apprehension, trial, conviction and execution of the leading conspirators. by geo. n. mclean. "order is heaven's first law." profusely illustrated. sold by subscription only. r. g. badoux & co. chicago & philadelphia . copyrighted, . r. g. badoux & co. (_all rights reserved._) [illustration: contents] chapter i. introduction. "order is heaven's first law"--liberty enlightening the world--the red flag--the price of liberty--our national institutions--when judgment and justice is abroad in the land the people will learn righteousness chapter ii. anarchists. their nationality--first agitation--leader of anarchy--revenge circular--the haymarket meeting--the lehr und wehr verein--the massacre--dispersing the mob chapter iii. the great conspiracy. bravery of the police--the occupation of the conspirators--the trial--securing a jury--bombs in court--evidence of detective johnson--parsons swears he "won't eat snowballs next winter"--drilling anarchists--pinkerton detectives--cross-examination--bombs and dynamite--parsons' view of the board of trade--guns, dynamite and prussic acid advocated by spies--prosecution rests its case chapter iv. the defense. under a cloud--a struggle for life--contesting every point by shrewd counsel--braving it out--throttling the law--fielden on the stand--laughable testimony by henry schultz, who said he was a tourist--schwab's evidence--spies testifies--postal card from herr most--close of the defense chapter v. arguments for the prosecution and defense. opening speech by frank walker--"we stand in the temple of justice"--zeisler for the defense, ingham for the prosecution--messrs. foster and black for the defense--julius s. grinnell makes closing speech for the state chapter vi. instructions of the court. the verdict--blanched faces--the court to the jury--biography, age and residence of the jurors chapter vii. the conspiracy and massacre. names and number of killed and wounded--unearthing the plot--officers at work--crowned with success--report of grand jury--the number of widows and orphans resulting from one explosion chapter viii. cost of trial. extracts from _zeitung_--motion for new trial--motion overruled chapter ix. spies addresses the court. three days' speeches by the doomed men--their reason why the law should not be executed chapter x. miscellaneous matter. _arbeiter zeitung_--mrs. parsons--her arrest in ohio--her arrest in chicago--herr most endorsing the bomb-throwing--the panic he could create in a big city in thirty minutes with , bombs in the hands of revolutionists chapter xi. supersedeas granted. united states supreme court sustain original verdict--parsons' letter to governor oglesby--lingg defiant--refusing to sign a petition for executive clemency--their impertinent letters to the governor chapter xii. fielden penitent. his letter to the governor--spies' last letter to his excellency--willing to die for his comrades chapter xiii. lingg suicides. dr. bolton with the prisoners--they decline spiritual comfort--the last night of the doomed men--parsons sings in his cell--telegrams for parsons--his last letter chapter xiv. description of the execution. threatening letters--pitying justice--outraged law vindicated--mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent--the unchanged, everlasting will to give each man his right--abuse of free speech--"the mills of god grind slow, but exceedingly fine"--captain black at the anarchists' funeral chapter xv. a description of herr most's sanctum. a den where anarchy was begotten--the anarchist chief's museum of weapons and infernal machines--easy lessons in the art of assassination chapter xvi. biography of herr most. his past career and early training--his imprisonment in the bastille and red tower for preaching his gospel of blood--extracts from his inflammatory utterances--"whet your daggers"--"let every prince find a brutus by his throne." chapter xvii. biography of spies. and the other seven condemned men--their birthplace, education, and private life--parsons' letter to the _daily news_, after the explosion, while a fugitive from justice chapter xviii. biographical record of john bonfield. inspector and secretary of police department--biographies of sheriff matson, judge gary, judge grinnell--tribute to captain schaack chapter xix. eulogy to the police. boldly they fought and well--contrast between capital and labor--the anarchists' fatal delusion--the united states national anthem [illustration] preface. in view of the many phases and complications involved in the labor question, along with the cosmopolitan element engaged in forcing, as it were, measures intended to revolutionize labor, trade and commerce, this subject becomes of extreme delicacy to treat, the intricacy of which affect all classes and conditions of men, and threatens to convulse society from the outer crust of uppertendom to the inner sub-strata of human interest, affecting largely the social, civil, and political interests of the ever-enlarging generations of mankind. the dark cloud standing out in bold relief outlined against the political horizon of this great republic seems to be gathering in intensity. just now the lull in matters pertaining to this great question of capital and labor, seem like the "calm that precedes the hurricane." animosities and antagonisms are widening the gulf between these conflicting interests of society, and anarchy and socialism, assuming a belligerent attitude, threaten a disruption of good and wholesome government. we bid a hearty god-speed to any innovation upon the stereotyped and superannuated system, or dogmatic usage in the interests of absolute and overwhelming monopolies, which has for its object the general well-being of our common humanity, the elevation of the universal brotherhood of mankind, and the perpetuity of american institutions. we do not believe in monopoly and oppression; but the final triumph of right over wrong by honest, earnest and persevering endeavor. socialism. a theory of society which advocates a more precise, orderly and harmonious arrangement of the social relations of mankind than that which has hitherto prevailed.--_webster._ communism. the reorganizing of society, or the doctrine that it should be reorganized, by regulating property, industry and the means of livelihood, and also the domestic relations and social morals of mankind; socialism; especially the doctrine of a community of property, or the negative of individual right in property.--_j. h. burton._ anarchy. want of government, the state of society where there is no law or supreme power, or where the laws are not efficient, and individuals do what they please with impunity.--_webster._ introduction. "order, heaven's first law." never before, perhaps, in the history of any great nation, was there a time when wise, honest and unswerving men were necessary at the helm of the great social and political ship of american freedom than at the present time, in order that she may weather the blasts, pass in safety the dangerous reefs and shoals of any _party politics_, maintain the majesty of her laws, grow strong in truth, making aggressive warfare upon error and superstition, "and having done all to stand entire at last," "with her lamps trimmed and burning," her liberty enlightening the world. one of our great minds has said: "our country, though rich in men of faithfulness and power, and having escaped from the difficulties of earlier times, perceives new questions which demand whatever of counsel the wise and thoughtful can give," for an era so active in thought and impulse is always perilous to the nation and need strong men, wise and calm in the midst of her greatest storms. many of our nation's noblest sons within a short space of time have bowed in obedience to the behest of that monarch whose summons all must obey. in our minds we go back to that period when our country was young, and behold manly forms, marked by intellectual dignity, and bearing in their countenance the unmistakable insignia of true and noble manhood. they, too, have passed away, and home and sanctuary know them no more; but the light found in such characters assist in solving the difficult problems of to-day. our nation's god can make of a poor and humble craftsman a mighty statesman. many such lives are poured full of honors, and their graves are fresh and green in our memories. nothing can equal in grandeur the interminable extent of our vast prairies, covered with blossoming buds. every lover of nature, and home and country can daily hear a grand anthem of praise ascend to god for the munificence of his unspeakable gifts. "from that cathedral boundless as our wonder whose quenchless lamps the sun and moon supply." these pastoral symphonies are dear to all our hearts. we love our country, and gazing upon our glorious flag, we feel it means to "_friends a starry sky_," but to foes "_a storm in every fold._" untarnished its honor, and the undimmed radiance streaming down from every star upon our glorious banner for over one hundred years, what usurper dare insult her national prowess and trail her honors in the dust, or flaunt the red flag of anarchy and socialism in the face of our national greatness? anarchy cannot prevail, as "order is heaven's first law," and "eternal vigilance the price of liberty." our measureless prosperity as a nation have caused to seek employment, protection and a home beneath the ample folds of our grand old flag, many representatives from almost every nation under the sun, to whom have been extended all the rights, social, civil, religious and political, of free-born american citizenship, while obedient to its laws. we who seek this country as our home, because of its advantages and the superior facilities for obtaining a livelihood or of amassing wealth, can be guilty of no baser act than to endeavor to sow the seeds of discord and confusion among the peaceful and well organized brotherhood in this land of freedom and prosperity; and all violations of good and wholesome law, endangering the peace and prosperity of citizens, or the overthrow of our national institutions, are deserving of the nation's frown. what greater insult can be offered to the children of freedom than for people of foreign birth to usurp the birthrights and trample upon the institutions for which their fathers bled and died? never before were citizens of any country placed on trial for so grave and flagrant a transgression, who received such consideration and fairness at the hands of the administrators of law and justice as did the participants in the haymarket tragedy. in view of the deep turpitude of their crime great credit is due to all the standard papers of the city of chicago, and the press of the united states, for the fair and impartial manner in which they represented the anarchists' case during the trial and pending the execution. the articles appearing from time to time in their columns seemed ever tempered with mercy. yet firmness characterized all their expressed opinions. the institutions of our country are dear to every true and loyal american. the outrage perpetrated upon our high order of civilization called for life in exchange for the lives sacrificed by the tragic events of the night of may the th, . every right-thinking journalist acknowledged the justice of the sentence and said, so let it be; believing that when "judgment and justice are abroad in the land the people will learn righteousness." chapter ii. anarchists--their nationality--the first agitation--leaders--anarchy--the "revenge" circular--the haymarket meeting--the massacre. scarcely has the chronicler of time recorded fifty years in the eventful history of chicago since it was known only as a little trading post for the indians of the west and northwest, but being the central and distributing point for the interminable fertile territories stretching away toward the land of the setting sun, its progress in wealth and population has been unprecedented. the superior facilities for obtaining supplies, and the demand for implements for agricultural purposes, have conspired to render chicago one of the most important commercial cities on the globe. and to-day it stands the grainery of the american continent, the great repository and commercial reservoir of continental america, with a cosmopolitan population of over seven hundred thousand. capitalists engaged in mammoth manufacturing enterprises like mccormick and others, in order to secure cheap labor to the exclusion of native skilled workmen, have imported to this country thousands of foreigners who, after gaining a foothold in the land, have turned upon their employers in organized bands with measures intended to be revolutionary. the troublesome element consisted largely of the ignorant lower classes of bavarians, bohemians, hungarians, germans, austrians, and others who held secret meetings in organized groups armed and equipped like the nihilists of russia, and the communists of france. [illustration: the haymarket massacre.] they called themselves socialists. their emblem was _red_. they paraded the streets of chicago without let or hindrance in , carrying a red flag and making insulting and incendiary speeches at lake front park, and at several of the public halls of the city. this free country accorded to them without regard to birth or nationality the rights of freedom of speech, and we shall see how that indulgence beyond the bounds of propriety has been abused. in they held secret meetings to organize their forces, and during the same year there were several labor riots. in anarchists and socialists united to endeavor to secure by their votes and influence as mayor dr. ernst schmidt, and as city treasurer f. stauber. polling nearly , votes they secured several representatives in the city council. on the evening of the d of july, , captain bielfeld, with ten of the gang known as the lehr and werh verein, left turner hall, marching from twelfth to union, then returning, lieut. callahan secured their arrest. as a test case for a violation of the law relative to the militia, bielfeld alone was booked to appear before the police court on the d of july, . rubens, his attorney, gave bonds for his appearance. the defendant then took a change of venue to morrison, becoming his own bail to appear at that place in the afternoon. bielfeld, with his attorney, and prosecuting attorney cameron, were present. the case was continued for one week. the following day being the fourth of july, was looked forward to with solicitude as a day when chicago might expect riot and carnage. bielfeld had been bound in $ bonds but was released on habeas corpus the same day on an application to judge barnum, who pronounced the majority of the clauses in the militia law as unconstitutional. in november, , a similar case was argued before the supreme court which in its rulings sustained the constitutionality of the militia law in direct opposition to judge barnum's rulings and opinions. this opinion was a reversing of judge barnum's decision restricting armed bodies of socialists, anarchists, or communists from parading the streets, deciding that in matters pertaining to the peace and safety of citizens the police powers are plenary. in the autumn of the bohemian anarchistic agitators held a picnic at silver leaf grove, in the vicinity of douglas park, and being annoyed by uninvited guests, at the command of their captain, prokop hudek, they fired a round of ball cartridge into the promiscuous crowd, seriously wounding quite a large number of citizens. their captain, and the entire company of would-be assassins, were arrested and brought to the corner of madison and union streets, where the police were compelled to use their utmost efforts to prevent the enraged and outraged citizens from lynching the leaders of the gang of outlaws. the peace-loving and law-abiding citizens were so exasperated at the audacity and cupidity of the uncivilized horde that it was with difficulty the police induced them to disperse without wreaking a summary vengeance upon these organized bandits, who were beginning to operate with impunity in the very midst of the highest order of civilization and refinement. the united states supreme court acknowledge and defend the right of citizens to assemble, _without arms_, when the object is to make known, in proper language, any grievance. but they must in all cases be under the control, direction and protection of the police force. but all meetings to organize, or any organized gatherings for the purpose of subverting law and order, all armed mobs making incendiary speeches or advocating violence are subject to military law, and under the control of the police, as the guardians of the public peace. from the time of the arrest of _herman presser_, on the affirmation of the militia law, by the federal court, in , all armed demonstrations of the socialistic element from this time ceased, but in secret they matured their fiendish plottings against the law-abiding citizens and safety of american institutions, becoming skilled in the manufacture and use of dynamite bombs as a weapon for the purpose of destroying life and property, and the intimidation of the officers of law and justice. the leaders of anarchy and socialism with whom we have to do, more particularly in this volume, are viz.: august spies, samuel fielden and a. r. parsons, spies being the editor of the _arbeiter zeitung_, and a. r. parsons editor of the paper known as the _alarm_. the eight-hour system of labor had been agitated for some time, and the first of may, , was the time set for it to go into effect by all the trade and labor unions. it was suspected by many that the insubordinate element of socialists and anarchists would take advantage of the already fermented state of the working classes, to make a bold stand to revolutionize and demoralize, by their treasonable and inflammatory speeches, the otherwise peaceful and respectable citizens of chicago. the mccormick reaper works, with over one thousand employes, mostly foreigners, had been out on a strike for several weeks, and being at fever heat the anarchists sought to produce a riot among these turbulent men, who only needed a leader and some encouragement, which they were soon to receive from spies. on may d a large force collected at or near the junction of eighteenth street and centre avenue. here they reversed the american flag, carrying it top side down, symbolic of the revolution they intended to work in american institutions. they marched down the black road to the prairie in front of mccormick's works, where august spies addressed them in extravagant language, exciting the mob by a seditious and inflammatory speech, at the close of which the effect was plainly visible, as the mob at once attacked the works of mccormick, demolishing a portion of it, and seriously injuring several non-union men who were employed there. the six police there on duty bravely tried to hold the fort, but were forced to give way before nearly three thousand infuriated men, when they turned in a call for assistance, and were reinforced by the arrival of thirty more officers, who bravely beat back their assailants, killing one of the mob by a shot from a revolver, and wounding several others. the repulsed mob then retreated, and their leaders repaired to office of the _zeitung_ to prepare a circular, and printed it in german and english, which was headed _revenge_, and the english copy read as follows, which they circulated throughout the city: revenge. "revenge, working men! to arms! your masters sent out their bloodhounds--the police. they killed six of your brothers at mccormick's this afternoon. they killed the poor wretches, because they, like you, had the courage to disobey the supreme will of your bosses. they killed them because they dared ask for the shortening of the hours of toil. they killed them to show you, 'free american citizens,' that you _must_ be satisfied and contented with whatever your bosses condescend to allow you, or you'll get killed. you have for years endured the most abject humiliation; you have for years suffered immeasurable iniquities; you have worked yourselves to death; you have endured the pangs of want and hunger; your children you have sacrificed to the factory lords--in short, you have been miserable, obedient slaves all these years. why? to satisfy the insatiable greed to fill the coffers of your lazy, thieving master. when you ask them now to lessen your burden he sends his bloodhounds out to shoot you, kill you. if you are men, if you are the sons of your grandsires who have shed their blood to free you, then you will rise in your might, hercules, and destroy the hideous monster that seeks to destroy you. to arms we call you! to arms! your brothers." the german portion differed from the above mainly in the following passage: "_why? because_ you dared ask for the shortening of the hours of labor." in the german copy it ran: "because you dared ask for all that you believed to be your rights." instead of being addressed, as in the english, to american citizens, it was directed to the followers of anarchy and socialism. another circular was distributed calling a meeting at the haymarket for the night of may , and urging working men to arm and go in full force. in the _arbeiter zeitung_ appeared the letter "y," meaning ypsilon, which was the signal for the armed anarchists to turn out, and in the department of the paper known as the "letter-box" the word "ruhe," signifying that the time for revolution was at hand. there were about three hundred and fifty anarchists carrying concealed weapons at the haymarket massacre on the th of may, , and probably about fifteen hundred present in all at the time of the explosion. a. r. parsons had delivered his speech and samuel fielden was portraying to the sympathizing crowd, with all the eloquence he could command, the wide and yawning unbridged gulf between capital and labor, when seven companies of police, numbering nearly two hundred men, under command of their superior officers, swooped down upon the lawless mob. captain ward, in clear and ringing tones, commanded these land pirates to quietly disperse, when from an alley contiguous was seen in the darkness a little line of fire passing directly over the heads of the motley crowd. the hissing fiend, hurled by some practiced hand to perform its hellish mission, fell directly between two of the ranks of our brave and noble officers, and exploded with a detonation which seemed to shake the city from center to circumference, dealing death to several brave and noble officers, while the wounded and dying numbered over sixty, who a moment before were in the best of spirits and in the discharge of their duty as protectors of public peace, were stricken down without a moment's warning. but was there a man dismayed, although the groans of the wounded and mangled victims could be heard in every direction, not knowing but the next instant another explosion would strew the ground with fresh victims from their ranks? scarcely had the sound of the explosion died away in the echoing distance, or the smoke from the fatal bomb rose up to be lost in the dark and murky clouds, ere the spirit of patriotism rose up in their hearts, inspiring them to deeds of noble daring, when they boldly charged in a solid column this band of treacherous outlaws. _captain bonfield_ seized a revolver from the hand of a fallen officer, at the same time drawing his own revolver, and from both hands he rained a shower of lead into the ranks of the enemy. under this aggressive movement the anarchists began beating a hasty retreat. the wounded officers were removed to the _county hospital_, while a large detachment were kept busy during the night caring for the dead and dying. the exact number of killed and wounded among the anarchists could not be ascertained, as they were removed from the ensanguined field immediately by their friends to places of safety, and medical assistance secured for them from among the socialistic fraternity. on the th of may, rudolph schnaubelt was arrested on suspicion that he was an important factor in the conspiracy. on an investigation which followed, he very adroitly managed to impress the authorities of his innocence, when he was discharged, and he at once disappeared from the city; but during the progress of the trial, evidence was obtained which proves almost conclusively that rudolph schnaubelt was the arch fiend who hurled the deadly bomb causing so many brave officers to bite the dust without a moment's warning. [illustration] chapter iii. this great and unprecedented anarchistic conspiracy of may th will doubtless result in a blessing to america. first, it will teach the administrators of law and justice the necessity of being watchful of this treacherous element in society which would thus ruthlessly violate every sacred principle of right and honor. the bravery of the police on that eventful night of may th is worthy of note in the history of chicago, and those who fell in the defence of our birthrights as american citizens have builded a monument in the hearts of a grateful people that shall endure while the star-spangled banner shall continue to wave "o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave." were we to disturb, disquiet, and bring up from their tombs the most hideous monsters from the dead of the dark and superstitious ages of the gloomy past, their hands deep purple with the blood of their murdered fellow men, we should fail to find a parallel that would compare with this unscrupulous cold-blooded massacre, along with the bold attempt at the subversion of law. on the fifth of the month eight of the leaders of anarchy were arrested and indicted for murder and conspiracy. the police raided the office of the _arbeiter zeitung_, the organ of the socialistic and anarchistic labor agitators, obtaining quantities of dynamite bombs, flags, and inflammatory literature which was offered in the trial as corroborative evidence. august spies, a german, was the editor of the _zeitung_ and a ringleader of the anarchists. a. r. parsons, an american, was editor of the _alarm_. samuel fielden, of english nationality, laborer. oscar neebe, german. adolph fischer, a german. louis lingg, a german, carpenter. george engel, german, and michal schwab. these are the ones who were indicted for murder and anarchy. a. r. parsons fled the night of the riot and consequently was not arrested, but he subsequently came in and gave himself up to the officials in the criminal court, doubtless thinking by this semblance of honor to impress the court of his innocence and thereby secure acquittal. [illustration] the attorneys for the state in the prosecution were as follows: julius s. grinnell; and assistants state, george ingham and frank walker. col. w. p. black, solomon zeisler, and mr. foster, of iowa, were for the defence, who availed themselves of every technicality in the interests of their clients. four long and tedious weeks were consumed in obtaining a jury, exhausting fourteen panels of jurors in securing twelve competent men to try this case. his honor, judge j. e. gary, presiding. the names of the jury accepted by the state and the defence were major j. h. cole, f. e. osborne, s. g. randall, a. h. reed, j. h. bruyton, a. hamilton, g. w. adams, j. b. greiner, c. b. todd, c. a. ludwig, t. e. denker, and h. t. sanford. an application was filed with state's attorney grinnell for a separate trial in the case of neebe, spies, schwab, and fielden, but was overruled by his honor, judge gary, as they had been jointly indicted for conspiracy and murder. on friday, july th, , the case of the anarchists was opened by the prosecution in the taking of evidence. officers steel, barber, reed and mcmahon, who were wounded in the riot of may the th, were so far recovered as to be able to be present. felix puschek was sworn and submitted plans of the haymarket and several halls in the city known to be headquarters for the meetings of the anarchists. police inspector bonfield next took the stand and related how the police attempted to disperse the unlawful assemblage of armed anarchists, and detailed the circumstance of the bomb-throwing, already related. he also identified the following circular, by which the meeting was called: "attention, working men! great mass-meeting to-night, at o'clock, haymarket square, between desplaines and halsted. good speakers will be present to denounce the late atrocious act of the police, the shooting of our fellow working men yesterday afternoon. working men, arm and appear in full force." "the committee." some of the anarchists indicted for conspiracy turned state's evidence. gottfried waller, a swiss by nationality, a cabinet-maker by trade, formerly a socialist, and a member of the lehr and wehr verein, testified that the latter organization comprised various armed groups of anarchists; that the letter "y" in the _arbeiter zeitung_ meant for the armed section to meet at greif's hall; that he acted as chairman of the meeting of seventy or eighty persons, engel, fischer and breitenfeld, the commander of the lehr and wehr, being present. the witness testified that engel unfolded a plan whereby if a collision between the strikers and the police should occur, the word "ruhe" would appear in the _arbeiter_ as a signal for the lehr and wehr and the northwest group of anarchists to assemble in wicker park with arms. they should then storm the north avenue police station, and proceed thence to other stations, using dynamite and shooting down all who opposed them, and should cut the telegraph wires to prevent communication with the outside world. engel said the best way to begin would be to throw a dynamite bomb into the police station, and that when the populace saw that the police were overpowered, tumult would spread through the city, and the anarchists would be joined by the working men. this plan, engel said, had been adopted by the northwest group. it was decided to appoint a committee to keep watch of affairs in the city and to call a meeting for the next night in the haymarket. fischer was directed to get the handbills calling the meeting printed. those present at the preliminary meeting represented various groups throughout the city. fischer announced that the word "ruhe" would mean that a revolution had been started. engel put the motion, and the plan was adopted. the committee on action was composed of members from each group; the witness knew only one--kraemer. the members of the armed groups were known by numbers, and witness number was . spies was questioned in january, , at grand rapids, mich., relative to these secret organizations, when he said that force must bring about the necessary reform which the ballot-box had failed to inaugurate and was incompetent to perform. shook, of grand rapids, also testified that spies had said that the secret drilled organizations of chicago for the revolution of society numbered over , , and that none except members of those organizations knew of the _modus operandi_ by which they intended to wage their warfare. lieutenant bowler testified to seeing men in the crowd fire upon the police with revolvers; officers s. c. bohner and e. j. hawley saw fielden fire. in the line of proving up the conspiracy to incite the working men to violence, it was shown by the evidence of james l. frazer, e. t. baker, a. s. leckie, frank haraster, sergeant john enright and officer l. h. mcshane, that spies and fielden incited the mob to attack mccormick's reaper works and the non-union employes on may . detective reuben slayton testified to having arrested fischer at the _arbeiter zeitung_ office. he had a loaded revolver hid under his coat; a file-grooved dagger and a fulminating cap, used to explode dynamite bombs. theodore fricke, former business manager of the _arbeiter_, identified the copy of the "revenge" circular as being in spies' handwriting. lieutenant william ward testified to having commanded the haymarket meeting to disperse in the name of the people of illinois, and that fielden cried, "we are peaceable," laying a slight emphasis on the last word. william seliger, of sedgwick street, testified that louis lingg boarded with him, and that himself, lingg, huebner, manzenberg and hewmann worked at making dynamite bombs of a spherical shape. he attended the various meetings. he identified the calls for the armed sections to meet in the _arbeiter zeitung_. balthazar rau brought the "revenge" circular to zephf's hall. lingg worked at first on "gas-pipe" bombs; they made forty or fifty bombs the tuesday before the riot. lingg said they were to be used that evening; he and lingg carried a small trunk full of the bombs to neff's hall, clybourne avenue, that evening, where they were divided up among the anarchists; besides the northwest group the sachsen bund met at neff's hall; witness, lingg, thieben and gustave lehmen and two others from the lehr and wehr verein, left neff's hall for the larrabee street police station; lingg said a disturbance must be made on the north side to prevent the police from going to the west side; lingg wanted to throw a bomb into the station; the police were outside, and they could not get near; the patrol-wagon came along completely manned, and lingg wanted to throw a bomb under the wagon; he asked witness for fire from his cigar; witness went into a hallway and lit a match, and before he returned the wagon had passed: they returned to neff's hall where he heard a bomb had fallen on the west side, and killed a great many; hewmann blamed lingg and said in an angry voice, "you are the cause of it all;" they then went and hid their bombs under sidewalks and in various places, and went home; lingg first brought dynamite to the house about six weeks before may , in a long wooden box; he made a wooden spoon to handle it with in filling the bombs; witness belonged to the northwest group, and his number was , engel was also a member. [the bombs were here produced and judge gary ordered them removed immediately from the courtroom and from the building.] seliger's testimony was unshaken on cross-examination. mrs. bertha seliger corroborated her husband's testimony, testifying that at one time six or seven men were at work making bombs, and that after the haymarket lingg tore up the floor of a closet to secrete those he had on hand. lieutenant john d. shea, chief of the detective force, testified to having assisted in the raid on the _arbeiter zeitung_ office, may . the galley of type from which the "revenge" circular was printed, copies of herr most's book, and other anarchistic literature, red flags and banners with treasonable devices, and a quantity of dynamite were found. the witness asked spies if he wrote the "revenge" circular, and he refused to answer. when he arrested fischer he asked him where he was on the night of the haymarket meeting. fisher said in the _arbeiter zeitung_ office with schwab, and that rau brought word that spies was at the haymarket, that a big crowd was there, and they all went over. he had a belt, a dagger, and a fulminating cap on him when arrested, but he said he carried them for protection. i said: 'you didn't need them in the office.' he said: 'i intended to go away, but was arrested.' i also said: 'there has been found other weapons like this sharpened dagger; how is it you come to carry this?' he said he put it in his pocket for his own protection. detective william jones testified that he had a locksmith open a closet in spies office, and in a desk were found two bars of dynamite, a long fuse, a box of fulminating caps, some letters, and copies of both the celebrated circulars. at fischer's home he found a lot of cartridges and a blouse of the lehr und wehr verein. officer duffy found two thousand copies of the circular calling upon the working men to arm, and the manuscript of the "revenge" circular in the _arbeiter zeitung_ office. herr most's book, "the science of revolutionary warfare," found in the _arbeiter_ office, was offered in evidence; also the manual for the manufacture of explosives and poisons. bernhard schrader, a native of prussia, five years in this country, a carpenter by trade, testified that he was a member of the lehr und wehr verein; was at the meeting at greif's hall the night of may , and he corroborated waller's testimony throughout. besides those mentioned by waller, schrader named hadermann, thiel and danafeldt, as attendants at the meeting. he saw balthazar rau distributing the "revenge" circulars at a meeting of the carpenter's union on desplaines street. witness was present also at the sunday meeting on emma street. it was here agreed to cripple the fire department, in case they were called out, by cutting their hose. witness went to the meeting at west lake street in response to the signal "y" in the _arbeiter zeitung_. he was at the haymarket, but did not know who threw the bomb. the northwest group of the lehr und wehr were armed with springfield rifles. witness' number in the organization was , . lieutenant edward steele testified that when the police entered the haymarket somebody cried out: "here come the bloodhounds. you do your duty, and we'll do ours." lieutenant michael quinn testified that he heard this exclamation and that the man who made it was fielden, just as he ceased speaking on the wagon. about the instant the bomb exploded, fielden exclaimed: "we are peaceable!" lieutenant stanton testified that the bomb exploded four seconds after his company of eighteen men entered the haymarket. every member of his company except two were wounded, and two--degan and redden--killed. the witness was wounded in eleven places. officers krueger and wessler testified to having seen fielden shoot at the police with a revolver. gustave lehman, one of the conspirators, gave a detailed account of various meetings; the afternoon of may he was at lingg's house where men with cloths over their faces were making dynamite bombs; huebner was cutting fuse; lingg gave witness a small hand-satchel with two bombs, fuse, caps, and a can of dynamite; at o'clock in the morning, after the haymarket explosion, he got out of bed and carried this material back to ogden's grove and hid it, where it was found by officer hoffman; money to buy dynamite was raised at a dance of the carpenters' union, at florus' hall, west lake street. lingg took this money and bought dynamite; lingg taught them how to make bombs. m. h. williamson and clarence p. dresser, reporters, had heard fielden, parsons and spies counsel violence; the latter at the _arbeiter zeitung_ office had advised that the new board of trade be blown up on the night of its opening. george munn and herman pudewa, printers, worked on the "revenge" circular in the _arbeiter zeitung_ office; richard reichel, office-boy, got the "copy" for it from spies. the most sensational evidence of the trial, as showing the inside workings of the armed sections of the socialists, and at the same time the most damaging as indicative of their motives and designs, was that of detective andrew c. johnson, of the pinkerton agency, an entirely disinterested person who was detailed in december, , by his agency, which had been employed by the first national bank to furnish details of the secret meetings which it was known were being held by revolutionary plotters at various places throughout the city. johnson is a scandinavian, thin-faced and sandy-haired, born in copenhagen, and thirty-five years of age. he told his story in a calm, collected, business-like manner. mr. grinnell asked: "do you know any of the defendants?" witness--"i do." "name them."--"parsons, fielden, spies, schwab and lingg." "were you at any time connected with any group of the international workingmen's association?"--"i was." "what group?"--"the american group." "were you a member of any armed section of the socialists of this city?"--"yes, sir." "when did you begin attendance at their meetings?"--"the first meeting i attended was the d of february , at baum's pavilion. the last meeting i attended was the th of january of this year." "at whose instance did you go to their meetings?"--"at the instance of my agency." "did you from time to time make reports of what you heard and saw at their meetings?"--"i did." mr. grinnell passed over to witness a bundle of papers and asked: "have you in your hand a report of the meeting of the d of february, ?"--"yes, sir." "were any of the defendants present at that meeting?"--"yes, sir; parsons was present." "refer to your memoranda and tell me what was said by parsons at that meeting."--objected to; overruled.--"parsons stated that the reason the meeting had been called in that locality was so as to give the many merchant princes who resided there an opportunity to attend and see what the communists had to say about the distribution of wealth. he said: 'i want you all to unite together and throw off the yoke. we need no president, no congressmen, no police, no militia, and no judges. they are all leeches, sucking the blood of the poor, who have to support them all by their labor. i say to you, rise one and all, and let us exterminate them all. woe to the police or to the military whom they send against us.'" "that was where?"--"at baum's pavilion, corner of cottage grove avenue and twenty-second street." "have you a report of any other of the defendants speaking at that meeting?"--"no, sir." "what is the next memorandum that you have?"--"the next meeting was march . that night i became a member. i went to thielen, who was at the time acting as treasurer and secretary for the association, and gave him my name and signified my willingness to join the association. he entered my name in a book and handed me a red card with my name on and a number." "when and where was that?"--"that was march , , at greif's hall, no. west lake street, in this city." "have you what was said and done at that meeting?"--"i have a report of it here." "who spoke?"--"parsons, fielden, spies, and others." "any other of the defendants?"--"no sir." "state what fielden said, and then what parsons said."--"a lecture was given by a man named bailey on the subject of socialism and christianity, and the question arose as to whether christianity ought to be introduced in their meetings." "what did fielden, spies and parsons say there?"--"fielden said that he thought this matter ought not to be introduced into their meetings. parsons said, 'i am of the same opinion,' and spies also said that it ought not to be introduced." "now state the next meeting."--"the next meeting was march , at the same place." "who were present?"--"parsons, fielden and spies were present, and spoke." "when was the memorandum made that you have of that meeting?"--"the same day, immediately after the termination of the meeting. parsons said: 'we are sorely in need of funds to publish the _alarm_. as many of you as are able ought to give as much as you can, because our paper is our most powerful weapon, and it is only through the paper that we can hope to reach the masses.' during his lecture he introduced christianity. spies stood up and said: 'we don't want any christianity here in our meetings at all. we have told you so before.' fielden made no speech." "when was the next meeting?"--"march ." "were any speeches made by any of the defendants there?"--"yes, sir, spies spoke. previously a man named bishop introduced a resolution of sympathy for a girl named sorell. bishop stated that the girl had been assaulted by her master. she had applied for a warrant, which had been refused her on account of the high social standing of her master. spies said: 'what is the use of passing resolutions? we must act, and revenge the girl. here is a fine opportunity for some of our young men to go and shoot wight.' that was the man who had assaulted the girl." "do your reports contain references to speeches made by others?"--"they do." "you are only picking out speeches made by the defendants?"--"that is all." "when was the next meeting?"--"march , , at greif's hall. the defendant, fielden, spoke at that meeting. he said: 'a few explosions in the city of chicago would help the cause considerably. there is the new board of trade, a roost of thieves and robbers. we ought to commence by blowing that up.'" "were other speeches made at that meeting?"--"there were, but no others made by the defendants." "when was the next meeting?"--"april , at greif's hall. spies, fielden and parsons were present at the meeting. spies made a lengthy speech on this occasion. his speech was in regard to acts of cruelty committed by the police in chicago; he spoke of the number of arrests made, and the number of convictions in proportion. he also referred to the case of the girl who preferred a charge of assault against police-sergeant patton, of the west chicago avenue station." "who else spoke there?"--"fielden. spies had said before that he had advised the girl to get a pistol and go and shoot the policeman. fielden stood up and said; 'that is what she ought to do.'" "what was the next meeting?"--"april , , at greif's hall. parsons made a lengthy speech. he referred frequently in his address to the strike at the mccormick harvester works. he said: 'there is but one of two things for the men to do. they must either go to work for the wages offered them or else starve.' in concluding his remarks he referred to the strike at la salle, illinois. he said: 'to-morrow morning or the next day the authorities here in the city will probably send a trainload of policemen or militia to la salle to shoot down the working people there. now, there is a way to prevent this. all you have to do is to get some soap and place it on the rails and the train will be unable to move.' parsons spoke at great length of the crimes, as he termed them, of the capitalists, and he said to those present that it was an absolute necessity for them to unite against them, as that was the only way they could fight the capitalists." "who else spoke there?"--"fielden. he said it was a blessing something had been discovered wherewith the working men could fight the police and militia with their gatling guns." "what was the next meeting you had?"--"april . that meeting was held at no. randolph street, because the hall at no. lake street was engaged. at this meeting parsons offered a resolution of sympathy for louis riel and the half-breeds in the northwest who were in rebellion against the canadian government. neither parsons nor fielden spoke at the meeting." "what was the next meeting?"--"april , at greif's hall. referring to the opening of the new board of trade building, parsons said: 'what a splendid opportunity there will be next tuesday night for some bold fellow to make the capitalists tremble by blowing up the building and all the thieves and robbers that are there.' at the conclusion of his speech he said that the working men of chicago should form in processions on market square tuesday evening next, and he invited all those present to get as many of their friends as they could to join in the procession." "did any other of the defendants speak there?"--"fielden said: 'i also wish to invite as many of you as can come and as many as you can get. go around to the lodging-houses and get all you can to join in the procession--the more the merrier.'" "when was the next meeting?"--"april , at greif's hall." "did any of the defendants speak there?"--"there were present parsons, fielden, spies. parsons said: 'i wish you all to consider the misery of the working classes, and the cause of all the misery is these institutions termed government. i lived on snowballs all last winter, but, by g--d! i won't do it this winter.'" "what was the next meeting at which any of the defendants attended?"--"april , at market square; parsons and fielden. parsons said: 'we have assembled here to determine in which way best to celebrate the dedication of the new board of trade building, and to give the working men of chicago a chance to state their views in the matter'. fielden then said: 'i want all the working men of chicago, the country, and the world in general to arm themselves and sweep the capitalists off the face of the earth.' parsons then said: 'every working man in chicago must save a little of his wages every week until he has enough to buy a colt's revolver and a winchester rifle, for the only way that the working people will get their rights is by the point of the bayonet. we want you to form in procession now, and we will march to the board of trade. we will halt there, and while the band is playing we will sing the marseillaise.'" "did you march in the procession, too?"--"i did." "where were you in that line of march?"--"i was in the center of the procession." "did any of the defendants march with you?"--"not with me, but in the procession fielden, spies, parsons and neebe marched." "what was the next meeting?"--"there was something occurred the night of may . i was standing at the corner of washington street and fifth avenue close behind spies. that was decoration day, and as the procession passed by, spies said: 'a half-dozen dynamite bombs would scatter them all.' a little later a gentleman who was standing near remarked upon the fine appearance of the illinois national guard, who were then passing. spies said: 'they are only boys, and would be no use in case of a riot. fifty determined men would soon disarm them all.'" "when was the next meeting?"--"the next meeting was on the lake front, may , and fielden and parsons was there. fielden said: 'it is only by strength and force that you can overthrow the government.' parsons also spoke, but i don't recollect what he said." "go on to the next meeting."--"the next meeting was june , at ogden's grove. there were present fielden, parsons and spies. fielden said: 'every working man in chicago ought to belong to organizations. it is of no use to go to our masters to give us more wages or better times. i mean for you to use force. it is of no use for the working people to hope to gain anything by means of an ordinary weapon. every one of you must learn the use of dynamite, for that is the power with which we hope to gain our rights.' schwab also spoke at that meeting in german, which i do not understand." "when was the next meeting?"--"the next meeting was august , at greif's hall. parsons and fielden spoke. parsons referred to the late strike of the street car employes, and said that if but one shot had been fired, and bonfield had happened to be shot, the whole city would have been deluged in blood, and social revolution would have been inaugurated. the next meeting was august , at greif's hall." "do you know of a fellow named bodendecke speaking at those meetings?"--"occasionally, but not frequently; i don't know where he is now. there were some twenty or twenty-three men present at that meeting, and twenty women." "name who were present."--"besides the two defendants, parsons, and fielden, there was baltus, bodendecke, boyd, lawson, parker, franklin and schneider." "state what occurred there."--"after being there a short time a man armed with a long cavalry sword and dressed in a blue blouse and wearing a slouch hat came into the room. he ordered all those present to fall in. he then called off certain names, and all those present answered to their names. he inquired whether there were any new members who wished to join the military company, and some one replied that there was. he then said: 'whoever wants to join step to the front.' myself and two others stepped to the front. we were asked separately to give our names. i gave my name, which was put down in a book, and i was then told that my number was . previous to my name being put down in the book, a man to whom i was speaking asked whether there was any one present who knew me, or whether any one could vouch for my being a true man. the defendant, parsons and bodendecke spoke up and said they would vouch for me. the other two were asked their names in turn, and as they were properly vouched for, their names were entered in a similar manner in a book, and they were given numbers. the man who came into the room armed then inquired of two other men in the room whether they were members of the american group. both said they were and he asked to see their cards. as they were unable to show cards they were expelled, as were two others. the doors were closed and the remainder were asked to fall in line, and we were drilled about three-quarters of an hour--put through a regular manual of drill, marching, countermarching, wheeling, forming fours, etc." "who drilled you?"--"the man that came in with the sword; i didn't ascertain his name. at the expiration of that time the drill-instructor stated that he would now introduce some of the members of the first company of the german organization. he went outside and in a few minutes returned accompanied by ten other men, dressed as he himself was, each one armed with a springfield rifle. when they all got into the room he placed them in line facing us and introduced them as members of the first company of the lehr und wehr verein. he said that he was going to drill them a little while to let us see how far they had got with their drill. he drilled them about ten minutes in a regular musket drill. at the end of that time a man in the employ of the proprietor of the saloon at no. west lake street came into the room with two tin boxes, which he placed on the table at the south end of the room. the drill-instructor then asked all those present to step up and examine the two tin boxes, as they were the latest improved dynamite bomb. i stepped to the front with the others, and examined the two tins." "describe them as near as you can."--"they were about the size and had the appearance of ordinary preserved fruit cans. the top part unscrewed, and on the inside the cans were filled with a light-brown mixture. there was also a small glass tube inserted in the center of the can. the tube was in connection with a screw, and it was explained that when the can was thrown against any hard substance it would explode." "was that mixture a liquid?"--"inside of the glass tube was a liquid." "was there anything around that glass tube?"--"yes, sir; it was a brownish mixture." "was that a liquid?"--"no, sir; it looked more like fine sawdust." "did you feel of it?"--"i did not. the drill-instructor told us we should be very careful about selecting new members of company, because if we were not, there was no telling whom we might get into our midst. the next proceeding of the evening was to select officers. a man named walters was chosen captain, and parsons was chosen lieutenant. some discussion arose as to what the company should be called. it was decided eventually that we should be called the international rifles. the drill-instructor then suggested that we ought to choose some other hall, as we were not quite safe there. he added: 'we have a fine place at no. milwaukee avenue. we have a shooting range in the basement, where we practice shooting regularly.' parsons inquired whether it was not possible for us to rent the same place. the drill-instructor informed him he did not know. the question of renting another hall was postponed, and our next meeting was fixed for the next monday." mr. salomon--"a meeting of what?" witness--"a meeting of the armed section of the american group." mr. grinnell--"who drilled that company that night?"--witness--"that german, and parsons and fielden." "when was the next meeting?"--"the following monday, the st of august, at the same place. parsons and fielden were present, and others. that was a meeting of the armed section, and it was held at greif's hall. capt. walters drilled us about an hour and a half. afterward a consultation was held by the members of the company as to the best way of procuring arms. some one suggested that each member should pay so much a week until a sufficient amount had been raised wherewith to purchase a rifle for each member of the company. parsons said: 'look here, boys, why can't we make a raid some night on the militia armory? there are only two or three men on guard there, and it is easily done.' this suggestion seemed to be favored by the members, and it was finally decided to put the matter off until the nights got a little longer." capt. black--"which matter was put off?" witness--"the raid on the armory." mr. grinnell--"when was the next meeting?"--witness--"september , , at no. west lake street. fielden made a speech there and said: 'it is useless for you to suppose that you can ever obtain anything in any other way than by force. you must arm yourselves and prepare for the coming revolution.' that was one of the ordinary meetings of the association. the next meeting was october , at twelfth street turner hall. spies and fielden were present. fielden said: 'the eight-hour law will be of no benefit to the working men. you must organize and use force. you must crush out the present government by force. it is the only way in which you can better your present condition.' i left with fielden before the meeting terminated." "when was the next meeting you attended?"--"the next meeting was december , at twelfth street turner hall. fielden was present. he said: 'all the crowned heads of europe are trembling at the very name of socialism, and i hope soon to see a few liskes in the united states to put away a few of the tools of the capitalists. the execution of riel in the northwest was downright murder.'"--"was that an open meeting?"--"it was as far as i know. i saw no one refused admission." "how about those other meetings you have mentioned, aside from the armed sections?"--"aside from the meetings of the armed section i should say that they were public. i never saw any one refused admission."--"was there any precaution taken?"--"a precaution was taken in this way: a member of the group was generally stationed at the door, and as each member entered the hall he was closely scrutinized. the next meeting was december ." "what place?"--"at no. randolph." "who spoke there?"--"fielden. at this meeting a stranger asked a question, and fielden replied to the question." "do you know what the question was?"--"the question was: 'would the destruction of private property assist universal co-operation?' fielden replied: 'neither i or any body else can tell what is going to be in a hundred years from now, but this everybody knows: if private property is done away with, it would insure a better state of things generally. and we are trying all we can to teach the people the best way in which to bring about this change.'" "who was present at that meeting?"--"fielden, only. the next meeting was january of this year, at twelfth street turner hall. fielden and schwab were present. fielden, referring to the troubles in ireland, said: 'if every irishman would become a socialist, he would have a better opportunity to secure home-rule for ireland. i want all irishmen to destroy all the private property they can lay their hands on.' he also referred to other matters. what he said had reference to pinkerton's detective agency." "what was it he said?"--"he said pinkerton's detectives were a lot of cold-blooded murderers, and the worst enemies the working men had, and they were all in the pay of the capitalists." "is that all that was said there? was that one of these ordinary opening meetings?"--"it was." "what else happened?"--"schwab also addressed this meeting in german. during his speech he was frequently applauded. the next meeting i attended was january , at no. randolph street." "january of this year?"--"yes, sir." "what was said at this meeting?"--"before the meeting commenced the defendants, fielden and spies, had a conversation which i overheard." "where was that?"--"that was held in the hall near the door." "state what you heard."--"spies said to fielden: 'don't say very much about that article on anarchists in an afternoon paper. you simply need to state that a reporter of the paper had an interview with me a few days ago, but that most of the statements of the paper are lies.'" "how was that conversation carried on?"--"it was carried on quietly and was not meant for anybody else to hear." capt. black objected to the last part of the answer, and succeeded in having it stricken out. "what was the tone of voice?"--"in whispers." "when did they leave?"--"spies further said: 'you must be careful in your remarks. you don't know who might be amongst us to-night.' spies then went away and the meeting was called to order." "by whom?"--"fielden." "what did he say?"--"he made a long talk, commenting on the articles that appeared. he said almost all of the statements were lies. he said in regard to dynamite bombs: 'it is quite true we have lots of explosives and dynamite in our possession, and we will not hesitate to use them when the proper time comes. we care nothing at all either for the military or the police. all of these are in the pay of the capitalists.' he further said that 'even in the regular army most of the soldiers are in sympathy with us, and most of them have been driven to enlist. i have had a letter from a friend out west. he told me that he had seen a soldier on the frontier reading a copy of the _alarm_.' others then made speeches. afterward fielden again spoke at the same meeting in regard to the question asked him, what was the socialist idea of the eight-hour movement. fielden said: 'we don't object to but we don't believe in it. whether a man works eight hours a day or ten hours a day he is still a slave. we propose to abolish slavery altogether.' that is all of that meeting. fielden said, the th of january, at a meeting held at no. randolph street--" "what is the name of that, jung's hall?"--"yes, i believe it is jung's hall. fielden said good results were sure to follow the abolishment of private property." "when did you quit this branch of your business?"--"the latter part of january last." "did you know then of pinkerton's agency having any other men employed in the same line that you were employed in?"--"i knew there had been another man, but whether he was employed then i do not know." "have you lately, within the last few days, ascertained, and do you know the fact, that you have seen any pinkerton men in these meetings?"--"that is so." "but you did not know it at that time?"--"i did not know it at that time." "how often did you drill with the armed section?"--"only twice." "how often did they drill?"--"once a week." "have you got any information from any other members of the organization? if they drilled after that?" objected to and withdrawn. "did you ascertain from any of the defendants if they drilled after that?"--"i did not." "have you had any other talk with parsons outside of these utterances?"--"i have." "have you had any talk with spies, fielden, parsons, and other defendants as to the purposes of their organization?"--"i have talked frequently with parsons and fielden at various times and at various places. i cannot recollect as to what was said at each place and when it was said." "can you give me the substance or purport of what was said at any time?" captain black objected, unless time and place were given. "what was the object of the armed section as was expressed by the members?"--"at the first meeting of the armed section the discussion arose as to what the company should be called. some one suggested that the company should be amalgamated with the german organization, and the company was to be called the fourth company of the lehr und wehr verein. this idea was opposed, and finally it was decided that it should be called the international rifles. it was further said and understood by all the members that in case of a conflict with the authorities the international rifles were to act in concert with the lehr und wehr verein, and obey the orders of the officers of that organization." "what was said at any time as to when this revolution was to take place--when was to be the culmination of the conflict?"--"the st of may was frequently mentioned as a good opportunity." "what st of may?"--"this present. as far as i remember it was at a meeting at twelfth street turner hall on one occasion in december, and it was the defendant fielden that said the st of may would be the time to strike the blow. there would be so many strikes and there would be , men out of work--that is to say if the eight-hour movement was a failure." "have you ever met any of them at the _arbeiter zeitung_ office?"--"i have." "what conversation did you have?"--"i had a conversation with parsons some time in march. the conversation took place in the _alarm_ office in the _arbeiter zeitung_ building. this office is situated in the back of the building." "well, state what you remember of the conversation."--"i asked parsons if he did not think it advisable to get some papers printed in the scandinavian language, as i thought i could make use of them. i intended to distribute them among the scandinavian people along milwaukee avenue and that neighborhood. parsons replied: 'yes, it is a good idea, and the best thing you can do is to bring the matter up in our next meeting. bring it up before the meeting, and i will see that it is attended to. it is no use, we must have the scandinavians with us.'" "did you have any talk with any of these defendants about the purposes and objects of the social revolution, so-called?"--"i have had numerous conversations with fielden and parsons but i cannot remember distinctly what was said." "what was parsons' relation to the _alarm_?"--"he was the editor." "did you ever see a book by most called 'the modern science of revolutionary warfare?' look at that book and state whether you have seen it before."--"i have." "where?"--"i have seen it at meetings at twelfth street turner hall; at no. west lake street, and also at no. randolph." "who had charge of the distribution of it?"--"the chairman." "of the respective meetings?"--"yes, sir." "were they sold or given away?"--"they were sold." "do you know whether or not any steps were taken to distribute the _alarm_?" "there were a number of those present at that particular meeting who bought a number of copies of the _alarm_, and said that they would try their best to sell them and obtain new subscribers." "do you know a man named schneider and one thomas brown?"--"yes, sir." "did they belong to the american group?"--"both of them." "did they belong to the armed section?"--"both of them." "where usually did the american group meet before the time you ceased your connection with it?" "during the last few meetings it met at no. randolph street." "prior to that where did it meet?"--"it had met at no. west lake street, also at no. north clark street, and on the lake front." "did you ever meet with the american group at no. fifth avenue?"--"no, sir." "no. milwaukee avenue was the place mentioned as the proper place for drilling. were you ever there?"--"i was there." "did they meet more than once there?"--"i don't know." "do you know what the hall is called?"--"i do." "what is it?"--"thalia hall." "when you joined this organization did it cost you anything?"--"ten cents." "how often did you pay the contributions?"--"once a month." "how much?"--"ten cents." "when you joined the armed section did that require any special contribution?"--"no, sir." "what was fielden's office in the group of the armed section?" "he was treasurer and secretary of the organization--of the group." "did he hold any office, or was he simply a private in the armed section?" "he held no office while i attended there." cross-examined. cross-examined by mr. foster:--"where were you before you came here?" "i was a police officer in england eight years." "in uniform?"--"part of the time." "how long did you do detective service there?"--"three years." "at what place?"--"in lancashire." "how long have you been with pinkerton?"--"three years." "what did you do before you became a detective here? were you ever in any legitimate business?" mr. grinnell--"in any _other_ legitimate business?" witness--"i was storekeeper at the windsor hotel." "was that meeting at baum's hall a public one?"--"it was." "march you became a member?"--"yes, sir." "were your antecedents inquired into?"--"no, sir." "you just paid your ten cents and were received?"--"yes, sir." "is not that your experience, that anybody who could pay cents could be received?"--"yes, sir." "did you ever see anybody excluded?"--"no, sir, except reporters. i have seen reporters excluded sometimes." "were not reporters generally freely admitted?"--"not very often." "they had seats for them and a table?"--"i don't know. i never saw more than one at a time there." "did you ever see anybody excluded by the doorkeeper?" "no, sir." "did you ever have any ushers--anybody who got seats for strangers." "no, sir; but i saw some of the old members get up and give their seats when strangers came in." "you stated that mr. spies introduced resolutions in sympathy with a girl?" "somebody else introduced them but spies opposed it. he said there was no use making resolutions." "that is, the girl had had her day in court and it was no use passing resolutions?" "he said it would be a good opportunity for some one to take a pistol and go and shoot wight." "you are sure spies said that?"--"yes, sir." "you wrote out your report immediately with all the facts fresh in your mind."--"yes, i wrote it that night." "didn't you write in your report [reading from it] that keegan said that after spies got through with his remarks?"--"yes, but mr. spies said it also." "you are sure of that?"--"yes, sir." "will you show me the place in your report where this is said?"--"i don't find it." "then your memory is better now than it was immediately after the meeting?" "it is considerably better now that i have refreshed it." "a detective's memory gets better as the time goes on, does it?" mr. grinnell objected to this kind of cross-examination. referring to the charges against sergt. patton, mr. foster asked: "were the circumstances stated that the girl had been grossly abused, but his brother officers stood round and swore him out?" "it may have been." "and was it not stated as a general expression that such a man ought to be shot?" "it may have been." in regard to the strike at la salle, mr. foster made it appear as if parsons had simply stated in general terms that if soap was put on the rails the train would not be able to move, but that he did not advise anybody to go and put the soap on. fielden's remark that something had been discovered by which the working men could resist the police and militia, and parson's remark that he would not live on snowballs another winter, were represented by mr. foster in an equally innocent and harmless light. the cross-examination for the day concluded with the following questions and answers: [illustration: oscar neebe.] "you heard fielden say: 'while we march toward the board of trade we will sing the marseillaise hymn?'"--"yes, sir." "that you understood to be the french national hymn?"--"yes, sir." w. h. freeman, a reporter, testified as follows: "i was at the corner of randolph and desplaines streets. saw parsons speaking, and listened to what he had to say. some one said mayor harrison was there and i tried to find him. there was a big crowd. parsons said that jay gould was a robber, and asked what was to be done. somebody shouted, 'throw him in the lake.' parsons said: 'no, that won't do. we must overthrow the system by which he was enabled to secure so much money.' he shouted frequently: 'to arms! to arms!' and the crowd applauded. there were six or eight persons on the wagon. fielden, the next speaker, discussed legislation, saying that martin foran had admitted that it was impossible for the working men to get their rights through legislation, and that the people were fools to send such a man to congress when he owned that the legislation could not better them. he justified the forthcoming revolution, saying it was just as proper as the colonial revolution. the police came up quietly and my first knowledge of it was the command to disperse. then the bomb exploded. it made a terrible noise, and a moment after the firing commenced. parsons, spies and fielden were on the wagon, and i think i saw schwab there. i crouched down behind the wagon until after the firing was over; then i went to the desplaines street station. on getting out on the street i saw two officers lying wounded. i spoke to them but they didn't answer, so i told the sergeant of a patrol-wagon about it." officer mckeogh testified: "i was at the haymarket on the night of may . parsons followed spies, saying: 'i am a socialist from the top of my head to the soles of my feet, and i'll express my sentiments if i die before morning.' again he said: 'i pay rent for the house i live in.' some one asked: 'what does the landlord do with the money?' parsons replied: 'i am glad you asked that question. the landlord pays taxes, they go to pay the sheriff, the militia, and the pinkertonites.' the crowd cheered, then parsons cried: 'to arms! to arms!' and fielden took the stand. he said: 'the law does not protect you, working men. did the law protect you when the police shot down your brothers at mccormick's? did the law protect you when mccormick closed the doors of his factory and left you and your wives and children to starve? i say throttle the law; strangle it, kill it!'" h. e. o. heineman, formerly a reporter on the _arbeiter zeitung_, was asked: "mr. heineman, you were formerly an internationalist?"--"yes, sir." "when did you cease your connection with them?"--"about two years ago." "whom of the defendants do you know that were in that association or society before you left it?"--"of my own knowledge i know none but one, that is neebe. he used to belong to the same group that i did." "did you ever meet with any of the others at any of the meetings?"--"yes; spies, schwab, and i think, parsons." "that was about the time herr most came here and delivered some speeches?"--"yes, sir." "and it was on account of those speeches you severed your connection with the anarchists?"--"yes." "whom did you see on the speaker's wagon at the haymarket?"--"i saw the speakers, spies, schwab and fielden, and rudolph schnaubelt, whom i had formerly known from my connection with the internationalists." "you say schnaubelt was on the wagon. how long after the cloud came up and the crowd thinned out did you see him?"--"i cannot say." "well, how long before the police came did you miss schnaubelt?"--"i cannot say; perhaps ten minutes." "you say mr. neebe was a member of the internationalist organization. now, you didn't have any passwords, did you? it wasn't an organization where you drilled, was it?"--"it was an avowed socialistic order." another sensational witness was harry l. gilmer, a workman, who testified that he saw spies and rudolph schnaubelt standing inside the mouth of the alley at the haymarket; that spies lit a match for schnaubelt, who in turn lit the fuse of the bomb and threw it among the police. an effort was made to shake the testimony of this witness, which was not successful, and witnesses were then brought forward to impeach his veracity, but the state produced many prominent men who knew him, and who stated that they would believe him under oath. captain frank schaack, in charge of the east chicago avenue police station, who unearthed the anarchists' conspiracy after the haymarket, was called to the stand on thursday, july . lingg's trunk was placed before him. he was asked: "do you know any of the defendants in this case?" "i have seen spies, schwab and parsons, and engel and lingg were arrested and confined in my station." "when did you first converse with lingg about this case?" "about o'clock on the afternoon of may . first i asked him his name. he told me. i asked him if he was at the meeting at lake street on tuesday night. he said: 'yes.' then he said he made dynamite. i asked him what for. he said: 'to use then.' he looked excited. i asked why he disliked the police. he said he had a reason; the police clubbed the men at mccormick's. he said he was down on the police because they took the part of the capitalists. i said: 'why don't you use guns instead of dynamite?' he said guns wouldn't do; that the militia would outnumber the socialists. i asked him how he learned to make dynamite. he said out of books, and that he made bombs out of gas-pipe and out of lead and metal mixed. he said he got the lead on the streets and the gas-pipe along the river or anywhere he could." "what other conversation did you have?" "lingg said he made those bombs and meant to use them. then mrs. seliger accused him of making bombs a few weeks after he came to her house. i knew then that he had made a good many. john thielen was arrested at the same time, and from him we got two bombs. i said to lingg: 'this man says you gave him the bombs. what have you to say?' he looked at thielen and shook his head, and thielen said: 'oh, it's no use, everything is known; you might just as well talk.' but lingg refused to say anything." "anything else?" "well, this trunk here was brought to my office. under the lining i found a lot of dynamite and some fuse and asked him if that was the kind of dynamite he used. he said it was; that he got it at a store on lake street. there were three kinds of dynamite. he said he experimented once with a long bomb; that he put it in a tree, touched it off, and that it riddled the tree to atoms. i asked him if he knew spies. he said 'yes, for some time;' that he was often at the _arbeiter zeitung_ office. i asked him how long he had been a socialist. he said he'd been a socialist as long as he could think." "did you have any conversation with engel?" "yes, on the th, in the evening, i asked him where he was may . he said he worked for a man named koch. i asked him if he made a speech at the meeting at lake street. he said no, but that he was at the meeting. the second time i talked with him his wife came. she brought him a bunch of flowers. he got excited, and cried: 'what good are those flowers to me? here i am locked up in a dark cell.' then his wife said: 'papa, see what trouble you've got yourself into; why haven't you stopped this nonsense?' he said: 'mamma, i can't. i am cursed with eloquence. what is in a man must come out. louise michel suffered for the cause. she is a woman; why should i not suffer? i am a man, and i will stand it like a man.'" "how many bombs in all did you find?"--objected to. "tell the jury what experiments you made with those bombs." "one bomb found in lingg's room, which schuettler said was loaded with a funnel, i put in a box two feet square and buried in the ground three feet deep at lake view. officers stift, rehm and loewenstein were there. we touched the bomb off. it blew the box to pieces, fragments carried off the branches of trees, and the ground was torn up for a great distance. this black dynamite, also found in lingg's room, was put in a beer keg. part of this dynamite lingg gave to thielen, and this is a fragment of a round bomb i experimented with. on top of this bomb i had a round piece of iron thirty-four inches wide, some heavy planks, a piece of steel forty-two inches wide and weighing pounds; then an iron boiler twenty-two inches wide and fourteen inches high; then on top of that a stone weighing pounds. the stone was burst to pieces, nine holes were shot through the iron boiler, the steel cover was cracked, and the planks were split into kindling wood. portions of the other bombs i cut off, and gave them to profs. haines and paton." there were bushels of bombs before the jury. coils of fuse was unwound. dynamite in paper packages and in tin boxes was displayed. the courtroom looked like the interior of an arsenal so far as the tremendous character of the explosives were concerned. pieces of metal, gas-pipe, tin cans, and iron boxes rattled together. capt. schaack, pointing to the bombs, said he got two from hoffman, one from fireman miller, and one from officer loewenstein. he was not allowed to tell how many bombs in all he received until the officers first told where the bombs were found. "now about those conversations. did lingg say anything about the use of those bombs?" "he said he intended to use them against the gatling-guns of the militia; that a revolution was impending. i asked him about that satchel he brought to neff's place. he said he saw one there. then i asked him where he got the moulds to mould the round bombs. he said he made them out of clay; that they could be used about two times, then they were no good. he said he saw the 'revenge' circular on the west side." "who did he say was at his place may ?"--"he said about six in all, but he only knew the two lehmans." capt. schaack was asked by mr. ingham whether he experimented with fuse. "i did. i also experimented with dynamite cartridges. i had one inserted into a stone weighing perhaps thirty pounds. the explosion broke this stone into atoms." cross-examined by mr. foster.--"what lingg said to you, captain, was substantially this: that there was to be a conflict between the police and the gatling-guns on one side and the laboring men on the other, and that he was making these bombs to use when that time came?" "that's about it, only he said the time had actually come." "those experiments you made were made for your own satisfaction?" "they were made to enable me to testify to the character of the stuff that was found." "as a matter of fact you woke up engel in his cell after midnight to interrogate him, didn't you?" "well, i don't remember. if i did, i did, and i suppose i did. i had a right to do it." "do you know of two detectives at your station who went to lingg's cell late at night and exhibited a rope saying they were going to hang him?" "i do not, and i do not believe anything of the kind was done." officer hoffman, of the larrabee street station, testified that he found nine round bombs and four long ones under a sidewalk near clyde street and clybourn avenue. "who was with you at the time?"--"gustav lehman." under john thielen's house the witness found two long bombs, two boxes of cartridges, two cigar boxes full of dynamite, one rifle, and one revolver. "what else?"--"lehman pointed out to me a can holding about a gallon, and this was filled with dynamite." "look at this box of caps. where did you find them?"--"they were with the dynamite. they were all under the sidewalk on clybourn avenue, back of ogden's grove." assistant state's attorney frank walker opened the proceedings friday, july , by reading extracts from parsons' _alarm_, dated may d of this year. it was a speech delivered by parsons april , the night the new board of trade was dedicated, and that occasion afforded the speaker his subject. the speech was full of rabid utterances, of which the following are samples: "to-night the property owners are dedicating a temple for the plunder of the people. we assemble as anarchists and communists to protest against the system of society founded on spoilation of the people." in conclusion parsons advised his hearers to save their money and buy revolvers and rifles, and recommended the use of dynamite. under date of december , , the _alarm_ contained a long description of what qualities should center in a revolutionist. "the revolutionist," it was said, "must dedicate his life exclusively to his idea, living in this world only for the purpose of more surely destroying it. he hates every law and science, and knows of but one science--that of destruction. he despises public sentiment and social morality. all his sentiments of friendship, love and sympathy must be suppressed. equally must he hate everything that stands in the way to the attainment of his ends. he must have but one thought--merciless revolution; he must be bound by no ties, and must not hesitate to destroy all institutions and systems." on february , , the _alarm_ paid its respects to captain bonfield, and the attention of the revolutionists was called to the clubbing done by the police at the time of the car-men's strike, by saying: "american sovereigns, if you don't like this, get guns or dynamite." the names of those appointed to act as a bureau of information for the anarchists were printed in the _alarm_ under date january , . joseph bock, b. rau, august spies, a. r. parsons and anton hirschberger were the names given. on march , , the _alarm_ said: "all argument is no good unless based on force." on another occasion, speaking of the eight-hour movement, it was said: "all roads lead to rome; so must all labor movements lead to socialism." later the _alarm_ said: "one pound of dynamite is better than a bushel of ballots. working men, to arms! death to luxurious idleness!" all articles from which these extracts were taken had parsons' name appended as the writer. april , the date of the last issue of the _alarm_, the knights of labor were assailed "for attempting to prevent the people from exterminating the predatory beasts--the capitalists." mr. ingham reads from herr most's book a description of an infernal machine to burn down buildings. this apparatus is described as of wonderful efficiency and dirt cheap. it is read to secure the admission as evidence of the four tin boxes spoken of by detective jansen, who saw them exhibited at west lake street. the court is not sure the contents in both cases are the same, and officer coughlin, of the chicago avenue station, is put on the stand to prove the character of the compound. he experimented with one can by means of a fulminating cap. he tried to explode the can but failed, then he attached a fuse and an explosion followed. a quantity of burning liquid, much resembling vitriol, was distributed in all directions, a stream was thrown five or six feet high, and for a space of ten feet in all directions the grass was set on fire, and it burned for fully five minutes. charles b. prouty is called. he was formerly manager of a gun store on state street. "have you ever seen any of the defendants before?"--"i have seen engel and parsons." "when did you converse with engel last, before may ?"--"some time last fall. mr. engel and his wife called at the store and inquired for some big revolvers. they found one that suited them, to present to some society. they said they wanted or for this society. a week later they said this revolver would do and they wanted some revolvers. i told them i thought i could get them, but when they came back the second time i found i couldn't. they were much disappointed and said they would go some place else." "what was the price?"--"i think $ . . they were either or calibre revolvers." "what did you say about the price?"--"i told them that was very cheap and said they could make a handsome profit on them. they said they didn't want to make any profit; that the weapons were for a society." captain black, on the cross-examination, brings it out that the witness sold the gun to engel, thinking he wanted to go into some speculation. w. j. reynolds, also in the gun business at state street, has seen parsons, and he thinks engel. "when did you see parsons relative to your business, and tell what it was?" "i think it was in february or march. he came into the store and wanted to purchase about forty remodeled remington guns. parsons spoke to me several times about this purchase, but it was never made. parsons seemed undecided." "state whether your concern ever sold any rifle or revolver cartridges, which were to be delivered, and were delivered, at milwaukee avenue--thalia hall?" this question is overruled by the court unless the cartridges were delivered by the witness in person. capt. black takes the witness in hand and he said he never knew parsons by name until yesterday, then that person was pointed out to him in court. "that's all," says capt. black.--"mr. reynolds," says mr. grinnell, "was parsons pointed out to you, or did you not point out the man you had seen before?" "i pointed out the man i had seen before." a manuscript in spies' handwriting is offered in evidence. it is a manuscript of an editorial which was printed in the _arbeiter zeitung_ of may and captioned: "blood and powder as a cure for dissatisfied working men." in another part of the paper was the following: "this evening there is a great meeting at the haymarket. no working men ought to stay away." manuscript in schwab's handwriting is submitted. this matter appeared in the _arbeiter zeitung_ may , and one passage is as follows: "the heroes of the club dispensed with their cudgels yesterday." this has reference to the riot at mccormick's. another extract; "reports of the capitalist papers have all been dictated by the police." still another: "the armory on the lake front is guarded by military tramps." and another: "milwaukee, usually so quiet, yesterday became the scene of quite a number of labor riots." under date of may , spies' paper said: "a hot conflict. the termination of the radical elements bring the extortioners in numerous instances to terms." january , , spies wrote concerning a report of a meeting at west lake street: "comrade spies, in the course of his speech said: 'and if we commence to murder we obey the law of necessity for self-preservation.'" january , , the _arbeiter zeitung_ contained a two column report of a meeting held at mueller's hall. dynamite, blood and bombs were the nice points dealt with, and the comments thereon was what the state wanted read. but first a translation should have been made, and to do this an adjournment is taken until o'clock. as the trial progressed public interest in the development of the anarchist plot to overthrow law and order increased. the courtroom would not hold half of the people that applied for admission, and hundreds were turned away. scattered throughout the courtroom were numerous red flags and banners of the lehr und wehr verein and the various anarchist groups. detective james bonfield was recalled to identify the flags and banners found at the _arbeiter zeitung_ office. they were as follows: "in the absence of law all men are free"; "every government is a conspiracy against the people"; "down with all laws"; "fifteenth section boys stick together"; "proletarians of all countries, unite"; "international working people's association of chicago. presented by the socialistic women's society july , ". saturday, july , the state introduced more translations from the _arbeiter zeitung_. the paper of january , under the caption of "a new military law," contained the following editorials: "after the adoption of the law and its working we have learned a lesson. the vote of has shown that we are stronger than ever. there exists to-day an invisible network of socialistic forces. we are stronger than ever." on january , , an editorial asked: "how can the eight-hour day be brought about? why, every clear-headed man can see that the result can be obtained by no other means than armed force." the next day it was said: "the rottenness of our social institutions cannot be covered up with whitewash. capital sucks its force out of the labor of the working men. the misery has become unbearable. let us not treat with our enemies on may . therefore, comrades, arm to the teeth. we want to demand our rights on may ." regarding the riot in london, a meeting was held at the twelfth street turner hall, neebe presiding; fielden the orator, and his speech and the proceedings were reported under date of february . fielden said: "the time is not so far distant when the down-trodden in chicago will rise like their brothers in london, and march up michigan avenue, the red flag at their head." schwab spoke, calling on the people to rally around the red flag of revolution. an editorial on february said: "hundreds and thousands of reasons indicate that force will bring about a successful termination in the struggle for liberty." april it was said: "what happened yesterday in east st. louis may happen in chicago. it is high time to be prepared to complete the ammunition and be ready." on april spies wrote: "working men, arm yourselves. may is close at hand." six days later he said: "what anarchists predicted six months ago has been realized now. the power of the manufacturers must be met with armed working men. the logic of facts requires this. arms are more necessary now than ever. it is time to arm yourselves. whoever has not money sell your watch and buy firearms. patience has been preached--the working men have had too much of patience." on april spies wrote: "the wage slave who is not utterly demoralized should have a breech-loader in his house." and the next day he said: "as we have been informed the police have received secret orders to keep themselves in readiness for fear of a riot on saturday next, to the working men we again say: arm yourselves! keep your arms hidden so that they will not be stolen by the minions of the law, as has happened before." in the letter-box was the following: "a dynamite cartridge explodes not through concussion. a percussion primer is necessary." january , in the _arbeiter zeitung_, a report said: "the meeting which the american group held at west lake street was one of the best meetings ever held in chicago. comrade spies said: 'when we murder we put an end to general murder. we only follow the law of self-preservation.'" on january all working men were called to attend a meeting at steinmetz hall. "to arms," was the caption. "those who desire instruction in drilling will not have to pay." at mueller's hall, a few days later, schwab made an address, saying: "we have made all preparations for a revolution by force." spies said: "i have been accused by a paper that i tried to stir up a revolution. i concede this. what is crime, anyhow? when the working men try to secure the fruits of their labor it is called crime." guns, dynamite and prussic acid, spies preached, should be given the working men, and "for every clubbed head in the ranks of the working men there should be exacted twelve dead policemen." in a long discourse on the means of action, spies said: "in the action itself one must be personally at the place, to select personally that point of the place of action which is the most important, and is coupled with the greatest danger, upon which depends chiefly the success or failure of the whole affair. otherwise the thing would reach the long ears of the police, which, as is known to every one, hear the grass grow and the fleas cough; but if this theory is acted on, the danger of discovery is extremely small." "the love of self-sacrifice", as manifested by those who were killed during the uprising of the paris commune, while fighting under the red flag, was the subject of a long address on march , and march it was said the question of arming was the one uppermost in labor circles. working men, it was held, ought to be armed long ago. daggers and revolvers were easily purchased; hand-grenades were plentiful, and so was dynamite. the approaching contest should not be gone into with empty hands. the state here rested its case. chapter iv. under a cloud. a struggle for life. contesting every point by shrewd counsel. braving it out. the defense. attorney zeisler moved to have the jury sent from the room pending a motion, and this the court refused to do, saying it was a vicious practice, and that the jury should hear all there was in a case. capt. black--"the motion we desire to make is that your honor now instruct the jury, the state having rested, that they find a verdict of not guilty as to oscar neebe; and we desire to argue that motion." counsel for the defense proceeded to argue the motion, and held that neebe was not amenable; not having been present at the haymarket, and having nothing to do with the _arbeiter zeitung_ until after the arrest of spies. the court--"if he had had prior knowledge of the participation in the haymarket meeting the question would be quite different, but if there is a general advice to commit murder, and the time and occasion not being foreseen, the adviser is guilty if the murder is committed. whether he did participate, concurred, assented, or encouraged the publication of the _arbeiter zeitung_ is a question for this jury upon the testimony that he was frequently there, and that so soon as schwab and spies were away he took charge. everything in which his name has been mentioned must be taken together, and then what the proper inference is, is for the jury to say." capt. black--"does your honor overrule the motion?"--the court--"i overrule the motion." [illustration: counsel for defendants.] capt. black--"we except, if your honor pleases. we desire also to make a like motion, without arguing it, in behalf of all the defendants except spies and fischer."--motion overruled. mr. salomon then began the opening argument for the defense. there were two leading points in his argument: . there cannot be accessories without a principal. the state must prove that somebody was a principal in committing murder before it can convict others as accessories. . the defendants did not throw the bomb: therefore they are not guilty. "true, the defendants made bombs; true, they intended to use dynamite. what if they did?" asks mr. salomon. "they were preparing for a revolution by force of arms and by means of dynamite--but what has that to do with the case? did they kill matthias j. degan, for which act they were specifically indicted? that is the question." mr. salomon then argued that the state would have to prove that the object of the haymarket meeting was to "aggressively kill the police." he pointed out that the defendants had consecrated their lives to the benefit of their fellow men. they did not seek mccormick's property for themselves--they did not want the goods in marshall field's store for themselves. their methods were dangerous, but why were they not stopped at inception? they advocated force, because they believed in force. no twelve men--no , men--could root out anarchy. anarchy is of the head--it is implanted in the soul! as well attempt to root out republicanism or democracy! they intended revolution--a revolution similar to that of the northern states against slavery, or of america against british oppression. they wanted to free the white slaves--the working classes. they intended to use dynamite in furtherance of that revolution. but they did not expect, nor did they conspire to take, the life of officer degan. lingg had the right to manufacture bombs and fill his house with dynamite, if he so pleased. there was no law against it. mr. salomon intimated that an attempt would be made to show who threw the bomb, or that it was thrown by somebody other than schnaubelt; also that the police began the riot by shooting into the crowd; that schwab was not at the meeting at all, and that when the bomb exploded parsons and fischer were in zephf's hall drinking beer. "we expect further to show you," said mr. salomon, "that this meeting had assembled peaceably, that its objects were peaceable, that they delivered the same harangues, that the crowd listened quietly, that not a single act transpired there previous to the coming of the police, for which any man in it could be held amenable to law. they assembled there under the provisions of our constitution in the exercise of their right of free speech, to discuss the situation of the working men, to discuss the eight-hour question. they assembled there and incidentally discussed what they called the outrages perpetrated at mccormick's. no man expected that bomb would be thrown, no man expected that any one would be injured at that meeting." the witness who gave, perhaps, the strongest evidence for the defense was dr. james d. taylor, an aged physician of the eclectic school. on the direct examination, captain black asked: "how old are you?" answer--"i am seventy-six years of age." "where were you on may , in the evening?"--"at the haymarket." "tell us when you reached the haymarket."--"about twenty minutes before the speaking commenced." "during that twenty minutes where were you?"--"i was standing in the alley--crane's alley--near desplaines street." "how near to the west edge of the sidewalk?"--"very close to it." "how long did you occupy that position?"--"as long as the bullets would let me." "how long was that?" asks mr. grinnell.--"i was the last man that left the alley after the bomb exploded." "did you hear the speeches at the haymarket?"--"oh, yes; distinctly." "what did spies say?"--"he spoke about jay gould, and some one said: 'hang him,' and spies said: 'no, it is not time for that.'" "what did parsons say?"--"he spoke of the necessity for union. the substance of his remarks was that if the working men expected to win they must unite." "did you notice the approach of the police?"--"i did; the first column came up close to where i was standing. they were so close i could touch them." "did you hear fielden?"--"yes." "what did he say?"--"well, he spoke about the law, and said: 'it is your enemy. kill it, stab it, throttle it; if you don't, it will throttle you.'" "did you hear the command given to disperse?"--"yes, sir." "what did fielden say?"--"he said: 'we are peaceable,' or 'this is a peaceable meeting.'" "did you see fielden again?"--"i did. he got down out of the wagon and came around where i was standing." "did you see him with a revolver?"--"i did not." "did you see him shoot at all?"--"never. i did not." "did you see the bomb?"--"i did." "where did it come from?"--"about twenty feet, or perhaps forty, south of the alley, behind some boxes on the sidewalk." "now, tell what you saw."--"well, the bomb looked to me like a boy's firecracker. it was then about five feet in the air. it circled in a southeast direction, and fell, i think, between the first and second columns of the police." "when did the shooting commence?"--"almost simultaneously." "did the firing proceed from the crowd, or the police?"--"it came from the street, near where the police were." "did you see or hear of any pistol shots from the crowd?"--"not one." "you say you went to the haymarket the next morning. did you make any examination of the neighborhood?"--"i did." "did you find any marks of bullets in the walls around there?"--"yes, a great many. they were in the north end of the wall of crane bros.' building. then i examined a telegraph pole north of the alley, on the west side of the street. there were a great many perforations on the south side of this pole." "were there any perforations on the north side of the pole?"--"not one." "did you visit the place a second time?"--"i did." "for the purpose of examining this telegraph pole?"--"yes, sir." "tell the jury whether you found the pole there or not."--"it was not there." "how long ago was that?"--"a week." "and the pole was gone?"--"it was gone." "what course did you take, doctor, in going out of the alley?"--"i took a zig-zag course." "doctor, are you a socialist?"--"yes, sir." "are you an anarchist?"--"not in the sense in which the term is usually employed." "how long have you been a socialist?"--"about fifty years. i was taught socialism by robert owen, father of robert dale owen." "do you know any of the defendants?"--"yes. i know parsons and fielden well; spies and neebe slightly." "have you ever taken part in socialistic meetings?"--"yes. i have spoken at meetings controversially." "are you, or were you, a member of the international working men's society?"--"i was." "for how long?"--"well, i continued a member until the organization was abandoned." "what group were you a member of?"--"of the american group." "where did you attend meetings?"--"at greif's hall." "what were the conditions of membership? tell the jury whether those meetings were secret or public."--"they were public. the conditions of membership were--" this answer was objected to by the state, and the court sustains the objection. "how long have you been a member of the american group?"--"i think a year, or a little more." "how often have you met parsons and fielden?"--"they have not been regular in their attendance." "now, taking them in their order, will you state what you heard them say, either on the lake front or at any hall, regarding the use of force?" captain black withdraws this question at once upon consultation with his associates. mr. ingham then took up the cross-examination: "how did you come to go to the haymarket, doctor?"--"i happened to be in the neighborhood, taking my usual evening walk." "did you see any circular?"--"i did not." "how did you come to attend the meeting, then?"--"i saw a great many people, who told me there was to be a meeting." "did you go at once to the alley?"--"i did." "are you sure you did not stop on the haymarket?"--"i am sure i did not." "why, then, did you go in the alley?"--"to hear what was to be said." "what time did you get there?"--"a little after o'clock." "and you stopped there all the time?"--"yes." "how long did you wait?"--"about twenty minutes." "then the meeting was opened?"--"it was." "and you listened to spies?"--"yes." "what did he say?"--"the substance of what he said was that the men had better go home, and not do any violence." (the witness confounds spies and parsons. the former, according to other witnesses, made no reference to jay gould, but parsons did. the doctor said also that parsons told the men that the history of strikes showed all strikes to have proved a failure; that what was wanted was a change in the system.) "did you see fielden all the time he was speaking?"--"i did." "and he had no revolver?"--"he had not." "did you keep your eye on him all the time?"--"every minute." "you did not take your eye off him for a single minute?"--"not half a minute." "and you saw him just as he closed his speech?"--"i did. he got down out of the wagon and was standing close to me." "where did he go after the bomb exploded?"--"the lord only knows what became of him. the demoralization was so great that i don't know. i think he was one of the first men to go down after the shell exploded." "well, how long did you remain there?"--"i was the last man to go up the alley. there was a great crowd ahead of me." "were the bullets thick?"--"well, i should say they were." "yet you didn't run?"--"well, i am an old man, and i don't care much." "what did you do next, after leaving the alley?"--"i went farther down in the alley. i was the last man to go down the alley. there was a projection in the alley and i took refuge behind that." "you were young enough then to want to live?"--"it wasn't that; i heard the police shooting. they were going back toward the haymarket. i could tell that by the report of the shooting. then i ran out on desplaines street and dodged about till i got home." "where did you dodge?"--"a good many places. the police were shooting all over. they were all excited. i saw them shooting as far up as madison street. one policeman on madison street i saw point his revolver at a crowd of people on the street and say: 'd--- you! you've got to die any way.' then he fired his revolver at them." "you say you saw the bomb when it was about five feet in the air?"--"yes." "did you see the fuse?"--"yes." "what kind of a bomb was it?"--"round." "what happened after it exploded?"--"the demoralization was great." "did you hear any groans?"--"no." "how long have you been a physician?"--"forty years." "what school?"--"eclectic." "are you a graduate of any college?"--"yes; eclectic." "you say you are a socialist, but not an anarchist as it is commonly defined. are you an anarchist as you understand that term?"--"i am." "do you believe in an oath?"--"i do." "do you believe that an oath adds anything to the obligation to tell the truth?"--"no. all honest men should tell the truth." "that's all." l. m. moses, a grocer, and austin mitchell, who lived with moses, testified that they would not believe the witness gilmer under oath. the defense then introduced august krumm, of west twentieth street, a woodworker, by whom they expected to entirely offset gilmer's evidence. from his evidence it was made to appear that gilmer mistook krumm for spies, and that instead of lighting a bomb krumm was engaged in nothing more harmful than lighting a pipe of tobacco. mr. foster conducts the examination, and the witness says he was at the haymarket meeting may , and saw spies and parsons there for the first time. "how did you come to go there?"--"i had business down town; heard of the meeting and went there with a friend, a. m. albright." "now, how close to the alley near crane brothers did you stand?"--"very close. we stood there all the time from about . o'clock until the police arrived." "did you stand there all the time?"--"no; we were gone for a minute or two." "where did you go?"--"we went into the alley. i wanted to light my pipe. albright came with me. he gave me a pipeful of tobacco and i went into the alley to light my pipe." "what did you go into the alley for?"--"there was a wind on the street, and we went into the alley so the match would not go out." "and albright followed you?"--"yes. he came to light his pipe." "whose pipe was lighted first?"--"mine." "then his pipe was lighted?"--"yes. he came over to me and lit his pipe from the match that lit my pipe, holding his head up close to mine." "after you came out of the alley what did you see?"--"the police were there; then the explosion followed." "did you see spies go into the alley?"--"i did not." "did you see anybody in the alley?"--"yes. there were two or three men there, but i could not tell who they were. it was dark." "did anybody come into the alley while you were there?"--"no." "could anybody pass into the alley without your knowing it?"--"no, sir; i stood up close to the building while i was lighting my pipe." "now, tell whether you saw a light in the air about that time or a little after."--"yes; i saw a light like a match about twenty feet south of the alley on desplaines street." mr. grinnell takes the witness in hand. "you say you came down town on business. who did you want to see?"--"a friend of mine." "who is he?"--"adolph winness." "where does he live?"--"i do not know." "where does he work?"--"i don't know now." "what does he work at?"--"he is a woodworker." "how did you expect to meet him then, if you did not know where he lived or where he worked?"--"he told me i could find him there." "find him where?"--"on randolph street." "when did you see him last?"--"that afternoon. he came out to see me." "and he did not tell you where he worked?"--"no." "nor where he stopped?"--"no." "yet he said you could find him on randolph street?"--"yes." "so he gave you the idea that he could be found out of doors, did he?"--"well, he's around randolph street a good deal." "where did you meet albright?"--"in the alley." "near crane brothers?"--"yes." "what did you say?"--"i said: 'hello, albright,' and he said: 'hello, krumm.'" "what else?"--"did you say you came down town to see a friend?"--"yes." "did you tell him the name of your friend?"--"no." "who was speaking then?"--"parsons, i think." "tell what he said."--"he said something about jay gould." "what did spies say?"--"he said: 'a few words more, boys, and we'll go home.'" "spies said that, did he?"--"yes." "which man is spies?"--the witness confounds the men. asked to indicate spies he points to fielden. "how did you stand in the alley when the speaking was going on?"--"i had my back to the north wall." "did you stand that way all the time?"--"yes, except when we lit our pipes." "then did you stand the same way after you lighted your pipes?"--"yes." "then how could you see these men if you had your backs to the wall?"--"i looked over my head." "you looked over your head all the time?"--"yes, when we looked at the speakers." "and you never saw these men before?"--"no." "yet from that point in the alley, the speakers eight feet or more distant, a crowd between you, you looking over your shoulders in the dark, you recognize these men the first time you saw them?"--"yes." "where were the police when fielden said. 'now, a word more boys, and we will go home'?"--"they were coming up desplaines street." "where was spies then?"--"i don't know. i don't remember." "well, didn't you see spies on the wagon?"--"yes." "when?"--"i don't think now. early in the evening, i think." "now, when you were talking to albright, did you talk about what the speakers were saying?"--"no." "did you talk about the eight-hour question?"--"no." "what were you talking about?"--"about the shop." "now, where did you see the bomb?"--"it was about ten feet in the air, about twenty feet south of the alley. i didn't see it explode." "no, of course not. it was too far south." "there then was some boxes on the sidewalk, and you couldn't see?"--"i did not say there were any boxes on the sidewalk." "yes, but if there were any boxes there you would have seen them?"--"yes. i would have seen them if they had been on the sidewalk." "and you did not see them there?"--"i did not." (all the other witnesses for the defense testified that a big pile of boxes stood on the sidewalk between the alley and a point where the bomb exploded.) "and you say you did not see those boxes?"--"i did not." "when were you at the haymarket?"--"may ." "were you ever there in your life?"--"yes." "how about a lamp post. did you see one?"--"i don't remember now, but i know there is one at the southeast corner of the alley." "how do you know this?"--"i worked at the corner of randolph and jefferson streets for ten years, and remember it." "how long ago was that?"--"seven years ago." "and you can remember that a lamp post stood at the southeast corner of the alley after the lapse of seven years?"--"i can." "where is your wife now?"--"living on sedgwick street." "whereabouts?"--"i don't know. i have not seen her for a year." "how did you come to go to salomon & zeisler's office?"--"i saw a notice in the _arbeiter zeitung_ asking for all that knew anything about the bomb-throwing to call on them. i went there on sunday." "when did you see this notice?"--"some time ago. i don't remember when." "did you talk with any one about this bomb-throwing?"--"yes, with albright." "any one else?"--"no." "yet you saw the bomb in the air and heard the explosion but you did not talk to any one about what you saw?"--"that's it." m. t. malkoff, the correspondent of a paper at moscow, russia, and formerly a writer on the _arbeiter zeitung_, testified that parsons was in zephf's hall, talking to his wife, mrs. holmes and the witness, when the bomb exploded. state's attorney grinnell elicits from the witness that he has been five years in this country, that he lived in new york and maintained himself by teaching the russian language. from new york, he went to little rock, then to st. louis, and finally to chicago, arriving here in . "you came here with a letter of introduction to spies?"--"no, sir. i obtained my position in the south through a letter of introduction from spies." "how did you come to get that letter?"--"i and a man named clossie translated a romance from the russian and sold it to spies." "that was a revolutionary novel?"--"it was not. it was a description----" "oh, i don't want to go into that. you know herr most?"--"i have seen him, but i don't know him." "you know justus schwab? you had letters sent to his address?"--"that may be." "you lived with schwab in new york?"--"i did not." "you lived with balthazar rau here, though, on may ?"--"i did." "where?"--"at larrabee street." "when did you leave russia?"--"in ." "your bedroom was searched, wasn't it?"--"yes, sir." "were the arms found there guns and bayonets, or any of them, belonging to you?"--"no, sir." "where did you live before you went to rau's house?"--"with mr. schwab." "one of the defendants?"--"yes, sir." "you are a stockholder in the _alarm_ company?"--"no, sir." "you contributed money to that organization?"--"that may be." "but did you not contribute money?"--"i did." "how much?"--"two dollars." "you were a nihilist in russia?"--"no, sir." "are you not the agent here for the nihilists in russia?"--"no, sir. i am not an agent for any society in russia." "did you not tell mr. hardy you were the agent for a nihilistic society?"--"no, sir. the reporters used to call me a nihilist because i was russian." "what paper are you now working for?"--"the _moscow gazette_." "look at that letter; is that your signature at the bottom?"--"it is." the letter is written in german and it is given to the translator, who is instructed to render it into english. "this letter is directed to a 'mr. editor.' what editor?"--"i think it was directed to mr. spies." "that was before you came to chicago?"--"it was." "then we offer it in evidence." the letter is, in substance, an inquiry as to whether or not spies could use certain articles written by malkoff. it goes on to say: "i have just completed another article treating of the secret revolutionary societies of russia. i am a proletariat in the fullest sense of the word. address your letter to j. h. schwab, first street, new york." "is that j. h. schwab, justus schwab?"--"it is." "did you live with him in new york?"--"no, sir. i just got my mail there." "now," said foster, "you say you were a proletariat. what do you mean by that term?"--"i understand it to be a man without any means of support." "and you, having no money, had your mail sent to justus schwab because you had no home, eh?"--"yes, sir." "now," asked mr. ingham, "i'll ask you if you did not use the term proletariat in the sense in which socialists always employ that term?"--"no, sir, i did not." samuel fielden. samuel fielden, one of the defendants who was speaking at the time of the bomb explosion, testified that he did not know who threw the bomb, and denied that he fired at the police with a revolver. he was cross-examined by mr. ingham for the state, who asked: "at what age did you come to the united states?"--"twenty-one." "did you have any business before you came to the united states?"--"i went to work in a cotton mill at eight years of age, and worked in that mill until i left the country to come to the united states." "how long have you been a socialist?"--"i joined the socialistic organization in july, ." "how long have you been a revolutionist?"--"in the sense of an evolutionary revolutionist, i have been so for a number of years." "how long have you been of the belief that the existing order of things should be overthrown by force?"--"i don't know that i have ever been convinced. i am of the opinion that the existing order of things must be overturned, but whether by force i don't know." "how long have you believed in anarchy?"--"well, i believed in it shortly after i joined the organization--as soon as i came to think on the subject." "you have been progressing from socialism to anarchism; and if you cannot convince the majority of the united states to your opinions, you propose to compel them by force?"--objected to. "how long have you preached anarchy?"--objected to. "was there any english-speaking group in the city that you know of?"--objected to. "did you ever attend any meeting of any english-speaking group other than the american group in this city of that kind?"--"we tried to found one a year ago last winter on west indiana street. i think we only held two meetings, and then we abandoned it." "any other group of them that you attended?"--"i don't remember any now." "you have for the last two or three years been making speeches of socialistic and anarchistic character?"--"i have been making labor speeches; they were not always socialistic or anarchistic speeches." "but you have made socialistic and anarchistic speeches?"--"well, i have touched on anarchy and socialism, and sometimes my speeches might have been considered from the ordinary trades union standpoint, for all the anarchy there was in them." "have you ever made speeches on the lake front and other socialistic meetings?"--"yes, on the lake front, some on market square, twelfth street, turner hall, and at no. randolph street." "look at the copy of the _alarm_ of june , , 'dynamite; instructions regarding its use and operation,' and signed 'a. s.' say whether you ever saw it."--"i don't know that i have." "was there any reason why you did not walk when you started home that night?"--"yes. i did not wish to be arrested that night." "you expected that you would be arrested?"--"well, after that trouble i expected to be arrested." "you were speaking when the police came up, and were making no inflammatory speech?"--"i did not incite anybody to do anything, to do any overt act. i told the people in general to resist the present socialistic system that oppressed them, and gave them no chance to earn a living." "and yet you expected to be arrested?"--"i had read something of criminal proceedings, and i knew that the police would arrest everybody connected with that meeting in order to find the one who was responsible. i made an explanation before the coroner's jury because i had a different idea of the police at that time. i thought if i made that statement and they inquired into the truth and were convinced of my innocence they would let me go. but i now see that i was mistaken." "did the police indict you?"--"i don't know who indicted me." redirect--"you have heard what has been said about your expression of throttling the law, of killing it, of stabbing it. just state the explanation which you said you desired to make in regard to that."--"well, it was just the explanation that a public orator would make when he was denouncing a political party. when he said he wanted to get rid of the democratic party, for instance, he would kill it, stab it, or make way with it. the words would rush away with a public speaker, and in the hurry he could not add a lengthy explanation." "you also read the reporter's notes in regard to snails and worms and said there was no connection there. what were your words in reference to snails and worms, and the idea that you now remember?"--"well, the idea that i intended to convey at that time was that when men were thrown out of work through no fault of their own, and it being a fact that has been proven and asserted on the floor of the house of representatives that over a million of men are out of employment through no fault of their own--these men being driven about, become degraded and loathsome, and people look upon them with contempt, and yet it is no fault of their own; they have no part in producing the condition of things that throws them out of employment, and leads them to their abject condition." "you did not know of the presence of a dynamite bomb or anything of that kind in the crowd?"--"no, sir; i did not even know of the presence of an unusual number of police at the station. i did not know that till after the meeting." henry schultz, an elderly german, testified that "from o'clock until the fight was over i was on the haymarket; i stood in the middle of the street, a little north of the wagon." "how long had you been in chicago at that time?"--"two weeks. i am a tourist." [laughter.] "have you been in the habit of attending meetings in the street?"--"no; but since i have been here seeing the sights i would stop at anything." "before the police came, did you see anything disorderly?"--"it was, as i know, peaceable, like a fourth of july." "do you remember the speech of the first speaker?"--"i know the run of his talk; i kept it in my mind. he said, 'i didn't want to come here. then they called me a coward, and i didn't like to be called a coward, and that is the reason i came.' a few words after that he said: 'they are only yards from here. maybe by to-morrow morning i will have to die.' i kept that on my mind. i left the meeting when the black cloud came up, and when the bomb exploded i looked around the corner, and i saw everything dark, and i thought the bomb must have blown out the lights." [laughter.] "what else did you see?"--"i saw the policemen and they were all around. they had the ground. i saw some of the workmen run--they were about two blocks ahead of the police." "did you see the police come upon the working men?"--"they came pretty strong in lake street, and they had the men in the gutter, and when they raised up they got another club." mr. grinnell--"what is your business?"--"doing nothing," replied mr. schultz, with a grin at the crowd, and the crowd laughed in a guarded way, because they did not wish to be fired out of the entertainment. "how long have you been conducting that business?"--"about ten years. before that i was mining in montana." "where is your house in portage city?"--"the next house to the courthouse," responded the witness with a cunning look at the court, and there was another wild outburst of mirth from the audience. mr. schultz narrated a part of his early history, from which it appeared that before he became a millionaire he played the fiddle at dances; and in answer to a question as to when he began to be a musician, he said: "from nine years old. my father was a musician--it runs in the family." "do you play the violin since you have been in chicago?"--"no; my money reaches so that i don't have to do anything." [laughter.] "the first speaker was spies, wasn't it?"--"oh, i can't promise anything," said mr. schultz, with a contortion of countenance which brought down the house. judge gary looked indignantly around and said: "oh! be quiet!" and the crowd immediately became as demure as a quaker meeting. "what did spies say about the police being so many feet away?"--"he said they was only five hundred yards from here and he was likely to die before morning. that was about all he said in that run of speech." "did you hear the first speaker say anything about 'to arms! to arms!'?"--"that was the man--i heard him." "where did you go when you left the meeting?"--"i went to wash my feet!" the expression on mr. schultz's face, and the simplicity of the answer, upset the decorum of the spectators and they laughed right out in meetin', regardless of the threatened penalty for such a glaring contempt of court. judge gary himself, however, assisted in the hilarity, and was very lenient with the offenders, a fellow-feeling evidently making him wondrous kind. mr. schultz a moment afterward had an opportunity to correct the impression that he was in the habit of touring around the streets of chicago in his bare feet. "did you have your boots off when you were washing your feet?"--"oh, no; i didn't wash my feet; i only washed the mud off my boots in one of them horse-troughs." then mr. schultz treated the company to a choice selection of facial contortions, and got down out of the chair with the air of a man who has done his duty, his whole duty, and nothing but his duty. michael schwab. the defendant, michael schwab, was put on the stand monday, august . he testified that he went to the _arbeiter zeitung_ office on the evening of may . a telephone message was received requesting spies to speak at a meeting near deering's harvester works, on clybourn avenue. the witness said he went to the haymarket to find spies, but failed. he did see rudolph schnaubelt, his brother-in-law, there. witness then took a street car and went up clybourn avenue; spoke twenty minutes at the meeting; stepped into a saloon and got a few glasses of beer, and then went to his home, on florimond street, arriving about o'clock p. m. mr. foster asked: "were you ever in the alley at crane bros.' that night with mr. spies?"--"no, sir." "did you walk west on randolph street with mr. spies two blocks, then return with him?"--"no, sir." "did you see mr. spies that night?"--"no, sir." "did you see mr. spies hand your brother-in-law a package that night in the alley at crane bros.', and did you say anything like this: 'if that won't be enough, shall we get another one?'"--"no, sir." "did you see mr. spies at all that night?"--"no, sir." "when did you see him at all for the last time that day?"--"in the afternoon. i did not see him again until the next morning." schwab said he had been a member of the internationalist society since its organization. on the night of may he went to the haymarket on foot and walked through the washington street tunnel. balthazar rau accompanied him as far west as desplaines street. [illustration: michael schwab.] "are you an anarchist?" asked mr. grinnell.--"it depends on what you mean. there are several definitions of that." "answer my question. are you an anarchist?"--"i can't answer that." august spies. schwab stepped down and spies took the stand. "give your full name to the jury," said captain black. "august vincent theodore spies," replies the prisoner. he is thirty-one years old, and came to this county from germany in . spies speaks with a marked accent, but very distinctly. he is cool and collected apparently, and sits back in the witness chair very much at ease. he has been a member of the socialistic publishing society, and that concern exercised control over the policy of the _arbeiter zeitung_, of which paper the witness was editor for six years. spies said he was at a meeting on the "black road" on may . spies reached the meeting on the "black road" about o'clock in the afternoon. there was a crowd of perhaps three thousand present. some men were speaking, but they were very poor speakers, and the crowd was not interested. balthazar rau was with him, and introduced him to the chairman of the meeting. it was called for the purpose of discussing the eight-hour question. while spies was there a committee was appointed to wait on the bosses; then he was introduced, and spoke for possibly twenty minutes. spies went on: "i was almost prostrated. i had been speaking two or three times daily for the past two or three weeks, and was very much worn. i did not jump around and wave my hands as one witness testified here on the stand, and i made a very common-place, ordinary speech. i told the men to hold together, to stand by their union, or they would not succeed. that was the substance of what i said. while i was speaking some one cried out in an unknown tongue, and about two hundred men detached themselves from the crowd and went on to mccormick's. pretty soon i heard firing, and on inquiring what was the matter was told the men had attacked mccormick's men, and that the police were firing on them. i stopped for about five minutes, was elected a member of the committee; then i went to mccormick's. a lot of cars were standing on the tracks. the men were hiding behind these cars, others were running, while the police were firing on the flying people. the sight of this made my blood boil. at that time i could have done almost anything, i was so excited. a young irishman came out from behind one of the cars. i think he knew me and said: 'what kind of ---- business is this? there are two men over there dead; the police have killed them.' i asked him how many were killed. he said five or six, and that twenty-five or thirty were injured. i came down town then and wrote the report which appeared in the _arbeiter zeitung_ the next day." "did you write the 'revenge circular'?"--"yes; only i did not write the word 'revenge.'" "can you tell how that word happened to be put in the circular?"--"i cannot." "how many of those circulars were distributed?"--"about twenty-five hundred." "how soon was it written after your return to the office?"--"immediately." "at that time were you still laboring under the excitement incident to the riot?"--"i was." [illustration] "what was your state of mind?"--"i was very indignant. i knew from experience of the past that this butchering of people was done for the express purpose of defeating the eight-hour movement." spies is growing excited. mr. grinnell objects. the court says his last answer is not proper and orders it stricken from the record. "on the evening of may you attended the haymarket meeting?"--"i did." "you were asked to speak there?"--"i was." "when did you learn there was to be a meeting?"--"about o'clock that morning. i was advised there was to be a meeting and was asked to address it." "what time did you reach there?"--"about : o'clock." "did you see the notice of that meeting in the _arbeiter zeitung_?"--"yes; i put it in myself." "did you see a circular that day, calling for a meeting at the haymarket?"--"yes. it was the circular containing the line: 'working men, arm yourselves and appear in full force.' when i read that line i said: 'if this is the meeting i am to address i will not speak.' he asked why. i said on account of that line. he said the circulars had not been distributed, and i said: 'if the line is taken out i will go.' fischer was sent for and he told the men to have that line taken out." "who was this man that brought the circulars?"--"he was on the stand; gruenberg is his name, i think." "was there any torch on the wagon?"--"no; i think the sky was clear and that the lamp was burning near the corner of the alley." "was that selection made by yourself, or upon consultation?"--"well, i consulted with my brother henry. he was with me all evening." "after you got them together, what did you do?"--"some one suggested we had better move the wagon around on randolph street, but i said that might impede the street cars. then i asked where was parsons. i was not on the committee of arrangements and had nothing to do with the meeting except to speak. one schroder said parsons was speaking then at the corner of halsted and randolph streets, and i went up to find him with my brother henry and schnaubelt." "did you see schwab?"--"no, i did not. schnaubelt told me schwab had gone to deering's." "did you go to crane's alley with schwab?"--"i could not very well do that, as i had not seen him that night." "just answer the question," cried mr. ingham.--"well, i did not go to the alley. i did not even know there was an alley there." the witness denies the conversation mr. thompson alleges he overheard spies engage in with schwab. he said schnaubelt cannot speak any english--that he has only been about two years in the country. "did schwab say to you that evening: 'now, if they come, we are prepared for them'?"--"no, sir; i did not see him that evening." "did you talk with schwab on the east side of desplaines street, about twelve feet south of the alley that evening?"--"i did not. i was not anywhere near that alley with any man." "you remember what the witness thompson said, that he saw you walk with schnaubelt east on randolph street; that he saw you hand him something; that you then returned to the meeting together. is that true?"--"it is not. that man told a different story before the coroner's jury." this last answer is ordered stricken out, and spies was told to say nothing but in answer to questions. spies was asked to tell what he said at the meeting. it was a short synopsis of the existing state of the labor world. first, he said that the meeting was to be a peaceable one; that it was not called for the purpose of creating trouble. attention was directed to the strike at east st. louis, where those who were active in the riots there were not socialists nor anarchists, but church-going people, and honest, sincere christians. it was admitted by students that society was retrograding; the masses were being degraded under the excessive work they had to carry on. for twenty years the working men asked in vain for two hours less work a day, and that finally they resolved to take the matter in their own hands and help themselves. "about this time i saw parsons, then i broke off. i was not in a state to make a speech. i was tired. i introduced parsons, and he proceeded to address the meeting." "what was the size of the crowd then?"--"about two thousand persons." "where did you go after finishing your speech?"--"i remained on the wagon." "you spoke in english?"--"yes. i made no speech in german that night. i was asked to do so, but was too tired. i introduced fielden and he made a brief speech, then we intended to go home." "what did parsons say in his speech?"--"parsons made a pretty good speech. he said of the dollar earned by the working men they got only fifteen cents, while the pharisaical class got eighty-five cents, and that the eight-hour movement was a still-hunt for that eighty-five cents." "what do you remember of fielden's speech?"--"well, fielden did not say much. i don't remember now what he did say." "were you on the wagon when the police came?"--"yes. i saw the police on randolph street." "at that time what was the size of the meeting?"--"it was as good as adjourned. about two-thirds of those present went, some going to zephf's hall when the black cloud came up." "what did you hear when the command to disperse was given?"--"i was standing in the middle of the wagon, back of fielden. i heard captain ward say; 'i command you, in the name of the people of illinois, to disperse.' captain ward had a cane or club in his hand. fielden said to him: 'captain, this is a peaceable meeting.' i started to get down out of the wagon. my brother henry and one legner helped me down. i was indignant at the thought that the police had come to disperse the meeting, as it was a quiet one. just as soon as i reached the ground i heard a loud detonation. i thought the police had a cannon to frighten the people. i did not dream for a moment of a bomb, and i did not even then think the police were firing at the crowd. i thought the police were firing over their heads." "where did you go to?"--"i was pushed along by the crowd. i went to zephf's hall." "did you at any time that night get down from the wagon and go into an alley and light a bomb in the hands of rudolph schnaubelt?"--"i never did." "did you see schnaubelt in the alley that night while fischer was there?"--"i did not." "you remember the witness gilmer?"--"yes." "is his story true?"--"not a word of it." "you remember wilkinson, the reporter for the _daily news_?"--"yes. i had a conversation with him in january." "well, go on and tell us about it."--"he was introduced to me by joe gruenhut. he said he wanted to get some data wherewith to prepare an article on anarchism, socialism and dynamite, and all that. i happened to have four shells in my office. i had them for about three years. a man on his way to new zealand gave me two bombs; another man some time after called at my office with two bombs, and wanted to know if their construction was proper. that's how i came to possess them. he wanted one to show to mr. stone. i let him take it. we went to dinner at a restaurant, and we conversed about society, its present state, and the trouble that was likely to ensue. we spoke about street warfare, as all this was contained in the papers every day. there was constant talk that so many wild-eyed socialists were arriving every day, and i told him it was an open secret that there were , armed socialists in chicago, and we spoke about revolutions, and i said that in past ages gun-powder had come to the assistance of the down-trodden masses, and that dynamite was a child of the same parent, and was a great leveler." "do you remember the toothpick illustration?"--"yes. i remember that, and also re-call speaking of the washington street tunnel, saying how easy comparatively few men could hold that tunnel against a body of soldiers, but nothing was said about chicago, nor was any time fixed for the revolution." "you wrote the word 'ruhe' for insertion in the _arbeiter zeitung_ may ?"--"i did." "how did you come to do that?"--"the night before at o'clock i received a letter as follows: _mr. editor_: please insert in to-day's letter-box the word 'ruhe' in prominent letters." "at that time did you know there was any import attached to the word?"--"i did not." "when did you next hear of it?"--"the next afternoon balthazar rau asked me if the word was in the paper. i said: 'yes.' he asked me if i knew the meaning. i said: 'no.' then he said: 'the armed section had a meeting last night and adopted the word 'ruhe' as a signal to keep their powder dry and be in readiness in case the police precipitated a riot.' i asked if that had anything to do with the meeting i was to address at the haymarket, and he said: 'oh, no; that's something the boys got up themselves.' i said it was very foolish, that it was not rational, and asked if there was no way in which it could be undone. rau then went to see the people of the armed section and told them the word was put in by mistake." "were you a member of the armed section?"--"no, not for six year." "did you ever have dynamite and a fuse in your desk?"--"yes, i had two packages of giant powder and some fuse in my desk for two years. i had them chiefly to show to reporters, they bothered me a good deal. they always wanted some sensation. then, too, i wanted the dynamite to study it; i had read a great deal about explosives." "do you know anything about a package of dynamite found on the shelf in the closet of the _arbeiter zeitung_?"--"ab-so-lute-ly nothing." "do you know anything about a revolver that was found in the _arbeiter zeitung_ office?"--"no. i do not. i carried a revolver myself, but it was a good one." "did you carry a revolver?"--"yes. i always thought it was a good thing to be prepared. i was out late at night a good deal." "did you have a revolver that night?"--"no, it was too heavy. i left it with ex-ald. frank stauber." "you were arrested may ?"--"yes." "tell us how."--"well, an officer--james bonfield, i think--came to my office and asked for schwab. he said chief ebersold would like to see him. schwab asked me if he should go. i said yes, he might. then the officer turned to me and asked me if my name was spies. i said yes. then he said superintendent ebersold would like to see me about that affair of last night. i went over there, unsuspectingly. i was never so treated before in all my life." "tell what happened?"--"well, as soon as i got into the station superintendent ebersold started at me. he said: 'you dirty dutch dog; you hound; you whelp--you, we will strangle you! we will kill you!' then they jumped on us, tore us apart from each other. i never said anything. then they searched us, took our money, even our handkerchiefs, and would not return them to us. i was put in a cell, and have not had my liberty since." mr. ingham cross-examined the witness. spies said he came to this country when seventeen years old, and that he has lived in chicago some thirteen years. the _arbeiter zeitung_ was controlled by what spies termed an "autonomous editorial arrangement;" that is, the powers of the several editors were co-ordinate, but the general policy of the paper was under the supervision of the board of trustees. "did you ever receive any money for the _alarm_?"--"yes." "did you ever pay out any money for the _alarm_?"--"yes." "did you ever write any articles for the _alarm_?"--"i may have." "how many bombs did you have in the _arbeiter zeitung_ office?"--"four, i think. two i got from a man named schwab. i forget now. he was a shoemaker. he went to new zealand." "how did this man come to give you those bombs?"--"he came to me and asked me if my name was spies. i said yes. then he asked me if i had seen any of the bombs they were making. i said no. then he left them with me." "who did he mean by 'they'?"--"i don't know." "didn't he say who they were?"--"no." "and you never saw him before or since?"--"no, sir." "and when did you get these czar bombs?"--"i never got them. that is an invention of that reporter. a man came there while i was at dinner and left them there. he left the bombs with the bookkeeper. i never saw him before or after." mr. ingham introduced a letter and a postal card found in spies' desk, the reading of which, as translated by mr. gauss, created a great sensation. spies acknowledged the writing as addressed to him by johann most, the noted anarchist: "dear spies:--are you sure that the letter from the hocking valley was not written by a detective? in the week i will go to pittsburgh, i have an inclination also to go to the hocking valley. for the present i send you some printed matter. there sch. and h. also existed but on paper. i told you this some months ago. on the other hand, i am able to furnish "_medicine_", and the "_genuine_" article at that. directions for use are perhaps not needed with these people. moreover, they were recently published in the "fr." the appliances i can also send. now, if you consider the address of buchtell thoroughly reliable, i will ship twenty or twenty-five pounds. but how? is there an express line to the place? or is there another way possible? polus the great seems to delight in hopping about in the swamps of the n. y. v. z., like a blown-up (bloated) frog. his tirades excite general detestation. he has made himself immensely ridiculous. the main thing is only that the fellow cannot smuggle any more rotten elements into the newspaper company than are already in it. in this regard the caution is important. the organization here is no better nor worse than formerly. our group has about the strength of the north side group in chicago, and then, besides this, we have also the soc. rev. , the austrian and bohemian leagues--three more groups. finally, it is easily seen that our influence with the trade organizations is steadily growing. we insert our meetings only in the fr., and cannot notice that they are worse attended than at the time when we yet threw the weekly $ . and $ into the mouth of the n. y. v. z. don't forget putting yourself into communication with drury in reference to the english organ. he will surely work with you much and well. such a paper is more necessary than the _tooth_. this, indeed, is getting more miserable and confused from issue to issue, and in general is whistling from the last hole. inclosed is a fly-leaf which recently appeared at emden, and is, perhaps, adopted for reprint. greetings to schwab, rau, and to you. your "johann most. "p.s.--to buchtell i will, of course, write for the present only in general terms. "a. spies, fifth avenue, chicago, ill." mr. gauss then read the following as his translation of the postal card: "dear spies:--i had scarcely mailed my letter yesterday when the telegraph brought news from h. m. one does not know whether to rejoice over that or not. the advance in itself is elevating. sad is the circumstance that it will remain local and therefore may not have the result. at any rate, these people made a better impression than the foolish voters on this and the other side of the ocean. greeting and a hail. your "j. m." w. a. s. graham, a reporter for _the times_, testified that he talked with the witness for the prosecution, harry gilmer, on the afternoon of may , and that gilmer said the man who threw the bomb lit the fuse himself. "he said he saw the man light the fuse and throw the bomb, and that he could identify him again if he saw him. he said the man was of medium size and had a soft hat and whiskers. he said the man's back was turned to him." at this stage the defense rested, and evidence in rebuttal was introduced. justice daniel scully testified that in the preliminary examination of one frank steuner, charged with shooting from the wagon at the haymarket, officers foley and wessler did not testify that it was steuner who fired on the police. "did the officers not say the man who jumped up from behind the wagon was a heavy man, with long whiskers (fielden)?"--"they did." "did not officer foley say he would be able to identify this man if he ever saw him again?"--"he did." john b. ryan, an attorney who defended steuner before justice scully, testified that steuner said at the time that the man who did the shooting was a short, heavy-set man with full whiskers. united states district attorney r. s. tuthill, charles b. dibble, an attorney, judge chester c. cole, of des moines, iowa, e. r. mason, clerk of the united states district court at des moines, george crist, ex-city marshal of des moines, and ex-governor samuel merrill of iowa, all testified to the good character of the witness gilmer. they would believe him under oath. governor merrill had known gilmer since , and had given him employment. as the great trial drew toward its close popular interest in the proceedings increased. the criminal court building was crowded with people daily long before the hour for opening court arrived, and many times the number who gained admission were turned away. on the day of the closing argument by the prosecution, and while the jury were deliberating over their verdict, extra precautions were taken to protect the administrators of the law. a cordon of police and deputy sheriffs surrounded the building, and no one was allowed to enter who could not be properly identified. chapter v. arguments for the prosecution and defense. assistant state's attorney frank walker began the opening argument for the prosecution wednesday, august . the speaker said: "we stand in the temple of justice to exercise the law, where all men stand equal. no matter what may have been the deep turpitude of the crime, no matter what may have been the design, though it aim even at the overthrow of the law itself, no man ought to be convicted of the crime charged until proven guilty beyond all reasonable doubt. these men were presumed innocent at the outset until the proof presented by the state established their guilt. the defendants were charged with murder. murder was defined to be the unlawful killing of a person in the peace of the people. an accessory was he who stands by and aids or abets or advises the deed, or who, not standing by, aids or abets or advises the deed, and such persons are to be considered as principals and punished. whether the principals are punished or not, they are equally as guilty as the principals. when a number of persons conspire together to do a certain act, and when, in furtherance of this design, some one is killed, all those in the conspiracy are guilty of murder before the fact. the defendant's counsel have told you these men conspired to precipitate the social revolution, and though that conspiracy cost matthias j. degan his life, yet you are told these defendants are guilty only of murder. was luther payne or mrs. surratt held guilty when in the execution of a conspiracy president lincoln was killed? neither payne nor surratt committed the deed, yet they were held guilty. there was a conspiracy; it was designed to bring about another revolution. booth killed president lincoln, but all who participated in the conspiracy had to forfeit their lives." [illustration: counsel for the state.] "if a body of men, inflamed with resentment, proceed to pull down a building, or to remove an objectionable obstruction and death to some one ensues, each one of these men is individually responsible for the killing. nobody knew this better than august spies, the author of the 'revenge' circular. suppose that a body of men undertake to pull down a building; there is a common design to demolish that building, and a stone is thrown, not at any individual but at the building, and some one is struck by this stone and killed, all of those engaged in the execution of that common design are responsible for the killing of this one person. when there is an intent grievously to hurt and death is occasioned, then the offense is murder. was this man [pointing to fischer] in this conspiracy for murder? this man with his revolver a foot long and his file dagger with a groove? what is this groove for? it is for prussic acid. was this man in the conspiracy?" mr. walker then read a passage from most's "revolutionary warfare" telling how prussic acid can be applied to grooved daggers, making them the more deadly. "this is the test: was the bomb thrown in furtherance of the common design? if it was it makes no difference whether it was thrown by one of these conspirators here or not. nobody had been advocating the use of dynamite but socialists. was there anybody who would throw a bomb except a socialist? we have proved that lingg made the bomb in furtherance of the common design. 'you have done this, louis lingg,' said huebner, and lingg went away and complained that he was blamed for doing the good work." mr. walker reiterated that every one of the , men said by spies to have participated in the conspiracy were equally guilty of the murder of officer degan. all the members of the lehr und wehr verein were included in this charge. he pointed out the fact that nearly all of the witnesses for the defense are members of anarchist bodies; that their sympathies are with the prisoners, and that it has been abundantly shown by their cross-examination that they would not hesitate to pervert the truth in order to shield their confederates from the consequences of their acts. mr. zeisler for the defense. mr. zeisler, of the counsel for the defense, set to work at once to tear mr. walker's address to pieces. he accused the assistant state's attorney of distorting the facts in the case, and attempting to bring about a conviction by working on the prejudices and suspicions of the jury. mr. walker impugned the motives and the characters of the defenses' witnesses. mr. zeisler continued: "who are their principal witnesses? the policemen who were at the haymarket. and before we get through we will show that these men were not heroes, but knaves, led on by the most cowardly knave who ever held a public position. it has been proved that most of these policemen who went on the stand had been at one time or another members of the detective force, and the supreme court tells us that a detective is a liar!" the speaker went on to attack the other state witnesses. detectives are taken from the criminal classes. harry l. gilmer, he said, is a constitutional liar, and the only witness who has been impeached. some of the reporters, he acknowledges, tell the truth, and on their statements the defense will partially rely to show the innocence of the prisoners. "nobody understands why the police came down to break up the meeting. detectives have sworn here that after mr. parsons suggested that the meeting adjourn to zephf's hall, and the sky clouded up, the crowd dwindled down to two hundred or three hundred men, and then came this army of policemen, armed with clubs and revolvers, headed by this hero, bonfield, the savior of his country, to break up this meeting of peaceable and unarmed citizens. was this courageous, or was it cowardly? it was an assault in the eyes of the law. the counsel for the state have attempted to make you believe that these disciples of herr most took a match and lighted a bomb which most says should have a fuse not longer than two inches. doesn't it seem very probable that they would have lighted with a match this fuse, which would burn out in a few seconds, when they could have carried a lighted cigar to do it with? we have the testimony of a number of witnesses that spies was not out of the wagon till the trouble began; and if mr. grinnell had had more sense in the prosecution of this case; if he had not been blinded by malice and prejudice; if he had not been influenced by the police conspiracy to send these men to the gallows, he would have seen the uselessness of attempting to secure a conviction by such testimony as that of gilmer." mr. ingham for the prosecution. mr. george ingham addressed the jury for the prosecution. he told them that there are verdicts which make history, and that theirs will be a history-making verdict. on the night of may , at o'clock, matthias j. degan marched out of the desplaines street station, full of life, and was soon afterward struck down by the hands of these defendants, not one of whom he had ever injured. the speaker told the jury again what "reasonable doubt" means. he said that the grand jury might have indicted men instead of eight, but they saw fit to pick out the eight whom they deemed the leaders of the conspiracy against law and human life. there had been a good deal of talk, he said, about the constitutional right of free speech. the constitution gave the people the right to meet and petition, but not to advise other people to commit murder. this right was based upon the old english common law, and in england was also found a definition of what constitutes incitement to murder. the case he was going to quote had also had another connection with the present one. it was brought in london in against johann most, who was then publishing his sheet, the _freiheit_, in that city. it was shortly after the assassination of the czar of russia. he there advocated the assassination of all the heads of states, from constantinople to washington, and was convicted of inciting to murder. mr. ingham read the proceedings in the english court, the article upon which he was tried, and lord coleridge's decision. then he said: "it is shown that these defendants--spies, parsons, schwab and fischer--were engaged in the publication of articles in which they advised the destruction of the police by force, in which they advised working men to arm themselves with dynamite and be ready whenever the conflict should come to destroy the police force. for the publication of any one of these articles the defendants could have been convicted of a misdemeanor. and when fielden that night told the people that war had been declared and that they must arm themselves to resist what had never taken place, he was guilty of a misdemeanor, and for that reason, if for no other, the police had a right to disperse the meeting. the treatment that herr most received in london shows you that the only salvation of a community is to enforce the letter of the law without sentiment, that bloodshed may be avoided. herr most was convicted for the publication of that article, and no english policemen have been blown up with dynamite. he came to this country, and the policemen who have been blown up are the american officers right here in this city. if we have not enforced the law it is high time that we enforce it now." mr. ingham then showed that the haymarket meeting was a trap for the police designed for the purpose of leading them into a dark, dangerous place, the speeches being the bait, artfully increased until the police came to the alley and the bomb could be thrown. "now who made the bomb? it is in evidence that louis lingg had been making bombs of a certain construction which spies had said were superior, being of composite metal. it is in evidence that lingg all the morning of may was away from his house; that he upbraided seliger for having made but one bomb. during the afternoon he was busy making bombs, and men came and went and worked at the bombs in his house. there is a story of a man who that day received bombs and dynamite from lingg, showing that he distributed them." mr. ingham read to the jury the chemical analysis of the bombs furnished by drs. haines and delafontaine. what is the answer to all this? that the bomb was not thrown from the alley, but from thirty-eight feet south of the alley. and if they had satisfied you of that, was it not still thrown by one of the anarchists--one of the conspirators? the bomb came from the conspiracy. and the moment it resulted in the death of degan the crime of conspiracy was merged into the crime of murder. "when sumter was fired on, when the flag was insulted, when the attempt was made to destroy the government, it was an attempt merely to change the form of government. when the bomb in this war was thrown it was the opening shot of a war which should destroy all government, destroy all law, leave men free to live as they see fit, and leave nothing to guide but the strong arm. i believe for myself that humanity--not merely our people, not merely we of america, but that humanity the wide world over--has no hope or no safety save the law. law is the very shield that guards the progression of the race; it is the palladium of the liberty and lives of all people. law which does not punish murder breeds death. jurors who from the merciful instincts of their hearts hesitate to convict the guilty, are, in reality, merciless as the grave, for by their verdict they people graves with the innocent victims of midnight assassination and fill the mind with deeds of blood. innocent blood from the days of abel till now cries to heaven for vengeance; innocent blood that contaminates the ground upon which it falls, and from it spring up dragon's teeth. and now if you believe these men guilty, if you are satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt, as you cannot help but be, that these men were a party to a conspiracy unlawful in its nature, and that from that conspiracy a human life was taken, that they are murderers under that law, see to it that the majesty of the law of the state of illinois is vindicated, and its penalties enforced. that is the demand upon you this day and this hour, not only of the people of the state of illinois, but of humanity itself; for humanity, with all its fears, with all its hopes for future years, is hanging breathless on your fate." mr. foster for the defense. mr. foster, who followed for the defense, had not lived long in chicago. he came in march from davenport, iowa, near which city he was born about forty years ago. he is of medium height and square build. his features are refined and intellectual. an abundant growth of rich auburn hair adorns his shapely head. mr. foster obtained considerable fame as a lawyer in his native state, took an active part in politics, and was one of the blaine electors in , and was very active in the campaign of that year. after having made an energetic and finely-eloquent plea to the jury to cast aside all prejudice arising from hatred of the principles of the anarchists, love of and loyalty to the land, inherent patriotism, and the teachings of the popular press, mr. foster proceeded, in order to set himself right, to tear down without apology the theory of the defense set up by messrs. salomon & zeisler. he had no defense to make for socialism--it is dangerous; communism is pernicious, and anarchism is damnable. lingg had manufactured bombs, and he ought to be punished therefor; but he was on trial for throwing, not manufacturing bombs. spies, schwab and fischer had no business to preach social revolution in america. if they were not satisfied with the state of things here they ought to have gone back to germany and tried to reform things there. mr. fielden might have found occupation in teaching his brother englishmen to be just to ireland. parsons he rebuked in an eloquent passage for his lack of patriotism. having thus skillfully set himself right with the jurors, mr. foster proceeded to define the issue of the trial as he understood it, and as he wished the jury to understand it. he admitted the moral responsibility of some of the prisoners for the crime. he denied their legal responsibility. "our law knows no citizenship when a defendant is brought to the bar of justice. our law is grand enough, our law is broad enough, the principles upon which our government is founded are such that it matters not whether he be french, german, irish, italian, or wherever his birthplace may be. all men are equal before the law. they are all citizens of the united states except louis lingg. i believe the testimony shows that he has been in the country two years. i think that spies said he came here in infancy. i know as a matter of fact that neebe, born in the state of pennsylvania, never was a foreigner. schwab has been in this country long enough to be a citizen. whether he is or not is entirely immaterial for the purposes of this case. i know that fielden has been here more than twenty years. i know that fischer has been in chicago for the last ten to twelve years, and engel for fifteen or twenty years. what is the importance of the suggestion that they are foreigners, and germans, except that it is important to wring from you a verdict grounded on prejudice. * * * it was an open secret that the defendants were indicted for murder, conspiracy and riot, but i will only argue the question of conspiracy so far as it relates to the crime of murder. the question of socialism was of no importance unless it was connected with the murder of degan, and the defendants were not being tried for any offense but that of conspiracy which resulted in the murder of degan. the prosecution had been trying to tote the defendants out into the underbrush and assassinate them on immaterial issues; but the defendants' counsel were too smart to be seduced by the song of the siren. suppose spies _et. al._ did conspire to overthrow society and their conspiracy stopped there, then there was nothing to argue. a verdict rendered upon anything else than a conspiracy directly connected with the outrage perpetrated at the haymarket, would fall to the ground and amount to nothing." referring to the popular clamor against the socialists, mr. foster said: "outside of you twelve gentlemen, the judge upon the bench, and counsel on either side, there is not a man in chicago who has a right to say he has an opinion founded upon the facts in this case. if these men are to be tried on general principles for advocating doctrines opposed to our ideas of propriety, there is no use for me to argue the case. let the sheriff go and erect the scaffold; let him bring eight ropes with dangling nooses at the ends; let him pass them around the necks of these eight men; and let us stop this farce now, if the verdict and conviction is to be upon prejudice and general principles. we boast of our courts of justice, of our equitable law, but if the time has come, when men are to be prejudged before the trial and convicted upon general principles, all that is grand, sacred, noble and praiseworthy in our temples of justice will be destroyed. considering the experience of us all in relation to this haymarket tragedy, considering the facts that we know to be true, do you blame me for saying i am afraid of your passions? i am afraid of your prejudices." holding up the czar bomb, mr. foster exclaimed in a loud voice: "hang spies, and neebe, and schwab, and parsons, and fielden, and fischer, and lingg, and engel!" taking up a tin dynamite can he continued: "among other things, three tin cans were found under a sidewalk in the city. strangle them to death, in part because these three cans were found! when were they in possession of any of the defendants? never, so far as the testimony is concerned. when were they prepared and filled at the house of any of the defendants, or any of their associates? never, so far as the testimony is concerned. and yet they are not only introduced in evidence, their contents examined and sworn to, but you are expected to smell them; you are asked to examine them at the risk of a headache, and they want your noses near to their tops. why? because they were found in the city of chicago. and that is part of the testimony upon which the lives of these eight men are to be destroyed. but it is all in a lifetime; it is all part of the grand combination; it is all in the great conspiracy, because counsel tell us it is. such evidence was never introduced in any court of justice in the civilized world without objection. it was said herr most described such things in his book on 'revolutionary warfare.' there is not a word of testimony that any of the defendants ever read that book. but that does not make any difference. they are socialists--hang them. that does not make any difference. they are communists--hang them; they are anarchists--hang them. i always supposed that the lowest creature that possessed life was entitled to some consideration. i supposed there was not a thing in existence so low, so poor or loathsome, but had some rights, and i do not believe it now, except it be a socialist, communist or anarchist. that puts them beyond the pale of civilization; it puts them beyond the protection of the law; it convicts them of itself." [illustration: w. p. black and wife.] captain w. p. black for the defense. on tuesday, august , the fiftieth day of the trial, captain w. p. black, the leading counsel for the defense, made his plea. he said: "may it please the court, and gentlemen of the jury: on the morning of may , , the good people of chicago were startled at the event which happened at the haymarket. fear is the mother of cruelty, and perhaps that will account in some measure for the bitterness with which the state has prosecuted this case. the serious question which confronts us, however, is to what extent, you, gentlemen, in your deliberations, may be influenced by passion or by prejudice. on the night of may a dynamite bomb was thrown at the haymarket in this city and exploded. it caused widespread havoc and loss of human life. but the moral responsibility for dynamite does not rest upon the socialists. this explosive was given to the world by science. we might well stand appalled at the dread results this terrible agent is capable of producing. when a man is charged, or sought to be charged, with a crime, as in this case, the people must show who threw the bomb--who did the deed--and must show that these defendants were connected directly with the guilty man." the speaker said that counsel for the state were wrong when one of them advised the jury that upon them it depended to maintain the law and government, because these defendants plotted against the state. they were revolutionists, it was said, but that was not true. there can be no revolution, though, except when the heart of the people rise to redress some great wrong. "as to the witnesses for the state, the testimony of two of them, gilmer and thompson, who swore to having seen schnaubelt throw the bomb, was impeached. gilmer's story was utterly improbable in itself; the rational mind rejected it. is it credible? mr. ingham has said spies was the brainiest man among the anarchists, and the greatest coward. the witness gilmer testified that he saw spies get down from the wagon and go into the alley with schnaubelt; saw him strike the light, fire the bomb, and give it to schnaubelt, who hurled it among the police. is that credible? remember, spies, a man of brains, of more than average brains; would he light the match that fired that bomb, and the police almost upon him? is that credible? it was also said spies was a great coward. then, if that were true, would he run the risk of lighting the bomb? the counter-proof was abundant. a half a dozen reputable citizens standing in the mouth of the alley had testified that they did not see spies leave the wagon, and that he did not enter the alley before the bomb exploded. this was negative testimony, it was true, but considering the narrow space and how unlikely it was that spies, whom they all knew, could enter the alley without being seen by the witnesses, it was conclusive. again, two or three witnesses testified that schnaubelt went home early in the evening, disappointed because there was no german speaking, and was not at the haymarket when the explosion took place." the circumstantial evidence presented by the state, and by which it was sought to enmesh the defendants, was next considered. the case of the state was substantially this. the meeting at the haymarket may was an incident in the carrying out of an organized scheme. august spies was there to precipitate a conflict with the police. he put parsons on the stand, who made a long harangue, but the police did not appear. then fielden was put up to speak. the police came, and the act was accomplished. but who called this meeting? not spies, not neebe, not parsons, not schwab, nor engel, nor lingg, nor fischer, as an individual act. it was the result of another meeting, held the night before at west lake street, and about which spies knew nothing. "again, the state wished it to be understood that spies, in order to get the men ripe for revolt, went out to mccormick's may , and forced himself on a meeting there. then, having worked up his auditors to a pitch of excitement and inflamed them to attack the non-union men, he came down town and wrote the 'revenge' circular, calling for the haymarket meeting. but did he encourage the men at mccormick's to violence? the testimony, and it was not controverted, proved that he counseled peace; that he told the men to stand firm and to trust to concerted action for the attainment of their ends. the further circumstance proving that no violence was contemplated that night consisted in this, that when the black cloud came up and rain was threatened, an adjournment was proposed. fielden had the stand at that time, but he, simple soul, begged a few minutes' delay, saying he had but little more to say, and then in all simplicity went on to say it. all this was in the line going to prove that spies had no connection with the alleged conspiracy. the circular calling for the tuesday night meeting referred to a specific object. do not the circumstances," continued captain black, "prove that august spies was not aware of the meeting held may ? do they not prove that he could have no share in the design of that meeting, of which the one at haymarket, with its result, was an incident in the general conspiracy? as to the haymarket meeting, was it not a lawful assemblage? who first broke the laws? that meeting was called by a circular. it was called to denounce a grievance. perhaps there was no real grievance, but if the projectors of the meeting thought there was they had the right to assemble. the constitution given us by our forefathers who made the name of revolutionists glorious, gave us that right. that right was incorporated in the fundamental laws of the nation. one clause in the constitution allows the people to assemble together in a peaceable manner to discuss their grievances, another provides that the people have the right to assemble together in a peaceable manner to discuss measures for their common good, and to instruct their representatives. i am not here to defend socialism, nor do i contend that anarchy has in it the elements of true reform, but i am here to defend these men. they are socialists. that system centuries ago had the sanction of st. augustine. john stuart mill is one of a great host of philosophers who have subscribed in fealty to socialism. "these defendants have the right to discuss the great wrongs of the working people. they have the right to try their remedy. they say that private property is robbery. that may be false. there is not a catholic organization that is not founded on the idea of common co-operation. it was plato's dream that the means of existence should be the common property of all. the anarchist or socialist was said to believe that every law of man was a bone of contention, intended for the benefit of one class only. the fact that these defendants are anarchists is not a fact which would justify the jury in taking their lives. these men are not the lazy fellows pictured by the state." [illustration: julius s. grinnell.] state's attorney julius s. grinnell for the prosecution. state's attorney grinnell closed for the state, and he began his remarks by criticising counsel for the defense for making heroes of the prisoners. the anarchists were compared to the fathers of our country; they were pictured as martyrs, as men who sacrificed themselves for the welfare of human kind. if that be so, songs of praise should be sung, and the anarchists ought to be garlanded with flowers. captain black had said that society was discriminating against the poor; that the struggle for existence was daily becoming harder. that was not true, for civil liberty was never before as widespread as it is at present. mr. grinnell said the case had received his entire attention since may . government was on trial. murder had been committed. it was sought to know who was responsible. for a few days after the haymarket riot it was not thought it was more far-reaching than the results of the inflammatory speech-making. it was not until after the magnificent efforts of captain schaack that a conspiracy was developed. then schnaubelt was discovered. it was not until after spies was arrested that it became apparent that a man was capable of the hellish act in which he was concerned. a mistake had been made. it was said the state would show who the bomb thrower was. this had not been done, owing to the inability of certain witnesses to make good on the stand the statements they had before made to the officers. these men were not socialists, but anarchists, and their creed is no government, no law. until placed on the stand these men never hedged on that definition. it was sought to be shown that the defendants were barking dogs that would not bite. these men were on trial, law was on trial, anarchy was on trial for treason. the penalty of treason is death. a man can commit an overt act of treason, and not kill anybody. is it any the less treason because seven men are killed and sixty wounded? there is no statute of limitation for threats, when repeated threats resulted in the commission of the deed. for years past, on the lake front and at the different so-called socialistic halls in the city, these men had preached the use of dynamite, poison and daggers as a means of effecting the social revolution. the thing should have been stopped long ago. but that was foreign to the case. the men were here now on trial for murder. their threats had been carried out. it did not matter whether any police officers had overstepped their duty; the jury had nothing at all to do with that. the accused were on trial for murder. on the lake front the anarchists were wont to assemble under the red flag, which they described as the emblem of universal liberty. but there was but one flag of liberty--that was the stars and stripes; and it would always remain such if the gentlemen of the jury had the courage to uphold the law. threats had been mouthed, dire vaporings were spread from one group to another to fill the people with terror, so that the social revolution might the more easily be accomplished. mr. grinnell holds that spies wrote the "revenge" circular premeditatedly. he reads it to the jury commenting on various passages contained therein, and makes it plain to the jury that spies had an ulterior and sinister purpose in view when he penned the famous dodger. there were only two officers at mccormick's when the mob spies was addressing broke loose and attacked the non-union men. the police were called, but why? to protect the mccormick property and the two officers from the fury of the mob as well as to save the non-union men from being killed. it was this sight--the coming of additional police--that made the blood of the valorous spies boil. knowing that no fatalities had taken place, or not knowing that any had occurred, spies posted down town, and the "revenge" circular was written by him and in the hands of the printer before o'clock that same afternoon. balthazar rau's name was mentioned every day, time and time again by the defense, but he was not called as a witness. they were afraid to put him on the stand. it was rau who invited spies to address the haymarket meeting, and he was present when spies made his speech. that was a kind of marc antony address, and to be understood one must read it between the lines. it was artfully calculated to inflame. it was a significant opening. the working men were told to come armed. waller did come armed. the police should have broken up the meeting in its incipiency. if bonfield had not gone down there at the time he did the riot would have been general. the reason more bombs were not thrown was that the other fellows in the conspiracy had not time to reach the scene. the man who threw the bomb obtained it from lingg or spies, and hurled it according to directions received from one or other of these men. did fielden shoot that night? for years past he has called the police bloodhounds; he said he would march down michigan avenue with the red flag or the black flag, and preached "death to the capitalists and the police, our despoilers." this must be understood above all things; that the bomb was thrown in furtherance of the common design, no matter who threw it. gilmer said spies handed the bomb to schnaubelt. is that improbable? for years he preached the throwing of bombs. an article over his own signature is in evidence, and in this he gives directions as to the manner in which bombs should be ignited and hurled at the enemy. who was schnaubelt? schwab's brother-in-law. he is the man who was arrested before the conspiracy was known and let go, then shaved off his whiskers, and has not been seen since. a peculiar circumstance, and the most significant of the case, was that when spies was arrested he left the traces of his crime in his office. bonfield arrested him. spies said he went over to the central station unsuspectingly. had he known what was going to have happened he would have destroyed the "ruhe" manuscript. it was the little mistakes that brought the criminal to justice, and there never was a criminal, big or little, that did not leave traces of his crime behind him. mr. grinnell concluded by saying his labor was over; the jury's was just begun. they had the power to exact the lives of some of the prisoners, to others they might give a term of years in the penitentiary, and some again they might acquit. he would not ask the jury to take the life of oscar neebe. he would not ask the jury to do what he would not do himself. the proof was not sufficient to convict neebe, but some of them, spies, fischer, lingg, engel, fielden, parsons and schwab, ought to have the extreme penalty administered to them. [illustration: jos. e. gary.] "personally," said mr. grinnell, "i have not a word to say against these men. but the law demands that they be punished. they have violated the law, and you, gentlemen of the jury, stand between the living and the dead. do your duty. do not disagree. if you think that some of them do not deserve the death penalty give them a life sentence, but do not disagree. gentlemen, this is no pleasant task for me, but it is my duty; do yours." chapter vi. the instructions of the court. in his instructions to the jury judge gary said: "the court instructs the jury that whoever is guilty of murder shall suffer the punishment of death, or imprisonment in the penitentiary for his natural life, or for a term of not less than fourteen years. if the accused are found guilty by a jury they shall fix the punishment by their verdict. "the court instructs the jury as a matter of law that, in considering the case, the jury are not to go beyond the evidence to hunt up doubts, nor must they entertain such doubts as are merely chimerical or conjectural. a doubt to justify an acquittal must be reasonable, and must arise from a candid and impartial investigation of all the evidence in the case, and unless it is such that, were the same kind of doubt interposed in the graver transactions of life, it would cause a reasonable and prudent man to hesitate and pause, it is sufficient to authorize a verdict of not guilty. if, after considering all the evidence, you can say you have an abiding conviction of the truth of the charge, you are satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt. "if it does so prove, then your duty to the state requires you to convict whosoever is found guilty. the case of each of the defendants should be considered with the same care and scrutiny as if he alone were on trial. if a conspiracy having violence and murder as its object is fully proved, then the acts and declarations of each one of the conspirators, before or after may , which are merely narrative as to what had been or would be done, and not made to aid in carrying into effect the object of the conspiracy, are only evidence against the person who made them. what are the facts and what is the truth the jury must determine from the evidence, and from that alone. if there are any unguarded expressions in any of the instructions which seem to assume the existence of any facts, or to be any intimation as to what is proved, all such expressions must be discouraged and the evidence only looked to, to determine the facts. "the court instructs the jury as a matter of law that an accessory is he who stands by and aids, abets, or assists, or who, not being present, aiding, abetting, or assisting, has advised, encouraged, aided or abetted the perpetration of that crime. he who thus aids, abets, assists, advises or encourages shall be considered as a principal and punished accordingly. every such accessory when a crime is committed within or without this state by his aid or procurement in this state, may be indicted and convicted at the same time as the principal, or before or after his conviction, and whether the principal is convicted or amenable to justice or not, and punished as principal. "if the defendants attempted to overthrow the law by force and threw the bomb, then the defendants who were in the conspiracy were guilty of murder. if there was an anarchistic conspiracy, and the defendants were parties to it, they are guilty of murder, though the date of the culmination of the conspiracy was not fixed. if any of the defendants conspired to excite by advice people to riot and murder, such defendants are guilty if such murder was done in pursuance of said conspiracy; the impracticalness of the aim of the defendants is immaterial. "circumstantial evidence is competent to prove guilt, and if defendants conspired to overthrow the law and degan was killed in consequence, the parties are guilty, and it is not necessary that any of the defendants were present at the killing. "all parties to the conspiracy are equally guilty. circumstantial evidence must satisfy the jury beyond reasonable doubt. in such case the jury may find defendants guilty. when defendants testified in the case they stood on the same ground as other witnesses." the verdict. the jury retired at : o'clock thursday, august . the first intimation that an agreement had been reached was when word was sent to the revere house to prepare supper for the jury, it having been understood that unless a decision as to the fate of the prisoners was reached before o'clock, supper would not be served at that time. friday morning the excitement of the crowd in front of the criminal court building was something intense while the verdict was being awaited. there was none of the joking and laughing that is heard on the only other occasion that brings a mob to stand without those dreary walls--the execution of a convicted criminal. such conversations as were held were in a low tone, and related solely to the one topic--the probable conviction of the eight prisoners who were waiting for the hour which was to mean life or death to them. both sides of the street were lined with people who awaited anxiously for some tidings from the court within. an army of bailiffs and policemen guarded the big doors, and the surging masses were only kept back by sheer force. the limited number who obtained admission to courtroom were the reporters and the immediate friends and relatives of the defendants. the gaily-dressed women who had attended the trial since the start were not there. the court officials decided that the relatives of the prisoners should be allowed in the courtroom, and at : o'clock the sister of spies, with another young woman, made her appearance. shortly afterward the mother of spies, accompanied by a younger son, also entered the courtroom and took a seat on the back benches. at : mrs. parsons entered the courtroom, accompanied by a woman who attended her throughout the trial. she was given a seat between two policemen. the row of seats farthest removed from the judge were occupied by a force of police officers. next below, seated in the order named, were henry spies; mrs. spies, the prisoner's mother; miss spies; chris spies, and a young lady friend. next below was mrs. martin. the ladies looked anxious. mrs. and miss spies and mrs. parsons looked worn out, though the latter tried to appear unconcerned, and occupied her time in reading newspapers. it was : o'clock when the judge came in. he looked nervous and excited. he was barely seated when captain black entered. the captain took a seat near his wife. he had just paid a visit to his clients. "are they prepared for the worst?" asked mrs. black, anxiously. "prepared!" repeated the captain. "yes; fully prepared to laugh at death. they talk about the matter much more coolly than i can." a moment or two later the prisoners were brought in. they were not given their usual seats, but placed in a row on a bench against the wall at the judge's left, in the narrow aisle leading to the passage way to the jail. they sat in the same old order. spies was at the head, next to the judge. all looked haggard and excited. even the usually stoical face of lingg wore an expression of anxiety. fischer was deathly pale and trembled visibly. these pale and trembling wretches were the braggarts who a few short weeks before were boldly proclaiming the doctrines of socialism and anarchy on the lake front, in zephf's hall and the beer saloons of the north and west sides. they were the men who were advocating force and the use of dynamite, and the total annihilation of law and order, the theft of property, and murder of citizens. their vapid mouthings were thrust upon assemblages of decent working men, their policy was communism, their banner was the banner of blood, and their teachings were death and destruction. bold and fearless as lions they appeared when indulging in flights of incendiary oratory. like dumb, obedient beasts they bowed in submission before the most powerful scourge the law can wield--the death verdict. the jurymen filed in and took their seats in the jury box. they looked determined and resolute. there was a death-like silence in the court. in a low voice the judge asked: "gentlemen, have you agreed?" f. e. osborne, the foreman, rose and replied: "we have, your honor." taking out two sheets of foolscap from his side coat-pocket, he handed them to clerk doyle, who glanced at them and handed them to the judge, who slipped them apart, trembling so that the leaves shook violently. a whispered consultation between the judge and the clerk followed, and the document was returned to mr. doyle, who read: "we, the jury, find the defendants, august spies, michael schwab, samuel fielden, albert r. parsons, adolph fischer, george engel and louis lingg, guilty of murder, as charged in the indictment, and fix the penalty at death. "we find the defendant, oscar neebe, guilty of murder in manner and form as charged in the indictment, and fix the penalty at imprisonment in the penitentiary for a term of fifteen years." not a sound came from the spectators. for a moment the courtroom was silent as the tomb. the prisoners were struck with horror. spies' face blanched white as the paper on which his death sentence was written. his lips quivered, and he mechanically tapped the floor with his foot and nervously stroked his moustache. neebe was completely stunned. the blood rushed to his face, and the perspiration stood out on his forehead in great drops. schwab's yellow face seemed to look into vacancy, and he had a wandering, stupid stare. parsons was visibly affected, but he kept himself up better than the rest, and maintained a certain air of nonchalance. he made an effort to flaunt a red handkerchief out of the window at the crowd on the outside, but was promptly checked by a bailiff. fielden fairly quaked. he shook like an aspen leaf, and in every way showed his great fear. fischer was ghastly. when the verdict was first being read he held a half-consumed cigar in his mouth, but when the death penalty was reached the weed fell from his lips to the floor. lingg appeared sullen and stoical, but when the sentence was read his face flushed, and he was seen to tremble. engel betrayed no emotion. when the verdict became known to the thousands assembled outside a great cheer rent the air. captain black asked that the jury be polled. the jurymen answered with firm voices. captain black said he would desire to make a motion for a new trial. state's attorney grinnell said it would be impossible to dispose of the motion during the present term, but by agreement, the motion could be argued at the september term. this was agreed to by the defense. the court.--"let the motion be entered and continued until the next term, and let the defendants be taken back to jail." judge gary then arose and addressed the jury as follows: "gentlemen of the jury:--you have finished this long and very arduous trial, which has required a very considerable sacrifice of time, and some hardship. i hope that everything has been done that could possibly be done to make those sacrifices and hardships as mild as might be permitted. it does not become me to say anything in regard to the case that you have tried, or the verdict you have rendered; but men compulsorily serving as jurors, as you have done, deserve some recognition of the service you have performed besides the meager compensation you have received." the foreman of the jury said: "the jury have deputed to me the only agreeable duty, that it is in our province to perform, and that is to thank the court and the counsel for the defense and for the prosecution, for your kindly care to make us as comfortable as possible during our confinement. we thank you." the jury then filed out, and scarcely had they left the room when a shrill voice was heard, and mrs. schwab fell heavily to the floor. she was taken out into the fresh air by policemen, and soon revived. mrs. spies followed up this scene by going into hysterics, and also had to be assisted from the room. the other women kept their nerves, and after the first shock maintained composure. in the meantime the crowd had closed in on the prisoners, and were examining them from head to foot. the bailiffs, however, promptly put a stop to this, and led the condemned men away to their cells. the jurors. the twelve good men and true, who sat in judgment for so many long and weary days, are all americans by birth. frank s. osborne, foreman of the jury, is a widower of thirty-nine, and the father of three sons. he is head salesman of the carpet department of marshall field's retail store, and came here from columbus, ohio. he is an episcopalian. major james h. cole, of lawndale, the first juror accepted by both sides, was born at utica, n. y., forty-three years ago, and served throughout the rebellion in the forty-first ohio infantry. he came to chicago from chattanooga, tennessee, six years ago, and though a bookkeeper by profession, is at present out of employment. j. h. brayton, principal of webster school, lives at engelwood with his family, although a native of lyons, n. y. he had arranged a hunting and fishing excursion for the summer, which was ruined. a. h. reed is of the firm of reed & sons, of reed's temple of music, state street. he was born in boston forty-nine years ago, but has been in the music business here for twenty-three years, living with his wife at groveland park. mr. reed is a freethinker, but not an atheist. [illustration: the jury.] andrew hamilton, dealer in hardware, has lived in chicago twenty years of the forty-one he has been on earth, and now lives with his wife at forty-first street. c. b. todd, forty-seven years old, was born in elmira, n. y., lived in minnesota for sixteen years after the war, but is now a salesman in the putnam clothing house. he served in the sixth new york heavy artillery. mr. todd lives at west polk street. h. t. sanford is but twenty-four years old, and is a son of the late lawyer sanford, compiler of the superior court reports of new york. for fifteen months past he has been voucher clerk for the chicago & northwestern, but before coming to chicago he was a petroleum broker at new york. he and his wife live at oak park. s. c. randall, the youngest man on the jury, was born in erie county, pennsylvania, in , and in the three years he has been in chicago he has been a hotel waiter, a milk peddler, and is now a salesman for j. c. vaughan & co., seedsmen, la salle street. theodore denker, shipping clerk for h. h. king co., is twenty-seven years old, and lives at woodlawn park. he has lived in chicago twenty-five years, and is not married. charles a. ludwig is also twenty-seven years old, single, and is a clerk in the wood mantel shop of charles l. page & co. john b. greiner is a clerk in the freight department of the chicago & northwestern road, and lives at humboldt park. he is twenty-five years old, and single. g. w. adams, twenty-seven years old, travels in michigan, selling paint for a clinton street firm. he is a painter by trade, and lives with his brother at evanston. the following is the official police department report of casualties at the haymarket: chapter vii. the conspiracy and massacre. names and number of killed and wounded. unearthing the plot. officers at work and crowned with success. report of grand jury. ====================+================+==================================== name of officer. | station. | nature of wounds and circumstances. --------------------+----------------+------------------------------------ august c. killer | third precinct.| shell wound in right side, and ball | | wound in left side. wife and five | | children. thomas mchenry | " " | shell wound in left knee and three | | shell wounds in left hip. single; | | has sister and blind mother to | | support. john e. doyle. | " " | bullet wound in back and calves of | | both legs; serious. wife and one | | child. john a. king | " " | jaw bone fractured by shell, and | | two bullet wounds in right leg | | below the knee; serious. single. nicholas shannon | " " | thirteen shell wounds on right side | | and five shell wounds on left | | side, also right foot and back; | | serious. wife and three children. michael sheahan | " " | died may . single. james conway | " " | bullet wound in right leg. single. patrick hartford | " " | shell wound right ankle, two toes | | on left foot amputated, bullet | | wound in left side. wife and four | | children. patrick nash | " " | bruise on left shoulder by club. | | single. arthur conolly | " " | two shell wounds in left leg, bones | | slightly fractured. wife. louis johnson | " " | shell wound in left leg. wife and | | four children. m. m. cardin | " " | bullet wound in calf of both legs. | | wife and two children. adam barber | " " | shell wound left leg, bullet wound | | in right heel, bullet not | | extracted. wife and one child. henry f. smith | " " | bullet wound on right shoulder; | | quite serious. wife and two | | children in california. frank tyrell | " " | bullet in right hip near the spine; | | bullet not removed. single. james a. brady | " " | shell wound in left leg, slight; | | injury to toes left foot and | | shell wounds in left thigh. wife | | and two children; wife very sick | | at county hospital. john ried | " " | shell wound in left leg; bullet | | wound in right knee, not removed. | | single. george muller | " " | died may , at county hospital. | | single. patrick mclaughlin | " " | bruise on right side, leg and hip; | | slight. wife and three children. frank murphy | " " | trampled on, three ribs broken. | | wife and two children. lawrence murphy | " " | shell wounds left side of neck and | | left knee; part of left foot | | amputated. wife and three | | children. ====================+================+==================================== ====================+================+==================================== name of officer. | station. | nature of wounds and circumstances. --------------------+----------------+------------------------------------ john j. barrett | third precinct.| died may , at county hospital; | | shot in liver. wife. michael madden | " " | shot in left lung, will recover; | | killed his assailant after he was | | shot. single. lieutenant stanton | " " | shell wound in right side, bullet | | wound in right hip, wounds inside | | both hips, bullet wound in calf | | of leg. wife, seven children. matthias j. degan | " " | instantly killed. widower; father, | | mother and three sons. thomas brophy | " " | slight injury in left leg; reported | | for duty. wife. bernard murphy | " " | bullet wound in left thigh shell | | wound in right side of head and | | on chin; not dangerous. wife. charles h. fink | " " | three shell wounds in left leg and | | two wounds on right leg, and | | slightly in thigh; not dangerous. | | wife. joseph norman | " " | bullet passed through right foot, | | slight injury to fingers on left | | hand. wife and two children. peter butterly | " " | bullet wound in right arm, shell | | wound in both legs, near knees. | | wife and one child. alexander jameson | " " | bullet wound in left leg; serious. | | wife and seven children. michael horan | " " | bullet wound in left thigh, not | | removed, slight shell wound on | | left arm. single. thomas hennessey | " " | shell wound on left thigh; slight. | | has crippled brother and two | | sisters to support. william burns | " " | slight shell wound on left ankle. | | single. thomas redden | " " | died may , at county hospital. | | fracture of left leg below knee, | | bullet wound in left cheek, | | bullet wound in right arm. wife | | and two children. james plunkett | " " | struck with club and trampled upon: | | on duty. wife. charles w. whitney | " " | shell wound in left breast, shell | | not removed. single. jacob hansen | " " | right leg amputated above the knee. | | three shell wounds on left leg. | | wife and one child. timothy sullivan | " " | bullet wound just above left knee. | | has four children (widower). martin cullen | " " | right collar bone fractured, and | | slight injury to left knee; not | | serious. wife and five children. simon klidzio | " " | shot in calf of left leg; serious. | | wife and three children. julius l. simonson | " " | shot in arm, near shoulder; very | | serious. wife and two children. john k. mcmahon | " " | shell wound on calf of left leg; | | shell not found; ball wound left | | leg, near knee; very serious. | | wife and two children. simon mcmahon | " " | shot in right arm and two wounds on | | right leg. wife, five children. edward w. ruel | " " | shot in right ankle, bullet not | | removed; serious. single. ====================+================+==================================== ====================+================+==================================== name of officer. | station. | nature of wounds and circumstances. --------------------+----------------+------------------------------------ alexander halverson | third precinct.| shot in both legs, ball not | | extracted. single. carl e. johnson | " " | shot in left elbow. wife and two | | children. peter mccormick | " " | slight shot wound in left arm. | | wife. christopher gaynor | " " | slight bruise on left knee. wife. timothy flavin | fourth " | died from wounds, may . wife and | | three children. nils hansen | " " | died june , at county hospital. | | shot in body, arms and legs, | | fingers paralyzed. wife and six | | children. s. j. weineke | " " | shot in left side of head, ball not | | found; serious. wife and two | | children. patrick mcnulty | " " | shot in right leg and both hips; | | dangerous. wife and three | | children. samuel hilgo | " " | shot in right leg; not serious. | | single. herman krueger | " " | shot in right knee. wife and two | | children. joseph a. gilso | " " | slightly injured in leg and back. | | wife and six children. edward barrett | " " | shot in right leg; quite serious. | | wife and six children. fruman steele | " " | slightly wounded in back; not | | serious. single. james t. johnson | " " | right knee sprained; not serious. | | wife and three children. benjamin f. snell | " " | shot in right leg; at hospital. | | single. james h. willson | central detail.| seriously injured in abdomen by | | shell, and in left hand; very | | serious. wife and five children. daniel hogan | " " | shot in calf of right leg and in | | left hand. wife and daughter. m. o'brien | " " | shell wound in left thigh. wife and | | two children. frederick a. andrew | " " | wounded in leg; not serious. | | married. jacob ebinger | " " | shell wound on back of left hand. | | wife and three children. john j. kelly | " " | slight wound by shell, left hand. | | wife and three children. patrick flavin | " " | finger hurt by shell. married. --------------------+----------------+------------------------------------ total number of wounded officers, . deaths, . "behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth!" the explosion at the haymarket made widows, orphans, and left children dependent upon public charity, pending the recovery of their wounded, or perhaps permanently maimed and crippled fathers. the business men of the city and railroad corporations promptly gave over $ , for the relief of the families of the officers who were killed and wounded. the conspiracy. the search for, and the capture of the prime-actors in the haymarket tragedy was at once commenced in earnest. the well organized and efficient force of brave men, under command of cool headed and well skilled officers, was sure to succeed. captain f. schaack, with six detectives, kept the entire northwest group under the surveillance of their argus eyes. thielen turned informer and communicated important information which fitted exactly to supply a perfect chain of evidence. the _ypsilon_ and _ruhe_ signals were significant evidence toward proving conspiracy along with the other daily developments in the case. several officers and detectives were detailed to make a search of several houses on sedgwick street, among which, one seliger's, at no. . as the officers were nearing the house, louis lingg and one, oppenheimer, were watching them with much interest and discussing the practicability of making a rush for their arms and kill the officers rather than have the arsenal of the anarchist, with its appliances for the manufacture of infernal machines for the consummation of conspiracy and treason, fall into the hands of the officers of the law. but the ever vigilant officers secured possession of the house and removed all suspicious articles to the station. lingg went immediately into hiding, but was on the of may arrested in a little cottage on ambrose street. seliger was arrested in meyer's carpenter shop, and thielen coming to see what seliger was arrested for was also taken into custody. lingg became reckless and defiant. many of the conspirators were run to earth by those six men and arrested. assistant state's attorney furthman interviewed the prisoners in their native tongue and made a record of their statements. rudolph schnaubelt, who it is now believed was the man who threw the dynamite bomb with such deadly effect, was once arrested, but on temporary release decamped at once, which suspicious action led to a further investigation. but two weeks having elapsed since his release, he made good his escape from the country no doubt. about forty socialists were arrested and discharged again. neebe was once discharged and re-arrested as the case developed. gilmer's evidence some days after the riot tended very much to strengthen the belief that schnaubelt was the party who threw the bomb, and that it was thrown under the immediate supervision and by the direction of august spies, which is in keeping with his public speech and the secret teachings by which he was endeavoring to establish, that system of revolutionary warfare supplemented by the organization known as the _lehr und wehr verein_, which is synonymous with armed protection, or teaching secretly the use of weapons for the purpose of defense. the grand jury. the following is an abstract of their report: to the hon. judge john g. rogers: in presenting the bills of indictments which we have the honor herewith to submit, in what are known as the "anarchist cases," we deem it proper to accompany the same with a few words of explanation. we have endeavored in our deliberations and in our findings to be guided strictly by the instructions delivered to us by the court in regard to the liability of a citizen under the law for the abuse of the privilege of free speech. we have in this connection, upon the evidence adduced, found true bills only against such persons as had, in their abuse of this right, been more or less instrumental in causing the riot and bloodshed at haymarket square, the particulars of which we were called upon to investigate. we have in some cases refused to find bills for the reason that persons against whom evidence was presented seemed to be the weak and ignorant tools of designing men, and that it was our belief should they continue their evil associations and practices after this calamity shall have shown them to what it leads, that some future grand jury would give their cases proper attention. so far as we are informed this is the first appearance of dynamite as a factor in the criminal annals of this state, and this is also the first organized conspiracy for the destruction of human life, and the overthrow of law in any part of this country that has employed this new and dangerous agency. it is not surprising that the fatal and appalling success which has attended this, its first introduction, should have inspired terror in this community. we find that the attack on the police on may was the result of a deliberate conspiracy, the full details of which are now in the possession of the officers of the law, and will be brought out when the cases shall be reached in court. we find that this force of disorganizers had a very perfect force of organizers of its own, and that it was chiefly under the control of the coterie of men who were connected with the publication of their english and german newspaper organs, the _alarm_ and _arbeiter zeitung_. the evidence has shown conclusively to us that these men were manipulating this agitation from base and selfish motives, for the power and influence which it gave them, and for the money which they could make out of it; that the large majority of their followers were simply their dupes, and they have collected in this way large sums of money from those followers, and from the working men of this city. that their plan was to involve, so far as they could, not only the socialist and communist organizations, with whom they claim some kindred, but also the labor societies and trades unions, to the end that in the midst of the excitement they were creating they could not only rely upon them as a source of revenue, but also have them to fall back upon in the event of their finally being made amenable to the law. witnesses have come before us under protest and with fear and trembling lest their appearance before this jury should draw down upon them or upon their families the secret vengeance of this unknown enemy. branches of industry in the city have remained paralyzed after all causes of disagreement between the employer and the employed had been adjusted, by the same fear inspired among the workmen, coupled with the feeling that the law as administered was impotent to afford protection to a man ready and willing to work for the support of his family. so exaggerated has been the popular notion as to the magnitude of this force that politicians have cringed before it, and political parties have catered to its vote. processions have been tolerated upon our public streets carrying banners and inscriptions which were a shame and a disgrace to our city, and an affront to every law-abiding citizen. public harangues have been permitted that were an open menace to law and order, and which in logical sequence have reached their culmination in the bloody outrage known as the haymarket massacre. we believe that a proper enforcement of the law, as expounded by your honor in the charge made to this grand jury at the beginning of its session, would restore confidence, correct existing evils, preserve the peace, and protect this community from the recurrence of a like disorder. in conclusion, we desire, as citizens and as members of this grand jury, in this public way to express our most grateful acknowledgments of the debt owing to the officers and men of the police force of chicago. by their heroic bravery and their conscientiousness and devotion to duty we believe that they have saved this city from a scene of bloodshed and devastation equal to, or perhaps greater than that witnessed during the commune in paris. we wish further, from the evidence that has been placed before us, to express our fullest confidence that the same force that has protected us by its bravery in the face of the enemy, aided by the skill and legal ability of our prosecuting attorney and his assistants, is quite competent to hunt these public enemies down, and to bring them before our courts of law with sufficient evidence of guilt to insure what they so richly deserve. wednesday, may , there appeared before the grand jury as a witness one krendl, who is in the service of the city water department. this witness, it was said, testified that he saw a machinist, whose name was withheld, talking with spies and schwab at the haymarket the evening of the tragedy. the witness watched the trio closely and saw them go toward halsted street and then return to the wagon so frequently referred to in connection with the massacre. upon their return the witness noticed that the machinist had something in his right coat-pocket which filled it up as an apple or base-ball might. his attention was directed to this fact because of the persistent manner in which the machinist kept guard over the mouth of the pocket with his hand. m. m. thompson followed the above witness, and described a certain person who was with schwab and spies during the early part of the evening, and this, in connection with krendl's testimony, was considered important by the jury. it was stated at the time that krendl was able to give the machinist's name, from having once been a socialist. it was afterward discovered that schnaubelt was the machinist referred to. fred. p. rosbeck, a manufacturer of light machinery at no. east washington street, stated that schnaubelt had been in his employ about five weeks previous to the haymarket riot. he was a good workman, but a pronounced socialist and anarchist, and his rabid utterances had many others in the shop to incline to his views. schnaubelt had a companion, august lambrecht by name, who came to work for rosbeck about the same time he did. they were very intimate, going and coming together, and carrying on a close relationship. tuesday, may , schnaubelt asked his employer for the day, saying he had some important business to attend to. he was granted a leave of absence, but returned to work promptly wednesday morning. seeking to enlist him in conversation, mr. rosbeck said: "rudolph, they had a big time at the haymarket last night." "yes," said schnaubelt, "a devil of a time." intending to further draw him out, the employer continued: "you anarchists didn't half do your job, though. why didn't you use more bombs?" "because," he answered, "they didn't get up with them in time." that evening rosbeck told this story to a friend, who informed the detective, and the arrest was made thursday morning. wednesday schnaubelt had a heavy beard and moustache. at the time of his arrest thursday he had no beard and his moustache had been trimmed close to his lip. after his release by the police schnaubelt returned to the shop and resumed work, but that thursday night he informed rosbeck that he might not return the next day. he said that he feared the detectives might search his house and then arrest him. he said mrs. schwab was his sister, and he was often at her house. if they searched schwab's house it might lead to his (schnaubelt's) arrest. he has not been seen since that thursday night. his tools and clothes remained in the shop, as also did his unpaid wages. rosbeck thought lambrecht had knowledge of his friend's whereabouts. about the middle of may lambrecht informed rosbeck that schnaubelt had instructed him to draw his salary and take possession of his clothes. in his evidence before the jury m. m. thompson declared that he saw either spies or schwab--and he felt almost certain it was the latter--hand schnaubelt the bomb while the trio were about fifteen feet from the wagon. schnaubelt, he said, was in waiting for them when they came from halsted street. krendl testified that in his opinion schnaubelt could not have been handed the bomb at the place designated, because he saw him go to halsted street with the speakers, and return. he admitted, however, that schnaubelt had something in his outside pocket when near the wagon. schnaubelt, when arrested by detective palmer, admitted to lieutenant shea that he was with schwab that tuesday night, but insisted that he left the wagon on which they were standing when it commenced to rain. various rumors as to schnaubelt's whereabouts were received. a letter, said to be in the fugitive's handwriting, was received by the police some weeks after the riot, from portland, oregon. the writer poked fun at the chief and said that the fact that he was so far away was due to the stupidity of the detective force and lieut. shea's gullibility. subsequently the body of a man was found in the canal at erie, pa., which in features and in the clothes upon it corresponded to the description of schnaubelt, and it was thought he had left chicago as a stowaway in a vessel and had been drowned in trying to get ashore at erie at night. the authorities, however, became convinced that this was not schnaubelt. some of the police have always believed that schnaubelt left the city with parsons the night after the bomb-throwing, and after remaining in hiding with the latter near omaha until parsons decided to appear and stand trial, continued his flight south or west. september , , h. f. schaffer, a conductor on the mexican central railroad, on his way to his home in ohio, called on chief of police ebersold and informed him that from a picture of schnaubelt in the _police news_, he thought he had identified the fugitive in the person of a jeweler in the city of mexico, who spoke english with a german accent. mr. schaffer and a companion visited the jeweler frequently and endeavored to draw him out upon the subject of the haymarket massacre, but the suspected person would not talk about the anarchists. it is understood the police took measures to investigate this supposed clue. [illustration] chapter viii. cost of anarchist trial. extracts from zeitung. motion for new trial. motion overruled. cost of the anarchist trials. it is estimated that the trials of the anarchist conspirators for connection with the haymarket massacre has cost cook county and chicago about $ , . a calculation made by county officials at the close of the murder trial in august, placed the average cost since the night of the bomb-throwing at $ , per month. another estimate itemizes the daily expenses as follows: state's attorney's office, stenographers, messengers, telegrams, interpreters, extra legal help (mr. ingham) $ sheriff's office, bailiff's, jury fees, hotel bills for jury, etc. court costs, judge's salary, miscellaneous items detectives, policemen, witness fees criminal court clerk's office and other expenses this makes a total of $ a day, or $ , for the days which the trial covered. the trials of the twenty-six persons indicted for conspiracy in connection with the murders bring the total cost up to $ , . in an interview chief of police ebersold praised the brave and steady action of the police at the haymarket, but for quick and active fighting gave the palm to the six officers who held a mob of two or three thousand men at bay at the mccormick works the day before the haymarket affair. a mob tried to hang officer casey to a lamp post, and he fought hand to hand against great odds until rescued. vaclav dejnek, frank broda and a young man named hess were indicted for this affair, and dejnek was sentenced to serve one year in state's prison. the arbeiter zeitung. the _arbeiter zeitung_, which was suppressed the morning after the riot, was re-issued almost immediately, and in one issue had the following comments on the trial: "has it come to this, in the land of washington, franklin and jefferson? it is the iron must of historic development. only those men who are economically independent can be truly free. where there are poor and rich political freedom is a wretched lie. mammon, the powerful idol, lowers freedom to a kitchen wench. as in rome at the time of its decay prætorian bands of foreigners upheld the rule of the cæsars, so now the chief support of the money kings is the police force of the large american cities, which consists mainly of foreigners. the downfall of the republic is nigh. it will fall like all countries whose foundations crumble away in the course of time. all the weeping and wailing cannot delay catastrophe. the present is without hope, so we must strengthen ourselves by looking at the future. a new life will bloom from the ruins of the present social order. the society of the future will bridge over the abysses which open to-day before our eyes. all men will be equal. they will remember with a shudder the time when prætorian bands could plot the massacre of thousands. mammon will be cast down from his usurped throne, and freedom will take the place with conquering power, to dwell with happy humanity forever and ever." after the verdict was rendered mr. grinnell, in behalf of the state, sent word to the new publishers of the _arbeiter zeitung_, that care must be taken by them that no attacks either on the jury or judge gary should appear in their paper, notifying them that if any such article should appear, the managers of the paper would be prosecuted for contempt of court. the following was the result of the warning: "outrageous!" "seven of the defendants sentenced to death, and neebe gets fifteen years." "a motion for a new trial made!" "the jury, through osborne, its foreman, presented their verdict to judge gary this morning. when the result became known the detectives, who mingled freely with the crowd on the street, set up a loud cheering, and the judge became very pale--he did not expect such a demonstration. grinnell, on the other hand, evidently expected such a verdict, and presumably with cause. marshall field and men of his stripe have entirely too much money. what do the people say to this verdict? they will look upon it as being impossible--incredible. we were not inclined to believe it at first, but we soon became convinced. captain black instantly made a motion for a new trial, which grinnell did not oppose, and judge gary will hear this motion next term. if he overrules the motion, an appeal will be taken. we are not in a proper frame of mind to say more to-day." the verdict fell like a bolt of lightning into the midst of socialistic and anarchistic circles, believing as they did, that punishment could only be inflicted upon the perpetrator of the act of hurling the bomb. no wonder that consternation sat darkly upon each sullen brow like the pall of impending doom, as slowly from the jury came those words of fearful import which set them face to face with death, the verdict was applauded by the foreign and american press. twenty-five representatives of reputable labor unions met condemning the action of the socialists and thereby endorsing the verdict of the jury. the socialists of new york held indignation meetings denouncing the verdict and expressing sympathy with their unfortunate brethren of chicago. mrs. black, in a letter dated sept. , prophesied that in case the sentence was executed widespread revolution and destruction of property and life would immediately be inaugurated. on the th capt. black served a notice upon state's attorney grinnell for a new trial, on the ground that the verdict was not in keeping with the law; also that the court had allowed improper testimony, and had erred in his instructions. , men were called to serve as jurors in the case before the twelve eligible men were secured, and even then it was claimed by the defense that only ten of the twelve were competent. on friday, oct. st, the attorneys for the defense began their arguments for a new trial, drawing largely upon their imaginations to supply evidence in the case. they endeavored to introduce false affidavits from one orrin blossom, of no. , wentworth avenue, and a. love, of la grange, to impeach the testimony of gilmer. but the wary state's attorney grinnell had one move to make which blocked their game. he had counter affidavits from orrin blossom and love proving that love was not in the city on the night of the haymarket riot after six o'clock, and that he never saw _harry gilmer_. three days were spent by the defense in arguing their claims for a new trial, and on october th judge gary rendered his decision in the case in the following language: the motion for a new trial overruled. judge gary said: "in passing upon this motion for a new trial the case is so voluminous, there is such a mass of evidence, that it is impossible, within anything like reasonable limits, to give a synopsis or epitome. i do not understand that either upon the trial before the jury or upon the arguments of this motion before me there have been any arguments tending or intended to deny that all of the defendants, except neebe, were parties to whatever purpose or object there was in view--that the other seven were combined for some purpose. i, of course, do not wish to attribute to the defendants' counsel any admissions which they have not made, but my impression is that there has been no argument tending or intending to deny that all the other seven, except neebe, were engaged in the pursuit of some object. what it is, the counsel have debated before the jury and before me. now, it is important to know what that object was, whether it was as counsel for defense have stated--merely to encourage working men to resist, if unlawful attacks were made upon them--or whether it was something else. there is no better way to ascertain what the object was, than to read what they have spoken and written as the object, while the events were transpiring. now, from the files of their newspapers, which go back a good way, a good deal can be taken, which must of necessity be taken as the truth of what their object was. i have not had time and opportunity to arrange either the translations of the _arbeiter zeitung_ or the files of the _alarm_, and pick out those which in the fullest shape show what they were proposing to do. these translations from the _arbeiter zeitung_ now come to my hands for the first time. i have here a translation of the _arbeiter zeitung_, january , , headed 'to arms'." the court proceeded to read numerous and lengthy extracts from translations offered in evidence of articles in the _arbeiter zeitung_, in which revolution by force was advised, and the approaching revolution, it was declared, would be greater than that of the last century. among the extracts read were the following: "dynamite! of all stuff, this is the stuff." "the day draws near when the working people of america, in an outburst of passion and ungovernable rage, will revolt and demand the total abolition of the existing state of things which brings to the working classes so much misery and death. have you all prepared yourselves with knives, pistols, guns and dynamite for the unavoidable conflict between labor and capital?" "it was decided at the last mass-meeting at no. west lake street that the next meeting will be devoted to the consideration of the military laws and necessity of using force in the warfare between capital and labor." "each working man ought to have been armed long ago. daggers, revolvers and explosives are cheap, and can be easily obtained." "those who want to talk to capitalists in earnest must be prepared to attain their object by killing them. this can only be accomplished by systematic organization. the time for all this is short--look out--" "in addition to all this," continued judge gary, "there is the testimony of witnesses that there was a combination which was formed as early as , and that combination had for its purpose the changing of the existing order of things, the overthrow of government, and the abolition of all law. there can be no question in the mind of any one who has read these articles or heard these speeches, which were written and spoken long before the eight-hour movement was talked of, that this movement which they advocated was but a means in their estimation toward the ends which they sought, and that the movement itself was not primarily any consideration with them at all. the different papers and speeches furnish direct contradiction to the arguments of counsel that they proposed to resort to arms merely to resist any unlawful attacks which the police might make upon them, because these all show that their object was this: if, during the eight-hour movement, strikes occurred, and if the employers chose to employ other men in the place of those who had struck, then these men so employed must be prevented by force from going to work, and if the police then undertook to resist the force so employed on behalf of the strikers; if the police undertook to prevent this force from being so employed, then that was the ground on which the police force was to be destroyed. there can be no doubt that that was an unlawful combination. it is impossible to argue that any set of men have the right to dictate to others whether they should work or not, and if they chose to work in defiance of their dictation, drive them away by force, and if the police undertook to prevent that force, then kill the police. it is impossible for an instant to support any such principle as that. the members of this combination publicly announce that they had no hope of winning the majority over to their side by argument, and no hope of attaining their object by getting rid of this majority by violence. there is no doubt that seven of the defendants were in the combination formed for that purpose. as to neebe's part, there is the evidence of witnesses that he presided at meetings called by the class of people from whom this combination was drawn, and that he called meetings of the people who were engaged in the movement. there is evidence that he marched in the board of trade procession, the object of which was said to be the demolition of that building." the court proceeded to discuss all the evidence against neebe, which tended to show that he was associated with the rest of the defendants in the encouragement of the movement which had for its object the destruction of the government. the court resumed: "on the question of the instructions whether these defendants, or any of them, did anticipate or expect the throwing of the bomb on the night of the th of may, is not a question which i need to consider, because the instructions did not go upon that ground. the jury were not instructed to find them guilty if they believed that they participated in the throwing of the bomb, or encouraged or advised the throwing of that bomb, or had knowledge that it was to be thrown, or anything of that sort. the conviction has not gone upon the ground that they did have any actual participation in the act which caused the death of deegan, but upon the ground, under the instructions, that they had generally by speech and print advised a large class to commit murder, and had left the occasion, time and place to the individual will, whim and caprice of the individuals so advised, and that in consequence of that advice, and in pursuance of it, and influenced by it, somebody not known did throw the bomb that caused deegan's death. "there is no example in the law books of a case of this sort. no such occurrence has ever happened before in the history of the world. i suppose that in the lord george gordon riots we might find something like this. lord george gordon was indicted for treason, and the government failed in its proof upon the trial as to what he had done. very likely they did not want to prove it very strongly against him; i do not know; it is none of my business. if the bomb was thrown in pursuance of the prisoners' advice, the instruction as to the law of accessories before the fact applied to the case, and the instruction to the jury was proper. if the radical prohibitionists should make up their minds that the only way to stop the liquor traffic was by destroying the saloons and killing the saloon-keepers, and if some crank should blow up a saloon with a bomb for whose manufacture the radicals had furnished specific directions, and in the explosion a saloon-keeper was killed, there could be no question but that the radical temperance men were guilty of murder. but there was no question that when some one said 'hang mccormick,' or 'hang gould,' the reply was given to make no idle threats, but when they got ready to do anything, to do it." the shorthand report of the speeches of spies, parsons and fielden at the haymarket meeting was then read, after which the court said: "now, the general advice throughout was to each individual-man--i mean the general teachings on this subject of associated revolution--was to each individual-man to do it himself, without combination; that men working together in deeds of violence were to be avoided; that they were to go alone where one man only was required to accomplish the work, and where more than one man was required, as few as was necessary should be taken. now, under these circumstances, in the inflamed state of the public mind at the time, each of these orators was still more inflaming the public mind when he advised the people to use force, and some man--i do not say identified, but unidentified--some man in that crowd, when the police approached, with a bomb of lingg's manufacture, killed deegan; all who have advised such action are guilty of his murder. if anything can be proved by circumstantial evidence, that is proved; that he threw that bomb in consequence of the influence of these teachings, this advise by speech and printing over a course of two years; that the man who threw that bomb had been educated up to it by the teachings of these defendants. the case, as i said before, is unprecedented. there is no example of any such crime having been committed; there is no precedent of any case like this having become the subject of judicial investigation; but the principle of law is well fixed. it is the boast of people who profess to admire the common law, that it adapts itself to human events, and that no situation or no new form of industry can arise but the common law has principles which may be applied." the prisoners spoke in their own behalf before sentence was passed. the courtroom was crowded as usual. the police department was represented by chief ebersold, capt. schaack, and twenty officers. the prisoners wore a look of even greater anxiety than at the morning session. parsons appeared particularly thoughtful and gloomy. the greater part of the session he sat with his cheek resting in his hand and taking less note of the proceedings than usual. spies was laboring under great excitement. before he began his speech judge gary repeated the caution he had before given the auditors to refrain from any demonstration of approbation or disapprobation during the session. he insisted that every one in the court should be seated, and seeing two men at the rear of the room seated on a table he compelled them to take chairs or sit on the floor. everything was quiet as the grave when spies began his address. during the impassioned passages he raised his voice and indulged in violent gesticulation. neebe's utterance was quite rapid, and he spoke like one at home before an audience. his speech would have produced an impression on any jury. his voice is clear and resonant, and he has a better presence than any of the other defendants. fischer spoke hesitatingly, and would probably not have spoken at all but for an uncontrollable desire to express his opinion of the state's attorney and all representatives of the law. lingg's rather handsome face was flushed, and his eyes flashed as he poured out his denunciation of messrs. grinnell and bonfield. when he took his seat his face was covered with perspiration. he made the walls ring, and as each sentence had to be translated by prof. ficke, he had ample opportunity to deliver each sentence with renewed emphasis. schwab read his speech in a clear, resonant voice, and it had been evidently prepared with much care. chapter ix. reasons why the sentence of the law should not be executed upon them. speeches by the anarchists. august spies. [illustration: aug. spies.] "in addressing this court i speak as the representative of one class to the representative of another. i will begin with the words uttered five hundred years ago on a similar occasion by the venetian doge faliero, who, addressing the court, said: 'my defense is your accusation; the causes of my alleged crime, your history.' i have been indicted under the charge of murder as an accomplice or accessory. upon this indictment i have been convicted. there was no evidence produced by the state to show or even indicate that i had any knowledge of the man who threw the bomb, or that i myself had anything to do with the throwing of the missile unless, of course, you weigh the testimony of the accomplices of the state's attorney and bonfield, the testimony of thompson and gilmer, by the price they were paid for it. if there was no evidence to show that i was legally responsible for the deed, then my conviction and the execution of the sentence are nothing less than a willful, malicious and deliberate murder--as foul a murder as may be found in the annals of religious, political, or any other sort of persecution. judicial murders have in many cases been committed where the representatives of the state were acting in good faith, believing their victims to be guilty of the charge or accusation. in this case the representatives of the state cannot justify themselves by a similar excuse, for they themselves have fabricated most of the testimony which was used as a pretense to convict us--convict us by a jury picked to convict before this court and before the public, which is supposed to be the state. i charge the state's attorney and bonfield with a heinous conspiracy to commit murder. "i will now state a little incident which will throw light upon this charge. on the evening on which the prætorian cohorts of the citizens' association, the bankers' association, the bar association, and railroad princes attacked the meeting of working men at the haymarket with murderous intent--on that evening about o'clock, i met a young man, legner by name. my brother was with me at the same time, and never left me on that evening until i jumped from the wagon a few seconds before the explosion came. legner knew that i had not seen schwab that evening. he knew that i had no such conversation with anybody, as marshall field's protege, thompson has testified to. he knew that i did not jump from the wagon and strike a match and hand it to the man who threw the bomb. he is not a socialist. why didn't we bring him on the stand? because the honorable representatives of the state, grinnell and bonfield, spirited him away. these honorable gentlemen knew everything about legner. they knew that his testimony would prove the perjury of thompson and gilmer beyond any reasonable doubt. legner's name was on the list of witnesses for the state. he was not called, however, for obvious reasons. first, as he stated to a number of friends, he had been offered $ if he would leave the city, and threatened with direful things if he should remain here and appear as a witness for the defense. he replied that he could neither be bought nor bulldozed to serve such a foul, damnable, dastardly plot. but when we wanted legner he could not be found. mr. grinnell said--and mr. grinnell is an honorable man--that he himself had been searching for the young man, but had not been able to find him. about three weeks later i learned that the very same young man had been kidnapped and taken to buffalo, n. y., by two of the illustrious guardians of the law, two chicago detectives. let mr. grinnell, let the citizens' association, his employer, let them answer for themselves, and let the people--let the public--sit in judgment upon these would-be assassins. no, i reply, the prosecution has not established our legal guilt, notwithstanding the purchased and perjured testimony of some, and notwithstanding the originality of the proceedings of the trial. and as long as this has not been done, and you pronounce the sentence of the appointed vigilante committee acting as a jury, i say that you, the alleged servant and high priests of the law, are the real and only law-breakers, and in this case you go to the extent of murder. it is well that the people know this. and when i speak of the people i do not mean the few conspirators of grinnell, the noble patricians who are murderers of those whom they please to oppress. those citizens may constitute the state. they may control the state; they may have their grinnells, bonfields, and their hirelings. no, when i speak of the people, i speak of the great mass of working beasts, who unfortunately are not yet conscious of the rascalities that are perpetrated in the name of the people--in their name. they condemn the murder of eight men whose only crime is that they have dared to speak the truth. this murder may open the eyes of these suffering millions, may wake them up indeed. i have noticed that our conviction has worked miracles in this direction already. the class that clamors for our lives, the good and devout christians, have attempted in every way, through their newspapers and otherwise, to conceal the true and only issue in this case, by designating the defendants anarchists and picturing them as a newly-discovered tribe or species of cannibals, by inventing shocking and horrifying stories of their conspiracies. "i believe with buckle, with paine, with jefferson, with emerson, with spencer, and with many other great thinkers of this century, that the state of caste and classes, the state where one class dominates and lives upon the labor of another class and calls it order, should be abolished. yes, i believe that this barbaric form of social organization, with its legalized thunder and murder, is doomed to die and make room for free society--volunteer associations if you like--universal brotherhood. you may pronounce your sentence upon me, honorable judge, but let the world know that in the year a. d. , in the state of illinois, eight men were sentenced to death because they had not lost their faith in the ultimate victory of liberty and justice. read the history of greece and rome; read that of venice. look over the dark pages of the church and follow the thorny path of science. no change! no change! "you would destroy society and civilization, as ever, upon the cry of the ruling classes. they are so comfortably situated under the prevailing system that they naturally abhor and fear even the slightest changes. their privileges are as dear to them as life itself, and every change threatens these privileges. but civilization is a record whose steps are monuments of such changes. without these social changes, always brought about against the will and against the force of the ruling classes, there would be no civilization. as to the destruction of society, which we have been accused of seeking, it sounds like one of �sop's fables--like the cunning of the fox. we, who have jeopardized our lives to save society from the fiend that has grasped her by the throat, that seeks her life-blood and devours her substance; we, who would heal her bleeding wounds, who would free her from the fetters you have wrought around her, from the misery you have brought upon her--we are enemies. we have preached dynamite, it is said, and we have predicted from the lessons history has taught us, that the ruling class of to-day would no more listen to the voice of reason than did their predecessors. they would attempt by brute force to stay the march of progress. was it a lie, or was it the truth that we stated? * * * i have been a citizen of this city fully as long as mr. grinnell, and am probably as good a citizen as grinnell. at least i should not wish to be compared to him. grinnell has appealed time and again, as has been stated by our attorneys, to the patriotism of the jury. to that i reply, and i will simply use the words of an english litterateur, 'patriotism is the last resort of the scoundrel.' my friends' agitation in behalf of the disinherited and disfranchised millions, and my agitation in this direction, the popularization of the economic teachings in favor of the education of wage-workers, is declared to be a conspiracy against society. the word 'society' is here wisely substituted for state, as represented by the patricians of to-day. it has always been the opinion of the ruling classes that the people must be kept in ignorance. they lose their servility, modesty, and obedience to the arbitrary powers that be, as their intelligence grows. the education of a blackman, a quarter of a century ago was a criminal offense. why? because the intelligent slave would throw off his shackles at whatever cost, my christian gentlemen. why is the education of the working classes to-day looked upon by a certain class as treason against the state? for the same reason! the state, however, wisely avoided this point in the prosecution of the case. from their testimony one would really conclude that we had in our speeches and publications preached nothing else but destruction and dynamite. * * * you, gentlemen, are the revolutionists. you rebel against the effects of social conditions which have tossed you by fortune's hand into a magnificent paradise. without inquiring, you imagine that no one else has a right in that place. you insist that you are the chosen ones, the sole proprietors of forces that tossed you into the paradise. the industrial forces are still at work. they are growing more active and intense from day to day. their tendency is to elevate all mankind to the same level; to have all humanity share in the paradise you now monopolize. can you roll back the incoming tide or angry waves of old ocean by forbidding it to dash upon the shore? so you can no more frighten back the rising waves of intelligence and progress into their unfathomable depths by erecting a few gallows in the perspective. you, who oppose the natural forces of things, you are the real revolutionists. you, and you alone, are the conspirators and destructionists." adolph fischer. [illustration: adolph fischer.] "your honor, you asked me why the sentence of death should not be passed upon me. i will not talk much. i will only say a few words, and that is that i protest against my being sentenced to death, because i committed no crime. i was tried here in this room for murder and i was convicted of anarchy. i protest against being sentenced to death, because i have not been found guilty of murder. i have been tried for murder, but i have been convicted because i am an anarchist. although being one of the parties who were at the haymarket meeting, i had no more to do with the throwing of that bomb, i had no more connection with it than state's attorney grinnell had perhaps. "as i said, it is a fact, and i do not deny that i was one of the parties who called at the haymarket meeting, but that meeting--(at this point mr. salomon stepped up and spoke to fischer in a low tone, but fischer waved him off and said: mr. salomon, be so kind. i know what i am talking about.) now, that haymarket meeting was not called for the purpose of committing violence and crime. no; but the meeting was called for the purpose of protesting against the outrages and against the crimes of the police committed on the day previous out at mccormick's. the next day i went to wehrer & klein and had twenty-five thousand copies of the handbills printed, and i invited spies to speak at haymarket meeting. it is the fact, and i don't deny it, in the original of the 'copy' i had the line 'working men, arm!' and i had my reasons, too, for putting those lines in, because i didn't want the working men to be shot down in that meeting as on other occasions. but as those circulars were printed and brought over to the _arbeiter zeitung_ office, my comrade, spies, saw one of those circulars. i had invited him to speak before that. he showed the circular and said: 'well, fischer, if those circulars are distributed i won't speak.' and i admitted it would be better to take those lines out; and mr. spies spoke. and that is all i had to do with that meeting. i feel that i am sentenced, or will be sentenced to death because i am an anarchist, and not because i am a murderer. i have never been a murderer. i have never committed any crime in my life yet; but i know a certain man who is on the way to becoming a murderer, an assassin, and that man is grinnell--the state's attorney grinnell--because he brought men on the witness stand whom he knew would swear falsely; and i publicly denounce mr. grinnell as being a murderer and an assassin if i should be executed. but, if the ruling classes think that by hanging us, hanging a few anarchists, they can crush out anarchy, they will be badly mistaken, because the anarchist loves his principles more than his life. an anarchist is always ready to die for his principles." michael schwab. "it is not much i have to say, and i would say nothing at all if keeping silence did not look like a cowardly approval of what has been done here. to those, the proceedings of a trial of justice would be a sneer. justice has not been done. more than that, could not be done. if one class is arraigned against the other class it is idle and hypocritical to talk about justice and fairness. anarchy was on trial, as the state's attorney put it in his closing speech. a doctrine, an opinion hostile to brute force, hostile to our present murderous system of production and distribution. i am condemned to die for writing newspaper articles and making speeches. the state's attorney knows as well as i do that the alleged conversation between mr. spies and me never took place. he knows a good deal more than that. he knows all the beautiful works of his organizer, furthmann. when i was before the coroner's jury two or three witnesses swore very positively to having seen me at the haymarket when mr. parsons finished his speech. i suppose they wanted at that time to fix the bomb-throwing on me, for the first dispatches to europe said that m. schwab had thrown several bombs at the police. later on they found that would not do, and then schnaubelt was the man. anarchy was on trial. little did it matter who the persons were to be honored by the prosecution. * * * "as soon as the word is applied to us and to our doctrine it carries with it a meaning that we anarchists see fit to give. 'anarchy' is greek, and means, verbatim, that we are not being ruled. according to our vocabulary anarchy is a state of society in which the only government is reason; a state of society in which all human beings do right for the simple reason that it is right, and hate wrong because it is wrong. in such a society no compulsion will be necessary. the attorney of the state was wrong when he exclaimed 'anarchy is dead!' anarchy up to the present time existed only as a doctrine, and grinnell has not the power to kill any doctrine whatever. anarchy, as defined by us, is called an idle dream, but that dream was called by god a divine blessing. one of the three great german poets and a celebrated german critic of the last century has also defined it. if anarchy was the thing the state's attorney makes it out to be, how could it be that such eminent scholars as prince krapotkine should say what he has said about it? anarchy is a dream, but only in the present. it will be realized, for reason will grow in spite of all obstacles. who is the man that has the cheek to tell us that human development has already reached its culminating point? i know our ideal will not be accomplished this year or next year, but i know it will be accomplished as soon as possible, some day in the future. it is entirely wrong to use the word anarchy as synonymous with violence. violence is something, and anarchy is another. in the present state of society violence is used on all sides, and therefore we advocated the use of violence against violence, but against violence only as a necessary means of defense. i have never read herr most's book simply because i don't find time to read it; and if i had read it, what of it? i am an agnostic, but i like to read the bible, nevertheless. i have not the slightest idea who threw the bomb at the haymarket, and had no knowledge of any conspiracy to use violence that or any other night." oscar neebe. "your honor: i have found out during the last few days what law is. before i didn't know it. i did not know that i was convicted because i knew spies and fielden and parsons. i have met these gentlemen. i have presided at a meeting, as the evidence against me shows, in the turner hall, to which meeting your honor was invited. the judges, the preachers, the newspaper men, and everybody was invited to appear at that meeting for the purpose of discussing anarchism and socialism. i was at that hall. i am well known among the working men of the city, and i was the one elected chairman of that meeting. nobody appeared to speak, to discuss the question of labor and anarchism or socialism with laboring men. no, they couldn't stand it. i was chairman of that meeting; i don't deny it. i had the honor to be marshal of a labor demonstration in this city, and i never saw as respectable a lot of men as i saw that day. "they marched like soldiers, and i was proud that i was marshal of those men. they were the toilers and the working men of this city. the men marched through the city of chicago to protest against the wrongs of society, and i was marshal of them. if that is a crime, i have found out--as a born american--what i am guilty of. i always thought i had a right to express my opinion, to be chairman of a peaceable meeting, and to be marshal of a demonstration. my friends, the labor agitators, and the marshals of a demonstration--was it a crime to be marshal of a demonstration? i am convicted of that. i suppose grinnell thought after oscar neebe was indicted for murder the _arbeiter zeitung_ would go down. but it didn't happen that way. and mr. furthmann, too--he is a scoundrel, and i can tell it to you to your face. there is only one man that acted as a lawyer, and he is mr. ingham, but you three fellows have not." i established the paper and issued it to the working men of the city of chicago, and inside of two weeks i had enough money from the toilers--from hired girls, from men who would take the last cent out of their pocket to establish the paper--to buy a press. i could not publish the paper because the honorable detectives and mr. grinnell followed us up, and no printing house would print our paper, and we had to have our own press. we published our own paper after we had a press, bought by the money of the working men of the city. that is the crime i have committed--getting men to try and establish a working man's paper that will stand to-day, and i am proud of it. they have not got one press--they have got two presses to-day, and they belong to the working men of this city. when the first issue came out, from that day up to the day now, your honor, we have gained , subscribers. there are the gentlemen sitting over there from the _freie presse_ and _staats zeitung_--they know it. the germans of this city are condemning these actions. they would not read our paper. there is the crime of the germans. i say it is a verdict against germans, and i, as an american, must say that i never saw anything like that. "those are the crimes i have committed after the th of may. before the th of may i committed some crimes. i organized trades unions. i was for the reduction of the hours of labor and the education of laboring men and the re-establishment of the _arbeiter zeitung_. there is no evidence to show that i was connected with the bomb-throwing, that i was near it or anything of that kind. so i am only sorry, your honor, if you can stop it or help it, i will ask you to do it--that is, to hang me, too; and i think it is more honor to die certainly than to be killed by inches. i have a family and children, and if they know their father is dead they will bury him. they can go to the grave and kneel down in front of it; but they can't go to joliet and see their father convicted of a crime that he hasn't anything to do with. that is all i have got to say. your honor, i am sorry i do not get hung with the rest of the men." [illustration: louis lingg.] louis lingg. [translated by prof. h. h. fick.] "court of justice: with the same contempt with which i have tried to live humanely upon this american soil, i am now granted the privilege to speak. if i do take the word i do it because injustice and indignities have been heaped upon me right here. i have been accused of murder. what proofs have been brought in support of it? it has been proved that i assisted some man by the name of seliger in manufacturing bombs. it has been furthermore stated that with the assistance of somebody else i have taken those bombs to clybourn avenue, but although one of these assistants has been produced as a state witness it has not been shown that one of these bombs was taken to the haymarket. * * * what is anarchy? * * * the points that we are driving at have been carefully withheld by the state. * * * but it has not been said that by their superior force we are driven to our course. contempt of court has been charged against us. we have been treated as opponents of public order. what is this order? such order as represented by police and detectives? on the slightest occasion the representatives of this public order have forced themselves into our midst. the same police that aim to give protection to property embraces thieves in its ranks. * * * i have told capt. schaack that i was at a meeting of carpenters at zephf's hall on may . he has stated that i admitted to him that i learned the fabrication of bombs from most's book, 'science of warfare.' that is perjury. * * * it has been proved that grinnell has used gilmer for his purpose intentionally. there are points which prove that. * * * i say that these seven persons here, of which i am one, are murdered purposely by grinnell. * * * grinnell has the courage to call me a coward, right here in this court of justice, and grinnell is a person who has connived with miserable subjects to go against me, to get testimony against me, to kill me. * * * is life worth living? what are their purposes in thus murdering these men? low egotism, which finds its reward in a higher position, and which yields a return of money. * * * but it has been said that the international association of working men was in itself a conspiracy, and that i was a member of this association. my colleague, spies, has already stated to you how we were connected. * * * and that is the conspiracy that has been proved against me, and for that i am to end my life upon the gallows--an instrument which you consider a disgrace to me. i declare here openly that i do not acknowledge these laws, and less so the sentence of the court. * * * i would not say a word if i was really guilty according to this foolish law, but even according to these laws that would not be respected by a schoolboy, not even these laws have been carried out to the full extent when i was found guilty. * * * you smile. you perhaps think i will not use bombs any more, but i tell you i die gladly upon the gallows in the sure hope that hundreds and thousands of people to whom i have spoken will now recognize and make use of dynamite. in this hope i despise you, and i despise your laws. hang me for it." george engel. [translated by mr. gauss.] "when i left germany in the year it was by reason of my recognition of the fact that i could not support myself in the future as it was the duty of a man to do. i recognized that i could not make my living in germany because the machinery and the guilds of old no longer furnished me a guarantee to live. i resolved to emigrate from germany to the united states, praised by many so highly. when i landed at philadelphia, on the th of january, , my heart and my bosom expanded with the expectation of living hereafter in that free country which had been so often praised to me by so many emigrants, and i resolved to be a good citizen of this country; and i congratulated myself on having broken with germany, where i could have no longer made my living, and i think that my past will show that, that which i resolved i intended to keep faithfully. for the first time i stand before an american court, and at that to be at once condemned to death. and what are the causes that have preceded it, and have brought me into this court? they are the same things that preceded my leaving germany, and the same causes that made me leave. i have seen with my own eyes that in this free country, in this richest country of the world, so to say, there are existing proletarians who are pushed out of the order of society." after explaining how his dissatisfaction with the existing order of things led him to become a socialist, engel continued: "i resolved to study socialism with all my power. in the year i came from philadelphia to chicago, and took pains to eke out my existence here in chicago, and believed that it would be an easier task to live here, than in philadelphia, where i had previously in vain exerted my powers to live. i found that, that also was in vain. there was no difference for a proletariat, whether he lived in new york, or philadelphia, or chicago. * * * to make further investigations i tried to buy, from the money that i and my family earned, scientific books on those questions. i bought the works of ferdinand lassalle, karl marx and henry george. after investigating these works i recognized these reasons why a proletariat could not exist, even in this country, as free as it is. i thought about the means by which that could be corrected. they praised to me this country where every man and every working man had a right to go to the ballot-box and choose his own officers. i scarcely believed that any citizen of the united states could have meant so honestly and well as i, when i turned my attention to politics, and took part in them. but even in this regard of freedom of the ballot-box i found myself mistaken. i learned to see that the working man was not free in his opinion, that he was not free in vote. it was in vain that the socialistic party took pains in former times, honest pains, to elect honest officers. after a few vain attempts i found that it was impossible for a working man to free himself by means of the ballot-box, and to secure those things which were necessary for his existence. * * * in this city corruption even entered the ranks of the social democracy. i also obtained the conviction that through those men who put themselves over us as leaders, and occupied themselves with compromises, this was brought about, and then i left the ranks of the social democracy and gave myself over to the international which was then organizing; and what these men wanted, and what these men through their exertions sought to bring about was nothing more or less than the conviction that the freeing of the ruling classes could only be brought about by force, as have all revolutions been throughout history. this conviction, before i went over to those people, was obtained through study of the history of all lands. the history of all lands showed me that all advantages in a political, in a religious, and in a material direction, were always obtained only by the use of force; and if i confine myself to the history of this country where i am convicted, i take into consideration that the first immigrants into this country and the first colonists, only freed themselves by force from the power of england. i afterward obtained the conviction that the slavery existing in this country, to the shame of the republic, could only be put aside by force. and what does this history teach us? the man that spoke against existing slavery in this country was hanged, as it is intended that we should be hanged, to-day. in the course of time i became convinced that all those who spoke in favor of the ruling classes must hang. and what are the reasons for it? this republic does not exist through, and its affairs are not conducted by, those persons who come into office by an honest ballot. * * * under these conditions it is certainly not a wonder that there were men, noble men, noble scientific men, who have tried to find ways and means to bring back humanity to its original condition. and this is the social science to which i confess myself with joy. the state's attorney said here 'anarchism is on trial.' anarchism and socialism are, according to my opinion, as like as one egg is to another. only the tactics are different. anarchism has abandoned the ways pointed out by socialism to free mankind, and has resolved no longer to bear the yoke of slavery, and, therefore, i say to the working classes, do not believe any longer in the ballot-box and in those ways and means that are left open to you; but rather think about ways and means when the time comes, when the burden of the people becomes intolerable. and that is our crime. because we have named to the people the ways and means by which they could free themselves in the fight against capitalism, by reason of that, anarchism is hated and persecuted in every state. in spite of that and again in spite of it anarchism will exist, and if not in public it will exist in secret, because the powers force it to act in secret. if the state's attorney declares or thinks that after he has hanged these seven men and sent the other one to the penitentiary for fifteen years he has then killed anarchism, i say, that will not be so. only the tactics will be changed, and that will be all. no power in the world will tear from the working man his knowledge and his skill or opportunity in making bombs. i am convinced that anarchism cannot be routed out,--if that was the case it would have been routed out in other countries long ago--in the least by our murdering the anarchists. that evening when the first bomb in this country was thrown, i was sitting in my room; did not know anything about the conspiracy; did not know anything about that deed; did not know anything about the bomb; did not know anything about the conspiracy which the state's attorney had brought about here. * * * can you have respect for a government that only gives rights to the privileged classes, but to the working men not at all, although there are conspiracies in all classes and connections of the capitalistic class. although we have only recently experienced that the coal barons came together, put up the price of coal arbitrarily while they paid less wages to their working men, and wherever those coal workers, those miners have come together to consider the bettering their conditions, their demands have always been very modest on the whole, then the militia appears at once upon the scene and helps those people, while they are feeding the miners with powder and lead. for such a government i have no respect, and can have no respect in spite of all their followers, in spite of all their police, in spite of all their spies. "i am not a man who hates a single capitalist. i am not the man who at all hates the person of the capitalist. i hate the system and all privileges, and my greatest desire is that the working classes will at last recognize who are their friends and who are their enemies. against the condemnation of myself by the capitalistic influence i have no word to say." [illustration: sam'l fielden.] sam fielden. fielden prefaced his plea by reciting a poem called "revolution", written by freilegrath, a german poet: "and tho' ye caught your noble prey within your hangman's sordid thrall, and tho' your captive was led forth beneath your city's rampart wall; and tho' the grass lies o'er her green, where at the morning's early red the peasant girl brings funeral wreaths--i tell you still--she is not dead!" * * * * * "you see me only in your cells; ye see me only in the grave; ye see me only wandering lone, beside the exile's sullen wave-- ye fools! do i not live where you have tried to pierce in vain? rests not a nook for me to dwell, in every heart, and every brain?" * * * * * "'tis therefore i will be--and lead the peoples yet your hosts to meet, and on your necks, your heads, your crowns, will plant my strong, resistless feet! it is no boast--it is no threat--thus history's iron law decrees-- the day grows hot, oh, babylon! 'tis cool beneath thy willow trees!" fielden continued: "it makes a great deal of difference, perhaps, what kind of a revolutionist a man is. the men who have been on trial here for anarchy have been asked the question on the witness stand if they were revolutionists. it is not generally considered to be a crime among intellectual people to be a revolutionist, but it may be made a crime if a revolutionist happens to be poor. * * * if i had known that i was being tried for anarchy i could have answered that charge. i could have justified it under the constitutional right of every citizen of this country, and more than the right which any constitution can give, the natural right of the human mind to draw its conclusion from whatever information it can gain, but i had no opportunities to show why i was an anarchist. i was told that i was to be hung for being an anarchist, after i had got through defending myself on the charge of murder." fielden related that he was born in lancashire; that his first speech was made to starving operatives in the streets of his native town; that it was here he began to hate kings and queens; his first speech was in support of the operatives of lancashire as against the sympathizers with the south in the american rebellion; he came to the united states in and was a methodist exhorter in ohio, and came to chicago in . fielden detailed how he had come to be a socialist and anarchist; reviewing the various speeches he had made at meetings in chicago; attacking the veracity of witnesses who had testified against him, and declaring himself the victim of illegal prosecution. he continued: "from the time i became a socialist i learned more and more what it was. i knew that i had found the right thing; that i had found the medicine that was calculated to cure the ills of society. having found it, i believed it, and i had a right to advocate it, and i did. the constitution of the united states, when it says: 'the right of free speech shall not be abridged,' gives every man the right to speak. i have advocated the principles of socialism and social equality, and for that and no other reason am i here, and sentence of death is to be pronounced upon me. what is socialism? taking somebody else's property? that is what socialism is in the common acceptation of the term. no; but if i were to answer it as shortly and as curtly as it is answered by its enemies, i would say it is preventing somebody else from taking your property. but socialism is equality. socialism recognizes the fact that no man in society is responsible for what he is; that all the ills that are in society are the production of poverty; and scientific socialism says that you must go to the root of the evil. there is no criminal statistician in the world but will acknowledge that all the crime, when traced to its origin, is the product of poverty. * * * if i am to be convicted--hanged for telling the truth, the little child that kneels by its mother's side on the west side to-day and tells its mother that he wants his papa to come home, and to whom i had intended as soon as its prattling tongue should begin to talk, to teach that beautiful sentiment--that child had better never be taught to read; had better never be taught that sentiment to love truth. if they are to be convicted of murder because they dare tell what they think is the truth, then it would be better that every one of your schoolhouses were reduced to the ground and one stone not left upon another. if you teach your children to read they will acquire curiosity from what they read. they will think, and then will search for the meaning of this and that. they will arrive at conclusions. and then if they love the truth, they must tell to each other what is truth or what they think is the truth. that is the sum of my offending. * * * the private property system then, in my opinion, being a system that only subserves the interests of a few, and can only subserve the interests of the few, has no mercy. it cannot stop for the consideration of such a sentiment. naturally it cannot. so you ought not to have mercy upon the private property system, because it is well known that there are many people in the community with prejudices in their minds. they have grown up under certain social regulations, and they believe that those social regulations are right, just as mr. grinnell believes that everything in america is right, because he happened to be born here. and they have such a prejudice against any one who attacks those systems. now, i say they ought not to have any mercy upon systems that do not subserve their interests. they ought not to have any respect for them that would interfere with their abolishing them." fielden maintained that the throwing of the bomb at the haymarket was a complete surprise to him; that he felt that he would be held in some respect, at least responsible, yet he resolved not to attempt flight; continuing: "i have said here that i thought when the representatives of the state had inquired by means of their policemen as to my connection with it, i should have been released. and i say now, in view of all the authorities that have been read on the law and accessory, that there is nothing in evidence that has been introduced to connect me with that affair. * * * the great socialist who lived in this world nearly , years ago, jesus christ, has left these words, and there are no grander words in which the principles of justice and right are conveyed in any language. he said: 'better that ninety-nine guilty men should go unpunished than that one innocent man should suffer.' mr. grinnell, i should judge from his statements here, is a christian. i would ask him to apply that statement of the great teacher to the different testimony that has been given here, and the direct contrary in other places in the investigation of this case. your honor, we claim that this is a class verdict. we claim that the foulest criminal that could have been picked up in the slums of any city in christendom, or outside of it, would never have been convicted on such testimony as has been brought in here if he had not been a dangerous man in the opinion of the privileged classes. * * * if my life is to be taken for advocating the principles of socialism and anarchy, as i have understood them and honestly believe them to be in the interests of humanity, i say to you that i gladly give it up; and the price is very small for the result that is gained. * * * we claim that so far as we have been able to find out in trying to find a cure for the ills of society, we have not found out anything that has seemed to fit the particular diseases which society in our opinion is afflicted with to-day, better than the principles of socialism. and your honor, socialism, when it is thoroughly understood in this community and in the world, as it is by us, i believe that the world, which is generally honest, prejudiced though it may be, will not be slow to adopt its principles. and it will be a good time, a grand day for the world; it will be a grand day for humanity; it will never have taken a step so far onward toward perfection, if it can ever reach that goal, as it will when it adopts the principles of socialism. * * * to-day, as the beautiful autumn sun kisses with balmy breeze the cheek of every free man, i stand here never to bathe my head in its rays again. i have loved my fellow men as i have loved myself. i have hated trickery, dishonesty and injustice. the nineteenth century commits the crime of killing its best friend. it will live to repent of it. but, as i have said before, if it will do any good, i freely give myself up. i trust the time will come when there will be a better understanding, more intelligence, and above the mountains of iniquity, wrong and corruption, i hope the sun of righteousness and truth and justice will come to bathe in its balmy light an emancipated world. i thank your honor for your attention." [illustration: a. r. parsons.] a. r. parsons. parsons made a speech addressed in the main to working men, starting out with the recital of a poem by george heinig, entitled "bread is freedom." he continued: "your honor, if there is one distinguishing characteristic which has made itself prominent in the conduct of this trial it has been the passion, the heat, and the anger, the violence both to sentiment and to feeling, of everything connected with this case. you ask me why sentence of death should not be pronounced upon me, or, what is tantamount to the same thing, you ask me why you should give me a new trial in order that i might establish my innocence and the ends of justice be subserved. i answer you, your honor, and say that this verdict is the verdict of passion, born in passion, nurtured in passion, and is the sum totality of the organized passion of the city of chicago. for this reason i ask your suspension of the sentence, and a new trial. this is one among the many reasons which i hope to present to your honor before i conclude. now, your honor, what is passion? passion is the suspension of reason; in a mob upon the streets, in the broils of the saloon, in the quarrels on the sidewalk, where men throw aside their reason and resort to feelings of exasperation, we have passion. there is a suspension of the elements of judgment, of calmness, of discrimination requisite to arrive at the truth and the establishment of justice. i hold, your honor, that you cannot dispute the proposition that i make that this trial has been submerged, immersed in passion from its inception to its close, and even at this hour, standing here upon the scaffold as i do with the hangman awaiting me with his halter, there are those who claim to represent public sentiment in the city, and i now speak of the capitalistic press--that vile and infamous organ and monopoly of hired liars, the people's oppressors." parsons claimed to have been for thirty years identified with labor interests, and said: "and in what i say upon this subject relating to the labor movement or to myself as connected in this trial or before this bar, i will speak the truth, though my tongue should be torn from my mouth and my throat cut from ear to ear, so help me god." the speaker then went into statistics, claiming that , , out of the , , voters in the united states were actual wage workers. he attacked the citizens' association as an organization of millionaires, and claimed that the court should stand between the accused and their persecutors. "where," he asked, "are the ends of justice observed, and where is truth found in hurrying seven human beings at the rate of express speed upon a fast train to the scaffold, and an ignominious death? why, if your honor please, the very method of our extermination, the deep damnation of its taking off, appeals to your honor's sense of justice, of rectitude, and of honor. a judge may also be an unjust man. such things have been known. we have in our histories heard of lord jeffreys. it need not follow that because a man is a judge he is also just. * * * now, i hold that our execution, as the matter stands just now, would be judicial murder, and judicial murder is far worse than lynch law--far worse. but, your honor, bear in mind please, this trial was conducted by a mob, prosecuted by a mob, by the shrieks and the howls of a mob, an organized powerful mob. the trial is over. now, your honor, you sit there judicially, calmly, quietly, and it is now for you to look at this thing from the standpoint of reason and from common sense. * * * now, the money-makers, the business men, those people who deal in stocks and bonds, the speculators and employers, all that class of men known as the money-making class, they have no conception of this labor question; they don't understand what it means. to use the street parlance, with many of them it is a difficult matter for them to 'catch onto' it, and they are perverse also; they will have no knowledge of it. they don't want to know anything about it, and they won't hear anything about it, and they propose to club, lock up, and if necessary strangle those who insist on their hearing this question. now, your honor, can you deny that there is such a thing in the world as the labor question? i am an anarchist. now strike! but hear me before you strike. what is socialism, briefly stated? it is the right of the toiler to the free and equal use of the tools of production, and the right of the producer to their product. that is socialism. the history of mankind is one of growth. it has been evolutionary and revolutionary." parsons went into an explanation of the wage question and the relations of capital and labor, asserting that employers in owning capital and leaving nothing to the wage slave but the price of his work, had produced a conflict which would intensify as the power of the privileged classes over the non-possession of property classes increased. he continued: "we were told by the prosecution that law is on trial; that government is on trial. that is what the gentlemen on the other side have stated to the jury. the law is on trial, and government is on trial. well, up to the conclusion of this trial we, the defendants, supposed that we were indicted and being tried for murder. now, if the law is on trial, and the government is on trial, who has placed it upon trial? and i leave it to the people of america whether the prosecution in this case have made out a case; and i charge it here now, frankly, that in order to bring about this conviction the prosecution, the representatives of the state, the sworn officers of the law--those whose duty it is to the people to obey the law and preserve order--i charge upon them a willful, a malicious, a purposed violation of every law which guarantees every right to every american citizen. they have violated free speech. in the prosecution of this case they have violated a free press. they have violated the right of public assembly. yea, they have even violated and denounced the right of self-defense. i charge the crime home to them. * * * my own deliberate opinion concerning this haymarket affair is that the death-dealing missile was the work, the deliberate work of monopoly--the act of those who themselves charge us with the deed. i am not alone in this view of this matter. what are the real facts of that haymarket tragedy? mayor harrison of chicago has caused to be published his opinion, in which he says: 'i did not believe that there was any intention on the part of spies and those men to have bombs thrown at the haymarket.' he knows more about this thing than the jury that sat in this room, for he knows--i suspect that the mayor knows--of some of the methods by which some of this evidence and testimony might have been manufactured. i don't charge it, your honor, but possibly he has had some intimation of it, and if he has he knows more about this case and the merits of this case than did the jury who sat here. * * * before the trial began, during its prosecution, and since its close, a satanic press has shrieked and howled itself wild, like ravenous hyenas, for the blood of these eight working men. now, this subsidized press, in the pay of the monopoly and of laborers and slavers, commanded this court and commanded this jury and this prosecution to convict us. as a fitting climax to this damnable conspiracy against our lives and liberty, what follows? o hide your eye now! hide it! hide it! as a fitting climax to this damnable conspiracy against our lives and liberty some of chicago's millionaires proposed to raise a purse of $ , and present it to the jury for their verdict of guilty against us. this was done, as everybody knows, in the last days of the trial, and since the verdict so far as anybody knows to the contrary, this blood money has been paid over to that jury. * * * condemned to death! perhaps you think i do not know what for? or maybe you think the people do not understand your motives? you are mistaken. i am here, standing in this spot awaiting your sentence, because i hate and loathe authority in every form. i am doomed by you to suffer an ignominious death because i am the outspoken enemy of coercion, of privilege, of force, of authority. it is for this you make me suffer. think you the people are blind, are asleep, are indifferent? you deceive yourselves. i tell you, as a man of the people, and i speak for them, that your every word and act and thoughts are recorded. you are being weighed in the balance. the people are conscious of your power--your stolen power. they know you; that while you masquerade as their servants you are in reality playing the role of master. the people--the common working people--know full well that all your wealth, your ease and splendor, have been stolen from them by the exercise of your authority in the guise of law and order. i, a working man, stand here and to your face, in your stronghold of oppression, and denounce to you your crimes against humanity. it is for this i die, but my death will not have been in vain. i guess i have finished. i don't know as i have anything more to say. your honor knows all i know about this case. i have taken your honor's time up that i might be able to lay this thing, the whole thing, before you, reserving nothing; opening my mind and heart, telling you the truth, the truth, and the whole truth. i am innocent of this offense. i had no connection with that haymarket tragedy. i know nothing of it. i am not responsible for it. i leave the case in the hands of your honor." sentence pronounced. parsons spoke altogether nearly nine hours, and the addresses of all the prisoners occupied three days. thousands of people were turned away during the closing days, and the scene in the courtroom when sentence was pronounced was peculiarly impressive. at the close of parsons' remarks judge gary delivered the following remarks, and pronounced the death sentence: "i am quite well aware that what you have said, although addressed to me, has been said to the world; yet nothing has been said which weakens the force of the proof or the conclusions therefrom upon which the verdict is based. you are all men of intelligence, and know that if the verdict stands, it must be executed. the reasons why it shall stand i have already sufficiently stated in deciding the motion for a new trial. i am sorry beyond any power of expression for your unhappy condition and for the terrible events that have brought it about. i shall address to you neither reproaches nor exhortation. what i shall say, shall be said in the faint hope that a few words from a place where the people of the state of illinois have delegated the authority to declare the penalty of a violation of their laws, and spoken upon an occasion solemn and awful as this, may come to the knowledge of and be heeded by the ignorant, deluded and misguided men who have listened to your counsels and followed your advice. i say in the faint hope; for if men are persuaded that because of business differences, whether about labor or anything else, they may destroy property and assault and beat other men, and kill the police, if they, in the discharge of their duty, interfere to preserve the peace, there is little ground to hope that they will listen to any warning. it is not the least among the hardships of the peaceable, frugal and laborious poor to endure the tyranny of mobs, who, with lawless force, dictate to them, under penalty of peril to limb and life, where, when and upon what terms they may earn a livelihood for themselves and their families. any government that is worthy of the name will strenuously endeavor to secure to all within its jurisdiction freedom to follow the lawful avocations and safety for their property and their persons, while obeying the law, and the law is common sense. it holds each man responsible for the natural and probable consequences of his own acts. it holds that whoever advises murder is himself guilty of the murder that is committed pursuant to his advice, and if men band together for a forcible resistance to the execution of the law and advise murder as a means of making such resistance effectual, whether such advice be to one man to murder another, or to a numerous class to murder men of another class, all who are so banded together are guilty of any murder that is committed in pursuance of such advice. the people of this country love their institutions, they love their homes, they love their property. they will never consent, that by violence and murder, those institutions shall be broken down, their homes despoiled, and their property destroyed. and the people are strong enough to protect and sustain their institutions and to punish all offenders against their laws; and those who threaten danger to civil society, if the law is enforced, are leading to destruction whoever may attempt to execute such threats. the existing order of society can be changed only by the will of the majority. each man has the full right to entertain and advocate by speech and print such opinions as suits himself, and the great body of the people will usually care little what he says. but if he proposes murder as a means of enforcing he puts his own life at stake. and no clamor about free speech or the evils to be cured or the wrongs to be redressed, will shield him from the consequences of his crime. his liberty is not a license to destroy. the toleration that he enjoys he must extend to others, and not arrogantly assume that the great majority are wrong and may rightfully be coerced by terror, or removed by dynamite. it only remains that for the crime you have committed, and of which you have been convicted after a trial unexampled in the patience with which an outraged people have extended to you every protection and privilege of the law which you derided and defied, that the sentence of that law be now given. in form and detail that sentence will appear upon the records of the court. in substance and effect it is that the defendant neebe be imprisoned in the state penitentiary at joliet at hard labor for the term of fifteen years. and that each of the other defendants, between the hours of ten o'clock in the forenoon and two o'clock in the afternoon of the third day of december next, in the manner provided by the statute of this state, be hung by the neck until he is dead. remove the prisoners." stay of sentence in the case of neebe was granted until december , the date set for the execution of the other principles; and the counsel for the condemned anarchists announced that they should file a bill of exceptions before the illinois supreme court, and petition for a supersedeas. [illustration: mrs. parsons.] chapter x. miscellaneous matter. arbeiter zeitung. mrs. lucy parsons. her arrest in ohio. her arrest in chicago. herr most endorsing the bomb-throwing. the panic he could create in a big city in thirty minutes with bombs in the hands of revolutionists. as the trial progressed many new and sensational developments were made. dr. ernst schmidt was constituted chairman of the committee of an organization, taking charge of matters pertaining to raising money for the defense. f. bielefeld became business manager of the _arbeiter zeitung_. in all the important cities meetings were held in the interests of the condemned men. mrs. lucy parsons, wife of the condemned anarchist, went on a lecturing tour to replenish the exchequer of the defendants, but public opinion in many places was against her, and she found it difficult in many places to obtain halls in which to speak. at akron, ohio, she was arrested for holding a meeting in defiance of the order of the mayor of that city. she has for years been an active anarchistic agitator, and her proclivities for public speech-making has brought her often before the public. she was arrested september for a violation of the ordinance prohibiting the distribution of circulars on the street of chicago. in new york, herr most, through his paper, the _freiheit_, indorsed the bomb-throwing, saying: "its work was thorough. such bombs can be made by anybody, without much trouble, of an evening. think of revolutionists provided, say, each with six of these things, working in concert, so that, for example, in the wide range of a great cosmopolitan city within half an hour the fragments were to go flying in various suitable places, who will gainsay that by this means such a panic could be created that a comparatively small number of determined men might get possession of all commanding points in the place in a giffy? nobody. the bomb in chicago was legally justified, and, in a military sense, excellent. all honor to him who produced and made use of it." for this, and similar incendiary utterances, most was arrested and sentenced to serve a year in sing sing prison. he was living with lena fischer, alias mary georges, at allen street, under the name of west, and when captured was found in hiding under the woman's bed. the woman was thought to be a sister of adolph fischer, one of the condemned chicago anarchists, but this was denied. [illustration: niña stuart van zandt-spies] miss ni�a van zandt, who has constituted herself the heroine of anarchistic notoriety by developing a tender passion for the notorious spies, is a young lady of eighteen years of age, with a fine form and a fair share of personal attractions; neither a pronounced blonde, nor yet a brunette, but seemingly occupying the middle ground, between. niña is the daughter of the superintendent of the great kirk soap factory of chicago, and the heiress apparent to quite a fortune. she is of a dashing romantic disposition; fond of flowers, birds and dogs. she fell a victim to the ardent glances of the humorous editor as the sequence of having made his acquaintance while inserting an advertisement in the _zeitung_ to recover her lost pug, to whom she was much attached. through the efforts of spies she recovered her pet canine, and while performing the duty of expressing her gratitude to the editor she was smitten, and yielded passively to her fate. she became so infatuated in her attachment and attentions to spies that in february, , a marriage license was procured for the purpose of becoming his wife in the jail, but the sheriff forbade the ceremony as illegal and unprecedented. it was then determined that the ceremony should take place by proxy. spies' brother became the proxy, and the ceremony took place before justice englehardt in the town of jefferson. justice englehardt made returns of the marriage to the county clerk, who refused to recognize the return, pronouncing the ceremony illegal. this wife, in name only, was placed on exhibition in wax in one of the dime museums, when the cheeky manager was served with an injunction; but this young would-be wife compromised the matter, it is thought, on condition that part of the emoluments went into a fund for the benefit of her condemned lord. mrs. oscar neebe died quite suddenly in march, . neebe, under guard of jailor folz, visited the bedside of his dying wife and by official clemency remained some time with his children, and everything was done for the condemned men that could be done in the name of humanity under the circumstances. chapter xi. supersedeas granted. united states supreme court's decision sustaining the original verdict. parsons' letter to governor oglesby. lingg defiant. they refuse to sign a petition asking for executive clemency. their impertinent letters to governor oglesby. the supersedeas granted. there was no doubt from the beginning that the supersedeas asked for in behalf of the condemned anarchists would be granted. capt. w. p. black and hon. leonard swett, who had been retained to present the petition and make the argument for a new trial, met chief justice scott at bloomington by appointment, nov. , , and he directed the writ of error to issue. the only thing of substance which justice scott said at the entering of the order was to call attention to the following language in mooney vs. the people, cxi. illinois, page --an opinion by the full court: recognizing to the fullest extent the rule of law that the jury in their deliberations are judges of the facts and the weight of the evidence in criminal cases, yet the law has imposed on the court the solemn and responsible duty to see to it that no injustice is done by hasty action, passion, or prejudice, or from any other cause on the part of the jury. this duty the court may not omit in any case. [illustration: richard oglesby. _governor of illinois._] it is almost needless to state that the anarchists were well pleased with their temporary reprieve, and opportunity to have their able counsel argue for a rehearing of their case. the arguments were finished march , , before the supreme court at ottawa, states attorney grinnell and attorney general hunt appearing for the state. the decision was rendered wednesday, september , before the full bench of supreme justices, being read by judge magruder, of chicago. it will thus be seen that the supreme court gave the questions at issue full and ample consideration during a period of nearly six months. the courtroom was crowded by an expectant throng, and the announcement of the decision was foreshadowed by impressive solemnity. in a condensed review like this it would be manifestly impossible to give a decision comprising upwards of , words, and covering every point and detail of the case. it is sufficient to state that the decision was unanimous on the part of the justices. even justice mulkey, who was thought to lean toward a new trial, declared that, after having fully examined the record and given the questions arising on it his very best thought, with an earnest and conscientious desire to faithfully discharge his whole duty, he was fully satisfied that the opinion reached vindicates the law and does complete justice between the people and the defendants, fully warranted by the law and evidence. chief justice sheldon made the following announcement: "in this case the court orders that the sentence of the criminal court of cook county on the defendants in the indictment of august spies, michael schwab, samuel fielden, albert r. parsons, adolph fischer, george engel, and louis lingg, be carried into effect by the sheriff of cook county on friday, november next, between the hours of o'clock in the forenoon and o'clock in the afternoon of that day." the formal order for the execution of the anarchists was received by sheriff matson, of cook county, monday, september . the guards inside and patrol outside the jail had been doubled upon receipt of the news that the supreme court had sustained the verdict. monday night oscar neebe was quietly removed from the jail in a carriage and taken to joliet by train by deputy sheriffs gleason and spear, neebe being handcuffed securely to the latter officer. neebe's companions and outside sympathizers did not know of his removal. neebe said to a reporter of the _news_ that he had abandoned all hope. he said he would rather step upon the gallows with his companions than to go to prison; related what he had accomplished for employees of chicago breweries and the grocery clerks, in getting their hours shortened; was unrepentant of his part in the conspiracy, and said: "what i have done i would do again, and the time will come when the blood of the martyrs about to be sacrificed will cry aloud for vengeance, and that cry will be heard, aye, and that, too, before many years elapse." efforts to save the anarchists had failed. upon receipt of the news of the affirmation of the sentence by the supreme court, a. r. parsons sent to the newspapers an appeal, "to the american people," in which he maintained his innocence; declared that his speeches were lawful; condemned the evidence of detectives; refused executive clemency, concluding in the words of patrick henry, "i know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death." a. r. parsons's open letter to the american people in which he justifies his actions, maintains his innocence, and refuses executive clemency, ran as follows, under date of september , : "to the american people--_fellow citizens_: as all the world knows, i have been convicted and sentenced to die for the crime of murder, the most heinous offense that can be committed. under the form of law two courts--viz: the criminal and supreme courts of the state of illinois--have sentenced me to death as an accessory before the fact to the murder of officer degan on may , . nevertheless, i am innocent of the crime charged, and to a candid and unprejudiced world i submit the proof: parsons maintains his innocence. "in the decision affirming the sentence of death upon me the supreme court of the state of illinois says: 'it is undisputed that the bomb was thrown that caused the death of degan. it is conceded that no one of the defendants threw the bomb with his own hands. plaintiffs in error are charged with being accessories before the fact.' if i did not throw the bomb myself it becomes necessary to prove that i aided, encouraged, and advised the person who did throw it. is that fact proved? the supreme court says it is. the record says it is not. i appeal to the american people to judge between them. "the supreme court quotes articles from the _alarm_, the paper edited by me, and from my speeches running back three years before the haymarket tragedy of may , . upon said articles and speeches the court affirms my sentence of death as an accessory. the court says, 'the articles in the _alarm_ were most of them written by the defendant parsons, and some of them by the defendant spies,' and then proceeds to quote these articles. i refer to the record to prove that of all the articles quoted only one was shown to have been written by me. i wrote, of course, a great many articles for my paper, the _alarm_, but the record will show that only one of these many quoted by the supreme court to prove my guilt as an accessory was written by me. this article appeared in the _alarm_ december , , one year and a half before the haymarket meeting. as to mr. spies, the record will show that during the three years i was editor of the _alarm_ he did not write for the paper half a dozen articles. for proof as to this i appeal to the record. "the _alarm_ was a labor paper, and, as is well known, a labor paper is conducted as a medium through which working people can make known their grievances. the _alarm_ was no exception to this rule. i not only did not write 'most of the articles,' but wrote comparatively few of them. this the record will also show. "in referring to my haymarket speech the court says: 'to the men then listening to him he had addressed the incendiary appeals that had been appearing in the _alarm_ for two years. the court then quotes the incendiary article which i did write, and which is as follows: 'one dynamite bomb properly placed will destroy a regiment of soldiers, a weapon easily made, and carried with perfect safety in the pockets of one's clothing.'" simply a quotation from general sheridan. "the record will show by referring to the _alarm_ that this is a garbled extract taken from a statement made by gen. philip sheridan in his annual report to congress. it was simply a reiteration of general sheridan's statement that dynamite was easily made, perfectly safe to handle, and a very destructive weapon of warfare. the article in full as it appeared in the _alarm_ is as follows: 'dynamite--the protection of the poor against the armies of the rich--in submitting his annual report, november , , gen. philip sheridan, commander of the united states army, says: "this nation is growing so rapidly that there are signs of other troubles, which i hope will not occur and which will probably not come upon us if both capital and labor will only be conservative. still, it should be remembered, destructive explosives are easily made, and that banks, united states sub-treasuries, and large mercantile houses can be readily demolished and the commerce of entire cities destroyed by an infuriated people with means carried with perfect safety to themselves in the pockets of their clothing."' "the editorial comment upon the above as it appeared in the _alarm_ is as follows: 'a hint to the wise is sufficient'. of course general sheridan is too modest to tell us that himself and army will be powerless in the coming revolution between the propertied and the propertyless classes. only in foreign wars can the usual weapons of warfare be used to any advantage. one dynamite bomb properly placed will destroy a regiment of soldiers; a weapon easily made and carried with perfect safety in the pockets of one's clothing. the first regiment may as well disband, for if it should ever level its guns upon the working men of chicago it can be totally annihilated. "again the court says: 'he (parsons) had said to them (referring to the people assembled at the haymarket) saturday, april , , just ten days before may , in the _alarm_ that had appeared: "working men, to arms! war to the palace, peace to the cottage, and death to luxurious idleness! the wage system is the only cause of the world's misery. it is supported by the rich classes, and to destroy it they must be either made work or die. one pound of dynamite is better than a bushel of ballots! make your demand for eight hours with weapons in your hands to meet the capitalist bloodhounds--police and militia--in the proper manner."' "the record will show that this article was not written by me, but was published as a news item. by referring to the columns of the _alarm_ the following comment appears, attached to the above article, viz: 'the above hand bill was sent to us from indianapolis, ind., having been posted all over that city last week. our correspondent says that the police tore them down wherever they found them.' "the court continuing, says: 'at the close of another article in the same issue he said: "the social war has come, and whoever is not with us is against us."' assistant state's attorney walker read this article to the jury, and at its conclusion stated that it bore my initials and was my article. it is a matter within the knowledge of every one present that i interrupted him and called his attention to the fact that the article did not bear my initials, and that i was not its author. mr. walker corrected his mistake to the jury. "now these are the three articles quoted by the supreme court as proof of my guilt as an accessory in a conspiracy to murder officer degan. the record will prove what i say. his speeches were all right. "now as to my speeches--all of them, with one exception purporting to be my utterances at the haymarket, are given from the excited imaginations and perverted memories of newspaper reporters. mr. english, who alone took shorthand notes and swore to their correctness, reports me as saying. 'it is time to raise a note of warning. there is nothing in the eight-hour movement to excite the capitalist. don't you know that the militia are under arms and a gatling gun is ready to mow you down? was this germany, or russia, or spain? [a voice: "it looks like it."] whenever you make a demand for eight hours' pay or increase of pay the militia and the deputy sheriffs and the pinkerton men are called out and you are shot and clubbed and murdered in the streets. i am not here for the purpose of exciting anybody, but to speak out, to tell the facts as they exist even though it shall cost me my life before morning!' mr. english continuing, said: 'there is another part of it (the speech) right here. it behooves you, as you love your wife and children, if you don't want to see them perish with hunger, killed, or cut down like dogs on the street--americans, in the interest of your liberty and your independence, to arms; arm yourselves!' "this, be it remembered, is a garbled extract, and it is a matter of record that reporter english testified that he was instructed by the proprietor of his paper to report only the inflammatory portions of the speeches made at the meeting. the mayor heard the speech. "mayor harrison, who was present and heard this speech, testified before the jury that it was simply 'a violent and political harangue' and did not call for his interference as a peace officer. the speech delivered by me at the haymarket, and which i repeated before the jury is a matter of record and undisputed, and i challenge any one to show therein that i incited any one to acts of violence. the extract reported by mr. english, when taken in connection with what preceded and what followed, cannot be construed by the wildest imagination as incitement to violence. extracts from three other speeches alleged to have been delivered by me were made more than one year prior to may , , are given. two of these speeches were reported from the memory of the pinkerton detective johnson. these are the speeches quoted by the court as proof of my guilt as accessory to the murder of degan. where, then, is the connection between these speeches and the murder of degan? i am bold to declare that such connection is imperceptible to the eye of a fair and unprejudiced mind. but the honorable body, the supreme court of illinois, has condemned me to death for speeches i never made, and for articles i never wrote. in the affirmation of the death sentence the court has 'assumed,' 'supposed,' 'guessed,' 'surmised,' and 'presumed' that i can and did 'so and so.' this the record fully proves. "the court says: 'spies, schwab, parsons and engel were responsible for the articles written and published by them, as above shown; spies, schwab, fielden, parsons and engel were responsible for the speeches made by them respectively, and there is evidence in the same record tending to show that the death of degan occurred during the prosecution of a conspiracy planned by the members of the international groups who read these articles and heard these speeches.' objects to the pinkerton men. "now, i defy any one to show from the record the proof that i wrote more than one of the many articles alleged to have been written by me. yet the supreme court says that i wrote and am responsible for all of them. again--concerning the alleged speeches--they were reported by the pinkerton detective johnson, who was, as the record shows, employed by lyman gage, president of the first national bank, as the agent of the citizens' association, an organization composed of the millionaire employers of chicago. "i submit to a candid world if this hired spy would not make false reports to earn blood-money. thus, it is for speeches i did not make, and articles i did not write i am sentenced to die, because the court 'assumes' that these articles influenced some unknown and still unidentified person to throw the bomb that killed degan. is this law? is this justice? "the supreme court, in affirming the sentence of death upon me, proceeds to give further reasons, as follows: 'two circumstances are to be noted. first, it can hardly be said that parsons was absent from the haymarket meeting when he went to zepf's hall. it has already been stated that the latter place was only a few steps north of the speakers' wagon and in sight from it. we do not think that the defendant parsons could escape his share of the responsibility for the explosions at the haymarket because he stepped into a neighboring saloon and looked at the explosion through a window. while he was speaking men stood around him with arms in their hands. many of these were members of the armed sections of the international groups. among them were men who belonged to the international rifles, an armed organization in which he himself was an officer, and with which he had been drilling in preparation for the events then transpiring.' "the records of the trial will show that not one of the foregoing allegations is true. the facts are these: zepf's hall is on the northeast corner of lake and desplaines streets, just one block north of the speakers' wagon. the court says 'it was only a few steps north of the speakers' wagon.' the court says further that 'it can hardly be said that parsons was absent from the haymarket meeting when he was at zepf's hall.' if this is correct logic, then i was at two different places a block apart at the same instant. truly the day of miracles has not yet passed. again, the record will show that i did not 'step into a neighboring saloon and look at the explosion through a window.' it will show that i went to zepf's hall, one block distant, and across lake street, accompanied by my wife and another lady, and my two children (a girl of five and a boy of seven years of age), they having sat upon a wagon about ten feet from the speakers' wagon throughout my speech; that it looked like rain; that we had started home and went into zepf's hall to wait for the meeting to adjourn, and walked home in company with a lot of friends who lived in that direction. zepf's building is on the corner and opens on the street with a triangular door six feet wide. myself and ladies and children were just inside the door. here, while waiting for our friends and looking toward the meeting, i had a fair view of the explosion. all this the record will show. about the bomb. "it would seem that, according to circumstances, a block is at one time 'a few steps' or a 'few steps' is more than a block, as the case may suit. the logical as well as the imaginative faculties of the supreme court are further illustrated in a most striking manner by the credence of the court to the 'yarn' of a 'reporter,' who testified that spies had described to him the 'czar' bomb, and the men who were to use them as follows. 'he spoke of a body of tall, strong men in their organization who could throw bombs weighing five pounds paces. he stated that the bombs in question were to be used in case of conflict with the police or the militia.' "the court gives this sort of testimony as proof of the existence of a conspiracy to murder degan. wonderful credulity. to throw a five-pound bomb paces or yards is to throw it feet or a quarter of a mile. "gulliver, in his travels among the brobdingnag race, tells us of the giants he met, and we have also heard of the giants of patagonia. but we did not know until now that they were mere lilliputians as compared with the 'anarchist swedes' of chicago. "the court proceeds to say, 'while he (parsons) was speaking, men stood around him with arms in their hands.' the record as quoted by the court shows that only one man flourished a pistol, not a number of men. again, the court says, 'most of the men were members of the armed sections of the "international groups,"' thus making it appear that many of these men (when there was only one who was even alleged to have exhibited a pistol) were armed. "the court says: 'among them were men who belonged to the "international rifles," an armed organization in which he himself was an officer, and in which he had been drilling in preparation for the events then transpiring.' "now i challenge the supreme court or any other honorable gentleman to prove from the record that there ever existed such an organization as the armed section of the american group, known as the 'international rifles.' it cannot be done. the record shows that some members of the american group did organize the 'international rifles,' which never met but four or five times; was never armed with rifles or any other weapons, and was disbanded nearly a year before the th of may, . "the pinkerton man johnson says that dynamite bombs were exhibited 'in the presence of the "international rifles."' it will take corroborative testimony before the american people will credit the statements of such a man engaged for such a purpose; and it is well known that supreme courts have decided that the testimony of detectives should be taken with great caution. he appeals to the people. "i appeal to the american people, to their love of justice and fair play. i submit that the record does not show my guilt of the crime of murder, but on the contrary it proves my innocence. "against me in this trial all the rules of law and evidence have been reversed in that i have been held as guilty until i proved my innocence. i have been tried ostensibly for murder, but in reality for anarchy. i have been proved guilty of being an anarchist and condemned to die for that reason. the state's attorney said in his statement before the court and jury in the beginning of the trial: 'these defendants were picked out and indicted by the grand jury. they are no more guilty than the thousands who follow them. they are picked out because they are leaders. convict them and our society is safe,' and in their last appeal to the jury the prosecution said: 'anarchy is on trial. hang these eight men and save our institutions. these are the leaders. make examples of them.' this is a matter of record. a word for his comrades. "so far as i have had time to examine the records i find the same fabrication and perversion of testimony against all my comrades as exists against myself. i therefore again appeal to to the american people to avert the crime of judicial murder. and this appeal i have faith will not be in vain. "my ancestors partook of all the hardships incident to the establishment of this republic. they fought, bled, and some of them died that the declaration of independence might live and the american flag might wave in triumph over those who claim the 'divine right of kings to rule.' shall the flag now, after a century's triumph, trail in the mire of oppression and protect the perpetration of outrages and oppressions that would put the older despotisms of europe to shame? "knowing myself innocent of crime i came forward and gave myself up for trial. i felt that it was my duty to take my chances with the rest of my comrades. i sought a fair and impartial trial before a jury of my peers, and knew that before any fair-minded jury i could with little difficulty be cleared. i preferred to be tried and take the chances of an acquittal with my friends to being hunted as a felon. have i had a fair trial? parsons refuses executive clemency. "the lovers of justice and fair play are assiduously engaged in an effort to thwart the consummation of judicial murder by a commutation of sentence to prison. i speak for myself alone when i say that for this i thank them and appreciate their efforts. but i am an innocent man. i have violated no law; i have committed no offense against any one's rights. i am simply the victim of the malice of those whose anger has been aroused by the growth, strength and independence of the labor organizations of america. i am a sacrifice to those who say: 'these men may be innocent. no matter. they are anarchists. we must hang them anyway.' "my counsel informs me that every effort will be made to take this case before the highest tribunal in the land, and that there is strong hope of a hearing there. but i am also reliably informed that from three to five years will elapse before the supreme court of the united states can hear and adjudge the case. "since surrendering myself to the authorities, i have been locked up in close confinement twenty-one hours out of every twenty-four for six days, and from saturday afternoon till monday morning (thirty-eight hours) each week in a noisome cell, without a ray of sunlight or a breath of pure air. to be compelled to bear this for five or even three years would be to suffer a lingering death, and it is only a matter of serious consideration with me whether i ought to accept the verdict as it stands rather than die by inches under such conditions. i am prepared to die. i am ready, if needs be, to lay down my life for my rights and the rights of my fellow men. but i object to being killed on false and unproved accusations. therefore i cannot countenance or accept the efforts of those who would endeavor to procure a commutation of my sentence to an imprisonment in the penitentiary. neither do i approve of any further appeals to the courts of law. i believe them to be all alike--agency of the privileged classes to perpetuate their power, to oppress and plunder the toiling masses. as between capital and its legal rights, and labor and its legal rights, the courts of law must side with the capitalistic class. to appeal to them is in vain. it is the appeal of the wage slave to his capitalistic master for liberty. the answer is curses, blows, imprisonment, and death. "if i had never been an anarchist before, my experience with courts and the laws of the governing class would make an anarchist of me now. what is anarchy? it is a state of society without any central or governing power. upon this subject the court, in its affirmation of the death sentence, defines the object of the international working peoples' association as follows: "'it is designed to bring about a social revolution. social revolution means the destruction of the right of private ownership of property, or of the right of the individual to own property. it means of the bringing about of a state of society in which all property should be held in common.' he refers to the scriptures. "if this definition is right, then it is very similar to that advocated by jesus christ, for proof of which i refer to the fourth and fifth chapters of the acts of the apostles; also matthew xxi., to , and mark xi., to . "no, i am not guilty. i have not been proved guilty. i leave it to you to decide from the record itself as to my guilt or innocence. i cannot, therefore, accept a commutation to imprisonment. i appeal--not for mercy, but for justice. as for me, the utterance of patrick henry is so apropos that i cannot do better than let him speak: "'is life so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? forbid it, almighty god! i know not what course others may take, but, as for me, give me liberty or give me death.'" a. r. parsons, "prison cell , chicago, ill., sept. , ." the case before the federal supreme court. the anarchists were not lacking in funds to secure every chance of reprieve or commutation, as contributions had poured into their coffers swelling the sum total over $ , . every opportunity was accorded to the condemned men to place their case in as favorable a light as possible before the federal court. but the flagrant and far-reaching character of their crime gave little hope to the unbiased that the judges composing that honorable body would interfere. following our readers will find attorney grinnell's argument before the united states supreme court. also general butler's defense for the impenitent yet doomed men. grinnell's argument before the united states supreme court. mr. grinnell, addressing the court, said that it had not been his intention to take part in the oral argument, and that he came here primarily for the purpose of assisting mr. hunt by means of his familiarity with the record in this case. he thought that by the presentation of the law and the facts yesterday it was clearly shown that there was no federal question involved, and that the court was without jurisdiction to grant the writ of error. the assignments of error in the lower court, and the parts of the record relating to the jurors denker and sanford had been printed and were in the court's hands. in all the twenty-eight assignments of error there was no reference directly or indirectly to the constitution of the united states or any of its amendments. there were some things, he said, which were here generally conceded, and one of them was that the constitution itself confers no rights which need be here considered. it is simply a limitation of the rights of the legislative power in dealing with the rights of citizens. the question of jurisdiction. the constitution of the state of illinois contains almost all the provisions which are embraced in the constitution of the united states. this court had settled, he believed, the question of jurisdiction as far as the first ten amendments are concerned, and also, he thought, under the fourteenth amendment. the only clause of the latter which could figure here was that "no state shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law." whatever affects liberty and life is made by this clause to affect also property. if the court has jurisdiction of this case under this provision of the amendment then every state question relating to property, such as special assessments, the condemnation of property, etc., might be brought to this court for review. the chief justice--"because they take property without valuation by a jury." mr. grinnell--"yes, your honor, in some cases they do, especially in the matter of drainage, where the proceedings may be before a justice of the peace." peremptory challenges. mr. grinnell said he thought it to be conceded that a state legislature had a right to prescribe how many peremptory challenges should be allowed in the formation of a jury. the common law of illinois had been radically changed in this respect, and both prosecution and defendant now stood on an equal footing. each defendant was entitled to twenty peremptory challenges, and as the eight defendants in this case acted in concert and were all consulted, each of them had practically peremptory challenges. the state had a like number. the defendants exhausted all of their peremptory challenges before a jury was obtained and the state availed itself of its privilege to the extent of fifty-two challenges. he maintained, however, that no federal question would be involved even if the state allowed only one peremptory challenge to one side and to the other. it was the state's right. in this case there were men called into the jury box and examined in order to obtain twelve jurors. jurors sanford and denker. no objection was raised to any one of the twelve jurors with the single exception of sanford. denker was challenged for cause after a brief examination; the challenge was overruled and the defense accepted, but they then proceeded with a further and more elaborate examination of him, and it is shown by the record that after this second examination they desired to keep him, that they did keep him, and that they did make no further exception. when denker was taken the defense had left peremptory challenges and they could have used one of these challenges to get rid of him if they had been very desirous of so doing. they had forty-three peremptory challenges left after eleven jurors had been sworn. these forty-three challenges they frittered away frivolously for the purpose of taking some possible advantage. their peremptory challenges were then exhausted, and they had to either take a juror or show cause why he should be rejected. the examination of sanford, the last juror, clearly demonstrated, mr. grinnell said, that the defense were more ready to take him than the state was. not a single juror was put upon the defense to exhaust their peremptory challenges. whenever a man said that he had talked with a witness or any one who was present at the haymarket meeting, or that he had attended the coroner's inquest he was rejected for cause. eulogizing the jury. speaking of the jury as a whole, mr. grinnell said: "i wish and am constrained to pay one tribute to that jury. it exemplified american citizenship in this country more than any jury that was ever looked upon. it embraced all walks of life. three of them earned their living by manual work. they came from all parts of the country and one of them was born on foreign soil. they were not a class jury. they were honest citizens with the solemn duty devolving upon them of determining what should be done with those men. no judge could look in the faces of that jury without saying: 'they are intelligent; they represent american citizenship; they are fit to be trusted with the rights of freemen under our constitution.' there was not a capitalist on that jury. they were all common-place small dealers and intelligent men." mr. grinnell said he would challenge any one to show that a single member of that jury was not a competent juror, not only under the jury law of illinois, but under the common law. "congress," he said, "had recognized the right of states to make their own jury laws." section of the revised statutes provides that "jurors to serve in the courts of the united states in each state respectively shall have the same qualifications and be entitled to the same exemptions as jurors of the highest court of law in such state may have and be entitled to at the time when such jurors for service in the courts of the united state are summoned." almost every state in the north, he said, now had its new jury law, and these laws have been sustained by the highest state courts. the seizure of spies' papers. proceeding to the question of "unreasonable search and seizure" in spies' office, he said it did not strike him as being any part of this case. he was not here to offer any apologies for his own conduct. he then recited at some length the circumstances of the bomb-throwing in the haymarket, the search of the _arbeiter zeitung_ office, the prying open of spies' desk, the finding of dynamite and letters there, the breaking open of lingg's domicile, and the finding in his trunk of dynamite bombs precisely like the one thrown. mr. grinnell was interrupted at this point by general butler, who said he should want to cross-examine him if it was competent for him to do so. mr. grinnell--"you shall have that privilege, general." mr. grinnell, resuming, said that such seizure was not a thing which this court could regulate. it had said in the ker kidnapping case that it was not for the court to determine how he (the prisoner) got here. the court simply said: "you are here." the things seized in the search of these prisoners' premises "were there," and it was for the court to determine whether they were legally there. the only question was, "are these things testimony?" and that was not an inquiry for the court. simply evidence. forgery, murder, and other crimes had to be proved, mr. grinnell said, by such evidence. "the pistol found in the hand of the assassin guiteau was forcibly taken from him, and his papers, if i remember rightly, were overhauled. they were 'there' (that is, in the court), and it was nobody's business how they got there. that the search and seizure in this case was an unreasonable search and seizure from the point of view of the defendants i have no doubt." in conclusion mr. grinnell said: "it strikes us from our standpoint that the foundation of the constitution is less likely to be impaired by refusing to grant this writ than by granting it." the general's individuality. after a great deal of rambling talk about the composition of the jury, dissatisfaction with the record, lack of time for preparation, the sentencing of the prisoners in their absence and that of their counsel, the injustice done them by "unreasonable search and seizure," etc., general butler said that if all these things could be done the question was to be debated whether this government would not be a little better if it were overturned into an anarchy than if it were to be carried on in this fashion. "i have no fear," he said, "of being misunderstood upon this question. i have the individuality of being the only man in the united states that condemned and executed men for undertaking to overturn the law. there were thousands of them. and for that act, please your honors, a price was set on my head as though i were a wolf, and $ , was offered to any man that could capture me, to murder me, by jefferson davis and his associates, and who, if they were here at your bar, trying to ascertain whether they should have an honest and a fair trial for their great crimes, and they called upon me--their lives in danger--i should hold it to be my duty to stand here and do all that i might to defend them. that is the chivalry of the law, if i understand it, and if i don't it is of not much consequence, for i am quite easily and quickly passing away." inherent rights of citizens after some further talk general butler said he agreed fully that the first ten amendments to the constitution were limitations of federal power and not restrictions of the rights of the states. the "privileges and immunities" however, claimed by these prisoners were privileges inherent in each one of the citizens of the several states of the united states, because in vast majority we were british subjects and had certain privileges and immunities inherited under the common law and magna charta, and among them, and the most thoroughly known and defined were the trial by jury for all high crimes, exemption from search and seizure without warrant of law, protection from self-accusation when a witness, and not to be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. we claim that all the rights, privileges, and immunities that belonged to a british subject under magna charta belong to each citizen of the united states; and that as new citizens of the united states were made, not citizens of states, by naturalization, these rights, privileges, and immunities came to them as citizens of the united states. the effect of the fourteenth amendment was to guarantee these rights, privileges, and immunities to the citizens of all the states. meaning of "due process of law." the words "due process of law" as contained in the fourteenth amendment, and as used to define one of these guaranteed rights, mean "by the law of the land," not the law of a county, a province, or a state, but the law of the country--the whole country. that is the law of the land, and was so understood by our forefathers as due process of law. any other meaning given to "due process of law" as it is used in the fourteenth amendment would make it simply ridiculous and frivolous, because any state may enact a "due process of law" according to that state, by which a man's life may be taken and from which not a single right or immunity of citizenship can protect him. any law a state may make after the passage of this amendment for dealing with the rights of a citizen of the united states becomes wholly inoperative, because the "law of the land" must forever remain fixed as at that moment, not to be changed in regard to its citizens without a change of organic law, and for some purposes not to be even so changed. the cases of fielden and spies. general butler then proceeded to a consideration of the special and peculiar questions raised by the cases of fielden and spies who are foreigners. he contended that treaties were the supreme law of the land, and that these prisoners were entitled, by virtue of treaties with germany and great britain, to all the rights and privileges of american citizens at the time such treaties were made. a state had no power to try these men by one of its own laws which was not the law of the land at the time the treaties were ratified. he did not mean, he said, that a foreigner could come into a state, and break its laws with impunity and that the state could not touch him. but he did mean that the state could only try him in accordance with the law of the land--the whole land--at the time the treaty with his government was made. this, he said, was an important question to every american citizen, because in return for the concession made by this government in the treaty with great britain the government of that country had made similar concessions to us. suppose that a citizen of the united states should go to ireland and should make some remarks about the advantages of a republican form of government, and should be arrested and tried by the crimes act in violation of the treaty. would we not stand up and say that this man must be tried by a fair and impartial jury? he must be tried as an englishman would have been tried at the time the treaty was made, and he cannot be dealt with in a more summary way under a later law. general butler's argument. if this should happen, general butler said, he hoped that the english authorities would not be able to hold up to him a decision of the united states supreme court sustaining the right to try an englishman by the local law of a state which was nothing but a swamp and a howling wilderness at the time the treaty was ratified. returning to the rights of states, general butler said that he was not prepared to deny that a state might change its organic laws with the consent of all its citizens, but such change would not bind a citizen of another state who had not assented to them. impartial juries and newspaper lies. after some desultory remarks about the record and the necessity of laying it before the court, and another reference to breaking open safes and desks, general butler said: "there is no doubt that the prisoners were entitled to a trial by an impartial jury--a stupid jury, if you please--because i don't think a man who reads newspapers is any more competent to try a case--rather worse if he pays any attention to their lies." as enunciated by chief justices of the supreme court an impartial juror, he said, is one who "stands in freedom of mind, without bias or prejudice, and is indifferent." the petitioners were not tried by such a jury and are entitled to protection under the federal constitution. "if" he said, "the court is to give me jurors as prejudiced as some of those in this case i had better go to a land of hottentots, for they would not allow me to be stolen and taken back into illinois." general butler's allusion is to the kidnapping of ker, referred to by counsel on the other side in defending their search and seizure. in reply to mr. grinnell's statement that the records would show that the defense were more ready to take the last juror (sanford) than the state was, general butler said that they were compelled to accept the last juror. their peremptory challenges were exhausted and they could do nothing else. under these circumstances they talked to him and coaxed him, and tried to get him into a state of mind as favorable to their side as they could. that was what the parts of the record referred to by mr. grinnell would show, and nothing more. no waiver of rights in capital cases. general butler then referred to the assertion of counsel on the other side that the petitioners had waived some of their rights through not insisting upon them by exception or objection at the proper time, and that therefore, they were estopped from asserting these rights now in this court. he contended, however, that when a man was on trial for his life there was no such thing as a waiver or estoppal. in capital offences a prisoner cannot waive wittingly or unwittingly anything that will affect the issue. in support of this contention he cited the opinion of chief justice shaw in the case of dr. webster. the prisoners, he maintained, could not now be barred out because they had not raised sufficiently formal objections. general butler then returned again to the "unreasonable searches and seizures" complained of by the petitioners, and said his associate, mr. tucker, had characterized the proceeding as a "subp[oe]næ duces tecum." executed by a locksmith. "why your honors," he exclaimed, "they searched under a burglary, headed by the state's attorney on his own admission--no miserable policeman or half-witted constable, but the state's prosecuting attorney does the burglary, steals the papers, and says you can't help that. he puts it with a sort of triumph, and yet we are told that our immunities and privileges are not invaded, and our remedy is to sue for trespass. what a beautiful remedy! sue the state's attorney and be tried by such a jury as the laws of illinois would give. better be in a place not to be named for comfort." prisoners absent when sentenced. as a final reason why the writ should be granted, general butler urged that the prisoners had been sentenced to death in their absence, and without being asked whether they had any reason to give why sentence of death should not be pronounced upon them. the record, he said, did not show that they were absent when sentenced, but they could prove it. the record showed that they were present, but they could prove by half chicago that this was a mistake. in conclusion, general butler said: "may i, in closing, make one observation? if men's lives can be taken in this way, as you have seen exhibited here to-day, better anarchy, better be without law, than with any such law." general butler then thanked the court for its indulgence and took his seat. united states supreme court's decision november , is as follows: the court holds in brief: first, that the first ten amendments to the constitution are limitations upon federal and not upon state action: second, that the jury law of illinois is upon its face valid and constitutional, and that it is similar in its provisions to the statute of utah, which was sustained in this court in the case of hopt vs. the territory of utah; third, that it does not appear in the record that upon the evidence the trial court should have declared the juror sanford incompetent; fourth, that the objection to the admission of the johann most letter and the cross-examination of spies, which counsel for the prisoners maintained virtually compelled them to testify against themselves, were not objected to in the trial court, and that therefore no foundation was laid for the exercise of this court's jurisdiction, and fifth, that the questions raised by general butler in the cases of spies and fielden upon the basis of their foreign nationality were neither raised nor decided in the state courts, and therefore cannot be considered. the writ of error prayed for was consequently denied. there was no dissenting opinion. the above decision of the supreme court was received by the condemned anarchists with coolness amounting to indifference. a. r. parsons then handed the copy of a letter sent to governor oglesby to the _daily news_ for publication, as follows: "_to his excellency richard j. oglesby, governor of the state of illinois_--dear sir: i am aware that petitions are being signed by hundreds of thousands of persons addressed to you, beseeching you to interpose your prerogative and commute the sentences of myself and comrades from death to imprisonment in the penitentiary. you are, i am told a good constitutional lawyer and a sincere man. i therefore beg of you to examine the record of the trial, and then conscientiously decide for yourself as to my guilt or innocence. i know that as a just man you will decide in accordance with the facts, the truth, and the justice of this case. but i write to reiterate the declaration made in my published appeal to the people of america september , . i am guilty or i am innocent of the charge for which i have been condemned to die. if guilty, then i prefer death rather than to go 'like the quarry slave at night scourged to his dungeon'. if innocent then i am entitled to and will accept nothing less than liberty. the records of the trial made in judge gary's court prove my innocence of the crime of murder. but there exists a conspiracy to judicially murder myself and imprisoned companions in the name and by virtue of the authority of the state. history records every despotic, arbitrary deed of the people's rulers as having been done in the name of the people, even to the destruction of the liberties of the people. "i am a helpless prisoner, completely in the power of the authorities, but i strongly protest against being taken from my cell and carried to the penitentiary as a felon. therefore, in the name of the people, whose liberty is being destroyed; in the name of peace and justice, i protest against the consummation of this judicial murder, this proposed strangulation of freedom on american soil. i speak for myself, i know not what course others may pursue, but for myself i reject the petition for my imprisonment. i am innocent, and i say to you that under no circumstances will i accept a commutation to imprisonment. in the name of the american people i demand my right--my lawful, constitutional, natural, inalienable right to liberty. respectfully yours, "a. r. parsons, prison cell ." on receipt of the decision of the federal court not to interfere in the anarchists case, the doomed men were sullen. louis lingg, the bomb-maker, was blatant and defiant, and said to his attendants, "i will never die on the scaffold," he continued, "i hate and defy you all." a week before the execution lingg said: "i approach my last moment cheerfully, but i will not go alone." this was significant language, and no doubt was an allusion to the fact that he intended to use the bombs, afterwards found in his cell for the purpose of producing an explosion in the jail that might have resulted in the death of scores of victims. lingg, engel, fischer and parsons refused absolutely and persistently to sign any petition to his excellency, governor oglesby, for executive clemency in the commutation of their sentence to imprisonment. the following is a copy of letters from lingg, engel and fischer to governor oglesby. they demand liberty or death: cook county jail, november .--an open letter to mr. r. j. oglesby, governor of the state of illinois. dear sir: i am aware that petitions are being circulated and signed by the general public, asking you to commute the sentence of death which was inflicted upon me by a criminal court of this state. anent the action of a sympathizing and well-meaning portion of the people, i solemnly declare that it has not my sanction. as a man of honor, as a man of conscience, and as a man of principle, i cannot accept mercy. i am _not guilty_ of the charge in the indictment----of murder. _i am no murderer_, and cannot apologize for an action of _which i know i am innocent_. and should i ask "mercy" on account of my principles, which i honorably believe to be true and noble! _no!_ i am no hypocrite, and have, therefore, no excuses to offer with regard to being an anarchist, because the experiences of the past eighteen months have only strengthened my convictions. the question is: _am i responsible for the death of the policemen at the haymarket?_ and i say no, unless you assent that every abolitionist could have been responsible for the deeds of john brown. therefore i could not ask or accept "mercy" without lowering myself in my self-estimation. if i cannot obtain _justice_ from the authorities and be restored to my family, then i prefer that the verdict should be carried out as it stands. every informed person must, i should think, admit that this verdict is solely due to class hatred, prejudice, the inflaming of public opinion by the malicious newspaper fraternity, and a desire on the part of the privileged classes to check the progressive labor movement. the interested parties, of course, deny this, but it is nevertheless true, and i am sure that coming ages will look upon our trial, conviction, and execution as the people of the nineteenth century regard the barbarities of past generations--as the outcome of intolerance and prejudice against advanced ideas. history repeats itself. as the powers that be have at all times thought that they could stem the progressive tide by exterminating a few "kickers," so do the ruling classes of to-day imagine that they can put a stop to the movement of labor emancipation by hanging a few of its advocates. progress in its victorious march has had to overcome many obstacles which seemed invincible, and many of its apostles have died the death of martyrs. the obstacles which bar the road to progress to-day seem to be invincible, too; but they will be overcome, nevertheless. at all times when the condition of society had become such, that a large portion of the people complained of the existing injustice, the ruling classes have denied the truth of these complaints, and have said that the discontent of the portion of the people in question was due only to the "pernicious influence" of "malicious agitators." to-day, again, some people assert that the "d----d agitators" are the cause of the immense dissatisfaction among the working people! oh, you people who speak thus, _can_ you not, or _will_ you not, read the signs of the time? do you not see that the clouds on the social firmament are thickening? are you not, for instance, aware that the control of industry and the means of transportation, etc., is constantly concentrating in fewer hands; that the monopolists, i. e., the sharks among the capitalists, swallow the little ones among them; that "trusts," "pools," and other combinations are being formed in order to more thoroughly and systematically fleece the people; that under the present system the development of technic and machinery is from year to year throwing more working men on the wayside; that in some parts of this great and fertile land a majority of the farmers are obliged to mortgage their homes in order to satisfy the greed of monstrous corporations; that, in short, the rich are constantly growing richer, and the poor poorer? yes? and do you not comprehend that all these evils find their origin in the present institution of society which allows one portion of the human race to build fortunes upon the misfortunes of others; to enslave their fellow men? instead of trying to remedy these evils, and instead of ascertaining just what the cause of the widening dissatisfaction is, the ruling classes, through their mouth-pieces, press, pulpit, etc.--defame and misrepresent the character, teachings, and motives of the advocates of social reconstruction, and use the rifle and the club on them, and, if opportunity is favorable, send them to the gallows and prisons. will this do any good? as an answer i may as well quote the following words with which benjamin franklin closed his satirical essay, "rules for reducing a great empire to a small one," which he dedicated to the english government in : "suppose all their (the 'kickers') complaints to be inverted, and promoted by a few factious demagogues, whom if you could catch and hang, all would be quiet. catch and hang a few accordingly; and the blood of the martyrs shall work miracles in favor of your purpose" (i. e., your own ruin). so, i say, society may hang a number of disciples of progress who have disinterestedly served the cause of the sons of toil which is the cause of humanity, but their blood will work miracles in bringing about the downfall of modern society, and in hastening the birth of a new era of civilization. magna est veritas et prevalebet! adolph fischer. a letter to governor oglesby dear sir--i, george engel, citizen of the united states and of chicago, and condemned to death, learn that thousands of citizens petition you as the highest executive officer of the state of illinois, to commute my sentence from death to imprisonment. i protest emphatically against this on the following grounds: i am not aware of having violated any laws of this country. in my firm belief in the constitution which the founders of this republic bequeathed to this people and which remains unaltered, i have exercised the right of free speech, free press, free thought and free assemblage, as guaranteed by the constitution, and have criticised the existing condition of society, and succored my fellow-citizens with my advice, which i regard as the right of every honest citizen. the experience which i have had in this country, during the fifteen years that i have lived here, concerning the ballot and the administration of our public functionaries who have become totally corrupt, have eradicated my belief in the existence of equal rights of poor and rich, and the action of the public officers, police and militia have produced the firm belief in me that these conditions cannot last long. in accordance with this belief i have taught and advised. this i have done in good faith of the rights which are guaranteed by the constitution, and, not being conscious of my guilt, the "powers that be" may _murder_ me, but they cannot _legally punish_ me. i protest against a commutation of my sentence and demand either liberty or death. i renounce any kind of mercy. respectfully, george engel. an open letter. to mr. r. j. oglesby, governor of illinois: anent the fact that the progressive and liberty-loving portion of the american people are endeavoring to prevail upon you to interpose prerogative in my case, i feel impelled to declare, with my friend and comrade parsons, that i demand either liberty or death. if you are really a servant of the people according to the constitution of the country, then you will, by virtue of your office unconditionally release me. referring to the general and inalienable rights of men. i have called upon the disinherited and oppressed masses to oppose the force of their oppressors--exercised by armed enforcement of infamous laws, enacted in the interest of capital--with force, in order to attain a dignified and manly existence by securing the full returns of their labor. this--and only this--is the "crime" which was proved against me, notwithstanding the employment of perjured testimony on the part of the state. and this crime is guaranteed not only as a right, but as a duty, by the american constitution, the representative of which you are supposed to be in the state of illinois. but if you are not the representative of the constitution, like the great majority of officeholders, a mere tool of the monopolists or a specific political clique, you will not encroach upon the thirst for blood displayed by the executioner, because a mere mitigation of the verdict would be cowardice, and a proof that the ruling classes which you represent are themselves abashed at the monstrosity of my condemnation, and consequently, of their own violation of the most sacred rights of the people. your decision in that event will not only judge me, but also yourself and those whom you represent. judge then! cook county jail, , , ' . louis linng. p. s.--in order to be sure that this letter will come to your official notice, i will send you the original manuscript as a registered letter. l. l. chapter xii. fielden penitent. his letter to the governor. spies' last letter to his excellency. willing to die for his comrades. fielden sues for mercy. fielden's letter is as follows: chicago, ill., nov. , .--_the hon. richard j. oglesby, governor state of illinois_--sir: i samuel fielden, a prisoner under sentence of death, and charged with complicity in the conspiracy to bring about the haymarket massacre, pray your excellency for relief from the death sentence and respectfully beg your consideration of the following statement of facts: "i was born in england in humble circumstances, and had little early education. for some years i devoted my life to religious work, being an authorized lay preacher in the methodist denomination. i came to this country and settled in chicago. at all times i was obedient to the law and conducted myself as a good citizen. i was a teamster and worked hard for my daily bread. my personal conduct and my domestic life were beyond reproach. "some three years or more ago i was deeply stirred by the condition of the working classes, and sought to do what i could for their betterment. i did this honestly, and with no sinister motive. i never sought any personal advantage out of the agitation in which i was engaged. i was gifted, as i was flattered and led to believe, with the faculty of stirring an audience with my words, and it was said that i was eloquent. i began delivering addresses to assemblages of the working classes, and spoke of their wrongs as i saw them. none of my speeches were prepared nor in any sense studied, and often they were born in an hour of intense excitement. it is true that i have said things in such heat that in calmer moments i should not have said. i made violent speeches. i suggested the use of force as a means for righting the wrongs which seemed to me to be apparent. "i cannot admit that i used all of the words imputed to me by the state, nor can i pretend to remember the actual phrases i did utter. i am conscious, however, as i have said, that i was frequently aroused to a pitch of excitement which made me in a sense irresponsible. i was intoxicated with the applause of my hearers, and the more violent my language the more applause i received. my audience and myself mutually excited each other. i think, however, it is true that, for sensational or other purposes, words were put into my mouth and charged to me which i never uttered; but, whether this be true or not, i say now that i no longer believe it proper that any class of society should attempt to right its own wrongs by violence. i can now see that much that i said under excitement was unwise, and all this i regret. it is not true, however, that i ever consciously attempted to incite any man to the commission of crime. although i do admit that i belonged to an organization which was engaged at one time in preparing for a social revolution, i was not engaged in any conspiracy to manufacture or throw bombs. i never owned or carried a revolver in my life and did not fire one at the haymarket. i had not the slightest idea that the meeting at the haymarket would be other than a peaceable and orderly one, such as i had often addressed in this city, and was utterly astounded at its bloody outcome, and have always felt keenly the loss of life and suffering there occasioned. "in view of these facts i respectfully submit that, while i confess with regret the use of extravagant and unjustifiable words, i am not a murderer. i never had any murderous intent, and i humbly pray relief from the murderer's doom. that these statements are true i do again solemnly affirm by every tie that i hold sacred, and i hope that your excellency will give a considerate hearing to the merits of my case, and also to those of my imprisoned companions who have been sentenced with me. "i remain, very respectfully, s. fielden." the above letter to the governor by samuel fielden was endorsed by judge gary and states attorney grinnell. spies' last letter to the governor. "chicago, ill., nov. .--_gov. oglesby, springfield, ill._--sir: the fact that some of us have appealed to you for justice--under the pardoning prerogative--while others have not, should not enter into consideration in the decision of our case. some of my friends have asked you for an absolute pardon. they feel the injustice done them so intensely that they cannot conciliate the idea of a commutation of sentence with the consciousness of innocence. the others (among them myself), while possessed of the same feeling of indignation, can perhaps more calmly and dispassionately look upon the matter as it stands. they do not disregard the fact that through a systematic course of lying, perverting, distorting, inventing, slandering, the press has succeeded in creating a sentiment of bitterness and hatred among a great portion of the populace that one man, no matter how powerful, how courageous, and just he be, cannot possibly overcome. they hold that to overcome that sentiment or the influence thereof would almost be a physiological impossibility. not wishing, therefore, to place your excellency in a still more embarrassing position between the blind fanaticism or a misinformed public on one hand and justice on the other they concluded to submit their case to you unconditionally. willing to die for his comrades. i implore you not to let this difference of action have any weight with you in determining our fate. during our trial the desire of the prosecutor to slaughter me, and to let my co-defendants off with milder punishment was quite apparent and manifest. it seemed to me then, and a great many of others, that the persecutors would be satisfied with one life--namely, mine. grinnell, in his argument, intimated this very plainly. i care not to protest my innocence of any crime, and of the one i am accused of in particular. i have done that and leave the rest to the judgment of history. but to you i wish to address myself now as the alleged arch-conspirator (leaving the fact that i never have belonged to any kind of a conspiracy out of the question altogether). if a sacrifice of life there must be, will not my life suffice? the state's attorney of cook county asked for no more. take this, then! take my life! i offer it to you so that you may satisfy the fury of a semi-barbaric mob, and save that of my comrades. i know that every one of my comrades is as willing to die, and perhaps more so than i am. it is not for their sake that i make this offer, but in the name of humanity and progress, in the interest of a peaceable--if possible--development of the social forces that are destined to lift our race upon a higher and better plane of civilization. in the name of the traditions of our country i beg you to prevent a seven-fold murder upon men whose only crime is that they are idealists, that they long for a better future for all. if legal murder there must be, let one, let mine, suffice. "a. spies." chapter xiii. lingg suicides. dr. bolton with the prisoners. they decline spiritual comfort. the last night of the doomed men. parsons sings in his cell. telegrams for parsons. his last letter. lingg commits suicide. his excellency, the governor of illinois, took action in the anarchists' case on november , commuting to imprisonment for life the sentence of samuel fielden and michael schwab, sending the death warrant of the remaining four to sheriff matson by his son, robert oglesby, who arrived early on the morning of the th of november. prior to the governor making known his decision, louis lingg anticipating what his fate would be, and in keeping with his threat, had by some process unknown to the keepers, secured a fulminating cap such as is used in exploding dynamite, which he coolly placed in his mouth, and igniting the fuse which protruded from his mouth a short distance, calmly awaited the end. a terrific report sounded in the jail about o'clock on the morning of the day previous to the day set for the execution. the deputies hastened in the direction of the sound of the explosion and beheld clouds of bluish-white smoke curling out from between the bars of the door of lingg's cell. on entering the cell lingg was lying upon his face. on turning him over he presented a ghastly sight, the entire lower jaw was blown away, and the features mutilated beyond recognition, only the stump of his tongue was remaining, which fell back into the larynx and made respiration difficult. he died in great agony at : of the same day. he had eluded the disgrace of the hangman's noose and the ignominy of a public execution. during the ensuing night the gallows was erected in the north corridor of the jail, and tested by heavy bags of sand to make sure that everything was in working order. the condemned men's last night. spies and dr. bolton. the ex-editor of the "arbeiter zeitung" refuses the minister's sympathy. [illustration] not long after the death watch had been set the rev. dr. bolton, pastor of the first methodist episcopal church, called upon the prisoners. the reverend gentleman visited the whole four unfortunates, and his reception was almost the same in every case. spies received him quietly and with a smile. "i have called on you, mr. spies," said the clergyman, "to help you to prepare for the awful end which is now but a few short hours away." spies smiled again, but shook his head slowly. "there is no use praying for me," he said in a melancholy tone; "i need them not; you should reserve your prayers for those who need them." the two men then discussed matters of religion and social economy, and spies waxed warm in his defense of the doctrines of socialism as it looked to him. the conversation was a long and somewhat rambling one, and finally mr. bolton arose, bade spies adieu, and left him. when he had gone the latter turned to the two deputies (quirk and josephson) who kept watch over him, and with a short laugh exclaimed: "now, what can you do with men like that? one doesn't like to insult them, and yet one finds it hard to endure their unlooked-for attentions." spies then waxed talkative and aired his opinion freely to his death watch, deputy john b. hartke. speaking of the anarchists' trial, he said that its conduct and the finding were without precedence in the history of this country. "why, don't you know," said he, "that when the jury brought in the verdict they were all so badly frightened that they trembled, and the judge himself, when he pronounced the sentence, shook like a leaf." this, he said, looked bad. "the anarchists had no reason to be afraid, but the judge and the jury had good reason to be afraid." "i told him," said deputy hartke, "that i had heard that fischer had signed a petition to the governor asking for mercy, and added that i had heard he had done the same thing." "that is not true," he responded. "i said in my letter to the governor that if one was to be murdered, i was the one. that is the kind of a document i signed." "i'll tell you," he continued, "in five or six years from now the people will see the error of hanging us, if they do not see it sooner." with this spies, who had been lying on his back with his hands above his head, removed them and turned on his side with his face to the wall. the anarchist editor then lay down on the bed, and with his white face upturned, talked continuously with deputy hartke about mutual acquaintances and things and events of days gone by. he never referred to to-morrow, and seemed desirous of keeping the thoughts of his approaching execution as far as possible from his mind. engel grew a little more serious as the night wore on, and when he came to be more familiar with the death watch (deputies bombgarten and hastige) he talked with them about the cause for which he was about to die. he protested his innocence over and over again, and told the story of the haymarket riot, and all he knew of it. the rev. mr. bolton called on engel as he did on the others, but with the same unsatisfactory result. the wretched engel dwelt with bitter emphasis upon the fact that it was the informer waller, who afterward swore his life away, that first informed him of the massacre. "i was drinking beer and playing cards with my neighbors when waller called and taunted me with not being down in the haymarket fight," said engel, as a big lump seemed to rise in his throat, "and he afterward swore my life away, but i die for a just cause." engel slept none until about o'clock, but at that hour, just as the death watch was being removed, he turned round in his couch and dropped into a light slumber. fischer and parsons. both refuse spiritual comfort and parsons sings "annie laurie." fischer's last night was quietly spent. he talked but little, but was restless. his death watch, deputies healy and shomberg, said though he did not sleep much, he appeared to take the terrible ordeal put upon him with great composure--almost indifference. he, too, coldly repulsed dr. bolton's proffered spiritual aid. though his sleepless eyes stared vacantly at the wall of his cell, he talked but little. no sign of nervousness or fear could be traced on the hard, clear-cut features. he was evidently prepared to meet his fate unflinchingly and to die boldly. "annie laurie," sung in a fairly good tenor voice, broke the the silence. it was approaching o'clock. a dread silence overhung all. all along the anarchists' corridor not a sound was to be heard. the absence of any noise might be likened to the stillness of the grave. criminals were asleep. the indications were that the anarchists were asleep too. but hardly so. parsons was awake, and the spirit of his wakeful hours urged him to sing "annie laurie." soldiers in a foreign clime have shed tears at the strains of this song. it is a passport to the emotions the world wide. and almost within the shadow of the gallows tree, when life was to be registered by hours, parsons' striking up this song seemed certainly suggestive of the fate he felt to be close at hand. there was in his tone a lonesome melancholy as he sung the first stanza, then on the second one his voice wavered and finally broke. he was cast down. the memory of his wife and little ones seemed to rise before him, a sob, full of pathetic despair served as a period to his further recitation. once stopped singing, parsons was in tears. he cried within the quietness of his cell, not through fear of his approaching death, so far as his demeanor indicated. rather it was due to recollection busy with scenes of the man's early life. his boyhood came back to him as he sung that old song. he could not do else than break down. when dr. bolton called upon parsons he was received with the same courtesy which has always distinguished that erudite anarchist. the condemned man, however, did not seem to take kindly to the proffered ministrations of the clergyman. "you are welcome, dr. bolton," he said; "pray, what can i do for you?" the reverend visitor explained his mission, and the old cynical expression stole over parsons' face. "preachers are all pharisees," he sneered, "and you know what jesus christ's opinion of the pharisees was. he called them a generation of vipers, and likened them to whited sepulchers. i don't desire to have anything to do with either." dr. bolton remonstrated a little, and finally parsons appeared to be relenting somewhat. "well, well," he said, "i will say that while i do not absolutely refuse your kind attentions, i will impress on you the fact that i did not want you." a desultory conversation ensued, and the missionary, on leaving, told parsons that he would pray earnestly for him during the night. the anarchist's hard gray eye grew moist, and he murmured hoarsely: "thank you," but added: "don't forget, though, i didn't send for you." singing the marseillaise. parsons talks freely to the death watch and sings for them. parsons slept little but kept heart marvelously well. he chatted with the guards on the death watch and furnished them each with his autograph in this form: "cook county jail, cell no. . _a. r. parsons._ nov. , ." with bailiffs rooney and jones he calmly discussed the outlook, touched without emotion upon his pending death, and dwelt with satisfaction upon his assurance of his wife's ability to maintain herself. when told by the guards that spies was deeply affected by the parting with his wife and complained that of all the incidents of the unnerving time, it most deeply moved him; that fischer, though reckless of himself, bemoaned the destitution of his young and feeble wife, parsons feebly expressed his sympathy for his companions and rejoiced that he left behind a lion-hearted wife, and children too young to keenly feel bereavement. then he commented upon social conditions both here and abroad. "i will sing you a song," he said about o'clock, "a song born as a battle-cry in france, and now accepted as the hymn of revolution the world over." in a low voice he then sang a paraphrased translation of "la marseillaise," which the guards commended as both inspiring and well performed. telegrams to parsons. a couple of cheering missives received this morning. following are copies of the two dispatches received by a. r. parsons a short time before his execution this morning: "boston, nov. .--_albert r. parsons, cook county jail_: not good-by, but hail brothers. from the gallows-trap the march will be taken up. i will listen for the beating of the drum. josephine tilton." "st. louis, mo., nov. .--_albert r. parsons, prisoner_: glorious martyr, in the name of social progress bravely meet your fate. c. r. davis." to the sender of the first telegram parsons desired that his red-silk handkerchief be sent. parsons last letter. a copy of the document sent to a new york paper. new york, nov. .--the letter which parsons wrote yesterday morning was addressed to a resident of this city, and appears in the _herald_ to-day, as follows: "county jail, nov. , o'clock a. m.--_my dear comrades_: the guard has just awakened me. i have washed my face and drank a cup of coffee. the doctor asked me if i wanted stimulants. i said no. the dear boys, engel, fischer, and spies, saluted me with firm voices. please see sheriff matson and take charge of my papers and letters. please have my book on "anarchism: its philosophy and scientific basis", put into good shape. there are millions of americans who will want to read it. well, my dear old comrade, the hour draws near. cæsar kept me awake till late last night with the noise, music of hammer and saw erecting his throne, my scaffold--refinement, civilization. matson, the sheriff, tells me he refused to let cæsar--the state--secrete my body, and he has just got my wife's address from me to send her my remains. magnanimous cæsar! good-by. hail the social revolution! salutations to all." a. r. parsons. chapter xiv. description of the execution. threatening letters. pitying justice. outraged law vindicated. mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent. the unchanged everlasting will give to each man his right. abuse of free speech. the mills of god grind slow but exceeding fine. captain black at the anarchists' funeral. the following description of the execution is copied from the _daily news_: august spies, adolph fischer, george engel, and a. r. parsons, the four anarchists who were tried a year ago, and found guilty of the murder of mathias a. degan in the haymarket square on may , , were to-day hanged in the cook county jail and paid the penalty of their crime with their lives. the drop fell at : and the four men died with words of defiance and scorn upon their lips. parsons' last word was actually strangled in his throat by the hangman's noose. seldom, if ever, have four men died more gamely and defiantly than the four who were strangled to-day. when the word passed around, about o'clock, that the final hour had indeed arrived, men's faces grew pale and the hum of excitement passed through the crowd. they were quickly marshaled and marched down in a line to the gallows corridor. at : fully two hundred and fifty newspaper men, local politicians, and others, among them the twelve jurors to view the bodies after execution, had passed through the dark passage under the gallows and began seating themselves. the bailiff said a few words to the journalists, begging them to make no rush when the drop fell, but to wait decently and in order. parsons was given a cup of coffee a few minutes before the march to the scaffold was begun. the rattling of chairs, tables and benches continued for several minutes, but by : there began to fall a hush, and conversation among the crowd sank almost to a whisper. the bare, whitewashed walls formed a painful contrast with the dark-brown gallows, with its four noosed ropes hanging ominously near the floor. [illustration] it was exactly : o'clock when chief bailiff cahill entered the corridor and stood beneath the gallows. he requested in solemn tones that the gentlemen present would remove their hats. instantly every head was bared. then the tramp, tramp of many footsteps was heard resounding from the central corridor, and the crowd in front of the gallows knew that the condemned men had begun the march of death. the slow, steady march sounded nearer and nearer. the anarchists were within a few feet of the scaffold. there was a pause. the condemned men were about to mount the stairway leading to the last platform from which they would ever speak. step by step, steadily they mounted the stairway, and again there was another slight pause. every eye was bent upon the metallic angle around which the four wretched victims were expected to make their appearance. a moment later their curiosity was rewarded. with steady, unfaltering step a white-robed figure stepped out from behind the protecting metallic screen and stood upon the drop. it was august spies. it was evident that his hands were firmly bound behind him underneath his snowy shroud. he walked with a firm, almost stately tread across the platform and took his stand under the left-hand noose at the corner of the scaffold farthest from the side at which he had entered. very pale was the expressive face, and a solemn, far-away light shone in his blue eyes. his tawny hair was brushed back in the usual crisp waves from the big white forehead. nothing could be imagined more melancholy, and at the same time dignified, than the expression which sat upon the face of august spies at that moment. the chin was covered with a freshly budding beard and partially concealed the expression of the firmly-cut mouth. the lines were a little hardly drawn around the corners, however, and bespoke great internal tension. he stood directly behind the still noose, which reached down almost to his breast, and, having first cast a momentary glance upward at the rope, let his eyes fall upon the faces that were upturned toward him. never a muscle did he move, however; no sign of flinching or fear could be discerned in the white face--white almost as the shroud which it surmounted. spies had scarcely taken his place when he was followed by fischer. he, too, was clad in a long white shroud that was gathered in at the ankles. his tall figure towered several inches over that of spies, and as he stationed himself behind his particular noose his face was very pale, but a faint smile rested upon his lips. like spies, the white robe set off to advantage the rather pleasing features of fischer, and as the man stood there waiting for his last moment his pale face was as calm as if he were asleep. next came george engel. there was a ruddy glow upon the rugged countenance of the old anarchist, and when he ranged himself alongside fischer he raised himself to his full height, while his burly form seemed to expand with the feelings that were within him. last came parsons. his face looked actually handsome, though it was very pale. when he stepped upon the gallows he turned partially sideways to the dangling noose and regarded it with a fixed, stony gaze--one of mingled surprise and curiosity. then he straightened himself under the fourth noose, and, as he did so, he turned his big gray eyes upon the crowd below with such a look of awful reproach and sadness as could not fail to strike the innermost chord of the hardest heart there. it was a look never to be forgotten. there was an expression almost of inspiration on the white, calm face, and the great, stony eyes seemed to burn into men's hearts and ask: "what have i done?" there they stood upon the scaffold, four white-robed figures, with set, stoical faces, to which it would seem no influence could bring a tremor of fear. and now a bailiff approaches, and, seizing parsons' robe, passed a leathern strap around his ankles. in a moment they were closely pinioned together. engel's legs were next strapped together, and when the official approached fischer, the latter straightened up his tall figure to its full height and placed his ankles close together to facilitate the operation. spies was the last, but he was the first around whose neck the fatal cord was placed. one of the attendant bailiffs seized the noose in front of spies and passed it deftly over the doomed man's head. it caught over his right ear, but spies, with a shake of his head, cast it down around his neck, and then the bailiff tightened it till it touched the warm flesh, and carefully placed the noose beneath the left ear. when the officer approached fischer threw back his head and bared his long, muscular throat by the movement. fischer's neck was very long and the noose nestled snugly around it. when it was tightened around his windpipe fischer turned around to spies and laughingly whispered something in spies' ear. but the latter either did not hear him or else was too much occupied with other thoughts to pay attention. engel smiled down at the crowd, and then turning to deputy peters, who guarded him, he smiled gratefully toward him and whispered something to the officer that seemed to affect him. it looked at first as if engel were about to salute his guard with a kiss, but he evidently satisfied himself with some word of peace. parson's face never moved as the noose dropped over his head, but the same terrible, fixed look was on his face. and now people were expecting that the speeches for which the four doomed ones craved twenty minutes each this morning would be delivered, but to every one's surprise the officer who had adjusted the noose proceeded to fit on the white cap without delay. it was first placed on spies' head, completely hiding his head and face. just before the cap was pulled over fischer's head deputy spears turned his eyes up to meet those of the tall young anarchist. fischer smiled down on his guard just as pleasantly as engel did on his, and he seemed to be whispering some words of forgiveness, but it may have been otherwise, as not even the faintest echo reached the men in the corridor below. engel and parsons soon donned their white caps after this, and now the four men stood upon the scaffold clad from top to toe in pure white. all was ready now for the signal to let the drop fall. in the little box at the back of the stage and fastened to the wall the invisible executioner stood with axe poised, ready to cut the cord that held them between earth and heaven. the men had not noticed this but they knew the end was near. for an instant there was a dead silence, and then a mournful solemn voice sounded from behind the first right-hand mask, and cut the air like a wail of sorrow and warning. spies was speaking from behind his shroud. the words seemed to drop into the cold, silent air like pellets of fire. here is what he said: "it is not meet that i should speak here, where my silence is more terrible than my utterances." then a deeper, stronger voice came out with a muffled, mysterious cadence from behind the white pall that hid the face of fischer. he only spoke eight words: "this is the happiest moment of my life." but the next voice that catches up the refrain is a different one. it is firm, but the melancholy wail was not in it. it was harsh, loud, exultant. engel was cheering for anarchy. "hurrah for anarchy! hurrah!" were the last words and the last cheer of george engel. but now the weird and ghastly scene was brought to a climax. parsons alone remained to speak. out from behind his mask his voice sounded more sad, and there was a more dreary, reproachful tone in it than even in spies. "may i be allowed to speak? oh, men of america!" he cried, "may i be allowed the privilege of speech even at the last moment? harken to the voice of the people----" there was a sudden pause. parsons never spoke a word more. a sharp, creaking noise, a crash, a sickening, cracking sound, and spies, parsons, fischer, and engel were no more. when the pulse-beats of all became imperceptible, which was about : o'clock, the physicians sat down and the bodies swung back and forth, while the deputies stood above them. there was a continual shifting of seats after the physicians left the bodies, and nearly all who could get away wanted to be allowed to do so. the sheriff opened a door at the west side of the building and a great many of the spectators left. at : spies' body was let down and placed in a coffin, while the doctor examined him and found that the neck was not broken. he wore a dark-gray flannel shirt and dark pantaloons, but no coat. his arms were confined by a strap, as were those of all the others. fischer was next cut down. his neck was not broken. he wore a blue flannel shirt and gray trousers. engel came next. he had a blue flannel shirt and wore a collar. his neck was broken, but the spinal cord was not severed. parsons was the last to be taken down. he was clad in a neat black suit, but had only an undershirt on. when all the bodies had been arranged in the coffins the physicians made another examination, and then the lids were placed on the coffins, and the work was done. the condemned men directed that their bodies be turned over to their wives, except spies, who wanted his body given to his mother. their wishes were respected, and coroner hertz has directed that the body of lingg be given to mrs. engel and the carpenters' union, in accordance with lingg's request, so that they may all be buried together. since the conviction and condemnation of the anarchists of haymarket notoriety in , the whole world has stood with breathless anxiety watching for the ultimate, and no other avenue was left open but to inflict the penalty commensurate with their crime. officers of the law frequently received letters threatening to wreak a summary vengeance upon them providing the sentence was carried out. the condemned maintained a bold and belligerent attitude, while every means to intimidate and thwart justice which the machinations of the nefarious herr most could devise, and his minions could hurl life flaming brands broadcast amid a peace-loving and contented people have been resorted to. but pitying justice wept with drooping head o'er the stern necessity which called for the interposition of her iron hand having discarded the scepter for the rod. when the hand of outraged law and justice is raised the blow must fall in order to vindicate the majesty of the law. america has set the foot of the goddess of liberty upon the neck of anarchy and crushed the serpent brood. after the execution. two hours after the terrible and disagreeable duty of sheriff matson had been performed, in the name, and for the peace of the state of illinois, in the execution of the four condemned anarchists, their bodies had been delivered to their friends, the gallows had been taken down and stowed in its accustomed place, and not one vestige of the awful punishment which had just been inflicted remained to tell that anything out of the ordinary had transpired. every good citizen and right-thinking american will join with me in extending to their afflicted widows and orphan children sincere and heart-felt commiseration for the calamity which has befallen them. while the law inflicts punishment for its violation, it does it for the public good. mercy was not to be considered longer in their case. "mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent." the great book of law is prefaced with these words. justice is the unchanged everlasting will to give each man his right. the right to free speech had been accorded to these men, and it had been abused. under the diabolical teachings of herr most, anarchy promised soon to become the ruling power. but they have, we trust, ascertained that america is a poor and barren soil in which to cause anarchy to grow and flourish. they have found that though the mills of god grind slow, yet they grind exceeding fine. we shall forever be surprised beyond expression at the words made use of at the funeral of the anarchists on sunday, november , by captain black, in his oration over the bodies of these outlaws. he was said to have used the following words: "for the love of truth they died," said the orator. "they fought for a cause, believing themselves in the right, and in the years to come they will be loved and revered." captain black was followed by other speakers who made use of language very expressive and forcible. t. j. morgan followed with a speech in which he dwelt on the last words of the men before the drop fell. the immense throng at the grave became excited and frequently interrupted him. "let the voice of the people be heard," he cried, in parson's last words. when he spoke of the majesty of the law a voice cried: "throttle the law!" when he asked: "shall we be revenged on bonfield, grinnell, gary, and oglesby?" voices cried: "yes, yes! hang them!" albert currlin, formerly of the _arbeiter zeitung_, spoke in german and called the laboring men cowards for permitting the "five-fold murder." chapter xv. a description of herr most's sanctum. a den where anarchy was begotten. the anarchist chief's museum of weapons and infernal machines. easy lessons in the art of assassination. new york, nov. , . since johann most's release i had often resolved to visit his editorial sanctum and see some of his surroundings, but i never had the opportunity until a few days ago, when i sought william street and paused a moment before . this is the place where undiluted anarchy presents itself through the medium of the freiheit, which has succeeded so well that it has been enlarged to double its former size. on the ground floor a lager-beer saloon is doing a thriving business, and the old saying that teutonic journalism always manifests an inclination to take up its abode in proximity to a place where honors are paid to king gambrinus is borne out in this instance, even when the journalists wage war on all other monarchs. entering the hallway you will notice, as soon as your eyes are able to penetrate the darkness, a large red banner on the wall bearing the inscription, "vive la commune." a cast-iron letter-box, marked "john most," attracts one's attention for a moment, and then we ascend two flights of narrow, creaky stairs, and step into a large, dilapidated room, extending over the entire top floor of the building. here the _freiheit_ is written, put into type, and, after being printed elsewhere, mailed to subscribers. there is hardly a country on the globe which has not the honor of giving shelter to some anarchist subscriber. a perfect deluge of revolutionary pamphlets issues from this forlorn-looking loft. about a dozen men were engaged in folding and wrapping the latest number of the _freiheit_. in order to keep up their spirits at this hard work a goodly quantity of the favorite german beverage is consumed, cigars and short pipes emit big clouds of smoke, and a noisy debate is carried on all the time. every one of these savage-looking specimens of humanity strives to assume an air that suggests his merely waiting for a favorable opportunity to slaughter all monarchs and capitalists on the face of the earth. there are germans, frenchmen, russians, bohemians, and a dane in the group. regular employment is a notion too conservative and utterly foreign to their minds. they are here folding papers to serve the revolutionary cause, and receive no other recompense than the consciousness of having performed their duty. overawing the visitors. one of the heroes, who evidently desires to overawe us, takes a small quantity of gun cotton out of his pocket, another produces a sample of dynamite, and each asserts that the stuff he carries is an excellent agent to further the grand idea of universal anarchy. all join in a dispute concerning the most effective methods for blowing up public institutions, and the folding business is meanwhile neglected. the anarchist chief, herr most, has been conversing with a good-looking young female anarchist, who came over for the purpose of paying her respects to the great dynamiter; but now his attention is directed to his hot-headed disciples. "get through your work," he shouts; "you may babble all you want afterward." the admonition is heeded only for a few moments. the folders have a theme demanding urgent action. the sentence of the chicago anarchists has excited the wrath and of every anarchist and frenzied cries of threatened vengeance burst forth from all sides. herr most again commands silence, and his announcement that a mass-meeting would be held on sunday, at which both english and german speakers would be present, is hailed with tumultuous applause. the presence of strangers seems to be totally ignored for the moment. the anarchists fully understand that they are at liberty here to run the revolutionary machine at their own sweet pleasure, so long as the struggle is confined to the tongue. i conclude to invest cents, and a copy of the _freiheit_ is handed to me. the editor reflects upon the propriety of a national thanksgiving. his language is not choice, but rather painfully harsh. here is a goodly specimen: "our army of the unemployed, probably, will give thanks that the capitalists are so very prosperous. poor, haggard women will give thanks over their weak tea and dry baker's bread that they have been allowed to lay up wealth for their employers. factory children, who never see anything but the grim shop walls by daylight, will give thanks that they have been brought into this beautiful world, and hard-working day laborers lucky enough to have any kind of a job will give thanks that the cormorants of society have not taken the last mouthful away from them." another article deals with the anti-chinese movement on the pacific coast, and urges the white working men to expel every greedy monopolist instead of persecuting the poor celestial. anarchistic literature and weapons. before i proceed to inspect the curiously decorated walls my attention is called to an assortment of anarchistic literature spread on a large table. the most extraordinary productions of fever-brained revolutionists from all countries are here exposed for sale. the works of herr most occupy the most conspicuous place, and titles like "gottespect und religrionsenche," "eigenthumsbestie," and "elements of revolutionary warfare" embellish the title pages. i open the last book at haphazard and read: "the best of all preparations to be used for poisoning is curare. "by heating a dagger and then tempering it in oil of oleander, the infliction of a light wound would be sufficient to produce blood-poisoning and death. "the cheapest and least expensive way is to apply a mixture of red phosphorus and gum arabicum to the dagger, cartridge, etc. "this precious stuff (dynamite), which is able to blast a mass of solid rock, might also do good service at an assembly of royal or aristocratic personages, or at an entertainment patronized by monopolists." herr most, who had eyed me sharply, asked at last: "would you like to join our circle, or perhaps it is only a few of your private enemies you contemplate doing up? all necessary information can be had by studying my 'kriegswissencraft.'" the hint was a broad one, and i thought it the safest plan to spend a dime on the "murder pamphlet," thus propitiating the tiger in his den. the room might be considered at first glance an armory. there are revolvers of all constructions, daggers, rifles, infernal machines, and a big saber with a rusty scabbard. i could scarcely repress a laugh at this relic of the great french revolution, or some equally remote historic event. "you make a mistake by laughing," said most, unsheathing the sword. "you will observe the blade is as sharp as a razor, and," he added with a certain pride, "the point is, by way of experiment, coated with a solution of cyanide of potassium." the majority of the rifles are breech-loaders, formerly used in the united states army, and bought by most in large lots at auction for retailing among his followers. on a shelf above the editor's desk a variety of the most dangerous poisons, liquid and solid, are openly exposed. the anarchist chief remarked, with a grim smile, that he seriously contemplated breeding cholera and yellow-fever germs for the purpose of exterminating mankind, rather than suffer the present condition of society to perpetuate itself. wall decorations. the walls of the room are almost totally covered with pictures, portraits, newspaper headings, etc. in crazy-quilt fashion is arranged lieske, shakspere, hoedel, rousseau, karl marx, feurbach, stuart mill, thomas paine, richard wagner, marat, hans sachs, st. simon, lassalle, proudhon, anton kammerer, stallmacher, the irish patriots, brady, kelly, curley, tynan, wilson, gallagher, and normann, a life-size picture of louise michel, an excellent photograph of prince krapotkine, pictures from puck, punch, fleigende blatter, sketches from george eber's "egypt"--a queer collection indeed. herr most takes especial pride in a gibbet traced in red lines on the whitewashed wall and bearing portraits of the following persons: the emperors of germany, russia, and austria, queen victoria, president grevey, king humbert, king christian of denmark and his premier, estrup; the shah of persha; the sultan, the emperors of china, japan, and brazil, and president cleveland. as an illustration of the bitter feeling prevailing between the anarchists and socialists was a caricature of alexander jonas, the socialist politician, playing a flute to the inspiring tune, "wait till the clouds roll by." the german chancellor, prince bismarck, is caricatured a dozen different ways, and blood-thirsty sentiments are written beneath the pictures. a large picture presents the famous rus-conspirators against alexander ii.; another recalls the trial of reinsdorf and comrades, charged with high treason; then follow some scenes from the paris commune in , and next to these sanguinary sketches an elegant fan is suspended, unconscious of its strange surroundings. anarchistic papers from every quarter of the world are pasted from ceiling to floor, and we learn the existence of obscure journals like ni dieu, ni maitre, fackel, le cri du peuple, alarm, lucifer, revolte, la question sociale, the roumelian periodical revista sociale, il fascio operairo, der arme teufel, and proletaren. italians who stray into this nest have an opportunity of studying a "programma socialista, anarchico, revoluzionario del giuppo italiano." perhaps the master of this queer den will soon view the world once more through prison bars. comyns ray. chapter xvi. biography of herr most. his past career and early training. his imprisonment in the bastille and red tower for preaching his gospel of blood. extracts from his inflammatory utterances. whet your daggers. let every prince find a brutus by his throne. the past career of herr most. that practice has now become obsolete of predicting the future of a child by consulting the aspect of the planet under which it was born at the day and hour of birth. at the advent of herr most upon this mundane sphere, who, looking through the horroscope of his future, but could in the interests of humanity, have wished that the feeble spark of life in the frail tenement might have become extinguished, or that it had never existed. in the city of augsburg on the river lech, which is a tributary of the blue rolling danube in bavaria in germany, in the year , and on the th day of february herr most first saw the light of day. a long period of sickness while yet an infant served to render his features hideous by some malignant disease eating away a portion of his cheek, but his record goes to prove conclusively that he still retained enough to render himself obnoxious to every lover of law and order. endowed by nature with proclivities to resist all rule and law, gained from an unloving stepmother much harsh treatment. he became apprenticed to a book-binder when a mere lad, and the cruel treatment received at the hands of his employer failed to change the bent of his inclinations. he had a passion for the stage which he gratified by striking an attitude and reciting in tragic style with dramatic effect any occurrence which attracted his attention to the infinite amusement of boys, and pedestrians on the street would stop to listen to his native eloquence and behold his crude dramatic gestures. we find him in switzerland in , endeavoring to establish anarchy with a zeal worthy of a better cause. we next find him in vienna where in one of his scathing speeches he characterized liberalism as a swindle; the priests as deceivers. for this speech he received a jail sentence of four weeks. shortly after his release, he was again sentenced to five years' imprisonment for high treason. however, after having served six months of the term, through some ministerial change, he was released. a half an hour later he was again on the platform firing hot shot and shell into the ranks of the government with all the force of his burning invective. his ability to sway the masses alarmed the new government, and they took measures to have him banished. he went to chemnitz where he became popular as an agitator, and successful in establishing his doctrine of anarchy as the gospel of blood, for which he was incarcerated temporarily in the red tower, a very unpopular jail. september , , while returning from mayence, where he had attended a socialistic congress, he was again arrested, and a few days later was sentenced to eight months in prison. in , for some expressions used in favor of the commune of paris, although a member of parliament, he was given eighteen months in the german bastille. at the expiration of his sentence he became identified with the berlin _free press_, and for his freedom of speech he was again sentenced to six months in jail, having served his sentence he crossed out of his native land to london where he took charge of the new journal, the _freiheit_, and while occupying this position he received a pressing invitation to come to chicago and take charge of the _arbeiter zeitung_, which he declined, believing as he did that the era of the mad misrule of anarchy was on the eve of being inaugurated. he visited paris, and during his stay directed a speech full of burning hatred against the german emperor, for which he was accorded two years in jail. on his release he hastened to put the channel between him and that hated country. in he was again in switzerland, scattering the seeds of anarchy, and forging thunderbolts for his enemies, and many of his publications found their way throughout the length and breadth of europe. in one of his effusions he said: "science has put in our possession instruments with which beasts of society may be removed. princes, ministers, statesmen, bishops, prelates and other officials, civil and clerical, journalists and lawyers, representatives of the aristocracy and middle classes, must have their heads broken." when alexander ii. of russia was murdered, "triumph! triumph!" he wrote; "the monster has been executed," etc., and yet this "monster" (?) was the man who had struck the manacles from the feet of russia's serfs; had lifted millions of a degraded people to citizenship. his outburst on this occasion gained him sixteen months in an english prison. in december of he was en route for new york, where he met with a most enthusiastic reception. the anarchists have now eleven regular organs in circulation. five of these appear in english, five in german, and one in the french language. a few extracts we herein embody will serve to demonstrate the savage nature of these agitators. he says: "if each member of the anarchist party some fine morning would seek out some hated tyrant and pick a quarrel; if only each man would carry a private supply of some destructive agency in his pocket and would either stab, poison, or with powder, lead, or dynamite do to death our enemies, wherever found, in house, office, bureau, shop, or factory; if that could only be done in fifty places at the same moment; if fires could only be started in fifty different places at the same time; if only special parties detailed for the purpose would cut the telephone and telegraph wires--must not a general panic result? would not society be wild with fright? and would not the rabble as if by magic be inflamed with revolutionary passion?" can anything be more diabolical? but most's paper, from which i have quoted, is mild compared with the _rebell_. this sheet is the organ of peukert. at present both papers vie with each other in disseminating anarchism among the farming population. in most said: "to find a way for getting $ , , would do the cause more good than to dash the brains out of ten kings. gold--money--is wanted. "lay hold where and when you can," he continues. "the less noise you make in laying and carrying out your plans the less danger and the better success. the revolver is good in extreme cases, dynamite in great movements, but, generally speaking, the dagger and poison are the best means of propagation. yes, tremble, ye canaille, ye bloodsuckers, ye ravishers of maidens, murderers, and hangmen, the day of reckoning and revenge is near. the fight has begun along the picket line. a girdle of dynamite encircles the world, not only the _old_ but the _new_. the bloody band of tyrants are dancing on the surface of a volcano. there is dynamite in england, france, germany, russia, italy, spain, new york, and canada. it will be hot on the day of action, and yet the brood will shudder in the sight of death and gnash their teeth. set fire to the houses, put poison in all kinds of food, put poisoned nails on the chairs occupied by our enemies, dig mines and fill them with explosives, whet your daggers, load your revolvers, cap them, fill bombs and have them ready. hurl the priest from the altar; shoot him down! let each prince find a brutus by his throne." the foregoing language is calculated to tend toward subversion of law and justice, and is revolutionary and treasonable in its nature, teachings of this nature from reinsdorf and most, are the direct cause of our haymarket massacre. the authorities are responsible largely for the commission of crime which they may prevent even by resorting to extreme measures in enforcing the law. while we desire peace in all our borders, yet we believe that transgressors of the law should be made to feel that "god reigns, and the government at washington still lives." chapter xvii. biographies of spies and the other seven condemned men. their birthplace, education and private life. parsons' letter to the "daily news" after the explosion, while a fugitive from justice. august spies. august vincent theodore spies was born in landeck, hesse in . his father was a ranger. spies came to america in , and to chicago in , where for a number of years he worked as an upholsterer. he first became interested in socialistic theories in , and two years later joined the socialistic labor party, and the lehr und wehr verein. he became connected with the _arbeiter zeitung_ in . he succeeded paul grottkau as editor-in-chief in . from that time onward he was looked up to as one of the ablest and most influential anarchist leaders. he was educated by a private tutor during his early boyhood days. he afterward studied at a polytechnic institute. albert parsons. albert r. parsons was born in montgomery, ala., in . his parents died when he was young, and his rearing fell to the lot of his elder brother, w. r. parsons, who was a general in the confederate army. in he removed to johnson county, texas, taking albert with him. the latter received some schooling at waco, and subsequently became a printer on the galveston _news_. when the war broke out he ran away from home and became a "powder monkey" in a company of confederate artillery. subsequently he served successively under the command of his brothers, richard and william h. parsons. after the war he edited the _spectator_, a weekly paper, at waco. much to the disgust of his brothers, he became a republican, and something of a politician. as such he held one or two subordinate federal offices at austin, and at one time was secretary of the state senate. coming to chicago he worked for a time in various printing offices, and then became a professional labor agitator. he was at one time master workman of district assembly , knights of labor, and president of the trades assembly for three years. in he was nominated by the socialistic labor party as a candidate for their president of the united states, but declined, as he was not then thirty-five years old. in , at pittsburgh, he helped to frame the platform of the international working people's association. he was put forward by the socialists as a candidate for city clerk in . he became editor of the _alarm_, the organ of the "american group" of anarchists in chicago in , which position he held up to the time of the haymarket riot in may , but on the morning following the explosion, a. r. parsons was not found in his accustomed place as editor of the _alarm_. he had decamped, but many believed he was hiding in chicago, as on the evening of the th of may a letter posted in chicago at : was received by the editor of the _daily news_, which ran thus: "_mr. m. e. stone, editor daily news_: "dear sir--i want to speak a word through you to my fellow-workers, just to let them know that i am still in the land of the living and looking out for their interests. "and further, give a few hints to some of the fellows who desire to live on anarchists, that may be for their welfare. in the first place, i am watching the papers and also the knowing chaps who give the pointers as to my whereabouts, some of whom will make good subjects for the coroner's inquest one of these days should they persist in their present course. to the public i desire to say that the devil is never so black as you can paint him. i will in due time turn up and answer for myself for anything i may have said or done. i have no regrets for past conduct and no pledges for the future if there is to be nothing but blood and death for the toilers of america. whenever the public decide to use reason and justice in dealing with the producing class, just at that time will you see me. but, should the decision be to continue the present course of death and slavery just so long will i wage relentless war on all organized force, and all endeavor to find me will be fruitless. watching my wife and her kind friends is of no use. i am dead to them already. i count my life already sacrificed for daring to stand between tyrants and slaves. "to show you how well i am kept posted, i know who was sent to la grange for me to-day. i was not there. i know who put you on the track of glasgow, and just where to find him. just say to that man for me that his day of reckoning will come soon. i read all the papers to-day, and will see the _times_, _inter-ocean_, and hesing later. "now, as to what must be done to satisfy the anarchists is to stop all these demands for blood and show a spirit of reason and a disposition to put down the oppressors of the people, and enforce laws against rich thieves as readily as you do against the poor. grant every fair demand of labor. give those poor creatures enough to satisfy their hunger, and i will guarantee a quiet period in which all the great questions of land and wages, and rights can be put in operation without further bloodshed. but if not, i am already sacrificed as a martyr for the cause. i have thousands of brethren who will sell their lives just as dearly as i will mine, and at just as great cost to our enemies. "i shall wait as long as i think necessary for the public to take warning, and then you decide your own fate. "it must be liberty for the people or death for capitalists. i am not choosing more. it is your choice and your last. i love humanity, and therefore die for it. no one can do more. every drop of my blood shall count an avenger, and woe to america when these are in arms. "i have not slept, nor shall i sleep until i sleep the sleep of death, or my fellow men are on the road to liberty." "a. r. parsons." samuel fielden. samuel fielden was born in todmorden, lancashire, england, in , and spent thirteen years of his boyhood working in a cotton mill. in early manhood he became a methodist minister and sunday-school superintendent in his native place. in he came to new york, worked for a few months in a cotton mill, and in the following year came to chicago. for the greater portion of the time since he has worked as a laborer. he joined the liberal league in , where he met spies and parsons. he became a socialist in , and has spent much time as a traveling agitator of the international working people's association. we feel sure that samuel fielden is to-day serving out a life sentence as the result of forming associations through which he was led to mingle with agitators anarchistic, whose teachings were treasonable. though not endowed by nature with proclivities whose tendencies were toward violence and bloodshed, yet being full of vanity and of a vacillating nature was led to make speeches of an incendiary and revolutionary character which identified him with those responsible for the result of the fatal bomb, and doomed him to a life of unrequited toil and of penal servitude. adolph fischer. adolph fischer, who was about thirty years old, came to this country from germany when a boy, and learned the printer's trade with his brother, who was editor of a german weekly at nashville, tenn. for several years fischer was editor and proprietor of the little rock (ark.) _staats zeitung_. this he sold in , after which he worked at his trade in st. louis and chicago. after coming to chicago he became a most rabid anarchist, and often accused spies and schwab of being half-hearted, and of not having the courage to express their convictions. he, like engel, believed they were not radical enough. at one time he, with engel and fehling, started _de anarchist_, a fire-eating weekly, designed to supplant the _arbeiter zeitung_. he entered with all his possible energy into the spirit of socialism and anarchy, so much so, that it became his only theme and the source of happiness to him which he fully expressed in his last words upon the gallows, viz: "this is the happiest moment of my life." if that were the case, what an unendurable life were his, and the prospect of dissolution offered a rest from the self-inflicted torment of continuing to live. george engel. george engel was born in cassel, germany, in . he received a common school education and learned the printer's trade. he came to america in , and a year later to chicago, where he became a convert to socialism, and later a rabid anarchist. he founded the famous "northwest group" in . he spoke english very imperfectly, and with great difficulty, he manifested no desire to make progress in anything except in anarchy. the sinister expression of his countenance indicated a dogged stubborn and cruel nature, full of malice and hatred which led him to use this latest breath in a "hurrah for anarchy" upon the gallows. such men behold nothing beautiful in nature, nor anything to admire in well organized society, under the mad misrule of anarchy controlled by such an element, society would soon lapse back to the days of primitive barbarism and superstition. michael schwab. michael schwab was born near mannheim, germany, in , and was educated in a convent. for several years he worked at the book-binding trade in various cities. he came to america in . he was a co-adjutor with august spies in connection with the _arbeiter zeitung_. he was a pronounced socialist, though of a milder type than spies, parsons or fischer. he was vacillating in his nature, and not calculated for a leader, but capable of being led. had he chosen for his companions loyal and patriotic associates, he doubtless would have become a trusted citizen and a champion of american institutions instead of a propagator of anarchy which cost him the price of his liberty. autobiography. oscar w. neebe was born in new york city on the th day of july in the year . his parents were german, and in order to give their children an education in german they removed from new york to germany when oscar was but a child. his boyhood and school days were spent in hesse cassel. but at the age of fourteen years he returned to new york and as he expresses himself, was glad to set foot once more upon the land of the free, where all men were equal regardless of color or nationality, for the war had just closed which had stricken the chains and festering fetters from the limbs of the african slave, which meant the unbarring of the dungeon of the mind, giving them the right to acquire an education which before was denied them, and making them heir to the inalienable rights of citizenship. he says "i saw the sun-browned soldiers of the federal army returning from the south where they had fought for liberty and freedom, and learned to love them as brothers when i heard them say: 'there is now no more slavery.'" catching the inspiration of these words of horace greely: "go west young man," he accordingly came to chicago at the age of sixteen years, but returned to new york again where he learned the trade of tinsmith and cornice-maker. but new york, with all its fascinations, failed to constitute him contented and happy, and in february, , we find him again in chicago where he commenced work for the adams and westlake manufacturing company. he states that he was discharged july , for daring to champion the working man, and at times was reduced to poverty and almost starvation because of his avowed proclivities as an agitator. he had become identified with the socialistic agitators in , and the active part and interest manifested by him in the socialists was largely responsible for his lack of success in obtaining and holding a situation. in he obtained a situation as salesman for the riversdale distillery company, selling their compressed yeast. his financial embarrassment threw him largely among the agitators of the labor party, and in , after the haymarket riot, he was arrested and tried for murder or for complicity in the conspiracy which led to the massacre for which he received a sentence of fifteen years in the penitentiary. louis lingg, was only twenty-one years old, and was the youngest of the doomed anarchists. he was born in baden, germany, in . he secured a common school education in germany. he left his native country when very young and went to switzerland where he remained several years. he came to america in , working at the carpenter trade, at the same time availing himself of every opportunity for the development of his anarchistic proclivities, which seemed to be height of his ambition. he wrote his autobiography after having received the death sentence, which we decline to publish in consequence of its rabid and treasonable type of anarchy, sufficient in itself to prove his complicity in the foul conspiracy. he was one of the most arch plotters of dark and tragic history. [illustration: jno. bonfield.] chapter xviii. biographical record of john bonfield, inspector and secretary of police department. biographies of sheriff matson, judge gary, judge grinell. tribute to captain schaack. biographical record of john bonfield, esq., inspector and secretary of police department. he was born in the year , at bathurst, new brunswick. his father was a thriving farmer, but in order to give his children the advantages of superior facilities for education, removed to buffalo, n. y., in , and in he came with his family to chicago. john bonfield, after finishing his education, and by his natural talent and shrewdness having obtained a large stock of general knowledge from the ordinary pursuits of life in which he had engaged, became identified with the police force of chicago in the year as patrolman. but he was destined to occupy a subordinate position for only a brief period, as in he was placed upon the staff of detectives. his true nobility of character, noble bearing, and faithful discharge of his duties won for him the confidence of all, and in he gained one more step in the golden ladder of fame, being raised to the rank of lieutenant. he was next appointed captain of the third precinct, and in was made inspector of the entire police force. owing to the brave and gallant bearing of inspector bonfield in relation to the faithful discharge of his every duty during his past career, (thereby winning the confidence of superior officers relative to his ability,) he was entrusted with the entire command of the detachment who so bravely on the night of may , , turned back the tide of anarchy which threatened to sweep like a tidal wave over the fairest heritage upon god's green earth, scattering death and debris all along its terrible track. truly if brave deeds and noble acts, and honesty of purpose, coupled with patriotism are worthy of note, the name of john bonfield and the brave officers under his command on that terrible night of the haymarket massacre, shall live forever upon the brightest page of the historian. [illustration: c. r. matson.] canute r. matson, was born in norway in the year . he emigrated with his parents to america in , and settled in walworth county, wisconsin, but removed in a short time to dane county, wisconsin, where in he entered albion academy, and as a natural sequence of his insatiate thirst for knowledge he made rapid progress maintaining ever a prominent place at the head of his class. he was a student in milton college at the opening of the war. the inherent patriotism of a noble nature had been fanned into a flame by the institutions of american freedom, and he at once offered himself as a sacrifice, if need be, in the defense of his adopted country, by enlisting in in the union army as a private soldier in company k, thirteenth wisconsin infantry. in he was made commissary sergeant. he was raised to lieutenant of company g., in , and was acting regimental quartermaster at the close of the war in , and received his honorable discharge bearing the untarnished reputation of a brave soldier and a noble officer. he afterward obtained a position in the post office where he published the _postal record_, an official paper of the department. in he was elected clerk of the police court. in he was accorded the power to appoint, and also the supervision of the deputies. in he was appointed justice of the peace. in he was admitted to the bar. he ran for sheriff in and was only defeated by a very small majority in favor of his opponent. he served two years as coroner, being nominated by acclamation when he satisfied all parties of his intent, and ability to perform the duties of his office with credit to himself and honor to those by whose effort he had been placed in so responsible a position. in he was again a candidate for the office of sheriff through the importunities of his friends, and was barely defeated by s. f. hanchett, who in selecting a chief deputy made the wise choice of c. r. matson, which position he filled to the close of the term, giving entire satisfaction to all parties with whom he came in contact in connection with the discharge of his official duties. he has obtained all the honorable and responsible positions which he has filled solely upon his merits, and has retained them with the confidence of the public, by the efficient and impartial manner in which he has served the people of cook county. he was installed in the office of sheriff of cook county dec. , , enjoying still the confidence of the people. he is a man of great heart, broad and deep sympathies, yet unswerving in the administration of the law as a sacred obligation he owes to the public, and in the years to come history replete with the sayings and doings of the great men of to-day will shed a halo of glory forever upon the name of canute r. matson as a brave, true and noble man, and the most prominent scandinavian leader of the era in which he lived, having left an example worthy of emulation by those who shall come after him. joseph e. gary, the presiding judge at the trial of the anarchists, was born at potsdam, new york, july , , at which place he received a common school education where he also spent his early boyhood days until , when he went to st. louis, mo., and read law, opening his first law office at springfield, mo. but in he removed to las vegas, n. m., where he learned to write well and speak fluently the spanish language. he removed to san francisco, cal., where he practiced his chosen profession until , when he returned to chicago and formed a co-partnership with murray f. tuley, now judge tuley of the bench. he finally became a law partner with e. and a. van buren, which continued until , when he was elected to the bench. his judicial mind and clear comprehensive sense of right places him high among his compeers as a celebrity upon the technicalities of law. he is esteemed by all who know him. julius s. grinnell, was born at massena, st. lawrence county, new york, in . he is of french-welsh extraction, but it is not of his illustrious ancestors we wish to speak in this sketch. suffice it to say that the grinnell family are among the oldest and best families of the eastern and new england states. julius s. grinnell graduated in the office of the hon. william c. brown in ogdensburg, n. y., in . he came to chicago in where he commenced to struggle manfully toward the summit of fame. his eloquence and oratory, along with the comprehensive grasp of a most extraordinary mind has made his ascent rapid and sure. his high aims and lofty aspirations have in early life been rewarded. he can exclaim "eureka," as at the age of forty-six years he has been elected to the bench. captain schaack, of the fifth precinct is deserving of great credit, not merely for the assiduity with which he applied himself to the fatiguing duties of unraveling the mysteries of anarchy in secret organization, but also for the tact and shrewdness coupled with the fearless manner in which he discharged the dangerous duties incident to his office during the reign of terror which succeeded the haymarket tragedy. it is a well known fact that captain schaack was one of the most energetic workers, as well as one of the principal factors in ferreting out and dragging to justice the dangerous element of socialism and anarchy in the great conspiracy. chicago is indebted to captain schaack for a large majority of the evidence which resulted in the conviction, condemnation, and execution of these lawless men whose object and aim was to sow the seeds of discord and confusion in the refined and well organized circles of society. the low-browed class of ignorant men who stood around their leaders and in discordant voices howled their praise, were, under this leadership capable of the wildest onset, or the dark and patient vigil, of him who treasures up in heart of hatred an imaginary wrong. every step taken by captain schaack and his faithful band of tried men was full of dangers. over fifty bombs had been made and distributed throughout the city. one had fallen with deadly effect, and any moment another might be expected to scatter death and debris among the ranks of faithful officers, who when detailed for service knew not but they were being led as sheep to the slaughter. in the ages to come when as a record of history this anarchistic conspiracy of is referred to, the bold acts of noble daring, the skill, bravery and self-sacrificing spirit of captain schaack in the suppression of anarchy will be remembered by a grateful people as a monument to immortalize his name. chapter xix. eulogy to the police. boldly they fought and well. contrast between capital and labor. the anarchists' fatal delusion. the united states national anthem. eulogizing the police. what peace-loving citizen of chicago desiring her commercial prosperity and the perpetuity of american institutions, with all it means of home and protection for free-born american citizens to behold our starry banner still proudly floating from the citadel of the most free country upon god's green earth, but will with me thank god for the blessings of peace secured to us by the prompt and steady action of our brave and noble police on the night of may , . when forgetful of their own personal safety in their devotion to the cause of liberty, over the prostrate forms of mangled and dying comrades they charged this treacherous band of alien outlaws, beating down the red hand of anarchy which was reaching out its tentacles to usurp the birthright of this nation bequeathed to it by our ancestors and made sacred to every loyal heart by a baptism of the blood of our sires and grandsires in . not one ray of light from one single star upon our grand old flag shall ever tarnish its glory or dim its radiance in the shadow of the crimson flag of anarchy. with reference to that terrible night who will not with me adopt the following language: "when can their glory fade?" it was to us a blood fought victory, and every officer who poured out his life on that eventful night is deserving of a monument in the hearts of a grateful people and a prominent place among the wreath-crowned martyrs in the cause of liberty. chicago's entire force who respond so promptly to a call, discharging their duty so faithfully, are worthy the name of heroes as justly as those who have spilled rivers of blood upon the ensanguined field of marathon or waterloo. what matters it now to officer degan and his slaughtered comrades that "boldly they fought and well." their widowed wives and orphan children tell the price they paid for the blessings of peace we to-day enjoy. the maimed and suffering officers we daily behold as the result of that direful night speak plainly of what it cost them in the protection of our blood-bought privileges of . verily, a monument of marble should be erected to their memory upon the spot where they fell, bearing the names of that gallant band who so bravely turned back the incoming tide, whose black and seething waters threatened to wreck the foundations of our social, civil and national institutions. capital and labor. two young men from the same flourishing little town, and bosom friends graduate from the same school, each with aspirations lofty as the pinnacle of fame. each one chooses an art or craft, or profession. each man has the same chance to succeed. the avenues of trade and commerce are open alike to all. one of these young men well knowing that there is no royal road to wealth and fame, and that his success depends solely upon his economy and industry, wisely adopts a code of laws by which his life is to be regulated and governed, and his future of success or failure determined. he remembers that his preceptor once remarked to him thus: "raymond, remember this: if you ever expect to become wealthy, spend each day less than you earn," and he had adopted it. he husbanded each week, and month, and year a portion of his earnings; years pass on and his coffers are filling with that yellow god which sways the destinies of men and empires. he engages in manufacturing enterprises or mercantile pursuits, and his happiness is complete in his palatial home, with a lovely wife and children as a keystone crowning the arch which spans the dark and turbid stream of life. let us follow the other young man who started in the race at the same time and under the same auspicious circumstances. he has taken a different course. he has not been idle but a spendthrift, working during the week earning money to spend among his boon companions during sunday, and is always in debt and trouble as he is spending more than he earns. he has availed himself of the privilege of rejoicing in the days of his youth, walking in the ways of his heart and the sight of his eyes, forgetting that for all these things he will be brought into judgment, as no law of our physical nature or social standing can be violated with impunity, there is no appeal from the self-inflicted punishment of an accusing conscience for extreme prodigality and reckless expenditure in riotous living. to-night he is standing upon the corner of the street shivering under the biting blast which is sifting the early snow of winter amid his prematurely grizzled hair. he is not at peace with himself or the world. he hates himself for being poor and others for being rich. at this juncture the elegantly equipped carriage of his former classmate rolls past. its owner is now a millionaire by earnest, honest and persevering endeavor. he is a homeless pauper and the self-constituted architect of his own misfortunes, yet he is willing to offer himself as a representative of the terrible contrast between capital and labor. the anarchist's fatal delusion. under the fascination of rose-tinted delusion whose fatal mists obscure the mental and moral realm of thought, many become criminals, goaded on by blind infatuation which persevered in becomes a passion all-absorbing in its nature. in the blindness of their infatuation they seek to immortalize their names by a bold and base attempt at the subversion of law and order. having by the mad misrule of anarchy rendered themselves amenable to law, and by crime forfeited not only their liberty but their lives, they stubbornly refuse to ask for executive clemency, choosing death in the error of their ways, and in the language of patrick henry demanding unconditional "liberty or death." these anarchists under the delusion that they were becoming martyrs, courted death, and from the gallows raised a defiant shout for the perpetuity and progress of anarchy which they fondly hoped would go ringing down the corridors of time, increased by tributaries until anarchy as a mighty torrent should bear away law, order and civilization by the fury of its resistless force, until bombs, dynamite and treason should triumph. under the sophistry and insidious teachings of the nefarious herr most, anarchy developed rapidly in chicago, and his minions were willing to offer up wives and children, liberty, even life if necessary, in the interest of the cause they had espoused. they raised their voice publicly in denouncing imaginary wrongs and the plaudits of the admiring ignorant lower classes amounted to an inspiration to them which urged them on to openly advocate deeds of violence and blood. herr most has stated that the gibbet upon which these anarchist murderers paid the penalty for their crimes will in the ages to come be looked upon with the same veneration that the cross is by the christian. now, that the majesty of the law has been maintained in their execution, their sympathizing followers seek to erect a monument to perpetuate their memory, the most fitting tablet over their grave should be, "here lies anarchy in her shameful tomb." "oh! torquemada, from thy fiery jail," and thou "george jeffries, from underneath the altar which seeks with christian charity to hide thy hated bones," with the long line of hideous cruel monsters from the dead, come and compare thy deeds in contrast with thy lesser light and knowledge. "come seek thy equals here." united states national anthem. by w. r. wallace. god of the free! upon thy breath our flag is for the right unrolled, as broad and brave as when its stars, first lit the hallowed time of old. for duty still its folds shall fly; for honor still its glories burn, where truth, religion, valor, guard the patriot's sword and martyr's urn. no tyrant's impious step is ours; no lust of power on nations rolled; our flag--for _friends_, a starry sky, for _traitors_, storm in every fold. o thus we'll keep our nation's life, nor fear the bolt by despots hurled; the blood of all the world is here, and they who strike us, strike the world. god of the free! our nation bless in its strong manhood as its birth; and make its life a star of hope for all the struggling of the earth. then shout beside thine oak, o north! o south! wave answer with thy palm; and in our union's heritage together sing the nation's psalm! the end. transcriber's notes: punctuation was corrected in several places (without notation). the oe ligature is rendered [oe]. italics are rendered between underscores e.g. _italics_. small caps are rendered with all caps. inconsistent spellings and hyphenations have been changed to match, however some other unusual (and possibly erroneous) spellings have been left as printed. +-----------------------------------------+ | changes made by the transcriber | +-------+----------------+----------------+ | page | as printed | changed to | +-------+----------------+----------------+ | | wont | won't | | | snow-balls | snowballs | | | bastile | bastille | | | . | | | | baddits | bandits | | | eight hour | eight-hour | | | assaiiants | assailants | | | blood-hounds | bloodhounds | | | difiered | differed | | | working-men | working men | | | haymarkst | haymarket | | | motly | motley | | | inflamatory | inflammatory | | | ling | lingg | | | engle | engel | | | anarchist's | anarchists | | | grief's | greif's | | | balthasar | balthazar | | | court room | courtroom | | | zietung | zeitung | | | balthauser | balthazar | | | blood-hounds | bloodhounds | | | griefs | greif's | | | grief's | greif's | | | snow-balls | snowballs | | | occured | occurred | | | occured | occurred | | | sabstance | substance | | | d d | did | | | snow-balls | snowballs | | | louis | louise | | | court-room | courtroom | | | buisness | business | | | forseen | foreseen | | | connot | cannot | | | frrom | from | | | yon | you | | | socialiastic | socialistic | | | wou | you | | | steet | street | | | seee | see | | | penality | penalty | | | to | to be | | | did | did you | | | fidlden | fielden | | | restaurent | restaurant | | | hoping | hopping | | | rotton | rotten | | | responsable | responsible | | | is | is a | | | mercilesss | merciless | | | fhe | the | | | nphold | uphold | | | occured | occurred | | | caime | crime | | | haggared | haggard | | | stocial | stoical | | | schoool | school | | | kneee | knee | | | six six | six | | | primef-actors | prime-actors | | | survilance | surveillance | | | yipsilon | ypsilon | | | in in | in | | | consumation | consummation | | | verin | verein | | | is | as | | | machinest | machinist | | | utterences | utterances | | | schuaubelt | schnaubelt | | | gread | great | | | argueing | arguing | | | occured | occurred | | | occurance | occurrence | | | of | or | | | prætorian | prætorian | | | cannibles | cannibals | | | literateur | litterateur | | | sevility | servility | | | there | their | | | waived | waved | | | acklowledge | acknowledge | | | lasalle | lassalle | | | emmigrants | immigrants | | | man-mankind | mankind | | | reciteing | reciting | | | nor | not | | | immerced | immersed | | | persecuters | persecutors | | | priviledged | privileged | | | adolf | adolph | | | nina | ni�a | | | nina | niña | | | superintendant | superintendent | | | emmoluments | emoluments | | | govenor | governor | | | preverted | perverted | | | gatling | gatling | | | challenge | challenge | | | gilt | guilt | | | appropos | apropos | | | jurisdidtion | jurisdiction | | | priviledge | privilege | | | deirsous | desirous | | | the the | the | | | kidnaping | kidnapping | | | uuited | united | | | magna charta | magna charta | | | magna charta | magna charta | | | priviliges | privileges | | | kidnaping | kidnapping | | | waved | waived | | | perogative | prerogative | | | engle | engel | | | ninteenth | nineteenth | | | thrist | thirst | | | which which | which | | | slighest | slightest | | | meloncholy | melancholy | | | desirious | desirous | | | marsellaise | marseillaise | | | murmered | murmured | | | marsellaise | marseillaise | | | discription | description | | | threatning | threatening | | | pittying | pitying | | | engle | engel | | | threatning | threatening | | | embelish | embellish | | | curari | curare | | | bastile | bastille | | | teniment | tenement | | | procivities | proclivities | | | bastile | bastille | | | ravishers | ravishers of | | | verein | verein | | | pittsburg | pittsburgh | | | indentified | identified | | | heighth | height | | | precint | precinct | | | acclammation | acclamation | +-------+----------------+----------------+ a girl among the anarchists by isabel meredith preface in spite of the fact that there are certain highly respectable individualists of a rabid type who prefer to call themselves anarchists, it must be owned that it requires some courage to write about anarchism even with the sympathy befitting a clinical physician or the scientific detachment of a pathologist. and yet it is certain that anarchists are curiously interesting, and not the less in need of observation from the fact that apparently none of the social quacks who prescribe seriously in leading articles has the faintest insight into them as a phenomenon, a portent, or a disease. this book, if it is read with understanding, will, i feel assured, do not a little to show how it comes about that anarchism is as truly endemic in western civilisations as cholera is in india. isabel meredith, whom i had the pleasure of knowing when she was a more humble member of the staff of the _tocsin_ than the editor, occupies, to my knowledge, a very curious and unique position in the history of english anarchism. there is nothing whatever in "a girl among the anarchists" which is invented, the whole thing is an experience told very simply, but i think convincingly. nevertheless as such a human document must seem incredible to the ordinary reader, i have no little pleasure in saying that i know what she has written to be true. i was myself a contributor to the paper which is here known as the _tocsin_. i have handled the press and have discussed details (which did not include bombs) with the editor. i knew "kosinski" and still have an admiration for "nekrovitch." and even now i do not mind avowing that i am philosophically as much an anarchist as the late dr. h. g. sutton, who would no doubt have been astounded to learn that he belonged to the brotherhood. curiously enough i have found most anarchists of the mildest dispositions. i have met meek germans (there are meek germans still extant) who even in their wildest anarchic indignation seemed as little capable of hurting a living soul as of setting the elbe on fire. for it must be understood that the "red wing" of the anarchists is a very small section of the body of philosophers known as anarchists. there is no doubt that those of the dynamite section are practically insane. they are "impulsives"; they were outraged and they revolted before birth. most of the proletariat take their thrashing lying down. there are some who cannot do that. it is out of these who are not meek and do not inherit even standing-room on the earth that such as "matthieu" comes. perhaps it may not be out of place to suggest that a little investigation might be better than denunciation, which is always wide of the mark, and that, as anarchism is created by the social system of repression, more repression will only create more anarchism. however, i am perfectly aware that the next time a wild-eyed philosopher, who ought to be under restraint in an asylum, throws a bomb, all the newspapers in europe will advocate measures for turning all the meeker anarchists into outrage-mongers. for of the anarchists it is certainly true that repression does not repress. anarchism is a creed and a philosophy, but neither as creed nor philosophy does it advocate violence. it only justifies resistance to violence. so much, i think, will be discovered in this book even by a leader-writer. in conclusion i cannot do better than quote from spinoza's _tractatus politicus:_-- "in order that i might inquire better into the matter of this science with the same freedom of mind with which we are wont to treat lines and surfaces in mathematics, i determined not to laugh or weep over the actions of men but simply to understand them, and to contemplate their affections and passions such as love, hate, anger, envy, arrogance, pity, and all other disturbances of soul not as vices of human nature, but as properties pertaining to it in the same way as heat, cold, storm, thunder pertain to the nature of the atmosphere. for these, though troublesome, are yet necessary and have certain causes through which we may come to understand them, and thus by contemplating them in their truth, gain for our minds as much joy as by the knowledge of things which are pleasing to the senses." i think that isabel meredith, so far as the outlook of her book extends, is a disciple of spinoza. but she can speak for herself. morley roberts. contents i. a strange childhood ii. a gathering in chiswick iii. an abortive group-meeting. iv. a police scare v. to the rescue vi. a foreign invasion vii. the office of the _tocsin_ viii. the dynamitard's escape ix. some anarchist personalities x. a flight xi. a crisis xii. the _tocsin's_ last toll. chapter i a strange childhood in the small hours of a bitter january morning i sat in my room gazing into the fire, and thinking over many things. i was alone in the house, except for the servants, but this circumstance did not affect me. my childhood and upbringing had been of no ordinary nature, and i was used to looking after myself and depending on my own resources for amusement and occupation. my mother had died when i was yet a small child and, with my elder sister and brother, i had grown up under our father's eye. he was a chemist and a man of advanced ideas on most things. he had never sent us to school, preferring to watch in person over our education, procuring for us private tuition in many subjects, and himself instructing us in physical science and history, his two favourite studies. we rapidly gained knowledge under his system and were decidedly precocious children, but we had none of the ordinary school society and routine. our childhood was by no means dull or mopish, for there were three of us and we got on very well together, but we mixed hardly at all with children of our own age, our interests were not theirs, and their boisterous ways were somewhat repellent to us. our father was a great believer in liberty, and, strange to say, he put his ideas into practice in his own household. he was a devoted and enthusiastic student, and for days, nay, weeks together, we would see but little of him. he had fitted himself up a small laboratory at the top of our house on which he spent all his available money, and here he passed nearly all the time he could dispose of over and beyond that necessary for the preparation and delivery of his scientific lectures. as we grew out of childhood he made no difference in his mode of life. he gave us full liberty to follow our various bents, assisting us with his advice when requested, ever ready to provide the money necessary for any special studies or books; taking an interest in our readings and intellectual pursuits. the idea of providing us with suitable society, of launching us out into the world, of troubling to see that we conformed to the ordinary conventions of society, never occurred to him. occasionally some old friend of his would drop in, or some young admirer who had followed his scientific work in the press would write asking permission to call and consult him on some point. they were always received with cordiality, and my father would take much trouble to be of any assistance he could to them. we children used generally to be present on such occasions, and frequently would join in the conversation, and thus we got to know various people, among whom foreigners and various types of cranks were fairly in evidence. we lived in a large old-fashioned house in fitzroy square where our father had settled down somewhere in the seventies soon after his marriage to a south american spaniard, whom he had met during a scientific research expedition in brazil. she was a girl of seventeen, his junior by some twenty years. during his journeys into the interior of brazil he had fallen seriously ill with malarial fever, and had been most kindly taken in and nursed by a coffee-planter and his family. here he had met his future wife who was acting as governess. she was of spanish descent, and combined the passionate enthusiasm of a southerner with the independence and self-reliance which life in a new and only partially civilised country breeds. she was an orphan and penniless, but our father fell in love with her, attracted doubtless by her beauty and vivaciousness in such striking contrast with his bookish way of life, and he married her and brought her home to london. he truly loved her and was a good husband in all essential respects, but the uncongenial climate and monotonous life told on her health, and she died three years after my birth, much mourned by her husband, who plunged all the more deeply into scientific research, his only other thought being a care for our education. he had lived on in the same old house which grew somewhat dingier and shabbier each year, whilst the neighbourhood fell from its pristine respectability to become the resort of foreigners of somewhat doubtful character, of bohemian artists and musicians. as i sat gazing into the fire many pictures of those old days rose before me. i saw our large drawing-room with its old-fashioned furniture, handsome, often beautiful, but ill-kept; its sombre hangings and fine pictures. i recalled a typical scene there with a large fire burning cheerily in the big grate, relieving the gloom of a late winter afternoon with the bright flickering of its flames. ensconced in a roomy arm-chair, our father is seated by the fire in a skullcap and list slippers, with his favourite cat perched on his knee. opposite him sit two ladies, the elder of whom--a quaint, nice-looking old lady, dressed neatly in black, but whose innate eccentricity succeeded in imparting something odd to the simplest and quietest of attires--is leaning eagerly forward, pouring forth a long tale of woe into my father's sympathetic ear. she is denouncing the london roughs, landlords, and police, who, apparently, are all in league to ruin her and turn her cats astray upon an unkind world. the brutality of the english poor, who consider their duty towards the feline race fully performed when they have fed them, and who pay no more attention to their morals and higher feelings than if they were stocks and stones, arouses her ire; sympathy is what she needs, sympathy to help her to face the world and continue her crusade against cruelty. she says all this in a scattered and disconnected style, jumping from one point to another, turning occasionally to her friend for support or confirmation. this friend is a meek, subdued-looking person of uncertain age, somewhat washed-out and bedraggled in appearance. her attire is nondescript, and seems to consist of oddments bought solely because they were cheap and bearing no relation whatever one to the other. mrs. smuts, growing more and more absorbed in the course of her harangue on the great cat question, states that she believes in marrying cats young in life and looking strictly after their morals; and as she appeals to miss meggs whilst voicing this sentiment, the latter timidly interjects, "but do you think, my dear maria, that cats can maintain themselves chaste on a meat diet? i never give mine anything more exciting than cold potatoes and rice pudding, and i find that they thrive on it, mr. meredith!" at this point we children, stifling our laughter, rush headlong from the room, to vent our mirth in safety in the kitchen. another frequent visitor whom my imagination summoned from the grave in which he had lain now for several years past, was a tall, thin, delicate-looking man of some thirty years of age. he was by birth a frenchman, but had lived mostly in england, his parents having come over as political exiles from the tyranny of louis napoleon, afterwards settling permanently in this country. he was an engineer by profession, but a poet at heart, and all his spare time and thought he devoted to tackling the problem of aerial navigation. his day was spent earning a scanty living in a shipbuilding yard, but his evenings and nights were passed in constructing a model of a flying-machine. he would bring his drawings round to our father for discussion and advice; and although he never attained success, he was always hopeful, trusting that some one of the ever fresh improvements and additions which his fertile brain was always busy conceiving would solve the difficulty which had hitherto beset him. his sallow face with its large dreamy eyes and his spare figure, clad in an old bluish suit, rusty with age and threadbare with brushing, stand out clear in my memory. there was also an old professor, a chemist like my father, who often assisted him in his experiments. he was somewhat formidable in appearance, wearing gold spectacles, and helping himself freely to the contents of a snuff-box, but he was one of the most kind-hearted of men. children were great favourites with him, and his affection was returned with interest as soon as the shyness consequent on his somewhat gruff manner was overcome. he used to enjoy drawing us out, and would laugh heartily at our somewhat old-fashioned remarks and observations, at which we used to grow very indignant, for we were decidedly touchy when our dignity was at stake. he had nicknamed me charlotte corday, for, after a course of greek and roman history, studied in plutarch and shakespeare's "julius caesar," i had plunged into the french revolution, glorying in its heroisms and audacity, and it had become a favourite amusement with all three of us to enact scenes drawn from its history, and to recite aloud, with great emphasis if little art, revolutionary poetry. the old professor loved to tease me by abusing my favourite heroes; and when he had at last roused me to a vigorous assertion of revolutionary sentiments, he would turn to my father and say, "there's a little spitfire for you; you will have to keep a look-out or she will be making bombs soon and blowing us all up," at which my father would smile complacently. our father was very charitable. he did not like to be bothered or disturbed, but he would willingly give a little assistance when asked, and the result was that our door was always besieged by beggars of various nationalities, spaniards and italians forming the chief contingent. generally they confined themselves to sending in notes, which used to be returned with a shilling or half-crown as the case might be, but sometimes one would insist on a personal interview. i remember one wild-looking hungarian, whose flowing locks were crowned by a sort of horse's sun-bonnet, who used to rush round on one of those obsolete bicycles, consisting of an enormously high wheel on the top of which he was perched, and a tiny little back one. he was generally pursued by a crowd of hooting boys, advising him to "get 'is 'air cut," and inquiring, "where did you get that 'at?" he used to insist on seeing my father; but the help he solicited was not for himself but for various political refugees in whom he was interested. one day the professor happened to meet this wild-looking creature at our door, and inquired of my father who that maniac might be. "oh, he is a hungarian refugee; a good fellow, i believe. i have noticed something rather odd in his appearance, but i do not consider him mad," replied his friend. amid such surroundings we grew up. my elder sister, caroline, had a notable musical gift, and even as a small child had a fine voice, which developed into a rich contralto. our father, always anxious to do his duty by us, gave her a first-rate musical education, sending her abroad to study under famous continental teachers, and at eighteen she made her first appearance in public, exciting much attention by the powerful dramatic qualities of her voice. it was evident that her right course was to go in for operatic singing, and this she did. she continued on the most affectionate terms with her family, but naturally her pursuit took her into quite another path of life, and we saw less and less of her as time went on. this threw my brother and myself more together. there was only a year's difference between us, and we studied together, walked, talked, played, and read together--in fact, were inseparable. raymond was no ordinary boy. in character and in manners he was very like my father. his favourite study was physical science in its various branches; mine, history and sociological subjects. he saw things from the scientific standpoint, i from the poetical and artistic; but we were both by nature enthusiastic and dreamers, and sympathised heartily with each other's views. his ambition was to become a famous explorer; mine, to die on a scaffold or a barricade, shouting liberty, equality, fraternity. our father took a great pride in raymond, and carefully supervised his studies. he passed various brilliant examinations, and at eighteen, having decided to go in for medicine, was already walking a hospital. shortly after this our father died suddenly. he was at work as usual in his laboratory when he was seized by a paralytic stroke, and in three days he was dead. this blow quite stunned us for a time. our father was everything to us; and the possibility of his death we had never contemplated. though, as i have explained, he had always left us free to follow our own devices, still he was the centre round which our family life circled; we were passionately attached to him, and now that he was gone we felt at a loss indeed. we had no relatives living of our father's; our mother's family we had never known, and they were too distant to be practically available. our father's friends were not such as to be of much help to us. cat enthusiasts and scientific dreamers are all very well in their way, but they almost always take far more than they give in the mart of friendship. the old professor had preceded my father to his grave. our father left us comfortably off. the house was our own, and property yielding a comfortable income was divided equally between us. our home seemed desolate indeed without our father, and very gloomily did the first months of his absence pass; but in time hope and youth reasserted themselves and we gradually settled down to much our old way of life. caroline obtained several engagements and was still studying enthusiastically. raymond passed most of his time at the hospital, where he had rooms, though he frequently came home; i was the only one who had not a definite occupation. i read a great deal and wrote a little also, chiefly studies on historical subjects which interested me, but i had printed nothing. in fact i had never been in the way of the literary world, and did not know how to set about it. time used often to hang rather heavily on my hands in the big house where i was generally alone. i was the housekeeper, but such cares did not take up much of my time. the result of so much solitude and lack of occupation was that i became restless and dissatisfied. mere reading without any definite object did not and could not suffice me; to write when there seemed no prospect of ever being read, and keenly alive as i was to my own deficiencies, did not attract me; friends i might say i had none, for the few people my father knew were interested in him and not in us children, and ceased to frequent our house after his death. caroline's musical friends did not appeal to me, so that the whole interest of my life was centred round my brother. when he came home we used always to be together, and conversation never flagged. never having been to school he had none of the schoolboy's patronising contempt for a sister. we had always been chums and companions, and so we continued, but whereas, as children, it was i, with my more passionate and enterprising nature, who took the lead, now it was he who, mixing with the outer world, provided the stimulus of new ideas and fresh activities for which i craved. brought suddenly face to face, after the studious seclusion of home, with the hard facts of life as seen in a london hospital, he had begun to take a deep interest in social questions. the frightful havoc of life and happiness necessitated by the economic conditions of nineteenth-century society, impressed him deeply, and he felt that any doctor who looked upon his profession as other than a mere means to make money must tackle such problems. following up this line of thought he became interested in economics and labour questions. his views were the result of no mere surface impression, but the logical outcome of thought and study, and he arrived at socialism by mental processes of his own, uninfluenced by the ordinary channels of propaganda. i shared his interests and read on parallel lines. we had no friends in socialist circles, no personal interest of any kind balanced our judgment. the whole trend of our education had been to make independent thinkers of us. what we saw in the whole problem was a question of justice, and for this we were ready and anxious to work. a new interest was thus brought into our lives, which, in my case, soon became all-absorbing. i was always begging my brother to bring me home fresh books. the driest volumes of political economy, the most indigestible of philosophical treatises, nothing came amiss. from these i passed on to more modern works. raymond had made friends with a student who was a professed socialist and through him he came into possession of a number of pamphlets and papers, all of which i devoured eagerly, and some of which made a lasting impression on my mind. krapotkin's "appeal to the young" was of this number. i remember in my enthusiasm reading it aloud to my sister caroline, who, however, took scant interest in such matters, and who tried, but in vain, to put a damper on my enthusiasm. i was always fond of scribbling, and the outcome of all this reading was that i, too, flew to pen and paper. i used to read my papers to raymond on those rare occasions when i fancied i had not done so much amiss. they would provide the material for an evening's conversation, then i would toss them aside and think no more about them. one day, however, raymond brought his socialist friend home with him. it seems they had talked about me and my all-absorbing interest in social subjects. hughes, my brother's friend, had been surprised to hear from raymond that i knew no socialists in the flesh, and that all my hero-worship was laid before the altar of mental abstractions, of my own creation for the most part. great was my excitement when raymond told me that i might expect him and his friend, of whom i had heard so much, to turn up together one sunday evening. so great was my ignorance of the world, so wild my enthusiasm, that i imagined every socialist as a hero, willing to throw away his life at a moment's notice on behalf of the "cause." i had had no experience of the petty internal strifes, of the jealousies and human frailties which a closer knowledge of all political parties reveals. i remember how ashamed i felt of the quite unostentatious comfort of our home, how anxious i was to dissemble the presence of servants, how necessary i thought it to dress myself in my oldest and least becoming clothes for the occasion, and how indignant i felt when caroline, who was going off to sing at a concert that evening, said, on coming in to wish me good-bye, "why, surely, isabel, you're not going to receive that gentleman looking such a fright as this?" as if a socialist could care for dress! how i felt he would despise me for all the outward signs which proved that i was living on the results of "unearned increment" (_vide_ karl marx) and that i was a mere social parasite! when at last the longed-for, yet dreaded moment came, i was surprised, relieved, and i must add somewhat disappointed, at seeing a young man looking much like any other gentleman, except that he wore a red tie, and that his clothes were of a looser and easier fit than is usual. "what a jolly place you have!" he exclaimed after my brother had introduced us and he had given a look round. i felt considerably relieved, as i had quite expected him to scowl disapproval, and my brother, after saying, "yes, it is a nice old house; we are very fond of it," suggested that we should adjourn to supper. during this repast i took an animated part in the conversation, which turned on recent books and plays. at last reference was made to a book, "the ethics of egoism," which had excited much attention. it was a work advocating the most rabid individualism, denying the socialist standpoint of the right to live, and saying that the best safeguard for the development and amelioration of the race lay in that relentless law of nature which sent the mentally and morally weak to the wall. i had read the book with interest, and had even written a rather long criticism of it, of which i felt distinctly proud. in the course of the discussion to which this book gave rise among us, my brother mentioned that i had written something on it, and hughes begged me to read my performance. though i felt somewhat diffident, i acceded, after some persuasion, to his request, and was elated beyond measure at earning his good opinion of my effort. "by george, that's about the best criticism i've read of the work. where do you intend publishing it, miss meredith?" "oh, i had never thought of publishing it," i replied; "i have never published anything." "but we cannot afford to lose such good stuff," he insisted. "come, raymond, now, don't you think your sister ought to get that into print?" "i think you should publish it, isabel, if you could," he replied. "could! why any of our papers would be only too delighted to have it. let me take it down to the _democrat_," he said, mentioning the name of a paper which raymond often brought home with him. "oh, if you really think it worth while, i shall be only too pleased," i replied. thus was effected my first introduction to the actual socialist party. my article was printed and i was asked for others. i made the acquaintance of the editor, who, i must confess, spite of my enthusiasm, soon struck me as a rather weak-kneed and altogether unadmirable character. he thought it necessary to get himself up to look like an artist, though he had not the soul of a counter-jumper, and the result was long hair, a velvet coat, a red tie, bumptious bearing, and an altogether scatter-brained and fly-away manner. in figure he was long and willowy, and reminded me irresistibly of an unhealthy cellar-grown potato plant. my circle of acquaintances rapidly enlarged, and soon, instead of having too much time on my hands for reading and study, i had too little. at one of the sunday evening lectures of the democratic club, at which i had become a regular attendant, i made the acquaintance of nekrovitch, the famous nihilist, and his wife. i took to him instinctively, drawn by the utter absence of sham or "side" which characterised the man. i had never understood why socialism need imply the arraying of oneself in a green curtain or a terra-cotta rug, or the cultivation of flowing locks, blue shirts, and a peculiar cut of clothes: and the complete absence of all such outward "trade marks" pleased me in the russian. he invited me to his house, and i soon became a constant visitor. in the little chiswick house i met a class of people who stimulated me intellectually, and once more aroused my rather waning enthusiasm for the "cause." the habit of taking nothing for granted, of boldly inquiring into the origin of all accepted precepts of morality, of intellectual speculation unbiassed by prejudice and untrammelled by all those petty personal and party questions and interests which i had seen occupy so much time and thought at the democratic club, permeated the intellectual atmosphere. quite a new side of the problem--that of its moral bearings and abstract rights as opposed to the merely material right to daily bread which had first appealed to my sense of justice and humanity--now opened before me. the right to complete liberty of action, the conviction that morality is relative and personal and can never be imposed from without, that men are not responsible, or only very partially so, for their surroundings, by which their actions are determined, and that consequently no man has a right to judge his fellow; such and similar doctrines which i heard frequently upheld, impressed me deeply. i was morally convinced of their truth, and consequently more than half an anarchist. the bold thought and lofty ideal which made of each man a law unto himself, answerable for his own actions only to his own conscience, acting righteously towards others as the result of his feeling of solidarity and not because of any external compulsion, captivated my mind. the anarchists who frequented nekrovitch's house were men of bold and original thought, the intellectual part of the movement, and i was never tired of listening to their arguments. meantime the more i saw of the social democrats the less i felt satisfied with them. a wider experience would have told me that all political parties, irrespective of opinion, are subject to much the same criticism, and that socialist ideas are no protection against human weaknesses; but extreme youth is not compromising where its ideals are concerned, and i expected and insisted on a certain approach to perfection in my heroes. true, nekrovitch made me hesitate some time before taking the final step. his attitude in such discussions was one of sound common sense, and he never ceased reminding his anarchist friends, though all in vain, that we must live in our own times, and that it is no use trying to forestall human evolution by some thousand years. at home i had become more and more my own mistress. i was now full eighteen years of age, and had always been accustomed to think and act for myself. caroline, with whom i was on most affectionate terms, despite our frequent differences on politics, had accepted an engagement as _prima donna_ with a travelling opera company which was to visit the united states and the principal cities of south america; her engagement was to last two years, and she had left just three weeks before the opening of my first chapter. raymond slept at home, but as the date of his final examination drew near he was more and more occupied, and frequently whole weeks passed in which i only caught a glimpse of him. he knew and sympathised with my new line of thought; he had accompanied me more than once to the nekrovitchs', whom he liked much, but he had no longer the time to devote much thought to such matters. of money i always had a considerable command; ever since our father's death i had kept house, and now that caroline was away i had full control of the household purse. turning over all these thoughts in my mind as i sat toasting my feet before the fire, i felt more and more inclined to throw in my lot with the anarchists. at the same time i felt that if i did take this step it must be as a worker and in no half-hearted spirit. the small hours of the morning were rapidly slipping by as i turned at last into bed to dream of anarchist meetings, melting into a confused jumble with the rights of cats and the claims of the proletariat. chapter ii a gathering in chiswick as my first actual acquaintance with anarchists was effected in nekrovitch's house, it will not be out of place for me to give a slight sketch of the gatherings held there and of my host himself. an interminably dreary journey by tram and rail, omnibus and foot, the latter end of which lay along a monotonous suburban road, brought you to the humble dwelling of the famous nihilist. here from time to time on sunday evenings it was my wont to put in an appearance towards ten or eleven, for the journey was deceptively long from fitzroy square, and nekrovitch, like most russians, was himself of so unpunctual and irregular a nature, that he seemed to foster the like habits in all his friends. the nominal hour for these social gatherings to commence was eight, but not till past nine did the guests begin to assemble, and till midnight and later they would come dribbling in. only one conscientiously punctual german was ever known to arrive at the appointed hour, but the only reward of the teuton's mistaken zeal was to wait for hours in solitary state in an unwarmed, unlighted room till his host and fellow-guests saw fit to assemble. the meeting-room, or parlour, or drawing-room in nekrovitch's house was by no means a palatial apartment. small and even stuffy to the notions of a hygienic englishman, and very bare, scanty in furniture, and yet poorer in decoration, this room bore evidence to its owners' contempt for such impedimenta, and their entire freedom from slavery to household gods. it was evidently the home of people used to pitching their tent often, and to whom a feeling of settled security was unknown. but its occupants usually made up for any deficiencies in their surroundings. the company was always of a very mixed cosmopolitan character--russian nihilists and exiles, english liberals who sympathised with the russian constitutional movement, socialists and fabians, anarchists of all nationalities, journalists and literary men whose political views were immaterial, the pseudo-bohemian who professes interest in the "queer side of life," all manner of faddists, rising and impecunious musicians and artists--all were made welcome, and all were irresistibly attracted towards the great russian nihilist. the most notable figure in this assembly, and he certainly would have been in most assemblies, was nekrovitch himself. nekrovitch was essentially a great man; one of those men whom to know was to admire and to love; a man of strong intellect, and of the strong personal magnetism which is so frequently an adjunct of genius. physically he was a huge powerful man, so massive and striking in appearance that he suggested comparison rather with some fact of nature--a rock, a vigorous forest tree--than with another man. he was one of those rare men who, like mountains in a landscape, suffice in themselves to relieve their environments, whatever these may be, from all taint of meanness. he stood out from among his guests the centre of conversation, of feeling, and of interest. he was almost invariably engaged in eager conversation, pitched in a loud tone of voice, broken at intervals when he listened to the other disputants, while puffing the cigarettes which he was constantly rolling, and looking intently out of his deep-set penetrating eyes. nekrovitch's wife, a russian like himself, had been a student of medicine at the russian university until, along with her husband, she had been compelled to take flight from the attentions of the russian police. she was a curly-headed brunette, with bright hazel eyes and a vivacious manner; a very intelligent and highly "simpatica" woman, as the italians would put it. round nekrovitch there always clustered an eager crowd of admirers and intimates, discussing, disputing, listening, arguing. they were mostly foreigners, of the shaggy though not unwashed persuasion, but two english faces especially attracted notice. one belonged to a young woman, still on the right side of thirty, dressed without exaggeration in the aesthetic style, with a small but singularly intellectual head and an argumentative manner, whom i knew as miss cooper. the other was a man of some thirty-seven years, with auburn hair, which displayed a distinct tendency to develop into a flowing mane; tall, slim, and lithe of limb, with a splendid set of teeth, which showed under his bushy moustache whenever his frank, benevolent smile parted his lips. he was somewhat taciturn, but evidently tenacious; a glance at his spacious forehead and finely-shaped head revealed a man of mind, and the friendly, fearless glance of his eyes betokened a lovable nature, though, as he listened to his opponents or answered in his low distinct voice, there was an intensity and fixedness in their depth not incompatible with the fanatic. this dr. armitage was one of the most noticeable figures in the english anarchist movement, and it was with him that i first discussed anarchist principles as opposed to those of legal socialism. nekrovitch and others often joined in the discussion, and very animated we all grew in the course of debate. nekrovitch smiled sympathetically at my whole-hearted and ingenuous enthusiasm. he never made any attempt to scoff at it or to discourage me, though he vainly attempted to persuade me that anarchism was too distant and unpractical an ideal, and that my energies and enthusiasm might be more advantageously expended in other directions. "anyway," he once said to me, "it is very agreeable to a russian to see young people interested in politics and political ideals. it reminds him of his own country." among the other anarchists who frequented nekrovitch's house was the anarchist and scientist, count voratin, a man who had sacrificed wealth and high position and family ties for his principles with less fuss than another rich man would make in giving a donation to an hospital. he seemed always absolutely oblivious of his own great qualities, as simple and kindly in manners as a _moujik_ but with a certain innate dignity and courtliness of demeanour which lifted him above most of those with whom he came in contact. i nourished an almost passionate admiration for voratin as a thinker and a man, and his writings had gone far to influence me in my anarchist leanings. never shall i forget the excitement i felt when first i met him at nekrovitch's house. i reverenced him as only a youthful disciple can reverence a great leader. from armitage and nekrovitch i heard much from time to time of another russian anarchist, ivan kosinski, a man actively engaged in the anarchist propaganda all over europe. he was much admired by them for his absolute unswerving devotion to his ideas. a student and a man of means, he had never hesitated between his interests and his convictions. he had come into collision with the russian authorities by refusing to perform military service. in prison he would not recognise the right of judges and jailers, and had consequently spent most of his time in a strait waistcoat and a dark cell. his forte was silence and dogged unyielding obstinacy. on escaping from russian prisons he had gone to america: he had starved and tramped, but he had never accepted any sort of help. how he lived was a mystery to all. he was known to be an ascetic and a woman-hater, and had been seen at one time selling fly-papers in the streets of new york. in revolutionary circles he was looked up to as an original thinker, and it was rumoured that he played a leading part in most of the revolutionary movements of recent years. he was also engaged on a life of bakounine which was to be the standard work on the famous revolutionist, for which purpose he was always reading and travelling in search of material. and at last one evening nekrovitch announced that kosinski was expected. i had heard so much about this man that i spent my whole evening in a state of suppressed excitement at the news. for many months past i had sympathised with the anarchist principles, but i had taken no particular steps towards joining the party or exerting myself on its behalf. i was waiting for some special stimulus to action. half unconsciously i found myself wondering whether kosinski would prove this. i had passed a pleasant evening in the little chiswick house between the usual political and ethical discussions and the usual interesting or entertaining company. i had assisted at a long discussion between miss cooper and dr. armitage, which, commencing on the question of socialism, had gradually deviated into one on food and dress reform, a matter upon which that lady held very strong views. i had felt a little irritated at the conversation, for i entertained scant sympathy for what i regarded as hygienic fads; and the emphasis with which the lady averred that she touched neither flesh nor alcohol, and felt that by this abstinence she was not "besotting her brain nor befouling her soul," amused me much. dr. armitage, to my surprise, expressed some sympathy with her views, and treated the question with what i considered undue importance. this discussion was brought at last to a termination by miss cooper breaking off for a meal (she always ate at regular intervals), and retiring into a corner to consume monkey-nuts out of a hanging pocket or pouch which she carried with her. the evening advanced, and i began to despair of kosinski's ever arriving. every time there was a knock at the door, i wondered whether it was the much-expected anarchist, but i was repeatedly disappointed. once it was the musical infant prodigy of the season whose talents had taken london by storm, another time it was a nihilist, yet another a wild-looking czech poet. one loud rat-tat made me feel certain that kosinski had arrived, but i was again disillusioned, as an aesthetic, fascinating little lady made her entry, dragging triumphantly in tow a reluctant, unengaging and green-haired husband. nekrovitch gave me a significant glance. "so sorry to be so late," the little lady began in a high-pitched voice, "but i had to attend a meeting of our society for the distribution of sanitary dust-bins; and humphry got quite disagreeable waiting for me outside, although he was well wrapped up in comforters and mits. my dear anna (this to madame nekrovitch), _do_ tell him that he is most absurd and egoistic, and that it is his duty to think less of personal comfort and more of humanity." at this last word the injured humphry, who had approached the fire, and was attempting to thaw his nose and toes, gave utterance to a suppressed groan; but a cup of steaming tea and some appetising buttered toast diverted his spouse's thoughts, and she was soon deep in a confidential chat with anna. at last, long after eleven, appeared the new-comer of whom i had heard so much. i must confess that my preconceived notions (one always has a preconceived notion of the appearance of a person one has heard much spoken of) fell to the ground. i had imagined him dark and audacious, and i saw before me a tall, big, well-built man, with a slight stoop in his shoulders, fair of skin, with a blonde beard and moustache, lank long hair, a finely-cut, firm-set mouth, and blue dreamy eyes, altogether a somewhat christ-like face. he was clad in a thick, heavy, old-fashioned blue overcoat with a velvet collar, which he refused to remove, baggy nondescript trousers, and uncouth-looking boots. he saluted his host and hostess in an undemonstrative style, bowed awkwardly to the other guests, and settled down to crouch over the fire, and look unostentatiously miserable. from the first moment kosinski interested me. his manners were not engaging; towards women especially he was decidedly hostile. but the marked indifference to opinion which his bearing indicated, his sincerity, his unmistakable moral courage, perhaps his evident aversion to my sex, all had for me a certain fascination. i felt attracted towards the man, and was pleased that a discussion on anarchism with armitage at last afforded me an opportunity of exchanging a few words with him--even though on his side the conversation was not altogether flattering to myself. it happened in this way. nekrovitch, armitage, and myself had, according to our wont, been discussing the great anarchist question. for the hundredth time the russian had endeavoured to persuade us of the truth and the reason of his point of view. "so long as men are men," he maintained, "there must be some sort of government, some fixed recognised law--organisation, if you will, to control them." "all governments are equally bad," answered the doctor. "all law is coercion, and coercion is immoral. immoral conditions breed immoral people. in a free and enlightened society there would be no room for coercive law. crime will disappear when healthy and natural conditions prevail." and nekrovitch, perceiving for the hundredth time that his arguments were vain, and that armitage was not to be moved, had left us to ourselves and gone across to his other guests. doctor armitage, always eager for converts, turned his undivided attention to me. "i hope yet to be able to claim you for a comrade," he said: "you are intelligent and open-minded, and cannot fail to see the futility of attempting to tinker up our worn-out society. you must see that our socialist friends have only seized on half-truths, and they stop short where true reform should begin." "i can quite see your point of view," i replied; "in fact i am more than half a convert already. but i should like to know what i can do. i have been interested now in these problems for a year or two, and must confess that the electioneering and drawing-room politics of fabians and social democrats are not much to my taste; in fact i may say that i am sick of them. a few men like our friend nekrovitch, who ennoble any opinions they may hold, are of course exceptions, but i cannot blind myself to the fact that ambition, wire-pulling, and faddism play a prominent part in the general proceedings. on the other hand you seem to me to sin in the opposite direction. no organisation, no definite programme, no specific object!--what practical good could any one like myself do in such a party?" the doctor smiled a quiet smile of triumph as he proceeded to overthrow my objections: "why, the very strength of our party lies in the fact that it has not what you are pleased to call an organisation. organisations are only a means for intriguers and rogues to climb to power on the shoulders of their fellow-men; and at best only serve to trammel initiative and enterprise. with us every individual enjoys complete liberty of action. this of course does not mean to say that several individuals may not unite to attain some common object, as is shown by our groups which are scattered all over the globe. but each group is autonomous, and within the group each individual is his own law. such an arrangement, besides being right in principle, offers great practical advantages in our war against society, and renders it impossible for governments to stamp us out. again, as to our lack of programme, if a clear grasp of principle and of the ultimate aim to be attained is meant, it is wrong to say we have no programme, but, if you mean a set of rules and formulas, why, what are they after all but a means of sterilising ideas? men and their surroundings are unceasingly undergoing modification and change, and one of the chief defects of all governments and parties hitherto has been that men have had to adapt themselves to their programmes, instead of their programmes to themselves. we make no statement as to specific object: each comrade has his own, and goes for it without considering it necessary to proclaim the fact to the whole world. now you ask me how you could help this movement or what you could do, and i have no hesitation in saying, much. every revolution requires revolutionists, we need propagandists, we need workers, we need brains and money, and you have both." "so you think that one ought to place one's property at the service of the cause, and that thus one is doing more good than by helping in the ordinary way?" "why, of course, the revolutionist aims at eradicating the causes of poverty and vice, whereas benevolence, by making it just possible for people to put up with their circumstances, only strengthens the chains which hold mankind in slavery." we had unconsciously raised our voices in the heat of discussion, and kosinski, who had caught our last observations, broke in unexpectedly. it was the first time he had opened his mouth to any purpose, and he went straight to the point: "it is you bourgeois socialists, with your talk of helping us, and your anxiety about using your property 'to the best advantage,' who are the ruin of every movement," he said, addressing me in an uncompromising spirit. "what is wanted to accomplish any great change is enthusiasm, whole-hearted labour, and where that is, no thought is taken as to whether everything is being used to the best advantage. if you are prepared to enter the movement in this spirit, without any backward notion that you are conferring a favour upon any one--for indeed the contrary is the case--well and good: your work will be willingly accepted for what it is worth, and your money, if you have any, will be made good use of; but if not, you had better side with your own class and enjoy your privileges so long as the workers put up with you." these outspoken remarks were followed by a momentary silence. mrs. trevillian looked dismayed; miss cooper evidently concluded that kosinski must have dined on steak; dr. armitage agreed, but seemed to consider that more amenity of language might be compatible with the situation. nekrovitch laughed heartily, enjoying this psychological sidelight, and i, who ought to have felt crushed, was perhaps the only one who thoroughly endorsed the sentiment expressed, finding therein the solution of many moral difficulties which had beset me. kosinksi was right. i felt one must go the whole length or altogether refrain from dabbling in such matters. and as to property i again knew that he was right; it was what i had all along instinctively felt. private property was, after all, but the outcome of theft, and there can be no virtue in restoring what we have come by unrighteously. small things are often the turning-point in a career; and, looking back, i clearly see that that evening's discussion played no small part in determining my future conduct. i was already disposed towards anarchist doctrines, and my disposition was more inclined towards action of any order than towards mere speculation. i was the first to speak. "kosinski is quite right; i am the first to recognise it. only i think it a little unfair to assume me to be a mere bourgeois, attempting to play the part of lady patroness to the revolution. i am sure none who know me can accuse me of such an attitude." kosinski grumbled out a reply: "well, of course i may be mistaken; but i have seen so many movements ruined by women that i am rather distrustful; they are so rarely prepared to forgo what they consider the privileges of the sex--which is but another phrase for bossing every one and everything and expecting much in return for nothing; but of course there may be exceptions. perhaps you are one." nekrovitch laughed aloud: "bravo, bravo, you are always true to yourself, kosinski. i have always known you as a confirmed misogynist, and i see you still resist all temptations to reform. you carry boorishness to the verge of heroism." the hours had slipped by rapidly, and mrs. trevillian took the hint which her spouse had long tried to give by shuffling restlessly in his seat and casting side glances at the clock which pointed to half-past one. she rose to go. "we really must be leaving--it is quite late, and humphry is never fit for anything unless he gets at least six hours' sleep. good-bye; thanks for such a pleasant evening," and she bustled out, followed by her husband. i rose to follow her example and, turning a deaf ear to nekrovitch, who remarked, "oh, isabel, do stay on; it is not yet late, and as you have lost your last train it is no use being in a hurry," i shook hands with my friends, including kosinski, who had once more subsided into a corner, and left, accompanied by dr. armitage, who offered to walk home with me. we walked rapidly on through the keen night air. i felt excited and resolute with the feeling that a new phase of existence was opening before me. dr. armitage at last spoke. "i hope, isabel"--it was usual in this circle to eschew surnames, and most of my friends and acquaintances called me isabel in preference to miss meredith--"i hope, isabel, that you will come to our meetings. i should like you to know some of our comrades; there are many very interesting men, quite original thinkers, some of them. and i think human beings so often throw light on matters which one otherwise fails to grasp." "i should much like to," i replied, "if you can tell me how and when; for i suppose one requires some sort of introduction even to anarchist circles." "oh, that is easy enough," he replied. "i have often mentioned your name, and the comrades will be very glad to see you; we make no sort of mystery about our meetings. there will be a meeting at the office of our paper, the _bomb_, next saturday. do come. the business on hand will perhaps not interest you much, but it will be an opportunity for meeting some of our men, and i shall be there." "oh, i shall be so glad to come!" i exclaimed. "what will you be discussing?" "well, to tell the truth, it is a somewhat unpleasant matter," replied the doctor with some hesitation in his voice. "there have been some strange reports circulating about the myers case, and we are anxious to get at the truth of the business. it may strike you as a rather unsuitable introduction, but come nevertheless. the movement is always in need of new blood and fresh energies to keep it from narrowing its sphere of activity, and it is well that you should know us as we are." "very well, i will come if you will give me the direction." "let us say nine o'clock at the office of the _bomb_ in slater's mews, ---- street; you will find me there." "agreed," i replied, and conversation dropped as we walked rapidly along. i was much occupied with my own thoughts and dr. armitage was noted for his long periods of silence. at last we reached my doorstep. i fumbled for my latch-key, found it, and wished my friend good-night. we shook hands and parted. chapter iii an abortive group-meeting before describing the strange committee or group-meeting about to be dealt with, it is necessary to say a few words concerning the mysterious affair which gave rise to it. on the th of december - the posters of the evening papers had announced in striking characters:-- "death of an anarchist: attempted outrage in a london park." that same afternoon a loud explosion had aroused the inhabitants of a quiet suburban district, and on reaching the corner of ---- park whence the report emanated, the police had found, amid a motley debris of trees, bushes, and railings, the charred and shattered remains of a man. these, at the inquest, proved to have belonged to augustin myers, an obscure little french anarchist, but despite the usual lengthy and unsatisfactory routine of police inquiries, searches, and arrests, practically nothing could be ascertained concerning him or the circumstances attending his death. all that was certain was that the deceased man had in his possession an explosive machine, evidently destined for some deadly work, and that, while traversing the park, it had exploded, thus putting an end both to its owner and his projects. various conflicting theories were mooted as to the motive which prompted the conduct of the deceased anarchist, but no confirmation could be obtained to any of these. some held that myers was traversing london on his way to some inconspicuous country railway station, whence to take train for the continent where a wider and more propitious field for anarchist outrage lay before him. others opined that he had contemplated committing an outrage in the immediate vicinity of the spot which witnessed his own death; and others, again, that, having manufactured his infernal machine for some nefarious purpose either at home or abroad, he was suddenly seized either with fear or remorse, and had journeyed to this unobserved spot in order to bury it. the papers hinted at accomplices and talked about the usual "widespread conspiracy"; the police opened wide their eyes, but saw very little. the whole matter, in short, remained, and must always remain, a mystery to the public. behind the scenes, however, the anarchists talked of a very different order of "conspiracy." the funeral rites of the poor little augustin were performed with as much ceremony and sympathy as an indignant london mob would allow, and he was followed to his grave by a goodly _cortège_ of "comrades," red and black flags and revolutionary song. among the chief mourners was the deceased man's brother jacob, who wept copiously into the open grave and sung his "carmagnole" with inimitable zeal. it was this brother whose conduct had given rise to suspicion among his companions, and "spies" and "police plots" were in every one's mouth. the office of the _bomb_, as being the centre of english anarchy, had been selected as the scene for an inquiry _en group_ into the matter. thus on a wet and chilling january evening--one of those evenings when london, and more especially squalid london, is at the height of its unattractiveness--i set out towards my first anarchist "group-meeting." and certainly the spirit which moved me from within must have been strong that the flesh quailed not at the foul scenery amid which my destination lay. half-way down one of the busiest, grimiest, and most depressing streets in the w.c. district stands a squalid public-house, the type of many hundreds and thousands of similar dens in the metropolis. the "myrtle grove tavern," pastoral as the name sounds, was not precisely the abode of peace and goodwill. from four a.m., when the first of her _habitués_ began to muster round the yet unopened doors, till half-past twelve p.m., when the last of them was expelled by the sturdy "chucker-out," the atmosphere was dense with the foul breath and still fouler language of drunken and besotted men and women. every phase of the lower order of british drinker and drunkard was represented here. the coarse oaths of the men, mingled with the shriller voices of their female companions, and the eternal "'e saids" and "she saids" of the latter's complaints and disputes were interrupted by the plaintive wailings of the puny, gin-nourished infants at their breasts. here, too, sat the taciturn man, clay pipe in mouth, on his accustomed bench day after day, year in year out, gazing with stony and blear-eyed indifference on all that went on around him; deaf, dumb, and unseeing; only spitting deliberately at intervals, and with apparently no other vocation in life than the consumption of fermented liquor. the side-door for "jugs and bottles" gave on to a dirty and odoriferous mews, down which my destination lay. the unbridled enthusiasm of eighteen years can do much to harden or deaden the nervous system, but certainly it required all my fortitude to withstand the sickening combination of beer and damp horsy hay which greeted my nostrils. neither could the cabmen and stablemen, hanging round the public-house doors and the mews generally, be calculated to increase one's democratic aspirations, but i walked resolutely on, and turning to my left, dexterously avoiding an unsavoury heap of horse manure, straw, and other offal, i clambered up a break-neck ladder, at the top of which loomed the office of the _bomb_. the door was furtively opened in response to my kick by a lean, hungry-looking little man of very circumspect appearance. he cast me a surly and suspicious glance, accompanied by a not very encouraging snarl, but on my mentioning dr. armitage he opened the door a few inches wider and i passed in. it took me some seconds before i could accustom my eyes to the fetid atmosphere of this den, which was laden with the smoke of divers specimens of the worst shag and cheapest tobacco in the metropolis. but various objects, human and inanimate, became gradually more distinct, and i found myself in a long, ill-lighted wooden shed, where type and dust and unwashed human beings had left their mark, and where soap and sanitation were unknown. past the type racks and cases, which occupied the first half of this apartment, were grouped benches, stools, packing-cases, and a few maimed and deformed chairs for the accommodation of the assembly. then came a hand printing-press, on which were spread the remains of some comrade's repast: the vertebral column of a bloater and an empty condensed-milk can, among other relics. the floor, from one extremity to the other of the "office," was littered with heaps of unsold revolutionary literature, the approximate date of which could be gauged by the thickness of dust in which it was smothered. on the walls and from beams and rafters hung foils and boxing-gloves; artistic posters and cartoons, the relics of a great artist who had founded the _bomb_, and the effigies of divers comrades to whom a pathway to a better world had been opened through the hangman's drop. but what most riveted my attention was an indistinct animate _something_ enveloped in a red flag, rolled up in a heap on the frouziest and most forbidding old sofa it had ever been my lot to behold. that this _something_ was animate could be gathered from the occasional twitchings of the red bundle, and from the dark mop of black greasy hair which emerged from one end. but to what section of the animal kingdom _it_ belonged i was quite at a loss to decide. other stray objects which i noted about this apartment were an ostentatious-looking old revolver of obsolete make, and some chemical bottles, which, however, contained no substance more dangerous than epsom salts. the human occupants were not less noticeable than the inanimate, and some of them are deserving of our attention. the man myers, round whom the interest of the meeting was principally centred this evening, was to all appearances a mean enough type of the east end sartorial jew. his physiognomy was not that of a fool, but indicated rather that low order of intelligence, cunning and intriguing, which goes to make a good swindler. the low forehead, wide awake, shifty little eyes, the nose of his forefathers, and insolent lock of black hair plastered low on his brow--all these characteristics may frequently be met with in the dock of the "old bailey" when some case of petty swindling is being tried. next myers i noticed dr. armitage, who stood out in striking contrast from the rest of his companions. the smile with which he welcomed me was eloquent of the satisfaction with which he noted this my first entrance into an anarchist circle. the short bench on which he sat was shared by a man in corduroys of the navvy type, a large honest-looking fellow whose views of the social question appeared to be limited to a not very definite idea of the injustice of third-class railway travelling and the payment of rent, and he expressed his opinions on these knotty problems with more freedom and warmth of language than was perhaps altogether warranted by the occasion. gracefully poised on one leg against an adjoining type-rack leaned a tall youth with fair curling hair, a weak tremulous mouth, and an almost girlish physiognomy. this youth had been drummed out of the army, the discipline of which he had found too severe, for feigning illness, since when he had passed his time between the bosom of his family, the workhouse, and the anarchist party. he paid very little attention to the proceedings of the meeting, but discoursed eloquently, in a low voice, of the brutality of his parents who refused to keep him any longer unless he made some attempt to find employment. i remember wondering, _en passant_, why this fair-haired, weak-kneed youth had ever entered the anarchist party; but the explanation, had i but known, was close at hand. this explanation was a square-built, sturdy-looking man of some forty years. his appearance was the reverse of engaging, but by no means lacking in intelligence. he was ill-satisfied and annoyed with the universe, and habitually defied it from the stronghold of a double bed. thither he had retired after the death of his father, an old market-porter, who had been crushed by the fall of a basket of potatoes. the son saw in this tragic circumstance the outcome and the reward of labour, swore a solemn oath never to do a stroke of work again, threw up his job, and from that day became a confirmed loafer in the anarchist party. some months previously, while propagandising in the workhouse, he found the youth there, and learned from his own lips how, being disinclined to become a burden on his poor old parents after his exit from the army, he had seen no other alternative but to become a pauper, and make the best he could of the opportunities afforded him by the poor-rates. from the workhouse he was dragged triumphantly forth by his new friend, and became an easy convert to anarchic and communistic principles. the only feminine element in this assembly was a fair, earnest-looking russian girl, whose slight knowledge of english did not allow her to follow the proceedings very accurately. she was an almost pathetic figure in her naïve enthusiasm, and evidently regarded her present companions as seriously as those she had left behind her in russia, and seemed to imagine they played as dangerous a rôle, and ran the same risk as they did. there were several others present among whom the loafer type was perhaps in the ascendant. but there were also many of the more intelligent artisan class, discontented with their lot; labourers and dockers who had tramped up after a hard day's work, a young artist who looked rather of the social democratic type, a cabman, a few stray gentlemen, a clever but never-sober tanner, a labour agitator, a professional stump-orator, and one or two fishy and nondescript characters of the hebraic race. o'flynn, the printer of the _bomb_, was a cantankerous irishman with a taste for discoursing on abstract questions, concerning which he grew frightfully muddled and confused. he had a rather mad look in his eye and a disputatious manner. when at last inquiry was made whether all companions expected were present, the red flag began to quiver and writhe most noticeably and finally to unfurl, and there emerged from its depths the dirtiest and most slovenly man i had ever seen, and the frouziest and most repulsive of dogs. this man, if man i may call him, was bony and ill-built, and appeared to consist largely of hands and feet. his arms were abnormally long and his chest narrow and hollow, and altogether he seemed to hang together by a mere fluke. his ill-assorted limbs were surmounted by a sallow, yellowish face, large repulsive lips, and a shapeless nose, and to him belonged the long, black greasy hair which i had already noted amid the folds of the red banner. large gristly ears emerged from his uncombed mop of hair, and the only redeeming feature about the abject creature was his large, brown, dog-like eyes. he crept forward, grinding his teeth and rubbing his bony hands, and subsided into a waste-paper basket which was the only available seat left unoccupied. and now at last, after much talking and shifting about, and not before a young german hairdresser had been stationed with one eye glued to a hole in the outer wall of the shed, in order to make sure that no detective was listening outside, the proceedings commenced. banter, the little man who had opened the door to me, rose to his feet, cleared his throat, and said "_com_rades" in a stentorian voice. then followed a long and rambling statement which he read out, from amid the grammatical inaccuracies and continual digressions of which i was enabled to gather that he had noticed of late something very peculiar about the conduct of jacob myers, who had appeared to exercise undue influence and power over his brother augustin; that, moreover, jacob had been seen by a third party drinking a glass of rum in the "nag and beetle" in company with a well-known detective, and that, in final and conclusive proof of some very fishy transactions on his part, three undeniable half-crowns had been distinctly observed in his overcoat pocket the previous week. "and how should he come by these by honest means?" indignantly inquired banter. "he says he's out of work, and he's not got the courage to steal!" "'ear, 'ear! why pay rent to robber landlords?" the navvy, armitage's neighbour, ejaculated at this juncture, after which irrelevant inquiry he spat defiance at society. then followed the speeches for the prosecution, if the use of such a word may be permitted in connection with an anarchist transaction. the chief accusations made against myers were his violent blood-and-thunder speeches which he had in no wise carried out in action, but which he had delivered under the eyes and in the hearing of the police who had listened and seen it all with quite commendable christian forbearance. besides this several sensational articles had appeared in the daily press in connection with augustin's death, exaggerating the importance of the affair and hinting at dark plots; of which articles he was suspected of being the author. jacob was in fact accused of having egged on his unfortunate brother to his doom in order that he might turn a little money out of the transaction between newspaper reports and police fees. it apparently mattered little to this modern shylock whence came his pound of flesh or what blood ran or congealed in its veins. through all these statements and questions myers sat in stolid and insolent silence--occasionally whistling snatches of some music-hall air. at last when reference was made to some chemicals which he was alleged to have procured and handed on to his brother, he roused up from his affected indifference and appealed to armitage for assistance. "dr. armitage knows," he exclaimed indignantly, "that i only procured the sulphuric acid from him for domestic purposes." my eyes were riveted on the doctor's face, and only to one who knew him well could the expression be at all decipherable. to me it distinctly denoted disappointment--that humiliating sense of disappointment and disillusion which must invariably come upon a man of strong and fanatical convictions when brought into contact with the meanness and cowardice of his fellows. dr. armitage was a fanatic and an idealist, and two convictions were paramount in his mind at this time: the necessity and the justice of the "propaganda by force" doctrine preached by the more advanced anarchists, and the absolute good faith and devotion to principle of the men with whom he was associated. a man of the myers type was quite incomprehensible to him. not for a single instant had armitage hesitated to throw open the doors of his harley street establishment to the anarchists: to him the cause was everything, and interests, prudence, prospects, all had to give way before it. and here was this man who had professed the same principles as himself, with whom he had discoursed freely on the necessity of force, who had openly advocated dynamite in his presence--this man who had spoken of the revolution and the regeneration of society with the same warmth as himself--talking of "domestic purposes," and ready to recant all that he had preached and said. and what lay behind this reticence and these denials? treachery of the basest kind, and the most sordid, abominable calculations which it was possible to conceive. these thoughts i read in the doctor's face, and turning my eyes from him to the abject jacob i could only wonder at the naïve sincerity of armitage, which could ever have laid him open to such illusions and disillusions. after some seconds' hesitation armitage replied: "i do not desire or intend to go into any details here concerning my past conversations or relations with jacob myers, neither do i consider myself in any way bound to discuss here the motives which prompted, or which i thought prompted his actions, and the requests he made of me. as anarchists we have not the right to judge him, and all we can do is to refuse to associate ourselves any further with him, which i, for one, shall henceforth do. the knowledge of his own abominable meanness should be punishment enough for myers." the doctor's words were received with very general approval. "armitage is perfectly right," said carter. "we anarchists cannot pretend to judge our fellows, but we can form our own opinions and act accordingly. myers' conduct proves him to be no better than a spy; we of the _bomb_ can have no further relations with him." "damn about judging and not judging," exclaimed a sturdy-looking docker. "all i know is that if myers does not quickly clear out of the _bomb_ i'll kick him out. he ought to be shot. i don't pretend to understand none of these nice distinctions. i call a spade a spade, and if...." "'ear,'ear! down with ..." commenced elliot again, and jacob opened his mouth to speak, but he was saved from any further need of self-defence or explanation, for at this moment the door of the office was broken rudely open and there entered like a hurricane a veritable fury in female form--a whirlwind, a tornado, a ravening wolf into a fold of lambs. this formidable apparition, which proved to be none other than the wife of the suspected myers, amid a volley of abuse and oaths delivered in the choicest billingsgate, pounced down on her ill-used husband, denounced anarchy and the anarchists--their morals, their creeds, their hellish machinations; she called on jehovah to chastise, nay, utterly to destroy them, and soundly rated her consort for ever having associated with such scoundrels. and thus this formidable preacher of dynamite and disaster was borne off in mingled triumph and disgrace by his indignant spouse. chapter iv a police scare i left the office of the _bomb_ towards a.m., undecided whether to weep or to laugh at what i had witnessed there. this, my first introduction into an english anarchist circle had certainly not been very encouraging, but i was too deeply persuaded of the truth and justice of the anarchist doctrines to be deterred by such a beginning, and i did not for one instant waver from my resolve to enter and take part in the "movement." that some insincere and dishonest men and some fools should also play their part in it i from the first recognised as inevitable, but i could not see that this affected the anarchist principles or rendered it less necessary for those believing in them to advocate and spread them. dr. armitage accompanied me part of my way home and we talked the matter over _en route_. "why trouble ourselves," he exclaimed, "about a few unprincipled men in such a wide, such a universal movement? our objects and ideals are too far above such considerations to allow us to be influenced by them. men like myers are but the outcome of unnatural and vitiated conditions; they are produced by the very society which it is our object to abolish--as all manner of disease is produced by vitiated air. with better conditions such men will disappear; nay, the very possibility of their existence will be gone." "but in the meantime," i rejoined, "they are surely damaging our cause, and scenes like the one we have just witnessed would, if known to the public, bring our party into ridicule and discredit." "the cause is too great and too high to be influenced by such men or such scenes," answered the doctor with conviction. "moreover it is our duty to bring fresh blood and life into the party, so that no place will be left to renegades of the myers type." and in face of armitage's unswerving faith and optimism my moment of disgust and perplexity passed, and i felt more than ever determined to bring my quota of time and strength to the propagation of the anarchist ideals. "i have only seen a very limited and narrow circle," i said to myself; "the field is wide, and i only know one obscure and unclean corner of it. i cannot judge from this night's experience." as far as the squalor of the men and their surroundings was concerned, although it was at first something of a shock to me, i did not allow myself to be disconcerted on its account. i had no desire or ambition to be a mere dilettante socialist, and as dirt and squalor had to be faced, well, i was ready to face them. a famous russian writer has described a strange phase through which the russian youth passed not many years since, the "v. narod" ("to the people!") movement, when young men and girls by the thousands, some belonging to the highest classes in society, fled from their families, tore themselves free from all domestic and conventional yokes, persuaded that it was their duty to serve the cause of the masses, and that in no way could they better accomplish this object than by settling in the people's midst, living their life, taking part in their work. i was passing through a similar phase of mental evolution. i felt a strong desire to free myself from all the ideas, customs, and prejudices which usually influence my class, to throw myself into the life and the work of the masses. thus it was that i worked hard to learn how to compose and print, that i might be of use to the cause in the most practical manner of all--the actual production of its literature. thus it was also that i resolutely hardened myself against any instinctive sentiments of repulsion which the unclean and squalid surroundings of the people might raise in me. i remember reading an article by tolstoi which appeared in the english press, dealing with the conditions of the russian _moujik_, in which he clearly and uncompromisingly stated that in order to tackle the social problem, it is necessary to tackle dirt and vermin with it. if you desire to reach your _moujik_ you must reach him _à travers_ his dirt and his parasites: if you are disinclined to face these, then leave your _moujik_ alone. it was in fact a case of "take me, take my squalor." i determined to take both. dr. armitage left me at the corner of oxford circus, but before i had taken many steps farther, i heard him suddenly turn round, and in an instant he had come up with me again. "by the way, isabel," he exclaimed, "i was quite forgetting to mention something i had done, to which i trust you will not object. you know how full up my place is just now with hard-up comrades. well i took the liberty to send on to you a young scotchman, i forget his name, who has just tramped up from the north; a most interesting fellow, rather taciturn, but with doubtless a good deal in him. he had nowhere to pass the night, poor chap, and no money, so i told him that if he waited on your doorstep some time after midnight you would be certain to give him a night's lodgings when you returned. did i do right?" and the doctor's kindly face beamed with the look of a man who expected approbation. "ye--es," i gasped out, somewhat taken aback, "quite right, of course;" for i felt that any hesitation would be feeble, a mere relic of bourgeois prejudice. and, sure enough, on reaching my domicile, i found installed on the doorstep a most uncouth and villainous-looking tramp. taciturn he certainly was, for he scarcely opened his mouth to say "good-evening," and indeed during the three days of his residence with me he hardly ever articulated a sound. as i was getting out my latch-key the local policeman chanced to pass: "that fellow has been hanging about for the last hours, miss," he said to me. "shall i remove him for you?" "certainly not," i replied firmly, and opening the door, i requested my unknown comrade to enter. i can still see in my mind's eye that constable's face. it looked unutterable things. after conducting the tramp to the pantry, and letting him loose on a cold pigeon-pie and other viands, and finally installing him on the study sofa, i retired to my own apartment, well prepared to enjoy a good night's rest. this was destined, however, to be of short duration. towards . i was roused from sleep by a loud rat-tat at the front door and, the servants not being up at such an hour, and suspecting that this early visit was in some way connected with the anarchists, i hastily slipped on a wrapper and ran downstairs. on opening the door i found one of the members of the previous night's meeting, the taciturn hero of the potato tragedy. "it's rather early to disturb you," he began, "but i came to let you know that last night, after you had all gone, comrades banter and o'flynn were arrested." "arrested!" i exclaimed, as yet unused to such incidents; "why, what on earth are they charged with?" "well," answered carter, "the charge is not yet very clear, but so far as we can understand, it is in some way connected with the myers business. they are charged with manufacturing explosives, or something of the sort. the fact is, the police and jacob myers are at the bottom of the whole matter, and banter, o'flynn, and augustin have all played into their hands." "come in here," i interrupted, leading the way to the dining-room. "let us sit down and talk the matter over together;" and we entered, carter casting a distinctly disapprobatory glance at the "bourgeois luxury" of this apartment. as soon as we were seated my companion returned to the question of the moment. "i fear," he said, "that it is rather a serious affair for the comrades. that myers is a police emissary there can no longer be any reasonable doubt, and the death of his brother is clear proof that he has not been wasting his time lately. and it is only too likely that the same hand which provided augustin with explosives may have placed similar material in the possession of banter and o'flynn." "how abominable!" i exclaimed indignantly. "yes, but anarchists should not be stupid enough to take any one into their confidence in such matters," returned carter. "it is merely encouraging _mouchards_ and police plots. however, the question now is--what can be done to help the comrades out of the mess?" "i am willing to do my best," i answered; "only tell me how i can be of use." "you can be of great use, if you care to be," answered carter. "a barrister must be procured to defend them, witnesses must be found, money procured (and here he cast a side-glance at my plate), and some one ought to interview the comrades in holloway, and take some food to the poor fellows." "i am quite willing to do my best in all these matters," i answered enthusiastically. carter stayed some little while longer instructing me in the various things i was to do, and then left me, retiring presumably to his double bed again, for i saw no more of him till long after the trial was over. he had handed the work over to me, and doubtless felt that so far as he was personally concerned his responsibilities were at an end. as soon as the morning papers arrived i scanned them eagerly and from them learned further particulars of the arrest. a widespread conspiracy was suspected, the object of which was to blow up the west end of london, and leaders were devoted to the denunciation of the anarchists and their infamous teachings. explosives, it was alleged, had been found in the possession of the arrested men, "evidently destined to carry into effect the deadly work which was only stopped by the hand of god in queen's park three weeks ago." having disposed of a hasty breakfast, i left the house, and my morning was spent in places which were new and strange to me--holloway jail, the old jewry, and the middle temple. holloway prison was my first destination, for before any other steps could be taken it was necessary to ascertain what views the prisoners themselves held as to the course to be adopted in their defence. i awaited my turn in the prison waiting-room along with a motley crowd of other visitors--burglars' and forgers' wives, pickpockets' mates, and the mother of a notorious murderer among others. their language was not very choice when addressing the jailers, but sympathetic enough when talking among themselves and inquiring of one another, "what's your man up for?" or, "how did your mate get copped?" i felt painfully conscious of the tameness of my reply: "it's a friend: incitement to murder." how far more respectable murder itself would have sounded in the midst of such superior crime! one burglar's spouse confided to me that her husband had been "at it for years, but this was the first time he'd been copped:" which latter incident she seemed to consider an unpardonable infringement of the privileges and rights of citizenship. she was a bright buxom little woman and had evidently flourished on his plunder. in striking contrast to the burglar's wife, i noticed the daughter of a would-be suicide, a tall, beautiful girl, who formed a pathetic contrast to her surroundings. her unfortunate father--an unsuccessful musician--had succumbed in the struggle for an honest life, and the cares of a large family had driven him to desperation. as i gazed at the poor girl with her tear-swollen eyes and noted her extreme thinness and the shabbiness of her well-worn clothes, and as, from her, my eyes turned to the cheerful burglar's wife, i meditated on the superiority of virtue over dishonesty--especially in the reward accorded to it. at last, having stated my name, the name of my prisoner, the relationship or lack of relationship between us, and declared my non-connection with the case, and having received a tin number in return for this information, i was ushered through various passages and apartments into a kind of dark cage, separated by a narrow passage from a still darker one, in the depths of which i perceived my anarchist, o'flynn, as soon as my eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness. i had several questions to ask him during the few minutes at our disposal, and conversation was anything but easy; for on all sides of me other prisoners and their relatives were talking, weeping, arguing, disputing, and shouting one another down with all their might and lungs. two things struck me in holloway prison on this my first visit to such a place. firstly, the outward cleanliness, and i might almost say pleasantness, of the place; and secondly, the illogical nature of the law which treats the unconvicted men, who in its eyes are consequently innocent, like convicted criminals. nothing could be more uncomfortable and unattractive than the conditions under which the detained men are allowed to see their relatives; no privacy of any sort is allowed them, the time allotted is of the briefest, and only one visitor a day is permitted to pass. the censorship over books allowed is very strict and hopelessly stupid, and altogether everything is made as uncomfortable as possible for those under detention. later in the course of my anarchist career i had occasion to visit newgate on a similar errand, and was struck by the same incongruity in the system. the external impression made by newgate was very different, however. there is no suggestion of pleasantness about newgate. it strikes you indeed as the threshold of the gallows, and is calculated to arouse qualms in the most strenuous upholder of capital punishment. a constant sense of gloom is settled like a pall over the whole building, blacker even than the soot and grime which encrust it. inside, the dreary atmosphere is ominous of the constant vicinity of the hangman's drop, doors seem for ever to be swinging heavily and locking, keys and chains clanking, and over all the uncompromising flagstaff looms like an embodied threat. after my many dreary wanderings round london, the clambering in and out of omnibuses and other vehicles, and prison interviews, i found the old-world tranquillity of the temple quite a relief. here began a new order of search. i had to find a barrister, and that without delay. but how, whom, and in what court or lane did the right man dwell? during one brief moment indeed my thoughts turned towards our family solicitor as a possible counsellor in this matter, but only to be promptly diverted into other channels. that worthy gentleman's feelings would certainly not have withstood so rude a shock. i could picture him, in my mind's eye, slowly removing his gold pince-nez and looking at me in blank but indulgent surprise, as at one who had suddenly taken leave of her senses. no, this would never do. barristers by the score must surely reside in the labyrinths of the temple, and i determined to seek one first hand. and thus it was that, after some little hesitation, i finally ascended the stairs of a house in fig tree court in the hope that j. b. armstrong, esq., selected at random, might answer my purpose. the clerk who opened the door looked politely surprised at my appearance and inquired my business, into which i promptly plunged headfirst. his eyebrows gradually ascended higher and higher into the regions of his hair, and his face grew stern and sad as i proceeded. "allow me to inquire," he interrupted, "the name of the solicitor who is instructing the case." "i have not got a solicitor," i replied, somewhat taken aback. then he re-opened the door. "i feel confident, madam, that mr. armstrong would not care to undertake such a case. good morning." i retired from this gentleman's presence neither bent nor broken, though slightly disappointed. "so it is usual to engage a solicitor first," i reflected, "and to communicate through him with the barrister, is it? well, a solicitor can't be afforded here and we must do without him." the anarchist in me revolted at such red-tapeism. "well, here's for another plunge," i said to myself; "let us try a b this time. c. bardolph sounds promising." and i ascended another staircase and knocked at another inhospitable door. mr. bardolph i saw in person, a very pompous gentleman with manners the reverse of polite. he could scarcely contain his outraged feelings when it came to the question of the solicitor. "i can have no connection with such a case," he said firmly, and i again retired, feeling quite disreputable. my next defeat occurred in the chambers of mr. anthony c. frazer. no sooner did my eyes fall on that gentleman than i regretted my entry, and the utter hopelessness of my mission was borne in upon my mind, for i was beginning to realise the difficulties of the situation and to scent failure in the very air. mr. frazer requested me to be seated and eyed me curiously, as though i were some queer zoological specimen recently escaped from captivity, and listened with an incredulous smile to my narrative. he did not even wait for the missing solicitor. "this is scarcely in my line, madam," he said, rising. "you have certainly made some mistake." and he left his clerk to accompany me to the door. i descended the stairs from this gentleman's chambers feeling distinctly crestfallen and tired, and at my wits' ends as to where next to go, when, turning the corner into another court, i became aware of rapid footsteps in my pursuit, and next moment i was overtaken by the youth who had ushered me out from the scene of my last defeat. "i think, miss," he began, "that i can direct you to a--er--barrister who would just do for your business. on no account say that i recommended you to him, or you will get me into trouble. but you try mr. curtis in brick court. he undertakes the defence of burglars and swindlers and all sorts of people, and you'll find him cheap and satisfactory." i thanked the youth, and although this did not strike me as altogether the most promising introduction, i thought it best to try my luck in this new direction, and, having at length discovered the house, i ascended the three rickety flights of stairs which led to mr. curtis's apartment and entered. this curtis was a small, wizened old man, of obsolete cut, but with remarkably up-to-date manners, and a pair of keen little eyes, penetrating as röntgen rays. his hair was weedy, and his clothes snuffy and ill-fitting; but spite of this there was something uncommonly brisk and wide awake about the little man, and a certain business-like directness in his manner which impressed me favourably. i felt hopeful at once. one of the first remarks he addressed to me--for we primarily discussed the financial aspect of his services--struck me by reason of its uncompromising common sense. "five guineas down and another three next tuesday, miss, and i make no inquiry where the money comes from," he said, "not so long as it is the current coin of the realm and paid punctually. without this, however, i cannot undertake or proceed with the case." on my immediately producing the required sum he requested me to be seated, and sitting down opposite me himself, he asked me for full particulars of the case. these i gave him to the best of my ability and he took notes. the question of witnesses he tackled with the same uncompromising lack of veneer which had characterised his remarks on the money question. "witnesses to character and so forth must be found," he said, "the more authentic and reputable the better, but at all costs they must be procured. whom can you suggest?" i confessed that i could for the moment think of nobody. "you will think of somebody," he replied persuasively, "you _must_ remember somebody," and there was that in his voice which did not brook or encourage contradiction, "some one in a respectable position, of course," he continued, "a man pursuing one of the liberal professions, or a business man of means. plenty of doctors and professional men among your people, are there not? the evidence of such a man would carry weight. the court's belief in a witness's veracity is, generally speaking, proportionate to his means. doubtless you will be able to think of a desirable man ... who knows the prisoners," he added, rapidly turning over his notes, and speaking in such a manner as to convey to me the idea that the exact extent of the witness's knowledge of the prisoners was not of any very great consequence, so long as he was prepared to swear to their respectability, and that his banking account and general appearance were satisfactory. "i will look round and let you know the result to-morrow," i answered. "good," replied curtis, "two witnesses at least, and men of position and education at all costs. good afternoon." i had enough to do during the remainder of the day in finding those witnesses, but found they were at last, though not without a tremendous effort on my part and some considerable degree of ingenuity. when attired in some of my brother raymond's discarded clothes, and produced for curtis's inspection the following day, they really made a respectable couple, and i felt proud of them--one a physician of superior accomplishments and aristocratic appearance, the other a master-tailor, of prosperous if not very _distingué_ presence. i likewise discovered a cabman who had been present in hyde park at an allegedly incriminating speech made by banter; and on jogging his memory with a little whisky he distinctly recalled several points valuable to the defence. up till the very day of the trial my time was kept well occupied with such errands. indeed, remarkable as the fact may appear, practically the whole labour of preparing the defence devolved upon me. it was neither an easy nor a very encouraging task. the greater number of the english anarchists mysteriously disappeared at this approach of danger. mindful of the truth of the axiom that discretion is the better part of valour, a thought it well to suddenly recollect his duties towards his family; b discovered that he had a capacious stomach, which required feeding; c, that the anarchist policy was in discord with his own true principles. at such a moment, therefore, and surrounded, or rather unsurrounded by such men, the task in front of me was not easy, and in the actual state of public opinion it was not very hopeful either. public feeling was against the anarchists. so long as violence and outrage had been reserved entirely for the benefit of foreign climes, the british public had regarded the anarchists with tolerance and equanimity. but the mysterious death of myers had alarmed and disquieted it, and heavy sentences were generally invoked against the prisoners. that the whole conspiracy was a got-up affair between jacob myers and the police was evident. neither banter nor o'flynn was a dangerous man; a little loud and exaggerated talk was the utmost extent of their harmfulness. neither of them was any better capable of making a bomb than of constructing a flying-machine, and they were less capable of throwing it than of flying. but political detectives would have a slow time of it in this country unless they occasionally made a vigorous effort on their own behalf, and an unscrupulous and impecunious man like myers proved a valuable tool to help such gentlemen along, and fools of the banter type suitable victims. and thus it was that these two men now found themselves in the dock with twelve serious-minded tradesmen sitting in solemn conclave to consider their crimes. the trial itself was a ridiculous farce. jacob myers, who would have been the one witness of any importance, was not subpoenaed; he had in fact discreetly quitted the country under his wife's escort. the police, with imperturbable gravity, brought ginger-beer bottles into court which had been found in o'flynn's apartment, and which, they averred, could be converted into very formidable weapons of offence. many gaseous speeches made by the prisoners, or attributed to them, were solemnly brought up against them, and a shudder ran through the court at the mention of such phrases as "wholesale assassination" and "war to the death." the evidence, however, sufficed to impress the jury with the extreme gravity of the case and to alarm the public, and the prisoners were found guilty. i well recollect the last day of the trial, which i attended throughout in more or less remote regions of the old bailey, recruiting recalcitrant witnesses, sending food in to the defendants, &c. two other cases were being tried at the same time, one of which was a particularly revolting murder, for which three persons were on trial. the prisoners' relatives were waiting below in a state of painful excitement. "guilty or not guilty," was on all their lips, "release or penal servitude, life or death, which was it to be?" friends were constantly running in and out of the court giving the women news of the progress of the trials. "it is looking black for the prisoners!" "there is more hope!" "there is no hope!" and finally "guilty" in all the cases was reported. the wife of a horrible german murderer who had strangled his employer's wife, while a female accomplice played the piano to divert her children's attention from her cries, swooned away at the news. o'flynn's old mother went into hysterics and became quite uncontrollable in her grief when, a few minutes later the news, "five years' penal servitude," was brought down. chapter v to the rescue the first weeks of my experience in the anarchist camp had flown by with astounding rapidity. the chapter of my experiences had opened with the expulsion of an alleged spy and _agent provocateur_, and had closed with a sentence of penal servitude passed on two of my new-found comrades. between these two terminal events i seemed to have lived ages, and so i had, if, as i hold, experience counts for more than mere years. holloway and newgate, slater's mews and the middle temple, barristers and solicitors, judges and juries and detectives; appointments in queer places to meet queer people--all this had passed before me with the rapidity of a landscape viewed from the window of an express train; and now that the chapter had closed, i found that it was but the preface to the real business i had set my shoulder to. the morning after the conclusion of the trial i met armitage by appointment, and together we wended our way towards slater's mews. the doctor was preoccupied, and for some minutes we proceeded in silence; the problem of what to do with the _bomb_ was evidently weighing on his mind. at last he spoke: "it is our duty," he said, "to see that the movement be not unduly crippled by the loss of these two men. poor fellows, they are doing their duty by the cause, and we must not shirk ours. the _bomb_ must be kept going at all costs; we can ill afford to lose two workers just now, but the loss of the paper would be a yet more severe blow to our movement. how thankful i am that you are with us! it is always so. the governments think to crush us by imprisoning or murdering our comrades, and for one whom they take from us ten come to the fore. i am sure you must agree with me as to the paper." "i quite agree with you in the main," i replied, "but i fear that the _bomb_ itself is past hope. it strikes me it had got into somewhat bad hands, and i fear it would be useless to try to set it on its feet again. it is hardly fair to a paper to give it a jacob myers for editor. really it seems to me to have died a natural death. the entire staff has disappeared--myers, the editor; banter, the publisher; o'flynn, the printer--who remains? where are the others? it seems to me they have all vanished and left no trace behind." "oh, that is hardly the case, i think," said the doctor in a tone of deprecation. "i went up to the office last night and found short sleeping on the premises." "short? is not he the man whom i first saw wrapped in the red flag of glory?" "yes, that is the man; perhaps his appearance is somewhat disadvantageous, but he is constant to the cause, anyhow." "well, i should not have thought him much of a staff to lean on; still, appearances are often deceptive. but, anyhow, do you not think it would be advisable to start a new paper, rather than to attempt to galvanise a corpse?" "the idea would not be a bad one; in fact i think you are right, quite right," returned armitage. "it is not wise to put new wine into old skins. anyhow, here we are, i dare say other comrades have mustered in the office who will have something to say in the matter." we had now reached our destination, and passing the curious scrutiny of several cabmen and scavengers assembled at the entrance of the mews, we prepared to ascend the break-neck ladder leading to the office. i had but put my foot on the first step when i heard the loud yelping of a dog followed by a string of oaths, and the office door opened, emitting a tall brawny man in shirt-sleeves with a very red face and close-cropped hair, who appeared holding out at arm's length a pair of tongs which gripped some repulsive-looking fronts and collars. on seeing me, he exclaimed, "take care," and proceeded to drop the objects on a heap of rubbish below. we were both somewhat surprised at this apparition, but realised without difficulty that the office was still in the possession of the police. they were, in fact, contrary to the doctor's expectation, the sole occupants of the place. the comrades had not seen fit so far to muster round the paper. to say there was none, however, is an injustice, for there on the sofa, still huddled in the red flag, lay short, apparently little affected by what had taken place since i last saw him. he had been aroused from his slumbers by the yelping of his dog, whose tail had been trodden on by one of the detectives, and he had raised himself on his elbow, and was looking round, uttering curses volubly. he nodded slightly on seeing us enter, but did not change his position. there he lay, quite heroic in his immovable sloth; of all the many fighters he alone remained staunch at his post; and that because he was positively too lazy to move away from it. dr. armitage on entering had gone up to one of the three detectives and spoken to him, and the man now turned to me. "we are just having a final look round before leaving, miss," he remarked. "it is not at all pleasant work, i assure you, to be put in to search such a filthy place. look there," he exclaimed, pointing at the recumbent short with his outstretched tongs. "i shall have to burn every rag i have on when it is over, and i'd advise you to be careful," and he resumed his occupation, which consisted in raking out some old papers, while his two companions, having contrived to resume an official appearance, prepared to leave. the police once gone dr. armitage and i found ourselves in sole possession of the office and the lethargic short. it was no sinecure, to be sure. heaps of "pie," some due to the police and some to banter, who previous to his arrest had put his foot through several "forms" which it was inadvisable to let fall into the hands of the police, encumbered the floor. everything was intensely chaotic and intensely dirty, from the type cases and the other scanty belongings to the dormant compositor. armitage understood nothing of printing and i very little, and there we stood in the midst of a disorganised printing-office whence all had fled save only the unsavoury youth on the couch. i looked at armitage and armitage looked at me, and such was the helpless dismay depicted in our faces that we both broke into a laugh. "well," i said at last, "what shall we do? suggest something. we cannot stay on here." "the only thing i can think of," he rejoined after a pause, "is that i should go around and look up some of the comrades at their addresses whilst you remain here and get short to help you put up the type, &c., as best you can, so that we may remove it all elsewhere. here certainly nothing can be done and we must start our new paper amidst new surroundings." "so you are thinking of starting a new paper?" we looked round, surprised at this interruption, for short had apparently returned to his slumbers, but we now saw that he had emerged from the banner and was standing behind us, fully dressed (i discovered later on that he had discarded dressing and undressing as frivolous waste of time), a queer uncouth figure with his long touzled black hair and sallow, unhealthy face. he had a short clay pipe firmly set between his teeth, and his large lips were parted in a smile. he held his head slightly on one side, and his whole attitude was somewhat deprecatory and cringing. "well," said the doctor, "isabel and i think that would be the best plan. you see the _bomb_ seems thoroughly disorganised, and we think it would be easier and better to start afresh. i was just saying that i would go round and hunt up some of the comrades and get their views on the subject." "oh," rejoined short, "you can save yourself that trouble. one half of them will accuse you of being a police spy, the others will be ill or occupied--in short, will have some excuse for not seeing you. they are all frightened out of their lives. since the arrest of banter and o'flynn i have not seen one of them near the place, though i have been here all the time." this remark confirmed what we both half suspected; and as short, who by right of possession seemed authorised to speak on behalf of the _bomb_, seemed willingly to fall in with our idea of starting a new paper, taking it for granted--which i was not exactly prepared for--that he would install himself in the new premises as compositor, we decided to take practical steps towards the move. short informed us that six weeks' rent was owing, and that the landlord threatened a distraint if his claims were not immediately satisfied; and in spite of the advice, "don't pay rent to robber landlords," which stared us in the face, inscribed in bright red letters on the wall, i and armitage between us sacrificed the requisite sum to the cause. whilst we were discussing these matters the dog warned us by a prolonged bark that some one was approaching, and the new-comer soon appeared. he greeted short, who introduced him to us as comrade m'dermott. he shot a scrutinising glance at us from his keen grey eyes and proceeded to shake hands with friendly warmth. he was a very small man, certainly not more than five feet high, thin and wiry, with grey hair and moustache, but otherwise clean-shaven. his features were unusually expressive and mobile from his somewhat scornful mouth to his deep-set, observant eyes, and clearly denoted the absence of the stolid saxon strain in his blood. his accent too, though not that of an educated man, was quite free from the hateful cockney twang. his dress was spare as his figure, but though well worn there was something spruce and trim about his whole demeanour which indicated that he was not totally indifferent to the impression he created on others. he looked round the "office," took a comprehensive glance at short, who was occupying the only available stool and smoking hard with a meditative air, and then walked over to me, and addressing me in an undertone, with the same ease as if he had known me all my life, he said, with a twinkle in his eye, jerking his head in the direction of short, "there's a rotten product of a decaying society, eh?" this remark was so unexpected and yet so forcibly true, that i laughed assent. "so you're the only ones up here," he continued. "i expected as much when i heard of the raid on the office. i was up in the north doing a little bit of peddling round the country, when i read the news, and i thought i'd come to london to see what was up. what do you think of doing with the paper anyway? it seems a pity the old _bomb_ should die. it would mean the loss of the only revolutionary organ in england." "oh, it must not die," i replied, "or at least if it cannot be kept up, another paper must take its place. comrade armitage agrees with me in thinking that that would be the best plan. you see this place looks altogether hopeless." armitage, who had been engaged in looking over some papers, now joined us and the conversation became general. "well, how did you get on up north?" inquired short, who seemed to wake up to a sense of actuality. "how did you hit it off with young jackson? did you find him of much use?" "use!" retorted m'dermott with an infinite depth of scorn in his voice. "a fat lot of use he was. if it was a matter of putting away the grub, i can tell you he worked for two, but as to anything else, he made me carry his pack as well as my own, on the pretext that he had sprained his ankle, and his only contribution to the firm was a frousy old scrubbing-brush which he sneaked from a poor woman whilst i was selling her a ha'p'orth of pins. he seemed to think he'd done something mighty grand--'expropriation' he called it; pah, those are your english revolutionists!" and he snorted violently. short gave vent to an unpleasing laugh. he always seemed to take pleasure at any proof of meanness or cowardice given by his fellows. armitage looked pained. "such things make us long for the revolution," he said. "this rotten society which breeds such people must be swept away. we must neglect no means to that end, and our press is one. so now let's set to work to move the plant and start a new paper, as we seem all agreed to that plan. who'll go and look for a suitable workshop?" short volunteered, but m'dermott scouted the idea, declaring that the mere sight of him would be enough to frighten any landlord, and this we all, including short, felt inclined to agree with. at last we decided to fall in with m'dermott's suggestion that he and i should sally forth together. "you see, my dear," he said with almost paternal benevolence, "you will be taken for my grand-daughter and we shall soften the heart of the most obdurate landlord." the field of our researches was limited by a few vital considerations. the rent must not be high. for the present anyhow, the expenses of the paper would have to be defrayed by armitage and myself. short had proposed himself as printer and compositor, on the tacit understanding of free board and lodging, and the right to make use of the plant for his own purposes; i was willing to give my time to the material production of the paper, and to contribute to its maintenance to the best of my ability; and armitage's time and means were being daily more and more absorbed by the propaganda, to the detriment of his practice; but he was not of those who can palter with their conscience. the individual initiative inculcated by anarchist principles implied individual sacrifices. another consideration which limited our choice was that the office must be fairly central, and not too far from my home, as, spite of my enthusiasm for anarchy, i could not wholly neglect household duties. we talked over these points as we walked along, and m'dermott suggested lisson grove, where a recent epidemic of smallpox had been raging, as likely to be a fairly cheap neighbourhood, but after tramping about and getting thoroughly weary, we had to acknowledge that there was nothing for us in that quarter. we were both hungry and tired, and m'dermott suggested a retreat to a neighbouring lockhart's. seated before a more than doubtful cup of tea, in a grimy room, where texts stared at us from the walls, we discussed the situation, and decided to inquire about a workshop which we saw advertised, and which seemed promising. our destination led us out of the slummy wilderness into which we had strayed, into cleaner and more wholesome quarters, and at last we stopped before some quite imposing-looking premises. "we seem destined to consort with the cabbing trade," i remarked; "the last office was over a mews, this place seems to belong to a carriage-builder." there was, however, no other connection between the unsavoury mews and the aristocratic carriage-yard, whose proprietor, resplendent in side-whiskers and a shiny chimney-pot hat, advanced to meet us, a condescending smile diffusing his smug countenance. i explained to him our object, and he showed us over the shop, which consisted in a large loft, well lighted and fairly suitable, at the back of the premises. in answer to mr. white's inquiries, i informed him that i needed it as a printing-office, for a small business i had, and he quite beamed on me, evidently considering me a deserving young person, and expressed the opinion that he had no doubt i should get on in that neighbourhood. m'dermott, who was greatly enjoying the fun of the situation, here broke in: "yes, sir, my grand-daughter deserves success, sir; she's a hardworking girl, is my poor emily," and here he feigned to wipe away a tear, whilst casting a most mischievous side-glance at me. "dear, dear, very affecting, i'm sure," muttered the prosperous carriage-builder. everything was soon satisfactorily settled. i gave him my name and address, and that of my brother's socialist friend as a reference, and we agreed that i should move in on the following monday morning. great was the amusement at slater's mews at the account of our adventures, given with a few enlargements by m'dermott. he had an artist's soul, and would never consent to destroy the effect of a tale by slavish subservience to facts. "well, i fear he will find he has taken in wolves in sheep's clothing," armitage remarked; "anyhow, i am thankful that matter is settled and that we can get to work without further delay. i met kosinski, and he has promised to give us a hand with the move. i shall not be able to be here all the time as i have to attend an operation on monday, but i will put in an hour or two's work in the morning. i suppose i can get in if i come here at five on monday morning?" he said turning to short who was "dissing pie," his inseparable clay pipe still firmly set between his yellow and decayed teeth. "oh, yes. i shan't be up, but you can get in," the latter surlily remarked. he was evidently no devotee of early hours. on monday a hard day's work awaited me. at slater's mews i found the poor doctor, who had already been there some two hours, packing up the literature, tying up forms, and occasionally turning to short for instruction or advice. the latter, seated on a packing-case, was regaling himself on a bloater and cheesecakes, having disposed of which he took up a flute and played some snatches of music-hall melodies. he seemed quite unconcerned at what took place around him, contenting himself with answering armitage's questions. soon after i arrived on the scene kosinski appeared. it was the first time i had seen him since the memorable evening at chiswick, and i felt a little nervous in his presence, overcome by a half-guilty fear lest he should think i was merely dallying, not working in true earnest. i was conscious of my own sincerity of purpose, yet feared his mental verdict on my actions, for i now realised that his uncompromising words and scathing denunciation of dilettanteism had had much to do with my recent conduct; more than all armitage's enthusiastic propagandising, much as i liked, and, indeed, admired the latter. kosinski shook hands with armitage and short. the latter had stepped forward and assumed an air of unwonted activity, having pulled off his coat and rolled up his shirt sleeves, and there he stood hammering up a form and whistling "it ain't all lavender"--very appropriate verses, considering the surroundings. the russian merely recognised my presence with a slight bow, not discourteous, but characterised by none of the doctor's encouraging benevolence; i, however, felt more honoured than snubbed, and worked away with a will. "well, i must be going," said armitage; "it is nearly ten, and at half-past eleven i have an appointment at a patient's house. you will stay, won't you, kosinski, and help our comrades to move the plant?" "i will do what i can," replied the russian. "i do not understand printing, but i will wheel the barrow, and do anything i may be told." "that's right. well, good luck to you, comrades. i will try and get round about five. i suppose you will then be at the new place?" "oh, yes," i replied, "you will be in time to help us get things ship-shape." "well, good-bye, isabel; good-bye, comrades," and he was off. for some time we all worked with a will. kosinski was set to stowing away the literature in packing-cases. short "locked up" forms and "dissed" pie, and i busied myself over various jobs. m'dermott had come round, and he stood at my elbow discussing the propaganda and the situation generally. he was much rejoiced at the turn matters were taking on the continent, and deplored the lukewarmness of english anarchists. "you cannot have a revolution without revolutionists," was a favourite phrase of his, and he was at no trouble to conceal his opinion of most of the comrades. i was as yet too new to the movement and too enthusiastic to endorse all his expressions, but the little man was congenial to me; his irish wit made him good company, and there was an air of independent self-reliance about him that appealed to me. "that kosinski's a good fellow," he continued. "he knows what revolution means. not but what there is good material in england too, but it is _raw_ material, ignorant and apathetic, hoodwinked and bamboozled by the political humbugs." "have you known kosinski long?" i inquired, interrupting him, for i saw he was fairly started on a long tirade. "oh, some seven years," he replied. "he was over here in ' at the time of the unemployed riots; he and i were at the bottom of a lot of that movement, and we should have had all london in revolt had it not been for the palaver and soft-soap of the official labour-leaders. after that he went to america, and has only been back in england some six months." our preparations were now well advanced, and m'dermott and i set out to procure a barrow whereon to transport our belongings. i had expected on my return to find everything in readiness. short had spoken as if he would work wonders, and i had hoped that within an hour we should be off. what was my surprise, then, to find that during the half-hour of my absence a change had come o'er the scene. instead of the noise of the mallet locking up forms, the melodious notes of a flute greeted my ear as i approached the office, and i must confess that my heart sank, though i was not yet prepared for the truth. on entering i found things just as i had left them, not a whit more advanced, but short was again seated, and opposite him lounged the weak-kneed youth whom i had noted on the occasion of my first group-meeting, simpkins by name, as i had since found out; between them stood the small hand-press which short had promised to take to pieces for removal, on the "bed" of which now stood three bottles of ginger-beer, a parcel of repulsive and indigestible-looking pastry, and a packet of tobacco. my look of dismay and surprise was answered by short, who explained that his friend had come up, bringing with him the wherewithal for this carouse; which statement simpkins supplemented by the information that he had been occupied that week in "planting" an aunt and possessing himself of his share of the good lady's property. "my married sister got in first, but father waited his opportunity, and whilst they went out to 'ave a 'alf-pint at the pub round the corner, he got in. they thought themselves mighty clever, for they had locked the door and taken the key, but father got in by the scullery window which they had forgotten to latch, and when they came back they found themselves sold. the guv'nor's a sharp one, 'e is, but i was fly too; 'e always keeps me short, grumbles 'cause i won't let myself be exploited by the capitalists; but i did 'im this time. i 'ad a good old-fashioned nose round whilst the guv'nor left me in charge whilst 'e went for a drink, and i found ten bob the old girl 'ad 'idden away in a broken teapot, so i just pocketed 'em. we planted 'er the day before yesterday; she was insured for twelve quid, an' everything was done 'ansome. yesterday i felt awful bad, but to-day i thought i'd come an' see 'ow the paiper was getting on." "well, you see we're moving," i said. "if you care to give us a hand you'll be welcome. come, short, the barrow's here; let's get the things down." "oh, i'm going to have a half-day off," was his cool reply; "i'm tired. armitage woke me up at five this morning, and i couldn't get any sleep after he came, he made such a damned noise." "but surely you're going to help us get this move over; to-morrow you can sleep all day if you like." "you can do as you like; i'm not going to move," was his only reply, and he calmly filled his pipe and puffed luxuriously. simpkins giggled feebly; he evidently was wavering as to his proper course, but short's calm insolence won the day. i confess that at the moment i was blind to the humour of the situation. i fancy people with a keen sense of humour are rarely enthusiasts; certainly when i began to see the ludicrous side of much of what i had taken to be the hard earnest of life, my revolutionary ardour cooled. my indignation was ready to boil over; i could have wept or stamped with annoyance. "oh, but you _must_ help!" i exclaimed. "you promised. how are we ever to do anything if you go on like this?" short merely puffed at his pipe complacently. for the first time since his arrival kosinski spoke. i had almost forgotten his presence; he was working quietly, getting things ready, and now he stepped forward. "the comrade is right," he said; "he does not want to work; leave him alone; we can do very well without him. let us get off at once. there is enough ready to make a first load, anyhow." the calm indifference of kosinski seemed to take some of the starch out of short, who looked more than foolish as he sat over his ginger-beer, trying to feign interest in the flagging conversation with simpkins. i was relieved at the turn matters had taken, which threw the ridicule on the other side, and before long we were ready, little m'dermott having made himself very useful, running actively up and down the ladder laden with parcels. we must have looked a queer procession as we set off. the long stooping figure of kosinksi, wrapped in his inseparable dark-blue overcoat, his fair hair showing from under his billycock hat, pushing the barrow, heavily laden with type-cases and iron forms, packets of literature and reams of printing paper; i in my shabby black dress and sailor hat, bearing the furled-up banner, and m'dermott following on behind, carrying with gingerly care a locked-up form of type, the work of poor armitage, which was in imminent danger of falling to pieces in the middle of the street. we found that quite a crowd of loafers of both sexes, the habitués of the "myrtle grove tavern," had assembled outside to witness our departure, and, as i never missed an opportunity to spread the light, i distributed among them some hand-bills entitled "what is anarchy?" regardless of their decidedly hostile attitude. the london loafer has little wit or imagination, and their comments did not rise above the stale inquiry as to where we kept our bombs, and the equally original advice bestowed upon kosinksi to get 'is 'air cut. a half-hour's walk brought us to our destination, but our odyssey was not so soon to end. the man who accompanied the carriage-builder when he showed us over the shop was waiting at the entrance to the yard, and, recognising me, he asked me to step into the office. he had a rather scared appearance, but i did not notice this particularly at the moment, and supposing that mr. white wanted to give me the keys i told my friends i should be back in a minute. the carriage-builder was awaiting me in the little office where he usually received his fashionable clients. he was still the self-same consequential figure, resplendent in broadcloth and fine linen, but the benevolent smile had vanished from his unctuous features, and he looked nervous and ill at ease. "i am sorry to say, miss meredith," he began, "that i find i am unable to let you the shop. i much regret having caused you inconvenience, but it is quite impossible." this was a staggerer for me. everything had been settled. what could have happened? "what on earth does this mean?" i exclaimed. "why, saturday evening you called at my house and told me you were satisfied with the references, and that i could move in to-day." the poor man looked quite scared at my indignation. "i am very sorry, i assure you, but i cannot let you the shop," was all he replied. "but surely you will give me some explanation of this extraordinary behaviour. i am not to be trifled with in this way, and if you will not answer me i will get some of my friends to speak to you." this last threat seemed quite to overcome him. he looked despairingly at me, and then determined to throw himself on my mercy. "well, you see, the fact is i did not quite understand the nature of your business--that is to say, i thought it was a printing business just like any other." light dawned upon me. the police had evidently been at work here. i was too new to the revolutionary movement to have foreseen all the difficulties which beset the path of the propagandist. "and since saturday night you have come to the conclusion that it is an _un_usual printing office?" i inquired somewhat derisively. i could still see in my mind's eye the benevolent smile and patronising condescension with which he had beamed on m'dermott and me on the occasion of our first meeting. "you are a sensible person, miss meredith," he said, with an almost appealing accent, "and you will, i am sure, agree with me that it would be impossible for me to have revolutionary papers printed on my premises. it would not be fair to my clients; it would interfere with my business success. of course every one has a right to their opinions, but i had no idea that you were connected with any such party. in fact i had gone out of town, and intended staying away two or three days when yesterday afternoon i received this telegram," and he handed me the document. it was from scotland yard, and warned him to return at once as the police had something of importance to communicate. "of course i came back," continued the tremulous white. "at first i thought it must be all a mistake, but i was shown a copy of the _bomb_, and told that that was what you intended printing. now you must agree that this is not a suitable place for such an office." "i cannot see," i replied with some warmth, "that it can make any difference to you what i print. i pay you your rent, and we are quits. of course if you refuse to give me the keys of the shop i cannot force myself in, but i have reason to think that you will regret your extraordinary conduct." "is that a threat?" inquired white, growing visibly paler, and glancing nervously towards the door. "no, it is only the expression of a personal opinion," i replied. at this moment the door opened, and m'dermott appeared. "well, are you coming with the keys? we are getting tired of waiting," he inquired. "this man," said i, pointing with scorn at the abject carriage-builder, "now refuses to let me the shop on the ground that he disapproves of revolutionary literature." m'dermott gave a low whistle, "oh, that's how the wind blows, is it?" he remarked; "i thought i saw some 'narks' hanging round. so this is the turn your benevolent interest in my grand-daughter has taken? well, come along, isabel, we have no time to waste, and i am sure this good gentleman will not feel comfortable till we are off the premises. he is afraid we might waste some dynamite on him, i do believe." at the word dynamite white seized a bell-pull and rang it violently, and we could not help laughing heartily, as we left the office, at his evident terror. whilst crossing the yard we saw two well-known detectives lurking on the premises. white had evidently thought it necessary to take precautions against possible outrage. we found kosinski patiently waiting. he did not seem much surprised at our news, and in answer to my inquiry as to what on earth we were to do, he suggested that we should take the barrow back to slater's mews, and then resume our search for a shop. this advice was so obvious and tame that it almost surprised me coming from him, still there was nothing for it, and back we went, looking somewhat more bedraggled (it had now come on to rain) and decidedly crestfallen. we found short as we had left him, but i was still too indignant at his conduct to deign to answer his inquiries. i was tired and worried, and could almost have wept with annoyance. kosinski at last came to the rescue. when he had brought the last parcel up the stairs and deposited it on the floor he came up to me. "if you like we might go and look at a workshop i have heard of and which might suit. some german comrades rented it for some time; i believe they used it as a club-room, but i dare say it would answer your purpose, and i believe it is still unoccupied." of course i readily assented; it was indeed a relief to hear of some definite proposal, and together we set off. little m'dermott, who evidently did not much relish short's company, armed himself with leaflets and set off on a propagandising expedition, and kosinski and i wended our way in search of the office. at last we stopped in front of a little green-grocer's shop in a side street off the hampstead road. "the place i mean is behind here," explained kosinski; "the woman in the shop lets it; we will go in and speak with her." kosinski stepped inside and addressed a voluminous lady who emerged from the back shop. "oh, good day, mr. cusins," she exclaimed, a broad smile overspreading her face; "what can i do for you?" kosinksi explained our errand, and the good lady preceded us up a narrow yard which led to the workshop in question. she turned out to be as loquacious as she was bulky, a fair specimen of the good-natured cockney gossip, evidently fond of the convivial glass, not over-choice in her language, the creature of her surroundings, which were not of the sweetest, but withal warm-hearted and sympathetic, with that inner hatred of the police common to all who belong to the coster class, and able to stand up for her rights, if necessary, both with her tongue and her fists. she showed us over a damp, ill-lighted basement shop, in a corner of which was a ladder leading to a large, light shop, which seemed well suited to our purpose, meanwhile expatiating on its excellencies. i was satisfied with it, and would have settled everything in a few minutes, but mrs. wattles was not to be done out of her jaw. "i'm sure you'll like this place, my dear, and i'm glad to let it to you, for i've known your 'usband some time. i used to see 'im come when those others germans was 'ere, and----" "kosinski is not my husband," i interrupted. "i'm not married." "oh, i see, my dear; just keeping company, that's all. well, i don't blame yer; of course, 'e is a furriner; but i'm not one to say as furriners ain't no class. i was in love with an i-talian organ-grinder myself, when i was a girl, and i might 'ave married 'im for all i know, ef 'e 'adn't got run in for knifin' a slop what was always a aggravatin' 'im, poor chap. and i don't say but what i shouldn't be as well off as what i am now, for wattles, 'e ain't much class." i ventured some sympathetic interjection and tried to get away, but her eye was fixed on me and i could not escape. "it was a long time before i forgot 'im, and when my girl was born i called 'er ave maria, which was a name i used to 'ear 'im say, and a very pretty one too, though wattles does say it's a 'eathen-sounding name for the girl. i was just like you in those days, my dear," she said, surveying my slim figure with a critical eye. "no one thought i should make old bones, i was that thin and white, and nothin' seemed to do me no good; i took physic enough to kill a 'orse, and as for heggs an' such like i eat 'undreds. but, lor', they just went through me like jollop. it was an old neighbour of ours as cured me; she said, says she, 'what you want, liza, is stimilant; stout 'ud soon set you right.' an' sure enough it did. i took 'er advice, an' i've never 'ad a day's illness since, though wattles's been mighty troublesome at times, and would 'av driven me to my grave long ago if it 'adn't been for stout. you should take it, miss; you'd soon be as like me, and as 'arty too. two glasses at dinner and two at supper is my allowance, and if i chance to miss it, why i jest seems to fall all of a 'eap like, an' i 'ears my in'ards a gnawin' and a gnawin' and a cryin' out for stout." i felt quite overcome at this charming picture of my future self, if only i followed mrs. wattles's advice. i expressed my intention of thinking the matter over, and, after shaking hands, paying a deposit on the rent--which she informed me she should expend in drinking my health--and settling to move in on the morrow, i made good my escape. cheered and elated by our success, i returned with kosinksi to the office of the _bomb_. he was naturally very nervous and reticent with women, but the events of this long day had broken down some of the barriers between us, and i found it less difficult to talk to him as we trudged on our way. "i hope you will help us with the new paper," i said. "i feel really very unfit for the responsibility of such a task, but armitage thinks i shall manage all right, and i do not wish to be a mere amateur, and shirk the hard work entailed by our propaganda. you see, i remember your words that night at chiswick. i hope you do not still think that i am merely playing." he positively blushed at my words, and stammered out: "oh no, i do not in the least doubt your sincerity. i am sure you do your best, only i have seen so much harm done by women that i am always on my guard when they propose to share in our work. but you are not a woman: you are a comrade, and i shall take much interest in your paper." we met armitage coming up red lion street. he greeted us with a look of relief. "where on earth have you been?" he exclaimed; "i went to the address you gave me, but when i inquired for you the fellow looked as scared as if he had seen a ghost, and said he knew nothing about you, that i must have made a mistake; and when i insisted and showed him the address you had written, seemed to lose his head, and rang a bell and called for help as if i were going to murder him. i thought he must be mad or drunk, and so turned on my heel and came away. in the yard i recognised some of our friends the detectives, and i felt quite anxious about you. at slater's mews the door is locked; there is no light, and nobody answered when i knocked. i am quite relieved to see you. i was beginning to fear you had all got run in." "well, you see we are still alive and in fighting form. as you say the _bomb_ has closed, i suppose short has gone off to the music-hall with simpkins, as he hinted at doing. anyhow, come home with me; you too, kosinksi, if you don't mind; there is a lot to say, and many things to settle, and we can settle everything better there than here in the street." my proposal was agreed to, and we all three repaired to fitzroy square, where over a cup of tea we settled the last details of the move, including the name of our new paper, which was to be known as the _tocsin_. chapter vi a foreign invasion thus was the question of the new paper and its quarters settled. the shop, as i had hoped, did well enough for our purposes. true, the district in which it lay was neither salubrious nor beautiful, and the constant and inevitable encounters with loquacious mrs. wattles and her satellites something of a trial; but we were absorbed in our work, absorbed in our enthusiasms, utterly engrossed in the thought of the coming revolution which by our efforts we were speeding on. during the first months, besides writing and editing the _tocsin_, i was very busily employed in learning how to set type, and print, and the various arts connected with printing--and as i grew more proficient at the work my share of it grew in proportion. the original staff of the _tocsin_ consisted of armitage, kosinksi, and myself, with short occupying the well-nigh honorary post of printer, aided by occasional assistance or hindrance from his hangers-on. but our staff gradually increased in number if not in efficiency; old m'dermott was a frequent and not unwelcome visitor, and as time went on he gradually settled down into an inmate of the office, helping where he could with the work, stirring up lagging enthusiasms, doing odd cobbling jobs whenever he had the chance, and varying the proceedings with occasional outbursts of shakespearian recitation. these recitations were remarkable performances, and made up in vigour for what they perhaps lacked in elegance and _finesse_. carter would at times put in an appearance, mostly with a view to leaning up against a type-rack or other suitable article of furniture, and there between one puff and another at his pipe would grumble at the constitution of the universe and the impertinent exactions of landlords. another englishman who in the earlier days frequented the _tocsin_ was a tall, thoughtful man named wainwright, belonging to the working-classes, who by the force of his own intelligence and will had escaped from the brutishness of the lowest depths of society in which he had been born. thus with little real outside assistance we worked through the spring and early summer months. besides bringing out our paper we printed various booklets and pamphlets, organised anarchist meetings, and during some six weeks housed a french anarchist paper and its staff, all of whom had fled precipitately from paris in consequence of a trial. the lively french staff caused a considerable revolution in lysander grove, which during several weeks rang with parisian argot and parisian fun. many of these frenchmen were a queer lot. they seemed the very reincarnation of murger's bohemians, and evidently took all the discomforts and privations of their situation as a first-class joke. kosinksi detested them most cordially, though, spite of himself, he was a tremendous favourite in their ranks, and the unwilling victim of the most affectionate demonstrations on their part: and when, with a shrug of his shoulders and uncompromising gait, he turned his back on his admirers, they would turn round to me, exclaiming fondly-- _"comme il est drole, le pauvre diable!"_ they could not understand his wrath, and were obstinately charmed at his least charming traits. when he was singularly disagreeable towards them, they summed him up cheerfully in two words, _quel original!_ they soon learned, however, not to take liberties with kosinski, for when one sprightly little man of their number, who affected pretty things in the way of cravats and garters, presumed to dance him round the office, the russian, for once almost beside himself, seized his persecutor by the shoulders and dropped him over the balustrade below, amid the cheers of all present. he appeared, however, to be their natural prey, and his quaint habit of stumbling innocently into all manner of blunders was a perpetual fount of amusement to the humour-loving gauls. his timidity with women, too, was a perennial joy, and innumerable adventures in which he figured as hero were set afloat. one little escapade of kosinski's came somehow to the knowledge of the french comrades, and he suffered accordingly. although careless and shaggy enough in appearance in all conscience, kosinski happened to be fastidiously clean about his person. i doubt whether he was ever without a certain small manicure set in his pocket, and an old joke among his russian friends was that he had failed to put in an appearance on some important occasion--the rescue of a nihilist from prison, i believe--because he had forgotten his tooth-brush. this was of course a libel and gross exaggeration, but his extreme personal cleanliness was none the less a fact. now when he first reached london he had scarcely left the station, besooted and begrimed after his long journey, when his eye was arrested by the appearance of a horse-trough. "most opportune!" mused kosinski, "how public-spirited and hygienic this london county council really is!" and straightway divesting himself of his hat and collar and similar encumbrances, and spreading out on the rim of the trough his faithful manicure set and a few primitive toilette requisites secreted about his person, he commenced his ablutions, sublimely unconscious of the attention and surprise he was attracting. before long, however, a riotously amused crowd collected round, and the russian had finally to be removed under police escort, while attempting to explain to the indignant officer of the law that he had merely taken the horse-trough as a convenient form of public bath for encouraging cleanliness among the submerged tenth. with the departure of the _�a-ira_ the office resumed once more, during a brief interval, the even tenor of its ways. kosinski who, in a spirit of self-preservation, had practically effaced himself during its sojourn, made himself once more apparent, bringing with him a peculiar swede--a man argumentative to the verge of cantankerousness--who for hours and days together would argue on obscure questions of metaphysics. he had argued himself out of employment, out of his country, almost out of the society and the tolerance of his fellows. life altogether was one long argument to this man, no act or word, however insignificant, could he be induced to pass over without discussing and dissecting, proving or disproving it. free-love was his particular hobby, though this, too, he regarded from a metaphysical rather than a practical point of view. like everything else in his life it was a matter for reason and argument, not for emotion; and he and kosinski would frequently dispute the question warmly. one day, not long before christmas, and after i had been nearly a year in the movement, when all london was lost in a heavy fog and the air seemed solid as a brick wall, there landed at the _tocsin_ a small batch of three italians fresh from their native country. it was the year of the coercion laws in italy, of the "domicilio coatto" (forced domicile), and the anarchists and socialists were fleeing in large numbers from the clutches of the law. none of these southerners had ever been in england before, and having heard grim tales of the lack of sunshine and light in london, they took this fog to be the normal condition of the atmosphere. stumbling into the lighted office from the blind stifling darkness outside, the leader of the party, a remarkably tall handsome man well known to me by reputation and correspondence, gave vent to a tremendous sigh of relief and exclaimed in his native tongue: "thank heaven, friends, we have overcome the greatest danger of all and we are here at last, and still alive!" they then advanced towards me and avvocato guglielmo gnecco held out his hand. "you are isabel meredith?" he said in a sonorous voice, and i gave an affirmative nod. "i am very glad to meet you at last, comrade," and we all shook hands. "so this is london! i had heard grim enough tales of your climate, but never had i conceived anything like this. it is truly terrible! but how do you live here? how do you get through your work?... how do you find your way about the streets? why, we've been wandering about the streets ever since eleven o'clock this morning, walking round and round ourselves, stumbling over kerb-stones, appealing to policemen and passers-by, getting half run over by carts and omnibuses and cabs. giannoli here sees badly enough at all times, but to-day he has only escaped by the skin of his teeth from the most horrid series of deaths. is it not so, giacomo?" giannoli, who had been engaged in enthusiastic greetings with kosinski, who was evidently an old friend, looked up at this. "oh, i've had too much of london already," he exclaimed fervently. "we must leave here for some other country to-night or to-morrow at the latest. we should be better off in prison in italy than at liberty here. you see, comrade," he said, turning to me with a smile, "we anarchists all belong to one nationality, so i have no fear of wounding your patriotic sentiments." "but london is not always like this, i assure you," i began. "oh, make no attempt to palliate it," gnecco interrupted. "i have heard english people before now defending your climate. but i see now only too well that my compatriots were right in calling it impossible, and saying that you never saw the sun here," and all attempts to argue them out of this conviction proved futile. the avvocato, as above mentioned, was an exceptionally good-looking man. fully six feet two inches in height, erect and slim without being in the least weedy, he carried his head with an air of pride and self-confidence, and was altogether a very fine figure of a man. his features were regular and well cut, his abundant hair and complexion dark, and his eyes bright with the vivacity of the perennial youth of the enthusiast. the delicacy of his features, the easy grace of his walk, and the freedom and confidence of his manners, all suggested his semi-aristocratic origin and upbringing. he was evidently a man of romantic tastes and inclinations, governed by sentiment rather than by reason; a lover of adventure, who had found in anarchism an outlet for his activities. his eloquence had made him a considerable reputation all over italy as an advocate, but the comparative monotony of the life of a prosperous barrister was distasteful to him, and he had willingly sacrificed his prospects in order to throw in his lot with the revolutionary party. giannoli, in his way, was an equally interesting figure. between gnecco and himself it was evident that there existed the warmest bonds of fraternal affection--a sentiment whose fount, as i discovered later, lay in a mutual attachment for a certain milanese lady, who on her side fully reciprocated their joint affection. both these italians were warm exponents of the doctrine of free-love, and, unlike their more theoretic northern confréres, they carried their theories into practice with considerable gusto. many anarchists of teutonic and scandinavian race evidently regarded free-love as an unpleasant duty rather than as a natural and agreeable condition of life--the chaff which had to be swallowed along with the wheat of the anarchist doctrines. i remember the distress of one poor old norwegian professor on the occasion of his deserting his wife for a younger and, to him, far less attractive woman--a young french studentess of medicine who practised her emancipated theories in a very wholesale fashion. "i felt that as an anarchist it would have been almost wrong to repel her advances," the distressed old gentleman confided to me. "moreover, it was ten years that i had lived with rosalie, uninterruptedly.... _cela devenait tout-à-fait scandaleux, mademoiselle_.... i no longer dared show myself among my comrades." i felt quite sorry for the poor old fellow, a humble slave to duty, which he performed with evident disgust, but the most heroic determination. giannoli, when seen apart from gnecco, was a tall man. but at the time of his arrival in london he was already falling a victim to ill-health; there was a bent, tired look about his figure, and his features were drawn and thin. a glance at him sufficed to reveal a nervous, highly-strung temperament; his movements were jerky, and altogether, about his entire person, there was a noticeable lack of repose. he was about thirty-five years of age, though he gave the impression of a rather older man. the fact that he was very short-sighted gave a peculiar look to his face, which was kindly enough in expression; his features were pronounced, with a prominent nose and full, well-cut mouth hidden by a heavy moustache. there was a look of considerable strength about the man, and fanatical determination strangely blended with diffidence--a vigorous nature battling against the inroads of some mortal disease. the third member of the trio was a shortish, thickset man of extraordinary vigour. he somehow put me in mind of a strongly-built, one-storey, stone blockhouse, and looked impregnable in every direction; evidently a man of firm character, buoyed up by vigorous physique. he was a man rather of character than of intellect, of great moral strength rather than of intellectual brilliancy--a fighter and an idealist, not a theoriser. i knew him very well by renown, for he was of european fame in the anarchist party, and the _bête noire_ of the international police. enrico bonafede was a man born out of his time--long after it and long before--whose tremendous energy was wasted in the too strait limits of modern civilised society. in a heroic age he would undoubtedly have made a hero; in nineteenth-century europe his life was wasted and his sacrifices useless. these men, born out of their generation, are tragic figures; they have in them the power and the will to scale the heights of mount olympus and to stem the ocean, while they are forced to spend their life climbing mole-hills and stumbling into puddles. such, briefly, were the three men who suddenly emerged from the fog into the office of the _tocsin_, and who formed the vanguard of our foreign invasion. all three were at once sympathetic to me, and i viewed their advent with pleasure. we celebrated it by an unusually lavish banquet of fried fish and potatoes, for they were wretchedly cold and hungry and exhausted after a long journey and almost equally long fast, for of course they all arrived in a perfectly penniless condition. seated round a blazing fire in m'dermott's _eleutheromania_ stove (the old fellow had a passion for sonorous words which he did not always apply quite appositely) the italians related the adventures of their journey and discussed future projects. as the fog grew denser with the advance of evening, and it became evident that lodging-searching was quite out of the question for the time being, it was agreed that we should all spend the night in the office, where heaps of old papers and sacking made up into not altogether despicable couches. moreover, publication date was approaching, and at such times we were in the habit of getting later and later in the office, the necessity for short's assistance rendering it impossible to get the work done in an expeditious and business-like way. we worked on far into the night, the italians helping us as best they could with the printing, one or other occasionally breaking off for a brief respite of slumber. we talked much of the actual conditions in italy, and of the situation of the anarchist party there; of how to keep the revolutionary standard afloat and the anarchist ideas circulating, despite coercion laws and the imprisonment and banishment of its most prominent advocates. kosinksi joined enthusiastically in the discussion, and the hours passed rapidly and very agreeably. i succeeded at length in dissuading giannoli and gnecco from their original intention of precipitate flight, partly by repeatedly assuring them that the state of the atmosphere was not normal and would mend, partly by bringing their minds to bear on the knotty question of finance. the three italians settled in london; gnecco and bonafede locating themselves in the italian quarter amid most squalid surroundings; while for giannoli i found a suitable lodging in the shape of a garret in the wattles's house which overlooked the courtyard of the _tocsin_. they were frequently in the office, much to the indignation of short, who could not see what good all "those ---- foreigners did loafing about." short, in fact, viewed with the utmost suspicion any new-comers at the _tocsin_. "these foreigners are such a d----d lazy lot," he would say; "i hate them!" and there was all the righteous indignation in his tones of the hard-worked proletariat whose feelings are harrowed by the spectacle of unrighteous ease. short had a habit of making himself offensive to every one, but for some mysterious reason no one ever took him to task over it. it was impossible to take short seriously, or to treat him as you would any other human being. when he was insolent people shrugged their shoulders and laughed, when he told lies they did not deign to investigate the truth, and thus in a despised and unostentatious way--for he was not ambitious of _réclame_--he was able to do as much mischief and set as many falsehoods afloat as a viciously-inclined person with much time on his hands well can. his physical and mental inferiority was his stock-in-trade, and he relied on it as a safeguard against reprisals. after a prolonged period of fog the real severity of the winter set in towards the end of january. one february morning, after all manner of mishaps and discomfort, and several falls along the slippery icy pavement, i arrived at the office of the _tocsin_. the first thing that struck my eye on approaching was the unusual appearance of the wattles's greengrocery shop. the shutters were closed, the doors still unopened. "what has happened?" i inquired of a crony standing outside the neighbouring pub. "surely no one is dead?" "lor' bless yer, no, lydy," answered the old lady, quite unperturbed, "yesterday was the hanniversary of old wattles's wedding-day, and they've been keepin' it up as usual. that's all." i was about to pass on without further comment when my attention was again arrested by the sound of blows and scuffling inside the shop, mingled with loud oaths in the familiar voice of my landlady, and hoarse protests and entreaties in a masculine voice. "but surely," i urged, turning once more to my previous informant, "there is something wrong. what is all that noise?" as cries of "murder! murder!" greeted my ear. "why, i only just told you, my dear," she responded, still quite unmoved, "they've been celebratin' their silver weddin' or somethin' of the sort. it's the same every year. they both gets roarin' drunk, and then mrs. wattles closes the shop next mornin' so as to give 'im a jolly good 'idin'. you see, these hanniversaries make 'er think of all she's 'ad to put up with since she married, and that makes things a bit rough on poor old jim." perceiving my sympathy to be wasted i proceeded, and on entering the office of the _tocsin_ i found that here, too, something unusual was going on. a perfect babel of voices from the room above greeted my ear, while the printing-room was bedecked with a most unsightly litter of tattered garments of nondescript shape and purpose laid out to dry. i was not surprised at this, however, as i had long grown used to unannounced invasions. unexpected persons would arrive at the office, of whom nobody perhaps knew anything; they would stroll in, seat themselves round the fire, enter into discussion, and, if hungry, occasionally partake of the _plat du jour_. the most rudimentary notions of anarchist etiquette forbade any of us from inquiring the name, address, or intentions of such intruders. they were allowed to stay on or to disappear as inexplicitly as they came. they were known, if by any name at all, as jack or jim, giovanni or jacques, and this was allowed to suffice. every anarchist learns in time to spot a detective at first sight, and we relied on this instinct as a safeguard against spies. but on reaching the composing-room on this particular morning an extraordinary sight presented itself. accustomed as i was to the unaccustomed, i was scarcely prepared for the wild confusion of the scene. what at first sight appeared to be a surging mass of unwashed and unkempt humanity filled it with their persons, their voices, and their gestures. no number of englishmen, however considerable, could have created such a din. all present were speaking simultaneously at the top of their voices; greetings and embraces mingled with tales of adventure and woe. the first object which i managed to distinguish was the figure of giannoli struggling feebly in the embrace of a tall brawny, one-eyed man with thick curling black hair, who appeared to be in a state of demi-déshabille. by degrees a few other familiar figures became one by one discernible to me as i stood mute and unobserved at the head of the stairs. bonafede and gnecco were there; they, too, surrounded by the invading mob, exchanging greetings and experiences. old m'dermott, standing up against his stove, was striking a most impressive attitude, for the old fellow had to live up to the reputation he had established among foreigners of being the greatest orator in the english revolutionary party. two cloddish-looking _contadini_ stood gazing at him, rapt in awe. kosinksi stood little apart from the rest, not a little bewildered by the enthusiastic reception which had been accorded him by old friends. in one corner, too, i recognised my old friend short, fully dressed, as usual, in his frowsy clothes, as though eternally awaiting the call-to-arms, the long-delayed bugles of the social revolution; there he lay, much as when i first set eyes on him, wrapped up in old banners and rugs, blinking his eyes and muttering curses at the hubbub which had thus rudely interrupted his slumbers. the others were quite new to me. they were evidently all of them italians--some ten or twelve in number--though at the first glance, scattered as they were pell-mell among the printing plant of the overcrowded work-room, they gave an impression of much greater number. they appeared mostly to belong to the working-classes. their clothes, or what remained of them, were woefully tattered--and they were few and rudimentary indeed, for most of what had been spared by the hazards of travel were drying down below. their hair was uncut, and beards of several days' growth ornamented their cheeks. their hats were of incredible size and shape and all the colours of the rainbow seemed to be reproduced in them. littered around on divers objects of furniture, they suggested to me a strange growth of fungi. my advent, as soon as it was perceived amid the confusion and noise of the scene, created something of a sensation, for by now my name had become well known in the international anarchist party. "isabel meredith" was exclaimed in all manner of new and strange intonations, and a host of hands were extended towards me from all directions. at last gnecco managed to make his voice heard above the din of his compatriots. "all these comrades," he explained in italian, "have escaped like ourselves from the savage reaction which actually holds italy in its sway. they arrived this morning after a fearful journey which lack of money compelled them to make mostly on foot." before he could get any further an outburst of song interrupted his words as the whole band broke into an anarchist war-whoop. this over, my attention was arrested by the groans of a dark young man of extraordinarily alert physiognomy who had shed his boots and was gazing dolefully at his wounded feet. "what would i not give," he exclaimed, "to be back in prison in lugano! oh for the rest and comfort of those good old times!" he was utterly worn out, poor fellow, nipped up with the cold, and seemed on the verge of tears. "well," exclaimed m'dermott at last, "propaganda implies propagandists, and propagandists entail bellies! all these fellows seem pretty well starving. what would they say to a little grub?" on my interpreting the old fellow's suggestion he and it were received with universal acclaim. bonafede produced from the innermost depths of his pockets a huge quantity of macaroni which was put on to boil, and several bottles of wine; one of the new arrivals, a sober-looking young fellow with a remarkably long nose, contributed an enormous lobster which he had acquired _en route_, while kosinski volunteered to fetch bread and other provender. a homeric repast ensued, for all these anarchists had cultivated the digestions of camels; they prepared for inevitable fasts by laying in tremendous stores when chance and good fortune permitted. while they were eating a noticeable silence fell on the scene, and i had leisure to observe the immigrants more in detail. beppe, the tall, one-eyed man, already referred to, seemed to be the life and spirit of the band. he was a rollicking good-natured fellow, an unpolished _homme du peuple_, but not inadmirable in his qualities of courage and cheerfulness--the kind of man who would have cracked a joke on his death-bed and sung lustily _en route_ to the gallows. he possessed, too, a heroic appetite, and as he made away with enormous heaps of macaroni his spirits rose higher and higher and his voice rose with them. the long-nosed youth was something of an enigma. from the scraps of conversation which, during the repast, fell principally on the subject of food, or the lack of food, during the tramp, i gathered that they had relied principally on his skill and daring in the matter of foraging to keep themselves from actually dying of hunger on their journey. yet there was about him such a prudent and circumspect air that he might well have hesitated to pick up a pin that "wasn't his'n." he was evidently of an acquisitive turn, however, for over his shoulder was slung a bag which appeared to contain a collection of the most heterogeneous and unserviceable rubbish conceivable. "_eh!... possono servire!_" ... was all he would volunteer on the subject when i once chaffed him on the subject of his findings. "they may serve yet!..." somehow this youth struck me at once as a man who had made a mistake. at home as he appeared to be among his comrades, there was yet something about him which suggested that he was out of his proper sphere in the midst of the anarchists, that he was _desorienté_. he was cut out for an industrious working-man, one that would rise and thrive in his business by hard work and thrift; he was destined by nature to rear a large family and to shine in the ranks of excellent family men. he was moulded for the threshold, poor boy, neither for the revolutionary camp nor for the scaffold, and it was thwarted domestic instinct which led him to steal. there was good nature in his face and weakness; it was the face of a youth easily led, easily influenced for good or bad. as a revolutioniser of his species he was predestined to failure, for years would certainly show him the error of his ways. old age seemed to be his proper state, and youth in him was altogether a blunder and a mistake. i found myself vainly speculating what on earth could have led him among the anarchists. the others comprised a silent young artisan who was evidently desperately in earnest with his ideas, a red-haired, red-bearded tuscan of clever and astute aspect, a singularly alert and excitable-looking young man of asymmetrical features, who looked half fanatic, half criminal, and others of the labouring and peasant class. one other of their number arrested my attention, a stupid, sleepy young man, who seemed quite unaffected by the many vicissitudes of his journey. his features were undefined and his complexion undefinable, very greasy and suggestive of an unwholesome fungus. he was better dressed than his companions, and from this fact, combined with his intonation, i gathered that he belonged to the leisured classes. there was something highly repellent about his smooth yellow face, his greasiness and limp, fat figure. m'dermott christened him the "buttered muffin." dinner over, the one-eyed baker, beppe, proceeded to give us their news, and to recount the vicissitudes of their travels. gnecco and giannoli were anxious for news of comrades left behind in italy. so-and-so was in prison, another had remained behind in switzerland, a third had turned his coat, and was enjoying ill-gotten ease and home, others were either dead or lost to sight. the present party, who were mostly northern italians, had left italy shortly after giannoli and gnecco, and had since spent several weeks in italian switzerland, whence at last they had been expelled in consequence of the circulation of an anarchist manifesto. beppe gave a glowing account of their stay in lugano, and consequent flight to london. "you know," he said, "that i reached lugano with two hundred francs in my pocket in company with all these comrades who hadn't got five francs among them. it is not every one who could have housed them all, but i did. i could not hire a palazzo or a barrack for them, but we managed very comfortably in one large room. there were fourteen of us besides la antonietta. there was only one bed, but what a size! we managed well enough by sleeping in two relays. however, even in two relays it took some organisation to get us all in. it was a fine double bed, you know, evidently intended for three or four ... even for five it was suitable enough, but when it came to seven!... there was not much room for exercise, i can tell you.... but with four at the top and three at the bottom, we managed, and antonietta slept on a rug in a cupboard. we did our best to make her comfortable by sacrificing half our clothes to keep her warm, but we might have saved ourselves the trouble, for she deserted us for the first bourgeois who came along. she was not a true comrade, but i will tell you all about her later on. "we had some trouble with the landlord, a thick-headed bourgeois who got some stupid idea into his head about overcrowding. i have no patience with these bourgeois prejudices. one day he came round to complain about our numbers, and at not receiving his rent. but we were prepared for him. we assembled in full force, and sang the _marseillaise_ and the _inno dei lavoratori_, and danced the _carmagnole_. i took out my eye and looked very threatening--one glance at us was enough for the old fellow. he made the sign of the cross and fled before we had time to tear him to pieces. "well, my two hundred francs was a very large sum, and not paying the rent was economical, but it dwindled, and i had to look round again for ways and means to feed us all. the money came to an end at last and then the real struggle began. old castellani, the landlord, kept a large stock of sacks of potatoes in a cellar, and every day he used to go in and take a few out for his own use, and then lock the cellar up again, mean old brute! but once again i was one too many for him. i collected large quantities of stones in the day-time, and then at night with a skeleton key i had acquired--it came out of meneghino's bag which we always jeered at--i let myself in and from the farthest sacks i abstracted potatoes and refilled them with stones. i calculated that at the slow rate he used them he would not notice his loss till march. what a scene there will be then, _misericordia_! during the last fortnight of our stay we lived almost entirely on my potatoes. i don't know how the devil they would all have got on without me. it is true that a waitress at the panetteria viennese fell in love with meneghino, and used to pass him on stale bread; but then you all know his appetite! he ate it nearly all himself on the way home. one day i sent bonatelli out to reconnoitre. he returned with _one mushroom_!" it would be quite impossible to convey an idea of the intense contempt contained in these last words. it was a most eloquent denunciation of impotence and irresolution. "all the same we had a grand time in lugano. and the week i and migliassi spent in prison was a great treat. why, they treated us like popes, i can tell you--as much food as you like, and the best quality at that; no work, a comfortable cell, and a bed all to yourself! and the bread! i never tasted anything like it in my life: they sent to como for it all. lugano bread was not good enough. ah, swiss prisons are a grand institution, and i hope to spend a happy old age in such a place yet. "then came bonafede's manifesto, and that scoundrel costanzi betrayed us all to the police. then the real trouble began. we had not ten francs among the lot of us, and we twelve had orders to clear out of the country within forty-eight hours! once again they were all at a loss but for me!" and here he tapped his forehead in token of deference to his superior wits. "i had noticed the fat letters morì received from home the first day of every month, and how jolly quiet he kept about them. i also noticed that he used to disappear for a day or two after their receipt, and return very sleepy and replete, with but scant appetite for dry bread and potatoes." at this point morì, the greasy neapolitan youth, blinked his eyes and laughed foolishly. he seemed neither ashamed of himself nor indignant at his companions, merely sluggishly amused. "well," continued meneghino, "that letter was just due, and i intercepted it. it contained one hundred and eighty francs; would you believe me? and that went some way to get us over here. altogether we managed to collect sufficient money to carry us to the belgian frontier, and for our passage across from ostend. but that tramp across belgium, _dio boia_!" here a clamour of voices interrupted beppe, as each one of the travellers chimed in with a separate account of the horrors of that ghastly tramp across country in mid-winter. for many years europe had not experienced such an inclement season. everywhere the cold counted innumerable victims. along the country highways and byways people dropped down frozen to death, and the paths were strewn with the carcasses of dead birds and other animals who had succumbed to the inclemency of the elements. all the great rivers were frozen over, and traffic had to be suspended along them. unwonted numbers of starving sea-gulls and other sea-birds flocked to london in search of human charity, for the very fishes could not withstand the cold, and the inhospitable ocean afforded food no longer to its winged hosts. all europe was under snow; the railways were blocked in many places, and ordinary work had to be suspended in the great cities; business was at a stand-still. neither the temperaments nor the clothes of these italians had been equal to the exigencies of their march in the cruel northern winter. as they tramped, a dismal, silent band across belgium, the snow was several feet deep under foot, and on all sides it stretched hopelessly to the horizon, falling mercilessly the while. their light clothing was ill adapted to the rigours of the season; boots gave out, food was scanty or non-existent, and they had to rely entirely on the fickle chances of fortune to keep body and soul together. by night, when chance allowed, they had crept unobserved into barns and stables, and, lying close up against the dormant cattle, they had striven to restore animation to their frozen limbs by means of the beasts' warm breath. once an old farm-woman had found them, and, taking pity on their woebegone condition, had regaled the whole party on hot milk and bread; and this was now looked back on as a gala day, for not every day had afforded such fare. at times in the course of their weary tramp the anarchists had made an effort to keep up their flagging spirits by means of song, revolutionary and erotic, but such attempts had usually fallen flat, and the little band of exiles had relapsed into gloomy silence as they tramped on noiselessly through the snow. one of their number had quite broken down on the road and they had been compelled to leave him behind. "lucky fellow, that morelli," exclaimed meneghino, "enjoying good broth in a hospital while we were still trudging on through that infernal snow!" "and antonietta?" inquired giannoli, when the relation of these adventures had terminated. "you have not yet told us her end, nor how she incurred your displeasure." "oh, antonietta!" exclaimed beppe. "i was forgetting. you who believed her to be such a sincere comrade will scarcely credit her baseness. she ran away with a horrible bourgeois; she was lured away from the cause by a bicycle! yes, antonietta weighed a bicycle in the scales against the social revolution, and found the social revolution wanting! so much for the idealism of women! never speak to me of them again. the last we saw of her she was cycling away in a pair of breeches with a disgusting banker. she laughed and waved her hand to us mockingly, and before we had time to utter a word she was gone. i never shall believe in a woman again!" his indignation choked him at this point, and only the expression of his mouth and eye told of the depth of scorn and disgust which he felt for the young lady who had thus unblushingly cycled away from the social revolution. chapter vii the office of the _tocsin_ to the ordinary citizen whose walk in life lies along the beaten track there is a suggestion of bohemianism about the office of any literary or propagandist organ; but i doubt whether the most imaginative among them in their wildest moments have ever conceived any region so far removed from the conventions of civilised society, so arbitrary in its hours and customs, so cosmopolitan and so utterly irrational as the office of the _tocsin_. in other chapters i attempt to describe the most noticeable among the genuine anarchists who belonged to it, but i wish here to convey some faint idea of the strange medley of outside cranks and _déclassés_ whose resort it in time became. there appeared to be a magnetic attraction about the place to tramps, _désoeuvrés_ cranks, argumentative people with time on their hands, and even downright lunatics. foreigners of all tongues assembled in the office--russians, italians, french, spaniards, dutch, swedes, and before very long they practically swamped the english element. the anarchist and revolutionary party has always been more serious on the continent than in england, and what genuine anarchists there are here are mostly foreigners. trades and industries of the most heterogeneous kinds were carried on at the _tocsin_ by unemployed persons who could find no other refuge for their tools nor outlet for their energies. in one corner old m'dermott settled down with his lasts and leather, and there industriously hammered away at his boots, alternating his work with occasional outbursts of shakespearian recitation. in winter the old fellow was positively snowed up in the office, where he crouched shivering over the fire until the advent of spring revived him. on the first warm sunny day he suddenly flung down his tools, and rushing out into the courtyard amazed and terrified mrs. wattles and her colleagues by shouting at the top of his voice, "let me shout, let me shout, richard's himself again!" "'e gave me such a turn, miss, with 'is carryin's on that i got the spasims again, an' i don't know what ever i shall do if i can't find the price of a 'alf-quartern o' gin." and i took the hint, for mrs. wattles's alliance was no despicable possession among the savages of lysander grove. a shed was erected in the corner of the composing-room, which served by night as a dormitory for numbers of otherwise roofless waifs, and here during the daytime a young belgian and his wife set up a small factory of monkeys up sticks, which when completed they proceeded to sell in the streets. in another corner two italians settled down to manufacture a remarkable new kind of artificial flower with which they traded when opportunity permitted. small plaster-casts of queen victoria and marat were also manufactured here. when the influx of starving italians necessitated it, a kind of soup-kitchen was inaugurated over which beppe presided, and very busy he was kept too, manufacturing _minestras_ and _polenta_, a welcome innovation to me, i may mention, after a long régime of small and nauseous tarts, bread and jam, and cheese. in short, the headquarters of the _tocsin_, besides being a printing and publishing office, rapidly became a factory, a debating club, a school, a hospital, a mad-house, a soup-kitchen and a sort of rowton house, all in one. when i look back on the scene now, and recall all the noise and hubbub, the singing, the discussions and disputes, the readings, the hammerings on this side, the hangings on that, the feeding, and m'dermott's shakespearian recitations, i find it very difficult to realise the amount of hard work which i and the other few serious and earnest comrades got through. the chief impediment to the progress of the work, however, was short, the compositor. on close acquaintance with this creature, i found that he did not belie my first impression of him as the laziest and most slovenly of men; and i soon realised the two dominant characteristics which had made of him a socialist--envy and sloth. so deeply was he imbued with envy that he was quite unable to rest so long as anyone else was better off than himself; and although he did not care one jot for "humanity" of which he prated so freely, and was incapable of regenerating a flea, he found in a certain section of the socialist and anarchist party that degree of dissatisfaction and covetousness which appealed to his degraded soul. besides which the movement afforded him grand opportunities for living in sloth and sponging on other people. short was not without his humorous side, however, when only you were in the right mood to appreciate it. his envy of the superiority which he noted in others was only equalled by his intense contempt for himself. i can still picture the poor brute lying with his dog in a corner of the office amid a heap of rubbish, unwashed, unkempt (he never divested himself of his clothes), and verminous in the extreme. there he would blow discordant notes on a mouth-organ, or smoke his rank old pipe, eat jam tarts, and scowl his wrath and envy on the world. if he could get hold of some unoccupied person to whom he could retail all the latest bits of anarchist scandal, or from whom he could ferret out some little private secrets, he was contented enough, or, leaning out of the office window he would deliver a short autobiographical sketch to the interested denizens of the surrounding courts. a small bill, posted outside the office door, announced that short was prepared to undertake extraneous jobs of printing on his own account; and this was responsible for many of the queer customers who found their way to the office of the _tocsin_. one of the queerest of all the queer oddities who haunted it was a small man of hunted aspect, known to every one as the "bleeding lamb." he had acquired this peculiar name from the title of a booklet which he had written under the direct inspiration of the holy ghost, a sort of interpretation of the apocalypse, wherein was foretold a rapid termination of the universe. the printing of the "bleeding lamb" was undertaken by short, whose dilatoriness in executing his work doubtless prolonged by a few years the existence of the terrestrial globe. there was all the fervour of a prophet in the eye of the "bleeding lamb," but inspiration ceased here, and even what there was of inspired and prophetic in his eye was overcast by a certain diffident and deprecating look. he was the victim, poor man, of a twofold persecution in which heaven and earth joined hands to torment him--the archangel michael and the metropolitan police being the arch offenders. one of the first things that struck you about the bleeding lamb was the helpless look of his feet. they were for ever shuffling and stumbling, getting in the way, and tripping up himself and others. his hands too had a flabby and inefficient expression, and his knees were set at a wrong angle. his stature was insignificant, his colouring vague; longish hair and beard of a colourless grey matched the grey of his prophetic and persecuted eye. he would enter the office furtively, and cast a rapid glance round as though he almost expected to find the archangel michael or an inspector of the metropolitan police lurking in a corner, and it would take him some few seconds before he could muster up sufficient courage to inquire, as was his invariable custom, whether anyone had been round to ask after him. on being assured that no one had called for that purpose he appeared relieved, and gradually, as he became more and more reassured, he would warm to his subject of the coming cataclysm, and launch out into prophecy. "ah," he exclaimed to me one day after a long discourse on the universal destruction at hand, "won't queen victoria just shiver in her shoes when she receives the revised edition of the 'bleeding lamb.' little does she dream at this moment of what is in store for her." i recollect also that nelson was in some way connected with his prophecies and his perplexities, but in what particular connection is not quite clear to my mind. the sympathy which he apparently felt for the anarchists was, i suppose, due to the fact that they too were engaged--on a somewhat smaller scale it is true--on a policy of destruction, and also to their avowed antagonism to the law and the police, whether metropolitan or otherwise. the bleeding lamb had a formidable rival in the field of prophecy in the person of another strange frequenter of our office--a demure-looking gentleman named atkinson who professed to be the reincarnation of christ, and who preached the millennium. he was a less depressed-looking person than the bleeding lamb--whom he treated with undisguised contempt--and affected a tall hat and wellington boots. the lamb, on his side, denounced the messiah as a fraud, and went so far as to suggest that he had only taken to prophecy when the alteration in the fashion of ladies' pockets compelled him to abandon his original profession. "that lamb is not quite right in the upper storey," whispered atkinson to me one day; "he may even become dangerous, poor creature!" shortly afterwards i was taken aside by the gentleman in question who warned me to keep my purse in safety as "that messiah is no better than a common thief." the approach of either of these prophets was invariably the signal for a stampede on short's part, who, never having completed his work, dreaded encountering the mournful scrutiny and reproachful bleating of the lamb no less than the sad, stern rebukes and potential wellington boots of the messiah. into no single item of the day's programme did he put so much zest as into the grand dive he would make into any available hiding-place, and he would lie for hours flat on his stomach under m'dermott's bed sooner than "face the music." one day the perspiring lamb entered the office red in the face and considerably out of breath, rapidly followed by a lugubrious individual, talking volubly in an argumentative monotone. this person seemed to be very indignant about something. "marcus aurelius was a just ruler and a philosopher," he was saying, "and he saw the necessity for suppressing the christian factions. he was among the severest persecutors of the early christians.--what does that argue, you fool?" "nothing against my contention with regard to the seven-headed beast in the apocalypse," replied the bleeding lamb with a defiant snort. "the seven-headed beast has nothing to do with the case," retorted his interlocutor, putting all the warmth into his monotonous drawl of which he appeared capable. "the seven-headed beast can't alter history, and my case is conclusively proved in the course of this little work, to the production of which i have devoted the best years of my life. the seven-headed beast indeed! pshaw for your seven-headed beast, you dunder-headed dreamer!" whilst i gazed on dumbfounded at this little scene, making futile efforts to grasp the vexed point under discussion, the strange new-comer, whom the lamb addressed as gresham, deposited on the floor a huge and shapeless brown-paper parcel, under whose weight he was staggering, and sitting down by its side he carefully untied the string, and dragged triumphantly forth tome after tome of carefully-written mss., which he proceeded to read out without further preamble. "'atheism _v._ christianity,'" he drawled, commencing at the title, "'being a short treatise on the persecutions of the early christians, the object of which is to prove that they were persecuted by the just emperors and protected by the unjust; that, consequently, they were wrong; that christianity is wrong, and the deity a palpable fraud; by tobias jonathan gresham,'--and let the seven-headed beast in the apocalypse put that in his pipe and smoke it!" casting a defiant glance at the bleeding lamb. as this concluding remark was made in the same monotone as the foregoing sentence, i was at some loss to determine whether or not it formed part of the title of that momentous work. the bleeding lamb here cast me a knowing glance, which said as plainly as words that his unfortunate acquaintance was mad, but that it was as well to humour him, and so he magnanimously sat down on a stool facing his rival, while the latter proceeded to read out his book, which was destined soon to mount up the long list of short's sins of typographical omissions. this was but the herald of a long series of readings from the "short treatise," which were carried on at intervals for some weeks. minute after minute and hour after hour gresham drawled on from one tedious reiteration to another, never raising his voice nor altering its key, till a sense of dizziness overcame his audience, and his voice became as the singing in one's ears which accompanies high fever or heralds a faint. indeed i have never suffered from fever or faintness since that date without my sensations recalling gresham's dreary, argumentative drawl; then gradually his voice would grow fainter and somewhat spasmodic, until at length it gave way to snores, as the weary lamb and the atheist lion, like the kid and the leopard of isaiah, sank down together in a confused heap on the floor, and there slept out a miniature fulfilment of the word of the prophet. then there was a polish count who found his way to the _tocsin_--a most deplorable aristocratic débris, who might have stepped straight out of the pages of dostoievsky. i never set eyes on a more depressed-looking mortal than count voblinsky. he looked as though he bore on his bent shoulders the weight of all the ill-spent lives in christendom. he was a damp, unwholesome-looking man, whose appearance suggested long confinement in a cellar. he was pale and hollow-eyed, and almost mouldy; altogether a most cadaverous-looking person. he was always attired, even at eleven a.m., in an old dress suit, green and threadbare with age, and a furry tall hat, into which garments he seemed to have grown and taken root. but despite the decay of his person and his attire, there was a certain degree of aristocratic refinement about voblinsky's features, last ghastly traces of his ancient nobility. he vaguely recalled to my mind a long-ago continental trip of my childhood, and an unfortunate elephant in the marseilles jardin des plantes who, from long inactivity in the corner of his cage, had become overgrown with moss. there was the same incongruous touch of erstwhile nobility, the same decay, the same earthy smell. by what shady and circuitous paths had the unfortunate count reached this unhappy pass? perhaps his wife was responsible; for if ever woman was calculated not to lead her mate on to higher and better things it was the countess voblinska. the countess was worse than slovenly: she was downright dirty. her tumbled, frowsy hair, with patches of golden dye in it, was surmounted by an appalling hat of incongruous dimensions and shape, trimmed with what appeared to be archaeological relics, thick in dust. to approach it brought on a perfect paroxysm of sneezing. her clothes, which were very greasy and never brushed, hung together by strings, tatters, and safety-pins. her hands and face were begrimed with several coats of dirt, and a top coat of _poudre de riz_. no ordinary imagination dared speculate on what lay hidden beneath those tattered rags she wore. she gesticulated much, and discoursed on the subject of some lecture she was to give, in the intervals of volleying forth abuse and swearing in parisian argot at her long-suffering husband, who received it all with most ludicrous courtesy. often a strong smell of gin mingled with the eloquent flow of the countess's language. on the whole, however, the anarchists and their queer associates might be regarded as a fairly temperate set. one of the most potent causes of drink is the monotony of the existences led by most people, the hopeless dreariness of their confined, narrow lives, the total lack of interest and excitement. this is not the case in revolutionary circles, where not only are there plenty of ideas afloat to occupy men's minds and distract them from the narrow circle of their dreary domestic lives, but where also the modern craving for excitement, factitious or otherwise, finds plenty of nourishment. the office of the _tocsin_, however, did not lack the occasional presence of the habitual drunkard. there was one queer fellow who frequently put in a dissipated appearance for the purpose of complaining of the ill-usage to which his wife's tongue subjected him. he looked forward to the social revolution as the only escape from this thraldom, and certainly no man ever made more strenuous, albeit ill-directed efforts, on its behalf. then there was a bibulous welshman who at times would startle the unwashed denizens of the neighbouring slums by appearing in a tall hat and irreproachable shirt front. he was a doctor by profession, who succeeded in maintaining a certain reputation in polite circles, but an alcoholic soaker by inclination, one of those men who somehow contrive to keep ahead of ruin by sleeping out periods of financial distress in friends' houses. our proof-reader was a benevolent old gentleman of obsolete customs, who in an age of open-air cures still wore a mouth and nose respirator. he was such an eminently respectable person that i never could quite understand why he associated himself with anything so disreputable as the _tocsin_. i always half suspected that he came there principally on my account, chivalrously determined that i should not be surrounded _solely_ by scum. but besides this motive he had some pretensions to being a man of advanced views, and was a purchaser of "advanced" literature. the introduction of this into the precincts of his home was a great trial to his better half, who had no kind of sympathy with such leanings. new-fangled ideas of any description were tabooed by her, and all preachers and holders of such she unconditionally consigned to hell-fires. her husband she regarded as a brand to be snatched from the burning, and she and a few select female relatives worked hard to snatch him. but although new-fangled ideas on social organisation and political economy were bad enough, one thing alone was beyond all human endurance to the mind of mrs. crawley, and that one thing was free-love. one day mr. crawley brought home "the woman who did," and neglected to conceal it. it was found by his wife lying on the dining-room sofa. "my fingers itched to seize and burn the impudent huzzy, lying there as unconcerned as though she had been the 'private meditations and prayers of the rev. bagge,'" mrs. crawley confided to her aunt elizabeth, "but it was a six-shilling book, and i knew how crawley valued it, and for the life of me i did not dare touch it." it was a sore trial indeed to mrs. crawley to live under the same roof with such a person, but she dared not so far outrage the feelings of one whom she had sworn to love, honour, and obey, as to execute the offending lady. she long meditated some revenge, some outlet for her outraged feelings; it was long in coming, but come it did at last. the "man who didn't" followed in the footsteps of his irregular mate, and in a fourpenny-halfpenny edition. this was more than the worthy matron could stand, and either he or she herself must leave the house. she summoned aunt elizabeth, a lady of irreproachable moral standard, the whites of whose eyes had a habit of turning up spasmodically, and the corners of whose mouth down, and to her she unburdened her feelings. "my dear eliza," she said, "i have too long tolerated 'the woman who did,' but when it comes to the 'man who didn't,' that--er--well, that disgusting 'man who didn't'--and how am i to know that he didn't, the brazen creature!--it is time i asserted my authority. i cannot and i will not stand him." the offending and irresolute gentleman was then seized upon with a pair of tongs, carried in solemn procession to the remotest room in the house, and burnt. the sanctity of matrimony had reasserted its rights. a young bank clerk who accompanied crawley to the office was a type of what i might call the conscientiously unprincipled man. it being wrong to steal, he made a point of annexing small objects. cleanliness is next to godliness, and he devoted himself heroically to dirt; it was not at all his natural tendency, and the more disagreeable he found it the more strenuous was he in its pursuit. being by nature punctual, he made it an absolute point of honour never to keep an appointment; and, as a lover of domestic peace, he was for ever working his way into scrapes and rows. he was a comical object, with his limp yellow hair brushed ferociously on end, and his mild yellow eyes scowling defiance at mankind. when the cuban revolution broke out a wave of sympathy for the oppressed islanders passed over the whole civilised world, and nowhere did this find a warmer echo than in the anarchist party and the _tocsin_ group. many anarchists were in favour of going out to the assistance of the insurgents. opinion was divided on the question. some said: "it is our duty to remain in europe to carry on the work of anarchist propaganda here. the cuban revolution is a race struggle, and no concern of ours." others said: "we anarchists are internationalists, and in whatsoever part of the world there is revolt against oppression, and wherever the revolutionary forces are at work, there is our opportunity to step in and direct those forces into the proper course, towards anarchism." these anarchists saw in the uprising of this small and comparatively insignificant race against the spanish throne the possible dawn of a wider, vaster struggle, in which the whole world would join hands to lay low thrones, altars, and judgment seats. a small band of italian comrades, led by an adventurous sicilian, got up a subscription for the purpose, and left the office of the _tocsin_, amid great revolutionary enthusiasm, to journey to the assistance of the insurgent island. only one of their number ever returned alive to europe to tell of the horrors and hardships of the fierce struggle there endured, of the cruelty of the spaniards, and the uselessness of the fight from the anarchist point of view. the cuban fever was very catching, and after the departure of this first band there was a regular epidemic of departure at the _tocsin_. carter and simpkins turned up at the office one afternoon very much in earnest about it all and persuaded that a little british grit was what was needed in cuba, "to keep things humming." simpkins recalled his old army days and the valour he had several times displayed when under the influence of liquor. he waved an old belt appertaining to those times, and would, i believe, have sung something about the union jack and the beer of old england, had not his friend recalled him to a better sense of his duty as an anarchist and internationalist. it appeared that carter had come into a small sum of money consequent on the death of an uncle, with which he was bent on paying their passage out to cuba. "what is an anarchist to do in this wretched country?" he asked. "i am tired of lying in bed waiting for the revolution. it's too slow coming." "yah!" muttered short under his breath to me, "the springs are out of order, and he finds it hard. that's about how much he cares for the revolution." after carter and simpkins had taken their leave of the staff of the _tocsin_ i watched a very moving scene from the window, when they bade good mrs. wattles farewell. the good lady was very deeply affected, and with tears in her eyes she begged them to think again before betaking themselves to "them furrin' parts" where she had heard "the drink was something awful and not fit for a christian stomach." she was only half reassured when told that rum came from somewhere in that direction. but carter and simpkins never reached cuba. some few minutes' walk from the office of the _tocsin_, at the corner of lysander grove, stood an inviting house of call, the "merry mariners," where the valiant warriors dropped in on their way, to refresh themselves, perhaps in anticipation of the dreary prospect which mrs. wattles's words had opened before them. when several hours later short returned from his accustomed evening stroll round the neighbourhood, he described with great relish the pitiable termination of their voyage. he had found carter just sober enough to cart his incapacitated disciple home on a wheelbarrow, after which he painfully betook himself to his bed, there to bemoan the tardiness of the revolution, and the broken condition of the spring mattress. "and won't his guv'nor just give simpkins a ragging when he gets home. he'll give him cuba," gloated the unsympathetic printer. another relief expedition from the _tocsin_ met with scarcely more brilliant success. beppe and meneghino set out under the guidance of old m'dermott, on tramp to cardiff, whence they hoped to work their way out to the insurgent island. they, too, set out full of brave hopes and generous enthusiasm, but with too confident a trust in the beneficence of providence as caterer to their material needs on the journey. before a fortnight had elapsed, they also were back at the office, beppe bearing the poor old irishman on his shoulders in a quite crippled and exhausted condition. he had to be put to bed, and remained there several weeks, before he was in a fit state to get about again. they all complained bitterly of the inhospitality of the country-folk to whom they had appealed for help, and of the uncourteous reception they had met with in the cardiff docks. poor meneghino reached london barefooted, his faithful canvas bag hanging disconsolately over his shoulder--and all with woefully vacant stomachs. they formed a comically dismal group as they collapsed into the office in an exhausted heap. * * * * * amid these many strange and dubious, ludicrous or pathetic characters, some few heroic figures appeared. from time to time there came into our midst vera marcel, the red virgin of the barricades, the heroine of the commune of paris--a woman of blood and smoke and of infinite mercies towards men and beasts. i can see her still, almost beautiful in her rugged ugliness, her eyes full of the fire of faith and insane fanaticism, her hair dishevelled, her clothes uncared for. i can hear the wonderful ring of her tragic voice as she pleaded the misery of the poor and suffering, of the oppressed, the outcast, the criminal, the rejected, and as it rose higher and higher to invoke fire and sword and bloodshed in expiation. then i seem to hear its magic and inspired ring as her wonderful faith conjured up visions of the future when the whole of humanity shall live in peace and brotherhood, and the knife, which in time of revolution had shed the blood of the oppressors, shall "cut nothing deadlier than bread." a strange gaunt figure she was, a woman who had never hesitated at shedding blood in the good cause, nor feared to face death for it; but with her friends, and especially with children and dumb animals, she was as gentle as the gentlest of her sex; and no words can describe the extreme sweetness of her voice. as publication time approached, all-night sittings became necessary, when all this heterogeneous assembly met together, and amidst anarchist song and anarchist enthusiasm forwarded or hindered, each in his degree, the publication of the _tocsin_. i can see in my mind's eye the much-littered, overcrowded office in all the confusion of those nights, with its dark corners hidden in shadow, where slept tired fighters weary of the fray, and its brightly-lighted patches, under the lamps, where the work of the night was being carried on. some dozen voices, more or less musical, are chanting anarchist war-songs, and the _inno di caserio_ and the _marseillaise_ ring out through the open windows to the dormant or drunken denizens of lysander grove. the reincarnation is patiently turning the wheel of the printing machine, and rolling out fresh _tocsins_, thinking, no doubt, of that tocsin which, at no distant date, shall ring out from a loftier sphere to rouse the deluded inhabitants of this globe to a different millennium from that dreamed of by anarchists. but, whatever his thoughts, he grinds away with much christian endurance and fortitude. wainwright, who is tired after a long turn at the wheel, subsequent to a hard day's work in the brick-yard, is relating to a few interested listeners the strange story of his life, or discussing points of anarchist principle and propaganda. then, somehow, the bleeding lamb would find his way in, and looking over at his reincarnated rival at the wheel with undisguised contempt, he whispers: "i know what sort of a wheel his unhallowed hoof ought to be turning!" armitage and kosinski at such times would be busy folding the papers, both absorbed in their work, happy to think that they were thus advancing the great cause. and short, shivering discontentedly at the cold, or swearing amid much perspiration at the heat, would smoke his pipe and eat his unattractive pastry, whilst crawling into his rugs and banners, until beppe, in an outburst of indignation, drags him out by the scruff of the neck and compels him to lock up the forms. one night there was a grand banquet, for beppe had turned in, bearing under his long cloak a prime conditioned tom-cat, whose disconcerted mews were rapidly ended by a dexterous twist of the neck, and whose plump person was before long stewing in wine and vinegar in the _tocsin_ stockpot, after his liver had been previously fried for the private consumption of the ever-hungry beppe. when this succulent repast had been disposed of towards a.m. (all the _tocsin_ workers had admirable digestions) a brief respite from work ensued, during which beppe sang pieces of italian opera, accompanied by gnecco on his mandolin, and m'dermott treated us to brief recitations from shakespeare. much stamping and gesticulation accompanied, i remember, the soliloquy of hamlet, and our flesh crept at the witches' incantations from "macbeth." the old cobbler delighted in shakespeare and dictionaries, between the perusal of which he spent most of his time. "like autolycus in the 'winter's tale,'" he said to me one day, "i am a 'snapper-up of unconsidered trifles,' and during the riots of --i snapped up a sufficient number of these to enable me to set myself up with a small library, and i did no work during eighteen months, devoting my entire time to shakespeare and johnson's dictionary." sometimes a phrenologist who had strayed into our midst would follow on with a brief phrenological séance, and nothing afforded the comrades more satisfaction than to be informed that their bumps showed undoubted criminal propensities. then again the heavy roll of the machine would drown all lesser noises with its monotonous grinding, as the most resolute and earnest among us returned undaunted to the fray, whilst others, less energetic, curled up on the floor in varying uncomfortable attitudes about the office--inside the dormitory shed and out, propped against posts and type-racks, or stretched on stacks of paper--and slumbered in blissful ignorance of the future fortunes of the _tocsin_. chapter viii the dynamitard's escape may-day was at hand, and we had been working all night at the office of the _tocsin_ in order to have the paper ready in time to distribute to the provincial groups. since friday morning i had hardly left the office at all--merely going home for dinner and returning at once to the fray--and by four o'clock sunday morning we had rolled off the last of the five thousand copies of the _tocsin_, which, along with two thousand leaflets drawn up by myself and armitage, were ready for distribution. the st of may fell on the following wednesday, and we had for once the satisfaction of knowing that we had taken time by the forelock. short had retired to his shake-down in the dormitory about midnight, and the loud creaking of his boots against the boards was the only sign he gave of life. kosinski, armitage, and giannoli, after making up and addressing the last parcel, had left for their respective abodes; beppe and meneghino, having turned the wheel the whole evening, had fallen to sleep exhausted, stretched on a bench in the machine-room; and i, after having partaken of a cup of tea and some hot buttered toast which old m'dermott had provided for me, sat nodding and dozing on one side of the fire. the old cobbler had fallen fast asleep on the other side while poring over a dictionary, noting down sonorous and impressive-sounding words with which to embellish the oration he intended to deliver on may-day in hyde park. about half-past five, just as the first cold rays of the chilly spring dawn cast a ghastly blue light on the dormant figures around me, deadening the yellow flame of the lamp which was burning itself out, i was roused from my torpor by a light rap at the outside door. in the office all was quiet, but for the heavy and rhythmic snores of the weary comrades, and wondering who could claim admittance at such an unearthly hour, i rose with a shiver and opened the door. to my surprise i found myself face to face with bonafede. since that bitter january day when bonafede and his companions had emerged from the london fog and made their unexpected entrance on the scene of the _tocsin_, i had not seen very much of him, though we had never quite lost sight of one another, and i frequently heard his news through mutual friends. as i have already stated, gnecco and bonafede had retired to lodgings in the italian quarter in the unsavoury neighbourhood of saffron hill. they had a little money, but only enough to last for two or three weeks. gnecco had a few valuables in the shape of a gold watch and chain, a pearl breast-pin, and a fur-lined coat, and he soon had recourse to my friendly help to dispose of these articles to the best advantage with a pawnbroker, and on the proceeds, eked out by some small help which he received from his family, he managed to rub along, and he and his mandolin were soon familiar features at the office. but with bonafede the case was different. he was a man of too active and independent a character to be long idle. he was by profession an engineer, and in italy, before his career had been interrupted by his political activity, he had held an important post on the italian railways. but for many years his life had been a stirring one, and he had learned to turn his hand to whatever offered, and had in turn worked as a dock labourer, a sailor before the mast, a gilder employed in church decorations, a house-decorator in a lunatic asylum and a cutter-out of military trousers at marseilles, a warehouse porter and a navvy. whatever job turned up he accepted; if it was work at which he had no experience he would look up some comrade in that line and get from him a few hints, and this, supplemented by reading up particulars in some trade encyclopaedia at a public library, enabled him to accomplish his task satisfactorily. he had hardly been in london a fortnight when he looked about him for work, and, nothing better offering, he engaged himself as washer-up at one of veglio's many restaurants. after six weeks he was rescued from the uncongenial drudgery of scullion by a comrade, a fellow-calabrian, who earned a good living as decorator of west-end cafés, and who took on bonafede to assist him in frescoing a ceiling at the trocadero, not, however, before the latter had laid the foundations of a _lega di resistenza_ between the italians employed in restaurant kitchens. at the end of a month the ceiling was painted, and bonafede parted company with his compatriot, pocketing £ , plus his keep whilst the job lasted. one of his first steps was to visit me at the office of the _tocsin_ and arrange for the printing of an italian pamphlet and of a booklet of revolutionary songs, the production of gnecco, which were to be smuggled into italy for distribution. the cost of paper and carriage of these works ran into the better part of £ . with the remaining cash in his pocket, bonafede went to look up old friends and comrades in the french and italian quarters. a's wife was expecting her confinement, b needed an outfit in order to enter on a job as waiter which he had secured at a club; c had been out of work for three months and had five small mites to feed and clothe, and so forth. at the end of this expedition rather less than s. remained in his pocket, and once more he sought employment. this time he got taken on by a contractor who asphalted the london streets, a work done entirely by italians. here he remained for nearly two months, during which time he organised the men into a union and induced them to strike for better conditions. the men won their point, and returned to work on the condition that the agitator who had got up the strike should be dismissed, and bonafede left of his own accord, unwilling to cause loss to the men by prolonging the struggle. after a few weeks' enforced idleness, during which he was lost sight of by the comrades, he reappeared one evening at a group meeting held at our office, and informed us that he was taken on as electrician at the monico. ten days had now passed since i last saw him, and my expression was eloquent of my amazement at his unexpected appearance. "you are surprised at my coming at such an unusual hour, comrade," he began with his strong calabrian accent; "but you will understand when i tell you that ever since yesterday evening i have been awaiting an opportunity to get round here without being followed by my guardian angels of scotland yard. gnecco told me that you were passing the night in the office, and so i seized on a favourable moment and came." he stopped, glanced round the room, walked up to the bench on which the two italians were sleeping the sleep of the just, and having satisfied himself that no one could overhear us he explained the motive of his visit to me. "you doubtless know that jean matthieu, suspected of complicity in the p.... bomb explosions, has been hiding in london for some time past." i nodded assent: he had even been pointed out to me one evening by giannoli at a meeting in the east end. "well, since yesterday we have the certainty that the police are on his track, that they are aware of his whereabouts. it has become absolutely necessary for him to leave london without further delay--within the next twenty-four hours. everything is arranged. the police will be watching the continental trains, so he will go for the present to leicester, and stay with a comrade who has a french wife, and who will pass him off as his wife's uncle. from there we hope, within a week or so to get him off to america; but all this requires money: the least that we can give him is twenty pounds. i had five by me, left with me to make use of for the cause, a few french comrades have handed me over another seven. but we are still in need of eight pounds to make up the necessary sum. could you let us have it?" the last days of the month always found me at the end of my resources. i had but two pounds in my purse. "what a pity," i exclaimed, "that you could not let me know yesterday! today is sunday; it will be impossible for me to get at any money. raymond is certain only to have a pound or two on him, if he has as much; the bank is closed. i have some jewellery by me on which i could easily raise ten or twelve pounds, but the pawn-shops are not open on sundays. what am i to do? can you not wait until tomorrow?" bonafede explained that every minute was of consequence: matthieu must leave at once or he would inevitably be arrested. we both remained silent, hesitating, for a few minutes. at last he spoke: "madame combrisson has the money by her, i am sure, but she will never give it. you say, however, you have some jewellery that you would be willing to pledge: perhaps with that as security she would advance us the money. anyhow we can but try." it was arranged that i should go home for my valuables and repair to the house of the combrissons, where, bonafede informed me, matthieu was at that moment concealed. "but do you think he is safe there?" i inquired. "oh yes, perfectly. jules is a good comrade, and both he and his wife have every reason to wish to remain on good terms with the anarchists. they know on which side their bread is buttered. i shall go now and you will find me at the combrissons'." i knew the french couple well by reputation, though i had never yet crossed their threshold. combrisson had come over to england some twelve years ago; he had been mixed up in the anarchist propaganda, and had seen fit to expatriate himself; it was rumoured that he had been actively mixed up with a gang of coiners, amongst whom were several anarchists who thought it good warfare to make the hated bourgeois pay for the propaganda by falsifying the currency. they had not been long in london when they took a large house in grafton street, letting out rooms to comrades. they also kept on the ground floor a small _depôt_ of foreign revolutionary literature, and received for a consideration the correspondence of the refugees. combrisson, who worked as a carpenter and joiner, had the reputation of being a good comrade, and always set down to his wife's account all actions not strictly in accordance with the principles of solidarity, such as turning out comrades who did not pay their rent, refusing small loans and subscriptions, and such like. by eight o'clock i was in grafton street. as i turned down the corner which leads from the tottenham court road, i became aware that i was being followed. a young man with a sandy moustache, a celestial nose, and fishy blue eyes, got up to look like a counter-jumper on a holiday, whom i had long since learned to know as detective limpet, was walking a few steps behind me on the other side of the road. i stopped at number , my destination, and i saw limpet likewise stop outside a public-house which stood opposite, and exchange a few words with a hulking brute leaning against the wall, characterised by a heavy jaw, lowering brows, and a strong irish brogue, in whom i recognised detective o'brien. they both turned their eyes on me as i stood on the door-step pulling the bell handle, and i saw a stupid grin overspread the countenance of the limpet. the door was opened by a little maid-of-all-work who seemed doubtful as to whether she should let me in or no, till a head adorned with curl-papers appeared above the kitchen steps, calling out in a shrill voice, "jane, you fool, show the young lady in." next minute i was in the front kitchen, where madame combrisson, her husband, and bonafede awaited me. the house was a good-sized, solidly-built one, originally intended for a gentleman's residence, but fallen now on evil days. an odour of fried onions and sawdust pervaded the establishment, for madame combrisson boarded three or four of her lodgers, regaling them principally on "_soupe à l'ognon_," and combrisson carried on in the back kitchen his carpentry business at which he kept these same lodgers employed, paying them in kind with food and house-room, and doling out a few shillings now and again as pocket-money. in this way he succeeded in combining philanthropy and business, and though, after a few months, his employees invariably left as soon as they had learned a little of the english language and english prices, still there were always new-comers willing, nay anxious, to replace them. after a few preliminary words of introduction, i produced the jewellery for madame combrisson's inspection. she was a small wiry woman, with hard, covetous grey eyes, grizzled hair screwed up in a tight knot on the top of her head, a nose like the beak of a bird of prey, and thin blue lips. her eyes lit up as her hands turned over the little diamond brooch and finely-chased gold bracelet which i submitted to her inspection. "of course i am not a judge," she said, "but i should think we could easily raise a little money on these. i wish i had it myself, i would willingly give it for the cause, but, _que voulez vous, mademoiselle_? we are but poor folk; however, i know some one near here who might perhaps be able to oblige us; i will go and see." bonafede winked at me and i could see that he considered the matter settled. he and combrisson left the kitchen and i remained alone with madame, who proceeded to take her fringe out of the curl-papers, and to exchange her petticoat and red flannel jacket for a somewhat rusty black dress. whilst performing her toilette she eyed me carefully. i noticed that since she had inspected the jewellery she had involuntarily assumed a more respectful tone in addressing me. "i hear from the comrades that you are very active in the cause, mademoiselle; have you been long in the movement?" i replied that it was getting on for two years. "and your family, are they anarchists also?" i explained that my parents were dead and that i was the only one of my family who worked in the movement. she seemed surprised at this information, "but you must be rich," she said: "that jewellery you have brought is very beautiful; you are young, you could enjoy yourself, mix with those of your own class; why do you work in a printing-office instead?" "but i am an anarchist. we must all do what we can to help the cause, i do my best; not more, however, than other comrades." she seemed by now to have summed me up, though i was evidently still somewhat of a mystery to her, and she merely said:-- "oh, of course we are all anarchists; we all do our best for the cause." as she was leaving, bonafede came down and said that matthieu would like to see me if i saw fit, and together we mounted to the back attic where the dynamitard was concealed. nobody could have guessed on sight that the puny little man before me could be the dreaded anarchist for whom the police of europe had been searching high and low during the past seven months. matthieu was a tailor by trade, and his physique bore traces of the sedentary work and of the long hours passed in close unhealthy rooms. he was slightly hunchbacked, his chest narrow and hollow, his legs bowed; his pale blue eyes with their swollen red lids had the strained expression of one accustomed to make use of the last rays of daylight before lighting the lamp. his massive jaw and firm round chin, and high narrow forehead were the only features which revealed in him the man of action and the fanatic. yet this was the man who, by a series of explosions culminating in the blowing up of a police station, had spread terror in the ranks of the french bourgeoisie. we shook hands, and i told them how i had been followed by detective limpet and how he and o'brien were stationed opposite the house. "yes," said bonafede, "it is certain that they suspect matthieu's presence here; we must try to get rid of them in some way for a short while; set them off on some false scent, so as to enable our comrade to leave the house." "if you would only let me do as i wish," broke in matthieu, "i would soon be out of this. i have a good revolver and i am not afraid to use it. i would make a rush for it, and ten to one i should get off scot-free; and anyhow better be taken fighting than caught like a rat in a hole." we both tried to dissuade him, arguing that there was always time to take such a step, and that with a little patience and ingenuity it was almost certain that a means would be found for his safe escape. in a few minutes madame combrisson entered the room. she handed me over £ and a receipt for the pledges, adding that her friend would not be induced to lend more. i handed the sum over to bonafede. he had now £ in hand, so that the financial side of the difficulty was solved. madame combrisson, however, had news. a neighbour had informed her that chief inspector deveril had been seen in the street, and that, after giving instructions to his two subordinates not to move from their post of observation, he had left, it was supposed, in order to procure a search-warrant. this news filled us with alarm. almost any minute now the police might claim entrance to the house, and then matthieu would inevitably be caught. what was to be done? i was told off to look out of a front window from behind a curtain and report on the situation, but only to return with the news that limpet and o'brien were both leaning airily on their sticks studying the heavens with imperturbable calm. matthieu was growing restless. he walked up and down the small room like a caged beast, nervously clutching at the revolver which he kept in his trouser pocket. madame combrisson kept bemoaning her fate, saying that it would be the ruin of her house if the police entered. bonafede alone remained calm and collected. at last he exclaimed, looking at his watch, "it is now past eleven, in another half-hour the public-houses will open, let us hope that our friends below may turn in to refresh themselves. in that minute matthieu must escape; we must have everything ready; he had better change his clothes and disguise himself as much as possible. we will leave together; we are both armed, and if the worst comes to the worst we will sell our lives dearly." "oh, my poor house, my poor house!" moaned madame, "this business will be the death of us all." bonafede turned on her savagely. "this is no time for recriminations," he exclaimed. "sharpen your wits and see if you cannot find some means of getting rid of those spies. you are clever enough when it is a question of serving your own interests." madame combrisson seemed electrified by these words. "i will try, comrade, only give me time to think." next minute, she exclaimed, "how would it do to send down two of the comrades to pick a quarrel in the street? they could start a fight, a crowd will assemble, the detectives will go to see what is up, and you and matthieu can avail yourselves of the confusion to escape." "good!" replied bonafede, "go and see about it at once. i will help matthieu to get ready, and you, isabel, be on the look-out, and let us know when the right moment has come." i stationed myself behind the curtain at the front parlour window. in a few minutes i saw a young german who lodged in the house rush up the area steps into the street, followed by combrisson. they were both shouting and gesticulating loudly, and combrisson seemed to be demanding money which the other refused. a few passers-by stopped to listen to the two foreigners, who danced around, growing ever more noisy; but limpet and o'brien stood firm. they looked at the combatants, but seemed to consider the matter as a joke, and only crossed over to our side of the way when they saw a crowd begin to assemble. the quarrel between combrisson and his lodger began to flag when they saw that their object had failed, and the german soon walked off in the direction of tottenham court road. i watched the detectives cross over to their former post of observation, and was just going to inform the comrades of the negative result of this manoeuvre when i saw inspector deveril coming down the street. for a second i stood paralysed with apprehension: all was up with my friends! next moment i had climbed the four flights, and given the dreaded news. matthieu rushed to the attic window. it gave on to a wide gutter which ran along several roofs. "this is my only means of escape. i will get into one of these other houses by the skylight, and escape at the front door whilst they are searching here." "and if any one tries to stop you?" i exclaimed. "so much the worse for them," he replied, clutching his revolver. he was already outside the window when bonafede spoke, advising him to wait a minute whilst we saw what was going on. as soon as the police knocked, he could carry out his plan. to be noticed by them on the roof would be fatal to its success. at that moment combrisson rushed in. "i cannot tell what has happened. deveril spoke to those two spies and has walked off. the public-house has opened, limpet has gone inside, and only o'brien remains on guard." we all three went downstairs to watch proceedings, leaving matthieu by the window, ready at a moment's notice to put his desperate project into execution. sure enough, all was quiet in the street below; passers-by were hurrying home to their sunday dinners, the smell of which pervaded the street and house, and o'brien stood at the door of the opposite pub, leaning gracefully on his stick and gazing at the windows of our house. we stood watching for about a quarter of an hour, fully expecting to see the police appear; the room had gradually filled with the lodgers, all on the _qui vive_, and jabbering fluently in foreign tongues. as nobody came and all seemed quiet, bonafede and i returned upstairs to reassure matthieu. in a few minutes we heard a ring at the door. "it is they!" we exclaimed, and matthieu leapt to the window, whilst bonafede rushed to the door, which burst open, giving admittance to a strange-looking figure. the new-comer had the slight build and nervous carriage of a frenchman, but was got up in the most aggressively british attire. clean-shaven, with a short bulldog pipe in the corner of his mouth, a billycock hat set rather jauntily on his head, a short, drab-coloured overcoat of horsy cut, black and white check trousers, red-skin riding gloves, square-toed walking shoes, a light cane, and a rose in his buttonhole; you would have taken him at first sight for a sporting tipster. matthieu, who had stopped short at this sudden apparition, and bonafede, both stood staring in amazement. the new-comer looked at them with a wicked twinkle in his eye, and burst out into a hearty laugh. "why, it is you, sylvestre," the italian at last said, whilst matthieu jumped down into the room. "but what on earth have you done to yourself? i should never have recognised you?" "ah! so i look in character, then? if you did not recognise me no wonder that i was able to take in those gaping clodhoppers, fresh from their turnip-fields, in the street below. i have news for you. just listen," but here he broke off, for, looking round the room, he had caught sight of me (i had stood speechless in a corner whilst this scene was enacted). "first though, my dear fellow, i must beg you to introduce me to the lady. the emotions of the moment seem to have made you and matthieu forget all manners." bonafede turned smilingly towards me, and introduced us: "armand sylvestre, a french comrade; isabel meredith, editor of the _tocsin_." the frenchman made me an elegant and profound bow in strange contrast with his sporting appearance, removing his hat, which he had till then kept on. "but what has happened to you, sylvestre?" exclaimed matthieu. "your hair has turned purple." "oh, for heaven's sake don't look at my hair. a most awful fate has befallen it. yesterday i heard from cotteaux that you intended leaving soon, so i settled to come down here this morning, and thought it would be as well to disguise myself; one never knows, one can sometimes get such a lot of fun out of those heavy-witted, pudding-eating police. so i asked marie to go into a west end hairdresser's and procure some black hair-dye, as i know my gold locks are well known to our friends below. she asked for some, explaining that it was for theatricals, and last night i tried it. with what result you see!--and mind i only made up my mind to come out after washing it some dozen times. now, with a hat on, it's not very noticeable, but if you could have seen it last night; it had turned the real imperial shade of purple! it was a sight for the gods!" we all laughed heartily at his adventure, the humour of which was heightened by the mock pathos and tragedy with which he narrated it. but matthieu, who was straining his ears to catch the slightest sound downstairs, asked him to proceed with his news. "_oh, mais vous saves, mademoiselle, votre pays est tout-à-fait épatant_," he began, turning to me. "as i came down the street i noticed deveril speaking with those two satellites of his outside the 'cat and mouse.' i at once guessed something was up here, and thought i would try and pump them, so i walked into the bar and asked in my best english accent for a whisky and soda, throwing down a half-sovereign to pay for it, and began talking about racing bets with the barman. as i expected, after a few minutes, limpet entered, asking for a glass of bitter; he soon got interested in our talk. i was giving tips with the air of a newmarket jockey, and as he had finished his drink i offered to treat him. he hesitated, saying that he was in a hurry, and i then pumped the whole tale out of him, how he and his comrade were watching this house, where they had reason to know that a dangerous french anarchist was concealed, and so forth and so on. "'but,' i said, 'if this is so, why do you not get a warrant to search the house?' and he then explained to me that the inspector had wished so to do, but that the magistrate, spite of his entreaties, had refused to sign the warrant because it was sunday!! yes, this is an extraordinary country. society must be saved, but before everything the sabbath must not be broken. _c'est delicieux!_ having gained this information, i politely wished him good day, and walked over to this house. you should have seen the faces of those two men. i expect their mouths are open still." we all stared at each other at this information. this, then, was the secret of the situation. the english sunday had saved our comrade! bonafede went downstairs to summon the combrissons and relieve their minds. we had now nearly twenty-four hours before us; it was certain that till nine o'clock on monday morning the search-warrant would not be signed. in this interval matthieu must leave the house, but how? sylvestre, who evidently looked upon the whole question as a good joke--_une bonne blague_--suggested that the dynamitard should dress up in his sporting attire; he urged that the detectives had seen him enter and could not be surprised at his leaving, and that this would be the best solution of the difficulty. the idea seemed feasible, and it was tried on. matthieu got into the check trousers and horsy overcoat, but the effect was too ludicrous, and he was the first to laugh at the figure he cut in the looking-glass. something else must be found. madame combrisson came to the rescue. she reminded us of a jewish comrade, also a tailor by trade, who was not unlike matthieu, being slightly hunchbacked. her idea was to get him round, dress him in the fugitive's clothes, let bonafede call a cab in an ostentatious style, into which the false matthieu was to jump and drive off; the detectives would probably follow on their bicycles, and then was our opportunity. only, how to get this man on to the scene without his advent being noticed by them? for if he were seen to enter, the game was up; his exit would not cause surprise. we were still face to face with the same difficulty, and matthieu once more began to pace the room like a wild beast in a cage. sylvestre broke the silence. "the only way out of the difficulty is to disguise our man. dress him up as a woman; he will then enter without causing observation." in a few minutes all was settled. i was to leave with the hand-bag in which i had brought in the jewellery to be pawned; but this time it was to contain a dress belonging to madame combrisson. with this i was to proceed to the lodging of the jewish comrade, yoski, taking care to lose on the way any detective who might be following me. yoski was to dress himself in the woman's clothes, and return with me to grafton street, care being taken that the detectives should notice his entry. he was then to exchange his female attire for matthieu's clothes and drive off in a cab, as previously arranged, and then matthieu, in his turn donning the skirt and blouse, was to leave the house on my arm, whilst the police would be rushing after a red-herring. sylvestre turned a somersault to express his joy, and, slapping matthieu on the shoulder, said, "why, before long, _mon vieux_, you will again be treading the flags of paris, and, let us hope, frightening the bourgeois out of their wits." by two o'clock i was on my way. when i left the house deveril was talking with o'brien over the way; limpet had disappeared for the time being. the inspector at once noticed my presence, and, calling to a corner-boy lounging at the public-house door, he spoke to him, pointing me out, and this "copper's nark" followed doggedly in my steps. yoski lived in a turning off the mile-end road, but anxious to give no inkling as to my destination, i turned in the opposite direction, and after a lengthy _détour_ stopped at my own door. i stayed indoors nearly an hour, hoping that my attendant's patience would give out, but he showed no signs of moving, time was precious, and i decided to set out once more. this time i walked down the euston road to the beginning of marylebone road, where i jumped on to a bus going towards maida vale. the youth did likewise, and at the beginning of the kilburn high street i descended, making my way up that dreary road. i began to despair of ridding myself of my pursuer. i was miles out of my way, the hours were passing, and he still dogged my steps. i trudged along, weary and worried, weighed down with the responsibility of my position. suddenly my eyes caught sight of a solitary hansom coming slowly towards me, i hurried forward, the youth was some paces behind me on the other side of the road, and before he had time to realise what i was up to i had boarded that hansom and shouted to the cabman, "five shillings, if you set me down at baker street station in ten minutes," and away we went. i looked out of the spy window in the back of the cab and saw my "nark" standing staring in the middle of the road. at baker street i took a ticket for the edgeware road and there i jumped into a train for aldgate station. when i once more found myself in the streets i looked carefully around me and to my relief was able to assure myself that no one was following me. taking a circuitous route, for greater precaution, i at last reached my destination. i seemed to be in a foreign country. dark-eyed comely women and pretty children, dressed in gay colours, were walking up and down. the shop-signs and advertisements were mostly written in hebrew characters, loud conversation in a foreign language accompanied by vivacious gesticulation, caught the ear. the narrow, dirty street was swarming with inhabitants, the front doors were mostly open, and many people had placed chairs on the doorsteps and pavement and were sitting out, though it would be an euphemism to speak of enjoying the fresh air in such a neighbourhood. the house at which i stopped was a six-roomed "cottage," but whilst i stood on the doorstep, waiting to gain admittance, at least fourteen persons passed in and out. at last a wizened old woman, scrutinising me suspiciously, answered my inquiries. "yoski! yes, he live on the tird floor back, vis his vife and schwester. yes, you will find him in." yoski was a small, unhealthy-looking man, not much unlike matthieu, though darker in colouring, and of a weaker type of face. he was a serious, silent, earnest man, a model of solidarity, regularly setting aside his weekly contribution to the cause out of his meagre earning on which he had to maintain a wife and four children and a young sister. they all lived in the one room, but one felt that this did not cause them any suffering; they were evidently used to it. the three grown-ups were all at work when i entered, and the children clustered round like inquisitive little animals. i explained briefly my identity and the object of my visit, talking english, which was not understood by his female relatives. he nodded gravely, and said: "but i cannot change here; it would cause too much curiosity. i will tell my wife that i must go with you for some work, and i will go into the room of a friend of mine who is out and dress there." he did as he said and we left the room together. on the landing i handed him the bag. "is everything here?" he inquired, "hat and all?" the hat! who had thought of it? and yet without that it was impossible to go out. "cannot you get at your wife's or your sister's?" i inquired. "impossible," he replied, "they would never give me a moment's peace till they knew why i wanted it. you might, however, try with rebecca wiesmann; she is a comrade and lives two streets farther down. do not, however, tell her all this matter; make up some story and see if you can manage." much doubting my success, i went round to rebecca's. i had seen her sometimes at meetings, but i felt that she would be surprised at my appearance, and still more at my errand. still there was nothing for it, the shops were all shut, and so i went round to her. this girl lived alone, having separated from her parents, who were strictly orthodox and intolerant jews. she was indeed taken aback at seeing me, but did not like to refuse my request. i told her that i was expected at a comrade's house, that i had been followed by detectives and wished to lose sight of them, and she, with the foreign jews' dread of policemen as omnipotent beings, swallowed the tale and provided me with a showy best hat quite unlike my own. this i donned and left with my own in a paper under my arm, in spite of her pressing offer to keep it for me. in a few minutes i was knocking at the door yoski had pointed out to me. i found him ready, carefully shaved of his moustache, and quite transformed in appearance. the hat and veil completed the disguise. by six o'clock we were in grafton street. i was relieved to find that deveril had left, and that only limpet and o'brien were on guard. they took a good stare at us as we passed them by. combrisson himself opened to us. "oh, here you are at last. we began to fear you would never come. it has been as much as we could do to prevent matthieu from spoiling everything by making a rush for it. come in, there is not a moment to lose. deveril may be back any minute, and he's not so easily gulled as those two mugs." we found matthieu in a state of great nervous excitement. the long, anxious hours of waiting had told on him. a nervous twitch convulsed his mouth. he jumped spasmodically to his feet as we entered the room. "at last," exclaimed bonafede, with a sigh of relief on seeing us. "now, matthieu," he said, laying a hand encouragingly on the man's shoulder, "there is no time to be lost. isabel will go downstairs whilst you two exchange clothes. as soon as you are ready i will fetch the cabs. be courageous, and, above all, calm, and in half-an-hour all will be over." i went downstairs with madame combrisson, and we paced nervously up and down the front parlour. every other minute one of us went to look out of the window. it was nearly dark. the street lamps were lighting up, and still the two detectives watched on the other side of the road. "where is sylvestre?" i at last inquired, to break the tense silence. "who knows? he left about half-an-hour ago, saying he would soon be back. he is off on some madcap expedition, you may be sure. he is a dreadful _farceur._" at that moment no fewer than three barrel-organs came up the street, stopped nearly opposite the house, and started playing "the man who broke the bank at monte carlo," and other similar classics. i was at the window and saw sylvestre go gravely up to the detectives, bow, say a few words, and cross over to our door. madame rushed out to open to him. "so here you are, mademoiselle. all is well, i hope?" he inquired. i nodded assent. "oh, what a game it will be to see their faces to-morrow when deveril comes round with his warrant! meanwhile, i was sure those poor devils were boring themselves to death, so i went down to the italian quarter and brought back these musicians. i have just told them that i hope the music will help them to pass a pleasant half-hour." just then bonafede came down, followed by the false matthieu. the lower part of his face was concealed in a muffler, and the illusion was really very deceptive. "i am going now for the cab," said the italian. "as soon as i return yoski must hurry out, jump in rapidly, and drive off. i shall be waiting for you, isabel, and matthieu with a cab just by shoolbred's; time to leave the house five minutes after the departure of yoski. here is matthieu; you, madame combrisson, see if his dress is right; now i am going." "wait a minute," exclaimed sylvestre, "give me a bottle of whisky and two glasses, i will go over and offer some to the 'tecs; it will look as if i am trying to distract their attention from bonafede and the cab, and will lend truth to the scene." all passed off to perfection. as the hansom drew up, sylvestre, with a polite bow, offered a drink to limpet and o'brien. the latter caught sight of the cab, just as the false matthieu hurriedly jumped in, and, pushing the frenchman roughly aside, he leapt on his bicycle and rushed off in pursuit just as the cab disappeared round the street corner. bonafede had quietly slipped off down the tottenham court road. limpet was pacing up and down distractedly, uncertain whether to stick to his post or join his comrade in pursuit. in five minutes' time i quietly walked out, arm in arm with matthieu, turning round on the doorstep to shake hands with madame combrisson. we walked boldly past limpet, and were soon at shoolbred's, where i left the dynamitard with bonafede, and, taking a roundabout walk, returned within half-an-hour to grafton street. in an hour's time bonafede joined us. "all is well!" he exclaimed; "within a couple of hours our comrade will be safe in leicester. it has been an anxious day, but it has ended better than i had dared hope for." "and now let us get some dinner," broke in sylvestre, "i am just fainting with hunger. here is a sovereign, madame; see if you can get us something fit to eat, though i fear that, with this hateful english sunday, everything will be shut." "do not abuse the english sunday," rejoined bonafede, "to its sanctity we owe our friend's escape." we were soon enjoying a supper which madame combrisson got in from the neighbouring italian restaurant. we were all in high spirits, and laughed and chatted freely. limpet, and o'brien who had returned after satisfying himself as to the true identity of the false matthieu, who had driven straight home, kept pacing up and down in front of the area railings, evidently half suspecting that we had played them a trick. all that night we sat round the kitchen fire, chatting and dozing alternately. at midnight deveril came, accompanied by two other officers, who relieved limpet and o'brien. the next morning, as the clock hands pointed to . , a loud rat-tat resounded through the house. deveril, with our two friends of the previous day, accompanied by three uniformed policemen, were on the doorstep. combrisson opened to them with his most engaging smile. he politely read the warrant which the inspector handed him, and bowed him in, saying that he was happy that he should persuade himself that matthieu was not, and never had been, on the premises. deveril seemed rather taken aback by this reception, but was too sure of his case to feel much doubt. never shall i forget that man's face when, after a three hours' hunt in every hole and corner of the building he had to come down persuaded that his victim had escaped him. he was perfectly green with rage. turning to bonafede who, with us others, was sitting in the front parlour, he said, "well, signore, you have been one too much for me on this occasion, but remember, he laughs best who laughs last. we shall doubtless meet again soon." bonafede merely shrugged his shoulders and turned aside, whilst the crestfallen limpet, who had evidently received a severe wigging from his superior for allowing his quarry to escape, turned on me a look of intense hatred and hissed out, "remember, miss, you may not always be in london; you will yet pay me for this!" and with this melodramatic threat he and his comrades departed amidst the jeers of the assembled lodgers. in the street they were met by deafening shouts of "vive deveril! hurrah for the detective force!" sylvestre, who had slipped out a few minutes before the arrival of the police, had assembled in the road all the italian comrades of the _tocsin_ group, several frenchmen of his own acquaintance, and four or five organ-grinders, and amidst the ironic cheers of their enemies, the dejected guardians of law and order made their shamefaced exit from the scene. chapter ix some anarchist personalities there has been of late years a remarkable, and, on the whole, a very futile tendency among certain men of science to dissect and classify abnormal people and abnormal ideas, to discover that geniuses are mad, and that all manner of well-intentioned fanatics are born criminals. but there were elements in the anarchist party which defied the science of the psychological analyst, so strangely and intricately were the most heterogeneous qualities blended in certain of their number--fanaticism, heroism, criminality, and not unfrequently a spicing of genius. the primary difference between the ordinary normal man and the fanatic--as between the normal man and the madman or the genius--is the totally different standpoint whence each views life. this it is which renders it impossible for the normal man really to understand or judge fanatics. he cannot grasp their motive, their point of view, and is therefore morally incapable of judging them. among the anarchists, who may be said to represent the intellectual rather than the material side of the socialist movement--there were many fanatics. this fanaticism showed itself in different ways--sometimes in the most admirable self-abnegation, in the sacrifice of wealth, position, and happiness; frequently in abnormal actions of other kinds, and most noticeably in deeds of violence. very diverse in nature were the motives which prompted the committal of these acts of violence--these assassinations and dynamite explosions--in different men. with some it was an act of personal revolt, the outcome of personal sufferings and wrongs endured by the rebel himself, by his family or his class. in others violence was rather the offspring of ideas, the logical result of speculation upon the social evil and the causes thereof. these anarchists referred to their actions as propaganda by deed. �mile henry, the dynamitard of the café terminus, belonged to the number of what i may call the theoretical dynamitard. his terrible acts were the outcome of long and earnest thought; they were born of his mental analysis of the social canker. he committed them not in moments of passion, but with all the _sang froid_ of a man governed by reason. his defence when on trial was a masterpiece of logical deduction and eloquent reasoning. to the average man it is no doubt very difficult to conceive that when he threw his bomb among the crowd in the café terminus, maiming and killing indiscriminately, �mile henry was performing his duty according to his own lights just as much as a soldier when he obeys orders and fires on the enemy, a city man when he embarks on the day's business, or a parson when he preaches a sermon against prevailing vices. it was his sermon--however vigorously preached--against the prevailing vices and injustices of society, and against the indifference which all classes displayed towards these. he took upon himself to strike a blow against this indifference on behalf of all the weaker and more unfortunate members of society. being a man of intellect and some culture, he could not, like his more ignorant _confrères_, imagine that one man or one small group of men, was responsible for these. earnest thought and reflection told him that if any section of society suffered, then society at large was guilty: all the thoughtless, all the indifferent members of society were equally responsible for its abuses. now this may be true enough theoretically, but no one but a fanatic or a madman would carry the reasoning farther to the point of saying: "society at large is guilty; society at large must suffer. society is fairly well represented by the mixed crowd in a café. i will attack this crowd indiscriminately, and kill as many of their number as i can. i will unreluctantly end my days on the scaffold in order to accomplish this very obvious duty;" and proceed from words to deeds. there is something terribly, if pervertedly logical in this reasoning, and although nothing could be farther from the attitude of the ordinary delinquent, it is no doubt more dangerous to the peace and continuance of society; and such was the attitude and the reasoning which rendered the anarchists so formidable, and which led up to many of their most terrible outrages. �mile henry was in his own way a well-meaning youth; kindly in private life, frugal in his habits; studious, industrious, and free from vice, he lived with his old mother and mixed little with his fellows, and no one who knew him could have suspected that this quiet, studious boy would have developed into the terrible assassin whose act sent a thrill of horror through the world. to anarchists of this order, abstract ideas and opinions replaced all the ordinary forces of life. their every action was prompted by some theory, and they fashioned their lives to fit their peculiar views of what it ought to be. �mile henry belonged to this number no less than kosinski, bonafede, and certain so-called christian anarchists. for in some fanatics the anarchist ideas, instead of leading to violence, led to the absolute negation and rejection of it. among the many frequenters of our office and of the weekly discussion meetings held there, was a christian anarchist, one of those holding what was known as the "non-resistance to evil" creed. he, too, was a man who fitted his life to his ideas, who lived in ideas, whose whole being centred round his ideas. he was a religious fanatic whose course had deviated into strange paths. norbery was a pale, anxious-looking lancashire man, with weak, restless eyes and a resolute mouth, who did not lack a certain dignity of bearing. both the organisationists and the individualists united in abusing and despising the christian norbery, but no amount of insults or invective ruffled his temper or aroused his wrath. "when you preach force or use force," he said to his opponents, "you imitate the very methods used by governments. you will never attain universal peace and brotherhood by such means. as anarchists we have no right to use other than passive resistance, for by using coercion we are defeating our own ends and justifying the actions of our persecutors." the more indignant his anarchist opponents became in the course of debate, the calmer and more complacent grew norbery. "abuse me," he would say, "insult me, use violence towards me, if you will; i shall turn the other cheek." once a hot-headed italian anarchist lost patience with him and threw him downstairs. he lay where he fell with a sprained ankle, repeating good words from the sermon on the mount, until his adversary, overcome with shame and remorse, picked him up and bandaged his injured limb. once during certain strike riots in the north of england, norbery journeyed to the scene of trouble to preach passive measures and the anarchist principles to the rioters. he was dragged from his platform by the police and badly hustled and knocked about. but norbery was determined on having his say; he procured a chain and padlock, chained himself to a lamppost, threw away the key, and resumed the interrupted course of his harangue. a large crowd gathered round the persistent orator, attracted partly by his eloquence and partly by the novelty of his situation. the police hurried to the scene and tried to drag him down; his coat and shirt, torn to shreds, remained in their hands, while the semi-naked anarchist preached away to the constantly increasing crowd. the officers of the law foamed with rage, and threatened and pommelled the enchained and defenceless norbery. norbery grew more eloquent and more argumentative under this treatment. nearly an hour passed before a file could be procured and the chain severed, and by that time norbery had ample opportunity to finish his discourse, and was conveyed to the police station in a fainting and exhausted condition. armitage and i engaged in endless discussions with norbery on the question of violence, maintaining on our side that violence could only be overcome by violence, and that, however peaceful our ultimate aims might be, force must inevitably be used towards their attainment. we argued and adduced reasons in support of our views, and norbery argued and adduced counter-reasons in support of his views, but neither the one nor the other of us was ever in the least affected by his opponent's eloquence, and at the end of the discussion we were all, if anything, more staunchly persuaded of the sense and justice of our own case than at the start. so much for the profitableness of debate between confirmed partisans. �mile henry was representative of the theoretical dynamitard; matthieu, like ravachol, of the dynamitard by passion. a----, who belonged rather to the ravachol type, and ended by killing one of the crowned heads of europe, was during a few weeks a frequenter of the _tocsin_. he had turned anarchist in revolt against the society which had cramped his life, starved him in childhood, overworked his body, underfed his mind, where he had found neither place nor welcome. born into the lowest depths of society, dragged up amid criminals and drunkards, he had spent his early years between the streets and the jail-house, at times working his undeveloped muscles, at other times begging or picking pockets. "it is all very well," he said to me one day, "for those on the top rungs of the ladder to talk of the unrelenting laws of nature and the survival of the fittest. for my part i have felt very forcibly one great law of nature, the law of self-preservation: the right to live when you have once been born, the right to food and to the pleasures of life, and i determined to survive at all costs. when my stomach is empty and my boots let in water, the mere sight of a replete and well-clothed man makes me feel like murder. it may be true that it is natural for the strongest and the best men to rise above their fellows, but even this is not the case in our society of to-day. the weakest and the worst have somehow got to the top, and giants are bolstering up the impotence of dwarfs. these dwarfs are crushing the life-blood out of us. we must pull them down, exterminate them; we must turn the whole world upside down before we can create a new and better order of things." his action was not a theoretical protest translated into deeds; it was an act of vengeance, of personal and class revenge. giannoli was a type apart. his desires and actions were responsible for his views. they coloured and distorted his opinions and destroyed all sense of proportion. an incident in his private life would stand up giant-like in the way of all the doctrines in the world, dwarfing opinions and creeds. he was a physically active man and his ideas grew out of his life, whereas men like kosinski might be said to abandon the material life in the pursuit of an ideal. giacomo giannoli was a man of some education, and no ordinary degree of natural refinement and culture, one whom you would pronounce at first sight to be a gentleman. he was the son of a fairly well-to-do builder in a provincial town of lombardy, and had received a good general education in boyhood. early left an orphan by his father's death, he had inherited his business, and for some years he carried it on prosperously, living with his mother and sisters. but before he was two-and-twenty his naturally erratic disposition asserted itself, and he chafed under the restraints and monotony of life in a small provincial town. he sold up his business at a great loss, well-nigh ruining his family, had it not been for his mother's small private means; and with his share of the proceeds of the sale he travelled about for some years, leading a roving life, and devoting most of his time and cash to the anarchist propaganda, constantly getting into troubles and bothers, at times in hiding, at others in prison, always in difficulties, growing harder and harder up as the months went by, and his moderate means slipped through his untenacious fingers. two convergent factors had led up to this sudden change in his life. firstly, an incident of a private nature which revolutionised his notions of individual morality, and secondly, the discovery of the anarchist doctrines which gave form to his new views. the incident which was primarily responsible for his new views of life, he recounted to me not long after his arrival in london. "it was a woman," he said, "who completely altered my views of life, and made me see how perverted and unnatural are our ideas of sex and love and morals, and, in short, of everything. she was an ignorant peasant girl who lived in a neighbouring village, but a woman of rare mind and character. i shall never forget her, nor what i owe her. i was a young fellow of some twenty-one years at the time, and i loved this girl with all the passion and faith of a youth of those years. teresina loved me in return, and for some two years we lived on happily till one day it was brought to my knowledge that she was unfaithful to me. i was beside myself with grief and mortification and jealous fury. for some hours i just raged up and down my room like one demented, crying like a child one minute, cursing and meditating revenge the next. i felt that i must have blood at all costs to appease my passion--teresina's or her lover's, or somebody's. i was to meet teresina that evening as usual towards nine o'clock, and i thought the intervening hours would never go by. one hope suddenly suggested itself to me, and i clung desperately to it. 'perhaps it is false!' i said to myself. 'i will ask teresina. it is all a lie,' and then 'proofs, proofs, i must have proofs!' i cried, and once more my thoughts turned back to murder. thus i went through the long hours, and at last evening came--a beautiful warm may evening, and long before the appointed hour i was at our rendezvous in a deserted _podere_ on the mountain-side, overgrown with flags and other spring flowers, among which the fireflies were flitting noiselessly. i had no eyes for the beauty of the scene, however. i paced up and down waiting for my sweetheart, cursing the treachery of women and the blindness of men. suddenly she appeared, dark against the clear evening sky, graceful, gay, and unconscious as ever. without a word of welcome i rushed at her, seized her by the arm, and hurled forth all my accusations and all my reproaches. "'tell me it is not true,' i cried at last, 'tell me it is not true, or i will kill you where you stand!' "i expected the usual routine of tears and protestations of innocence, all the lies and subterfuges with which women are wont to defend themselves against the unreasoning savagery of their mates. i was disappointed. teresina stood perfectly silent till i had finished speaking; then without flinching, without one instant's hesitation, she answered, 'it is true. every word of it is true.' "if the moon and the stars had all dropped simultaneously out of heaven at my feet i should not have been more astonished. the calmness of her answer, the steady earnestness of her gaze as she looked back fearlessly into my eyes, her utter lack of subterfuge, took away my breath. i dropped her arm and stood staring at her, bereft of speech and understanding. at last i blurted out stupidly that i did not understand her, that i must be going mad, and entreated her to explain. "'i said it was true; that i love giordano, and have accepted his love,' she answered. still i did not fully grasp her meaning. "'but, teresina, i thought that you loved me; have you lied to me then?' i exclaimed. "'no, i have not lied,' she answered me. 'i have never lied to you,' and she took my hand in her strong little hand, and led me like one blind or intoxicated to the projecting root of a tree close by, and there sat down by my side. "'listen,' she said, still holding my hand in hers, 'i ought to have told you what i have to say before now. i only hesitated because i knew it would cause you acute suffering at first ... until you could understand. believe me, i do love you as much as ever i did, and i could not bear even the thought of living without you. i love giordano too, in a different way it is true, but still i love him. he has not got your mind or your heart, or your wonderful knowledge' (she was a very ignorant girl, so far as learning was concerned, and my small knowledge of books appeared to her little short of miraculous, poor child!), 'but then he has some qualities you do not possess. well, i love him for these, and i enjoy being with him in a quite different way from what i experience with you.' "i was silent, and she continued after a short pause:-- "'nothing is more brutish or more selfish than jealousy, my friend. if i thought another woman could give you a moment's happiness, i should say: "take it, enjoy it!" we do not grudge our friends every moment of enjoyment not enjoyed in our company. we wish them other friendships and other joys. what is there in the love between man and woman which should make us so selfish and so unreasonable? for my part, i must have freedom at all costs, absolutely at all costs. it is dearer to me than anything else in life, and i had sooner sacrifice even love and happiness; indeed, i cannot love or be happy without it. for god's sake grant me this liberty as i grant it to you! take my love as i can give it to you, but do not ask me to be your slave on its account! be sure you have my heart, and little of it remains to be squandered in other directions. what does the rest matter? i do not grudge you your loves, your pleasures, your caprices! do not grudge me mine. life is necessarily full of sorrows; do not let us embitter it unnecessarily.' "she ceased speaking. she had risen to her feet and stood in front of me as she spoke, then as she finished she sank down on her knees by my side. "'do you understand?' she asked me. 'can you love me on these terms? liberty--absolute liberty for us both?' "i answered 'yes,' nor did i ever regret the answer. "i think that was the most momentous day in my life, for it wrought the greatest change in me. my eyes were opened by the peasant girl's words, and from that evening forward i regarded life quite differently. for the first time i realised the necessity to the individual to enjoy absolute personal freedom in love as in all else in life. all my previous ideas and prejudices appeared to me monstrous and iniquitous. i saw the falseness of all our ideas of morality, the absurdity of placing conventions before nature and the detestable character of our dealings with women and of our attitude in such matters. and with this suddenly awakened vision i looked anew on life, and it seemed to me that till then i had never lived. all that which i had before taken for granted i now began to question. i found that instead of thinking out life's problems for myself i had allowed myself to grow into other peoples' ideas, that i had tacitly taken for right what they had pronounced right, and for wrong what they had stigmatised as wrong. my spiritual world now turned, as it were, a complete somersault, and i was re-born a new man--an anarchist. "i and teresina and giordano lived very happily for some months, much to the scandal of the narrow-minded, bigoted village folk, until i was compelled to absent myself from the country owing to some little disturbances in the neighbourhood in which i had got implicated. "teresina followed me into exile, and with little intermission remained with me during all those early years of wanderings and adventure. she cared little about anarchist doctrines, though herself a born rebel and an innate anarchist. she did more for me than all the doctrines in the world. poor child! when at last i got through all my money, and life from day to day grew harder and more precarious, food scantier, clothes raggeder, and surroundings more dangerous, she still remained faithful to me in her own way, but the life was too hard for her. we had spent the summer in paris, and there i had got seriously implicated in a little anarchist venture and found it necessary to flee the country with all haste. teresina followed me into belgium in the bitter winter weather. she died of consumption in a brussels hospital shortly after our arrival." such, in his own words, were the influences and the circumstances which revolutionised giannoli's entire life and his outlook on things. he became one of the leaders of the most advanced section of the "individualist anarchists," who maintain that not only is government of man by man wrong and objectionable, but that no ties or obligations of any sort bind men together. the ethics of "humanity" and "brotherhood" are unknown to these anarchists. they recognise no laws, social or moral, no obligations or duties towards their fellows, no organisation or association of any sort. they claim absolute freedom for the individual, freedom to live, die, love, enjoy, think, work, or take--this freedom in each individual only curtailed by others claiming equal rights. and i am bound to admit that the question whether such individual freedom would not tend to individual licence and domination by the stronger and cleverer or more unscrupulous man in the future, met with little consideration. that it led to such licence in the present among themselves was an indubitable fact. all the individualist anarchists agreed that, being at war with existing society, which interfered with, coerced, and used violence towards them, they were at liberty to use all means against society in retaliation--force and even fraud if expedient. but the less intelligent and more ignorant men who came in contact with these principles considered themselves not only at liberty to use all means against society, the enemy; but honour or scruples of any sort among themselves were tabooed. a naturally honourable man like giannoli was, of course, free from the danger of falling victim to such perverted sophistry. but the manner in which these doctrines succeeded in perverting the minds of fairly intelligent and well-meaning men is illustrated by the following incident. one evening, some months after the advent of giannoli and his friends, there arrived at the office of the _tocsin_ a small party of three men and one woman--all of them spaniards. they requested me to help them to procure lodgings for the night, and, as they knew nothing of the english language, to assist them the following morning in procuring tickets, etc., with a view to their immediate re-departure for the states. giannoli, who knew the men, having spent some years in spain, explained to me that the leader of the party, a handsome, well-spoken young man, was an engineer belonging to a good barcelona family. the second one, a good-natured giant, was his brother and an engineer like himself. the third male member of the party was a lanky, scrofulous journalist, a man of many words and few wits. the lady, a pretty brunette, was their "compagna." she had escaped from her family and eloped with fernandez, the engineer, but was apparently shared on communistic principles. i settled the party for the night in a small hotel and procured their tickets for the morrow's journey, after which they proceeded to hand over to giannoli, with many cautions and precautions, a mysterious linen bag which, it was whispered, contained some twelve thousand lire in bank-notes (about five hundred pounds sterling). then, having been assured by giannoli that i was to be trusted, they told me their story. the two brothers, the engineers, had till quite recently been employed by a large electrical engineering firm in barcelona, of which an elder brother, some years their senior, was the manager. for some time the two younger men had been engaged, unknown to their family, in anarchist propaganda, and had fallen in with the section of the _individualisti_. fernandez was in love with adolfa, the daughter of a well-to-do merchant, and had secretly talked her over to his own ideas. the girl's parents objected to the match on account of the extreme youth of the couple--the girl was not quite eighteen and the young man still considerably under age. therefore they settled to elope, and fernandez's brother and vanni, their journalist friend, expressed a desire to form an addition to the elopement. this fernandez had at first objected to, but the girl, who had made rapid strides into the giannolian free-love theories, insisted. lack of money formed the only obstacle to this scheme, but an unforeseen circumstance enabled them to remove it. the eldest brother, who had charge of the finances of the establishment, and whose business it was to pay the men their wages, wished to absent himself from the works for a few days, and, without the knowledge of his employers, he broke rules to the extent of handing over to his brother fernandez, as to one beyond suspicion, the men's wages--the five hundred pounds now contained in the mysterious linen bag. "now," argued fernandez to himself, "i, as an anarchist, do not recognise private property, nor any set moral laws. the company's money is the result of plunder; they can afford to lose it and have no right to it; i stand desperately in need of it--and it is in my hands.... my brother?... oh, my brother, he is after all nothing but a bourgeois, and i, as an anarchist, admit of no family ties." thus when, two days later, the unfortunate manager returned, he found his brothers gone, the money nowhere to be found, and disgrace and ruin ahead. driven to despair, and not knowing in what direction to turn for the necessary sum, the wretched man ended his perplexities with a bullet. this was the first news which greeted the runaways on their arrival in the states. now the younger brothers who had perpetrated this cruel thing were not hardened criminals. from what little i saw of them, they appeared to be kindly, courteous, and, by nature, fairly honourable men. what they lacked was moral strength. under ordinarily good influences they would have acted in an ordinarily proper way. they had not the force of character necessary for handling the anarchist individualist doctrines, which, excellently as they may work with men of character, are fatal to weaker men. the man who recognises no law outside himself must be capable of governing himself. the office of the _tocsin_ was the constant scene of debate and dispute between the two rival camps in the anarchist party--the organisationists and the individualists. bonafede and gnecco belonged to the former, while most of the active staff of the _tocsin_--myself among others--adhered to the latter section. a curious feature of the matter--and i fancy it is not exclusively characteristic of the anarchist party--was the amount of invective and hatred, which both factions ought properly to have expended on the common enemy, but which instead they spent most of their time in levelling at one another. a casual witness of these internal strifes might have imagined that the two parties were at the antipodes in their ideas and objects, rather than comrades and participators in a common belief. their dissensions were alone forgotten in a common hatred of government and existing society. and even in their efforts to upraise the social revolution--the great upheaval to which all anarchists aspired--i doubt whether there lurked not some secret hope that the detested rival faction might be demolished in the fray. bonafede and giannoli were warm friends personally, and held one another in great esteem. yet i can clearly recollect giannoli one evening, with tears in his eyes, assuring me that his first duty when the revolution broke out would be to disembowel his dear friend. "he is my friend," giannoli said to me, "and i love him as such, and as a man i admire him. but his doctrines are noxious; in time of revolution they would prove fatal to our cause; they would be the undoing of all the work for which we have suffered and fought. organise a revolution, indeed! you might as well attempt to organise a tempest and to marshal the elements into order! i know bonafede to be above personal ambition, but, take my word for it, most of these organisationists hope to organise themselves into comfortable places when their time comes! it is our duty to destroy them." chapter x a flight no man, having once thrown himself into an idea, was ever more sincerely convinced of the truth of his beliefs or more strenuous in his efforts to propagandise them than giannoli. to destroy utterly the fabric of existing society by all possible means, by acts of violence and terrorism, by expropriation, by undermining the prevailing ideas of morality, by breaking up the organisations of those anarchists and socialists who believed in association, by denouncing such persons and such attempts, by preaching revolution wherever and whenever an opportunity occurred or could be improvised, to these objects he had blindly devoted the best years of his life. his was a gospel of destruction and negation, and he was occupied rather in the undoing of what he had come to regard as bad than with any constructive doctrines. all existing and established things were alike under his ban: art no less than morals and religion. he nourished a peculiar hatred for all those links which bind the present to the past, for ancient customs and superstitions, for all tradition. had it been in his power he would have destroyed history itself. "we shall never be free," he used to say, "so long as one prejudice, one single ingrained belief, remains with us. we are the slaves of heredity, and of all manner of notions of duties, of the licit and the illicit." one day i took him to the national gallery. i was quite unprepared for the effect of this step. he walked about nervously for some time, looking from one picture to another with evident displeasure. at last he stopped in front of leonardo's "madonna delle roccie," and remained gazing at it for some minutes in silence, while a heavy frown gathered round his brows. "i hate art," he exclaimed at last. "i consider it one of the most noxious influences in the world. it is enervating and deteriorating. art has always been the slave of religion and superstition, from the ancient egyptians and assyrians to our own times. you see something beautiful, perhaps, in these pictures, in these saints and madonnas and immaculate conceptions? well, when i look at them, all the darkest pages of history seem to open before me, and generations upon generations of superstitious slaves, toiling on and suffering with the ever-present terror of hell-fires and chastisement, pass before my mental vision. i should love to burn them all, to raze all these galleries and museums to the ground, and libraries with them. for what are libraries but storehouses of human superstition and error? we must free ourselves from the past, free ourselves utterly from its toils, if the future is to be ours. and we shall never free ourselves from the past until we have forgotten it. let us leave here. i cannot stand it any longer! i do not know which is most repugnant to me, the asceticism of these early christians or the senseless fantasies of the greeks," and without further ado he fled. fired by this gospel of destruction, he spent his life wandering about europe, never resting for a month together, wrenching himself free from all those ties which might curtail the freedom of his actions. although not fashioned by nature for enduring hardships, he alternately suffered cold, hunger, heat, fatigue, privations, and dirt. in paris one week, making a brief sojourn in spain the next, fleeing thence under warrant of arrest to find himself some days later in hiding in italy; at times in prison, always in danger and uncertainty; starving one day, in fairly flourishing conditions the next, never certain what fortune the morrow might bring: thus the years went by, until, escaping from _domicilio coatto_, or worse, in italy, he had at length made his way to london and the office of the _tocsin_, quite broken down in health after the long winter tramp. as i knew him, among his few personal friends, giannoli was loyal and honourable in the extreme, independent and proud. like many other anarchists he entertained an almost maniacal prejudice against plots and conspiracies of any kind, maintaining that such organisations were merely police traps and death-gins. "propaganda by deed"--outrage, in short--they maintained should, and could, be the outcome only of entirely individual activity. never, indeed, did police or press make a greater blunder than when they attributed deeds of violence to associations and large conspiracies, and sought for or denounced accomplices. every one of those outrages and assassinations which startled europe was the act of a single man, unaided by, and frequently unknown to other anarchists. this horror of plots and associations was, when i first met him, one of the most noticeable traits about giannoli. he was beginning to lose his earlier assurance, worn out by the roving life he had led, and was growing suspicious in the extreme. "such-a-one is a police emissary," or "so-and-so is not to be trusted" were words constantly on his lips. to me he took a great liking, and he always showed implicit faith in me both as an anarchist and an individual. "you are a true anarchist," he said to me one day, "and i would trust you with anything, _even_" and he emphasised the word so as to give greater weight to the compliment, "_even_ with _explosives_!" his suspiciousness, however, grew by leaps and bounds during his sojourn in london. every day he threw out hints against some new person or some fresh imaginary conspiracy. there was a plot brewing, he informed me, among various false comrades to ruin him. he was the victim of a conspiracy to deprive him of his liberty and perhaps even of his life. not a day passed but some covert threat was made against him; men whom he had believed his comrades, and to whom he--fool that he was!--had confided the deadliest secrets in the past, had given him to understand the power they held over him, and had made it clear that they would avail themselves of it should it serve their purpose. "what fools we anarchists are," he exclaimed to me one day, "ever to feel any confidence in any one! we are no longer free men when we have done this. we are slaves." i watched the progress of this monomania with painful interest, for among all the anarchists there was no individual for whom i entertained a more genuine regard than for giannoli. one of the worst aspects of the matter, moreover, was that i was really unable to judge how far giannoli's suspicions were true and how far imaginary. as to his sincerity there was no possibility of doubt, and this lent to all he said an air of verisimilitude which was most convincing. i did not know the majority of the other italians well enough to feel positive as to their honesty, and many of them were uncertain and somewhat suspicious characters. morì, for instance--the youthful neapolitan already referred to, the enigmatic "buttered muffin"--was quite incomprehensible. he was a youth of no particular intelligence, and certainly of no ideality or genuine political or anti-political convictions, and i was quite at a loss to conjecture why he had followed the anarchists into exile--his only apparent reason being a disinclination to study and a desire to escape from school. when giannoli informed me that he was a police-spy i really did not know whether to believe him or not. and as the weeks passed on, giannoli's condition grew worse and worse, and i could see that a crisis must inevitably follow. nor was i mistaken in this conviction. late one afternoon, towards the end of september, i was busy in the printing-room "making up" the pages of the forthcoming number of the _tocsin_, when, looking up from my work on which i was very intent, i saw giannoli walk in hurriedly with his usual restless step, and look about the place in a nervous short-sighted way, evidently in search of somebody. he was just about to leave again, not having noticed me, when i called to him. "oh, isabel," he replied, evidently much relieved, "are you here then!" and he came up to me. "i did not see you!" and then, casting a glance round the room, he inquired, "are we quite alone?" "there are others upstairs," i answered. "if you wish to speak to me alone i will come to your room a little later, when i have finished this work." "oh, thank you, thank you," he exclaimed; "i _must_ speak to you; i shall wait for you till you come;" and he hurried away, once more looking furtively round the office as though fearing he were watched. from his manner it was evident to me that he was terribly perturbed about something and that his fears and suspicions were reaching a climax. "whatever can be the matter?" i asked myself as i hammered away at my form. "has anything serious really happened?" towards seven o'clock i left the printing-office and the work to the tender mercies of short, who was just writhing out of a peaceful sleep of some hours' duration on the "bed" of the machine, and made my way towards giannoli's room, which though quite close was by no means easy of access. turning to my right, half-way down the court-yard, i passed into mrs. wattles's house, at the summit of which my friend was located; and here at once my progress was arrested by that lady herself, only half sober and in a mood evidently requiring sympathy. "oh, my dear," she exclaimed, "are you going up to see that pore young man? i don't know what's gone wrong with 'im of late, but for all the world 'e looks as if 'e were sickening for something. to look at 'im's enough. it just sets my inn'ards all of a 'eave and a rumble, and i 'ave to take a little drop o' something warm to settle 'em again." "damnation!" i muttered inwardly at finding myself trapped at such a moment; but there was nothing for it; i had to wait and hear out the long and weary recital of the sickness and agony of her deceased son, to whom she had suddenly discovered a resemblance in giannoli. at the end of a long discourse, full of those "sickening details" in which women of her class delight, she summed up her case with a brief but telling epitome of his career, to the effect that he never smoked, nor drank, nor swore, but that he "only gave one sniff and died;" and i, determined to escape from the inevitable sequel, when wattles senior's vices would be declaimed in contrast to the son's virtues, beat a hasty retreat. a few scraps of this anticlimax, mingled with hiccups and sobs, wafted after me as i wended my way up the uneven wooden stairs. at the top of these a perilous-looking ladder gave access to a trap-door, through which i dexterously made my way into giannoli's room. the interior was familiar to me--a squalid little den, some ten feet square, whose dirty, brown-paper-patched window looked out over the chimneys and yards of the "little hell" district. in one corner of the room was a mysterious cupboard, through which a neighbouring chimney contrived to let in a constant supply of filthy black smoke. the bare unwashed boards were rotting away, and at one spot the leg of the bed had gone through the floor, to the considerable alarm of its dormant occupant. the wall-paper, which had once been a gorgeous combination of pink and cobalt and silver, was tattered and discoloured, and so greasy that one might imagine that generations of squalid lodgers had made their meals off it. the furniture consisted of a small table, now covered with a perpetual litter of papers; a ramshackle wash-hand stand, on which a broken vegetable dish served as a receptacle for soap and such objects; a bed, which bred remarkable crops of fleas, and to which clung an old patchwork quilt, but which was otherwise poor in adornment; a chair, and an old travelling-box. as i have already mentioned, a trap-door in the floor gave access to this apartment. there was no other door. when i entered giannoli was sitting at his table with his face buried in his hands, so deeply absorbed in his own reflections that for some seconds he did not notice my advent. when at last i made my presence known to him he gave a violent start, and, holding out both his hands, he wrung mine for some moments in silence. then he motioned me to the box; i seated myself; once more he became silent; then, suddenly raising his head, he looked me full in the face. "do you know why i wished to speak to you?" he asked; "can you guess? oh, it is no light matter, isabel, which has led me to trouble you, no pleasant matter either. i am on the brink of ruin, threatened and betrayed by my most trusted friends. i must leave here at once, go right away from london and england. my life is not safe here for another day." he spoke in italian, and as he grew more excited his voice rose higher and higher, though every now and again he was minded to control it, as though fearing he might be overheard. "yes," he continued, "those men whom i have most trusted, whom i have treated as my own brothers, with whom i have often shared my last shilling and the very clothes off my back, have turned against me. they are in league to destroy me. they are plotting against my liberty and my life!" for some minutes he raved on in this style, every now and again breaking off into curses, while i listened half horrified, half incredulous. "for goodness' sake," i exclaimed at last, "do try and be calmer, giannoli, and tell me what has happened and what you wish me to do." "you are right," he answered, making an effort to control himself; "i must explain the matter or you cannot understand.... i will talk to you frankly, for you at any rate are above suspicion. you may perhaps be aware that i have been connected with many serious anarchist ventures in the past. the explosions at st. ----, the affair in v---- three years ago, the sacking of the bank in barcelona. all of these were, of course, very dangerous matters, in which i risked my life; but it all tended towards the destruction of society, and i readily took the risk. as far as possible i avoided taking other comrades into my confidence--partly out of regard for my own safety, partly with a view to theirs. to one or two well-trusted men, however, i confided my projects, so that in case of my arrest all proper measures might be taken." (gnecco was one of these "trusted comrades," b---- and morì were others.) "i was mistaken in my estimate of these men, mistaken in my confidence in them. from their lips my secret has been wormed or bought by others, until now it has become a byword, and every indiscreet fool and paid spy in our midst knows the tale of my past better than i do myself. i no longer dare attend our meetings, for all around me i hear whisperings and insinuations, and my name being passed from one mouth to another along with references to my past actions. the torture is becoming unendurable. some of these cowards even descend to taunting me with their knowledge; and when i, in any way, cross their purposes in our discussions, they threaten me covertly with exposure. that disgusting young fool, morì, only to-day, being jealous of me in some trivial matter, tried to intimidate me by hinting at the v---- affair. i felt that i could have struck him down where he stood; and then a sense of my own impotence overtook me, and i stood there, silent and confused, trying to laugh the matter off, as though i had not grasped his meaning. but i can stand this state of things no longer: it is driving me mad. when i am alone now i suddenly start with the feeling that some one is coming on me unawares. this afternoon, wishing to be alone and to think matters over, i took a walk about the park, but the very trees seemed to be whispering about me, and before long i perceived that i was followed, that my movements were being dogged step by step. when i am alone in my room they do not even leave me in peace. they obtain entrance here by means of that wattles woman, who is evidently in their pay. b---- cannot forgive me for not having appropriated to our private use the money expropriated in barcelona for the propaganda; and this indeed is one of their principal grievances against me. would you believe it, isabel, last night he actually got into this house and woke me from sleep by shouting the name of the bank through that hole? when i rushed down to find him, determined to teach him a sound lesson, he was gone. but what use is there in my enlarging on this subject? you cannot fail to see the danger i am in, and the absolute imperative necessity for flight. another day's procrastination may be my undoing. who knows what signal they are awaiting to denounce me, and how many others may be implicated in my ruin? i must get away from here; i must flee in absolute secrecy, and none of them must be allowed to suspect where i am gone. you and kosinski alone i can trust. you alone must be in the secret of my flight. will you help me, isabel?" and at this point giannoli seized my hand, and then, overcome and unnerved by excitement, he allowed his head to sink on to the table and sobbed convulsively. my head was fairly swimming by this time. how far was all this true? how far the imaginings of an over-wrought, over-excited brain? however, the immediate urgencies of the situation gave me no time to carefully weigh the matter. i must either act or refuse to act, thereby leaving my friend alone to his despair and possible ruin. i decided on the former course. "i think that you exaggerate, giannoli," i answered him. "you are ill and over-wrought, and require rest and change. get away from here by all means if there is any danger in remaining, but do not take too gloomy a view of the situation. i am at your disposal and willing to help you in every way in my power. tell me where you think of going, and what i can do. but in the meantime, had we not better get supper somewhere, and discuss the situation over a little reassuring food?" this unheroic but practical suggestion met with poor giannoli's approbation, and he confessed to not having broken his fast all day. he also seemed relieved at the prospect of leaving the vicinity of the office where he was convinced that spies surrounded him, and having thanked and re-thanked me over and over again for my proffered assistance, he led the way down the ladder, and together we gained the street. i was horribly shocked at the haggard strained look of the unfortunate italian which the clearer light down here revealed. he had aged ten years since his arrival. we made our way towards a small restaurant in soho frequented principally by the lower order of _cocotte_, and here over a savoury but inexpensive meal we discussed our plans. "i can scarcely dare believe that this hell is coming to an end!" exclaimed giannoli. "the assurance of your sympathy is already lightening my burden. i am beginning once more to take hope and courage! oh, to have at last left that awful den where night and day i have felt myself watched by unseen treacherous eyes, and my every breath noted by my enemies! i shall never put foot there again. you and kosinski must get my things away from there to-night, and to-morrow i leave london by the first continental train." "where do you purpose going?" i inquired. "to south america, as soon as the arrival of funds will allow it, but, this not being practicable for the moment, i propose going first to lisbon. there i will hide for a few weeks until i restart for buenos ayres, and i trust that this will have the advantage of putting my 'friends' off the track. even for this little voyage i do not at the present moment possess the necessary funds, but in this you can no doubt assist me, for in a few days i expect some thirty pounds from my relations in italy. if you will return to my room to-night you might rescue my guitar and what few little objects of value i possess and pawn them, and burn all papers and documents of any kind." "you have left everything till rather late!" i could not help exclaiming, not a little taken aback at the amount to be done, and at the rapidly advancing hour. supper over, i left giannoli in oxford street, and made tracks for his lodging, which by great good luck i reached without any obstruction. i locked myself in, rescued a few papers of importance, burnt the rest, put his scanty personal belongings together in a box which it had been agreed i was subsequently to send kosinski to fetch, and having secured his guitar, a silver-handled umbrella, and two or three other articles of small value, i proceeded with these to a neighbouring pawnbroker. i may mention here that since my connection with the anarchist movement, and its consequent demands on my pocket, i had become quite familiar with the ins and outs, and more especially the ins, of these most invaluable relatives. i reached the side door of mr. isaac jacob's establishment on the stroke of eleven, but as providence and would-be drunkards had mercifully ordained that pawnbrokers should remain open later than usual on saturday, i was still able to effect an entrance. i laid my goods down on the counter, and politely requested the temporary loan of pounds. "three pounds for this damned lot of old rubbish," exclaimed the indignant jew. "do you take this for a public charity? it's not worth fifteen shillings to me, the whole lot!" and he turned the things over with his greasy hands, as though they were objectionable offal. we finally compromised for thirty-two shillings, with which sum in my pocket i triumphantly sallied forth. my next move was to disinter kosinski, whom i felt pretty certain of finding at a certain coffee-stall where, at that advanced hour, he was in the habit of making his one and only diurnal, or rather nocturnal repast. this coffee-stall was situated at the corner of tottenham court road and a side street, and there, sure enough, stood kosinski, munching sardines on toast, and buns, and drinking coffee, surrounded by a motley group of cabmen and loose women. these had evidently grown used to his regular attendance and treated him with marked respect and friendliness, many of the unfortunate women having often had to thank him for a meal and the price of a night's lodging when luck had failed them in other directions. kosinski was somewhat taken aback at my sudden appearance. "you, isabel!" he exclaimed in some confusion, "what can have brought you here? but may i offer you a little supper? these buns are excellent!" tired and worried as i was, i could not help smiling at the awkward manner in which he made this offer. "no, thank you," i answered, "i am not hungry. i have come to fetch you in connection with a rather important matter. can you come with me when you have finished your supper?" "yes, certainly," answered kosinski, "if there is anything i can do. just let me finish these few mouthfuls and i will follow you. in the meantime will you explain what is the matter?" without further ado i explained to him the whole giannoli affair as i understood it. it was a relief to me to do so, and i was anxious to hear his opinion. he was silent for some minutes after i had finished speaking, and munched reflectively the last relics of his supper. "i am afraid," he said at last, "that giannoli is not quite well--not quite well, mentally, i mean," he added after a slight pause. "at the same time, it is quite possible that there is some truth in what he suspects. spies have always been abundant in our party and giannoli is a very likely victim. he has been imprudent in the past, too believing and too foolhardy. i do not know very much about the men whom he primarily suspects, but gnecco certainly i believe to be above suspicion. in any case it will be safer for him to leave.... i am ready now.... what can i do? where are you going?" "home, and to bed," i answered. "i have been on my feet all day and i am very tired. moreover, there is nothing that i can do till to-morrow." i then explained to him what he was to do, where we were to meet on the following morning, and where he could find giannoli that night. he acquiesced and we parted. early the following morning i found giannoli and kosinski, as prearranged, awaiting my arrival under the bridge of waterloo station. both looked very washed out, with the fagged and pasty look of people who have been up all night. they were strolling up and down, carrying giannoli's box between them, and making a fine but very obvious show of indifference towards a policeman who eyed them suspiciously. "here, move on, you fellows," he was saying gruffly as i came up with them, and on perceiving me they seemed glad enough to be able to do so. "that stupid policeman wanted to arrest us as rogues and vagabonds," kosinski explained to me as we made our way towards a neighbouring coffee-shop for breakfast. "a pretty fix that would have been just now! we had scarcely settled down for a quiet sleep on the box when the meddlesome fool came up and asked our names and addresses, what we had there, what we were doing at that hour, and threatened to take us in charge unless we moved on. when i explained that we were simply waiting for our train he laughed, and said that was a likely tale! if you had not come along and thus confirmed our assertion that we expected a friend, i really believe he would have arrested us." "well, is everything arranged?" i inquired as we settled down to our breakfast. "how did you get on last night?" "oh, we have had nothing but mishaps and adventures all night," returned kosinski. "what a night! thank goodness it is over at last. after you left, towards one o'clock, i went off to giannoli's room to fetch his box. i confess that i felt a little nervous about this, for i dreaded an encounter with that horrible mrs. wattles. she talks and talks and talks to me whenever she sees me, and insists upon asking the most indelicate questions. she is a perfect savage. but no matter; let me get on. as i crawled upstairs, i heard her in her room abusing her poor husband in the most disgusting terms. i held my breath and crept up. i found the trunk right enough in the corner, though it was none too easy to find, as there was no light in the room, and i was afraid of lighting even a match for fear of attracting attention. but on the way down a terrible accident occurred. my foot caught in a scrap of oilcloth at the top of the stairs, just outside mrs. wattles's room, and i fell. crash down the stairs went the box, and i rattled after it. the noise, of course, brought mrs. wattles screaming and swearing to the door. then, bruised and bewildered as i was, i seized on the box and fled. down the remaining stairs, out through the door, and into the street, i ran as for dear life. oh i have never run like that before, isabel! i remember years ago, when escaping from prison in russia, my life depended on the efficiency of my legs. but i did not run with such fervour as i ran last night from that woman. i still feel unspeakably grateful when i think that i escaped without being recognised. she raced down after me, but being half-drunk she fell in the passage, and it was that which saved me.... i found giannoli in trafalgar square." the remainder of the night they had spent peacefully enough, wandering about the streets, occasionally being "moved on" by a policeman, until the sceptical officer already referred to had evinced an intention of arresting them both as rogues and vagabonds. i could not help smiling at the peremptory manner in which poor giannoli's adventures had almost been brought to a conclusion. i gave giannoli the proceeds of the previous night's pawnings, and i and kosinski turned out on the table what money we had about us. it was just sufficient to cover the expenses of the first stage of giannoli's journey. we proceeded--a quaint procession--to the station. kosinski led the way with head bent forward and even resolute tread, apparently untired and unaffected by his night's vicissitudes, with the much battered box on his shoulders. behind him followed giannoli and myself, the former nervous and unstrung, constantly turning from right to left with the idea that we were being followed. in the station, half deserted this sunday morning, we had another long wait. we talked of many things together, and i had never found kosinski so friendly and communicative before. there existed between giannoli and himself the keen sympathy and understanding of two men equally devoted to an idea, equally willing to sacrifice everything to it. the russian was more of a philosopher than the italian, more engrossed in abstractions, more oblivious of his own personality, and this it was that had saved him from the possibility of giannoli's terrible malady. at the same time he was by no means inclined to make light of giannoli's fears, and together they talked them over, kosinski promising to investigate them after his friend's departure, and to see if it was possible to discover who was really at fault. "no man can ever hold such threats over me," said kosinski, "for i have never taken any one into my confidence. i have always acted alone. some day it may fall to my lot to pay with my life for some action on behalf of our ideas. when that moment comes i shall be ready for the sacrifice." "i too," exclaimed giannoli with fervour--"i too would not hesitate to make the sacrifice if i felt the right moment had arrived. if to-morrow--if at this very moment--i saw the means of advancing the anarchist cause by the sacrifice of my life, i would give it without regret or hesitation. but to lose it for no purpose, before i have finished my work, to fall a victim to the envy and treachery of my own comrades, and to involve others in my own ruin, i cannot bear. when my time comes to die i wish to feel that my death is at any rate of some use. there are moments when an anarchist can help his ideas on better by dying than by living. but for me the moment is not yet quite ripe." he then relapsed into silence, and the two friends sat together, engrossed in their own reflections, without saying a word. after a time giannoli turned to me: "i will write to you as soon as i reach lisbon, isabel, and let you know how i am getting on. there at least i am little known, and i will stay with an old friend whose sincerity is above suspicion--avvocato martini. you and kosinski are the only two persons whom i regret in leaving london. you have done more for me than i can ever thank you for. you have saved my life, and although i do not value life for itself, it may be of value to our cause, and i hope yet to give it for some good purpose. give what explanation you think fit of my disappearance. above all, let no one suspect where i am gone." the train left at ten o'clock. giannoli was deeply affected at parting from us, and as the train was about to leave he seized our hands and embraced us. "something tells me," he exclaimed, "that i shall never see either of you again. write to me sometimes and bear me in mind. do not believe any lies you may be told about me. i have only our principles at heart. good-bye," and the train steamed out of the station. i remained alone with kosinski. the hour was still quite early, and there was much to be talked over together. "let us go to some picture gallery," i suggested, "so as to talk things over and to settle what we are to give out concerning giannoli's disappearance." "no, please, don't," answered the russian in genuine alarm; "you know how i hate art, isabel. it goads me to madness. we must think of some other place." we strolled out of the station together and wended our way across the bridge and along the strand, up by st. martin's church, and eventually found ourselves close to old st. giles's churchyard. "let us sit down here," i said, indicating a seat; "i am tired of walking." "it is little better than a picture gallery," murmured kosinski, "but it will do if you are tired," and we sat down. kosinski advised me to feign absolute ignorance of giannoli's whereabouts and to set afloat the idea of his having committed suicide. he asked me to let him know as soon as i received news from the fugitive, and he, in the meantime, would investigate the matter of the "conspiracy." as we parted he said to me: "i am very glad, isabel, that i have had to deal with you in this matter. you may sometimes have thought me unduly harsh in my estimate of your sex. i am not without reason in this. women are rarely of much use in a movement like ours. they so rarely seem able to forget _themselves_, to detach themselves from the narrow interests of their own lives. they are still the slaves of their past, of their passions, and of all manner of prejudices. but you are different.... there have even been moments when i felt that i had other things to say to you, things which it is better to leave unsaid. i must not be guilty of the weakness which i condemn in women. an anarchist's life, you see, is scarcely his own. he has no time to indulge in personal sentiment. good-bye," and before i had time to answer he was gone. i returned home and spent the remainder of the day locked in my room, absorbed in many conflicting thoughts. i was grieved beyond words at giannoli's trouble, at the possibility of foul play, at the almost more grievous possibility of mental disorder in him. then again and again kosinski's last words recurred to me, and i could not help reflecting that, slight as they were, he had probably never said so much to any other woman. i was compelled to admit to myself that the russian, for all his strange ideas and brusque manners, had grown to be a great deal to me. but i felt that he was a hopeless case--the kind of man to whom personal happiness was unknown, and who would succeed in rendering unhappy any one rash enough to care for him. "how easy happiness might be," i reflected, "with our ideas, with our freedom from prejudice. and yet it is these very ideas which will ruin his life, which----" half unconsciously i found that my thoughts had been drifting from abstract ideas and abstract enthusiasms to persons, and with this divorce from abstractions began a feeling of weariness, of nausea. i thought of kosinski's words again, of his contempt for personal sentiment in an anarchist, of what he had said about women; and i struggled hard within myself to turn my thoughts into other channels. it was useless, and at last, weary of the effort, i retired to bed and took refuge in slumber. during the following weeks i worked on fairly regularly at the _tocsin_ and saw kosinski not unfrequently, on which occasions he most carefully avoided any recurrence of personalities, however vague these might be. giannoli's disappearance created considerable commotion, and every one was at a loss to imagine what could have become of him. my relations with those italians whom he had suspected were naturally very strained and uncomfortable, for i did not know what to think of them, how far to trust or mistrust them. kosinski, as promised, investigated the matter as carefully as he could, but the exact truth was difficult to ascertain. gnecco we neither of us for one instant suspected, but we felt some degree of uncertainty about the others. whether or no there had been some amount of unclean work going on, it was anyway quite certain that a great part of giannoli's suspicions were the outcome of his overwrought and exhausted mental condition. about a fortnight after his departure i received at last a letter from giannoli. this consisted of a few words, written evidently in much hurry and perturbation of spirit. he thanked me for the money from his relatives, which i had forwarded, which would, he said, enable him to leave at once for argentina. "it has arrived in the very nick of time," he wrote, "for here i am no longer safe. avvocato martini, of whom i spoke to you in such high terms, is not to be trusted. he intercepts my letters, and has, i believe, communicated with my enemies in london. thank heaven! i am now able to get away. in south america i shall once more settle down to the propaganda work, and i shall be out of the power of these informers. my old friend, giovanni barelli, awaits me there. we shall live together and life will once more become endurable. i am anxious to hear from kosinski. what is the result of his inquiries? my best love to him and to you, dear friend, and again a thousand thanks to you both. i will write at greater length from america." i showed the letter to kosinski. he read it through with a serious expression. "i fear," he said, "that it is a case of hallucination, and that there is but very slight foundation of truth to his suspicions. i have looked into the matter and can see no adequate grounds for suspecting the men whom he regarded as his enemies over here. giannoli exaggerates and distorts everything. i must write to him and try to reassure him about this. i will tell him that he is mistaken. we cannot afford to lose such a comrade." "beware," i returned half in jest--"beware, lest you too fall under his ban." "oh, there is no fear of that," answered kosinski with assurance. "he knows me too well. i am the oldest friend he has. i can and must tell him the truth." kosinski wrote, and the weeks passed on. a month after giannoli's arrival in buenos ayres i received another letter from him. once again he declared that he was not safe, that he must take flight. barelli, of whom he had always spoken with the most brotherly affection, had turned against him. he and other false comrades had entered into a plot to murder him, and at the time of writing he had fled from their ken and was in hiding in some remote and populous district, awaiting the arrival of money which would enable him to return to europe. then, later on, there arrived another letter from lisbon, disconnected in matter, shaky in writing, full of the wildest and most improbable statements. "i feel like a hunted animal," he wrote; "i have been driven about from pillar to post, from one end of the civilised world to another. i am growing very weary of all this, and am trying to devise how to terminate a situation which is growing intolerable. here i am again in hiding, and dare not venture from my lair till the dead of night. what money i had is almost at an end. my clothes are falling off my back. i have not changed my linen for weeks, having forgotten my old valise in my hurried departure from buenos ayres. my health is failing, and i feel utterly helpless and wretched. you would be horrified if you could see me now. i am ill, and at night i can get no sleep. every moment i expect them to break in, murder me, and seize my papers. those devils from buenos ayres are already on my track. i have not heard from kosinski. his letter has no doubt been intercepted. as soon as possible i shall proceed to gibraltar. i am thinking out a plan to end all this. _do you understand?_" some weeks later i received from gibraltar a letter in which giannoli informed me that yet once more he was compelled to abscond himself, further plottings against him rendering this necessary. he had been seriously ill, he wrote, and his strength was quite giving out. he was, at the time of writing, on the eve of departure for barcelona, where he was determined "to end it all." he had at last received kosinski's letter, and would write at greater length from barcelona. he warned me to beware of false friends. these last sentences troubled me very much. what could it all mean? what was impending? and kosinski; did he doubt _him_ too? but this state of uncertainty as to his meaning was destined to be but of short duration. barely a week had elapsed since my receipt of the above letter when, as i stood alone in the composing-room one morning, i was surprised to see the figure of an unknown man appear above the balustrade leading from below. he was evidently a foreigner and a southerner, and walking straight up to me he asked in italian, but with a distinct spanish accent, "are you isabel meredith?" on my answering in the affirmative, he handed me a sealed note on which was written my name in giannoli's familiar hand. "this is for you," he said, "i bring it direct from barcelona. it is strictly private. good morning," and as mysteriously as he had appeared he was gone. even before opening it, the shaky writing on the envelope told me only too eloquently that matters were no better with giannoli at the time he penned it. moreover, i felt certain, from the extraordinary nature of its delivery, that it must contain news of exceptional moment. a dull, sick feeling of dread overcame me as i stood irresolute, holding the unopened letter in my hand. i was tempted to put it aside and postpone the knowledge of any unpleasant news it might contain. i knew this, however, to be a weakness, and so with an effort i tore it open. it read as follows:-- "dearest friend,--this is a letter which it would be unsafe to consign to the post. therefore i send it to you by hand, by means of an old friend who can be trusted. he is not a comrade, and has no knowledge of its contents. a few days back i wrote to you from gibraltar, telling you of the serious break-down in my health, and of the circumstances which had compelled me once again to leave lisbon. now, at last, i feel in a measure more composed, for my resolution is taken, and i mean to end my life--not without benefit to our cause, i hope. you are the only person with whom i am communicating. even kosinski has been bought over by my enemies. a letter from him was forwarded to me in lisbon, in which he sided with the spies who have been trying to ruin me, and which contained covert threats which i understood only too well. thus another illusion is shattered! the burden of all these disillusions, all these disgusts and disappointments, is too heavy to bear any longer. i must get away from it all before my health and intellect are completely shattered. i have always thought suicide a cowardly death for an anarchist. before taking leave of life it is his duty to strike a final blow at society and i, at least, mean to strike it. here the moment is in every way ripe. ever since the explosion in madrid, eight months ago, the anarchists have been the victims of the most savage persecutions. i have seen one man with his nails torn off, and another raving mad with thirst, after having been kept without water, and fed on salt cod during sixty hours. others have been tortured in prison in other ways--some tortures so vile and filthy that i would not tell you of them. i write this in order to show you that the moment is ripe here for some vigorous act of reprisal. it is impossible to strike a blow at all those who are responsible, for the whole of society is to blame: but those most guilty must suffer for it. i am prepared to strike my final blow before i take my leave, and you will learn from the papers in a few days' time the exact nature of the act i contemplate. "and now i must beg you to pardon me for all the trouble and disturbance i have occasioned you, dear friend; i can never thank you enough. you, and you alone, have been true to me. for your own sake, i entreat you also to beware of false friends--especially avoid kosinski.----yours ever, "giacomo giannoli." chapter xi a crisis the flight of giannoli, and all the worry and turmoil occasioned thereby, told on my health. i did not admit as much to myself, and i still kept on at the paper as usual through the very thick of it all. for one thing, this was necessary in order not to arouse the curiosity of many of the comrades, and moreover there is no doubt that whatever line of life we may adopt we gradually become the creatures of our habits, however much we may scoff at such a notion. thus, though i had grown out of the first stage of youthful enthusiasm when i revelled in squalor and discomfort, and sincerely believed myself to be one of the hubs round which the future revolution and the redemption of mankind circled, and though experience had opened my eyes to much that was unlovely, and not a little which was despicable, in my associates, still i stuck at my post and continued my work on the paper. on arriving at the office towards nine every morning, my first task was to get short out of pawn in the neighbouring coffee-shop, where he retired--regardless of the fact that his pockets were but capacious vacuums--in order to regale himself on shop eggs and fly-blown pastry, and where his person was detained as a pledge till my purse redeemed him. i would then work away, "dissing" or "comping," "locking up forms," or writing a "leader," till some of the italians, keenly alive to their ownership of stomachs, would call me off to partake of a milanese _minestra_, or to pronounce on the excellencies of a mess of _polenta_. then would follow an hour devoted to digestion and talk, when short, if in a bad temper, would smoke abominable shag, and raise the bowl of his clay pipe into quite perilous proximity with his eyebrows, and if genially inclined, would entertain some one member of the company to dark tales and fearsome hints as to the depraved habits and questionable sincerity of his or her dearest friend. he had of late developed a great interest in my welfare, and kosinski had been his special butt. he had always hated the latter on account of his vast moral superiority to himself, and seemed specially desirous of discrediting him in my eyes. the russian came pretty frequently to the office during the months following on giannoli's disappearance. he was always singularly uncommunicative about his own concerns; his intimate friends were not aware of his address; how he lived or what his home life was none seemed to know; and, indeed, he was one of those men who, without ever saying a word to that effect, make one feel that their private life is no concern of any one but themselves. short, however, hinted at things he _could_ say if he _would_, spoke in general terms of the disgracefulness of exploiting the affections of women, referred in an undertone to "that kosinski's" luck, adding that, of course, one had a right to act according to one's inclination, still anarchists should set an example, &c., &c. i, of course, took such observations at their true value; i knew short and kosinski too well to give two thoughts to the matter. still when, on top of all this mysterious talk, i received giannoli's letter, in which he spoke of his folly in trusting his supposed friend, and accused him of being neither more nor less than an agent in the hands of the international police, i felt my brain whirl, and really wondered whether i was the sole sane person in a mad world, or whether the reverse were not the case. it was now some weeks since i had last seen dr. armitage. he had written to explain his absence, alleging stress of work, in which i readily believed; for though i knew his regular practice had been much neglected during the preceding year, i also knew that there was not an anarchist within twenty miles who did not expect him to attend on himself and family when in illness or trouble, an obligation with which the doctor willingly complied, though not only did he take no fees, but generally had to provide the patients with all their creature comforts. no sort of change had occurred in our relations to each other, but lately he had seemed more than ever preoccupied, absorbed in the propaganda, ever devising new plans for spreading the "movement." he seemed less and less inclined to keep up his west end connection, and confessed that he had but scant patience wherewith to listen to the polite ailments and sentimental troubles of fashionable ladies. he had given much time to the _tocsin,_ writing many really remarkable papers for it, but lately, since kosinski had come more to the front, and i had been so much taken up with giannoli's affairs, he had, perhaps intentionally, kept more away from the office. it was with a feeling of real pleasure that i saw him enter at last one saturday evening early in april. i had been feeling tired and depressed, and only by an effort of will had i kept myself at my work. i was struck at the change that a few weeks had wrought in the doctor's appearance. his hair had grown unusually long, quite noticeably so, his tall figure was somewhat bent, and there was an unusual appearance about his dress. he had not yet cast aside the garb of civilisation, but his trousers evinced a tendency to shrink, and he appeared to contemplate affecting low necks in the matter of shirts. his feet were shod in sandals of a peculiar make, and there was a feverish look in his eyes. as he came towards me his characteristic kindly smile lit up his drawn features, and he grasped my hand with friendly warmth. i was delighted to see him, but somewhat shocked at the alteration in his looks. in answer to my inquiries as to his prolonged absence, he explained that he had been very busy for one thing, and that he had also been much preoccupied with his own thoughts on questions of principle and propaganda. "you know, isabel," he said, "my habit of silence when confronted by mental problems. i think i must belong to the race of ruminating animals, and it is only by quietly chewing the cud of my ideas that i can digest and assimilate them. it used to be just the same in my student days, and doubtless the habit will stick to me through life. when i have once thought out a point, and settled in my own mind on the right course of action, i am not as a rule troubled by hesitation or doubts, and then i like to talk and discuss, but the initial stage seems to need solitude. besides, i know you have been very much taken up of late months. i have seen kosinski sometimes, and had your news from him. you are not looking well; you must have been overtaxing your strength, and need a rest." "doctor, cure yourself, i might well say," i rejoined. "there is nothing much amiss with me. i am a little fagged perhaps, nothing more. but you look very much run down. i am sure you have been neglecting yourself very much of late." "oh, no, on the contrary," replied the doctor, "i have been giving much thought lately to food and dress reform in their bearings on the social question, and i have been putting some of my ideas into practice in my own person. i have never felt in better health. all superfluous fat has been got rid of, and my mind feels singularly lucid and clear. i have been going on quite long rounds propagandising, often walking as much as twenty and thirty miles a day, and, thanks to my somewhat more rational dress and to my diet of raw oatmeal and fresh fruit, i have found no difficulty in so doing. but will you not come for a walk with me? it is a beautiful evening, and here the atmosphere is so close and stuffy. do come, i should so enjoy a quiet talk with you. i have much i want to say to you, and i have come this evening in the hope of an opportunity to say it." i agreed, and we sallied forth. at the entrance to the courtyard we encountered mrs. wattles holding forth to a group of gossips amongst whom stood short (for no scandal-mongering was too trivial to interest him), on the disappearance of giannoli from her house and her suppositions as to his fate--a theme of which she never wearied. i managed to slip by without attracting her attention, so absorbed was she with the enthralling mystery, only to find myself in for another almost worse danger. for there at the corner of p. street and the euston road stood the bleeding lamb, surrounded by a hooting and uproarious crowd. he had, it appeared, interrupted the gospel-preaching of the rev. melchisedek hicks with some inappropriate inquiry as to the probable whereabouts of nelson on the resurrection day. this was considered irreverent by the admirers of the rev. hicks, who forthwith began to jibe and jeer at the bleeding lamb, who, in his turn, exchanging the meekness of the traditional victim for the righteous indignation of a prophet misjudged, had volleyed a torrent of abuse on all present, consigning them unconditionally to hell-fire. as armitage and i neared the scene a constable was taking the names and addresses of all concerned, and was manifesting his intention of marching off the poor lamb to durance vile. armitage took in the situation at a glance, and, hurrying up, addressed the man in blue. "i know this man very well, officer," he said in an authoritative voice. "i can answer that he gives his name and address correctly; there is no need to arrest him." "and who are _you?_ i should like to know," inquired the irate policeman; "i think i can answer for your address, colney hatch ain't far off the mark." "this is my card," answered the doctor, handing one over to the constable with a dignified gesture. the latter seemed somewhat impressed and taken aback, and after grumbling some remarks in an undertone and eyeing the lamb in a suspicious and unconvinced manner, he told him to be off sharp if he did not wish to find himself in the cells, and then vented his spleen and unappeased zeal on behalf of his country by cuffing, shoving and abusing the corner-boys who had assembled to witness the fun. we availed ourselves of the consequent confusion to make good our escape, dodging the lamb, who manifested an intention of coming along with us; and soon we found ourselves, thanks to a penny tram fare, in fresher, cleaner quarters. we got down at the corner of parliament hill. the sun had just set and the clear spring twilight lent a wonderful charm of serene peace to the scene. the undulating expanse of heath was growing darker and darker; in the west still lingered the last sunset hues of pink and saffron and green; and overhead in the deep blackening blue of night the stars were just becoming visible. we had strolled on in silence for some time, hushed by the solemn stillness of the evening. at last dr. armitage exclaimed, "ah, isabel, how i sometimes long for rest and peace, and sweet wholesome surroundings! how beautiful life might be passed with a companion such as you. the earth is beautiful, man is naturally good; why cannot we all be happy?" i was a little taken aback at the doctor's remark, though i had half expected something of the sort. during the early months of my anarchist career, when battling with the first difficulties of starting the _tocsin_, we had been so constantly together that we had got into a way of divining each other's thoughts and feelings almost without the need of words. we never thought or talked of anything but abstract questions of principle or the immediate needs of the propaganda, yet, as was only natural, an undercurrent of personal sympathy had sprung up between us which i had felt to be somewhat more pronounced on the doctor's side than on my own. however, with him, excess of emotion always manifested itself in renewed and redoubled zeal for the propaganda, leading him to elaborate some quite extraordinary schemes for advancing the cause, such as, for instance, supplementing his daily work by keeping a coffee-stall at night, as he considered that such a plan would afford an excellent opportunity for quiet personal argument and for the distribution of literature to probable converts; so that he had never broached personalities in any definite style. then events had followed on one another with surprising rapidity; the advent of the italian refugees had contributed to change the _personnel_ if not the principles of the _tocsin_; a common friendship for giannoli had brought kosinski and myself more together and i had, always had a decided sympathy for the russian, increased perhaps by the instinctive feeling that if there were one man who would refuse to budge one inch from his principles for a woman that man was he. i seemed to have lived ages, my character was developing, a sense of humour was gradually modifying my views of many matters, and during these last few months armitage and i had drifted somewhat apart. there was something pathetic in his voice that night as he spoke. his whole appearance told me that he had been passing through an acute mental and moral crisis, and a queer feeling came over me which seemed to warn me that something irreparable was about to take place between us. i felt deep sympathy for this noble nature struggling for the ideal in a world all out of gear; so thoroughly unselfish and self-sacrificing as hardly to grasp clearly the personal side of its sufferings, and slowly and unconsciously, in its very effort to free itself from material trammels, falling a victim to monomania--striving too high only to fall in a world where the sublime is divided by but a step from the ridiculous, and where all are capable of laughing and sneering, but few indeed of appreciating qualities such as armitage possessed. "we might well ask 'what is happiness?'" i rejoined in answer to his remark, anxious to steer the conversation clear of personalities. "how vain and trivial all our struggles seem whenever we find ourselves face to face with the serene indifference of nature. what are we, after all, but fretful midges whizzing out our brief hour?" "ah, one is often tempted to think so," answered armitage--and i confess that i gave vent to a sigh of relief as i realised that he was now started on a discussion--"but as long as injustice prevails we must continue the struggle. i often long for rest, silence, oblivion; but the mood passes and i awake more keenly alive than ever to the greatness of our cause, and our duty toward the propaganda. nothing must be allowed to interfere with our devotion to it, and, what is more, isabel, we must strive to live in such a way as to free ourselves from all considerations that might hamper our action on its behalf. we must simplify our lives; we must not neglect to set an example even in small matters. the material claims of life absorb far too much of our time. we are constantly selling our birthright for a mess of pottage. we shall never be truly devoted propagandists till we have freed ourselves from all care for the morrow." "you are right," said i, "but such ideas may be carried to an excess. we must live our lives; and as that is so we must attend more or less to our personal wants." "that i do not deny, isabel," answered the doctor; "what i aim at is to simplify them as much as possible. thanks to my new diet i shall never have to waste time to procure the wherewithal to fill my stomach. nuts and raw fruit are easily procured, and contain all the elements essential to physical health. i am sure you will agree with me on this point when you have considered it at length. then again in the matter of dress, what could be more hateful or harmful than our modern costume? it is awful to think of the lives wasted in useless toil to produce the means by which a so-called man of fashion contrives to make himself hideous and ridiculous in the eyes of all sensible people. besides there is no doubt that we are all the creatures of our surroundings, and so the influence of food and dress on character must be inestimable." "oh, doctor, do not harp so on this dress and food question!" i could not help exclaiming. "really, seriously, i think you have let your mind run somewhat too much in a groove lately. talk of vegetarianism and dress reform! why, what you need, it seems to me, is a steak at the holborn and a starched shirt collar! seriously, it grieves me to think that you should be giving yourself up so entirely to such notions. i consider you could do far more good to the cause by keeping up your practice, pursuing your studies, and working on the lines you used to be so successful in." hardly had i spoken than i regretted the hastiness of my remark. i could see at a glance that my friend was pained, more at feeling that i was out of sympathy with him than at my actual words. he suggested that we should turn homewards. we were nearing fitzroy square when he exclaimed-- "you know, isabel, that i have always had a great admiration for you. i have thought you would prove one of the great figures of the coming revolution; i still think so, but i see that our ways are parting. you laugh at me; yet i feel sure that my position is right. i am sorry i have not your sympathy in my work. i had counted on it; i had come this evening to tell you so. perhaps some day you will understand my views and agree with them. till then, good-bye. i am due at a comrade's house at willesden; he is going in for the no rent campaign, and i have promised to help him move to-night, but first i must go home and get out of these cumbersome clothes into a more rational dress; coats and trousers impede one's every thought and movement. good-bye," and he grasped my hand and was off, walking with a rapid, almost feverish stride. on reaching home the servant informed me that a gentleman had called for me, and that on hearing i was out he had expressed his intention of returning. the girl could not remember his name, but i gathered from her description that he was a foreigner. just then a ring at the door interrupted her remarks, and i was surprised to see kosinski enter the room. he walked straight up to me with an unwonted look of perturbation about him. "could you come with me at once?" he said in low, hurried tones. "where?" said i, feeling quite alarmed. "what is the matter?" "with me, to my room. i need the help of some woman, but there is no time to waste. i will explain _en route_. will you come?" "certainly, at once," and i walked out with him. i had not chanced to see him since giannoli's last letter in which he was denounced as belonging to the ranks of the italian's false friends, since when i had only heard the insinuations of short, which, as can easily be imagined, had not deeply impressed me, coming from such a quarter. still i should not have been surprised had i felt a momentary embarrassment at finding myself suddenly in his company, and under such decidedly unusual circumstances, but such was not the case. no one could look into kosinski's steady grey eyes and earnest face, pale with the inward fire of enthusiasm, and not feel conscious of standing face to face with one of those rare natures who have dedicated themselves, body and soul, to the service of an ideal. i walked on hurriedly, keeping up with his swinging stride, wondering where we were going, but not liking to break in on his reserve by probing questions. suddenly he seemed to wake to a sense of reality, and turned sharply round to me. "we are going to my room in hammersmith," he said. "i want your assistance, if you care to come; there is a woman there dying, a friend of mine. you are the only person of whom i should care to ask such a favour. will you come? i hardly think it will be for many hours." so then short was right; there was a woman at the bottom of kosinski's life; and simultaneously with this idea there flashed across my brain a feeling of shame at having for one instant entertained a mean thought of my friend. "i will come," i answered; "you did well to count on my friendship." we hurried on for several minutes in silence. then again kosinski spoke: "i had best tell you a little how matters stand," he said. "i am not fond of talking about private concerns, but you have a right to know. eudoxia has lived with me for the past two years. i brought her over with me from america. she has been suffering with consumption all this while, and i do not think she will last the night." "is she a comrade?" i ventured to inquire. "oh, no. she hates anarchists; she hates me. it will be a blessing to herself when she is laid to rest at last. she was the wife of my dearest friend, perhaps my only friend outside the cause. vassili had a great intellect, but his character was weak in some respects. he was full of noble ambitions; he had one of the most powerful minds i have known, a quite extraordinary faculty for grasping abstract ideas. i was first drawn towards him by hearing him argue at a students' meeting. he was maintaining a fatalistic paradox: the total uselessness of effort, and the vanity of all our distinctions between good and bad. all our acts, he argued, are the outcome of circumstances over which we have no control; consequently the man who betrays his best friend for interested motives, and the patriot who sacrifices happiness and life for an idea are morally on the same footing--both seek their own satisfaction, aiming at that goal by different paths; both by so doing obey a blind impulse. i joined in the argument, opposing him, and we kept the ball going till a.m. he walked with me to my lodgings and slept on a rug on the floor, and we became fast friends. but though his mind was strong, he was swayed by sensual passions. he married young, burdening himself with the responsibility of a woman and family, and went the way of all who do so. he would have lost himself entirely in the meshes of a merely animal life; he seemed even to contemplate with satisfaction the prospect of begetting children! but i could not stand by and witness the moral degradation of my poor friend. i kept him intellectually alive, and when once stimulated to mental activity, no one was ever more logical, more uncompromising than he. soon after my imprisonment he got implicated in a conspiracy and had to flee to america. when i arrived there after my escape i found him in the most abject condition. his wife, eudoxia, was ill with the germs of the disease which is now killing her, and was constantly railing at him as the cause of their misfortune, urging him to make a full confession and throw himself on the mercy of the russian authorities. poor thing! she was ill; she had had to leave behind her only child, and news had come of its death. vassili would never have done anything base, but he had not sufficient strength of character to rise superior to circumstances. another weak trait in him was his keen sensibility to beauty. it was not so much the discomfort as the ugliness of poverty which irked him. i have always noted the deteriorating effect art has on the character in such respects. he was grieved at his wife's illness, goaded to desperation by her reproaches, sickened by the squalor of his surroundings, and instead of turning his thoughts inwards and drawing renewed strength and resolution from the spectacle of the sufferings caused by our false morality and false society, he gave way completely and took to drink. when i found him in new york he was indeed a wreck. he and his wife were living in a filthy garret in the bowery; he had nothing to do, and had retired permanently on to a rotten old paillasse which lay in a corner; his clothes were in pawn; he could not go out. eudoxia earned a few cents daily by slaving at the wash-tub, and most of this he spent in getting drunk on vile, cheap spirits. when he saw me arrive he railed at me as the cause of all his woes; blamed me for having dragged him on to actions he should never have done if left to himself; and pointing to his wife and to the squalid room, he exclaimed, 'see the results of struggling for a higher life.' eudoxia, for her part, hated me, declaring that i was responsible for her husband's ruin, and that, not content with making his life a hell on earth, i was consigning his soul to eternal perdition. then vassili would burst into maudlin tears and weep over his own degeneracy, saying that i was his only true friend. i grieved at the decay of a fine mind; there was no hope now for him; i could only wish that his body might soon too dissolve. i gave him what little help i could, and he soon drank himself to death. i was with him at the last. he seemed overcome by a great wave of pity for himself, spoke tearfully of the might-have-beens, blamed me for having urged him to deeds beyond his strength, and ended by exclaiming that he could not even die in peace, as he did not know what would become of his poor wife, whose strength was already rapidly failing. 'i am leaving her friendless and penniless. i dragged her away from a comfortable home, promising her happiness. she has had to sacrifice her only child to my safety, and now, prematurely old, soured by misfortune and illness, i am abandoning her to fight for herself. she is my victim and yours, the victim of our ideas; it is your duty to look after her.' i promised him so to do, and she has been with me ever since." i had walked on, absorbed in the interest of his tale, heedless of the distance we were covering, and now i noticed that we were already skirting hyde park, and reflected that our destination must still be far ahead. "as your friend is so ill had we not better take the 'bus? you said we were going to hammersmith, and there is still quite a long walk ahead of us," i suggested after a few minutes. "oh, are you tired?" he inquired; "i ought to have thought of it. i always walk." i noticed that his hand strayed into the obviously empty pocket of his inseparable blue overcoat, and a worried look came into his face. i at once realised that he had not a penny on him, and deeply regretted my remark. not for worlds would i have suggested to him paying the fares myself, which i should have thought nothing of doing with most of the others. "oh, it was not for me," i hastened to rejoin, "i am not in the least tired; i only thought it would be quicker, but after all we must now be near," and i brisked up my pace, though i felt, i confess, more than a little fagged. again we trudged on, absorbed in our thoughts. at last, to break the silence i inquired of him if he had seen armitage lately. "it must be quite ten days now since i last saw him at a group-meeting of the jewish comrades. i fear he is developing a failing common to many of you english anarchists; he is becoming something of a crank. he talked to me a lot about vegetarianism and such matters. it would be a thousand pities were he to lose himself on such a track, for he has both intellect and character. he is unswerving where principle is at stake; let's trust he will not lose sight of large aims to strive at minor details." again a silence fell on us. my companion was evidently reviewing his past; my brain was occupied in blindly searching the future; what would become of us all? kosinski, armitage, myself? vassili's words, "this is the result of struggling for a higher life," haunted me. should we after all only succeed in making our own unhappiness, in sacrificing the weak to our uncompromising theories, and all this without advancing the cause of humanity one jot? the vague doubts and hesitations of the past few weeks seemed crystallising. i was beginning to mount the calvary of doubt. after a quarter of an hour kosinski exclaimed: "here we are. you must not be taken aback, isabel, if you get but scant thanks for your kindness. eudoxia is not well disposed towards our ideas; she looks upon her life with me as the last and bitterest act in the tragedy of her existence. poor thing, i have done what i could for her, but i understand her point of view." without further ado we proceeded along the passage and up the mean wooden staircase of a third-rate suburban house, pushing past a litter of nondescript infancy, till we stopped before a back room on the top floor. as kosinski turned the door handle a woman stepped forward with her finger to her lips. "oh, thank gawd, you're here at last," she said in a whisper, "your sister's been awful bad, but she's just dozed off now. i'll go to my husband; he'll be in soon now." "thanks, mrs. day. i need not trouble you further. my friend has come to help me." the landlady eyed me with scant favour and walked off, bidding us good-night. the room was of a fair size for the style of dwelling and was divided in two by a long paper screen. the first half was evidently kosinski's, and as far as i could see by the dim light, was one litter of papers, with a mattress on the floor in a corner. we walked past the screen; and the guttering candle, stuck in an old ginger-beer bottle, allowed me to see a bed in which lay the dying woman. there was also a table on which stood some medicine bottles, a jug of milk, and a glass; an armchair of frowsy aspect, and two cane chairs. the unwashed boards were bare, the room unattractive to a degree, still an awkward attempt at order was noticeable. i stepped over to the bed and gazed on its occupant. eudoxia was a thin gaunt woman of some thirty-five years of age. her clustering golden hair streaked with grey; small, plaintive mouth, and clear skin showed that she might have been pretty; but the drawn features and closed eyelids bore the stamp of unutterable weariness, and a querulous expression hovered round her mouth. the rigid folds of the scanty bedclothes told of her woeful thinness, and the frail transparent hands grasped convulsively at the coverlet. as i gazed at her, tears welled into my eyes. she looked so small, so transient, yet bore the traces of such mental and physical anguish. after a moment or two she slowly opened her eyes, gazed vacantly at me without apparently realising my presence, and in a feeble, plaintive voice made some remark in russian. kosinski was at her side immediately and answered her in soothing tones, evidently pointing out my presence. the woman fixed on me her large eyes, luminous with fever. i stepped nearer. "is there anything i can do for you?" i inquired in french. "no one can do anything for me except god and the blessed virgin," she replied peevishly, "and they are punishing me for my sins. yes, for my sins," she went on, raising her voice and speaking in a rambling delirious way, "because i have consorted with infidels and blasphemers. vassili was good to me; we were happy with our little ivan, till that devil came along. he ruined vassili, body and soul; he killed our child; he has lost me. i have sold myself to the devil, for have i not lived for the past two years on his charity? and you," she continued, turning her glittering eyes on me, "beware, he will ruin you too; he has no heart, no religion; he cares for nothing, for nobody, except his cruel principles. you love him, i see you do; it is in your every movement, but beware; he will trample on your heart, he will sacrifice you, throw you aside as worthless, as he did with vassili, who looked upon him as his dearest friend. beware!" and she sank back exhausted on the pillows, her eyes turned up under her eyelids, a slight froth tinged with blood trickling down the corners of her mouth. i was transfixed with horror; i knew not what to say, what to do. i put my hand soothingly on her poor fevered brow, and held a little water to her lips. then my eyes sought kosinski. he was standing in the shadow, a look of intense pain in his eyes and on his brow, and i knew what he must be suffering at that moment. i walked up to him and grasped his hand in silent sympathy; he returned the pressure, and for a moment i felt almost happy in sharing his sorrow. we stood watching in silence; at regular intervals the church chimes told us that the hours were passing and the long night gradually drawing to its close. half-past three, a quarter to four, four; still the heavy rattling breath told us that the struggle between life and death had not yet ceased. at last the dying woman heaved a deep sigh, she opened her wide, staring eyes and raised her hand as if to summon some one. kosinski stepped forward, but she waved him off and looked at me. "i have not a friend in the world," she gasped; "you shall be my friend. hold my hand and pray for me." i knelt by her side and did as i was bid. never had i prayed since i could remember, but at that supreme moment a latin prayer learned in my infancy at my mother's knee came back to me; kosinski turned his face to the wall and stood with bowed shoulders. as the words fell from my lips the dying woman clutched my hand convulsively and murmured some words in russian. then her grasp loosened. i raised my eyes to her face, and saw that all was over. my strained nerves gave way, and i sobbed convulsively. kosinski was at my side. "poor thing, poor thing!" i heard him murmur. he laid his hand caressingly on my shoulder. the candle was flaring itself out, and everything assumed a ghastly blue tint as the first chill light of dawn, previous to sunrise, stole into the room. i rose to my feet and went over to the window. how cold and unsympathetic everything looked! i felt chilly, and a cold shudder ran down my limbs. absolute silence prevailed, in the street, in the house, in the room, where lay the dead woman staring fixedly before her. kosinski had sunk into a chair, his head between his hands. i looked at him in silence and bit my lip. an unaccustomed feeling of revolt was springing up in me. i could not and did not attempt to analyse my feelings, only i felt a blind unreasoning anger with existence. how stupid, how objectless it all seemed! the church clock rung out the hour, five o'clock. kosinski rose, he walked to the bedside, and closed poor eudoxia's staring eyes, and drew the sheet over her face. then he came over to me. "i shall never forget your kindness, isabel. there is yet one thing i will ask of you; i know that eudoxia wanted a mass to be said for her and vassili; will you see about carrying out this wish of hers? i cannot give you the money to pay for it; i have not got it." i nodded in silent consent. he paused a few minutes. he seemed anxious to speak, yet hesitated; at last he said, "i am leaving london, isabel, i can do nothing here, and i have received letters from comrades in austria telling me that there things are ripe for the revolution." i started violently: "you are leaving! leaving london?" i stammered. "yes, i shall be able to do better work elsewhere." i turned suddenly on him. "and so you mean to say that we are to part? thus? now? for ever?" a pained look came into his eyes. he seemed to shrink from personalities. "no," i continued rapidly, "i will, i must speak. why should we ruin our lives? to what idol of our own creation are we sacrificing our happiness? we anarchists are always talking of the rights of the individual, why are you deliberately sacrificing your personal happiness, and mine? the dead woman was right; i love you, and i know that you love me. our future shall not be ruined by a misunderstanding. now i have spoken, you must answer, and your answer must be final." i looked at him whilst the words involuntarily rushed from my lips, and even before i had finished speaking, i knew what his answer would be. "an anarchist's life is not his own. friendship, comradeship may be helpful, but family ties are fatal; you have seen what they did for my poor friend. ever since i was fifteen i have lived solely for the cause; you are mistaken in thinking that i love you in the way you imply. i thought of you as a comrade, and loved you as such." i had quite regained my self-possession. "enough," i said, interrupting him. "i do not regret my words; they have made everything clear to me. you are of the invincibles, kosinski; you are strong with the strength of the fanatic; and i think you will be happy too. you will never turn to contemplate regretfully the ashes of your existence and say as did your friend, 'see the result of struggling for a higher life!' you do not, you cannot see that you are a slave to your conception of freedom, more prejudiced in your lack of prejudice than the veriest bourgeois; that is your strength, and it is well. good-bye." he grasped my proffered hand with warmth. "good-bye, isabel. i knew you were not like other women; that _you_ could understand." "i can understand," i replied, "and admire, even if i deplore. good-bye." slowly i moved towards the door, my eyes fascinated by the rigid lines of the sheet covering the dead woman; slowly i turned the handle and walked down the mean wooden staircase into the mean suburban street. chapter xii the _tocsin's_ last toll as i walked home from kosinski's in the early morning i felt profoundly depressed. the weather had turned quite chilly and a fine drizzling rain began to fall, promising one of those dull, wet days of which we experience so many in the english spring. the streets were deserted but for the milkmen going their rounds, and the tired-looking policemen waiting to be relieved on their beats. i felt that feeling of physical exhaustion which one experiences after being up all night, when one has not had the opportunity for a wash and change of clothes. i was not sleepy, but my eyes were hot and dry under their heavy eyelids, my bones ached, my muscles felt stiff; i had the uncomfortable consciousness that my hair was disordered and whispy, my hat awry, my skin shiny; and this sub-consciousness of physical unattractiveness heightened the sense of moral degradation. i felt weary and disgusted, and it was not only, nor even principally, the knowledge that kosinski had gone out of my life which accounted for this. i felt strangely numbed and dull, curiously able to look back on that incident as if it had occurred to some one else. every detail, every word, was vividly stamped on my brain: i kept recurring to them as i trudged along, but in a critical spirit, smiling every now and again as the humour of some strangely incongruous detail flashed across my brain. what really weighed me down was a sense of the futility, not only of anarchist propaganda but of things in general. what were we striving for? happiness, justice? and the history of the world shows that man has striven for these since the dawn of humanity without ever getting much nearer the goal. the few crumbs of personal happiness which one might hope for in life were despised and rejected by men like armitage, kosinski, and bonafede, yet all three were alike powerless to bring about the larger happiness they dreamed of. i had acquired a keener sense of proportion since the days when i had first climbed the breakneck ladder of slater's mews, and i now realised that the great mass of toiling humanity ignored our existence, and that the slow, patient work of the ages was hardly likely to be helped or hindered by our efforts. i did not depreciate the value of thought, of the effort made by the human mind to free itself from the shackles of superstition and slavery; of that glorious unrest which spurs men on to scrutinise the inscrutable, ever baffled yet ever returning to the struggle, which alone raises him above the brute creation and which, after all, constitutes the value of all philosophy quite apart from the special creed each school may teach; and i doubted not for a moment that the yeast of anarchist thought was leavening the social conceptions of our day. but i had come to see the almost ludicrous side of the anarchist party, especially in england, considered as a practical force in politics. short and simpkins were typical figures--m'dermott, an exceptionally good one--of the rank and file of the english party. they used long words they barely understood, considered that equality justified presumption, and contempt or envy of everything they felt to be superior to themselves. communism, as they conceived it, amounted pretty nearly to living at other people's expense, and they believed in revenging the wrongs of their classes by exploiting and expropriating the bourgeois whenever such action was possible without incurring personal risk. of course i was not blind to the fact that there were a few earnest and noble men among them, men who had educated themselves, curtailing their food and sleep to do so, men of original ideas and fine independent character, but i had found that with the anarchist, as with the socialist party, and indeed all parties, such were not those who came to the surface, or who gave the _ton_ to the movement. then, of course, there were noble dreamers, incorrigible idealists, like armitage, men whom experience could not teach nor disappointment sour. men gifted with eternal youth, victimised and sacrificed by others, yet sifting and purifying the vilest waste in the crucible of their imaginations, so that no meanness, nor the sorrow born of the knowledge of meanness in others, ever darkens their path. men who live in a pure atmosphere of their own creation, whom the worldly-wise pity as deluded fools, but who are perhaps the only really enviable people in the world. notable, too, were the fanatics of the kosinski type, stern heroic figures who seem strangely out of place in our humdrum world, whose practical work often strikes us as useless when it is not harmful, yet without whom the world would settle down into deadly lethargy and stagnation. then in england came a whole host of cranks who, without being anarchists in any real sense of the word, seemed drawn towards our ranks, which they swelled and not infrequently brought into ridicule. the "bleeding lamb" and his atheist opponent gresham, the polish countess vera voblinska with her unhappy husband who looked like an out-at-elbows mute attached to a third-rate undertaker's business, a dress-reforming lady disciple of armitage, a queer figure, not more than four feet in height, who looked like a little boy in her knickers and jersey, till you caught sight of the short grizzled hair and wrinkled face, who confided to me that she was "quite in love with the doctor, he was so _quaint_;" and numerous others belonged to that class; and finally a considerable sprinkling of the really criminal classes who seemed to find in the anarchist doctrine of "fais ce que veux" that salve to their conscience for which even the worst scoundrels seem to crave, and which, at worst, permitted them to justify their existences in their own eyes as being the "rotten products of a decaying society." such were the heterogeneous elements composing the anarchist party with which i had set out to reform the world. the neighbouring church chimes rang out half-past six as i approached home, and on reaching the doorstep of the fitzroy square house i found my brother raymond just letting himself in. on seeing me he exclaimed, "oh, isabel, where have you been so early?--though really your appearance suggests the idea that you have never been to bed rather than that you have just risen!" i confirmed his suspicion and together we entered his study. "well, where have you been? is there something new on with the anarchists? i have seen so little of you for the past six months that i feel quite out of the world--your world at least." it was a great relief to me to find my brother so conversable. we had both been so occupied of late in our respective ways that we had had but scant opportunity for talk or companionship. raymond had now started practising on his own account; he was popular with his poor patients in the crowded slums round king's cross, amongst whom his work chiefly lay, and day and night he toiled in their midst. certainly the sights he saw there were not calculated to destroy his revolutionary longings, though they were often such as might well have made him doubt of the ultimate perfectibility of the human race. "oh, i am so glad to find you, raymond, and i should enjoy a nice long talk together; but you must be tired; you have, i suppose, only just come in after working all night?" he explained to me that he had been summoned after midnight to attend a poor woman's confinement, and had stayed with her till past four, when, feeling more inclined for a walk than for his bed, he had wandered off in the direction of highgate and had only just got home. "by the way, isabel," he said, "as i was coming down the caledonian road i met your friend armitage. he is a good fellow whom i have always liked, so i stopped him and we had a chat. he explained to me that he was attired in his new pedestrian costume, which indeed struck me as almost pre-adamite in its simplicity. he had been helping some of his friends to move--to shoot the moon, i fancy, would describe the situation. he inquired of me what i was doing, and we got talking on all sorts of scientific and philosophic problems. it is extraordinary what an intellect that man has. only he lives too much in a world of his own creation; he seems absolutely oblivious of self, and i feel sure his hygiene and vegetarianism are simply the outcome of his desire to free himself from all worldly cares which might impede his absolute devotion to his cause. he seems to have practically abandoned his practice. as we were wandering on rather aimlessly, i suggested accompanying him home, but he did not appear to jump at the idea, and as i know that it is not considered etiquette amongst you folk to press inquiries as to address and so on, i was going to drop the subject; but armitage, after a short silence, explained that the fact was he had not exactly got a home to go to. i concluded that he was in for the bother of changing diggings, and made some sympathetic remark to that effect; but he said that was not exactly the case--that, in fact, he had given up having a fixed abode altogether. as you can imagine, isabel," continued my brother, "this information somewhat staggered me. i knew through you that he had long ago given up his harley street establishment and moved into more populous quarters, where i quite supposed him still to be residing. but he calmly went on to explain, as though it were the most natural thing in the world, that he had been in need of a rather considerable sum of money some weeks back for purposes of propaganda, and that, not knowing where else to obtain the money, he had sold up all his belongings and cleared out of his lodgings without paying his rent, 'by way of an example.' all this he explained with the air of a man adducing an unanswerable argument, and as his manner did not admit of remonstrance, i simply asked him what he thought of doing now, which started him off on a long account of the opportunities for propaganda afforded by such establishments as rowton house, the casual wards, and the salvation army shelters. 'we want to get at the oppressed, to rouse them from their lethargy of ages, to show them that they too have rights, and that it is cowardly and wicked to starve in the midst of plenty; we want to come amongst them, not as preachers and dilettantists, but as workers like themselves, and how can this be done better than by going in their midst and sharing their life?' i could not but feel amazement and admiration at the enthusiasm and sincerity of this man, mingled with sorrow at the thought that such an intellect as his should be thus wasted. he is a man who might have done almost anything in the scientific world, and now he seems destined to waste his life, a dreamer of dreams, a sort of modern st. francis in a world lacking in idealism, and where he will be looked upon as a wandering lunatic rather than a saint." i sat silent for a few minutes. i had not quite realised that poor armitage had come to this--a frequenter of casual wards, a homeless and wandering lunatic; my brother was right, the world would judge him as such. i was not, however, in the least surprised at the news. the servants had by now come down and we had breakfast brought to the study, and i gave raymond an account of my night's proceedings. when i concluded my brother said, "well, isabel, you will remain almost alone at the _tocsin_. kosinski is leaving, giannoli is gone, armitage is otherwise occupied. will you be able to keep it going?" "oh, i could keep it going," i replied. "there are still a lot of comrades hanging on to it; new ones are constantly turning up. the work can be done between us, there is no doubt of that. it is rather of myself that i doubt. i begin to feel isolated in the midst of the others; i cannot believe that people like short and simpkins can change society; they would have to begin reforming themselves, and that they are incapable of. i can admire a man like kosinski: i cannot exactly sympathise with him. as to armitage, i can only grieve that he should thus waste his life and talents. probably, had he thought a little more of his personal happiness, he would have avoided falling a victim to monomania, for such he is in part. and then--and then--it is not only of others that i doubt, but of myself. am i really doing any good? can i sincerely believe that the _tocsin_ will help towards the regeneration of mankind? can mankind be regenerated? when such questions never occurred to me, or, if they did, were answered by my brain with an unhesitating affirmative, then it was easy to work. no difficulties could daunt me; everything seemed easy, straightforward. but now--but now...." "well, then, why don't you give it up, isabel?" "give it up? oh, how could i? i have never really thought of that. oh no; the paper must come out. i have undertaken it. i must go on with it." "and you an anarchist! why, i always thought you believed in the absolute freedom of the individual, and here you are saying that you must go on with a work in which you no longer feel the requisite confidence, for the mere reason that you once, under other circumstances, started it." "you are right, raymond, logically right, but life is not ruled by logic, whether we be anarchists or reactionaries. i feel that i could not give up the _tocsin_, my interests centre round it; besides, i do not say that i have altered my ideas; i am still an anarchist, i can honestly work for the cause; i only said that i doubt. i feel depressed. who has not had at times periods of depression and doubt?" "well, we shall see," replied raymond. "i got a letter from caroline last night which i wanted to show you. she says she will be home in another three months, as she has accepted a further engagement for the states now that her tour is nearly over. when she comes home it will be a little company for you in the house. she has friends, and she is sure to be much sought after now, as she seems fairly on the road to becoming a celebrity in the musical world." i read the long letter, written in the brilliant style which characterised everything about caroline. she described her triumphs in the various cities of the argentine and brazil, the receptions given in her honour, the life and society of these faraway countries, with a brightness and humour which brought home to me the whole atmosphere of the places and people she described. caroline had always been fond of society, and even before leaving england had become quite a favourite in musical circles; but her quick, bright intelligence had never allowed her to be blind to much that was vulgar and ludicrous in her surroundings. i was truly glad to think that we should meet again before long. the common memories and affections of our childhood formed a solid basis for our mutual friendship, but i could not help smiling as i read the last paragraph of her long epistle: "i expect by now isabel has had time to grow out of her enthusiasm for revolutions and economics, and will feel less drawn towards baggy-trousered democrats and unwashed philosophers than when i left. perhaps she may even have come round to my view of life, _i.e._, that it is really not worth while taking things too tragically, and that it is best to take the few good things life brings us without worrying one's brains about humanity. selfish, is it not? but i have generally noticed that it is your stern moralists and humanitarians who cause the most unhappiness in the world. anyhow, if isabel is less wrapped up in socialism and anarchy we shall be able to have a good time when i come home. i am sure to be asked out a good deal, and if the fashionable people who patronise musical celebrities are not free from their foibles and ridicules we shall anyhow be able to amuse ourselves and laugh at them up our sleeves." so caroline already counted on my having outgrown anarchy and unwashed philosophy, as she phrased it, and grown into drawing-room etiquette! but she was wrong! i should go on with the _tocsin_. i should still work in the cause; i had done so till then, and what had happened since yesterday to alter my intentions? nothing, or at least nothing of outward importance. only, since my last interview with armitage and my parting with kosinski, i had begun to formulate to myself many questions which till then i had only vaguely felt. still i repeated to myself that i should go on with the paper, that i should continue to lead the same life. of course i should! how could i do otherwise? and even if i had changed somewhat in my ideas and my outlook on life, i certainly did not feel even remotely attracted towards the sort of society caroline referred to. i had a vivid recollection of once accompanying her to an _at home_, given in a crowded drawing-room, where the heavily-gilded louis xv. mirrors and sevres vases and ornaments, with their scrolls and flourishes, all seemed to have developed the flowing wigs which characterised the roi soleil, and where the armchairs and divans were upholstered in yellow and pink satin, and decked out with ribbon bows to resemble watteau sheep. oh no; certainly i should not exchange the low living and high thinking of my anarchist days for such artificiality and vulgar display. sunday was generally a very busy day with me, almost more so than week-days, for there were meetings to be held, literature to be sold and distributed, and lectures and discussions to be attended. i was in the habit of rising rather late, as very often saturday night was an all-night sitting at the office of the _tocsin_, and sunday morning was the only time i found it convenient to pay a little attention to the toilet. but i used generally to manage to be by twelve in some public place, and help short and m'dermott to start a meeting. short, influenced by his inherent laziness, had succeeded in persuading the italians that he was a great orator, and that they could not better forward the cause in their new country than by carrying for him the movable platform from which he delivered his spirited harangues; so that one or two of them were generally present helping to form the nucleus of an audience, and ready to lend their valid support should any drunken loafer or top-hatted bourgeois, outraged in his feelings, attempt to disturb the proceedings. hyde park was generally my destination in the afternoon, and in the evening we used to repair in force to the hall of the social democrats, there to take part in the discussion which followed the lectures, or else some meeting in deptford, canning town, or stratford would claim my attendance. but on this particular sunday i felt too tired and despondent to think of rushing out in my usual style. i shut myself in my room and tried to rest, but i could not free myself from the sights and thoughts which had beset me during the night. the words of kosinski's friend, "and this is what comes of struggling for the higher life," still haunted me; the dead woman, staring blindly into space rose before me, an image of the suffering forced on the weak by the strong. then my thoughts reverted to giannoli. what was he doing? i had not heard from him for over a month, and his last letter had been far from reassuring. he hinted at some desperate enterprise he was engaged on, and as i had no further news of him from any quarter i thought it not unlikely that he had been arrested, and was, even then perhaps, suffering unknown tortures in one of those dreaded spanish prisons, where the old systems of the inquisition still prevail, though modern hypocrisy requires that all should pass in silence and darkness, content on these conditions never to push too closely its inquiries, even though some crippled victim who may escape should rouse for a moment a spasmodic outburst of indignation in the civilised world. and even were this not his fate, it was a sad enough one in all conscience: to rush all over the world, wrecked in health, driven from place to place by his wild suspicions, the offspring of a diseased imagination; deprived of friends, for his mania of persecution drove them off; deprived of means, for he had sacrificed his all to the propaganda, and his health and mode of life did not permit of any settled occupation. i felt strangely anxious about him, and this led my thoughts back once more to kosinski, with whom i had been brought so closely into contact through our relations with giannoli. i should never see him again in all probability. he had told me he was going to austria. he too belonged to the _knights of death_, as an italian comrade had named a certain section of the anarchists; and he was working out his inevitable destiny. i wondered now how i had ever allowed myself to conceive of him otherwise. i had always known it was impossible, and i felt that it was only an impulse of rebellion against fate which had led me to speak. finding sleep out of the question, i got up and attempted to write an article which i had promised to bring down to the _tocsin_ the following morning. the subject i had chosen was "the right to happiness," and i argued that man has a right not only to daily bread, as the socialists maintain, but also to happiness, consisting in the fullest development and exercise of all his faculties, a condition only possible when the individual shall be perfectly free, living in a harmonious society of free men, untrammelled by artificial economic difficulties, and by superstitions inherited from the past. some days previously we had had a discussion on the subject at the office of the _tocsin_, and i had maintained my views victoriously against the pessimistic dogmatism of a german comrade. but now my arguments seemed hollow to myself, mere rhetoric, and even that of third-rate quality. happiness! did not the mere fact of attaining our desires deprive them of their charm? life was an alternating of longing and regret. i pushed paper and pen aside, and began roaming aimlessly about the house. the large old-fashioned rooms impressed me as strangely silent and forlorn. i wandered up to the attic which our father had used as a laboratory, and which had always struck us children as a mysterious apartment, where he did wonderful things with strange-shaped instruments and bottles which we were told contained deadly poison. his apparatus was still ranged on the shelves, thick in dust, and the air was heavy with the pungent smell of acids. the large drawing-rooms with their heavy hangings looked shabbier and dingier than of old; i could not help noticing the neglected look of everything. i had hardly entered them during the past year, and now i vaguely wondered whether caroline on her return would wish to have them renovated. then i remembered how i had received there for the first time, some four years ago, my brother's socialist friend, and i could not help smiling as i recollected my excitement on that occasion. i was indeed young in those days! i picked up a book which was lying on a table thick in dust, and sat down listlessly in the roomy arm-chair by the fireside, which had been my father's favourite seat. i began turning the pages of a volume, "the thoughts of marcus aurelius," and gradually i became absorbed in its contents. here was a man who had known how to create for himself in his own soul an oasis of rest, not by practising a selfish indifference to, and isolation from, public matters--not by placing his hopes in some future paradise, the compensation of terrestrial suffering, but by rising superior to external events, and, whilst fulfilling his duty as emperor and man, not allowing himself to be flustered or perturbed by the inevitable. "abolish opinion, you have abolished this complaint, 'some one has harmed me.' suppress the complaint, 'some one has harmed me,' and the harm itself is suppressed." what wisdom in these words! it was a long while since i had thus enjoyed a quiet read. for several months past my life had been a ceaseless round of feverish activity. looking back, it seemed to me that i had allowed myself to be strangely preoccupied and flustered by trifles. what were these important duties which had so absorbed me as to leave me no time for thought, for study, no time to live my own life? how had i come to give such undue importance to the publication of a paper which, after all, was read by a very few, and those few for the most part already blind believers in the ideas it advocated? yet i told myself that the _tocsin_ had done good work, and could yet do much. besides, i had undertaken it, i must go on with it; life without an object would be intolerable. the slow hours passed, and when night came i felt thoroughly worn out and exhausted, and soon got to sleep. i awoke on monday morning with a sense of impending misfortune hovering over me. i had taken refuge in sleep the previous night from a host of troublesome thoughts and perplexing doubts, and i now experienced the hateful sensation of returning consciousness, when one does not yet recollect fully the past, yet realises vaguely the re-awakening to suffering and action. i wanted to get to the office early that morning, for publishing day was near at hand and there was a lot of work to be finished. i felt that the drudgery of composing would be a relief to my over-strained nerves; so, without waiting for breakfast and the morning paper which i generally scanned before leaving home, i dressed rapidly and set out for the _tocsin_. i had not gone many yards when my attention was attracted by the large placards pasted on the boards outside a newspaper shop:-- "shocking outrage in madrid. attempt on the life of spanish prime-minister--many victims. arrest of anarchist assassin. london police on scent." giannoli! the name flashed across my brain as i rushed into the shop and purchased the paper. my heart thumped with excitement as, standing in the shadow of some houses at the corner of the street, i hastily opened and folded the sheet and ran my eyes down the long column, freely interspersed with headlines. "on sunday evening, at half-past six, when the fashionable crowd which throngs the prado at madrid was at its thickest, and just as the minister fernandez was driving by in his carriage, a man pushed his way through the crowd, and shouting 'long live anarchy,' discharged at him three shots from a revolver; the aim, however, was not precise, and one of the bullets wounded, it is feared mortally, the secretary, señor esperandez, who was seated beside his chief, whilst the minister was shot in the arm. several people rushed forward to seize the miscreant, who defended himself desperately, discharging the remaining chambers of the revolver amidst his assailants, two of whom have sustained serious injuries. he was, however, overcome and taken, handcuffed and bound, to the nearest police station. on being interrogated he refused his name and all particulars as to himself, only declaring that he attempted the life of the minister fernandez on his own individual responsibility, that he had no accomplices, and that his object was to revenge his comrades who had been persecuted by order of the minister. when informed that he had missed his aim, and that fernandez had escaped with a broken arm, whilst his secretary was in danger of death, he expressed his regret at not having succeeded in his object, saying that this was due to his wretched health, which rendered his aim unsteady; but as to señor esperandez, he declared that he considered him also responsible, inasmuch as he was willing to associate himself with the oppressor of the people. neither threats nor persuasion could induce him to say more. the police, however, are making active inquiries, and have ascertained so far (midnight of sunday) that the prisoner is an italian anarchist recently landed at barcelona from america, passing under the name of paolo costa. this name, however, is considered to be false. he is a tall man, of rather distinguished appearance. the police do not credit the idea that he has no accomplices, and during the evening extensive arrests have been made in madrid and barcelona. over a hundred of the most noted anarchists and socialists in these cities are now in prison." such was the brief outline of facts as given by the _morning post._ of course i had not the slightest doubt as to the identity of the prisoner; the state of weakness and ill-health which had caused him to miss his aim was conclusive, added to the many other reasons i had for supposing him to be giannoli. this, then, was the deed he had been contemplating! only the day before i had been wondering why i had no news of him; but a few hours previously he went forth to his death. for it meant death, of course; of that i had no doubt. he would be garotted; i only hoped that he might not be tortured first. i gave a hasty glance at the other details given by the paper. a column was dedicated to the virtues of the prime-minister. he was upheld as a model of the domestic virtues (a few months back continental papers had been full of a scandalous trial in which fernandez had been involved), and was represented as the man who had saved spain from ruin and disaster by his firm repression of the revolutionary parties: by which euphonious phrase the papers referred to the massacres of strikers which had taken place at barcelona and valladolid, and the wholesale arrest and imprisonment of anarchists and socialists in connection with a recent anti-clerical movement which had convulsed the peninsula. these arrests had given rise to a great political trial for conspiracy before a court-martial, which had ended in a sentence of death passed on five of the prisoners, whilst the others were sentenced to terms of imprisonment varying from thirty to five years. it was to revenge the injustice and the sufferings caused by this policy that giannoli had attempted the life of the spanish minister. another paragraph caught my eye:-- "london police hot on scent: raids and arrests." "our correspondent has interviewed a leading detective at scotland yard who for some years past has been charged with the surveillance of suspicious foreign anarchists. this clever officer informs our correspondent that he has no doubt the plot was hatched in london, and thinks that he could name the author, an italian anarchist of desperate antecedents who disappeared from london under mysterious circumstances nearly seven months ago. london is a centre of anarchist propaganda, and foreign desperadoes of all nationalities flock hither to abuse the hospitality and freedom which this government too rashly concedes them. englishmen will one day be roused from their fool's paradise to find that too long have they nursed a viper in their bosom. we trust that this lesson will not be wasted, and that the police will see to closing without delay certain self-styled clubs and 'printing-offices' which are in reality nothing but hotbeds of conspiracy and murder." i hurried along as i read these last words. we were evidently once more in for troublous times. the office of the _tocsin_ was clearly designated in the paragraph i have quoted; perhaps the office would be raided; perhaps the italian comrades who were staying there would be arrested. i rapidly reviewed in my mind's eye the papers and letters which were in the office, wondering whether anything incriminating would be found; but i did not feel much perturbed on that score, as it was my invariable custom to burn all papers of importance, and i felt certain that nothing more compromising would be found than the bleeding lamb's tract on the seven-headed beast, which, according to its author, would "make the old queen sit up a bit," and gresham's treatise on the persecutions of the early christians. i was glad to think that kosinski had settled to leave the country. i knew that giannoli had left with him much of his correspondence, and i trusted that this would not fall into the hands of the police. i had now nearly reached my destination and, as i turned up the corner of lysander grove, i at once realised that something unusual had taken place at the office. the shutters were still up at mrs. wattles's green-grocer's shop, and that lady herself loomed large at the entrance to the courtyard leading to the _tocsin_, surrounded by her chief gossips and by a dozen or two of dirty matrons. several windows were up in the houses opposite and slatternly-looking women were craning out and exchanging observations. i hurried on and, pushing my way past mrs. wattles, who i could see at a glance was in liquor, and heedless of her remarks, i ran down the narrow courtyard to the office door which i found shut. i knocked impatiently and loudly; the door opened and i was confronted by a detective. what i had expected had happened. the office had been raided, and was now in the hands of the police. in answer to my inquiring look, the detective requested me to come in and speak to the inspector. in the ground-floor room three or four italian comrades were gathered together. the one-eyed baker, beppe, was addressing the others in a loud voice; as far as i could gather from the few words i caught, he was relating some prison experiences. the group looked unusually animated and jolly; the incident evidently reminded them of their own country. as soon as they saw me enter they interrupted their talk, and beppe stepped forward to shake hands, but the officer of the law interposed: "now, you fellows, stay there; the young lady is going to speak to the inspector." i told beppe i should soon be down, and he retired, pulling a wry face at the detective, and making some observation to his friends which made them all roar with laughter. upstairs a scene of wild disorder greeted my eye. four or five policemen were turning over heaps of old papers, searching through dusty cupboards and shelves; heaps of pie lay about the floor--evidently some one had put a foot through the form of type ready set for the forthcoming issue of the _tocsin_; on the "composing surface" stood a formidable array of pint pots, with the contents of which the men in blue had been refreshing themselves. on a packing-case in the middle of the room sat short, his billycock hat set far back on his long, greasy hair, smoking a clay pipe with imperturbable calm; whilst little m'dermott, spry as ever, watched the proceedings, pulling faces at the policemen behind their backs, and "kidding" them with extraordinary tales as to the fearful explosive qualities of certain ginger-beer bottles which were ranged on a shelf. at the editorial table, which was generally covered with a litter of proofs and manuscript, more or less greasy and jammy, owing to our habit of feeding in the office, sat the inspector, going through the heaps of papers, pamphlets, and manuscript articles which were submitted to his scrutiny by his satellites. i took in all this at a glance, and walking straight up to the inspector, i demanded of him an explanation of this unwarranted invasion of the office. his first answer was an interrogation. "you are isabel meredith, are you not?" this opened up an explanation which was brief and conclusive. the inspector showed me a search-warrant, duly signed by a magistrate, and another warrant for the arrest of kosinski, and informed me that the office had been opened to him by short, who had represented himself as one of the proprietors. the primary object of the search was to see if kosinski, who was wanted by the police in connection with the madrid outrage, were not on the premises, and also to see if there were no incriminating documents or explosive materials concealed there. "and have you found anything very alarming?" i inquired sarcastically. "no, miss," the inspector replied in the same tone; "the most dangerous object in this place seems to be your printer" (he pointed at short), "and we have kept at a fairly safe distance from _him_. still, of course, i have to go through all these papers; they may yet give us a clue to the whereabouts of kosinski or your friend giannoli;" and here he looked me straight in the face. "maybe," i simply replied with a shrug. i felt perfectly tranquil on that score, and had but small doubt that kosinski was by now already on his way out of the country, as he would judge from the papers that the police would be on his track. "and when will this search be over?" i inquired. "oh, i cannot exactly tell you. it will take me some days to go all through these papers. we shall probably be here for two or three days." i looked around me. everything was disorganised. the type cases had all been emptied into a heap in the middle of the room, the forms ready locked up had been pied, the mss. and papers sequestered. it was utterly hopeless to think of bringing out the _tocsin_. the scene reminded me of my first experience of an anarchist printing-office after the police raid on the _bomb_; but now i no longer had armitage to encourage me with his unswerving optimism and untiring energy, nor kosinski to urge me on with his contempt of dilettantism and half-hearted enthusiasm. true, short was there, much the same as in the old days; even his dog could be heard snarling and growling when the policemen administered to him some sly kick; but as i looked at the squalid and lethargic figure with its sallow, unhealthy, repulsive face, i was overcome by a feeling of almost physical nausea. i realised fully how loathsome this gutter iago had become to me during the past few months, during which i had had ample opportunity to note his pettifogging envy and jealousy, his almost simian inquisitiveness and prying curiosity. i felt i could not work with him; his presence had become intolerable to me. i realised that this was the _finale_, the destined end of the _tocsin_ and of my active revolutionary propaganda. i had changed. why not let the dead bury their dead? at this moment the policeman who had opened the office door to me came up bringing a letter, which he handed to the inspector. "it is for you, miss," that functionary said, reading the address, "but i have orders to open all correspondence. you will excuse my complying with them." my heart stood still. could it be from kosinski or giannoli? after a moment the inspector handed the note to me. it was from the landlord--a notice to quit. i walked up and showed it to short. "well, what will you do?" he inquired. they were the first words we had exchanged that morning. "i shall leave," i replied. "and how about the paper? do you think of starting it again?" "no, i do not think so; not for the present at any rate." "and the 'plant'?" "i shall leave that too. you can look after it, you and the comrades!" "oh, the comrades!" sneered short, and returned to his pipe. i turned once more to the inspector. "i am free to leave, i suppose?" i inquired. "i cannot see that my presence here serves any purpose." "oh yes, miss, you can go if you like. the presence of the printer is sufficient for us. i understand he is one of the proprietors?" "oh yes, he is a proprietor," i replied, and turned on my heel. m'dermott came up to me. "well, my dear," he said, "so you are leaving. well, i don't blame you, nor wish you to remain. after all, it is no use trying to tinker up our rotten system, or to prop up society with such wretched supports as our friend here," and he pointed at short. "what we need is to get round them by our insidious means, and then go in for wholesale assassination!" i could not help smiling as the little man gave vent to this bloodthirsty sentiment in an undertone; he wrung my hand warmly, and we parted. "what do you intend doing with those italians who stay here?" i inquired of the inspector as the sound of a guitar proceeding from downstairs recalled my thoughts to them. "i think it best to detain them here until i have finished searching the place thoroughly; then if i find nothing to incriminate them, they will be free. you need not worry about them, miss, they do not seem likely to suffer from depression." the twanging of the guitar was now accompanied by beppe's powerful baritone voice, whilst the others joined in the chorus: "_noi, profughi d'italia...._" i walked down the stairs. "good-bye, comrades!" "good-bye, a rivederci!" and after giving one last look at the familiar scene, i walked out. as i made my way down the yard leading to the street, i encountered mrs. wattles at the back door of her shop. she had now reached the maudlin stage of intoxication. her eyes were bleary, her mouth tremulous, her complexion bloated and inflamed. there was something indefinite in her appearance, suggesting the idea that her face had been boiled, and that the features had run, losing all sharpness of outline and expression. she fixed me with her fishy eye, and dabbing her face with the corner of her apron began to blubber. "s'elp me gawd, miss," she began, "i never thought as i should come to this! to have them narks under my very roof, abrazenin' it out! i always knew as there was something wrong abart pore mr. janly, and many's the time i've said to 'im, 'mr. janly, sir,' i've said, 'do take a little something, yer look so pale.' but 'e always answered, 'no, mrs. wattles, no; you've been a mother to me, mrs. wattles, and i know you're right, but i can't do it. 'ere's for 'alf a pint to drink my health, but i can't do it.' and i dare say as it were them temp'rance scrupils like as brought 'im to 'is end." at these tender recollections of giannoli the good lady quite broke down. "to think that it was i as let you that very shop two years last christmas, and that pore mr. cusings, as was sweet on you then--i've not seen 'im lately--and now the coppers are under my very roof! it seems a judgment on us, it really does. but i always told wattles that if he went on treatin' of 'is wedded wife more like a 'eathen than a christian woman, as a judgment would come on 'im, an' now my words is proved." she seemed by now quite oblivious of my presence: a quivering shapeless mass of gin-drenched humanity she collapsed on to the doorstep. and with this for my last sight and recollection of the place which had witnessed so much enthusiasm, so many generous hopes and aspirations, and where so many illusions lay buried, i walked forth into the london street a sadder if a wiser woman. the end whither thou goest by william le queux published by herbert jenkins ltd, york street, st james's, london. this edition dated . whither thou goest, by william le queux. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ whither thou goest, by william le queux. preface. what this story is about. the earl of saxham was vastly annoyed when his son, guy, fell in love with a "penniless nobody," and announced that he would marry her against all opposition. he determined to separate the lovers; to which end he persuaded an influential friend in the foreign office to secure an appointment for guy in the embassy at madrid. he little knew that he was sending his son into the centre of a hotbed of anarchism, that guy's footsteps were to be dogged by a vindictive and revengeful woman, that his life was to hold many a thrilling moment and not a few narrow escapes. mr le queux has written a thrilling story of anarchism and its deadly secret plotting, a story through which there runs, nevertheless, a rich vein of romance. prologue. a hot july evening on the calm biscayan coast of spain. the sun had disappeared like a globe of molten metal into the sapphire sea, and now, in the breathless blood-red afterglow which tinged the unruffled glassy waters away to the atlantic, the whole populace of the peaceful old-world town of fonterrabia had come forth from their houses to breathe again after the intense heat and burden of the blazing day. dusty green sun-shutters were being opened everywhere, while upon the golden beach the clear waters hardly rippled, for the summer tide was upon the turn. across the bay lay a cluster of gaily-painted sardine boats in reds and greens, awaiting a breeze, and along the sea-front, so fiercely swept in winter, stood the quaint mediaeval houses, crumbling and sun-blanched, with their wide overhanging roofs and many balconies, palpitating with the heat, now rapidly receding. it had been a scorching day in spain. in the stunted tamarisks which sprang, dust-covered and twisted, from the yellow, shifting sands the grasshoppers still chirped merrily, though it was sunset, and from the sun-blanched sea-front came of a sudden the high, tuneful twanging of a mandoline, and a man's tenor voice singing that ancient love-song which one hears everywhere in the wine lands of the guipuzcoa. _pase cantivo amor entus prisones_. from the houses came forth the many mixed odours of the evening _cena_, the appetising smell of rich _ollas_, mostly flavoured with garlic, be it said, while from the shops which sold eatables there emanated that faint and peculiar perfume which only those who have lived in hot climates can know, and can justly appreciate. of a sudden the ancient bells of santa gadea, the old incense-laden, gothic church above the town, clanged forth again, as they had done so many times a day through centuries, summoning the good people of fonterrabia to kneel before the high dark altar, with those long candles and the wonderful brass chandelier above. now as the bells jangled forth an observer might, perhaps, have noticed two men meet, as though entirely by accident, close to that obscure little cafe "the concha," which faces the sea. on the pavement before the little place sat several men in their blue _berets_, drinking wine and gossiping as all spaniards must do. the pair who had met were of quite different stamp. one, who was about forty, of a refined but rather parvenu type, was dressed in a well-cut suit of thin, dark grey material, and wore a straw hat much ripened by the sun. he was idly smoking a long _valenciano_, and betrayed surprise, though feigned, at the meeting. the other was a typical fisherman in the blue blouse and blue _beret_, the national headdress of all the basque people. he still wore his heavy sea-boots, in which, however, he walked jauntily, for his age was not more than thirty, and his dark, handsome countenance was bright, enthusiastic, and well bronzed. on meeting, the man in the sun-ripened straw hat, and of much superior class, turned quickly and walked beside him. as he did so a tall jesuit priest, a man with a swarthy, sinister face and a long, rather shabby cassock--father gonzalo by name--chanced to pass. carlos somoza, the fisherman, saluted him reverently, but beneath his breath he exclaimed in spanish: "may the holy madonna curse him for ever!" "why?" inquired the man in grey, whose name was garcia zorrilta, a native of toledo, who had come in secret from madrid in order to meet his fisherman friend. "because he may recognise you. there may be a hitch." "bah! there will be no hitch. there cannot be. you people here in the country are so often faint-hearted. we in the capital are not. all goes well, and success must be ours. it is but a simple matter of waiting--waiting in patience." "yes--but father gonzalo is a man whom i do not like." "why? he looks really quite harmless. who is he?" "nobody exactly knows," was the fisherman's reply, as they turned up the narrow calle mayor, that old-world street of high, handsome houses, mostly adorned with the crumbling coats-of-arms of the ancient proprietors, and with balconies of wrought iron, and wide, projecting roofs across the narrow footway. "he has been here for about four months, yet he is not attached to santa gadea. sometimes he visits the sick, and all speak well of him. but both cardona and cienfuegos agree with my suspicions that he is a government agent, and that he is here to find out all he can." his companion grunted. "_dios_! if that is really so, then we must discover more about him," he said. "i trust, however, you are wrong, for, as you say, he might recognise me again. and that would certainly be most awkward in my position--as deputy-governor of the province of navarre." "yes, excellency, that is why i cursed him," replied the intelligent fisherman, with a smile. "at our meeting last thursday, we discussed whether father gonzalo should not meet with--well, meet with an accident." "no, no!" replied the other quickly, raising his voice because at the moment a heavy cart, with its great wood disc wheels, drawn by two white bulls and laden with wine barrels, rumbled past them slowly over the cobbles. "not here--that would never do, never! it would upset all our plans! we must be cautious--_always cautious_. watch him, and report to me in the usual way--a letter to the poste restante in madrid. i will at once inquire all about this mysterious father, and the reason he has come to fonterrabia. he may, as you suspect, be an agent of the ministry in disguise." "we are quite certain that he is." "if so, he must not remain here," declared the stranger decisively. "it would certainly be extremely dangerous for you, and for all your friends. the success of our _coup_ depends upon entire secrecy. your little circle here have ever been loyal and undaunted. there must be no betrayal, as there was, you recollect, in barcelona before the war." "barcelona is a city, fonterrabia is only a little town, and hence it should escape suspicion," was the educated young fisherman's remark. "ours we know to be a just and honest cause, and we all, as sons of spain, are each of us prepared willingly to sacrifice our lives if necessary." "well said, carlos! our gallant leader, ferdinand contraras, who has lately sacrificed most of his great fortune to secure the salvation of spain, is aware of your loyalty," zorrilta assured him. "a little time ago i was with him at one of our secret sessions at toledo, and he mentioned you, and your friends here--and praised you for your patriotism as a true son of spain." "but the englishman! what of him?" asked carlos, as, strolling slowly, they were approaching the great old church. "that englishman? oh, yes, i know. you have serious and perhaps foolish apprehensions in that direction," was the reply of the deputy-governor of navarre. "but, carlos, you can rest assured that we shall have no real trouble from that quarter. he will die--as the others have done. and he will die very soon!" "_you are quite certain of that_?" asked the fisherman eagerly. "quite. it is all arranged--an accident--a mystery--and nothing more," laughed the man from madrid. "the englishman is our most serious enemy," declared carlos, as yet only half convinced. "one by one the enemies of our own spanish people have been swept away. he will very soon follow them--rest assured. _de los enemigos los menes_--the fewer enemies the better." "but he may go back to england. we discussed it all here at our secret meeting last thursday." "well, and suppose he is in england, it does not matter. the avenging hand of our great contraras--who may _dios_ protect--will strike him there, never fear. wherever he is, he cannot escape us. he will die, and his death will be a mystery to the english police--as so many deaths have been." at that moment the pair found themselves passing the great old gothic door of santa gadea, which the sacristan had thrown open to the air for an hour to clear the atmosphere of incense before closing for the night. in the deep, cavernous silence the eternal red lamp showed before the figure of the virgin crowned, while far beyond were the long candles burning before the altar, with its many steps. the sight of those candles impelled the pious and enthusiastic carlos to suggest that they should enter the church, and there pray for the success of their plans. the deputy-governor of navarre in the shabby straw hat smiled, and at once agreed. in all latin countries the lower class have a habit of kneeling before their favourite altar and craving blessings of the most paltry character. in italy, the _contadini_ ask that the winning numbers of the _lotto_ or government lottery may be revealed to them, or beg that their attempt at theft may be successful. in spain they implore divine grace for a big catch of fish, or a fat harvest, so that they may enrich themselves. cupidity is, alas, the mainspring of most of the prayers of southern europe. garcia zorrilta, political adventurer and wire-puller, who by reason of his cunning and unscrupulousness had risen from clerk in a flour-mill in toledo to be deputy-governor of the province of navarre, knew how pious was his friend the young fisherman, and, mock piety being part of his profession, he was compelled to enter that great dark, over-ornamented church, and there kneel with his companion before the altar. what zorrilta, one of the lieutenants of the great contraras, prayed for one does not know, but the prayer of carlos the fisherman was for the speedy death of the one man he most greatly feared, the man to whom he had referred as "the englishman." but as he rose from his knees, he whispered under his breath: "_cuando no puede uno vestirse la piel del leon, vestase de la vulpeja_--when you cannot clothe yourself in the lion's skin, put on that of the fox." chapter one. the evening shadows were falling softly as the earl of saxham stepped into one of the small drawing-rooms of that palatial residence, ticehurst park, in the county of sussex. ticehurst park was a magnificent domain, deeply mortgaged. out of its fair revenues, there were two or three heavily-pensioned dowagers who had to be provided for, there were a heap of relations who had to draw their small annual stipends. on paper, the earl of saxham was a very wealthy nobleman. when he had deducted the interest on mortgages, and the yearly stipends and marriage settlements, he was quite poor. out of every sovereign he received, he retained about ten shillings. a less even-tempered man would have cursed his bad luck, that he should have been saddled with three dowagers, and a host of other cormorants. archibald, tenth earl of saxham, was a delightful optimist. he had come into the title by a series of fortunate accidents, and he was disposed to think that, on the whole, providence had arranged things very agreeably. before he took up the mantle of his fathers he had been trying to make both ends meet on a small private fortune of seven hundred a year, with but indifferent success. he had now, those irksome deductions apart, several thousands a year--in fact, a still very considerable income. he fitted into the position as easily as a glove. his wife, a woman of noble birth like himself, assisted him ably. they speedily became the most popular couple in sussex, a county which boasts of many noble families. he came into his inheritance at the age of thirty. ten years after his beautiful and beloved wife died, leaving him with three children, eric viscount ticehurst, guy rossett, and mary rossett. he was so devoted to the memory of his wife that he did not marry again. mary rossett, the youngest of the three, was sitting in the small drawing-room when he entered this particular evening. she was a handsome young woman of about twenty-five years, tall and slender. her demeanour was a little staid, suggesting a woman some five years her senior. truth to tell, mary rossett had experienced a bitter romance when she was at the age of twenty. her heart was buried in the grave of a young officer of the guards, who had died suddenly a few days before the date of their wedding. from that fatal day, she had said good-bye to love, in a measure to youth. no other man would ever charm back the lovelight into the eyes of mary rossett. but fate, which had stricken her so sorely, did not deprive her of her sweet and womanly qualities. she was the beloved companion of her brothers, the idol of her widowed father; and she was adored by all the villagers on the estate, to many of whom she was often a ministering angel. the earl of saxham, as he entered the small drawing-room, was smiling in a peculiar manner. his daughter recognised that peculiar smile. her father was very pleased with himself over something. but she knew what that something was. "so guy has come," he cried cheerfully. "well, mary, don't you give it away when he tells us the good news, or it will spoil it all." lady mary rose, and laid an affectionate hand on his arm. "no need to caution me, dearest. you know i never give myself away. keep a guard on yourself. don't smile too much, or look at me too meaningly when he is telling us, or he'll spot it. you know, you are a little indiscreet at times." the earl smiled genially. "i know, i know, mary. there is no fool like an old fool, they say. but this is really a great thing. i wrung it out of old greatorex. and, once in spain, we shall get him out of the reach of that young minx, isobel clandon." mary's brows contracted into a slight frown: love had left her stranded, but she was still very sympathetic to young lovers. "why are you so hard on poor isobel, father?" she asked in her clear, kind voice. "i know she is poor, but she is a lady and well-born." her voice faltered a little, as she added, "hugh was poor, when you gave your consent that i should marry him. why do you make this distinction with guy?" the earl looked a little embarrassed. "my dear mary, you are a sensible girl, and you must see that the circumstances are totally dissimilar. hugh was the younger son of a house as noble as our own. true he was poor, but i could have helped you." "and if you were ready to help me, you can help guy and isobel," flashed lady mary quickly. the earl spoke a little irritably. "it is very strange you can't see it. isobel clandon is, i admit, quite a lady in the technical sense of the term. but guy must look beyond that. he must marry in his own rank. failing that, he must marry a woman with money." lady mary spoke with an equal irritation. "you are unjust, father, unjust both to guy and isobel. you have no right to ruin these two young lives with your prejudices and your old-world notions." her voice dropped into a half-sob as she concluded. "what is there in the world better than real love? and these two love each other devotedly." the earl was about to reply angrily, for he was a somewhat obstinate old man, and hated being thwarted. but, before he could utter a word, the door opened to admit guy rossett. guy was a very handsome young fellow, with a winning and genial expression. he advanced and shook his father's hand warmly, and kissed his sister with equal affection. the earl beamed upon him. guy was his favourite of the two sons. ticehurst was a languid young man about town, who did not appeal greatly to his more robust father. "well, guy, my dear boy, delighted to see you. have you brought us any news?" mary shot a warning glance at her father. lord saxham was always preaching reticence to other people, but he never observed it himself. if guy had been just a little more subtle than he was, he would have smelt a rat at once. guy spoke in his frank, almost boyish voice. "splendid news, sir, but so good that i want to keep it to myself for a little bit. shall we say till after dinner, when the servants have gone, and we are quite by ourselves." "by all means." it was mary's sweet, gentle voice that answered. "i am sure i should like to keep very good news to myself for a time; hug it as it were. after dinner, guy!" later on, they went into the dining-room. the meal was a somewhat tedious and long repast. lord saxham, who was a bit of a gourmet, liked to take a small portion of several dishes. guy was a hearty trencherman. poor lady mary, whose thoughts inclined towards a convent, would have been satisfied with a cup of tea and a slice of bread and butter, but she had to preside over these prolonged meals. when the ponderous banquet--no lesser word could describe it--had drawn to a close, the footman withdrew. it was a family party, the two men sat round the table and smoked. lady mary waited to hear the great news. and then guy unburthened himself. "the biggest stroke of luck in the world, sir. after fooling about in the foreign office for all these years, greatorex sent for me to go into his private room. a very short interview: greatorex doesn't waste words. i am to go to the embassy at madrid." lady mary preserved her sweet calm. the earl did not move an eyelid. he lifted his glass of port. "success to you, my boy. you have got a chance now. and i am sure you will make good." the young man drained his glass also. "yes, i think i shall make good. what i just wanted was a chance." mary shot a warning glance at her father. it was just on the cards that he might have blurted out something that would have hurt his son's pride, led him to understand that it was his father's secret influence that had got him this post. but, fortunately, at this stage the earl's mental faculties were not very acute. he was already beginning to nod over his port. a few moments later, lord saxham's somnolent faculties became more fully developed. mary pointed to the terrace which was approached by the dining-room windows. she leaned across the table and whispered. "shall we take a stroll? i would like to talk all this over with you." guy nodded and rose. they went noiselessly to the terrace, and sat down on one of the numerous seats, overlooking the lovely gardens beneath. mary opened the conversation at once. "is this--this good news--going to make any difference to you, guy?" there was just a note of anxiety in her voice. guy looked at her squarely. "what do you mean, mary? difference in what way?" "difference between you and isobel?" answered mary, in a voice that shook a little. "you love each other so dearly. i would hate to think that anything could come between you." guy laughed his hearty, boyish laugh. "dear old girl, you know i have always told the truth to you. i would sooner go to the devil with isobel clandon, than to heaven with some delightful bride that our dear old dad had chosen for me. as soon as i am on my feet, isobel will be my wife." mary patted his hand affectionately. "i am so delighted to hear you say that. but one never quite knows men. there is father, in a way sentimental, but on certain things he can be as hard as granite." guy rossett frowned. "oh, i know. he hates the idea of my marrying isobel. i suppose when i do he will forbid me the house, and cut me off with a shilling, eh?" mary looked at him, with a soft gleam in her kind, beautiful eyes. "oh, no, he will not do that. and if he wanted to, i should not let him. you know, i have more influence over him than anybody." "except, perhaps, ticehurst?" suggested guy, in a tone that was not quite free from bitterness. he was not over-fond of his elder brother. mary shook her head. she was fond of both her brothers, but she was not oblivious of ticehurst's faults. "don't worry about that, dear old boy. eric has no influence over him at all. and when the dreadful deed is done, and isobel is your wife, dear old dad will rage and fume, and all that. but he will come round in the end, and finish by loving isobel as much as he does me. don't worry. go on with it." guy kissed her. "by jove, you are a pal, mary. then i can count on you to back me up." "of course," was mary's confident reply. there was silence between them for a little while, while guy puffed at his cigarette, and his sister was cogitating as to her next method of attack. brought up in a household of three men, she knew it was somewhat difficult to storm the masculine citadel. presently she spoke. "and what about finance, guy? are things easy there?" the boyish look disappeared from the young man's face. her question had seemed to disturb his equanimity. he was quite frank. "that's the devil of it, mary. you know my old friend jackson?" mary gave a little sigh. yes, she had heard of jackson from both brothers. he was a high-class moneylender, who accommodated young men of good family. "yes, i know all about jackson. how much do you owe him?" her brother reflected. "something between five and six hundred," he said, after a pause. mary spoke decidedly. "you must clear that off before you go to spain--you must have a clean sheet." she reflected also, before she spoke again. "i can let you have two hundred and fifty out of what i have saved." guy interrupted. "you sweet little soul, you never spend anything except in charities." "i know," answered his sister quietly. "anyway, there is my two hundred and fifty, and i must coax the rest out of dad. you must go to spain with a clean sheet. that is absolutely essential." guy answered with his boyish laugh and with his boyish exuberance. "it is too awfully dear and kind of you, and you can guess how i appreciate it. but i am not going to let my sister waste her money on two graceless scamps like ticehurst and myself. and i don't sponge on my father, either." mary protested gently. "oh, guy, how unjust of both yourself and eric. you know that is not my opinion of either of you." guy took her slender hand in his own. "you dear old girl, you are only just a little bit lower than the angels; you have always had wings growing since you were a wee toddler. but i am going to see this thing through on my own. jackson is an old scoundrel of course, but he never presses one very hard. i shall square him all right." mary said no more on the subject. both her brothers inherited the paternal obstinacy. when they had once made up their minds, nothing could move them. but she sighed a little. it would have been so much better if guy could have got rid of this odious moneylender, and have landed in spain with a clean sheet. he would have been free from any pecuniary worries, and, therefore, in a better mood to attend to his work. jackson was done with, but there was another subject which she wanted to broach before this interview was ended. and it was a rather delicate one. it was some little time before she spoke again. "and how about that woman, violet hargrave? are you quite clear of her? it is not fair to isobel that you should keep up even a semblance of friendship with such an odious person." guy laughed, but this time his laugh did not ring clear and boyish; it betrayed uneasiness. "oh, come, mary, you are a bit uncharitable, aren't you. violet hargrave is generally considered a charming, not an odious, person." his sister spoke a little sternly for her. "i don't pretend to have a man's knowledge of the world, but i have not been brought up in a nursery. i know her type, and it is one from which any pure woman, and any decent man, ought to shrink. have you given her up?" guy looked her squarely in the face. "honestly, mary, i have, just after i met isobel. of course, a man can't throw a woman over in a second, but i have cooled down gradually. at the present moment, i think the fascinating widow hates me." mary rose and spoke decidedly. "i am glad to have your assurance of that. if it had not been so, i might have felt it my duty to warn isobel. she is too sterling a girl to be played with." her brother rose too, half resentful, half admiring. it was not the first time that lady mary had spoken salutary words of wisdom to him. "by jove, mary, you are uncompromising. do you mean to say you would give me away to isobel--me, your own brother?" "of course," answered mary firmly. "to isobel, or any other woman, if i thought you were unworthy of her." admiration conquered. he tucked her arm in his, as they returned to the house. "you dear old girl, you are one out of a million. but you know you are a little uncomfortable at times, and when you are inclined that way, you have a knack of making a fellow feel a bit of a worm." mary laughed pleasantly. "so good for you feeling that, dear old boy, and equally good for eric. i expect dad has woken up by now, and wondering where we have got to." they found the earl wide-awake. the doze of a few minutes over his port had refreshed him immensely. he fell at once to discussing spain, a country he knew well. in his youth, lord saxham had been an attache at the spanish court, and he knew the ropes. guy listened respectfully to his father. the old man concluded his somewhat rambling remarks with a final exhortation. "and remember, my dear boy, always to keep on the right side of greatorex. he _is_ the foreign office. secretaries, mere figure-heads, come and go with different governments. greatorex remains there, permanent, unchangeable. get into his good graces, and your fortune is made." guy promised that he would do his best to propitiate the all-powerful greatorex. two days later he left. he undertook to pay them a farewell visit before he started for spain. the earl and his daughter watched the car flying down the avenue. the old man turned to his daughter with a grunt. "might have given us another couple of days, i think. but i know what's in his mind. he is running down to eastbourne after that minx." he always alluded to isobel clandon as "that minx," owing to his unreasonable prejudice against her. mary spoke with spirit. "very natural under the circumstances, i should think. he would want to see something of the girl he loves before he left." lord saxham turned on her angrily. "mary, i have always thought you a sensible woman. do you mean to tell me you are going to aid and abet him in his folly." lady mary answered him in a few words. "i don't call it folly, father." she walked out of the room, with a resolute expression on her face, and uplifted chin. she would have been the last to admit it, but she had inherited no small share of the family obstinacy. chapter two. mrs hargrave sat in her pretty flat in mount street, absorbed in deep thought. on her lap lay an open letter, and it was a passage in that letter just received which accounted for her preoccupation. she was a pretty woman, _petite_ and slender, with clear-cut, refined features and delicate colouring. she had soft, candid blue eyes, and a wealth of fair hair which was always arranged in the most becoming fashion. in a strong and searching light, a keen judge would have guessed her real age, just a little over the wrong side of thirty. but she was quite a clever person, and she always avoided strong lights as much as possible. under favourable conditions, most people took her to be at least four or five years younger. she owned herself to twenty-six. there was no getting at the truth of the matter. since she first came to london, four years ago, having been married abroad to her husband, jack hargrave, a young man of good family, but a bit of a _mauvais sujet_, she had made many acquaintances. but she appeared to have no old friends who could throw any light on her real age or her antecedents. her husband's relatives received her with scant cordiality, there was too much reticence about her previous history to incline them in her favour. as a matter of fact, they were not over-fond of jack himself. there had been certain early episodes in his career which had not endeared him to right-thinking persons. it was well-known that he was in no sense of the word a wealthy man. yet he kept an expensive flat, he was always immaculately dressed, and his wife, to judge by her costly costumes, must have had a very liberal allowance. they entertained a great deal, and they had bridge parties every night when they were at home. knowing people whispered amongst themselves that it was their winnings at bridge which enabled them to make such a brave show. they were certainly both very skilful players. not a few persons thought they were a bit too skilful, too uniformly successful. two years after their marriage, jack hargrave died suddenly of pneumonia, the result of a neglected chill. strange to say, he left no will. his widow explained this by the fact that he had made all his property over to her, by deed of gift, soon after their marriage, as he did not want her to be burdened with death duties. things were not altered in any way by jack's death. his widow kept on the expensive flat in mount street. when a decent period of mourning had elapsed, she appeared in her usual tasteful costumes, and resumed her bridge parties. there was nothing to wonder at in this. if jack hargrave had made over all his property to her, she was as well-off after his death as before. rather better, as there was only one to spend the income instead of two. a certain thing, however, did occur which made some people suspicious. her husband's relatives, who had never been more than coldly civil during jack's lifetime, now dropped her altogether. jack, who was a few years younger than his wife, had been at eton and oxford with guy rossett, and they were old friends. when hargrave returned from abroad with his pretty bride, he had hunted up guy and induced him to become a frequent visitor in mount street. guy was considerably attracted by the young hostess. of course, he knew that his friend was looked at askance by many people, and he knew nothing more than the rest about mrs hargrave's antecedents. when the fair young widow resumed her normal existence, and her bridge parties, young rossett again became a frequent visitor. and now that there was no obstacle in the shape of a husband, he allowed her to see that her attraction for him had grown very considerably. she met him more than half-way. there was no doubt that the attraction was mutual. but there were other reasons that weighed strongly with her. guy had a small allowance from his father, but it was supplemented by a very handsome one from his great-aunt, an old lady of eighty, who would also leave him her very considerable private fortune. in every sense, he was a most eligible person. he was handsome, distinguished-looking and charming, with the perfect manners of the young diplomatist. and one day, and it could not be a very long one now, he would be a rich man by the death of lady henrietta. for many months, guy rossett went to the flat in mount street, losing a considerable sum of money at bridge to his hostess and various members of her circle. there was a certain strain of caution in him, a certain recognition of the fact that he would require to know a good deal more than he did about the charming widow's past, before he committed himself definitely, that kept the sense of attraction on his side within reasonable bounds. still, there is no knowing what might have happened, but for the occurrence of a certain event. mrs hargrave was very charming, very subtle, equipped with all the wiles of a clever and experienced woman. one day, his self-control might have given way, her fascination might have overpowered his prudence, and he would have committed himself beyond recall. then something happened which switched away his thoughts for ever from the flat in mount street and its fascinating owner. at a certain country house he met isobel clandon, the daughter of a retired general, a widower who lived at eastbourne. he took her in to dinner the first night of his arrival, and he knew he had found the woman of his dreams. isobel was a lovely girl of twenty-two, a little above the middle height, a vision of beauty and grace. her fresh and virginal charm, her spontaneous gaiety, drove out all recollection of the more artificial attractions of the older woman. the one suggested the brightness and freshness of spring, the other fading tints of summer. it was love at first sight on both sides, and guy knew that he had never really loved before. and isobel had not even flirted with a man before she saw him. she came to him whole-hearted, and he came as little scarred as a man might be who has lived twenty-seven years in the world, and seen and known many women. mrs hargrave roused herself from her reverie, and took up the letter for the second time. it was from an intimate acquaintance, and the envelope bore the eastbourne post-mark. again she read that particular paragraph which had so perturbed her. "i have at last succeeded in meeting your miss clandon at a garden-party. i made myself as pleasant as i could, and you know i can make myself pretty well liked when i try. i think she has taken a fancy to me, and that we shall be great friends presently. i am going to tea with her to-morrow, and will let you know if i can get anything definite out of her. "she is twenty-two, and certainly a lovely girl, also a very charming one. i introduced mr rossett's name, of course, and she just looked a little shy. but i could not get her to say much, only this, that he is coming down to eastbourne directly, and that he has just secured an important appointment abroad, at the british embassy in spain. "she wears no engagement ring, so they are not publicly betrothed. but i am sure there is a very good understanding between them." the widow threw the letter down on her lap, with a fierce exclamation. "twenty-two, and a lovely girl," she muttered angrily. "some pink and white beauty, i suppose, immature, knowing nothing of life. and these are the women who catch men of the world with their youth and innocence." her face grew hard, she looked almost plain, and for the moment her thirty years showed themselves unmistakably. she tore the offending note into fragments, and threw them into a dainty little waste-paper basket--everything about the flat was dainty. "but i will get even with mr guy rossett before long," she cried vindictively, as she returned to her seat. it was somewhere about ten o'clock in the morning when she indulged in these bitter reflections, when she had to admit, in the face of that letter, that her ambitious schemes had gone astray. at the same hour, a tall and corpulent gentleman, attired in an elegant morning coat and silk hat, descended the steps of his house at walton, stepped into the rolls-royce car waiting for him, drove to the station, and took the train to london. he was known in his business, and in the neighbourhood, as mr jackson, although his foreign appearance and swarthy complexion gave the direct lie to his english name. not for him the easy bowler or soft hat, and the lounge suit. he had an idea that to be successful in business it was necessary to preserve the old traditions. financial stability was suggested by the frock coat and the topper. he described himself as a financier, and so in a certain sense he was. but in spite of the name of jackson, he was a spaniard by birth, and his real cognomen was juan jaques. as regards his business, he was a moneylender, pure and simple. he had a spacious suite of offices in one of the most private-looking houses in dover street. his staff was small, consisting of a confidential woman secretary who typed his letters, generally suave, but occasionally menacing; an equally confidential clerk who kept his accounts; and a smart office boy. from this agreeable point of vantage, he accommodated young men of good family, and equally good prospects, when they were temporarily hard up. he had a very select _clientele_, and, to do him justice, for a moneylender, he was not extortionate. "treat your clients fairly, and they will come again. you make regular customers of them. they don't go buzzing off to tom, dick, and harry." these were the principles on which he conducted his very lucrative business. he was in a very good humour this morning, as he got out of the taxi which had brought him from waterloo to his office. there were very few letters, but their contents pleased him; they suggested good business. the last one was from guy rossett, who intimated that he would call about twelve o'clock, as he wanted to have a short chat. the astute spaniard, known to all but a very few as the naturalised englishman, jackson, smiled. he had not enjoyed the pleasure of guy's acquaintance very long. mrs hargrave had brought the two men together, and the introduction had been effected through the following circumstances. at a certain period, guy had found himself very short of money, practically due to bridge losses at the flat in mount street. he had rather hesitatingly asked the charming widow if she knew of any decent moneylender, who would finance him at a rate of interest that was not too extortionate. violet had raised her candid blue eyes--they were her best asset--to his, with a world of pity in them. "oh, mr rossett, i am so sorry to hear of this. it is all this horrible bridge. i always seem lucky, but such a lot of my friends have bad luck. i think i shall give up these parties, if they are going to embarrass the people i like." there was a soft mist in her eyes, as she gave utterance to these noble sentiments. guy felt a little thrill pass through him. she was not a mere worldling, she had her full share of real kindness, of real womanliness. "one's own fault, you know," he answered lightly. "i suppose i ought to be old enough to take care of myself. i needn't play bridge if i don't want to, need i?" mrs hargrave did not answer for a moment. she seemed struggling with her remorseful thoughts. then, after a brief space, inspiration came to her, and she played a strong and winning card. she laid her hand upon his arm, and her voice trembled ever so little as she spoke. "mr rossett, we have been very good friends, have we not? and you were a pal of dear old jack's long before i met him." rossett nodded. at the moment he had no idea what she was driving at, or what she was leading up to. and he was pretty quick too. "then i want you, for the moment, to think of me as a pal. fancy for the time i am jack, your old friend. what i want to say is this, don't go to these horrible people. they are sure to rook you. i have a little money put by--dear old jack left me comfortably off--and i make quite a small income out of my winnings. let me be your banker. now, don't be proud." guy was profoundly touched, and he thanked her in no measured terms. but the idea of borrowing money from a woman, even if she were a dear friend, was too horrible to contemplate for a second. had there been no alternative, he would sooner have blown his brains out. he told her this, and she sighed regretfully, as one amazed at the obstinacy of a certain type of man. she knew, could she once have got him to accept this loan, she would be sure of him. "you see, it is quite impossible," he ended, rather awkwardly. it is not a pleasant thing to refuse the kindness thrust upon you in the most graceful way by a charming woman. "do you happen to know of any of these sharks?" frustrated in her clever little scheme, the fair violet reflected for a few seconds. then she spoke in a hesitating voice, as if she were trying to recall certain memories of the past. "yes, i do know a man who, i believe, is a decent specimen of his kind. you know, a lot of people wonder that jack was so well-off. well, in the first place, he was awfully clever, and he had two or three good friends in the city who gave him tips. but he wanted a bit of capital. he found out this man jackson, who has offices in dover street. jackson believed in him, and financed him, of course taking a good share. that was only natural." rossett pricked up his ears. the thing that had puzzled so many people was already partly explained. jack had been, as his wife said, a clever fellow, and a bit of a dark horse. he had been making money in the city in a subterranean way, with the help of the philanthropic mr jackson, who, no doubt, had looked after his own share of the profits. but why the deuce had not jack hargrave told this openly to his intimates? then all _innuendos_ and suspicions would have been silenced at once. mrs hargrave went on in her sweet, low voice. "i don't think i have ever told this to a soul. you will respect my confidence. i always thought it a little silly of jack, but he made a point of keeping the secret to himself." "need you ask the question?" queried guy rossett reproachfully. "no, i am sure i can trust you. well, this man jackson; by the way, that is not his real name, he is a naturalised spaniard. i see him sometimes on a few matters in which he is still interested, and which he looks after for me. i will give you a note to him, and ask him to treat you very gently." but, before she moved to her writing-table, she again looked pleadingly at him. "are you sure you will not reconsider my suggestion? surely you would rather be indebted to me than to a mere sordid moneylender?" again guy repeated his thanks. but on this point he was adamant; nothing would move him. he took the letter of introduction to mr jackson. this gentleman was affability itself. mrs hargrave's introduction was quite sufficient. guy was too much a gentleman to put searching questions as to jackson's private knowledge of the hargraves, husband and wife. on his side, mr jackson had the private _dossier_ of every eligible young man, from the moneylender's point of view, entered in his reference book. he knew all about the earl of saxham, and the lady henrietta. young mr rossett was quite a desirable client. he was pleased to add him to his list. as a matter of fact, the loan was quite a small one, and was granted on reasonable terms. there was no speculative element in the transaction. guy was a young man who might make a mistake now and again, but he would never kick over the traces for long, and he was as straight as a die. on this particular morning, mr jackson received him with the greatest affability. "delighted to see you, mr rossett. too early for a drink, i am afraid, but have a cigar." he pushed across a box of cigars that even a spanish jew could not have bought under half a crown apiece. "now, what is it, mr rossett? just a little more ready, i suppose?" guy bit off the end of the very excellent cigar with a composed air. he had not the appearance of a suppliant for financial favours. "not quite as bad as that, mr jackson. but i have a bill for six hundred due next month. it would be a great convenience to me if you would renew half when it falls due, of course on the usual terms." for a moment, mr jackson's face fell. he had hoped he was going to get deeper into the young man's ribs, looking forward to that blessed day when lady henrietta's fortune would wipe off all arrears. then, the next moment, he cheered up. guy was not going to be a very big customer, but he was a safe one. a young man who could pay off half of his indebtedness was to be trusted. not much waiting, just quick profits. it took them a few moments to discuss the details of the extension of the loan. when these had been settled, mr jackson consulted his watch. "i think, mr rossett, we might venture upon a small bottle now, what do you think?" guy really did not want anything to drink at this comparatively early hour of the morning. but, in view of further favours, it would not be politic to check his host's hospitable impulses. the moneylender produced a very excellent small bottle of _veuve cliquot_. the two men sat chatting for some time. suddenly, the telephone bell rang. what was whispered down it seemed to agitate mr jackson a little. rossett could, of course, only catch his disjointed replies. "actually left the house, you say, on the way. ought always to give me notice. might be too busy. well, it can't be helped. good-bye." as a matter of fact, it was mrs hargrave's maid who had rung up to tell him that her mistress was on her way to his office. he knew enough to be sure that a meeting between violet and rossett would be very disturbing to both, hence his discomfiture. mount street to dover street in a taxi is not a very far cry. if guy rossett did not swallow his champagne and clear out in a few seconds, the meeting was inevitable. the only apartments were the outer office, the waiting-room, and his own sanctum, and they all led into each other. guy, not being thirsty, drank his wine very leisurely. then he rose to go, but some minutes had elapsed, and at the moment he rose the office boy brought in a slip of folded paper, on which was written mrs hargrave's name. "many thanks for meeting me in this little matter, mr jackson. well, for the present, good-bye." and poor guy rossett, fondly thinking that he had laid the ghosts of the past, emerged from jackson's room to be confronted with violet hargrave, seated in one of those luxurious easy chairs which the hospitable foreigner provided for his waiting clients. he put the best face he could on the situation, and advanced with outstretched hand. "an unexpected pleasure, mrs hargrave," he cried in a very uncertain voice. a more embarrassed specimen of a budding diplomatist could not have been observed. the pretty widow ignored the outstretched hand. she looked at him steadily, and the blue eyes were no longer soft and limpid, but hard as steel. "i think," she said in a voice that was as hard as her glance, "you are indulging in the language of diplomacy, which is usually used to disguise one's real thoughts." rossett turned red, and began, in his agitation, to stammer forth lame and foolish excuses. "i have been awfully busy lately, you know, not had time for anything in the social line. the truth is, mrs hargrave, i have just woke up to the fact that i have been wasting a good part of my life. i am really going in now for work, hard work, and ambition." she swept him with a contemptuous glance. "is this supposed to be an apology for your despicable conduct as regards myself?" "as you please to take it, mrs hargrave." knowing he was utterly in the wrong, he took refuge in a sort of sullen dignity. her voice grew more scornful as she answered in her clear, vibrant tones. "i should not like to detain you even for a moment, when you have such a laudable object in view. if you are going to atone for those wasted years, you will have a tremendous lot of leeway to make up. you cannot spare a second. good day." he could not rally under her sharp tongue and keen woman's wit. he bowed, and was about to move away when she stopped him with an imperious gesture. "one moment of your valuable time, if you please, mr rossett. you are fond of running away when the situation becomes a little inconvenient to yourself. but on this, i hope, our last meeting, i wish to say a few words to you, which it is well you should hear. may i presume to trespass on your time for a few seconds longer?" there was still in her tones the same bitter note of sarcasm. but by this time, guy had recovered himself a little, and was able to muster a remnant of dignity. "my time is at your disposal," he replied quietly. "you have not acted the part of a gentleman, mr rossett. you were supposed to be my husband's friend; you pretended to be mine. certain events occurred, the nature of which it is easy to guess, which caused you to think my friendship was no longer desirable. that is the truth, is it not? be frank for once, if a diplomatist can ever be frank." she dominated the situation. rossett could only stammer forth a shamefaced admission that it was the truth. "you admit it. would you not have played a more manly part, if you had come to me with a frank and proper explanation of those events?" "that is just what i ought to have done," said guy rossett humbly. he had never admired her more than now. up to the present moment he had no idea that this dainty, slender woman, more or less of a butterfly, had such spirit in her fragile frame. "instead of that," pursued violet hargrave in her inflexible, vibrating tones, "you adopt a device pursued by many men i know, by the type of man who lacks moral courage. i am afraid i shall hurt you a little now, but i don't mind because you have hurt me, and i want to cry quits. you adopted the coward's device of running away from the woman to whom you were afraid to tell the truth." rossett was utterly beaten. he could not say a word in self-defence. he stood speechless under the lash of her scorn, her not unjustifiable indignation. she dismissed him with a wave of her hand. "i will keep you no longer, mr rossett. for some years we were rather intimate friends. to-day we are strangers. as a stranger, i will bid you good-bye." and guy rossett was happy to escape. he had never felt more humiliated in his life. he put himself into a taxi, and drove straight to the st james's club, beloved of diplomatists. he ruminated ruefully over his discomfiture at the hands of the sharp-tongued mrs hargrave. "some women have the knack of making a man feel like a worm," he thought bitterly. "mary has it in her quiet, incisive way. violet has it to perfection." the young widow entered the sanctum of the moneylender. outwardly, her demeanour was calm, but in her breast a volcano was raging. her pride had been humbled, her hopes ruthlessly crushed. she was raging with all the resentful impotence of the woman scorned. jackson met her with outstretched hands, and took both of hers. "my poor little violet," he said kindly. "i can see you are very upset; at least, it is plain to me who have known you from a baby. if you had only told your maid to 'phone me up before you started, i would have delayed you, and prevented this." she sank down on a chair with a little weary sigh. "you have always been my best friend, juan. heaven knows what i should have done or where i should have been without you." "tut, tut." the "financier" was very human where women were concerned. "and you are fond of this fellow, eh, apart from other considerations?" "i was, juan, but now i hate him," was the uncompromising reply. "still, on the whole, i am not sure i would have missed that little talk with him. clever young man of the world as he is, ready and quick as he was, i cut him to the quick. i made him feel very small." jackson chuckled. "i will wager you gave him a good dressing down, when you once started. well now, my child, i guess you want to see me on something important." "something very important," was the reply. the two drew their chairs closely together, and conversed in low tones, using the spanish language. chapter three. to a man of lord saxham's ancient lineage and broad acres, although those same broad acres were somewhat heavily encumbered, general clandon was a mere nobody. he was just one of the many thousands of persons who are entitled to be called gentlemen, as a matter of courtesy, but have no claim to rank in the same category with pure aristocracy. all the same, the general came of very respectable stock, from that section of the small landowning class which is the backbone of the territorial interest. his forbears had been settled in kent for some six generations. his eldest brother, hugh clandon, who had ruled over clandon place, had a rent roll of some five thousand a year clear. to an ordinary person, in a lower walk of life, this would seem by no means a despicable income. but clandon place was a large house, and cost a good deal to keep up, even on an economical scale. and all the clandons, with the solitary exception of the general himself, were exceedingly prolific. his brother hugh had eight children. he was one of ten. daughters had to be portioned off, sons had to be educated and started in the world. geoffrey clandon inherited a few thousands on his father's death; he always thought his father must have been a wonderful man to leave so much, considering the calls upon him. the general contrived to live upon the modest income derived from this small capital, plus his half-pay. he now lived at eastbourne upon the somewhat slender revenue. when he died, his only child, isobel, would have a few hundred pounds a year to call her own. in his youth, he had been exceedingly handsome, and, had he been of a more worldly turn of mind, he might easily have married money. instead, he married for love, and never repented it. his wife brought him no fortune, but she brought him other things beyond price. mrs clandon died when isobel was sixteen, and all the intense love which the general had borne his wife was transferred to his daughter, who fully reciprocated her father's devotion. she was a very sweet and lovable girl, perhaps just a little wiser and older than her actual years, as is often the case with only children, who have been brought up in close companionship with their parents. she looked after his house admirably, saw that his meals were well cooked and daintily served. as for herself, thanks to an admirable figure, and a knack of knowing how to wear her clothes, she always looked smartly turned out on a most slender allowance. they lived on the outskirts of eastbourne, in an unpretentious house, a cottage which had been turned into a half villa. all the added rooms were spacious, with the original low ceilings, which gave a picturesque effect. there was over an acre of garden, and half of that was devoted to the cultivation of flowers. isobel adored flowers, and loved to see bowls of them in the different rooms. she was no mean gardener herself, and often worked hard in conjunction with the rather ancient person who attended to the small domain. county society did not have anything to say to general clandon and his daughter, they were too small fry, but in the selecter circles of strictly eastbourne residents they were considerable figures. the general had preferred not to settle down in his native place, near his brother. his means were too small to allow him to compete on equal terms with the local magnates who were his contemporaries. he was a very proud man, and he was still more sensitive on isobel's account. from all she had heard of small county society, of which her uncle was a specimen, she did not think she had missed much. she was quite happy in her little circle at eastbourne; it was more amusing, and not at all stiff or pretentious. once a year, since she was eighteen, she had a brief glimpse of a more fashionable world. the general had kept up a life-long intimacy with an old and wealthy friend, sir william glanville, who owned a large estate in kent. every autumn an invitation came for the shooting, and in that invitation isobel was included. here she met people, men and women of quite a different calibre, spoiled children of the world, used to luxury from their cradle. yet she was not sure that she enjoyed these visits very greatly. the profusion of wealth contrasted too sharply with their own daily mode of life. if her father by some miracle should come into a fortune, and she smiled at the absurd thought, no doubt she would bear herself as bravely as these other girls she met. but that last visit, that delicious last visit, she had thoroughly enjoyed. guy rossett had taken her into dinner, and danced attendance on her for the best part of a delightful week. at last she had met a man who seemed to stand a head and shoulders above his fellows. but for a little time much sadness was mingled with her joy. on more than one night, when guy's glance had thrilled her, when guy's gentle pressure of the hand, as he bade her good night, had set her heart fluttering, she had cried herself to sleep. she had heard all about him from her hostess, a kind-hearted, gossiping soul. he was the second son of a wealthy peer of ancient lineage. with his father's influence, he would be sure to obtain eminence in the diplomatic field. and he would inherit a big fortune from his grand-aunt, the lady henrietta. poor isobel felt a very lonely maiden as she listened to this splendid recital. as a mere man, with his good looks and charm, he could choose where he liked. with these advantages in addition, he could pick from the noblest in the land. of course, she was a little fool, and the sooner she said good-bye to her vain dreams the better. guy rossett was attracted by her for the moment, no doubt. but it was impossible a man in his position, with his prospects, could mean anything serious. could a man, in whose veins ran the blood of a dozen earls, choose for his wife the descendant of paltry squires? and then had come that wonderful day, a day in her life ever to be marked with a white stone, when guy had overtaken her as she was indulging in a solitary ramble in the now leafless park. in impassioned words he had told her how he loved her, how she was the one woman in the world he wanted for his wife. he loved her. did she care for him? dazed, and overjoyed with her happiness, her lovely dark eyes half suffused with tears, she faltered forth a trembling yes. he took her in his arms, and gave her her first lover's kiss. then, when her brain had ceased to whirl, when she could recover from the great shock of her newly-found joy, she began to think. "but it is all a dream," she murmured. "it is impossible." "impossible!" repeated guy. "why do you use the word?" "but, of course, you can see. you are the son of an aristocrat, big even amongst aristocrats. i am a nobody. lady glanville tells me you are going to be an ambassador, or something dreadfully big and awe-inspiring." guy laughed genially. "oh, you sweet little soul. has that dear old woman been filling you with all that sort of stuff? haven't brains enough, my darling. and, if it should turn out true, and i do become an ambassador, you will grow up with me, and you'll find the part of ambassador's wife fit you like a glove." but, presently, after the first rhapsodies had passed, they began to talk soberly. guy had to state that his father, splendid old fellow as he was, none better, was very prejudiced and, as his son put it with more than filial frankness, "as obstinate as a mule." isobel nodded her pretty dark head. "i understand quite. he will want you to marry in your own station of life, choose a girl who has been brought up in the same world." guy nodded. "you've hit it. a sort of girl who would know, by inherited instinct, all the sort of tricks that are expected from an ambassador's wife. you see, i take it for granted i am going to be an ambassador." isobel looked at him fondly. in her present rapturous mood, she thought he could be anything he liked, if he gave his mind to it. then guy spoke quite gravely and seriously. "now, we have got to consider the two fathers, yours and mine. we will take yours first, because i think he'll do whatever you tell him." "he generally does," replied isobel, with a smile that showed all her dimples. "good. i leave to-morrow, you are off the day after. don't tell him anything till you get back to eastbourne. then let him know exactly what has passed between us to-day, that i have admitted frankly i shall have a hard job on my part. i want to get my father's consent, because i wish you to be welcomed by the family. dear old aunt henrietta will never interfere with me, she's too good a sort." "yes," answered isobel happily. "i will tell him all that." "and please add that i should wish to come down to eastbourne, as soon as convenient to him, and put all the facts before him. i want first to get his consent, and i know i am asking it under peculiar circumstances." a slight cloud gathered over the girl's lovely face. "i am quite sure of my darling old dad," she said. "i'm a little afraid of yours." "there's nothing to be frightened of, sweetheart," said her lover confidently. "whether he gives his consent or not, you are going to be my wife. i'm quite independent of him. but, as i said just now, i would prefer to bring him round before, instead of after." "but do you think that possible?" inquired isobel anxiously. guy reflected. "it's a pretty even chance," he said presently. "and, you see. i've got mary on my side." isobel lifted questioning eyes. "you have never spoken of mary before. who is she? i suppose your sister?" "yes, my sister, and the sweetest, dearest girl in the wide world. just an angel without the wings, and they are growing, i believe. not that she is meek and mild, and all that sort of thing. she can hit out as straight from the shoulder as a man when she chooses. but tell her a tale of two true lovers, and she will never be happy till she brings them together." "what a darling!" cried isobel, in deep admiration. "how i should love to meet her." "no difficulty about that," answered guy easily. "as soon as i have arranged matters with the general, we will fix up a little lunch in london. you bring your father up; i'll bring mary up." "how lovely!" sighed isobel. truly, a new world, a delightful world, was opening to her. the clandons returned to their modest little nest at eastbourne. on the first evening of their return, isobel, sitting on a low footstool close to the general's chair, told him the wonderful story of guy rossett's love for her, of her love for guy. her father listened sympathetically. he was intensely proud that his beloved daughter had chanced upon a wooer worthy of her. he had never dared to hope for such an alliance. isobel was deserving of any fairy prince, but where was the fairy prince to come from? but he was wise and experienced. it would not be all fair sailing, there were rocks ahead. guy had himself admitted that the earl of saxham would prove a formidable obstacle. the general agreed that, were he in lord saxham's place, he would not give his consent too readily. he kissed his daughter tenderly, half pleased, half regretful to see the intense lovelight in her eyes as she spoke of her adored lover. "yes, tell guy to come and see me as soon as he likes, and we will talk over the difficulties," he said kindly. "i liked the young fellow very much, from the little i saw of him. i am sure he is a gentleman, and i believe him to be straight." isobel looked up a little reproachfully. her father's guarded words seemed to convey very faint praise of her peerless lover. "oh, dad," she cried reproachfully. "guy is the soul of honour." rossett came down, and had a long interview with general clandon. he was quite frank and manly. he would marry isobel whether his father consented or not; so far as financial matters stood, he was perfectly independent. still, for many reasons, it was better to exercise a little prudence, and coax the earl into agreement. the general agreed. "much better, rossett. the question of her being received by your family or not will make a great difference to her at the start. in the years to come, it may make a great difference to you. you don't want to cut yourself off from your kith and kin." rossett was of the same opinion. the general agreed to a private engagement. guy gave his betrothed a beautiful ring which she did not dare openly to display. she looked at it several times a day, and kissed it every night before she went to sleep. guy had lost no time in approaching his father, and the earl had received the news in the worst spirit. he had stormed, and broken out into one of his furious, ungovernable rages. "you are simply an idiot. with my influence with the government, there is no knowing where i can push you to." he seemed to take it for granted that his son could not help himself. "you must marry a woman in your own class, a woman who can help you in your career. and then you propose to me some obscure chit of a girl, who lives in a cottage at eastbourne." guy argued calmly that isobel was a lady, and of good family. certainly her father was not a rich man, this much he had to admit. the earl would not listen to reason. he brushed aside all his son's pleadings. he recovered from his first rage, but he wound up the discussion in a voice of deadly calm. "you can do as you choose, guy. you are quite independent, and i daresay if you married a shop girl it would make no difference to your aunt. but please understand this. from the day you make isobel clandon your wife, all is over between us. i wash my hands of you. not a penny of my money, not an atom of my influence. you understand." "i quite understand, sir. you force me to choose between yourself and isobel. well, if you persist in your determination, i shall choose isobel. but i am in hopes you will change your mind." "never," snapped out the earl viciously. "go to the devil your own way, as soon as you like. fancy a manlike you being caught by a baby face." but guy smiled to himself. lord saxham was a very obstinate man, also a very irritable one. but his bark was worse than his bite. he had often climbed down before. and there was lady mary to be reckoned with, who, as a rule, could twist her father round her little finger, even if the process involved some time. lord saxham betook himself next day to the all-powerful mr greatorex. he hinted to that impassive gentleman that he wanted to get his son abroad. mr greatorex elevated his finely arched eyebrows. "the usual thing, i suppose? an entanglement of some sort?" "wants to marry a woman who will ruin his career," answered the earl tersely. "a chorus-girl or something of that sort?" queried greatorex. he knew that guy rossett had mixed in a somewhat fast set, and was prepared to expect the worst of him. "or, perhaps, a doubtful widow?" he had heard rumours of him and violet hargrave. lord saxham shook his head. "no, neither; but just as bad from my point of view. a girl, technically a lady, but no family to speak of, no fortune. he'd marry for love, and tire of her in six months, misery for her as well as for him." the honourable rupert greatorex was the scion of a very ancient family himself. he had a proper detestation of mesalliances. "i will do my best," he said cordially. "he shall have the first thing going." he had watched the career of young rossett, as he had watched the career of every young man in the foreign office. guy had not shown himself, up to the present, very zealous. he was more inclined to play than to work, and he foregathered with some very queer people. but he did not lack brains. from some of the strange people with whom he associated, he had gleaned some rather valuable information which he had placed at mr greatorex's disposal. if he was sent to spain, he might turn out a useful member of the vast diplomatic corps, and he would be separated from this charming young woman, of no family to speak of, and no fortune. and greatorex would be obliging a staunch supporter of the government. hence the appointment which guy fondly believed he had secured through his own merits. while his father was scheming to thwart what he considered his son's ill-advised wooing, guy had enlisted mary for an ally. mary, the friend of all true lovers, only asked two questions. first, was she a lady? second, were they quite sure they really loved each other? her brother was able to answer both questions in the affirmative. and she was sure, this time, he was in earnest. she had been the recipient of previous confidences, hence a little caution on her part. "i should like to meet her, and judge for myself," said mary decidedly. she knew, of course, of her father's obstinate refusal to entertain the idea. she would like to meet isobel, to be sure if she was justified in opposing the earl. for mary was, above all things, conscientious. she adored guy, but she also loved her father, and she had a duty towards him. she must be certain that isobel was worthy, no mere adventuress, luring a sorely love-stricken man. guy unfolded his cunning little plan. "run up to london one day for some shopping. i'll get up isobel and her father, and we can all lunch together. where shall we go? the ritz for preference, but we should meet too many people we knew, and it might get to the governor's ears. we'll lunch at the savoy." so that was arranged. there came that delightful day when the general and his daughter travelled up from eastbourne, and met guy and his sister in the vestibule of the famous london restaurant. isobel was dreadfully nervous, but quite excitedly happy. what a lovely new life! the tepid gaieties of eastbourne paled their ineffectual fires in comparison with the present festivity. the two women took to each other at once. it did not take the shrewd mary long to discover that this beautiful girl was genuinely in love with the equally good-looking guy, that here was no artful and designing maiden. the general, simple and dignified, made an equally good impression upon her. in manner and bearing he was the true type of aristocrat, as much so as lord saxham himself. fortunately for others, he lacked the earl's somewhat explosive qualities. they lingered in the lounge some time after lunch, and here the two women had a little private chat together, with the view of cementing their acquaintance. mary promised to be their friend, and to use all her influence to wear down her father's opposition. isobel thanked her warmly. "it seems an unkind thing to say," she added, at the conclusion of her little outburst of gratitude. "but i almost wish that guy were a poor man." mary looked at her questioningly; she did not, for the moment, catch the drift of her thoughts. "there couldn't, then, be all this fuss and trouble," explained isobel, with a little catch in her voice. "people wouldn't be able to think that i had run after him, they would know i only cared for him for himself. now, whatever happens, they will always think the worst of me." mary whispered back the consoling answer, "there are two people who will never think that, myself and guy." the happy hours passed. they all saw mary off by her train, and a little later the general and his daughter went back to eastbourne. there were many delightful days to follow, days when guy ran down, dined with the general, and put up for the night at the "queen's." and then the time drew near for guy to take up his new post, to leave london for madrid. still, things were not any further advanced. in spite of lady mary's powerful and persistent advocacy, the earl remained as obdurate as ever. if guy insisted upon making isobel clandon his wife, all friendly relations between father and son would be suspended. on the night preceding the young diplomatist's departure, there was a farewell dinner, this time at a less public restaurant than the savoy. the party was the same, guy and his sister, isobel and her father. lady mary would have to stay the night in london. this she had arranged to do with an old girl friend, now married, lady may brendon. the earl, with that uncanny sense which distinguishes some people, suddenly had an inkling of the truth. guy had said good-bye to them the day before. "i believe it's all a blind," he burst out angrily, a few minutes before mary's departure. "you may be staying with may brendon for the night, but she is not the reason of your visit. you are going to meet that wretched girl." mary could never bring herself to tell a lie. she had already admitted she had made the acquaintance of isobel clandon, and had taken a great liking to her. "to tell the truth, i am. guy is giving a dinner to-night, in order to bid her farewell. it is only right he should have the support of some member of his family." "you deliberately go against my wishes," thundered her father, in his most irate tones. "in this instance, i fear i must," replied his daughter very quietly and firmly. "i love you very dearly, but i love guy too. he has chosen for himself, and in my opinion he has chosen wisely." "i love guy too," said the earl in a less aggressive tone. "i would like also to see him happy. but a man in his position must marry according to the traditions of his family. you are a weak sentimentalist, mary." a rather sad smile crept over the sweet face. "perhaps i am, too much for my own peace of mind. but, what i do feel strongly is this--you have no right to dictate to guy in this matter. he is a second son, he is independent of you. with ticehurst, it may be different. he has to transmit the family honours, to maintain the family traditions as you call them. in his case, interference may be justifiable. in guy's case, i say emphatically not." the earl began to splutter again. "my word, the world is coming to something. you talk as if a father had no right, no authority over his children. look what i have done for him. i wrung this appointment from greatorex, with my own personal influence." lady mary laid a light, cool kiss upon his inflamed cheek. "dearest father, do try and be just for once. you did not get this appointment solely for guy's benefit. you know you don't care a straw whether he succeeds in his profession. your real motive was to drive him out of england, so that he should be separated from isobel clandon." this was too much for lord saxham. he burst into volcanic language, inveighing against ungrateful sons and undutiful daughters, and stamped from the room in a blind rage. lady mary smiled a little when he left. how many of these domestic storms had she witnessed! her father would give way in the end. but there would be a long period of waiting. she got into the car, and drove to the railway station. the dinner-party was a great success, even if it was slightly overcast with the sadness of farewell. two people alone can be quite comfortably sad; there is a luxury in woe. but melancholy cannot be permanently maintained amongst four persons. the lovers would not see each other for some time, but, as mary cheerfully reminded them, madrid was not quite as far as the antipodes, and they could write to each other every day, if they wished. half-way through the meal, two men entered and took their seats at a small adjoining table; they were both in evening dress. one was a tall, slim englishman of the well-groomed type. his companion was short and swarthy, evidently a foreigner. isobel was the first to observe them. she leaned across the table, and addressed the general in a low voice. "maurice has just come in, father. just there, on your left, with a foreign-looking man." the general looked in the direction indicated, and caught the eye of the tall young man, who rose, and advanced hesitatingly to their table. he shook hands with isobel and her father. the general effected a hasty introduction. "my nephew, mr farquhar, lady mary rossett, mr rossett." lady mary bowed. guy half rose and bowed. he felt a little bit churlish. he was of a very jealous disposition. he fancied isobel's reception of her cousin was perhaps a little too cordial. her smile was very welcoming, as she murmured, "fancy meeting you here, maurice." farquhar looked at the young diplomatist steadily, as if he were trying to recall a memory. then he recollected. "rossett, guy rossett, of course, i remember you now perfectly. you were with me at harrow for one term. you came into brogden's house just as i was leaving." and then guy remembered too. "of course, i recollect now. i thought your face was familiar to me. you were the head of the house, and i was your fag. a graceless little cub, i fancy." farquhar laughed genially. "no, i fancy you were an awful decent little chap while i was there. i can't vouch for you after my restraining influence was removed." there was a little more conversation, and then mr farquhar returned to his foreign friend. "who the deuce has he got with him?" growled the general, almost under his breath. "maurice is an awfully clever fellow, and they say is one of the most rising members of the junior bar, but he is awfully fond of bohemian society. that long-haired chap he has got with him. well, he looks like an anarchist." guy rossett laughed. "i fancy i know who he is, general; in the foreign office, like your nephew, we get to know some queer people. he is a spaniard by birth, but english by adoption. he is a well-known journalist in fleet street. but he is by no means an anarchist; he is dead against them." the general ruminated. he was the most insular of insular britons. he hated all persons of other nations. it annoyed him that his nephew should be in the company of this long-haired foreigner. "it is time this old country of ours closed its doors to this kind of gentry," he said, in a decided voice, as he drained his glass of champagne. lady mary smiled. how very much he resembled her own father. the same obstinate views, with, at bottom, the same kind heart. the next morning, the little party of three saw the young diplomatist off at the station. guy held his sweetheart very close when he gave her his farewell kiss. "i say, dearest, you will write every day, won't you?" and isobel nodded her dark head. "of course, dear, pages and pages." "and i say, that good-looking cousin of yours we met last night! he has never made love to you, has he?" isobel laughed gaily. "dear old maurice! why he used to carry me about when i was a baby. and dad and i are awfully fond of him. he is just a big, dear elder brother." "i don't quite know that i like a big, dear elder brother, when he happens to be a cousin," replied guy, a little grimly. isobel smiled her most delightful smile. "oh, guy, i believe you are really jealous, and of poor old maurice, of all people. my dear boy, he only lives for his work; he is a barrister, you know, and is made up of parchment." "he looked very human when he shook hands with you," remarked guy drily. "i fancy there's not much parchment where you are concerned." "silly boy, to even think of such things. and what about me, when you get to madrid? i am told the spanish ladies are very fascinating. what chance shall i have against them." so she turned the tables on guy, and he had to defend himself against disloyalty in the future. then the train steamed off. with a hearty handshake from the general, with the kisses of his sweetheart and sister warm upon his lips and his cheeks, guy rossett set out on his journey to spain. little could he foresee the adventures that were in store for him. chapter four. "and you think mischief is brewing, eh?" the speaker was maurice farquhar. the man he addressed was andres moreno, the black-browed spaniard who had dined with him on the previous evening at the restaurant where they had met guy rossett and his party. maurice, a member of the junior bar, with a daily increasing practice, rented a charming suite of rooms in one of the most cloistered courts of the temple. certainly, this suite was on the top floor, and it was a stiff climb up those stairs. but maurice was young and healthy, and the ascent of those few steep stairs did not trouble him in the least. apart from his own special legal business, which absorbed his best faculties, he was a man of many interests. during the lean years, when he had waited for briefs, he had supplemented his modest patrimony by journalism. he became a somewhat well-known figure in fleet street, specialising more or less upon foreign politics. then, when the briefs began to flow in, he had gradually dropped journalism. now and again, at the earnest request of a persistent editor, he would write an article or a letter on some burning question, in which he could display his particular knowledge of affairs. in those old journalistic days, happy, careless days, when a dinner at the old "cheshire cheese" was accounted something of a luxury, when he never entered the portals of the ritz or carlton, save as the guest of some rich friend or relation, he had struck up a great comradeship with andres moreno, son of a spanish father and an english mother, an adroit and clever journalist, who could turn his hand to anything. nothing came amiss to moreno; he was the handy man of journalism. he could write a most flamboyant description of a fashionable bazaar. he could, in a sufficiently well-paid article, penetrate the subtle schemes of european monarchs and statesmen. his knowledge of london and every other foreign capital was illuminating. he knew every prominent detective, he enjoyed the acquaintance of not a few members of the criminal classes. he was hail-fellow-well-met with staunch monarchists and avowed anarchists. but it was always difficult with this man, who had friends in so many camps, to discover what were his real opinions. maurice who, perhaps, knew him better than anybody, on the mental side, always declared that he had no fixed opinions. "when you are with the good old-fashioned tory," he had said once to him laughingly, "you are all for king and church and state and good government. when you are with the anarchist, your sympathies go with the poor devils who have got nothing, and want to blow up everybody, in the hopes of getting a bit out of the wreck." and moreno, in the same jocular spirit, had admitted there was a certain element of truth in the description. "i am so infernally sympathetic, you know, farquhar. i am like a straw blown by the wind. any man who can talk to me earnestly for five minutes makes me see eye to eye with him. when i have left him, when the magnetism of his presence is removed, the cold fit succeeds, and i see with the eye of andres moreno. on the whole, i think i may say i am on the side of law and order." and farquhar had replied in the same half-jocular vein. "better stick on that side, old man. otherwise they will end by taking from you even that little which you have." since those days of early friendship, the two men had prospered exceedingly. moreno was a very highly paid journalist. farquhar was one of the rising members of the junior bar. the young barrister repeated his question. "and you think mischief is brewing, eh?" moreno raised himself from what appeared to be a deep reverie. it was a peculiarity of the man that suddenly he would relapse into deep meditation, and for the moment seem oblivious of what was going on around him. then, in a flash, his keen intellect would assert itself, and he would pick up, in a very easy fashion the dropped threads of the previous conversation. "very serious mischief, old man," he said, in his deep, rather husky tones. he spoke english perfectly, by the way, without the slightest trace of foreign accent. as a matter of fact, he had been born and bred in the country of his mother. "is it a great secret?" questioned farquhar. moreno looked at him kindly. he was very greatly attached to this quiet englishman, who had taken him by the hand in those early days when some of the brethren of the pen had regarded him as an outsider, and shown their dislike very plainly. "it is to everybody else, but not to you, my old and tried friend. i can trust you not to suck another man's brains. besides, you are out of the business now. yes, there are great things going on, in madrid, barcelona and seville. there are also great things going on in a little corner in london, i can assure you." farquhar lifted his eyebrows, but he made no comment. moreno would talk when it pleased him. the spaniard laughed softly, and leaned back in his chair. he was a man of deep and subtle humour, and was continually smiling at the ironies and incongruities of life. "i am going to astonish you now, my good maurice. to-morrow night i am going to be inducted as a member of an anarchist society in soho." farquhar, disturbed in his well-balanced mind, gave a violent start. "are you mad, andres? have you any idea of what you will commit yourself to?" moreno shrugged his broad shoulders indifferently. "i shall know, and size it all up the day after to-morrow; i am a soldier of fortune, my friend. i am an enterprising journalist-- anything for sensation, anything for `copy.' i shall put my anarchist friends to good use." "and they will kill you while you are doing it, or after you have done it," said farquhar grimly. "you do not pay a very high compliment to my intelligence, my friend. i think i may say that i am clever. anarchists are very stupid people. they will suspect each other long before they suspect andres moreno." he was a small man, but he looked quite important as he made this boast. whatever his failings, a want of confidence in himself was not one of them. but farquhar still appeared dubious. "i was a little doubtful till last night when i saw your friends at the restaurant," went on moreno, in his slightly husky voice. "you did not introduce me, there was no opportunity for that. i recognised one of them, guy rossett, who, i take it, is the fiance of that charming young lady who, you say, is your cousin." farquhar frowned a little. how quick these foreigners were to guess things. "i have no idea," he said stiffly. "general clandon is my uncle, and i have been on very intimate terms with him and his family since i was a child. if there were any engagement, i think i should have been informed." moreno noticed the frown, the stiffness in the tone. he went on smoothly. "i may be jumping at conclusions rather too hastily, but i will tell you how i arrived at them. i happen to know that guy rossett is appointed to the embassy at madrid. with his sister, he dines with this charming girl and a man, obviously her father. it looks to me like a farewell dinner, and at a restaurant which is excellent, but certainly not fashionable. they wanted to escape observation, otherwise a man in rossett's position, and he was certainly the host, would have been at the ritz." "and what do you deduce from these profound observations, worthy of sherlock holmes himself?" asked farquhar a little testily. moreno answered slowly. he could see that his friend was troubled, but he had gone too far to recede. "i should say there was a secret understanding between the young people, approved of by the girl's father, and the man's sister. probably they are still waiting for the earl's consent to an open engagement." farquhar, to hide his agitation, swallowed his whiskey and soda in one draught, and chewed viciously at the end of his cigar. "you may be right," he said, speaking with forced calm. "well, let us get back to your anarchists. what has made you join them?" moreno reflected a moment before he spoke. "i happen to know that young rossett was in possession of some very exclusive information about this particular plot. that is one of the reasons why he has been sent to spain." "and where do you come in?" questioned farquhar. moreno smiled. "it is as much curiosity as anything. the anarchists know that rossett knows a good deal about them. now, i want to find out how they are going to act when rossett finds himself in madrid, you see." "and you'll find it out before you are many hours older, cunning old devil that you are," said farquhar, with an appreciative smile. "well, let me know how you get on. isobel clandon is my cousin, and i can't help feeling interested in all this, especially if what you suggest about her and rossett is true." when moreno had left, the ambitious young barrister sat thinking deeply. he had loved his cousin for years, not perhaps with any great overmastering passion, but with that steady affection which might be expected from a man of his grave and cautious temperament. he was prepared to speak when the time was ripe, when his prospects and circumstances permitted him to offer isobel a proper home. moreno's words troubled him, and he had an uneasy suspicion that the spaniard, with his swift intelligence, had accurately gauged the situation. the fruit which might have been his for the mere stretching out of the hand--had it been plucked by somebody more impetuous, more energetic than himself? this he must learn as soon as possible. moreno's words had suddenly roused him to action. he was now blaming in his mind, those very traits on which he had been wont to pride himself, his scrupulousness, his excessive caution. he had always thought that isobel liked him, that she would not be reluctant to entertain his advances, when he had judged the time was right to make them. and, of course, he had been a fool. he had not looked at the position from the girl's point of view. a girl, however much she may be inclined towards a man, is not disposed to wait indefinitely while he is making up his mind, nicely balancing pros and cons. he had never thought of anybody else for his wife. but he had reckoned too surely on the fact that she was waiting quietly in that little home at eastbourne, till he chose to make love to her. he wired to general clandon the next morning, explaining that he had a couple of days' leisure; might he run down? there came back the cordial reply, "come at once. delighted." truth to tell, the general was both proud and fond of his nephew, the son of his favourite sister. he might have thought at times that the young man was a little too grave and serious for his years, he had always seemed singularly free from the follies of youth. but he had the greatest respect for his sterling qualities, for his high principles and character. father and daughter met him at the station. isobel liked him very much. there was a time when liking might have been converted into a warmer feeling. but, speaking in vulgar parlance, maurice had failed through his over-scrupulousness, his too nice weighing of possibilities and probabilities, to strike while the iron was hot. and then guy rossett, ardent, impetuous, the beau ideal of a lover, had carried her off her feet, and her cousin was hardly a memory, so much did she live in the radiance of the present. he had a most dainty dinner. isobel was a wonderful housekeeper, and could accomplish wonders on a very limited income. maurice, his desire sharpened by his forebodings, thought what a perfect wife she would make, uniting the decorative with the practical. after dinner she left the men alone to their wine and cigars. farquhar was not long in coming to the point. it was typical of his rather staid and old-fashioned way of regarding things that, even in the delicate matter of love, the correct method was to approach the parent first. "i wonder, uncle, if you have ever thought of me in the light of a future son-in-law?" the general looked a little embarrassed. not very long ago, that aspect of his nephew had presented itself to him, and the prospect was not unpleasing. he had a shrewd notion that maurice was very attached to his pretty cousin, and was marking time for some quite honourable and justifiable reasons. of isobel he was not at all sure. maurice had every good quality from a man's point of view, but he was not quite the stuff out of which romantic and compelling lovers are made. and her father was certain that isobel was full of romance. the general answered slowly, and with a caution worthy of maurice himself. "i might have thought about it some time ago, my boy. i fancied then that you were greatly attached. let me see, it was some three or four years ago that i formed that opinion, i think." "yes," said maurice, speaking with a quiet bitterness. "i suppose it was about then that i showed my feelings, as far as i am capable of showing them, plainly. but there were reasons why i did not speak then, reasons that i still think good ones." "i am sure of that, my dear boy," said the uncle kindly. he guessed now the reason of this visit, that sudden telegram. "at that time i was making headway, it is true, but my position was by no means assured. you know the smallness of my patrimony, and what i earned outside was inconsiderable. i did not feel justified in asking a girl to wait, on the chance of prospects that might never come to fruition." "quite right, quite honourable!" murmured the poor general, dreading the inevitable end of this discourse. maurice was stating the case, rather as if he were addressing a jury, but there was no doubt he meant business. even a man of his cautious temperament could now safely allow himself the luxury of matrimony, that was evident from this preamble. "it has always been my one thought to marry isobel, assuming that she would have me, the moment i was in a position to take a wife. that moment has now arrived; i have no fears of the future. the question arises, am i too late?" the general was terribly embarrassed by this direct question. he was a most straightforward man, he loathed subterfuge. but what was he to do? the engagement of his daughter to guy rossett was a secret one. he was, in honour bound, to give neither of them away. he temporised weakly. "have you spoken to isobel about this?" "no," came the answer. "i thought it was right to approach you first." "exactly, exactly," stammered the poor father. "very right and proper, of course. but you had better put it to isobel, and see what she says. of course, you understand there is no opposition on my part." farquhar looked at him keenly. yes, moreno's suspicions were justified. there was a secret engagement. the general had thrown the onus on his daughter. she could tell as much or as little as she pleased. "thanks," he said quietly. "i will speak to isobel to-morrow morning." the next day, in a little sheltered arbour in the not too extensive garden, he asked his cousin to marry him. he explained to her, as he had explained to her father, the reasons which had held him back. she listened to him with composure. she was dimly aware that, a few years ago, this declaration of love would have set her cheeks aflame, her heart beating. to-day, it left her regretful, but cold. "i am dreadfully sorry, maurice. i am very, very fond of you, but not in that way. i look upon you as a brother, a very dear brother." there was decision and finality in the low, gentle tones. it was a bitter disappointment. he had always fancied in his masculine optimism that isobel was waiting ready to fall into his arms, when he had made up his mind to ask her. it was a bitter disappointment, but he bore it with his usual stoicism. ambition was the greater factor in his life; love would always play a subordinate part. still, isobel's refusal had taken something away that could never be replaced. there was a long pause. he was the first to break the silence. "your affections are engaged. you are in love with somebody else?" a vivid flush overspread the fair face. "it is quite true, i love somebody else." "the man you were dining with, guy rossett?" replied farquhar quietly. "ah, you have guessed! but it is quite a secret. my father knows. his sister knows. his father is obstinate and prejudiced; he wants him to marry a woman in his own world. we are waiting for his consent." "i quite understand," said farquhar gloomily. "i am too late, i can see. honestly, isobel, had i asked you, say, a year ago, would your answer have been different?" her frank and candid gaze met his steadfast glance. "i fancy i should have said yes, maurice. but i am not certain it would have been real love; you see, i have known so few men. guy has revealed a new world to me." farquhar sighed. he was eloquent enough in the courts, but he was dumb in the presence of women. this handsome young diplomatist had spoken to her in a language that she readily understood. he silently said good-bye to his dream, the fair dream of the future which was to be glorified by isobel clandon's gracious presence. "so that is all over. well, isobel, i hope you will always allow me to be your very good friend." she reached out her hand impulsively and laid it on his. "oh, yes, please, maurice. you will always be a dear, kind brother, won't you?" "perhaps some day i may be able to help you. i have just learned there is some danger threatening guy rossett." her face blanched. she turned to him an imploring glance. "danger threatening guy. oh, please tell me, quickly." with a bitter pang, he realised in that anguished utterance a full sense of the love which he had lost, of the youthful heart which he had allowed another man to capture. in a few brief sentences, he told her what moreno had related to him. chapter five. at the period at which this story opens, there stood in gerrard street, soho, a small, unpretentious restaurant, frequented almost exclusively by foreigners. over the front was written the name of maceda. luis maceda, a tall, grave man of dignified aspect, with carefully trimmed beard and moustache, was the proprietor. he was a spaniard, with the suave and courteous manners of that picturesque nation. the majority of his customers were his compatriots. the few englishmen who found their way there spoke highly of him and the cuisine. at the same time, one or two of the prominent officials of the secret service kept a wary eye upon maceda and his friends. it was about half-past six on the evening following the interview between moreno and farquhar that maceda, grave, upright, and dignified, looking younger than his fifty years, stood near the entrance door of the small restaurant, awaiting the arrival of early diners. he was one of the old-fashioned type of restaurant keepers who kept a vigilant eye on his subordinates, went round to every table, inquiring of his patrons if they were well served. in short, he made his customers his friends. through the open doors entered andres moreno. he lunched and dined at a dozen different places, but usually twice a week he went to maceda's. the cuisine was french, to suit all tastes, but there were always some special spanish dishes, to oblige those who were still spaniards at heart. the pair were old friends. moreno extended his hand. "how goes it, maceda? but it always goes well with you. you look after your patrons so well." for a few moments the two men conversed in spanish, which moreno, through his father, could speak perfectly. then, after a pause, the journalist spoke a single word--it was a password, that maceda understood instantly. a sudden light came into the proprietor's eyes. he smiled genially, but gravely, as was his wont. "so you are with us, at last," he said. "a thousand welcomes, my friend. we want men like you. i was told there would be a new member to-night, but the name was not divulged. this way." the restaurant keeper led him up a narrow staircase--the house was a very old one--to a big room on the second floor. a long table stood in the middle of the apartment, on which were set bowls of flowers and dishes of fruit. moreno looked around gratefully. as far as creature comforts went, he was going to have a pleasant evening. maceda was evidently going to do his best. maceda pointed to a little side-room. "it is there the initiation will be performed at seven. at half-past, dinner will be served. after dinner, the business of the meeting will take place. you are a bit early. i know this much, that you are here on the introduction of emilio lucue." "quite right," answered moreno easily. "it was lucue who persuaded me to the right way." maceda raised his hands in admiration at the mention of that name. "ah, what a man, what a genius!" he cried in fervent tones. "if our cause ever triumphs, if the world-wide revolution is ever brought about--and sometimes, my friend, i feel very disheartened--it is men like lucue who will make it a possibility." "trust to lucue," answered moreno, in his easy way. "if he can't do it, nobody can." maceda moved towards the door. "excuse me that i can no longer keep you company. but business is business, you know. i must be there to welcome my patrons. maceda's restaurant is nothing without maceda. you know that. my subordinates are good, and do their best, but it is my personality that keeps the thing going. if i am away for ten minutes, everything hangs fire." moreno waved a cheerful hand at him. "do not stand upon ceremony, my good old friend. i shall be quite happy here till the others arrive. no doubt i shall see you later." the proprietor walked to the door, with his long, slow stride. "the three will be here at seven to initiate you. i shall run up for a few moments now and again during the dinner. the two men who will wait upon you are, of course, members of our society. i shall hope to be present, if only for a brief space, at the meeting. once again, a thousand welcomes." maceda shut the door carefully. moreno was left alone, in the long, narrow room. he gave vent to a low whistle, when maceda was out of earshot. "the old boy takes it very seriously," so ran his reflections. "i suppose they will all take it quite as seriously. anyway, they intend to do themselves well. i wonder where the money comes from? and i further wonder if i shall meet anybody whom one would the least expect to find in such a venture." on the stroke of seven lucue arrived, a fine, handsome man of imposing presence. he was accompanied by two men, one an italian, the other a russian. it was evidently going to be a meeting of many nations. lucue greeted the journalist with a friendly smile. "ah, my friend, you are before us. that is a good sign. i hope you do not feel nervous." moreno answered truthfully that he did not. the whole thing appealed greatly to his sense of humour. here were a dozen anarchists, meeting in a small restaurant in soho, and pluming themselves upon the idea that, from their obscure vantage-ground, they could blow up the world into fragments and overpower the forces of law and order, to bring it into accordance with their wild dreams. the four men went into the ante-room. here the solemn rights of initiation were performed with perfect seriousness. afterwards, when he reflected on the subject, moreno remembered that he had taken some very blood-curdling oaths. his gay and easy temperament was not greatly affected by the fact. he had been in the pay of the secret service before; he was in its pay now. a man must take risks, if he wanted to make a good living. besides, he loved adventure. if the apparently genial lucue ever had cause to suspect him, then lucue would stick a knife into his ribs without the slightest compunction. but he felt sure he was the cleverer of the two, and that lucue would suspect every member of the fraternity before himself. the somewhat tedious initiation over, the four men went into the dining-room. most of the members had arrived. the two waiters were bringing up the soup. moreno recognised with a start the portly form of jackson, otherwise juan jaques, the moneylender of dover street. lucue had told him that the common language was french, in order to accommodate all nationalities. moreno addressed him. "i don't think you remember me, mr jackson. i had the pleasure of introducing young harry mount vernon to you some months ago, when he was wanting a little of the ready. he has always spoken in the highest terms of you." mr jackson, always suave and genial, bowed and smiled. but it was evident he was searching the recesses of his memory. moreno helped him out of his difficulty. "i am andres moreno, a fleet street journalist, who mixes with all sorts and conditions of men." "ah, i remember now." jackson, to call him by his assumed name, shook him cordially by the hand. "and so, you are one of us?" "yes, very much so," replied moreno quietly. "our friend lucue converted me to the good cause. he is a wonderful man." jackson repeated the enthusiasm of maceda. "a genius, my dear friend, an absolute genius. if the great cause triumphs, it will be due to him." another worshipper, thought moreno, with a quiet, inward chuckle. they were all certainly very serious, with a whole-hearted worship of their leader. the great leader looked round the room with his broad, genial smile. "all here, except the two ladies," he said. "we must wait for the ladies. it is their privilege to be late. we must exercise patience." as he spoke, two women entered the room, one obviously a frenchwoman, the other as obviously an englishwoman. jackson darted across the apartment, a somewhat grotesque figure, bowed to the foreigner, and shook the englishwoman cordially by the hand. "always late, my dear violet," he said, "but better late than never." then lucue bustled up, and took the situation in hand. "now, jackson, you mustn't monopolise one of the two charming young women in the room. i want my new friend, moreno, to sit next his half-compatriot, because, as you know, although his father was spanish, his mother was english." the pretty englishwoman bowed, and they took their seats together at the flower and fruit-laden table. lucue, probably through inadvertence had not mentioned the woman's name. moreno stole cautious glances at his companion. she was certainly very charming to look at; her age he guessed at anything from five and twenty to thirty. where had he seen her before? her face was quite familiar to him. and then recollection came back to him. a big bazaar in the albert hall, stalls with dozens of charming women. and one particular stall where this particular woman was serving, and he had been struck with her, and inquired her name of a brother journalist, who was a great expert on the social side. he turned to her, speaking in english. "our good friend lucue was rather perfunctory in his introduction. he mentioned my name, but he did not give yours. am i not right in saying that i am speaking to mrs hargrave?" violet hargrave shot at him a glance that was slightly tinged with suspicion. "i think we had better talk in french, if you don't mind--it is the rule here. it might annoy others if we didn't. where did you know me, and what do you know about me?" moreno felt on sure ground at once. he was dealing with a woman of the world. in two minutes, he could put her at her ease. "i am a journalist, rather well-known in fleet street." "yes, i know that," answered violet a little impatiently. "lucue mentioned your name, and it is, as you say, a well-known one. but you have not answered my question. where did you first know me?" moreno explained the little incident of the albert hall bazaar. "i see, then, you rather singled me out from the others," said mrs hargrave, and this time the glance was more coquettish than suspicious. "but i am more interested in this--what do you know about me?" moreno put his cards on the table at once. "we journalists pick up a lot of odd information. i know that you are an intimate friend of our friend jackson, otherwise juan jaques, and one of us; and that to a certain extent you help him in his business, by introducing valuable clients." "oh, you know that, do you?" mrs hargrave's tone was quite friendly. she respected brains, and this dark-faced young anglo-spaniard was not only good-looking, but very clever. "tell me some more." "well, i know that you still live in mount street, that you married jack hargrave, who was never supposed by his friends to have any visible means of subsistence. also that at one time, you were a great friend of guy rossett, the man who has just been appointed to madrid." "oh, then you know guy rossett?" "no," answered moreno quietly. "i don't move in such exalted circles. but i always hear of what is going on in high society, through my influential friends." she looked at him quizzically. "have you many influential friends?" she asked, with just a touch of sarcasm in her pleasant, low-pitched voice. a slight flush dyed moreno's swarthy cheek at what he considered her impertinent question. "more perhaps than you would think possible," he answered stiffly. she read in his nettled tone that she had wounded his _amour propre_. she hastened to make amends. she was always a little too prone to speak without reflection. "oh please don't think i meant to be rude. but we soldiers of fortune, and all of us here are that, are not likely to have many friends in high places." the journalist paid her back in her own coin. "not real friends, of course. but still, we swim about in many cross currents. you yourself have a certain position in a certain section of what we might call semi-smart society." violet hargrave laughed good-humouredly. she was liberal-minded in this respect, that she seldom resented a thrust at herself when she had been the aggressor. "very neatly put. i have no illusions about my actual position. i am not sure that my particular circle is even semi-smart, except in its own estimation." so peace was restored between them, and they chatted gaily together during the progress of the meal. she had taken a great liking to the brainy young journalist. and moreno, on his side, was forced to admit that she was a very attractive woman. the grave and dignified maceda, looking more like a nobleman than the proprietor of an obscure restaurant, came up a few times, and talked in confidential whispers with the principal guests. he chatted longest with lucue and the handsome young frenchwoman, valerie delmonte, who, moreno learned afterwards, stood high in the councils and the estimation of the society. after dinner, the waiters withdrew, the men smoked, and the two ladies produced dainty cigarette cases. then the business of the evening began. the genial lucue, who looked the least ferocious of anarchists, opened the proceedings. he gave a brief but lucid survey of what was going on abroad, of the methods by which the great gospel of freedom was being spread in different capitals. the young frenchwoman, valerie delmonte, who had dined well on the most expensive viands, delivered a fiery and passionate harangue against the great ones of the earth, the parasites and bloodsuckers who existed on the toil of their poorer brethren. her speech roused the assembly to enthusiasm, mr jackson being particularly fervent in his applause. no doubt, he believed himself to be a philanthropist, insomuch as he levied his exactions on the leisured classes; thus, in a measure, redressing the balance of human wrongs. moreno applauded with hardly less fervour than the moneylender, and he was pleased to note that the eloquent valerie shot a grateful glance at him. he had already gained the confidence of lucue. he felt sure, from the reception accorded her, that she was only second to the great man himself. if he could secure her good graces, his position would be safe. some business, not of great importance, was discussed. certain projects were put to the vote. on one subject, lucue and mademoiselle valerie dissented from the majority. moreno decided with the two, and the majority reversed its verdict. violet hargrave was, perhaps, the least enthusiastic of the party. truth to tell, she was studying the young journalist very intently. he interested her greatly. the proceedings ended. a meeting was arranged for next week at the same place, when two members of the brotherhood were expected to arrive from barcelona with the latest reports of what was happening in spain. after a little desultory chatting in groups, maceda's guests prepared to depart. moreno held out his hand to mrs hargrave. he bore the air of a man who had thoroughly enjoyed himself, as in truth he had. "a most delightful evening. i can only hope you will sit beside me next week. but that i fear is too much to hope for. i expect our good friend lucue arranges these things with a sense of equity." mrs hargrave smiled. "i expect next time he will put you next to mademoiselle delmonte." ignoring his outstretched hand, she added abruptly, "are you doing anything after this?" "i was only going on to my club for an hour or two. we journalists are not very early birds." mrs hargrave spoke with her most charming smile. "then get me a taxi, and drive with me to my flat in mount street. i should like to have a little chat with you." moreno was delighted to accompany her. he was eager to know more of this fascinating and enigmatical woman. he was puzzled by her. how did she live; on what did she live? was she at heart an anarchist? or, sudden thought, was she playing the same game as himself? he had noticed her lack of enthusiasm over the events of the evening. arrived in mount street, she produced her latchkey, and ushered him into her luxurious flat, the abode of a well-off woman. she turned into the drawing-room, and switched on the electric light. she threw her cloak on a chair and rang the bell. when the maid appeared in answer, she ordered her to bring refreshment. she mixed a whiskey and soda for moreno with her own slender dainty hands. she mixed a very small portion for herself, to keep him company. "i very rarely take anything of this sort, just a glass of very light wine at lunch or dinner," she explained. "but to-night is a somewhat exceptional one. to your health, mr moreno. i hope we may meet often." the journalist responded in suitable terms. he was very attracted by her, but he was not quite sure that he desired a close acquaintance. he had heard from his young friend mount vernon of her bridge parties, and the fact that people lost large sums of money there. she was evidently of a most hospitable nature, but she might prove a very expensive hostess. they chatted for some time on different topics. then, after a brief space, she suddenly burst out with a question. "what do you know of guy rossett?" moreno shrugged his shoulders. "next to nothing. i only know what everybody knows, that he has been sent to madrid." question and answer followed swiftly. "do you know why he has been sent to madrid?" "no. i suppose it is owing to his family influence." "has lucue told you nothing?" "up to the present nothing." she looked at him keenly. was he fencing? no, she felt sure he was speaking the truth. "then i will tell you. guy rossett is being sent to spain because he has obtained some very important information about the brotherhood. they want him on the spot, as just now madrid and barcelona are two very active centres." moreno leaned forward, and looked at her steadily. he could not, at present, make up his mind about her. she was an englishwoman living in fairly luxurious conditions. what had she in common with this anarchist crew. "have you got any idea who gave him the information?" violet hargrave returned his keen glance with equal steadiness. "not the slightest. but there are always traitors in any association of this kind." "and when they are discovered, the penalty is death." moreno spoke quietly, but he felt an inward shiver. after all, was he so certain he was going to outwit lucue and his brother fanatics. "the penalty is death. you have been initiated to-night, and you know that," was violet hargrave's answer. the journalist felt a little uneasy. he had suspected her. did she, in turn, suspect him? but he preserved an unbroken front. "they deserve it," he said, with unblushing audacity. mrs hargrave bent forward, and spoke with intensity. "guy rossett may prove very dangerous. i think lucue and mademoiselle delmonte, from the few words i have exchanged with them to-night, have resolved on a certain course of action." "ah!" the journalist also bent forward, in an attitude of simulated eagerness. when mrs hargrave spoke again, she looked a different woman. over her face came a hard, vindictive look. the dainty, almost doll-like prettiness had disappeared. "guy rossett must be got out of the way, before he can do much mischief." and moreno, with his swift intuition, at once grasped the situation. this slender, feminine thing, with her soft ways and graces, was a revengeful and scorned woman. she had loved rossett, and he had refused to accept her love. he shuddered in his soul to think that the spirit of revenge could carry a woman to such lengths. but he had only to play his part. it would never do to let her know that he suspected, or the tigress's claws would rend himself. "a regrettable but inexorable necessity," he said calmly. "if rossett menaces the schemes of the brotherhood, he must be got out of the way." chapter six. "you got all this information from perfectly reliable sources, rossett?" the question was asked by the honourable percy stonehenge, his majesty's ambassador to the spanish court, as the two men sat together in the ambassador's private room. "perfectly reliable, sir. i have given you in strict confidence the names of my informants. they are not the sort of men who make mistakes." mr stonehenge, true type of the urbane and courteous diplomatist, a man of old family, knitted his brow, and pondered a little before he spoke again. "i had a private letter from greatorex about this matter. there is no doubt great activity everywhere, but especially in this country. well, the information you have collected is most valuable. it will be given to the king and his advisers, and they must take the best measures they can." stonehenge shook his head sadly, after a prolonged pause. "revolution, my dear fellow, is in the air all over europe. even in our commonsense and law-abiding country, there are ominous growlings and mutterings. everywhere, the proletariat is getting out of hand. sometimes i feel grateful that i am an old man, that what i dread is coming will not come in my time." rossett assented gravely. he was taking himself quite seriously now. his deep love for isobel clandon had purified him of light fancies. his promotion to this post at madrid had suggested to him that he might bid adieu to frivolous pursuits, and do a man's work in the world, prove himself a worthy citizen of that vast british empire of which he was justly proud. personally, he would have preferred paris or rome, or even vienna. but, at the same time, he was greatly attracted by spain. a small nation now, it had once been a great one, attaining its zenith under the reign of ferdinand and isabella. it had produced great geniuses in the immortal domain of the arts--cervantes, lopez de vega, murillo. once it had lain prostrate under the iron heel of the conqueror. napoleon, who had overrun all europe, had subjugated the once invincible spain, crushing her and governing her through the puppet king, his brother, joseph bonaparte. then had come the time of liberation, and the thunder of the british guns, under the leadership of wellington, had freed her from the foreign yoke. rossett was very delighted with his chief, one of those sane men of affairs, a perfect aristocrat with just sufficient business instinct, who can safely be appointed to an important post. a man who thought clearly, saw far ahead, and made few mistakes, a man at once calm, temperate, and equable. this ambassador, on his side, had welcomed him warmly. with the natural prejudice of his class, he always preferred his colleagues to come from the old governing families; they thought his thoughts, they spoke his language. if sometimes they lacked a little in brains and initiative, they had a large balance on the right side in deportment and integrity, two very important assets, especially in a monarchical country. besides, he was an old friend of lord saxham. they had been colleagues together in their youth. lord saxham was of a too violent and volcanic temperament to rise high in the diplomatic or any other profession. had he possessed a little more balance, he might have sat in many cabinets. but no prime minister who knew his business could run the risk of including him. but, none the less, he exercised a certain outside influence. rossett wrote every day to his beloved isobel; if he had time, long letters; if diplomatic affairs were pressing, short ones, assuring her of his unalterable affection. isobel wrote every day also, most voluminous epistles, covering six or eight sheets of the flimsy notepaper. he wrote once a week to his dear sister, mary, only second in his heart to isobel. and mary also replied at great length, but she was not quite so voluminous as isobel. her letters were generally taken up with reviewing, with her kind, gentle humour, the tantrums of her father, who appeared to be growing more explosive than ever. rossett had exchanged one letter with his father, to which he got a reply. lord saxham was not a great letter-writer, he kept to the point, and used as few words as possible. "glad to hear you are getting on with stonehenge--a very good fellow! stick to it, my dear boy, and i will work for you at this end with greatorex. we shall see you an ambassador yet." guy smiled when he got this brief reply. he knew as well as mary that his father did not care twopence as to whether he got on in his profession or not. he was only glad his son was out in spain, because his sojourn in that country separated him from isobel clandon. how frightfully obstinate he was! he often longed for his sweetheart, but still the days were very pleasant. he speedily found himself popular in the society of madrid. he had been received graciously by the king, who knew england well, equally graciously by the queen, in her maidenhood a princess of our own british stock. one man in particular had sought to attach himself to him, a man a few years older than himself, a certain duke del pineda. pineda was a handsome-looking fellow who bore himself well, dressed immaculately, and was received at court and by the best society. unquestionably, so far as birth and antecedents were concerned, he was a spanish grandee of the first water. and his manners were charming. but, all the same, there were certain whispers about him. to begin with, it was well-known that he was impecunious. and a spanish duke, like an english one, is always looked at askance when he is suspected of impecuniosity. a duke has no reason to be short of ready money. stonehenge, who had watched the growing intimacy between the two men, spoke to rossett one day about it. "you seem very great friends with pineda, i observe, guy." the ambassador had fallen into the habit of calling him by his christian name. rossett looked at his chief squarely. "yes, sir, we go about a good deal together. of course, you have a reason in putting the question." "he is not on the list of `suspects' you gave me." guy smiled quietly. "no, but i think he will be very soon." mr stonehenge gave a sigh of relief. "i see you know your business. i don't know that pineda has yet definitely decided, but he will swim with the tide. if there is a revolution he will try to lead it, like mirabeau. in the meantime, he keeps in with both parties." "i have led him on to a few disclosures already," observed rossett. "ah, that is good. i can see that if you stick to it, you will fly high. of course, you know he is as poor as a church mouse." there was a little grimness in rossett's smile as he answered: "i am quite sure of that." stonehenge looked at him keenly. "ah, i don't want to be curious, but he has borrowed money of you?" the other nodded. "a trifle, sir. i thought it was worth it. i shall lose it, of course, and although i have done it in the interests of my country, i don't suppose the government will make it up to me." the ambassador laughed. "virtue is its own reward in this profession, my dear guy. they can subscribe any amount to the party funds, but they won't give an extra penny to the men who serve them well. anyway, i am glad you have taken the measure of pineda. he has really no brains." "an absolute ass," corrected rossett, "an absolute ass, with more than a normal share of vanity." "a most accurate description," assented the chief. "but, with his birth and connections, he might temporarily make a decent figurehead. monarchies have had their _rois faineants_. revolutions when they start have upper class and middle-class puppets to lead them. afterwards, as we know, these are displaced by the extreme element." rossett had found no difficulty in financing the impecunious spanish grandee. for great-aunt henrietta, on hearing of his promotion, had forwarded him a very substantial cheque. out of this, he had paid off mr jackson, and was able to take up his new post with a clean sheet. needless to say that his sister mary, the most honourable of women, was delighted at the position of affairs. while events were progressing in spain, moreno the journalist had called on his old friend farquhar at the familiar chambers in the temple. it was a few days after moreno's initiation into the brotherhood by lucue-- the initiation which had been followed by that very significant interview with violet hargrave. the visitor's keen glance detected at once that his old friend looked gloomy and depressed. and, in truth, farquhar was in no jubilant mood. his rejection by his pretty cousin, isobel, the knowledge that another man had secured what he so coveted, was weighing upon him heavily. he pulled himself together on moreno's entrance, and extended a cordial hand. he was a very reticent man, and always hid his feelings as much as possible. "great things have happened since i last saw you, my friend," cried the journalist gaily. "i am now a full-fledged member of the brotherhood, the great brotherhood. you remember i told you i was going to be initiated?" yes, farquhar remembered. moreno had mentioned the fact, and he had been interested. he had thought at the time his friend was running great risks, but no doubt the journalist was playing his own game in his own subtle way. since that conversation, his own affairs had made him forgetful of everything save the daily duties of his profession, duties which he never neglected. he smiled genially. "when are you going to blow us all up? you haven't brought a bomb in your pocket by any chance?" moreno shook his head. "much too crude, my good old friend. we work in a more subtle way than that, by peaceful and pacific means." he knew maurice farquhar well enough, so sure was he of the sterling character of the man, to trust him with his life. this reserved, somewhat priggish barrister would no more reveal a confidence than a roman catholic priest would betray the secrets of the confessional. at the same time a man in his delicate and dangerous position must be doubly and trebly cautious. he must put even farquhar off the scent, till the day arrived when he could speak freely. he spoke a moment after, in a rather abrupt tone. "forgive me for putting a certain question to you, and, believe me, it is not dictated from any spirit of impertinent curiosity. you remember our meeting your cousin and guy rossett? i told you i formed certain conclusions with regard to their relationship. have you by any chance had an opportunity of testing the accuracy of the opinion i formed?" for a moment farquhar was at the point of telling this most inquisitive journalist to mind his own business, and not to pry into matters that, to all appearances, were no concern of his. then he remembered that he had known the man for many years, and during the period of a very intimate acquaintance he had never known him guilty of a breach of good taste. moreno had expressly stated he was animated with no spirit of impertinent curiosity. in short, he had apologised for putting the question. he then had some subtle and convincing reason for putting it. farquhar spoke more frankly than he had at first thought would be possible under the circumstances. "after what you said, i made it my business to inquire. i am very greatly attached to my uncle and cousin. whatever affects the welfare of either is deeply interesting to me." he paused a few seconds. it was hard to admit to moreno that his suspicions were justified. and he was gaining a little time by expressing himself in these cautious and judicial words, words of course which told the keen young journalist what he wanted to know, without need of further speech. "it is, as you surmised, an absolute secret to all but a very few," resumed farquhar, after that brief pause. "you diagnosed the situation perfectly. rossett's father is, at the present moment, the stumbling-block." "thanks for your perfect frankness," answered moreno easily. the next question was one still more difficult to put, for he had guessed the situation as regards farquhar quite easily. the barrister was in love with isobel clandon himself, had delayed too long in his wooing, and too late learned the bitter truth, that a more enterprising lover had carried her off. "i take it that since you are greatly attached to your cousin, as well as your uncle, you would be disposed to help rossett, in the event of his needing a friend?" there was no reserve in the voice that replied. "yes, any man whom my cousin loves, whether he is her lover or husband, will find in me a friend." moreno nodded his head. he could not say how much he appreciated this attitude, for he was sure that farquhar was genuinely in love with isobel. and he was sure now of what he had known all along, that the man was perfectly straight and honest, devoid of any petty or dishonouring meanness. self-sacrifice could go no further than this--to assist isobel's lover. "i am very glad to hear that, farquhar. for the moment, my lips are sealed. even to you, my greatest friend, i cannot tell all. but the day may come when danger will threaten guy rossett. it will be well then to know who are the friends on whom he can rely. it may be, when that day comes, you can help, perhaps you cannot. but, if you can, i shall count upon you." "i have given you my promise," replied farquhar simply. "for the sake of isobel clandon, i will help guy rossett, if my assistance is of any use." a couple of hours later, moreno left his friend's chambers, after talking on other and impersonal subjects. shortly after that interview between the two men, there was a meeting at maceda's restaurant. it was a special function, convened especially by the great lucue himself. there were only six people present, the chief himself, maceda, who, on this very particular occasion, had delegated the conduct of his establishment to his second in command, jackson, otherwise jacques the moneylender, the frenchwoman, valerie delmonte, violet hargrave, and andres moreno, the latest recruit. the repast this time was of a much simpler nature. it lacked the elegance and profusion characteristic of the ordinary assemblages, when the affairs of the brotherhood was discussed in a general fashion. it was evident from these symptoms, concluded moreno, that something of importance, some stern business was in the air. when the comparatively simple meal had been finished; lucue opened the proceedings, speaking as usual in french. "i had hoped that our brother from barcelona, jaime alvedero, would have been with us to-night," he explained to his fellow-conspirators. "but grave affairs have detained him. he is, as you know, technically my superior, but he has written to me, authorising me to act with full authority in this very important matter of guy rossett. for the benefit of our latest member, andres moreno, i will just explain how, at the present moment, this young englishman is a serious menace to the brotherhood." moreno looked expectantly in his chief's direction. he already knew a great deal of what lucue was going to explain at length for the journalist's benefit, but he was too wide-awake to betray this. he appeared profoundly moved by his chief's disclosures. he assumed an expression of the greatest gravity when lucue had finished, for he knew that this apparently genial and most astute person was watching him narrowly. "it is a very serious menace, his appointment to the court of spain, as he will be on the spot," he commented quietly at the conclusion of the long harangue. "it must be counteracted in some way and speedily. as the newest member of this association, it does not become me to offer suggestions. i leave these to wiser and more experienced heads." he looked meaningly at the other three men, who he knew were the acknowledged chiefs of this particular section of the great brotherhood. lucue indulged in a smile of approval. like most great men, he was not a little vain, and easily won by judicious flattery. "our brother moreno is very modest," he said pleasantly. "but i have no doubt in a short space we shall find him one of our wisest counsellors. well, ladies and gentlemen, we have a short way with people who try to thwart our well-laid plans." moreno played splendidly. he knew that, as the newest recruit, and with english blood running in his veins, he had to justify himself. "that is true statesmanship," he said, in a voice of deep conviction. "for although, for the time, we do not hold the reins of power, i am convinced that we are better and more far-seeing statesmen than those whom at the moment misgovern and oppress the world." there was loud applause at this speech. the good-looking frenchwoman clapped her hands loudly. jackson and maceda grunted audible approval. lucue's aspect grew more benign. violet hargrave smiled her charming smile, which might mean anything, approval or disapproval. at least, so moreno thought. he was not quite sure of her yet. was she, through some inexplicable warp of temperament, devoted heart and soul to the schemes of this infamous association, or was she, like himself, playing a double game? "since we are all united on our policy," broke in lucue's bland tones, "it only remains to settle the means." there was a stir in the small assembly. the frenchwoman leaned forward eagerly; moreno did the same. he had no doubt of her fidelity to the cause. he could not follow a safer guide. but after a longer discussion, they were unable to form any settled plan. they all felt it was almost impossible to engineer the matter from england. finally, they agreed to refer it back to alvedero, who had the advantage of being on the spot. then lucue made a suggestion. "i propose that our comrades, violet hargrave and andres moreno, set out for spain to confer with the leaders there. i suggest them for this reason--being partly english, they will be able to move about more freely, be less liable to suspicion on account of that fact." moreno and violet hargrave nodded their heads in confirmation of their acceptance of the task assigned them. moreno shuddered inwardly, as he recalled the blood-curdling oaths which had been administered to him. on violet hargrave's face had come a sudden expression which he could not quite define. he was inclined to think that it reflected a certain happiness in the prospect of doing harm to guy rossett. the meeting broke up, and they went down the stairs together. when they reached the door, violet spoke. "come to my flat to-night, as you did when you were first initiated," she said, in the voice that sounded so sweet and womanly. "it is evident that you and i are going to be very closely associated,"--she shot at him a coquettish glance--"whether you desire it or not." a man wholly spanish on his father's side was not likely to be deficient in gallantry. "there is nothing i desire more, mrs hargrave. apart from the importance of our common aims and aspirations, there is nothing in our brief association with the brotherhood that has given me greater pleasure than the fact that i have been enabled to make your acquaintance." they hailed a passing taxi, stepped in, and drove to the flat in mount street. chapter seven. two men sat at a small table in an inferior restaurant in one of the lower quarters of madrid. one was dressed in the rough garb of a working-man. this was andres moreno, who, in his adventurous life, had played many parts. with his sardonic humour he was enjoying this particular role. the danger that he ran added a spice to his enjoyment. the other man, guy rossett, was disguised also, but not quite so successfully. moreno, due to his birth, could never be mistaken for anything but a spaniard. on the other hand, rossett could be easily recognised as a member of the bulldog race, a typical englishman. that morning, at the embassy, a note had been delivered by a trusted messenger. it was a very brief one, and ran thus: "dear mr rossett,--you will remember a certain evening at the savoy, when you were dining with your sister, a young lady whose name i will not mention, and her father. my host came over and spoke with you all for a few seconds. i am in spain on important business. i should like to have a brief chat with you this afternoon." the writer had suggested the meeting in one of the unfashionable quarters of the town. he had appended his initials in a scrawling fashion. but at once recollection had come to guy rossett. he remembered that evening distinctly, when maurice farquhar had come over to their table, when general clandon had expressed his displeasure at his nephew's associate, a man of whom guy had some recollection. the scrawling initials might have stood for anything. but rossett deciphered them at once. the writer was andres moreno, a member of the secret service, also often in the pay of scotland yard. guy called for a bottle of wine. not trusting to the cigars of the country, he produced his own case, and proffered it to the pretended working-man. moreno waved it away. "we will have cigarettes, if you please," he said, in a low voice. "very keen eyes are watching us here. if you dangle that case much longer, they will put you down as a rich english milord. we may have to meet here often, and we want to avoid that. you see, i pose as a humble and unprosperous working-man." rossett bowed to his companion's superior judgment. moreno knew the ropes better than he did. cigarettes were called for, and then the spaniard opened the ball. he spoke in french, in very low tones. "your friends did not do you a very good service in sending you here, mr rossett. at the present moment, yours is a very dangerous post." rossett did not reply without reflecting. he knew enough of this man to know that he was a trusted member of the secret service. but he was intelligent enough to know that, in spite of certain walks in life, nobody can be entirely trusted. "do you mind explaining a little more fully," he said cautiously. moreno smiled pleasantly. he appreciated the other's caution. rossett had a frank, open countenance, but he was not so innocent as he looked. "my dear sir, i will lay my cards on the table with pleasure. i know a good deal about the foreign office and its ways. greatorex sent you over here because you happen to have come into possession of a good deal of useful information about the anarchist business in this country. am i right?" guy nodded. "so far, you are right." it was a long time before moreno spoke again. he wanted to touch upon a delicate question, and he was not sure how far he might venture. if he said what he wanted to say, he was making use of the private information that was given him by maurice farquhar. of course, moreno, with his swift intuition, had arrived at the conclusion that family influence had been at the back of rossett's promotion, for certain private reasons. "i take it also that your father, lord saxham, had something to do with this appointment." rossett flushed, and spoke haughtily. he thought this cosmopolitan was presuming. "i am not aware that my father had anything to do with the matter." moreno assented blandly. "perhaps, but excuse me for saying that your family might desire to remove you from the society of a certain very charming young lady, in whose company i saw you that night at the savoy." "what do you know, or guess?" asked rossett angrily. "please, mr rossett, do not be irate with me. believe me i am your friend and well-wisher. i cannot tell you as much as i would wish, for, in the double role i am playing, i have to be very cautious." "please go on," said rossett, a little mollified by the evident sincerity of his companion. "for certain reasons which i am not at liberty to divulge, i take an interest in the young lady, who, i am sure, is devoted to you, and to whom i am sure you are equally devoted. i should also be pleased to be of service to yourself. you know that i am a member of the secret service, and that i regard every englishman as under my care." "yes, i know that," assented rossett a little grudgingly. like his chief, mr stonehenge, he had a rooted distrust of all foreign nations. was this man playing a double game? anyway, he seemed to be remarkably well informed. "i suppose you would think it impertinent if i proffered you some very good advice?" was the spaniard's startling question. rossett stared at him. andres moreno was most certainly a very extraordinary person. and yet there was a certain fascination about the man which enabled him to take extraordinary liberties. "i will tell you when you have offered it," answered the young diplomat curtly. a greasy-looking waiter came up and hovered about the table. evidently he was wanting to listen to the conversation. moreno waved him angrily away, speaking in spanish. "one of the gang," he whispered to rossett. "the city is honeycombed with them. perhaps he understands french; we will speak english." he paused a moment before he spoke again. "my advice to you is to clear out of this as quickly as you can, on some pretext or another. write a private note to greatorex to recall you; mention my name, he knows me well. tell your father to pretend to be ill, and get leave of absence to go to his bedside. you understand." "why should i do this?" queried guy sharply. moreno looked at him steadily. "go home as i advise you, and marry the girl you love. stay here, and this country, fair as it looks to outward seeming, is likely to provide you with a grave." for a second, rossett's face blanched. he was young, and death seemed far distant. the ominous words of his companion had brought it very near. "why, why?" he stammered. his glance sought the sinister figure of the eavesdropping waiter hovering in the background. moreno looked in the same direction. "you see that scoundrel yonder, whom i chased away just now. he carries a knife always with him; so do hundreds of his fellow ruffians. you are in the black books of the brotherhood. there are several looking out for an opportunity to put you out of the way, because you know too much of them and their doings. take my advice, and clear out. if you stop here, you have only a dog's chance." rossett spoke slowly and distinctly, the sturdy bulldog breed asserting itself. "i am sure you mean well. but do you think i would run away before this cowardly pack? let them do their worst." "think of the girl you love," pleaded moreno pensively. he thought the young man was a bit of a fool, but he could not help admiring him. a spasm of pain crossed rossett's face. on the one hand, home and love, isobel clandon for his wife. on the other, flight before the dagger of the anarchist assassin. was there any doubt as to the choice, to a man of his breed? "i will stay," he said doggedly. "and, if i put the issue to her, isobel would say the same. i will stay, and, with your help, i will win through to safety." moreno at this juncture could not help swaggering a little. "you have the best brains of the secret service at your disposal," he said, "but you are a heavy charge, mr rossett. i should be much happier if you were back in england." "i go back in honour, not as a fugitive," answered guy quietly, as the two men walked together out of the restaurant. "if that man had known who you were," observed moreno, as they passed the waiter, "he would have slipped the knife into your ribs. adieu, my friend. as you have chosen to stay here, we shall meet often. i shall let you know how things are going on." and then, as they were parting, rossett suddenly arrested him with a question. "but, i say, how do you justify your existence here? what does fleet street say to your absence?" moreno smiled his subtle smile. "my dear friend, i am sending weekly articles up to fleet street on this delightful country, and its equally delightful population. in short, i am `booming' spain. i am the innocent journalist, out on a much needed holiday." rossett smiled. "you are a very wonderful man. _au revoir_." that night three letters were written to london. one was from guy addressed to his sister, and it contained the important question, had his father anything to do with his appointment to madrid; in other words, did he owe his promotion to anything except his own merits? mary's reply came back in due course. it was distinctly conciliatory and diplomatic. but, as mary was not very adapt at telling a lie, the truth peeped through. it was evident to guy that lord saxham had exercised his influence to get his son to spain, with the view of separating him from isobel; guy felt very bitter towards his father. he felt it was something in the nature of a dirty trick, diplomatic perhaps, but none the less of a questionable nature. moreno wrote two letters. the first was to lady mary rossett. he had not even been introduced to that charming young woman, but such an elementary fact as that did not deter him. he explained who he was, he recalled the evening at the savoy. he pointed out that her brother was in great danger, and that she should use all the influence of her family to get guy recalled on some pretext or another. he added that he had met guy in madrid and urged this course upon him, that guy on scenting danger, with the stubborn pride of the englishman, had refused to abandon his post. the second letter he sent to the head of the english secret service with a request that it should be shown to greatorex. the motive of the second letter was the same as the first, that guy rossett should be got out of harm's way, before an anarchist knife should be dug in his ribs. mary took the letter to her father. she was very genuinely alarmed; she also had a faint recollection of the swarthy young spaniard who had sat at an adjoining table on that well-remembered evening at the savoy. he had mentioned in his letter that he was a member of the secret service. she was disposed to trust him. she thrust the letter into lord saxham's hand with an almost tragic gesture. "now, father, you can see what you have done by sending him over to spain. that wily old greatorex wanted to use him just for his own purpose, and you fell in pat with his scheme." lord saxham read the letter, and his face blanched. "oh, my poor boy," he groaned. his daughter loved him, but at the bottom of her heart there was always a little good-humoured contempt. he was so terribly weak. headstrong, violent, and explosive, but always weak. lady mary spoke irritably; she was tender and compassionate, but not in the least weak. "we have got to act, father, and act immediately. guy must come back at once. you must see this artful old greatorex to-morrow." saxham promised that he would see greatorex to-morrow. he 'phoned up that important personage, and fixed an appointment. the two men met. by that time greatorex had received moreno's letter from the head of the secret service. he knew, therefore, exactly what his old friend lord saxham had come about. the earl began in his usual explosive manner. "by god, greatorex, you haven't treated me well in this matter. you have sent my poor boy to his death." if lord saxham had been a less important member of the aristocracy, the imperturbable greatorex would have shown him the door. but under the circumstances forbearance had to be exercised. "softly, softly, if you please, my dear saxham. it was at your request i sent your son to spain, to get him out of an unfortunate entanglement." "i know, i know," spluttered the earl, never very great in argument, "but i didn't know he was going to his death." "no, more did i," replied greatorex, speaking with his usual calm. "now let us be reasonable and avoid indulging in mutual recriminations which irritate both parties. what do you want me to do?" "recall him at once," thundered lord saxham. "one moment, if you please," said greatorex quietly. "we have got to consider guy's views on this matter. i have here a confidential communication from a very trusted member of our secret service. he has warned guy of his danger, put all the possibilities and probabilities before him, and guy refuses to budge. in short, he declines to run away. what have you got to say to that?" "then i say he is a most infernal fool," cried lord saxham in his most explosive manner. greatorex's lip curled a little. "perhaps from your point of view. shall i give you mine?" "if you like," said saxham sullenly. he was not so dense that he could not see what was in the other man's mind. "he is a very brave young englishman of the true bulldog breed, who is going to stick to his post oblivious of the consequences. it is that breed that makes the british empire what it is. do you still want me to recall him?" "yes," spluttered the earl. "i want him recalled. i don't intend him to be done to death by a dirty spanish anarchist." greatorex's look was very disdainful. "i will be on the wires all day with stonehenge and guy. if he consents to be recalled on any pretext, i will recall him. but please understand me, saxham; he shall only be recalled with his own consent. i will go no further." the tall, lean man stood up, and towered over the somewhat blustering lord saxham. "you can recall him, whether he consents or not," cried the angry father, "if you choose." "in this case i am not going to exercise my prerogative. it is no use arguing, saxham. on this point my mind is made up. i will only add that i greatly admire your son's attitude. if he sticks to this business, he will have a great career before him." "unless he is murdered to-morrow," commented saxham bitterly, as he walked out of the room. the poor old earl went back to ticehurst park in a very agitated frame of mind. lady mary was his favourite child, but guy was his best beloved son. ticehurst would inherit the lands and the title, but for ticehurst he had only a very mild liking. mary met him in the hall. she was only a little less perturbed than her father. "what news?" she cried eagerly. "have you induced greatorex to recall him?" lord saxham had to confess to failure. he went with her into the morning-room, and related at full length the details of his interview with greatorex. that powerful personage was ready to fall in with his views--but the stumbling-block was guy himself. if guy stuck to his resolution not to seek safety in flight, greatorex would not move. mary's sweet eyes filled with tears. she had already abused greatorex, but she was too just not to understand his attitude. at the bottom of his heart, greatorex approved of guy's resolution to stick to his post, whatever the consequences. "i am sorry i said harsh things of greatorex," she said in a broken voice. "of course guy himself could take no other course, and his chief admires his indomitable spirit. but, all the same, we must move heaven and earth to get him away." the earl sank wearily into a chair. presently he began to cry and moan. "oh, my poor boy. to think i have exposed him to this danger by my ill-advised action." poor lady mary was on the verge of hysteria herself, but the senile grief of the old earl made her strong and self-reliant. her brain was working quickly. could she not turn this moment to advantage? "you are sorry for what you have done, father? you recognise that, but for your unfortunate intervention, guy would never have gone to spain." "i know, i know," replied poor old lord saxham in quavering accents. "i would cut off my right hand if, by doing so, i could undo that morning's work with greatorex. i was very proud of it at the time." mary spoke very slowly, very calmly. "guy has got in him the rossett obstinacy, and, after all, he is only acting as a brave man should. we are less brave for him than he is for himself." the earl stretched out his shaking hands. "mary, will you write and implore him to let greatorex recall him. greatorex has given me his promise to do so, if guy consents." mary shook her head. "guy is very fond of me, i know. in many things i could influence him, but not in this. it is no use your writing to him, you have less influence over him than i. if he would not listen to me, he will not listen to you." "then he is doomed." the poor old earl's head sank on his breast, and he surrendered himself to despair. and now had come mary's great opportunity, and she took advantage of it. she was no mean diplomatist at any time. "i shall not move him, you will not move him. and you say you cannot move greatorex. there is just one person in the world who might persuade him. i am not quite sure even about her." lord saxham was very subdued, very penitent, but there was still some of the old adam left in him. he answered quickly; the voice was still quavering, but there was in it a querulous note. "you mean that--" lady mary lifted a warning finger; she knew he was going to say "minx." "father, please, this is no time for old and foolish animosities. guy's life is at stake, through his noble, perhaps exaggerated, sense of honour. you and i are powerless to alter his determination. there is just a chance that isobel will be more successful. will you put your pride in your pocket and ask her to plead with him?" it was a hard struggle, but in the end lord saxham's affection for his son won. the old aristocrat gave in. "do what you like, mary. i will consent to anything to get guy back." mary moved swiftly to the writing-table. "i shall ask her and her father to come to us to-morrow for a visit with the view of your sanctioning her engagement to guy. i shall ask her to wire their acceptance." the earl sat as in a dream, while she wrote; dimly he realised that events had taken a turn which he could not approve. but there was no other course left. mary's letter was brief. "my dearest isobel,--my father has consented to approve your engagement to guy. we shall both be delighted if you and general clandon will pay us a visit. please come to-morrow, if possible. in that case, send me a wire on receipt of this note. "yours affectionately, "mary rossett." isobel received that letter next morning. she carried it to her father with shining eyes. the general read it, and kissed her. "good news, indeed, my dear little girl. lady mary seems a witch, and able to work miracles." "oh, isn't she a darling?" cried isobel enthusiastically. "shall i send the wire at once?" the wire was sent. poor isobel was a little distressed about the scantiness of her wardrobe. but she took heart of grace when she reflected that this was sure to be quite a private visit. it was not likely there would be other guests on such an especially family occasion. lady mary met them at the station. she kissed isobel affectionately, and shook the general, who looked very aristocratic and dignified, warmly by the hand. "how did you manage it, you darling?" whispered isobel as they sat together in the car. "circumstances went in my favour; it is not quite entirely due to my own diplomacy," answered mary a little shyly. she knew that, in a way, she had struck a bargain with her aristocratic and obstinate old father, the chance of saving guy against his indomitable pride. and she knew also that isobel's faithful heart would be very wounded when she learned the fact of her sweetheart's peril. "you will know all about it after dinner to-night," she added evasively. "you must rein in your impatience till then." isobel smiled happily. the world was rose-coloured to-day. was not the last obstacle to her happiness removed? would not her beloved guy marry her in the sight of the whole world? his world as well as her own? lord saxham was awaiting them in the big hall, having now fully reconciled himself to the situation. he had many faults; he was choleric, obstinate, and a good deal of an opportunist. but whatever line of action he took, even if he somewhat stultified himself in the process, he always bore himself with a certain dignity. his meeting with the clandons was expressive of his methods. he held out his right hand cordially to the general. with his left he drew isobel towards him, and printed a fatherly kiss upon her forehead. "welcome to ticehurst, my dear child, which henceforth you must look upon as a second home. if guy were here to-day our happiness would be complete." the warm-hearted isobel was ready to burst into tears. the earl was behaving like a gentleman; she forgave him his former obduracy. after all, was it not natural that he should wish guy to marry a woman in his own world? they had a very elaborate dinner, to which the host and the general did full justice. isobel was too happy to care about food. lady mary ate just enough to keep her alive, according to her usual custom. after dinner they went into one of the small drawing-rooms. here lord saxham, in very happy phrases, expressed his cordial consent to the engagement between guy and isobel. the men shook hands, the two girls kissed each other. it was a charming family scene. and then, in a manner, the real business of the evening began. lady mary began to explain things in a low and hesitating voice, that often faltered. she felt just a little ashamed of her task. isobel was quite innocent, but she was not without brains. the general, she was sure, was quite keen. when she finished her recital, she knew both father and daughter would attribute the earl's sudden conversion to its proper cause. but mary had not quite finished, when the earl broke in, in his usual impetuous way. "you see, isobel,"--he had by now taken quite whole-heartedly to the idea of her as his daughter-in-law--"we must have guy back as quickly as possible. at the present moment, you are the person who has the greatest influence over him. no doubt, at a word from you he will come." isobel indulged in a rather forced smile; it struck mary that there was something a little enigmatic in that smile. of course, lord saxham had blundered as usual, he had revealed the truth just a little too nakedly. isobel was reckoning up her welcome at its true value, so far as her host was concerned. this, of course, isobel did, so did her father. but she was too sensible a girl to be offended. she, was, perhaps, a little disappointed that she did not owe this swift change of policy to her true friend. lady mary. she thought a little before she spoke. "are you quite sure that guy would come back, if i implored him to do so," she said at length. she turned towards lord saxham with a pleasant smile that robbed her words of any subtle impertinence. "guy has always told me that there is a strong vein of obstinacy in the rossett family. perhaps,"--and here a proud light came into her eyes--"i could influence him more than anybody else in the world." mary looked imploringly at her. "and, isobel, you will use that influence of course?" "i will tell you something that, up to the present, i have only told my father," replied the girl quietly. "i knew of all this some little time ago. my cousin, maurice farquhar, has a great friend, half spanish, half english, who is also a journalist. he told my cousin that danger was threatening guy. maurice told me. you can guess what i felt. guy is as dear to me as he is to you." "of course, there is no need to tell us that," cried lady mary hastily. "my first impulse was to write to guy, tell him what i had heard, and implore him to leave this dangerous country. i consulted my father. i did not write that letter. many a night i have lain awake, and in the morning resolved to write it. it is still unwritten." the earl's face bore a puzzled expression. lady mary seemed somewhat bewildered too. general clandon alone displayed no emotion. "i don't understand," breathed mary softly. "oh, can't you see?" cried isobel quickly. "suppose guy yielded to my prayers, and seized some excuse to come back! might he not in after years reproach me for having induced him to play a coward's part? surely you can understand what i feel." and, in one swift moment of comprehension, the worldly and opportunist earl and his far nobler daughter understood. lady mary looked at her father with a triumphant smile. she had gauged isobel aright from the first. gone for ever the dishonouring suspicions of a designing young woman seeking to make her fortune by a wealthy marriage. it was all too obvious. with guy's departure from spain, isobel had everything to gain. with his sojourn in that dangerous country she stood to lose everything. "whether i marry guy or not," went on the low, sweet voice, breaking at the end into a little sob, "his honour is my first consideration." the general's deep tones broke the intense silence that succeeded those few words. "lord saxham, lady mary, i most heartily approve isobel's attitude. i am sure mr rossett feels as i do in this matter. if he deserted his post at this juncture, he would be like the soldier who runs away on the battlefield." lord saxham looked at the beautiful, slender girl, so noble in her self-sacrificing love. "my dear," he said, in tones that were a little unsteady, "you are a wonderful woman. guy could not have chosen more wisely. i am sorry-- very sorry--" he broke off. it was not perhaps precisely the moment to apologise for his previous obstinacy, his rancour against "the little girl who lived in a cottage at eastbourne." lady mary went round the table, put her arms round her, and kissed her warmly. "you are a brave and beautiful darling," she said, with a woman's enthusiasm. "you have taught both my father and myself a lesson in unselfishness. god grant that our dear guy comes back to us safe and sound." chapter eight. a tall, lean man of about sixty years of age, of dignified appearance, came out of a house in fitzjohn's avenue, hampstead, and walked slowly in the direction of the station at swiss cottage. he was a very aristocratic-looking person; you might have taken him for a retired ambassador, except for the fact that retired ambassadors do not live in the neighbourhood of finchley road. at the first glance you might have thought he was an englishman, with his clear complexion, his short, pointed beard. a closer inspection revealed the distinguishing traits of the foreigner. but even then you would have been inclined to put him down as a frenchman, rather than a spaniard. ferdinand contraras, such was his name, was one of the principal leaders of the world-wide anarchist movement. a man of learning and education, he had worked it out to his own satisfaction that anarchy was the cure for all social evils. a man of considerable wealth, he had devoted the greater portion of his possessions to the spreading of this particular propaganda. his zeal in the great cause burnt him with a consuming fire. one is confronted with these anomalies in all countries--men of family and refinement, reaching out sincere hands to the proletariat, and welcoming them into a common brotherhood. mirabeau led the french revolution in its first steps, an aristocrat of the first water. tolstoi, equally an aristocrat, preached very subversive doctrines. ferdinand contraras, from conviction, sentimentality, or some other equally compelling motives, hated his own order, and devoted himself heart and soul to the service of the masses as against the classes. he had spent much more than half his very considerable fortune on the necessary propaganda of his principles. from the house in fitzjohn's avenue he, in conjunction with a few other enthusiastic spirits, controlled the policy which was directed to upset an old and effete world and construct a new and perfect one on the ruins of the old. he waited outside the station for quite five minutes, tapping his stick impatiently the while. he was, by temperament, a very impatient and autocratic person, like most people who aspire to sovereign power. the burly and imposing figure of lucue appeared through the gloom of the station. the two men shook hands. contraras grumbled a little. "my friend, punctuality was never your very special virtue. you were to be at my house by a quarter-past six. it is now a quarter to seven, half an hour late, and i am meeting you at the station. it would take another five minutes to get to my house." "that would mean i should be quite thirty-five minutes late, eh?" queried lucue in his usual easy, genial fashion. he had the greatest respect for the great leader, ferdinand contraras; he fully recognised his single-mindedness, his devotion to the cause. but he was also aware of his little weaknesses of temper, his proneness to take offence at trifles. "i am honestly very sorry i have kept you waiting, but it was impossible to get away before." lucue surveyed the neighbourhood around him with some contempt, and added: "besides, if you will live in an out-of-the-way spot like this, you can't blame your friends if they find it a bit difficult to get to you." lucue himself lived in lodgings in a mean street in soho. in spite of his reverence for his chief, he did not quite relish the fact that contraras was living in a lordly pleasure house, that he fared every day on the daintiest food, and was very particular as to vintages. contraras, in spite of his sacrifices to the great cause, was not exactly practising what he preached. lucue himself was poor. hence, perhaps, these profound meditations. it would not be going too far to say that lucue was already anticipating the day when contraras would be required, under the new dispensation, to hand over the remainder of his wealth for the common benefit. but things had not got so far as this at the moment. law and order were still in the ascendant, and anarchy had not yet got its foot into the stirrup, much less was it mounted in the saddle. the two men walked up to the house in fitzjohn's avenue, where contraras lived in some sort of state. a butler opened the door, a footman hovered in the background. there would be a dinner of many courses, there would be wines of the first quality. for the leader of the great anarchist movement did himself and his friends very well. poor contraras! he often failed to notice the envious eyes of his friends, the humble friends who left his hospitable house to return to their dingy lodgings in soho, or the mean streets off tottenham court road. he took lucue into his private sitting-room. a decanter of whiskey, soda-water, and glasses were ready on the table, placed there by the thoughtful butler. in the best of all possible worlds there would be no butlers thought lucue grimly, as he helped himself at his host's invitation. "what of guy rossett?" asked contraras abruptly, when the two men were seated. "he knows a great deal. he knows too much." "my section is dealing with his affair," replied lucue smoothly. "violet hargrave and andres moreno are over in spain, as of course you know." contraras grunted. he was not in a very good mood to-night; he had not yet forgiven lucue for his lack of punctuality. "violet hargrave i know, of course, a friend and protegee of our staunch old comrade jaques. moreno i know nothing about. who is he, what is he?" lucue explained. moreno was a journalist, his father pure spanish, his mother an englishwoman. his principles were sound. he was a revolutionary heart and soul. contraras was still in the grunting stage. he helped himself to another whiskey. "you are a judge of men, lucue; you seldom make mistakes," he said, in rather a grudging voice. "i don't quite like the idea of the english mother. you have thought that all out?" "quite," was the swift reply. "moreno comes to us with settled convictions. he is, like yourself, a philosophical anarchist." it certainly said a good deal for moreno's powers of persuasion that he had succeeded in convincing the suspicious lucue of his sincerity. the gong sounded for dinner. contraras kept to his gentlemanly habits; his house was ordered in orthodox fashion. his wife, a faded-looking woman, who had once been a beauty, sat at the head of the table. his daughter, a comely, dark-eyed girl, his only child, faced the guest. neither wife nor daughter had the slightest sympathy with the peculiar views of the head of the household. as a matter of fact, they thought he was just a trifle insane on this one particular point. they detested the strange-looking men, some of them in very shabby raiment, who came to this well-appointed house in fitzjohn's avenue, to partake of their chief's hospitality and drink his choice wines. they marvelled between themselves at the blindness of contraras. could he not see that these shabby creatures hated him for his wealth, for the hospitality which they regarded as a form of ostentation? several times both mother and daughter had tried to point this out to him. "live in a little forty-pound-a-year house, without a maid, with inez and me to scrub and cook, and they might believe in you," his wife had remarked bitterly on one occasion when her nerves had been more than usually upset by the intrusion of some very shabby looking guests. "of course, now they reckon you up at your true value. you are making the best of the present order of things, getting the best you can out of it. bah! what do you expect if your dreams come to pass? they will not leave you a sixpence, these wretches whom you have put into power. they will strip you at once." the visionary had smiled condescendingly. he had a poor opinion of the mental capacity of women. they had no initiative, no foresight. but he was very tolerant to the weaker vessel. he patted the faded cheek of his once beautiful wife, a daughter of the old spanish nobility. he was a kind husband, a fond father. "you do not understand these difficult matters, my dear," he replied in his loftiest tones. "the world will always be governed by brains, whether under a just or an unjust regime." he tapped his broad forehead significantly. "when it comes to brains, ferdinand contraras will not be found wanting." madame shrugged her shoulders and glanced at her pretty daughter, who made a signal of assent. certainly, contraras, great as was his power in anarchist circles, was not held in high esteem in his own family. towards lucue the two women did not exhibit the same signs of aversion which they usually displayed to the other guests. the reason was obvious. he was a self-seeking, grasping fellow. he loved the flesh-pots, the good things of life. if he got into power with his chief, they would take the best for themselves and let their poor dupes feed on the husks. the difference between the two men was that contraras was troubled with an almost ridiculous sentimentality. lucue, big, genial, and humorous, was as callous as any human being could be. and he, moreover, had no conscience. the meal was finished. although in a way lucue despised his chief's ostentatious mode of living, he was very fond of good wine and food. there might come a time when, through contraras' brains, he would be in a similar position. the two men adjourned to the private sitting-room, where the great man produced some special brandy and choice cigars. "drink, my friend," said the host genially. "we shall think none the less wisely because we take an excellent glass of brandy and smoke an equally excellent cigar." lucue assented, but after a brief pause he spoke a little bluntly. "you will not think i am taking a liberty, my good comrade, if i say a few words to you. we have a difficult team to drive. many of our brotherhood, most, alas, are very poor. exception is taken by some of them to your mode of living. they think the great contraras should bring himself more on a level with his less fortunate brethren." contraras frowned. by nature he was more autocratic than the most despotic monarch who even subjugated a docile people. but he recognised that lucue's words conveyed a warning. "what would they have? my wife has said the same thing to me, and at the time i fancied it was the foolish babbling of a woman. now i see that there was some wisdom in her remarks." "equality is our watchword," observed lucue with a rather subtle smile. "of course," agreed contraras smoothly. "that is our aim, our goal. but, under present conditions, we cannot practise it. i have, as you know, given the greater portion of my money to the cause. i have proved my sincerity. you will say i have left some for myself. true, but that is a wise policy. i live here in a certain sort of comfort. the position i keep up helps me to remain unsuspected. nobody will think i am such a fool as to embrace anarchy. with these trappings, i can work better for the cause than if i hid myself in a back street in soho." lucue agreed. the chief had a long head. lucue might envy, but he could not refrain from admiring him. contraras broke away from the embarrassing topic of inequality in fortune. he spoke brusquely. "to return to this englishman, rossett. you think you can settle his hash?" lucue nodded his big head. "it is settled, as i told you. i am working in conjunction with alvedero and zorrilta." "no two better men, they are staunch to the core, true sons of spain," said contraras approvingly. "one thing i would love to know, lucue. who supplied rossett with his information?" "that i am also keen to know. there are always traitors in every camp. perhaps some day i may find out." the two men talked till it was time for lucue to catch his train. contraras walked with him to the station. the chief wrung him by the hand. "if you ever find that traitor, no half measures, you understand." lucue smiled a grim smile. "you can never accuse me of sentimentality. the penalty for every traitor is death." chapter nine. it had been a very hot august day. the old-world town of fonterrabia had glowed in the torrid heat. with the sinking of the sun had come a sudden breath of comparative coolness. in a small room facing the sea, in the obscure little cafe "the concho" there sat four people. they were respectively, zorrilta, jaime alvedero, two of the most trusted lieutenants of the great contraras-- contraras who directed his world-wide campaign from the safe and sheltered precincts of fitzjohn's avenue, hampstead--andres moreno, journalist, trusted agent of the english secret service, ostensibly sworn anarchist, and lastly violet hargrave, now domiciled in spain in the interests of the brotherhood, in england a somewhat well-known member of the semi-smart set. moreno, as we know, was the son of a purely spanish father and an english mother. violet hargrave was not greatly given to confidences. but the pair had been thrown much together. in spite of their mixed nationality, spain was, to a great extent, a foreign land to them. violet had been born in spain and lived there up to the age of ten, but her memories of the country were faint and fragmentary. moreno had been born in england, brought up and educated there. he spoke spanish perfectly since his father had taught him the language, and conversed in it with him from childhood. in that father's company he had made some dozen trips to what was really his native country, he had visited every important town--barcelona, toledo, seville, granada, segovia, not to mention madrid. still, they were both more english than foreign, and there was an unconscious sympathy between them arising from this fact. moreno's heart ached for the familiar haunts of fleet street, for the restaurants where the odour of garlic was not always greatly in evidence. and violet sighed for the elegant flat in mount street, with its perfect appointments. she had grown to loathe this sun-baked biscayan coast. being thrown so much in each other's society, caution had been a little relaxed on the woman's side--moreno had never for a moment relaxed his. violet hargrave was still an enigma to him. he was not prepared to trust her in the smallest degree. but in his peculiar position he could trust nobody. one day she had been very confidential. it had been after a good dinner, followed by one or two potent liqueurs. on such an occasion even the most cautious woman of the world may find her tongue loosened. she had confided to moreno a considerable portion of her family history. her father, a ne'er-do-well, a soldier of fortune--she frankly gave this description of her male parent--had fallen in love with and married her spanish mother, a beautiful young girl, a professional dancer, not, however, occupying a _very_ high position in her profession. it peeped through the narrative, told in a rather staccato fashion, that her father had lived chiefly on his wife's small earnings, that he did no regular work, but acted as her agent. when she was ten years of age, her mother died, and her father was thrown on his own resources. they had come to london. james wheeler, such was her father's name, had at once sought out a rich financier known in business circles as mr jackson. his real name was juan jaques, he was a spaniard, and he had at one time been desperately in love with her mother. for the sake of that old affection, he had befriended the derelict father and the helpless child. he had set wheeler on his legs, so far as it was possible to help such a weak and incapable creature. but wheeler was addicted to drink and was cursed with a feeble constitution. in a few years, the drink carried him off. violet, at the age of eighteen, was left alone in the world. her mother, no doubt, had relatives in spain, but she knew nothing of them. of her father's relations, if he had any, she had never heard him speak. whatever the failings of the moneylender in certain directions, he behaved with rare generosity and tenderness to the daughter of his old sweetheart. he advanced money to secure her a good education. he did his best to secure for her eligible posts. still, on the whole, she had experienced a rough time. she could do a little of everything fairly, but nothing very well. she had tried the concert hall, the stage, and been a failure on both. she had not even inherited her mother's talent for dancing. but poor old jaques was always patient and kind. he kept her going with an allowance that might be called handsome. at the back of his mind he felt pretty sure that violet would prove a winner in the end. she had been very seedy. jaques had summoned her to his private room, thrust a hundred pounds worth of notes into her hand, and ordered her to take herself off to the most expensive hotel in scarborough, to pick up health and strength. they would map out together some fresh plan of campaign when she came back. at the expensive hotel in scarborough, she met jack hargrave, a personable young fellow, who seemed to have plenty of money, and was of good family. at that time violet was a very thrifty young woman--she learned expensive habits later on--she reckoned that she would stay at scarborough for a fortnight, and return with a handsome balance out of the hundred pounds. then the kind jaques, to whom she was genuinely grateful, would not have to put his hand in his pocket for some little time. she met jack hargrave, who was staying at the same hotel. he fell violently in love with her, with her blonde prettiness. at the end of the first week he proposed. violet was attracted by him, perhaps a little bit in love. she accepted him on the spot, and went off the next morning to london to consult jaques, in whom she placed her full confidence. there was here a little break in the story, as told to moreno. evidently her guardian approved. she married jack hargrave, and they had taken the flat in mount street, of which she was still the tenant. here moreno had interrupted. "you say that jack hargrave was well-off. how did he make his money? flats in mount street are not run on credit." "oh, don't you know? it was jaques who put him into good things in the city, out of friendship for me." "but, one moment," pursued moreno. "he was well-off when he met you. how was he making money when our good old friend jaques had not appeared on the scene?" violet, under the influence of the liqueurs, was a little off her guard. "oh, don't be silly. jack was a very expert bridge-player." moreno nodded. "i think i understand. we won't go into details. under his instructions, you became a very expert bridge-player too. it used to be whispered that you were just a little bit too lucky." violet hargrave admitted that many rumours had been flying about, and that the flat in mount street had become a little suspect. "and how did you get into this?" had been moreno's next question. violet had been very frank. "it was dear old jaques who drew me into it. you know i have told you how grateful i was to him, how indebted. when he asked me, could i refuse, after all the benefits he had showered upon me?" "impossible," said moreno in his quiet, easy tones. he added, after a pause, "i wonder if your heart is in it?" she flashed at him a swift glance of interrogation. "i wonder if yours is?" moreno smiled. they were then each suspecting the other, on account of their mixed parentage. "absolutely," he answered in a tone of deep conviction. "i am nine-tenths spaniard, one-tenth englishman. you are one-tenth spaniard and nine-tenths englishwoman. i very much doubt if your heart is in it." violet spoke in a low, hard voice. and she also felt there was need of caution. "i have lived a very hard life, depending upon charity, generous charity i admit, for many years. i think i do not love the present order of things. i am really an anarchist; i think i may truly say my heart is in it." moreno accepted her statement. she was still an enigma to him. she had spoken of jaques with a genuine sense of gratitude, she had alluded to her late husband in terms of sincere affection. the woman had her sentimental moments. then he remembered that she was the daughter of a drunken and derelict father--this much she had told him. her mother was a spanish dancer of unknown origin. out of this peculiar blend, was it possible to fashion an honest woman. moreno doubted it. he remembered the night in the flat at mount street, when she had vindictively declared that guy rossett had to be got out of the way. he had looked at the still very pretty woman, her fair cheeks just a little flushed with the after results of the good dinner. she had, perhaps, her good points, but was she not an absolute degenerate? daughter of the wastrel father and the spanish dancer! he had been very sympathetic through the recital. he had helped her on with an encouraging word or two in the pauses of her narrative, for at times she had evidently pulled herself up with the recollection that she was being too frank. but he had learned a good deal about violet's past. he still had his suspicions. perhaps another dinner or two might get more out of her. the four conspirators sat in the little room facing the sea. violet hargrave, by the way, was dressed in a peasant costume. alvedero spoke in his deep voice. "i think, for the present, we will make fonterrabia our headquarters. it is a quiet little town, and, for the moment, not suspect." the deputy-governor of navarre assented. they could do great things from this comparatively obscure quarter. alvedero spoke again. "now, first, there is the question of guy rossett. contraras and lucue are agreed that he should be removed speedily." moreno hastened to corroborate. he knew that violet hargrave was watching him narrowly. "the sooner the better," he said heartily. "he knows too much." "a great deal too much!" burst in zorrilta angrily. "the question is, where did he get his information from? some traitor, of course." moreno glanced at violet hargrave. he had his suspicions of her, but not a muscle of her countenance moved. his suspicions of her then were not confirmed. but violet said nothing in reply to zorrilta's angry outburst. there came a diversion. father gonzalo passed the window of the small sitting-room. his hawklike eye peered through the window. "_dios_!" cried zorrilta, jumping up. "that accursed priest again! he roves about here like an evil spirit." "who is he, this priest?" cried moreno eagerly. he had seen the lean figure of the father passing the window, and had noted the keen, inquisitive glance. zorrilta explained what he had learned from the intelligent fisherman somoza. father gonzalo was a jesuit, not attached to the church of santa gadea. he was suspected of being a spy in the pay of the government. moreno rose. "shall i go and sample this gentleman?" he said. "i can play the role of the devout catholic very well." zorrilta and alvedero grinned. they were both nominal catholics, but their religion did not trouble them very much. they were pleased with the enterprising spirit of their new recruit. "go my friend, come back and report to us." moreno, well pleased, strode out, and soon overtook the priest, who was walking leisurely. "good evening, father," he said pleasantly. he also added a few spanish words which were a password. when he heard those magic words, the priest's lean, ascetic face changed at once. "you are one of us?" he asked briefly. "of course. my name is moreno. i am attached to the english secret service, and i am helping your government to beat the anarchists." "good," said father gonzalo. "those people i saw you with in the little sitting-room at the `concha,' i know the two well, zorrilta and alvedero; the woman i do not know. i take it they are all anarchists. you are joining up with them for your own purposes." "precisely," answered moreno. "keep your eyes open too. this is, at present, the headquarters of the conspiracy." "my son, good night," said the wily jesuit in his most paternal tones. "we shall meet again. you have, of course, made a good excuse for leaving your friends, and running after me." moreno smiled. "when i return i shall give the best report of you, a report that i trust will disarm suspicion. but it is as well to put you on your guard. you have a very keen enemy here, one carlos somoza, a fisherman. conciliate him, if you can." the jesuit's dark eyes flashed. "i know him. the dirty dog. i will be on my guard. i will go to santa gadea, and pray for my sins." the unctuous priest stole away. moreno watched his departure with a contemptuous smile. he did not seem a very valiant member of the church militant. moreno joined his companions. he addressed them in his usual easy fashion. "couldn't get much out of him. i should say he was quite a harmless old chap, full of good works. he seemed very concerned that i should be drinking at a place like the `concha.' he gave me some very good advice. i don't think he has brains enough to be a spy." the other two men laughed. moreno had carried the affair off so well that they believed him implicitly. then alvedero spoke seriously. "this affair of guy rossett was very pressing." he turned to moreno and violet hargrave. "i daresay you know that lucue has delegated this matter to me, as being on the spot." the two members of this conclave of four bowed; they had gathered this much before they left england. "yesterday, however, i had instructions from our great leader, contraras," pursued alvedero; he uttered the name of his chief in accents of profound reverence. "the affair of guy rossett has, for the moment, sunk into comparative insignificance. there is bigger game afoot." "ah!" breathed moreno eagerly. true to his histrionic instinct, he was playing the role of enthusiast very well. violet hargrave, who was never very enthusiastic, thought it well to imitate him, and leaned forward as if eager to catch the next words from the great man's lips. alvedero spoke slowly. "as you know, in difficult times, we have to proceed with great caution--i cannot divulge all that contraras has entrusted me with to-day. to-morrow valerie delmonte will be over here! we will meet at the same place and the same hour." he paused, and then lifted his hands to the low roof of the mean sitting-room in which the four were assembled. "the brain of that man is stupendous, gigantic," he cried, in tones of the deepest admiration. "my friends, he has planned a great _coup_, and valerie delmonte is going to carry it out! she is devoted, she is fearless, she will not blench. to-morrow at this hour and this place i will take you into the secret; it is possible one of you may be called upon to assist." a few minutes later the meeting broke up. there would be an exciting day to-morrow, thought moreno, as he strolled away. chapter ten. if lord saxham had been, in his heart, disappointed that he could not induce isobel to cajole her lover away from his post, he was too much a gentleman to go back on his word. besides, he recognised that in this instance the girl was right, and he wrong, that she had displayed a nobility of spirit which was lacking in himself and his daughter. he had given his consent to the engagement without imposing conditions, and he could not in honour take that consent back. in addition, he could not but feel a whole-hearted admiration for a woman who could sacrifice her own feelings, not to mention her own interests, in such an unselfish fashion. the immediate result of the brief visit to ticehurst park was the despatch of a paragraph to the various papers announcing the engagement of mr guy rossett, second son of the earl of saxham, to miss clandon, daughter of general clandon. when father and daughter arrived at their modest home in eastbourne, the news was public property. letters of congratulation came by every post from the numerous friends and acquaintances whom they had made during their long sojourn in the town. isobel could now openly wear that beautiful ring which hitherto she had only dared to look upon in secret--that expensive ring which, as a matter of fact, had been purchased from money supplied by the obliging mr jackson. for, at the actual moment when the general had given his consent to the engagement, guy had been extremely hard up. so now all was plain sailing. isobel was very proud of her lover, naturally very delighted at her adoption into the saxham family. but, as there is no happiness without alloy, the knowledge of that lover's danger weighed terribly upon her spirits, and caused her to shed many bitter tears. her little world which congratulated and fussed around her, of course, knew nothing of this. to the girls of her own age, girls moving in respectable but middle-class circles, who knew nothing of the aristocracy except through the fashionable papers, she was greatly to be envied. there was one amongst the numerous letters of congratulations which had touched her very deeply. it was written by her cousin, maurice farquhar. it was couched in rather stiff, sometimes stilted phraseology, but sincerity was in every line. and, if maurice was a bit priggish and old-fashioned, he was always a gentleman. he had made no allusion to his own disappointed hopes. he had congratulated her heartily on her engagement, expressed his conviction that she would adorn any station to which she was called. and the letter had concluded with these words. "i know the danger that is threatening your fiance. moreno has promised to let me know if i can help him. i do not fancy it will ever be in my power to render any valuable assistance; our paths in life do not seem to meet anywhere. still, if the time does come, i shall do my best, from my own cousinly affection for you." it was put frankly but gracefully. he did not care twopence for guy rossett. it was not to be expected that he would. but he would be a friend to rossett, because he still loved isobel. she laid down the letter with a little sigh. so short a time as two years ago, maurice might have satisfied her maiden dreams, she was not quite sure. she was so wrapped in the present that she could hardly see the past in its proper proportions. anyway, she could reckon on her cousin in the future as a true and loyal friend. her heart was very much with guy in that dangerous post at madrid, her thoughts ever. one night when the two were sitting alone in the general's cosy little den, a little cry escaped her. "somehow, i seem to hate eastbourne! it is very ungrateful, considering how happy i have been here. but i do so long to be near guy." the general was very moved by that pathetic cry. he stirred uneasily in his chair. "of course you wish it, my darling. i daresay lady mary wishes the same. but, if you were both there, neither of you could do him the least good, nor avert any danger that is threatening him." "oh, i recognise that," said isobel, wiping the tears from her eyes. "it is the suspense that is so horrible. if one were near, one might know something of what is going on." the general thought for a moment or two before he spoke. he had indulged every whim, forestalled every wish of his dear wife. he had done the same with his daughter since the day when he had found himself a widower, and they had been all in all to each other. he smiled a little sadly. "i am afraid we old men become a sad burden on our dutiful children, exact too much from them," he said presently. "lady mary would love to be near guy, and she cannot leave her father. and you, my poor little girl, are in the same plight." isobel laid her soft cheek against his. "oh, daddy, dearest daddy, it is not very kind to say that. however great my love for guy, it can never supersede my love for you." the general patted her head fondly. "ah, my dear, the curse of a small family; we have always been all too much to each other." then he spoke briskly; he waited to make her happier than she was. "i see no reason, though, why we could not go to madrid together. we could do it by easy stages, and, by gad, madrid would be a change. i am very fond of eastbourne, but we have had a good bit of it. i think i will go and see our old doctor jones to-morrow." but isobel would not hear of it. her father had suffered from heart affection in his youth. during the last five years it had become very acute. he must live a quiet, well-ordered life, avoid any undue exertion. his daughter had gathered from dr jones that the general's life held by a very frail thread. the summons might come at any moment. nevertheless, general clandon was round at the doctor's door by ten o'clock the next morning. he was bent upon falling in with isobel's desire. the doctor stared at him. he had always been summoned to the general's house; not half a dozen times had his patient come to him. "what's up?" he inquired tersely. "the heart not troubling you more than usual, i hope?" to look at general clandon, as he stood in the surgery, a fine upstanding figure of a man, you would have said he was free from all human ailments. nobody could have guessed that he carried in that stalwart frame the seeds of a mortal disease that, at any moment, might lay him low. "no, no more than usual. but yes, i think the palpitations are a little more frequent the last week or two." "let me run the rule over you." doctor jones produced his stethoscope. "why didn't you send for me before?" "just a moment, my good old friend, before you begin. isobel particularly wants to go to spain for reasons you can guess--her fiance's there. i can't let her go without me, unless i could lay my hands upon a suitable chaperon. i want you to tell me if you will give me permission to go with her myself. i should take the journey in easy stages, of course." there was a very wistful look in the old man's eyes as he uttered the last words; it seemed as if he were pleading for permission to gratify his daughter's wish. "isobel, of course, won't hear of it, after what you have told me; she did not know i was coming here. but if you could give your sanction, it would make us both very happy," he added hastily, as he began to unbutton his coat. jones had been an army doctor, and he was very sympathetic. it was very pathetic, this poor old father with almost two feet in the grave, begging a little further respite from death. "i will see what we can do, as soon as i have examined you," he said kindly. "if it is humanly possible for you to go, i will let you go, for isobel's sake." the examination was a searching and lengthy one. when it was finished, doctor jones laid down his stethoscope with a little sigh. "my dear general, it is impossible. you are a brave man, you have faced death more than once on the battlefield, and you have always asked me to tell you the truth. if you undertake that voyage, you are committing suicide." "you don't give me very long then?" asked the general quietly. the doctor shrugged his shoulders and turned his head away. he could not quite put it in words. "you have had some extra excitement lately? great inroads have been made since i last examined you." "yes," answered general clandon quietly, "there has been a good deal of excitement lately." it was true. the uncertain position of isobel as regards her engagement, the hurried visit to ticehurst park, the danger overhanging guy rossett had agitated him very much. he returned home very crestfallen. he had hoped against hope for the doctor's favourable verdict. he had longed to be able to say to her: "it is all right, i will take you to spain myself." but in the face of those grave words it was impossible to say it. it would be no benefit to her to take her out, and die before they got to the end of the journey. isobel met him in the hall of their pretty little home, half villa, half cottage. "why, where in the world have you been?" she cried, "running away at this early hour of the morning?" they lived such an intimate and domestic life, that it was almost a point of honour to give notice of each other's movements. the general was a bad dissembler. he blurted it all out at once. "to tell you the truth, i wanted to take you out to spain. i went round to see jones, to learn what he said about it. he forbids it." she looked at him anxiously. yes, he seemed to have aged even the last week. a spasm of reproach shot through her that she had not been quicker to notice his failing health. guy had usurped her thoughts too much. "but i don't think it will be difficult to arrange. i can soon get hold of some female dragon, some elderly chaperon who will take you." the girl's eyes filled with tears. not for the first time did she appreciate that unselfish parental love, the love that gives everything, and asks so little in return. she kissed him very tenderly. "no, no, a thousand times no, you kindest of all kind fathers. until you get well and strong again, i would not leave you for a thousand lovers." he patted her hand. he was the most unselfish of men, but it pleased him very much to hear her say that much. the stranger who had come into her life was not going to oust the old father from his place in her heart. "we have been so much to each other, little girl, since your dear mother died, have we not?" he asked gently. "more than so much," she whispered back. "oh, more than so much. we have been everything to each other." at that moment even her lover was almost forgotten. a few hours later, she stole out of the house, and called on the doctor. "my father is worse," she said impetuously, when she entered the consulting-room. doctor jones looked very grave. "my dear child, he is as bad as he can be. i have warned you before. the end may come at any moment." "and yet it only seems yesterday that he was out shooting--of course i know it is months ago--and when he came back, i used to ask him if he was tired, and he always told me he never felt more fit in his life. and a big, strong man in appearance! a few weeks ago he did not look his age." "it is frequently the way with this particular disease," was the doctor's reply. "they hang on for years, with a sort of spurious energy, and then, all of a sudden, they go--snap." "will he suffer much, do you think?" asked isobel, bravely keeping back the tears. "don't trouble yourself about that. he will go out like the snuff of a candle. take my word for it, he will not suffer." he accompanied her to the door; he had become very attached to the pair--the charming girl devoted to her father, the elderly man who worshipped his daughter. "keep a brave heart, my child. it may come to-night, to-morrow. he is worse than i thought." and three days after that interview with the kindly doctor the end came. the housemaid went into his room with his morning cup of tea. the poor old general was lying on his side, his face quite placid. but the girl knew that the pallor on it was the hue of death. she ran sobbing to isobel's room. "miss, miss! come at once to the general." isobel guessed immediately what that summons meant. she sprang out of bed and went to her father's room. one glance at the white, placid face confirmed her worst fears. she sent the frightened girl for the doctor. he came, and was able to ease her mind in one respect--her beloved father had died peacefully, without a struggle. the charming little home which had sheltered her for so many years was a house of mourning. she thought tearfully of his loving kindness, of the many self-sacrifices he had made to give her some small comfort, some little luxury. even from a devoted husband, would she ever have such a disinterested love as that?--the love that gives all and asks nothing. but she was a soldier's daughter, and she braced herself to go through the ordeal, the most trying of all ordeals to affectionate hearts, the removal of the beloved dead. she first sent a wire to maurice farquhar, asking him to come to her. then she sent another wire to the general's elder brother, the owner of the small family estates. in two hours came back her cousin's answer. "am catching an early train." the squire's answer came back about the same time. "will be with you to-morrow morning." and then she thought of a quite new, but very sincere friend. lady mary rossett. she wired to her the sad news. to guy she wrote a long letter. if she had sent him a wire, he might have rushed over, and neglected his duties. that would have rendered no service to the dead. lady mary arrived first in her car--it was not a very long run from ticehurst park to eastbourne. she explained that she had taken rooms at the "queen's" for herself and her maid, and would see isobel through this trying ordeal. the two girls clung together. mary said she would like to look upon the general for the last time. isobel led her into the darkened chamber, and mary imprinted a kiss upon the waxen brow. "he was a most perfect gentleman," she said. "you will always be proud to remember that you were his daughter." "he was the dearest and the best. he was--" but isobel could say no more, for fear she should break down. a few moments after mary's arrival came farquhar, lumbering up from the station in a somewhat antiquated taxi. isobel welcomed him warmly. "how good of you, maurice, to come so soon, and of course you are frightfully busy. i am afraid grief makes one very selfish." "i don't think you were ever very selfish, isobel," replied farquhar in his grave, quiet tones. "i am, as you say, frightfully busy, but i have handed over all my briefs to a friend, and i am going to see you through all this sad business. i suppose you have wired to the head of the family?" isobel's lip curled a little. "yes, i have wired to the head of the family. i have got his answer. he is coming down to-morrow. my true friends are here to-day, yourself, and lady mary rossett. by the way, how remiss of me not to have introduced you." lady mary rose, and held out her hand to the rising young barrister. "but, dear isobel, we have met before, on that well-remembered evening at the savoy. you will no doubt recollect, mr farquhar, you were dining with a very dark-complexioned gentleman, evidently a foreigner." "of course, i remember perfectly. the man who was my guest is my old friend andres moreno, a very capable journalist." lady mary looked approvingly at the grave young barrister. her heart was, of course, buried in the grave of the young guardsman, but she felt a pleasurable thrill in this new acquaintance. there was something in his sedate demeanour that appealed to her practical and well-ordered nature--a nature that was apt occasionally to be disturbed by tempestuous and romantic moods. "where are you putting up?" asked lady mary casually. "at the `queen's,'" answered farquhar. "oh, so am i. i have taken a suite of rooms for myself and maid, while i am looking after dear isobel. but it will be a little bit dull. are you dining in the general room?" "i certainly shall--unless--" farquhar looked towards isobel. poor isobel looked very distressed. "you are both such darlings," she said, in her candid, impulsive way. "i should like to put you both up, to ask you to stay. but i shall be such poor company for you." they both understood. the bereaved girl wanted to be left alone with her dead, for that day at least. she welcomed their sympathy, but they could not mourn with her whole-hearted mourning. farquhar and lady mary drove back in the car to the "queen's." farquhar suggested tea. lady mary accepted the invitation willingly. there was something about this serious young barrister that attracted her. over the teacups they chatted. "tell me, are you going to be lord chancellor some day? you have plenty of time." it was lady mary who put the question. farquhar caught the spirit of her gay humour. "oh, no, nothing so stupendous as that. in my wildest dreams, i have never aspired to be anything higher than solicitor or attorney-general. i shall probably end by being a police magistrate, and cultivate a reputation for saying smart things." "oh, but i shall be quite disappointed in you if you don't become lord chancellor," persisted lady mary, in her most girlish vein. "how dreadfully ancient we shall both be when you reach that exalted position. and then, think of your wife, she will be the first female subject in the kingdom. the archbishop of canterbury's wife doesn't count at all, although the archbishop goes before you. isn't it comical?" farquhar fell in with her humorous mood. they had come from the house of mourning, but the poor old general had been very little to them. it was isobel who stirred a generous chord of sympathy in their hearts. and isobel was young, she had a lover, and she would recover shortly. the young do not mourn for ever after the old. such is the inexorable law of nature. they met again at dinner. the good understanding, begun at tea, was further cemented. "you are going to be a sort of relation, in addition to being at least attorney-general, or a police magistrate, or something of that sort," said lady mary at the conclusion of the meal. "do you shoot?" "i can account for a few," replied farquhar, in his usual modest and cautious manner. "then you must come to ticehurst park in the autumn. i shall send you the invitation." "and your friends will be welcomed by lord saxham?" lady mary smiled quite a brilliant smile. "i may tell you in confidence that my dear old father is as wax in my hands. are you satisfied with that?" yes, farquhar felt quite satisfied. but he thought of the grief-stricken girl keeping her lonely vigil in that quiet home, and his heart was very sore for her. still the world went on, and here was a very charming woman, not perhaps quite so youthful as isobel, who was showing very plainly that she had taken an interest in him. the world was a very pleasant place. chapter eleven. the head of the family arrived next day. he was a very stolid and bucolic-looking person, a breeder of prize oxen and fat sheep. he commiserated with poor isobel in a heavy fashion. "strange thing going off like that," he commented. "we are a very long-lived family. but your father was always a little bit different from the rest of us when he was a boy." isobel said nothing in reply. she had seen several members of her father's family at rare intervals, and she had not been greatly impressed by them. the only one she had really liked was mrs farquhar, the mother of her cousin maurice. she was a sweet, charming woman, the favourite sister of her dead father. mr clandon fingered his moustache a little nervously. "i suppose you know all about his affairs, my dear? he has left you comfortably off, eh? he came into quite a tidy little bit when my father died." isobel smiled faintly. mr clandon wanted to be assured that he was not going to have a penniless niece thrust upon his hands. she knew all about her father's affairs. had not the dear old general spent hours in instructing her as to the careful management of her small patrimony, when anything happened to him? "quite comfortably off, uncle, thanks to his loving care. with my simple wants, i shall be rich." "very relieved to hear it," said the bucolic mr clandon. "and, of course, you are going to marry a rich man. lord saxham, i understand, is one of the wealthiest peers in england." "reported to be," corrected isobel gently. "the estates are very heavily encumbered, and there are living three dowagers, and other pensioners who draw their portions." "god bless me," said mr clandon, who was a very thrifty person. "what a frightful incubus! then i take it your fiance won't get very much from that quarter?" "very little, i expect. but he will inherit a large fortune from his great-aunt, lady henrietta, a very old lady, over eighty." the head of the family looked relieved. he gazed with a certain respectful admiration at his good-looking niece. he had always recognised that she was a very pretty girl. at the present moment, grief had made great inroads on her good looks. but he thought somewhat sorrowfully of his own large family of girls, who were rather of the dumpling-faced order. they would have to seek their mates amongst the small squirearchy. "i suppose my poor brother made a will?" was mr clandon's next question. "oh, yes, he made his will years ago, after my mother's death," was isobel's answer. "he left her everything. when she died, he left me everything." "quite right and proper," observed mr clandon. he was very dull, but quite an upright and just person. he was relieved to find that his brother was more business-like than he thought. "and he has appointed executors, i suppose?" "yes, two--a very old friend, and my cousin, maurice farquhar." "ah, maurice farquhar, anne's son! yes, of course, your father and anne were always great comrades. maurice is getting on very well at the bar, i hear. you have seen a lot of him, i suppose. somehow, we seemed to lose sight of anne. we were such a big family, you know; and big families get scattered." uncle clandon had not the delicacy of maurice or lady mary. he cordially accepted isobel's invitation to put him up. he was a very thrifty and careful person, and had no fancy to waste his money in expensive hotels, now that he knew his niece was left comfortably off. the general was buried amongst his forbears in the family vault. when the sad business was over, lady mary took isobel away to ticehurst park. guy rossett had rushed over for the funeral, but he was so engrossed in diplomatic affairs that he had to leave immediately after. the lovers had little time to say anything to each other. but isobel was very much touched with guy's delicate feeling. "wasn't he a darling to come over?" she said to lady mary. "i should have forgiven him if he hadn't, but i love him ever so much more because he did." to which somewhat incoherent declaration mary had replied with her usual air of experience and worldly wisdom. "all men have something bad in them, and most women. but i think dear old guy has the least bad in him that a man can have." lord saxham was very kind, very gentle, very paternal to his son's betrothed. he had only seen general clandon once, and he could not pretend to feel any great interest in him. but that sudden death reminded him that he also was nearing the goal. the remembrance of that fact softened, at least temporarily, his asperities, curbed his explosive temper. the two girls were sitting in mary's cosy little boudoir. it was a very charming room, reflecting in every detail the delicate and discriminating taste of the young _chatelaine_. "mary, i can never go back to eastbourne. i loved that little home so much while he was there. but now it would be torture. i should see him in every room, and i should want to cry out to him and he could not speak to me. oh, i don't think you can guess what we were to each other." "have you thought of anything, dear?" asked mary in her kind, gentle voice. she knew the girl was half hysterical with her sorrow. "i should so love to go to spain to be near guy. did i tell you dear father wanted to take me himself, only a few days before he died, and the doctor forbade him. oh, mary, if you could only come too?" "i would love to," said mary slowly. "but you know as well as i do that my duty lies here. my father is old, i dare not leave him, and, in spite of his little faults of temper, he has been a dear, kind parent." "i understand perfectly," was isobel's answer. "but, you see, nothing now ties me to england. all the world meant to me only two people, my father and guy. now, only guy is left. i would love to be near him, even if he did not know." mary pondered a little. "i wonder if that nice cousin of yours could help in the matter?" isobel caught at the suggestion at once. "yes, he is very clever. i will go up and see him to-morrow." "no need for that, dear. i will send him a wire at once, asking him to come down to-morrow to see you." "but he is always so frightfully busy," cried isobel. "bah!" said the more practical lady mary. "i know he is going to do wonderful things in the future, but he has plenty of time. when i send him that wire, he will come." lady mary sent off the telegram. it was quite a little excitement in her usually placid life. farquhar came down as quickly as he could. he had handed over his briefs to a friend. lord saxham greeted him kindly, being apprised by his daughter of his arrival. the poor old earl was very subdued by now; he was quite prepared to make any amount of new acquaintances. his daughter had affairs well in hand. lady mary plunged into matters at once. "isobel doesn't want to go back to eastbourne--that is quite natural. she is eager to go to spain, to be near guy. of course nothing binds her to this country now." mr farquhar was not to be hurried. his judicial mind, if it worked a little slowly, also worked very surely. "i should not say that, at the present moment, spain was a very desirable country for anybody, still less so for a young and unprotected woman." he looked rather disapprovingly at isobel for having harboured such daring thoughts. "i shall take a maid, one of the servants we had at eastbourne," said isobel, in a rather quaking voice. she had sense enough to see that, at the best, it was a wild venture. lady mary shot at him an appealing glance. "don't you think you had better let isobel have her way? and i expect she will have it whether you approve or not." there was also a little something more in that glance than mary was quite conscious of. and the little something was this: why was maurice farquhar so foolishly in love with isobel, while isobel was so devoted to guy rossett? farquhar looked from the younger to the elder girl. lady mary was very comely, she had behind her a long line of illustrious ancestry. she had been very sweet and gracious to him. "do you approve this rather daring scheme, lady mary?" "on the whole, i think i do. of course, i recognise the objections to it. but isobel cannot go back to eastbourne. if she stays in england she will be eating her heart out." farquhar was, perhaps unconsciously, swayed by lady mary. he made up his mind to regard the suggestion with some degree of favour. "i will do all i can to help. unfortunately, i know next to nothing of spain. but i have a friend who knows it from a to z. i will write to him and see how i can get her planted there." of course, lady mary knew that moreno was the friend. isobel thanked him warmly. "how sweet and dear of you," she said. "of course you understand, now my dear father is gone, there is nothing left but guy." farquhar understood. his cousin had spoken with the unconscious cruelty of the self-centred lover. she had not considered maurice's feelings at all. farquhar rose. "i will write the letter at once, if you will permit me." he turned to lady mary, who led him to a small morning-room, and spread paper and envelopes before him. "you are very fond of isobel?" he asked, before he began his letter, a rather long one, to moreno. "i love her like a younger sister, mr farquhar," replied mary enthusiastically. "and, of course, she very soon will be my sister. and, moreover, being a woman, i love all true lovers. she and guy are so absorbed in each other." "ah!" said the youthful barrister shortly. "and you love your brother too?" "dear old guy! i simply adore him. he is one of the most lovable of men." farquhar looked at her a little quizzically. "you have, i should say, a most beautiful nature; you see good in everything and everybody, don't you?" lady mary shook her head. "no. i am more discriminating than you think. i fancy i can always tell the false from the true." "i wonder how you would reckon me up?" "i will tell you, if you really wish," was mary's candid answer. "yes, i do wish, honestly." "you are frightfully, painfully just. you are terribly cautious. and--" she paused, and a faint blush spread over her cheek. "don't spoil it, please. finish what you were going to say. i can see you are a very discerning critic." mary was a long time before she would answer. then she turned away, and her blush deepened. "i should say loyalty and honesty were your greatest characteristics. that you would be a sincere friend and a very generous enemy." she was leaving the room, but farquhar darted up and detained her. "i say, you know, that is the very greatest compliment i have ever had paid me," he said, roused from his usual impassivity. "will you think i am taking a liberty if i suggest that we shake hands on it?" "oh, not at all," said mary, in a rather fluttering way, as she put her hand in his. she left the room, and he set about to write his letter to moreno. but the disturbing vision of lady mary, with that faint flush on her cheek, appeared several times between the sentences of the rather lengthy epistle. that letter went out by the evening post. about the same time that these events were happening at the park, ferdinand contraras was taking farewell of his family. he explained to them that he was going to spain, he could not say how long he would be away. it might be a few days, it might be weeks. he had left plenty of money in the bank for their needs. his wife and daughter watched him out of the house without any signs of emotion. to these two, who should have been his nearest and dearest, he had long appeared as a man out of touch with realities. when the car rolled out of sight, madame contraras turned to her daughter. "i have a presentiment, inez, he will never come back. he is going to give his life as well as his fortune to this insane cause." inez, who was rather callous, shrugged her shapely shoulders. "why did you marry him, mother? he must have been mad then." "the madness of strong, impetuous youth, my child. i never thought it would last through middle and old age." chapter twelve. contraras embarked on his great mission. elderly man as he was, the fire of his convictions kept him alert and youthful. he stayed a day in madrid; from thence he travelled to barcelona. and then he went on to fonterrabia. in the same little cafe, the "concha," he met several members of the brotherhood, zorrilta, specially summoned, alvedero, andres moreno, violet hargrave, and mademoiselle delmonte. he opened the proceedings in his sharp, autocratic way. "you have already had a meeting about this particular _coup_ which i planned in london." the young frenchwoman spoke eagerly. if ever there was an enthusiast in the sacred cause, she was one. ready to be burned or hanged for her principles, she had the spirit of the early christian martyrs. "we know all about it, contraras." in the spirit of true democracy, they addressed each other by no formal prefix. "i have undertaken it. it probably means death to me, i can only escape by a miracle, but it also means death to our enemies." contraras looked at her approvingly from under his bushy eyebrows. "there spoke a true daughter of the revolution which is to remake the world. if years had not come upon me, if my eyesight were more keen, my hand more sure, i would not delegate this task to another, less especially to a woman." zorrilta hastened to observe obsequiously, "we cannot afford to hazard your precious life, contraras. you are the head and brain of this organisation. the general directs the battle from safe ground. he does not go into the firing-line like the common soldier." contraras smiled, well pleased. like most great men, he was very susceptible to flattery, as easily susceptible as the most despotic monarch that ever ruled. "i appreciate your devotion to the cause, your loyalty to myself," he said in his most gracious manner. "when this great blow is struck, when we make a most terrible example, the echoes of it will reverberate through the world. the downtrodden population will arise, the world-revolution will be in being." there was a subdued murmur of applause at the conclusion of his speech. moreno applauded the loudest; somehow violet hargrave could never force herself to be very enthusiastic. moreno was watching her very narrowly. mademoiselle delmonte spoke. "i cannot say how proud i am to have had this task deputed to me." she looked very brave and resolute. the meeting lasted for over half an hour. details of the great _coup_ were settled. contraras had a powerful and logical brain. he never allowed digressions or diversions, he always kept everybody to the point. when the meeting broke up two people were very radiant, contraras, who had planned the _coup_, the enthusiastic valerie delmonte, who had undertaken to carry it into execution, with or without assistance, as might be determined. they strolled out from the obscure little cafe one by one. moreno presently overtook mrs hargrave, in her peasant dress. they lodged near each other; it was natural they should stroll along together in the direction of their respective homes. behind them came contraras, and the two other men who had joined forces after leaving the cafe. contraras looked after the two young people with those keen eyes which age had not very greatly dimmed. "the englishwoman i know well," he whispered to alvedero. "she is a protegee, almost an adopted daughter, of our staunch comrade jaques. what about this moreno? is he to be trusted?" "you know that lucue vouches for both." "ah!" sighed contraras. "lucue is a keen judge of men. i have never known him make a mistake. but i do not like the english mother." "and, in the case of violet hargrave, you have the english father. and yet, you have no suspicion of her." contraras nodded his massive head, the head with the broad, deep brow of the thinker. "your remark is just, my friend. i chose violet hargrave myself, on the recommendation of my friend jaques; that, of course, prejudices me in her favour. moreno was chosen by lucue. perhaps i am a little bit jealous of lucue. and i am growing old." "no," cried alvedero, with whole-hearted admiration. "give you another ten years yet, and you will still be the brains and leading spirit of this organisation. zorrilta is good, lucue has a touch of genius. but there is only one contraras. ten years hence you will be our leader, as you are to-day." and while contraras and alvedero were exchanging these confidences, moreno was talking to violet hargrave. "we seem to be engaged in a pretty bloodthirsty business, don't you think, mrs hargrave? not much in common with fleet street, or the flat in mount street, eh?" violet hargrave smiled. "we have both come out here to find adventure. spain is a land of surprises. we shall have plenty of adventure before we have done with it." there was a grim note in the journalist's tones, as he answered: "on this particular _coup_, engineered by our great leader, contraras, it seems to me as likely as not that you and i shall meet our deaths. the one person who seems perfectly happy over the business is mademoiselle delmonte. by the way, she went out the first. she must have flown along like the wind. the others are behind. i can see them through the back of my head. i can wager they are just discussing whether we can be trusted--you, with your english father, i, with my english mother." he shot at her a penetrating glance, but she did not move a muscle. "the southern blood in both is stronger than the northern," she answered calmly. "and we are each a true son and daughter of the revolution." he came to the conclusion that, for the moment, violet hargrave was impenetrable. would he ever be able to disturb that _sang-froid_? when he reached his humble lodgings, for it was a part of his role to live plainly, he found a long letter from his old friend, maurice farquhar. it was the letter that had been written from ticehurst park. it explained at great length that isobel clandon had lost her father, that there were no longer any ties to bind her to england, that she wanted to be near her lover, in view of the danger that threatened him. above all, that she did not wish guy to know, at any rate for the present. could moreno help? the young man knitted his brows. his first impulse was to write back and strongly oppose the scheme. then his subtle mind began to work, half unconsciously. isobel clandon over in madrid could do no harm. he would not prophesy that she would do any good. but there was no knowing what might happen with this bloodthirsty brotherhood. she might be useful. he knew an english couple living in madrid, old connections of his mother; he was sure they would willingly take in isobel as a boarder. they were not rich people, only just in comfortable circumstances, they were elderly and childless. they would welcome a young girl as a member of their household. he would go to madrid to-morrow and interview them. and he could kill two birds with one stone while he was there. he interviewed the elderly couple; they would be delighted to receive miss clandon. afterwards, in response to a letter received at the embassy, guy rossett met the young journalist in the same obscure restaurant in madrid, where he had met him previously. "things are humming a bit, eh?" queried moreno, as they sat at a small table, quaffing a bottle of light wine. "looks like it," answered rossett, speaking with the usual english phlegm. "i've had some very important information over to-day." "most of which, i expect, has been supplied by me, not but what i admit there are two or three very good men out on the job." moreno was dreadfully conceited, but he could be generous when he chose. he would sometimes allow that there were other people who might be--well, nearly as clever as himself. "well, moreno, you wanted to see me. i take it, you have a reason?" "of course i have. i know you ultimately hear everything from headquarters. but that takes time, and i am on the spot." "i know all that," said rossett. "besides, i have instructions from headquarters to keep in touch with you, because you _are_ on the spot." "that is really awfully good of them, when you come to think of it," said moreno in his quiet, sarcastic way. "fancy them relaxing red tape to that extent! i fancy there is a new spirit abroad." "well, what is it?" asked rossett a little impatiently. moreno puffed at his cigar a little time before he answered. "i am going to put a very direct question to you. some time ago you gave some very important information to the secret service about this anarchist movement. it is due to that that you are here." "yes, i did," answered guy shortly. "you know we are both practically in the same service," said moreno slowly, "and we might be frank with each other. was that information given under the seal of secrecy?" guy nodded. "yes, it was, absolutely." "as an honourable man, you could not reveal the name of your informant? i can give you my word, it is very important." guy thought for a few seconds. "no, i cannot give you the name of my informant. it was done absolutely under the seal of secrecy." "i understand," said moreno. "and a very considerable price was paid to the man--or woman--i am convinced it was a woman, who sold you this information." "quite right. but why do you say it was a woman?" asked guy rossett quickly. "if i had not already been sure it was a woman, my friend, i should be quite sure of it by your sudden question. you english people are not quite so subtle as we who have southern blood in our veins." rossett bit his lip. he felt he had given himself away to this quick-witted foreigner, nine-tenths spanish and one-tenth english. there was a long pause. moreno shifted his point of attack. "do you know that mrs hargrave is over in spain, in fonterrabia?" "what!" almost shouted guy in his astonishment. moreno looked at him steadily. "ah, you have not heard that from headquarters. well, you see, they don't know the little side-currents as well as i do. they do not know, for instance, that she is a sworn and apparently zealous member of the brotherhood." "violet hargrave, of all people!" cried rossett. he was in a state of bewilderment. "you know, i daresay, that mrs hargrave is no friend of yours now, whatever she may have been once," said moreno, speaking in his quiet, level tones. "yes, i think i can understand that." "come, mr rossett, throw off a little of that insular reserve, and let us talk together quite frankly. believe me, i am speaking entirely in your own interests. there is no doubt that, at one time, you paid mrs hargrave very marked attention, that you fed her hopes very high." "i was a bit of a fool, certainly," admitted guy. "and then, pardon me for speaking quite frankly, you threw her over rather abruptly, because you had fallen in love with somebody else--a woman, of course, a thousand times superior to the discarded one." "you seem to know all about it, mr moreno." "it is my business to know things," replied the journalist quietly. "well, it is a case of the `woman scorned,' you know. i should say the fair violet hated you now as much as she once loved you." "it may be possible. i have a notion that you know women better than i do." "bad women perhaps," said moreno quietly. "my experience has lain rather in their direction. i think i have only known three good women in my life, two of whom were my mother and a girl i was once engaged to--she died a week before our wedding day." rossett regarded him with a sympathetic gaze. so this swarthy, black-browed young spaniard had had his romance. his voice had broken as he spoke of his dead sweetheart. "i am sorry for your experience. most of the women i have known have been very good, the fingers of one hand would count the bad. but tell me more about violet hargrave. she hates me, you say?" "i should say with a very bitter and malignant hatred," was moreno's answer. "all arising, of course, from jealousy or disappointment. how far is this hatred going to lead her?" "i should say to the furthest point." rossett recoiled. "you mean to say she can have so changed that she would contemplate that?" moreno did not mince his words. "you will take my word for it that it is revenge she seeks, and she will not hesitate. her position in the brotherhood will give her a very plausible excuse." for a moment, guy rossett lost his head. "yes, you told me just now, i remember, she belonged to the brotherhood. but i always understood--" he paused; moreno noted that sudden pause. rossett had been on the point of saying something that would have revealed much. the young man leaned forward and whispered. "mr rossett, do you still refuse to give me the name of your informant?" "i am afraid i cannot," was the firm reply. "my word was given, you understand." again he seemed on the point of saying something further, and refrained. moreno shrugged his shoulders. "i admire your scrupulousness, but i still think you are very foolish in your own interests. still, i know what you englishmen are. if my suspicions had been confirmed by your positive evidence, my hands would have been very much strengthened. i could have dealt with the matter in a very positive and speedy way." rossett kept silence. it was the safest method with the subtle young spaniard, who took notice of every word and every glance, and rapidly constructed a theory out of the most slender facts. "there is no more to be said, so far as that is concerned," said moreno quietly. "you could have made it very easy for me; as it is, i shall have to expend more time and trouble. but trust me, i shall get the information i want in good time. i shall find people in your own walk of life less scrupulous than you are yourself." "perhaps," replied rossett briefly. "i am keeping watch and ward over you, as you know," went on moreno in lighter tones. "and i promise you i will give you plenty of notice of danger." "it is pretty near, eh?" queried rossett. "not very far off, i can assure you. i am seeing the chief of the spanish police to-morrow. i have some very important information to give him." the next day moreno had a long interview with the chief of police, and also with the head of the spanish secret service. both the officials made copious notes at the respective interviews. when he left them moreno felt he had done good work. he was sure that he could outwit zorrilta, alvedero, even the great contraras himself. he took a flying visit to england after this, having two objects in view. first, he wanted to see isobel to arrange the details of her journey to madrid. he lunched with her and lady mary at a quiet little restaurant in soho. he promised to meet her on her arrival at madrid and conduct her to her friends. he would say nothing to guy rossett till he had her permission. for at the eleventh hour isobel's heart a little failed her. from what point of view would guy contemplate this rather wild adventure? would he take it as a proof of her devoted love, or would he frown at the escapade, as a little unwomanly? men of the straightforward english type like rossett are apt to be a little uncertain in their judgment of what is seemly in their womenkind, and what is the reverse. after luncheon, he went to keep an appointment with one of the chiefs of the english secret service. this gentleman received him very graciously. moreno stood high in his estimation. he had rendered very valuable service in the past and the present. "delighted to see you, mr moreno. but i should have thought at the moment you could hardly be spared from spain, more especially the neighbourhood of fonterrabia, and madrid." "i never take a holiday, sir, unless i feel i am justified. in this instance i am. it is true i had a little private business on in england at this particular time, which does not concern your department. but i have sandwiched that in." the grey-haired gentleman listened politely. moreno, as he knew by experience, did not make many mistakes. "some little time ago, mr guy rossett, at present attached to madrid, gave you some very important information about the anarchist movement in spain." "ah, you know, do you?" was the cautious answer. "of course, i have known it for a long time. for very special reasons i want to know the name of the man or woman who gave that information to rossett. i will give you my reasons presently." the other man thought a moment. "yes, i remember the details perfectly. rossett handed us certain memoranda which he had obtained from somebody, whose name he would not disclose." "that is exactly like rossett. i have attacked him direct and he still keeps silence. as an honourable englishman he remains staunch to his promise. one cannot blame him, although in his own interests it would be better if he were a little less scrupulous." the grey-haired man began to get interested. "give me a few more details, mr moreno, so that i can see what you are driving at." moreno unfolded his suspicions briefly. he finished his story with the words, "if you could not make rossett speak, i cannot. but you have those memoranda in your archives. will you show them to me so that i may see if i recognise the handwriting." the other thought for a moment before he replied. even in the secret service everything is conducted with the most scrupulous fairness, although their opponents are destitute of the elementary principles of honesty. then he made up his mind. "from what you have told me, i think it is wise that i should show you these memoranda, with a view to strengthening your hand. kindly wait a few minutes and i will fetch them." he was only away a very short time, but moreno's nerves were on the rack during the brief absence. were his suspicions going to be absolutely confirmed, or still left in the region of mere conjecture? the grey-haired man came back, and placed half a dozen closely covered sheets before him. they were in a small, clear, feminine handwriting. triumph glared in moreno's dark eyes. "as i guessed. she wasn't clever enough to disguise her hand. i can understand she could not run the risk of having them copied. why didn't she get rossett to write them out at her dictation?" the other man made no reply to this ebullition on the part of the young spaniard. "of course you can't part with these, or any one page of them?" asked moreno. "out of the question," came the expected answer. "i quite agree. but you can get photographs taken of them, and then i shall have this woman in the hollow of my hand." "that shall be done, mr moreno. you are going back to spain to-day. they shall be sent to you to-morrow at whatever address you leave with me." and moreno walked out of the cosy little room well pleased with himself. guy rossett might have saved him all this trouble if he had chosen to open his mouth. still, he had got the information he wanted. and, above all, what a fool violet hargrave had been, to let those memoranda go out in her own handwriting! moreno, who thought of every detail, would not have done that. chapter thirteen. the great anarchical association of which ferdinand contraras was the leading spirit did not differ greatly in essential features from those tyrannical and effete institutions which it was striving to supersede. there was still the wide gulf between the classes, bridged over speciously by the fact that they addressed each other as "comrade," waiving all distinctive titles. the chief addressed the educated young fisherman as somoza shortly, which was natural. and, on the other hand, somoza addressed him, though always very respectfully, as contraras, which would not have been at all natural, under ordinary circumstances. still, somoza did not slap him on the back, or take liberties, as he would have done with an elderly fisherman in his own rank of life. the gulf of class could not quite be crossed by dropping titles, and calling each other comrade. and then there was the question of wealth. contraras, in spite of his numerous donations to the cause, was still rich; so was jaques. zorrilta was moderately well-off. alvedero and lucue were poor. the sharing out had not begun yet. lucue, as we know, lived in humble lodgings in soho, which galled him somewhat, as he was fond of comfort and the flesh-pots. contraras, after a brief sojourn at fonterrabia had come back to madrid, where he had many friends in his own sphere of life. although not of noble birth himself, he had married a woman, a member of a family poor but boasting of the proudest blood of spain in its veins. at madrid he had engaged a suite of rooms at the ritz hotel in the plaza de canovas, near the prado museum. democrat and anarchist as he was in theory, the man delighted in displaying a certain amount of ostentation, whether at home or abroad. a little aware of his weakness in this direction, he consoled himself by the thought that in doing this he was throwing dust in the eyes of people of his own class--that he could more successfully carry on his propaganda, because nobody would ever suspect him of seeking to overthrow the regime under which he had prospered so exceedingly. the young frenchwoman, valerie delmonte, was in madrid at the same time also as contraras. she was staying at an equally luxurious hostelry-- the grand hotel de la paix in the puerta del sol. she also had a suite of rooms, imitating her illustrious chief. she chose to be known by her maiden name of mademoiselle valerie delmonte. it did not suit her emancipated notions that a woman should sink her identity in that of a husband. she had borne with the infliction for three short years of married life. when her elderly husband, a rich paris financier, died she found herself a very wealthy woman. monsieur varenne had no near kith or kin. with the exception of a few handsome legacies, he had left all his money to this young woman who was very handsome and still young, only in the late twenties. contraras was an anarchist by profound and philosophical conviction. he had persuaded himself that revolution, open and brutal revolution, was the only cure for a rotten and diseased world. valerie had arrived at the same conclusion from a merely personal standpoint--from the point of view of her own feelings. naturally of a morbid temperament, absolutely a child of the gutter, the offspring of drunken and dissolute parents who had starved and beaten her, she had suffered no illusions as to what existence meant for the impoverished. she was a sharp-witted child, with plenty of brain-power, and a marvellous capacity for self-education. at the age of twelve her parents had sold her for a paltry sum to the proprietor of a travelling circus. this man had perceived at once that there was plenty of grit in the precocious child. he had got her very cheap. if he trained her carefully he might make a good deal of money out of her. the precocious little valerie left her parents without the slightest regret--her life had been one long torture with them. the circus-proprietor was a big, burly man, not destitute of a rough geniality. there was a hard look in his eyes, a dogged squareness of the jaw that suggested a latent brutality. on the whole, however, he was a welcome relief from her former torturers, who had never thrown a kind word to her from the day of her birth. sometimes he was generous, sometimes he was brutal, as the mood took him. often he swore at her till she trembled in every limb. occasionally, in his cups, he beat her. but he was always sorry the next day, and did his best to make amends. in short, he was a ruffian with a certain amount of decent feeling, and an uncertain temperament. she stayed with him till she was seventeen. she might have stayed with him for ever, had not a sudden severance been put to their relations, by the man's sudden death, brought about prematurely by his constant indulgence in alcohol. valerie could never recall the years that succeeded without a shudder. the circus was broken up, she was left helpless and friendless. it was during those terrible years that the iron entered her soul, when she experienced the keen, cruel suffering of the really poor, when she went to bed night after night, cold and hungry, after tramping the streets in vain for work. a weaker spirit would have succumbed to the temptation that was always at hand, for she was a very attractive girl. but she was resolved, with her indomitable grit, to keep herself pure. she turned away disdainfully from the leering old men, the callous young ones who accosted her as she paced the streets in her restless tramp for an honest living. better the river than that! after many vicissitudes, she came to anchor at last. she was then about twenty-two. she was very clever at educating herself. she had taught herself to sing, she had taught herself to play the piano, she had taught herself to dance. she got an engagement at one of the minor halls in paris to do a turn which combined singing and dancing. she was very pretty and attractive. in a small way she made a name. at the end of three months the manager trebled her salary. to this minor music hall came one night the rich financier, a somewhat shady one, if the truth must be told, monsieur varenne, a man of about fifty-five who had never married. he was greatly attracted by this elegant young girl. her voice was small, her dancing was nothing great. but there was an indefinable charm about her that appealed to his somewhat jaded senses. he obtained an introduction through the manager, who was only too anxious to oblige such a well-known personage. he invited her to supper. she accepted the invitation graciously, but coldly. her coldness inflamed him the more. when they met, he was surprised at her cleverness, the correctness with which she expressed herself. this was certainly no ordinary girl of the music halls. "tell me something about yourself, my dear," he said, as they sat over their coffee. "i did not expect to find you such a charming companion." valerie smiled a little bitterly. "i have not very much to tell. i expect my lot has been like that of many thousands in this delightful world. i am a child of the gutter. my father and mother beat and starved me, and sold me for a paltry sum to the proprietor of a travelling circus. it wasn't exactly a rosy life then, but it was paradise to where i had been. he died; i was thrown on my beam ends. i can't tell you what i have been through for the last few years. i couldn't bear to talk of it--i have suffered everything that the poor have to suffer in such profusion--cold, hunger, the most absolute misery. and, at last," she looked round at the luxurious appointments of the restaurant a little disdainfully, "i find myself in receipt of a decent salary, and the guest of a rich man who has pressed upon me every dainty. and i have so often wanted a meal!" varenne was a very kindly man, in spite of his somewhat sharp ways in business. those last few pathetic words had gone straight to his heart. she had often wanted a meal, and she was a most attractive girl! many would have called her beautiful. "it is a sad history, my poor child," he said sympathetically. he paused a moment before he put the delicate question. "and during those terrible years, when you suffered hunger and privation, you kept yourself straight? it would have been so easy to go wrong, so excusable under the circumstances." "of course," she answered, and there was a note of wounded pride, of indignation, in her voice. "i am not that sort of woman--better the river than that. i might give myself to a man out of love or gratitude, but never merely for money." it was a new experience for the wealthy financier. here was a girl who had just stepped off the platform of a music hall, where she was, no doubt, earning a very modest salary, who had grit and backbone in her, and, moreover, a proper pride and self-respect. he had, of course, with the easy confidence of a man of the world, imagined the usual termination to such an adventure. but he recognised at once that he could not make any proposition of the kind he meditated. he pressed her hand tenderly at parting, and arranged a further meeting. they met several times, and varenne went through agonies of indecision. but the attraction was too strong, and at last he asked her to marry him. it was that or losing her altogether. and did it matter much? his world would laugh at him as a matter of course, say he had got into his dotage. and a girl who was young enough to be his daughter! there is no fool like an old fool, he told himself rather ruefully. but she had so subjugated him that he was quite a humble wooer in spite of the enormous advantages he was offering her. "of course i am an old man, i cannot expect you to have any real affection for me," he said. she met his glance quite frankly. "i have never been in love with anybody; my life has been too hard to permit me to indulge in the softer emotions. but i like you very much. i have always hated rich men; they think they can buy anything with their gold. you are a rich man, i know, you have told me so yourself, but you have a kind nature and a good heart." "and can you overlook the disparity of years?" he questioned, still very humble. "i am twenty-two, but i don't think i am very young; i am old in experience and bitterness. well, if you care to risk the experiment, i will be your wife. i will do my best to make you happy." they were married. and this marriage was the turning point in valerie's life. if everything had gone smoothly, she might have forgotten those bitter experiences, outlived her still more bitter rancour against the prosperous and well-to-do. unfortunately the friends of monsieur varenne would not forgive him for this false step, so unpardonable in a man of his intelligence and position. he was a fool, that was clear, but they were not going to abet him in his mad folly. their doors were shut against his wife, this creature of the music halls, to whom he was going to leave his fortune. after this bitter experience, the iron entered even deeper into her soul. her husband was kindness and tenderness itself. in his devotion to his young wife, he paid no attention to the fact that he had cut himself off from his old friends, his old social life. he was ready to comply with her slightest wish. he showered on her the most costly gifts, his purse was absolutely at her disposal. she had everything that wealth could give, except the one thing she craved, to mix on equal terms with these people who despised her. when the kindly old man died, she mourned him sincerely. if she had never loved him, in the true sense of the word, she had felt for him a very warm and grateful affection. on his death-bed, she had faltered forth a few words of self-reproach, had blamed herself for taking advantage of his generosity, for not having sufficiently counted the cost to himself. on this point he had reassured her. "i have been very happy, my dear, happier than i ever expected to be. i would not have anything changed." she came into that considerable fortune which was of so little use to her. during her few years of married life she had educated herself into a woman of considerable accomplishments, for she had a very quick and acute intelligence. her socialist proclivities were now fully developed, after the scurvy treatment at the hands of her husband's friends. the circles where these doctrines were preached readily opened their doors to an attractive and enthusiastic young woman, whose wealth would be very useful for propaganda. she was more than the equal of these purse-proud parvenus, who would not accept her acquaintance, in intellect and behaviour. she felt it bitterly. very soon she came under the influence of contraras, who was possessed of great personal magnetism. his reasoned arguments, his fiery eloquence, quickly led her a step further--from socialism to anarchy. in a very short space she became one of the leading spirits of the brotherhood. as the old regime would not receive her, she would do her best to overthrow it, and assert the doctrine of absolute equality. contraras came frequently to the grand hotel de la paix to visit his young colleague. he had very charming manners, this elderly enthusiast, and valerie liked him very much, apart from his principles. he was one of the few rich men she had ever known, her late husband being another, whom she did not despise. he was no mere hoarder of wealth, using it as a means to enslave his less fortunate fellow-creatures. contraras came in one afternoon in a very cheerful mood. she looked at him eagerly. she could read his countenance pretty well by now. "you have something to tell me, contraras?" the old man smiled. "yes, my dear, i have got what we wanted. you can walk in boldly. there will be no smuggling through the back door, although we could have managed that, if the other had failed." "did you get it in the quarter you expected?" "yes; i had a little tussle with del pineda, but i overcame his scruples. besides, he is considerably in my debt. i assured him that he would never be accused of complicity, that i would take all the blame on my own shoulders." he rubbed his hands and chuckled softly. "what does contraras, a man of means and position, with powerful connections in spain, know of the secret sentiments of mademoiselle delmonte, a charming young lady of wealth, whom he has met abroad? mademoiselle delmonte asks for his good offices in a certain matter of a most, apparently, innocent nature. he places himself at her disposal, and secures what she wants through the agency of a certain duke who is equally ignorant of her real purposes." a dreamy look stole into the young woman's eyes. she spoke in a low voice, as if she were muttering to herself. "a week to wait, only just one little week. and then, if all goes as we think and hope--the dawn of the new era! but i shall not live to see it." chapter fourteen. moreno met isobel and her maid at the railway station, and drove them to the home of his friends, the godwins, who lived in a respectable but not particularly fashionable quarter of madrid. mrs godwin, a buxom and kind-faced woman, received the girl with open arms. mr godwin had discreetly absented himself during the first meeting of the two women. "so delighted to see you, miss clandon. i was a very intimate friend of andres' mother. any friend of his is very welcome. i shall do my best to make you happy during your stay here. i am afraid the accommodation is not what you have been used to. we are a little cramped for room." a dear good honest _bourgeoise_ creature. isobel took to her at once. she felt the _milieu_ was not quite what she could have desired, but moreno had done all he could, most probably out of his old friendship for farquhar. whatever discomforts she might have to endure, well--she had brought them on herself by embarking on this daring adventure. mr godwin came in presently, a large, heavy man, who greeted her with great gravity. she learned afterwards that he had been connected with the wine trade, and had retired from active business on a respectable competence. moreno took his departure as soon as he could. he had several matters on hand, besides looking after a wandering maiden of a romantic turn of mind. isobel stayed him at the door. "when am i going to see guy?" she whispered. the young journalist looked at her kindly. he remembered his own too short-lived romance. that whisper had come straight from her heart. "ah, that is for you," he said. "you know, you confessed you were a little doubtful about how he would look upon it. will you ask lady mary to write him the news, or would you rather that i should?" isobel interrupted him eagerly. "oh, would you? lady mary is a darling, and devoted to us both. but if i write to her, and she has to write to guy, it may be ages before we meet. and, besides," she added with the unconscious guile of a woman, "in certain things, men are so much better diplomatists than women. i am sure you could put everything from a reasonable point of view, present everything in quite a favourable light. i do not want him to think i am a masculine sort of person, an enlightened female who goes tearing about all over the world after a man she loves." moreno was a very kind-hearted fellow. he could not resist that wistful look in the beautiful dark eyes. the girl was alone in the world. she had just lost her father; guy was now her sheet-anchor. "i say, if you want to see him quickly, why not send a note round to the embassy, just giving him your address, and saying simply, `i am here'?" but isobel rather shrank from that. it seemed too bold, perhaps a little unmaidenly. she had always been educated in the belief that a woman should never make advances. advances might be made through a third party, perhaps, if they were made with discretion. "but you could explain it all so much better than i could, mr moreno, how the whole thing was led up to by your letter to lady mary." moreno looked at his watch. "i was going to leave madrid in half an hour. well, i can catch a train three hours later, it won't make much difference. i will be off at once to the embassy, and catch rossett there, if not, at his flat. you, of course, can see him at any time, to-day or to-morrow?" "a thousand thanks," replied isobel, with her charming smile. "yes, i shall not stir out much anyway. but i will keep in the two whole days." "mrs godwin, i warn you, will insist on showing you the sights of madrid." "i will resist her," said isobel firmly. moreno smiled, and said good-bye. it was a little pathetic, he thought, the patient, loving woman ready to wait the man's convenience. ever the way with true love. a brief drive to the embassy in the calle fernando el santo, a hastily pencilled note sent up to rossett. half an hour later, the two men were seated at a different rendezvous, for this time moreno was not in his working-man's dress. he had to be very cautious. moreno went to the point at once. "i have news that will startle you, mr rossett. your fiancee miss clandon, is in madrid at this moment." he named the respectable but unfashionable quarter in which the girl had taken up her abode. "what?" shouted guy rossett in his astonishment. it was just the same ejaculation he had used when he learned that violet hargrave was in spain. the vocabulary of the average englishman is very limited when he has to express sudden emotion. and guy was quite the average type. "of course you are very surprised. well, i am afraid it is all due to me. you remember some time ago i begged you to get out of this place. you refused. i took it on myself to write to your sister to use your father's influence to get you recalled. that fell through too." "it was very kind of you to interfere in my private affairs, mr moreno," observed rossett stiffly. "you are a bit of responsibility to me, mr rossett," replied the journalist in his usual imperturbable fashion. "i will tell you frankly i should be very glad to see the back of you to-morrow, for your own sake--" he added in a lower voice, "still more for the sake of the girl who loves you as much as you love her." "forgive me," cried rossett hastily. "i quite appreciate that you mean very well to both of us." "thank you," said moreno. "well, to get on with my story. i have a very old chum, one maurice farquhar who happens to be a cousin of your fiancee. one night, in his chambers, i hinted that danger was threatening you here. it seems he told miss clandon. as i have stated, i wrote to your sister. the two women put their heads together. miss clandon's father died. she had no longer any ties binding her to england. she was mad to come out here to be near you. as men of the world, we might say, the unreasoning caprice of a very loving woman." "it was very sweet and dear of her," said guy. there was a little break in his voice as he spoke. "but i am interrupting you in your story. please go on." "there is not much more to tell. as i have said, the two women put their heads together. lady mary sent for farquhar to consult him as to how miss clandon could get to spain. she felt if she consulted you, you would, under the circumstances, have vetoed the project altogether." "i don't think there is the slightest doubt i should," said rossett, quite frankly. "i agree. well, they were not going to give you the chance. they took matters into their own hands. farquhar knew nothing about spain; he wrote to me to ask me if i could help them. well, i helped them. i went over to london, saw your sister and miss clandon, and arranged for the journey. i met her at the station to-day, took her to the house of some very respectable english people whom i have known from my boyhood, not people of your class, nor of miss clandon's. but i think there she will be very quiet and comfortable." guy rossett leaned across the table and held out his hand. "a thousand thanks, mr moreno. after this, we must be firm friends. my brave little isobel, how plucky and daring of her. and you took all this trouble!" there was no suspicion in his frank tones, but moreno liked to clear up everything as he went on. "yes, it took up a good deal of my time, but i didn't grudge it. i saw your fiancee and sister dining one night with you at the savoy, but had never spoken to them in my life. but farquhar is an old chum of mine; he has done me some very good turns. i was pleased to return the compliment." there was a brief pause, before moreno spoke again. "i left miss clandon a little time ago. she is longing to see you. i suggested she should send round a note to you. she seemed a little fearful of what you might think of her hasty action. she begged me to come round and explain matters. that is why i am here. here is her address." "again a thousand thanks." rossett looked at his watch. "unfortunately, i have to dine at the embassy to-night, and there is no getting out of that. we are the slaves of duty. i have only just time to get back and dress. i will leave as soon after dinner as i decently can, and go round to her." "away with you, duty calls," said moreno, rising briskly. "i will send a note round to her saying i have seen you, and that you will be there to-night." it was late when rossett, hurrying as fast as he could, entered the small drawing-room of the flat tenanted by the respectable godwins. isobel was alone; the worthy couple, with commendable tact, had absented themselves. moreno had told them just as much as it was well for them to know, and they were not very inquisitive people. it was a very delightful meeting. they had been longing for each other since they last parted. they exchanged their vows of love all over again. "and you are sure you are not angry with me, guy?" asked isobel, as they sat hand in hand on the rather hard sofa. "angry, my brave little darling. why should i be? but i say, this is not the sort of place for you, you know. have you brought a maid with you?" "yes, our old parlourmaid, ethel. i don't suppose you remember her." "yes, i do. well, you must go the ritz, or one of the good hotels." "oh, please no, dearest. i have no chaperon, you see, and it might look queer. besides, i don't want to meet a lot of people, and have to explain things. i would much prefer to stay here _incognita_. dear mrs godwin is quite a motherly old soul, and knows nothing of what is going on in the great world except what she learns from the newspapers. and i am not so far off, after all. you can come and see me sometimes." "every day, darling," cried rossett. on reflection, he was inclined to think that, under the very peculiar circumstances, isobel's course of action was the right one. if she blossomed forth at a fashionable hotel, a great deal would have to be explained. in a censorious and conventional world, young women, however pure in heart, cannot afford to be adventurous. as they sat on the sofa, she told him at great length of her visit to ticehurst park, and the earl's consent to their engagement, of his endeavour to get her to use her influence to lure guy from his post, of her refusal, in which she had been staunchly supported by her father. she had told him briefly of this at the funeral, but he had been so pressed for time that she had only supplied him with the barest details. "the old dad, he was always great at a bargain, but this time you got the better of him, my darling." then he put his hand in his breast pocket, and drew forth a letter. "by jove, i had very nearly forgotten--a letter received this morning from that dear old aunt henrietta. i won't read you all of it, there are yards, but i'll just run through a passage that concerns us." this was the passage he read. "i hear a great deal from mary, who as you know is a most indefatigable correspondent, about your fiancee, isobel clandon. she describes her as a most sweet and lovable girl. there were always the two types in the rossett family, the practicable and the romantic. you, mary, and myself belong to the latter. i married for love, mary would have done, and you are going to. "i hear also your post is rather a dangerous one, and that they have tried to get you recalled, but that you will not hear of it. well, i admire your spirit and sense of duty. still, as soon as you can retire with honour, do so. "now that your father has given his consent, there is nothing to wait for. i shall make the way easy for you, as i have always tried to do. bring your isobel to see me at the first opportunity. i am longing to make her acquaintance." "what a darling!" cried isobel enthusiastically. "well, anyway, there are three dear people in the present rossett family, your aunt, mary, and yourself. and lord saxham is not so bad after all." in her happiness she freely forgave the old gentleman his former hostility, his attempt to drive a bargain with her. "no, he's by no means so bad, when you get to know him, to pierce through the crust as it were. he is a sort of cross between the practical and romantic rossetts," said guy. they talked for a long time about their future plans. when isobel laid her head upon her pillow that night, she was happier than she had ever been since the day her dear old father died. chapter fifteen. a week had passed since the conversation between valerie delmonte and contraras had taken place. a great function was on at the royal palace to-night. all the elite of madrid would be there. for this special occasion, the leading members of the spanish section had shifted from fonterrabia to the capital--zorrilta, alvedero, violet hargrave, andres moreno. contraras and valerie delmonte had already taken up their residence there. it was the night of the great _coup_, on the successful development of which depended the dawn of the new era. moreno had a busy day. thanks to the noble-spirited action of mademoiselle delmonte, who had taken the entire execution of the _coup_ upon herself, he was spared any active participation in it. violet hargrave, who had been originally named as an assistant, was also dispensed with. at eleven o'clock in the morning, he was seated in the private room of the head of the spanish secret service. there was also present the head of the police. the three men talked together for a very considerable time. moreno was attired in his shabby workman's garb; he had on also a false beard and moustache. when the interview was terminated, moreno rose; and turned to the chief of police. "you have thought it all out then? you know she will come with the duchess del pineda." "she will be watched from the moment she enters the palace to the moment she leaves it," was the chief's confident reply. "and you say that the duchess is quite ignorant of her intentions?" it was the chief of the secret service who spoke. "i will swear to the innocence of the duchess, also to that of the duke. they are simply tools. they have been made use of by a superior intelligence, by a man who has a strong hold over the duke." "i wish, mr moreno, you were able to take us a little more into your confidence. would it not be possible to bag the whole lot to-night?" the chief of the police rubbed his hands at the thought. "ah, that would be a fine idea. and i suppose, mr moreno, you have it in your power to enable us to do so?" "gently, gentlemen, if you please. don't be ungrateful. i am helping you somewhat to-night. and because i am doing this, you want to rush things," answered the young journalist in his usual quiet way. "now, look you, much as i desire to serve you, i have a very tender regard for my own skin." "naturally," cried the secret service man. and the chief of police echoed him. "the secret of this project to-night has been entrusted to a good many people," continued moreno. "if it fails, as you promise me it will fail, two things will occur to the mind of the chief--one that the brotherhood has been betrayed by one in their counsels, the other that your spies noticed something suspicious in the behaviour of the woman, and that she was arrested on the strength of that suspicious behaviour." the two men nodded their heads. they began to see the drift of his observations. "i was at first designed to take part in this project, but the original programme was altered. had it been adhered to, i think i could have enabled you to bag the whole lot, at any rate, most of them, and yet escaped scot free myself, of course with your co-operation." "we dare not ask you to disclose your plan?" insinuated the secret service man gently. moreno shook his head. "i think not. but if this _coup_ fails, there will be another planned shortly. by that time my ideas will be perfected, and i trust i shall be able to do what you want, and escape with a whole skin. only one member of the brotherhood will be here to-night. the others are scattered about. suspicion would at once fall upon me if every one except myself were taken." "we could work that out pretty easily, could we not?" queried the chief of police eagerly. "i think not," was moreno's answer. "you would have got this lot out of the way, but there are a few members of the brotherhood left in london, and every man has a knife handy. i must show a clean sheet to those who remain at large. please trust me, and i will shortly do it in my own way." moreno left after cordial hand-shaking. both the chiefs were men of considerable astuteness, and great experience. but they agreed that there was a certain subtlety about this young man, a certain suggestion of strength and confidence, that won their admiration. moreno perhaps did not repose quite so much confidence in them as they did in himself. "i hope to heaven they won't bungle it at the last minute," he said to himself as he walked along. "if i were dealing with the french police, i shouldn't have a doubt." he walked down the puerta del sol, past the grand hotel de la paix. he saw the tall form of contraras enter the vestibule. he shrugged his shoulders, and a look of regret stole over his face. "he is going to hearten her up for this night's work, the old devil, while he stands safely outside, and looks on. poor little woman! i wish i could save her. but how can you save a fanatic?" so ran his thoughts. "why in the name of wonder does a woman who has got everything in the world she requires want to mix herself up with this wretched and bloodthirsty crew? she must lie on the bed she has made, and it will be a pretty hard one, i should wager." moreno walked swiftly in the direction of a poor quarter of the town. he entered the humble abode of an inferior member of the spanish secret service, where he doffed his working-man's garb and assumed his ordinary clothes. later on, he saw violet hargrave, who was living close to him. violet seemed very restless and perturbed. "this is the great night," she said by way of greeting. "i wonder if it will come off all right." "i should say there is every chance it will, unless valerie's nerve fails her at the last moment," was moreno's diplomatic answer. mrs hargrave gave a little shudder. her pretty delicate face went a shade paler. "i cannot help feeling glad that i wasn't brought into it." moreno bent upon her his keen glance. "and yet i should not put you down as a very tender-hearted person." "i don't know that i am, or should be under certain circumstances. but i have no grudge against these people, no particular wrong to avenge. aren't you really glad you are out of it?" "i suppose, in a way, i am. still, one feels a bit of a coward in letting valerie take all the risk. it seems taking advantage of her bravery, to snatch at the chance of avoiding all danger for oneself." "i shall sit up very late, on the chance of hearing the news." "on the contrary, i think i shall go to bed early," said moreno. "we shall hear nothing to-night in this distant quarter. and in the morning there will be the news, or no news at all. the chief will let us know." the great contraras, very upright and vigorous for his age, was shown into mademoiselle delmonte's sitting-room. she sprang up eagerly at his entrance. "i am so glad you have come. you are a little late, are you not? luncheon will be served in a few moments." he could see she was very restless, and her cheeks were pale; there was a strange, almost unnatural brilliance in her dark eyes. her voice was jerky. he took both her hands in his and pressed them tenderly. "you are not afraid, valerie?" he was a fanatic, bold, brutal, and ruthless in his fanaticism, ready to sacrifice anything and everybody to the one absorbing idea. but at the sight of those pale cheeks, that quivering mouth, a momentary regret assailed him. he was a father, and this beautiful young woman was young enough to be his daughter. "we ought to have had a man for this job," he said, speaking a little hoarsely. "but you know you chose it yourself; you would not even have another associated with you." "i know." she tried to laugh lightly, but there was a quaver in the laugh. "i do not regret. i am not really afraid. but i suppose every soldier on his first battlefield has inward tremors that he cannot repress. i am a soldier of the revolution, and to-night is my first battlefield." "and you feel those tremors, eh?" "just a little, although i blush for them. but don't let us think of this. ah, here comes lunch." they sat down to the meal. she was a very abstemious woman, and rarely partook of stimulants. but, in honour of contraras' visit, she had ordered a bottle of champagne. under its exhilarating influence, her jangled nerves readjusted themselves, and she became her natural self. the colour returned to her cheeks. she raised her glass and nodded to her guest. "to the new world, born upon the ruins of the old." "amen to that wish!" cried contraras fervently, as he drank his wine in one long draught. there was a long pause, which she broke abruptly. "i think i have told you i made my will in london last year." contraras nodded. "yes, you told me that." "but i did not tell you the details. i have left all my money in the hands of the public trustee, to divide amongst certain charities. as private fortunes go, it is a fair one--but what a small sum to go to the alleviation of this vast amount of human misery!" "you could not have made a better use of it," said contraras appreciatively. "to you, my dear friend, i have left twenty thousand pounds to devote to whatever purpose you think fit. of course you will apply that money to the spreading of the propaganda." "i much appreciate your kind thought, my dear valerie; it is just like you. but may the day be far distant when--" she raised her hand. "we will speak no more of that, please. i wonder what will be the result of to-night?" "success!" cried contraras confidently. "success!" a few minutes later he rose to go. "the duchess will call for you in her carriage. once arrived at the palace, keep under her wing for some time, so as to avoid suspicion. then seize your time and opportunity. would you like me to come round and see you before you start? but i shall look out for you at the palace." for a moment she did not answer him, she was pursuing the train of her own thoughts. "i never told you i had my fortune told by a gipsy when i was sixteen. would you like to know what she predicted?" "if you wish," replied contraras politely. he had no respect for gipsies or their prophecies. "ah, i see it won't interest you. i don't think you believe much in the spiritual side of existence. still, i will tell it; it will not take a moment. up to the present, it has come remarkably true. this gipsy, she was a very old woman, predicted that i should have a very hard life for some years, then would come some years of great good fortune, and then--equally great tribulation." contraras smiled. "my dear child, she probably predicted precisely the same things hundreds of times to her clients. the veil of the future is not to be lifted by a wandering beggar-woman." "of course, i knew you would not be impressed, or perhaps you just say it to cheer me." she had forgotten his question--should he come and see her again before she started for the palace? he repeated it. "no, my good friend, i would rather not. if all goes well, we shall meet again often. if not, we will say good-bye here. a thousand thanks for your friendship and kindness." could fanaticism go further? she was thanking this hardened old schemer for his friendship and kindness--friendship and kindness that were ready to sacrifice her at any moment for his own ends. chapter sixteen. moreno had declared to violet hargrave that he proposed to go to bed early, and wait till to-morrow for the news. when he spoke that had been his original intention. but, as the evening drew on, he began to feel a certain restlessness stirring in him. certain things were about to happen, or, as he hoped, to be frustrated. he could hardly compose himself to sleep under the unusual circumstances. he would go out, and form one of the undistinguished crowd that clustered round the palace gates. if anything dramatic happened, he could not fail to be aware of it. the news would spread like wildfire. on his arrival, he caught sight of a woman closely veiled standing close beside him. he recognised her at once. it was evident that mrs hargrave could no more endure to stay indoors than he could. he moved up a few paces and spoke to her in english, practically their native tongue. "the same sudden impulse seized both of us," he whispered. "well, it is a very orderly crowd. i don't think we shall be pushed or knocked about. we shall enjoy the sight of the grandees arriving. by the way, it is a pity we were not sent an invitation, then we could have seen it from the inside." violet hargrave whispered back. "i simply couldn't stay indoors. my nerves seem on edge to-night." "mine are a bit out of time, too," answered moreno in a low voice. and, while they were waiting, moreno indulged in several philosophical reflections. a curious and not ill-natured crowd was gathered round the palace, something like the throng that gathers round a wedding. there was no harm in these good-humoured, laughing persons, mainly of the lower order. they were not envious of the people who went inside, these men in court costume, these women of another world, daintily attired. they discussed and admired the good looks of the men, the exquisite costumes of the women. if the court chamberlain had suddenly appeared, and in the name of their majesties, bade them enter the royal precincts in a spirit of perfect equality with the other guests, they would have been very embarrassed and, save for a few adventurous spirits, have declined the invitation. they would have felt out of place. from what causes arose this antagonism amongst the clever extremists of the proletariat toward the more fortunate ones of the earth? moreno was puzzled to find a solution. envy perhaps was the contributing cause. and yet the ordinary man who dines at a common eating-house is not always envious of the man who eats a sumptuous luncheon at the ritz or carlton. the middle-class prosperous professional man does not always gnash his teeth when he thinks of a nobleman, possibly his client, who has a rent roll of a hundred thousand a year. moreno was very just. there was a time when he had had to fare very frugally, and he had not complained. things had improved. when the fancy took him, he would indulge in a good dinner, a bottle of champagne, and an excellent cigar. was he hurting the toiling millions very much if he occasionally indulged in these luxuries? were the few fortunate ones of the earth, and after all they were very few, hurting him if they indulged in them every day? night was slowly settling over the city. far away from this scene of revel and display, some thousands of humble workers had eaten their frugal suppers, and were preparing for bed. if all the money that was to be spent upon this function had been shared between them, would they have been much the richer? champagne, excellent cigars, and good dinners could not be given to every creature on god's earth. that was an inexorable economic law, which no revolutionist could alter. he was raised from his reveries by a light touch on his arm. "who are these two men?" it was violet hargrave who spoke. "somehow, they look people of importance." moreno recognised them at once, as they drove slowly through--the chief of the secret service, the head of the police. he was glad that they were on the scene early. they might not have quite the perfect methods of the corresponding french organisations, but perhaps they would justify themselves before the night was over. "i don't know them from adam, but, as you say, they certainly look persons of importance, especially the fat one." always suspicious, he wondered if mrs hargrave was trying to draw him, herself knowing who they were. anyway, she had failed. he was not to be caught by a leading question like that. then presently she nudged him. "look, look, the chief!" yes, it was contraras, driving in a humble cab. his fine, lined face showed clear against the waning light. "wonderful man! the brains of sixty, the fire and energy of twenty!" said moreno glibly. he spoke with all the enthusiasm of a true son of the revolution. mrs hargrave made no comment. equipage after equipage rolled up, containing fair women and brave men. the palace was one blaze of light. the crowd grew closer, enjoying the spectacle of the arriving guests, and it seemed a crowd that was at once good-humoured and appreciative, if at times critical. moreno turned to his companion. "i say, it's a bit of a shame that you and i are not inside instead of here, eh? i think contraras might have worked that while he was about it." mrs hargrave smiled back; she was very attracted by this black-browed young spaniard. "my dear friend, under the new regime, we shall all go to court." "to the court of contraras, i suppose?" "something of that sort," answered violet, letting herself go a little. "and madame contraras, more aristocratic than any queen, will smile condescendingly, and the pretty daughter will turn up her nose at us." the conversation was getting dangerous. mrs hargrave must be checked in her impulsive moods, which, he honestly admitted, were very rare. "ah, if i could see dear old contraras in that position i would die happy," he exclaimed, with a splendid mendacity. mrs hargrave stole a quiet glance at him. "yes, he is very wonderful, is he not? but i can't honestly say i like his womenkind. they have no sympathy with his aspirations." as they were speaking, a very gorgeous carriage rolled up. it contained the duchess del pineda and valerie delmonte. the duke had not accompanied them. he had pleaded indisposition, but probably prudence had dictated his absence. anyway, if certain things happened, it would be possible for him to plead a successful _alibi_. "look, look!" cried violet hargrave, a little excitedly for her. "valerie delmonte!" moreno, the kindly-hearted, felt a spasm of pity as he gazed on the face of the handsome, fanatical young frenchwoman, whom that wily old contraras had subjugated to his evil will. "poor child!" he said aloud, for the benefit of his companion, "i can only hope she will not lose her nerve. it was a man's job, but she would insist upon having it." there was a little lull in the procession of carriages. and then there drove up one conveying guy rossett and a colleague. the ambassador had already arrived, with his wife. moreno stole a glance at his companion. she was heavily veiled, but he could see that her face had grown pale, that a sad look had come into her eyes. "our admirable young diplomatist!" whispered the young man. "well, madrid is not a very safe place for him." "but he is in no danger to-night i take it?" came back the answer in a whisper as low as his own. "i should say not. for the present, we have left him out of our calculations; we are flying at higher game. he will hardly come within the sphere of valerie's operations. his chief may--i doubt even that." mrs hargrave made no comment. presently moreno spoke in the same low whisper. "you have no great affection for mr rossett, i take it?" "no, i have not any great affection for mr rossett." "and yet you were once very good friends." mrs hargrave stiffened a little. "you seem to know a great deal of my private affairs. yes, we once were very good friends. he knew my husband long before i married him. i fancy i have told you that." moreno was not to be daunted by her aloof attitude. he was never wanting in enterprise. "i should not be surprised if, at the present moment, you hated him." "perhaps you are right," was the curt answer. moreno indulged in a quiet inward chuckle. if she had known that isobel clandon was established so close to her lover, that through his adroit manipulation of affairs they were meeting every day, her hatred must have expressed itself more heartily. valerie delmonte, under the wing of the unsuspecting duchess, was now within the palace. she had only once before looked upon a scene approaching this, and it had been much less brilliant. once, early in their married life, her husband had taken her to one of the president's receptions in paris. it was easy, in his position, to secure the entree for himself and wife. she remembered that evening well. never had she felt more humiliated. half a dozen times kind old monsieur varenne had introduced her to some of his acquaintances. there was a formal bow interchanged, and nothing beyond; one and all they had sheered off. even in a republican and democratic country, these purse-proud citizens would have nothing to do with the girl who had come from the music halls. she recalled how, when she had reached home that night, she had burst into a fit of wild sobbing, and her kindly, elderly husband had tried to comfort her. "calm thyself, _ma cherie_, we will not go to these hateful places again. we will lead our own life." to-night, how different. a court, one of the oldest in europe, reflecting that atmosphere of pomp and state associated with long descended royalty. the kindly young king, his british-born queen, chatting graciously with their favoured guests. men in resplendent uniforms and orders, great ladies of the highest spanish nobility, what a contrast to the homely reception of the president in those far-off days! then she had been escorted by a very wealthy but somewhat shady financier, whose influence had not been sufficient to enable her to scale the social heights to which she had aspired. to-night she was under the wing of a popular chaperon, in whose veins ran the proudest blood of spain. the duchess, acting according to instructions, introduced her to everybody she came across. mademoiselle delmonte, handsome, brilliant, and vivacious, was an immediate success. this aristocratic assemblage, ignorant of her antecedents, only recognising that she was under the wing of the popular duchess, took her at her real valuation. being a woman, she was naturally pleased with her momentary success. but she was sensible enough to know to what she owed it. if these people who were flattering her now had known of her lowly origin, how she had graduated through the circus and the music hall to the possession of wealth, they would have turned their backs on her, as the purse-proud parvenus had done in the democratic salons of the french president. these bitter reflections rather tended to harden than soften her resolution. to-night she was an avenging angel, bent upon the task of making these insolent people atone for the insults heaped upon the lowly-born. once in her triumphant progress she came near to contraras, who was standing alone, surveying the brilliant scene with his keen, deep-set eyes. she disengaged herself from the arm of her companion, a handsome young man of some standing in spanish society. "excuse me a moment. i see an old friend, to whom i must say a few words." "what do you think of it all?" she whispered, as she held out her hand. "what i have always thought of such spectacles as these," he whispered back. "these besotted creatures feast and dance and make merry, without a thought of their oppressed and toiling fellow-creatures." he spoke intensely, in the most bitter spirit of his gloomy fanaticism. she could not linger, "my nerves are in perfect order," she assured him as she turned away. he smiled kindly at her as she passed on. the amiable and innocent duchess had performed the duties of chaperon so well, had introduced her to so many people, that it was a long time before valerie could shake herself free. it was a very crowded assemblage. if she could once break away, she would be free to roam where she pleased. the moment came at last, close upon midnight. she was alone and mistress of her own movements. her thoughts were no longer distracted by the idle chatter of some companion forced upon her. slowly, she edged her way towards the royal circle. progress was a little difficult, but at last she stood within a few feet of the king and queen. she stood for a few moments, perhaps summoning up her courage. then her hand stole towards her pocket. before she could reach it, a little cordon was formed round her, a cordon of six men in ordinary evening dress. the hand of one of the men gripped hers, and held it in a grasp of iron. "come quietly, mademoiselle," whispered a voice in her ear. "we have followed you round all the evening, we fancied there was something suspicious about you. we may, of course, be mistaken, but in these troublous times we have to be very careful. we will take you to a private room, and have you searched. of course, if nothing is found upon you, you will go free, and we will make you handsome amends." valerie gave a little choking sob. the gipsy's prophesy had come true-- several years of hard life, a few years of good fortune, and then great tribulation. "i came here with the duchess del pineda," she said in a broken voice, hardly knowing what she was saying. "do you dare to suspect--" it was the head of the police who held her wrist in that iron grasp. he spoke in a suave voice. "mademoiselle, we always suspect in our profession. for the duchess del pineda i have the highest respect. will you consent to come quietly? if we are in the wrong, you have nothing to fear." she turned with them without a word. she had failed miserably. the upholders of law and order had scored signally over the scattered and imperfect organisation of the brotherhood. between them, she walked through the long, brilliantly-lit rooms. the chief of police tucked her arm under his, keeping a tight hold on her wrist. the other five men accompanied them. there was nothing in the general attitude to suggest that she was not a very charming woman being escorted by a bevy of admirers. contraras was standing by the door as the procession passed out. agitated as she was, she saw him, and flashed at him an agonised glance. he flashed back at her a glance equally eloquent. he knew the chief of police by sight, and he understood what had happened. poor little valerie had failed! they would take her to some room, and search her. in her pocket they would find those cunning little bombs that, once launched, would have sent tyrants and oppressors hurling into space, and proclaimed the dawn of the new era. poor little valerie! his eyes grew misty. as she had failed, it would have been better if he had left her alone. if ever he felt remorse in his life, he felt it that night. his first impulse was to leave the palace at once. but wiser thoughts prevailed. the chief of police had recognised him, he was sure. if he left immediately, it might give cause for suspicion. valerie had failed. for the moment the cause had suffered a set-back. but his resolution was still undaunted, his brain still active. because he had failed to-day, it did not follow that he would not be successful to-morrow. he sought out the duchess del pineda, who was, as usual, surrounded by a group of chattering friends. "good evening, duchess. what has become of our young friend, mademoiselle delmonte?" "i really cannot tell you. she broke away from me a long time ago. she has been a tremendous success, i can assure you. i hope she intends to make a long stay in madrid. she will be most popular." "i really cannot tell you. i know nothing of her plans," answered contraras in his grave, quiet tones. "as i told the duke, i met her in france and england, where she appeared to move in the best circles." "naturally," said the innocent duchess. nobody would suspect the highly respected contraras of telling a deliberate lie. outside the palace, the crowd had thinned, but moreno and violet hargrave still waited. midnight had struck and all was quiet. there were no signs that heralded the happening of a tragedy. a few belated arrivals passed through to the palace. the crowd began to melt away. and then there was a little stir. a carriage drove up outside the palace doors. two men and a woman stepped into it, the woman was in evening dress. the carriage passed the two watchers. mrs hargrave peered into the slowly-moving vehicle. "valerie delmonte," she whispered excitedly. "there is a man sitting beside her, one of those two men i noticed driving in--don't you remember i said they looked people of importance, and you said you did not know them from adam. what does it mean? valerie alone with those men?" "it looks as if the _coup_ had failed," replied moreno quietly. "i should say that valerie has been caught, and those two men are members of the police." mrs hargrave grew a little hysterical. "thank god, it was not myself," she added, after a pause. "i am glad it was not you." moreno was about to reply when another carriage drove through, the occupant of which was contraras. his tall form seemed huddled up; he was evidently in a state of extreme dejection. moreno tucked mrs hargrave's arm under his own. "come along! evidently the _coup_ has failed; the police have been one too many for us. valerie delmonte going away with those two men, poor old contraras huddled up in that carriage, his attitude expressing that all is lost, at any rate, for the moment! we have nothing to wait for. we shall hear all about it to-morrow." they walked along arm in arm, both occupied with their own thoughts. mrs hargrave broke the long silence. "he is a wonderful man. if he is dejected to-night, he will be full of energy and vigour to-morrow." moreno agreed. "yes, he will think of more _coups_. i suppose the next one will be the removal of mr rossett." violet made no answer immediately. then, presently she said. "i fancy he is considered a rather dangerous person from our point of view." moreno shrugged his shoulders. "and yet i fancy his removal would not greatly hasten the new era, do you? he is really a quite insignificant person. if valerie had brought it off to-night, well and good--but i must confess these minor developments don't interest me greatly. do they interest you?" "a little, i think," answered mrs hargrave, in a somewhat faint voice. moreno looked at her steadfastly. her nerves were a bit out of order to-night. that long vigil outside the palace had told on them--that waiting for the crash of the bombs which valerie delmonte had carried in her pocket, the bombs which now had been appropriated by the chief of police. he gave her arm a tender pressure. "i believe at bottom you are really a womanly woman. the end justifies the means, of course, but some of the means are very bloodthirsty, don't you think?" "i thought so to-night, when i was waiting to hear the crash of those devilish, cunning little bombs, the latest invention of science, as our good old contraras assures us." moreno pulled himself up; perhaps he had been a little too frank. but he knew that the photographed letter always gave him the whip-hand of violet hargrave. "still, we must not be squeamish. revolutions are not made with rose-water, and you must break eggs to make omelettes." "absolutely true." mrs hargrave, looking provokingly pretty under her veil, sighed a soft assent to these platitudes. he fancied her arm gave a responsive pressure to his. when he went to bed that night, moreno was disturbed with remorseful thoughts of valerie delmonte. if the chief of police had found those bombs in her pocket, it was he who had told that somewhat slow-moving official he would find them there. then he comforted himself. if he had betrayed valerie, he had prevented her from hurling to destruction a dozen or more innocent people. his conscience was quite clear. if she had been a very ugly woman, instead of a very pretty one, perhaps his conscience might not have been troubled at all. "i didn't think much of that chief of police at first," he murmured drowsily, as he turned on his pillow. "but he seems to have managed it all right. still, on the whole, i would rather deal with scotland yard, or the surete in paris." chapter seventeen. lord saxham and his daughter had left ticehurst park. they were in their town house in belgrave square. they were neither of them very fond of london. the earl, in his youth and middle age, had experienced all the fleeting joys of the metropolis. mary, after the experience of her unfortunate love-affair, had definitely resolved that she would retire into a convent and devote herself to good works as soon as her father died. belgrave square was even a little duller than ticehurst park. they were in the midst of a crowd that had forgotten them. lord saxham was, to put it vulgarly, a back number, and was quite out of the modern whirl. lady mary, during her brief season, had fallen head over ears in love with the handsome young guardsman, and had buried her heart in his grave. the only thing that had drawn them up from the sylvan shades of ticehurst park was this--they wanted to be near greatorex, that they could know what was happening to guy at first hand. the eldest son of the house. viscount ticehurst, dropped in occasionally, and deigned to spare them a few moments of his valuable time. as a matter of fact, at the present moment he was occupied with a particularly pretty chorus-girl, whom he was half inclined to marry. mary was fond of both her brothers, but she recognised the difference in them. eric was as weak as water and destitute of brains. he was capable of marrying any chorus-girl on the sly, and then rushing her down home and presenting her as his wife, to the terrible consternation of his poor old father, who thought that people should always marry in their own class. guy was different--there was just a little bit of common sense in him. he had fallen violently in love with isobel clandon--a girl not quite in his own world, from the earl's point of view--but a sweet and lovable girl, and above all a lady. and guy had waited for the parental consent, which had been wrung under somewhat false pretences. but he had been content to wait until his future wife would be received under proper auspices. he would not rush her down and take his father by storm, as ticehurst would do when the time came for him to present his chorus-girl to a justly offended parent. father and daughter sat at luncheon in the dining-room of the house in belgrave square. very terribly did lady mary miss her beautiful gardens, her flowers, her dogs, her aviary of little songsters. she was essentially a country girl. she hated any city, with its cramped and narrow streets. even paris had no attractions for her. vienna and berlin left her cold. "you have seen greatorex this morning, father?" she questioned when the servants had withdrawn. lord saxham frowned. he had realised, in this his latest visit to the metropolis, that he was a back number. he remembered the years long ago when he was the most golden of the gilded youth. then his name was one to conjure with. he led the revels; if it pleased him, he painted the town red. now, except for a few ancient cronies, nobody recognised him. "yes, i saw greatorex," he answered gloomily. "he was always as close as wax. he is closer than ever. he comes of an infernally close family. that family has never been anything great." he was getting into his explosive vein. "always underlings and jackals--always content to serve." "what did he say about guy?" asked mary softly. "only that he was quite happy and well. he did vouchsafe to volunteer the information that some great anarchist _coup_ had failed." "well, that was about as much as you could expect," said mary in her quiet, gentle tones. "he is not going to give information to everybody." "to everybody?" spluttered the earl, in his most fiery mood. "am i everybody? i have supported this government through thick and thin. i have backed them up through everything. why do they withhold their confidence from me, at this important moment?" lady mary used all her _finesse_. she knew too well why greatorex did not trust him. he was an open sieve. all news would filter through him in five minutes, at all his clubs, to the first acquaintance he met. "you must not blame greatorex, dear; he carries a very heavy burden. he dare not give an incautious confidence, drop a random word." "but why this reticence to me, of all people?" thundered lord saxham, in his most indignant tones. "am i not the soul of discretion? should i betray a confidence?" mary made no answer. she knew her father well. privately he was the soul of honour. he would not betray a confidence wilfully. but he was loose of speech, and he was quite vain. he would drop a few hints, perhaps unconsciously, from which attentive listeners might gather much. she let the stormy ebullition pass. then she spoke. "i wish we could hear some really authentic news of dear old guy." the earl grunted. "you hear daily from isobel?" "of course, but isobel is a woman. she tells me what she is allowed to know. because she is a woman, guy and moreno keep everything from her. they make out the path is strewn with roses. they will not tell her the truth, for fear of frightening her." "then where are you going to get your information from?" asked the earl querulously. there was a long pause. when she spoke, a faint colour dyed lady mary's cheek. "i wonder if that young barrister would know anything; i almost forget his name--you remember, isobel's cousin who came down to ticehurst and arranged her journey to spain. yes, i remember, maurice farquhar. he is a bosom friend of that spanish man, moreno, who, i fancy, is trying his best to defeat the anarchists." the earl was, fortunately, very unobservant to-day. "yes, i remember him quite well, a perfectly decent sort of young fellow. a rather forlorn hope, eh?" the flush had died away from mary's cheek. she had regained her self-control. she spoke quite calmly. "yes, i agree, but drowning people catch at a straw. let me ask him to dinner, and find out if he knows anything." lord saxham was certainly in his most benignant mood. "by all means. he might be useful." lady mary wrote a note to farquhar, addressed to his chambers in the temple. it was a somewhat formal letter--when she put pen to paper, mary was always formal--inviting him to dine in belgrave square. farquhar's first impulse was to refuse. he had no wish to mingle with the aristocracy on unequal terms. when he became lord chancellor, it would be a different matter. then he thought of lady mary's winsome appearance, and he altered his mind. he sent a note accepting the invitation. but of course he knew why he was being asked. they wanted to know if he could give any reliable information about guy rossett. he presented himself at belgrave square on the tick of the clock. not for him the _mauvais quart d'heure_ consecrated to meaningless conversation in the drawing-room. lord saxham shook him kindly by the hand. lady mary was graciousness itself. could she ever be anything but kind, even if there was, at the back, a little subtle feminine diplomacy. it was a party of three, waited on in solemn state by the butler and two footmen. there was not even a fourth to make matters even. farquhar smiled inwardly. these two guileless persons, father and daughter, must have desired his company exceedingly! well, he would learn all about it later on. the servants had withdrawn. the men smoked. lady mary did not leave the room. it was an informal party. farquhar puffed leisurely at his cigar. he was awaiting developments. saxham opened the ball. he was a most undisciplined person. he was always like a bull in a china shop, charging with blind fury. "it's about guy, we're awfully anxious, you know," he said in his loud, resonant tones. "i wonder if you can help us at all. my daughter and isobel tell me you are a great friend of moreno." beneath his somewhat pachydermatous exterior; farquhar had a certain vein of sensitiveness. he was now sure of what he had suspected. he had been asked to dine for the purposes of being pumped for the information he could or could not give them. lord saxham, in his blunt, vulgar fashion, had so unsuccessfully masked his hospitality. then he caught lady mary's pleading, almost shamefaced glance. "i can quite guess what is in your mind, mr farquhar, but i beg you to forgive our anxiety. we are very pleased to see you here for your own sake. if you can help us with guy, we shall be doubly pleased." she leaned across, and said, in a whisper that did not reach lord saxham's ears, dulled with age: "my father will, unfortunately, always take the lead, but he is not always happy in his way of expressing himself." the rather stiff-backed young lawyer forgot his momentary resentment under the kind words of this charming young woman who could so graciously pour oil on the troubled waters. "please, lady mary, tell me in what way i can serve you." there was no stiffness in his tones. lord saxham had subsided now. he gathered, in a dim sort of way, that he had put his foot in it, for about the thousandth time in his long career. he was going to leave it all to his capable daughter. mary drew her chair closer to the guest. lord saxham, for the moment, was out of the picture. besides, he was nodding over his second glass of port. it was better so, he was now incapable of mischief. mary put her cards frankly on the table. "as i told you just now, we are very pleased to see you for yourself, as a cousin of dear isobel, at least _i_ am certainly very pleased." a faint colour suffused her cheek. farquhar bowed. no barrister can blush, but into his rather cold eyes there came a softer light which might be taken to express emotion. "lady mary, i am certain you are not a woman who would ever say anything you did not mean." "of course, there was an ulterior motive," continued mary, with her usual frankness. the flush on her cheek had not quite died away; it had rather been revived by a compliment that she felt was meant to be sincere. "there was an ulterior motive, as i have candidly admitted. we are very anxious about guy. greatorex will tell us nothing, my father has been to him this morning, and he keeps his mouth shut. we hear nothing from guy, of course, he does not wish to alarm us. isobel writes short, chatty letters; naturally guy does not tell her anything; she knows no more than we do. the question is, mr farquhar, do you know anything? you can easily understand how anxious we are." farquhar smoked on steadily. it was some time before he spoke. lord saxham was now slumbering peacefully after his heavy dinner and his third glass of port. he looked just a little contemptuously at the somnolent figure. at lord saxham's age, he expected to be lord chancellor, alert and vigorous. when he spoke, he did not answer her question. rather, he pursued the train of his own thoughts. "it seems to me. lady mary," he said, speaking very softly, so that he should not disturb the slumbers of his host, "that in a measure you bear upon your shoulders--very capable shoulders, i will admit--the entire burden of your family." mary protested feebly. "oh, no, don't think that for a moment. my father is very vigorous as a rule. eric is quite a nice boy, just a little wild, perhaps. and guy has got lots of grit; he will make good yet. i cannot thank isobel enough for teaching us how cowardly we were for wanting to have him recalled." "isobel has tons of grit," said farquhar shortly. "she comes from a fighting line." "yes, isobel, as you say, has tons of grit." lady mary looked at him curiously. "you are very fond of your cousin, are you not, mr farquhar?" "i am very fond of isobel," said the young barrister quietly. "we were brought up as children together. i was a few years her senior. i used to carry her about as a little child." mary looked at him again, and for a second time a faint flush dyed her fair cheek. "will you think it very impertinent of me, mr farquhar, if i suggest that you were very much in love with your pretty cousin?" farquhar shook his head. "i don't deny it for a moment. i was very much in love with isobel. i always wanted her for my wife, but the consideration of ways and means prevented. when i did ask her, i learned that she had accepted your brother--" "and you are still in love with her?" questioned mary, a little eagerly. "it is no use being in love with a girl who is betrothed to another man. it is one of those vain dreams that a sensible man dismisses. isobel clandon is to me now a dear cousin, a good friend." somehow, lady mary looked relieved. she spoke lightly. "you will get over it, and one day you will marry. and when you are lord chancellor, your wife will be the first female subject in the kingdom." "and isobel will be the wife of an ambassador," said farquhar. "we shall run each other close, shall we not?" mary laughed. "oh, guy will never have stamina enough to become an ambassador. when he comes into dear old aunt henrietta's money, he will throw it all over, and lead his pleasant old idle life. i know guy too well." "don't you think isobel will put grit into him?" "isobel is a loving woman. she will always see eye to eye with guy. whatever he determines, she will acquiesce in." farquhar sighed. ambition was always with him the dominating note. he regretted its absence in others. "a pity," he said. "with your family influence, he might go far." "he doesn't want to go far, mr farquhar," she whispered. she pointed at the slumbering figure of lord saxham. "my father has plenty of brains; if he had worked, he might have been prime minister, or very near it. in the rossett family, there is a certain amount of grit, but not quite enough to bring them to the foremost place." farquhar leaned across the table. this was certainly one of the most charming women he had ever met. "i say, lady mary, what a pity you are not a man. if you had been, i am sure you would have put the rossett family in their right place." he cast a cautious glance at the still slumbering host. lady mary smiled pleasantly. she was not ill-pleased with the genuine compliment. "yes, perhaps, if i had been born a man. i should certainly have been better than eric, perhaps a shade better than guy." she broke off suddenly. "but it is idle to talk of these things. i am a woman, and must be contented with my lot, my humble sphere. now, can you tell me anything of my brother?" "you want me to tell you the truth, and you will not be afraid to hear it?" "no, i shall not be afraid." she spoke very bravely, but he noticed that her hands were trembling. "i had a letter from moreno this morning. he tells me that the design against your brother has temporarily dropped into abeyance. they had a very great _coup_ on--that has failed. he has reason to suspect that they will now turn their attention to mr rossett." the tears coursed slowly down mary's face. the earl slumbered on peacefully. then she raised her head. her eyes flashed. she looked angrily at her sleeping father. "oh, our poor guy. and it is his fault,"--she pointed at the somnolent earl--"his fault entirely. he wanted to separate him from isobel, because he thought she was not good enough for him. he went to greatorex, and with his influence he got this post at madrid--and he has sent him to his death." farquhar felt very sympathetic. no man can very properly appreciate his successful rival. but he was forced to admit that there was something in guy rossett that appealed alike to men and women. "now listen, lady mary! moreno tells me a lot, because to a certain extent i have been in it from the beginning. i won't bore you with details. anyway, moreno says he is quite certain he can save your brother. perhaps moreno may be a little too cocksure, he is a very vain sort of fellow. he goes so far as to hint that he might require my assistance." mary looked puzzled. "your assistance! but where do you come in, in this awful mix-up?" "it is perhaps a little difficult to explain." it was one of the few occasions in his life on which the self-possessed young barrister had felt embarrassed. "it is, perhaps, a little difficult to explain," he repeated. "moreno and i are very old friends. he was one night in my chambers. he extracted a promise from me that, if he called upon me, i would help your brother." mary shot at him a swift and penetrating glance. "i can understand, mr farquhar, that you and mr moreno are old friends, that you owe many a good turn to one another. but my brother is nothing to you. why should you put yourself out of the way for him?" farquhar temporised. "one sometimes gives promises rather rashly, lady mary." there was a long pause before the woman spoke. "i think i can understand," she said. "you gave that promise not because you cared for my brother, but because you wanted to help isobel clandon." farquhar did not beat about the bush. "yes, i wanted to help isobel. naturally, i do not love your brother, but she loves him. and her happiness is my first consideration." mary looked at him with her soft, kindly eyes. "i think of all the lovers i have heard or read of, you are the truest," she said, "and also the kindliest. if our positions had been reversed, i rather doubt if i could have done that." but farquhar shook his head. "oh, you are one of god's good women. in any situation you would act a thousand times better than i should." suddenly the somnolent earl woke up, in full possession of his faculties. "well, farquhar, what do you know about guy?" he took the matter up from the point where it had been left in abeyance. farquhar explained patiently that, in his opinion, guy rossett was in a position of considerable danger. naturally, at this point, lord saxham went off at a violent tangent. "then why the devil doesn't greatorex recall him, as i have begged him to do. good heavens! i have been supporting this wretched government through thick and thin. can't they grant me this little favour? my poor boy! he doesn't want their infernal promotion. he will inherit a big fortune from his great-aunt. he can snap his fingers at greatorex and the rest of them." suddenly he began to sob, and buried his head in his hands. "my poor murdered boy," he moaned. "and greatorex sent him to his death." farquhar smoked on stolidly. he did not feel greatly attracted towards his host. lady mary shot a somewhat contemptuous glance at her penitent parent, who was seeking to throw the blame on greatorex. "pay no attention to him," she whispered across the table. "the foreign office is not to blame. he got guy transferred abroad in order to separate him from isobel. i have told you." farquhar understood and nodded. he had already come to the conclusion that lord saxham was a very poor and weak creature--not a good specimen of his order. how had he become possessed of such a daughter, so gentle, so high-minded? there must have been some virility on the female side of the family. he drove back to his chambers in a rather exhilarated frame of mind. lady mary was very charming. he had quite got over that first feeling that he was to be exploited for the benefit of the rossett family. mary had put that all right, in her gentle, persuasive way. she had expressly laid emphasis on the fact that she, at any rate, was pleased to welcome him for himself. he dismissed his taxi, and climbed up the steep stairs to his suite of rooms in one of the most cloistered courts of the temple. to his surprise, the light in the hall was burning. what had happened? he went into the dining-room, a blaze of electric light. stretched on the sofa, puffing at a long cigar, was andres moreno, awaiting his arrival. "the devil!" cried farquhar shortly, sharply, and decisively. moreno waved a genial hand. "not exactly, old man, but one of his ambassadors. i say, i suppose you can give me a shake-down." "of course, but why are you here? why are you not in spain?" "all will be unfolded in good time, my boy. but what about a drink? i could do with one." "you know where the things are. surely you could have helped yourself?" said farquhar. "never care to drink alone, old man. by the way, i see you are in evening togs. have you been dining with the aristocracy?" "you've just hit it," replied farquhar, as he went to the sideboard and fetched out a decanter of whiskey. "i have been dining in belgrave square with the earl of saxham and his daughter. lady mary rossett." "good heavens, this might be called a coincidence," cried moreno, as he drained the refreshing draught offered to him. farquhar was rather impatient at any exhibition of humour. he frowned a little. "now, moreno, out with it. what has brought you here? i am delighted to see you, of course, but you have not come all this long journey for nothing." but moreno was still in high spirits that were not to be abruptly quenched. "what a splendid lord chancellor you will make, always with both eyes on the practical, intolerant of anything that disturbs the even course of justice. perfect embodiment of the legal mind. _a votre sante, mon ami_!" he drained his glass. farquhar looked at him critically. "you're a bit of an ass to-night, aren't you?" "not at all, most noble festus. never was i saner than i am at the present hour. well, perhaps just at the moment i am suffering a little from swollen head. i, the poor fleet street journalist--you remember, farquhar, how they used to despise me in the early days--have outwitted the keenest brains of the anarchists. i have made abortive their great _coup_." "i know," said farquhar generously. "my hearty congratulations, old man. but still, you have not come all this way to tell me that. you have something behind." moreno's manner changed at once. he sat down in an easy chair and became the solemn and grave personage who had important interests at stake. "you remember an interview in these chambers a little time ago, when you gave me a certain promise?" farquhar remembered the incident well. "yes, i gave you a certain promise. you have come to remind me of it?" "are you overwhelmed with briefs?" "i cannot exactly say i am overwhelmed with them, but i have enough to keep me going." "i see," said moreno quietly. he had cast aside his gay and chaffing mood; he was quite serious. "can you depute those to somebody?" "if it were imperative, i could." moreno rose and laid his hand on his friend's shoulder. "good! then i claim your promise. pack your bag to-morrow morning and come with me to spain. i am going to outwit them again. i might do it single-handed, but your assistance will be invaluable. will you come?" "it is to help guy rossett?" "it is to help isobel clandon through guy rossett. i will explain everything as we travel together to-morrow." "i adhere to my promise," said farquhar. "i will make all my arrangements in the morning. i shall be at your disposal after twelve. how long will you want me for?" "a week at the outside." moreno stifled a yawn. in spite of his vigorous constitution, he was very tired. "let us turn in, old man. i feel as if i could sleep the clock round." chapter eighteen. contraras paid a flying visit to london. it was a secret visit, that is to say he stayed in an obscure hotel in the east of london, not venturing to his house in fitzjohn's avenue. his wife and daughter believed him to be still in spain, from where he wrote letters to them at irregular intervals. he was far too busy to attend closely to domestic correspondence. moreover, like many great reformers, he had little in common with his family. his wife openly sneered at his doctrines; privately she thought he was a hypocrite who lacked the courage to practise what he preached, to lead the simple life which he was inculcating upon others. their only child fully endorsed the mother's sentiments. moreover, she was in love with a young man who had been attracted to her by the report of her father's wealth. he was a poor cadet of an old and aristocratic family, and conservative to the backbone. the slightest word of this somewhat empty-headed young man outweighed the most profound arguments of the intellectual contraras. she was very dissatisfied with her parent, with what she considered his nonsensical theories of perfect equality. miss contraras was quite content to take the world as she found it. she did not trouble her head about the woes of the humbler classes. as long as she could live softly and have plenty of new frocks, she was happy. why should people with brains trouble to keep those who could not keep themselves? contraras came over to be present at a special meeting of the english section of the brotherhood, held, as usual, at maceda's restaurant. the great _coup_ had failed, but he was still undaunted, still full of resolution. there were only about half a dozen choice spirits present. maceda, for this special occasion, had delegated to his manager the task of looking after his comfortable little establishment. both lucue and the restaurant keeper greeted their chief with a sorrowful air. maceda voiced their mutual sentiments. "the iron must have entered into your soul, comrade. so near to success, and then to fail. and then, the fate of poor valerie, so bright, so clever, so full of enthusiasm for the cause!" the leader's voice broke a little as he answered: "alas, poor valerie--a fate worse than death. how she will eat out that brave heart of hers in their loathsome dungeons!" he passed his hand across his brow, as if in that action he was trying to brush away a painful reminiscence. but the next moment he was again the man of action, of indomitable resolve. "i think never again will i sanction the use of women in enterprises of this character, however willing they may be to take the risk and pay the penalty of failure. and now to our immediate business. how are things progressing in this country?" both lucue and maceda, but especially the former, who had only the business of the propaganda to attend to, gave him a most encouraging report. there was great dissatisfaction amongst the masses, a growing hatred of the class that neither toils nor spins. many of the most influential leaders were in secret sympathy with their doctrines, and only waited for a favourable moment to come out into the open. the fanatical contraras rubbed his hands; his brow cleared. he had forgotten valerie delmonte, that too responsive instrument upon whose warped feelings he had so skilfully played. she was only a martyr in a righteous cause. he listened eagerly to the details with which lucue supplied him. he could see already the dawn of that universal revolution which, if it came to pass, would claim him for one of the earliest victims. and then, when lucue had finished, the elder man spoke a little impatiently. "but why did we fail in madrid? have you suspicions of anybody? after all, the secret was very carefully guarded. how many of us knew?" lucue shrugged his shoulders. "is it much use going into that? we might all suspect each other. moreno was over here a short time ago. we conversed together on the subject." "ah, moreno was over here, was he?" the chief's brows knitted; he spoke in a suspicious voice. "do you know on what business?" "purely private affairs, i understand. something connected with his journalistic profession. but we were discussing the matter, and he suggested a very reasonable theory." "and what was that?" interrupted contraras. "his opinion was, to start with, that women should never be employed in enterprises of this character, because they had not sufficient nerve. his theory is that there was no treachery from our side, because if there had been they would never have allowed her to get inside the palace, they would have arrested her at the entrance." "it seems feasible," interrupted the chief. "he thinks that valerie got nervous and overstrung, that she detached herself too early from her chaperon, that the numerous spies who were watching got suspicious of her movements, and arrested her on the off-chance." contraras nodded his head, as he added, "it might be so, and it is quite true that women lose their heads more quickly than men, when things are not running exactly in the beaten track." "of course, as you may or may not know, our friend moreno, although a very excellent fellow, is one of the vainest of men. he boasted that if you had given him the job he would have done it successfully. and i have sufficient faith in him to believe he would." lucue spoke quite warmly. it was not a little to the journalist's credit that he had succeeded in persuading this rather suspicious man both of his ability and his _bona fides_. contraras reflected for a few moments. "i have great confidence in your judgment, lucue. you have known this man for a long time, eh?" "for six or seven years, i should say." it was perfectly true. moreno had been coquetting with lucue and the brotherhood, and half a dozen other things, for quite a period. "and you trust him implicitly? he is making much money?" "a little more than he used. but he tells me he is miserably paid, that the capitalists he works for suck his brains to swell their own enormous profits." contraras smiled. "he has brains, and he is poorly paid--in a word, he enriches the drones. he seems just our man, lucue." "i am sure of it," answered the other warmly. "good! i shall be seeing him in madrid very shortly. we will try his mettle. he shall have the management of the next _coup_." "and that, i take it, is the removal of that busy marplot, guy rossett?" "yes," said contraras shortly. "but keep it to yourself and maceda as much as possible. i won't have too many people in the know this time." lucue and maceda promised to observe silence. the other members of the fraternity had drawn respectfully aside while the three chiefs conversed together. jaques, otherwise mr jackson, arrived presently, and was informed of the conversation. he was always to be trusted. he was as great an enthusiast as contraras himself. "how is my little violet getting on?" he asked. "so far she has done good quiet work," was the chief's answer. "of course, she never had the grit of poor valerie, nor, i think, the enthusiasm." "possibly, possibly," agreed jaques, who was very fond of his pretty protegee. "but still, if she is a bit slow, she is certainly very sure. and, although we must all make sacrifices in the great cause when we are called upon, i am glad to think she is not in the position of poor valerie. ah, what a fate!" the cunning old rogue, who was making money hand over fist, sighed in real or pretended sorrow for the unhappy young frenchwoman whose ardent sympathies had landed her in such a plight. jaques had given plenty of money to the cause, but, like contraras, he had never greatly risked his precious skin. the next day contraras returned to madrid. he could safely leave jaques and lucue to look after affairs in england. after the failure of the great _coup_, there had been a little re-shuffling. somoza, the educated young fisherman, a burning and a shining light in the brotherhood, and alvedero were stationed at fonterrabia. zorrilta was superintending affairs at barcelona. contraras, the wealthy and magnificent, still maintained his quarters in the palatial hotel in the plaza de canovas. moreno and violet hargrave were in madrid also, but they had lodgings in a humbler quarter of the city. moreno often smiled when he thought what humbug it all was, this profession of democracy and equality. because they were, comparatively speaking, humble members of the brotherhood, they were stowed away in poky lodgings. contraras had a suite of rooms at the best hotel in the city, and went occasionally to court. "what a gigantic farce," he thought. "as if you could alter the primeval instincts of human nature by a carefully adjusted system of labels. and, as for tyranny and oppression, if i were a spanish citizen, i would rather live under the rule of alfonso than that of contraras. if the old man got into the saddle, there would be plenty of shooting. he would make short work of those who didn't agree with him, without the formality of a trial." contraras was a wary old schemer. he had many visitors at his hotel-- men of light and leading in the city, the aristocratic connections of his wife. but he never allowed his anarchist subordinates to come near him. he was much too clever for that. he went to them. on the evening of the day on which he returned to madrid, he met moreno and violet hargrave at the journalist's modest lodgings, by appointment. moreno, who was always fond of indulging in humorous jokes, would have liked to apologise to the wealthy contraras for receiving him in such humble surroundings, with some caustic allusion to the time when all men would be equal. but he forbore. contraras was too serious a person to indulge in humour himself, or tolerate it in others. besides, moreno had special reasons for ingratiating himself with his chief, whom he privately stigmatised as a "silly old visionary," and whose chances against the organised forces of law and order he was not prepared to back. contraras was very gracious to his two subordinates. whatever his defects, he had the true note of spanish courtesy. he turned first to violet hargrave. "i have just come from london, where i met our dear friend jaques. he inquired most tenderly after you, and sent through me his kindest remembrances." violet looked very pleased. if there was a tender spot in her heart, it was for the old moneylender, who had been a father to her. she flushed a little; quite a soft light came into her eyes. "that was very sweet of him. he really has a heart of gold, dear old juan," she said softly. moreno looked at her curiously. he had not got to the bottom of her yet. a hardened adventuress, pure and simple--that was how he had first judged her. but her kindly mention of jaques, "an old shark of the first water," as the young journalist classed him in his own mind, revealed something that he had not credited her with. had she, after all, a capacity for emotion, did she possess any real womanly instincts? contraras next addressed himself to moreno. "i also met in london our comrade lucue, the man who introduced you to the brotherhood." "ah, what a great man!" cried moreno, with the fervour of a new and enthusiastic recruit. "the only man, in my opinion, who would ever be worthy to wear your mantle, if ever it should drop from your shoulders. may that day be far distant!" he added piously. contraras, ever pleased with a little judicious flattery, became more amiable than ever. the glance he bent upon the young journalist was almost a benevolent one. "lucue speaks very highly of you, and i have always had the greatest confidence in his judgment. he tells me, and, as he did not say it in confidence, i can repeat it, you expressed your opinion that we made a mistake in allowing valerie to undertake the great _coup_. you added that if you had been entrusted with it, you would have brought it off." the question was a supreme test of moreno's modesty, but he was not taken aback. he turned the situation lightly, and with his usual assurance. "i am certain i should have done," he said composedly. contraras frowned a little. he had been very fond of valerie delmonte; he rather resented any criticism of her. "why are you so sure, comrade moreno? valerie was very clever, very subtle. are you more so?" the young man looked at his chief calmly. "i daresay she was much more clever, much more subtle than i am, but she lacked my nerve." "ah, there is something in that," agreed the older man. "a woman may have the brains of a man, i agree, that is to say, an exceptional woman, but come to a crucial moment, and the brain will be dominated by the nerves. it is the penalty of the sex." the chief ruminated over these remarks a few seconds before he spoke again. "well, moreno, i am going to give you a chance to prove your mettle. you know the next item on our programme is the removal of guy rossett." moreno nodded. he had shot a side glance at violet hargrave, but she had betrayed no sign of emotion. and yet, in the flat at mount street, she had alluded to the project in a spirit of exultation. "it was the first item on the programme, and was shelved in favour of the later one. what do you mean precisely by the term `removal'?" contraras shrugged his shoulders. "that i have not yet quite decided upon. the first thing is to get hold of him." "that is quite easy," said moreno in his usual quiet way. contraras looked at him sharply. "you speak very confidently, moreno. you appreciate the difficulties in the way? to get him either out of the embassy or his flat will be a tough job. he is well guarded, you may depend." "i appreciate all the difficulties, contraras. to get him out of the embassy is well nigh impossible. to get him out of the flat is the easier job of the two. well, i will undertake to bring him to any place you like." "your methods?" queried contraras, in the same sharp tone. moreno bowed with great courtesy to his titular chief. "pardon me for declining to answer that question at present. i am a very new member of the brotherhood, i have my spurs to win, i have to justify your confidence in me, or i should rather say the confidence of lucue, for you know next to nothing of me. i want to show you that i am a little more clever, a little more subtle than perhaps you imagine. when i deliver him to you, i will possibly explain my methods, not before." "you will undertake to deliver him to us?" questioned contraras, still speaking a little doubtfully. he was, however, very much impressed by the young man's confident manner. "on any day, at any hour you like to name," was the reassuring reply. "i will settle the details later on," said contraras, his voice betraying a note of agitation. "anyway, i depute you and violet hargrave to see that this thing is carried out." moreno looked at the woman. "you will be my assistant in this?" he asked. her voice was very low. "of course, if the chief wishes it." contraras spoke in his most authoritative tones. "you have no choice. you took a solemn oath to obey the orders of the chiefs of the organisation. as your chief, i call upon you to do this." violet hargrave bowed her head submissively. she remembered there was a terrible penalty attached to hesitation or disobedience. she also recalled the fate of valerie delmonte, and her face went white. moreno thought to himself, "infernal old scoundrel, he doesn't care whom he sacrifices. and in the meanwhile he is living in luxury, and getting us poor devils to run all the risk." aloud he said: "and what will you do with guy rossett when i deliver him to you?" contraras reflected before he spoke. "as i told you just now, i have not quite made up my mind." he paused, and struck an imposing attitude. "you know, moreno, it has always been my policy to strike at the head and heart of this effete system. the humbler members, mere tools of their superiors--well, i would be inclined to show them mercy." "i know that has always been your generous inclination," replied moreno, masking his loathing of this fanatical creature. "well, i should say rossett was quite a tool, very poor game." "i am inclined to agree with you. still, he is active and dangerous, and a menace to the cause. he knows too much about many of us." "quite true, quite true," said moreno. he had an object in humouring this venerable visionary. he wanted to know what was at the back of his mind, what dark scheme he was working out in his subtle brain! contraras spoke in a meditative voice. "these englishmen are strange people; they have a great respect for their word." "it is one of their peculiarities," admitted moreno drily. "if he would take a solemn oath to resign his post, and withdraw himself from any further opposition to the brotherhood, i think i would accept that, and let him go free." "and that, i am afraid, is just the thing you will never induce an englishman to do," said moreno bluntly. "i know the type too well. better death than dishonour, all that sort of thing, you know. it's in their blood." contraras smiled oddly. "in that case, i think there is only one course. it is regrettable, it is repugnant to me. but the safety of the brotherhood is my first consideration." moreno had learned all he wanted to know. he knew now what was working in that fanatical brain. "i understand," he said quietly. he added with the most apparent sincerity. "the safety of the brotherhood must always be the first thought. i quite agree." shortly after, contraras left to return to his luxurious hotel. he parted from the two with many expressions of good-will. he was disposed to confirm lucue's high opinion of moreno. there was a confident bearing about the young man that impressed him. he was sure that he would prove a valuable recruit to the brotherhood. they were left alone--the man quite young, the woman still comparatively youthful. moreno spoke first. "we have been assigned a post of honour, but it is also a post of danger. don't you think so?" mrs hargrave shivered. "when i remember poor valerie delmonte, i must confess i don't feel very brave. but you spoke very confidently of being able to snare rossett." "i am quite confident of being able to do that." "i suppose you won't tell me why you are so confident of the fact?" moreno shook his head. "no, i certainly won't. in this business, never let your left hand know what your right hand doeth." she shot at him a rather coquettish glance, which thrilled him just a little. she was certainly a very pretty and fascinating woman. "i am to be trusted, really, you know," she pleaded. "i can be as close as wax." "i will tell you some day," he answered. he thought, as he spoke, the day might be a very long one. "but you will tell contraras and everybody then," she pouted. "i thought we had been such pails." it suddenly dawned upon him that this adventuress, as he had always looked upon her, was falling in love with him. he was not quite certain that he was not falling in love a little bit with her. if he were only certain that in her were the makings of a good woman! but he would require great proofs of that. he broke a rather embarrassed silence. "well, now you will get your revenge on guy rossett." "i am not quite so certain that i want it now." she spoke in a very low voice. "but this is a very different mood from that of a certain night at mount street." "i know, i know." violet spoke a little wildly. "i was very bitter then. things seemed changed somehow." "you know that guy rossett has to be `removed,' in obedience to the orders of our revered chief?" "i know, i know." suddenly she burst into bitter sobbing. presently she lifted her tear-stained face. "you think i am a very bad woman, don't you? i am not really, only hard and embittered with my early life. if i could only find somebody who really cared for me!" it was a clear invitation. moreno took her hand in his; he could not disguise from himself that he was attracted. but, at the same time, he did not lose his head. could he trust her--would she be useful for his purpose? "suppose that i said i cared?" violet sobbed afresh. "no, no, it is impossible. you would never believe in me, you could never trust me." and then moreno leaned forward and spoke to her, very gravely. "i think, before you leave, we must have a little conversation together. when it is finished, i will tell you whether i trust you or not." chapter nineteen. it was a long time before moreno spoke. it was evident that, in her present mood, violet hargrave was perfectly prepared to be made love to. it was not the first time it had occurred to him that this woman of mixed nationality like himself was more than usually attracted by him. but although he was one of the vainest men living in certain respects, notably in the high estimate in which he always held his own capacity and mental qualities, still in other matters he was fairly modest. every man can get some woman to fall in love with him, or, at any rate, to profess affection. some day he would come across a woman whom he could impress sufficiently to justify him in asking her to marry him. for the time would come when, like other men, even of the most roving disposition, he would want to say good-bye to adventure and settle down quietly. as regards his personal appearance, he was quite a just and dispassionate critic. he could look in the glass and sum up the general verdict that would be passed by the opposite sex. in appearance he was rather short and squat. his features, somewhat irregular, were redeemed from plainness by a pair of very brilliant dark eyes, and a perfect set of strong white teeth. still, he had not the makings of a don juan in him; he was not the sort of man whose path was likely to be strewn with conquests; not the type of man, like guy rossett, for instance, on whom most women looked with a kindly eye, even on their first acquaintance. under ordinary circumstances, violet's attitude could hardly be misinterpreted. the misty eyes raised appealingly to his, the soft inflections in her voice said as plainly as words could speak that here was a woman fully ready to respond at the first hint from him. but he was very cautious; he felt he must proceed warily. he must never forget that this woman had been, more or less, an adventuress from her girlhood, the associate of desperate and callous men, who hesitated at nothing in the attainment of their objects. not so very long ago, she had exulted in the prospect of obtaining a terrible revenge, through others, on the man she had once professed to love. why had she turned, so suddenly, as it seemed, from this vengeance, had almost said that she no longer desired revenge? in an ordinary woman, the explanation would have been simple. rossett now no longer aroused her love or hate because she had found a new lover in moreno himself. always severe to himself in these purely personal matters, he asked himself the candid question if a woman so attractive as she undoubtedly was could turn from a man of rossett's physical advantages to himself? years ago, he had loved devotedly a simple little girl with no pretensions to beauty or great charm, possessing only average intelligence. he had loved her for her sweet nature, her good qualities. and she had loved him in return. but this was an entirely different matter. that poor little dead girl, still a very tender memory, had never had any other lover but himself. violet hargrave, with her powers of fascination, her blonde prettiness, her quick mentality, must have had many men at her feet. did the foreign element in him attract the foreign element in her? it might be so, but he could not be sure of that. in many things he was more spanish in thought and feeling than english, but she was more english than spanish in everything, of that he was convinced. had he been a few years younger, had he enjoyed less experience in life, have thought less over social problems, anarchist doctrines might have appealed to him very strongly. he was sure they would never appeal to her, the english strain in her was too strong. when he spoke, he put a very leading question. "i have often wondered whether you are really greatly interested in the cause? whether the methods we have to adopt are not somewhat repugnant to you?" he looked at her very steadfastly. he judged her to be an admirable actress, but he noticed she did not meet his glance. perhaps if she was really attracted by him, as she seemed to be, it was not so easy to act. she spoke a little nervously. "what on earth has made you think that? why should i be here if i were not sincere? i joined the organisation of my own free will. juan jaques, who was my sponsor, explained everything very clearly to me." moreno spoke lightly. "you have been comfortably off for many years, and you are more english than foreign. anarchist principles don't take deep root in english soil." "my father was a revolutionary at heart, although not an active one," she said hastily. "of course, i don't suppose my mother thought about such things." moreno was too polite to say he did not believe in that little fiction about her father. this derelict parent might not have had a very great love for the social institutions from which he did not derive much benefit. but from a natural dissatisfaction with his own lot to professed anarchy was a long step. "it runs in the blood naturally, then, that i can understand. still, it puzzles me. women don't think very seriously about these matters--or, at any rate, only a very few of them. and women of means are hardly likely to be keen on upsetting a world in which they are fairly comfortable, in favour of a new dispensation, the results of which are highly problematical." she fenced with him a little longer. "why are you so sure i was comfortably off?" she queried. "i think you must have forgotten what you told me. your husband made money through the good offices of jaques, and that money became yours. that flat in mount street was not run on a small income." she became a little agitated under his rather ruthless cross-examination and suggestions. "the money that was left me was not enough to support me comfortably. i had to turn to other means of support." "you would not care to tell me what they were?" of course he had heard rumours about that mount street establishment, that the host and hostess were suspiciously lucky at cards. the man, at any rate, had always suffered from a shady reputation. she became more agitated. "yes, it is quite simple. i have been well-paid for my services by jaques." "then it was simply money that induced you to join the brotherhood?" "money, combined with my natural sympathy with their objects." moreno appeared to accept the explanation. jaques seemed, then, to have paid her handsomely for her services. but evidently he had not paid her enough, or she would not have trafficked with guy rossett and sold him important secrets. it was some little time before he spoke again, and then he played his trump card. he left the personal question altogether, and spoke of the affairs of the brotherhood. "there must be traitors amongst us," he said presently, "although i do not think they are to be found in spain--so many things have leaked out." "yes." she spoke very quickly. "there was the failure of poor valerie delmonte. do you think there was treachery there?" "i rather doubt it," answered moreno easily. "my theory has always been that she drew suspicion on herself by her inexperience, her amateurish methods, her suspicious movements when she got inside the palace. if the job had been entrusted to me, with my steady nerves, i think i should have been successful. i boasted as much to contraras, and i suppose that is the reason he has given me this job." violet was silent. moreno went on smoothly. "but with regard to that affair of guy rossett, the information he got which, for the moment, frustrated our plans--that was clearly the work of a traitor. that happened just before i came on the scene, but lucue has told me all about it." he was looking at her very steadfastly. she was trying to avoid his gaze, but those dark, brilliant eyes of his drew her lighter ones with a certain mesmeric power. she was not acting well to-night, he thought. there crept into her troubled glance a shadow of fear. she tried to speak lightly, indifferently, but her voice broke and faltered, in spite of her efforts at self-control. "it seems like it. have you any idea of who the traitor was?" moreno rose and walked over to the little shabby sofa, typical furniture of the mean lodgings, where she sat. he flung at her the direct challenge. "it is not a question of having an idea. _i know_." she laughed hysterically; she hardly knew what she was saying. "you think you know, perhaps. probably you have been led to suspect the wrong person." "not when i have seen the actual memoranda, not when i have a photograph of that memoranda in my possession, to show, if necessary, to contraras." for a moment she seemed paralysed. all the colour left her cheeks. she could only clasp her hands together and moan piteously. moreno spoke quite gently. "violet hargrave, you haven't an ounce of fight left in you. give in and own you sold those secrets to guy rossett. i expect he paid a handsome sum for them--and probably because you sold them, you lost your lover." she burst into a fit of wild sobbing, and threw herself at his feet. she had not the heroic spirit of valerie delmonte. she was only a very commonplace adventuress, with a well-defined streak of cowardice in her. like madame du barri, she would have gone shrieking to her death. "are you going to denounce me?" she cried wildly. moreno was a kind-hearted man. to an extent he despised her, although he was half in love with her. but he could not but feel pitiful at the spectacle of her abject terror. "that depends," he said quietly. "it is quite possible we may drive a bargain." reassured by those conciliatory words, the woman speedily recovered her self-control. she rose from her kneeling attitude, brushed the tears from her eyes, adjusted her disordered hair. as long as she escaped with life, she would consent to any bargain. what a mercy she had not been found out by contraras, or some equally implacable and fanatical member of the brotherhood! in that case, her shrift would have been very short. this black-browed young man, born of a spanish father and an english mother, had this much of the english strain in him, that he leaned to the side of mercy. "how did you find out? how did you suspect?" were her first words when she had recovered herself. "what first led me to suspect. i cannot quite explain--it was a sort of intuition. when i once suspected, the rest was easy." "it was guy rossett who gave me away?" she cried, and an angry gleam came into her eyes. moreno looked at her a little contemptuously. "and you have known this man well, and loved him! are you not a shrewder judge of human nature than to harbour such a suspicion? why, rossett is just that dogged type of englishman who would rather be put to death than betray a confidence." violet looked a little ashamed. "but if not from him, how did you obtain your information?" "that is my affair. when i have quite assured myself that i can trust you, i may tell you. it suffices that i hold in my possession the photograph of that document. by the way, you lost your head when you gave yourself away like that, because your handwriting is known to several. why did you not dictate your notes to rossett and let him take them down? then you might never have been found out." "i know i was a fool," answered mrs hargrave bitterly. "i suppose all criminals make mistakes at times. i was terribly hard up at the time; i was in desperate want of money. i pitched a plausible tale to guy, which i believe he swallowed at the time." "ah!" said moreno. then it was not on account of this transaction that rossett had broken off his relations with the pretty widow. the cause was no doubt to be sought in isobel clandon. "i pretended that a spaniard whom i had known in my youth was ready to turn traitor for a handsome consideration. he had confided these notes to me, and i had taken them down from his dictation. of course, i ought to have done as you said. i was so eager for the money that i did not stop to think." "and you are quite sure that rossett did not suspect you of being a member of the brotherhood?" "positive. he is not naturally a suspicious man, not like yourself, for instance. i pretended that this man, the imaginary man, was an old friend of my father's, that he hated the whole business and wanted to get out of it." moreno pondered a little. in spite of her physical attraction for him, she was a pretty bad character on her own admissions. she had owned her great obligations to jaques, who, rascal that he was, had been her benefactor. and yet she was ready to sell jaques and the cause he held so dear at heart for ready money. was it possible a woman with this unscrupulous and predatory temperament could ever become a reformed character? and, if so, was he a likely man to bring about the miracle? passionate love might work wonders, but was she not a little past the age of passionate love? "let us come to the point," he said abruptly. "i take it you no longer desire what we politely term the `removal' of guy rossett." "certainly not. i don't know that i ever really desired it." moreno raised his hand. "don't forget that night at the flat in mount street." "i know, i remember perfectly. i gave you a very bad impression of myself. i was angry, humiliated, bitterly jealous of a younger woman who had taken him from me." moreno thought he understood. "and the spanish side came uppermost then. you could have run a dagger into the pair of them at the moment, and perhaps after you had done it, sat down and wept because you had killed the man. i don't suppose you would have shed a tear over the woman--she would have deserved her fate." violet was recovering herself fast. the colour had come back into her cheeks. she looked at him admiringly. "you seem to know something of my delightful sex," she said, with a faint smile. then, after a pause, she added, "and you want to drive a bargain with me, don't you, in return for not denouncing me?" moreno assented. "you are quite right. you say you now don't desire the removal of rossett. to be quite frank, no more do i." she looked at him sharply out of her tear-dimmed eyes, red and swollen with the violent weeping of a few seconds ago. "but why do you wish to spare guy rossett? you say you are a true son of the revolution." "i am," replied moreno composedly. "i am with certain reservations." he felt he could not trust her too implicitly yet. "when they attack the heads, the great ones of the earth, i am in the heartiest sympathy with them--that is the way to obtain our ends. but i draw the line at making martyrs of the small fry, the mere instruments, the humble tools of the despotic system. i think it brings justly deserved odium on us. to remove an inoffensive person like rossett is worse than a crime, it is a blunder. if the great revolution is coming, how can a feeble person like him stop its impetuous course?" violet hargrave listened attentively. when was he going to suggest the terms of the bargain? "will you help me to save young rossett? it is the price of my silence. you can do nothing against me. whatever innuendos or suggestions you might make, if such occur to you, would not weigh a moment against the damning evidence in my possession. they would only regard it as the frantic action of a guilty woman, trying to save herself from their vengeance." he thought it wise to rub this in. he did not believe she was very clever, but she was cunning. he wanted to divert her from any idea of attempting to readjust the situation to her own advantage. "you show me very plainly you don't trust me, by that somewhat unnecessary warning," she said a little bitterly. she was hardened enough, heaven knows, but the distrust of the man she had grown to care for hurt her more than she liked to admit. "i am not quite a fool," she added. "you have the whip-hand of me, i admit frankly. if i thought to match myself against you, and bluff it out, i recognise i have not a dog's chance. yes, i am willing to help you to save guy rossett. but i would like you to tell me why you want so particularly to save him." but moreno was not going to satisfy her curiosity. he gave her one of his reasons. "because i hate and loathe unnecessary bloodshed," was his answer. there was a long pause, during which violet's mind worked rapidly. "are you very sure in your own mind how you are going to save him?" she asked presently. "i mean, so that we can go scot free." self would always be the predominating note, he thought. well, perhaps that was natural. he tapped his forehead significantly. "i have pretty well worked it out here; there are just a few details to be filled in. with regard to our own personal safety, i feel pretty confident i shall be unsuspected. as for you, i will guarantee it. i will see you every day, as my plans develop." violet rose to say good night. there was genuine admiration in her glance, as she held out her hand. "i believe you are a very wonderful man," she said, in a tone of conviction. moreno smiled, well pleased with the delicate flattery. he always had a kindly feeling towards anybody who praised his mental qualities. he saw her to the door. as they parted, she lifted up her face. "you would not care to kiss a woman of my type--bad, selfish and unscrupulous as you know me to be?" she said boldly. for a second he hesitated. then he kissed her lightly on her pale cheek. he could not bring himself yet to touch her lips. "anyway, you are going to do a good thing now," he said, as she passed out. chapter twenty. during these hot summer days, poor isobel lived in alternate fits of hope and despair. guy visited her every day. he always seemed very cheerful, full of optimism. the forces of law and order must prevail; these mad anarchists, well organised as they were, and led by a most subtle brain, would be defeated very shortly. once the heads were taken, the movement would suffer a speedy eclipse. but at times it seemed to her quick woman's ears that there was a false note in his cheerful tones, that he was not so certain of the ultimate result as he pretended to be. moreno came to see her every day too. she had conceived a strong liking for the black-browed young journalist. moreover, she had great faith in him. guy, of course, was her king amongst men. but she was not so hopelessly in love that she could not distinguish between the mental qualities of the two. guy was very intelligent; he could snatch at the hints of others, and shape his course of conduct on them. but moreno had a subtle and penetrating intellect, a touch of genius. and he combined inspiration with prudence. if guy talked cheerfully when he was with her, her fears and doubts revived on his departure. could he look all round and accurately weigh the chances? when moreno told her to cheer up, and promised that all would be well, she felt fortified. there was a sureness, a quiet power about the man that raised her drooping spirits. "you are sure that you will beat them, you are sure you will save guy?" she had asked him one day, when he had paid her a brief visit. he spoke very deliberately. "i have outwitted them once before." he looked a little gloomy as he spoke. it went to his kind heart to recall that on that occasion he had been compelled to sacrifice that charming young frenchwoman, valerie delmonte. "i shall outwit them again, believe me." his tone was very confident, isobel thought. "i am sure you will lay your plans very well, mr moreno, but there is many a slip between the cup and the lip." "the cup will be carried to the lip this time without a falter." he spoke with his usual assurance. "guy always speaks cheerfully too," said isobel in her simple, straightforward way. "but i am always doubtful when he leaves me." "mr rossett does not know what is in my mind, miss clandon. and i dare not tell him, for reasons of my own. an incautious confidence might utterly frustrate my plans. i have many helping me, but i have close at hand a man who is going to be my ablest lieutenant. strange to say, you know that man well." isobel lifted up to him startled eyes. "you bewilder me. i know so few people." "it will surprise you to know that your cousin, maurice farquhar, is in madrid at the present moment and waiting to receive my instructions." "maurice farquhar in madrid," she repeated. "but why, but why?" "because i wanted to have a clear-brained, resolute englishman at my right hand when the supreme moment came. i can't tell you everything. i daren't tell you much. would you like to see your cousin? i can manage it easily." "oh, i would love to," replied isobel promptly, speaking according to the dictates of her open, generous nature. then she suddenly remembered that guy had expressed a certain jealousy of her cousin. "but perhaps at the moment it might not be prudent. i am here _incognita_, in a rather difficult situation. later on, perhaps." from those few halting phrases moreno guessed accurately enough what was passing in her mind. she had a sincere affection, for her cousin, who came over here to assist her at the greatest personal inconvenience, but she would not see him, in case his visit might give offence to her lover. it is ever thus that self-sacrifice in love is rewarded. "i quite understand," he said. "well, farquhar is a white man, a man in a thousand. i wrung a promise from him some time ago that he would come over here to help me to save mr rossett. you can guess why he gave me that promise." "yes," answered isobel in a low voice. "i can guess why he gave that promise. he wanted to help me. you cannot tell how mean i felt. oh, i think i will risk it. please ask him to come and see me." moreno shook his head. "no, better perhaps not to risk it. farquhar is content to do good by stealth. we cannot be quite sure of the view the other gentleman might take of it, if it came to his ears." isobel felt a frightful coward, but she was relieved by moreno's words. guy was very impetuous, and terribly jealous. she could not afford to rouse his suspicions. he left her feeling a little miserable and self-reproachful. why could not men take a broad-minded view of things? even if a girl were engaged, it did not follow that she should not be allowed to have a faithful friend. she had grown very weary of madrid. she hated the place and the people, under these most unhappy circumstances. the good-natured mrs godwin had done her best to amuse her. she had taken her to the museo del prado, and pointed out to her the masterpieces of velazquez, murillo, ribera, and other great masters. she had conducted her down the animated plaza of the puerta del sol. she had shown her the view from the campillo de las vistillas. they were too late for the carnivals, and to a bull-fight isobel would not go. moreno betook himself to the quarters of farquhar. he found the self-contained young barrister stretched on a sofa, reading a french novel. farquhar was already a bit tired of it. on reflection, he was not quite certain if he had not been a little foolish in giving that promise. he had rushed over to spain to help a man whose only claim to consideration lay in the fact that he had taken away from him the woman he wanted for his wife. then he thought of the charming lady mary, her warm praise and flattering words. when he got back to england and recounted his exploits to her, he was sure he would receive a very warm welcome. farquhar threw down his book, and lighted a cigar. "well, my good old friend, things seem devilish slow just now. is anything going to happen shortly?" moreno nodded. "things will happen the evening after to-morrow. curb your impatience till then." "you have got it all cut and dried, then?" "i think so. to-morrow morning i will take you to my excellent friend, the chief of police, and tell him that you represent me. we will spend an hour or two afterwards in discussing our plans. i have just come from miss clandon." "ah," said farquhar, with affected carelessness--that name had still power to thrill him in spite of lady mary. "did you find her quite well?" "perfectly, so far as her health is concerned, but naturally full of doubts and fears. i told her you were here; she was, of course, greatly surprised. she expressed a wish to see you." this, of course, was not the strict truth, but moreno always wanted to make everybody feel happy and comfortable. a pleased expression stole over the man's face. "oh, she said that, did she?" moreno did not answer the question directly. "i pointed out to her that, in my opinion, such a meeting might be extremely dangerous, and that it is essential you should lie very low." farquhar accepted the glib explanation. moreno had one of the greatest qualities of a diplomatist, that he could impress nearly everybody with his sincerity. next morning the two men interviewed the chief of police, or rather the chief of police, by appointment, interviewed them at the journalist's modest lodgings. in the course of that interview many things were explained at length. moreno, always cautious, always on the look out for accidents, stood by the window, keeping a vigilant eye on passers-by. farquhar and the chief sat at the far end of the room. suddenly he espied the tall form of contraras nearing the house. he bundled his guests into his bedroom. "the old devil! i had a suspicion he might turn up. it is quite safe here. if i give a loud whistle, get under the bed." but contraras did not pay a long visit; he did not even sit down. he had only strolled round to ascertain that things were going right. moreno, resolutely avoiding details, assured him that everything was in train. on the evening after to-morrow guy rossett would be delivered into the hands of the brotherhood, to be dealt with as they thought fit. contraras left well pleased. moreno was certainly a great acquisition to the organisation. when he was well out of sight the two men were brought out of the bedroom. the chief of police shook his fist vindictively in the direction of the vanished figure. "i was itching to take the old scoundrel straight away, mr moreno," he remarked. the journalist smiled. "impetuosity never pays, senor. you could have proved nothing if you had. a most respectable old gentleman, highly connected, through his wife, with some of the best families in the country, pays me a visit to inquire after my health, or perhaps to ask me to dinner at his hotel. you would not have made much out of it." the chief cooled down immediately under this sensible speech. "you are a very wonderful man, mr moreno. you never allow yourself to be carried away by your feelings." he turned with his gracious foreign manner to farquhar. "i understand, sir, you are an old and trusted friend. i have no doubt that you have the same faith in his judgment that i have." on the afternoon of that same day moreno went to see violet hargrave. he found her restless and agitated. "you are sure that it will take place to-morrow night?" was her first question. "i am as near sure as can be. unless a miracle happens he will be brought up for judgment before the brotherhood," was the answer. violet shuddered; her face went pale. "i have never been at one of their so-called trials, but it must be very horrible." "neither have i," said moreno. "i see, like myself, you don't anticipate much pleasure from it." "but you are going to save him, and i am going to help you," she cried a little wildly. "you have not yet told me where i come in. the time is very short; you will have to speak soon. why not speak now?" the young man hesitated for a few seconds. how far should he trust her? caution whispered not too far. he spoke in a gloomy tone. "to tell you the truth, i am not so sure of saving him as i was. certain things have happened which i had not taken into my calculations." he was watching her narrowly as he spoke, to note the effect upon her of his words. she clasped her hands together and her voice faltered. "i am so in the dark, you tell me nothing, you keep everything to yourself." she betrayed great agitation, but it was evident she believed his statements implicitly. as a matter of fact, nothing had occurred to upset moreno's plans in the slightest degree. but there was something about which he had been a little careless. he had pretty well secured his own safety, but he had not secured hers. "i cannot enter into a lot of explanations, when circumstances alter from hour to hour," he said rather brusquely. "on the whole, i believe i have a better chance of saving him without your co-operation. now, please don't ask me why i think so!" "i won't, if you don't wish it," she answered submissively. "i wish you could have been more frank with me, have given me some hint of what you intend to do. it will be very terrible for me to be there, waiting on the turn of events." "you no longer desire revenge on guy rossett?" he asked, looking at her intently. "not that sort of revenge," she answered truthfully. "for i suppose murder is in their thoughts." "i had a brief talk with contraras this morning; he came round to my rooms. he was more frank than he usually is with his subordinates. i suppose he was pleased with the way in which i have, so far, conducted the affair. he thought there would be great difficulty in getting hold of guy rossett." "will you tell me, some day, why you found it easy?" "some day, perhaps; but not now. to return to our chief, contraras. he explained to me that he has no desire to remove this particular man, if he will fall into line with him. he frankly admits that he is too small game, that he would willingly avoid the odium that such a deed would bring on the brotherhood." "ah!" violet was very interested now. "if he falls in line with him. what does that mean? or perhaps," she added bitterly, "this is another secret that is to be hidden from me." "not at all," was the quiet answer. "i usually keep my own secrets, but i am not always so scrupulous with regard to the secrets of others. contraras is going to offer him two alternatives. the first is--that he resigns from the embassy on some plausible pretext, and takes a solemn oath to do nothing to thwart the brotherhood. the other alternative you can guess." "death," whispered violet in a hollow voice, and her face went as pale as death itself. "and you can guess what rossett's answer will be?" said moreno, breaking the long silence that ensued between them after those significant words. "i know, i know. he will choose death unless you can save him." the woman in her came suddenly to the surface, and she broke down, sobbing bitterly. moreno looked at her steadily, but not unkindly, for a long time. her emotion was genuine enough, he was sure. when the dastardly project had only been in the air, so to speak, she had not realised the full horror of it. now that it was so near to accomplishment, she was stricken with remorse for having harboured such revengeful thoughts. and presently he spoke again, in his quiet, deliberate accents. "by a miracle, it may be possible for me to save him, if i can outwit them." "but cannot i help you? i know you do not believe much in the capacity of women, but i am not a fool, and in a crisis i believe my nerves are steady." "if it is fated for me to succeed, i shall work better alone. but i would like to ask you this. it will be a cruel ordeal for you to be present at this scene, especially at the moment when you will be called upon to record your vote as a member of the tribunal. would you be grateful to me if i could save you from that ordeal?" "very, very grateful," sobbed the now sorely stricken woman. "but it is impossible. i have seen contraras to-day also. he has arranged for alvedero to fetch me to-morrow evening, and to conduct me to that awful house where we are to receive guy rossett. it is impossible." "there are very few things in this world that are impossible," said moreno, a little impatiently. "the first idea i had was that you would frankly throw yourself on the compassion of contraras, tell him that this man was once your lover, and that you must be excused from taking part in the proceedings on the ground of common humanity. the question is, would that work? it might, because i know he is still remorseful about the fate of valerie delmonte. but we are not sure. he is a fanatic of the deepest dye." "absolutely a fanatic," corroborated mrs hargrave. "to him the welfare of the brotherhood is the one supreme thing. all human emotions must be subjugated, all consideration of friends and kindred swept aside, in pursuance of the one object." "i am disposed to agree," said moreno. "contraras' sense of compassion is a doubtful factor. we will discard that idea. will you put yourself in my hands?" she looked intently into the dark, brilliant eyes, and what she read there reassured her. he was stubbornly secretive, but he was kind and sympathetic. he was ready to do his best to serve her. "yes, i will," she said bravely. "i trust you." "good! then that is settled. alvedero will call for you to-morrow evening as arranged, but you will not accompany him. he will come alone." "how are you going to do it?" she cried breathlessly. her admiration for the man had grown intensely during the last few days. he seemed able to work miracles. "i shall keep that a secret too till to-morrow morning, when i shall be round at eleven o'clock. if i told you now, you would not get a wink of sleep all night." "i shall not get a wink of sleep as it is," she answered. but, secretive to the last, moreno was not to be tempted into frankness. "oh, yes, you will. anyway, you have promised to leave yourself in my hands. to-morrow morning, at eleven o'clock." they shook hands without another word. moreno walked back to his lodgings reflecting deeply. was this attractive young woman really as bad as he had once thought? was she not rather a creature of strong passions, of impulses at times ungovernable? were there not in her womanly feelings that could be cherished and fostered by sympathetic companionship? anyway, if she followed his instructions, as she had agreed to do, he had secured her safety as well as his own. and that would be a result that would gratify him exceedingly. chapter twenty one. save for a little impatience when his judgment was impugned, or somebody questioned the soundness of his opinions, moreno was a person of the most equable temperament, and singularly light hearted. still, when he rose early on the morning of this most eventful day, he was in a very grave and thoughtful mood. he was playing a most difficult and dangerous game. even if he outwitted the heads of the brotherhood in spain, as he believed he had, there were left lucue and jaques in london to deal with. to save guy rossett was easy enough; he had laid his plans very surely for that. but he had to save himself; also to save violet hargrave. in the plausible explanations that he would have to give in london, there must be no loopholes. very early in the morning he again saw the chief of police, in company with farquhar, who, now that the game was really afoot, was manifesting a keen interest in the chase. they rehearsed the whole programme all over again. "he is cleverer than i thought him at first," whispered moreno to his friend, when the somewhat stout man had withdrawn for a moment to consult one of his lieutenants. "but i am relying on you to be constantly at his elbow. you are not the sort of chap to get flurried." and farquhar, although quite a modest kind of fellow, agreed that he could keep his head in a crisis. at eleven o'clock, as arranged, moreno presented himself at the lodgings of mrs hargrave. she looked very pale and there were dark rings round her eyes. it was easy to see that her night had been a perturbed one, that she had enjoyed little or no sleep. "you don't look in the best of health and spirits," he said kindly. "well, you have got to pluck up your courage. you will want plenty of it for the next twenty-four hours." she shivered. "if i had known what i was going in for, i would never have yielded to jaques' entreaties," she said. "you never quite know what you will be landed in when you embark in these enterprises," answered the young man lightly. "well, now to business. you still want to be absent from that meeting to-night?" "if it is possible." "it is quite possible, but you will have to rely on me, and you will also have to be very brave." he drew out of his pocket a small, dark-coloured phial, and held it to the light. "you see that?" he asked. "well, this is going to be your salvation." she shivered again; her nerves were very much out of order this morning, but she began to have an idea of what he was driving at. "this is the secret, then, that you would not tell me last night. i have got to drink that." moreno nodded. "yes, if you are still in the same mind as you were yesterday. in my very early youth i was apprenticed to a chemist. i very soon began to acquire a wide knowledge of drugs, and their properties." they had been standing up to the present. moreno pointed to a sofa. "we can talk more easily if we sit. i have mixed you here a perfectly safe compound, which i want you to drink before i leave, so that i can take away the bottle; i would prefer it was not left lying about, you understand." she looked at him with eyes that expressed a great dread. "what effect will it have?" "i tell you frankly, about six or seven o'clock you will feel very ill, very faint. those effects will last for the best part of twelve hours. a few hours after that, you will be yourself again." she looked at him narrowly. a dark wave of suspicion had suddenly flowed over her mind. she was sure, with a woman's certain intuition, that he was greatly attracted by her. still, she knew nothing of him. he had always said he was a true son of the revolution, although she had somewhat distrusted the sincerity of that statement. had he, out of loyalty to the cause, revealed her perfidy to the others, and was he deputed by them to poison her, under the specious pretext of falling in with her wishes? he read her dark, suspicious thoughts as easily as he would have read an open book. he spoke very gently, very tenderly. she had never appealed to him more than at this moment, with her pallid cheeks, the haunting dread in her eyes. "my dear, you do not trust me, i can see. your mind is full of doubt. well,"--he stooped and kissed her--"i can only swear by everything i hold holy and sacred that i would not harm a hair of your head." no man could lie so convincingly as that. she reached out her hand for the phial, then quickly drew it back. "i am afraid, dreadfully afraid," she murmured in a low voice. "i don't know which to choose--to do as you tell me, or to go to that dreadful place." "you must do as you please." he was still very patient, but she noticed there was certain coldness in his tones. she rose and walked about the room, wringing her hands. her faith in him had come back, but she was still terribly afraid. "it is early yet," said moreno presently. "you have plenty of time to send round for contraras and throw yourself on his compassion. implore him not to compel you to assist at the condemnation, perhaps the execution, of a man who was once your lover. he might give way." "the last thing he would do. he would think it a grand opportunity to show my fidelity to the cause. he would let nothing stand in the way if it were his own case." "i agree with you now, as i agreed before when we discussed the same subject. well, you must make up your mind. take this, or wait here and come with alvedero to-night." she was still wavering, torn between faith and doubt. "but you said you could save guy rossett? is there any doubt of that?" and moreno, out of his pity for the woman, out of the attraction she possessed for him, spoke more plainly than he had intended. "there is great doubt of it. but even if i could save guy rossett, i doubt if i could save you. i might just manage to save myself." and then, in a flash, she understood, and she doubted him no longer. "i think i see it all now. you are no more a true son of the cause than i am a true daughter. i sold their secrets for money. you would betray them for the same or other reasons." moreno did not answer the question directly. he simply held out the phial towards her. "will you drink this or not?" she took it from him with a hand that no longer trembled. "yes. i believe you now. i will drink it. tell me what i am to do, how i am to act when it begins to take effect!" "do nothing; just go to the sofa and lie down. in a few minutes you will be in a stupor, unconscious of everything and everybody. your landlady may come up; she can act as she pleases; send for a doctor or not. probably nobody will come near you till alvedero arrives. when he sees you there he can act as he pleases too. anyway, he cannot stay long, because he will be due at the brotherhood, to whom he will bring the report of your sudden indisposition." "and if the doctor comes, will he not guess?" "_dios_!" cried moreno, relapsing for a moment into spanish. "you will be all right again long before the doctor has picked out your complaint from a dozen others that present similar symptoms." she pulled the cork from the phial, and sniffed the contents. "there is no odour about it," she said. "not the slightest," said moreno quietly. "i took very good care of that. i think if the doctor does come, he will be a bit puzzled." she drank it down at a draught, then handed the bottle back to her visitor. "i am an adventuress, and you are--well--a sort of adventurer," she said, with a half smile. "well, you see, i have given you a proof of my faith in you." moreno put the phial into his pocket, and held out his hand. "good-bye, for the present." "shall i see you to-morrow?" asked violet, as she walked with him to the door. "you say after about twelve hours i shall be myself again." "certainly," answered moreno in his gayest tones. yes, whatever betided, he would certainly see her to-morrow. her trust in him had made her more attractive than ever. on the whole, he thought he had done the best for her. once he had thought of getting the spanish police to arrest her on some false charge, with the view of letting her go as soon as all danger was past. but this method did not appeal to him very greatly. the police would be glad enough to get her into their clutches, but they might not care to let her go so easily. too much explanation might be necessary, in the first instance. and he always had to adapt his policy to the view of what questions might be asked in london. the tale she could tell now would be a very simple one. she had been attacked in the evening by a sudden seizure, had relapsed into unconsciousness, and been oblivious of everything till the next day. that evening, at a few minutes past nine, alvedero knocked at the door of the mean house. when the landlady opened it, he perceived that she was in a great state of agitation. "oh, senor, something terrible has happened. i went up to madame's room some twenty minutes ago to take her her light supper. she was lying unconscious on the sofa, and she has not stirred since." alvedero bounded up the stairs, entered the room, and gazed on the motionless form. at first he thought she was dead, but, on placing his hand on her heart, he could feel it beating. "she looks as if she were dying. have you sent for a doctor?" "yes. after i found that i could not pull her round, i sent my husband to fetch the first one he could find." alvedero reflected as to his course of action. humanity suggested that he should stay by the side of the insensible woman till the doctor arrived and gave his opinion as to her condition. but humanity was not a particular trait of the brotherhood, and alvedero had less of it than most of his colleagues. he had arrived five minutes late, he had spent another five minutes here. if he left at once, he would still be keeping his colleagues waiting. besides, what good could he do? if the woman were not dying, as he believed she was, it must be hours before she recovered. the tribunal must sit without her. the sooner he went and informed them of that fact, the better. he turned towards the door, and spoke a few parting words to the landlady. "don't leave her till the doctor comes. obey whatever instructions he gives promptly. i will see that you are rewarded for your trouble. i will look in again, in two or three hours from now. please sit up for me." he walked a few yards down the street, where a cab was waiting. he entered it, and was driven rapidly towards an obscure portion of the town. half an hour later, isobel was sitting in the drawing-room alone. her host and hostess had gone on a visit to some friends who lived near. guy had not been able to see her during the day, as he had been too busily engaged with his official duties. he had sent round a note telling her he would be round in the evening. she was expecting him every minute. there was a tap at the door. the maid entered with a letter. the gentleman who had brought it was waiting in the hall for an answer. she recognised the handwriting on the envelope at once as that of her cousin maurice farquhar. she tore it open and read the few pencilled words: "i want to see you at once. it is about mr rossett." she rushed out into the hall, and almost pulled him into the room. "what is it?" she panted in terrified tones. "something has happened to guy." "yes, something has happened, but you must be brave and not give way. he has been trapped by the anarchists, but all will be well. moreno assures me that he has foreseen this, and will save him. i am now on my way to do my share in the rescue." "can i come with you?" pleaded isobel. "i shall go mad if i stop here." for a moment farquhar hesitated. he had a rooted dislike to women mixing themselves up in dangerous or turbulent scenes. but her pleading eyes overcame his scruples. "yes, if you wish. i have a cab waiting. leave a note for these people here explaining your absence. then put on your things and come with me. i will explain everything as we go along." a few minutes later they were seated side by side, driving to the same obscure quarter of the town which had long ago been reached by the spanish anarchist alvedero. chapter twenty two. in a shabby room of a shabby house in one of the most obscure quarters of madrid, five men were sitting. they were contraras, zorrilta, alvedero, moreno, and somoza, the fisherman of fonterrabia. "guy rossett is here, in the next room." it was moreno who spoke. he turned to the fisherman. "has he recovered sufficiently, somoza?" the fisherman answered: "he was still a little bit dazed a minute ago when i left him. the handkerchief i flung over his face contained a pretty strong dose. i should give him another ten minutes before he is ready to face the tribunal." the capture had been easy. guy rossett, reckless of danger, had left his flat to pay his visit to isobel clandon. two members of the secret police were ready to accompany him. fearful of compromising isobel, he had rather roughly dispensed with their services. reluctantly, they had obeyed him. they agreed between themselves that an englishman was always pig-headed, a bit of a dare-devil, and inclined to take risks. guy walked carelessly along. he was in rather good spirits. he had received that day a cheerful note from moreno that everything was going well, that very soon the heads of the anarchist movement in spain would be laid by the heels. of course, in this letter, moreno did not explain his methods. if he had done so, guy might not have been in quite such high spirits. for at this moment, playing his very difficult game of saving guy rossett, saving himself and violet hargrave, and also snaring the anarchists, moreno could only give his full confidence to one man, his old friend and companion, maurice farquhar. as a matter of fact, rossett never knew what had really taken place that night. he was never told that moreno knew of his projected visit to isobel that evening, from a random remark of hers dropped in the afternoon--that he had set somoza and another tall biscayan fisherman to follow him, for the purpose of bringing him to the house where the heads of the anarchist movement were assembled in solemn conclave. rossett walked gaily along. he would have a precious hour with isobel. in a dark street two men came up behind him. one pinioned his arms from behind. somoza pressed a saturated handkerchief over his face. in a few seconds the unfortunate young diplomatist was drugged and helpless. a cab, driven by a member of the brotherhood, had crawled slowly after the two men. as soon as the driver saw what had happened, he drove rapidly up. the two powerful men lifted the inert body into the vehicle. he was partially recovered when they halted at the house where the tribunal of five was sitting to pronounce judgment on the man who had dared to thwart their plans. they locked him in a room adjoining that in which contraras was presiding over the deliberations of his five trusted lieutenants. after locking him in securely, somoza went to report the matter to moreno. his colleague, the other biscayan fisherman, remained on guard outside the closed door, for fear of untoward accidents. rossett was a powerful man. contraras, with his fine intellectual face, his hair in places turning from iron-grey to white, looked the embodiment of dignified justice. perhaps, in his warped and fanatical mind, he believed he was. he spoke in his most judicial accents. "nobody shall ever say that he has not had a fair trial, when brought up before the tribunal of the brotherhood. we will wait an hour, if it is necessary, for this misguided young man to recover his senses." moreno, who had arrived the last of the party, looked round with a sudden start. "where is our comrade, violet hargrave?" contraras hastened to explain. "ah! of course you have not heard. alvedero went to bring her here, according to arrangement. he found her stretched on the sofa, motionless and inanimate. he thinks she is in a dying condition. he is going round to inquire after these proceedings are over." "this is very sad," said moreno, in his gravest manner. "and she is such a nice woman personally, and so devoted to the cause, through the influence of jaques. i wonder,"--he cast an inquiring look at alvedero--"if, by any chance, she drinks or drugs. many apparently nice women do!" alvedero shook his big head. "i doubt it. i should say a seizure of some sort. perhaps her heart is weak. she looks a little fragile." moreno, for obvious reasons, did not pursue the subject. violet hargrave's absence had evidently excited no comment, no suspicion. a quarter of an hour had elapsed. somoza was deputed to enter the locked room and ascertain the condition of the prisoner. contraras was resolved to proceed justly, according to his interpretation of the word justice. somoza returned after his inspection, and reported that the effects of the saturated handkerchief had worn off. guy rossett was in a sense clothed in his right mind. he was fit to face the tribunal. the members of the conclave assumed masks. somoza had worn a mask when he had entered the locked room. whatever happened, it was essential that guy rossett should not be able to identify any one of them. the prisoner, or captive, whatever he might be called, was brought in. in the cab he had been bound securely round the legs and wrists, but not painfully. he was assisted to a chair by the masked somoza, where he sat facing his judges. his face was a little pale, due to the effects of the chloroform, but his demeanour was firm. he felt himself in a very tight corner, but he had been assured so often by moreno that he need never despair. a good angel, in the shape of moreno himself, was watching over him. he cast his glance rapidly over the masked men confronting him. where was the black-browed young journalist whom he had known in old days? yes, there on the right, nearest to the door. had that position been chosen by accident or design? he recognised at once the short, squat figure. through the holes of the mask, he could see the gleam of those dark eyes. his demeanour would be more indomitable than ever. contraras opened the proceedings in his most judicial manner. "mr rossett, you will recognise that you are now at the mercy of the brotherhood, against whom for some time you have directed your activities." "quite true," replied guy rossett in his curtest manner. whatever fate was in store for him, he was not going to knuckle under to this crew of bloodthirsty ruffians. contraras continued in his calm, imperturbable manner. "i cannot say that, up to the present, you have done us very much harm, but still you are a menace to our schemes, our aspirations." "i am pleased to hear that i am of sufficient importance to justify this mock tribunal." rossett waved his hand contemptuously at the masked men sitting in judgment on him. the eyes of contraras flashed through his mask. he took his position very seriously. "mr rossett, let me advise you, in your own interests, not to carry matters with too high a hand. kindly recognise your position. if you were seated in the calle fernando el santo, i admit you would be top dog. at the present moment the brotherhood, here in this obscure house, in this obscure quarter of the city of madrid, is in that enviable situation." a bitter retort was on rossett's lips, but he thought he perceived an almost imperceptible gesture of warning from the short, squat figure in the corner near the door. he temporised. "the fortunes of war, i admit, are with you, sir. i am sorry i have not the advantage of knowing whom i have the honour to address." contraras was, at heart, a gentleman. he felt the sting of the rebuke. "mr rossett, if you come into line with us to-night, i may deal with you quite frankly. before we separate, you may know as much about me as i do about you." there was an obvious movement on the part of zorrilta and alvedero. they evidently thought their chief was going too far. contraras hushed the incipient rebellion with an authoritative wave of his hand. "gentlemen, kindly leave me to deal with this matter. mr rossett and i will understand each other in a very few moments." he turned towards the young diplomatist, still undaunted in the midst of this hostile crowd. "mr rossett, you have much to lose by opposing us--perhaps life itself. by withdrawing from this unequal contest--and, believe me, it is unequal--you have much to gain." "i am not so sure it is unequal," answered guy rossett stubbornly. he had perceived too late the warning signal of moreno, anxious that the somewhat uncertain contraras should not be deflected from his present calm, judicial mood. but contraras kept his temper. "mr rossett, you are a young man, with life, a happy and prosperous life, before you. i know a great deal about you; it is my business to know much about other people. you are engaged to a very charming girl, you will inherit a great fortune from a wealthy aunt." "and, if you could establish your principles," broke in guy, speaking with some heat, "you might take away from me my fiancee--you would certainly rob me of my fortune." but contraras was still patient. he was trying to reason with this obstinate young man, whose bold bearing moved his admiration. "we cannot tell how the great revolution will shape itself ultimately. but let us deal with present facts. a charming girl is waiting for you, longing for the moment when she can be your wife." a shadow of pain passed over guy's face. to-night, he had set out to visit his beloved isobel, and he had been snared. contraras watched him narrowly through the holes of his mask. "and a big fortune will be yours very shortly. are you prepared to give up these advantages for the sake of thwarting the brotherhood?" "i rather think i am. but tell me what you propose. i admit you are arguing in a most temperate fashion. but you have something up your sleeve all the time." "i have," admitted contraras frankly. "mr rossett, believe me, i have no personal animosity against you, except as the tool of a decaying and effete system. come into line with me, and your bonds shall be loosed, and you shall go forth a free man." "your conditions?" queried rossett, in a hard voice. "take your solemn oath, no, give me your word as an english gentleman--i will accept that--that you will resign your position at the embassy, and take no further action against the brotherhood." he rose, and pointed at the door. "give me that promise, mr rossett, and you can walk out a free man." if guy hesitated a moment, his hesitation must be pardoned. in that swift instant he thought of isobel, anxiously waiting his arrival, his dear sister mary, anxious and troubled also, even his father, whose maladroit interference in his affairs had sent him into this hotbed of disaffection. then he spoke slowly and deliberately. "you invite me to dishonour myself, in order to secure my own personal safety. my answer is, _no_. do your worst." "you will not reconsider that decision, mr rossett?" guy shook his head. "no, a thousand times, no. do what you like with me. i am a defenceless man. you can murder me here, and probably hush up your crime. but i shall be avenged--you can reckon on that." contraras rose, and paced the room in great agitation. he was a brave man himself; he admired the quality of bravery in others. fanatical and resolute as he was, it went against the grain to condemn this young englishman to death, because he would not accept the dishonourable terms offered to him. "mr rossett, i wish to spare you. the brotherhood does not condemn in haste." he turned to somoza. "take this gentleman to his room, and bring him here in a quarter of an hour. perhaps, by that time, he will take a more reasonable view of his position." "come, senor, if you please," said the obedient somoza, speaking through his mask in the most polite accents. a spaniard is always courteous, even if he is about to murder you. the fisherman bent down to assist his prisoner to rise, but before rossett was firmly on his legs, the short, squat figure of moreno got up from his chair. he laid his finger to his lips and looked round at the assembly. "silence, gentlemen, for a moment! i am sure i heard the sound of a whistle. yes, there is another one. did you catch it?" no, nobody had caught it, except moreno. he stole gently to the window, and pulled the blind an inch aside. he dropped it hastily, and staggered back in a state of extreme agitation. in that apparently unconscious movement he had drawn nearer to the door. "_dios_!" he cried, in a shrill voice. "the house is surrounded. there are dozens of men outside." the pulling aside of the blind was a signal he had arranged with his friend, the head of the police. the pretence of the whistle was a blind. there was a heavy trampling on the stairs. almost before he had ceased speaking, the locked door was burst open to admit the members of the police, with levelled revolvers covering the masked men. two of the unwelcome visitors seized somoza and handcuffed him. a third cut the secure but not painful ropes that bound rossett, and conducted him down the narrow staircase. a cab was waiting; his guardian bundled the young man in. was it a dream? isobel's soft arms were round him, isobel's soft voice was whispering to him. "my darling, you are safe. moreno has kept his promise." rossett was bewildered. no wonder! he had hardly yet recovered from the effects of the drug which had been administered by somoza. his head fell back on her shoulder. "isobel, my dear sweetheart! you here! what does it mean?" "it means that you are saved through moreno, and my cousin maurice farquhar." she felt it was no time to palter with the truth. "your cousin, maurice farquhar! what has he to do with it all?" she was pleased to note that there was no suspicion in his tones, only the expression of bewilderment. "oh, it would take hours to explain, but i will cut it as short as i can. my cousin and moreno are great friends. maurice has come over here to help him. i was expecting you to-night, as you will remember. maurice came round to explain that you had been kidnapped. he was coming on here, as moreno's lieutenant, to help the police. i implored him to take me along, to welcome you when you escaped from them. he consented, and here i am." guy clasped her in his arms. "you darling! and where is mr farquhar? i would like to thank him." isobel beckoned to a man standing a little way in the shadow. he advanced. "maurice, guy wishes to thank you for all your share in this night's work." the two men exchanged a cordial handshake. guy muttered his thanks. "i would like to tell you to drive off straight away," said farquhar. "but you must wait a minute or two. there will be a third occupant of this vehicle--our friend moreno, who is going to pass the night at the house of the chief of police. to-morrow he will go to england." in the room from which rossett had been conducted to his friendly guardian, the head of the police was taking the situation in hand. "masks off, if you please, gentlemen," he cried out in stentorian tones. the men turned hesitatingly to each other. but the levelled revolvers had an eloquence that was very appealing. they tore off their masks and flung them on the floor. the chief scrutinised them in turn, offering audible comments. "ah, contraras, the dark horse of the conspiracy, connected with the spanish nobility through your wife. i think i have met you at the court. alvedero--ah, for some time you have been suspect. zorrilta, i know you well. governor of the province of navarre." he pointed to somoza. "this gentleman i do not know. we shall find something about him later on." he turned to moreno, who preserved an impassive demeanour. "i have not the honour of knowing this gentleman, either," he said with a splendid disregard of the truth, for which moreno admired him immensely. "but no doubt i shall shortly atone for my ignorance. i shall have something to say to him later on." he turned to his subordinates. "handcuff them and take them along." moreno all the time had been edging nearer to the door. suddenly he pulled out a knife, and hurled himself at the man who was guarding it. the man went down before the apparently savage onslaught. moreno rushed down the stairs. "after him," yelled the chief. "don't let that man escape." three of the waiting men clattered down the stairs after the flying moreno. they returned a few moments later, crestfallen. they explained that he had flown like the wind, that they had lost him in the darkness. the chief swore roundly, and cursed them. "dolts, idiots!" he cried fiercely. "you have let him slip through your fingers. i believe he is the most dangerous man of the lot." he was certainly playing his part splendidly. it had, of course, all been rehearsed. the man on whom moreno had sprung had fallen down of his own accord. the men who had been dispatched to pursue him had lost him on purpose. farquhar met him at the door of the shabby house and piloted him to the cab in which guy rossett and isobel were seated. "here is the third passenger," he said. moreno got in and looked triumphantly at the two. "well, what do you think of the english secret service?" he cried in exultant tones. "mr rossett is saved, i have escaped without suspicion, and my good friend the chief of police will make a splendid haul upstairs. he played up splendidly. well, i think, after to-night the anarchist movement will have a big set-back in spain." the cab drove along. isobel was deposited at the godwins'. rossett was put down at his own flat. moreno was conveyed to the residence of the chief of police, where he was to pass the night. a telegram was awaiting guy. it was from his sister mary. "i was summoned to aunt henrietta this morning. she had passed away before i arrived." chapter twenty three. the next morning guy rossett and farquhar were admitted to a private audience of the king. a gracious message had been transmitted to moreno through the agency of the chief of police. it would not have been very politic on the part of that enterprising young man to show himself at the palace. his majesty thanked them both warmly for their services, and was very interested in the details which they gave him of that eventful evening. "i know england well, and love it," he said. "as long as she breeds such sons as you, she will always remain the first of great nations. last night's work was good. my poor country will have a more peaceful time now that we have laid these bloodthirsty scoundrels by the heels." moreno's overpowering impulse was to get back to england as quickly as possible. but there was a certain duty to perform first. he must pay his promised visit to violet hargrave. he called about eleven o'clock. he found her looking pale and languid from the effects of the powerful mixture he had given her. "pulling round?" he inquired as they shook hands. "i can see you are, but you won't be quite yourself for a few hours. well, tell me what happened. i arrived late at the meeting, and simply heard from contraras that alvedero had reported you were indisposed. but i learned no details, and, of course, did not press for any. did they fetch a doctor to you? if so, what is his verdict?" a faint smile spread over her pale face. "he has only left a few minutes ago. he came to the conclusion that i dosed myself with drugs. i allowed him to believe that i did. of course, i have never drugged in my life." "a very clever man, an ornament to his profession," remarked moreno drily. "still, how the devil should he guess, being totally ignorant of the circumstances? and the symptoms were precisely those which would have been produced by a long course of drugging." mrs hargrave laid her hand upon his arm, and spoke in a serious voice. "what of last night? there is nothing in the papers this morning. i have sent out for half a dozen. tell me what happened." "the brotherhood has been defeated again." he rehearsed the scene for her benefit, and came to the concluding portion. "just as they were about to remove rossett, i distinctly heard a low whistle, that was repeated a few seconds later. i just pulled aside the curtain, and saw that the house was surrounded. i had hardly put the blind back when the door was burst open and the police swarmed in. they cut rossett loose and took him downstairs. they covered us with revolvers, and made us take off our masks. the chief who was with them recognised contraras, zorrilta, and alvedero. myself and somoza he did not recognise." "ah!" violet hargrave drew a long breath. "you were the only one who escaped, then? how did you manage it?" "by a miracle. i always keep my head in a crisis. as soon as i heard them rushing up the stairs, i drew near to the door, hoping to escape in the confusion. it was, of course, a thousand to one chance. while all the attention was being concentrated on contraras and the others--of course the chief didn't expect to bag such a big game--i drew my knife, plunged it into the breast of the man guarding the door--i fear i killed him, poor fellow--flew down the stairs, knocked over another chap, and dodged through them." violet hargrave surveyed him critically. "i am afraid you haven't a very high opinion of my intelligence. that is the story you will tell to lucue, maceda, and jaques when we meet again in london. it does not impose upon me. you have escaped right enough, but you escaped with the connivance of the police." moreno bit his lip; he had presumed a little too much upon feminine incredulity. "at any rate, you are not in their clutches," he said quietly. "i saved you. don't forget that." she reached out her hand. "please forgive me. i am very grateful for what you have done. of course, if i had gone there you could not have saved me. i should have been taken with the others. you could save guy rossett and yourself, even your clever brain could not have taken in a third. i repeat, i am very grateful." moreno retained her hand in his. secretive as he was by nature, he felt that the time for dissimulation was past. "when we get to london--i am leaving to-night, and the sooner we make tracks the better--we will respect each other's secrets. i have still in my possession the photographed copy of that document which you sold to guy rossett." she drew away her hand from his with an indignant gesture. "oh, you think i am utterly, irretrievably base!" she cried bitterly. "you think i would betray you, after what you have done for me, saved me from death or a life-long imprisonment." she broke into wild sobbing. he put his arm round her, and drew her gently towards him, till her crying ceased. "my poor little violet," he whispered gently. "let us speak together quite frankly. you are, on your own showing, an adventuress, with, i believe, some very womanly instincts. well, i am not quite sure that i am very much better. you sold the cause for money. i sold it for money, too, plus conviction. i wonder if we could turn over a new leaf, lead a new life together?" "if i could find somebody who really cared for me," cried the pretty little blonde woman, still tearful. "jaques loves me, i am sure, but just with the love of a father." "well, i care for you," said moreno, and this time he spoke without any reservation. violet lifted her face to his, and their lips met. then she shivered. "but how can we escape from this horrible brotherhood? lucue and jaques are left. they will exact their pound of flesh. they will snare us into equally dangerous enterprises." moreno snapped his fingers. "bah! if i have outwitted contraras and the others, i will soon settle lucue's hash. as to poor old jaques, it won't take long to convince him that he is more safely employed in earning a hundred per cent, on his capital than in trying to blow up respectable people who have certainly never injured him. the fate of the others will frighten him." violet drew herself from his protecting arm, and dried her eyes. "i think, dear, i can really turn into a good woman," she said plaintively. "you see, i have never had a proper chance. when i married jack, and i was genuinely fond of him, i thought i had met a gentleman. can you guess what he really was?" "a card-sharper?" suggested moreno, with his uncanny facility of guessing conundrums. mrs hargrave nodded her blonde head. "you have hit it. a week after we were married he told me all about himself. we were to take an expensive flat in mount street, and he would bring people there. he spent three weeks in teaching me an elaborate system of signalling. as a rule, we played together, but he had another couple of confederates to ward off suspicion." "did you tell jaques of this?" "no, i was too ashamed. jaques is, of course, a rogue in his own way, but not that way. he was opposed to the marriage at first, and i was keen on it. i made out that jack was a man of good family, and well-off. i believed all he told me at the start. i didn't want to own that i had been taken in." "i quite understand," replied moreno. "by the way, of course you didn't know that poor old contraras is dead." "contraras dead? how did he die?" "it appears that he always carried some poisoned tablets in his pocket in case of accidents. before they handcuffed him--they are a bit slower here than in paris or london--he swallowed one of them, and died as they took him downstairs. poor old man! he was a terrible fanatic, but he was more honest than most of them. i don't suppose there will be much mourning in fitzjohn's avenue. i expect his family will be glad to have got rid of him." he kissed her very tenderly, as he bade her good-bye. "a new life, little woman, from to-day?" "a new life from to-day," she repeated softly, "as long as i am sure that you really care." "i do care," replied moreno, speaking with unusual fervour for a man of his cautious temperament. of the london section of the brotherhood little remains to be told. shortly afterwards lucue was stabbed to death in a violent quarrel with a brother anarchist. jaques and maceda, alarmed at the fate of their spanish colleagues, took but a perfunctory part in further propaganda. in twelve months' time the london section had ceased to exist as an active force. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ on a mellow october day, a few months after those thrilling events in madrid, isobel was married in the quiet little church on her uncle's estates. it was in this church that her father had been christened. her bridesmaids were lady mary and two cousins. her uncle, the head of the family, gave her away. for the head of the family and his wife had behaved quite properly on the occasion. they had insisted that she should be married from their house, that she should have the whole-hearted support of her kindred. such an arrangement suited her very well. her bereavement had been so recent that the idea of a fashionable wedding would have been repugnant to her. here in this quiet little church, where generations of clandons had been christened, many of them married, she gave herself to the man of her choice. with the advent of his great-aunt's considerable fortune, guy's brief fit of ambition died out. and it must be admitted that, although he had stuck gallantly to his post, and refused to show the white feather, his experience of diplomatic life had been more exciting than pleasant. so he severed his connection with the foreign office, having made up his mind to lead the easy and agreeable life of a man of wealth and position. they were to spend their honeymoon in italy. on their return, they would renovate aunt henrietta's charming country residence in hampshire and take a house in london, where they intended to spend a good deal of their time. for guy was very proud of his beautiful isobel, and he could see a time when she would become a very charming and popular hostess. the young couple drove away amidst the cordial greetings of the small company assembled. only a few intimate connections of the two families were present. moreno had been invited, but he had excused himself on some plausible pretext. he had no desire to thrust himself into an aristocratic _milieu_, to which he was unaccustomed. he sent the bride a very handsome present, with a card on which was written: "from andres moreno, as a souvenir of thrilling times in spain." while lord saxham was saying good-bye to the clandons, maurice farquhar conducted lady mary to the car which was to drive them back to ticehurst park, a distance of about fifty miles. "you will not forget that you are due to us on the twenty-fifth," she reminded him as they shook hands. "is it likely? i have been looking forward to it ever since you sent me the invitation." "i am looking forward to it, too," said mary softly, and a rather becoming colour swept over her cheek, making her look quite attractive. the earl joined them and mounted the car. he waved his hand cheerfully as they drove off. "not good-bye, but _au revoir_, farquhar. see you on the twenty-fifth." he watched the car drive out of sight, thinking of many things. he had loved isobel with all the fervour of first love, but isobel was gone from him. and mary was very sweet and attractive, and took no pains to conceal that she took great pleasure in his society. well--perhaps some day! but even in his secret thought the young and ambitious barrister could hardly bring himself to believe that a girl of mary's birth and long descent would give herself to a man who had only his brains to recommend him. still, this younger generation of the rossetts had a strange democratic strain in them. guy had chosen his bride from the small squirearchy. it was openly rumoured in the clubs that, having come into a snug little income from great-aunt henrietta, lord ticehurst had made up his mind to marry his chorus-girl, and defy his father. lady mary had also been well provided for from the same kind source. she might prove as democratic as the others. and, while farquhar was ruminating over all these things, isobel and her husband had set out on the first stage of their journey to the enchanted land of wedded romance. the end. new edition (enlarged) two pence the place of anarchism in socialistic evolution an address delivered in paris by pierre kropotkin translated by henry glasse an appeal to the young by pierre kropotkin price - - - d. william reeves charing cross road, bookseller limited. --london, w.c. .-- the place of anarchism in socialistic evolution part i. you must often have asked yourselves what is the cause of anarchism, and why, since there are already so many socialist schools, it is necessary to found an additional one--that of anarchism. in order to answer this question i will go back to the close of last century. you all know the characteristics which marked that epoch: there was an expansion of intelligence, a prodigious development of the natural sciences, a pitiless examination of accepted prejudices, the formation of a theory of nature based on a truly scientific foundation, observation and reasoning. in addition to these there was criticism of the political institutions bequeathed to humanity by preceding ages, and a movement towards that ideal of liberty, equality, and fraternity which has in all times been the ideal of the popular masses. fettered in its free development by despotism and by the narrow selfishness of the privileged classes, this movement, being at the same time favoured by an explosion of popular indignation, engendered the great revolution which had to force its way through the midst of a thousand obstacles both without and within. the revolution was vanquished, but its ideas remained. though at first persecuted and derided, they became the watchword for a whole century of slow evolution. the history of the nineteenth century is summed up in an effort to put in practice the principles elaborated at the end of last century: this is the lot of revolutions: though vanquished they establish the course of the evolution which follows them. in the domain of politics these ideas are abolition of aristocratic privileges, abolition of personal government, and equality before the law. in the economic order the revolution proclaimed freedom of business transactions; it said--"sell and buy freely. sell, all of you, your products, if you can produce, and if you do not possess the implements necessary for that purpose but have only your arms to sell, sell them, sell your labour to the highest bidder, the state will not interfere! compete among yourselves, contractors! no favour shall be shown, the law of natural selection will take upon itself the function of killing off those who do not keep pace with the progress of industry, and will reward those who take the lead." the above is at least the _theory_ of the revolution of , and if the state intervenes in the struggle to favour some to the detriment of others, as we have lately seen when the monopolies of mining and railway companies have been under discussion, such action is regarded by the liberal school as a lamentable deviation from the grand principles of the revolution. what has been the result? you know only too well, both women and men, idle opulence for a few and uncertainty for the morrow and misery for the greater number; crisis and wars for the conquest of markets, and a lavish expenditure of public money to find openings for industrial speculators. all this is because in proclaiming liberty of contract an essential point was neglected by our fathers. not but what some of them caught sight of it, the best of them earnestly desired but did not dare to realise it. while liberty of transactions, that is to say a conflict between the members of society, was proclaimed, the contending parties were not equally matched, and the powerful, armed for the contest by the means inherited from their fathers, have gained the upper hand over the weak. under such conditions the millions of poor ranged against a few rich could not do otherwise than give in. comrades! you have often asked yourselves--"whence comes the wealth of the rich? is it from their labour?" it would be a mockery to say that it was so. let us suppose that m. rothschild has worked all his life: well, you also, every one of you working men have also laboured: then why should the fortune of m. rothschild be measured by hundreds of millions while your possessions are so small? the reason is simple: you have exerted yourselves to produce by your own labour, while m. rothschild has devoted himself to accumulating the product of the labour of others--the whole matter lies in that. but some one may say to me;--"how comes it that millions of men thus allow the rothschilds and the mackays to appropriate the fruit of their labour?" alas, they cannot help themselves under the existing social system! but let us picture to our minds a city all of whose inhabitants find their lodging, clothing, food and occupation secured to them, on condition of producing things useful to the community, and let us suppose a rothschild to enter this city bringing with him a cask full of gold. if he spends his gold it will diminish rapidly; if he locks it up it will not increase, because gold does not grow like seed, and after the lapse of a twelvemonth he will not find £ in his drawer if he only put £ into it. if he sets up a factory and proposes to the inhabitants of the town that they should work in it for four shillings a day while producing to the value of eight shillings a day they reply--"among us you'll find no one willing to work on those terms. go elsewhere and settle in some town where the unfortunate people have neither clothing, bread, nor work assured to them, and where they will consent to give up to you the lion's share of the result of their labour in return for the barest necessaries of life. go where men starve! there you will make your fortune!" the origin of the wealth of the rich is your misery. let there be no poor, then we shall have no millionaires. the facts i have just stated were such as the revolution of last century did not comprehend or else could not act upon. that revolution placed face to face two opposing ranks, the one consisting of a hungry, ill-clad army of former serfs, the other of men well provided with means. it then said to these two arrays--"fight out your battle." the unfortunate were vanquished. they possessed no fortunes, but they had something more precious than all the gold in the world--their arms; and these arms, the source of all wealth, were monopolised by the wealthy. thus we have seen those immense fortunes which are the characteristic feature of our age spring up on all sides. a king of the last century, "the great louis the fourteenth" of mercenary historians, would never have dreamed of possessing a fortune such as are held by those kings of the nineteenth century, the vanderbilts and the mackays. on the other hand we have seen the poor reduced still more and more to toil for others, and while those who produced on their own account have rapidly disappeared, we find ourselves compelled under an ever increasing pressure to labour more and more to enrich the rich. attempts have been made to remove these evils. some have said--"let us give equal instruction to all," and forthwith education has been spread abroad. better human machines have been turned out, but these educated machines still labour to enrich others. this illustrious scientist, that renowned novelist, despite their education are still beasts of burden to the capitalist. instruction improves the cattle to be exploited but the exploitation remains. next, there was great talk about association, but the workers soon learned that they could not get the better of capital by associating their miseries, and those who cherished this illusion most earnestly were compelled to turn to socialism. timid, at the outset, socialism spoke at first in the name of christian sentiment and morality: men profoundly imbued with the moral principles of christianity--principles which it possesses in common with all other religions--came forward and said--"a christian has no right to exploit his brethren!" but the ruling classes laughed in their faces with the reply--"teach the people christian resignation, tell them in the name of christ that they should offer their left cheek to whosoever smites them on the right, then you will be welcome; as for the dreams of equality which you find in christianity, go and meditate on your discoveries in prison." later on socialism spoke in the name of governmentalism; it said--"since it is the special mission of the state to protect the weak against the strong, it is its duty to aid working men's associations; the state alone can enable working men to fight against capital and to oppose to capitalistic exploitation the free workshop of workers pocketing the entire value of the produce of their labour." to this the bourgeoisie replied with grapeshot in . it was not until between twenty to thirty years later, at a time when the popular masses were invited to express their mind in the international working men's association, that socialism spoke in the name of the people, and formulating itself little by little in the congresses of the great association and later on among its successors, arrived at some such conclusion as the following: all accumulated wealth is the product of the labour of all--of the present and of all preceding generations. this hall in which we are now assembled derives its value from the fact that it is situated in paris--this magnificent city built by the labours of twenty successive generations. if this same hall were conveyed amid the snows of siberia its value would be next to nothing. the machinery which you have invented and patented bears within itself the intelligence of five or six generations and is only possessed of value because it forms part of that immense whole that we call the progress of the nineteenth century. if you send your lace-making machine among the natives of new guinea it will become valueless. we defy any man of genius of our times to tell us what share his intellect has had in the magnificent deductions of the book, the work of talent which he has produced! generations have toiled to accumulate facts for him, his ideas have perhaps been suggested to him by a locomotive crossing the plains, as for elegance of design he has grasped it while admiring the venus of milo or the work of murillo, and finally, if his book exercises any influence over us, it does so, thanks to all the circumstances of our civilisation. everything belongs to all! we defy anyone soever to tell us what share of the general wealth is due to each individual. see the enormous mass of appliances which the nineteenth century has created; behold those millions of iron slaves which we call machines, and which plane and saw, weave and spin for us, separate and combine the raw materials, and work the miracles of our times. no one has the right to monopolise any one of these machines and to say to others--"this is mine, if you wish to make use of it you must pay me a tax on each article you produce," any more than the feudal lord of the middle ages had the right to say to the cultivator--"this hill and this meadow are mine and you must pay me tribute for every sheaf of barley you bind, and on each haycock you heap up." all belongs to everyone! and provided each man and woman contributes his and her share of labour for the production of necessary objects, they have a right to share in all that is produced by everybody. part ii. all things belong to all, and provided that men and women contribute their share of labour for the production of necessary objects, they are entitled to their share of all that is produced by the community at large. "but this is communism," you may say. yes, it is communism, but it is the communism which no longer speaks in the name of religion or of the state, but in the name of the people. during the past fifty years a great awakening of the working-class has taken place! the prejudice in favour of private property is passing away. the worker grows more and more accustomed to regard the factory, the railway, or the mine, not as a feudal castle belonging to a lord, but as an institution of public utility which the public has the right to control. the idea of possession in common has not been worked out from the slow deductions of some thinker buried in his private study, it is a thought which is germinating in the brains of the working masses, and when the revolution, which the close of this century has in store for us, shall have hurled confusion into the camp of our exploiters, you will see that the mass of the people will demand expropriation, and will proclaim its right to the factory, the locomotive, and the steamship. just as the sentiment of the inviolability of the home has developed during the latter half of our century, so also the sentiment of collective right to all that serves for the production of wealth has developed among the masses. it is a fact, and he who, like ourselves, wishes to share the popular life and follow its development, must acknowledge that this affirmation is a faithful summary of the people's aspirations. the tendency of this closing century is towards communism, not the monastic or barrack-room communism formerly advocated, but the free communism which places the products reaped or manufactured in common at the disposal of all, leaving to each the liberty to consume them as he pleases in his own home. this is the solution of which the mass of the people can most readily take hold, and it is the solution which the people demands at the most solemn epochs. in the formula "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" was the one which went straight to the heart of the masses, and if they acclaimed the republic and universal suffrage, it was because they hoped to attain to communism through them. in , also, when the people besieged in paris desired to make a supreme effort to resist the invader, what was their demand?--that free rations should be served out to everyone. let all articles be put into one common stock and let them be distributed according to the requirements of each. let each one take freely of all that is abundant and let those objects which are less plentiful be distributed more sparingly and in due proportions--this is the solution which the mass of the workers understand best. this is also the system which is commonly practised in the rural districts (of france). so long as the common lands afford abundant pasture, what commune seeks to restrict their use? when brush-wood and chestnuts are plentiful, what commune forbids its members to take as much as they want? and when the larger wood begins to grow scarce, what course does the peasant adopt?--the allowancing of individuals. let us take from the common stock the articles which are abundant, and let those objects whose production is more restricted be served out in allowances according to requirements, giving preference to children and old persons, that is to say, to the weak. and, moreover, let all be consumed, not in public, but at home, according to individual tastes and in company with one's family and friends. this is the ideal of the masses. but it is not enough to argue about, "communism" and "expropriation;" it is furthermore necessary to know who should have the management of the common patrimony, and it is especially on this question that different schools of socialists are opposed to one another, some desiring authoritarian communism, and others, like ourselves, declaring unreservedly in favour of anarchist communism. in order to judge between these two, let us return once again to our starting point, the revolution of last century. in overturning royalty the revolution proclaimed the sovereignty of the people; but, by an inconsistency which was very natural at that time, it proclaimed, not a permanent sovereignty, but an intermittent one, to be exercised at certain intervals only, for the nomination of deputies supposed to represent the people. in reality it copied its institutions from the representative government of england. the revolution was drowned in blood, and, nevertheless, representative government became the watchword of europe. all europe, with the exception of russia, has tried it, under all possible forms, from government based on a property qualification to the direct government of the little swiss republics. but, strange to say, just in proportion as we have approached nearer to the ideal of a representative government, elected by a perfectly free universal suffrage, in that same proportion have its essential vices become manifest to us, till we have clearly seen that this mode of government is radically defective. is it not indeed absurd to take a certain number of men from out the mass, and to entrust them with the management of _all_ public affairs, saying to them, "attend to these matters, we exonerate ourselves from the task by laying it upon you: it is for you to make laws on all manner of subjects--armaments and mad dogs, observatories and chimneys, instruction and street-sweeping: arrange these things as you please and make laws about them, since you are the chosen ones whom the people has voted capable of doing everything!" it appears to me that if a thoughtful and honest man were offered such a post, he would answer somewhat in this fashion:-- "you entrust me with a task which i am unable to fulfil. i am unacquainted with most of the questions upon which i shall be called on to legislate. i shall either have to work to some extent in the dark, which will not be to your advantage, or i shall appeal to you and summon meetings in which you will yourselves seek to come to an understanding on the questions at issue, in which case my office will be unnecessary. if you have formed an opinion and have formulated it, and if you are anxious to come to an understanding with others who have also formed an opinion on the same subject, then all you need do is to communicate with your neighbours and send a delegate to come to an understanding with other delegates on this specific question; but you will certainly reserve to yourselves the right of taking an ultimate decision; you will not entrust your delegate with the making of laws for you. this is how scientists and business men act each time that they have to come to an agreement." but the above reply would be a repudiation of the representative system, and nevertheless it is a faithful expression of the idea which is growing everywhere since the vices of representative government have been exposed in all their nakedness. our age, however, has gone still further, for it has begun to discuss the rights of the state and of society in relation to the individual; people now ask to what point the interference of the state is necessary in the multitudinous functions of society. * * * * * do we require a government to educate our children? only let the worker have leisure to instruct himself, and you will see that, through the free initiative of parents and of persons fond of tuition, thousands of educational societies and schools of all kinds will spring up, rivalling one another in the excellence of their teaching. if we were not crushed by taxation and exploited by employers, as we now are, could we not ourselves do much better than is now done for us? the great centres would initiate progress and set the example, and you may be sure that the progress realised would be incomparably superior to what we now attain through our ministeries.--is the state even necessary for the defence of a territory? if armed brigands attack a people, is not that same people, armed with good weapons, the surest rampart to oppose to the foreign aggressor? standing armies are always beaten by invaders, and history teaches that the latter are to be repulsed by a popular rising alone.--while government is an excellent machine to protect monopoly, has it ever been able to protect us against ill-disposed persons? does it not, by creating misery, increase the number of crimes instead of diminishing them? in establishing prisons into which multitudes of men, women, and children are thrown for a time in order to come forth infinitely worse than when they went in, does not the state maintain nurseries of vice at the expense of the tax-payers? in obliging us to commit to others the care of our affairs, does it not create the most terrible vice of societies--indifference to public matters? on the other hand, if we analyse all the great advances made in this century--our international traffic, our industrial discoveries, our means of communication--do we find that we owe them to the state or to private enterprise? look at the network of railways which cover europe. at madrid, for example, you take a ticket for st. petersburg direct. you travel along railroads which have been constructed by millions of workers, set in motion by dozens of companies; your carriage is attached in turn to spanish, french, bavarian, and russian locomotives: you travel without losing twenty minutes anywhere, and the two hundred francs which you paid in madrid will be divided to a nicety among the companies which have combined to forward you to your destination. this line from madrid to st. petersburg has been constructed in small isolated branches which have been gradually connected, and direct trains are the result of an understanding which has been arrived at between twenty different companies. of course there has been considerable friction at the outset, and at times some companies, influenced by an unenlightened egotism have been unwilling to come to terms with the others; but, i ask, was it better to put up with this occasional friction, or to wait until some bismarck, napoleon, or zengis khan should have conquered europe, traced the lines with a pair of compasses, and regulated the despatch of the trains? if the latter course had been adopted, we should still be in the days of stage-coaches. the network of railways is the work of the human mind proceeding from the simple to the complex by the spontaneous efforts of the parties interested, and it is thus that all the great enterprises of our age have been undertaken. it is quite true, indeed, that we pay too much to the managers of these enterprises; this is an additional reason for suppressing their incomes, but not for confiding the management of european railways to a central european government. what thousands of examples one could cite in support of his same idea! take all great enterprises such as the suez canal, the lines of atlantic steamers, the telegraph which connects us with north and south america. consider also that commercial organisation which enables you on rising in the morning to find bread at the baker's--that is, if you have the money to pay for it, which is not always the case now-a-days--meat at the butcher's, and all other things that you want at other shops. is this the work of the state? it is true that we pay abominably dearly for middlemen; this is, however, an additional reason for suppressing them, but not for believing that we must entrust government with the care of providing for our feeding and clothing. if we closely scan the development of the human mind in our times we are struck by the number of associations which spring up to meet the varied requirement of the individual of our age--societies for study, for commerce, for pleasure and recreation; some of them, very small, for the propagation of a universal language or a certain method of short-hand writing; others with large arms, such as that which has recently been established for the defence of the english coast, or for the avoidance of lawsuits, and so on. to make a list of the associations which exist in europe, volumes would be necessary, and it would be seen that there is not a single branch of human activity with which one or other does not concern itself. the state itself appeals to them in the discharge of its most important function--war; it says, "we undertake to slaughter, but we cannot take care of our victims; form a red cross society to gather up the wounded on the battle-field and to take care of them." let others, if they will, advocate industrial barracks or the monastery of authoritarian communism, we declare that the tendency of society is in an opposite direction. we foresee millions and millions of groups freely constituting themselves for the satisfaction of all the varied needs of human beings--some of these groups organised by quarter, street, and house; others extending hands across the walls of cities, over frontiers and oceans. all of these will be composed of human beings who will combine freely, and after having performed their share of productive labour will meet together, either for the purpose of consumption, or to produce objects of art or luxury, or to advance science in a new direction. this is the tendency of the nineteenth century, and we follow it; we only ask to develop it freely, without any governmental interference. individual liberty! "take pebbles," said fourrier, "put them into a box and shake them, and they will arrange themselves in a mosaic that you could never get by entrusting to anyone the work of arranging them harmoniously." part iii. now let me pass to the third part of my subject--the most important with respect to the future. there is no more room for doubting that religions are going; the nineteenth century has given them their death blow. but religions--all religions--have a double composition. they contain in the first place a primitive cosmogony, a rude attempt at explaining nature, and they furthermore contain a statement of the public morality born and developed within the mass of the people. but when we throw religions overboard or store them among our public records as historical curiosities, shall we also relegate to museums the moral principles which they contain? this has sometimes been done, and we have seen people declare that as they no longer believed in the various religions so they despised morality and boldly proclaimed the maxim of bourgeois selfishness, "everyone for himself." but a society, human or animal, cannot exist without certain rules and moral habits springing up within it; religion may go, morality remains. if we were to come to consider that a man did well in lying, deceiving his neighbours, or plundering them when possible (this is the middle-class business morality), we should come to such a pass that we could no longer live together. you might assure me of your friendship, but perhaps you might only do so in order to rob me more easily; you might promise to do a certain thing for me, only to deceive me; you might promise to forward a letter for me, and you might steal it just like an ordinary governor of a jail. under such conditions society would become impossible, and this is so generally understood that the repudiation of religions in no way prevents public morality from being maintained, developed, and raised to a higher and ever higher standard. this fact is so striking that philosophers seek to explain it by the principles of utilitarianism, and recently spencer sought to base the morality which exists among us upon physiological causes and the needs connected with the preservation of the race. let me give you an example in order to explain to you what _we_ think on the matter. a child is drowning, and four men who stand upon the bank see it struggling in the water. one of them does not stir, he is a partisan of "each one for himself," the maxim of the commercial middle-class; this one is a brute and we need not speak of him further. the next one reasons thus: "if i save the child, a good report of my action will be made to the ruler of heaven, and the creator will reward me by increasing my flocks and my serfs," and thereupon he plunges into the water. is he therefore a moral man? clearly not! he is a shrewd calculator, that is all. the third, who is an utilitarian, reflects thus (or at least utilitarian philosophers represent him as so reasoning): "pleasures can be classed in two categories, inferior pleasures and higher ones. to save the life of anyone is a superior pleasure infinitely more intense and more durable than others; therefore i will save the child." admitting that any man ever reasoned thus, would he not be a terrible egotist? and, moreover, could we ever be sure that his sophistical brain would not at some given moment cause his will to incline toward an inferior pleasure, that is to say, towards refraining from troubling himself? there remains the fourth individual. this man has been brought up from his childhood to feel himself _one_ with the rest of humanity: from his childhood he has always regarded men as possessing interests in common: he has accustomed himself to suffer when his neighbours suffer, and to feel happy when everyone around him is happy. directly he hears the heart-rending cry of the mother, he leaps into the water, not through reflection but by instinct, and when she thanks him for saving her child, he says, "what have i done to deserve thanks, my good woman? i am happy to see you happy; i have acted from natural impulse and could not do otherwise!" you recognise in this case the truly moral man, and feel that the others are only egotists in comparison with him. the whole anarchist morality is represented in this example. it is the morality of a people which does not look for the sun at midnight--a morality without compulsion or authority, a morality of habit. let us create circumstances in which man shall not be led to deceive nor exploit others, and then by the very force of things the moral level of humanity will rise to a height hitherto unknown. men are certainly not to be moralised by teaching them a moral catechism: tribunals and prisons do not diminish vice; they pour it over society in floods. men are to be moralised only by placing them in a position which shall contribute to develop in them those habits which are social, and to weaken those which are not so. a morality which has become instinctive is the true morality, the only morality which endures while religions and systems of philosophy pass away. let us now combine the three preceding elements, and we shall have anarchy and its place in socialistic evolution. emancipation of the producer from the yoke of capital; production in common and free consumption of all the products of the common labour. emancipation from the governmental yoke; free development of individuals in groups and federations; free organisation ascending from the simple to the complex, according to mutual needs and tendencies. emancipation from religious morality; free morality, without compulsion or authority, developing itself from social life and becoming habitual. the above is no dream of students, it is a conclusion which results from an analysis of the tendencies of modern society: anarchist communism is the union of the two fundamental tendencies of our society--a tendency towards economic equality, and a tendency towards political liberty. so long as communism presented itself under an authoritarian form, which necessarily implies government, armed with much greater power than that which it possesses to-day, inasmuch as it implies economic in addition to political power--so long as this was the case, communism met with no sufficient response. before it could, indeed, sometimes excite for a moment the enthusiasm of the worker who was prepared to submit to any all-powerful government, provided it would release him from the terrible situation in which he was placed, but it left the true friends of liberty indifferent. anarchist communism maintains that most valuable of all conquests--individual liberty--and moreover extends it and gives it a solid basis--economic liberty--without which political liberty in delusive; it does not ask the individual who has rejected god, the universal tyrant, god the king, and god the parliament, to give unto himself a god more terrible than any of the preceding--god the community, or to abdicate upon its altar his independence, his will, his tastes, and to renew the vow of asceticism which he formerly made before the crucified god. it says to him, on the contrary, "no society is free so long as the individual is not so! do not seek to modify society by imposing upon it an authority which shall make everything right; if you do, you will fail as popes and emperors have failed. modify society so that your fellows may not be any longer your enemies by the force of circumstances: abolish the conditions which allow some to monopolise the fruit of the labour of others; and instead of attempting to construct society from top to bottom, or from the centre to the circumference, let it develop itself freely from the simple to the composite, by the free union of free groups. this course, which is so much obstructed at present, is the true forward march of society: do not seek to hinder it, do not turn your back on progress, but march along with it! then the sentiment of sociability which is common to human beings, as it is to all animals living in society, will be able to develop itself freely, because our fellows will no longer be our enemies, and we shall thus arrive at a state of things in which each individual will be able to give free rein to his inclinations, and even to his passions, without any other restraint than the love and respect of those who surround him." this is our ideal, and it is the ideal which lies deep in the hearts of peoples--of all peoples. we know full well that this ideal will not be attained without violent shocks; the close of this century has a formidable revolution in store for us: whether it begins in france, germany, spain, or russia, it will be an european one, and spreading with the same rapidity as that of our fathers, the heroes of , it will set all europe in a blaze. this coming revolution will not aim at a mere change of government, but will have a social character; the work of expropriation will commence, and exploiters will be driven out. whether we like it or not, this will be done independently of the will of individuals, and when hands are laid on private property we shall arrive at communism, because we shall be forced to do so. communism, however, cannot be either authoritarian or parliamentary, it must either be anarchist or non-existent; the mass of the people does not desire to trust itself again to any saviour, but will seek to organise itself by itself. we do not advocate communism and anarchy because we imagine men to be better than they really are; if we had angels among us we might be tempted to entrust to them the task of organising us, though doubtless even _they_ would show the cloven foot very soon. but it is just because we take men as they are that we say: "do not entrust them with the governing of you. this or that despicable minister might have been an excellent man if power had not been given to him. the only way of arriving at harmony of interests is by a society without exploiters and without rulers." it is precisely because men are not angels that we say, "let us arrange matters so that each man may see his interest bound up with the interests of others, then you will no longer have to fear his evil passions." anarchist communism being the inevitable result of existing tendencies, it is towards this ideal that we must direct our steps, instead of saying, "yes, anarchy is an excellent ideal," and then turning our backs upon it. should the approaching revolution not succeed in realising the whole of this ideal, still all that shall have been effected in the direction of it will remain; but all that shall have been done in a contrary direction will be doomed to disappear. it is a general rule that a popular revolution may be vanquished, but that, nevertheless, it furnishes a motto for the evolution of the succeeding century. france expired under the heel of the allies in , and yet the action of france had rendered serfdom impossible of continuance, all over europe, and representative government inevitable; universal suffrage was drowned in blood, and yet universal suffrage is the watchword of the century. in the commune expired under volleys of grapeshot, and yet the watchword in france to-day is "the free commune." and if anarchist communism is vanquished in the coming revolution, after having asserted itself in the light of day, not only will it leave behind it the abolition of private property, not only will the working man have learned his true place in society, not only will the landed and mercantile aristocracy have received a mortal blow, but communist anarchism will be the goal of the evolution of the twentieth century. anarchist communism sums up all that is most beautiful and most durable in the progress of humanity; the sentiment of justice, the sentiment of liberty, and solidarity or community of interest. it guarantees the free evolution, both of the individual and of society. therefore, it will triumph. printed by the new temple press, norbury, london, great britain. trobe university (australia) transcriber's notes. . page scan source: arrow.latrobe.edu.au/store/ / / / / /public/b .pdf (la trobe university) . the diphthong oe is represented by [oe]. the indian bangle the indian bangle by fergus hume author of "the mystery of a hansom cab" london sampson low, marston & company _limited_ st. dunstan's house fetter lane, fleet street, e. c. london: printed by william clowes and sons, limited, stamford street and charing cross. contents prologue the story. _the first scene: at casterwell_. chapter i. david and jonathan. ii. the sealed letter. iii. at the manor house. iv. a queer coincidence. v. the suspicions of laurence mallow. vi. the reverend manners brock. vii. margery. viii. jephthah's daughter. ix. "twenty-one." x. a pre-nuptial contract. xi. the new maid. xii. "wedding-bells." _the second scene: at sandbeach_. i. "the happy pair." ii. "the brooch." iii. "clara's letter." iv. "more mystery." _the third scene in london_. i. "mysterious mrs. arne." ii. "mrs. purcell." iii. "a private inquiry agent." iv. "one of us." v. "madame death-in-life." vi. "another link." vii. "an unexpected meeting." viii. "the light-haired man." ix. "man proposes." x. "woman disposes." _the fourth scene: in florence_. i. "on the long trail." ii. "one portion of the conspiracy." iii. the sandal-wood chest. iv. "another portion of the conspiracy." _the fifth scene: in london_. i. "the missing man." ii. "monsieur rouge is confidential." iii. "a terrible adventure." iv. "the ishmaels of humanity." _the sixth scene: at casterwell_. i. "an unexpected arrival." ii. "the penance of margery." iii. "mr. brock and the letter." iv. "the treasures at kikat." v. "let the dead past bury its dead." vi. "mr. brock's addenda." vii. "the cipher diary." viii. "a rogue's memoirs." epilogue the indian bangle prologue part i. a letter from mrs. purcell, of bombay, to miss slarge, of casterwell, england:-- " th of may, --. "my dear sister, "by this time you will have received my previous epistle, in which i announced the apoplectic seizure and subsequent demise of my beloved husband, joshua ezekiel purcell, lately a faithful and distinguished servant in the indian civil service of her most gracious majesty the queen and empress. as over a month has elapsed since my lifelong companion joined the angelic choir, i am now becoming more resigned to my widowed condition, and i begin to contemplate with equanimity the prospect of a solitary future, enlivened, i trust, by the acceptable companionship of sympathizing friends. in thus submitting myself to the inevitable, i have obeyed the inspired advice of the great lexicographer, as expressed in his masterly ethic poem 'the vanity of human wishes':-- 'pour forth thy fervours for a healthful mind, obedient passions, and a will resigned.' thus in some measure i may emulate, as a christian gentlewoman should, the philosophic composure of the sage doctor johnson. "passing to more mundane considerations, i may mention that the late partner of my joys and sorrows has left me fairly well endowed with worldly wealth. notwithstanding his elegant hospitality, and the regrettable depreciation of the rupee, he contrived to save and invest considerable sums of money, the interest on which has been assured for life to his mourning widow by a generous and provident testament. "on entering into the necessary details with my worldly adviser--mr. deson, the lawyer--i find that my income will slightly exceed the yearly sum of two thousand pounds sterling, an amount which will amply suffice to maintain me in the dignified and easy position to which i have hitherto been accustomed. on my decease these moneys will be divided amongst the relatives of my late husband. thus i shall be unable to devise any personal property by will other than that which i save or become possessed of during my widowhood. "this consideration troubles me but in a minor degree, for, as you--my sole surviving relative--are in no need of pecuniary aid, it is only just that, after i have done with earthly vanities, my late husband's riches should benefit those of his blood who deserve well of his generosity. "my position being thus assured, i have decided to leave the 'gorgeous east,' as the sublime milton fitly terms our indian possessions, and i intend, god willing, to spend my declining years in the country of my birth. whether i shall establish my abode in the metropolis, or seek the retreat of the country, must remain a matter for future and careful consideration. for the present it is sufficient to state that in three months--for i cannot complete my duties as executrix in less--i shall return to the island home of my youth, to lay in due time my bones with those of my kindred in the family vault at casterwell. but, prior to my departure from this torrid clime, it is my dutiful intention to erect over the remains of the most beloved and generous of men a monument of stainless marble, inscribed with an appropriate tribute to his excellent qualities, and an explanatory inscription of his widow's grief. "and now--to touch on lighter topics, and thus relieve my mournful mind--let me inquire, my dearest sister, about your health, and concerning your interesting attempt to prove that the romish church is the inheritrix of the babylonian superstitions so frequently condemned by the hebrew prophets. also, i must not omit to request special information regarding your charge, olive, the daughter of my dear, but, alas! departed friend, mr. bellairs. i trust that the girl, who was singularly controllable, if i remember rightly, is growing in beauty and wisdom, and that she is beginning to reflect on the responsibilities of wealth and position which the near approach of her twenty-first birthday will shortly render it incumbent upon her to assume. with such a companion as you, my dear rubina, and with so admirable and conscientious a guardian as the rector of casterwell, i feel satisfied that our beloved olive has become possessed of those elegant and necessary accomplishments which should embellish the character of a young gentlewoman. "the moral mr. brock, in his double capacity of clergyman and adviser, must also have succeeded in impressing on her plastic mind the sacred precepts of the established church, and the needful principles for the guidance of her conduct towards virtue and discretion. "when i meet her again--if an over-ruling providence should permit the occurrence of so much-desired an event--i shall expect to find miss olive bellairs the model and paragon of our sex. do not let us forget, my dear rubina, that as a twig is bent so does the tree grow, and that early moral training in a refined and christian circle is invariably productive of a happy result in those fortunate enough to have been placed by their maker is so enviable a position. "the mention of olive leads me by an obvious sequence of thought to speak of mr. angus carson, to whom--by a family arrangement--she has been engaged since her early childhood. i have lately had the gratification of a somewhat lengthy interview with that young gentleman, and i made use of my opportunity to observe and question him closely, so that i might transmit to you an accurate estimate of his character. he informed me that his respected father lately departed this life, and that he--young mr. carson--was passing through bombay on his way to england by the peninsular and oriental steamship _pharaoh_. it is his declared intention to complete the family arrangement, spoken of above, entered into so many years ago between mr. bellairs and dr. carson, both now deceased. "as it is not improbable that in your arduous studies you may have forgotten the precise details of this matrimonial scheme which concerns so nearly your charge, and thereby yourself, i think it advisable to recapitulate the same, that it may be freshly impressed upon your mind. this long and explicit letter is mainly written with this object in view, and i beg that, for your own sake, and for the sake of olive, you will give your whole attention to the details which i am about to recount concerning the physical and mental attributes of angus carson. we are informed by a very excellent proverb that 'forewarned is forearmed,' therefore my communication--if read with due care--will place you in the position of knowing mr. carson, so to speak, before you make his personal acquaintance. "the benefit of such knowledge--having regard to the fact that neither one of this engaged pair has seen the other--will be of incalculable value to you, their well-wisher and supervisor. this being the case, i shall proceed to relate, firstly, the details of the domestic contract entered into between the parents of our young friends; and, secondly, the impressions i derived after conversing for two hours--not unprofitably--with young mr. carson. "it is a matter of general knowledge that between the years ' and ' of this century, our supremacy in hindostan was endangered by the revolt of the native troops. during that disturbed period, mr. mark bellairs and dr. alfred carson, then young and ambitious soldiers, were united in the bonds of ardent friendship; and afterwards they gave their affection to mr. julian brock, then a missionary labouring amongst the benighted heathen. these three friends were together during the time of the disturbance, and side by side they witnessed the horrors of cawnpore and lucknow, as you have often heard the ingenious mr. bellairs relate, when, to quote dr. goldsmith, 'he fought his battles o'er again,' in the retirement of his luxurious and stately home. in the year ' these comrades on many a field were parted by the exigencies of existence; and, while mr. bellairs and the rev. mr. brock returned to settle on their native shores, dr. carson, having an unconquerable passion for orientalism, preferred to remain in india. however, no doubt wearied of warfare, he beat his sword into a ploughshare, and, withdrawing himself from public life, secluded himself in the near neighbourhood of the gigantic range of mountains which are known to geography as the himalayas. i understand that he dwelt there as a solitary for ten years, at the end of which time, feeling that it was not good for man to live alone, he contracted a marriage with a young eurasian lady. it is sad to state that his marital happiness was not destined to continue more than twelve months, for, in the year ' , his wife died in child-bed, leaving behind her a son--the angus i speak of--to solace his distracted surviving parent. "in the meantime mr. bellairs, by the death of his father, had become possessed of the ancestral acres at casterwell, and had taken up his abode in the family mansion to superintend his heritage and enact the agreeable part of an english squire. as a mark of his constant friendship for mr. brock, and in token of his appreciation of a blameless and moral character, he presented him with the living of casterwell, a position which our reverend friend has held these many years to the satisfaction of all who are acquainted with his manifold good qualities. mr. bellairs, as you know, also remained single for a considerable period, but, bethinking himself that for the dignity of his name and the welfare of his tenants it was incumbent upon him to beget heirs of his body, he followed the example of his medical friend, and married the accomplished miss sophia seymour in the year ' . by a strange coincidence--which you, my dear sister, will have no difficulty in recalling--the lady of mr. bellairs also died within a year of her nuptials, leaving, as a pledge of love to her sorrowing husband, our dear olive. on hearing of his friend's loss and gain, dr. carson wrote a kind and judicious letter, in which he proposed that, further to cement their early friendship, his son angus should be contracted in marriage with mr. bellairs's daughter olive. to this proposition mr. bellairs readily agreed, with the proviso that the ceremony should not take place until his child attained the age of twenty-one years. on this basis the matter was arranged, and for the last twenty years olive and angus have been betrothed, although--the first dwelling in england, and the second restrained by filial duty in india--they have never met to enjoy in one another's company the pre-nuptial pleasures of cupid's votaries. but these chaste delights will no longer be deferred, for, now that the lamented father of young mr. carson has journeyed to that bourne whence no traveller returns,' the impatient lover is hastening to greet his lovely, but, alas! fatherless, mistress. what joy it will be to you, my dear rubina, to witness the coming together of these young hearts, to contemplate their amiable qualities, and discreetly to superintend their joyous meeting. "mr. carson is a gentle and well-bred youth of twenty-five, not without parts, although of too retiring a nature to display them in company. he is tall, slender, elegant in shape, and from his mother inherits a somewhat swart complexion. indeed, so apparent are the traces of his foreign blood, that in england, doubtless, he will be taken for a native of italy. his hair and eyes, and the thick moustache which adorns his upper lip, are black in the extreme, resembling in their hue that 'raven down which clothes the night's vast wings;' and although i own to a predilection for the golden fairness of our saxon race, yet i cannot deny that this young gentleman is prepossessing in no ordinary degree. i regret to say, however, that, like many half-castes, he is delicate in health, and owns that his heart is weak, so much so, indeed, that when excited in any violent degree, he is liable to be so overcome by emotion as to lapse into a state of insensibility. therefore, my dear sister, when he greets your charge, be careful that you restrain his transports of joy, else it's more than probable that you will see him extended at your feet--a calamity which may cast a shadow over the united pair. i must admit that mr. carson is somewhat effeminate in his dress and looks. he even goes so far as to wear a bracelet of gold on his right wrist. in india we term this a bangle, and frequently such an ornament is worn by native princes who yet retain barbaric tastes; but i ventured to remark to mr. carson, that in england the wearing of a bangle by one of the male sex would not be looked upon with favour. i am bound to say that he took my expostulation in the most good-humoured manner, and he explained that the bangle was a sacred ornament taken from a hindoo idol. it had been presented to his late lamented father by a certain notability, or rajah, whose son he had skilfully cured of a deadly disease, upon the symptoms of which young mr. carson did not dilate. he also informed me that the bracelet had originally been placed on his arm above the elbow by his ayah, or indian nurse, when he was a boy. as gradually he attained to the full size of manhood, the bangle was slipped down by degrees to the wrist, whence it cannot now be removed without filing through the broad band of gold of which it is composed--no very easy operation, as you may guess. moreover quite recently mr. carson hurt his hand while out shooting in the hills, whereby some of the small bones have become diseased, and the breadth of the member much extended; indeed, the whole hand is largely swollen. i advised him to undergo an operation in england, and at the same time have the bracelet removed; in fact, i imagine this would be necessary. he promised me the suggestion should receive his most careful consideration. he was then pleased to exhibit the bracelet for my inspection, and i examined it with much interest and curiosity. "it is a broad band of ductile gold, wrought with the idol figures of the hindoo trinity--bramah, siva, and vishnu--interwoven with the sacred lotus-flower and other heathen symbols. i confess that i was weak enough to covet this work of art, for it is not only extremely beautiful as an exhibition of how exquisitely a goldsmith can manipulate the precious metal, but it is also an ornament of great antiquity, and, being sacred, no doubt there is attached to it a strange and eventful history. mr. carson has had golden wrist-buttons made to match this unique bracelet, wrought after the same style, but of vastly inferior workmanship. "on the whole, my dear rubina, i am prepossessed in favour of my visitor, as he appears to be modest and intelligent and high-principled. notwithstanding his delicate health and effeminate looks, i am confident that he has a strong will and a somewhat stubborn nature, both of which may be productive in the future of either good or evil. if olive be soft and yielding, her married life with young mr. carson will no doubt be happy and easy, as he requires, i suspect, to be deferred to in every way, having full confidence in his own judgment. if, on the contrary, she be wilful, and refuse to acknowledge her husband as the head of the house, i fear that their union will not be so perfect a one as we could wish. to use a trite image, mr. carson resembles the iron hand in a velvet glove, so of this you will do well to warn olive. 'verbum sat sapienti,' as the latin poet has it; the same may be stretched, my dear, to include our own sex, although in the estimation of the male, we are not considered to be gifted greatly with wisdom. of course, i dissent from this view, and--but you know full well my opinion on the subject; therefore, i will not add to this already lengthy epistle by enlarging upon it. "mr. carson is accompanied to england by a certain major horace semberry, who is, i understand, an officer in one of our native regiments. he has obtained leave of absence in order to act as a kind of social tutor to our young friend. i was informed that the major met dr. carson whilst shooting in the himalaya mountains, and so won his goodwill by an attractive exterior and fascinating manners, that the doctor asked him to conduct angus to europe, and arranged, most generously, that he should be paid a handsome stipend for his services. "thus it comes about that young mr. carson and major semberry are travelling in company; but i must confess that the late dr. carson might easily have shown more wisdom in the selection of a companion for his son. major semberry is a fair, handsome man, an excellent sportsman, a well-bred gentleman, and he is possessed of a charm of manner which would impose upon many people. however, it did not impose upon me, my dear, for i judge this horace semberry to be one of those plausible scamps who roam the world like social satans, seeking whom they may devour. "this is a strong sentiment, i admit, but no stronger than is necessary, for you know that i am an excellent judge of character, and that it is not my habit to quote holy writ unless the occasion demand: it. the occasion, my dear rubina, demands it now, and my earnest advice to you is to discourage the visits of major semberry to the manor, and to break off; if possible, the intimacy which now exists--to my great regret--between him and olive's future husband. i speak for his sake as i speak for hers, and you may take my word for it that the less they see of this military belial, the better it will be for both of them. "and now, my dear sister, i must conclude my long but, i hope, not uninteresting letter, by inquiring after our mutual friends and acquaintances. i trust that young lord aldean is in good health, and that he is benefiting to the utmost extent of his mental powers--not that i think much of them--by the instruction of his tutor, the amiable mr. mallow, whom i esteem greatly for his many admirable qualities. if lord aldean only emulates the moral and social and scholastic example of his friend and tutor, i am convinced that he will prove a useful and ornamental member of our house of peers, in which, doubtless, he will shortly take his seat. "let me also inquire after miss ostergaard, the young lady of danish extraction, from new zealand; you will remember how highly i approved of her on the occasion of my last visit to casterwell. it is to be desired that olive should make an intimate friend of this charming young gentlewoman, in order that she may have constantly before her eyes a character of such sterling merit. miss ostergaard is a particular pet of mine, and i could wish our dear olive no better fortune than that she should become just such another delightful girl. "i presume that dr. drabble is still in our parish, practising his profession during his intervals from political excitement and radical speeches. it is to be regretted that such a firebrand should endanger the peace and rustic charm of our quiet corner of england, and, as i always said, it would be much more to dr. drabble's credit if, instead of promulgating dangerous dogma, he gave more attention to his hard-working wife and her too-numerous family. the man is a red anarchist, a subverter of law and order, and i fully expect that he will end by throwing a bomb into casterwell church--a circumstance which is the more likely to occur from the fact that he is an atheist and an ardent follower of monsieur voltaire, to say nothing of the infidel thomas payne, and that abominable american, colonel ingersoll. "concerning myself, my dear sister, i am in moderately good health, considering the recent loss of my beloved husband, for my friends here are all that can be desired in the way of sympathy and kindness. also i have the company of pontius pilate, who, though only a dog, is so intelligent as to afford me the greatest comfort in my terrible and overwhelming affliction. the dumb animal seems to be aware of my bereavement, and in his own way tries to solace me with caresses and canine attentions generally. therefore, you will see that the solitariness of my position is in some degree mitigated. "and here i must conclude this long letter with the hope that we shall shortly meet again in england, when i can find in you, my dearest sister, a relative upon whose bosom i can recline, and pour out my sorrow for the loss of the best and most excellent of men. "god bless you, my dear, and may his shield be extended in protection of our dear olive. such, my dear rubina, is the heartfelt prayer of "your affectionate and resigned sister, "priscilla purcell. "p.s.--on my arrival in england, i wish you to accompany me to paris, in order to assist me in the choice of my widow's garb of woe, for i am but ill-pleased with such garments as i have been able to procure here." part ii. "peninsular and oriental steam navigation co., ltd., "head office: leadenhall street, london, e.c. "june , --. "notice. "r.m.s. _pharaoh_ arrived this morning at gravesend. she is expected to dock by the afternoon tide in the royal albert docks." part iii. extract from _the morning planet_, dated june , --:-- "a startling discovery was made yesterday at no. a, athelstane place, bloomsbury. thomas gale, a baker, of tottenham-court road, complained at the local police station that for two consecutive days he had been unable to see the occupant of the house. as the window blinds were drawn, and the doors locked, he believed something to be wrong. inspector jain, and a constable proceeded at once to athelstane place, and, after vainly ringing and knocking, forced the area door. the house proved to be empty, but in the drawing-room the dead body of a young man was found, mutilated in a shocking manner. on an examination being made by dr. rayner, of bloomsbury square, it was discovered that a steel knitting-needle had been thrust into his heart, and that the right hand had been cut off at the wrist. the missing hand was afterwards found in the grate. dr. rayner is of opinion that the deceased was murdered about two days prior to the discovery of the body. the police have taken possession of the house and corpse, and are actively searching for evidence which shall throw light upon this atrocious crime. the result of their inquiries will be made known at the inquest, which is to be held to-morrow in the bloomsbury coroner's court." part iv. extract from _the morning planet_, june , --:-- "mr. mappin held an inquiry yesterday afternoon in the bloomsbury coroner's court into the circumstances attending the death of the unknown man who was found dead in the drawing-room of no. a, athelstane place. mr. julian pyke, owner of the house in question, deposed that it was rented from him on june th last by a tall, fair-haired man with a beard, who wore smoke-coloured spectacles, and gave his name as francis hain. he informed witness that he was a scientist, and that he required a quiet retreat in london in order to carry out certain experiments, the nature of which he did not disclose. mr. hain took the house furnished for six months and paid a quarter's rent in advance, an arrangement which was considered entirely satisfactory by the landlord. witness saw the man but once, as the agreement (on a printed form) was approved and executed at one interview. he knew nothing of the man's antecedents, and his business with him was confined solely to the business as between landlord and tenant. "thomas gale, of tottenham-court road, baker, deposed that on june th a woman called at his shop. she stated that she was the housekeeper of mr. hain, a, athelstane place, and requested him to supply the house with bread. she did not give her own name. her appearance was refined and ladylike. she spoke excellent english, though she had a foreign accent. witness concluded that she was either italian or french. she was of medium height with a particularly pale face, large black eyes, and smooth black hair untouched with grey. she was not a young woman--about forty, witness thought. her hair was worn in bands, and she was dressed entirely in black. witness presumed she was a widow--at all events, she looked like one. she herself took in the bread each day, and paid for it on the spot. he saw no one else in the house, although he called there up to june th. witness never saw deceased. "richard brass, of tottenham-court road, butcher, gave much the same evidence. the same woman called on him, and gave a similar account of herself. he was to call each morning for orders at a, athelstane place. he did so up to june th, and was paid cash on delivery of the meat up to the th. the woman appeared to be the only person in the house, and he saw her last on june th. but on the th and th no meat was taken in, and the house appeared to be deserted. he thereupon informed the police. witness never saw either mr. hain or the deceased. "amelia rankin said that she was employed as a domestic servant at the house opposite to no. a. she saw a tall, fair-bearded man enter it on several occasions; also a pale, dark-haired woman, but she did not pay much attention to either. once she noticed a young gentleman with a dark moustache looking out of the first-floor front window. he was laughing and talking with some one inside whom she did not see. he appeared to be quite happy. she believed, after viewing the corpse, that the young gentleman she saw was the deceased. she heard no noise, and saw nothing likely to arouse suspicion in any way. as a rule she was in the kitchen with her mistress (who kept a boarding-house), and it was seldom either of them was in the front of the house during the day. it was possible many people might have gone in and out without her being aware of it. "several witnesses resident in athelstane place gave much the same evidence. some saw mr. hain, some the housekeeper, but none save amelia rankin caught a glimpse of the deceased. nearly all the houses on either side of and opposite to no. a are boarding-houses, from which the lodgers are absent all day, and as the landladies and their servants are mostly occupied in the back premises, no. a was not observed in any special degree. indeed, there was nothing about the house to arouse remark in any way. "dr. rayner, of bloomsbury square, stated as the result of a post-mortem examination that in his opinion death was caused by a wound in the heart, apparently inflicted by some such instrument as a steel knitting-needle. the clothes over the breast: that is to say, the waistcoat, shirt, and undervest, were unbuttoned, tending to show that the deceased was unconscious when the wound was inflicted. with an instrument of the kind supposed, it would probably be necessary to open the clothes. the right hand had been cut off, and, judging from the neatness of the operation, a surgical instrument would seem to have been used for this purpose. the hand itself, distorted and swollen, was found in the grate. the bones of the hand were diseased, but not sufficiently so to warrant amputation. witness was of opinion that the hand had been cut off by a surgeon. he did not believe that an untrained person could have performed the operation with the requisite skill. deceased had been murdered--judging from the condition of the body--two days before the discovery of the remains on june th; that is to say, on june th. in answer to a question put by one of the jury, witness stated that there was no smell of chloroform perceptible about the clothes of the deceased or in the room. "inspector jain, who discovered the body, said that it was lying on a sofa placed behind the drawing-room door. the clothing over the chest and region of the heart had been disturbed, and the collar and necktie removed. the shirt-studs, sleeve-links, and watch of the deceased were missing, and the pockets were empty. the marks on the linen had been cut out. there were no rings on the fingers of the left hand. the deceased was tall and dark-complexioned, with smooth dark hair and a small black moustache. "from the condition of the body--the nails, for instance, were extremely well-cared for--deceased had evidently been a man accustomed to the refinements of life. his underlinen was of the finest quality, and the suit of grey tweed was evidently the work of a high-class tailor. the boots were of russia leather, and were particularly well-shaped. witness thought deceased must have been a gentleman in easy circumstances. on searching the house neither trunk, clothes, linen, nor papers of any kind were to be found; in fact, nothing which would be likely to reveal deceased's name or position. the only strange thing he had noticed was the fact that the clothes smelled strongly of sandal-wood. the furniture and appointments of the house were the property of the landlord, but neither mr. hain nor the housekeeper had left anything behind them by which they could be traced. up to the present, in spite of all efforts, no clue to the whereabouts of either the tenant or his housekeeper had been found. "after a brief deliberation the jury returned a verdict of 'wilful murder' against some person or persons unknown." part v. extract from _the morning planet_, july , --:-- "despite the triteness of the proverb, we are constrained to remark with regard to the athelstane place murder that once again truth is stranger than fiction. had one of our writers of detective stories imagined so extraordinary a crime as having taken place in the heart of a busy neighbourhood, within hearing, almost within sight of hundreds of people, he would have been scoffed at for exceeding the bounds of probability. it would, we assert, have been termed exaggeration of the wildest order. but it has been proved possible in fact, and no. a, athelstane place, bloomsbury, now enjoys the distinction, albeit no enviable one, of having provided london with a mystery so unfathomable that it is extremely doubtful whether it will ever be plumbed by the keenest of detectives. for the unravelling of so complex a riddle we need the sergeant cuff of wilkie collins, or the monsieur dupin of edgar allen poe--in a word, a fabulous detective such as we have not at the present time amongst us. "plainly stated, the facts are these:--a house is taken by a man who calls himself by the, to us, obviously false name of francis hain. beyond the fact that he wore a pair of smoked-glass spectacles, there appears to have been little about him to cause remark. the payment of a quarter's rent in advance appears to have answered satisfactorily those questions which the landlord would otherwise surely have felt it incumbent upon him to ask; at all events, the usual formalities with respect to references were in this case entirely dispensed with. ostensibly, the house was rented with the object of carrying out certain experiments of a scientific nature. a nameless woman, calling herself the housekeeper, is the active agent between mr. hain, so called, and the local tradesmen. observe, the butcher and the baker see no one but this woman; they neither of them see the tenant of a or the deceased. by chance a domestic servant sees both, but naturally enough takes small notice of either. up to june th the housekeeper herself receives the food from the tradesmen, and pays them for it in cash. this, of itself, might or might not be indicative of a preconceived intention to leave the house suddenly. after the th the housekeeper is seen no more, and on the th the house is broken into, and the dead man's body is discovered. the medical evidence goes to prove that he was done to death on the th, and it is from that day also that we lose sight of mr. hain. both tenant and housekeeper vanish as completely as if the earth had swallowed them up. thus we are deprived of the only two persons who at this time seem to have had any connection with the dead man. their disappearance, coincident as it is, of itself arouses suspicion. moreover, by the careful removal of all marks from the linen of the deceased, we are left without what otherwise might have lent an important clue to his identity. "here, then, is the problem with which our detective force is confronted. for ourselves, in a case like this, where the elementary facts are so completely concealed, we can at most theorise and surmise. for some reason, impossible to guess, the victim would seem to have been inveigled into the athelstane place house. as his right hand was diseased, it is not impossible that he went there, or, as we think, is more likely, was taken there by some accomplice ostensibly to have an operation performed. that a surgical instrument was used we may safely conclude from the evidence of dr. rayner. mr. hain called himself a scientist, and he may have been that, and that only; but at all events he, if he it was, was evidently skilled in surgery so far as to be able to accomplish an amputation at the wrist neatly. let us then assume that mr. hain was to operate upon the hand of the deceased. the first thing he would do would be to administer an anæsthetic. this in all probability would be chloroform, for as the body was not discovered until two days after death, and as the air was warm during the interval, it is likely that the chloroform would evaporate. we take it, therefore, that the deceased was choloroformed by mr. hain with his own consent, since he was about to undergo a painful operation. "up to this point our assumption is comparatively clear; but, when we are asked to say why this mr. hain should have preferred a knitting-needle to either of the two means which were at his disposal for the accomplishment of his end (we refer, of course, to the instruments which he must have had at hand, and to the chloroform), and further, why the diseased hand, when amputated, should have been thrown into the grate, we confess ourselves absolutely in the dark. "in short, our assumption, such as it is, becomes hopelessly worthless when separated from evidence wholly circumstantial; and circumstantial evidence is, as we know, frequently misleading. before we can hope to obtain data more reliable it is necessary first that the deceased be identified, and further, that one, if not both of the persons who were known to be occupants of the house, be traced. we presume that in the ordinary course a full and sufficiently minute description of the deceased man will be disseminated by the police. he is apparently a gentleman, and may be said, therefore, to have occupied a certain social position. it is fair to assume that he has friends and acquaintances who will recognize some, if not all, of the characteristics put forth in the description. further, he probably has a home if not relatives somewhere in the kingdom, and if he does not return within a reasonable time, inquiries will doubtless be made. it is probably by some such means as this that the deceased will be identified. once that is done, there may be some chance of capturing his murderer. "it is remarkable that the deceased's clothes smelled of sandal-wood. this is essentially an eastern perfume, and a man, especially a gentleman living in england, would hardly be in the habit of using it. we are not aware, indeed, if it is used even in the east as a scent, though many nations of the far east, such as the indians and the chinese--particularly the latter--make chests of sandal-wood. if, then, this unknown man had at any time lived in the east, it is possible he might have been in the habit of keeping his clothes in such a chest, which would account for the odour detected by inspector jain. "this clue is slight; still it is tangible, and it is moreover possible to assume from it that the unknown man came from the east, and further, that his arrival in england must have been comparatively recent, since, had he been here for any length of time he would surely have exchanged this cumbersome box for the portmanteau of western civilization. we suggest, therefore, to the police that, supposing, of course, nothing be forthcoming from the deceased's relatives or friends, a thorough search be made through the shipping offices and the neighbourhood of the docks for the existence of any passenger answering to the description of the deceased, who might recently have disembarked from one of our great liners. "again, we say, the clue is a slight one; but in such a case as this no fact, however insignificant, is unimportant, and the most slender circumstance may, if rigorously followed up, ultimately lead to results wholly unlooked for and disproportionate to it. "here, then, is a splendid opportunity for our detectives to cover themselves with glory, and, by the capture of the perpetrator, to prevent this--one of the most terrible crimes of recent days--from being relegated to the already too well-filled limbo of unfathomable mysteries." the story _the first scene: at casterwell_. chapter i. david and jonathan. towards the first week in july two young men were seated in a smoking-carriage on the midday express from paddington to reading. they were alone in the compartment, and at the moment there existed between them that peculiar silence of sympathy which can be only the outcome of a perfect friendship. the jonathan of the pair was slim, tall, and dark, with a military uprightness of bearing, and a somewhat haughty expression on his clean-shaven face. his david was younger in years, but considerably greater in size, and like his namesake of judah, was ruddy and of a fair countenance. the one was an eager, anxious, highly-strung celt, with his irish impulse and impetuosity trained into well-nigh complete obedience by years of experience; the other a phlegmatic saxon, of small brain and much muscle. jonathan's nineteenth-century name was laurence mallow. david answered to the title of lord aldean. they had been tutor and pupil respectively, and they were still fast friends. the elder possessing the stronger and more imperious will, continued to control the younger. mallow was not popular, nor did he wish to be so. he chose to be feared rather than loved. he was brilliantly clever, and, therefore, had many admirers; on the other hand, his intolerance of stupidity lost him many friends, so that to his expressed satisfaction he moved more or less isolated amid a crowd of fair-spoken, back-biting acquaintances. and yet perhaps it was a knowledge of the guarded manner in which he was received that made him cling the more to the solitary friend he possessed. people thought and people said that there was but little about good-natured, thick-headed aldean to attract the brilliant young irishman. there were those who went so far as to hint that the boy's title and wealth explained all that, albeit mallow was well-nigh aggressively independent. left an orphan with comparatively little money at an early age, he had won prizes and taken scholarships at a great public school, and had maintained himself at oxford by these early efforts. he left the university with a full brain and empty pockets, and he had undertaken the tutorship of aldean to gain breathing-time while he cast around him for choice of a career. when aldean came of age, mallow left him, a fair enough scholar and an admirable athlete, and went himself to london. he became a journalist and a power with his pen. he attached himself to a weekly publication of high aim and small circulation, conducted by a genius who had failed to profit by his pen because he could not write obviously enough for the taste of the general public. mallow became one of the props of this journal. when it failed, by reason of its too lofty aims, he went to india to write letters about the incomprehensible east, for a newspaper. a while after he returned, and published a novel which was much condemned and widely circulated. at the present time, having netted a few hundreds out of the book, he was going down to casterwell to stay with aldean, and to renew his friendship with olive bellairs, whom he loved ardently, though--knowing full well that she was engaged to a certain mr. carson--hopelessly, in his own peculiar, wrong-headed way. aldean, who was now twenty-four, and as good-naturedly stupid as ever, was in truth more akin to goliath than to david. he was a gigantic son of anak, considerably over six feet in height, and as wide as a church door. he was sparing of his words, and he usually assented to whatever was said to him as the safest way out of an argument. but in spite of his lack of conversation, and the rareness with which he gave expression to such ideas as he possessed, he had a fund of shrewd common sense, which, in his position, was worth far more to him than genius would have been. it was with all his heart and soul that he admired mallow, and the very _naiveté_ with which he would express his admiration endeared him to the young irishman. habitually mallow's tongue was razor-like in its acerbity, but aldean--though he took full advantage of the friendship between them, and spoke pretty plainly when he judged his lordship deserved correction--he invariably spared where he would have spared none else. they had indeed established their friendship on a very durable basis, by the extremely simple process of shutting their eyes to one another's faults and opening them very wide to one another's virtues. the young irishman had his brilliant flashes of silence. it was on these occasions that he found aldean so agreeable a companion--in fact, the boy was as a pet dog to mallow; agreeable company, and not given to criticism. "aldean!" "eh yes, what?" asked his lordship, looking up from _ally sloper_. "have you read the account of this athelstane place murder?" "yes--fellow killed with a knitting-needle, isn't it?" "yes, thrust into the heart--devilish queer case. the _morning planet_ seems to think the unfortunate beggar came from india." "who told the 'm.p.' so?" "no one, apparently; it is a theory based on the fact that the man's clothes smelled of sandal-wood." "bosh! there's plenty of sandal-wood in england." "no doubt; but englishmen are not by way of scenting their clothes with it. i shouldn't be surprised to find that the _planet_ was right. at all events it's some sort of clue." aldean shook his head. "i thought you said it was a theory?" "so it is; but a theory may develop into a clue," retorted mallow, lighting another cigarette. "if only i had the time, there is nothing i would like better than to follow up a case like this." "well, surely you have the time?" "i have not; i am giving you what spare moments i have." "you are--now. but at casterwell miss bellairs, i guess, will see a good deal more of you than i shall. the moth and the candle, eh?" "not at all, aldean; your simile is quite inapt. i am not a moth, neither can miss bellairs be compared to a candle. she is not the kind of girl to scorch any poor butterfly that flutters round her." "all right, old chap, you needn't take one quite so seriously. but as you do, i may as well be serious too. do you know i am thinking of getting married?" "no; that's news to me. and whom do you intend to honour so far, may i ask?" "miss ostergaard, if she concurs." aldean heaved a huge sigh. "by george! she's a ripping girl." "certainly, you might do worse," replied laurence, musingly. "she's a very good girl, and clever too. does she reciprocate?" "i don't know; she laughs at me." "that may be just her method of showing her affection. she will be hard to please if she is not satisfied with a titled hercules like you." "oh, i don't think she bothers in the least about the title," said his lordship, dolefully, "she is quite a radical, a--a--what do you call it--anarchist, you know. dr. drabble has been converting her. he's a proselytising beast, that drabble." "oh, that's all rubbish. 'in the spring a young girl's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love'--not anarchy." "but it isn't spring," said the literal aldean, "and miss ostergaard isn't the girl to marry for rank." "then make love to her properly, and she'll marry you for love." "i wish i could; but i'm not a clever chap like you, mallow." "my dear boy, i'm not clever; on the contrary, i'm a fool--a perfect fool, for do i not love miss bellairs like an idiot, when all the while i know well she is going to marry this carson man from india?" "so she is; that's queer," said aldean, reflectively. "queer! how do you mean?" "oh, nothing, old man. i am thinking of this murder case; and the fact of both men coming from india struck me, that's all. you see carson's just on his way home now." "is he? i didn't know that," said mallow, alertly. "yes; miss slarge--you know, the babylonian, mark-of-the-beast woman--told me that her sister in bombay had written carson was on his way home by the p. and o. liner _pharaoh_." "the _pharaoh_ arrived some time back," said mallow, gloomily. "he must be at casterwell by this time." "he was not there two days ago when i ran up to town." "well, it must be quite two weeks since the _pharaoh_ arrived. what an ardent lover the chap must be. i wish i stood in his shoes, that's all. i wouldn't let the grass grow under them on the way to my 'own true love'--not that miss bellairs can strictly be said to stand in that relation to a man she has never set eyes upon. the very fact that she has to marry him should be sufficient to make her hate him." "by jove! what a rum go it would be if carson turned out to be the man murdered in athelstane place!" mallow stared. "what on earth put such a wild idea into your head?" he said. "i don't know; nor do i know why you should be so ready to call it wild. the man who was killed came from india--as you say----" "i don't say so. it is the theory of the _morning planet_." "it is just possible that it might be carson, seeing that he hasn't turned up at casterwell," continued aldean, not heeding mallow's interruption. "really, jim, i didn't credit you with such a vivid imagination." "oh, of course it's merely an idea, mallow. but what strikes me is that if carson arrived two weeks ago, he certainly ought to have put in an appearance at casterwell before this, if only out of curiosity to see his future wife." "my dear fellow, carson may need a kit before he calls on miss bellairs. he surely would wish to create a good impression, and i don't suppose he would present himself in sandal-wood scented clothes." "i never said he would. but even so, that wouldn't take him a fortnight." mallow leaned back and pinched his chin reflectively. he had no great faith in his friend's prognostications, still he could not help being struck by the suggestion coupling carson with the victim of athelstane place. it was certainly queer that this man from india should be two weeks in england without fulfilling the very object for which his journey had been made. he had arrived in the _pharaoh_ on the th of june the murder had been committed on the th, yet so far he had not presented himself at casterwell. the prime facts certainly coincided. it was very odd; mallow could not deny that. "but the idea is incredible," he said aloud. "hundreds of men arrive from india every week; besides, carson never was in england in his life--miss bellairs told me so. why should he be murdered immediately on his arrival--where was the motive? you have found a mare's nest, jim." "i dare say," replied aldean, stolidly: "it's a bare idea." "a very wild and a very absurd one, my boy. there is nothing to connect the sandal-wood man (as you call him) with carson." "perhaps not, mallow. but if carson does not turn up soon i shall begin to think that my idea is not so ridiculous as you say." "if he does not turn up," repeated mallow with emphasis, "that's just it, but he will turn up if it is only to take from me the only girl i ever really cared about--a trite saying no doubt, but a true one in this case." "every fellow says the same thing," said aldean, as the train slowed down into reading station. "here we are." casterwell lies--as every one knows or should know, seeing that it is one of the prettiest villages in the home counties--amongst the berkshire hills, some ten miles from reading. lord aldean's cart was waiting for himself and his friend. mallow walked leisurely out of the station into the sunshine, and watched the porter transfer his portmanteau to aldean's groom. whilst he was standing on the edge of the pavement a plump little man, rosy in face and neat in dress, stopped short before him. he carried a black bag, but dropped this to hold out a friendly hand to mallow. "well, well," he chirped, just like an amiable robin; "and who would have thought of seeing you here, mr. mallow? you're here on business, i presume?" "i have come down to stay with lord aldean at casterwell, mr. dimbal," replied mallow, graciously. "miss bellairs' busi---- ah, here is his lordship. how d'ye do, my lord? on the road to casterwell, eh? i'm going there myself." "to see miss bellairs, did you say?" asked mallow, impatiently. "there's nothing wrong, i hope?" "good gracious, no. why should there be anything wrong?" "why, indeed," said aldean, laughing. "lawyers and wrong never go together." "ha, ha! very good, my lord; but we are a much-maligned profession. no, mr. mallow, nothing is wrong with miss bellairs. on the contrary, everything is very right. i bring her the good news that mr. carson has arrived." "oh," said mallow, with a glance at aldean, "have you seen him?" "yes, he called yesterday at my office, and to-morrow he comes to casterwell to see his future wife. well, well; good-day, good-day, i see my fly, i must be off. good-day, mr. mallow; my lord, good-day," and the little lawyer bustled off. "so carson isn't the sandal-wood man, after all," observed aldean. "no, god forgive me! i wish he were," replied mallow, and frowned. chapter ii. the sealed letter. casterwell is an aggressively antique village, the delight of landscape painters and enthusiasts of the hand camera. it has been painted and photographed times without number, and its two crooked streets, its market cross, its mediæval church and ruined castle are all of them familiar enough to the frequenters of london art galleries. bicycles converge to it from the four quarters of england, transatlantic tourists twang the melodious american tongue under the gabled roof of its principal inn, the omnivorous kodaker clicks his shutter at donjon, battlement, and ivy-covered tower, and unscrupulous authors thieve its local legends for the harrowing of the public in christmas numbers and magazines. the name is obviously of latin origin, and from the castraville of the middle ages we have the casterwell of to-day. on the brow of an adjoining hill the circumvallations of the ubiquitous romans show that the village originally received its name from a military post of the days of caractacus and boadicea. but the imperial legions have marched into the outer darkness, the baron of the castle is a handful of dust, the founders of the church lie mouldering in their ornate tombs, and casterwell survives them all: a quaint, pretty, peaceful spot, beautiful even in its decay. the village lies in a dip of the ground--hardly to be called a valley--between two wooded hills swelling gently from the surrounding plain. on one of these rises a square palace of white free-stone ornate, and conspicuous by force of its many windows and lofty tower--this latter well-nigh offensively incongruous with the general architectural design. this grandiose barrack is "kingsholme," the country seat of lord aldean. in it he lives like a mouse in a haystack. it is many times too large for a single young orphan, and it takes much more of the orphan's income to keep up than he likes. thither aldean and his friend spun as fast as a quick-trotting mare could take them. as they turned into the park mallow cast a wistful look towards the other hill, where, surrounded by its ancient woods, lay embosomed the dwelling of miss olive bellairs--the lady of casterwell manor. the soul of this hapless lover was full of regret in that he was not the occupant of mr. dimbal's fly, and he sighed as he mastered his feelings, in subservience to the exigencies of social intercourse--a necessity for the moment, but one by no means to his taste. meanwhile the fly--the tortoise to the aldean hare--crawled doggedly along the dusty road. mr. dimbal, with a complacent smile on his rosy face, and his black bag established safely on his knees, glanced absently out of the window. through incessant clouds of dust he caught glimpses of the flowering hedges, and now and again behind them of the corn waving in the hot wind. then a cottage or so with its thatched roof and tiny garden marked the proximity to the village, and soon he was rumbling through casterwell high street. at last the avenue leading to the manor house came in sight, and, as his eye rested on the mansion, mr. dimbal heaved a sigh of relief to think that he was at his journey's end. three hours of continuous travelling on a hot midsummer day are not exactly the height of bliss to a comfortable elderly gentleman. the house was typical of its kind. here were diamond-paned casements, tall oriel windows, lofty-tiled roofs surmounted by stacks of twisting chimneys, terraces of grey stone with urns and statues--in fact, all and everything which we are accustomed to associate with the conventional old english manor-house. the whole place was radiant with roses. the walls of the house were draped with them; they clambered over the balustrades of the terraces; they flamed in the wide-mouthed urns; they clothed the antique statues, and rioted round the lawn in prodigal profusion, dazzling the eye with their glorious tints, and filling the air with their perfume. "a dwelling fit for flora, truly"--it was an unusual flight of fancy for dimbal, but he gave way to it even as he stepped from out his dusty old fly. he raised his eyes, and lo! the "lady of flowers" was waiting to greet him. in truth she was comely enough, this young woman, for the most beautiful of goddesses. not an ideal venus perhaps, or an imperial juno, but an eminently healthy and withal dainty goddess of spring was olive bellairs--a trifle reminiscent maybe of hebe, the girlish and ever young. neither divinely tall nor unduly slender, her figure was neatness exemplified. her hair was brown, so were her eyes; while, did you seek to compare her complexion, you must perforce fall back upon the well-worn simile of the rose-leaf. she was dressed in pure white. "and how are you, mr. dimbal?" she said. "for a whole hour have i been watching for you." "if', like the lord chancellor in 'iolanthe,' i were possessed of wings, my dear, you would not have had to wait at all." "well, now you are here, i'm sure you're very hungry. lunch is quite ready; come along!" "yes, my dear, and i am quite ready, too; but i should not eat my luncheon in peace did i not first discharge, at least, the more important part of my mission." "oh dear," pouted olive, "won't the horrid thing keep for an hour?" "my dear," said dimbal, taking the girl's hand in his own, "let me make myself quite clear. i am here to impress upon you the terms of your father's will, which, as you know, has been in my possession since you were a baby, and to hand to you a sealed letter which he left for you. until this is done, i cannot eat my meal in comfort." "a sealed letter?" queried olive, leading the way into the drawing-room; "why was it not given to me before?" "because your father's instructions were that you were not to have possession of this letter until after the arrival of mr. carson in england. well, mr. carson has arrived. he was in my office yesterday; so, you see, i have lost no time." olive sat down and took off her sun-bonnet. she looked put out. "i know that mr. carson is in england," she said; "i got a letter from him three or four days ago, in which he says he is coming down here at the end of the week." "oh, well, i hope you are pleased," said dimbal, looking dubiously at her. the kind-hearted little lawyer feared, from her expression that she was not. "no, mr. dimbal," replied the girl, decidedly. "i cannot pretend that i am. you must remember i have never seen the man. indeed, i do not want to see him, and i am very sure i do not want to marry him." "but you must marry him, olive." "i don't see that i must marry anybody i don't like. i am sure i shall hate him!" "my dear, you really must not talk like that. remember you lose a large sum of money if you do not fulfil the conditions of the will." "i would rather lose anything than marry him," said olive, recklessly. "i don't love the man; why, i have never seen him; how can you--how could papa expect me to marry him? he may be horrid--indeed, i am sure he is horrid." "mr. carson is a very charming and handsome young man," was dimbal's reply, as he opened his bag. "you will find that he is everything your heart can desire." "my heart does not desire him at all. i object to being married without being consulted." "but olive--dear child, remember, you loved your father!" "yes"--the girl's face grew very tender, "my father was the dearest and best of men. i loved him very dearly--better than any one else in the world. you know i love his memory still." "then you will surely obey his last expressed wish?" said dimbal, persuasively. "in that way alone can you show your love and affection for him." "mr. bellairs's heart was set upon your marrying the son of his oldest and best friend." "where is this letter, mr. dimbal?" asked olive, irrelevantly. "all in good time, my dear. let me first explain the will to you." "do you wish miss slarge to be present?" said olive, as the lawyer spread out the formidable parchment. "oh, that is not necessary. i suppose she is busy?" olive shrugged her pretty shoulders. "she is hunting, i believe, through layard's nineveh in search of nimrod," she answered. "lucky aunt rubina, she hasn't got to marry a man she doesn't care two pins about." "i don't suppose miss slarge would marry any one, my dear. she has always been the consistent advocate of celibacy." "i only wish my father had been the same." "would that really please you?" said dimbal; he knew a good deal more about miss olive's likes, if not about her dislikes, than she had any idea of. "i met mr. mallow at reading station," the artful lawyer continued, significantly. "oh!" said olive, the colour mounting to her face. "yes; he has come down to stop for a week or two with lord aldean." "i--i--well, i really don't care. why do you look at me like that, mr. dimbal? don't, please! mr. mallow is really nothing to me." "or you to hecuba. well, if you don't know, olive, i'm sure i don't. let us get to business. by this, my dear," he said, smoothing out the parchment, "you inherit all the real estate of your father, consisting of the house, lands, farms, tenements, etc., etc.--all of which combine to bring you in an income of some three thousand pounds per annum. into possession of this you will enter upon your twenty-first birthday." "that is next month," said olive, nodding. "quite so. on august th you attain your majority. you will then receive your rents, and become absolute mistress of the estate." "without conditions?" "certainly--without conditions. those of which i am about to speak apply only to the personal estate. this consists of some fifty thousand pounds, excellently well invested in railway stock and shares for the most part, though some small portion of it is in the government funds. if within a month of your majority you become the wife of angus carson this money passes to your husband, and he is to use it for the benefit of you both." "oh, indeed and i have no say in the matter, i suppose?" "well, not legally speaking. although mr. carson can only obtain this money by marrying you; that done, he has full legal possession of it; and, although there is no absolute charge upon the capital providing for it, there is a strong wish expressed by your father--so strong as to amount to an absolute obligation in the mind of any right-thinking man--that the sum of a thousand pounds per annum shall be set apart from out of the interest of this money by your husband for your own separate use. but of the principal, you understand, he has absolute control." "but suppose mr. carson is a scamp and a spendthrift?" "we will not suppose any such thing, my dear. i admit," added dimbal, looking at the document--"i admit that the powers given to mr. carson are very great, and should perhaps have been controlled, if not restricted, in some measure--indeed, i suggested something of the sort to your father; but he contended you were amply provided for by the real estate, and he had every hope that young mr. carson would prove to be as good and as honourable a man as his father had been before him." "what is your opinion of him?" asked olive, abruptly. "my dear, i saw mr. carson but for half an hour, so i can scarcely be expected to answer that question. he appeared to me to be an amiable and pleasant young gentleman, and i have no doubt he will make you an excellent husband." "oh, i dare say; that is, of course, provided i consent to marry him," said miss bellairs, tartly. "well, mr. dimbal, thank you. i quite understand all you have told me. when i marry mr. carson, he gets fifty thousand pounds to do exactly as he likes with." "well, certainly that is one way of looking at it; but you must not forget that he is to pay you quarterly the sum of two hundred and fifty pounds," said mr. dimbal, hastily. "quite so. i get one thousand to his forty-nine!" "no, no, my dear--not at all." "oh, well, in any case he has the best of it," said olive, wilfully. "if he chooses to make ducks and drakes of the capital there will be but a small chance of my getting any income." "that would be to argue mr. carson a thorough scamp, my dear. i do not think he is that." "how do you know--you say yourself you only saw him for thirty minutes--you can't read a man's character in that time." "perhaps not; but mr. carson appears to me to be an exceptionally well-conducted young gentleman; and, after all, olive, supposing he does waste this money, you have always three thousand a year of your own which he cannot touch." "and a husband i don't want," she replied bitterly. "well, mr. dimbal, suppose i refuse this arrangement?" "well, in that case, my dear, the whole of the money goes to the reverend manners brock, rector of casterwell." "yes, so i remember you told me before. why, may i ask, does it go to him?" "really, my dear, i can hardly say. mr. brock was the most intimate friend of your father and dr. carson. failing the fulfilment of his primary wish, it is evident your father decided to pass on the money to his best friend. that is how the will stands, though, as i have said, it is not easy to approve of it in all respects." "it is a hard and cruel will," said olive, despondently. "i am sure i don't wish to rob mr. carson or any one else of the money, but, on the other hand, i have no wish to become the wife of a man who is a complete stranger to me. my affections are not a regiment of soldiers, to be ordered about in this way." "well," said mr. dimbal, fishing up a blue envelope with a red seal from the depths of his black bag--"well, olive, here is your father's letter. it may perhaps explain his reason for making what, i allow, is a most extraordinary disposition of his personalty." olive took the letter in silence, and, rising from her chair, opened it at the window with her back to the lawyer. it contained a single sheet of paper, on which were written eight lines in her father's well-known hand. they were shaky and faint, as though they had been penned--as indeed they were--by a dying man. "my darling olive, "when you read these lines you will know that it is my last wish and command that you should marry angus carson, to whom you have been engaged since your birth. marry him, i implore you--not so much for the money, as, because if you do not become his wife, evil, terrible evil, will come of your refusal. if you ever loved me, if my memory is dear to you, fulfil my dying wish, and marry angus carson within a month of your twenty-first birthday. if you refuse, god help you! "your loving father, "mark bellairs." as white as ashes olive let the paper flutter to the floor. "what does it mean?" she murmured faintly. "my god, what can it mean?" chapter iii. at the manor house. "what about to-day, mallow?" asked aldean, as with his friend and mentor he enjoyed a morning pipe, pacing the terrace of kingsholme. "the day is right enough," replied laurence, morosely; and he looked with a jaundiced eye on the green country stretching beyond a fringe of trees towards the blue and distant hills. "i don't think you are," retorted his lordship; "you have not spoken two words the whole of breakfast." "i'm never fit for rational conversation till noon, aldean. i should be tied up this morning." "liver!" grunted aldean, with a fond look at his pipe. "let's get out the 'gees,' and shake ourselves into good humour." mallow placed his hands on the young man's shoulders and swayed him to and fro. "that is all the shaking you need, jim," said he, in a more amiable tone. "if i were as good-humoured as you i should be content--all the same, i wish you would confine yourself to the queen's english." "your speech is like a hornet, the sting's in the tail. have you read the papers this morning?" "no," replied mallow, listlessly. "what's in them?" "the usual nothing. france is abusing us, germany is envying us, russia is warning us, and the u.s.a. are beginning to see that blood is thicker than foreign ditch-water." "and what are we doing?" "holding our tongues and picking up unconsidered geographical trifles. silence is ever golden annexation with us." "upon my word, jim," said mallow, with good-humoured astonishment, "you are getting beyond words of one syllable. you can actually construct a sentence with a visible idea in it." "i am growing up, mallow; age is coming upon me." "well, jim, suppose we take a walk." aldean laughed, and pointed with the stem of his pipe towards the red roofs of the distant manor house, "over there, i suppose?" "jim, you have no tact. if our steps do tend in that direction, wandering in devious ways, i--i--well, i have not forgotten that miss ostergaard is paying a visit to--to--miss slarge." "true enough," replied jim, winking. "let us pay a visit to--to--miss slarge." "we might do worse," said mallow; and sighed. "i expect we'll do better," was aldean's response. mallow groaned. "oh, jim, jim, i am a fool. i know that she is going to marry this carson; and yet--and yet i cannot help making myself miserable by calling to see her." "buck up, old man, she isn't spliced yet!" "james, you are incurably vulgar." "if you pay me any more compliments, mallow, i shall forget the respect to my former tutor, and chuck you out of this gangway. come for a walk." so mallow allowed himself to be persuaded, and in due time, as he knew they inevitably would do, they found themselves in the grounds of the manor house. striding up and down the lawn was an elderly lady with a lack-lustre eye and the gait of a grenadier. "how do you do, miss slarge," said the visitors, almost simultaneously. and they waited for the priestess of minerva to wake up and return their salutation. miss rubina slarge was a maiden of forty-five years. she was sufficiently well-looking to have married a score of times. however, early in life she had become convinced that it was her mission to expose the errors of the romish church, and she felt that for this purpose she should dispense with a husband. her knowledge was extensive, but apt to be inaccurate. it was her firm impression that the idol worship of babylon still existed in the papal church, and she was writing a voluminous book to prove this. nimrod and his wife semiramis were still worshipped, she declared, and the festivals and ritual of modern rome were identical with those of ancient babylon. she thought of little else, and lived in a world of biblical prophecy and mythological lore. therefore, although she was supposed ostensibly to look after olive, that clear-headed young lady looked after her, and the house to boot. olive called her aunt ruby, but she was really only a distant cousin, connected by blood with the late mrs. bellairs. absent-minded and dogmatic, aunt ruby was nevertheless amiable and kindly, and olive was really fond of her. but it was rare for her to leave rome or babylon to speak on commonplace subjects. she was difficult to manage, and required no little humouring. on seeing two young men standing bareheaded before her, she stopped and looked bewildered. then she recognized them both and smiled. finally she pointed a lean finger at lord aldean. "septem alta jugis toti quæ presidet orbi,'" said miss slarge, solemnly. "what does that mean, lord aldean?" "great scott!" gasped jim, cramming his hat on his head, "i don't know." "yet you call yourself a scholar, sir?" "no, i don't, miss slarge. i call mr. mallow a scholar. what is it, mallow?" "the lofty city with seven hills which governs the whole world," translated mallow. "i know that," snapped miss slarge; "it is a simple sentence from virgil. but what city?" "rome, of course; what other city has seven hills?" "i was certain of it," cried miss slarge, triumphantly; "the chief seat of idolatry under the new testament. mystery, babylon the great--that is rome!" "is it indeed," said aldean, for her eyes were fastened upon him. "what a rum idea!" "jim, jim," reproved mallow, smiling. "it is a very wonderful idea," said miss slarge, reproachfully. "do you know, mr. mallow, i made a most remarkable discovery last week? the two-horned mitre of the romish bishops is nothing but the mitre worn by dagon, the fish-god of the babylonians." "i do not quite understand, miss slarge." "it is not difficult," replied the lady. "dagon was depicted as half man, half fish." "i know," cried aldean; "he had a fish's tail, like a mermaid." "true enough," assented mallow; "but that does not explain the mitre." miss slarge became excited. "the head of the fish, with open jaws, was worn on the god's head!" she cried, "and the scales and tail formed a cloak. the bishops of the papal church don't wear the tail, but they place the open-jawed head on their brows, and call it a mitre. now do you see?" "oh yes. it is truly wonderful, miss slarge." "osiris also wore such a mitre, mr. mallow. how then can you doubt that the pope of rome is not the modern representative of the philistine, of the babylonian deity. why, if----" by this time miss slarge was taking a breather on her hobby horse, and might be expected to gallop that tiresome animal for a considerable time; so, leaving mallow to endure the martyrdom, lord aldean edged away from the pair by degrees. the cunning rascal had caught a glimpse of miss ostergaard out of the tail of his eye, and, preferring flirtation to instruction, managed to place himself by her side whilst she was filling a small basket with roses. all this apparently without her knowledge. the young lady from new zealand was one of the most charming of young ladies; and aldean went so far as to make no reservation in favour of any one. she had been sent to england to be educated, and, having gone to the same school as olive, a close friendship had sprung up between them as rapidly as had grown jonah's gourd. happily the friendship was more enduring than the plant, and for three or four years these two had been like helena and hermia, two cherries on one stem. miss ostergaard, whose christian, or rather maori name, was tui, loved olive as her other self, and frequently came to stay at the manor house. she was now twenty years of age, and so pretty that she won every heart left uncaptured by olive. with dark hair, dark complexion, and two wonderful dark eyes like wells of liquid light, she made such havoc amongst young and susceptible males that she should have been shut up as a too delightful damsel dangerous to the youth of the community. her last victim was the hapless aldean. having impaled him on a pin, she was watching him wriggle. not that jim objected to the process--indeed, he rather liked it--for if he wriggled on the pin no one else could, for the time being; and thus he secured all the sweet torment unto himself: a most gratifying monopoly. of course tui knew that olive was in love with mallow, and equally, of course, olive was aware of aldean's passion for tui; and of course both of them discussed their lovers to their hearts' content. tui was distinctly in favour of mallow as a suitor for her darling olive, and was enraged at the mere thought of her friend being handed over, with fifty thousand pounds, to an unknown suitor from the back of beyond. therefore she was glad to see him, and she hoped that he would rescue olive from the indian dragon as a true knight should; for olive was very wretched and very tearful, and had been so ever since the departure of mr. dimbal. "poor dear!" sighed miss ostergaard, thinking of her friend. "that is me, isn't it?" asked the artful aldean. "you?" said the lady, snipping vigorously--"as if i was thinking of you, lord aldean. oh, you men, you men!--and they say that women are vain!" "you have something to be vain about," said aldean, seeing his way to a compliment. "i have, indeed--with you. no, i was thinking of olive. you know that she is going to be married?" aldean cast a commiserating look at his friend, who was still being assailed with babylonic information by miss slarge, and nodded. "but she may not marry the chap after all, you know?" "oh yes, she will. mr. carson is coming down here in three days, and olive has fully made up her mind to accept him. i am so enraged," cried tui, "that i could (snip) cut his (snip) head off (snip, snip)." "she has never seen carson, has she?" "no; that's the worst of it. fancy marrying a veiled prophet--a mokanna!" "never heard of the johnny, miss ostergaard. who is he?" "he is a fable, lord aldean." "pity this carson man isn't," said his lordship, with a grin. "i wish he were," sighed tui, walking towards the house. "i am sure he is a beast--a beast with a big, big b!" "who deserves a big, big d!" cried aldean, emphatically. "oh, what a beast!" "are you talking of the beast from the persian gulf," cried miss slarge, who, having pulverized mallow, had glided behind them; "the beast who taught the babylonians arts and sciences?" "this beast comes from india," said aldean, smiling at tui, and with a side glance at mallow; "he is called car----" "oh, there is olive," interrupted miss ostergaard, waving her hand; "olive, here are two visitors!" and olive, pale and listless, descending the steps, turned yet paler at the sight of the man she loved and who loved her. chapter iv. a queer coincidence. when olive saw who was standing on the lawn, she felt very much inclined to fly from so dear yet dangerous a foe. but maidenly pride came to her aid, and, doing violence to her feelings, the better to conceal them, she saluted mr. mallow with so much frigidity as rather to disconcert that young gentleman. "mr. dimbal told me that you were here," she said. "he saw you at reading station yesterday." "mr. dimbal is very kind to save me the trouble of announcing myself," said mallow' dryly. "so unimportant a person as i am should feel much flattered." "no friend is unimportant, mr. mallow," reproved miss bellairs, gently. "i believe that--when there is something substantial to be gained from the friendship." "what a cruel remark!" cried tui, shaking her head. "i hope you do not practise what you preach, mr. mallow." "mallow's bark is worse than his bite," chimed in aldean. "and the horse is the noblest of all animals," said mallow' ironically. "go on, aldean; i love these dry chips from the tree of knowledge." "the hebrew tree of knowledge was stolen by them from the chaldeans," said miss slarge, loudly. "the serpent legend, so intimately connected with it, came from the same source. well, young people, i must really return to my studies. lord aldean--mr. mallow; i hope you will both stay to luncheon?" aldean consulted mallow by a side look, but seeing no encouragement in his moody face refused the invitation on behalf of them both; whereat miss slarge shook hands in the nineteenth-century fashion, and returned to her studies and the primæval days when nimrod began to be a mighty one on the earth. the four young people were left standing, and a short silence prevailed, which was broken by mallow. "'hence, loathed melancholy!'" he spouted theatrically; "we have had enough of that dismal goddess. miss bellairs, smile; aldean, make a joke; miss ostergaard, laugh for goodness' sake." "i can't," replied the last-named lady, "until lord aldean makes his joke. one can't make bricks without straw or mirth without jests." "i always have to think out my jokes," said aldean, innocently; which remark brought forth the required mirth. "you are like the man whose impromptus took him years to invent," said olive, beginning to be merry. "mr. mallow, what is the latest news from town?" "men are in love; thieves are in gaol, and women still use looking-glasses." "also queen anne is dead," laughed tui, swinging her basket. "oysters and news should both be fresh, yet you talk truisms." "have you heard of that awful murder?" put in aldean. "murder! oh, the horrid word, you make me shudder!" "aldean is like the fat boy in pickwick," said mallow, and quoted, "i wants to make your flesh creep.'" "is that the athelstane place crime, lord aldean?" asked olive. "yes. fellow was killed with a knitting-needle. i wonder who did it?" "a woman, you may be sure." "what makes you think so, miss bellairs?" demanded mallow, quickly. "because men don't use knitting-needles, and women do," replied the girl. "i dare say it was a case of jealousy." "perhaps; but even a jealous woman would hesitate to cut off the right hand of a dead lover." "unless she came from the east," said aldean, suddenly. "why should she come from the east?" "well, the _morning planet_ says that the man came from india." "from india!" cried olive and tui in one breath; and their thoughts centred at once on angus carson. "oh, that is only a theory of the newspaper!" said mallow, hastily. "can't you find a pleasanter subject to talk about, aldean?" "yes," replied aldean, looking meaningly at tui. "only----" "only i am wasting my time, and you are helping me to do so," cried that young lady, briskly. "i must tie up my roses." "let me help you." "i am afraid your help would be a hindrance," said miss ostergaard, as she moved towards the house, followed by her huge admirer. "however, if you are very, very good, you may hold the ball of string." left alone with mallow, olive felt in so dangerous a position that she assumed a demeanour even more reserved. "so mr. carson has arrived in england," remarked the young man, gloomily. "yes; who told you so?" "mr. dimbal, the lawyer. of course, it is an open secret that you are to marry him." "i see no reason why it should be a secret at all," retorted olive, with a flush. "if my father wished for the marriage, no one can say a word against it." "i am not saying a word against it. if i did, i should probably say too much." "then don't let us discuss the subject," said olive, hurriedly; "you only make my position the harder." "do you consider it hard?" "you have no right to ask me that question, mr. mallow." "i beg your pardon," said the young man, reddening. "i admit that i have no right--unless you give me one." "mr. mallow, i really do not understand you." "i don't understand myself, miss bellairs; usually i am not timid when i should be bold." "'be bold--be bold, but be not over bold,'" quoted olive, trying to turn off his speech with a laugh--an attempt which mallow resolutely refused to countenance. "i suppose you will marry mr. carson?" he inquired anxiously. "i suppose i shall," replied miss bellairs, with a coolness she was far from feeling. "is it absolutely certain?" olive felt a quiver pass through her frame, and it was with difficulty she prevented her emotion from overcoming her. she thought of the man who was coming to claim her, the man she had never even seen; of the undeclared lover who was by her side dreading the answer which she should give. finally the memory of the sealed letter, with its menace of coming evil passed through her mind, and dictated the reply-- "it is absolutely certain--absolutely." "in that case there is nothing for me to do but to offer you the customary congratulations on your--your good fortune." "my good fortune!" she burst out. "my good--oh yes, of course. thank you, mr. mallow. i congratulate you, in my turn, on your penetration." and before he could recover from his amazement at this attack, she flitted across the lawn, swept past the astonished couple on the steps, and vanished into the house. this incident brought the visit to a close, for as olive did not reappear to explain her sudden anger, mallow said good-bye to miss ostergaard, and departed with the reluctant aldean. the young lord, guessing that his friend and olive had come to words, more than expected to have a peevish companion for his homeward walk, instead of which mallow was quite uproariously merry. by this time he had fathomed the cause of olive's wrath, and he cursed himself for a fool not to have seen and known that she was not the woman to wear her heart upon her sleeve. her sudden retreat after her foolish speech had been the result of fear at having betrayed her real feelings. these were not for carson, he was sure of that now, but for himself--olive loved him; and whether the pre-arranged marriage took place or not, nothing could alter that fact. as the thought became conviction, mallow found it impossible to suppress the joy he felt, and he forthwith indulged in antics which would have shamed a schoolboy. "what is it?" asked aldean, amazed at this conduct in so grave a man. "what do you think it is, jim?" "lunacy, i should say, on the face of it." "no, my boy; but a word much the same in meaning, which begins with the same letter." "larking?" guessed the obtuse jim, with a grin. "i can't say much for your penetration, lord aldean," said mallow, with a laugh. "love is the word i mean--love is the feeling which thrills me, for 'to-day the birthday of my life is come.'" "one would think you had been celebrating the occasion with strong drink," retorted jim, soberly. "have you spoken to miss bellairs?" "no, sir; i have done nothing so foolish." "then has she perhaps given you to understand----" "of course not; do you think for one moment she is the woman to do such a thing?" "i don't know; once or twice girls have pretty near proposed to me. i've had some trouble with them, i can tell you. then how do you know it is all right?" "because i do know." "that isn't an answer; it's a statement." "then you will have to take the statement for your answer, my dear old thickhead. olive loves me, the angel that she is." "she ran away from you." "i know she did, but she loves me." "she was in a pelting rage; i saw her face." "i know she was, but she loves me." "oh, come home," growled aldean, putting his arm within that of his enigmatic friend. "you're a human cuckoo." mallow laughed, and went back to kingsholme with an excellent appetite, which went to prove that he was no lover out of a sickly romance. for the next two or three days he made no attempt to see olive, but lived on the memory of her self-betrayal. in spite of jim's insidious hints that the pleasantest walks tended towards the manor house, laurence kept away. with his host he rode and drove and played golf. he spun over the country on his humber, and fought jim valiantly in singles on the tennis-lawn. then the news came that angus carson and his friend major semberry had arrived, and were in possession of the garden of flowers, and presumably of the nymphs who haunted it. mallow's spirits suddenly went down to zero, and, in a moping mood, he worried aldean for two whole days. on the third he resolved to meet his rival face to face; so, taking advantage of aldean's absence at reading, he walked over to the manor house, and was duly shown into the drawing-room. remembering their last meeting, olive blushed as she gave mallow her hand. then, to cover her confusion, she presented mallow to a tall, slender young man in a grey tweed suit, with his right hand in a black silk sling. "mr. mallow, this is mr. carson." laurence bowed, and as he did so he became aware of a faint drowsy odour. it was the perfume of sandal-wood. chapter v. the suspicions of laurence mallow. o all things odours are the most powerful to stimulate a dormant memory; to bring back in a flash an especial scene, a peculiar face, a particular conversation. nothing was further from mallow's mind than the mysterious murder of athelstane place, yet the moment that whiff of sandal-wood titillated his nostrils, he recalled at once the theory of the newspapers and the wild suggestion of lord aldean. for the moment he was so bewildered that he stood tongue-tied before mr. carson. that young gentleman, on his part, appeared to be amused, if a trifle astonished. "you have seen me before," he asked in a pleasant voice, with a slight and agreeable accent. "no? is there anything strange about me then that you----" "i--i--i really beg your pardon," stammered mallow, scrambling out of his unpleasant position as best he could; "but i--that is--i fancied i did know your face." "you have been in india, then?" "yes, mr. carson; i was in india some months ago." "then it is quite possible that we met there, mr. mallow, although i cannot recall having seen you. this is the first time i have visited england. forgive me if i am somewhat lax in the observance of your social customs--one always shakes hands here, i believe, when presented; you must let me then give you my left hand." "is your right disabled?" asked mallow, shaking the hand this affable young man extended. "i am sorry to say it is, mr. mallow. i hurt it some months back, shooting in india; the bones are diseased, and, since my arrival, i have been having it attended to by one of your clever london surgeons. i am relieved to say that he did not consider amputation to be necessary." here, again, was another circumstance which immediately struck mallow as peculiar. the right hand of the dead man in athelstane place had been cutoff; the right hand of mr. carson was diseased, and had narrowly escaped amputation. this was a strange coincidence. "i am charmed with your country, mr. mallow," continued carson, who seemed bent upon making himself agreeable. "after the arid plains of india, these green fields are very refreshing to the eye." "yet i have seen marvellous verdure in the himalayas," replied mallow. carson shrugged his shoulders. "oh yes; every land has its season of greenness, you know, but india is undeniably dry." "how do you do, mr. mallow," said a voice at the young man's elbow, and he turned to see the lean form of miss slarge. "we have quite a large gathering to-day, have we not?--major semberry, dr. drabble, and mr. carson." "last and least," smiled that gentleman. mallow laughed also, seemingly out of politeness, and glanced round the drawing-room at the people referred to by miss slarge. major semberry, a fair, handsome, soldierly man, was paying great attention to miss ostergaard, who had apparently forgotten aldean in the ardour of her present flirtation; and dr. drabble, tall and thin as a telegraph-pole, and with about as much figure, was talking loudly with olive bellairs. when laurence withdrew his eyes, miss slarge, who was quite modern at the present moment, was chatting with carson in her high-pitched voice. "my sister, mrs. purcell, describes you as being like an italian," she was saying; "and i quite agree with her--don't you, mr. mallow?" "certainly, mr. carson has the appearance of a tuscan." "my mother was eurasian," explained the young man; "i am supposed to take after her. there is a great similarity between dark people, don't you think so? yes?" "well, putting negroes out of the question, i suppose there is, more or less," assented mallow. he thought carson much more like the pure italian than the englishman of mixed blood. certainly there was no hint of the anglo-saxon about him. "so mrs. purcell has been giving you my character," said carson, smiling blandly on miss slarge. "oh dear me, yes. she wrote me quite a long account of you--all about your looks, and conversation, and i don't know what else." "really? i feel flattered by the notice she has taken of me. i confess i should very much like to see that letter." "if you like i will read you those parts of it which refer to you," said miss slarge, amiably. "you will see then how keen an observer my sister is. excuse me, i will fetch the letter." as miss slarge slipped out of the room on her errand, mallow detected a sigh from carson--a sigh that sounded like one of relief. at the same time he appeared--so mallow thought--to be uneasy, and while continuing his conversation he frequently glanced at the major. semberry instinctively became aware of this, and once or twice turned his head. finally he left miss ostergaard, and came slowly across the room, as though drawn in spite of himself to the side of his friend. again mallow heard from carson a sigh of relief, after which his uneasiness gave place to a more confident manner, and he presented major semberry to laurence with perfect ease. "we need no introduction," said mallow, smiling. "major semberry and i met at simla some few months back. "ah, yes," replied semberry, in his crisp, abrupt way; "mallow the sportsman. i remember." "say, rather, mallow the scribe--in india, major. it was my mission to scribble out there." "by george, yes. read some of your letters in paper. you dropped on us hot, mallow--deuced hot. what are you doing in these parts?" "idling, major, at the expense of lord aldean." "met him in london," said semberry, staccato; "nice boy, make good army man. no brains, plenty muscle." "oh, aldean has a good deal more mental power than people give him credit for." "dark horse, eh?" "well, he may yet prove to be so. as to your no brains for the army,' major, i fancy you depreciate your profession. they don't make the fool of the family a soldier now--they certainly did not in your case." the major acknowledged the compliment with a bow, but did not reply. "do you know, semberry, that i am about to hear my character?" said carson, blandly. "eh, what? from our friend here?" "no," explained mallow; "it seems that mrs. purcell has written an account of mr. carson to miss slarge, and your friend is to hear it verbatim." from long exposure to the sun, the natural hue of semberry's complexion was brick-dust, yet at this it became still more red, and he put up a hand and tugged uneasily at his moustache. his manner reflected the recent anxiety of carson, and mallow was at once on the alert to discover the cause of their joint discomfort. there was a hint of mystery about the swift glances they exchanged which piqued his curiosity, and from that moment he was silently observant of their every look and word. what he expected to learn he hardly knew, but that there was something to be learned he felt convinced. but then mallow was distinctly prejudiced against carson as his rival. when the major's hand came down from his moustache, he observed that "mrs. purcell was a charming woman, and that she wrote an amusing letter." he then turned to face olive, who was approaching with dr. drabble. "it is not kind of you three gentlemen to exclude us from your conversation," she said brightly. "what are you talking about?" "mrs. purcell's letter," said carson, with a glance of proprietorship. "miss slarge has promised to read aloud the character which her sister is so good as to give me." "it is a better one than you deserve," replied olive. "ha, ha!" roared drabble, who was a noisy creature at best, "isn't his character to your liking, miss bellairs?" "if it is not," said carson, before the girl had time to answer, "olive shall make it to her liking in two months." miss ostergaard, who had joined the group, laughed. "can an old dog learn new tricks?" she said mischeviously. "a young puppy might," muttered mallow, whose hot irish temper was rapidly rising, both at carson and at olive. he was enraged at the mere fact of the man calling the girl by her christian name, and he was annoyed at the complacent way in which she seemed to listen to him and his babble. luckily for the peace of the moment, his remark passed unheard by all save tui, and she nodded approbation. "what ridiculous things you say, tui," said olive, with pretended severity. "extraordinary name, 'tui,'" called out drabble, elegantly. "what does it mean, miss ostergaard?" "it means me, in the first place, dr. drabble," she replied smartly; "and in the second it is the native name for the new zealand parson bird." "by george, parson bird!" "why rookery, miss ostergaard? or, to be more precise, why parson bird?" "because it is all black, mr. mallow--a beautiful glossy black, with two white feathers in its throat like a parson's cravat. we have christened it the parson bird; the maoris call it the tui." "it is inappropriate to you, miss ostergaard," said carson, smiling. "you never preach, i am sure." "oh yes, i do; but i keep my sermons for olive." "ho, ho! i should like to be a member of that congregation." "as an anarchist, dr. drabble, you are not fit to be a member of any. you don't like preaching--other people's preaching, i mean." "that depends upon the preacher, miss ostergaard." "madame death-in-life, for instance." with a snarl drabble turned on mallow, who had made this remark. "what do you know of madame death-in-life?" he snapped. "only that she is the most noted anarchist in europe," retorted mallow, coolly. "why not? i know her, you know her, the police know her; and a few stray kings will know her some day to their cost, if she isn't guillotined--as she ought to be.' "i wonder you know such a horrible woman, mr. mallow," said olive. "oh, my acquaintance with her is not personal, miss bellairs." "neither is mine," said drabble, who had recovered his good humour. "i don't approve of madame death-in-life's methods. it is not my plan to terrorize the world by bombs and murders. the pen, sir, the pen is mightier than the explosive; so is the tongue. pamphlets and lectures--that is my system for bringing about the much-needed social millennium. the woman you speak of does harm to the cause; she should be suppressed." "just what i said--and by the guillotine." "no, sir!" thundered drabble. "no legal crime, if you please." "anarchists prefer illegal murder," said semberry, smiling grimly. "and no punishment to follow," remarked carson, arranging his sling. "except that of their own conscience," chimed in olive. "no anarchist possesses one," said tui; at which all present burst out laughing at the expression on dr. drabble's face. in the midst of this merriment miss slarge returned with the letter and an apology. "it took me some time to find," she explained to carson. "listen; this is how my sister describes you. perhaps it is better not to give it to you in my sister's own words, for her style is founded upon dr. johnson's, and is apt to be prolix." "paraphrase the description miss slarge," said mallow. "mr. carson," said miss slarge, glancing at the letter, "is twenty-five years of age, gentle, well-bred, not without parts, and modest." the gentleman in question clicked his heels together in quite a foreign fashion, and bowed low. mallow noticed the continental air of the whole action, and remembered it. "he is tall, slender, elegant in shape, of a swart complexion, inherited from his mother, and his eyes and moustache are of the deepest black. he looks like an italian." "by george, carson! mrs. purcell describes you exactly," said the major; and in his heart mallow, who had followed the description closely, was obliged to confess that this was true. "he is delicate in health, and has a weak heart." "i know that to my cost," sighed carson, "and a swollen hand. does mrs. purcell mention that fact, yes?" "she does, mr. carson, and she also says that you are effeminate." "ha, ha!" bellowed drabble--"effeminate, eh?" carson reddened. "and why, miss slarge?" "because you wear a bracelet." "that is true enough," assented the young man; "but i can't get it off, and it has been on my wrist all my life--in fact, ever since it was placed there by my ayah." "oh, do show us the bracelet!" cried tui. she had a thorough woman's love for jewellery. "bracelet, hum! bangle, india!" muttered the major, and tugged his moustache. "show me the bangle, angus," said olive, persuasively; and mallow winced. mr. carson with great care, and evidently with some pain, took his arm from the sling and drew up his shirt cuff. loosely encircling his wrist appeared a broad band of pale gold, elaborately wrought with the hideous forms of three hindoo gods. as he displayed it, miss slarge read aloud the description of the ornament from her sister's letter:-- "it is a broad band of ductile gold, curiously wrought with the idol figures of the hindoo trinity: bramah, siva, and vishnu, interwoven with the sacred lotus-flower, and other heathen symbols." "most extraordinary," said mallow, looking at it; "good trade-mark, eh, mr. carson? none genuine without this device." "what do you mean, sir?" cried carson, pulling down his sleeve with an angry jerk. "mean! why, what should i mean?" replied the irishman, and smiled innocently. chapter vi. the reverend manners brock. the young men were seated on the terrace in the warm summer twilight. the plains of corn beyond the dark trees were filled with floating shadows, and the pale radiance of the long-set sun still lingered in the western skies. overhead a few stars shone with mellow lustre in the warm, purple arch; but the moon had not yet rolled her wheel over the distant hills, and the dusk was faintly luminous, so that the landscape was indistinctly visible, as through a filmy veil. there was no breath of wind, and the trees seemed to extend their opaque shadows, even to the verge of the glimmering white terrace. at intervals a nightingale filled the dusk with silvery strains, and occasionally the hoot of a distant owl sounded like depreciative criticism of the bird music. so still, so dreamy, so peacefully beautiful, it was a magic night for love and lovers, for dancing elves and poet's singing. yet this unromantic pair were talking the crudest commonplaces--harsh music for such an hour, for such a scene. but there are times when man sympathizes with nature as little as does she with him. "well, jim," said mallow, after a pause and a sip of warming liqueur, "it is now a week since those marplots came on the scene. what is your candid opinion?" with a flick of his finger, aldean sent the stump of his cigarette flying over the balustrade. "that is what i should like to do," he said, in his deep voice; "chuck them both into space." "i did not ask you what you would like to do to them, but what you think of them." "they are two bounders--at least, semberry is one." "you are prejudiced, my james," said mallow, coolly; "semberry is a well-bred man, but carson--ahem!--carson is not a gentleman." "in other words, carson is not carson." "upon my soul, jim, i don't believe he is." mallow jumped up, and balanced himself on the railing of the terrace immediately before his friend. "i don't believe he is," he repeated. "he is supposed to have come from india. well, he knows precious little about india, although i have questioned him repeatedly. he talks with a distinct foreign accent; his every action is suggestive of continental society, and he looks like an italian. see here, jim"--he slipped down, clicked his heels together, and made a stiff bow from the waist--"is that english?" he mimicked carson's speech: "you think so, yes? is that english, jim? i ask you plainly, is there anything english about the man?" "well, he isn't english, you know," was jim's reply. "his father was a saxon, and, from all accounts, a public school boy, a university man, gently born and well-bred. why isn't his son--if this man be his son--more like him?" "the poor chap hasn't had his father's advantages, mallow. his mother was a half-caste, and, i suppose, no pattern of breeding. he has been brought up in exile amongst niggers, and has received a scratch education. i don't see what you can expect. carson's pretty good, considering his disadvantages." "confound you, jim; don't desert to the enemy!" cried mallow, in a huff. "i'm not deserting, but i see both sides of the question, and you don't. you believe that the real carson is dead, and that this man is an impostor." "and if i do," said mallow, defiantly, "it was you who put the idea into my head." aldean laughed. "you don't usually take my suggestions so seriously," he said, smiling. "besides, i had no proof for my assertion, and you--however much you wish to--can't find one. on the other hand, there is ample evidence to show that carson is the man he declares himself to be. mrs. purcell's letter describes him exactly: he has a weak heart and an injured hand; also, he wears the golden bangle, which, as he showed mrs. carson in bombay, cannot be removed. finally, carson has been in semberry's company ever since he left his father's death-bed." "semberry is a plausible scamp," growled mallow, biting his fingers. "i heard no good of him in india." "perhaps not; but a man can be a scamp without being a blackguard." "pooh, pooh! you split straws. that is a distinction without a difference." "well," rejoined aldean, with equanimity; "let us say that a fellow can be a spendthrift and a don juan without being dishonest. i hardly think, mallow, that semberry would risk his commission and his position in the world by supporting an impostor such as you believe carson to be." "you have certainly found your tongue, jim," said the irishman, recovering his good humour, "and your arguments are moderately convincing. but you seem to forget that some fifty thousand pounds are involved in this marriage contract." "who told you so?" "miss slarge. she is a dreamy, up-in-the-clouds old lady, as you know, but she can open her eyes and descend to the contemplation of ordinary things occasionally. olive is the apple of her eye, and her wish is to see the girl happy; therefore, she does not approve of this marriage.' "isn't she pleased with carson?" "no, she dislikes him thoroughly, and she believes that he is marrying olive solely for the sake of the money. now major semberry is a chronic bankrupt, and half--even a quarter--of fifty thousand pounds would be a great temptation to him." aldean looked earnestly at his friend. "i see what you mean," he said slowly. "your idea is that carson was murdered at athelstane-place, and that semberry has substituted this impostor so that the marriage may take place, and they may share the proceeds. my dear mallow, if you argue thus, you argue a rope round the major's neck." "bosh! did i say that semberry was a murderer?" "i am only bringing your argument to a logical conclusion, mallow. if the real carson has been murdered, semberry must know of it, else he could have no reason to substitute the false one. admitting as much, he must either have killed carson himself, or he must know who did. in either case he is a criminal. q.e.d." mallow shook his head. "even assuming that i am right, semberry could not have murdered carson, as it would be sheer folly for him to support an impostor when the real simon pure was his friend. however, i don't say that the real carson has been murdered, nor do i identify him with the athelstane place victim; although," added mallow seriously, "it is a strange thing that the clothes, both of the living and the dead, should smell of sandal-wood." "it is strange," admitted aldean, "and not to be easily explained. but we have argued the subject threadbare. what is your final opinion?" "my original opinion--carson is not carson." "mallow, you are developing a monomania. come and unbend your great mind over billiards." the irishman laughed and agreed. for the next hour or so they were taken up with cannons and breaks, and they left further discussion of carson's identity to a more fitting occasion. the argument was not renewed that evening, and mallow retired to bed with his mind less taken up with the subject than usual, and had a good night's rest. however, he woke early the next morning, and his thoughts at once reverted to olive and her doubtful lover. beyond the fact of the sandal-wood perfume, he had no reason for connecting the man who had put in an appearance at casterwell with the victim of athelstane-place, and his good sense told him that this was but a slender foundation upon which to build the superstructure of an imposture. and yet there remained with him an instinctive feeling that all was not right. do what he would, argue as he might, he could not get rid of the idea that semberry and his friend were brother rogues, bent upon obtaining the dowry of olive. "i cannot believe in carson until i find some one who can identify him," thought mallow, as he dressed himself. "if mrs. purcell were only in england, she would settle the question at once. but, according to miss slarge, she will not be back for three months, and this man is to marry olive in two. on the th of august she comes of age. by the terms of the will, she must become mrs. carson before the th of september. after that date, be the man genuine or an impostor, i am powerless." the matter agitated him so greatly as to render him irritable and restless. unwilling to inflict his state of mind on aldean, as it was yet early, he slipped out of the house and walked down to the village. he found the rural population astir and busy in the freshness of the morning air. during his tutorship of aldean he had become friendly with many of these villagers, and those who met him now were glad to renew acquaintance with him. after strolling through the quaint high street, admiring once again the old-fashioned houses, with their black beams diapered on the whitewashed walls, he turned into the churchyard, and strolled round the sombre grey building, which was the oldest of all the old things in casterwell. the blackened tombstones, their queer inscriptions half obliterated by brown moss and yellow lichen, toppled askew amongst the uncut dewy grass, and from out the general untidiness rose the ecclesiastical fabric, its obtuse roof hidden by the open stonework and crocketted pinnacles. the massive square tower, draped with fresh green ivy, loomed out at the western end, and round it the swallows were wheeling and glancing like flying arrows. thrush and blackbird and starling piped in the adjacent thicket, white pigeons whirled overhead, and wreaths of smoke curled from the village chimneys. mallow enjoyed to the full the freshness of it all--the mellow sounds of waking life, the atmosphere surrounding him. the peace and beauty of it soothed his mind, and he fell to musing. he started when a voice at his elbow greeted him. "ah, good morning, mr. mallow, this is an unexpected pleasure!" "mr. brock!" cried the irishman, turning suddenly. "i thought you were away." "so i was," rejoined the rector, holding out his hand. "i have been recruiting by the sea. i only returned last night. i see you are like myself, mr. mallow; you love the freshness of the early morning." "i felt restless within doors, mr. brock, and came out to be soothed." the rector nodded approvingly. "'you fly to nature's breast for nature's balm,'" he quoted in a deep, rolling voice. "it is to be regretted that all young men are not so sensible. well, mr. mallow, and how are you?" "i am in capital health and spirits," replied laurence, lightly. "and you? you are not looking quite so fit as usual." "age, sir, age. years are beginning to tell on me. after sixty the human frame begins to fail. i lose tone. my recent visit to the seaside was to restore it." mallow thought to himself that the result had not been wholly successful, for mr. brock looked sallow and wrinkled and hollow-eyed. he was a handsome, burly man, and he carried himself with an air of importance which many a bishop might have envied. his face was clean-shaven, and his features were clean-cut. his skin was of the particular hue one associates with old ivory, and a halo of silvery white hair lent an air of benignity to his expression. the reverend manners brock had been vicar of casterwell for over twenty years, and was as well-established as the church over which he presided. he was an industrious worker, an excellent orator, and a general social favourite with rich and poor alike. there was not in england a rector more popular or more admired. he might certainly have been a bishop, and--granting that the welfare of the community was the aim of those in power--he perhaps stood a good chance of becoming one. that he would adorn the position, as he adorned the rectorship of casterwell, there could be no doubt. but, so far, there had been no hint of any such elevation for mr. brock. as he strolled up and down chatting with mallow, the click of the church-gate was heard. simultaneously they turned to see a dark young man, with his arm in a sling, advancing along the grassy path. mr. brock started when he saw the face of the newcomer, and clutched the arm of his companion. "who--who is that?" he asked, his face grey and drawn, and his frame literally trembling with nervous agitation. "that is mr. carson," said mallow, wondering. "carson! oh, my god! carson? do--do the dead return?" mallow feared the old man was about to faint. chapter vii. margery. carson, with his usual amiable smile, came jauntily along the path, looking directly at mallow and the rector. he appeared to be amazed at the white and perturbed face of the latter, but, ignoring it, he held out his left hand in greeting to laurence. "good morning," he said pleasantly. "i see you are an early bird like myself. i have been accustomed to rise at dawn in india, and to drop old habits is difficult, is it not? yes?" "india?" gasped the rector, before mallow could reply. "do you come from india?" "yes. i arrived in england only a few weeks ago." "your name is carson?" "angus carson, at your service;" and the young man clicked his heels and bowed. "the son of my old friend, alfred carson?" pursued the rector, who was recovering his self-control somewhat. "yes. are you mr. brock? are you my father's friend? yes?" "i am," said the other, in a voice of emotion. "ah! no wonder i felt queer when i saw your face. it was as if the dead were come to life." "i am supposed to be very like my father," returned carson, easily. "i don't wonder you were startled. my dear father often spoke to me of your devotion to him." "yes, yes; poor alfred!" the rector seated himself on a flat tombstone and fought down his natural feelings. "i wish i had known you were here, angus; your great resemblance to your father has given me a shock. i feel ill--i--i feel very ill." "shall i go to the rectory and fetch you some brandy?" said mallow, who was sorry for the old man. "if--if you would be so kind," muttered mr. brock, burying his face in his handkerchief. "poor alfred!"--and his emotion again overcame him. carson stood by and looked sympathetically on at this proof of a long-remembered friendship; but he made no remark, until laurence returned from his errand. "thank you, mr. mallow; you are most kind," said brock, gratefully, as he swallowed the brandy. "believe me, i am sorry my sudden appearance should have so alarmed you," said carson, politely. "did you know that i was coming to this place? no?" "certainly, i was aware of it," answered the rector, in a stronger voice, "for miss slarge read me a letter from mrs. purcell. i also saw the communication you addressed to olive from bombay, advising her of your coming. but i have been absent, and i returned only last night; and the sight of your face--your extraordinary resemblance to your father--startled me not a little." "such emotion is natural," said mallow; "the more so as you were so attached to mr. carson." mr. brock rose and sighed. "he was my dearest friend," he said sadly; "and even thirty years have not banished his memory from my heart. i feel like a father to you, angus--you must permit me to call you angus?" "i beg of you to do so," answered the young man, gracefully, giving his left hand to the rector. "who should do so, if not you, the oldest friend of my father, and the guardian of my dearest olive." mallow bit his lip, and turned away to conceal his anger, for after all, being engaged to her, the man had every right to speak of olive in affectionate terms. angus, who had long since discovered that the irishman was his rival, smiled blandly at this exhibition--for it did not escape him--of jealousy. but he had sufficient discretion to make no remark. with an inclusive nod to both men, laurence walked away, and his feelings on climbing the hill on his way home were anything but enviable. he felt that fate was dealing hardly by him. "have you hurt your hand?" asked brock, when the unnecessary third person had vanished through the gate. "yes, many months ago while shooting," replied carson. "indeed, it was this hand that detained me from paying my respects to olive and yourself earlier. i arrived on the twenty-fourth of last month, and intended coming here at once; but my hand was so painful that i waited in london to see a surgeon about it." "where did you stay?" asked the rector. "with my friend, major semberry, in st. james's street. semberry took rooms there, and i made it my home. indeed, my luggage is there at the present moment." "st. james's street!" "yes; that is, a little street off it--duke street, i believe it is called, no. b." "no. b, duke street, st. james's," repeated brock, slowly. "the first address you gave me was somewhat misleading." "my ignorance of social customs in your large city," replied mr. carson, with a charming smile. "i am quite a barbarian, am i not? yes?" "indeed, no; if olive is not pleased with you she will be hard to satisfy." "i think she likes me, mr. brock, but she does not love me." "oh, love is a matter of custom with young girls. you will gain it sooner or later--if not before marriage, then afterwards." "i fear olive has no love to give me," said carson, shaking his head. "it is my impression that she has already given her heart to that gentleman who has just left us." "to mallow? nonsense. she looks upon him as a friend." "as a very dear friend, don't you think? yes?" "that may be," rejoined mr. brock, gravely. "she has known him for many years, for mallow lived here a considerable time as tutor to lord aldean. but i am sure olive is not the girl to disregard her father's dying wish. she will become your wife, angus; be sure of that." "i shall endeavour to deserve my good fortune, mr. brock." "by the way, angus, did your father send no message to me?" "he spoke of you kindly and tenderly on his death-bed," replied angus, gently; "but he sent no message." "he gave you no letter for me?" "none. had he done so, i would have sent it on to you." "i suppose he told you about our early friendship?" "well, no; he spoke always of you with affection, yet he gave me no details of your association with him." "yet bellairs and i were his nearest and dearest," sighed the rector; "but i should not complain. a man might forget many things in thirty years. poor alfred!--he was one of the best men i ever knew. i hope you will try to emulate his virtues, angus." "i shall do my best, mr. brock," said carson, glancing at his watch. "it is getting near breakfast-time. i must return to the manor house." "no," said the rector, taking the young man by the arm. "i cannot so readily part with the son of my old friend, who brings back all my youth to me. you must breakfast with me." this invitation did not appear to please carson over much, and he would fain have declined it, but the rector was peremptory; so, in the end, he accepted. mr. brock was pleased, and showed his pleasure. "i am a bachelor," he said, showing his young friend the way through the quick-set hedge; "but i have an excellent housekeeper and an admirable cook. you shall have a good breakfast, angus." "well, sir, i bring a good appetite," answered carson; and, arm-in-arm with his father's old associate, he passed into the rectory grounds, making himself as agreeable as he knew how. mr. brock became rejuvenated in the presence of his old friend's son, and questioned the young man closely concerning the dead-and-gone companion of his youth. it was a merry breakfast enough in one way; yet in another it was sad. in the hereafter it afforded mr. brock much food for reflection. but, if a man will be so rash as to raise the ghost of a dead past, he cannot expect to be other than melancholy. honest enough to avow that his suspicions concerning carson had proved baseless, mallow was not patient or amiable enough to discuss the matter with aldean. after a short explanation laurence passed on to more agreeable subjects, and his friend was in no way unwilling to leave unprofitable argument for pleasant conversation. the irishman concealed his disappointment, and, deciding that there was little sense in crying over spilt milk, made himself as entertaining as possible. he enjoyed his meal with aldean, after which--in completion of his cure, as mallow put it--they rode together. returning late in the afternoon, they came upon the residence of dr. drabble. a slatternly-looking dwelling it was, on the outskirts of the village. here laurence announced his intention of paying a visit to the doctor's wife. aldean expressed himself agreeable. he liked the doctor's children infinitely better than he liked the doctor. beckoning two small boys to hold their horses, they went up to the door. "as untidy as ever, i see," remarked laurence, as they walked up an overgrown brick path, through a wilderness of neglected flower-shrubs. aldean shrugged his shoulders. "what can you expect?" he said. "the doctor is one of your world-reformers, who sweeps every doorstep but his own. reformation never begins at home with these fanatics--more's the pity." had mrs. drabble heard this last statement she would probably have endorsed it. she was a weary-looking, white-faced woman, worn out with family cares and domestic worries. seven children, one servant, and a neglectful and exacting husband, were enough to account for her aspect. the room into which the visitors were shown was as untidy as the garden, and mrs. drabble was as untidy as the room. she gave her hand to lord aldean with a wan smile, and greeted mallow with an apologetic air. "for, indeed, i am quite ashamed that you should find us in such a state," she complained languidly; "but i have so much to do that i can do nothing." the epigram was, if unintentional, none the less true. the poor, weak head of this domestic martyr was literally dazed by the constant abuse of her neglectful husband and the burden of her clamorous children. that mrs. drabble was a byeword in casterwell for untidiness was not altogether her fault. in truth, she possessed neither the strength nor the capability necessary to reduce her domestic chaos to something like order. a more helpless, hopeless creature never lived. she had been a pretty girl enough when she had married drabble, and that would-be reformer was largely, if not entirely, the cause of her degeneration. "and how is my young friend margery?" asked aldean, who had known mrs. drabble and her household ever since he was a small boy in petticoats. "oh, margery is well enough," sighed mrs. drabble (she naturally took a despondent view of life). "her brain is too big for her body, and lately she has taken to writing poetry. as if that would help one? then there is cade, and brutus, and danton--all of them growing boys, who eat enormously and spoil their clothes dreadfully. i'm sure i often wish their father was more of a parent and less of a radical," finished the poor lady. "i can't do everything; it's not to be expected--nobody can deny that." a crowd of children--all named after notorious republicans--at that moment surged past the sitting-room door, which would not shut. giggling and whispering, they appeared and disappeared like rabbits in and out of their burrows. shortly margaret, the eldest, tripped into the room, and shook hands with precocious composure. she was a pretty little girl of some twelve years, with a nobly-formed head, a profusion of curly reddish hair, a complexion of cream, and dreamy grey eyes. altogether a noticeable child. she already displayed considerable brain power, and, indeed, she was the only one of his children in whom dr. drabble took the smallest interest. the display of his affection took the form of inculcating her with pernicious anarchistic doctrines, the meaning of which the poor child, intelligent as she was, was quite at a loss to understand. as hamilcar made his son take an oath of eternal hatred for rome, so did dr. drabble instil into his small daughter a detestation of the world and the world's social system. poor little margery innocently piped diatribes which would have done credit to the hags of the revolution. "well, margery daw," said mallow kindly, "have you forgotten who i am?" "oh no," answered the child in her pleasantly low voice, "you are the gentleman olive is so fond of." lord aldean laughed, mallow coloured, and mrs. drabble, much shocked, apologized for her daughter's candour. "but indeed she is such a sharp little thing that there is no keeping anything from her," wailed mrs. drabble; "and the doctor, i am sorry to say, tells her many things that a child should not hear." "i am a red anarchist, like father," announced margery, proudly. "we intend to make everybody equal." "do you, indeed?" laughed aldean, drawing the child to his knee. "and what is to be done with me?" "you are to be called mr. aldean, and made to work." "you will indeed be clever if you can make mr. aldean work, margery," said mallow, smiling. "i have never been successful so far." "please excuse her, lord aldean," said the shocked mrs. drabble. "it is her father who puts these ideas into her head. margery, how can you?" "oh, we all know that the doctor is working for the social millennium, mrs. drabble; the time when there will be neither rich nor poor, and we shall all practise communism." "i'm sure i wish the doctor would practise his profession, lord aldean. but mr. dyke, that new man, gets all his best cases, whilst he is constantly in london working for the cause. as if preaching in trafalgar square is of any use to me. i never know the day when he may be in gaol; and then what shall i do with these seven children?" "i'll support us all with my poetry, mother," said margery, grandly. "poetry!" said mallow, laughing. "and pray what kind of poetry do you write, young lady?" "the poetry of revolt; that is what father calls it;" and margery, stretching out a lean arm, proceeded to recite these terrible lines:-- "tyrants tremble in your beds, we shall cut off all your heads, take your money and your land, and as freemen take our stand; this is not a foolish gabble, but the word of margery drabble." the young men roared, both at the poetry and the fierce attitude of the child. "you are quite a revolutionist, margery," said aldean, "and a poetess to boot. e. b. browning; sappho in a phrygian cap, eh?" the little girl shook her red curls. "i aspire to be like louise michel," she said solemnly, "the noblest of all women." "wouldn't you rather grow up like miss bellairs," said mallow, persuasively. "ah!" groaned mrs. drabble, dismally, "where are the education and money to come from?" "i love olive. i am very fond of olive," said margery judiciously, "but i do not approve of her choice of a husband." "don't you indeed," laughed mallow. "no. i have advised her to marry either you or lord aldean." "margery, margery, do not be so pert." "i am not pert, mother, i am a thinker." "with a large t," said aldean, rising. "well, margery, you must come and see me soon, and we will ravage the orchards." "apples, strawberries, peaches--oh my!" cried margery, a child for the nonce, "i should like to have as many as i could eat." "well, i dare say we can satisfy even your appetite. come soon, and bring us some more poetry with you. mr. mallow and i must be going now. there, dear, you won't refuse that, will you?" and he slipped a half-sovereign into the child's hand. "no," replied margery the communist. "'what's yours is mine'--father says so--but thank you very much, mr. aldean." "lord aldean, margery," corrected her mother. "father says there are no lords, mother; this is plain mr. aldean." "there is a reflection on your lordship's good looks," said mallow. "well, margery, when you begin cutting off heads, i hope you will spare us, eh?" "fear not," said margery, dramatically; "i'll stand by you in the day of trial." chapter viii. jephthah's daughter. save her honeymoon, probably the happiest time in a woman's life is the period of her engagement--the time when she is being adored by her lover, congratulated by her friends, and is delightfully employed in expecting and receiving the customary offerings of her friends and acquaintances, and in making those varied and numerous purchases which seem to be considered _de rigueur_ on such occasions. for the time being she is, at all events, the supreme centre of interest amid her own immediate circle; her life teems with pleasure and expectation generally; a beautiful halo is around the most commonplace of things; the present is enjoyable, the future entrancing, and she--the luckiest of women, surely?--dances along over her rose-strewn path, under her cloudless sky, happy in the conviction that smiles and eternal sunshine are to be her lot. what if, after marriage, the sky is ofttimes clouded and the path of life grows stormy, and the smiles disappear in frowns--and we know that such a change does sometimes come over the spirit of the most beautiful of matrimonial dreams--what if some of the early illusions are mercilessly murdered?--there is always that pre-nuptial period to be looked back upon with fondness, if also with regret. she has snatched from fate at least one hour of supreme and unalloyed delight--there is true satisfaction in the thought. and happy is the mortal who enjoys even that much happiness in this troublous world. the years of the moorish caliph were sixty and more; his hours of perfect bliss--five! olive, had she been engaged to mallow, would have enjoyed her supreme hour with all the zest of a naturally happy disposition. as it was, she was wretched in the extreme. she detested her affianced husband, and she knew how deep was her love for the man she would have had in his place. tossed about like a shuttlecock by these extremes of feeling, she anticipated her wedding-day with dread--almost with terror. the loss of the money would have been of no account with her; it was the dying wish of her father that she felt she could not disregard, to say nothing of the hint of unknown evil which the sealed letter contained. why her father should have expressed himself so strongly, and yet so vaguely, she could not conceive. she could only conclude that he had committed some error in his life for which she was to pay the penalty. jephthah vowed rashly, and circumstances brought about the sacrifice of his daughter that he might not be forsworn. likewise she was to suffer for her father's sake by contracting this loveless marriage. there were times when she was resolved to throw all to the winds, to let fate do her worst, rather than suffer what was before her; but in the end her affection for her dead father prevailed, and she bent her will to the force of circumstance. on the subject of such unqualified obedience, her friend tui did not hesitate to express herself strongly, for she was an independent young lady with ideas the reverse of favourable to what she termed family slavery. that any parent should command or expect to receive blind and unquestioning obedience was not her way of thinking. she was, therefore, exceedingly wrathful at her friend's decision. "when a human being arrives at years of sense, he has every right to shape his own life," said she, _ex cathedra_. "our religion teaches us that every one has to answer for his own sins, therefore certainly he should choose his own wickednesses." "you speak in the masculine sense, dear," rejoined olive; "besides, i do not intend to commit any sin, that i am aware of." "i speak for woman as well as for man, olive; and if you marry a creature you don't care two straws about, you will be committing a sin, and a very great one." "oh, tui, darling!" "it's no use saying, 'oh, tui, darling,'" replied miss ostergaard, vehemently; "you know in your own heart that i am right. do you or do you not love laurence mallow?" "i do, with all my soul." "then why don't you marry him?" "he hasn't asked me yet," replied olive, with attempted carelessness. "i do not even know if he loves me." "my dear, you know well enough that he does. why, he would give his ears to make you his wife; and it is only his scruples about this wretched engagement that makes him hold his tongue. believe me, obedience can be carried too far, olive, and it is absurd and wrong that you should wreck your life just because your father commands you to marry the son of an old friend of his." "but the sealed letter, tui!" "oh, that's a bogey. what evil can come to you? you have your own money, good health, and the love of a most delightful man. i should defy that letter." "but you forget i shall lose fifty thousand pounds, dear." "what of that?" reported the romantic tui. "i am sure mr. mallow is worth paying that price for. he's a darling, i think. if you don't marry him, olive, i'll make love to him myself--there!" "what about lord aldean?" "lord aldean is a donkey--a dear, sweet donkey, all the same. he is too young to know his own mind." "indeed, he is two or three years your senior." "well, i never; as if you didn't know that a woman is always twice the age of a man. but you are getting away from the subject. do you really intend marrying this horrid mr. carson?" "i must," sighed olive, ruefully; "my father----" "oh dear me, your father again!" interrupted tui, pettishly, "as if he had anything to do with it. there is too much talk of obedient children, and not enough of reasonable parents. why should people be born when they don't want to, just to be miserable slaves to those who put them in the world against their will?" "would you marry against your father's will?" "yes, i would, if what he wanted was to make me miserable. i would suffer for no one; and i don't see that any one--be they father or mother--has a right to expect it." "tui, you have been listening to that horrid dr. drabble." "i know i have. dr. drabble is a very sensible man." "does he treat his wife sensibly, dear?" "we are not talking about his wife," said tui, evading the point, "but about him. i don't agree with everything he says, but i approve of a great deal. every one should be a free agent. marry mr. carson, and you will be miserable. become mrs. mallow, and you will be happy; and, father or no father, i know which of them i would choose." "oh, tui, what nonsense you talk." "sense, sense, sense, i talk reason, sound reason--and you know i do." "i know nothing of the sort." "then you ought to," exclaimed tui, with heat. "now you are going to be nasty, dear, so i shall leave you till you recover your temper;" and miss ostergaard, holding that discretion was the better part of valour, hastily retreated. the wretched olive did not know whether to laugh or cry. deserted by tui, who had gone over to the enemy, she was more than ever bewildered. miss slarge, too, was all against carson--olive had long seen that--although neither her opinion nor help was of any great value. olive felt desperate. the wedding-day was only a few weeks distant, and almost immediately she would have to come to a definite decision. should she accept or reject carson? should she forego the money and ignore the letter? the more she put the question to herself the more bewildered she became. when they first arrived, major semberry and his friend had been guests at the manor house; but as miss slarge (who was nothing if not conventional) did not approve of a lengthy visit, they had removed to the village inn. however, they still spent a great deal of their time at the manor house, and it so happened that whilst olive and tui were pursuing their discussion, they came in for luncheon. olive heard their voices on the lawn, but, feeling that she could meet neither of them in her present state of mind, sent a message to her chaperon, and slipped out of the house. she walked through the woods and out on to the hills, turning over and over again in her mind her ever-present dilemma. now, as though to settle the matter offhand, fate had inspired mallow with a spirit of restlessness, and he, in his turn, feeling little inclined for aldean's chatter or company, had strolled out alone. thus it came about that on the breezy space of the downs the two young people met. having met, they could scarcely pass without greeting, and they ended in sauntering side by side over the springy turf: fate had trapped them, and fate would have to answer for the consequences. it was a perfect day: bland and sunny, and redolent of summer fragrance and peace. an early shower had fallen, and the raindrops sparkled on the grass, while the sheep straggled on the hillside, and the fitful breeze dispersed the sweetness of the land. a circling lark, lost in the blue, rained down its music, and the grey rabbits scuttled into their burrows at the approach of the lovers--for lovers they were, though their love was undeclared. side by side they walked on--scarcely speaking, scarcely looking. they were alone on the lonely downs under the roof of god's sky, standing on the variegated pavement of god's temple, the strongest passion nature knows gripping them at their heart-strings. at first their conversation--such as it was--turned on trivial things. they skirted, as it were, the sole thought which filled the hearts of both. but their joint attempt to evade it was doomed to failure. nature would have her own, and she seized it by force. their idle talk dwindled into monosyllables; even these grew rare and low, and then a long silence ensued. mallow felt his mouth dry and his heart beating furiously. he turned his eyes, eloquent with unspoken passion, on the woman by his side. with a thrill, half of joy, half of fear, she winced and shrank back. "don't!" she said faintly, holding up her hand, "i beg of----" "i must," said mallow, hoarsely, as her voice died on her lips. "olive, darling, what is the use of our keeping up this pretence? i--i--i love you." "i must--i will!" he seized her hand and fixed his eyes on her flushed, downcast face. "i love you; you love me--we are for each other. you cannot deny that what i say is true. i can see the truth in your face, in your eyes. olive, olive,--my olive!" "laurence--mr. mallow; you forget my position." "i do not. you are engaged to a man for whom you do not care, whom you shall not marry. i forbid you to marry this carson." "you have no right----" "i have every right--the right of love. deny it if you can. if you go to the altar with carson you go with a lie on your lips. you are mine, mine only; and i swear to god that i will not give you up. dearest, tell me what is in your heart. do not deny me one little word. you love me--you love me; say that you love me." the overwhelming force of his passion swept her away. she could no longer struggle against him--against herself. "i do love you," she faltered; then, with a sudden revulsion of feeling, she tore herself away from him, and shrank back, covering her face with her hands. "i knew it!" he cried in triumph. "you love me, you are mine, you will not marry this man." "i must, i must," she murmured, terrified by the way in which she felt he was breaking down the barriers of her will. "you must not. i tell you, olive, you shall not. i am you lover, your master, your husband--not that feeble foolish jack-o'-dandy, with his silly smile and feeble will. give him up, give him up; i command you, give him up." "laurence, you are brutal." "darling forgive me, pardon me, i am beside myself. i am your slave, your worshipper. oh, my heart, my love, my dearer self, be kind to one whose life is yours." olive dried her eyes and became more composed as mallow changed his tone. she turned towards him with face as white as marble. "laurence," she said quietly--"for i dare call you laurence--i love, i have always loved you, and i always shall love you; but i am not my own mistress. i would to heaven that i were; but i am helpless. i must marry this man, not for the money--ah, no; the money can go, but because my dear father left a letter for me in which he urged me to obey his dying wish and marry angus carson. . . . if i do not, evil will come of my refusal." "evil, olive! what evil?" "i do not know. my father's letter gave no explanation. it simply said that terrible evil would come if i did not obey his wish. i dare not refuse. i dare not ignore that solemn command. much as i love you, i must sacrifice it--yes, and you--to the memory of my father." "you will marry carson?" asked laurence, his face growing pale. olive bowed her head. "what else would you have me do?" she asked pitifully. "do?" with a burst of passion, he seized her again in his arms. "do?--i would have you become my wife." "my father----" "your father had no right to condemn you to lifelong misery. it shall not be. you are mine. i will not give you up." "cruel, cruel, when you know how i suffer," she sobbed. "if you love me, you would let me go; you would urge me to fulfil the wish of the dead." almost rudely he flung her from him. "go then," he said bitterly. "i want no love so feeble that it bends to another's will. obey your father if you think fit; marry carson, and leave me to go----" "how dare you to speak to me like that?" cried olive, passing from tears to fury. "if you suffer, do not i suffer? i loathe to marry this man. i would kill myself if i dared. i----" "you talk like a child," he said roughly. "i feel like a woman," she retorted heartily. "you think only of your own misery. what is it to mine? you are not forced into the arms of a woman you detest." "if you go, you go to carson of your own free will." "oh, laurence, how can you say that i go to another man of my own free will when you know how i love you? it is unjust; cruel. if my father were alive, i might have the courage to refuse. as it is, how can i disobey? if i refuse angus carson some evil will surely follow, and if i marry you i involve you in it too. would that be right?" "olive, i would go to hell for you and with you." "laurence, you do not love me--you cannot love me--or you would not make it harder for me; your feeling for me is not love, it is selfishness. i must bow to your will, i must flout my father in his grave, i must cast all to the winds that you may gain your wish." "olive!" his voice was husky and broken. "i would do all that and more for you. but since you hold my love so low, let us forget that i have told it; let us part here now, and for always." "laurence, laurence, my heart will break." "and for a shadow, olive." "no, no!" she cried, "no shadow, no folly this. it is only too real. you are right; let us--let us say good-bye." "you tell me to go?" "i--tell--you--to--go." "then listen to me. i love you, and i intend that you shall be my wife. i don't care for carson, or the money, or the threatened evil, or anything else. i sweep all these away. i say good-bye now, and i go to london--to athelstane place." olive looked bewildered. "in god's name why?" she faltered. "to learn if the man who was murdered there was the man you should have married." "i--i--why, i am to marry mr. carson!" "it is yet to be proved that this man is mr. carson." "what do you mean?" "i will tell you what i mean when i come back;" and without a handshake or a glance at her white face, mallow walked abruptly away. chapter ix. "twenty-one." on calm reflection, mallow did not consider that he had behaved very well to olive. his passion and impetuosity had carried him beyond himself. he had been too rough; too masterful. instead of suing with soft words, he had sought to dominate by sheer strength of will. a cave man of the stone period could scarce have wooed in style more savage; and when mallow had regained his self-control, he was heartily ashamed that his fiery temper had got the better of him. but his pride would not allow him to apologize to olive. nor did he even excuse himself by letter. he preserved an absolute silence, and kept away from the manor house. he had not been quite sincere when he declared his intention of proceeding at once to athelstane place, but for very shame he could not now withdraw from a position taken up so definitely. accordingly, on the day preceding olive's birthday, he announced to aldean that he was going to london. "oh, hang it! i do call that shabby," cried jim, with a look of dismay. "you promised to stay here at least two months." "i'll come down and complete the term shortly, aldean." "oh, you don't wish to be here when miss bellairs marries carson, i suppose?" "miss bellairs shall never marry carson if i can help it." "perhaps not, mallow, but i don't exactly see how you can help it. this morning i saw carson, and he tells me the ceremony is to take place in a fortnight." "a great deal can be done in a fortnight, jim." "old man?" questioned jim, with a stare, "have you anything up your sleeve?" "only my mistrust of carson, as carson." "what! that old game? you are becoming a maniac on that subject, mallow. it's all bosh, you know. carson is carson, right enough. mrs. purcell, semberry, mr. brock,--they've all said as much." "no doubt," replied mallow, dryly. "but not one of them has explained why carson's clothes should be impregnated with sandal-wood as were those of the man in athelstane place." "you'll find nothing there to help you," said aldean, shaking his head. "what the police couldn't do, you won't." "then i shall go to the police themselves." "you'll look for a needle in a haystack, you mean. however, if you have made up your mind, i suppose you must go on your wild-goose chase. when may i expect you back from it?" "before carson marries miss bellairs." "does that mean at the end of a fortnight?" "if i make no discoveries associating carson with the murder, it does." "oh, lord! do you want to hang the man as well as rob him of his wife?" "jim, i'm not vindictive." "goodness only knows what you are, mallow. well, least said soonest mended; go, and good luck go with you." after this conversation, in which, it will be noticed, mallow gave no hint of his interview with olive, he went to london, and was absent for the greater part of a fortnight. olive, too, kept her own counsel about that stormy wooing. but she felt a strange joy in recalling to herself its every detail. it was the joy of a woman who loves to be dominated and to be ruled by the man she adores. had mallow cut the gordian knot of her difficulties, and, in the face of all her objection, forced her to marry him, secretly she would have been pleased and relieved. as it was, he had left her with an enigmatic utterance which she could not understand. yet this time of trial was in some ways beneficial to her. it strengthened the better qualities of her nature, which otherwise might have weakened in the sunshine of perpetual good fortune. the ills of this life, like drugs, are unpleasant but necessary. they brace our mental organization as do tonics our physical. olive's twenty-first birthday was celebrated by a dinner to her friends and tenantry. the manor house and its grounds were thrown open in the old-fashioned, hospitable style, and a plentiful spread was provided under a temporary tent. here farmers and labourers toasted their young mistress in the strongest and most stinging of ales. speeches were made and congratulations were offered, and had mallow but been present in the character of her future husband, olive would have been completely happy. as it was, she had to introduce carson in his place. but she accepted the encomiums passed upon his pleasant face and amiable speeches with such show of pleasure as she could command from herself. she could not deny that the husband chosen for her by her father was both attractive and agreeable, that he was even lovable in some ways--perhaps in his very weakness. laurence was pre-eminently a man of strength; a man imperious and self-sustaining; a man who would love a woman and master a woman, and fulfil the fundamental law of nature that the male is the lord of creation from an oyster to a wife; in short, a man stable as the universe, fixed as the stars. angus was pleasant, good-tempered, handsome and weak. he would have made a charming woman, olive thought with contempt. the indian bangle was not much out of place, after all, upon his wrist. on this festive occasion even poor mrs. drabble took a holiday. she brought with her margery, danton, and brutus, of whom the first-named clung to olive's skirts most of the day. she had brought with her and presented to olive a birthday ode, in its way a marvel of rhyme and of spelling:-- "oh, may no ethly cares anoy olive bellairs, and may she never fear her birthday every year, but give up teres and sighs. till she most hapy dyes." "thank you, margery," said olive, kissing the little poetess, who was anxiously watching the effect of her ode. "i hope your good wishes will come true;" and she sighed. "i have brought charlotte corday," remarked margery, holding up a battered doll with a red cap on its head. "poor dear! she has had no pleasure since we cut her head off." "who cut her head off?" asked aldean, who was close at hand. "brutus, because he said she must 'dree her weird.' it should have been danton of course, but danton was at school. i have glued her head on again, but she will never have a strong neck. but i love her all the same." "shall i give you another doll?" said carson, smiling amiably. "no, thank you," replied margery, shaking her curls, "i must keep charlotte corday after she has suffered so much for the cause." "ah! that is my margery," roared drabble; "she's a true chip of the old block." "true chip of the gallows!" growled semberry, who hated the doctor. "when our day comes, there will be no gallows," retorted dr. drabble. "guillotines only, i suppose," said aldean, with a twinkle. "there will be love and fraternity, and equality." "be my brother or i will kill you," quoted tui. "i've heard that sentiment before, dr. drabble." "miss ostergaard, i thought you were a disciple of mine." "i stop short of murder, doctor." major semberry appeared disturbed. "nasty word 'murder,' in a young lady's mouth;" he jerked; "let's talk of something agreeable." "of olive, for instance," smiled angus. "olives are always agreeable." "after dinner only," said miss bellairs, spoiling the pun, "i don't feel complimented, angus, by your comparison." "my dear, you are a flower--a rose!" "and you are a smiling cabbage," muttered tui, turning away. "lord aldean, take me to the tent." "the major is not engaged," hinted aldean, slyly. "neither am i," retorted miss ostergaard, "so there is still a chance for your lordship;" and she led him away wondering if he could not construe a confession of love from her last remark. while this desultory conversation was going on, miss slarge had the rector well in hand, and was bombarding him with hard babylonic facts. "our good friday hot cross-bun is an emblem of idolatry," she was saying; "we should tread it underfoot rather than eat it." "oh, my dear lady," remonstrated the shocked mr. brock, "it is stamped with the sacred symbol of our religion!" "i don't care what it is stamped with; it is none other than the sacred bread of babylon, which was offered to the pagan queen of heaven fifteen hundred and more years before the christian era. even the name is the same. the sacred cake was called 'boun;' our good friday cake is termed 'bun.'" "a bun!" interposed the rector. "with or without the article, it is the same thing. 'boun;' 'bun'--what can be plainer? the first is pure chaldee, the last scottish." "i don't understand chaldee, miss slarge," said mr. brock, in hope of changing the conversation. "what a pleasant scene this is." "the scene is all right," snapped miss slarge; "but it would be better if mr. carson were not here. ugh! i can't bear the sight of him." "why not? he seems to be a pleasant young man." "no backbone, mr. brock. if you dropped him into the mud he would stay there. mrs. purcell said that he had a strong will and a stubborn nature; but i can see neither myself." "it is, of course, possible your sister may have been mistaken." "perhaps so; but in every other respect her description of him has been particularly accurate, even to the bracelet he wears. bangle--bracelet--" said miss slarge, with contempt; "the idea of a man decking himself out like a woman!" "still, he is agreeable enough, miss slarge; and you must remember that to me he is always the son of my dear old friend. in memory of his father, he intends to present my church with a new altar-cloth." "marked 'i.h.s.,' i suppose, mr. brock?" "well, yes; it is customary to mark them with the sacred letters." "what do they stand for?" "'iesu hominum salvator.'" "nothing of the sort," cried miss slarge, delighted that the rector had fallen into her trap. "they are the initials of the egyptian trinity: isis, horus, and seb." "miss slarge, how can you treat sacred things so lightly?" "i don't treat sacred things lightly," retorted miss slarge. "i.h.s. is a heathen symbol; and i am not an idolater, i hope." "really, i do not know what to say." "you should study more," said miss slarge, satisfied with her triumph, as she walked away, leaving the rector quite angry. "i wonder where she can find all this rubbish," murmured the outraged mr. brock. "it is really not respectable the way she talks. eh, what is that shouting?" he asked a bystander. "the tenants are toasting mr. carson." "as miss bellairs' future husband, i suppose?" said the rector, cheerily. "ah, what a pity that mark and alfred did not live to see this happy day!" chapter x. a pre-nuptial contract. though the passing of each hour brought her nearer to her hateful marriage, olive felt relieved now that the celebration of her coming of age was over. she was little disposed for gaiety or for company of any kind. her thoughts were continually with laurence. she missed him daily, hourly. his face was constantly before her, and his words echoed everlastingly in her ears. it was not surprising that, on meeting lord aldean in the village, she should question him as to mallow's return. "i sometimes wonder if he is coming back at all," she finished hastily. "oh, mallow's coming back right enough," said aldean. "he is certain to return before your marriage." "please don't speak of my marriage, lord aldean," she cried impetuously. "have you heard from mr. mallow since he left?" "only once, miss bellairs. he is well and busy." "in athelstane place?" jim was not a little taken aback by this last question. he was in total ignorance of what had taken place on the downs. "what do you know, may i ask, about athelstane place?" he said, looking sharply at the girl. "mr. mallow told me something about it, and about mr. carson." "oh, that is one of mallow's crazy notions," said aldean, vexed. "i suppose he told you that carson was an impostor? then, believe me, it is all nonsense, miss bellairs. mallow has built up this theory on a foolish remark i happened to let drop. his idea is that the real carson was murdered, and this fellow has stepped into his shoes." "you don't believe that?" cried olive, breathlessly. "certainly not," replied jim' vehemently; "and please don't repeat what i say. i have a horror of scandal. carson is carson right enough. this is only a mad idea of mallow's." "but why should mr. mallow persist in such a strange idea?" lord aldean shrugged his shoulders. "the dead man's clothes were perfumed with sandal-wood, and carson's, you know, have the same smell--it is on this ground i think that mallow goes chiefly. he fancies there must be some connection between the two." "and is there?" asked olive. "no; but mallow is ready to grasp at straws to stop your marriage." miss bellairs reddened and turned away. "that is impossible," she said in a low voice. "yes, if it is to be stopped only by proving carson to be an impostor, i agree with you. don't worry your head about such folly." "perhaps i ought to tell mr. carson," said olive thoughtfully. "no, for goodness' sake don't; you'll only cause unnecessary trouble by doing that. there is no doubt about carson being the genuine article. he carries the trade mark of this indian bangle, and mrs. purcell describes him exactly in her letter; besides, mr. brock recognised him from his resemblance to his father." miss bellairs said no more on the subject. she saw that it annoyed aldean not to be able to defend mallow in this eccentricity of his. but on returning home she asked her aunt for mrs. purcell's letter, and read it through most carefully. she copied out verbatim the portions relating to angus carson, and committed them to memory, so that when he called in the afternoon she was able to view him through mrs. purcell's spectacles. a stealthy and careful examination convinced her that mallow's fancies were moonshine. without doubt carson of casterwell resembled carson of bombay in every particular. the graphic sketch of mrs. purcell was an admirable portrait of the man as he stood there unconscious of her scrutiny. whatever way of escape from this detested marriage might open out to her, it was not here, and olive resigned herself to her fate predestined. her eyes followed her future husband with a look of contempt as he crossed the room with a cup of tea for tui. his weak good nature and incessant amiability were aggressive to her. she might compel herself to marry him, but she felt that she could never feel the least respect for his character. the mere sight of his ever-smiling complacency made her resent her position more and more. overbearing, rough, or even brutal he might have been, and she might have resigned herself to him with more content. at least he would have been a man. she thought of pope's cruel portrait of lord hervey:-- ----"that thing of silk spurns that mere white curd of asses' milk." if, as mrs. purcell declared, he possessed a powerful will, he concealed it only too effectually. "a stubborn nature" and "a full confidence in his own judgment" he might have--they were more in harmony with his weakness. still, he was to be her husband--that was certain--and it only remained for her to make the best of it and of him. "penny for your thoughts, miss bellairs," said semberry at her elbow. "they are not worth it," retorted olive, taking the cup of tea he held out to her. "i'll sell them as bankrupt stock. can i give you another cup of tea?" "if you please," and the major took his seat beside her, much to her satisfaction, for she felt that she would rather talk to him than to his friend. "by the way, miss bellairs," said semberry, "other day you said something about a maid." "yes, i want a new maid; i am looking for one now." "friend of mine wants to find a situation for a good maid." "thank you very much, but i think i shall have no difficulty in finding one to suit me in casterwell." "but this is a london girl; very smart," urged the major; "wants to live in country; friend recommends her no end." "who is your friend, may i ask?" "mrs. arne; fashionable woman; clever woman. thinks a lot of this maid. wouldn't part with her, only girl wants to live in th' country. spoke to me; said i'd speak to you." "it is very kind of you to trouble about it, major," she said, "very kind indeed; you must let me think the matter over, will you?" "pleasure," replied semberry, scribbling on a page of his pocket-book, and tearing it out. "here is mrs. arne's address. write soon; might lose the girl." "what is her name?" "lord! 'fraid don't know, miss bellairs. never trouble 'bout these things as a rule. mere chance i heard of this. thought you'd like to know. hallo! who's this? by george! that radical doctor. can't stand the man." dr. drabble bustled noisily into the drawing-room. he announced his own arrival in a stentorian voice. with his cunning grey face and close-cropped red hair and lean hungry aspect, he resembled nothing so much as a prowling winter fox sniffing round a hen-roost. "how are you, miss bellairs? there's nothing much the matter with you, that's easily seen," he roared, gripping her hand. "miss ostergaard, you look like yourself." "people generally do, don't they, doctor?" "ha, ha! very good; but i'm paying you the hugest possible compliment, if you only knew how to take it. and where is miss slarge?" "she is engaged, doctor," said olive, resigning herself too, with a sigh, to the company of this bull. "will you take some tea?" "thank you, thank you; no sugar." "should advise sugar, drabble," growled the major, insolently. "sweeten your nature." "my nature, sir, is that of primeval man--simple, childlike----" "and lawless!" put in carson, smiling. the doctor mounted his hobby at once. "if by lawless you mean the obedience of man to the dictates of his own noble nature independent of a tyrannical government, then i am lawless," he said, oratorically. "i and my fellow-workers wish to reinstate the simplicity of primeval days." "i thought you went even further," said olive, "and wished to revive chaos." "chaos reigns now," proclaimed the reformer. "chaos means disorder; and what is the world now but a disordered mass? look at the military burdens of europe, at the overtaxed poor, at the insolent rich; and tell me if things are as they should be." "no one said they were, doctor," remarked carson; "but it is not by pitching bombs at people that you are going to mend them." "bombs, sir? there is no such word; there are no such articles in my scheme of reform. i would enlighten those in power by pen and speech. if they will not listen, then their blood must be upon their own heads; for the masses will rise and sweep them from out their counting-houses; hurl them from their thrones; tear them from the bench of justice on which they sit to administer evil laws. to stamp out tyranny the earth, as it now is, must be churned up, deluged with the blood of the unjust; devastated, in short, from pole to pole." "you bring, a torch for burning, but no hammer for building," quoted olive, who had read her carlyle and remembered him. "the torch first, the hammer to follow. to build up we must first pull down, and on the ruins of the past build--utopia." "another name for dreamland," muttered semberry. olive grew rather tired of drabble and his diatribes. not so tui, however. she listened to the doctor's cheap philanthropy with parted lips and eager eyes. she hung upon his every word, and, seeing that he had at least one sympathetic listener, drabble addressed his conversation almost exclusively to her. observing this, olive slipped out on to the terrace, where, much to her disgust, she was speedily joined by carson. "i thought you liked listening to dr. drabble?" she said coldly. "no; he talks commonplaces. i prefer romance." "romance?" echoed olive, thinking of their relative positions, so far removed as they were from the ideal. "romance here?" "and where else will you find it if not in this rose-garden? tell me, olive," he went on, without waiting for her reply, "why do you avoid me? have i offended you?" "you?" she replied with contempt; "you could not offend any one. i never knew so harmless a being." "it is better surely to be harmless than harmful?" said carson, complacently. "i shall make you a good husband." "you shall never be my husband," retorted olive, flushed with anger. carson looked scared. "i understood we were to be married in a fortnight," he said under his breath. "so we are! i marry you not because i love you, but because i respect the wish of my father. i can be a wife to you in name only." "olive, what do you mean?" "what i say. cannot you comprehend plain english? when we are married, you and i can be no more to one another than we are at this moment." "and if i refuse?" he said, with a faint show of anger. "then i cannot marry you," answered olive quietly. "my desire is to carry out to the letter the will of my father; and, by becoming your wife, give you the control of this fifty thousand pounds. more than this i cannot do. i pay you this money for my freedom. you are free to accept it or refuse it as you will." angus looked mortified and indignant. a flush was across his weak but handsome face. "do you then hate me?" he demanded angrily. "i am indifferent to you. i do not love you; for that reason i make my bargain." "i understand. you love that insolent mallow?" "i should advise you to make no assertions and to mention no names," replied olive, keeping her temper. "what i say i intend to do. you marry me on these terms or not at all." "i will marry you," said carson, frowning, "if only to humble you." olive turned on him. "you--you humble me? you, a foolish weak----go away, angus, or i may say much we may both regret." "i will not go away," he said, the latent obstinacy of his nature asserting itself. "let us make our bargain once and for all. i will marry you----" "and be my husband in name only?" "yes," he whispered, with so strange a glance that she started back, "in name only. i agree to your terms--for my own private reasons. but, should this mallow return----" "leave mr. mallow's name out of our conversation," interrupted olive imperiously; "there is nothing between us that you need trouble about. i do not conceal things." "do i?" asked carson, with bland inquiry. "ask yourself, angus." she looked at him hard. "what do you know about athelstane place?" chapter xi. the new maid. any belief that olive might still have entertained in the accuracy of mallow's suggestion was speedily dispelled by the expression of sheer amazement upon carson's face. he remained cool and perfectly colourless. "what do i know of athelstane place?" he repeated blankly. "why, i never heard of athelstane place." "you don't read your newspaper, then?" "no; after living all my life in india, the english newspapers contain nothing likely to interest me. but why do you ask me these strange questions?" "i will tell you, if you will answer me a still stranger one." "what is it?" asked carson, apparently much mystified. "why do your clothes smell so of sandal-wood?" "is that all? why, because i keep them in a sandal-wood chest." "which you brought from india?" "yes, i bought it from a chinaman in bombay. i like the scent of the wood. is the odour disagreeable to you? i hope not. had i known i should have bought new clothes in london." "the odour is not in itself disagreeable," replied olive, "but in athelstane place a man was murdered whose clothes also smelt strongly of this sandal-wood." "that is strange," said carson, biting his finger-nails--"very strange. i remember now. semberry did mention this murder to me." "but i thought you said you had not heard of the locality?" "for the moment i forgot. i recollect now that he mentioned the name casually. but he said nothing about any smell of sandal-wood. i should like to hear more about that. very strange," said carson, musingly. "but what, may i ask, can this murder have to do with me?" if the man was acting, his powers of simulation were marvellous. olive did not think he was acting. he had not the strength or self-control to mask his feelings so completely. the last shadow of doubt vanished from her mind. there could be no question as to the _bona fides_ of the man. "if you do not know, i do not," she retorted, and walked back to the drawing-room. carson remained where he was, deep in thought. "murdered man----that sandal-wood odour?" he muttered, drawing his brows together; "i cannot understand it. i must ask semberry the meaning of this." as he spoke, he removed his right arm from the sling with a sigh of relief, and let it hang for a minute or so. the bangle slipped down from under his shirt-cuff on to his wrist. carson's eye caught its glitter, and he laughed outright. satisfied that mallow's fancies had no foundation in fact, and having closed her bargain with carson, olive resigned herself to the inevitable, and commenced to prepare for her wedding. she retailed to tui semberry's proposal about the maid, and miss ostergaard warmly approved of it. what might suit her as olive bellairs, would not do in her position as olive carson, she observed; and it was far better at once to engage a smart young woman, thoroughly conversant with her duties, than to rely upon the primitive notions of some country girl. she advised olive to lose no time in writing to mrs. arne for the girl's reference, and, if it proved satisfactory, to engage her. olive concurred. she wrote immediately to mrs. arne, and by return of post received a reply. clara trall was "a perfect treasure," and the writer was more than sorry to part with her; but the girl's health demanded that she should live in the country, to which argument mrs. arne felt she could not but yield, though it was with the greatest reluctance she did so--all this and much more, set forth on fine creamlaid note in a firm, masculine hand. the result was that olive engaged the girl, asking that she should come to commence her duties at once. within a day or two of her summons clara trall drove up bag and baggage in a hired fly from reading station. she was a tall, sallow-faced girl, carrying herself with a certain hauteur. her dress was plain though stylish, her manner respectful and self-contained, and she had a habit of drooping her lids over her black eyes demurely, as though repressing herself. on the whole she came well through her mistress's examination and cross-examination. her knowledge of her work proved thorough; she was quick, had excellent taste and did everything she took in hand as well as it could be done. after some experience and careful observation, olive agreed that clara's qualifications had not been overstated by mrs. arne. she congratulated herself upon the discovery of a jewel, and availed herself thoroughly of the girl's usefulness. finally she thanked semberry for his information and advice. "glad it's all right, miss bellairs," said the major politely; "mere chance i heard of her, you know." "a fortunate chance for me, major; you can't think what a comfort it is to have a maid one can thoroughly trust." "hard thing trust any one in this world," mumbled semberry. "however, you'll have a husband to look after you soon." "i can look after myself quite well, thank you," said olive; "my marriage will make no difference to me in that respect." "make a heap to me, miss bellairs. i've been constantly with carson last six months--got him as a kind of legacy from his father, you know. but i s'pose this marriage'll put me on one side; shall miss the boy awfully." "you are devoted to mr. carson?" "oh, yes; weak beggar, but good sort. been a kind of father to him, you know. glad to see him married though, even at m'own cost." "oh," said olive, "i hope you will not let me interfere with your friendship in the least." "must," jerked semberry, shaking his head. "when a man marries, you know, leaves friends, clings on to his wife. 'sides, my leave's up soon. i must pull out india way in month or so." "you will stay for the wedding, i hope, major." "oh, thanks, s'pose so; must see carson turned off usual style." olive was becoming a trifle restive. she soon wearied of trying to manufacture conversation, especially for a man like semberry, so she seized the first opportunity of slipping away and leaving him to tui. that young lady's management of the soldier was quite masterly. she was a born flirt, a free-lance of free-lances, all unclaimed hearts came alike to her, and she was ever ready to annex them. but however much occupied she might be in that direction, she ever kept a watchful eye on aldean. a confession of one-half the interest she really felt in him, would have saved that young gentleman many a wakeful night and many a heartache. but, after the mystic manner of her sex, she was careful to hold her tongue on that particular subject, and poor jim's powers of penetration were not of the highest order. hence he was utterly wretched. he assured himself she was a coquette, that she had no heart. he used language which sorely taxed the recording angel's supply of asterisks. but still she drew him back, still she tormented him, until he had a mind to turn celibate and retreat to the handiest monastery. withal he managed to write now and again to mallow, and to report to him, as best he was able, how olive looked, what she said, and how she passed her time. the knowledge that mallow was as miserable as himself was some small comfort to him. poor jim took many long walks. he would then repeat to himself such poetry as he remembered, which was not much. sauntering home in the twilight one evening, flogging his memory for rhymes, as usual, he noticed through a gap in the hedge close by two persons talking together. closer inspection discovered a man and a woman. the man was carson. the woman he had never before seen. carson's arm was about the girl's waist, and she was alternately raging and sobbing, yet with a degree of caution which went to show that the meeting was a stolen one. neither of them saw aldean, who did not slacken his pace until he was out of both eyesight and earshot. then he swore. "infernal shame!" he growled, once more increasing his stride to cool his rage; "here's this fellow going to be married next week, yet he carries on with another girl. if i were to tell mallow how this cad is deceiving miss bellairs, there'd be some trouble. i wonder who the girl can be? i never saw her before, to my knowledge." it chanced, however, that he was soon to see her again, for on calling at the manor house a day or so after he came face to face with a tall, sallow-faced young woman, in whom he had no difficulty in recognizing carson's inamorata. she was handsome enough in a way, he thought, but he did not like her mouth; and those dark eyes, splendid as they were, did not blaze in her head for nothing. she stood on one side as lord aldean passed her, and took him in--as it seemed--at a glance. "servant," thought jim, as he entered the drawing-room. "hum! doesn't look like one for all that. carson's a--well, carson's a blackguard, i fear." to satisfy himself on this point, after some desultory conversation with olive, he put a leading question:--"you have a new face about the manor, i see," he remarked; "tall girl, dark and rather handsome. who is she?" "my new maid, clara trall," replied olive, somewhat surprised, for it was not aldean's habit to notice new faces. "she seems a superior class of girl for a servant." "yes, she is indeed, lord aldean. she has been with me only a few days, but i am more than satisfied with her. i have to thank major semberry for finding her for me." "really!" aldean was puzzled. so it was semberry who had brought this girl, whom he had seen weeping in the gloaming on carson's shoulder, to casterwell. there was something queer about this. little guessing his thoughts, olive proceeded to relate the details of clara's engagement. and after a few civil words, congratulating her upon the possession of such a treasure, aldean went home more puzzled than ever. "what the dickens can it mean," he murmured. "the woman doesn't look like a servant. it is clear semberry got her here, and it is equally clear carson makes love to her. there is something very queer about it all. it's too bad. goodness knows i'm not by way of being the acme of morality myself, but--well, it's too bad altogether, making love just before his marriage to his future wife's maid." tui, coming round the bend of the road, scattered lord aldean's contemplations to the four winds. he hurried forward and took off his cap with a blush and a bow. "i have just been up to the manor house," he explained, "but you were not there." tui laughed. "you see, lord aldean, strange as it may appear to you, i do take a walk occasionally for the sake of my health. "oh!" said jim, "i too have been walking for my heart's sake." "really! i hope your heart is much benefited by the treatment," said tui, demurely. "does dr. cupid recommend solitary ambulations?" "he recommends strongly that i should show you the neighbourhood." "ah, but, you see, he isn't my doctor, lord aldean, so i don't feel called upon to obey his orders." "oh, but i say, you know," blurted out her victim, "you really should let me show you round our country. you can have no idea how charming he is." "charm depends so much upon one's companion, doesn't it? now major----" "oh, i know he is delightful," interrupted jim wrathfully; "at least, you think he is." "do i, indeed? and who told you so, may i ask?" "nobody; but i have good eyes." "but not good manners, i fear, lord aldean, nor good temper." inwardly jim groaned. "i used to be considered an amiable sort of chap," he said sadly. "but somehow i've gone wrong lately. i miss----, i miss mallow." the shaft went home. "oh, i know how very fond you are of mr. mallow. when is he coming back that you may be amiable?" "i cannot say. he does not tell me in his letters." "no? then i presume he intends letting that horrid mr. carson marry olive?" "i suppose so. i do not see how he can very well prevent it." "oh, he is blind, and so are you," cried tui, indignantly. "if he loves olive, why on earth doesn't he marry her? mr. carson's a smiling cheshire cat. mr. mallow indeed! he ought to be called mr. feeble-mind. if i were a man and loved a girl, i'd tell her so." "suppose the girl wouldn't let the man get that far?" said aldean, significantly. "what nonsense! as if any man, who was really and truly in love, ever stopped from speaking his mind." "well, i am in love, you----." "lord aldean, i am not speaking about you, but about mr. mallow. you can tell him from me that i am ashamed of him. he's a hesitating, frightened----" "come, i say, miss ostergaard----" "nervous, feeble-minded rabbit; so there!" and tui, having brought her string of epithets to a triumphant conclusion, walked off rapidly, with a glance that forbade aldean to follow. the young man looked after her open-mouthed. "my word! she has a power of speech," he murmured. "i wonder what she'd call carson, if she knew of his little game with the maid?" chapter xii. "wedding-bells." when mallow returned to casterwell he found the village keeping high holiday in honour of olive's marriage. the streets and houses were gay with flowers and flags. under the arches of green boughs, festooned with many coloured blossoms, the people moved about gazing--not without admiration, it must be confessed--at their own handiwork. the same profuse hospitality, which had distinguished the coming-of-age of the lady of the manor, was repeated on a still larger scale. the bells of st. augustine's were clamorous in the old tower; the sleepy old churchyard was for the nonce alive with voices, and the sun, in sympathetic mood at so brave a sight, was shining with all his splendour. but the idol does not ever rejoice with the worshippers, and she was the most miserable girl in the whole village. laurence was perhaps scarcely less so. he had not advised aldean of his return, but had come from reading in the hired fly. dusty and battered, it contrasted discordantly with the spruceness and gaiety of the street; and mallow, seated far back in it, his cap drawn over his eyes, winced more than once as the full meaning of it all forced itself upon him. "i wonder, does she feel as wretched as i do," he thought, bitterly. "i suppose she does. my poor iphigenia! my poor girl! her father has much to answer for." lord aldean received his friend in unbounded astonishment. he had not expected that mallow would return on this of all days, and he fell to the conclusion that he must have been successful in his search, and have returned to stop the marriage at the eleventh hour. yet mallow certainly did not look as if he had succeeded. his dress was careless and his face was haggard; and he formed a striking contrast to aldean in the smartness of conventional wedding-going garments. indeed, as he arrived, jim was on the point of leaving for the church. he signalled to his coachman to wait, and drew mallow into the library. "well," he said, breathlessly, "what have you done?" "nothing; absolutely nothing," replied mallow, throwing himself into a chair with a weary sigh. "i was afraid your journey would turn out a wild goose-chase," said aldean, with a shrug. "so carson is the right man after all?" "i have found nothing to prove that he is not." "what about the sandal-wood perfume?" "that is still a mystery, jim, and, so far as i can see, is likely to remain one. i went to athelstane place, and i saw most of the witnesses who gave evidence at the inquest, but i could find out nothing new. i called at new scotland yard, but with no better result. the case remains exactly as it did when the man was buried." "has his name not been discovered?" "no. nor have his friends, if he had any, communicated with the police." "then you can't in any way connect carson with the dead man?" "in no way. two parallel straight lines cannot meet. carson's existence can have nothing to do with the unknown man who was murdered." "i suppose you made no inquiries about carson?" "well, yes, i did; and i found out something." "oh, come, that's better; i thought you said you had done absolutely nothing." "well, what i did learn is of so little moment, jim, that it amounts to nothing. i called at the p. and o. office and inquired about carson. the clerk i spoke to told me that i was the second man who had asked for him." aldean looked surprised. "considering that carson has no friend in england, that's curious. how long ago was the first inquiry made?" "two days only before the _pharaoh_ arrived." "did you ask what kind of man he was who inquired for him?" "yes; a black-haired, black-bearded man, shabbily dressed. he wished to know if carson was on the _pharaoh_, and if so, when he would arrive. the clerk showed him the name of angus carson in the passenger list, and told him that the boat was due on july th." "did this man ever return?" "no; he thanked the clerk and left the office. that was the last seen of him." "he gave no name?" "of course not," said mallow, peevishly. "why should he give his name in connection with so simple an inquiry? you can see now for yourself that this information amounts to practically nothing. it neither proves nor disproves carson's identity, and it certainly does not in any way connect him with the murder." "still, the mere fact of carson's being inquired for is strange, when we know that he has not a single friend in england," said jim, reflectively; "before his arrival, too. that is even more strange." mallow shook his head. "i thought of that myself," he said, "but it does not help us in any way." "it certainly cannot assist us towards circumventing this wedding. i see you are going to it," running his eye over jim. "of course. there is an invitation for you also, if you care to accept it." "i do not are to," replied mallow, quietly. "it is quite painful enough for me to be here on the day of the sacrifice, without attending it." "then why did you come, my poor old chap?" "because i wish you to take this letter and deliver it personally to----" mallow paused, "to--mrs.--carson," he finished, slowly. with some hesitation lord aldean took the envelope extended to him. he was doubtful. "i hope it does not contain reproaches," he said. "no; it merely sets her mind at rest about--about--her husband" (mallow could hardly get the word out), "and tells her that, if she needs me, i am always ready to do her bidding." "well," said jim, placing the letter in his pocket, "i'll deliver it with the greatest of pleasure. it is not unlikely that she will need you some day." "what do you mean, jim?" "oh, i don't mean anything in particular," he said carelessly. "you know i neither like nor trust carson." "i am quite with you," said mallow, bitterly; "but, unfortunately, neither our dislike nor our distrust can assist us to avert this ceremony." "no, that's true. what will be will be;" and with this morsel of philosophy they parted--aldean for the ceremony at the church; mallow to rail at fate for having so cruelly deprived him of olive. it was not until after the breakfast that aldean found any opportunity of delivering mallow's note to olive. as he slipped it into her hand she flushed crimson, guessing instinctively from whom it came. with a grateful glance at aldean, she ran upstairs and hastily tore it open. it contained only a few lines, "forget what i said in my anger about your husband. he is truly angus carson, and i pray heaven that you may be happy with him. but if in trouble you should need a friend, remember that i claim the right to serve you." the lines were unsigned and ill-written. olive sat with them crushed in her hand, the tears falling down her face. tui discreetly held her tongue, for she had guessed that the letter was from mallow. she roused olive to action, whilst the maid busied herself with her mistress's clothes. a frown on her face and dark circles under her eyes, clara seemed little less sorrowful than her mistress. "come, dear," said tui, "you must dress quickly; your husband is waiting for you." clara looked round strangely. "my husband," said olive, hopelessly. "yes, he is my husband now." "but, dear," said tui, "you married with your eyes open." "yes; and with my hands bound," retorted mrs. carson, rising. "well, i suppose i must go on now to the bitter end. help me, clara." on the terrace below dimbal was conversing hurriedly with the newly-made husband. "in a few days the stocks and shares will be transferred in your name," he said, rubbing his hands; "but i suppose you won't care to be troubled with business for a while?" "oh, i don't know about that," said carson, smiling. "i don't believe in neglecting business for pleasure. i will run up and see you next week. i presume i have full control of this money." "you are aware, of course, that the capital is charged with the payment of a thousand per annum to your wife?" "yes; i will pay her the first year's income at once," said carson, generously. "i suppose i can realize quickly?" "certainly, without difficulty; but i hope, mr. carson, you won't sell out. the money is admirably invested." before he could answer, olive came out of the house in her travelling-dress. she looked pale, though composed. with a nod to the lawyer, carson hurried forward and offered his arm. having already said good-bye, olive took it and stepped into the carriage. then amid a shower of rice and shoes, amid smiles and congratulations, and the usual sprinkling of tears, they drove off. major semberry chuckled complacently as the carriage disappeared. "thank god," he muttered. from the terrace of kingsholme mallow watched them. he looked ill and haggard. "heaven help her and me," he said, with a sigh. _the second scene: at sandbeach_. chapter i. "the happy pair." sandbeach is a rising watering-place on the south coast. it has been rising for the last ten years, yet, in the opinion of its inhabitants, it has not yet reached that pitch of elevation to which its merits entitle it. the guide-book emphatically declares that it is healthy, pleasantly situated, within easy distance of london, and inexpensive. but for all this eulogy, sandbeach remains unpopular. a sand and shingle beach curved between headlands of crumbling chalk, a stone-faced esplanade with wooden shelters like dolls' houses, three or four dozen queen anne residences fronting some public gardens--a courtesy term, surely--such is sandbeach. in the rear huddle a score or more of untidy cottages. these represent the original village of thirty years back. there is the usual monster hotel, invariably "under entirely new management," for each season it succeeds in bankrupting its unhappy proprietor. there is also an aggressively ornate band-stand, where play local musicians who seemingly vie with their predecessors in the staleness and worthlessness of their music. golf-links, tennis-courts, bicycle-track, all are there, but all are more or less deserted. sandbeach possesses every attraction of the modern seaside "resort," yet people, for some inscrutable reason, decline to fill its hotel or to occupy its apartments. even in what is facetiously termed its "season" it is but sparsely populated. 'tis a marine doctor fell, and no man knoweth the reason of its unpopularity. olive it was who had selected this dismal spot in which to pass her honeymoon. her one desire was to have solitude--no solitude _à deux_, but solitude absolute and complete. her husband in no way interfered with her desire. he sauntered about smoking endless cigarettes, and scanning such samples of modern french fiction as came to hand. every few days he ran up to town. what he did there olive knew not, nor did she trouble herself to inquire. but she did notice that he invariably appeared highly delighted with himself on returning from these jaunts. left to her own devices, olive amused herself as best she could. but she thought more of mallow that was consistent with her own peace of mind. "olive," said angus, one day at luncheon, "i have paid your first year's income in to your account." "thank you, that is very kind of you," replied olive, cheerfully; "but was it necessary to pay in the whole amount at once?" "no; i need only pay it quarterly; but as i wished to be perfectly free to handle the money, i thought it best to get it done." "is it about the money that you have been so often up to london?" "well, yes; i have been seeing after it." "and how is mr. dimbal?" "i have not seen him. mr. dimbal has nothing to do with the business now, save in so far as your income is concerned. my affairs are in the hands of another firm of lawyers." olive was vaguely troubled. "of course, i have every confidence in you," she said; "but i am sorry you did not leave the business with mr. dimbal. he is so very trustworthy." "there are other honest men in london," replied carson, with his usual smile. "by-the-way, how long do you intend to stay here? we have now been exiled for three weeks." "i was thinking of going home in another fortnight or so, if that will suit you." "oh, as to that, don't consider me. i am going to london myself." "you surely do not mean to let me return alone? you really must not. think how everybody will talk." carson shrugged his shoulders. "i do not care what they say," he replied, without the least show of temper. "to tell you the truth, i am rather tired of this farce. you refuse to treat me in any way as a husband; you surely cannot complain if i betake myself elsewhere." "i thought our relative positions were quite clear," said mrs. carson, coldly. "i married you simply and solely in obedience to my father's dying wish; you married me--well, you married me, i suppose, for the fifty thousand pounds that went with me." "in other words, our marriage is a bargain." "if you please; it matters little what we call it." "a pleasant position for me," said carson, good-humouredly. his wife sat silently looking at her plate, while he continued to eat his luncheon with the utmost indifference. "perhaps the position is a trying one for you," she said, at length; "but i dictated the terms of our union very clearly in the first instance; you were perfectly free to accept or reject them. you accepted them; your reasons were your own. no doubt they were good ones." "quite right; ours is purely a business marriage, or bargain. we can call it that between ourselves." "if you were a different kind of man, if you cared for me, things might perhaps be different. but you do not care for me; you do not know what love is." "excuse me if i say that you are hardly in a position to judge," replied angus, quietly. "and are you not a trifle inconsistent? if i loved you, in what position should i stand, seeing that your affections are very definitely engaged?" "excuse me if, in my turn, i say that you are not in a position to speak as to that." "you may think so, but i am not blind. oh no; it's too late in the day to talk of love." "i wish to do my duty," retorted olive, rather weakly, it must be confessed. "you have done your duty," said carson, amiably; "you have obeyed your father, and you have brought me fifty thousand pounds. you do not love me, neither do i care two straws about you." "then why did you marry me?" "for the money solely," he replied, shamelessly. "i served your turn, you served mine. were i in love with you, do you think i would rest content with the purely nominal position of your husband? by no means. for the money's sake i made you my wife. i agreed to your terms because it suited me to do so. have i ever gone contrary to you in any way?" "no; you fulfil your part of the bargain admirably," she said scornfully. "then you can ask no more of me. i shall not return to the manor house with you to hold an ignominious position. our mutual ends are accomplished: let us part." "do you intend to leave me, then?" she asked, feeling herself at a disadvantage. "i do. i shall go to london--perhaps even abroad. at all events, i intend to lead my own life." "but think of the position i shall be placed in." "think of the position i am placed in," he replied emphatically. "people will talk if you leave me so soon after our marriage." "i must leave you to make the best excuses you can; the position is of your own making. you can say that my health is bad, or that the doctor has ordered me abroad. i'll pay you a visit every now and then to keep up appearances. more you cannot ask of me--more i am not disposed to grant." olive rose and struck the table with her open hand. "i protest against your attitude," she cried indignantly. "as i do against yours." "you are not treating me fairly," she said, keeping back her tears with an effort. "as fairly as you treat me, surely?" "if i agree to be your wife, if i----" "no," he interrupted. "i prefer matters to remain as they are. it is useless to feign what we neither of us feel." having so far humiliated herself, olive was not prepared to go further. she realized that his position was every whit as strong as her own. she could resent his behaviour in no way, seeing that the original compact was of her own making. dismayed at the predicament in which she found herself, she retired to her room to consider what she should do. finally, she determined that, should he leave her, she would go to london for a few months. mrs. purcell was on her way to england, and had expressed her intention of taking a house in london. the old lady would gladly have her to stay with her; perhaps she might even invite tui to join them. she would blind the casterwell people, at all events; they would not know that angus had left her so soon. it was the only possible solution she could think of. that evening she dined in her room. she had no fancy for a renewal of the discussion. it could avail her nothing. if her husband had made up his mind to go, go he would; all she could say or do would not serve to deter him. silence was the only dignified course open to her. so she brought to bear upon herself as much of her little stock of philosophy as she could muster. but she had to confess it was poor consolation. she felt lonely and very miserable. later in the evening her maid came to her with a request that she might take a walk. the girl was looking far from well, and olive did not hesitate to let her go. she had become attached to clara. she found her a woman of refinement and capacity, and withal respectful. never had she shown the slightest inclination to take advantage of any favour olive might have shown her. yet there was something strange about the girl which puzzled her mistress not a little. more than once she had surprised her weeping bitterly, and there were times when olive had thought she was unnecessarily jubilant. olive had questioned her about these emotional outbursts, but with no satisfactory result, so in time she ceased to notice them. the girl was always perfect in the performance of her duties. she saw clara go out for her walk; but no sooner had she gone than olive felt more restless and ill at ease than ever. the atmosphere of the house stifled her. she wished she had asked the maid for her hat and things before she went. she felt she must give way to hysterics unless she did something. she could neither read nor write, nor could she sit still. she felt she must get into the fresh air. she put on her hat and cloak and went out. the night was windy and rather cold, but this suited her overstrung nerves. rapidly up and down the esplanade she walked, drinking in the keen air, and watching the dark clouds drive across the sickly moon. up and down, up and down, until her limbs grew weary; and with her fatigue her excitement abated. at last, slowly climbing the steps to the top of the cliffs, she returned to the hotel. her way lay through a small shrubbery, parted from the road by a slight iron railing, beside which a gas-lamp flared in the wind. she could see a man and woman talking earnestly together. they did not hear her. as she drew near, the man stooped and kissed the woman. the next moment she swept past them wrathful and resentful. she had recognized her husband. chapter ii. "the brooch." half an hour later carson sauntered into the sitting-room. he found olive awaiting him. he had not seen her as she passed him in the darkness, and was, therefore, at a loss to comprehend the full significance of her present expression. he was at a loss to know why she was waiting for him. she did not usually seek him at so late an hour. however, he opened the conversation in his usual easy-going way. "hallo!" said he, "not in bed yet? you'll lose your beauty sleep." "will you be so kind as to sit down?" replied olive coldly. "i wish to speak to you." "and on no very pleasant subject, i should say," returned carson, taking a chair. "well, what's the matter?" with a yawn. "have you no regard for decency, angus?" "as much as my neighbours, i suppose. how have i been transgressing?" "by meeting that woman to-night." carson started. "what woman?" he asked irritably. "i do not know," retorted olive, with some heat. "i did not see her face, nor would i have recognized her if i had. your associates are not mine." "still, i do not understand," said angus composedly, but seemingly relieved. "there are none so blind as those who won't see. i was taking a walk just now, and i saw you speaking to a woman under the gas-lamp opposite this hotel. dare you deny it?" "i don't deny it. why should i?" "angus, how can you be so shameless? i saw--i saw--that--well, that you were more than friendly with her." "you seem to have seen a great deal," sneered carson, coolly. "may i ask what right you have to spy upon my actions?" "what right? the right of your wife." "pardon me, you are not my wife," he returned ironically. "you are my partner in a business transaction. i thought we were agreed on that point once and for all." "when do you go to london again?" she asked. "to-morrow," he answered. "have you anything to urge against my going?" "no; i claim no right to control your actions. i can only say that as you agreed, for a large sum of money, to act as my nominal husband, you should fulfil your part of the bargain so far as to treat me with respect." "and how have i failed to do so?" "by meeting that woman to-night." "nonsense! no one saw me but yourself; and i must deny your right to call me to account in any way. however, that has nothing to do with my going to london. have you any objection to that?" "i would advise you to stop there. i never wish to see you again." "the wish is mutual, i assure you," said carson, rising in his turn. "i am glad that we have come to an understanding at last. i will do as you suggest." "i think it very much better that you should. our marriage is a very great mistake." "pardon me, i do not agree with you. it is surely an unqualified success, inasmuch as we have both attained our aim. but any blame there is must attach itself to you as much as to me. you might, of course, under ordinary circumstances, have had the right to object to my meeting a lady as i did; as it is, you can have no shadow of a right to do so." "at least, you might conduct yourself as a gentleman whilst you are here," returned olive bitterly. "but i suppose that is asking too much." "a great deal too much; you can ask me nothing." carson shrugged his shoulders. "this is hardly conversation," he added. "at all events, you must excuse me if i say it does not interest me. as you say, we had better part. after i leave for town in the morning, i will trouble you no more." "thank god," said olive, moving towards the door of her room. "at least i shall be spared the indignity of living with you." "allow me," said carson, stretching forward to open the door for her. "good-night, and good-bye." "you contemptible cur," said his wife, disappearing and slamming the door behind her. he smiled as he looked after her. "a cur, am i? it is lucky for you, miss bellairs, that i do not use my teeth more fully to substantiate your simile; i could, you know. ah, well!" drawing a long sigh of relief, "thank goodness, that's over. what a weary, dreary time it has been. however, at last, i can enjoy the fruits of my labours. after all, the money is well worth the trouble;" and mr. carson proceeded to the bar to drink a toast to his release in a glass of lemonade. temperance was one of his good points. when olive rose next morning he was gone, bag and baggage. he said no word of farewell, nor did he even leave a note behind him. she felt immensely relieved, yet she could not help feeling she had debased herself, that her self-respect was sullied. it had been a fatal mistake. but olive was not the woman to sit down with ashes on her head and bemoan her fate. suppressing the fact that her husband had left her (that she intended to explain personally later), she wrote to miss slarge that, after a further two weeks' stay at sandbeach, she intended leaving for london. "i don't feel like returning to casterwell at present," she wrote, "i would rather spend the winter months in london. please let me know when you expect mrs. purcell. i am most anxious to see her. when i am settled in town, you and tui must come up that we may all be together." she sent kind messages to mr. brock and to miss ostergaard, and she inquired if mallow was still with lord aldean. miss slarge did not omit to answer this last query. he was still there; it was the greatest comfort to her to know that. a few days later came a letter from mr. dimbal, which seriously alarmed her. it drew her attention to the fact that carson had recently sold the securities in which her money was invested, and transferred the proceeds to the crédit lyonnais, in paris. suspicious of carson's behaviour generally, more especially when it came to taking things altogether out of his hands, mr. dimbal had made inquiries, and had ascertained what he now wrote to olive. she could not understand it at all, and had she known his whereabouts, would straightway have written to him for an explanation. but he had left her without an address. he had vanished completely out of her life. apparently it was his intention that these funds should vanish with him. probably, the thousand pounds paid to her credit was all she would ever see of it. the position was certainly becoming serious. she recalled mrs. purcell's letter, and her description of carson. she read over the extracts she had made, with the result that she wrote again to casterwell; this time--of all people--to mrs. drabble. that lady's reply roused the strongest suspicions in her regarding her husband, and she felt the time had come when she could no longer cope with things unaided. her first impulse was to call in the assistance of mr. dimbal, but on second thoughts she refrained. the little jog-trot solicitor was hardly the man to deal with a clever scoundrel of carson's type, for scoundrel she now fully believed him to be. there was mallow; he was capable beyond a doubt, and by his love for her had he not claimed the right to serve her in time of need? she would write to him without loss of time. the next day he was at sandbeach. olive was in her sitting-room when the servant brought up his name. in the adjacent bedroom clara was attending to her work. "ah, mrs. carson," he said (he had schooled himself to say the name), "i am indeed glad to see you again. but--but, you are not looking after yourself!" "oh, i am well enough, really," said olive, giving him her hand, "but i am terribly worried." "worried?" repeated mallow, sitting down near her, "worried? what about?" before olive could reply, the door leading to the bedroom opened abruptly, and clara came in with a hat in her hand. "i beg your pardon, ma'am," said the maid, "but do you wish this hat left out from the packing?" "yes, of course," replied olive, astonished at her asking so unnecessary a question. "thank you, ma'am." the girl retired. olive would have been more than astonished, had she seen her a minute later. the door was left slightly ajar, and the girl's ear was taking in every word she could catch. "that young woman is still with you, i see," observed laurence. "yes, she is a very excellent servant," replied olive. "why?" "oh, nothing. i merely remarked the fact," said mallow, who had his reasons for keeping his own counsel. "but, to continue our conversation, why are you worried?" "i will tell you everything shortly. meanwhile i want you to read this." olive placed in his hands the extracts she had copied from mrs. purcell's letter, and pointed out to him one paragraph in particular: "mr. carson has had golden wrist-buttons made to match his unique bracelet, wrought in the same style, but of vastly inferior workmanship." "well?" "now look at this." she detached her brooch and laid it on the table. it was a circular gold ornament, carved with the three faces of the hindoo trinity encircled by a lotus wreath; a handsome, but odd, piece of workmanship. "an indian wrist-button," said mallow, looking at it carefully. "imitated from carson's bracelet, no doubt. i suppose it is one of those referred to by mrs. purcell." "it is; i am sure of it." "carson gave it to you?" "no, he did not. it was a wedding present from margery drabble; she told me it was her doll's locket. i did not notice it particularly at the time. but on reading mrs. purcell's letter again it suddenly dawned upon me that it was one of carson's wrist-buttons." "and how did margery come by it?" "well, i wrote to mrs. drabble about that, and she replied that margery had taken it from her father's desk on the mine-is-thine principle. now," said olive, "what possible connection can there be between dr. drabble and my husband?" chapter iii. "clara's letter!" mallow stared at her, astonished at the earnestness with which she spoke. "i am afraid i don't quite follow you," he said at length. "of course carson knows dr. drabble. he met him at casterwell." "that is just the point. was it for the first time he met him at casterwell?" "i--i suppose so; but, so far as i could see, he was never very intimate with the man." "then why should he present him with a pair of gold wrist-buttons," said olive--"especially the pair he wore himself; the pair he had made to match that bracelet?" "yes that is strange," admitted mallow. "it would be, if it were a fact," said olive. "but i do not for one moment believe that he gave them to drabble at all." "then how do you suppose drabble came by them?" "that," said olive, "is just where i am at a loss, and where i need your help. that is what we must find out." "but, mrs. carson----" "one minute, mr. mallow. am i mrs. carson?" "well, i presume so. you were married to him," said mallow, somewhat bewildered. "i was married to some one, yes; but is that some one angus carson?" mallow jumped up hurriedly. "you are not thinking of that absurd story i told you?" "i am. not that i think it absurd now. on the contrary, i am coming to believe more in the sense of it each hour." "no, no," said mallow. "i made every possible inquiry in london immediately before your marriage. i visited athelstane place; i questioned the police. but i could find nothing, absolutely nothing, to connect your husband in ever so remote a degree with that murder. besides, look at the facts in his favour. mr. brock recognized him simply from his resemblance to his father, and his appearance corresponds exactly with the description of him given by mrs. purcell, even to the wearing of his bangle." "i don't remember seeing him wear the wrist-buttons," said olive. "women, you know, are observant of these little things. do you remember mrs. slarge reading out her sister's letter in the presence of angus?" "yes, perfectly. it was then carson showed us the bangle." "yes. well, i looked then for these wrist-buttons, but i noticed he wore silver sleeve-links." "on that particular occasion, perhaps?" "but he never wore the others," retorted olive. "again and again i watched for them. this is the first i have seen, and it comes from margery, not from angus." "did you speak to your husband about it?" "no; as i say, i was busy when margery gave it to me, and i slipped it into my pocket without thinking. it was only on looking at it again, the other day, that its resemblance to the bracelet struck me. i wear it as a stud rather than as a brooch; you see, it has no catch-pin." "well, i think perhaps the best way would be to ask your husband how dr. drabble comes to possess a wrist-button so similar to his bracelet." olive turned suddenly pale, and hung her head. "i cannot," she said, faintly; "he has left me." "left you?" repeated mallow, scarcely able to believe his ears. "why--when?" "nearly a fortnight ago. it was not possible for us to continue living together. i hated him, and he did not care in the least for me. it was solely for my money that he married me; and now that he has it, he has no further use for me. we agreed it was best to separate. i was glad to do so." "and this is the man you left me for!" "not of my own free will. you know i was the victim of circumstances. i told you everything about my father's letter. here it is; read it yourself, and tell me if i could have acted otherwise." in silence mallow took the letter from her. he noticed that her hand trembled. in silence he read it through. it was a strange letter, and it had apparently been written under stress of great mental excitement. the man might have been in mortal terror when he penned those lines. the warning at the close was a very cry of anguish. "what do you say now?" asked olive. "i can say nothing. we seem to move in a world of mystery." "you admit that i acted rightly?" "i admit that you were forced to obey the letter," answered mallow. "whether you acted rightly is not quite the same thing." "you are not just to me," cried olive, passionately. "i loved my father dearly. he was always so good to me. i should have been wicked to ignore so solemn a command. had it been only a question of money, i would readily have surrendered it all to mr. brock. but my father's dying wish--i could not disregard it, i could not." "i admit that," said laurence, reluctantly. "but what a miserable result it is!" olive covered her face with her hands. "i know, i know!" she cried. "the sins of the father are visited on the children. oh, what can there have been in my father's life to make him sacrifice me so cruelly?" "mr. brock was your father's oldest friend. he might, perhaps, know." "he does not know, for i asked him the very day before this hateful marriage of mine. he could give me no answer. he could not understand the letter. both in india and in england, he said, my father's life was above reproach." "yet there must be something," mused mallow. "there are few men who have not a turned-down page somewhere in the book of their life, and as a rule it is not shown even to the dearest and closest of friends. 'we mortal millions live alone,' as arnold puts it." "well, it can't be helped," said olive, despairingly. "there is nothing to be gained by probing the past. but in the present we may be able to do something. to return to those wrist-buttons: in the first place, carson never wore them----" "one moment," interrupted mallow. "you must be quite sure of that before we can accept it as evidence of any value. it is always possible he may have had them by him, yet not have worn them. whether or no he gave them to dr. drabble is another matter; you had, perhaps, better write and get mrs. drabble to ask her husband." "that is exactly what i did. but she replied that it was more than she dared to do. you know she is frightened to death of him. on the contrary, she implored me not to tell him lest margery should get into trouble." "the man can hardly blame her for following his own teaching," said laurence, grimly. "he has been at some pains to teach her to look upon other people's belongings as her own; naturally the child thought she was doing no wrong. so mrs. drabble won't speak to her husband? well, i must do so myself, then, when i get back to town." "have you the doctor's address there?" "yes. it so happens that he has been trying to enlist my sympathies towards his revolutionary projects. he gave me his town address and asked me to call." mallow took out his pocket-book. " , poplar-street, soho; that's where he lives. a veritable hotbed of foreign rascality, no doubt. well, that disposes for the present of one more piece of evidence. what else have you?" "two days ago," said olive, "i received this from angus" (producing a letter). "he said that he was going to london, possibly even abroad. he has evidently gone abroad, for this is written from florence." "so i see," said mallow, glancing over the letter. "florence as an address is somewhat vague." "he fears i may follow him, i suppose. pray read the letter, mr. mallow." laurence did so. there were merely some half a dozen lines to the effect that the writer did not intend to return, that he gave his wife her full freedom, and apologizing for anything he might have done to distress her. "he is a bad lot," said mallow, in disgust, "still, i cannot see how this letter is going to help you, nor, for that matter, what doubt it casts upon his identity." "can't you see," burst out olive, "why he wrote that himself--and, moreover, he wrote it with his right hand. i have seen the writing of his left. it can be read only with great difficulty. this is perfectly plain and easily legible. yet, when he was here, he always declared his right hand was much too painful to use in any way." "yes, i admit there may be something in it," said mallow; "but might not some one else have written it for him?" "perhaps; that is, of course, just possible. but i doubt it. i don't believe his right hand was hurt at all. he merely feigned its uselessness for his own ends." "but mrs. purcell declared that it was useless." "she alluded to carson's hand. this man, i tell you, is not carson. i remember one day when we were out we climbed a slight cliff. i scrambled up first. on looking back, i saw angus climbing up with both hands. there were other times, too, when he forgot himself. i have even seen him take his arm right out of the sling and use his hand perfectly freely. when i spoke to him about it he always would have it i was mistaken. i tried to get him to remove the bandages and show me his hand, but his excuse was that the doctor had strictly forbidden him to do so. no, believe me, mr. mallow, i am right. that letter was written by the man himself, and with his right hand. carson is an impostor." "really that is very well argued," said mallow, puzzled. "but there are flaws. however, we can consider those later. pray go on. what is your third reason?" "mr. dimbal writes to me that angus--let us call him that for the present--has realized all securities, and has placed the proceeds to his own credit at the crédit lyonnais in paris. now, the real angus carson would not do that." "i don't quite see why he should not," said mallow; "but i admit, of course, it is strange. still, even so, i find it difficult to believe the man is an impostor without more direct and convincing evidence." "he is; i tell you he is," replied olive, resolutely. "i truly believe that man who was murdered in athelstane place was the real carson. the right hand--the diseased hand, you remember--was cut off, no doubt to procure the bracelet for this impostor. this man's clothes smelt of sandal-wood--a most unusual perfume--so did those of the poor wretch who was killed. the newspaper description of the dead man corresponds exactly with the man who calls himself my husband. he never by any chance spoke to me of his father or of his life in india. he never cared for me, and was only too ready to part from me. his only action of note since we were married has been to sell the stock and transfer the proceeds to a foreign bank, where he can deal with it. i am convinced, mr. mallow, that he was not angus carson. i go even further. i believe that he murdered angus carson in order to impersonate him. i am as sure of it as i am that--well, that i am alive; and, god help me, i am married to the wretch!" olive became so agitated that mallow begged her to lie down. do and say what he would, he could not shake her conviction. when he saw her somewhat more composed he left her and started off for a good brisk walk, that he might turn things over in his mind. it was quite dusk when he got back to sandbeach. half an hour later and he would probably have failed to see a small white package lying on the path-way. he was in a narrow side street leading from the esplanade to the railway station. as it was, he not only saw it, but took the trouble to stop and pick it up. it proved to be a somewhat bulky letter addressed to jeremiah trall, esq., , poplar street, soho, london. mallow's instinct as soon as he read this was to drop it. but the tall figure of a woman coming quickly round the corner arrested his attention. he saw that she was eagerly searching for something. she came up to him. "my letter sir," she ejaculated hurriedly. "i dropped it. thank you." she snatched it from him, and before he had time to recover himself she was gone. "clara trall!" he gasped, thunderstruck. "shall i follow her? no, i have no right to do that. yet the address of that letter is the address of dr. drabble in london. more mystery--more scheming. what on earth can it mean?" but it was many a long day before mallow found an answer to that question. chapter iv. "more mystery." for various reasons, mallow had not taken up his abode in the same hotel as olive. he had found a clean, unpretentious, little place near the station, which suited him well enough in his present mood. here he ate a solitary dinner, cooked and served in thoroughly english style. invariably fastidious over his food, laurence was not now inclined to be any more particular about it than he was about his lodging. he ate but little. a good cigar and some strong black coffee, he felt, would do more for him just now than any food. he inquired from the waiter how the trains ran to london, for he had no doubt that on the morrow it would be necessary for him to use them. curiously enough the waiter knew all about the trains, notwithstanding the fact that he was an aboriginal as well as a waiter. "on'y two decent ones from 'ere to lunnon," said this ganymede; "you'll see 'em, sir, in the time-tables. there's one leaves ten 'o the mornin', an' another at six at night. you gits to lunnon in about three hours; so, yer see, they ain't express like even then." "ten in the morning," mused mallow. "ah! that's a trifle too early. i may as well have another day with olive, to cheer her up. the evening train will suit me. i can see drabble in soho the next morning--that is, if he is in town." mallow finished his coffee and cigar. then he lit a fresh one, slipped on his coat--for the night was chilly--and strolled round to the big hotel. he was shown at once to mrs. carson's sitting-room. he found her almost as much agitated as she had been when he left her. "oh, laurence!" she said, calling him by his christian name in her excitement. "how glad i am that you have come. she has gone!" "she has gone? who has gone?" asked laurence, pausing in the act of removing his coat. "clara--my maid," replied olive. "i cannot understand it at all. she appeared perfectly content with her place, and said nothing about leaving. it was only when i sent for her to dress me for dinner that i found she had gone. what can it mean?" "it probably seems extraordinary to you," replied mallow, coolly; "but i confess i am not surprised. your clara has gone to join carson." olive gasped. "to join my husband?" she said incredulously. "what has clara to do with him?" "that is what i should like to know. carson has been in the habit of meeting this girl for some time past. before you were married, aldean saw them together; but he carefully refrained from letting me know anything about it until quite recently. i suppose he was afraid of what i should do to the scoundrel. save, under the present circumstances, i should not have told you. but, as i have little doubt she has gone to him, it is right you should know." "oh!" cried olive, suddenly recollecting; "then she was the woman i saw! the night before my husband left me i saw him talking with a woman quite close to the hotel. i recognized him but her face i could not see. yes, it must have been clara." "the scoundrel!" murmured mallow, "there is clearly something between him and the girl. she was probably a spy." "a spy--on me? for what reason?" "semberry could probably explain that. i understand that he was instrumental in finding the girl for you." "that's true. a mrs. arne, whose address he gave me, was anxious to find a place for her; so i wrote, of course, in the usual way for her reference. it was an excellent one, and i did not hesitate to engage her. so far as that goes, she was a first-class servant.' "she probably was no servant at all," said mallow, bluntly. "she had neither the appearance nor the manners of one. even aldean noticed that. by the way, have you mrs. arne's letter?" olive nodded. "i keep all my letters for six months before i destroy them," she said, rising. "i should have hers. wait one moment, i will go and fetch it." mrs. carson returned with the letter. mallow read it through carefully, but could gather nothing from it. he noted the address, , amelia street, kensington, and commented on the firm, masculine character of the writing. "mrs. arne is evidently a woman of strong will and considerable character," he said, replacing his pocket-book. "for all we know, she may be mixed up in this plot." "plot?" echoed olive, looking scared. "what plot?" "well," said mallow, "i can hardly say definitely. there is certainly a plot of some kind. sooner or later we shall know more about it. at present we must be content to know its object, which was undoubtedly to secure this fifty thousand pounds." "for whom?" "that is the question. carson, semberry, clara trall, or even dr. drabble--they all seem to have something to do with it." "then you think there is some connection between my husband and that horrid doctor?" "yes, i do. i must tell you that shortly before six o'clock this evening, as i was coming home from my walk, i picked up, in one of the small streets here, a letter, dropped evidently by this clara of yours; for just as i was reading the address on it, she came rushing round the corner, snatched it from my hand, and flew off with it before i had time to do more than notice that it was she. it is more than probable that she left by the six-o'clock train." "for london?" "no; i don't think she went to london." "oh! i see. you think she has gone off to florence to my husband?" "yes, i think that; and something more, mrs. carson. the letter i picked up was addressed to jeremiah trall, , poplar street, soho." "clara's father, i suppose?" "well, it may be her father or it may be dr. drabble-- , poplar street, happens to be the town address he gave me. it would not surprise me in the least to find that in pursuit of his anarchistic schemes he found it useful to have--well, let us call it a _nom de guerre_." "but why should he take clara's name?" "we don't know that trall is clara's real name," retorted mallow. "mind you, this is purely hypothetical. jeremiah trall may or may not be drabble. at all events, the address is the same; and soho is the hotbed of anarchism in london. the possession of that wrist-button by drabble seems to me clearly to point to some intimacy with carson." "the so-called carson?" interrupted olive. "well, we have not quite proved that yet. the links of the chain run something like this: mrs. arne, whoever she may be, gives clara (whoever she may be) a character which is palpably false. i mean false as regards her identity, not her capability; for that you proved to be all that was said for it. from this fact we are justified in concluding that she, mrs. arne, is in some way implicated. i feel convinced myself that clara was not a servant. semberry induces you to engage her--that proves his connection; and carson meets clara several times, and clearly is intimate with her. the wrist-button would seem to connect drabble with carson, and the soho address associates him with clara. save the address and the wrist-button, which, of course, are substantial facts, the rest is deduction pure and simple. but it is logical deduction, and, to my thinking, it points strongly to a secret association for some secret purpose between all these people. the purpose, i take it, was to secure this sum of fifty thousand pounds." "but what makes you think that clara has not gone to london?" "that letter," replied mallow, promptly. "it was very bulky. i believed it contained a report of our conversation here to-day. clara was in the next room. you remember how, when she heard my voice, she came in with an obviously feigned excuse? i noticed when she returned to the bedroom she left the door ajar. overhearing us, of course, she became aware of your doubts as to carson's identity. she probably became alarmed lest you should go further and discover her connection with him. that, i think, is the reason of her sudden departure; whilst the very existence of the letter seems to me to show that london was not her destination. had she been going there, she need not have written it. she could have called at poplar-street, soho, and said what she had to say. do you follow? she has probably got out at some station on the way up, and is now on her way to dover, _en route_ for italy." olive passed her hand over her forehead. "it's all very confusing," she said, in a troubled voice. "and all very fanciful, you might add," rejoined mallow. "are you sure she has taken her box?" "the chambermaid said so." mallow shook his head. "we had better not rest content with second-hand evidence when we can have first," said he. "where is her room? can we go and see?" "oh yes. i should have gone before, but i have been so confused with one thing and another. let us go and search it at once." taking a lighted candle from a side table, olive led the way along the corridor. the room was not far away. they could find no box there. "she must have removed it while i was out," said olive in dismay. "i took a stroll shortly after you left; my head was aching so. oh, what a wicked, artful girl!" "she is probably quite used to these fittings," said mallow, looking round the room. "hallo! torn-up paper in the grate! we must look at this. hold the candle a moment, please, mrs. carson." clara had not been fool enough to leave behind anything likely to betray her. but one envelope which mallow found proved the truth of one of his suppositions. it had an italian stamp on the corner, and was addressed "miss clara trall, grand hotel, sandbeach, inghilterra." "my husband's writing!" cried olive, as mallow rose and dusted his knees. "yes; and from florence--dated four days back. look at the post-mark. this puts the matter beyond a doubt, mrs. carson. your husband wrote to her to join him in italy. she has gone to dover, not to london." "but, surely, what can clara be to that man?" "an accomplice, certainly." they returned to the sitting-room. mrs. carson sat down looking hopelessly bewildered. "what are we to do now?" she asked. "communicate with the police?" "no," said mallow; "we have no facts to give them. we know that carson has possession of the money; but, you must remember, he has legal possession of it. we know that he is in italy, and that clara has joined him. there is nothing there for the police, is there? beyond this we can say nothing; not even that carson is an impostor. but it will not be long now before we are able to settle that point; mrs. purcell arrives from india in a couple of days' time, and a portrait of carson----" "i have one," interrupted olive. "he was so vain that he actually had some done by one of these men on the beach. there were some copies in this room. i dare say i can find them. but tell me, mr. mallow, what do you intend to do now?" whilst she was hunting for the photographs, mallow explained. "i think," he said, "i had better go to london and see this mrs. arne. then i shall look up semberry, and after that--well, then, i think i'll drop in on dr. drabble in soho." "will you broach the matter directly?" "no; i don't think it would be wise to do that. if things are as i suspect, we have to deal with a dangerous lot. i'll find out all i can without letting them have any suspicion--that is to say, from mrs. arne and semberry. as for drabble, i intend to join him. i shall become an anarchist." "become an anarchist?" echoed olive, turning round, the photographs in her hand. "yes; it is my only chance of gaining his confidence. i must do it if i am to get at the truth." "but you will bring trouble upon yourself." "oh no," laughed mallow, "i shall stop short of throwing bombs, i promise you." "oh, it is dangerous," said mrs. carson, sighing. "how can i thank you sufficiently for all the trouble you are taking--here are the photographs." laurence glanced at one. it represented carson standing straight and stiff against a stone wall for all the world as if he were going to be shot. it was not a work of art, but the likeness was excellent. mallow nodded as if he were well satisfied. "it will serve our purpose capitally," he said, putting it in his pocket. "mrs. purcell should have no difficulty in saying if this is or is not the man she saw in bombay. well, mrs. carson," he added abruptly. "i must say good night." "good night. what time to-morrow do you leave?" "not until the evening train--six o'clock. mrs. purcell does not arrive for two days yet, so i have plenty of time. good night." thus did mallow take his first step on the dark and tortuous way he was to follow. it led him downward into an under-world of crime and danger. but he found some good even in those sordid depths. doubt and mystery surrounding him, holding his life in his hand, on and on he went, never flinching, never yielding, never losing sight of his clue until at last it led him to the truth. _the third scene: in london_. chapter i. "mysterious mrs. arne." for a long time past mallow had been turning over in his mind the scheme of a new novel upon which he was most anxious to commence work. but now that mrs. carson had called upon him to aid her to the solution of the many mysteries by which she seemed to be surrounded, he was obliged to put all thought of it from him. with all the energy he could command he threw himself into the business on hand. here was a romance in real life surpassing the most elaborate inventions of fiction. it was his task to round it off to a satisfactory finish. and this was not easy. of actual fact he had but little to guide him. neither could he hope to extract much from those chiefly concerned. he was forced to grope his way in well-nigh utter darkness. only by the light of fresh material yet to be gathered would he be able to use to advantage that which was already at his command. and of procuring such fresh material he saw but small chance at present. here, as in most things, it was the first step which was so important. he inclined to think that two heads were better than one. from sandbeach he had written at some length to his friend aldean, telling him all that had taken place there, and how he had shifted olive's troubles (so far as he was able) on to his own more capable shoulders. the result was that aldean came up to london almost immediately, and presented himself at mallow's chambers in half-moon street, full of curiosity and anxiety to assist in the crusade against carson and company. in substantiation of his belief in the old proverb, mallow accepted his offer. here was another head, at all events, if not an exceptionally brilliant one. and so aldean took up his quarters at his house in kensington, and prepared himself for an exciting time. "it is good of you, jim," said mallow, at their first meeting. "i know you would much rather be at casterwell playing with amaryllis in the shade, according to your habit." "amaryllis comes to london next week," replied jim, with something of a blush. "mrs. purcell has invited her." "oh, in that case your patience will not be put to so great a test. has mrs. purcell arrived?" "yes, she is in town now, settled in a friend's house which she has taken over for the winter. miss slarge showed me a long johnsonian missive, in which mrs. purcell stated she was 'elevating her shingle' in guelph road, campden hill." "and how, may i ask, did mrs. purcell translate 'elevating her shingle' into english?" "oh, i can't remember the old lady's long-winded sentences, but she is now in guelph road. miss slarge, with miss ostergaard, comes up next week. of course, mrs. purcell knows nothing of mrs. carson's matrimonial troubles, or i dare say she would have asked her too." "she must ask her," said mallow, hastily. "i shall call on mrs. purcell, and explain the circumstances. it will never do for mrs. carson to be left alone in her troubles." "take care, mallow; your interest in mrs. carson may be misconstrued." "oh, rubbish! mrs. purcell is a woman of sense, i am sure. so long as i keep my own counsel, she can say nothing. i want mrs. carson to revert, as much as possible, to the condition of affairs before this unhappy marriage. when all this mystery is cleared up, she will be able to start fresh." "that will depend, of course, mainly upon the identity of this man carson," said aldean. "nothing of the sort," contradicted mallow, sharply, but wincing all the same; "whatever he is she is his wife--there's no getting past that fact." "she may get a divorce. carson's gone off with that girl." "quite so; but he has not so far treated her with cruelty, and--well, you know the idiotcy of the d.c. for heaven's sake, jim, drop mrs. carson." "all right," assented aldean. "i see your nerves are jumpy on that subject. let's get to the matters in hand. about this carson mess; what do you think of it?" "a big business, jim; a nasty painful business, with a strong element of criminality it it. of course it is all very vague and confused on the surface, but beneath, i am convinced, there is a very orderly and well-constructed conspiracy progressing." mallow sat down and lighted his pipe. "now, let us look at the facts," he said. "there can be no doubt that semberry forced that girl on mrs. carson as a spy. carson, too, must have known her before he came to casterwell, or he would not have been meeting her on the quiet so soon after she came there. she overheard my conversation with her mistress in the sitting-room of the hotel (unfortunately it was not till i was about to leave that i noticed she had left the bedroom door ajar, or i would have closed it). however, she lost no time in reporting what she had heard to , poplar street, which, you understand, is the same address that drabble gave me as his own. that, i consider, brings him into the business. then she bolted to join carson in florence; that i think is proved by the envelope which i found in the grate of her bedroom. these are the main facts." "and you really think that drabble is in the swindle?" "i do, from the fact of that address, and also from this wrist-button turning up; so far as we know, he could only have got it from carson. that would seem to show that he knew carson somewhere before he came to casterwell. presents argue a certain degree of intimacy." "that is one view," said jim, quickly, "but there is another. if carson is a fraud, you may be sure that it was the real man who was murdered in athelstane place. the sandal-wood scent forms a link between the true and the false." "well, admitting that, even then the wrist-button must have passed through the false carson's hands to reach drabble. we have nothing to lead us to suppose that the doctor had anything to do with the murder." "humph! the papers said, you remember, that only a surgeon could have amputated the right hand so neatly." "that is a wild theory," said mallow. "let us stick to the facts. whoever carson may be, you forget we have yet to prove him an impostor. the one thing we are sure of is that clara trall was a spy." "do you intend questioning semberry about her?" "no, that would put him on his guard at once. i shall go to amelia street, and see this mrs. arne." "the same thing applies to her, surely?" "no. i shall merely call on mrs. carson's behalf to inform her that clara left her mistress's service without warning of any kind, and ask her if she can throw any light on her eccentric behaviour. it is quite natural mrs. carson should wish to know. i shall thus throw the onus of any explanation on her." "she will only lie to you. she may not even do that,--probably she will express her very great regret, and confess her inability to understand it." "well, of course, that is probable. i must chance it. she may let fall something of value." aldean put on his hat and coat. "so you intend to begin with this clue?" he asked dubiously. "well, i think it is the most likely to bear fruit." "and what about the murder?" asked aldean. mallow pointed to a neat pile of newspaper cuttings. "i am refreshing my memory on that point. but, for the present, i think i shall leave it alone. we have not yet anything sufficiently strong to connect carson with it. that sandal-wood is not enough. i believe in going slowly and relying on facts only." "well, old man, good-bye and good luck," said lord aldean. "see you again soon;" and he took himself off to transact some small business of his own. the same afternoon mallow dressed himself smartly and strolled down to kensington through the park. without any difficulty he found amelia street. it proved to be in the centre of a fashionable locality, and its inhabitants were evidently people of wealth. as he mounted the steps of no. he could not help wondering at mrs. arne's connection with the very shady matter he had in hand. for the moment the clue did not look promising. "is mrs. arne at home?" he asked the footman who came to the door. "mrs. arne, sir?" said the man with a stare; "i know no one of that name, sir." mallow felt a sudden shock of surprise at the unexpectedness of the answer. "but this is mrs. arne's house, surely?" he asked hastily. "no, sir," replied the man, "mr. dacre lives here." "is mr. dacre in?" demanded laurence, after a few moment's reflection. "he is not, sir; mr. dacre is at present out of town, sir. mrs. dacre is at home, sir." "in that case, please give her my card, and ask her if she will be so good as to see me for a few moments." the footman departed, and shortly returning conducted mallow upstairs to a magnificently furnished drawing-room, where he was received by a pretty, though vulgar-looking woman, shrill of speech and horribly over-dressed. at a glance mallow guessed she had become possessed of unlimited cash late in life. mr. dacre had probably made a fortune in the rapid manner which is characteristic of our latter days, and his wife was now in the throes of acclimatization to her altered circumstances. in all directions there was copious evidence of a huge banking-account. "mr. mallow," said mrs. dacre, assuming a dignity which suited her not at all, and looking at his card through an eye-glass. "yes, i have taken the liberty of calling upon you to ask you if you know anything of a mrs. arne who lived here." mrs. dacre looked at him in surprise. "i do, and i do not know mrs. arne. she is hardly an acquaintance of mine; i only know her as a dressmaker." "a dressmaker?" repeated mallow, with a gasp. "she is not really even that," continued the voluble lady--"pray be seated mr. mallow. mrs. arne is, in fact, a person who goes out sewing. she was recommended to me as an intelligent needlewoman by one of my friends. as i wished some costumes altered, i employed her for a few weeks." "is she here now, mrs. dacre?" "oh dear no. she finished her work, and i dismissed her some weeks ago." "do you happen to have her address?" "no, indeed, i have not. what should i do with such a person's address. i engaged the woman; she did my bidding; i dismissed her. i am not likely ever to see her again. may i ask (this with increasing stateliness) if this person is a friend of yours?" "no, i have not even seen her," replied mallow, hastily; "but a lady friend of mine in the country requires a maid, and she heard that mrs. arne had one for whom she wished to find a situation." mrs. dacre grew scarlet with anger. "absurd--ridiculous!" she burst out. "why, mrs. arne was quite a common person; clever with her needle, i admit, and quite respectful. but the idea of her recommending a maid!" "nevertheless she did so," said mallow, taking a delight in touching upon the weak spot of the purse-proud little lady. "my friend wrote to mrs. arne at this address, and received this reply." as mrs. dacre's eyes, through the medium of her double glasses, fell on the letter which mallow placed in her hand, she almost screeched. "my own paper," she gasped, "the hussy! she must have stolen it. clara trall?--she recommends clara trall, a creature of whom i have never heard as a good maid--a maid! oh! and she herself a sewing-woman too; a common, vulgar dressmaker. mr. mallow, mr. mallow, what are the lower orders coming to?" "that is a very large question, mrs. dacre. at present, perhaps we had better confine ourselves to this one. do you happen to know a major semberry?" "no, i never heard of him." "did mrs. arne ever mention him?" "not that i know of. but, of course, i spoke but little to her. i will say she knew how to hold her tongue. did major semberry know her?" "i believe so. at all events, he gave my friend this address as mrs. arne's." "and he a major too! upon my word, it doesn't sound at all respectable. 'enry (she lost her h's simultaneously with her temper)--'enry shall know of this. mrs. arne recommending maids from our 'ouse on my writing-paper." mallow shrugged his shoulders. he had got all the information he was likely to get, so he prepared to take his leave. mrs. dacre was too intent upon her own grievance to attempt to stop him. at the door (whither she followed him) he asked her one more question. "what was mrs. arne like, mrs. drace? can you give me any description of her appearance?" "a dark, foreign-looking person, with eyes always on the floor, and a tread like a cat. i think she was a foreigner, for all her english. never, never shall a foreigner enter these doors again." mallow bowed himself out, stopping at the door for a word with the smart footman. "mrs. arne was in this house for some time, your mistress tells me; how is it you did not tell me so?" "i've only been here a week, sir," replied the man. mallow gave him a shilling and went off. "a dark, foreign-looking woman," he repeated. "strange again! that is very much like the description the newspapers give of the housekeeper at athelstane place. and semberry knows her, and carson of casterwell is semberry's bosom friend. humph! i shouldn't be surprised if the murdered man was the real carson after all!" chapter ii. "mrs. purcell." after his interview with mrs. dacre, mallow's first impulse was to see semberry and tax him with the deception he had practised upon olive. but he was not a man who gave way to his impulses. he quickly realized that to do that at this stage would simply be to put the major on his guard. plainly he was connected in some way with mrs. arne, and it seemed more than likely, from the description of her given by mrs. dacre, that this so-called dressmaker was identical with the so-called housekeeper of athelstane place. in dealing with people so astute and so dangerous, mallow saw that his only chance lay in gaining their confidence in some way. his next move must be to see drabble, if necessary, in the character of a convert to his views. the doctor's vanity would be flattered, and in his enthusiasm he would not hesitate to welcome him as a member of the band. once let him become acquainted with the schemes of these anarchists, and he might hope for much knowledge which, by any other means, would be unattainable. the risk was considerable, that he knew well--for thus to connect himself with a set of fearless fanatics, was to play with fire with a vengeance. once the oath taken, he was the tool of these ruffians; if he broke it--and that might be necessary for olive's sake--he became their prey. he had no fancy to be blown to pieces or to be stabbed in the dark. but that was a risk he must perforce accept if he was to carry the thing through. he decided to take it, and affiliate himself with the brotherhood. his mind made up on that point, he found himself even looking forward with a certain thrill of excitement to the risks he was about to run. plainly speaking, he was a spy venturing into an unknown land of snares and pitfalls. the least false step might prove fatal, not only to his hopes, but to his life. however, before actually involving himself, he called on mrs. purcell. he was anxious to tell her all about olive, and to induce her to take the girl under her protection for the time being. he presented himself at campden hill one afternoon about five o'clock, and was graciously received by the old lady, with whom he was an especial favourite. tui and miss slarge had already arrived, and were established there as mrs. purcell's guests, but olive was still at sandbeach. she shunned meeting even tui and miss slarge. she knew that they would ask questions which would necessitate her explaining the invidious position in which she was placed. they were still under the impression that her husband was with her, and wondered why the happy pair did not return to the manor house. on this point mallow preserved a judicious silence for the present, though he had fully made up his mind to take mrs. purcell into his confidence. that would be necessary in order to enlist her sympathies for olive, and to carry out his purpose. the subject was a delicate one, and would require careful handling. a majestic female was mrs. purcell, with a haughty eye and a roman nose. she was as stout as her sister was lean, and was draped with funereal pomp in silk and crape, and ornaments of glistening jet. she moved slowly and spoke slowly, and she modelled her speech on the best traditions of her hero, dr. johnson. her looks were monumental, her conversations ponderous. she resembled the ideal britannia--without, be it said, helmet or trident--in domestic life. she had flippantly been compared to gibbon's "decline and fall," and, indeed, there was something of the epic about her, awe-inspiring and stately. she had never made or enjoyed a joke in her life. pallas, lady macbeth, hannah more--mrs. purcell was a combination of all three. "mr. mallow," she said, bearing down on the visitor with full canvas, "i am glad to welcome you to my temporary hearth. with my sister, as with the vivacious miss ostergaard, you are already acquainted. we expect lord aldean, but for the time being our circle is limited, as you observe." mallow greeted the two ladies. "and how is your book getting on?" the authoress sighed. "only moderately well, mr. mallow," she said wearily. "i am at present employed in identifying the etruscan lituus with the pontifical crosier, and some of the accounts are so contradictory that it is not easy to reconcile them." "how is olive?" demanded tui, irrelevantly. "is she well and happy?" "is not that a superfluous question, under the circumstances?" replied mallow, evasively. tui looked at him. "hardly, or i would not have asked it. on the contrary, her letters give me a different impression. i fear from them that she does not get on well with her husband." "tis difficult," observed mrs. purcell, who had returned to the tea-table, "for a newly-married pair to live in complete accord with one another. the effect of their respective trainings has to be taken into account, and only the influence of time, coupled with forbearance on either side, can adapt the idiosyncrasies of one to those of the other. olive has been reared in our island home, mr. carson has not. therefore it is not unlikely that they experience some difficulty in blending their respective dispositions into one harmonious whole." "east is east, and west is west," said mallow, "and two parallel straight lines cannot meet." "let us hope that, in this case, judicious yielding on the part of each of these young people will create an exception to the invariable truth of that axiom, mr. mallow. can i give you a dish of tea?" "thank you, mrs. purcell. ah, here comes our mutual friend." aldean entered. he was welcomed by mrs. purcell with all the pomp she considered due to a member of the nobility. tui was joyous. "i thought you were never coming," she said. "i see that it is out 'of sight, out of mind' with you." "by jove! i wish it were," sighed jim; "i should be a happier man." "oh, surely i don't make you miserable?" "never mind; it is misery i would not be without. tell me, how is major semberry?" "good gracious, lord aldean, how should i know? i have not seen him for years." "'tis to be hoped that you will not again come into contact with major semberry," said mrs. purcell, wagging her turban; "he is not a suitable acquaintance for a young lady." "no, i am quite sure he is not," assented aldean; upon which tui at once took up arms on behalf of the absent. "major semberry is the most charming of men," she declared, with a pout. "the serpent," rebuked mrs. purcell, "is ever beautiful to the eye but unfortunately is possessed of noxious qualities which far exceed his beauty. rubina, in my letter to you i think i stated my opinion of major semberry. from that opinion i have seen no reason to depart." "in plain english, mrs. purcell, you consider semberry a rascal?" "mr. mallow, i consider him a profligate and an undesirable acquaintance. how dr. carson came to entrust his son to such a man i cannot understand." "they got on very well together." "then the one or the other must have changed very much, lord aldean. in bombay, mr. carson was by no means friendly with his travelling companion. his rigid sense of right and wrong did not allow him to countenance major semberry's laxity of principle." "you like mr. carson?" asked mallow, quickly. "my acquaintance with him was not of sufficient duration to enable me to speak quite so definitely as that, but i consider mr. carson to be an admirably conducted young man, calculated to render any woman happy in the matrimonial state." "oh, lor!" muttered jim; "how he must have altered!" "well," said tui, outright, "i don't like mr. carson at all. i never did." "you surprise me," said mrs. purcell, in her most majestic manner. "my judgment is seldom at fault, and i considered mr. carson, when i saw him in bombay, to be the type of all that is most excellent in the male sex." the discussion had not the remotest interest for miss slarge. indeed, she had already drifted back to babylon. observing vaguely that the great red dragon of revelations was the fiery serpent of chaldean worship, she left the room to return to her beloved studies, and mrs. purcell was left with her three guests. lord aldean was carried off by tui to a distant corner where she could torment him without fear of interruption, and mallow at once seized the opportunity for a talk with his hostess about olive. it took all mrs. purcell's philosophy to hear unmoved his tale of carson's treachery. "mrs. purcell," said mallow, plunging at once _in medias res_, "you are aware that i have known mrs. carson for many years, and that i take a deep interest in her welfare. i am sorry to tell you that she is very unhappy in her marriage." "did she inform you of this fact?" said mrs. purcell, with some displeasure. "she did. i received a letter from her asking me to go to sandbeach, where she was spending her honeymoon. on arriving there i found that her husband had left her." "mr. carson has left olive!" "yes; he is now in italy, and, i believe, with another woman." "you amaze me, mr. mallow; i may say, you pain me. what is the meaning of this terrible state of affairs?" "ah! that is a difficult question for me to answer. my only way of doing so is to tell you all that i have learned concerning mr. carson and major semberry, and leave you to judge for yourself." "that will be best, mr. mallow. i shall then be enabled to deliver my unbiassed judgment." thereupon laurence related all that had taken place since carson's arrival at casterwell, and particularly detailed the steps which had led to the engagement of clara trall. "so you see, mrs. purcell," he concluded, "she can hardly help being unhappy. her husband has left her, and has taken her money--to spend it, i presume, on another woman. she is now alone and worried, at sandbeach. i want you to ask her up here and take her under your wing. she needs a friend. you will be that friend?" "you may depend upon my doing what is just and right," said mrs. purcell, vigorously. "i will communicate with olive at once; yes, and i will invite her to come here. that mr. carson should behave so basely is a matter of the most profound astonishment to me. i had read his character otherwise. i can but ascribe this deterioration to the counsel and wiles of major semberry." "that is one way of explaining it," said mallow, taking out his pocket-book; "but there is yet another and more conclusive one. this is a portrait which mr. carson had taken at sandbeach. may i ask you to look at it carefully, and to tell me what you think of it?" mrs. purcell took the photograph and examined it. "this is either an extremely bad portrait, or mr. carson has altered sadly for the worse," she said at length. mallow felt his heart beating furiously. "in what way has mr. carson altered?" he asked, anxiously. "oh, his whole expression is quite different, mr. mallow. when last i saw him, mr. carson's face was replete with intellectual vigour; he was sad and sombre, too, not bright and smiling as he is depicted here. his moustache was very much heavier, and he certainly was not so tall as this picture represents him to be." "it would not surprise you then, mrs. purcell, if i were to tell you that this was not mr. carson's portrait at all?" "no, mr. mallow, it would not. at first glance, i did not notice many things that appear to me as i look into it. mr. carson's face may, of course, have changed. the circumstances of his life may have caused his expression to brighten. it is possible, too, that his moustache may be of less luxuriant growth, but i confess i do not understand how he can have become less of stature. no, mr. mallow, the man here represented is not mr. angus carson!" chapter iii. "a private inquiry agent." the same evening laurence had a long and confidential conversation with mrs. purcell. he made known to her all his suspicions and theories, and the grounds upon which he based them. she listened attentively to all he had to say. then she read through the newspaper reports, and once again scrutinized the portrait of carson taken at sandbeach. she prided herself upon the possession of a clear head and a logical mind, and she brought both to bear upon the case as mallow presented it to her. she arrived at the conclusion that carson was an actual impostor and a probable murderer--a stage further than that at which mallow had been able to arrive. "if you believe, as i do, that the man is an impostor," she argued, "surely he must be guilty of the murder also, else how could he have become possessed of the bangle and the wrist-buttons?" "but, mrs. purcell, i cannot absolutely prove that he is an impostor, even though i firmly believe him to be one." "sir!" said the lady in her most impressive tone, "our human judgments are fallible, i admit, but with such evidence as is before us, there can be no possible doubt that the husband of olive is not the man whose name he bears. she herself does not believe in him, and her reasons are in every respect sound; his dealings with her money, for instance; his silence regarding his early days in hindoostan; his use of his right hand on several occasions when he forgot the part he was playing. the letter from italy, too, is of great weight, seeing that the writer of it also wrote to the woman trall. that is proved by the handwriting, which is in all respects identical. the letter to his wife, the man might possibly have dictated, but the peculiarly private nature of that which he wrote to the girl makes it highly improbable that any hand save his own was instrumental in penning it. moreover, this is no left-handed writing, the letters are far too firmly formed. the right hand of the man must, therefore, have been uninjured, which again proves that he was an impostor. now, although i am not actually prepared to swear in a court of law that this portrait is not the portrait of mr. angus carson, yet i feel quite satisfied in my own mind that it is not, for the reasons which i have already given you." "you make out an excellent case against him, mrs. purcell," said mallow, "but it is only right to say that the man did know something about india." "naturally," she interrupted, "he would obtain whatever information was necessary for his purpose from his friend, major semberry." "then you agree with me in making semberry an accessory?" "certainly. you know my opinion of major semberry, mr. mallow. he is a man utterly without conscience, without scruple, without religion. he cultivates the most extravagant tastes, while possessing means insufficient to gratify them. to place himself beyond the pinch of poverty i am convinced that he would hesitate at no crime--so long, of course, as he saw his way clear to avert the consequences." "well," said laurence, "there is one method of throwing light on the matter which i would like to propose; it is that you permit me to bring semberry here to you that you may tax him with this fraud to his face, and in my presence." "by all means do so, mr. mallow. you may depend upon my acting with all discretion. in the mean time i will communicate with olive at sandbeach, and invite her to come to me as soon as she can. and, mr. mallow, permit me cordially to thank you for the infinite pains at which you have been to place me completely in possession of the facts of this very terrible matter. together we will go into it, and see whether we cannot unravel what at present appears to be a mystery of the most complex order. good-night, mr. mallow, good-night." "good-bye, mrs. purcell. i am afraid we shall find our task no light one." "not light, perhaps, but not impossible; and what is not impossible is always possible, is it not, mr. mallow?" with this consolatory truism mrs. purcell dismissed her coadjutor and addressed herself to the task of writing to olive. she did not tell her how much she knew of her story, but merely that she was aware of her husband having deserted her. she invited her to come at once to london, and urged the advantage of her being on the spot while affairs were being investigated. mrs. purcell rejoiced in her character of _dea ex machinâ_ and poured forth pages of ponderous english such as would have done credit to the conduct of a political intrigue. the rôle appealed to her. she imagined herself a true madame de staël. mallow could have chosen no better assistant. he got no sleep that night. his mind was full of his projected visit to semberry. in the morning he started off for marquis street, but found that, early as it was, semberry had already gone out--on business, according to his valet, though as to the nature of the business the man maintained complete ignorance. leaving word that he would return about one o'clock, mallow wandered about aimlessly, until, bethinking himself that he was wasting valuable time, he determined to try his luck in soho, and look up drabble. he had no sooner turned into poplar street, than he came face to face with semberry. judging from his expression, the major was in no very good tune. it was more than probable he had been calling upon drabble, and the interview had not been to his liking. "good-morning, semberry," said mallow, blocking the way, "i'm glad to see you." "morning," he grunted, and made as to pass, a move which mallow soon thwarted. "i see you're in a hurry," he said amiably, "so i'll just walk a bit of the way with you. there is a friend of yours most anxious to renew your acquaintance." "very kind of him; who is he?" "it is not a he, but a she--mrs. purcell of bombay." as was his custom when nervous, the major's fingers sought his moustache. "oh, mrs. purcell," he said, with a desperate effort to appear at his ease, "what does she want?" "to see you--and carson, if you can bring him." "nothing to do with carson now--better ask his wife 'bout him. as to m'self, no time to hang round old woman--leavin' town." "mrs. purcell will be very sorry," said laurence, smoothly. "are you going abroad?" "don't know; depends. what makes you think so?" "well, i fancied perhaps you might be anxious to join carson." "join carson?" he stopped short and paled a trifle. "what do y' mean? carson's on his honeymoon." "oh no, he isn't," retorted mallow. "carson's honeymoon is at an end; has been for two weeks or more. he is in italy now." "in italy? damme, how d'you know that?" "well, about a week ago he wrote to his wife from florence. it would seem he has gone abroad to look after the money of which he has become possessed by his marriage." "what! you don't tell me he's got the money with him?" "i believe so. mrs. carson heard from the solicitor that he had sold the stocks and shares, to a large amount, and had transferred the funds to the paris branch of the crédit lyonnais." with effort semberry repressed himself. a string of forcible epithets was obviously on the tip of his tongue. although he was probably aware that carson had left sandbeach, it was evidently news to the major that he and the money were together on the continent. "seems carson and his wife don't pull," was all he said. "i fear not," said mallow, coolly. "in spite of the old adage, carson seems to have preferred the maid to the mistress." "what d'ye mean?" growled the major, tugging savagely now at his moustache. "i mean that the girl clara trall has joined carson in florence." "it's a lie! she wouldn't dare----" here the major evidently thought he had said more than enough, for he stopped short. "i am not accustomed to be told i am a liar, sir!" "beg pardon, mallow; excuse, slip o' the tongue." "and why should clara trall not dare?" "don't know," replied semberry, uneasily; "shouldn't think a maid would dare clear out with her mistress's husband." "i am afraid clara is a bad lot, major. why did you recommend her?" "didn't. mrs. arne did." "who is mrs. arne?" "friend o' mine," snapped the major, shortly. "'scuse me, must be getting on. kind regards to mrs. purcell. see her when i get back;" and the brave soldier, picking up his guilty conscience, under fire of mallow's too-searching questions, fairly ran away. mallow decided to postpone his visit to drabble. he had gained nothing of value from his brisk little interview with the major. on the contrary, he feared he had given away a very definite piece of information, for he felt convinced that an hour ago semberry had been ignorant of the fact that carson and clara were in florence. he was fearful lest he should have aroused his suspicions in any way. he might, perchance, act upon the knowledge he had just obtained. mallow determined he would have him watched. there and then he proceeded to a private inquiry office, of which he had informed himself in case of need. he asked for an agent to be placed at his disposal. the payment of a sum down secured this without difficulty, and in due course a personage--said by his employers to be one of the cleverest detectives in europe--was told off to serve him. in appearance, hiram vraik--for that was the man's name--might well have passed for one of the worst of the class he was employed in pursuing. he was assuredly a most villainous-looking creature. he was exceedingly small, and lithe as a ferret, his face was white and pasty, his ears were enormous, and his eyes red-rimmed as those of a rat. his crop would have done justice to any prison barber. he approached mallow with a cringing, slimy politeness, which, coupled with his appearance, made him doubly repulsive. however, argued mallow, dirty work needs dirty tools. "i want you to watch a man," he said, when he had got vraik to himself in the parlour of a public-house near at hand. "here are his name and address. now, listen, and i'll tell you all about it." "yes, sir; it's best to trust me all in all, sir. if i know everything i can do as much as any man, but if i don't--well, sir, i may as well hand you back your money straight off." as he proceeded to relate the details of the case to vraik, the little man's eyes lit up, and he became more rat-like than ever. "it's a big job," he said. "but i'm your man, sir; and if i get there with it i'll expect to be mighty well paid." "oh, you'll be paid well enough, i promise you that," replied mallow. "very good, sir; i know what i've got to do, and i'd better go and do it. whatever this major does, and wherever he goes, you shall know. i'll lose no time as soon as i've got anything to report. whew! the athelstane place business! i am in luck!" and vraik wriggled himself off. chapter iv. "one of us." "so, at last, you come to us!" roared drabble, rubbing his hands. "as you see," answered mallow, equably; "though for me it is a leap in the dark." "never mind, man; there'll be plenty of light soon." "yes, the light of infernal machines and incendiary fires, i presume," retorted the neophyte. drabble rubbed his hands again and winked devilishly. "you shall know all our schemes as soon as you are fit to know them," said he, significantly. "when will that be, may i ask?" "of that madame death-in-life must judge." "oh, i thought you did not know that lady?" "nor do i--in casterwell. in soho it is quite another matter." they were in a dingy, mean room of the upper story of no. , poplar street, soho--a neighbourhood notorious for anarchists--and pickles. any longings after wealth were ruthlessly repressed here. a deal table, a few chairs, a bookcase filled with revolutionary literature, and fiery pamphlets in every european tongue, and a ragged chintz-covered sofa, with a hard and suspiciously round-looking pillow, was all the room contained by way of luxury. the dirty floor boasted no carpet or covering of any kind, and the iron shutters, by which the solitary window was protected, and a brace of revolvers reposing on the mantelshelf, added in no way to the cosiness of the apartment. in all the force of blacklead and whitewash the walls displayed fierce denunciations of many things, more particularly of the various forms of law and order. dust was over everything, and in the corners cobwebs abounded. the triumph of anarchy was here again the apotheosis of the unwashed--the worship of the _sansculottes_. mallow contrasted strangely with these surroundings. near him lounged the doctor, sleek and pale, and still clothed in his invariable black. but this was not the hearty, would-be-genial doctor of casterwell, but a savage, angry, vicious, anarchical doctor, drunk with copious inhalations of the atmosphere around him--the atmosphere of organized disorder, of crime and ruffianism and bribery. this was the real drabble. he was at home here. no one would have known him, save perhaps his wife. mallow, as he looked at him, found himself pitying her. the sheer abandonment of the man revolted him. "well, and how are the turtle-doves getting on?" he asked vulgarly. "if you are speaking of mr. and mrs. carson," replied mallow, "they have parted, i believe, and carson has gone off to italy." "h'm," growled drabble. "as a matter of fact semberry told me so. the maid clara has joined him, i hear." "it is highly probable. carson is a blackguard." "he is worse than that, mallow; he is a thief. i understand he has gone off with his wife's money." now it was quite clear to mallow, that for "wife's money" he might with safety substitute "our share of the plunder;" but for the present he must keep that to himself. it did not do to be foolhardy, especially at no. , poplar street. so he gave the doctor no hint. "perhaps the word 'thief' is a trifle strong, doctor," was all he said. "after all, it is more a question of conscience--or, rather, lack of it--than anything else. no man with a spark of decency would have taken advantage of a position which gave him full possession of his wife's money, by virtue of the mere fact of her being his wife. blackguard--my word--is i think the more applicable." "he is a fool," said drabble, fiercely; "but let him take care. i am not to be trifled with. i wonder what trall will say to his niece bolting with carson?" "oh," said mallow, recalling clara's letter; "then there is such a person as jeremiah trall." "of course there is; he is one of us. but how did you know him?" "mrs. carson told me," remarked mallow, carelessly. "clara used to talk about her uncle." "the fool!" muttered drabble. "i always said that girl was not to trusted." "not to be trusted?" echoed mallow. "then she, too, is one of us?" the doctor looked at him with something approaching a scowl. "your wisest plan," he said, "is to ask no questions in this place." "but you forget i am quite uninitiated yet," retorted mallow. "i don't care about committing myself to a definite course unless i am quite sure what i am about." "do you know what the jesuits do with their pupils?" asked drabble, irrelevantly. "yes, as a rule, they make scoundrels of them." "rather say they make machines of them--machines: because they are blindly obedient to those set in authority over them. that is one of their rules. it is one of ours also. once you join us, you neither think for yourself nor act for yourself, you become a machine." "and if i transgress?" "once you have taken our oaths i don't think you will care to do that," rejoined the doctor, coldly. "if you do--well, i won't answer for the consequences." "are you a machine, drabble?" "no; i am one having authority. i direct--others execute." "really!" said mallow. "and you fancy that a man of my capacity and experience will consent to become your tool. understand, then, drabble, if i join you i must know your ends, your aims, your ways, and your means. i also must be one having authority. on no other conditions will i join you. to speak plainly, i do not quite see why you want me. it is not for my money, for i possess none. it is not for my influence or my position, for what i have of either is not likely to serve you. i can only conclude, then, that it is in an intellectual capacity i am likely to be of use to you; yet you propose to place me in a position subservient to your own. no, my friend," and mallow stood up, "if it is a fool you want, go out into the streets and choose. if you want a man, and a man with brains, i am ready; but i claim to be treated with the respect which is my due. if you cannot assure me that this will be, i must bid you good-day." "sit down, my dear fellow," said drabble, hastily; "you know one cannot generalize in these sort of things, and that is what you have been doing. i quite agree with all you say, generally speaking. but whether it will apply to you individually, it is impossible to decide for the moment. rest assured that you will have every opportunity of exercising your capacity. ours is not a system of government under which the clever man is repressed." "government?" said mallow. "i always understood that no government was the very essence of your being!" "a common fallacy," replied the doctor, dryly, "on the part of many who misunderstand our aims. there is considerable method in our so-called madness. but madame death-in-life will explain all this to you far better than i can. we shall see her very shortly." as he spoke a distinctive rap came at the door, and on the invitation to enter being given by drabble, a tall, bulky man, shabbily dressed, with a puffy red face, entered the room. his whole appearance was suggestive of alcohol in a severe form; but at his first words, mallow recognized that he was a man of breeding. for the present he was quite sober, and he appeared to be in a bad temper--probably, mallow thought, as a result of his unwonted condition. "i beg your pardon, drabble," he said in a refined voice, "i did not know you were----" "oh, i am not engaged to the extent of excluding you," said drabble, sharply. "this is mr. jeremiah trall, mr. mallow." "mr. mallow?" echoed trall, with a stare. (it was evident to mallow that his thoughts straightway reverted to the report he had received from clara.) "a new recruit," explained drabble, looking at him sharply. "but mr. mallow wishes to be quite sure of our aims before he finally consents to join us." "our aims are to make a heaven out of a hell," said trall, taking the third chair. "that requires strong measures." "necessarily," replied mallow; "one doesn't clean stables with rosewater." "no, our methods are a trifle more forcible than that," chuckled trall. "when we try this new----" "there, there," interrupted drabble, "that is quite enough. we will not go into details just at present." mallow could see even thus early that there was no love lost between these two. the alcoholic man scowled angrily at the doctor, and mallow made a mental note of his attitude. he evidently stood in fear of his superior. "what is it you want?" asked drabble, after having reduced the man to silence. "madame wishes to see you," replied trall, sulkily. "she did not know any one was with you." "i am bringing this gentleman down to see her very shortly," said the doctor coolly. "you can go." "one moment," cried mallow, as trall shuffled to his feet. "have i ever seen you before?" "not that i know of." "h'm. your face seems familiar to me." "yes, it is the face of a sot," said drabble, brutally--"not an uncommon sight." "i have to thank you for making it so," stuttered trall savagely. "i should not be what i am had i not come under your thumb. but take care, i may be one too many for you some day." "this is not the first time you have threatened me," said drabble; "take you care lest i make it the last. you drunken hound, clear out!" "by the way, did you get your letter from sandbeach?" asked mallow of trall, as he slouched towards the door with fierce resentment in his eyes. "eh, what?" cried drabble, looking sharply from one to the other. "what letter?" "oh, merely a letter from clara, saying she was leaving mrs. carson," answered trall, hastily. "why didn't you tell me?" "i didn't think it worth while." "everything is worth while that concerns carson," rebuked drabble. "where is the letter, you fool?" "in the fire; there were only half a dozen lines. but how do you know that clara wrote to me?" added trall, turning to mallow. "well, she happened to drop her letter when about to post it. i picked it up, and naturally i saw the name and address." "oh, well, it was only a little letter--a very little letter," mumbled jeremiah, and slipped out of the room. "little or big," roared drabble after him, "you bring the next one to me. come, mr. mallow, let us go and see madame." mallow followed the doctor along a dark passage and into another room in the front of the house. here at a window overlooking the street sat a pale little woman with dark hair arranged smoothly in bands. she wore a plain black dress without trimming or ornament of any kind. her pallid face was bent intently over some wool-work she was knitting. she looked up when the two men came in, and rose to her feet. "mrs. arne," said drabble graciously, "this is our new recruit, mr. mallow." mallow turned pale and felt his heart beating wildly. in this woman, introduced as mrs. arne, he recognized the housekeeper of althelstane place. chapter v. "madame death-in-life." as mallow, at drabble's elbow, stared at the demure little figure clothed in black, he realized that this was the fate controlling all things in connection with the affair he had in hand. instantly he recognized in her the newspaper descriptions of the unknown housekeeper who had vanished so mysteriously and so completely from athelstane place. by name she had just been made known to him as mrs. arne, and he now learned that she and madame death-in-life--the notorious madame death-in-life who was dreaded throughout europe--were one and the same person. he was face to face with the terrible woman with the terrible nick-name, the stormy petrel of anarchy. at the mere rumour of her presence in their city, those in authority were wont suspiciously to look about them and doubly to safeguard their rulers. the continental police would have given much to have had her safe in monte valerien, or spandau, or siberia. hitherto she had always evaded them at the last moment--had thwarted their most zealous endeavours and carefully laid plans. she was italian by birth, and had married an englishman. she was now a widow and had made her husband's country her permanent home. as she sat before him now, so peacefully knitting, mallow thought of madame defarge. "i am delighted to see you, mr. mallow," she said in excellent english, with but little trace of foreign accent. "i have been expecting you for some time. you can go, doctor." "but i want to----" "you can go, doctor," repeated mrs. arne in the same unemotional voice. without another word, drabble, the bully, stole out of the room. mallow was amazed. "it is necessary to preserve discipline here," said madame, observing his expression. "pray be seated, mr. mallow. if you do not mind, i will continue my knitting." "i do not mind at all," replied mallow, seating himself mechanically. he watched her firm, plump hands clicking the shining needles together as she wove her web of red wool-work. she divined his thoughts. "you wonder at my employment," she said without a smile. "it is very feminine, is it not? not quite in keeping perhaps, you think, with my reputation? but, you see, i am turning fiction into fact." "madame defarge, i suppose you mean?" she nodded. "a wonderful character in a wonderful book. the 'tale of two cities' and your carlyle's 'revolution' are my favourite reading. what times, what people, what glory! i had rather work with guillotines than with bombs, but" (with a shrug) "what would you? we have improved on all that. i speak your tongue well do i not?" "excellently well, madame; you are never at a loss for a word." "i am never at a loss for anything, my friend," returned madame arne composedly. "but we must get to business. tell me, why did you look so fixedly at me when you entered the room?" "madame, your celebrity----" "tell me the truth, please." "well, it was your name." "as a celebrity?" "no, as the lady who used mrs. dacre's house as the means of introducing clara trall to mrs. carson." "ah, so you know of that. you have been making inquiries. why?" "because clara has turned out badly, and has gone off to italy with her mistress's husband." "quite so; i know it." "from major semberry, i presume. is he, too----" "he is----what i please," answered mrs. arne with an odd look. "we will speak of him another time. so you are the man who is in love with mrs. carson! oh, don't trouble to deny it. i know it. you made inquiries about me from mrs. dacre--on her behalf. a man does not take up a woman's burden--not a burden of this kind--unless he has something more than a platonic interest in her welfare." "excuse me, mrs. arne, but there are other subjects we can discuss more profitably." "as you please. the subject has no interest for me; but i may explain that i purposely went to mrs. dacre's in the capacity of a dressmaker, that i might answer mrs. carson's inquiry from a good address. i was determined that she should engage clara." "as a spy?" "yes," admitted the woman, nonchalantly, "as a spy. it was necessary that i should have carson watched." "but your spy has betrayed you?" "so much the worse for her. she shall die. how or when i have not yet determined." mallow shuddered. the woman repelled him. there was something uncanny in her bare statement of fact. even a suggestion of the melodramatic would have relieved her assertion of its sheer brutality. but there was not a tinge of it. she merely stated that the girl should be killed, and went on knitting. "you are not used to these things," she continued; "death is as nothing to us. to kill or to be killed, we are always ready." "have you no fear?" gasped mallow. "of the law? no." "of god?" "that is a matter between him and myself." "ah, well," said laurence, recovering his self-control, "we had better perhaps avoid anything approaching a theological discussion. but tell me one thing. who is this carson?" "why, who should he be." "well, he might, for instance, be impersonating the unfortunate man who was murdered in athelstane place." mrs. arne's hands never stopped. her colour never changed. "you have imagination, i see," she observed coldly. "that is a pity. it is apt to get people into trouble." "oh, as to that, i have trouble enough; and now that i have determined to join you, i shall probably have a good deal more." "that is very possible. we are hunted like rats. why do you wish to join us?" "god knows," said mallow, with a shrug. "i also know. it is because mrs. carson will have nothing to say to you. it is in your despair you come to us, to throw your life away." mallow breathed more freely now. for the moment he had been unprepared. he had no excuse ready. he had relied upon the supreme egotism and enthusiasm of drabble to get over any difficulty as to his intentions. but here was the most excellent of reasons already provided for him by madame death-in-life herself. silently he acquiesced. she saw in him the foolish lover--rejected, dejected, yielding to despair. mallow's silence convinced her she was right. "you do not speak," she said, glancing at him. "well, there is no need for you to do so. i am usually right in my conjectures. we have to thank mrs. carson for providing us with a promising brother." mallow protested. "i am not a brother yet," said he, emphatically. "and before i become one i must ask to know your exact aims, and the means by which you hope to accomplish them." "our aims!" said mrs. arne, laying aside her work. "we have but one aim--to establish the equality of man. the rich oppress the poor. there must be no rich, no poor, no oppressed." "that, madame, is absolutely impossible. arrange it as you will to-day, you will be where you were to-morrow." "i think not," replied mrs. arne. "we intend that each person shall work for the general good, and that he shall be paid by the state. if he refuse to work, then neither shall he be paid nor shall food be allowed to him. in the midst of plenty, he shall starve to death." "a somewhat drastic arrangement, surely?" said mallow. "by no means. it is an absolutely necessary one. at any cost the lazy and the idle must be wiped out. under such a _régime_ no man need starve whilst he is willing to work. his life will be in his own hands." "and it is by the hurling of bombs and such-like missives you hope to bring about your millennium?" "mr. mallow, the world and its rulers will not listen to us. so long as we are what those in power choose to call good citizens' the injustice, the great wrongs under which we suffer now, will remain unaltered. if we are to be heard, we must perforce make a hearing for ourselves. supplication is useless, hopeless. by terror alone can we wrench the attention which is our right. that is why we resort to force; that is why you hear of bombs, mr. mallow. for the safety of their lives even a king, an emperor, must heed us. persistence in that direction will in the end secure to us the attention which we claim--the attention which is our right. that will be the dawn of the new era, mr. mallow, for we shall conquer. till then--but there," said madame, resuming her knitting, "i have much to do. i must leave you. i will place you in the hands of an instructor from whom you will learn everything that is needful. then you can come to me and say if you will join us or not. i hope you will. we want men with brains and money." "particularly money!" said mallow, contemptuously. he was not to be convinced by all her rhetoric. "i do not deny it; we cannot have too much." "was it not a pity, then, to lose carson and his fifty thousand pounds?" "we have not lost it or him yet," said mrs. arne, with a long breath. "think you that italy is in the moon that my arm cannot reach him!" "then you did intend to have that fifty thousand!" "i did; it was my scheme and to a point, it has been a successful one." "in that case," said mallow, deliberately, "major semberry is with you, no doubt. without him you would have been helpless." "major semberry has not taken the oath," said mrs. arne coldly, "but he is one of us." "how does he reconcile that with his allegiance to his sovereign?" mrs. arne knitted rapidly. "you don't know our power," she said. "in every grade of society we have our adherents--yes, even in your army. i was introduced into mrs. dacre's house by a friend of the cause. i am not a dressmaker, but it suited me to assume that capacity for the moment. i told semberry to give mrs. dacre's address to mrs. carson. if i could not have got into that house, i should have given another address. mrs. carson wrote, and her letter naturally was given to me. i replied, and secured for the girl the position i designed for her. a friend in society helped me there, and there are dozens of people who can place me in any position i choose. you don't know my power. but enough of this"--she rose and pressed an electric button. "i will introduce you to monsieur rouge. he will instruct you. i have other things to do." that personage was not long in making his appearance. a mere spectre of a man was monsieur rouge, with complexion, hair, and eyes of a painfully washed-out hue. a cadaverous, lantern-jawed, unholy looking person. in common with the generality of workmen of his nationality--he was french--monsieur rouge was addicted to dark blue. he wore trousers, blouse, and peaked cap all of that colour. he had a habit, almost equine, of blinking and glancing out of the corners of his eyes. he was evidently a nervous man, and seemed but poorly fitted for the bold and daring path he had chosen to follow. mallow was surprised at his appearance, as he was at the fact that mrs. arne should have chosen him for his instructor. but that lady evidently knew what she was about. after a few curt and explicit directions, conveyed to m. rouge in his own tongue, she introduced him formally. "mr. mallow," she said, "this is m. rouge; at least, that is the name by which he is known among us. he has been a member of the brotherhood for some three years. you will find him a most enthusiastic disciple of our cause." "vive l'anarchie. a bas les tyrans," whispered m. rouge in endorsement. "keep your enthusiasm for a more fitting occasion, my friend," said mrs. arne, as mallow thought with somewhat unnecessary severity. "go with this gentleman, and tell him all that is permitted to be known by one who has yet to take our oath. you," turning to mallow, "will come to me when you have made up your mind. for the present, good-bye--or, rather, au revoir." chapter vi. "another link." on the whole mallow was interested in his anarchistic friends. he possessed a goodly supply of the right sort of curiosity, and this new _milieu_ in which he found himself was unlike anything he had experienced before. he was groping in an under-world of fanaticism and crime premeditated, and it fascinated him not a little. he threw himself heart and soul into the whole question, and, in company with monsieur rouge, explored many queer corners, east and west. for the time he made these people's cause his own. they were a small minority, determined--ruthlessly determined--on becoming a majority, and he was curious as to the methods by which they intended to accomplish their end. of necessity he was brought into contact with many creatures of low order; creatures often needlessly ragged and unkempt, he thought. he could only conclude that their reckless condition was of value to them as a perpetual reminder of the terrible wrongs under which they suffered. but to their fiery crusade against their better-dressed neighbours, and to their bloodthirsty plans for the removal of public buildings and public personages, mallow lent a patient and ever-attentive ear. he was surprised to find their crusade directed against the aristocracy of intellect, as well as against that other and larger aristocracy of wealth and caste. it sufficed for a man to loom large on the horizon of public affairs--be it as warrior, orator, or inventor--for him to mark the bull's-eye for their aim. they were abominably indiscriminate. in truth, with this very aptly named monsieur rouge at his elbow, ever ready with some fresh diabolical inspiration of his turbulent brain, mallow could not help likening himself to a modern dante, bent on the exploration of a new and more terrible circle of hell, with a degraded virgil for his guide. but, though all very fine, this was not war, as the french say, and mallow felt he was losing sight of his purpose. olive was in london, safe under the wing of mrs. purcell, waiting patiently to see what time and his endeavours on her behalf were to bring for her. she had taken miss slarge and tui into her confidence, but for her hostess she had reserved a somewhat abridged version of her recent experiences. but, with one accord, all these ladies were consumed with feminine fire and virtuous indignation against her husband. he was a downright impostor, they declared, and no doubt he it was who had murdered the unfortunate mr. carson. they were strenuous in their endeavours to induce olive to put the whole matter in the hands of the police. but to this she was not to be persuaded, although she went so far as to consult mallow upon the advisability of such a course. he speedily convinced her that the case required a manipulation much more delicate than that which it was likely to receive at the hands of the police. "besides," said he, "once let the police take it up, and you will have all your details, large as life, in the columns of the morning papers, to say nothing of the evening ones, than which it is difficult to conceive a more direct method of courting failure, if not disaster." "still, i don't know that the straightest course is not the best course, after all," said olive, judiciously. "why not bring major semberry face to face with mrs. purcell, and insist upon an explanation?" "for two reasons. first, the major is keeping out of the way. second, he will lie like ananias to save himself from getting into trouble. no, mrs. carson, let my man continue to watch him, and when he is caught tripping--as he will be, mark me, sooner or later--then will be the time to drive him into a corner." "can you trust this man vraik?" "i think so. i have promised him a large reward if he pulls the case through to my satisfaction; and he is the kind of man to sell his miserable soul for money." "he looks like a being of the lowest type," said olive, who had seen vraik. "then he looks what he is. it is a mere accident, of course, that he is with the law instead of against it. but i dare say he finds honesty is the best possible policy, so far as cash goes, which is all that concerns him. have no fear, mrs. carson, money will keep vraik true to us, if nothing else will." "unless these anarchists find out what you are doing, and treat him still more liberally." "oh, i'm not afraid of their find-out," laughed mallow. "mrs. arne and he gang are by no means so clever as they fancy they are. she, particularly, is blinded by her own egotism. besides, even if they did get at vraik, they could not bribe him. they want money badly, these people; in fact it was to your fifty thousand pounds they looked to put them in funds. unfortunately, carson--we may still call him carson--has gone off with the plunder." "do you think these anarchists will kill him, as mrs. arne threatened?" "in the end, no doubt; but not till the money is safe in their hands. at present it lies in carson's real name, whatever that may be. it is possible they may induce him to hand it over, but it will only be to save his life. while he has that money he is safe enough. it would not serve them to kill the goose with the golden eggs. these people may not be so clever as they imagine, but they are not fools enough for that." "mr. mallow, i tremble when i think of the dangers to which you are exposed. don't these wretches suspect you?" "no!--that is, one of them does. jeremiah trall looks queerly at me at times, because he has read clara's report of our first conversation. i fancy he is suspicious that it is something more than zeal for the cause that has caused me to join. but he is safe enough. he hates drabble, and has told him that the letter is burnt. he is not likely to trouble me. besides, he is, i think, but a very lukewarm member of the brotherhood." "i don't trust any of them." "nor i! but i am safe so far, and they are not likely to give vent to any of their explosive propensities here in london, and so run the risk of being turned out of the only country in europe which shelters them. but i must be off, mrs. carson. rouge is waiting for me round the corner." "oh, laurence, do take care of yourself!" implored poor olive, anxiously. "be sure of that, for your sake," and mallow left the house, sighing to think that he had now no right to say even so much to olive. whosoever carson was, olive was his wife. "and yet"--he started as the thought crossed his mind--"was she his wife? was it not possible her marriage might be illegal? if the man were an impostor, he had not made her his wife under his real name--marriage under a false name is no marriage, surely? by jupiter! i'll lose no time in taking dimbal's opinion about this," muttered mallow to himself. "there may be some way of releasing her from that scamp's clutches, after all. but the money will have to go. well, let it go; she will gladly pay even fifty thousand pounds for her freedom." round the corner--that is to say, in the back of a convenient little public-house--m. rouge, the devil's advocate, was waiting for mallow. it was late--after seven o'clock--and laurence needed no clock to tell him it was dinner-time. but that day he had received a note from rouge begging for an appointment at this especial hour. he felt obliged to keep it, lest the man might wish to say something important. as colourless and shrinking as ever rouge stood up, cap in hand, when laurence entered. "i am glad to see monsieur," he said in french. "is it that monsieur is aware that madame desires he should come to the great meeting next week?" "no," replied mallow, carelessly; "what for?" rouge spoke again in the husky whisper he usually affected, and looked steadily at laurence. "it is to take the oath," he said. laurence winced. rouge saw his momentary hesitancy, and smiled in that uncanny fashion of his, which often caused mallow to think he was not quite right in his head. "it is not too late, if monsieur is afraid," said he, with a shrug and a sneer. "monsieur is not afraid," retorted mallow sharply; "but monsieur is wise enough to consider all things before committing himself past recall. when does the meeting take place?" "on wednesday next, monsieur!" "that is a week hence. where?" "in the cellar of the house in poplar street, monsieur." "in the cellar?" repeated mallow, much surprised. "will that be large enough?" rouge laughed. "oh, monsieur does not know all the holes in which we foxes hide. holy blue! it must not be that he know before he swears to be true, for he might speak to the police." the wretch's expression was feline as he whispered the last word. "but this cellar! it is a great one--c'est énorme! madame had it made, madame preferred it. if the police came! piff-paff! whirr! houp-là!" he pointed upwards. "i see! we dance on a volcano," said laurence, uneasily. rouge nodded. "we would all die; the best and the worst." "sacrifice your own lives?" "yes, and those of others, monsieur. when we take the oath we are already as dead. let monsieur reflect." "monsieur has reflected," said laurence, giving the man money. "i shall be at poplar street next wednesday. at what time?" "nine of the evening. it will be a great meeting, a grand meeting, and monsieur will take the oath." mallow nodded. "yes, monsieur will take the oath," he repeated, and, after a second inquiring look, rouge, with the money in his pocket, glided out of the room. the cat-like movements of the man, his glistening eyes and sibilant whispers, inspired mallow with nothing but repulsion. still he was kind to him, and, knowing the poor wretch often went without a meal, frequently gave him the price of one. whether rouge was grateful mallow knew not, but he gave no sign of gratitude, and watched the young man unceasingly. he never told him his real name, nor spoke of his past in any way. his conversation, for the most part, consisted of extracts from revolutionary pamphlets, imprecations upon those in power, and expressions of jubilation for the day when a tide of blood should roll over europe. to mallow he was a veritable creature of nightmare. on leaving this red-hot destroyer of human civilization, mallow walked quickly to his lodgings in half-moon street. the walk did him good. it cooled his blood and cleared his brain. as he passed by hyde park he noticed he was being followed. a man was dogging him like a shadow, pausing when he paused, and following him steadily at no great distance. brave as he was, mallow felt a qualm. he wondered if the anarchists, suspecting him of treachery, were having him watched. he felt that suspense was worse than danger, so he determined to right-about face and know the worst at once. he turned up a side street for half a dozen yards. then he faced round and walked back. by this man[oe]uvre he almost ran into the arms of his follower. "jeremiah trall!" exclaimed mallow, recognizing him in the lamplight. "what do you want? why are you following me?" trall looked round swiftly, and beckoned mallow into the comparative darkness of the side street. "i wish to speak with you privately," he said in his refined voice. "i am afraid of being watched." "come to my rooms, then." "no," replied trall, "they would follow. my life would not be safe. better here." he led mallow up some distance into a gloomy corner. "mr. mallow," he said, sinking his voice, "why are you joining us?" "what is that to you?" asked mallow, fencing. "you have some scheme in your head, and i wish to know it. you are no true anarchist; you don't care two pins about the cause." mallow reflected. the man might be trying to trap him into some incautious speech, duly to be reported to mrs. arne. trall guessed the cause of his hesitation and laughed. "you may as well tell me," he said; "i know so much about you, that i may as well know the rest." "what do you mean, trall?" "that letter of clara's. she reported to me all that passed between you and mrs. carson. you are bent on dissolving that marriage and getting back the money." "well, suppose i am. i can do that and still be true to the cause." "no, you can't, mr. mallow. carson was married to miss bellairs to get that money for the cause." "then the husband of miss bellairs is not really carson." "no, he is not. he is a tool in the hands of this infernal drabble, as i am." "what is this man's name--his real name?" asked mallow. "i don't know! i swear i don't know. hush! i can't go on speaking to you here; they have spies everywhere. but i just want to tell you that no one but myself read that letter, and that it is in the fire. i know you are not in earnest for the cause, and i am glad of it." "and why, may i ask, are you glad of it? you are one of them." "i am not!" denied jeremiah, fiercely. "i am a drunken fool under the thumb of drabble. i wish to god the cause was at the bottom of the sea, and drabble kicking his heels in gaol--or the scaffold, if i could only get him there. i had a position once mr. mallow, i am an outcast now, solely through drabble, who has been the curse of my life. he treats me like a dog; but a dog can bite, and bite him i will when he least expects it. he has ruined me; he has brought my niece, clara, into his cursed schemes. she, too, is under his thumb. oh, my god! if only you knew my life's history, you would pity me. some day i'll tell it to you, if only to show you how lost a man can become, body and soul. drabble is a devil--curse him! hush! don't speak; i'll go--i'll go. i only wanted to tell you that the secret of your real intentions is quite safe with me. if you can ruin drabble, and with him that stony-hearted jezebel, do it--do it, i say. tread them under foot--make them suffer as i have suffered, as they have made me suffer." trall, gripping mallow's hand, shook it violently, and disappeared round the corner of the street. mallow was too much astonished to follow him. he walked on home. almost at his doorstep a hand was laid upon his arm. he turned to see the villainous face of vraik smirking at him. "i've come to report, sir," whined the spy. "i've seen major semberry in conversation with a light-haired, light-bearded man." "who is he?" "francis hain, sir!--the man who was concerned in the murder. i'm sure of it." chapter vii. "an unexpected meeting." "francis hain?" stammered mallow, amazed. "impossible! you must be mistaken. you have never seen francis hain!" vraik rubbed his hands and leered. "that's as true as true," he croaked; "but if i ain't seen 'im other people 'ave. when you told me as 'ow you thought as all this business was mixed up with the murder, i went and saw the landlord, and all them tradespeople in and about athelstane place. from the description i got of hain, i know 'im as well as i know my own partner. i follered that major cove all these days till i'm fair worn out; and when i saw him talkin' to a light-'aired man with a beard as long as yer arm, it didn't take me long to recognize hain. i tried to sneak up close and listen but they got their matter done, and parted afore i could hear a word. "where did you see them?" "in poplar street." "and when they parted, you followed one of them--which?" "that major cove, of course--didn't you tell me to keep an eye on 'im?" mallow was annoyed. "i wanted you to use your own discretion," he said. "you should have tracked down hain, and handed him over to the police." "i didn't like to do that without orders," whimpered vraik. "you see, i 'adn't got no orders so far as he was concerned." "h'm. well, of course, it is possible the man may not be hain after all." "well, if 't'aint, it's 'is twin--goin' by the description," said vraik, with emphasis. "but you just ask the major cove about him." "i intend to. but i'm pretty certain that the major cove, as you call him, won't tell the truth." "you let me tackle him, mr. maller, and i'll soon screw it out of 'im." "no," said mallow, sharply. "i'll call on him myself. you continue to watch major semberry until i have seen him. but if you should chance to meet hain again, give him in charge. i'll take the responsibility." "oh, as long as you do that, i don't care. i'll just get back to marquis street, and keep an eye on the major cove, but it's hard work, sir, and precious dry." "here's half-a-sovereign," said mallow, tossing him the coin. "don't get drunk on it." vraik slipped the piece into his pocket with a grin. "lord bless you, sir, i weren't born yesterday! i'm square, i am;" and he slunk away in the darkness, leaving mallow more than a trifle disgusted at being obliged to come into contact with so degraded an animal. the various side-paths along which mallow had so carefully travelled began now to show signs of convergence. they were pointing clearly to one principal highway, and that promised to lead directly from soho to athelstane place. but in no way did he lose sight of the fact that, if at all possible, the capture of the money itself was greatly to be desired. that was an additional reason for refraining from putting matters into official hands; for, in that event, fearful of extradition, the pseudo-carson would probably cease to affect florence as a place of residence. on the contrary, as likely as not he would decide to place a considerable expanse of water between him and it. he decided it would be best at once to force from semberry a complete confession, if possible; always duly heedful, of course, of that gentleman's anarchist connection and consequent powers. it would be necessary to be more than ever circumspect. next morning, therefore, he proceeded to marquis street, st. james's. he found his warrior busy with the consumption of his morning meal. his reception was, he thought, unusually cordial. had he known it, the major's first impulse had been to refuse to see him. but second thoughts had prevailed; he determined it would be best to brazen it out. in the face of danger the weak brain is ever cunning. thus it was that mallow's reception was sufficiently jovial and hearty to have disarmed his suspicions entirely. but they were on too solid a foundation for that, and, though outwardly reciprocative, he was every bit as alert as the major. "mornin'," said semberry, shaking hands with his visitor, "you're out early. had breakfast?" "yes, thank you. i must apologize for calling at so unusual an hour, but the fact is i want to consult you about carson." "nothin' to do with that chap, now," said the major, wagging his head. "he has gone his way, i go mine." "and your way, i perceive, is also italy," said laurence, whose keen eyes had not failed to see a cook's tourist ticket lying open on the table at "lucerne to chiasso." semberry had overlooked it. he was somewhat disconcerted; but he hastened to make the best of a bad job. "yes, just goin' there to see carson," said he, sweeping the tickets into the pocket of his smoking-coat "as matter of fact, promised to take a box over for him." "oh. is it a sandal-wood one?" "how the--how do you know he has a sandal-wood box?" "why, easily enough. he explained as much to mrs. carson when she asked him why he had that everlasting smell about him. so you intend taking the box over yourself, do you? you are indeed a good friend, major." the major was not appreciative of his position; but he replied bluffly enough, "goin' for m' own sake. carson owes me money. not likely to see it unless i go m'self. carson's a bit of a rogue, you know." "are you sure he isn't somewhat more than 'a bit,' major? are you quite sure he is angus carson?" "course i am; who else would he be?" said semberry, with an admixture of indignation and ignorance in equal parts. "oh, don't ask me," replied mallow, carelessly. "only it was strange, was it not, that mrs. purcell should say the picture taken at sandbeach did not represent her friend, mr. carson of bombay?" "bad likeness, perhaps," growled semberry. he was really uneasy now. "on the contrary, it is a very good one--of the man who married miss bellairs." "angus carson." "if you like to call him so." semberry jumped up with a scowl. "do you mean to insult me; doubt m' word!" he said savagely. "carson's been with me since his father died. didn't lose sight of him till marriage. 's matter fact, don't 'prove the way he's treated wife; that's another reason i'm goin' italy, to bring him back and see things square before i return t'india." "if you can do that, major, you will be extremely clever; but i doubt very much your being able to persuade this stray lamb to return." "make him, if only to prove you and mrs. purcell wrong." "oh, i!--i have nothing to do with it. carson may be the great cham, for all i care; but mrs. purcell will not be so easily satisfied. you know her." "rather; interferin' old cat, that she is. says carson isn't carson, does she? what the deuce does the woman mean?" "you had better ask her, semberry, and settle the matter offhand." "i'll ask her," said the major, furiously. "what's more, i'll bring back carson himself to give her the lie. hang it! she reflects on m' honour as an officer and gentleman." "oh, you know what ladies are," replied mallow, laughing but observant; "once get an idea into their heads, and there is no getting it out again. mrs. purcell, on the authority of that portrait, declares that the man who married miss bellairs is not carson; an idle theory of hers, if you will, but one she is bent upon proving." "she can't," contradicted semberry, testily. "man is carson right enough. i ought to know, and i say so. will bring him back, i tell you, just to prove it. whole thing's silly nonsense." mallow yawned. "dare say. doesn't interest me in the least. i am sorry for mrs. carson, and i think she has been disgracefully treated; but i should like, if possible, to see her husband return to her. however, as you are going over to fetch him, i have no doubt that will arrange itself." "didn't intend to fetch him!" grumbled semberry, "but will now, just to shut up mrs. purcell. can't afford to play the doose with m' reputation when i'm in the service. carson's box is here, if mrs. purcell would like to see it." now, a sight of this precious box and its contents would, mallow felt, be very acceptable. but he could not say so without rousing semberry's suspicions. in such a position many a man would have jumped at the major's offer, and have brought mrs. purcell to marquis street; but mallow knew better. of all things, caution was most essential. he merely laughed. "oh, i'll tell mrs. purcell, if you like," said he affably. "i don't think it's the box she wants to see so much as the man. why not call on her before you leave?" "what's the use? she would not believe me. i'll bring back carson, i tell you, and he can shut her up himself. i ain't going to argue with mrs. purcell." "well, perhaps she is rather a difficult subject, major. when do you go?" "to-morrow, night train." "ah, well, pleasant journey. by the way, who was that fair chap you were talking to yesterday--the man i saw you with in poplar street? excuse my asking, but i can't help thinking i know him." the major started, and looked searchingly at mallow, who remained unmoved. "oh, a friend of mine; i.c.s. man," he answered carelessly. "why?" "oh, nothing. i fancied he was a doctor i had met somewhere." "doctor!" repeated semberry, nervously; "no, he's not a doctor. civil engineer. he builds bridges of sorts. you don't know him. he's been india way these last twenty years." "ah, strange, too--i am convinced i know him," said mallow, rising. "just shows how apt one is to confuse faces. i could have sworn he was a doctor. well, i must be off. shall i take any message from you to mrs. purcell?" "no. you can tell her, if you like, that i'm going to bring back carson," said the major, grimly. "and if i don't prove he's the man he says he is, she can write to the war office and say i'm a swindler. have a peg before you go." "no, thanks; too early for strong waters. good-day." "day," replied semberry, curtly, accompanying mallow to the door. when his visitor was fairly off the premises, the major drew a long breath and returned to his breakfast. "time i got off," he muttered. "wonder what the chap's driving at. i was a fool to leave those tickets about; but who'd ha' thought he'd have spotted them; who'd ha' thought o' seeing him now, for the matter o' that." in the street mallow was looking for vraik. he knew he was somewhere not far off: shortly he espied a ragged pavement artist at work on a series of glaring presentments in coloured chalk within sight of the major's door. mallow strolled across the road to drop a copper into the man's hat. as he did so he spoke hurriedly. "the major's leaving town to-night or to-morrow. watch him charing cross or victoria, and wire to my rooms at once when he goes." "i'm fly," said the pavement artist, with a grin; and mallow, satisfied that semberry was under proper surveillance, went his way easy in his mind. round the corner, as fate would have it, he ran almost into the arms of a stout elderly gentleman in black. "oh, my dear sir, my dear sir!" protested the stranger, puffing, "you knocked the wind out of me. why, it's mr. mallow!" "mr. brock?" said mallow, recognizing the vicar. "who would have thought of meeting you here." "surprising, indeed," said brock, shaking hands. "but i'm on my way to see major semberry. perhaps you can tell me where is marquis street, mr. mallow?" "just round the corner. so you are visiting the major?" "my dear young friend, i wish to speak with him about angus carson. with pain and grief i have heard of this terrible trouble between my old friend's son and olive. i have thought it possible that major semberry might use his good offices to bring about a reconciliation.' "i'm afraid that is beyond the major's power, sir," said mallow, shaking his head. "was it mrs. purcell who told you of this separation?" "it was. i received her letter two days back, and came up as soon as i could. i have not yet seen olive. i decided i would see the major first. this very painful matter must be settled." "mrs. carson is not to blame, mr. brock. her husband alone is at fault." "so mrs. purcell said," said brock, solemnly. "dear! dear! angus is not behaving in the way his upright father would have had him behave." "his father? h'm," said mallow, wondering if it would be wise to tell brock that carson was an impostor. on second thoughts he decided to hold his tongue. the open street hardly lent itself to explanations of the kind. he suggested that the vicar should call on mrs. purcell after he had seen semberry. "certainly, it is my intention to do so, mr. mallow. we will put our two old heads together, and see what we can do. good-day, good-day," and brock trotted off. chapter viii. "the light-haired man." when mallow returned to his rooms he found lord aldean seated in his most comfortable arm-chair. his expression was extremely thoughtful, and, withal, a trifle anxious. polyphemus, as laurence sometimes called him--in allusion to his size--was not usually given to a gentle melancholy. mallow could only conclude there must be something wrong with the boy. "you here, jim?" said he, throwing hat and gloves on a near table. "what is the matter with you, man? you look as miserable as an owl." "mallow, you lack the delicacy of perception necessary for the correct understanding of the feelings of a man in my condition. besides, your simile is rude." "oh, i see. miss ostergaard has been crushing you as usual." "on the contrary, she is particularly amiable." "that ought to encourage you." "it does," said aldean miserably; "so much so that i have made up my mind to propose to her this very day." "one would think you had made up your mind to be hanged--from your expression. why so dejected?" "mallow, i know what fear is now; my heart is in my boots." "is it? then you had better reinstate it before you go on your knees. what are you afraid of, you jackass? miss ostergaard won't eat you." "she might say 'no,'" groaned the wretched jim. he paled at the bare idea of so terrible a catastrophe. "she might, on the other hand, say 'yes,'" replied mallow consolingly. "come, polyphemus, you needn't go out in a coach-and-four to meet your troubles. look at mine; they come right to my very door, confound them." "mallow, you don't know how fond i am of that girl." "i must, indeed, be dull of understanding, then," said he, "for you have endeavoured to bring me to a very clear comprehension of your feelings upon several occasions. cheer up, old man!"--he clapped jim's broad shoulders--"you have every chance of success. the girl's in love with you." "do you really think so?" said jim, brightening. then, with a deeper groan, "no, no, she is always teasing me." "of course she is. but it is only her way. some women are like that--especially when in love. you must interpret them contrariwise--like dreams, you know." "in that case i may hope." "yes, hope and put your fortune to the test. also, if you think you are in a fit condition to do so, answer me a question." "what is it?" asked aldean, accepting a cigarette. "do you put love before friendship?" "well--er--no; that is not your friendship." "you do not seem very certain on the point," said mallow, dryly. "however, i am about to ask your aid. at present i cannot leave london. i am too heavily involved with these anarchists, and i must remain on the spot to watch mrs. arne and drabble. now, i saw semberry this morning, and learned, thanks to his carelessness in leaving tickets about, that he is off to italy. i want you to follow him there and watch his little game with carson." "oh, i'll go, of course," said jim, with rather a long face; "but how do you know semberry is going to carson?" "because that blackguard is in italy. moreover, i told semberry about mrs. purcell's assertion that the man who married olive is not carson. it is now the expressed intention of our good major to bring back his friend, and--as he says--put his identity beyond doubt." "do you believe him?" "no, jim, i do not. semberry funks mrs. purcell. he knows perfectly well that the man is an impostor. he is simply going over to italy for the purpose of securing his share of the plunder. then he will slip down to naples or brindisi, and board the next out-going liner for india, where he hopes to be safe. this is why i want you to hang on to his tail, and stop him clearing out." "i'm your man, mallow. but i don't see how i can stop the beggar without a warrant." "oh, a warrant is out of the question; besides, you can frighten him without that. interview this scamp who calls himself carson, and get the truth out of him if you can. of course, i can't exactly forecast events for you, but you must use your common sense; you have plenty of it, you know, at a pinch. if the major tries a bolt, tell him you will communicate with the war office; in fact, threaten him with the most merciless exposure." "but i can't do that." "i can," said mallow, with decision. "there is a man called trall who can prove that the fellow whom semberry introduced as carson is a fraud. and i hope, also, when i get the evidence, to prove that the real carson was murdered in athelstane place with semberry's connivance. tell him this. i don't think you will find him refractory then." "he is only the more likely to skidaddle, i should think." "in that case, he'll have to chuck the army," said mallow. "if the war office communicates what i know to semberry's colonel, he will not only be cashiered, but brought back to england under arrest. however, as i say, i can't foretell events; you must use your discretion." "i'll do my best," said jim, feeling his muscle, as though the question were best settled that way. "when does semberry start?" "either to-night or to-morrow. he says to-night; but i don't trust him. i have that man vraik watching him; and as soon as he clears a wire will be sent here. if i am in when it comes i'll advise you; but, in any case, come round and keep a look-out for it yourself. open it--open any letter; i have no secrets from you." "but won't you be in this evening?" "perhaps yes, perhaps no; i can't say. i have heard from vraik that the man hain, who was concerned in that murder, is hanging round poplar street. he was seen talking to semberry yesterday. i must watch for him; so, if i'm not back when you receive the wire, don't wait for me. start straight away for italy. lose no time; go by the same train, if you can; or follow by the next. it's a case of life or death, jim." "you can depend on me," said jim, shaking mallow's hand; "i'll hang on like grim death. if he gets away from me he'll be a smarter man than i take him to be. but i say, mallow, don't you get into trouble with these beastly anarchist chaps. they're a queer lot, you know." "no fear, my boy; i know them. if i should get into any mess, however--for accidents will occur--look up vraik at the private inquiry office i told you about. he knows trall, and trall is my very good friend. he hates drabble, and will help me so far as he is able in any little difficulty." "i understand," said jim, with a nod. "my poor polyphemus, this will put an end to your courtship." lord aldean looked somewhat rueful. "i am not likely to be away more than a week or so, am i? and i dare say tui will still be free when i get back." "oh, you call her tui now, do you?" laughed mallow. "in my own mind, i do--not to her face." "that will be a pleasure to come. seriously, jim, i am greatly obliged to you for your readiness to help me. believe me, i shan't forget it." "oh, that's all right, mallow. our friendship is more than a name, i hope," said jim, with another shake of his whilom tutor's hand. he then took his departure, in, be it said, a considerably more cheerful frame of mind. that same afternoon mallow walked as far as soho, with the intention of seeing mrs. arne, and telling her that he had decided to take the oath. as a matter of fact, he had not; but, as there were eight days to the time appointed for his installation, he hoped that something might turn up in the interval which would render it unnecessary for him to go so far. it was four o'clock when he arrived in the neighbourhood of soho. the sky was growing darker every minute; but there was still light sufficient to distinguish the passers-by. at the entrance to poplar street he was passed by a man walking swiftly--a tall, fair-bearded man, who looked neither to right nor left, but raced on breathlessly towards no. . instinctively mallow guessed this was his enemy. "francis hain, to a certainty," he muttered under his breath; "light hair, light beard, tall, thin--the exact description given in the papers. will he enter no. ?" at no. , surely enough, the man pulled up, and admitting himself, evidently with a latch-key, disappeared within. mallow's hot blood was at boiling point. here was the wretch who had murdered the unfortunate carson within his grasp. heedless of the danger he was running, he knocked at the door of no. . it was opened almost immediately. he had given the signal knock which rouge had taught him. the door-keeper recognized him at once, and the next minute he was standing in the dark passage of that dangerous den. "where is the gentleman who entered just now?" he asked the door-keeper breathlessly. "upstairs; he goes to see madame," replied the man, who had no idea that anything was wrong. mallow had given the signal, and his face was known to him. the door-keeper was quite easy in his mind. up the narrow stairs mallow sprang two at a time, reckless, and full of fierce courage. he was determined to face hain, and wring the truth from him at all costs. caution, wisdom, fear, all went to the four winds. the hot irish fighting blood fizzled through his veins--burned in his cheek. rash and unthinking, he dashed forward with a courage absolutely blind--the courage which wins or loses all. on the first landing he caught a glimpse of a tall figure. he heard the click of a turning door-knob. the next moment mallow the hero, mallow the fool, had flung open the door and stood on the threshold of mrs. arne's room. she was there, and near her stood the man hain. "at last!" cried mallow between his teeth. "at last i have got you." "what does he mean?" demanded madame, in her metallic voice. "it means that i want francis hain for murder." the tall man slipped back a pace. his voice quavered. "i am not hain," he said, keeping a wary eye on mallow. "you liar!" mallow sprang forward. "you are hain the murderer. you and that woman--one of you--killed young carson." "madman! carson is alive in italy." "carson is dead--murdered! you killed him. you are hain." "he is not hain," said mrs. arne, simply. "i am not hain," repeated the man. something in the tone of his voice sounded strangely familiar to mallow. "no, you are not hain," said mallow, throwing himself at the man's throat. "i know you now--you are drabble"--his hand twitched away the light beard, and the doctor's clean-shaven face was revealed--"drabble the murderer!" "kill the spy," breathed madame death-in-life; "he knows too much." "enough to hang you both." mallow threw drabble on one side, ran past mrs. arne, and dashed his gloved fist through the window. "help! help! police! police!" "kill him! kill him!" shrieked madame, fiercely. "spy!" roared drabble. the two men swung and reeled across the floor. neither uttered a word. with clenched teeth and muscles tense they battled fiercely in the small space. madame rushed to the door and flung it open. "a spy! a spy! danger! up! up! up!" she cried down the well of the staircase. immediately there was a noise of rushing feet--a babel of fierce voices. mallow heard rather than saw the room filling. he had a firm grip on drabble's throat, and the man was staggering and gurgling for want of breath. then a hundred hands--as it seemed--plucked him back. he was hurled to the ground, and beaten and trampled into insensibility. chapter ix. "man proposes." "may i ask, lord aldean, if you have ever perused the biography of the celebrated dr. johnson of auchinleck?" "yes, mrs. purcell, i have. mallow made me read it when i was cramming for the 'varsity." "made you read it!" echoed mrs. purcell, majestically; "the word 'made' is misapplied, surely!" "well, it is a teaser, isn't it?" said aldean, frankly; "shouldn't read it to keep myself awake. boswell's a bit long-winded, ain't he?" "boswell, lord aldean, whatever he may be, is not frivolous." "i don't read anything, as a rule," confessed jim, "except the papers." mrs. purcell frowned. "the general slovenliness of style of the daily journals is not such as dr. johnson would have approved," said she, in her deep voice. "the very letters of the illustrious lexicographer have the roll and volume of ethic poetry." "'paradise lost,'" said miss ostergaard; "everybody talks about it and no one reads it." "i have read it, tui," observed miss slarge, rousing herself from her brown study; "it afforded me useful hints on idolatry. moloch, who is mentioned therein, is identical with the baal or bel of the babylonians. the romish festival of st. john, at the midsummer solstice, is simply the relic of the chaldean worship of tammuz. one of bel's names was oannes: the latinized form of john in the sacred language of the papists, joannes. remove the 'j,' and you can see how the idol was converted into the prophet." "most interesting," said aldean, groaning, as this deluge of hard names rattled about his head. "do you write like dr. johnson, miss slarge?" "alas! rubina does not," sighed mrs. purcell. "rather does she adopt the antithetic style of macaulay, the historian." the conversation was taking place in mrs. purcell's drawing-room round a cheerful fire. in the next room olive was writing letters. she was, in truth, somewhat depressed by the non-appearance of mallow, whom she had expected that evening, and felt little inclined for conversation. true to his promise, aldean had called at mallow's rooms after dinner, but, finding there neither his friend nor a telegram, had come over to enjoy himself at campden hill. but that the business on hand might not be neglected, he had left word that, if a telegram came, it was to be sent on to him at mrs. purcell's house. mallow's absence had not surprised him. he concluded that he was in the neighbourhood of poplar street, hain-hunting. as it was, mallow was at that moment a prisoner in the anarchist den, and, by his very warning to aldean that his absence might be indefinite, he had done away with all chance of rescue. jim's true errand to campden hill was to propose to miss ostergaard. he was determined to know the worst--or the best--before leaving for italy. but it chanced that mrs. purcell's johnsonian mania was strong upon her, for she pestered the poor boy with a hundred and one details concerning her celebrated samuel, until he fervently wished that he or johnson had never been born--not to speak of bean, goldy, reynolds, and all other illustrious old bores idolized of mrs. purcell. he was hopelessly dazed with it all--and looked it. nor did it add to his comfort in any degree to find tui heartily laughing at his plight. it became too much for the wretched jim. he grew both desperate and rude. "seems to me, the most creditable thing about johnson," said he, crossly, "was that he didn't murder boswell." "murder boswell!" gasped mrs. purcell. "murder his biographer?" "i mean the fellow who was always asking questions," explained jim. "i can't think how johnson put up with his silly gabble. fancy a fellow asking another fellow what he'd do if he was shut up in a castle with a baby. such bosh, y'know!" "lord aldean," said mrs. purcell, solemnly rising, "you are evidently not aware that it was boswell's object to afford the great doctor an opportunity for the display of his unrivalled fund of argument." "and of contradiction," hinted tui, sweetly. mrs. purcell shook her head sadly. "i perceive that you are both of you of the earth, earthly," she said pityingly. "the solemnity of the learned lexicographer's periods is lost upon you. rubina, let us leave these unideaed young people to their own puny, foolish ways." "yes, priscilla," said miss slarge, rising. "i must return to my desk." "no, rubina, not with my consent. you shall do no such thing. to tax your brain at so late an hour is the height of folly. in the next room we will play draughts; it is a cheerful amusement." miss slarge sighed, but complied. she knew from experience the futility of attempting to argue with her ponderous sister. as they left the room aldean stepped forward to open the door. "hope i haven't been rude, mrs. purcell!" "rude? certainly not, lord aldean; but it must be confessed that you are sadly ignorant. your style of conversation is neither elegant nor well considered." jim returned to the fire and tui, unabashed. he was bent on proposing; and tui, by some peculiar instinct, purely feminine, knew it. what is more, she intended to let him have his say. lately it had dawned upon her that it was possible to play her fish too long. he might sulk away from the hook; and she had no intention of allowing that to happen. so she sat, and looked at the fire, and jim sat and looked at her; while the hearts of both beat a lively rataplan, utterly incommensurate with so tranquil an occupation. "i say!" began jim, gracefully. "you don't think mrs. purcell's on her hind legs? do you?" "oh no!" responded tui, still confining her interest to the fire. "women never get on their--i mean, never lose their tempers." "don't they?" said aldean (this as a simple interrogation, not an assertion). "of course not. i am a woman; i ought to know. how silly you are." "i'm unideaed! mrs. purcell says so." "she made the same remark about me. she stole the word, you know, from boswell, who got it from johnson. it seems we are both of us"--tui sighed--"'unideaed.'" "it's a kind of bond between us, isn't it?" "dear me, lord aldean, how should i know?" (silence for a few moments, during which, the ordinary medium for conversation proving unsuitable, recourse was had to certain more subtle means--chiefly ocular. finally, a combination seemed to be decided upon.) aldean (gloomily): "i hate dr. johnson; don't you?" tui (viciously): "not so much as i do boswell--the nasty poll-pry." aldean: "so he is--so he was! that's another bond between us" (insinuatingly), "ain't it?" tui (repeating herself): "how should i know, lord aldean?" (silence.) aldean (desperately) "do--do you think that marriages are made in heaven?" tui (faintly): "i--i have heard that they are." aldean (speculating): "i wonder when they--whoever they are--will set about manipulating ours?" tui (with a maidenly perturbation): "ours, lord aldean! what do you mean by ours?" aldean (moving his chair closer): "you know!" (no answer.) "i'm sure you know." tui: "ridiculous." (deserts the fire for the hearthrug.) aldean (intercepting the field of view): "tui! oh" (with a gasp) "tui!" certain physical demonstrations followed, amid which the dental emissions necessary for the iteration of the name "tui" crackled like volleys from a machine-gun. "oh, lord aldean!" implored tui, collecting her senses, "don't." "don't what, tui?" said jim, seizing her hand. "get up! if mrs. purcell came in, what would she say?" "she would say i was proposing, tui; and she wouldn't be far wrong. say 'yes.'" "why should i say 'yes?'" "because i love you and you love me." "i haven't said that i love you," said tui, rising in feigned alarm, "i don't need you to say it. i can see it." henceforth, for some time, conversation became superfluous, if not impossible. at length jim came to the point. "my darling!" he implored, "say that you will marry me." "how can i? it's so sudden; you're so--so--so very demonstrative. no, no; i won't--i can't." "oh, very well, miss ostergaard," cried aldean, suddenly releasing her. "i'm a fool, and you're a hard-hearted coquette," and he turned his back to fold his arms and sulk. "lord aldean!" said tui, faintly. there was no reply. "lord aldean," she repeated. still no reply. finally, in desperation, "jim!" "oh, tui, tui!" his arms were round her. "will you--will you?" "i will," murmured tui, with accents well-nigh liturgical. "dearest!" then there was a great silence, and what is perhaps best expressed by typographic constellations. * * * * * * there came a knock--a discreet knock, be it said--at the door; and, shortly following it, the footman--a concrete being indeed. his signal gave rise to a very elegant little man[oe]uvre, whereby the width of the hearthrug was speedily, if somewhat obtrusively, placed between these two. under his breath jim muttered, "hang it!" "m'lord," said the apollo in livery; "if you please, m'lord, there's a person below who wishes to see your lordship." "what sort of a person?" "a low sort of person, m'lord. his business is important, he says." "hope nothing's wrong with mallow, poor chap," mumbled aldean, driving the footman out of the room. then he went downstairs. in the hall he found a disreputable marionette, who, at the sight of him, at once commenced profusely to scrape and bow. this creature confessed to the name of vraik, and addressed lord aldean in a husky whisper--presumably that the lordly footman should not hear. "mr. mallow told me to send a wire to his rooms, m'lord," said the man--"that is, when i saw the major cove off. but bein' a bit late for a telegram, i thought i might as well trot round myself. mr. mallow wasn't in, and they told me you'd left a message for this place, m'lord." "yes, i did. well, what about the major?" "he's off to the continong, m'lord; cleared off by the nine hexpress from victorier--took three boxes with 'im." "went off to-night, did he?" mused jim. "that is just what mallow expected. he's a bit of a liar, that major. very well," he said to vraik, "i will convey your message to mr. mallow." "what am i to do now, m'lord?" "call and see mr. mallow to-morrow. he will give you your orders. you can go now, vraik." "foggy night, m'lord--fog will get into the throat som'ow." aldean construed the remark correctly, and produced half-a-crown. the creature slipped it into his pocket, and sneaked out with the abasement he judged befitting to the occasion. "well," said aldean, re-ascending the stairs, "i can't say mallow's particular as to whom he employs. but one can't work in mud, i suppose, without getting a bit dirty. h'm! so the major's off. that means i'll have to go to-morrow. there's a nine o'clock, i think, as well as the midday mail from victoria. i had better take it, i suppose. hang it!" grumbled jim--"just when she's said 'yes.' this comes of sticking closer than a brother." on re-entering the drawing-room, aldean found tui the centre of manifest congratulations. olive and mrs. purcell, assisted by miss slarge--who had returned from babylon for the purpose--were showering upon her many expressions of delight, osculatory and otherwise. tui, of course, was weeping. how things had progressed thus far, in so incredibly short a space of time, jim was at a loss to comprehend. he felt a little out of his depth, and wondered if all was as it should be. he supposed it was all natural enough. still, he was obviously disconcerted when the trio bore down upon him, brimful of compliments and general expressions of goodwill. he blushed, and sought a corner with as much speed as he felt to be compatible with politeness. but even so he was only protected in the rear. olive shook one hand and said, "oh, lord aldean, i am so glad." mrs. purcell took the other, and continued, "lord aldean, i congratulate myself that beneath my roof you have met the future partner of your joys and sorrows." "i knew it would be all right," said miss slarge, beaming. "one marriage invariably brings another. that superstition we can trace back to the land of uz." "thanks, awf'ly," muttered jim, nervously. then once again tui became the centre of attraction. "dearest tui," said olive. "my sweet girl," said miss slarge. "it will be a pleasing spectacle for me to witness the progress of love's young dream," rolled mrs. purcell, still majestic. "oh dear! you are all very kind," wept tui. "how--how--how very happy i am!" "i fear you are not to see the progress of love's young dream just yet, mrs. purcell," blurted out aldean. "i am going away, you know." "going away?" echoed the combined trio. "oh, jim!" wailed tui. "oh, jim!" aldean steeled his heart. "major semberry has bolted to italy," he said. "i must follow him--promised mallow.' "and why has major semberry departed so suddenly?" "guilty conscience, mrs. purcell. he's gone off to see carson." "to see my husband?" cried olive, turning white. "are you following him?" "yes; by the nine train to-morrow. don't want to go, but promised mallow. i can't break my promise, you know." tui jumped up and kissed him before them all. "jim," she cried, "you are a darling!" chapter x. "woman disposes." for a young gentleman to face with equanimity four ladies, each one more or less gifted in her particular way, especially when the said young gentleman has just proposed to one of them and been accepted, requires a considerable amount of moral courage. aldean confessed he felt the want of it when tui kissed him, and the three onlookers smiled sympathetically. it was only when they quitted romance for reality, and became interested in olive's troubles in place of his engagement, that jim recovered his equanimity. mrs. purcell adjusted the situation to the lower and less romantic topic with her usual majesty. "be seated, lord aldean," she said, enthroning herself on the nearest and most comfortable chair; "let me hear your opinion on this unexpected and suspicious departure of major semberry." "my opinion is the same as mallow's," replied jim, bluntly. "semberry has gone off to get his share of this money. it is my business to stop him getting it." "that will be difficult," said olive, despondently. "it would be, mrs. carson, if the major were irresponsible as well as a scamp, and if he did not happen to be in the service. as it is, i have the pull over him, and so has mallow. we are in a position to prove carson's imposture through a third party, and--as semberry must have been accessory to the swindle--i can get him cashiered if he doesn't leave the money alone and make a clean breast of his conspiracy." "how can you prove that olive's husband is an impostor?" asked tui. "by bringing forward a man called jeremiah trall as a witness." "clara's uncle!" said olive, nodding. "i know. mr. mallow told me all about him. oh! and i am married to this man." "no, you are not, mrs. carson--or, rather, i should say, miss bellairs." "lord aldean!" cried mrs. purcell, while olive remained silent, too amazed for words, "i trust that you are not about to inform me that this profligate has contracted a previous matrimonial alliance." "no, but he is not angus carson, and he therefore married miss bellairs under a false name. to do this wittingly nullifies a marriage." "are you certain of that?" asked olive, pale and anxious. "certain. mallow saw dimbal about it, and, to make doubly sure, they took counsel's opinion on the subject. you are not married." tui threw her arms round her friend's neck. "oh, olive," she said aloud, and then whispered slily, "i know why mr. mallow consulted the lawyer." "the iniquity of the fellow is preposterous," said mrs. purcell, in her most stately tone; "nevertheless, if our dear olive can be freed from her matrimonial bonds, i shall rejoice sincerely and without reserve." "i should like to punish the wretch," cried tui, vehemently. "i'll punish him for you," murmured jim in her ear. "shall i kick him, or wring his neck, or throw him into the arno?" "well, i think the last would be best; it might wash the sin out of him." "water was used for lustration by the chaldeans," said miss slarge, her ruling passion strong within her. then the genuine woman asserted herself. "olive, my poor love, i trust indeed that this may be so, and that you will escape from the power of this bad man." "i was never in his power," cried olive, proudly; "he was never my husband. i hated him. i will throw the ring--no"--she stopped suddenly, and replaced the wedding-ring on her finger--"i must not cease to wear this until i am certain of my freedom. lord aldean," she asked suddenly, "you go over to italy to-morrow?" "yes, by the nine o'clock express from victoria." "and you will see this--this man who calls himself carson?" "it is probable. i must put a stop to his game and semberry's. i promised mallow to do so." "then i will go to florence with you." mrs. purcell stared. her face assumed an expression of horror. "my dear," she said, aghast, "are you in your right mind?" "of course i am. i must and will know the truth about this man, and, what is more, i intend to hear it from his own lips." "but--but that woman!" gasped miss slarge. "if i am not married to the man, she is nothing to me. lord aldean, will you take me to florence?" "certainly," said jim, promptly; "and i think that you are brave and right to face your troubles so boldly." "she is a heroine," cried tui; then whispered softly, "and you are a dear." "pray consider the feelings of society," boomed mrs. purcell. "i prefer to consider my own, thank you. it is no use talking, my mind is made up, and lord aldean has consented to take me. i must know how i stand towards this man. i must hear from himself that he is not carson, and i must recover the money stolen from me." "oh dear me!" wailed miss slarge. "can't you wait until mr. brock calls? he is in town. he writes to say that he will visit us to-morrow afternoon." "can't wait," struck in aldean, judiciously; "promised mallow to follow semberry next train. must be off nine sharp." "i shall be at the station at half-past eight," cried olive. "you get the tickets and engage a carriage, lord aldean." "consider the feelings of mr. mallow.' "oh, he will be glad i am going. mr. mallow is not a prude. i'll write him a note to-night. perhaps he will be at the station in the morning." "no need to write," said aldean, rising; "i am going round to his rooms now. i'll tell him, if i see him, though it's just possible i may not see him. he's so mixed up with these anarchists that he never keeps regular hours now." "i cannot but condemn this insane determination." "oh, but, mrs. purcell, you can trust olive with lord aldean," coaxed tui. "i am sure you ought to, when i trust him with her." "i have a great mind to undertake the journey myself," cried mrs. purcell, with energy, "but i fear that the excessive travelling would prove highly injurious to me." "two days and two nights," hinted aldean; "it's a corker of a trail." "you must not think of going, mrs. purcell," said olive, resolutely. "i will go alone with lord aldean, so that is all about it. good-night, lord aldean; there is none too much time. i must go and pack." when olive had left the room, both aldean and tui brought their persuasive powers to bear upon mrs. purcell. after no small amount of trouble, they succeeded in reducing her to a more pliable state of mind. she confessed that olive's position was so extraordinary, that perhaps extraordinary measures were justifiable for the adjustment of it. in the end, she went further, and expressed her opinion that it was right the girl should go. "but for her own sake," said mrs. purcell, severely, "the more so, seeing that she has been so wantonly deceived by that unprincipled profligate, you must take the greatest care of her, lord aldean." "i will treat her as i would a sister of my own," said jim. this seemed to suffice mrs. purcell. she fussed out of the room to help olive with her packing, followed in a few minutes by miss slarge, tearful and doubtful: the room was empty, and the two young people grasped their opportunity for saying good-bye, after their own fashion, and in their own time. jim--in this instance, at least--was nothing if not thorough, and fully twenty minutes elapsed before he descended the staircase. as he lay in bed that night, he confessed to himself that the love-scenes of fiction were not so highly coloured after all. the course of his true love had at last begun to run very smooth indeed. but before going home to dream of his good fortune, lord aldean had not forgotten to call at mallow's rooms, only to learn from the night porter that their occupant was still absent. little thinking how laurence's impulsive irish spirit had led him into difficulties, jim scribbled a few lines on his card, to say that major semberry had left that evening for florence, and that, with mrs. carson, he intended to follow by the nine o'clock morning mail from victoria. this card he gave to the porter, with strict injunctions that it was to be handed to mr. mallow immediately on his return. that done, aldean abandoned himself with a clear conscience to the full enjoyment of his dreams. shortly before eight o'clock next morning he drove to the station, arriving there on the stroke of the half-hour. he quite expected to find mallow waiting for him; but there was no sign of him. jim could only conclude he had not received the card. "been out all night, i suppose," grumbled aldean, in no very good temper. "in the thick of it with the brutes in soho, i expect. i only hope he won't get into trouble with them. must have spotted and followed hain; he's probably hanging on to him till the police run him in." it was a cold, raw morning, and jim, in a fur-lined coat, rolled about the platform like a giant bear. he took two through tickets to florence, bought a couple of morning papers and some illustrated weeklies, and, with the assistance of the guard, engaged a carriage supplied with foot-warmers. hardly had he completed his preparations when olive made her appearance, accompanied, to his great delight, by miss ostergaard. both ladies were in the best of spirits. "but i don't see mr. mallow," said olive, her face falling somewhat. "does he not know that i am going?" "told him so last night--that is, i left an explanatory card for him; but he can't have got it." "oh, lord aldean, i trust nothing is wrong with him." "no fear of that," replied jim, confidently. "you can trust mallow to look after himself; besides, he told me he might very likely be away for some time over this hain business." "is that the man connected with the murder?" "yes; vraik reported that he had seen him talking to semberry in poplar street, so mallow determined to catch him himself." "talking to major semberry?" said tui, thoughtfully. "that looks as though the major had something to do with poor mr. carson's death." "i have not the slightest doubt about it. semberry knows a good deal more than he is inclined to tell. but you needn't worry about mallow, mrs. carson--or, shall i say, miss bellairs?" "no, no," said olive, hurriedly. "don't please do that for the present. have you the tickets?" "yes; tickets, and carriages, and papers. everything is square." "are you well wrapped up?" asked tui, with an air of proprietorship. "warm as toast," said jim, laughing, and they walked down the platform. "you have left nothing behind, jim?" "nothing, except my heart." "and that is in good keeping," said olive, smiling. "lord aldean, wait in the carriage with tui while i buy a paper." "plenty of papers here," said the stupid aldean, not seeing her kindly intention. tui, more quick-witted, turned over the journals. "_telegraph, morning post, daily mail, sketch_, and _graphic_," she counted, "and not a single fashion-paper amongst them; so like a man." jim looked depressed, and olive went off, laughing, in search of publications of a more particularly feminine nature. tui and her lover were left alone in the carriage. "oh, what a donkey!" she said, shaking her head. for the moment aldean failed utterly to understand. then a comprehension of her meaning dawned upon him, and doubtless he did his best to make amends. tui's farewell left him in a state of ecstasy, which endured long after the train rolled out of the station. he stared solemnly out of the window, and olive, who knew well where his thoughts were, had not the heart to break so sacred a silence. she let him dream on, and secluded herself behind her morning paper. he had been indulging himself for the best part of half an hour, when a startled exclamation from olive aroused him. "oh, how dreadful!" she said. "'what's the matter?" said jim, shortly. "anything wrong?" "i should think so. poor mr. brock has been run over." "by jove! you don't say so? when? where?" "yesterday evening, in marquis street," said olive, referring to the paper. "he was crossing the road, when a hansom, coming too quickly round the corner, knocked him down. his leg was broken, and they took him to charing cross hospital." "poor old chap!" said aldean, sympathetically. "deuced hard lines on a man of his age. marquis street, did you say? why, that's where semberry lives." "he intended calling on major semberry, i know," said olive. "in his letter to miss slarge he said so. dear me, i am sorry for him." "so am i. he's a good old chap, is brock. may i see the account?" olive passed him the paper. he read the account, but beyond being sincerely sorry for his friend the vicar, he attached no especial importance to it. little did he think how significant it really was. this particular ill wind, in common with others of its kind, blew great good to somebody. that somebody was major semberry. how good a wind it was for him they neither of them knew till it was too late. _the fourth scene: in florence_. chapter i. "on the long trail." the efforts of some people to convert what is purely a business errand into one of pleasure are rarely crowned with success, though there are times when the process can be inversed with some degree of profit. "an extreme busyness is an invariable sign of a deficient vitality." there never was a greater truth than that. complete enjoyment of the picturesque argues the possession of a large capacity for dreaming and dawdling. one must, so to speak, supply one's own atmosphere, steep one's self in romance, acquaint one's self with the mystery of the past for the toning down of an all-too-obvious present. the successful pursuit of pleasure is every whit as arduous as the compilation of pounds, shillings, and pence. nay, more so, because for every man who achieves the one, there are a thousand who achieve the other. true enjoyment is, of all prey, the most elusive--the most horribly tantalizing. you think you have it, and "heigh, presto!" the wily thing is "right about face," and grinning at you half a mile away! call art a jealous mistress if you will. pleasure is twin sister to her. she demands and will have, the absolute abandonment of you--all or nothing. and so it was that neither aldean nor olive succeeded in extracting any pleasure out of their well-nigh meteoric flight to florence. they could not give themselves up to the thing. their object was ever before them, and they were conscious only of it and the hundred-and-one petty annoyances of a continental railway transit. they ate, they slept, they talked, they read--not for the sake of eating, talking, or reading, but merely to pass the time. they were acutely aware of an all-pervading mustiness, of the rumble of wheels, and of the fussy interference of various individuals terming themselves officers--customs and otherwise. each station seemed more draughty than the last, and with each mile it seemed to grow more cold. at last--in the early morning of the second day--they found themselves at the florence centrale, in a temperature and fog which would have done credit to the estuary of the thames. from milan aldean, ever practical, had telegraphed for rooms to the hotel magenta; and thither they proceeded in course of time, in what is known as an omnibus. a good breakfast, and both of them felt more at peace with themselves, though olive had to give in and lie down for an hour or so. aldean, whom nothing seemed to tire, shaved and bathed. he dressed himself in fresh clothes and felt as fresh as paint. (the simile was his own). then, lighting a strong cigar--former experience had proved to him the luxury of tobacco in these parts--he took a brisk walk for the consideration of campaign details. in a city of the size of florence you have the disadvantage of being able to run up against your next-door neighbour half-a-dozen times a day. from the via tornabouni--haunted by _forestieri_--to the end of the lung 'arno or cascine gardens is no very great stretch, and here, in the hyde park of florence, aldean had a notion that his stroll might prove most profitable. failing that--the gentleman of whom he was in search having no very pronounced artistic cravings--he argued that giacoso's rather than the duomo, the gambrinus bier halle rather than the uffizi should prove remunerative as a hunting ground. but nowhere had he any luck. perchance it was that messieurs semberry and friend were resting for the moment. at all events, they showed no signs of life, and aldean, having drawn blank, returned to the hotel. olive was up and waiting for him--sufficiently refreshed, she said, to get to business straight away. that their conversation might be unfettered--it was certain to revolve round the one topic--they lunched in a private room. aldean deplored his bad luck. "it's worse than looking for a needle in a haystack," he declared. "have you examined the visitors' list?" asked olive. "no--no use. semberry only arrived yesterday. they require somewhat longer notice for these things in this part of the world. as to carson--well, of course, he will not be known as carson here, and for his other name we can hardly look, seeing we don't know it." "what do you think is best to be done, then?" "well, mrs. carson," said aldean, reflectively, "i think perhaps you had better stay in this afternoon. it might frighten these young birds did they happen to see you. they won't take so much notice of me; at all events, they would not be likely to connect me with the business. i'll walk round the town and keep my eyes open! somewhere about five i'll drive in the cascine. if they show anywhere it will probably be in the gardens." "and if you do see them?" "oh, i'll keep them in sight, be sure. my next step then will depend upon what they say or do. semberry i can manage by threatening to report his conduct at the war office; but it will not be so easy to deal with carson." "i think it will," said olive, scornfully. "the man is a poor, cowardly creature. you can terrorize him into obedience." "in that case, i'll bring him here and let you deal with him. when we get the truth out of him i shall--let me see," mused aldean, "did i promise tui to kick him or drown him? one of the two, i'm sure." "i almost despair of ever getting the money back," said olive. "depends upon what he has done with it. i expect we shall have to get him arrested, after all, and prove that he has annexed that fifty thousand pounds under false pretences. the british consul will help me in all that. in the mean time i'll bring him here if i can." olive agreed that this seemed about the most feasible line of action. she remained at home--glad indeed of the opportunity for rest--while her coadjutor cast around for the trail. but in all his peregrinations jim caught no glimpse of those he was in search of. in no very good temper he hailed a carriage and drove to the cascine gardens. his last hope lay in that direction. "if i don't see them here," he grumbled, "there's no chance of coming across them to-night. i dare say i shall have to persuade the consul to take up the matter, after all." as the wretched vettura bumped over the pavement of the lung 'arno, aldean scanned the faces of the chattering and gesticulating crowd. the sun was dying in splendour over bello sguardo hill. the river--yet to be swollen by its winter rains--caught up the golden light, and spread it over its vast gravel bed. to the green avenue of the cascine a variety of carriages, from the springless conveyance of the streets to the imposing equipage emblazoned with armorial bearings commensurate in size only with the age of the families they represented, were hurrying there to parade between the mounted gendarmes at either end. these latter were quite admirable in their capacity of ornate signposts. aldean found plenty to amuse him, but still there was no sign of either fugitive. his patience was beginning to show signs of wear, though there was no one to observe them but the cocchiere, and he was impervious to everything of that nature. just then he became conscious of a man and a woman talking and laughing together in a smart green victoria. they were travelling in the same direction as himself, and, as they passed him, he noticed the coachman was in livery. with something like a sigh of relief aldean leaned forward to instruct his man to follow--a somewhat difficult task to him, for his italian was none of the best in his calmest of moments. "cocchiere! carozza! la carozza verdi, subito, presto." the italian jehu nodded and cracked his whip. at the same moment the green victoria was stopped in the crowd. in another moment he would have been alongside. "no, no!" shouted aldean, laying his hand on the man's arm. the bewildered cocchiere pulled up. then carson's carriage began to move out of the throng. "si! si!" cried aldean, in answer to the interrogative aspect of his coachman. "adagio! piano! slow, you fool!" jim's driver became suddenly inspired. he caught sight of a lady in the green carriage. he was evidently driving a jealous husband bent upon the spoliation of an intrigue. this appealed to him in every way. with the greatest skill he kept in the rear of carson's vehicle, and turned only to hold up his five fingers twice. "dieci lire!" he said, as his inspirations--now aspirations--took definite shape. "si! si! venti lire si vi piace! adagio! comprenez? parlezvous francais? non! ah quelle dommage. allez! piano! go slow, you ass!" thus did aldean frantically endeavour to make himself clear. but those two words, "venti lire," had done their work, and jim congratulated himself on his linguistic attainments. "easier job than i thought," he said to himself. "i'll stick to carson till i catch him. the brute! he doesn't know i am at his tail. gigglin' and laughin' with that girl--hang him! hang her! hang 'em both!" by this time it was getting dark, and people were beginning to leave the cascine for dinner. quite ignorant that he was being followed, carson, in the highest spirits, drove along the lung 'arno, and in a short time his carriage turned into the piazza santa trinita, where it stopped before the door of the hotel du sud, opposite to the column. clara and her friend alighted and disappeared into the hotel. aldean jumped down, and, bidding the coachman to wait, ran up the steps in mortal terror lest he should miss them. the _concierge_--a vision of gold lace and moustache--advanced with a smile, and in french begged to know what monsieur might require. "i want to see the lady and gentleman who have just come in," replied aldean, in the same language. "signor and signora boldini," said the man. "assuredly, monsieur; they are on the first floor. shall i present the card of monsieur?" "there is no necessity. take me upstairs and show me the room; signor boldini expects me," said aldean, making the best excuse he could think of at the moment. "in that case, i shall conduct monsieur with pleasure," replied the gold-laced personage, in his magnificent way. "will monsieur give himself the trouble to ascend?" monsieur did, and was speedily ushered into a gilded and ornate salon. in italian the man announced that a gentleman desired to see signor boldini. he closed the door, leaving aldean face to face with carson. clara paled somewhat as she recognized the visitor, but she kept her head. she evidently meant to see things through. carson shrank back at the sight of aldean as though expectant of a blow, and collapsed into a chair nerveless and terrified. jim looked on grimly. "well, mr. carson," he said, in no very amiable tone, "you have given me a considerable amount of trouble. what have you to say for yourself?" "what need he say?" cried clara, seeing that her accomplice was incapable of speech. "how dare you come in here uninvited, lord aldean?" "dare is not a word, young woman, that i am accustomed to hear from domestic servants." "i am no servant," replied clara, with a flash of anger. "thought not," said jim, coolly. "i never believed you were, but i hardly expected to find that your real profession was that of spy." "a spy, a spy! what do you mean?" "oh, i think you know pretty well. the report you made to your uncle jeremiah was the work of a spy." "my uncle!" gasped clara, steadying herself by the table. "yes; your uncle. i know all about him, so does mr. mallow, so does miss bellairs." "my wife?" murmured carson, speaking for the first time. "oh, you have found your tongue at last, have you?" cried jim, striding over to the trembling coward. "i wonder why i don't throw you out of the window." "this violence--this insult----" panted the man. "oh, don't be afraid; i'm not going to make a mess of you just yet. how dare you call miss bellairs your wife?" "i--i was married to her." "you were--under a false name, to rob her of her money. perhaps you are not aware that such a marriage is void. miss bellairs is not your wife; her money is not yours. i am going to give you the chance of handing it over. take it, or go to gaol like the swindler you are." "how dare you call him a swindler?" said clara, savagely. "because i like to call things by their right names. it's a case of speaking by the book. i know all about your anarchist schemes, and madame death-in-life, drabble, rouge, and all the rest of the gang. however, i didn't come here to waste breath on either of you. you come along with me, carson, or boldini, or whatever else you choose to call yourself." "where do you want me to go?" whimpered the wretched creature, looking up at the towering figure of aldean. "to my hotel. come along, up with you!" clara dashed to the bell. "i'll call the landlord and have you turned out!" she said viciously. "you can't bully us!" "don't want to. sorry if i'm not conducting the business according to etiquette. you know more about this sort of thing than i do. ring the bell by all means, and i'll have up the police. ring; go on." "no, no, clara, don't!" shrieked boldini, leaping out of his chair at the mention of the police. "he knows too much." "hold your tongue," said the woman, between her teeth. "he can prove nothing, you fool." "the police can judge of that," replied aldean, quietly. "ring." but miss trall did not ring. she knew better. she recognized that whatever he might know, lord aldean knew quite enough to make the intervention of the police unpleasant. the game was up, she saw plainly. so reluctantly she yielded. "we can do all that is to be done here," said she, sullenly, fighting every inch. "i'm afraid not," answered jim, suavely. "my hotel is the best place. there's a cab waiting." then, seeing that clara was still irresolute, he took out his watch. "i'll give you just two minutes." clara moved slowly across the room to where boldini sat in sheer terror. "what shall we do?" she asked, in a low voice. "go, go," moaned the man. "we must go; perhaps we can make terms." aldean overheard the remark. "it is my right to make terms," he said, "and i make these. give back the money; confess the whole conspiracy, and you can go where you will." for a moment or two the pair looked at one another. clara bent forward and whispered something in boldini's ear. he nodded, and a gleam of hope passed across his face as he rose, holding a handkerchief to his mouth. "we are ready to go with you," said clara, turning towards aldean. "very good. come on." chapter ii. "one portion of the conspiracy." certain features of the present position appealed to lord aldean. it was his first experience of the kind, and perhaps what gratified him most was the consciousness of the power which so suddenly had become vested in him. the knowledge that in this human rubber he held all the trumps in no wise lessened his enjoyment of the situation. there still remained to play them, and he felt pretty confident that in the end he and his partner would not have many tricks to deplore. for the moment his antagonists were absolutely in his hands--the man frightened to death of his skin; the woman believing that for the time being, at least, discretion was surely the better part of valour. he hurried them off to the hotel magenta, there to be dealt with by the woman they had deceived and plundered. as he fully expected, olive was greatly agitated. he supposed it was womanlike for her to show most anger at the sight of her whilom maid. her husband, after all, had at no time been anything to her--for him she had nothing more than the contempt she had always felt. she ignored him completely. "how dare you come into my presence?" she said to the woman. "how can you have the face to look at me, after the shameful way in which you have behaved?" "blame your friend for that," answered clara, doggedly. "i would not have come at all had i known you were here." "exactly. that is why i did not think it necessary you should know of mrs. carson's presence here," exclaimed aldean, smoothly. "mrs. carson!" sneered clara, with a contemptuous laugh. "oh yes; mrs. carson, of course." olive looked at the woman with a flush of anger. "no insolence, if you please," she said. "and you!" turning on her shrinking husband--"who and what are you, pray?" "carlo boldini," he replied almost inaudibly. "are you an italian?" "my father was. he married an englishwoman." "so i am signora boldini?" said olive, bitterly. clara laughed again. "oh yes! signora boldini," she repeated, seating herself complacently beside her companion. the two sat there like prisoners in the dock. aldean began to feel positively judicial. the woman was horribly insolent. "i would suggest, for your own sake, that you endeavour to restrain yourself," he said, moving to the end of the room in search of pen and ink. "you are in quite enough trouble as it is." "oh, i don't mind her insolence, lord aldean," said olive, quietly; "she can do me no harm." "don't be too sure of that!" flashed out miss trall, vindictively. "clara, clara!" implored boldini, "it's best to say nothing--least said, soonest mended." aldean, arranging his writing materials on a table at olive's elbow, looked up. "i fear you will find that proverb doesn't apply to what is to come," said he cheerfully. "mrs. carson, as this lady may be called for the present, will question you sufficiently closely as to the various details of the conspiracy. you will answer her questions categorically while i write them down. the little précis will then be signed by you both and witnessed by myself." "and if we refuse this confession, as you call it," questioned clara, who withal was obviously uneasy. "oh, in that case, as i have told you before, i hand you over to the police. now, then, come along; we have no time to waste on you. begin." jim dipped his pen into the ink and waited; while olive, after a sharp glance at the two before her, launched into the examination. reversing her previous attitude, she addressed herself exclusively to boldini. she judged a studied indifference to be more effectual from woman to woman. "who are you?" she asked. "i have told you that my father was an italian named boldini. my mother was an englishwoman. i was brought up and educated in london." "are you an anarchist?" "yes. i was affianced to the cause by my aunt, mrs. arne." "oh, so mrs. arne is your aunt?" "my father's sister," explained boldini, who was recovering his self-possession somewhat. "he was an anarchist, but he is dead. my mother also is dead." "is major semberry in florence?" "no!" said clara, loudly, before her accomplice could speak. "useless to lie," said aldean, looking up; "we followed him here from victoria station. suppose you put your question in another form, mrs. carson?" "where is major semberry staying?" amended olive. "at the albergo della pace, on the lung 'arno," replied boldini, seeing it was hopeless. "have you seen him?" "yes, once--this morning." "have you known major semberry long?" "since he came to england in the _pharaoh_. i never met him before. but i had heard of him." "from whom?" "from dr. drabble and my aunt." "is he an anarchist?" "no; his connection with us has to do merely with this money." "you have the fifty thousand pounds in your possession?" "yes; part of it is in paris." "and where is the remainder?" boldini wriggled uneasily and looked at clara. she gave him no assistance, but kept her eyes fixedly on the floor. "i have the other part of it at my hotel in circular notes on the crédit lyonnais." "how many have you, and what is the value of each?" "i have twenty of one thousand pounds." "twenty thousand," reckoned olive. "major semberry's share, i presume?" she added, with unconcealed scorn. "y-e-s," said boldini, reluctantly, with another wriggle. "and the remaining thirty thousand is at the crédit lyonnais in paris, you say?" "yes. that is my share." "we will talk of the money later," she said. "by the way," with a glance at boldini's hands, "i observe you have recovered the use of your hand." "it was never in need of recovery," snapped clara. "i guessed as much--one of the smaller embellishments of your very ornate conspiracy. boldini, since you confess that you are not mr. carson, please to hand over that bangle." boldini shook it down on to his wrist. "you can have it with pleasure," said he, sullenly, "but i can't get it off." "how was it got on?" asked aldean. "it was filed through and joined on my wrist." "ah, well! i am afraid that process will have to be reversed to-morrow. it can't be done here to-night. who gave you that bangle?" "dr. drabble.' "was it he who killed angus carson?" asked olive, with embarrassing suddenness. "i don't know." "come, come!" cried jim, sharply, "the truth, please." "i am telling you the truth," retorted boldini "i do not know who killed carson. i did not even know that he was killed until miss bellairs there asked me about the smell of sandal-wood. then, as i read the account of the murder in the _morning planet_, it occurred to me that the dead man might be the person i was representing. i asked semberry about it, and he admitted i was right; but he refused me all details." "then angus carson was really murdered in athelstane place?" "according to semberry, yes." "did semberry say that he had killed him?" asked aldean. "no. he swore he did not kill him; and that he did not know who did. drabble also declares himself innocent." "you are all innocent, according to your own showing," said olive, ironically; "but i can hardly believe, signor boldini, that you were so simple as to assume the impersonation of an original of whom you know nothing." clara looked up with a strange smile on her sallow face. "you evidently know nothing of the anarchists," she said coldly. "implicit obedience is the first law with them. carlo was told to represent a man called angus carson. he did so without asking questions. how much longer is this to go on?" she cried furiously; "it is now seven o'clock. i am tired of it." "i don't care for the socratian method myself," observed aldean, blandly. "on the whole, i think it would be best, perhaps, for boldini here to acquaint us with the particulars of his share in the conspiracy straight away." "tell them, carlo!" commanded miss trall. "shall i tell them everything?" whimpered boldini. "everything," she repeated emphatically. "we have cut ourselves off from the brotherhood--so it really does not matter. lord aldean has promised to let us go if we tell the truth. you had better tell him." "tell the truth and restore the money," murmured jim, politely. boldini winced at the last remark, but nevertheless applied himself to his most unpalatable task. he evidently intended cutting it as short as possible. he started off at top speed. aldean wrote down the gist of what he said. "as i told you, i am an anarchist," he explained shortly, "and by the oath i took to the cause i was bound to render obedience. in june last drabble came to me and stated that the brotherhood could obtain a sum of fifty thousand pounds; and that i was to help. he introduced me to major semberry, and told me that i was to assume the character of a man called angus carson, from india. semberry had a portrait of this man, and i altered my appearance in some degree so as to more clearly resemble it. this was not difficult, as i was very like the portrait. i cut my hair short and parted it at the side instead of in the centre; i let the ends of my moustache droop instead of twisting them up. then drabble told me that i must pretend that my right hand was injured, and wear it in a sling, which i did. the bracelet was produced by drabble and placed on my wrist. major semberry then told me all about carson's life in india, and took some trouble in seeing that i acquired a sufficient knowledge of the country. he took me to his rooms in marquis street, st. james's, and made me dress in carson's clothes, which he showed me in a sandal-wood chest. afterwards i think that he and drabble must have seen the leader in the _morning planet_ about the sandal-wood scent, for they took carson's indian clothes from me and supplied me with new ones in place of them." "but how was it that mr. mallow smelt sandal-wood on your clothes, if this was so?" boldini explained. "there was a smart coloured waistcoat," he said, "which belonged to carson, which i admired very much. when drabble took the clothes from me i kept that back without his knowledge. when i met mr. mallow i was wearing it, and, of course, it was scented by the box. that was how he noticed the perfume." "did you never suspect that this smell was in some way connected with the murder?" "no; how should i? i did not know that the real carson had been killed; and, although i myself read the leader in the _morning planet_--which was the only report of the case i did read--i never thought for a moment that the dead man was the one i was representing. when you, miss bellairs, spoke to me of this sandal-wood odour and athelstane place, i was really and truly ignorant of the murder. it was only on reflection i put two and two together. i remembered the severed hand and the sandal-wood perfume referred to in the paper; i knew also that the carson i represented came from india. then it was that i made semberry tell me the truth. he admitted the murder, but swore he was ignorant as to who committed it. then i married you, miss bellairs, and got the money." "for the anarchists or for yourself?" "for myself and clara," admitted boldini, shamelessly. "i hated the anarchists, and grasped the opportunity to be free from them. i sold out the stocks and shares, and transferred the proceeds to my real name at the crédit lyonnais. i have the twenty thousand pounds here in circular notes, because i have to give them to semberry to-morrow." "why did you not give them to-day?" "because i would only give them to him in return for the sandal-wood box and the clothes of carson--which it contains." "why do you want that chest?" boldini showed himself in his true colours. "i like carson's clothes," said he, with the simplicity of a child. "he had nice clothes. i am to have them to-morrow, and then i will pay him the twenty thousand pounds." "i am afraid you will have to forego both those pleasures," said aldean, grimly. "your vanity must, in this instance, be sacrificed to your safety. i will trouble you to hand over those circular notes." "they are at my hotel," said boldini, rising with alacrity. "shall i go for them?" "oh, pray don't trouble. miss trall can go for the notes." clara looked at boldini, and boldini looked at clara. aldean made a shrewd guess that the man was attempting a trick to gain time, for every now and then his hand wandered mechanically to his breast pocket. it was probable that the notes were there. jim expected a fight for the spoil; but clara laid down her arms without a murmur, and instructed boldini to do the same. "give him the notes," said she, curtly. one by one they were counted and laid on the table before aldean. boldini winced as if he were having a tooth drawn. olive counted them and found them correct. there were twenty notes of the value of one thousand pounds each--printed in francs on the crédit lyonnais paper. "good," said aldean, with a nod. "now for your cheque-book." "i won't! i won't!" cried boldini, childishly. "the rest of the money is mine." "we need not argue that question over again," said olive, coldly. "write a cheque in my name for thirty thousand pounds--that is, seven hundred and fifty thousand francs. if not, lord aldean shall call up the police." "oh, clara! what shall i----" "give it to them," she interrupted fiercely. "what is the use of fighting?" with tears of rage in his eyes boldini wrote the cheque and gave it to olive. she looked at it with a nod, and passed it on to aldean. "so far so good," said the latter, cheerfully. "now, signor boldini, sign this confession." without a word the man took pen and signed it, jim attesting it with a flourish. "i think that is all," he remarked, rising. "you can go now." "am i not to sign it?" asked clara, scowling. "there is no necessity. beyond that you are a spy, you are of small account." "i am of this account," said clara, furiously, "that carlo is my husband." "your husband!" exclaimed olive. "yes; we were married a year ago in st. chad's church, marylebone. carlo boldini to clara trall. i am his wife--not you." "thank god!" said olive. "oh, thank god!" "you are an infernal scoundrel," cried jim, advancing on boldini. "i have a good mind to wring your neck." clara threw her arm round the man. "let us go, lord aldean. no words can alter things now. i am clara boldini, and she"--pointing to olive--"is nothing." "i am a free woman, at least. heaven be praised, i never was that man's wife. i know now why you agreed so readily to our bargain," she said, turning on boldini. "go, you miserable creature, and lead a better life if you can." "i have no money," said boldini. "will you give me some?" "we will arrange that to-morrow," struck in aldean, sharply. "you don't deserve any help; but as the anarchists are after you, miss bellairs and i will give you some help." "the anarchists!" repeated clara and boldini. both paled to the lips. without another word, they left the room. at last aldean saw how it was. throughout he had been a trifle uneasy at the extreme and unexpected smoothness with which things were progressing. he had not looked for the process of disgorgement to be accomplished with so little difficulty. boldini's attitude had been subservient; clara's altogether too unreal to convince him. in the most abject coward there is at least a modicum of obstinacy when at bay; and he could not understand how a plunder thus arduously come by should be disgorged with so little resistance. the mention of the word anarchist explained everything to him. the effect of it upon both miscreants left nothing to the imagination. they were thoroughly scared. this, then, was what they had dreaded; for this it was they had been ready to throw everything by the board--for silence. exposure to the police would have revealed their immediate whereabouts to their fellows. that meant pursuit speedy and relentless; and that, in its turn, meant death to them both. for some minutes after they had left neither jim nor olive spoke--he, occupied with his ruminations; she, with her own innermost thoughts. jim broke the silence. "poor devils," he said, closing the door, "they have worse before them than what they have just been through. and i think they know it. at the hands of their brethren they are likely to meet with treatment a good deal less clement. but what, may i ask, are you thinking of, mrs.--i mean, miss bellairs? you look most supremely happy." "i am thinking of your friend and mine," said olive. chapter iii. the sandal-wood chest. "well, lord aldean," asked olive, when she met her companion, hatted and gloved, in the saloon next morning, "what next?" "the next item on our programme is an official visit to semberry," answered the young man, promptly. "a bit early for a call, perhaps; but i'm the bird, you know, after the worm--the major's the worm. won't do, you know, to let him and the boldinis come together and arrange their little plans. union's always strength, isn't it, miss bellairs?" "miss bellairs!" repeated olive, after him, with a long breath of satisfaction; "how good that sounds! but about major semberry. for all we know he may have seen the boldinis last night." aldean wagged his head judiciously. "not likely; they'd not seek him, believe me. now that we have semberry's share of the loot, both boldini and his wife would rather be excused that interview. they are too anxious about their little selves to bother him." "perhaps; at all events, let us hope so. shall i come with you?" "i'd rather you didn't, if you don't mind. better let me tackle semberry in my own way. he won't climb down like boldini, you know; in fact, i don't anticipate he will be an easy customer to deal with at all. he'll fight," said aldean; "so shall i." "i can't understand now why the boldinis gave in so utterly." "had to--no choice for them," replied jim promptly. "case of devil and the deep sea, you know. let's assume we are the deep sea, and the anarchists and police and all of that ilk are the--well, the other thing. you see, police would have meant publicity, and publicity would have meant extinction for them, so far as this world is concerned; and that, though probably a relief to them in the future state, was not exactly what they sought at present." "could we have them arrested even now?" asked olive. "well, perhaps, with an infinite amount of trouble and red-tapeism, we might get the british consul to help us so far; but that sort of thing takes time, and they might bolt at any moment. i'm glad they had the sense to climb down. it's all right now. we have the money and the confession. they are no use to us any longer." "yes, we have the circular notes; and they, i suppose, are safe," said miss bellairs, reflecting. "but that cheque, lord aldean--boldini might stop it by telegram." "he'll only tumble back into the pit if he does," said aldean, decisively; "but i won't trust him any more than you do. before i see semberry, i'll drop in at a bank i know here, and ask them to cash the cheque." "they won't cash so large a cheque without inquiry, surely?" "that's just the point; if not, the banker'll have to wire to the crédit lyonnais in paris, and we'll soon know if boldini's been up to hanky-panky. that's the worst of playing a game like this with a rascal," added aldean, musingly; "he's always got an ace somewhere." "we must watch his sleeve," laughed olive. "well, lord aldean, off you go to major semberry, and i'll wait here till you return." "bringing my sheaves with me," said jim, with a grin, and forthwith departed. left alone, olive sat down and wrote a long letter to tui, in which she praised lord aldean's common sense and willing help in the most glowing terms. with joy she told tui of her freedom; how clara was boldini's, _alias_ carson's, true wife; and how everything had gone off so much more quietly than either of them had dared to hope. her letter ended with a casual inquiry after mallow, and expressed a hope that tui had seen him. as the strength of a chain lies in its weakest link, so the strength of olive's letter lay in the pointedly trifling allusion to mallow. small wonder if tui smiled to herself at the studied indifference of those few lines. women understand those things. as olive directed and stamped the envelope a knock came to the door, and a smiling waiter entered with a letter addressed in lead pencil to miss bellairs. she did not know the writing, but, when the man had gone, she soon discovered that the letter was from clara. there were two hurriedly pencilled pages commencing abruptly, without date or address, as follows:-- "i don't want you to think worse of me than you do, for the trouble i brought on you was not of my making. i am--or, rather, i was--a tool in the hands of the anarchists, and against my will i was forced to play what i know was a mean part. my father, michael trall, was a gentleman, and at one time very rich. but he gambled away all his money, and left my mother and myself to starve in london. i am now thirty years of age, but never since an infant have i seen my father. neither have i heard of him; nor do i even know what he is like in appearance. but i do know that he was a bad father and a bad husband, who broke his wife's heart. my poor mother died when i was only two years of age; and i might have been an outcast in the streets but that my good uncle jeremiah took charge of me. he had a little money, and until i was twenty we lived on that. he was kind to me; but, alas! he was the slave of drink--and, by indulgence in it, so weakened his will and self-respect that he was the prey of any scoundrel who cared to meddle with him. dr. drabble met him ten years ago or more, and, seeing in him a useful tool, inveigled him into the toils of the anarchists. i tried to rescue my uncle as he had rescued me, but in vain; so, to protect him, i also took the oath to the brotherhood. i was forced to implicit obedience--i was ordered to casterwell as your servant, in order to spy upon you. i confess that, in one sense, i went willingly--for i am carlo's wife; and, as dr. drabble had arranged that he was to marry you for the sake of the money, i was jealous. i consented to keep quiet, only because i wanted the fifty thousand pounds. i had made up my mind that carlo and i should use it, and once and for ever free ourselves from the brotherhood. you have taken that hope from us; but i don't blame you even now. the money was yours, and we swindled you. carlo and i are going away, and you will never see us or hear from us again. he is a poor, weak creature in your eyes; but in mine he is the man i love, and i hope to be happy with him in the future--if only we can escape the relentless hand of the brotherhood. if i knew who killed carson, i would tell you; but i do not. i suspect drabble, since he brought the bangle to carlo; but this is mere suspicion. did you know the miserable life i have had, you would pity me. i am sorry if i was rude last night. i do not wish to be rude; but i am surrounded on all sides by terror and death, and care not sometimes what i say or do. you have been very good to me; and i thank you. marry mr. mallow--i know he loves you--and forget carlo and the miserable woman, clara boldini. "p.s.--when carlo and i are safe and settled we intend to send for my uncle to live with us. we will rescue him from the brotherhood. carlo is not a bad man--indeed, he is not. weakness is his only fault. with me he begs your pardon for his wickedness; but remember his character, his oath, his helplessness, and forgive him.--c.b." it was a sad letter, written by a woman who, surrounded by better people and under good influence, might have remained true to the better part of her nature. by the tides of life she had been swept to the lee shore of disaster. olive felt that in no small degree fate had been against her, and in her generosity she was unwilling to be the one to cast a stone at the unfortunate woman. on the contrary, her impulse prompted her to help clara with money and advice--to rescue her and her weak husband from their danger, and to help them to their first step on the way to a new life. with such philanthropic intentions she started off to the hotel du sud. an hour later aldean returned, followed by a man with a hand-barrow. it was laden with a curious-looking chest of yellowish wood, bound with brass. dismissing his porter, aldean had the box taken upstairs and placed in a corner of the salon. he was disappointed that olive should be absent when he returned with this trophy of his victory over semberry, but, to pass the time, he set to work to examine the chest's contents. a thin brass key unlocked it, and aldean was soon so deeply interested in his search that he almost forgot the absence of his fellow-worker. by the time he had reached the bottom of the trunk, the floor of the room was strewn with wearing apparel of all kinds. the chest was literally packed with garments of every colour and pattern imaginable. shooting-suits of rough home-spun; tropical garbs of white boots, riding-breeches, high brown boots, shirts, scarves, collars, under-wear--all more or less impregnated with the scent of the wood. but amongst all these now useless articles not a scrap of writing. aldean was disappointed. he had fancied that a stray letter or a journal, or even a card, might have been forthcoming to throw some light on the owner's past. yet he might have guessed that all evidence likely to inculpate semberry, or drabble, or mrs. arne would have been removed by one of them before the chest left london. two out of the three, at least, were old hands at obliterating tracks. with an observant eye and a careful ear aldean overhauled the box outside and in. he rapped at the sides, pushing here and tugging there; but, so far as he could see, there was no hollow space either at the sides or below. the chest was plainly made of five thick slabs, which sounded dead and dull when he tapped them. then aldean turned his attention to the lid, which was clasped with two broad brass bands dividing it into three equal spaces. these were carved in the laborious chinese way with impossible flowers and stiffly flying birds. "rum thing," muttered jim, shaking the lid. "looks like an overgrown glove-box." round the lid ran a deep rim, fitting down on to the lower portion of the box when locked; and, on examination of the inner side of this, aldean found a row of brass nails--ostensibly mere ornaments. with infinite patience he pressed every one of the decorations hard. he found that one behind the hasp yielded with difficulty to pressure. two other nails, one near each end of the lid, proved equally loose. jim pressed and pressed all three, until suddenly with a click the whole inner skin of the lid fell down, and between this and the top there proved to be a narrow space extending to all four sides. with the lid fell a long blue envelope, sealed with a coat-of-arms in red wax. "clever dodge," said jim, picking up the envelope and admiring the workmanship which so skilfully concealed the space in the lid. "but a chap could hide only thin things in it; there's no room for anything else." he looked at the envelope. "the rev. manners brock, casterwell," he read. "jupiter! that's queer. wonder what's inside? feels like dozens of pages. 'spose this is a letter from carson, senior, to his old friend. wonder why carson, junior, hid it so carefully?" while he was turning it over, his fingers itching to break the seal, and see if the contents could in any way explain the mystery of carson's death, olive came hurriedly into the room. without stopping to comment on the disordered floor, or the extraordinary figure of lord aldean grovelling before the chest with the blue envelope in his hand, she burst out into excited speech the moment she saw him. "lord aldean, they have gone away--clara and boldini. they left the hotel last night about nine o'clock!" "i'm not astonished," replied jim, getting on to his legs. "where have they gone to?" "the people at the hotel couldn't tell me," said olive, exasperated somewhat at his calm reception of the news. "they paid their bill, packed their things, and went off in a cab to the central station. a porter wanted to go with them and look after their luggage, but clara would not allow him. they have gone!' "best thing they could do, miss bellairs. dare say they are afraid of the anarchists tracking them here. wonder where they have cleared to?" "i went to the station to try and find out," said olive, disconsolately; "but, although i saw the stationmaster and described the appearance, he could give no information. i believe they disguised themselves." "well, it doesn't matter much," said aldean, soothingly; "we have the money and their confession. let 'em go, if they want to." "how did they get away without money? they said they had none." "another lie, i suppose," said aldean, sagaciously; "must have had some coin somewhere. don't you bother, miss bellairs; we're done with them--yes! and with semberry too. look here," and aldean produced a packet of papers from his inside pocket. "here's the major's confession." "did he confess?" gasped olive, taking the papers. "rather. what's more, he wrote out his confession, and i stood over him until he did. there it is, signed by him, witnessed by me, and giving a full account of the conspiracy from first to last." "wonderful! however did you manage it?" "i threatened him with the war office," replied aldean, complacently; "told him that boldini had owned up; and let him see that i knew quite enough to have him cashiered, if nothing else." "then he didn't show fight, as you expected?" "oh yes, he did. he blustered about his name and position. but i told him i'd take 'em both from him if he didn't own up. in the end he did. you have the gist of it in your hand. he'd have wrung my neck if i hadn't told him i'd wring his if he tried that game. first-class fighting man the major." "and what is all this?" asked olive, with a glance at the sartorial chaos. "oh, this is carson's chest, which semberry was bringing over to boldini. i made him give it to me; and for the last half hour i have been hunting for papers and things to see if i could find out anything of importance." "and you have found nothing?" "yes; a secret hiding-place. look at it, miss bellairs. clever thing, isn't it? found it by chance. only a letter in it addressed to mr. brock." olive took the letter and read the inscription. "it's from dr. carson, i suppose," she said, turning it over. "i wonder what's in it?" "don't know! can't be anything about the murder if carson, senior, wrote it. if we are to believe boldini and semberry, the whole scheme was invented by drabble and this madame death-in-life." "and which of them killed poor carson?" "ah!" jim shook his head gravely. "that is just the one thing semberry could not tell me. he doesn't know." chapter iv. "another portion of the conspiracy." olive and aldean could not but confess themselves well satisfied with the results of their journey. their achievement had been very tangible. not only had they extracted from these prime movers of the conspiracy a full and clearly-set-forth confession, but they were in a position comfortably to contemplate repossession of the money itself. in the space of two days they had done this, and, as they now sat at luncheon, they could not refrain from mutual congratulation. the only thing about which there was any doubt in their minds was the wisdom of accepting from boldini the cheque for thirty thousand pounds. in truth, aldean, now that the pair had flitted, blamed himself heartily for having done so. he was a trifle young and inexperienced--more particularly in the shady financial tactics, to be expected from people such as he was dealing with--and, at the moment, it did not occur to him that the risk he ran in taking boldini's cheque was considerable, seeing that there was really nothing to prevent the man bolting right away. certainly he had confessed that he had no money; but aldean realized now that either this obstacle had not proved insurmountable or that it had not existed. long habit had made him so accustomed to look upon cheques as equivalent in value to the sum they represented, he decided to dismiss the uncomfortable sensation that was creeping over him, and to hope for the best. he said nothing more about it to olive. "and now, lord aldean," said that young lady, joyfully, "we can return home. you, no doubt, will be as glad as i to do that?" "you can measure my pleasure by your own, miss bellairs; we are both in the same galley, i think." olive blushed at this allusion to her feeling for mallow, and thereby, of course, only accentuated its truth. "when shall we start?" she asked. "to-night, by the . express," said jim, promptly, "unless you want to have another look round the city before you go." "i would rather get back to casterwell, lord aldean. let us get away to-night. there is nothing to detain us--except that cheque. what about that?" "oh, that's all right, miss bellairs. i sent a wire through the bank this morning to paris. they'll have a reply this afternoon. but are you sure you can bear the fatigue of another long journey so soon?" "oh yes; i'm quite recovered now." "in that case, i'll drop in at cook's and get the tickets. we'll return in glory, bringing our sheaves with us. mrs. purcell shall deliver an address in her best johnsonese, and tui shall oblige on the piano with 'see the conquering heroine comes." "oh no," protested olive; "you have done the work. tui shall hold to the original text. but, seriously," she added, stretching out her hand, which jim grasped warmly, "i give you my best and most sincere thanks, lord aldean, for the great kindness you have shown me. i shall never, never forget your good humour and attention, and all your hard work on my behalf." "oh, please, please don't, miss bellairs," protested jim, flushing. "only too jolly glad things have turned out so well. can't help being sorry i didn't kick boldini, though; i promised tui i would, you know." "i am very glad you didn't. so abject a creature doesn't merit even a kick from you. by the way, is major semberry returning to england?" "what, to fall into the clutches of his anarchistic friends? i think not. he knows better than to do that. india's his goal. that's where he's making for. even mrs. arne can't reach him there. but what's the use of bothering about any of them now? let 'em all go to jericho, or any human rubbish-heap they fancy, for that matter. will you come out with me, miss bellairs, and see about the telegram and tickets?" "no; i think i'll stay in and devote myself to major semberry's confession." "oh, you'll enjoy that, i'm sure. it's like the concluding chapters of a sensational novel. i'll leave you to read it, then, while i see about these things." after he had gone, olive settled herself in a comfortable chair--that is to say, as comfortable a chair as is to be had in that country--by the window, and plunged eagerly into semberry's confession. jim having promised that the statement should be kept strictly private, the major had not been at all half-hearted about it, but had set forth his iniquities _in extenso_. indeed, his vanity would seem to have led him to make the most of his misdoings. as a human document, the confession of major horace semberry was well worth perusal. it ran somewhat after this fashion:-- "i am one of those unfortunate devils who have extravagant tastes and no money with which to gratify them. i was brought up extravagantly by an extravagant father; went from an extravagant school into an extravagant regiment; and have had my tastes so fostered by luxury that it is absolute pain for me not to satisfy their cravings in every way. i am always in debt, and never out of difficulties, and i would willingly dispense with the necessaries of life if only i could procure its luxuries. by nature i am not a bad man. it is the want of money that has induced me to do many things i would not otherwise have done. it led me from borrowing to swindling; but i have stopped short at that. if i am accused of murder, i am wrongly accused. angus carson was not killed by me. by whom he was killed i know no more than the man in the moon. four or five years ago, while on leave in london, i met with dr. drabble. he is about as big a scoundrel as ever deserved the gallows. he is, moreover, an anarchist, and by means of his dupes in society--of whom there are many--he contrives to mix with very good people. to do him justice, he hates and despises them all, but 'for the good of the cause'--words which are never off his lips--he feigns an interest in those with money or position, solely that he may recruit his infernal army of destroyers. somebody once called drabble 'a wrecker of humanity,' and the title fits him well enough, though it by no means does justice to his devilish ingenuity and wickedness. why he should approach me with friendly advances i could not understand at the time, but when i came to know him i learned the truth. when he likes, drabble is a fascinating man, and by finding out the weak spot in people's characters he usually contrives to net them somehow or other. he soon found out my weak spot--want of money--and insisted on being my banker. like a fool, i borrowed at first a little, then more and more, until i was so deep in his debt that he had it in his power to force me to leave the army. he was not wealthy himself, and i was always puzzled to know how he came by his money. when i was completely in his power he told me. he was an anarchist, he said, and the money he lent me was taken from the funds of the brotherhood. to repay that money and something more, he suggested that i should help him in a scheme of his for obtaining a sum of fifty thousand pounds. this was the story he told me:--it appeared that at casterwell, where drabble was the parish doctor, there lived a young lady named miss bellairs, who, by a family arrangement, was to marry one angus carson by name. this man she had never seen. miss bellairs--as the doctor had discovered in some way--was possessed of fifty thousand pounds. on her marriage this money was to be paid over to carson (her husband). drabble's scheme was this: he knew that i came from india, and was returning there, hence the reason of his friendship. he proposed that i should make the acquaintance of dr. carson and his son angus, and, when the latter came to england to marry miss bellairs, that i should contrive to accompany him. i was to introduce carson to drabble, and let him persuade the young man to join the brotherhood, so that he (when married) should hand over the money for their benefit. 'become intimate with carson,' said drabble, 'make yourself indispensable to him, and when you bring him to england introduce him to me. i'll do the rest.' seeing that drabble could easily have introduced himself when the young man arrived at casterwell, i naturally asked why he wished to employ me as a go-between. to this he answered that it was his desire carson should join the anarchists before seeing miss bellairs; that is, before he went to casterwell at all, as, were he to fall in love with the girl, which, considering she was both pretty and attractive, was more than probable, he might point-blank refuse to join drabble in his scheme for the regeneration of mankind. to make a long story short, i agreed to take part in the conspiracy provided i received twenty thousand pounds out of the fifty, but i swear solemnly that neither at the first interview nor at any subsequent one with drabble, was there any mention of murder. i was to bring carson home; i was to introduce him to drabble, and when his enthusiasm had been roused sufficiently to induce him to hand over the fortune which he would acquire by marriage, i was to receive twenty thousand pounds. is there any roguery in such a scheme?--i think not. "shortly after making this arrangement i returned to india, and for some months i had to pay with hard work for my holiday. i was compelled so to attend to my duties that i had no chance of seeing the carsons. however, i made inquiries, and learned that the doctor was a recluse somewhere up in the hills, and that he kept his son constantly under his own eye--to educate him for miss bellairs, i presume. after several disappointments, extending over twelve months, i obtained leave of absence, and started out on a shooting expedition in the neighbourhood of this modern hermit. as i made it my business to become acquainted with him, it was not long before i attained my object; how, there is no need for me to explain. i became very friendly with dr. carson, also with his son, and in time the friendship ripened to intimacy. i got on better with the doctor than with angus. the latter was a solemn prig, i thought, with the most puritanical ideas. still i adapted myself to his humour, and i think he liked me fairly well; but it was no easy task to break down his stiff reserve. for two or three years i visited regularly the elder carson, until i became so old and so good a friend in his eyes that one day he told me--what i already knew, of course--about miss bellairs and her fortune. i suggested that, as angus was still young, the possession of so large a sum of money might lead him into dissipation, and i further suggested the advisability of some one accompanying him to england, so that there might be at least some check upon him there. dr. carson approved of my idea, and when he died, about a year afterwards, he made angus promise that i should accompany him to europe. at once i wrote to drabble and assured him of my success, after which i left india for london with my charge. so far all had gone well. lord aldean informs me that mrs. purcell wrote to her sister a full description of carson, of his looks and dress and priggish conversation, and of the sacred bangle he wore on his right wrist. i hated that bangle. it seemed to me effeminate and foolish. but it would not come off, owing to carson's swollen and diseased hand, and he refused to have it removed. i had written to drabble about this hand being diseased, and, when the _pharaoh_ arrived at brindisi, i found a letter from him containing the programme of the plot. that letter i kept, and now attach to this confession, at lord aldean's request. drabble, from my description of the state of carson's hand, declared that an operation would be necessary, and suggested that i should state to the young man that he (drabble) was a skilful surgeon, who would perform it. if carson consented, i was to take him to a house in athelstane place, and there introduce him to drabble as the surgeon. drabble, on the excuse of the hand, engaged to keep carson there for some weeks, and hoped, by his own persuasions and those of mrs. arne (another anarchist), to inspire carson with a desire to benefit humanity. he and mrs. arne hoped to talk carson into a state of red-hot enthusiasm, so that he might take the oath to the brotherhood. once he did so, and bound himself to this band of wild fanatics, he would have to part either with his money or his life. drabble and i and mrs. arne were in great need of this money, but there was no suggestion that the goose with the golden eggs should be killed. i followed closely the directions in drabble's letter. i talked to carson about the necessity of getting his hand cured, and said that i knew a skilful surgeon called mr. francis hain (the name supplied to me by drabble), who could cure it. carson, whose hand gave him pain, readily agreed to try the effect of an operation, and it was arranged between us that i should take him to mr. hain's house on our arrival. from plymouth i wrote to drabble advising him of this, and when the _pharaoh_ docked, i first took carson and his luggage to the rooms in marquis street, which i had already engaged, and afterwards to athelstane place. the luggage, including the sandal-wood chest, was left at my rooms, and with only a small portmanteau carson arrived--at night--at the so-called hain's house. mrs. arne was the housekeeper, drabble the surgeon under the name of hain, and all was highly respectable. carson had no suspicions; and when drabble said that he would have to remain in athelstane place for at least three weeks, while his cure was being effected, he readily agreed to do so. he gave me a letter to post to miss bellairs, telling her how through this operation he was detained; but, of course; i destroyed this. i left carson in athelstane place, and i returned to my rooms in marquis street. that was the last time that i saw the poor fellow alive. "a day or so afterwards i was hurriedly summoned to the house in soho by drabble and mrs. arne. with much agitation they declared that carson was dead--had been murdered. i asked with horror if they were guilty. both denied it in the strongest manner. carson, they said, had been left alone on the previous night, as they were both obliged to attend to some anarchistic business. when they returned they found him dead. on examination, drabble discovered that death had been caused by a knitting-needle thrust into the man's heart. it had evidently been taken from some wool-work of mrs. arne's, which had been left in the drawing-room, where the body had been found. mrs. arne searched the house, but could find no one; the doors were all closed, the windows also. however, in carson's bedroom she discovered his portmanteau open and the contents tossed about, as though the murderer had been searching for something. both declared again that they did not know who had killed carson, and in the end--seeing that they had no reason for murdering the man--i believed them. "i thought the whole conspiracy was at an end. not so mrs. arne or drabble. the doctor produced the bangle, which he had obtained by cutting off carson's hand at the wrist, and declared that mrs. arne's nephew, carlo boldini, who greatly resembled carson, could impersonate the dead man, and wear the bangle. at first i refused; then, as i was in desperate straits for money, i agreed. carlo was called in, and told that he was to represent a man called angus carson, wear the bangle, and marry olive bellairs. that done he was to hand over the money to drabble and myself. being already married to clara trall, he declined at first to act the part; but his aunt forced him to do so in the end. it was not till long after this that carlo knew of the murder of carson at all. "we dressed him in carson's clothes, taken from the sandal-wood chest, but afterwards, on reading the leader in the _morning planet_, we changed these clothes for new ones, lest the scent should arouse suspicion. the bracelet was placed upon his wrist, and i instructed him in carson's history, manner of speech, and action. it took me some time to train him in; but at last he was turned out with so close a resemblance in appearance and personality to carson, that he might well have been taken for the dead man's double. "i then accompanied him to caster----" just as olive reached this part of the confession, lord aldean, very red in the face, entered the room hurriedly. "here's a pretty kettle o' fish!" he cried, "carson's cheque's no good. i'm very much afraid we've lost that thirty thousand." "lost it!" cried olive, starting up. "is the money not then in paris?" "no; not to boldini's credit, at all events. bank have received a reply to their wire, saying that the money was withdrawn a fortnight ago, and the account closed. not a cent has the beggar got at the crédit lyonnais. the cheque is mere waste-paper. they either have the money, with them, or have transferred it to the place they are bound for. what a--what a fool i was! i might have known there was something dicky up the brute's sleeve when he gave in so meekly. they didn't mind dropping semberry's share, but they were determined to stick to their own. what an ass the devil must have thought me! i fear we shall have a bit of a job to trace them now." here the presence of olive must be held responsible for the string of peculiar sounds proceeding from aldean. they were comparable to nothing, and cannot be expressed in type. "never mind," said olive, soothingly. "at any rate, we return with twenty thousand and the confessions. half a loaf is better than none. we have lost much, but, on the other hand, we have gained more than i----" a knock at the door interrupted her, and a waiter entered with a telegram for lord aldean. it proved to be from tui. "come back at once. mallow in danger," read aldean, blankly. olive turned grey, and literally dropped into her seat. "the anarchists!" she cried with a gasp. "oh, lord aldean, we must go back at once." "but the thirty thousand pounds, miss bellairs?" "what do thirty, forty, a hundred thousand pounds matter if laurence is in danger?" cried olive, excitedly. "we must not lose an hour. god grant we may not be too late." "amen to that," said aldean, gloomily. by ten o'clock that night they were on their way to london. _the fifth scene: in london_. chapter i. "the missing man." clothed, and in his right mind, hiram vraik sat in the bare room, which he and his brother-tenant grandiloquently termed "the office." he was absolutely at a loss to account for his employer's disappearance. for several days he had called regularly at half-moon street, only to be told as regularly that mr. mallow was still absent. the porter of the chambers was not alarmed by mr. mallow's continued failure to put in an appearance, as that young gentleman was most irregular in his comings and goings. but vraik's reasoning differed from the porter's, perhaps because he knew more than the porter. mallow was involved with a dangerous gang of anarchists; and it was always possible, indeed probable, that some incautious speech or misguided confidence might get him into trouble. the more vraik reflected on this possibility the stronger became his belief that mr. mallow was now in difficulties--up to his neck in them. "he'd hev tole that young lord chap if he'd bin goin' to stop away," said vraik, stroking his newly-shaven chin; "but the lor' chap he tole me to git mr. mallow's orders nex' day, so he don' know nothin', an' he's gone arter the major cove, as i foun' out by follerin' him to the stashun. but mr. maller! here's a rum go." later on vraik put things in this way before his partner, a heavy-jowled, coarse-faced, military ramrod, who answered publicly to the name of serjeant jorran, privately to the endearing appellation on the part of vraik of "m'pal." "it's a rum go this, m'pal," said the little man, gravely; "an' i'm blest if i knows what's come t'him." "he may have gone abroad with lord aldean," suggested the sergeant. "he ain't. i sawr the lor' chap orf at victorier, an' he went with a gal. no, m'pal, i'll lay any odds as them revolutionary busters hev laid mr. maller by the heels." "why don't you find him, then?" said jorran, tartly; "the job's in your hands, and it's a paying one. if mr. maller doesn't turn up we'll lose the money." "i knows that, m'pal--none better; an' i'm looking for him proper. mr. maller's bein' makin' free of that crib in popl'r street, an' i dessay he's got onto trouble there." "can't you find out his whereabouts from some of these anarchists?" "i'm goin' this very minit to pump one of 'em," said vraik, looking at his watch; "a swipy ole cove called trall. mr. maller, he interdooced me to him, an' tole me t'look arter him. th' cove's loose in the shingle, so i may get somethin' out of him." "has this man trall anything to do with the poplar street den?" "he's shoe-black and bottle-washer there, i thinks," replied vraik, jumping up. "i'd like to fin' all about that crib, i would, an' put a stop to their blowin's up. there'd be noospaper pars and lots of coin in a job like that." "it isn't a bad idea," said jorran, reflectively; "keep your weather-eye open, vraik, and let me know when i can sail in to help." vraik winked and whistled through his teeth, after which pantomime he swaggered into the street, conscious of an exceptionally smart appearance. but he never promenaded the main thoroughfares. publicity was contrary to his principles of business. like the rat he was, he slunk through alleys and by-streets, down passages, and into disreputable quarters, until he found himself in poplar street. here he strolled casually past no. , and took a stealthy survey of its battered front. then he dived into the squalid depths of soho, to cut the trail between himself and poplar street, and came to the surface in the greasy little parlour of a public-house in bloomsbury. here jeremiah trall, dissipated, but still gentlemanly of aspect, was seated at an oilcloth-covered table with a glass of whisky before him. he had arrived at his "cross-drop," and was in no very good humour when his visitor sneaked into the dingy room. "i have finished three glasses while waiting for you," said he, in a complaining voice, "so you will have to pay. i have no money." "y'never have anything except a thirst," replied vraik, sitting carefully down on a horsehair sofa. "lanlor', 'nother scotch cole, for this gentleman, and gin for me--smart as y'know how." provided with such refreshment, the two men came to business; that is, vraik did, for trall's energies were in the main devoted to a dreamy contemplation of the liquor before him. "i'm glad you've turned up, mr. trall," said vraik, raising his glass; "here's m'respec's t'you. now you an' me's got to tork. d'want t'make money?" "i should not mind," replied trall, on whom the fourth glass was now exerting its soothing influence. "how can i earn it?" vraik came to the point at once. "by tellin' me 'bout mr. maller," said he, bluntly. the question had a paralyzing effect on trall. he dropped his glass and his jaw at the same time, turned a dingy yellow colour, and cast a terrified glance round the four corners of the room. "i--i--i do not know anything about mr. mallow," he gasped. vraik's eyes glittered, and he lifted a lean admonitory forefinger. "mr. maller he interdooced us pals, an' he tol' you i was helpin' him with this case as you knows of; so i arsks you agin, ole cove. where's mr. maller?" "i--i don't know!" vraik still shook the warning finger. "lyin' agin, an' at yr'age, i'm ashamed of y'. i noo y' was an anarchist, but not---- "hush!" entreated trall, with another glance round. "some one may hear!" "not they, ole cove! there ain't none of 'em about here." "you don't know--you never know," moaned trall, shaking and white. "they hide everywhere--they see everything. they listen and punish." "lor'! t' 'ear y' tork one 'ud think this was africay." "it is worse much worse. there men fight openly; here the brotherhood stabs in the dark. hush! oh, hush!" "have they stabbed mr. maller in th' dark?" "no; he is safe, quite safe!" "oh!" said vraik, briskly; "y' know that much, do you? now where is he?" "i don't know? don't ask me." "oh, won't i? but i will." vraik bent across the table and spoke rapidly in trall's ear. "mr. maller is in that poplar street crib." "no, no, he is not!" trall shrank back. "ole cove, why d'y' lie? he is there. y' knows it. if y' don't tell me 'bout him, blest if i don't have the perlice into that den." "you--you would not dare----" "i mightn't, but the peelers would. lor'"--vraik wriggled himself--"jes' to think of the coppers raidin' that crib, an' you bein' blown kite-high for splitting on yer pals. wot a sun'y school picter!" "i have told you nothing," moaned trall, thoroughly terrified. "don't i know that?" snapped vraik. "ole cove, i knows enough 'bout you an' them t'make y' tell m'all. if y' don't, i'll go strite to the perlice an' 'ave a raid on yer den. then i'll say 't was you rounded on the lot." trall moaned again and wrung his hands. drink and terrorism had destroyed the man's brain and nerve. the mere suggestion that vraik would tell the police about the soho house was enough for him. if a raid were made there, and he were denounced as an informer his life would be at the mercy of those who were truly merciless. "ave some more comfort," said vraik, who was watching the beads of perspiration roll off his victim's forehead, "then y' can tell me 'bout maller." more whisky was brought. trall dispensed with all water now. he saw that he was in a cleft stick, and since vraik knew so much, the only way to save himself was to tell him more. moreover, trall hated drabble, and--if he could do so with safety to himself--would with pleasure ruin him. he stretched a trembling hand across the table. "swear you will keep my name out of the business," he said, looking round again. "i swear," said vraik, promptly. "bless y', i don't want t'arm y'. i on'y wish t'save mr. maller, cos i won't git m' money paid if i don't. now where is he? tell me strite." "in that house--in soho." "is he a prisoner, ole cove?" "yes; he said too much, so drabble and mrs. arne had him locked up." "drabble and mrs. arne!" repeated vraik. "who's they?" trall shut up promptly. "oh, you don't know so much if you don't know who they are." "ho! that's it, is it?" squeaked the rascal, with a puckered forehead; "now i jes' tell y', ole cove. i knows enough to mess up you and them bomb-pitchin' cusses, so you speak strite. who's mrs. arne an' t'other chap?" "anarchists," faltered trall. "but it's not necessary to talk about them," he went on rapidly, "but about mr. mallow. he is a prisoner in the soho house." "'ow can i git im out?" "you can't get him out except at the risk of your life," said trall, coldly. vraik twisted his lean body and winced. "i've on'y one life, not bein' a cat," said he; "and i ain't goin' to chuck that away for mr. maller's. but i'm agoin' to 'ave 'im out if i rip that blessed shanty of yours from top to bottom." "there is only one man who can help you, and that is monsieur rouge." "who's he? another of 'em? wot's he like?" "tall and lean, pale, light----" "dressed in rummy blue bags? a furrin' cove! ho, i've seed him goin' t'yer rabbit 'ole. and 'ow can 'e 'elp me?" trall rose heavily. "ask him, if you dare to. i'll tell him you want to see him." "right y'are! he won't bring bustin' things with him?" "no." trall reflected. "where's lord aldean?" he asked. "mr. mallow talked of lord aldean." "he's gone to the continong. he'll be back soon." "then take rouge to lord aldean. i don't think he'll deal with you." "my h'eye, won't he?" spluttered the little man; "e've horty pride, ain't it! oh, no! well, jes' you fetch this cove along 'ere to-morrow at this time. i knows where lord aldean lives, an' i'll take 'im there." "i'll tell rouge. he shall meet you here to-morrow." "no larks, min'!" said vraik, sharply. "if 'e ain't 'ere, the perlice 'ull be at soho, y'bet." "rouge shall come. but keep my name quiet." "i'm dumb. y'treat me strite, an' i'm yer pal. if y'don't--well, y'know my game." on this understanding the conference came to an end, and trall rolled off half terrified, half assured. if the anarchists could be captured, if his tormentor, drabble, could be imprisoned, he would be free. "i can join clara and carlo then," thought the poor sot, "and be happy for the rest of my life. ah! michael had the head of the tralls. if only i had been like michael." he heaved a sigh, and, finding sorrow thirsty work, lurched into the nearest bar for another drink. in the meantime vraik took a dive into the depths, and wriggling westward in his own slimy way, rose once more to the surface in the respectable neighbourhood of campden hill. he knew that lord aldean visited at the house there, and he had made up his mind that he would see the occupants and get them to communicate to lord aldean mallow's peril. confident in his new clothes, he stepped jauntily up to the door, and rang the bell. it was answered by the footman, who remembered his face from his previous visit. by means of a very free use of lord aldean's name, in addition to some capital lying, vraik succeeded in introducing himself into the presence of mrs. purcell and tui. to them he told his story--that is to say, as much of it as he deemed necessary to fetch back lord aldean to london. "mr. mallow in the power of those wretches!" cried tui, tearfully. "oh, what will olive say? what is to be done?" "the officers of the law----" began mrs. purcell, when vraik cut short her stately periods. "'scuse me, lady," he said, "but if the peelers come in there'll be a mess, there will; and mr. maller 'ull git the worst of it. y'jes wire the lor' chap to come back, an' i'll striten out the rest." "yes, yes," cried tui, "let us wire to lord aldean at once." "the matter shall receive my immediate attention," said mrs. purcell. "and if this individual----" "i'm orf, lady; but i'll come back an' see when the lor' chap 'ull be here. it's dry work, this, tho', ain't it?" after which speech vraik retired with five shillings clinking in the pockets of his new clothes. ten minutes later, mrs. purcell sent off a telegram of recall to lord aldean in florence. chapter ii. "monsieur rouge is confidential." at breakfast, under his own roof-tree, aldean reviewed the events and incidents of the last six days. without doubt, they had been fast and furious. but, even qualified as it was by the news of boldini's trickery, his work had been largely successful--the more so, considering that four days out of the six had been spent in travelling. the telegram bringing such serious news of poor mallow had made it absolutely impossible to take any steps towards following the boldini pair. first and foremost, mallow's position--whatever it might prove to be--demanded his entire energies. on arrival the previous evening, he had listened earnestly and anxiously to mrs. purcell's majestic account of vraik's visit. but all that her ponderous periods succeeded in conveying to aldean was the mere fact that mallow was a prisoner. he felt he must know more at once, and he there and then despatched a wire to vraik, which brought the little man to campden hill in an incredibly short space of time. from him aldean learned all details, among them that rouge had refused to move in the matter until brought into personal communication with himself. he arranged with vraik to see rouge the next morning between ten and eleven. he felt he could do no more that night save comfort olive with the assurance that mallow should be rescued at all costs. moreover, for once in his life, aldean felt physically exhausted. he hoped much from the mysterious monsieur rouge, though at first thought it was difficult to see how so red a sans-culotte was going to help him. as a devoted anarchist, it was the duty, and no doubt the wish, of rouge to keep mallow in prison, and prevent all attempt at rescue rather than assist towards it. yet trall, who was plainly against the brotherhood, had hinted that monsieur rouge could, and would, play the part of a beneficent _deus ex machinâ_. the more he thought of it, the more puzzled aldean became at this dodge of vraik's. he finished two pipes trying to solve the problem, and concluded by hoping, as usual, for the best. "monsieur rouge," announced lord aldean's valet, just as he was filling a third pipe. "all right; show him in." and jim, standing with his back to the fire, was face to face with his enigmatic visitor from the depths. monsieur rouge, thin, sad-faced, and more colourless than ever, glided into the room like an unquiet spectre. he saluted his host with grave dignity. aldean nodded, and when the door was closed pointed to a chair. "i am glad to see you," he said in french. "sit down, please. would you like to eat, or drink, or smoke?" "if monsieur permits, no; i come to talk." "about mr. mallow?" "but certainly, monsieur, about myself also. i discharge myself of a mission in thus presenting myself." lord aldean, who had not once taken his eyes off the white, haggard face, nodded again, and sat down. with easy grace his visitor slipped into a chair, and placed his peaked cap on the floor beside him. then he looked fixedly at the young englishman, and waited to be questioned. evidently m. rouge was a discreet personage, and not inclined to venture in further than he could withdraw. nothing of the rash revolutionist about him. "did vraik bring you here?" asked aldean, settling himself. "assuredly, yes. he gave himself the trouble to lead me to the door. but," monsieur rouge waved his hand, "he is gone. i dismissed him. it is not for him to hear what i would say." "what do you wish to say?" "monsieur, i would make you a confession; i would deliver myself of a story. but that later. let us concern ourselves with mr. mallow." "by all means. is mr. mallow safe?" "safe and well. but what would you?" rouge spread out his hands and shrugged. "he is in the power of madame. she knows not mercy." "does she intend violence?" asked aldean, hurriedly. "but what can i say? as the votes go, so will mr. mallow be dealt with by the brotherhood. attention, monsieur. your friend is brave, but rash--oh, most terribly rash! he comes to soho, and he tells monsieur the doctor and madame that he knows of their wickedness about this money, about this murder. eh! they are afraid that he may tell too much, these brave ones, and they call out 'spy! spy!' mr. mallow fights well, but he is conquered. behold, monsieur, your friend most dear is a prisoner in a little room on the top of the house in soho." "have they ill-treated him?" "but no; it is not necessary. monsieur, your friend eats and drinks like one of the aristocrats. to-morrow night there is a great meeting of us in the cellar--oh, a very great meeting! mr. mallow will be taken down to be judged. all will be told; and if they say 'kill!' monsieur will disappear." "you don't mean they will murder him!" cried aldean, aghast. "first, they will murder him," replied rouge, significantly; "afterwards his body will disappear. we have chemists who do these things. mr. mallow will be no more." "but the police?" "eh! what is it that can be done by them? no body, no murder, no trial. madame and monsieur the doctor they know well what to do. there is no one else who has seen mr. mallow enter--no one. trall can speak, i can speak; but," with a shrug, "will he speak?" "i hope so," said jim, anxiously. "you came here to speak." "behold, monsieur, i do so; and why? figure to yourself the reason." rouge rose slowly from his chair. "i--i am no anarchist." "you--are--no--anarchist?" repeated aldean, stupefied. "no, i am become one to destroy them. it is my vengeance." "vengeance, monsieur rouge?" "that is not my name. i am emile durand, citizen of paris, who devotes himself to destroying those who would destroy the world. ha! ha! superb, magnificent. monsieur," with a sudden solemnity of tone, "i avenge my wife and my child." "why, did the anarchists kill----" "yes." rouge covered his face, and dropped back into the chair, sobbing. "ah, yes, alas! my dear sophie, my little child! the good god was silent, and they died--died, and i--i still live." lord aldean looked with pity on the frame of the man, shaken with the violence of his grief. he succumbed to a veritable nerve-storm which swept over him. he wept, he cried aloud, he rolled in his chair, until, beaten and prostrate, he fell back limply. "my poor fellow, i am sorry for you. some wine----" "no, no; monsieur need not give himself the trouble. no wine." after a time a faint colour came back to him. with an effort his muscles reasserted themselves, and he pulled himself together. but he kept his eyes fixedly on the floor, and spoke rapidly, though almost inaudibly. "monsieur, five years ago i was a chemist in paris--rue flaubert--and, my faith, what a charming shop! sophie, my dear wife, was there, and the little one, an adorable little one of four years. ah, how i loved them--how happy we were! monsieur, that she-devil of a madame commanded that paris should be terrorized by bombs. she wished for a revolution. close by my little shop a bomb was thrown one night. it burst. oh, most terrible name of names! shall i ever forget the bursting of that hell-bomb? it killed my sophie and my dear little therese." his voice broke with a dry sob. "they were buried in the ruins of our happy home. i lived; conceive to yourself, monsieur, i lived. yes," his voice rose, "to destroy those who destroyed them." rouge flung up his arms with a theatrical gesture of despair, and paced hurriedly to and fro. aldean did not speak. he did not know what to say in the face of such grief. "yes, monsieur, i lived to plot vengeance. i was ill long, long. when i was again myself; i was not myself--not emile durand, but monsieur rouge, the anarchist, as you see me now. i joined the brotherhood, i took the oath. i used my knowledge of chemistry to invent explosives. i wormed myself into their confidence, their counsels, their secrets. now i am the friend of that she-devil. figure to yourself, monsieur, the dear friend of madame. i make the bombs; i place them. i work, work, work--not for them, but for myself. they shall all die to-morrow." "good lord!" cried aldean, in horror. "do you intend, then, to blow them up?" with an insane light in his eyes rouge turned on him. "monsieur seeks to know what i care not to tell. holy blue! i know when to be silent. to you i speak of monsieur mallow; to him i have related the story of emile durand, and he knows that emile durand will rescue him. but rouge--ha ha!"--he broke into a peal of laughter not good to hear, "he will not rescue madame, or monsieur the doctor. no, no, not death in life for the innocent, but death in life for her. ah! ha! it will be a pretty sight." frankly speaking, after the first natural feeling of horror, jim did not care two straws if the anarchists were blown to atoms or not. on the whole, he considered that some such wholesale destruction might be beneficial. it would assuredly rid the world of a lot of these pestilential wretches, and frighten the others. moreover, there was something ironically just in their being hoist on their own petard. "but about monsieur mallow?" he observed. "i shall save him," replied rouge. "he is in a little room on the top, with a skylight window on the slope of the roof. in the next house i have a room, with a little window, too, through which i can climb. behold, monsieur, i take a rope, well strong, and to its end i fasten a stone. i climb on the roof opposite to my window, and throw the stone at the skylight on the slanting roof. crash! it falls in, and monsieur mallow will knot it to his bed. then he will climb up, like the little cat, along the slanting roof and round its corner, until he slips into my window. then i will lead him down the stairs to the door, to the street. there you will be, monsieur, and receive this unfortunate." the plan of escape appealed to aldean as simple and skilful and safe enough. forgetting their relative positions, he sprang to his feet, and shook rouge heartily by both hands. "thank you! thank you!" he cried. "neither mr. mallow nor myself will ever forget your kindness." "bah!" rouge shrugged his shoulders. "it is nothing. what would you have? monsieur mallow has been good to me. he has given me money and kind words. no, monsieur, i am no ingrate to permit one so beneficent to perish. death is for the evil, not for the good." "suppose his escape is discovered?" "only when it is too late for them," said rouge, with a cruel smile. "they will not care for monsieur mallow's escape. no, my faith!" "but what of yourself?" "that shall be as the good god designs. ask me no more, monsieur, but be you in that street at eight o'clock to-morrow night. i will bring your friend to your arms. i swear it! i, emile durand, by the head of my sophie, by my little therese but when you have your friend, go far--there will be danger." "if we can ever repay you----" "repay me?" rouge seized aldean by the hand, and looked into his face with earnest eyes. "monsieur, have masses said for the repose of the dear ones. it is all i ask, if the good lord give me death in my vengeance, buy a mass for the poor emile durand." he sighed, dropped aldean's hand, but still looked at him. "i promise," said jim, earnestly. "masses shall be said for sophie and the little one; but i hope you will escape." "it is as the good god wills," sighed rouge, and walked to the door. as he put on his peaked cap he looked back. "not a word of this to a soul," said he, hoarsely, "or your friend is lost." "i understand." "good. at eight o'clock to-morrow night in the street of poplaire. there you shall see your friend, and my vengeance." when the man glided out, jim turned to the mantelpiece, and rested his forehead on his clasped hands. "thank god!" he muttered. "mallow will be saved. i must tell olive." chapter iii. "a terrible adventure." in the old-fashioned drama of mediæval complexion, the prisoner--usually the hero of the play--was "haled to the deepest dungeon beneath the castle moat." the anarchists of soho having no castle and no moat, and having moreover other uses for their cellar, so far improved upon this bygone fashion as to sky their prisoners--when they had any. in the present instance mallow was perched in an attic on the top of the house. the window was overhead, set in the slant of the roof, and the door was kept double-locked. a safer or more isolated cell could not well have been devised. it was impossible to reach the skylight even by standing on the bed; and it would have been a difficult task to break down that four-inch door. had the prisoner even succeeded in boring through the walls, he could scarcely hope to escape by dropping fifty feet on to the pavement; and let him shout and kick as he would, no one--other than his gaoler--was likely to hear him. he was absolutely powerless; and his sole comfort lay in the thought that aldean was carrying on the campaign. when jim returned he would find that mallow was missing, and would undoubtedly guess that he was in the power of the anarchists. if these latter did not kill him in the meantime--as they might, in self-preservation--aldean would surely apply to the police and have the soho house searched. then freedom, and nemesis upon his enemies. this was one hope, but there was yet another. monsieur rouge, who had brought mallow's food to him several times, had on one occasion thrown off his revolutionary mask so far as to promise to aid the prisoner's escape. and, although mallow did not well see how he was to do this--seeing that rouge had not divulged his scheme,--there was comfort in the thought that, if aldean should fail, he might succeed. so he resigned himself to the inevitable, and waited. since his imprisonment drabble had not appeared, nor indeed had mrs. arne; but on the sixth day, when mallow was wondering what they were thinking of doing with him, the lady herself came into his attic. she re-locked the door, sat down on the one chair--which she placed so that she faced mallow sitting on the bed--and, with the most amiable composure, signified that she wished to converse. the mere sight of her infuriated mallow, but the memory of his previous folly taught him to control himself. he was as self-possessed as madame herself. "you are no doubt surprised to see me, mr. mallow," began mrs. arne, in her unemotional tones; "but you will be less so when you hear what i have to say." "nothing you could do would surprise me, madame, after your daring to shut me up in this illegal manner." "oh"--madame shrugged--"everything we do in this house is illegal. the brotherhood is outside the so-called law, and against it. if there is any one to blame, it is yourself. as a spy, you can hardly expect mercy." "i am not a spy." "then your interpretation of the word differs from mine. you came here under the pretence of joining us, from conscientious motives; but your real errand is to criminate myself and the doctor in the murder of this man carson. your intentions were dangerous to our personal safety; ergo, we lock you up! can you blame us?" "if the tiger has the tiger's nature who can blame him?" retorted mallow. "you killed carson; i dare say you will not hesitate to murder me." "as to yourself," said madame, smoothly, "we will speak of that later. but you are wrong about mr. carson; i did not kill him, neither did drabble." "i find it difficult to believe that. you and drabble--he under the name of hain--rented the house in which the man met his death. he was stabbed with a knitting-needle. i have observed that you knit a great deal, madame." "true; but i confine my needles to their proper use. the doctor and i left mr. carson alone in the house; when we returned he was dead. who murdered him i know no more than you--or the police," finished madame, with a sneer. "your explanation is too diaphanous to be convincing." "i did not come here to convince you," said mrs. arne, dryly, "but to inform you that we intend to give you a chance to save your life." "save my life?" echoed mallow (he could not repress a slight tremor). "your meaning has been murder, then?" "we never use that word; but call it so if you will. in three nights from now there is called a meeting of the brotherhood in the cellar of this house. you will be brought down to take the oath." "and if i refuse?" "then we--remove you," said madame, in silky tones. "take the oath and you go free, for you can break it only at the imminent risk of your life. a hundred eyes will be always on you, a hundred feet will dog your steps. one rash word, one hint to the police about our affairs, and you die." "you dare not kill me." madame laughed. "put that to the test if you will by refusing the oath," said she, indifferently. "for myself, i think you better dead. it is the doctor's wish that you have this chance." "i suppose you know the risk you run? my friends will search diligently for me." "no doubt. but they will not come here. no one saw you enter this house. if your friends are clever enough to trace you to this place they will find nothing. we have chemists who can convert your dead body into nothing more tangible than gas. you will vanish into thin air. we have arranged all that." "you are a fiend." "i am madame death-in-life. you know why i am called so? no? because those in authority live on my sufferance. i have but to lift a finger and they die. monsieur rouge, whom you have seen, is something more than a chemist. he invents explosives. he designs bombs." mallow thought of the explosion in paris, when the wife and child of emile durand were killed by the lifting of madame's finger, and he drew comfort from the recollection. a man with such wrongs would surely rescue him, even at the eleventh hour. the thought gave him courage to listen to the woman. "well, whether you kill me or not the fifty thousand pounds are gone," said he, rather spitefully. "all your schemes have come to nothing." "all our schemes are not ended," said mrs. arne, rising. "i see your friend lord aldean has not yet got back the money." "how do you know that?" "i know that he is in florence trying to force my nephew into giving back the money which is ours." "your nephew! the false carson!" "yes. carlo boldini is his real name. he is a fool if he thinks to escape with that money from me. but that reptile, his wife, is to blame for all that." "how dare you use such language towards mrs. carson?" cried mallow, indignantly. "i am speaking of clara trall, my nephew's real wife. miss bellairs is not that." "what--what do you----" "i should advise you to take the oath, mr. mallow, and you may yet live to marry miss bellairs. otherwise----" she shrugged, and opened the door. mallow tried to detain her, but she drew her dress gently from his grasp, and with a sudden dart was outside. before he could fling himself after her the door was slammed to and locked. the last communication of madame was skilfully made. it left mallow in a storm of mingled joy and grief. for the next two days he thought and thought over his terrible position, and contrived a hundred ways to escape without having the resolution to attempt one. on the third day, at five o'clock, rouge brought up his food. mallow--who had almost given up hope of seeing him again--sprang forward with an exclamation of delight. rouge laid a lean finger on his lips. "hush!" he whispered, glancing at the door, "we may be overheard. to-night you will be brought to the meeting at ten o'clock. is it not so?" "yes, yes!" said mallow. "madame told me. but you will help----" "hush! no word, monsieur. to-night at eight i will throw a stone at the window above. it will fall inside here, and a cord will be tied to it. fasten the cord to your bed, and climb up it. get through the window, and climb on the cord, round the corner of the roof; then slide down the slope. the cord will lead you to my window. i shall be there." "thank you! thank you! but the noise--the falling stone--is it not dangerous?" "no! no! we shall all be down in the cellar. the meeting begins at eight o'clock. they expect me to bring you at nine. but then, monsieur, you will be free. milord will await you in the street." "lord aldean! does he know, then?" +++ / "he knows all. hush, monsieur, be careful to fasten the rope well. if it slips, and you roll off the roof into the street, you are dead." "i will be careful. how can i thank you----" "hush! no word!" monsieur rouge again laid his finger on his lips, and slipped silently out of the room. mallow was in darkness, for, lest he should fire the house, he was not permitted a light. but he cared little for that. his heart beat high at the prospect of escape, even in so perilous a way. he shook his bed, and found that the feet were clamped to the floor. all the better; it would hold the rope fast. overhead the skylight was black in the night, and mallow heard the raindrops rattle like small shot on the pane. up through that black square was his sole way of escape, with the risk of death if he made a false step. but his courage was high, and his nerve did not fail him. never had the hours seemed so long. the chimes of a near church marked them at century distances, as it seemed, to the strained ears of the prisoner. he ate heartily of the food rouge had brought, but the wine he left untouched. he would need a cool head and a clear brain. down below the wild beasts were, no doubt, creeping into their jungle. he pictured them slinking through alley and by-street in the rainy, stormy night: unclean prowlers menacing humanity. in the depths of the earth they would scheme the destruction of the dwellers thereon--innocent men and women, little children, even the kindly beasts of the earth. all! all would be gloated over by those now stealing to their wicked hole. mallow was as brave as a lion, and he burned with rage as he thought of those demons below. at last eight o'clock clanged loudly in the night air. then a dead silence. mallow could hear his heart thump furiously. still no stone fell, and he clasped his hands in nervous dread lest, after all, rouge might have deceived him. what if the man were in truth an anarchist? what if his promised deliverance were not fulfilled? suppose--crash! smash! and a heavy body shot like a meteor through the window amid a rain of splintered glass. "the rope! thank god!" with feverish hands he felt in the darkness for the stone, and found it. as he gripped, the rope shook away more glass. he listened for a moment to hear if the noise had attracted attention. all was quiet. joyfully and hopefully he groped for the bed and drew in the rope until it was taut. at this end of it was prison, at the other liberty and olive. mallow bound it in tight knots to the iron framework of the bed. he felt these over and over again to make sure they would not slip. his life depended upon his care; and he anxiously tugged and strained until he poured with perspiration. at last the task was complete. he ran his hand along the rope. it was taut as a bobstay--but at best it was but a frail bridge to safety. yet it was his only one. going to the door, he listened. again silence. taking off his shoes and socks, so that his bare feet might cling to the slates, mallow sprang on the rope and swung himself upward. the rain, spurting in through the window, splattered on his upturned face; a piece of glass, loosened by the swing of the rope, fell and cut him; but the man set his teeth and climbed hand over hand to freedom. at last his head emerged through the skylight. he saw the dark and stormy sky spitting rain, and the light of the city glimmering through the mist. luckily the skylight was large enough. clinging tightly to the rope, mallow thrust his shoulders against the glass. it smashed, splintered, broke in a hundred fragments. he was through in the fresh air, on the roof of a house fifty and more feet from the pavement. with desperate courage he clung to the frail rope, and lay flat on the wet slates, his toes digging into them to relieve the strain on the cord. the blood surged and gushed in his head, and he feared he would roll off insensible. below was the abyss of the street, above the sloping wet slates at an acute angle, and, over all, the tearing, sweeping drench of the rain driven before the gusts of wind. then a new terror gripped his heart. the edge of the rope lay amongst the sharp angles of the glass. it might fray through, and he would be dashed over the parapet of the house to swing like a spider at the end of a thread. for a moment or so he lay flat in his soaked clothes, prone on the slant. then, with a violent effort, he drew up his knees, and clawed his way along the rope. his trousers were cut to ribbons; his nails torn, hand and foot; and a piece of glass had cut one of his feet severely. but he was too excited to feel any pain. slowly, but surely, he drew himself along the slates, ever ascending to the summit of the roof. there was no moon to help him; only a flurry of flying clouds and the steady thresh of the rain. it seemed a century, until he put out one hand and felt the ledge. with renewed courage he lifted himself over this, cutting his knees with the rough slates as he did so. the next moment he was safe from the abyss, and sliding carefully down the slant to a leaden gutter between two houses. "hush!" whispered a voice. "hold to the rope, monsieur; give me your hand." mallow gave a gasp of joy and relief as rouge hauled him, wet and exhausted, through the window. he would have fallen, but that the man kept him upright by main force, and carried him through the candle-lighted room out on to the landing. how he got down the stairs he never knew. in the grip of rouge he seemed to be falling, falling, falling into eternal darkness. then he must have fainted for the moment. when he came to he was in a hansom, his head lying on aldean's shoulder, and aldean holding him with a grip of iron. "thank god! oh, thank god!" he heard aldean say as in a dream. "and you, rouge--how can i thank you?" "adieu, monsieur!" said a far-away voice. "forget not the prayer for sophie and the little therèse." chapter iv. "the ishmaels of humanity." at the head of a bare deal table, set on a dais at one end of the cellar, stood madame death-in-life. this subterranean place of congress comprised the whole area of the building. excavations had been made, indeed, extending some way below the street. these were bricked in with stones, rough whitewashed. the low roof was actually the concrete floor of the basement. it was supported by pillars and arches. entrance and exit were effected through a trapdoor with a movable ladder. there were neither chairs nor benches. the brothers stood huddled together like sheep in a pen before the daïs--the tribune of their infernal parliament. the lanterns slung at intervals along the wall shed their faint gleam only to make obscurity more obscure. it was curious to note on the faces of these men--faces shaven and unshaven, fierce and dreamy, bearded and haggard--one common expression of determination. the flash of fanaticism was in the eye of every one of them. some of well-nigh each european nation were present here; and their spokeswoman addressed them, first in one language, and then in another. she was no longer the icicle. she was the zealot. she made herself felt solely by means of the sense of conviction which consumed her by the right of imaginary wrong. she communicated her feelings to those about her. she dominated them by sheer force of her own enthusiasm. she renounced, she denounced, she exhorted. "our ruler is our enemy," she declared. "we anarchists are without rulers. we fight against all the usurpers of power--against those who wish to usurp it. our enemy is the landowner who keeps the land for himself, who makes the peasant work for his advantage. our enemy is the manufacturer who fills his factory with slaves. our enemy is the state, be it anarchical, oligarchical, or democratic. its official and staff of officers, magistrates, police-spies--all these are our enemies. our enemy is every thought of authority, call it god or the devil, in whose name the priests have so long ruled the people. our enemy is the law which oppresses the weak by the strong to the justification and apotheosis of crime. but if the landowners, the manufacturers, the heads of the state, the priests, and the law are our enemies, we are theirs, and we boldly oppose them. we will reconquer the land and the factories, we will annihilate the state, under whatever name it may be concealed, we will regain our freedom in spite of priest and law. we despise all legal means. they are the negations of our rights. we want no so-called universal suffrage, since we cannot get away from our own personal sovereignty. we cannot and will not make ourselves accomplices in the crimes committed by our so-called representatives. we will remain our own masters, and he amongst us who strives to become a chief or leader is a traitor to our cause. our work it is to conquer and defend common property, and to overthrow governments by whatever name they may be called. to do this we must work, we must invent, we must sacrifice. brains, money, labour, lives--let all go for the attainment of our end. and i have a thought--a great and glorious thought, a master-thought, which, if put to execution, will give us victory." for the first time she threw out her hands, and shouted, "air-ships! that is my thought. conceive to yourselves, brothers, the value of this. it is superb--magnificent. there are men of genius amongst you. get you to work, then, with all your powers. think, strive, experiment; dedicate yourselves to the fulfilment of this great project. succeed. you shall have money, time, help--what you will, but succeed. this is no idle dream, i say. it is the vision of my faith. i see it now before me. it rises from the ground, it soars over the earth, it poises like a vulture o'er the cities. death--death--death it deals around. unassailable, unapproachable, ever victorious, our engine or right. let this be your task, comrades, and france with her armies, and england with her navies, are puny and powerless against us. the dreams of to-day are the truths of to-morrow. have we not proof of it? the steam-engine, the telegraph, the phonograph, the telephone--all these were but dreams, once. to-day they are with us. again i say, work, toil, beat your brains, make the great secret ours; solve the mighty problem of the air, and make us victors over the kingdoms of the oppressors!" madame sat down. one after another the men leaped up on to the daïs, each in his own tongue striving to give vent to the frenzy she had raised within him. they discussed the subject hotly. the problem of aërial navigation had plainly caught their fancy. then up spake dr. drabble. "dreams," he said; "yes, brothers, at present these are but dreams. but they are dreams which it is for us to make realities. brothers, i bring no inventive powers to this task. but i bring you the sinews of war. i bring money--money amply sufficient for our present needs--fifty thousand pounds. a million and more of francs, a million of marks, a million of lire, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. i give it to you--all to you--all to the brotherhood." a roar of applause from the crowd, then a dead silence, at the words that followed. they were as a douche of cold water on red-hot iron. "but there are difficulties," he said calmly, "not wholly unsurmountable. a brother has this money, gained through a scheme of mine--of madame here. to-night that money should have been with us. alas, it is not." drabble then paused to give due effect to his next words. they came with a hiss. "the brother who has that money is a traitor." no outcry this time, no openly expressed disapprobation, only a low deadly murmur of hatred and contempt. every face expressed loathing for the traitor. every hand itched to be at his throat. the wild beasts seemed to crouch for the spring. "the traitor's name is carlo boldini," said the doctor. "remember that name, that you may engrave it on his tomb." "my nephew this man," cried madame, with a cruel smile. "my nephew whom i devote to death. i spit on the traitor. i stamp him under my foot. to betray the great and glorious cause of humanity--robber, beast, one lower than the brutes. here, you always-to-be-trusted comrades of germany, the cause has been by my nephew--most vile of creatures--betrayed. when you beside him stand, kill. brothers of france, the fraternity call upon you to execute the vengeance. understand you the horror of betrayal? children of robespierre, i delegate to you the task of giving him the death. down with the traitor. death to him--death." "death," "death," "death"--the word echoed in all languages through the cellar. every one present, man or woman, doomed carlo boldini to death from that moment. his aunt smiled approval. she would have slain him herself for the cause. "brothers"--the doctor was on his feet again--"the traitor, with a woman, has fled to italy--to florence. he has been followed. our brother who has watched him there reports that he and his wife have escaped in disguise to genoa. our brother still follows. the traitor has taken ship for south america, with the money so hardly won. on that ship our brother watches him. wherever he goes the eye of the brotherhood marks him. fear not! vengeance shall blot him out from amidst the humanity he has so basely betrayed. my comrades, you volunteer to punish this traitor and the woman clara trall." before any one could speak, jeremiah, haggard-faced, with terror in his eyes, broke through the throng and flung himself on his knees. "no, no!" he implored, with shaking voice; "not clara, not my little girl. spare----" "remove him," cried a dozen voices; and a dozen hands clutched the wretched creature and forced him to his feet. weeping and imploring, he was dragged mercilessly to the further end of the cellar. the juggernaut of anarchy had rolled over his heart, and crushed it without extorting a sigh or a glance from its fierce worshippers. with terrible composure two men were then selected to hunt down boldini and recover the money and punish the traitor. money and instructions were given to these trackers, and they were bidden to return with their task completed. without a word the pair slipped through the crowd, through the trapdoor, and went out into the world to pick up the trail of the victims. from that moment boldini, flying over the seas though he was, stood doomed. there was something devilish in the menacing silence in which the hunters departed to run down their prey. "my brothers," said madame slowly, "i have a secret to disclose. when this money comes back to us, we go to switzerland--to geneva--there to work out our great invention. here the police have heard of the brotherhood. there is danger. some day the tyrants will send their dogs here to drive us from this refuge. we are ready for their coming. our brother rouge has prepared this cellar for their reception. here, under this floor," she pointed downwards, "there is a mine formed of a new explosive, the invention of brother rouge. we stand now on a volcano. behind me," she turned to the wall at her back, "behold this button. it communicates with the mine by electricity. one touch, and all who are here would be destroyed, the house would be destroyed, and the street would be torn up. this is the work of brother rouge." a murmur of approval followed. some of the weaker creatures looked down to the concrete floor, as though their gaze could pierce to the deadly mine beneath, and shuddered. but the rest smiled grimly. no one made comment of any kind. madame continued, "rouge, my brothers, declares that he will sacrifice himself for the glorious cause. when these dogs come here they will not find us. we shall be in switzerland, with wealth, and brave hearts working out our scheme for the benefit of the slaves of humanity. the police will explore the house, they will descend to this cellar. here, where i stand, they will find our brother smiling at his prey. he will speak. he will proclaim our glorious mission. he will doom them to die for it. one touch, and our enemies are as dust. rouge dies indeed, but his glorious memory will live in our hearts. brothers! salute the name of rouge!" the anarchists shouted exultantly, and the name of rouge, with words of approval, flew from lip to lip. they did not pity him, they did not lament his coming fate, but they lifted up their voices and saluted the mention of his name all-glorious. there was not one man or woman present who would not do the same if bidden. "to save humanity, my brothers, we must die. sacrifice a hundred lives, so that one despot may fall from his throne. over our graves the happy world of the future will live, and those who have won freedom by our death will strew those graves with flowers everlasting. to the glory of the cause, shout, my brothers, shout--and, if needs be, die." drabble glanced at his watch, turned a significant look on madame, and spoke. "to-night, brothers, a neophyte will take the oath to aid us. he is a gentleman, clever but rash. he entered our house to spy. he learned our secrets, and, should he go abroad, much harm may be done. madame says kill him. i say not so. if he refuse the oath, then let him die. if he take it, i say let him live. it is for us to win all we can to our brotherhood, so that we may be strong. this man can aid us. therefore, let us keep him if we can. rouge brings him here in a few minutes, and according to his wisdom shall he be dealt with." there was an interval for rest. the meeting broke up into chattering groups. madame passed swiftly to the end of the cellar, where the unfortunate trall still moaned over his niece. with a look of contempt, the woman stirred him with her foot. "rise," she said sternly. slowly he got on his feet, a dishevelled, tumbled object, and muttered something about clara. "you fool!" said madame. "is that all you have learned with us? to value your own miserable life or that of any other man or woman? when we take the oath we surrender our lives, to be saved or lost for the good of the cause. clara has proved false. she must die. nothing can save her." the wretched man sobbed. "have mercy," he said. "oh, have mercy." "it is no question of mercy, but of necessity. you are not fit to be here. this is no place for tears. leave the house, i say. when you are wanted you shall be sent for." "madame----" "go," said mrs. arne, sharply. "have i to speak twice?" trall's head dropped on his breast in utter despair, and, without a word, he slouched through the throng and up the trapdoor. as he went out, he passed rouge about to descend. rouge was alone, grave, colourless, composed. as he dropped down, the brotherhood saluted him with a volley of applause. "where is the prisoner?" called out madame from the daïs. "he will be brought down by me shortly, madame," said rouge; "but i have come to make a communication to the society. first, i must make all safe." so saying, he removed the ladder, and laid it flat on the ground. then he took up his position in the corner directly under the trapdoor, and leaned lightly against the wall. to right and left the crowd parted, so that madame and drabble saw him as down a long lane. a lantern overhead shed a heavy yellow light on his pallid face, and he looked as a ghost in the shadows. the brotherhood was uneasy, not at his action, for he was a much trusted member, but on account of his reference to making all safe. even mrs. arne seemed anxious. "rouge," she cried, "what is the matter?" "i propose to tell you, madame," he replied in a loud, clear voice. "listen, all of you, to what i say. you know me as rouge, the trusted brother of the society. five years ago in paris i was known as emile durand." they looked at one another. madame, with a premonition that something was wrong, half rose from her chair, and drabble leaned forward anxiously. in dead silence every one hung upon the speech of rouge. he spoke in french, the tongue best understood of the greatest number. "emile durand," continued rouge in a calm, even voice, "was a chemist in paris, with a wife and child whom he dearly loved. he was a good citizen, a good father, a fond husband. the good god bestowed on him happiness, but his happiness was destroyed by death." "what does this foolishness mean?" "you will soon know, madame," said rouge. "it means that you and your cursed assassins threw a bomb into my shop. you killed my wife and child wickedly and cruelly. i lived but to avenge them. to-night i do so." "seize him! drag him forward!" shouted drabble. "stand back, murderer!" shrieked rouge, his face scarlet with rage, his eyes sparkling. "you see, i have my hand on the wall. i press it, and the mine below is fired. you will be----" a wail of terror rose from the crowd. they shrank back from the man. madame flung herself across the table, less afraid than furious. "seize him!" she cried madly. "traitor! kill him; he lies! the button which explodes the mine is at my back." drabble whipped out a revolver, and the crowd reeled forward, mad with terror and anger. "who laid the mine?" cried rouge, undaunted. "i did. the wire yonder is a false one. the real communication is here, under my hand." "betrayed, betrayed!" yelled madame, throwing herself down. "shoot him! kill him!" up swung drabble's revolver to a level with rouge's heart. the man never flinched. "shoot, and i fire the mine!" he roared. "your lives are in my hands, and i doom them. make your peace with the god you have offended, for you are to meet him now." with an oath, drabble flung himself forward and fired, but a terror-struck woman seized his arm, and the shot struck the roof. the scene which ensued was indescribable. the wild beasts groaned and howled, some, returning to the religion they had forgotten, fell on their knees to pray. drabble was overset and trodden underfoot. all shrank back from their judge and executioner. madame, on the daïs, colourless and silent, stared at rouge. she alone knew how lost all was. "o god," rouge's voice rose clear and steady, "i am an instrument in thy hands to rid this earth of devils. i sacrifice myself to avenge my wife and little one. to help humanity, i slay these demons. judge them in their wickedness." his voice became inaudible in the turmoil. with uplifted hands, they implored pity, besought mercy. and rouge smiled. "in the name of god," he shouted. madame rushed forward, stumbling over the terror-stricken men and women. she dashed straight to the mark. silent, deadly pale, her eyes flaming, her hands extended to tear this man to pieces. "sophie, therèse," cried rouge, and, as madame flung herself like a tigress upon him, he pressed the button hard. the next moment he was borne down by the woman. the turmoil ceased. there was a dead silence--a terrible silence. and the earth rocked and heaved, and opened her mouth to vomit fire, and the jungle with its wild beasts of humanity hurtled through the air. with a roar of thunder, belching flame and smoke, the house split from cellar to attic. the end of the world had come for them all. and the smoke of their torment went up to heaven. sophie and therèse were avenged. _the sixth scene: at casterwell_. chapter i. "an unexpected arrival." a week after the catastrophe at soho, olive and laurence were seated before a blazing fire in the manor house drawing-room. winter was upon them in earnest, and the rose-garden of july lay covered thick with snow, and the naked woods surrounding fought with the whistling blast. mallow had recovered from his cuts and scrapings, but his nerves were still suffering from his recent experience. there was no doubt that his system had received a severe shock, although he pluckily made light of it. even mrs. purcell, suddenly entering the room, made him jump in his chair, and olive laid her hand on his arm to soothe him. the two had come together only within the last three days, and at their first meeting mallow had kissed her. that kiss was the outward and visible sign of their engagement. "my dears!" mrs. purcell, with voluminous skirts, sank into a chair a wide-spreading billow. "my dears," she spoke _ex cathedrâ_, "i have been considering your position. olive, my dear, outside this house you are still known as mrs. carson. have you formed any plausible scheme for the amelioration of this unpleasant state of affairs?" "none, mrs. purcell. i suppose i must tell the truth." "that seems to me an extreme view to take. the truth is so very strange." "stranger than fiction," chimed in mallow. "but if fact will poach on the domain of fancy, our friends will have to enlarge their swallowing capacity. i think it is best to be straightforward, mrs. purcell, and make a clean breast of it, from the arrival of carson, the impostor, to the soho explosion." "i regret to say, mr. mallow, that i do not concur," said mrs. purcell, shaking her turban. "exclusive honesty is not the best policy; and in this case it would only provide the daily journals with sensational matter. i am averse, and i feel sure that you are also, to our dear olive's name being in the mouth of the multitude. there is no need to be too explicit." "then how am i to account for my marriage being a false one?" asked olive. "by telling the truth, my dear, within limitations. say that the marriage was a nominal one, contracted with mr. angus carson in obedience to the expressed wish of your father. add, that during the honeymoon you unfortunately--or, rather, fortunately--discovered that mr. carson was the husband of another woman, and at once left him to resume your own name. finally, let it be known that mr. carson and his true wife have left england together, and will return no more. mr. carson, you understand, my love, not signor boldini." "you would make no explanation?" demanded mallow. "assuredly not. you are not bound to satisfy the curiosity of the public. though, indeed!" added mrs. purcell, "so much as i would have you reveal, should be sufficient to answer all questions. moreover, i most earnestly advise olive to accompany me abroad for a few months, and at the end of that time to marry you, mr. mallow, before returning to england. then both of you can take up your position in this house without giving cause for scandal or public animadversions. it is true people may talk about our dear olive's first marriage; but, for want of details, which i advise you strongly to withhold, such idle chatter will die of inanition." there was good sound sense in what mrs. purcell said. a bare statement of the facts which enabled olive to reappear in society as mrs. mallow was all that was necessary. and none was better calculated to enunciate the facts than mrs. purcell, for one reason because she knew every one in the county worth knowing; for another, because her very prolixity made impressive what otherwise might have been looked upon as a bald and feeble narrative. she would take care that the sympathies of one and all were with her beloved olive, and when, after a sufficiently judicious absence, she returned to the manor house the wife of laurence mallow, her reception would be something more than cordial. "what a relief!" sighed olive, when the old lady had departed in triumph. "the whole thing has been quite a nightmare to me lately. i am so thankful that mrs. purcell has found a way out of it." "mrs. purcell is a sensible woman," said mallow, warmly, "and her opinion carries weight. what she says is perfectly true. you were so unfortunate at first as to be placed in the position of marrying a man who was not your choice, and, further, having married him, of discovering the fact that he was already married. the sequel is, i think, sufficiently obvious to the dullest of our neighbours. at all events, there is the whole business in a nutshell, and it shall be for mrs. purcell to present it to the county to crack. no word need be said of any connection with these anarchist people. thank goodness, they and their diabolical schemes have been very effectually disposed of." "don't, laurence!" olive shivered and covered her face. "it is terrible to think of how narrowly you escaped death." "dearest, a miss is as good as a mile. thanks to that poor fellow rouge, i came through all right. my only regret is that the death of mrs. arne, of trall, and drabble does away with any hope of our learning the truth. the reason for poor carson's murder will remain a mystery." "it is no mystery to me," cried olive, petulantly. "mrs. arne killed him." "she denied it most solemnly." "i dare say. such a woman would deny anything." "to gain her ends, she would," replied mallow judiciously; "but, in this case, she gained nothing by denial. i am inclined to think she told me the truth. until carson proved recalcitrant it would have been foolish for her to kill the goose with the golden eggs. olive, whoever killed carson, the anarchists didn't." "well, innocent or guilty, then the wickedness has put an end to them. that man rouge is a hero." "i agree with you, but the world does not know of his heroism, and never will. the police, the papers, are absolutely at a loss to explain the explosion, and it is my intention that neither jim nor i should enlighten them. the _morning planet_ declares that the anarchists were experimenting with a new explosive. such an explanation is quite sufficient for the masses, the classes, and the quidnunc asses." "will not vraik say something?" "what can he say, save that rouge was one of the brotherhood? it was only to jim and me that he revealed himself and his plans. no, vraik is safe enough. i shall pay him, and dismiss him." "you won't go on with the case, then, laurence?" mallow shook his head. "there are no clues," he said. "surely you forget; there are still two clues," cried olive, vivaciously. "what about the man who inquired at the p. and o. office?" "oh, no doubt he was an anarchist sent by drabble to learn when the _pharaoh_ would arrive--perhaps drabble himself, in disguise. i dare say, whoever he was, he was blown up with the rest of the gang. no clue there, olive." "then there is the packet lord aldean found in the sandal-wood chest." "h'm," mallow reflected, "there may be something in that. of course, it depends upon what the packet contains. have you given it to mr. brock?" "no; i thought of doing so to-morrow. he has been too ill to see any one lately." "what! is his accident so bad as that?" "it is as bad as it can be," said olive, emphatically. "he is old, and not very strong. besides, he would insist upon being brought back to casterwell; and the journey has shaken him. the nervous shock has affected his heart, so the doctor says." "that's bad. poor old chap! don't suppose he'll pull through." "come and see him with me to-morrow, laurence." "yes, dear, with pleasure. we'll ask him about the packet. i dare say he'll show us what is in it." mallow rose and began to pace the room, musing as he walked. "it might turn out valuable," he said, at length, "from the care carson took to conceal it it is evidently a document of importance." "i wonder why mr. carson did conceal it?" "because he mistrusted semberry," replied mallow, promptly. "depend upon it, olive, carson soon realized that the major was a shifty scamp, and hid his papers where there was no likelihood of their being read. i see no other explanation for their concealment." "i shall make a point of seeing brock to-morrow," he said, looking out of the window and whistling softly. "laurence," said olive, who was still staring into the fire, "do you think dr. drabble was blown up?" "i'm certain of it. as madame death-in-life's right-hand man, and general adviser to these rascals, he would certainly not be absent from so important a meeting. yes, i think drabble has received the wage of his sins." "poor mrs. drabble!" "happy mrs. drabble, you mean. she has been rescued from the torment of an unscrupulous bully. besides, drabble would have poisoned his children's minds. he was in a fair way to ruining margery." olive rose and came laughing across the room. "margery has improved," she said, with some amusement; "her anarchistic mood has passed. she now concerns herself chiefly with religion." "at her age? nonsense! there must be a limit even to her precocity." "a child's religion, of course. margery is older than her years, and very, very clever, as you know. she now reads her bible, goes to church, and writes hymns on the model of keble. i found her with keble's poems the other day." "poor child! her father has quite unsettled her mind. it's a lucky thing for margery, and for the rest of the family, that he's gone. i suppose the news of his death will, have to be broken to his wife. but if mrs. drabble is wise she will rejoice, not sorrow." "oh, laurence! after all he was her husband, the father of her children." "and a nice blackguard in either capacity. hullo, who's this tramp?" across the lawn stumbled a ragged guy fawkes, grotesque and unsteady. he laboured in the snow like a liner rolling in a cross sea. at his nearer approach he raised his head. those at the window started, and stared eagerly. "laurence! look! a black beard, a long beard; can it be----" "wait, wait," interrupted mallow; and throwing open the french window, he ran across the terrace down the steps. with a yelp the man scrambled back, but stumbled full length on the slippery crust of snow. mallow gripped his shoulder as he dropped. "who the devil are you?" he said roughly. "mr. mallow?" the ragged creature gave a howl of joy. "i'm--i'm trall!" chapter ii. "the penance of margery." "i'm trall," repeated the man, staggering to his feet. he plucked off a false beard, thereby throwing into prominence the haggardness of his face. "trall?" echoed mallow, as though taking in the man's identity for the first time. "good god, i thought you were dead!" the man whimpered, and fawned on mallow as a whipped dog fawns on its master. "i'm alive; i'm trall," he reiterated. "i'm so glad it's you, mr. mallow. i thought they were after me. but i'm trall; you know me, don't you? you'll save me, won't you? i'm afraid of them.' "whatever is the matter, laurence?" called out olive, at the window. "who is it?" "it's all right, olive; it's only trall. i'll explain later; go inside now.--good god!" said mallow, again looking at the wreck of humanity before him. "alive after all." jeremiah trall nodded, and laughed vacantly. his life of terror and strong drink, added now to want of food and sleep, had scattered the poor creature's wits. he clung to mallow like a child, reiterating his prayer for protection, and ultimately sliding into an incoherent gabble, disconnected though continuous. seeing that nothing was to be got out of him, in his present state, mallow soothed him with repeated assurances of his safety. he then led him round to the back of the house, and had him supplied with food. in another half-hour the wretched man was safely tucked in bed, with one of the men-servants to watch over him. the food and warmth and sense of security relaxed his nerves, and shortly he fell into a deep sleep. his relief had come just in time. meanwhile mallow returned to the drawing-room and explained the situation. how trall had escaped death he did not know, but he understood the man's instinct had led him to seek the protection of the only person who had treated him with kindness. "we shall hear his story to-morrow," concluded mallow; "and a queer one it will be, unless i'm very much mistaken." "laurence, do you think this can be the man who inquired at the p. and o. office? he has a black beard." "false, my dear; assumed no doubt to escape the brotherhood, although, seeing they are all dead, i can't understand what it is he fears. it is quite possible he may be the man who inquired at the shipping office; we shall know all about that in the morning. and olive," added mallow, in lower tones, as the servant entered with the tea, "say nothing about this for the present to miss ostergaard or the old ladies. i'll tell aldean myself later on." olive readily assented. she had no wish any of them should be alarmed. when they, with lord aldean, came in to tea, no word was said about trall's strange arrival. later on mallow found an opportunity for enlightening jim. "jove!" said the startled aldean. "how the dickens did he escape?" "i can't say. perhaps he wasn't at the meeting. don't alarm the ladies, jim. we'll get it all out of him in the morning. he's worn-out now, poor devil." "do you think he knows the truth about this carson business?" "it's possible, and probable. at all events, whatever he knows he'll tell me." but, in spite of all precautions, it was not long before mrs. purcell knew all about it. her maids were of more than ordinary loquacity. she immediately declared her belief that they would all be murdered in their beds, and communicated her fears to miss slarge. the two ancients reappeared in the drawing-room in a nervous flutter, and, in the end, if only to quieten them, mallow thought it best to explain matters fully. contrary to his expectations, they were only the more alarmed. "an anarchist," cried miss slarge, tremulously, "with a bomb!" "i don't think he has a bomb," replied mallow, gravely. "he is quite harmless, miss slarge. he hasn't strength just now to kill a fly." "has he rebelled against established authority?" demanded mrs. purcell. "has he crime upon his soul?" "his worst crime is hard drinking. i'll look after him, mrs. purcell. please give the servants no particulars." mrs. purcell expressed a pious hope that the manor house would be still whole in the morning; but finally agreed that mr. mallow had acted with his usual judgment, and was quite right to succour the oppressed. when, after every one had gone to bed, mallow and aldean visited trall, he was still sleeping, so they left him. but early next morning mallow was in his room. he was awake, and professed himself much easier in his mind. amid a profusion of thanks for all his kindness, he told mallow how he had escaped the common fate through madame having ordered him out of the house. "i don't know how it all happened," he said. "there was a mine laid under the cellar, i know, but i feel sure madame didn't fire it. i hope they won't think i did it. it was for fear of that i came down here." "you are safe enough here, trall. besides, that section, at least, of the brotherhood is done for." "oh, but they were not all there. there are others. two of them have gone after carlo and clara. i protested, but madame would send them, and she turned me out of the place." "where are boldini and your niece now?" "they have left genoa for south america. one of the brothers followed them. he wired to madame they had taken ship, but he did not say for what port. but they're as good as dead," moaned trall; "the brothers who were sent after them had instructions to kill them." "oh, let us hope they will escape," said mallow, soothingly. "by the way, that disguise of yours, trall. did you wear it to visit the p. and o. office before carson arrived?" "no, mr. mallow; i was never in the p. and o. office in my life." mallow looked searchingly at the man, but saw by his simple denial, and from his manner, that he was telling the truth. "do you know any one else who went there?" he asked, shifting his ground. "no, i never heard of any one." "did dr. drabble?" "i am sure i don't know," said trall, plucking at the clothes. "he never told me, if he did. but drabble wore all kinds of disguises; sometimes he wore a light wig, at others a black one. he was never twice the same." "i dare say it was he," said mallow, thoughtfully; "he was the person most interested in carson's arrival. he is dead, i suppose?" "blown to pieces, mr. mallow. he was in the cellar when i left. not one of those present escaped alive. they are dead in their sins, mr. mallow, and black--black indeed are those sins. if i had not spoken for clara, if madame had not--well, i have sins of my own to repent of. god saved me for repentance. i'm sure of that." "rouge was in the cellar, of course?" "he came down the trapdoor as i went up. i liked rouge; he hated the brotherhood, as i did. it might have been rouge who caused the explosion. he laid the mine; he knew how to fire it. yes, i believe rouge killed them all." "i am sure he did," said mallow decisively. "mrs. arne had nemesis at her elbow, although she thought, no doubt, it was the devil. but how did you know that i was alive, and here?" "rouge told me. he said that he intended to aid your escape, because you had been kind to him. as he passed down the trapdoor, i heard him say, 'monsieur is safe.' i didn't know what he meant at the time, but afterwards i recollected he was speaking of you. when i heard of the explosion, i was nearly out of my mind. i thought the surviving brotherhood would surely suspect me. i went to your rooms to ask for your protection. they told me there that you were at casterwell, so i came down. i walked the whole way. i begged, and slept out-of-doors. oh, the cold was bitter. i knew you would protect me, for you were always kind, mr. mallow. always, always," and trall stretched out his hand timidly. "well, now you are here, you shall stay," said mallow, kindly. "they won't look for you here. i dare say they think you perished with the rest; and later on we'll see what had better be done." trall sat up eagerly. "i know what to do; i have my plans," he whispered, with a glance round, as was his habit. "give me money, and i'll go out to south america. clara will look after me. carlo has a lot of money; drabble said so. i'll warn them of their danger, and we'll hide in the mountains. they'll never find us there. clara is so clever; clara knows." "is she your only relative?" "so far as i know. i have a brother--her father--my brother michael; but he may be dead. he left his wife and clara many, many years ago. his wife died. i looked after clara. i had money then. but when i met drabble"--trall burst into childish anger--"i hate drabble; he made me what i am. he was my curse. i'm glad he's dead; glad, oh, so glad. if he'd only died before he ruined me. i was once--i am now--oh!" and the man, weeping senile tears, dropped back exhausted on his pillow. "hush, hush!" said mallow, smoothing the bed-clothes; "you are with friends now; i will take care of you. but don't say a word as to who you are or what you have been doing. that might be dangerous even here." "no, no--not a word; you won't let them get to me if they come?" "they won't come, trall. believe me, they think you dead." "dead?" echoed trall, his wits wandering. "dead, dead, yes, these many years. drabble killed my soul. dead--yes, the man is dead; the beast lives on." with tactful words and many promises, mallow managed to calm him and dispel his morbid mood. the man was not really so ill as worn with fatigue, and stupefied with terror. rest, and a belief in his safety, were the medicines he needed, and these were now forthcoming. his narrow escape seemed to have turned his thoughts towards religion, for he requested the use of a bible with childish eagerness. mallow left him grappling desperately with the psalms, striving to extract hope from the more comforting. "i am glad the poor man is better," said olive, when she heard mallow's report; "he seems a harmless creature." "there is good in him, but circumstances and drabble have done their best to destroy it." "well, let him stay here and rest, laurence. see, i have the letter for mr. brock. we must call on him now. talking about dr. drabble," added olive, as they stepped out into the crisp air; "i think i ought to call and see his wife, and tell her." "do you think that is wise?" asked mallow, dubiously. "of course it is wise; suspense is worse than the truth. besides, she is without money and food. i had to send provisions to her yesterday. the sooner she understands her position, and makes the best of it, the better." "how can she make the best of it?" "i shall help her; and lord aldean has promised his assistance." "good fellow; you must let me do something too." "my help is yours, laurence," said olive, softly. a brisk walk soon brought them to drabble's untidy home. in a room more slatternly than ever, they found the unsuspecting widow. she was, if possible, more worn and downcast than before. "i'm sure i don't know what i should have done but for your kindness," she said to olive. "but i expect the doctor will be back soon. it is too bad his leaving me destitute like this. the tradesmen won't send in food without money." "dear mrs. drabble," said olive, touching her arm gently, "will you take me to your room? i have something to tell you." the significance of olive's tone was not lost upon her. "i hope--hope nothing is the matter with the doctor?" she said tremulously. "i'll tell you in your own room," insisted olive, leading her to the door. "excuse us, won't you, mr. mallow?" called back the widow; "and if the children should come in send them away. danton is in bed with the mumps, and margery has been converted. please talk her back to some sense, mr. mallow, if you can. dear, dear! my children are so dreadful." mallow sat quietly amid all the litter, in no wise inclined to laugh at these last words, albeit there was some humour in them. on all sides there was the noise of children creeping, scuffling, and whispering. at times a head would pop round the corner; its owner, meeting mallow's eye, would shriek and scuttle away, and then would be swift scampering and a continuous patter as of hard little hoofs on a frosty soil. shortly the door swung open to its widest, and margery appeared, so astonishing a spectacle that mallow could not but stare at the child. she was draped in a sheet; her feet were bare, and she carried a lighted candle. "i'm doing penance!" announced margery in solemn tones. "i should stand at the church-door and proclaim my sins, but mother won't let me." "your sins?" said mallow, suppressing a strong desire to laugh; "have you any?" "dozens! i have sinned deeply," sighed this guilty little person. "i have been cross, i have stolen, i have perverted the truth. would you like to hear about any particular sin, mr. mallow?" "i should be delighted, margery. only don't shock me too much." margery waved her taper. "this sin was done to olive!" she chanted. "listen, oh people, to the sin done to olive! i gave her a golden ornament of fine gold with wrought-work. she asked where i obtained it. i declared that i had taken it from the desk of my father. that was a lie. that was a sin. i did steal it. wicked woman that i am--but i stole it from the study of mr. brock." "margery!" mallow jumped with sudden interest. "did you find that wrist-button in mr. brock's study?" margery dropped her candle and became the child she was, even to the length of bursting into tears. "yes," she sobbed, "i was wicked. i went to see mr. brock; he left me to play in his study, and i found the button in the drawer of his writing-table. i--i--i took it." chapter iii. "mr. brock and the letter." margery's conscience had now the upper hand of her. all her acting was cast to the winds. "it was wrong to take it," she wept. "i can see that now, mr. mallow, but i did not think. father said that all property should be shared in common, so i thought i would share with mr. brock; he has very nice property," she added, naïvely. "was this wrist-button put away carefully?" "no-o-o. it was lying loose in a drawer; i didn't think it was of much value. i am very, very wicked." mallow drew the child towards him and consoled her. "don't cry, margery," he said, wiping her eyes with his handkerchief. "a fault confessed is half-redressed. did you tell mr. brock that you were sorry?" "yes; i told him that i was converted, and that i repented of my wickedness. he said it did not matter; that i was not to trouble about what i had done." "then don't trouble, dear. there, there, it's all right. so you have given up the anarchism?" "i am a christian now. i believe in----" before margery could state her religious beliefs, olive, looking rather anxious, came into the room. "laurence, would you mind calling on mr. brock alone? mrs. drabble is not well enough to be left at present." "oh, is mother ill?" cried margery, scared. "she is not very well, dear. put on your stockings and shoes, child; you will take cold. laurence!" "i'll go to mr. brock. is that the letter, olive? thank you. how long will you stop here?" "until mrs. drabble is better. when you return home, laurence, please ask miss slarge to come here. margery!" the child was shaking and white. "please, please, what is the matter?" she asked, catching olive by the hand. olive looked at her in silence and with pity. if it had been a painful task to inform mrs. drabble of the truth, it was a much more terrible one to inform margery. with a nod to mallow, she led the child from the room; and laurence, feeling somewhat _de trop_ in this scene of domestic grief, slipped away, not ill-pleased to have the opportunity. it was vexing, in one way, that olive could not come with him; but on reflection he could not regret her absence. at the corner of the vicarage he was confronted by a she-cerberus, in the person of mr. brock's deaf housekeeper. this grim and lean spinster might once have been a human flower, but the sap was now gone out of her, and she had withered on the stalk in a state of single-blessedness. even mallow's good looks and polite inquiries failed to impress her. she was the sworn enemy of all male-kind. at the outset she declined to admit mallow; "indeed, he's much too ill," she said. but in the end she was so far prevailed upon as to consent to convey a message. this resulted in prompt permission for the visitor to enter the sick-room, whither the sour spinster led him with obvious reluctance. she closed the door on him with a bang, and returned to vent her ill-temper in the kitchen. the vicar had transferred himself from his bedroom to the study. he was lying on a sofa drawn close up to the window. his eyes were unnaturally bright and sunken, and his skin was the colour of wax. the few weeks of confinement to the house had aged him inconceivably. but he appeared to be in good spirits, and received mallow most cordially. "you find me much afflicted, mr. mallow," said he, cheerfully, "but i am not without hope of recovery. i contrive to keep up my spirits, which is, i suppose, a greater preventive of inanition than the most stringent of medicines." "i am indeed glad to know you are better, mr. brock. will conversation tire you?" "not at all. it is a pleasure to converse intelligently. how is mrs. carson?" "miss bellairs is quite well," said laurence, prepared for this question. brock turned an astonished look on his visitor. "but why do you call olive by her maiden name?" "because that is her name for the present. she is not carson's wife." "not carson's wife, man? i married them myself" said the vicar, with a searching glance, not unmixed with uneasiness. "true enough, mr. brock. but i am sorry to tell you that carson has proved a scamp and a bigamist. at the time he married olive he was already the husband of clara trall, the maid. they have left for england, and olive has returned here as miss bellairs. she is shortly to be married to me." "angus already married?" gasped brock, when he took in the full import of it. "angus, the son of an upright man, act so basely? surely, surely there must be some mistake." "i--am--afraid--not. lord aldean followed the runaways to florence, and saw them together. they confessed their marriage." "but why did angus so deceive olive?" mallow shrugged. "to get her money, no doubt," he said carelessly. "it will come to you now, mr. brock, since the marriage has not taken place." "alas! i fear i have done with all use for worldly goods, mr. mallow. i am not so strong as i thought i was. my heart has been weakened by my accident, and any sudden shock would probably be fatal to me. if this money does come to me now, it will not remain with me long, for my days are numbered." "nil desperandum," said mallow, not very originally. "you have years of clean living behind you, sir, and may mend sooner than you think. after all, you are better off than drabble; he has met with a violent death in common with many others of his kidney." "drabble dead? well, i am not surprised. i have been wondering if he was in that soho explosion of which we have read lately. as that was his town address, it struck me that he might possibly have been. ah!" sighed mr. brock, "a terrible end to a mistaken life. but i thought that drabble was more of a socialist than an anarchist?" "he was everything that's bad," said laurence, shortly. "olive is now comforting mrs. drabble, poor soul! by the way, mr. brock, margery told me about that wrist-button." "dear, dear; the poor child must not worry about that. i forgave her taking it; children will finger things, and margery's mind was quite perverted by her father's peculiar views.--still," he added, with a smile, "margery really had more right to it than i. it originally belonged to drabble." "what! did you get it from him, then?" "as a gift--yes. i saw it lying on his desk one day, and took it up to examine it. as it was of indian workmanship, i asked him to give it to me as a curiosity. i was a missionary in india once, you know." "yes, i know. did drabble give it to you willingly?" "certainly. i should not have taken it otherwise. it is a pretty thing; margery tells me that she gave it to olive." "olive wears it as a brooch," replied mallow, gloomily. he was distinctly puzzled. he noticed, too, that the vicar was half dozing, and felt that perhaps he was overtaxing his strength. "well, i must be going now. mr. brock," said he, producing dr. carson's letter, "my principal reason for coming was to hand you this." "what is it?" asked brock, taking the blue envelope drowsily. "a letter from your old friend, dr. carson." brock woke up with a start. he was clearly agitated. "from a dead man? what does it mean?" "a message of some import, no doubt," said mallow. "young carson brought it home with him, but forgot to deliver it." "a voice from the grave!" muttered brock, unheeding. his hands were busy with two papers--a closely written letter, and a dozen long pages of foolscap of aggressively official appearance. mallow's fingers itched to take them up, but he judiciously restrained himself; and watched the vicar skim his eye over the letter. its perusal seemed to move him greatly. "wrong, wrong," he said, folding it up. "better to let the dead past bury its dead," and shuffling the papers into their envelope, he slipped it under his pillow. mallow was struck by his remark. it tended to confirm his long-entertained suspicions. "mr. brock," he asked, after a moment, "was there a secret in the life of the late mr. bellairs?" "why should you think so?" said the vicar, nervously. "i have not forgotten about the sealed letter which forced olive into marrying carson. she asked you what its hint of evil meant. you told her to take no notice of it." "that was her best course," said mr. brock, still agitated. "so long as she married angus, there was no need for her to trouble about the letter." "then there is a secret?" insisted mallow. mr. brock shifted uneasily. "whose life is free from sin?" he said, in low tones. "yes, there--is--a secret." "had it to do with olive's marriage?" "yes; if she had refused angus, there might have been trouble." "what kind of trouble?" "don't ask me," said the vicar, with a shiver. "i must ask you. olive guesses that there is a secret, and she wishes to know it." "she shall never know it from me," said the vicar, his face more pallid than ever. "i say let the dead past bury its dead." "you said that before when you read that letter. the secret is told in that enclosed document?" "yes," said brock, reluctantly. "then olive must read it--i must read it. we must know the truth." the vicar remained silent, and his brow wrinkled. "who gains knowledge gains sorrow," he said, aphoristically. "it will do neither you nor olive any good to learn the follies of a young man. however, i will read the document, and--if i can legitimately do so--i will send it to olive." "is the secret so very terrible, then?" "it is very terrible." "is her father----" "mr. mallow," protested the vicar, wiping his wet forehead, "i have said all i intend to say, until i read this letter. if i can send it to olive, it shall be sent. please leave me. i--i have overtaxed my strength. touch the bell, please, as you go out." although mallow would fain have stayed, there was nothing left for him to do but to obey this peremptory request. he could not but acknowledge that mr. brock was acting in an eminently reasonable way. a secret of such moment as this appeared to be could not be communicated hastily and without due consideration. when next he saw olive, mallow told her what she might expect. with characteristic firmness, she chose to abide by her decision. "i must know the truth," she declared, "at whatever cost. so long as you and i are together, laurence, nothing can hurt us." "you tempt the gods, my dearest," replied laurence, and sighed. the events of the last few months had shaken his nerve, and he was apt at times to give way to despondency. mr. brock did not seem in a hurry to come to his decision. one, two, three days passed before word came to the manor house. having implicit faith in the vicar's judgment, mallow did not urge him at all. he did not even go near the vicarage, but curbed his impatience and that of olive as best he could. virtue was rewarded--if reward it was--for on the fourth day the document was delivered to miss bellairs, with a letter from the vicar. "i send you the history of your father in india," wrote mr. brock, "though it is somewhat against my better judgment. i do so, however, as i can guess that your curiosity will allow you no rest. i give you the opportunity of appeasing it. still, even at this eleventh hour, i would most earnestly advise you to put the enclosed paper in the fire unread. its perusal can only give you pain, and remove from its pedestal the idol of your youth." all this, and much more, mr. brock wrote, and mallow read. he was alone with olive in the library. he looked questioningly at her. she was silent, and for answer placed the document in his hands. "am i to read it?" he asked. olive bent her head. "as you think wise, dear; or shall we burn it, as mr. brock advises, unread?" olive clasped her hands tightly together. the question was a weighty one. she hesitated. then she crossed the rubicon. "read," she said, in low tones; "at whatever cost, read." mallow silently spread out the paper and began. chapter iv. "the treasures at kikat." "i, alfred carson, m.d., who relate to you this story, do most solemnly swear to you by all a christian gentleman holds most sacred, that though stranger far than any fiction, it existed in fact, and that the relation of it here set forth--to which my signature is duly appended--is in each and every particular true. at the time these events occurred, i occupied the post of physician to the rao of kikat, which was an unconsidered kingdom in the northern part of india. i say 'was' advisedly, for since the year of the mutiny it has been absorbed in our asiatic empire. but in --the date of the facts herein related--it was still an independent state, reigned over by rao singhapetty, it is true, but free and wealthy nevertheless. still the rao, in a small measure, was tributary to the h.e.i.c., and it was to release himself from a nominal payment that he engaged to take part in the great rising. to his folly in this respect this story is due. "in those days, i was young, poor, rash, and ambitious, yet not without, i think, good parts, mental and moral. if i failed to control the one by the other, the blame for such must lie with michael trall. he was one of those rascally adventurers who then infested india, in the hope of becoming nabobs; fertile in resource, of great courage, and one of the most unscrupulous scoundrels who ever played the part of mephistopheles for the seduction of weaker spirits to ruin and crime. whence he came i know not. i conclude his past life was too disreputable to be disclosed, but my knowledge of him dates from the year , when he appeared at the rao's court, and used his impudent arts to secure an ascendency over the mind of that weak potentate. there he came into contact with me, and with bellairs. "mark bellairs, my dearest and oldest friend, had come out to india with me. he was then in the army, but having quarrelled with his father, his allowance was cut off, and he was forced to sell out. i suggested that he should travel eastward in my company, and turn his military knowledge to some account at the court of some petty rajah. as there was nothing for him to do in england, he agreed to try his luck in the east, and together we arrived in bombay, with no money, and great ambitions. of our adventures i need not speak, as they have nothing to do with this story; but we wandered here, there, and everywhere, until fortune brought us to kikat. here, as the rao was in need of a resident physician, he engaged me, and afterwards, finding that bellairs had been in the english service, he placed him in command of his small army. i swear that before the meeting bellairs and i were quite content with our positions. we had power, the salaries were large, and the rao was our very good friend. in a few years we hoped to make our fortunes, and return wealthy, and honoured to the mother country. but for trall, we might have continued in the straight path, but, like the belial he was, he drew us from it to earn money and lasting shame. "i must admit that trall was a most fascinating man. handsome, strong, clever, full of conversation and tact, he had acquired complete power over singha. then, finding that we had no little say in matters of state, he set his clever wits to work for our conquest--not without success. no doubt, it was weak of us to yield, but the man had a tremendous strength of will, and a power of fascination which could control--and did control--all who personally came in contact with him. remember, both bellairs and myself believed him to be an honourable gentleman; and it was not until we were well entangled in his nets that he threw off the mask. then it was too late. "there is ever an exception to a rule, and an exception to the well-nigh universal popularity of trall was to be found in the person of the rev. manners brock, a missionary, who had engaged himself in the hopeless task of converting the kikat heathen. the pleasant manners and simplicity of brock made him a great favourite with us all; even the rao liked him, in spite of his christianizing propensities, and placed no barrier in his way with the people. brock was candid almost to the verge of folly. he told us how he stood alone in the world, without parents or relatives; made us acquainted with all the details of his early life as a sizar at oxford, as a poor london curate, and made a frank declaration of his 'call' to enlighten the idolaters of india. i knew brock's life as well as i did my own, and felt great respect for his principles and zeal. trall was studiously affable to him, and tried his hardest to fascinate him into obedience, but somehow brock managed to avoid his snares. he kept out of trall's company, undermined his influence with the rao--which was exercised for no good, you may be sure--and altogether showed our belial plainly that he considered him a rascal. naturally, trall grew to hate him, and would willingly have done him an injury, but as singha protected the missionary, open warfare was out of the question. however, trall watched his opportunity, and it came at last--the mutiny with it. "when all india blazed with fanaticism from north to south, rao kept himself and his kingdom out of trouble, although he did not go so far as to side with the english. he adopted a neutral attitude, and no doubt would have maintained it to the end, but that trall, ever at his elbow, persuaded him to revolt. singha did not declare open war against the foreigners--he could scarcely have done so while an englishman headed his army--but he tampered with the mutinous princes, corresponded with them, and declared that he wished to be rid of his tributary necessity. with devilish ingenuity, trall conducted the whole intrigue, and kept urging singha openly to declare himself. bellairs and i protested at first, but in some way, i can hardly say how, trall involved us in his schemes. what would have been the end of it, had the rao taken the field, i hardly know, but he hesitated, and hung back until it was too late. the mutiny was suppressed, and puppets at delhi were driven into exile, and with them, trall's hopes of becoming the vizier of an eastern king. for a while he raged furiously over his disappointment; then, making the best of a bad job, he began to look about him how best to turn the tide of affairs to his own advantage. it is at this juncture that bellairs and i come into the story. "the troubles at an end, singha naturally wished to make his peace with the victors. it is true that he had not declared himself an enemy, but he had intrigued deeply; he had written compromising letters; and what with the knowledge of myself, bellairs, and trall, there was evidence ample to have him dethroned and exiled. he grew afraid of what might happen to him, and implored us all to help him. at this critical moment trall showed himself in his true colours. "i have mentioned the compromising letters, and treaties with mutinous rajahs. well, trall had kept copies of these, and also possessed some of the originals. if these documents had been shown to the h.e.i.c. or to sir henry lawrence, there is no doubt that they would have ruined the rao beyond all hope of keeping his kingdom. "singha knew this, and so did trall, so did bellairs and i, for the letters were shown to us. trall proposed to blackmail the rao; we refused, and then it was he unmasked his batteries. the man--as we then discovered--was a skilful forger, and had signed our names to many of these letters, besides the actual signature of singha. if he was guilty, we were also, and in a worse degree, seeing that, according to the forgeries, we were ready to massacre our own countrymen. it is impossible to explain how deeply we were involved; but trall showed us clearly, that if we did not work with him, he could, and would, ruin us. the choice lay between ruin and crime, for in no way could we have proved our innocence. trall had the letters and treaties, with the rao's real signature, and the false ones of myself and bellairs; he had provided himself with more than a dozen witnesses to swear that we were renegades to the british cause; he had entangled us in the political criminality of the rao, and we saw very plainly that our lives were ruined should the documents ever reach the governor-general. bellairs and i took a night to choose between our ruin and crime. next morning--i blush to set down the fact--we chose shame. "consider, i pray you, our position. trall, as i have shown, had us completely in his power. guiltless, we should have appeared guilty, and would have been punished and despised--perhaps shot by our own countrymen. no declaration of innocence would have done away with the forgeries. the evidence of our guilt as conspirators with the rao against the h.e.i.c. was down in black and white, and only our word on oath contradicted it. we were--as the saying goes--in a cleft stick--mere pawns shifted on life's chess-board by an unscrupulous intriguer. there was nothing for it but to obey trall, if we wished to save our names from the world's knowledge as those of traitors and renegades. the devil and the deep-sea proverb applies to our position. "well, as i have said, we gave in, and trall proceeded to round off his plot. money was what he wanted, and money he intended to have, even though he were to share it with bellairs and myself. he saw singha, and fixed his price for the inculpating documents. the price was three diamonds--famous not only in kikat, but throughout india. three stones of the purest water they were, a large gem and two small ones, valued together at some forty thousand pounds, more or less. trall intended to keep the most valuable gem for himself, and to give us the other two, 'and i should advise you both to clear out then,' said he, 'for there may be trouble.' "he was as cool in the midst of all this rascality as though he were engaged, like brock, in missionary enterprise. when he went to have it out with singha, we expected he would be killed there and then; but trall, knowing his risk, knew also how to circumvent it. of course the rao was furious and amazed when trall made his statement and demanded his price; and, of course, being an indian, his first instinct was to kill the man who had deceived him. but trall was ready with a counter move. he told singha that the incriminating papers were in the hands of a third person, and that if he killed him these would be sent on to the government at calcutta. as this meant ruin, singha was not fool enough to resort to violence, and seeing no way out of the snare, he gave up the diamonds. they were called the treasures of kikat, and were guarded by the priests. then the blackmailer promised that the papers should be sent back to singha. two hours later he presented us with our share, and slipped his own jewel into a chamois leather bag. 'now,' said he, 'you had better skip. i'm off myself.' "but before he could get away, the rao made trouble. afraid lest trall should not return the papers, he made a clean breast of the whole thing to brock. the missionary was fearfully angry, and without trusting himself to trall's mercies, started straight away for calcutta, there to lay the whole matter before the government. he promised to get singha out of his trouble, and have trall arrested for his wickedness. there was no mention of bellairs or myself, as the rao did not know how trall had been plotting with us. brock got away, though trall heard of his mission through his spies, and followed him, determined to stop his visit to calcutta at any cost should he prove unreasonable. bellairs and i remained with the rao, and made up our minds to get away at the first opportunity with our diamonds. we did not know what might happen, and thought it best to be on the safe side and save our skins, at all events. in time, singha received the papers, and, of course, saw our signatures. he applied to bellairs for an explanation. i was absent at the time, so bellairs saw the rao alone. what took place at the interview i hardly knew, for bellairs was never very explicit. but it seemed that singha accused bellairs of betraying him, and tried to stab him on the spot. the end of the struggle was that bellairs passed his sword through the rao's heart, and then came to tell me what he had done. as i saw that everything might come out, i advised immediate flight. that same night we both left kikat. "shortly afterwards we learned how singha's heir had found his father's dead body and the treasonable papers. fearing that these, if exposed, might cost him his newly acquired throne, he wisely determined to let sleeping dogs lie. whether he knew that bellairs killed singha or not i cannot say, but he probably guessed that we were implicated, from our disappearance. his measures were prompt and judicious. he burnt the papers, gave out that his father had died of apoplexy, and took possession of the state. as there was nothing to compromise, he made matters right with the government, and when singha's corpse was burnt on a pile, in accordance with the hindoo custom, there was nobody to show the violence of the death. the new rao did not pursue in case we might get him into trouble. he simply let the matter die out, and commenced his reign with the support of the government. "i believe, if the truth were known, he was glad his father was dead. what became of trall i never heard; but mr. brock was not afterwards molested by him. he was probably satisfied with his spoil. mr. brock returned to england, and was presented by bellairs with the living of casterwell; but before leaving he put the whole facts of the case before those in power. but they, taking into consideration that singha was dead, and that trall had decamped, and, moreover, having regard to the then distracted state of the country, decided to let well alone. thus it was all made very easy for singha's son. the priests, i believe, made some fuss about the removal of the treasures of kikat, but the new rao soon put an end to them. he judged it better to lose the jewels than his throne. and so the trouble ended without in any way inculpating either bellairs or myself. "i made up my mind that i must part from my friend--my friend no longer, for i could not forgive the murder of singha. nor would i touch the money which had been gained by the price of dishonour and of blood. i gave my diamond to bellairs, and, turning my back on him, went to live like a hermit in a corner of the himalayas. that my nerves were shaken by my late troubles i do not deny. and i must also state that trall's treachery, singha's death, and bellairs' wickedness disgusted me with the world. i felt the only life i could endure was one of solitude. bellairs returned to england, made his peace with his father, and shortly after became the squire of casterwell, with brock as his rector. trall had dropped out of sight with his ill-gotten gains. he may be dead or alive, rich or poor, i know not; what is more, i do not care. the man ruined my life, soiled my honour, and i hate him. "years afterwards i grew weary of my solitude, and married a young eurasian lady. she died when my son angus was born, and, alone once more, i devoted myself to the education of the boy. as he grew up he displayed such talents that i reflected seriously how best to advance him in life. he was poor; i was old, and when i died angus would be penniless. then it occurred to me how wrong i had been in giving up the diamond. for my boy's sake i resolved to make peace with bellairs, the more so when i heard that he also was married and was the father of an only daughter. with sudden resolution i wrote to casterwell, and proposed that my son should marry his daughter, and that the value of the two diamonds should be given to them when they became man and wife. "to this bellairs replied that the gems were not so valuable as we had thought. he had sold both for thirty-eight thousand pounds, and this money he had deposited in the bank to accumulate. his father had left him well off, so he had himself made no use of the money. with the interest that had accrued, he said that it amounted to some fifty thousand pounds. he intended to invest this, and would share the income arising therefrom with me; but he refused to let his daughter marry my son. i replied that he was at liberty to retain the income to himself. i told him that i would not touch the money; but that if he did not consent to the marriage, and on the marriage-day give to my son angus the capital sum of fifty thousand pounds, i would write to the home government, and divulge the murder by him of the rao singha. on this bellairs gave in, and consented to the marriage. i drew out the clause relating to the money, which was to be incorporated in his will, and sent it to him. out of the fifty thousand pounds which angus would receive on his marriage with olive bellairs, he was to allow her a yearly income of a thousand pounds. this i considered was fair, and bellairs thought so too, for he made his will as i directed. "the present document i now send to manners brock by the hand of my son angus. i wish him to deal with it in this fashion: if the marriage takes place it is to be destroyed. if olive refuses, he is to show her this statement, and threaten to publish it unless she consents to the match. bellairs is now dead, and it is possible he may have tricked me in some way. but i am not to be tricked. unless my wish is carried out this story is to be laid before the authorities. they will then confiscate the rao's money, and publish to the world the wickedness of bellairs. it lies with olive to save the money and protect the memory of her father by marrying angus. if she declines--well, she knows what will happen. brock, whom i admire and respect, will never let my son lose the money that i wish him to have, and, by our old friendship, i conjure him to obey me. angus knows the story as it is here set forth, and will respect, and aid towards the consummation of my wish. for the rest, i maintain i am more than liberal in allowing my son to marry the daughter of a murderer. "(signed), alfred carson, m.d." chapter v. "let the dead past bury its dead." the insulting peroration of dr. carson's effusion was suppressed by mallow; for olive was already suffering severely under the knowledge of her father's misdeeds. he was a murderer, a blackmailer, a thief--he, her dearly-loved father, whom from a child she had set up as her idol. who could cherish, nay, even respect, the memory of a man guilty of what she now learned he had been guilty? small wonder, indeed, that he had implored her to conceal that guilt, even though it cost her a life's happiness in the doing. she had a rigid sense of right and wrong, and, despite herself, her idol crashed from off the pedestal whereon she had so lovingly set it up just as mr. brock had prophesied it would. and with it went all her dearest memories--all the recollections which she had cherished for so long--which in the cherishing had become a part of her self--perhaps, even the better part. she wept bitterly at the ruin of her world. and mallow let her weep. he felt it was better so. and when she grew more composed he left her, holding over the fire, as he rose from his seat, the leaves that had brought such sorrow with them. she divined what he would do, and sanctioned it with a slow bend of her head. and then the flames destroyed for ever the tangible evidence of mark bellairs' sins. when mallow returned she was more herself. she had dried her eyes. "would you like to talk about this, olive?" "no, dear, no. of what use! nothing we can say can alter such truths as these." "perhaps not; but we can at least hide them. no one save you and i knows this story. no one must know it, olive--for your father's sake." "mr. brock knows it?" "mr. brock, yes. but we can trust mr. brock. indeed, he has done all a man could do to spare you. i feel i am in no small degree myself to blame for the knowledge of this having reached you at all. i urged him to it." "oh, it is better i should know it, laurence. at least, we know the worst now. nothing--oh, surely nothing could be worse than this. poor father is gone. but, laurence dear, i have you, laurence--i always have you. thank god for you, laurence." "but remember, olive, if your father sinned, he repented--bitterly repented." "yes, laurence, i know. but he was willing i should be sacrificed to hide his sin--i, who loved him so--that hurts me terribly, laurence; that is not easy to forgive." "is it not possible that he agreed to this man carson's proposal to save you from the truth--that you might never know?" "even so, it was for his own sake--for his memory's sake." "may be, yes. but that was only natural, olive. would it not be his great desire that you should think the best of him? and, after all, dear, this act of your father's was the act of days long bygone--thirty years or more ago--and from then to the time of his death he led an upright, honest life. think of him, not as trall's accomplice, dear, but as the father you knew. try and do that, olive--will you?" "if you wish it, laurence--yes, i will try." and so the fateful missive was destroyed, and they made up their minds that they would put their knowledge behind them, and slip back again into the old life as though it had never been. their hegira was before them--from their marriage they would date it. and that was to be very soon now. yet there were details which must be settled before they finally dismissed the past. and with these olive prepared to busy herself. great as was her sorrow, she did not allow it to sadden her. she determined it should permeate her every-day existence. she was quietly cheerful, and ever amiable to her guests. she was kindly sympathetic to aldean and tui, and listened with all patience to the disquisitions of miss slarge, even unto the doings of ala mahozim, the god of fortifications. of mrs. purcell she saw little in these days. that good lady was indefatigably scouring the county, renewing early friendships, and conducting an orderly canvass in favour of olive, and to the denunciation of her bigamist husband. maids and matrons lifted up their hands in horror at mrs. purcell's revelations; men, old and young, expressed violent desires to have carson within boot-reach. so vigorously did the clever old lady raise the countryside in olive's favour, that the tide of sympathy soon set strongly towards the manor house, and miss bellairs--mrs. carson no longer on friendly tongues--was pitied, petted, called upon, and duly wept over. as a _dea ex machinâ_, mrs. purcell had been successful far beyond the thanks of those whom she sought to serve. meanwhile trall had picked up his health in no small degree, and with it a courage long foreign to his timid nature. but, lest he should revert to his old habits, mallow feared to let him out of sight. he kept him always within the grounds of the manor. there he pottered about, from day to day, and the servants understood that he was a decayed gentleman pensioner of their mistress. jeremiah, collecting his rags of gentility, supported the character well enough. he never alluded in any way to his stormy life of the past. his mind taking a religious turn, he dismissed his former state as one of sin, and not to be referred to; and he spent hours reading the bible in preparation for his summons to another existence. and, seemingly, that call was not very far away. the man's once bulky frame had shrunk and dwindled greatly, so that his clothes hung loosely upon him now. after the burning of the document, laurence called at the vicarage to tell mr. brock of what he had done. but this time the deaf spinster was successful, and he obtained no admission to the vicarage. mr. brock sent out a message that he was much engaged, and could see no one for a week at least. surprised somewhat, mallow took himself off, and on the road up to the manor met little mr. timson, the doctor, pounding along on his broken-kneed mare. at mallow's halloo, he reined up--no easy task with his hard-mouthed veteran. "the vicar?" asked mallow, gazing into timson's red face--red with pulling; "how is he getting along?" timson was a pessimist, with a high average of deaths amongst his patients. he shook his flaxen locks dolefully. "very bad, mr. mallow; i don't suppose he'll see the winter through. his heart is weak--very weak. nasty murmur there--mitral valve wrong; any sudden shock--in fact, emotion of any kind--and he's done for," said timson, solemnly. "but under normal conditions, doctor, he'll pull through, won't he?" "oh, may last for a time; but he's bound to go--bound to go. the leg is obstinate, too. if he'd only rest, there might be a chance; but he goes on writing, writing." laurence pricked up his ears. "writing! what is he writing?" "some sort of diary, i should think--pages and pages of it. to make matters worse, he uses a cipher. very bad for him that, you know--very bad. by the way," added the little man, "i hear poor old drabble is taken." "he is blown to bits, if that is what you mean by 'taken,'" said mallow, grimly; "he played with fire once too often." timson sighed. "i know that he held pernicious doctrines, mr. mallow, and his medical methods were not such as i could endorse. i've taken over a good many of his patients. they are in a sad state--a sad, sad state!" and he shook his little head again. "poor drabble! ah! well, we must all come to it." "but not necessarily in the same way, i trust. well, good day, mr. timson." as the doctor's animal stumbled down the hill, mallow, climbing upward, felt somewhat uneasy at the news of mr. brock's industry. it might be that there was yet more to tell of bellairs' wickedness, and mallow fancied that the vicar might be setting it down in black and white. "precious queer amusement for a clergyman on the point of death, anyhow," he muttered to himself. "he has no relative that his scribbling is likely to interest, that i know of." that same evening, leaving aldean and tui at whist with the old ladies, he led olive into the library. "i want to talk to you, olive about this money. you were saying something the other day about getting rid of it." "yes; i wouldn't use it for the world. thirty thousand of it has gone with clara and boldini to south america. i want to give the remaining twenty back to the indian government." "h'm; the government will ask questions. we don't want that." "can't it be returned as conscience-money?" "even so, i fancy, some explanation would be necessary. it is a large sum, you see. besides, there is another point which you have overlooked. the money--or, rather, what is left of it--is not yours." "not mine? then whose is it?" "you forget the will, olive. in the event of your not marrying carson, the money was to go to mr. brock. well, as a matter of fact, the provisions of the will not being complied with, that is where it ought to go." "he can have it, with pleasure; but i feel sure he won't touch it now." "perhaps not; but he said if he got it--that was before he read the story--he would give it back to you." "i don't want it. if he does, i shall only forward it to the proper quarter. strictly speaking, it should be given to the rao of kikat." "there is no rao now. don't you remember how dr. carson said that the kingdom was absorbed in the empire? i think it will be best to ask mr. brock's advice--and, not only ask it, but take it." "mr. brock is an honourable man; he will agree with me that the money should be restored. i am half sorry we recovered it now." "i'm not," said mallow, grimly. "at least, we have done semberry out of his haul. but i'll see brock." "laurence, do you think mr. brock knew of my father's wickedness?" "no; carson explicitly says that trall did not tell the rao about either him or your father. when singha got the papers, brock was already on the road to calcutta, and they were burnt before he returned. no; brock did not know until he read carson's story." "he would never have published it, as dr. carson wished." "no; that i'm sure he would not," said mallow, warmly. "carson was quite mistaken in his estimate of brock's character. but, if angus had lived, and you had refused to marry him, he might have held it over you as a threat." "but the envelope was sealed?" "of course. still, angus knew the story as related there. dr. carson said that he told it to him. but things are square now. carson is dead, with his story untold; the paper is burnt, and mr. brock will keep his own counsel for our sakes." "after we see mr. brock, dear, we will never talk of these things again," said olive. "but there are one or two questions i feel i must ask him." with a sudden recollection of the cipher diary and its possible further revelations, mallow withheld his approval. "better let sleeping dogs lie, dear." "but i want to know more of my father's life at kikat." "don't, olive, don't. what you do know has brought you nothing but unhappiness." "that's just it, laurence. nothing can make me more unhappy. i may as well know everything there is to know." "well, as you please. but you must let me see mr. brock first." "why; to warn him, i suppose?" "no, n-o-o. i think i ought to tell him of angus carson's death." "what good will that do?" "none, most likely. still, i think he ought to know. i've always thought the motive for carson's death was to be found in india." "there was nothing in the story to lead one to think so." "nothing. but mr. brock may know something. at present he is under the impression that boldini is the genuine carson; but, when i tell him of the murder, and the whole conspiracy, it is possible he may recall some incident likely to throw light on what is now absolutely cimmerian." "i doubt it, laurence. are you still so bent on getting to the bottom of this murder?" "why not? an undiscovered mystery is like an unfinished tune. you feel a tantalizing desire for the closing cadence. all my life i shall worry about that poor fellow's death, until i really know how he was killed, and who killed him. only one more try, olive, i promise you. if mr. brock fails to help me, i suppose i must give up the chase." "well, see mr. brock, and then tell him the story. but i fear you will be disappointed." "who knows, dear. his knowledge of your father and carson's life in kikat should be precise. for all we know, michael trall may have done it." "i can't think that, laurence. michael trall has not been seen or heard of for thirty years." "true, true. his own brother doesn't know of his whereabouts. i dare say the scamp is dead." "and even if he were alive, i can't see where his motive could have been." "true, again. but i think i'll ask mr. brock, nevertheless." chapter vi. "mr. brock's addenda." in spite of herself olive fretted. her trouble had taken firm hold of her mind, and bade fair now to make havoc of her body. she lost flesh rapidly. in vain mallow tried to combat this brooding over her father's wrong-doing. he pointed out the futility of it; he urged her--implored her--to make the effort to rouse herself. but without result. her father's sin became with her an ever-present enormity. she was continually dwelling upon it. they tried to get her to work--to use her hands, employ herself actively, anyhow--at anything--so long as, for the time being, it was capable of absorbing her, and thus releasing the terrible tension under which she laboured. at last mallow saw there was nothing for it but an entire change of scene and surroundings. "you must go, olive dear--away from here, away from all that reminds you of yourself. you shall go abroad at once, mrs. purcell shall go with you, and later i will join you, and in six months' time you will return, dear, a totally different woman--no longer olive bellairs, even in name, for we will be married, and you will laugh at yourself and these wretched phantoms of your own raising." "you speak as though i were a child!" she cried petulantly. "phantoms indeed!--facts, you mean. my father was a--oh, don't speak of it, the very thought drives me beside myself. and i have to keep it all to myself--all, all!" "oh, olive," said mallow, reproachfully, "am i not some help to you?" "a man never understands--he does not feel these things." "really, olive, i think the sooner you get away from casterwell the better." "i shall never be better--never, never!" mallow did not argue with her. he saw that it was quite useless. actions, not words, were necessary if olive was to be restored to a proper sense of what was due to herself and to others. laurence recognized this, and took an early opportunity of calling at the vicarage. again mr. brock refused to see him; but next day mallow received a note requesting him to call. he obeyed promptly. on his way through the village he met jeremiah looking distressed and lonely. "i want to see a clergyman," he whined peevishly; "i have so many sins to confess. i can find no one to help me." mallow looked at him. it appeared that trall, under stress of religious emotion, might confess to a priest, much more than he would be likely to confide to a layman. in such circumstances it was not at all improbable that he might let drop much that would be useful. "i will take you to see a clergyman, trall--the best in this parish. i am now on my way there. if you will call at the vicarage shortly--left-hand side of the church from the roadway--i will leave you with him. then you will be able to unbosom your mind quite freely." "oh, thank you; thank you, mr. mallow. i have many sins to confess--many, many. when shall i come?" mallow glanced at his watch. "in three-quarters of an hour. say about four o'clock. i would take you with me now, only i want first to see mr. brock myself on private business." trall was more than satisfied with this arrangement, and hobbled off, profuse in his expressions of gratitude. mallow continued his way to the vicarage. "good-day, mr. brock," said he, as the deaf housekeeper showed him into the study (now the sick-room); "i am glad to see you at last." "indeed, i must apologize for not receiving you before," replied the vicar, wearily, "but i have been busy arranging my papers against my death." "oh, come now, you are not going to die." "i shall never leave this house alive, mr. mallow. my days are numbered. you can guess now that the reading of carson's statement gave me a severe shock. all these years, i never suspected that it was bellairs who murdered singha. indeed, i did not even know that he was murdered, for rao chunder, the heir, gave out that his father had died of apoplexy." "did you never return to kikat?" "no; i failed altogether to induce the governor-general to move in the matter of the blackmailing, and, as the rao's son was not very friendly to me i judged it wiser to keep away. besides, i heard that bellairs and carson had left kikat, and believed that their departure was due to the enmity of the new rao. god forgive me, i never guessed the truth." "rao singha never told you that bellairs and carson were inculpated in the blackmailing?" "no. trall made it out to be his own conspiracy, entirely, and kept their names out of his confession. moreover, singha had not received the incriminating letters with the forged names. they were afterwards burnt by the new rao. he kept his own counsel. i never saw them; i never suspected that bellairs and carson had fallen so low." "do you think the names were forged, or do you believe that your friends were willing accomplices in the conspiracy?" "i believe the names were forged," declared brock decisively. "so far as i knew, both bellairs and carson were thoroughly honourable men. trall entangled them by means of the forgeries, and, for their own sakes, they were compelled to act as accomplices." "did bellairs ever hint at the truth?" "mr. mallow,"--the vicar sat up and flushed indignantly--"had i been told the truth by bellairs, do you think that i would have remained vicar of casterwell? no! for olive's sake, perhaps i might have held my tongue but my first act would have been to vacate the living. bellairs was as silent as the grave about kikat. he hardly ever alluded to his life there, and then only casually." "guilty conscience, no doubt," suggested mallow. "as a rule, a man doesn't particularly care to reperuse the smudged pages of his life-book. i suppose bellairs never told you his reason for the betrothal of olive to angus?" "never! never! i thought it was simply and solely the outcome of his strong friendship for carson. as to the will leaving me the money in the event of the marriage not taking place, i did not know its contents until bellairs was dead." "well, the money is yours, now, mr. brock. will you take it, knowing how it was earned?" "my dear friend, believe me, it is superfluous to discuss what i will do with it. i am a dying man. by my will, i have restored the money to olive; she can deal with it as she pleases." "in that case it is her intention to restore it to the indian government." "what good will that do?" said the vicar, with a sigh; "there is no rao of kikat now--the name, the family, the very kingdom has died out. let olive make restitution, if such be her wish, but the money will go into the wrong pockets if she sends it there." "i don't care whose pockets it enters, neither does she," said mallow; "the main point is to get rid of it--and there is twenty thousand pounds." mr. brock started. "only that. i understood----" "that there was fifty. true enough; but thirty has gone across the seas with boldini and his wife." "boldini! who is he?" "i forgot, you don't know the story. it is a long one, mr. brock, and not a pretty one for a clergyman to hear." "as a rule, we hear the worst stories. but you talk strangely, mr. mallow. i do not understand. this boldini! who is he? "well, he is the man who masqueraded here as angus carson." "as angus carson! do you mean to tell me that it was not really angus carson who----" "i will tell you all about it, if," said mallow, with some hesitation, "you think you are quite strong enough to hear." "quite strong enough, and most anxious to hear" said mr. brock, feverishly. "come, mr. mallow, explain this mystery." "you may well call it a mystery, mr. brock, and it seems likely to remain one. i can begin the story and continue it to a certain point; but you must finish it for yourself." then mallow related to the astonished vicar all the intrigues of the last few months. he was most minute in his recital, giving even the reasons which had induced him to take various steps. mrs. arne, drabble, boldini, clara, he introduced all these people to mr. brock, placing them before him in their different capacities as vividly as he was able. but he refrained from expressing to the vicar his hope that jeremiah would shortly aid towards the solution of the mystery. he could see that the old man was becoming exhausted as well as bewildered by what he had heard. "terrible, terrible!" he murmured. "poor olive! poor angus! oh, why, why did you not tell me all this before?" "there was not much use in telling you," said mallow, gloomily; "you could not have helped us. we are no nearer finding out the truth than we were before. why was young carson killed? that is what i want to know. what was the motive?" "i can't think," replied mr. brock, staring before him; "it is all so dreadful. you don't think drabble murdered the poor lad?" "no; drabble's interest was to keep him alive, unless he proved stubborn. then----whew!" mallow drew a long breath. from his experiences in the soho house, he had little difficulty in guessing what mrs. arne would have done had young carson proved obdurate. "but i don't think they killed him," he added; "no, i am sure they didn't." "but who else could have a motive?" asked the vicar, wrinkling his brows. "they left him well, you say, and returned to find him dead. some one, according to your theory, must have been in the house meanwhile." "undoubtedly. and that some one is the murderer. but who is he?" "it is impossible to say. angus lived all his days in india; he knew no one in england. perhaps major semberry----" "no." mallow shook his head. "he denied it strenuously, and, so far as i can see, he had as much interest as the anarchists in keeping carson alive. come, mr. brock, are you sure there was nothing that happened at kikat likely to lead to this?" "after thirty years--nothing. besides, carson was not married then; the boy was not born." "i wonder," said mallow, musingly, "if that bangle had anything to do with it?" "how could it?" asked mr. brock, amazed. "well, i understand it was taken from an idol." "no." brock shook his head. "that is not correct. singha gave the bangle to carson--my friend--with the full permission of the priests. he cured the rao of a severe illness, and the priests approved of the reward." "then michael trall must be the murderer." "how do you make that out? trall disappeared from kikat thirty and more years ago. he has never been heard of since. probably he is dead." "probably. but possibly he may be alive; and he may have killed young carson." "on what grounds--for what reason," said mr. brock. "killing angus would not give him the money, if that is what you are thinking of. no, i am sure trall is dead. he was too restless and ambitious a man to remain quiet; and when he had exhausted his own share of the blackmail, he would, in all probability, come here for the purpose of blackmailing bellairs." "perhaps he knew you were here, mr. brock." "perhaps. and, so far, i may have been a safeguard to bellairs. but knowing trall well as i do, i think he would have run even the risk of my denouncing him, had there been money to be gained." "when did you see trall last?" "at kikat. he followed me with the intention of frustrating my plans; and he would have done so at the cost of murder, i make no doubt. but i changed the route i had intended to take, and, i am thankful to say, he missed me." at that moment the voice of the housekeeper could be heard raised in anger--evidently, from the deeper tones which followed, against some man. mr. brock grew deadly pale, and his heart beat wildly with sheer nervousness. "see--see what it is, mr. mallow!" he gasped, "oh, this will kill me!" the young man ran to the door and threw it open. as though he had been waiting outside, jeremiah shambled into the room amid the shrill expostulations of the sour spinster. "i came as you told me," whimpered trall, clutching mallow. "where is the clergyman? i must see the clergyman." "trall, this is disgraceful. mr. brock----" "aha!" breathed the vicar, and both men turned at the strangled sound to see him sitting up looking at the newcomer with vacantly staring eyes. on his side, jeremiah released his hold of mallow, and, as though drawn by a magnet, approached the sofa. the sick man and his visitor gazed blankly at one another. "why," whispered trall, still gazing, "it's you--it's--it's--it's--why, it's michael!" "michael?" repeated mallow. "what michael?" "michael trall--my brother. oh, michael, i'm so glad to see you. i'm jerry." the man on the bed stared and stared, but spoke not a word. his face was blanched with fear, and he repeatedly put out his hands as though to keep the other back. then quietly, silently, without a sign of recognition, he fell back dead. chapter vii. "the cipher diary." even in the first shock of this untimely death, though timely discovery, mallow kept his wits about him. that brock was truly michael trall he made no doubt. for, in truth, jeremiah had neither the capacity nor the reason to simulate relationship of the kind. moreover, nothing surely could be more conclusive than the fatal effect which this unexpected meeting had had for brock, beside whom now the wretched man dropped into prayer and supplication. he called upon him to recover, implored him for a sign--a look. he wept bitterly. mallow did not molest him. he was totally unfit for rational conversation. poor brock--he may still be called so for the avoidance of confusion--was quite dead. mallow slipped his hand under his clothes on to the heart to make quite sure. the sight of his brother, and the knowledge of what would follow, had done their work and snuffed him out of this life. "come now, trall," said mallow. "you must try and pull yourself together, and, what's more, you must not say a word about this. no one must know--understand, trall, no one. as mr. brock he lived--as mr. brock he died." "but he is my own brother michael." "i believe you, trall; but reticence, absolute silence on that point, is necessary, if only for your own safety. remember the brotherhood!" that was quite enough for trall. he promised implicit obedience. "and i'll sit in this corner as quiet as a mouse, mr. mallow," he concluded, "if only you'll let me. don't! oh, don't take me away." "well, you may remain there for the present. but, remember, not a word to any one about this." mallow deemed it advisable to alarm the household. he rang the bell, and the acidulated housekeeper duly appeared. she immediately lost all control of herself. she cried out aloud, and gesticulated wildly. her fellow-servants followed suit, and in a very few moments the usually tranquil vicarage was a very pandemonium of weeping and wailing promptly mallow sent a messenger for mr. timson, and another for lord aldean, with strict injunctions not in any way to alarm the ladies at the manor house. he determined not to leave the place himself until he had possession of the cipher-diary. seeing now that without doubt this was michael trall, he expected much in the way of revelation from the diary. it is a passion with some of perverted instincts to set down their deeds and misdeeds in black and white, and such documents are invariably to be relied upon. they are usually perfectly unfettered in their utterance--the tangible communion of such people with themselves. mallow anticipated difficulty only so far as the unravelling of the cipher was concerned. this might prove obstinately difficult, or it might not. but, he argued, there was no cipher invented by man that man could not unravel--and unravel it he would, even though he took years in the doing of it. it remained now to secure the document itself. within an hour mr. timson arrived, and seemed in nowise astonished at the suddenness of mr. brock's death. "just what i expected," he chirped in his pessimistic way. "cardiac failure--pure and simple. he was excited in some way, i presume, mr. mallow? "yes; he became very excited while i was talking with him," said laurence, evasively. "quite so--quite so. i warned him. i told him how it would be. dear, dear! most regrettable, but natural all the same--quite natural." mr. timson was moved not a hair's-breadth from his habitual complacency. "don't you think the body should be removed to the bedroom?" said mallow. he hardly liked to begin his search for the diary with the dead man's body lying there. "certainly, certainly! more decent. quite right." so, superintended by the little man, mr. brock's remains were carried out of the study. the progress to the bedroom drew forth further lamentations from the female servants. timson took himself off then. as he went out of the hall lord aldean entered. he was full of sympathy, and amazed. "poor old chap!" he said, as mallow conducted him to the study. "died of heart failure, i suppose? i'm awfully sorry for the poor old fellow. he was a good sort--brock." "yes, i'm sorry, too," said mallow, grimly, "but not quite for your reasons. the dead man is michael trall--not brock." "trall! what do you mean?" aldean cast a glance at jeremiah. "is not this trall, then?" "it is michael--my poor brother," sighed the creature in the corner. "mr. brock your brother! well, i----" "wait a moment, aldean, i'll tell you all about it directly." then, turning to jeremiah, mallow asked, "was your brother a good man?" "no--o--o," replied trall. "he was clever, but he was not a good man. he deserted his wife and poor little clara. but i was fond of him; a brother is always a brother." "oh!" mallow paused. he did not wish to reflect in any way upon the dead man, and he was afraid to trust jeremiah out of his sight, lest in his weakness he should reveal his connection with the late vicar. "i wish to speak privately with lord aldean," he said at length. "go you, trall, into the next room for half an hour. stay there, and, mind, not a word to any one about what has happened." "very well, mr. mallow," replied jeremiah, submissively, creeping towards the door. laurence followed him and made him comfortable in the dining-room. the sour spinster--now a very niobe--all tears--was informed that mr. trall was suffering from shock at the unexpected death of the vicar, and was not on any account to be disturbed. having arranged thus for jeremiah's seclusion, mallow returned to the study, where he found aldean in a state of intense expectancy. the situation and hints of mystery puzzled him. "what's all this business about?" he asked, when he saw his friend lock the door. "it's about michael trall, alias brock, who, i truly believe, jim, is the murderer for whom we have searched so long." "mr. brock the murderer of carson! impossible! you must be mistaken, surely!" "well, perhaps; but i don't think so. i will give you my grounds for saying so, and i think you will agree, jim, that they are pretty strong." rapidly, but tersely, mallow related the story as set forth by dr. carson. he concealed nothing, not even bellairs' guilt. finally he expressed his conviction that in mr. brock's diary would be found the key to the whole mystery. jim was amazed; still, he could not agree with his friend. "murderers don't write accounts of their crimes," he pronounced, decisively; "not such fools as to make up their own brief for the prosecution." "that's just where you're wrong, jim. there are not a few cases on record," said mallow. "i can recollect one, in particular, where a clerk wrote in his diary: 'to-day, fine and hot; killed a little girl in croft's spinney.' that line hanged him." "glad it did," growled jim, in disgust, "for being such a fool. i confess i have no sympathy for a man who gives himself away like that." "perhaps not, jim; but there seems to be a peculiar fascination about confession which some of these men can't resist. it may be that there is great relief for them in unburdening their minds, even on paper. if we can judge michael trall's character from carson's story, he has heaped up a goodly pile of wickedness these thirty and more years. moreover, if his diary were guileless reading, he would not resort to cipher. no, jim, i believe the man has sought to ease his conscience by setting down his sins." "may have, mallow; but the cipher's a teaser." "no doubt. i don't anticipate it will be child's play, by any means. still, it is a fact that there is no cipher invented by the ingenuity of man which--given time and application--cannot be unravelled. this diary may take days, even months, to straighten into queen's english; but, sooner or later, i shall master its contents, if only to learn why brock killed carson." "you speak confidently, mallow. but brock may be innocent, even yet." "possible; but, to my mind, improbable. if brock be not guilty, i don't know who is. however, it's no use theorizing when we have facts before us. brock's keys are under the pillow." "sure we have the right to search, mallow?" "i'll take the risk of that," said laurence, with composure, and forthwith went to work, assisted by aldean. manifestly, the most promising hunting-ground was the escritoire near the window, at which michael trall in clerical capacity had been accustomed to compile his sermons. mallow first explored the pigeon-holes and their papers, scrutinizing the writing of each in turn; but, so far, failed to find anything at all incriminating. he unlocked the drawers, and went through them systematically from top to bottom. in the right-hand corner of the lowest drawer they found the diary carelessly thrown in without attempt at concealment. it was contained in a stout volume, bound in red cloth, and on the back was written, in ink, "no. ." "oh!" said mallow, examining the neat cipher writing. "the rogue evidently posted his criminal ledgers with the utmost regularity. where are the other twenty?" they were not in his desk, for by this time they had searched every inch of it. jim examined the bookcases filled to overflowing, and occupying three walls of the room. near the top of one of them he found, shamelessly exposed, the remaining twenty volumes. the astute mr. brock had evidently acted upon the conviction that in attempting no concealment he aroused no curiosity. his readings had no doubt included the stories of edgar allan poe. "cheek of the beggar," grumbled aldean, tumbling down these ledgers promptly; "he had every faith in his cipher." "and in his reputation as the rev. manners brock," said mallow, receiving the books below, and arranging them on the table. "i expect there is material enough for a dozen detective novels in this lot. eh! what's up now, jim? don't swear!" aldean, suppressing further imprecation, scrambled down the ladder. "look here, mallow! just look!" "watch, chain, studs, and the missing wrist-button," counted laurence, coolly; "it is no more than i expected. there can be no doubt after this, jim. here is the dead man's jewellery. the lying brute--he said that drabble gave him the other wrist-button as a curiosity." they surveyed the tarnished gold and the double pile of red books in silence. then said aldean slowly-- "god! to think of that murderous scoundrel saying he was a parson. makes me sick to think of it. might have lived to marry tui and me. by gum!" jim started as the discovery slowly evolved itself in his brain. "say, mallow, all the marriages in this parish must be wrong 'uns. what's to be done about them?" "we must wait until we read the diary before considering matters of such minor importance as that," said mallow, tapping the books. "i expect it won't be easy to straighten out brock's crooked ways." "don't call him brock. makes me feel bad." "brock he must be called, jim, for the present. none of the ladies must know the truth until we get through these books. manners brock is dead, not michael trall." "i understand. but jeremiah----" "i'll manage him. ha! there he is, i expect. open the door, jim." aldean did so, and trall, looking white and agitated, crept into the room. "i'm afraid to be alone," he whimpered. "can't i stop here?" "we must go home now, trall," said mallow, soothingly. "can you read this cipher?" and he opened out a book to jeremiah in the faint hope of receiving an affirmative answer. to his surprise and delight it came. "i can read it, mr. mallow. it's michael's cipher. i taught it to him when we were boys." "hurrah!" sang aldean, slapping trall's back. "you shall translate it, then." "michael's diary!" said jeremiah, quicker in understanding than might have been expected. "i see. ah, michael was always clever with his pen." "been a sight too clever this time," muttered jim, assisting his friend to tie up the books in neat bundles. here operations ceased for the moment, and mallow and aldean, with jeremiah in charge, returned home after a few directions to the deaf housekeeper. then came the difficult task of explaining certain rumours which had already reached the manor house. jim discreetly held his tongue and left things to his friend, who vouchsafed as little information as was consistent with allaying the general alarm. mr. brock had died suddenly from heart failure, he declared, refraining carefully from all mention of the dead man's identity with the michael trall of carson's story, and from any reference to the cipher diary. in the lamentations which ensued, further questions were spared him. "the man must be buried as mr. brock," said mallow to aldean, a day or two later. "there is no other course open, if the story is to be kept quiet." "yes, i suppose so. it will save all trouble over those marriages. better let him have a decent name over his tombstone, though he doesn't deserve it." as the pseudo brock had no relatives--for mallow insisted that jeremiah should suppress the fact of his relationship--olive, as the lady of the manor, charged herself with the funeral. so the scoundrel was buried in fine style, although it is only fair to state that he had kept his false name clean enough, so far as concerned the parish. they could not but feel his loss, and there was much weeping and eulogy by the graveside as michael trall, of kikat, was laid under the turf of the churchyard in the odour of sanctity. mallow thought this was one of life's greater ironies. "good lord!" was his aside to jim, "how the rogue must chuckle at this mummery if his spirit has eyes to see. he might be a canonized saint for the fuss they make." "must have had some good in him," replied aldean, meditatively; "as mr. brock he was straight enough. that i know." "a serpent in a bamboo cannot be otherwise than straight," said mallow. "casterwell vicarage was our friend's bamboo. but a triple murderer! faugh!" "triple! how triple?" "he murdered carson, i'm certain. brock was despatched by him so that he could assume the missionary's lambskin, and i shouldn't be surprised to learn that he, and not bellairs, made away with rao singha. he was capable of it." "but as mr. brock----" "as mr. brock, jim, there should be inscribed upon his tomb the couplet of some byronic imitator-- he settled with a little pious leaven to give the fag-end of his life to heaven." jeremiah did not attend the funeral. mallow induced him to remain at home, lest in his grief his tongue might get the better of him. so he sat in his room and painfully translated the rascalities of michael into plain english--and he taught laurence the cipher, and laurence toiled likewise. it was an affair of many weeks--indeed, it lasted until mrs. purcell announced her determination to take olive abroad. at the same time tui received a cablegram announcing that her delighted parents were on their way to england. much of the diary has no bearing on this story, but in the last volume or so there were notes which shed a flood of light upon much that was before hopelessly obscure. one discovery in particular was of the greatest satisfaction to mallow. indeed, it led him to communicate the latter portion of the diary to olive, miss slarge, and mrs. purcell. tui the matter did not concern. it must not be supposed that laurence gave this information in the precise words of the diary, for this proved to be a hastily compiled composition, thrown together at odd moments--heaven knows what for, unless for the sheer egotistical gratification of its author. he shifted all extraneous matter, translated the notes of the earlier to the later years, and in one way and another drew together the story of the carsons and the events at kikat into a concise narrative. this he wrote out carefully, and one evening, when tui and aldean were love-making over the billiard-table, he read it out to an audience of three. so it is that the following narrative must be regarded strictly as mallow's version--compiled by him from the materials supplied by the twenty-one volumes of the diary, and told by him, in the first person, from its author's point of view. chapter viii. "a rogue's memoirs." "bad luck, bad luck, bad luck--there's my life's history in one word. the day i launched myself on the world misfortune established herself at my elbow, and my most persistent endeavours have failed to oust her from that position. only so far as to allow me perfect health from first to last has she relented. yet even that has had its disadvantages. it has whetted an appetite, already omnivorous, for the luxuries of life--luxuries for the acquirement of which the means have ever been withheld. how i have pursued them--how they have eluded me! it is this quest for luxury, this craving to satisfy an appetite abnormal and insatiable, that has brought upon me so much of trouble. i have had the worst of luck. ten thousand a year might have made an honest man of me. but i defy st. paul himself to have stood in my place with my mind, my body, my soul, and not have done the things that i have done. he would have been another michael trall. i do not say i could ever have been like st. paul. that is another matter. my passion has been the cakes and ale of life--i have never had enough of them; i could not have enough of them. but i was not gifted even with the means for their procuration in a moderate degree. so i don't blame myself. i cannot blame myself. no one can justly blame me. it is nature that is responsible for what i am--for what i have done. blame her, or whosoever, or whatsoever inspires her to bestow upon a luckless man passions strong and undeniable--passions overwhelming and senses insatiable, while denying him the wherewithal to gratify them. that is the most refined torture. i can conceive nothing more ubiquitous, nothing more merciless. "well, that is what has ruined me. "i was unlucky at the start. i was the second son of a pharisee, provincial but respectable. so i suffered from the amiable custom of primogeniture. my brother jerry, two years only my senior, received a home and lands and a thousand pounds a year. he did not receive over much in the way of brains. i, in this latter respect, received, perhaps, more than my share, with senses to match. with such gifts, and some five hundred pounds all told, i was pushed off to sink or swim. i just kept afloat. first of all i lost all my money in a most determined--and, i think, thoroughly well conceived--attempt to double it on the card-table. it was pure misfortune that it proved inferior in practice. i was obliged then to borrow from jerry. he was a stay-at-home ass. i did not approve of his way of life at all; but i had no option but to borrow from him. again misfortune dogged me, for somehow or other--it passes my recollection now--i got into trouble about somebody else's name on a cheque. i remember those concerned made a great fuss about it, altogether out of proportion to the circumstances; and i remember distinctly how disgusted i was at the puritanical island upon which it was my lot to be cast, so i decided to leave it. for some time after that i lived on the continent--upon my wits, which were duly sharpened in the process. it was hard that this should prove to my disadvantage, but it did, for at baden-baden my misfortune culminated in a row at the tables. i was utterly disgusted, but it was wiser that i should leave so i dropped south over the equator and turned up at the cape in a new character, and with a brand new name. those were prehistoric days, and the south african millionaire had not yet invented himself. the boers disapproved of my more civilized ways with the ace, and, as i could not repress my repugnance for their psalm-singing barbarisms, i could not make myself at home there. it seemed as if a resting-place was ever to be denied me. but i plucked up courage, and in a rackety ocean tramp, carrying a cargo of rats and cockroaches, i sailed for bombay. i had a very few pounds, but no little experience. arrived there, i was obliged to make my living somehow. it was a hand-to-mouth existence, and i saw no prospect before me. i had a certain amount of luck with my dice, though on one or two occasions aspersions were cast upon their equilibrium. 'give a dog a bad name, and hang him!' seemed to hold good even here. i was driven north. then, heaven knows why, fortune gave me her hand for once and led me to kikat, the kingdom of one rao singha. "this petty prince was an up-to-date hindoo, with an english army leader and a european physician. bellairs--he was the leader--proved to be a fool, with no brains and some scruples. dr. carson, on the contrary, possessed some brains, but was quite unfettered by scruples. i saw that i should have to adapt myself to the idiosyncrasies of each. i did so, and a sort of triune partnership for the making of our several and joint fortunes was the result. singha was sufficiently acute, but i beat him on his own ground. he loved me like a brother--indeed, i did all i could to civilize him. i taught him cards, introduced him to billiards, and instructed him in the orderly and methodical compilation of a betting-book. i don't say that, one way and another, i did not profit by him; for i did. but the profits were inconsiderable, and in no way sufficient to satisfy me. besides, i was conscious of certain ambitions then. i felt that this great state treasure, not to speak of the command of some two million heathen, would be much more rationally dealt with were they in my hands. in a word, i coveted the viziership of kikat but the priests were one and all against me. moreover, there was an english missionary there, named manners brock, who seemed to be mistrustful of me. i could make nothing of him. in his moral and religious convictions he was absolutely rigid--a most unsympathetic soul, i thought him. it soon became plain to me that nothing short of re-adjustment of the existing political system would clear these obstacles from my path. my chance came with the mutiny. by carefully playing upon singha's ambition and feudal pride, i managed to get him mixed up in it. at my instigation he made certain treaties with the delhi princes, and wrote certain letters professing hostility to the h.e.i.c. then he watched for a favourable opportunity of declaring himself. this opportunity never came, for the rao, over-persuaded by brock, delayed action until it was too late. the mutiny smouldered out when delhi was captured, and i--unlucky once more--reverted to the post of idle companion and powerless buffoon, with the priests and brock ever on the alert to ruin my credit with singha. it became a choice between my downfall and the rao's; so, of course, i chose the rao's. "to strengthen my scheme i appended carson's and bellairs' names to some of the letters, and thereby so implicated them in the rao's conspiracy that, for their own safety, they were compelled to join me. carson was willing enough to throw in his lot with me, but bellairs made some absurd objections, until i was obliged to show him how completely his life and honour were at my discretion. when matters were thus arranged i saw singha. i told him plainly that i should have no option but to send the letters to the governor-general, unless he gave me the three diamonds which were known as the treasures of kikat. he blustered a good deal, but in the end i gained my point. singha gave me the diamonds. the largest i kept to myself, the other two i handed to bellairs and carson. all went smoothly until the rao made trouble by confessing his position to brock. the missionary, with the usual meddlesomeness of his class, made tracks for calcutta, declaring his intention to inform the government of my plot and protect singha. he was afraid of me, i fancy, for he slipped off without my knowledge. i saw that his denunciation meant unpleasantness, so i followed close on his heels, met him, and argued the question with him. i did my best to persuade him to my way of thinking, to show him how utterly foolish and misguided he was, but all to no purpose. he was hopelessly unreasonable, so i killed him. there was nothing else for it. "i returned to kikat, but with the utmost caution. this was necessary because the rao, being now in possession of the papers which i had directed were to be sent to him, might be plotting vengeance. i then discovered he was dead. on noticing the names of bellairs and carson appended to the papers, he had become unruly, so carson had poisoned him, and with bellairs had fled. i managed to come across the fugitives, and together we waited events. "as it happened, the new king was afraid lest his father's conspiracy should cost him his throne, so he hushed up the matter, and gave out that singha had died of apoplexy. as the danger from this quarter was over, we three could now enjoy the fruits of our success. i told bellairs and carson that i had killed brock, so there was nothing to be feared from the government through him. bellairs returned to england, taking with him both his own diamond and carson's. the latter had found a rag of a conscience somewhere, since he had murdered the rao, and talked of the diamond as the 'price of blood.' he refused to take it, and let bellairs carry it off, although i should have liked it for myself. however, i was quite satisfied with my share, for i sold the diamond for thirty thousand pounds. with this money i went back to europe, where i married, became the father of a daughter, and altogether had a glorious time. carson, in a fit of repentance, retired to some himalayan hermitage, haunted, i suppose, by what is called a guilty conscience. fool! my shooting of brock troubled me not in the least. "but what did trouble me was another run of bad luck. i lost everything. i returned to london, and placed my wife and child in the care of jerry, who was a bachelor, and could better afford to keep them than i. then i determined to look up bellairs, who was now squire of casterwell, and horribly prosperous. on making inquiries, i learned that the vicar of the parish was dead, and that the living was in bellairs' gift. i was terribly weary of wandering, and it occurred to me that such a position would suit me very well; at all events, for a while. it was quite a simple matter for me to impersonate manners brock. i had all his papers, and i was well up in the details of his early life, as well as his life in india. the creature had been a confirmed babbler, and had told me everything about himself. i had some trouble with bellairs at first, but he soon saw it was no good. he was desperately jealous of what he called his good name. he had everything to lose; i nothing. so he did the wisest thing he could do, and gave in. i became the reverend manners brock. i had no difficulty in deceiving the old bishop of the diocese. i had all the papers, and was well up in all the necessary details. the living of itself was a poor one, but of course bellairs had to alter that. he told me, when i approached this part of the subject, that he had sold the two diamonds for some thirty-eight thousand pounds. then he, too, indulged in some silly nonsense about the 'price of blood' and so on, which he said had prevented his touching the money. for the last ten years it had been lying in the bank at compound interest, and had now reached something like fifty thousand pounds. i soon settled that. i made him invest the money securely, yet profitably, and pay me the interest. i felt now that i could settle down in comfort to my hardly-earned repose. i had an assured position, a good name, and a most comfortable income. there were times, of course, when i grew weary of so much respectability; but then, all i had to do was to assume some disguise and run up to london for a few days and enjoy myself. but i never went near jerry. my wife was dead, and he looked after my daughter. so, as the reverend manners brock, my life, if quiet, was pleasant enough. for years all went well, until one day there came a letter from carson regretting that he had surrendered his diamond, and suggesting that his son--he had married in the mean time--should marry olive bellairs, and that the proceeds of the diamond should be given to the young people on their wedding-day. at first bellairs refused; but carson replied threatening exposure--more than that, he plainly gave bellairs to understand that he would accuse him of rao singha's murder. for the sake of his jealously-guarded name, bellairs was forced to yield. but he wrote to carson telling him how, in the person of the rev. manners brock, i had become vicar of casterwell, and how he had been obliged to pay me the interest on the money. i did not wish to be selfish, but naturally i refused to give up my income, so in the end i compromised the matter. it was arranged that i should have the interest until the marriage took place, when i was to surrender it. as this could not be for twenty years i agreed to the arrangement, provided that if it did not take place the money should revert to me. bellairs made a will to this effect. carson insisted that the fifty thousand should be settled on his son, with a discretionary clause that he should pay one thousand a year to his wife. i did not know at the time--though i learned it later--that bellairs had left a letter for his daughter imploring her to marry angus, as he feared, did she not, that dr. carson would make known the truth, and thus tarnish his memory. so-the matter was arranged. "the years slipped by, and bellairs died. then carson wrote to me that he had told his son the story, keeping back, however, his own guilt of singha's murder. he had also put the story on paper, though in doing so he had carefully refrained from connecting me, as brock, with michael trall. this account, he intimated, he was sending by his son to me, so that i might, if necessary, use it to force olive into the marriage. i refused so to further his desires. angus, his son, was to denounce me, and to accuse me of the murder of brock. needless to say, i was greatly alarmed at the existence of this document, and by the knowledge that young carson had it in his power to ruin me. even when dr. carson died i was not reassured, as i still knew that angus was in possession of the document and the story. the first could not ruin me, since my identity with the brock of casterwell was not shown; but if angus proved difficult to deal with, it might be very awkward for me. to make myself more comfortable i resolved to see angus before he arrived at casterwell. i should then know, at all events, how he was disposed towards me. mrs. purcell's letter, which had been shown to me by miss slarge, plainly hinted that angus was a religious prig, and i foresaw that he might not prove so easy to manage as his father had been. from the letter i also learned the name of the steamer in which angus was coming to england. shortly before the _pharaoh_ arrived i repaired to london in disguise, and inquired at the office when the liner was expected at the docks. on obtaining this information i went down to wait for her. i wore shabby clothes and a false black beard. "of course, i was not aware that major semberry was in any way connected with drabble, although, from mrs. purcell's letter, i knew that he acted as bear-leader to angus. when the steamer arrived i mixed with the crowd on deck, and managed to have carson pointed out to me. i recognized him easily from his resemblance to his father. when he left the boat with semberry i followed them, still disguised, to athelstane place. i determined to take the first opportunity of speaking to angus. i waited for some time, but they did not come out. i realized that it might be some considerable time--perhaps days--before i found the opportunity i wished for. see him i would, and that alone. while hanging round the house i saw a man--it must have been drabble disguised as hain--but at the moment i failed to recognize him. i saw also the housekeeper. she was a stranger to me. these two were always about the place, although semberry had left, and i was beginning to despair of ever seeing angus alone. at last one evening they both left the house together, and i, having seen them well out of the way, walked up to the door and rang the bell. angus answered it himself, and when i said i was mr. brock of casterwell (for i had put my false beard in my pocket) he at once asked me to walk upstairs. in the drawing-room i had an interview with him, and a stormy one it proved. he was a stern, religious young man, and he declared that he intended to tell olive the truth, to pay back the money to the indian government, and to denounce me as brock's murderer. he also informed me that he had the document securely concealed, as his father, having repented of writing it, had tried to regain possession of it. to prevent his doing so, angus had placed it in the secret drawer of his chest. i implored him not to ruin me--indeed, i offered to give up all claim to the money. i even went on my knees to him, but all in vain. he was adamant, and insisted that i should be exposed as an impostor and a murderer. then, in my turn, i threatened him. i told him that if he denounced me i would reveal his father's sin. he did not know the truth, and asked me what i meant. when he heard that his father had murdered singha he fainted, as he generally did when violently excited, by reason of his weak heart. this i knew from mrs. purcell's letter. i was quite determined that, as i had him at my mercy, he should not live to ruin me. i looked about for a weapon to kill him, and saw the wool-work left by mrs. arne with the knitting-needles in it. i opened his shirt as he lay insensible on the sofa, and pierced him to the heart with one of the needles. he died very quietly and, i think, without pain. then i took his studs, wrist-buttons, watch, chain, and money, so that the murder might look like the work of a robber. in the next room i hunted for the portmanteau, and turned it out to see if i could find the document. it was not to be found, nor the sandal-wood chest, so i stole away from the house, leaving carson dead, and, later on, returned to casterwell. "i read in the newspapers how futile had been the search for the assassin. but i could not quite comprehend what they said about the severed hand. i guessed that it had been cut off in order to remove the bangle, because i myself had been unable to remove it owing to the swollen condition of the hand. but i could not understand their motive for taking away the bangle. it was not until i met boldini, as carson, in the churchyard that this became quite clear to me. then, of course, i guessed at once that it was necessary for his impersonation. i almost fainted at the sight of him. he was so like the young man whom i had been obliged to kill. i explained my emotion to mallow by saying that the son had reminded me so forcibly of his father--my dear old friend. moreover, i made no doubt that a conspiracy was in progress for obtaining the money. of course, i could have denounced the imposture there and then, but that might have led to my own undoing; so i decided to let sleeping dogs lie. the money would be lost to me by the marriage, as, on reading her father's letter, which she showed to me, miss bellairs was bent on carrying out his wish. still, now that angus was dead, no one could identify me with michael trall. i was safe, if poor. "the marriage ceremony i myself performed. so i lost the money by my own act. i was surprised to learn that my daughter clara had engaged herself as maid to olive; but, as mr. brock, i dared not interfere. i regret now that i did not, for through her i might have found out all about boldini's scheme. when mr. and mrs. carson (so-called) departed, i discovered that one of the dead man's wrist-buttons had been taken out of my desk. this alarmed me greatly, and i forthwith hid the rest of the jewellery in my bookcase. afterwards, margery drabble confessed to me that she was the culprit; so when her father was killed i told mallow that he had given it to me. there was no one else to contradict the statement. i was most anxious to find the document in the sandal-wood chest, and thought it might be with major semberry. having gone up to see him i unfortunately met mallow, but i explained my visit on the plea that i wished the major to bring about a reconciliation between the young couple. i did not see semberry, nor did i enter his lodgings. as i was coming away, a cab knocked me down and broke my leg. then one day, a few weeks later, to my great surprise, mr. mallow himself brought me the document. it had been discovered by lord aldean in the secret hiding-place of the sandal-wood chest, where carson had concealed it from his father. olive, as mallow informed me, wished to read it. she thought, perhaps, it might throw some light on the sealed letter left by her father. on consideration i promised to show it to her, if, after reading it, i judged it fit for her to read. i found i could do so with safety. carson had made no mention of brock's death, and had accused bellairs of the murder of the rao singha, which he himself had committed. true, he spoke in no measured terms of michael trall--in fact, he abused him roundly; but since that adventurer was dead, and brock was alive in his person, such blame of him and praise of me served only to strengthen my position. i resolved, therefore, that olive should read of her father's guilt, hoping that thereupon she would refuse to touch the money--granting it was recovered from boldini--in which case it might come to me. "so the matter stands. all who may know of my identity with trall are dead. the existing document strengthens my position, and in no way can the death of carson be traced to me. i shall die in the odour of sanctity, after all; and, indeed, if what the doctor says is true, this cursed accident is going to bring about that event very shortly. well, if i die, i die; my life has been a hard one, and if i have sinned, i repeat, nature is to blame, not myself. i have directed by my will that the twenty-one volumes of my cipher diary are to be burnt, since it is only for my own gratification that i have written them. i have no wish to be maligned after my death. even if the diary is not destroyed i feel safe, seeing that no one can read it save jerry, and i dare say that he is dead by this time; he must be dead, or clara would not have gone out to service. i wish, now, i had asked her about him. "mr. mallow is about to marry olive bellairs. i wish them joy. i have no ill-feeling against either of them. if i live, i may, of course, get back this money. i don't suppose for one moment that olive will touch it. if i die--well, there is an end of michael trall and his bad luck. but no one will ever know that the revered and beloved vicar of casterwell killed angus carson. i die a respected member of society, and on my tombstone shall be written words of praise. many a stone has lied about him who sleeps beneath it, so why not mine? i murdered brock, i murdered carson, but their ghosts have never haunted me. i have baffled the world, and i have kept my secret in the face of every danger. mallow is coming to see me again. well, let him come, i say. i do not fear him now. the bad days are over for me. michael trall has gone into limbo, and manners brock, the worthy vicar, has beaten fortune after all." epilogue letter from miss slarge, of casterwell, to mrs. purcell, at san remo:-- "the first of january, --. "my dear sister, "i hasten to thank you for your kind invitation to join you at san remo. i regret to say that it is not possible for me to accept it. although my book is now rapidly approaching completion, there still remains much to be done in the way of verifying sundry minor details. for example, i am desirous of expanding the statement of diodorous siculous, in which he identifies osiris with the god bacchus; and that means that i have still many works to read. the impossibility of taking my library with me, alone precludes me from leaving here until my manuscript is finished. i have decided to call my work 'the new babylon; or, the migration of chaldean idolatry to the seven-hilled city of the revelations, according to st. john the divine,' a title which, i think, sufficiently well explains its meaning. may its publication tend to keep our island free from the superstitions of semiramis and peter. "you will be glad to hear that olive and mr. mallow are now comfortably established at the manor house. their serene happiness is pleasant to contemplate. a year has elapsed since the death of mr. brock--as i may still call him--and with him is buried the sad story of the past. his brother, jeremiah, as you know, died six months ago. he lies beside him in the same churchyard. in life they were divided: in death they lie side by side. what a moral your favourite dr. johnson would have deduced from this. mr. mallow, i think now, was right when he decided not to reveal the truth about our late vicar. the confusion which would have arisen in our village had he done so, would have been terrible to contemplate. 'what the eye does not see the heart does not grieve at'--that is a wise proverb, my dear priscilla, and peculiarly applicable in the present instance. "lord and lady aldean have returned to kingsholme from their honeymoon--if possible, more in love with one another than ever. i am bound to say that tui conducts herself with great dignity in her new position; and that, seemingly, lord aldean is not without a due sense of his social and marital responsibilities. at the next drawing-room both brides are to be presented to their sovereign; and i am glad to know that you will be with us for that ceremony. olive and her husband express themselves very gratefully to you for the judicious manner in which you anticipated any scandal which might have arisen through the chain of incidents connected with the impostor boldini. as it is, they have been received with open arms by the county, and, of course, no reference is ever made to poor olive's untoward entanglement. socially she occupies her proper position, and, as mrs. mallow, she is, if anything, more popular than before. "mr. mallow is engaged upon a new novel, which bids fair to secure for him a high position in the world of letters. olive, i know, would like him to enter the commons; but, so far, he has shown no inclination in that direction. lord aldean has taken his seat in the house of lords, and, urged by tui--who has more ambition than i gave her credit for--intends taking an active part in the politics of his country. mr. and mrs. ostergaard have returned to new zealand well satisfied with the elevation of their daughter to the rank of a peeress. they were delighted with lord aldean, and parted from him with great regret. he hopes soon to return their visit, and talks of buying a yacht for the purpose; but this scheme is as yet quite in embryo. "of course, you know that mr. mallow, with his wife's approval, paid over the twenty thousand pounds to the indian government. i believe he told the whole story to the secretary of the india office. indeed, there was no reason why he should not, seeing that every one who was implicated in the death of the rao singha has now passed away. the story of kikat must now be relegated to the domain of legend. for my own part, i never wish to hear of it again. poor olive! she was so much relieved to know that her dear father was not guilty of bloodshed. she has put everything else behind her, and feels able to cherish his memory as she loves to do. that is as it should be. i always thought highly of olive's moral principles. "between them, lord aldean and mr. mallow have arranged mrs. drabble's affairs. that is to say, that, as the doctor died absolutely penniless, they allow her a small income. the children have been put to school, and i am glad to say that the discipline is already exercising a most salutary effect upon margery--pruning, as i may say, the exuberance of her temperament. she is much less flighty, and altogether improved; and i feel confident she will at length emerge into a clever and notable woman. her tastes lie chiefly in the direction of poetry, and, when she comes here for her holidays, i endeavour myself to assist her as much as i can. as a widow, mrs. drabble is infinitely happier than she was as a wife. this is reflected in her home, which now presents something like an orderly appearance. she is full of praises of her benefactors, which, indeed, is just and right. "i received a short time back some news from india, which, i think, will interest you. it appears that major semberry, through financial difficulties, has been obliged to resign his commission. reports say he has gone to chili, with the intention of there entering the service of the republic. it is to be hoped, whether he does this or no that he will take his lesson to heart, and endeavour to mend his ways even at this somewhat tardy stage in his career. you, priscilla, with your usual acuteness, were perfectly correct in your reading of his character. he is a thoroughly bad man; and he never did a worse thing than when he conspired to ruin the life of our poor, dear olive. it just shows how far beneath the standard of honour and moral rectitude it is possible for a gentleman to fall. "there is still one other, and a most extraordinary circumstance, in connection with the conspiracy, that i must tell you. a week ago, mr. mallow received a visit from clara boldini. she told him that her husband had gambled away every penny of the money with which they decamped. is it not terrible to think of such depravity? imagine a young man like that squandering thirty thousand pounds in twelve months in gambling. and not only did the wretched fellow lose his money, but his life. it appears that, directed by the terrible creature whom they call madame death-in-life, two of her followers tracked boldini to lima, in peru, and shot him one night in a gambling den. their efforts to obtain the tangible fruits of his wickedness were frustrated, of course, through his having squandered them. in their fury at thus being baulked of their spoil, they determined to kill this unhappy clara. she, however, managed to receive timely warning, and escaped to england. she looks old, and worn, and poor; and seems possessed with the idea that she must ultimately be killed by these ruffians. mr. mallow and olive tried all they could to induce her to remain safe at casterwell; but she would not, because she said she could not bring more trouble upon them. that was good of the girl, i think. she visited her uncle's grave, and wept bitterly over it. mr. mallow did not tell her that her father, too, was buried close by, and i think he was right. it is best that this sad story should pass into oblivion. clara remained only one night here. she then returned to london. but, before she left, she gave to olive the famous indian bangle, which she had removed from the dead body of her husband when he met his death in lima. olive keeps it as a curiosity; though she does not need anything to remind her of the troublous times with which it is connected. where clara is now we none of us know. we can only hope she will be spared any such violent death as she fears, and that, indeed, some amount of peace may be vouchsafed to her after the stormy life which she has led. how truly thankful should we be, my dear priscilla, that providence has cast our lot in pastures so peaceful and so far removed from the strife and turmoil of the world! "there is really no more news to give you, save that i am well and happy. neither olive nor her husband would hear of my leaving the manor house; so i am still here in my old position. i have great comfort in the thought that olive is now so well protected by an honourable and upright husband; besides which, the presence of a literary man in the house is a source of unmixed pleasure to me. the friendship between mr. mallow and lord aldean still stands as firm as ever, cemented only by the fact that their wives are as sisters to one another. we are, indeed, a happy family down here; and it needs only your presence, my dear sister, to compete our joy. we all of us look forward to seeing you in london this season. perhaps then we may persuade you to take a house in casterwell, so that you may spend at least some part of the years that are to come amongst us who love and esteem you. we are blessed, indeed, for we have health, wealth, and happiness; and, so far as our finite intelligence can perceive, our troubles all are at an end, and the future before us is tranquil. this letter leaves me, i may confidently say, the happiest woman in the three kingdoms. "write to me, my dear priscilla, and tell me when you propose to arrive in london, as my book will be published this year, and it will be a great joy to me to feel that i am to have your valuable aid in correcting the proofs. "now let me conclude with a verse from the book of books, to show how thankful i am for the great mercies of the almighty: 'i cried unto god with my voice, even unto god with my voice, and he gave ear unto me.' "how truly that has been fulfilled, my dear priscilla, you know. "believe me, my dear sister, ever your loving "rubina. "p.s.--will you enter some roman catholic place of worship, and see if any image of the virgin mary is decked with a turreted crown? the diana of ephesus wore such a one and i connect her with the virgin. the crown itself is probably a reminiscence of the tower of babel.--r." the end. london: printed by william clowes and sons, limited, stamford street and charing cross. anarchism by dr. paul eltzbacher gerichtsassessor and privatdozent in halle an der saale translated by steven t. byington je ne propose rien, je ne suppose rien, j'expose [illustration] new york: benj. r. tucker. london: a. c. fifield. . copyright, , by benjamin r. tucker _gratefully dedicated to the memory of my father_ dr. salomon eltzbacher - contents page translator's preface vii books referred to xvii introduction chapter i. the problem . general . the starting-point . the goal . the way to the goal chapter ii. law, the state, property . general . law . the state . property chapter iii. godwin's teaching . general . basis . law . the state . property . realization chapter iv. proudhon's teaching . general . basis . law . the state . property . realization chapter v. stirner's teaching . general . basis . law . the state . property . realization chapter vi. bakunin's teaching . general . basis . law . the state . property . realization chapter vii. kropotkin's teaching . general . basis . law . the state . property . realization chapter viii. tucker's teaching . general . basis . law . the state . property . realization chapter ix. tolstoi's teaching . general . basis . law . the state . property . realization chapter x. the anarchistic teachings . general . basis . law . the state . property . realization chapter xi. anarchism and its species . errors about anarchism and its species . the concepts of anarchism and its species conclusion translator's preface every person who examines this book at all will speedily divide its contents into eltzbacher's own discussion and his seven chapters of classified quotations from anarchist leaders; and, if he buys the book, he will buy it for the sake of the quotations. i do not mean that the book might not have a sale if it consisted exclusively of eltzbacher's own words, but simply that among ten thousand people who may value eltzbacher's discussion there will not be found ten who will not value still more highly the conveniently-arranged reprint of what the anarchists themselves have said on the cardinal points of anarchistic thought. nor do i feel that i am saying anything uncomplimentary to eltzbacher when i say that the part of his work to which he has devoted most of his space is the part that the public will value most. and yet there is much to be valued in the chapters that are of eltzbacher's own writing,--even if one is reminded of sir arthur helps's satirical description of english lawyers as a class of men, found in a certain island, who make it their business to write highly important documents in closely-crowded lines on such excessively wide pages that the eye is bound to skip a line now and then, but who make up for this by invariably repeating in another part of the document whatever they have said, so that whatever the reader may miss in one place he will certainly catch in another. the fact is that eltzbacher's work is an admirable model of what should be the mental processes of an investigator trying to determine the definition of a term which he finds to be confusedly conceived. not only is his method for determining the definition of anarchism flawless, but his subsidiary investigation of the definitions of law, the state, and property is conducted as such things ought to be, and (a good test of clearness of thought) his illustrations are always so exactly pertinent that they go far to redeem his style from dullness, if one is reading for the sense and therefore cares for pertinence. the only weak point in this part of the book is that he thinks it necessary to repeat in print his previous statements wherever it is necessary to the investigation that the previous statement be mentally renewed. but, however tiresome this may be, one gets a steady progress of thought, and the introductory part of the book is not very long at worst. the collection of quotations, which form three-fourths of the book both in bulk and in importance, is as much the best part as it is the biggest. here the prime necessity is impartiality, and eltzbacher has attained this as perfectly as can be expected of any man. positively, one comes to the end of all this without feeling sure whether eltzbacher is himself an anarchist or not; it is not until we come to the last dozen pages of the book that he lets his opposition to anarchism become evident. to be sure, one feels that he is more journalistic than scientific in selecting for special mention the more sensational points of the schemes proposed (the journalistic temper certainly shows itself in his habit of picking out for his german public the references to germany in anarchist writers). yet it is hard to deny that there is legitimate scientific importance in ascertaining how much of the sensational is involved in anarchism; and, on the other hand, eltzbacher recognizes his duty to present the strongest points of the anarchist side, and does this so faithfully that one often wonders if the man can repeat these words without feeling their cogency. so far as any bias is really felt in this part of the book it is the bias of over-methodicalness; now and then a quotation is made to go into the classification at a place where it will not go in without forcing, and perspective is distorted when some _obiter dictum_ that had never seemed to its author to be worth repeating a second time is made to serve as illuminant now for this division of the "teaching," now for that, till it seems to the reader like a favorite topic of the anarchist. however, the bias of methodicalness is as nearly non-partisan as any bias can be, and its effect is to put the matter into a most convenient form for consultation and comparison. next to impartiality, if not even before it, we need intelligence in our compiler; and we have it. few men, even inside the movement, would have been more successful than eltzbacher in picking out the important parts of the anarchist doctrines, and the quotations that will show these important parts as they are. i do not mean that this accuracy has not exceptions--many exceptions, if you count such things as the failure to give due weight to some clause which might restrict or modify the application of the words used; a few serious exceptions, of which we reap the fruit in his final summary. but in admitting these errors i do not retract my statement that eltzbacher has made his compilation as accurate as any man could be expected to. more than this, it may well be said that he has, except in three or four points, made it as accurate as is even useful for ordinary reading; he has overlooked nothing but what his readers would have been sure to overlook if he had presented it. as a gun is advertised to shoot "as straight as any man can hold," so eltzbacher has, with three or four exceptions, told his story as straight as any man with ordinary attention can read. the net result is that we have here, without doubt, the most complete and accurate presentation of anarchism that ever has been given or ever will be given in so short a space. if any one wants a fuller and more trustworthy account, he will positively have to go direct to the writings of the anarchists themselves; nowhere else can he find anything so good as eltzbacher. withal, this main part of the book is decidedly readable. eltzbacher's repetitiousness has no opportunity to become prominent here, and the man is not at all dull in choosing and translating his quotations. on the contrary, his fondness for apt illustrations is a great help toward making the compilation constantly readable, as well as toward making the reader's impressions of the anarchistic teachings vivid and definite. i do not mean to say that this book can take the place of a consultation of the original sources. for instance, the bakunin chapter follows next after the stirner chapter; but the exquisite contrariness of almost every word of bakunin to stirner's teaching can be appreciated only by those who have read stirner's book--eltzbacher's quotations are on a different aspect of stirner's teaching from that which applies against bakunin. (stirner and bakunin, it will be noted, are the only anarchist leaders against whom eltzbacher permits himself a disrespectful word before he has presented their doctrines.) it is to be hoped that many who read this book will go on to examine the sources themselves. meanwhile, here is an excellent introduction, and the chronological arrangement makes it easy to watch the historical development and see whether the later schools of anarchism assail the state more effectively than the earlier. i have not reserved any expressions of praise for the small part of the book which comes after the compiled chapters, because it calls for none. all eltzbacher's weak points come out in this concluding summary; the best that can be said for it is that it deserves careful attention, and that the author continues to be oftener right than wrong. but now that he has gathered all his knowledge he wants it to amount to omniscience, and most imprudently shuts his eyes to the places where there is nothing under his feet. he charges men with error for not using in his sense a term whose definition he has not undertaken to determine. he accepts all too unquestioningly such statements as fit most conveniently into his scheme of method. his most glaring offence in this direction is his classification of the anarchist-communist doctrines as mere prediction and not the expression of a will or demand or approval or disapproval of anything, simply because the fashionableness of evolutionism and of fatalism has led the leaders of that school to prefer to state their doctrine in terms of prediction. eltzbacher has forgotten to compare his judgment with the actions of the men he judges; _solvitur ambulando_; if kropotkin's proposition were merely predictive and not pragmatic, it would have less trouble with the police than it has. again, he does one of the most indiscreet things that are possible to a votary of strict method when he asserts repeatedly that he has listed not merely all that is to be found but all that could possibly exist under a certain category. for instance, he declares that every possible affirmative doctrine of property must be either private property, or common property in the wherewithal for production and private property in the wherewithal for consumption, or common property. why should not a scheme of common property in the things that are wanted by all men and private property in the things that are wanted only by some men have as high a rank in the classification as has eltzbacher's second class? a look at the quotations from kropotkin will show that i have not drawn much on my own ingenuity in conceiving such a scheme as supposable. he claims to have listed all the standpoints from which anarchism has been or can be propounded or judged, yet he has omitted legitimism, the doctrine that a political authority which is to claim our respect and obedience must appear to have originated by a legitimate foundation and not by usurpation. the great part that legitimism has played in history is notorious; and it lends itself very readily to the anarchist's purpose, since some governments are so well known to have originated in usurpation and others are so easily suspected of it. nay, legitimism is in fact a potent factor in shaping the most up-to-date anarchism of our time; for it is largely concerned in lysander spooner's doctrine of juries, of which some slight account is given in eltzbacher's quotations from tucker. and he claims to have recited all the important arguments that sustain anarchism: where has he mentioned the argument from the evil that the state does in interfering with social and economic experimentation? or the argument from the fact that reforms in the state are necessarily in a democracy, and ordinarily in a monarchy, very slow in coming to pass, and when they do come to pass they necessarily come with all-disturbing suddenness? or the argument from the evil of separating people by the boundary lines which the state involves? or the fact that war would be almost inconceivable if the states were replaced by voluntary and non-monopolistic organizations, since such organizations could have no "jurisdiction" or control of territory to fight for, and war for any other cause has long been unknown among civilized nations? by these and other such unwarranted claims of absolute completeness, and by the conclusions based on these pasteboard premises, eltzbacher makes it necessary to read his final chapters with all possible independence of judgment. it remains for me to say something of my own work on this book. i have consulted the originals of some of the works cited--such as circumstances have permitted--and given the quotations not by translation from eltzbacher's german but direct from the originals. the particulars are as follows: of godwin's "political justice" i used an american reprint of the second british edition. this second edition is greatly revised and altered from the first, which eltzbacher used. godwin calls our attention to this, and especially informs us that the first edition did not in some important respects represent the views which he held at the time of its publication, since the earlier pages were printed before the later were written, and during the writing of the book he changed his mind about some of the principles he had asserted in the earlier chapters. in the second edition, he says, the views presented in the first part of the book have been made consistent with those in the last part, and all parts have been thoroughly revised. it will astonish nobody, therefore, that i found it now and then impossible to identify in my copy the passages translated by eltzbacher from the first edition. in particular, i got the impression that what eltzbacher quotes about promises, from the first part of the book, is one of those sections which godwin says he retracts and no longer believed in even at the time he wrote the later chapters of the first edition. if so, a bit of the foundation for eltzbacher's ultimate classification disappears. besides giving the pages of the first edition as in eltzbacher, i have added in brackets the page numbers of the copy i used, wherever i could identify them. throughout the book brackets distinguish footnotes added by me from eltzbacher's own, and in a few places i have used them in the text to indicate eltzbacher's deviations from the wording of his original, of which matter i will speak again in a moment. the passages from proudhon's works i translated from the original french as given in the collected edition of his "_oeuvres complètes_." in this edition some of the works differ only in pagination from the editions which eltzbacher used, while others have been extensively revised. i know of no changes of essential doctrine. since in stirner's case german is the original language, i have accepted as my original the quotations given by eltzbacher. it is probable that they are occasionally condensed; but a fairly faithful memory, and the fact that it is less than a year since i was reading the proofs of my translation of stirner's book, enable me to be confident that there is no change amounting to distortion. i have here made no use of that translation of mine[ ] except from memory, because i well knew that in dealing with stirner there is no assurance that the best possible translation of the continuous whole will be made up of the best possible translations of the individual parts. neither have i used the extant english translations of bakunin's "god and the state," kropotkin's "conquest of bread," tolstoi's works, or any of the other books cited. i have not had at hand any originals of bakunin or tolstoi, nor any of kropotkin except "anarchist communism." of this i had the first edition, and eltzbacher, contrary to his habit, the second; but i judge that the two are from the same plates, for all the page-numbers cited agree. toward the tucker chapter i have taken a special attitude. i am myself one of tucker's followers and collaborators; i may claim to be an "authority" on the exposition of his doctrine-- _nennt man die besten namen, so wird auch der meine genannt_-- and i have tried to have an eye to the precise correctness of everything in that chapter. that i used the original of "instead of a book" is a matter of course; and i have not only taken tucker's words where eltzbacher had translated the whole, but have had an eye to all points where eltzbacher had condensed anything in a way that could affect the sense, and have restored the words that made the passage mean something a little bit different from what eltzbacher made it mean. (i did about the same in this respect with kropotkin's "anarchist communism"; and indeed something of the kind is inevitable if one is to consult originals at all.) on the other hand, i have not, in general, drawn attention to passages where eltzbacher makes merely formal changes for the purpose of inserting in a sentence of a certain grammatical structure what tucker had said in a sentence of different structure. the renderings of tolstoi's biblical quotations are taken from the "corrected english new testament," a conservative version which is now spoken of as the best english new testament extant. it fits well into tolstoi, at least so far as the present quotations go. i have spoken above of eltzbacher's qualities as compiler; it here becomes necessary to say something of his work as translator. his translation is that of a very intelligent man, trusting to his intelligence to justify him in translating quite freely. he is confident that he knows what the idea to be presented is, and his main concern is to express that in the language best suited to the purpose. he even avows, as will be seen, that he has "cautiously revised" other people's translations from the russian, without himself claiming to be familiar with the russian language. i would as soon entrust this extremely delicate task to eltzbacher as to anybody i know, for he is in general remarkably correct in his re-wordings. the justification of his confidence in his knowledge of the author's thought may be seen in the fact that in passages which happen not to affect the main thought he makes a few such slips as _zahlen mit ihrer vergiftung_ for "pay to be poisoned," _willkuer_ for "arbitrament," and even _eine blutige revolution ruecksichtslos niederwuerfe_ for "would do anything in his power to precipitate a bloody revolution" (can he have been misled by the chemist's use of "precipitate"?), but in passages where these blunders would do real harm he keeps clear of them, being safeguarded by his knowledge of the sense. but it makes a difference whom you translate in this way. tucker is a man who uses language with especial precision: every phrase in a sentence of his may be presumed to contribute something definite to the thought; and eltzbacher treats him as if the less conspicuous phrases were merely ornamental work which might safely be omitted or amended when they seemed not to be advantageous for ornamental purposes. i must confess that i have little faith in the eltzbacher method of translation for the rendering of any author; but it works especially ill with an author like tucker. of course all defects of translation are cured, silently, by substituting the original english. therefore, at the expense of slightly increasing the bulk of the tucker chapter, this edition gives american readers a much more accurate presentation of the utterances of the american champion of anarchism than can be had in eltzbacher's german; and, since i have the same advantage as regards godwin, i think i may claim in general terms that mine is the best edition of eltzbacher for those who read both english and german. besides looking out for the accurate presentation of the passages quoted from tucker, i have kept watch of the correctness of the subject-matter. whatever seemed to me to represent tucker's book unfairly, either by misrepresenting his doctrine or by misapplying the quotations, has been corrected by a note. this will be useful to the reader not only by giving him a better tucker, but also by giving a sample from which he may judge what amount of fault the followers of kropotkin or tolstoi or the rest would be likely to find with the chapters devoted to them. the merely popular reader will probably get the impression that eltzbacher is really a rather unreliable man. the competent student, who knows what must be looked out for in all work of this sort, will have his confidence in eltzbacher increased by seeing how little of serious fault appears in such a search. the index is compiled independently for this translation. omitting such entries as merely duplicate the utility of the table of contents, and making an effort to head every entry with the word under which the reader will actually seek it, i hope i have bettered eltzbacher's index; and i hope the index will be not only a place-finder but a help toward the appreciation of the anarchistic teachings. i have not in general undertaken to criticise those features of the book which embody eltzbacher's own opinions. whether it was in fact right to select these seven men as the touchstone of anarchism,--whether eltzbacher is right in discussing the definition of the state as he does, or whether he might better simply have taken as authoritative that definition which has legal force in international law,--whether he ought to have added any other feature to his book,--are points on which the reader does not care for my judgment, nor am i eager to express a judgment. having had to work over the book very carefully in detail, i have felt entitled to express an opinion as to how well eltzbacher has done the work that he did choose to do; i have also told what work i as translator claim to have done; and it is time this preface ended. steven t. byington. _ballardvale, mass., august , ._ books referred to by abbreviated titles adler, "handwoerterbuch" = georg adler, "anarchismus," in _handwoerterbuch der staatswissenschaften_, d ed. (jena ), vol. pp. - . adler, "nord und sued" = georg adler, "die lehren der anarchisten," in _nord und sued_ (breslau) vol. ( ) pp. - . ba. "articles" = "articles écrits par bakounine dans l'egalité de ," in _mémoire présenté par la fédération jurassienne de l'association internationale des travailleurs à toutes les fédérations de l'internationale_ (sonvillier, n. d.), "pièces justificatives" pp. - . ba. "briefe" = "briefe bakunins," in dragomanoff (see below) pp. - . ba. "dieu" = michel bakounine, _dieu et l'etat_, d ed. (paris ). ba. "dieu" oeuvres = "dieu et l'etat," in michel bakounine, _oeuvres_, d ed. (paris ), pp. - . ba. "discours" = "discours de bakounine au congrès de berne," in _mémoire présenté par la fédération jurassienne de l'association internationale des travailleurs à toutes les fédérations de l'internationale_ (sonvillier, n. d.), "pièces justificatives" pp. - . ba. "programme" = bakounine, "programme de la section slave à zurich," in dragomanoff (see below) pp. - . ba. "proposition" = "fédéralisme, socialisme et antithéologisme. proposition motivée au comité central de la ligue de la paix et de la liberté," in michel bakounine, _oeuvres_, d ed. (paris ), pp. - . ba. "statuts" = "statuts secrets de l'alliance" and "programme et règlement de l'alliance publique," in "l'alliance" (see below) pp. - . ba. "volkssache" = m. bakunin, "die volkssache. romanow, pugatschew oder pestel?" in dragomanoff (see below) pp. - . bernatzik = bernatzik, "der anarchismus," in _jahrbuch fuer gesetzgebung, verwaltung und volkswirtschaft im deutschen reich_ (leipzig) vol. ( ) pp. - . bernstein = eduard bernstein, "die soziale doktrin des anarchismus," in _die neue zeit_ (stuttgart) year ( - ) vol. pp. - , - ; vol. pp. - , - , - , - , - . crispi = francesco crispi, "the antidote for anarchy," in _daily mail_ (london) no. ( ) p. . "der anarchismus und seine traeger" = _der anarchismus und seine traeger. enthuellungen aus dem lager der anarchisten von [**symbol: circle in triangle], verfasser der londoner briefe in der koelnischen zeitung_ (berlin ). "die historische entwickelung des anarchismus" = _die historische entwickelung des anarchismus_ (new york ). diehl = karl diehl, _p.-j. proudhon_. _seine lehre und sein leben._ ( vol., jena - .) dragomanoff = michail dragomanow, _michail bakunins sozial-politischer briefwechsel mit alexander iw. herzen und ogarjow, deutsch von boris minzès_ (stuttgart ). dubois = felix dubois, _le péril anarchiste_ (paris ). ferri = "discours de ferri" in _congrès international d'anthropologie criminelle, compte rendu des travaux de la quatrième session, tenue à genève du au août _ (genève ) pp. - . garraud = r. garraud, _l'anarchie et la répression_ (paris ). godwin = william godwin, _an enquiry concerning political justice and its influence on general virtue and happiness_ ( vol., london ). [bracketed references are to the "first american from the second london edition, corrected," philadelphia, .] "hintermaenner" = _die hintermaenner der sozialdemokratie. von einem eingeweihten_ (berlin ). kr. "anarchist communism" = peter kropotkine, _anarchist communism: its basis and principles_, d ed. (london ). [reprinted from the _nineteenth century_.] kr. "conquête" = pierre kropotkine, _la conquête du pain_, th ed. (paris ). kr. "l'anarchie dans l'évolution socialiste" = pierre kropotkine, _l'anarchie dans l'évolution socialiste_ (paris ). kr. "l'anarchie. sa philosophie--son idéal" = pierre kropotkine, _l'anarchie. sa philosophie--son idéal_ (paris ). kr. "morale" = pierre kropotkine, _la morale anarchiste_ (paris ). kr. "paroles" = pierre kropotkine, _paroles d'un révolté, ouvrage publié par elisée réclus, nouv. éd_. (paris, n. d.) kr. "prisons" = pierre kropotkine, _les prisons_ (paris ). kr. "siècle" = pierre kropotkine, _un siècle d'attente. - _ (paris ). kr. "studies" = _revolutionary studies, translated from "la révolte" and reprinted from "the commonweal"_ (london ). kr. "temps nouveaux" = pierre kropotkine, _les temps nouveaux (conférence faite à londres)_ (paris ). "l'alliance" = _l'alliance de la démocratie socialiste et l'association internationale des travailleurs_ (londres et hambourg ). lenz = adolf lenz, _der anarchismus und das strafrecht. sonderabdruck aus der zeitschrift fuer die gesamte strafrechtswissenschaft, bd. , heft _ (berlin, n. d.). lombroso = c. lombroso, _gli anarchici_, d ed. (torino ). mackay, "anarchisten" = john henry mackay, _die anarchisten. kulturgemaelde aus dem ende des . jahrhunderts_. volksausgabe (berlin ). mackay, "magazin" = john henry mackay, "der individualistische anarchismus: ein gegner der propaganda der that," in _das magazin fuer litteratur_ (berlin und weimar) vol. ( ) pp. - . mackay, "stirner" = john henry mackay, _max stirner. sein leben und sein werk_ (berlin ). merlino = f. s. merlino, _l'individualismo nell'anarchismo_ (roma ). pfau = "proudhon und die franzosen," in ludwig pfau, _kunst und kritik_, vol. of _aesthetische schriften_, d ed. (stuttgart, leipzig, berlin, ), pp. - . plechanow = georg plechanow, _anarchismus und sozialismus_ (berlin ). pr. "banque" = p.-j. proudhon, _banque du peuple, suivie du rapport de la commission des délégués du luxembourg_ (paris ). (in proudhon's _oeuvres complètes_, paris - , this forms part of the volume "solution.") pr. "contradictions" = p.-j. proudhon, _système des contradictions économiques, ou philosophie de la misère_ ( vol., paris ). pr. "confessions" = p.-j. proudhon, _les confessions d'un révolutionnaire, pour servir à l'histoire de la révolution de février_ (paris ). pr. "droit" = p.-j. proudhon, _le droit au travail et le droit de propriété_ (paris ). (in the _oeuvres_ this forms part of the volume "la révolution sociale.") pr. "idée" = p.-j. proudhon, _idée générate de la révolution au xixe siècle (choix d'études sur la pratique révolutionnaire et industrielle)_ (paris ). pr. "justice" = p.-j. proudhon, _de la justice dans la révolution et dans l'eglise. nouveaux principes de philosophie pratique_ ( vol., paris ). pr. "organisation" = p.-j. proudhon, _organisation du crédit et de la circulation, et solution du problème social_ (paris ). (in the _oeuvres_ this forms part of the volume "solution.") pr. "principe" = p.-j. proudhon, _du principe fédératif et de la nécessité de reconstituer le parti de la révolution_ (paris ). pr. "propriété" = p.-j. proudhon, _qu'est-ce que la propriété? ou recherches sur le principe du droit et du gouvernement. premier mémoire_ (paris ). pr. "solution" = p.-j. proudhon, _solution du problème social_ (paris ). proal = louis proal, _la criminalité politique_ (paris ). reichesberg = naum reichesberg, _sozialismus und anarchismus_ (bern und leipzig ). rienzi = rienzi, _l'anarchisme, traduit du néerlandais par august dewinne_ (bruxelles ). sernicoli = e. sernicoli, _l'anarchia e gli anarchici. studio storico e politico di e. sernicoli_ ( vol., milano ). shaw = george bernard shaw, _the impossibilities of anarchism_ (london ). silio = cesar silio, "el anarquismo y la defensa social," in _la espana moderna_ (madrid) vol. ( ) pp. - . stammler = rudolf stammler, _die theorie des anarchismus_ (berlin ). stirner = max stirner, _der einzige und sein eigentum_ (leipzig ). stirner "vierteljahrsschrift" = m. st., "rezensenten stirners," in _wigands vierteljahrsschrift_ (leipzig) vol. ( ) pp. - . to. "confession" = graf leo tolstoj, _bekenntnisse. was sollen wir denn thun? deutsch von h. von samson-himmelstjerna_ (leipzig ), pp. - . to. "gospel" = graf leo n. tolstoj, _kurze darlegung des evangeliums, deutsch von paul lauterbach_ (leipzig, n. d.). to. "kernel" = "das korn," in graf leo n. tolstoj, _volkserzaehlungen, deutsch von wilhelm goldschmidt_ (leipzig, n. d.), pp. - . to. "kingdom" = leo n. tolstoj, _das reich gottes ist in euch, oder das christentum als eine neue lebensauffassung, nicht als mystische lehre, deutsch von r. loewenfeld_ (stuttgart, leipzig, berlin, wien, ). to. "linen-measurer" = "leinwandmesser. die geschichte eines pferdes," in _leo n. tolstoj_, _gesammelte werke, deutsch herausgegeben von raphael loewenfeld_, vol. (berlin ) pp. - . to. "money" = graf leo tolstoj, _geld! soziale betrachtungen, deutsch von august scholz_ (berlin ). to. "morning" = "der morgen des gutsherrn," in leo n. tolstoj, _gesammelte werke, deutsch herausgegeben von raphael loewenfeld_, vol. , d ed. (leipzig, n. d.), pp. - . to. "on life" = graf leo tolstoj, _ueber das leben, deutsch von sophie behr_ (leipzig ). to. "patriotism" = graf leo n. tolstoj, _christentum und vaterlandsliebe, deutsch von l. a. hauff_ (berlin n. d.). to. "persecutions" = _russische christenverfolgungen im kaukasus. mit einem vor- und nachwort von leo tolstoj_ (dresden und leipzig ) pp. - , - . to. "reason and dogma" = graf leo n. tolstoj, _vernunft und dogma. eine kritik der glaubenslehre, deutsch von l. a. hauff_ (berlin n. d.). to. "religion and morality" = graf leo tolstoj, _religion und moral. antwort auf eine in der "ethischen kultur" gestellte frage, deutsch von sophie behr_ (berlin ). to. "what i believe" = graf leo tolstoj, _worin besteht mein glaube? eine studie, deutsch von sophie behr_ (leipzig ). to. "what shall we do" = graf leo tolstoj, _was sollen wir also thun? deutsch von august scholz_ (berlin ). tripels = "discours de tripels," in _congrès international d'anthropologie criminelle, compte rendu des travaux de la quatrième session, tenue à genève du au août _ (genève ) pp. - . tucker = benj. r. tucker, _instead of a book. by a man too busy to write one. a fragmentary exposition of philosophical anarchism_ (new york ). van hamel = van hamel, "l'anarchisme et le combat contre l'anarchisme au point de vue de l'anthropologie criminelle," in _congrès international d'anthropologie criminelle, compte rendu des travaux de la quatrième session, tenue à genève du au août _ (genève ) pp. - . zenker = e. v. zenker, _der anarchismus. kritische geschichte der anarchistischen theorie_ (jena ). footnote: [ ] entitled "the ego and his own." n. y., benj. r. tucker, . introduction . we want to know anarchism scientifically, for reasons both personal and external. we wish to penetrate the essence of a movement that dares to question what is undoubted and to deny what is venerable, and nevertheless takes hold of wider and wider circles. besides, we wish to make up our minds whether it is not necessary to meet such a movement with force, to protect the established order or at least its quiet progressive development, and, by ruthless measures, to guard against greater evils. . at present there is the greatest lack of clear ideas about anarchism, and that not only among the masses but among scholars and statesmen. now it is a historic law of evolution[ ] that is described as the supreme law of anarchism, now it is the happiness of the individual,[ ] now justice.[ ] now they say that anarchism culminates in the negation of every programme,[ ] that it has only a negative aim;[ ] now, again, that its negating and destroying side is balanced by a side that is affirmative and creative;[ ] now, to conclude, that what is original in anarchism is to be found exclusively in its utterances about the ideal society,[ ] that its real, true essence consists in its positive efforts.[ ] now it is said that anarchism rejects law,[ ] now that it rejects society,[ ] now that it rejects only the state.[ ] now it is declared that in the future society of anarchism there is no tie of contract binding persons together;[ ] now, again, that anarchism aims to have all public affairs arranged for by contracts between federally constituted communes and societies.[ ] now it is said in general that anarchism rejects property,[ ] or at least private property;[ ] now a distinction is made between communistic and individualistic,[ ] or even between communistic, collectivistic, and individualistic anarchism.[ ] now it is asserted that anarchism conceives of its realization as taking place through crime,[ ] especially through a violent revolution[ ] and by the help of the propaganda of deed;[ ] now, again, that anarchism rejects violent tactics and the propaganda of deed,[ ] or that these are at least not necessary constituents of anarchism.[ ] . two demands must be made of everybody who undertakes to produce a scientific work on anarchism. first, he must be acquainted with the most important anarchistic writings. here, to be sure, one meets great difficulties. anarchistic writings are very scantily represented in our public libraries. they are in part so rare that it is extremely difficult for an individual to acquire even the most prominent of them. so it is not strange that of all works on anarchism only one is based on a comprehensive knowledge of the sources. this is a pamphlet which appeared anonymously in new york in , "_die historische entwickelung des anarchismus_" which in sixteen pages gives a concise presentation that attests an astonishing acquaintance with the most various anarchistic writings. the two large works, _"l'anarchia e gli anarchici, studio storico e politico di e. sernicoli_" vol., milano, , and "_der anarchismus, kritische geschichte der anarchistischen theorie von e. v. zenker_," jena, , are at least in part founded on a knowledge of anarchistic writings. second, he who would produce a scientific work on anarchism must be equally at home in jurisprudence, in economics, and in philosophy. anarchism judges juridical institutions with reference to their economic effects, and from the standpoint of some philosophy or other. therefore, to penetrate its essence and not fall a victim to all possible misunderstandings, one must be familiar with those concepts of philosophy, jurisprudence, and economics which it applies or has a relation to. this demand is best met, among all works on anarchism, by rudolf stammler's pamphlet, "_die theorie des anarchismus_," berlin, . footnotes: [ ] "_der anarchismus und seine traeger_" pp. , , ; reichesberg p. . [ ] lenz p. . [ ] bernatzik pp. , . [ ] lenz p. . [ ] crispi. [ ] van hamel p. . [ ] adler p. . [ ] reichesberg p. . [ ] stammler pp. , , , ; lenz pp. , . [ ] silió p. ; garraud p. ; reichesberg p. ; tripels p. . [ ] bernstein p. ; bernatzik p. . [ ] reichesberg p. . [ ] lombroso p. . [ ] silió p. ; dubois p. . [ ] lombroso p. ; proal p. . [ ] rienzi p. ; stammler pp. - ; merlino pp. , ; shaw p. . [ ] "_die historische entwickelung des anarchismus_" p. ; zenker p. . [ ] garraud p. ; lenz p. . [ ] sernicoli vol. p. ; garraud p. ; reichesberg p. ; van hamel p. . [ ] garraud pp. , ; lombroso p. ; ferri p. . [ ] mackay "_magazin_" pp. - ; "_anarchisten_" pp. - . [ ] zenker pp. , . chapter i the problem .--general the problem for our study is, to get determinate concepts of anarchism and its species. as soon as such determinate concepts are attained, anarchism is scientifically known. for their determination is not only conditioned on a comprehensive view of all the individual phenomena of anarchism; it also brings together the results of this comprehensive view, and assigns to them a place in the totality of our knowledge. the problem of getting determinate concepts of anarchism and its species seems at a first glance perfectly clear. but the apparent clearness vanishes on closer examination. for there rises first the question, what shall be the starting-point of our study? the answer will be given, "anarchistic teachings." but there is by no means an agreement as to what teachings are anarchistic; one man designates as "anarchistic" these teachings, another those; and of the teachings themselves a part designate themselves as anarchistic, a part do not. how can one take any of them as anarchistic teachings for a starting-point, without applying that very concept of anarchism which he has yet to determine? then rises the further question, what is the goal of the study? the answer will be given, "the concepts of anarchism and its species." but we see daily that different men define in quite different ways the concept of an object which they yet conceive in the same way. one says that law is the general will; another, that it is a mass of precepts which limit a man's natural liberty for other men's sake; a third, that it is the ordering of the life of the nation (or of the community of nations) to maintain god's order of the world. they all know that a definition should state the proximate genus and the distinctive marks of the species, but this knowledge does them little good. so it seems that the goal of the study does still require elucidation. lastly rises the question, what is the way to this goal? any one who has ever observed the conflict of opinions in the intellectual sciences knows well, on the one hand, how utterly we lack a recognized method for the solution of problems; and, on the other hand, how necessary it is in any study to get clearly in mind the method that is to be used. . our study can come to a more precise specification of its problem. the problem is to put concepts in the place of non-conceptual notions of anarchism and its species. every concept-determining study faces the problem of comprehending conceptually an object that was first comprehended non-conceptually, and therefore of putting a concept in the place of non-conceptual notions of an object. this problem finds a specially clear expression in the concept-determining judgment (the definition), which puts in immediate juxtaposition, in its subject some non-conceptual notion of an object, and in its predicate a conceptual notion of the same object. accordingly, the study that is to determine the concepts of anarchism and its species has for its problem to comprehend conceptually objects that are first comprehended in non-conceptual notions of anarchism and its species; and therefore, to put concepts in the place of these non-conceptual notions. . but our study may specify its problem still more precisely, though at first only on the negative side. the problem is not to put concepts in the place of all notions that appear as non-conceptual notions of anarchism and its species. any concept can comprehend conceptually only one object, not another object together with this. the concept of health cannot be at the same time the concept of life, nor the concept of the horse that of the mammal. but in the non-conceptual notions that appear as notions of anarchism and its species there are comprehended very different objects. to be sure, the object of all these notions is on the one hand a genus that is formed by the common qualities of certain teachings, and on the other hand the species of this genus, which are formed by the addition of sundry peculiarities to these common qualities. but still these notions have in view very different groups of teachings with their common and special qualities, some perhaps only the teachings of kropotkin and most, others only the teachings of stirner, tucker, and mackay, others again the teachings of both sets of authors. if one proposed to put concepts in the place of all the non-conceptual notions which appear as notions of anarchism and its species, these concepts would have to comprehend at once the common and special qualities of quite different groups of teachings, of which groups one might embrace only the teachings of kropotkin and most, another only those of stirner, tucker, and mackay, a third both. but this is impossible: the concepts of anarchism and its species can comprehend only the common and special qualities of a single group of teachings; therefore our study cannot put concepts in the place of all the notions that appear as notions of anarchism and its species. . by completing on the affirmative side this negative specification of its problem, our study can arrive at a still more precise specification of this problem. the problem is to put concepts in the place of those non-conceptual notions of anarchism and its species, having in view one and the same group of teachings, which are most widely diffused among the men who at present are scientifically concerned with anarchism. because the only possible problem for our study is to put concepts in the place of part of the notions that appear as non-conceptual notions of anarchism and its species,--to wit, only in the place of such notions as have in view one and the same group of teachings with its common and special qualities,--therefore we must divide into classes, according to the groups of teachings that they severally have in view, the notions that appear as notions of anarchism and its species, and we must choose the class whose notions are to be replaced by concepts. the choice of the class must depend on the kind of men for whom the study is meant. for the study of a concept is of value only for those who non-conceptually apprehend the object of the concept, since the concept takes the place of their notions only. for those who form a non-conceptual notion of space, the concept of morality is so far meaningless; and just as meaningless, for those who mean by anarchism what the teachings of proudhon and stirner have in common, is the concept of what is common to the teachings of proudhon, stirner, bakunin, and kropotkin. but the men for whom this study is meant are those who at present are scientifically concerned with anarchism. if all these, in their notions of anarchism and its species, had in view one and the same group of teachings, then the problem for our study would be to put concepts in the place of this set of notions. since this is not the case, the only possible problem for our study is to put concepts in the place of that set of notions which has in view a group of teachings that the greatest possible number of the men at present scientifically concerned with anarchism have in view in their non-conceptual notions of anarchism and its species. .--the starting-point in accordance with what has been said, the starting-point of our study must be those non-conceptual notions of anarchism and its species, having in view one and the same group of teachings, which are most widely diffused among the men who at present are scientifically concerned with anarchism. . how can it be known what group of teachings the non-conceptual notions of anarchism and its species most widely diffused among the men at present scientifically concerned with anarchism have in view? first and foremost, this may be seen from utterances regarding particular anarchistic teachings, and from lists and descriptions of such teachings. we may assume that a man regards as anarchistic those teachings which he designates as anarchistic, and, further, those teachings which are likewise characterized by the common qualities of these. we may further assume that a man does not regard as anarchistic those teachings which he in any form contrasts with the anarchistic teachings, nor, if he undertakes to catalogue or describe the whole body of anarchistic teachings, those teachings unknown to him which are not characterized by the common qualities of the teachings he catalogues or describes. what group of teachings those non-conceptual notions of anarchism and its species which are most widely diffused among the men at present scientifically concerned with anarchism have in view, may be seen secondly from the definitions of anarchism and from other utterances about it. we may doubtingly assume that a man regards as anarchistic those teachings which come under his definition of anarchism, or for which his utterances about anarchism hold good; and, on the contrary, that he does not regard as anarchistic those teachings which do not come under that definition, or for which these utterances do not hold good. when these two means of knowledge lead to contradictions, the former must be decisive. for, if a man so defines anarchism, or so speaks of anarchism, that on this basis teachings which he declares non-anarchistic manifest themselves to be anarchistic,--and perhaps other teachings, which he counts among the anarchistic, to be non-anarchistic,--this can be due only to his not being conscious of the scope of his general pronouncements; therefore it is only from his treatment of the individual teachings that one can find out his opinion of these. . these means of knowledge inform us what group of teachings the non-conceptual notions of anarchism and its species most widely diffused among the men at present scientifically concerned with anarchism have in view. we learn, first, that the teachings of certain particular men are recognized as anarchistic teachings by the greater part of those who at present are scientifically concerned with anarchism. we learn, second, that by the greater part of those who at present are scientifically concerned with anarchism the teachings of these men are recognized as anarchistic teachings only in so far as they relate to law, the state, and property; but not in so far as they may be concerned with the law, state, or property of a particular legal system or a particular group of legal systems, nor in so far as they regard other objects, such as religion, the family, art. among the recognized anarchistic teachings seven are particularly prominent: to wit, the teachings of godwin, proudhon, stirner, bakunin, kropotkin, tucker, and tolstoi. they all manifest themselves to be anarchistic teachings according to the greater part of the definitions of anarchism, and of other scientific utterances about it. they all display the qualities that are common to the doctrines treated of in most descriptions of anarchism. some of them, be it one or another, are put in the foreground in almost every work on anarchism. of no one of them is it denied, to an extent worth mentioning, that it is an anarchistic teaching. .--the goal in accordance with what has been said, the goal of our study must be to determine, first, the concept of the genus which is constituted by the common qualities of those teachings which the greater part of the men at present scientifically concerned with anarchism recognize as anarchistic teachings; second, the concepts of the species of this genus, which are formed by the accession of any specialties to those common qualities. . the first thing toward a concept is that an object be apprehended as clearly and purely as possible. in non-conceptual notions an object is not apprehended with all possible clearness. in our non-conceptual notions of gold we most commonly make clear to ourselves only a few qualities of gold; one of us, perhaps, thinks mainly of the color and the lustre, another of the color and malleability, a third of some other qualities. but in the concept of gold color, lustre, malleability, hardness, solubility, fusibility, specific gravity, atomic weight, and all other qualities of gold, must be apprehended as clearly as possible. nor is an object apprehended in all possible purity in our non-conceptual notions. we introduce into our non-conceptual notions of gold many things that do not belong among the qualities of gold; one, perhaps, thinks of the present value of gold, another of golden dishes, a third of some sort of gold coin. but all these alien adjuncts must be kept away from the concept of gold. so the first goal of our study is to describe as clearly as possible on the one side, and as purely as possible on the other, the common qualities of those teachings which the greater part of the men at present scientifically concerned with anarchism recognize as anarchistic teachings, and the specialties of all the teachings which display these common qualities. . it is further requisite for a concept that an object should have its place assigned as well as possible in the total realm of our experience,--that is, in a system of species and genera which embraces our total experience. in non-conceptual notions an object does not have its place assigned in the total realm of our experience, but arbitrarily in one of the many genera in which it can be placed according to its various qualities. one of us, perhaps, thinks of gold as a species of the genus "yellow bodies," another as a species of the genus "malleable bodies," a third as a species of some other genus. but the concept of gold must assign it a place in a system of species and genera that embraces our whole experience,--a place in the genus "metals." so a further goal of our study is to assign a place as well as possible in the total realm of our experience (that is, in a system of species and genera which embraces our total experience) for the common qualities of those teachings which the greater part of the men at present scientifically concerned with anarchism recognize as anarchistic teachings, and for the specialties of all the teachings that display these common qualities. .--the way to the goal in accordance with what has been said, the way that our study must take to go from its starting-point to its goal will be in three parts. first, the concepts of law, the state, and property must be determined. next, it must be ascertained what the anarchistic teachings assert about law, the state, and property. finally, after removing some errors, we must get determinate concepts of anarchism and its species. . first, we must get determinate concepts of law, the state, and property; and this must be of law, the state, and property in general, not of the law, state, or property of a particular legal system or a particular family of legal systems. law, the state, and property, in this sense, are the objects about which the doctrines which are to be examined in their common and special qualities make assertions. before the fact of any assertions about an object can be ascertained,--not to say, before the common and special qualities of these assertions can be brought out and assigned to a place in the total realm of our experience,--we must get a determinate concept of this object itself. hence the first thing that must be done is to determine the concepts of law, the state, and property (chapter ii). . next, it must be ascertained what the anarchistic teachings assert about law, the state, and property;--that is, the recognized anarchistic teachings, and also those teachings which likewise display the qualities common to these. what the recognized anarchistic teachings say, must be ascertained in order to determine the concept of anarchism. what all the teachings that display the common qualities of the recognized anarchistic teachings say, must be ascertained in order that we may get determinate concepts of the species of anarchism. so each of these teachings must be questioned regarding its relation to law, the state, and property. these questions must be preceded by the question on what foundation the teaching rests, and must be followed by the question how it conceives the process of its realization. it is impossible to present here all recognized anarchistic teachings, not to say all anarchistic teachings. therefore our study limits itself to the presentation of seven especially prominent teachings (chapters iii to ix), and then, from this standpoint, seeks to get a view of the totality of recognized anarchistic teachings and of all anarchistic teachings (chapter x). the teachings presented are presented in their own words,[ ] but according to a uniform system: the first, for security against the importation of alien thoughts; the second, to avoid the uncomparable juxtaposition of fundamentally different courses of thought. they have been compelled to give definite replies to definite questions; it was indeed necessary in many cases to bring the answers together in tiny fragments from the most various writings, to sift them so far as they contradicted each other, and to explain them so far as they deviated from ordinary language. thus tolstoi's strictly logical structure of thought and bakunin's confused talk, kropotkin's discussions full of glowing philanthropy and stirner's self-pleasing smartness, come before our eyes directly and yet in comparable form. . finally, after removing widely diffused errors, we are to get determinate concepts of anarchism and its species. we must, therefore, on the basis of that knowledge of the anarchistic teachings which we have acquired, clear away the most important errors about anarchism and its species; and then we must determine what the anarchistic teachings have in common, and what specialties are represented among them, and assign to both a place in the total realm of our experience. then we have the concepts of anarchism and its species (chapter xi). footnote: [ ] russian writings are cited from translations, which are cautiously revised where they seem too harsh. chapter ii law, the state, property .--general _in this discussion we are to get determinate concepts of law, the state, and property in general, not of the law, state, and property of a particular legal system or of a particular family of legal systems. the concepts of law, state, and property are therefore to be determined as concepts of general jurisprudence, not as concepts of any particular jurisprudence._ . by the concepts of law, state, and property one may understand, first, the concepts of law, state, and property in the science of a particular legal system. these concepts of law, state, and property contain all the characteristics that belong to the substance of a particular legal system. they embrace only the substance of this system. they may, therefore, be called concepts of the science of this system. for we may designate as the science of a particular legal system that part of jurisprudence which concerns itself exclusively with the norms of a particular legal system. the concepts of law, state, and property in the science of a legal system are distinguished from the concepts of law, state, and property in the sciences of other legal systems by this characteristic,--that they are concepts of norms of this particular system. from this characteristic we may deduce all the characteristics that result from the special substance of this system of law in contrast to other such systems. the concepts of property in the present laws of the german empire, of france, and of england are distinguished by the fact that they are concepts of norms of these three different legal systems. consequently they are as different as are the norms of the present imperial-german, french, and english law on the subject of property. the concepts of law, state, and property in different legal systems are to each other as species-concepts which are subordinate to one and the same generic concept. . second, one may understand by the concepts of law, state, and property the concepts of law, state, and property in the science of a particular family of laws. these concepts of law, state, and property contain all the characteristics that belong to the common substance of the different legal systems of this family. they embrace only the common substance of the different systems of this family. they may, therefore, be called concepts of the science of this family of laws. for we may designate as the science of a particular family of laws that part of jurisprudence which deals exclusively with the norms of a particular family of legal systems, so far as these are not already dealt with by the sciences of the particular legal systems of this family. the concepts of law, state, and property in the science of a family of laws are distinguished from the concepts of law, state, and property in the sciences of the legal systems that form the family by lacking the characteristic of being concepts of norms of these systems, and consequently lacking also all the characteristics which may be deduced from this characteristic according to the special substance of one or another legal system. the concept of the state in the science of present european law is distinguished from the concepts of the state in the sciences of present german, russian, and belgian law by not being a concept of norms of any one of these systems, and consequently by lacking all the characteristics that result from the special substance of the constitutional norms in force in germany, russia, and belgium. its relation to the concepts of the state in the science of these systems is that of a generic concept to subordinate species-concepts. the concepts of law, state, and property in the science of a family of laws are distinguished from the concepts of law, state, and property in the sciences of other such families by this characteristic,--that they are concepts of norms of this particular family. from this characteristic we may deduce all the characteristics that are peculiar to the common substance of the different legal systems of this family in contrast to the common substance of the different legal systems of other families. the concept of the state in the science of present european law and the concept of the state in the science of european law in the year are distinguished by the fact that the one is a concept of constitutional norms that are in force in europe to-day, the other of such as were in force in europe then; consequently they are different in the same way as what the constitutional norms in force in europe to-day have in common is different from what was common to the constitutional norms in force in europe then. these concepts are to each other as species-concepts which are subordinate to one and the same generic concept. . third, one may understand by the concepts of law, state, and property the concepts of law, state, and property in general jurisprudence. these concepts of law, state, and property contain all the characteristics that belong to the common substance of the most different systems and families of laws. they embrace only what the norms of the most different systems and families of laws have in common. they may, therefore, be called concepts of general jurisprudence. for that part of jurisprudence which treats of legal norms without limitation to any particular system or family of laws, so far as these norms are not already treated by the sciences of the particular systems and families, may be designated as general jurisprudence. the concepts of law, state, and property in general jurisprudence are distinguished from the concepts of law, state, and property in the particular jurisprudences by lacking the characteristic of being concepts of norms of one of these systems or at least one of these families of systems, and consequently lacking also all the characteristics which may be deduced from this characteristic according to the special substance of some system or family of laws. the concept of law _per se_ is distinguished from the concept of law in present european law and from the concept of law in the present law of the german empire by not being a concept of norms of that family of laws, not to say that particular system, and consequently by lacking all the characteristics that might belong to any peculiarities which might be common to all legal norms at present in force in europe or in germany. its relation to the concepts of law in these particular jurisprudences is that of a generic concept to subordinate species-concepts. . in which of the senses here distinguished the concepts of law, state, and property should be defined in a particular case, and what matters should accordingly be taken into consideration in defining them, depends on the purpose of one's study. if, for example, the point is to describe scientifically the constitutional norms of the present law of the german empire, then the concept of the state as defined on this occasion must be a concept of the science of this particular legal system. for scientific work on the norms of a particular legal system requires that concepts be formed of the norms of just this system. consequently the material to be taken into consideration will be only the constitutional norms of the present law of the german empire.--that the concepts defined in the scientific description of a system of law are in fact concepts of the science of this system may indeed seem obscure. for every concept of the science of any particular system of law may be defined as the concept of a species under the corresponding generic concept of general jurisprudence. we define this generic concept, say the concept of the state in general jurisprudence, and add the distinctive characteristic of the species-concept, that it is a concept of norms of this particular system of law, say of the present law of the german empire. and then we often leave this additional characteristic unexpressed, where we think we may assume (as is the case in the scientific description of the norms of any particular system of law) that everybody will regard it as tacitly added. the consequence is that the definition given in the scientific description of a particular system of law looks, at a superficial glance, like the definition of a concept of general jurisprudence. or, if the point is to compare scientifically the norms of present european law regarding property, the concept of property as defined on this occasion must be a concept of the science of this particular family of laws. for the scientific comparison of norms of different legal systems demands that concepts of the sciences of these different legal systems be subordinately arranged under the corresponding concept of the science of the family of laws which is made up of these systems. consequently the material to be taken into consideration will be only the norms of this family of laws.--here again, indeed, it may seem obscure that the concepts defined are really concepts of the science of this family of laws. for the concepts that belong to the science of a family of laws may likewise be defined by defining the corresponding concepts of general jurisprudence and tacitly adding the characteristic of being concepts of norms of this particular family of laws. finally, if it comes to pass that the point is to compare scientifically what the norms of the most diverse systems of law have in common, the concept of law as defined on this occasion must be a concept of general jurisprudence. for the scientific comparison of norms of the most diverse systems and families of laws demands that concepts which belong to the sciences of the most diverse systems and families of laws be subordinately arranged under the corresponding concept of general jurisprudence. consequently the material to be taken into consideration will be the norms of the most diverse systems and families of laws. here,--where the point is to take the first step toward a scientific comprehension of teachings which pass judgment on law, the state, and property in general, not only on the law, state, or property of a particular system or family of laws,--the concepts of law, state, and property must necessarily be defined as concepts of general jurisprudence. for a scientific comprehension of teachings which deal with the common substance of the most diverse systems and families of laws demands that concepts of this common substance--consequently concepts belonging to general jurisprudence--be formed. therefore we have to take into consideration, as our material, the norms (especially regarding the state and property) of the most diverse systems and families of laws. .--law _law is the body of legal norms. a legal norm is a norm which is based on the fact that men have the will to see a certain procedure generally observed within a circle which includes themselves._ . a legal norm is a norm. a norm is the idea of a correct procedure. a correct procedure means one that corresponds either to the final purpose of all human procedure (unconditionally correct procedure,--for instance, respect for another's life), or at any rate to some accidental purpose (conditionally correct procedure,--for instance, the skilled handling of a picklock). and the idea of a correct procedure means that the unconditionally or conditionally correct procedure is to be thought of not as a fact but as a task, not as something real but as something to be realized; it does not mean that i shall in fact spare my enemy's life, but that i am to spare it--not how the thief really did use the picklock, but how he should have used it. the idea of a correct procedure is what we designate as an "ought": when i think of an "ought," i think of what has to be done in order to realize either the final purpose of all human procedure or some accidental personal purpose. all passing of judgment on past procedure is conditioned upon the idea of a correct procedure--only with regard to this idea can past procedure be described as good or bad, expedient or inexpedient; and so is all deliberation on future procedure--only with regard to this idea does one inquire whether it will be right, or at any rate expedient, to proceed in a given manner. every legal norm represents a procedure as correct, declares that it corresponds to a particular purpose. and it represents this correct procedure as an idea, designates it not as a fact but as a task, does not say that any one does proceed so but that one is to proceed so. hence a legal norm is a norm. . a legal norm is a norm based on a human will. a norm based on a human will is a norm by virtue of which one must proceed in a certain way in order that he may not put himself in opposition to the will of some particular men, and so be apprehended by the power which is at the service of these men. such a norm, therefore, represents a procedure only as conditionally correct; to wit, as a means to the end (which we are perhaps pursuing or perhaps despising) of remaining in harmony with the will of certain men, and so being spared by the power which serves this will. every legal norm tells us that we must proceed in a certain way in order that we may not contravene the will of some particular men and then suffer under their power. therefore it represents a procedure only as conditionally correct, and instructs us not as to what is good but only as to what is prescribed. hence a legal norm is a norm based on a human will. . a legal norm is a norm based on the fact that men will to have a certain procedure for themselves and others. a norm is based on the fact that men will to have a certain procedure for themselves and others when the will on which the norm is based has reference not only to others who do not will, but also, at the same time, to the willers themselves also; when, therefore, these not only will that others be subject to the norm but also will to be subject to it themselves. every legal norm, and of all norms only the legal norm, has the characteristic that the will on which it is based reaches beyond those whose will it is, and yet embraces them too. the rule, "whoever takes from another a movable thing that is not his own, with the intent to appropriate it illegally, is punished with imprisonment for theft," is not only based on the will of men, but each of these men is also conscious that, while on the one hand the rule applies to other men, on the other hand it applies to himself. here it might be alleged that, after all, the mere fact of men's will to have a certain procedure for themselves and others does not always establish law; for example, the efforts of the bonapartists do not establish the empire in france. but it is not when this bare will exists that law is established, but only when a norm is based on this will; that is, when it has in its service so great a power that it is competent to affect the behavior of the men to whom it relates. as soon as bonapartism spreads so widely and in such circles that this takes place, the republic will fall and the empire will indeed become law in france. one might further appeal to the fact that in unlimited monarchies (in russia, for instance) the law is based solely on the will of one man, who is not himself subject to it. but russian law is not based on the czar's will at all; the czar is a weak individual man, and his will in itself is totally unqualified to affect many millions of russians in their procedure. russian law is based rather on the will of all those russians--peasants, soldiers, officials--who, for the most various reasons--patriotism, self-interest, superstition--will that what the czar wills shall be law in russia. their will is qualified to affect the procedure of the russians; and, if they should ever grow so few that it would no longer have this qualification, then the czar's will would no longer be law in russia, as the history of revolutions proves. . it has been asserted that legal norms have still other qualities. it has been said, first, that it belongs to the essence of a legal norm to be enforceable, or even to be enforceable in a particular way, by judicial procedure, governmental force. if by this we are to understand that conformity can always be enforced, we are met at once by the great number of cases in which this cannot be done. when a debtor is insolvent, or a murder has been committed, conformity to the violated legal norms cannot now be enforced after the fact, but their validity is not impaired by this. if by enforceability we mean that conformity to a legal norm must be insured by other legal norms providing for the case of its violation, we need only go on from the insured to the insuring norms for a while, to come to norms for which conformity is not insured by any further legal norms. if one refuses to recognize these norms as legal norms, then neither can the norms which are insured by them rank as legal norms, and so, going back along the series, one has at last no legal norms left. only if one would understand by the enforceability of the legal norm that a will must have at its disposal a certain power in order that a legal norm may be based on it, one might certainly say in this sense that enforceability belongs to the essence of a legal norm. but this quality of the legal norm would be only such a quality as would be derivable from its quality of being a norm, and would therefore have no claim to be added as a further quality. again, it has been named an essential quality of a legal norm that it should be based on the will of a state. but even where we cannot speak of a state at all, among nomads for instance, there are yet legal norms. besides, every state is itself a legal relation, established by legal norms, which consequently cannot be based on its will. and lastly, the norms of international law, which are intended to bind the will of states, cannot be based on the will of a state. finally, it has been asserted that it was essential to a legal norm that it should correspond to the moral law. if this were so, then among the different legal norms which to-day are in force one directly after the other in the same territory, or at the same time in different territories under the same circumstances, only one could in each case be regarded as a legal norm; for under the same circumstances there is only one moral right. nor could one speak then of unrighteous legal norms, for if they were unrighteous they would not be legal norms. but in reality, even when legal norms determine conduct quite differently under the same circumstances, they are all nevertheless recognized as legal norms; nor is it doubted that there are bad legal norms as well as good. . as a norm based on the fact that men have the will to see a certain procedure generally observed within a circle which includes themselves, the legal norm is distinguished from all other objects, even from those that most resemble it. by being based on the will of men it is distinguished from the moral law (the commandment of morality); this is not based on men's willing a certain procedure, but on the fact that this procedure corresponds to the final purpose of all human procedure. the maxim, "love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, pray for those who abuse and persecute you," is a moral law; so is the maxim, "act so that the maxims of your will might at all times serve as the principles of a general legislation." for the correctness of such a procedure is not founded on the fact that other men will have it, but on the fact that it corresponds to the final purpose of all human procedure. by being based on the will of men the legal norm is distinguished also from good manners; these are not based on the fact that men will a certain procedure, but on the fact that they themselves proceed in a certain way. it is manners that one goes to a ball in a dress coat and white gloves, uses his knife at table only for cutting, begs the daughter of the house for a dance or at least one round, takes leave of the master and mistress of the house, and lastly presses a tip into the servant's hand; for the correctness of such a behavior is not based on the fact that other men ask this of us,--to those who start a new fashion it is often actually unpleasant to find that the fashion is spreading to more extensive circles,--but solely on the fact that other men themselves behave so, and that we want "not to be peculiar," "not to make ourselves conspicuous," "to do like the rest," etc. by being based on a will which relates at once to those whose will it is and to others whose will it is not, it is distinguished on the one hand from an arbitrary command, in which one's will applies only to others, and on the other from a resolution, in which it applies only to himself. it is an arbitrary command when cortes with his spaniards commands the mexicans to bring out their gold, or when a band of robbers forbids a frightened peasantry to betray their hiding-place; here a human will decides, indeed, but a will that relates only to other men, and not at the same time to those whose will it is. a resolution is presented when i have decided to get up at six every morning, or to leave off smoking, or to finish a piece of work within a specified time--here a human will is indeed the standard, but it relates only to him whose will it is, not at all to others. . what is briefly summed up in the definition of the legal norm may, if one takes into account the explanations which have been given with this definition, be expanded as follows: men will that a given procedure be generally observed within a circle which includes themselves, and their power is so great that their will is competent to affect the men of this circle in their procedure. when such is the condition of things, a legal norm exists. .--the state _the state is a legal relation by virtue of which a supreme authority exists in a certain territory._ . the state is a legal relation. a legal relation is the relation, determined by legal norms, of an obligated party, one to whom a procedure is prescribed, to an entitled party, one for whose sake it is prescribed. thus, for instance, the legal relation of a loan is a relation of the borrower, who is bound by the legal norms concerning loans, to the lender, for whose sake he is bound. the state is the legal relation of all the men who by legal norms are subjected to a supreme territorial authority, to all those for whose sake they are subjected to it. here the circle of the entitled and the obligated is one and the same; the state is a bond upon all in favor of all. to this it might perhaps be objected that the state is not a legal relation but a person. but the two propositions, that an association of men is a person in the legal sense and that it is a legal relation, are quite compatible; nay, its attribute of personality is based mainly on its attribute of being a legal relation of a particular kind; law, in viewing the association in its outward relationships as a person, starts from the fact that men are bound together by a particular legal relation. a joint-stock corporation is a person not although, but because, it is a legal relation of a peculiar kind. and similarly, the fact that the state is a person is not only reconcilable with its being a legal relation, but is founded on its being a peculiar legal relation. . as to the conditions of its existence, this legal relation is involuntary. a voluntary legal relation exists when legal norms make entrance into the relation conditional on actions of the obligated party, of which actions the purpose is to bring about the legal relation; for instance, entrance into the relation of tenancy is conditioned on agreeing to a lease. _per contra_, an involuntary legal relation exists when legal norms do not make entrance into the relation conditional on any such actions of the obligated party, as, for instance, a patent is not conditioned on any action of those who are bound by it, and the sentence of a criminal is at least not conditioned on any action whereby he intended to bring it about. if the state were a voluntary legal relation, a supreme authority could exist only for those inhabitants of a territory who had acknowledged it. but the supreme authority exists for all inhabitants of the territory, whether they have acknowledged it or not; the legal relation is therefore involuntary. . the substance of this legal relation is, that a supreme authority exists in a territory. an authority exists in a territory by virtue of a legal relation when, according to the legal norms which found the relation, the will of some men--or even merely of a man--is regulative for the inhabitants of this territory. a supreme authority exists in a territory by virtue of a legal relation when according to those norms the will of some men is finally regulative for the inhabitants of the territory,--that is, is decisive when authorities disagree. what we here designate as a supreme authority, therefore, is not the men on whose will the legal norms in force in a territory are based, but rather their highest agents, whose will they would have finally regulative within the territory. what men it is whose will is finally regulative for the inhabitants of a territory by virtue of a legal relation--for instance, members of a royal family according to a certain order of inheritance, or persons elected according to a certain election law--depends on the legal norms by which the legal relation is determined. on these legal norms, too, depends the question within what limits the will of these men is regulative. but this limited nature of the authority does not stand in the way of its being a supreme authority; the highest agent need not be an agent with unrestricted powers. here one might perhaps object that in federal states, in the german empire for instance, the individual states have not supreme authority. but in reality they have it. for, even if there are a multitude of subjects in reference to which the highest authority of the individual states of the german empire has to bow to the imperial authority, yet there are also subjects enough about which the highest authority of the individual states gives a final decision. as long as there are such subjects, a supreme authority exists in the individual states; if some day there should no longer be such, one could no longer speak of individual states. . as a legal relation, by virtue of which a supreme authority exists in a territory, the state is distinguished from all other objects, even from those that most resemble it. by being a legal relation it is distinguished on the one hand from institutions such as would exist in a conceivable kingdom of god or of reason, on the basis of the moral law, and on the other hand from the dominion of a conqueror in the conquered country, which can never be anything but an arbitrary dominion. being an involuntary legal relation, the state is distinguished from a conceivable association of men who should set up a supreme authority among themselves by an agreement, as well as from leagues under international law, in which a supreme authority exists on the basis of an agreement. the fact that by virtue of a legal relation an authority over a territory is given distinguishes the state from the tribal community of nomads and from the church; for in the former there is given an authority over people of a certain descent, in the latter over people of a certain faith, but in neither over people of a certain territory. and finally, in the fact that this territorial authority is a supreme authority lies the difference between the state and towns, counties, or provinces; in the latter there is indeed a territorial authority instituted, but one that by the very intent of its institution must bow to a higher authority. . what is briefly summed up in the definition of the state may be expanded as follows, if one takes into consideration on the one hand the previous definition of a legal norm and on the other hand the above explanations of the definition of the state: some inhabitants of a territory are so powerful that their will is competent to affect the inhabitants of this territory in their procedure, and these men will have it that for all the inhabitants of the territory, for themselves as well as for the rest, the will of men picked out in a certain way shall within certain limits be finally regulative. when such is the condition of things, a state exists. .--property _property is a legal relation, by virtue of which some one has, within a certain group of men, the exclusive privilege of ultimately disposing of a thing._ . property is a legal relation. as has already been stated, a legal relation is the relation of an obligated party, one to whom a procedure is prescribed by legal norms, to an entitled party, one for whose sake it is prescribed. property is the legal relation of all the members of a group of men who by legal norms are excluded from ultimately disposing of a thing, to him--or to those--for whose sake they are excluded from it. here the circle of the obligated is much broader than that of the entitled; the former embraces, say, all the inhabitants of a territory or all who belong to a tribe, the latter only those among them in whom certain further conditions (for instance, transfer, prescription, appropriation) are fulfilled. . as to the conditions of its existence, this legal relation is involuntary. as discussion has already shown, a voluntary legal relation exists when legal norms make entrance into the relation conditional on actions of the obligated party, of which actions the purpose is to bring about the legal relation; _per contra_, an involuntary legal relation exists when legal norms do not make entrance into the relation conditional on any such actions of the obligated party. if property were a voluntary legal relation, then there could be excluded from ultimately disposing of a thing only those members of a group of men who had consented to this exclusion. but all members of the group--for instance, all the inhabitants of a territory, all who belong to a tribe--are excluded, whether they have consented or not. . the substance of this legal relation consists in some one's having, within a certain group of men, the exclusive privilege of ultimately disposing of a thing. some one's having, within a certain group of men, the exclusive privilege of ultimately disposing of a thing means that this group is excluded from the thing in his favor; that is, they must not hinder him from dealing with the thing according to his will, nor may they themselves deal with it against his will. now, the exclusive disposition of a thing within a certain group of men may by virtue of a legal relation belong to several, part by part, in this way: that some--or one--of them have it in this or that particular respect (for instance, as to the usufruct), and one--or some--in all other respects which are not individually alienated. whoever thus has, within a group of men, the exclusive disposition of a thing in all those respects which are not individually alienated, to him belongs, within that group, the exclusive privilege of ultimately disposing of the thing. to whom this belongs by virtue of the legal relation--whether, for instance, it belongs among others to him who by labor has made a thing into some new thing--depends on the legal norms by which the legal relation is determined. on them also depends the question, within what limits this belongs to him: the dispository authority of him to whom the exclusive disposition of a thing within a group of men ultimately belongs is limited not only by the dispository authority of those to whom the exclusive disposition within the group proximately belongs, but also by the limits within which such dispository authority is at all allowed to anybody in the group. especially, it depends on these legal norms whether a privilege of exclusive ultimate disposition belongs to individuals as well as to corporations, or only to corporations, and whether it applies to every kind of things or only to one kind or another. . as a legal relation by virtue of which some one has, within a certain group of men, the exclusive privilege of ultimately disposing of a thing, property is distinguished from all other objects, even from those which most resemble it. by being a legal relation it is distinguished from all the relations in which one has the exclusive ultimate disposition of a thing guaranteed to him solely by the reasonableness of the men who surround him, or solely by his own might, as might be the case in a conceivable kingdom of god or of reason, and as is often the case in a conquered country. being an involuntary legal relation, it is distinguished from those legal relations by virtue of which the exclusive privilege of ultimately disposing of a thing belongs to some one solely on the ground of a contract, and solely as against the other contracting parties. that by virtue of this legal relation some one has, within a group of men, the exclusive privilege of ultimately disposing of a thing, distinguishes property from copyright, by virtue of which some one has exclusively, within a group of men, not the disposition of a thing, but somewhat else; and furthermore from rights in the property of others, by virtue of which some one has, within a group of men, the exclusive privilege of disposing of a thing, but not of ultimately disposing of it. . what is briefly summed up in the definition of property may be expanded as follows, if one takes into consideration on the one hand the previously given definition of a legal norm, and on the other the above explanations of the definition of property. some men are so powerful that their will is able to affect in its procedure a group of men which embraces them, and these men will have it that no member of this group shall, within certain limits, hinder a member picked out in a certain way from dealing with a thing according to his will, nor, within these limits, himself deal with the thing against the will of that member, so far as the will of another member is not already in particular respects regulative with respect to that thing equally with the will of that member. when such is the condition of things, property exists. * * * * * [distinguishing the state from arbitrary dominion as he here does (p. ), and then saying that anarchism consists solely in the negation of the state, eltzbacher implies the unsound conclusion that anarchism does not involve the negation of arbitrary dominion. this is because he incautiously takes the word of the learned public that the only cardinal points of anarchism are law, the state, and property, without making sure that those who say this are using the term "state" in the precise sense defined by him. but are not many of his "arbitrary commands" law and state by his definitions? every robber in his band (p. ) is as much required to keep the secret as are the peasantry, and under the same penalties. in restraining a subject population i restrict my liberty of emigration or investment, and forbid myself to be an accomplice in certain things.] chapter iii godwin's teaching .--general . william godwin was born in at wisbeach, cambridgeshire. he studied theology at hoxton, beginning in . in he became preacher at ware, hertfordshire; in , preacher at stowmarket, suffolk. in he gave up this position. from this time on he lived in london as an author. he died there in . godwin published numerous works in the departments of philosophy, economics, and history; also stories, tragedies, and juvenile books. . godwin's teaching about law, the state, and property is contained mainly in the two-volume work "an enquiry concerning political justice and its influence on general virtue and happiness" ( ). "the printing of this treatise," says godwin himself, "was commenced long before the composition was finished. the ideas of the author became more perspicuous and digested as his inquiries advanced. this circumstance has led him into some inaccuracies of language and reasoning, particularly in the earlier part of the work. he did not enter upon the subject without being aware that government by its very nature counteracts the improvement of individual intellect; but he understood the proposition more completely as he proceeded, and saw more distinctly into the nature of the remedy."[ ] godwin's teaching is here presented exclusively in the developed form which it shows in the second part of the work. . godwin does not call his teaching about law, the state, and property "anarchism." yet this word causes him no terror. "anarchy is a horrible calamity, but it is less horrible than despotism. where anarchy has slain its hundreds, despotism has sacrificed millions upon millions, with this only effect, to perpetuate the ignorance, the vices, and the misery of mankind. anarchy is a short-lived mischief, while despotism is all but immortal. it is unquestionably a dreadful remedy, for the people to yield to all their furious passions, till the spectacle of their effects gives strength to recovering reason: but, though it be a dreadful remedy, it is a sure one."[ ] .--basis _according to godwin, our supreme law is the general welfare._ what is the general welfare? "its nature is defined by the nature of mind."[ ] it is unchangeable; as long as men are men it remains the same.[ ] "that will most contribute to it which expands the understanding, supplies incitements to virtue, fills us with a generous consciousness of our independence, and carefully removes whatever can impede our exertions."[ ] the general welfare is our supreme law. "duty is that mode of action on the part of the individual, which constitutes the best possible application of his capacity to the general benefit."[ ] "justice is the sum of all moral duty;"[ ] "if there be such a thing, i am bound to do for the general weal everything in my power."[ ] "virtue is a desire to promote the benefit of intelligent beings in general, the quantity of virtue being as the quantity of desire;"[ ] "the last perfection of this feeling consists in that state of mind which bids us rejoice as fully in the good that is done by others, as if it were done by ourselves."[ ] "the truly wise man"[ ] strives only for the welfare of the whole. he is "actuated neither by interest nor ambition, the love of honor nor the love of fame. [he knows no jealousy. he is not disquieted by the comparison of what he has attained with what others have attained, but by the comparison with what ought to be attained.] he has a duty indeed obliging him to seek the good of the whole; but that good is his only object. if that good be effected by another hand, he feels no disappointment. all men are his fellow laborers, but he is the rival of no man."[ ] .--law i. _looking to the general good, godwin rejects law, not only for particular local and temporary conditions, but altogether._ "law is an institution of the most pernicious tendency."[ ] "the institution once begun, can never be brought to a close. no action of any man was ever the same as any other action, had ever the same degree of utility or injury. as new cases occur, the law is perpetually found deficient. it is therefore perpetually necessary to make new laws. the volume in which justice records her prescriptions is for ever increasing, and the world would not contain the books that might be written."[ ] "the consequence of the infinitude of law is its uncertainty. law was made that a plain man might know what he had to expect, and yet the most skilful practitioners differ about the event of my suit."[ ] "a farther consideration is that it is of the nature of prophecy. its task is to describe what will be the actions of mankind, and to dictate decisions respecting them."[ ] "law we sometimes call the wisdom of our ancestors. but this is a strange imposition. it was as frequently the dictate of their passion, of timidity, jealousy, a monopolizing spirit, and a lust of power that knew no bounds. are we not obliged perpetually to revise and remodel this misnamed wisdom of our ancestors? to correct it by a detection of their ignorance, and a censure of their intolerance?"[ ] "legislation, as it has been usually understood, is not an affair of human competence. reason is [our sole legislator, and her decrees are unchangeable and everywhere the same.]"[ ] "men cannot do more than declare and interpret law; nor can there be an authority so paramount, as to have the prerogative of making that to be law, which abstract and immutable justice had not made to be law previously to that interposition."[ ] to be sure, "it must be admitted that we are imperfect, ignorant, and slaves of appearances."[ ] but "whatever inconveniences may arise from the passions of men, the introduction of fixed laws cannot be the genuine remedy."[ ] "as long as a man is held in the trammels of obedience, and habituated to look to some foreign guidance for the direction of his conduct, his understanding and the vigor of his mind will sleep. do i desire to raise him to the energy of which he is capable? i must teach him to feel himself, to bow to no authority, to examine the principles he entertains, and render to his mind the reason of his conduct."[ ] ii. _the general welfare requires that in future it itself should be men's rule of action in place of the law._ "if every shilling of our property, [every hour of our time,] and every faculty of our mind, have received their destination from the principles of unalterable justice,"[ ] that is, of the general good,[ ] then no other decree can any longer control it. "the true principle which ought to be substituted in the room of law, is that of reason exercising an uncontrolled jurisdiction upon the circumstances of the case."[ ] "to this principle no objection can arise on the score of wisdom. it is not to be supposed that there are not men now existing, whose intellectual accomplishments rise to the level of law. but, if men can be found among us whose wisdom is equal to the wisdom of law, it will scarcely be maintained, that the truths they have to communicate will be the worse for having no authority, but that which they derive from the reasons that support them."[ ] "the juridical decisions that were made immediately after the abolition of law, would differ little from those during its empire. they would be the decisions of prejudice and habit. but habit, having lost the centre about which it revolved, would diminish in the regularity of its operations. those to whom the arbitration of any question was entrusted would frequently recollect that the whole case was committed to their deliberation, and they could not fail occasionally to examine themselves, respecting the reason of those principles which had hitherto passed uncontroverted. their understandings would grow enlarged, in proportion as they felt the importance of their trust, and the unbounded freedom of their investigation. here then would commence an auspicious order of things, of which no understanding man at present in existence can foretell the result, the dethronement of implicit faith, and the inauguration of unclouded justice."[ ] .--the state i. _since godwin unconditionally rejects law, he necessarily has to reject the state as unconditionally. nay, he regards it as a legal institution peculiarly repugnant to the general welfare._ some base the state on force, others on divine right, others on contract.[ ] but "the hypothesis of force appears to proceed upon the total negation of abstract and immutable justice, affirming every government to be right, that is possessed of power sufficient to enforce its decrees. it puts a violent termination upon all political science, and is calculated for nothing farther than to persuade men, to sit down quietly under their present disadvantages, whatever they may be, and not exert themselves to discover a remedy for the evils they suffer. the second hypothesis is of an equivocal nature. it either coincides with the first, and affirms all existing power to be alike of divine derivation; or it must remain totally useless, till a criterion can be found, to distinguish those governments which are approved by god, from those which cannot lay claim to that sanction."[ ] the third hypothesis would mean that one "should make over to another the control of his conscience and the judging of his duties."[ ] "but we cannot renounce our moral independence; it is a property that we can neither sell nor give away; and consequently no government can derive its authority from an original contract."[ ] "all government corresponds in a certain degree to what the greeks denominated a tyranny. the difference is, that in despotic countries mind is depressed by a uniform usurpation; while in republics it preserves a greater portion of its activity, and the usurpation more easily conforms itself to the fluctuations of opinion."[ ] "by its very nature positive institution has a tendency to suspend the elasticity and progress of mind."[ ] "we should not forget that government is, abstractedly taken, an evil, a usurpation upon the private judgment and individual conscience of mankind."[ ] ii. _the general welfare demands that a social human life based solely on its precepts should take the place of the state._ . men are to live together in society even after the abolition of the state. "a fundamental distinction exists between society and government. men associated at first for the sake of mutual assistance."[ ] it was not till later that restraint appeared in these associations, in consequence of the errors and perverseness of a few. "society and government are different in themselves, and have different origins. society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness. society is in every state a blessing; government even in its best state but a necessary evil."[ ] but what is to hold men together in "society without government"?[ ] not a promise,[ ] at any rate. no promise can bind me; for either what i have promised is good, then i must do it even if there had been no promise; or it is bad, then not even the promise can make it my duty.[ ] "the fact that i have committed an error does not oblige me to make myself guilty of a second also."[ ] "suppose i had promised a sum of money for a good and worthy object. in the interval between the promise and its fulfilment a greater and nobler object presents itself to me, and imperiously demands my co-operation. to which shall i give the preference? to the one that deserves it. my promise can make no difference. i must be guided by the value of things, not by an external and alien point of view. but the value of things is not affected by my having taken upon me an obligation."[ ] "common deliberation regarding the general good"[ ] is to hold men together in societies hereafter. this is highly in harmony with the general welfare. "that a nation should exercise undiminished its function of common deliberation, is a step gained, and a step that inevitably leads to an improvement of the character of individuals. that men should agree in the assertion of truth, is no unpleasing evidence of their virtue. lastly, that an individual, however great may be his imaginary elevation, should be obliged to yield his personal pretensions to the sense of the community, at least bears the appearance of a practical confirmation of the great principle, that all private considerations must yield to the general good."[ ] . the societies are to be small, and to have as little intercourse with each other as possible. small territories are everywhere to administer their affairs independently.[ ] "no association of men, so long as they adhered to the principles of reason, could possibly have any interest in extending their territory."[ ] "whatever evils are included in the abstract idea of government, are all of them extremely aggravated by the extensiveness of its jurisdiction, and softened under circumstances of an opposite species. ambition, which may be no less formidable than a pestilence in the former, has no room to unfold itself in the latter. popular commotion is like the waves of the sea, capable where the surface is large of producing the most tragical effects, but mild and innocuous when confined within the circuit of a humble lake. sobriety and equity are the obvious characteristics of a limited circle."[ ]--"the desire to gain a more extensive territory, to conquer or to hold in awe our neighboring states, to surpass them in arts or arms, is a desire founded in prejudice and error. power is not happiness. security and peace are more to be desired than a name at which nations tremble. mankind are brethren. we associate in a particular district or under a particular climate, because association is necessary to our internal tranquillity, or to defend us against the wanton attacks of a common enemy. but the rivalship of nations is a creature of the imagination."[ ] the little independently-administered territories are to have as little to do with each other as possible. "individuals cannot have too frequent or unlimited intercourse with each other; but societies of men have no interests to explain and adjust, except so far as error and violence may render explanation necessary. this consideration annihilates at once the principal objects of that mysterious and crooked policy which has hitherto occupied the attention of governments. before this principle officers of the army and the navy, ambassadors and negotiators, and all the train of artifices that has been invented to hold other nations at bay, to penetrate their secrets, to traverse their machinations, to form alliances and counter-alliances, sink into nothing."[ ] . but how are the functions that the state performs at present to be performed in the future societies? "government can have no more than two legitimate purposes, the suppression of injustice against individuals within the community" (which includes the settling of controversies between different districts[ ]), "and the common defence against external invasion."[ ] "the first of these purposes, which alone can have an uninterrupted claim upon us, is sufficiently answered by an association of such an extent as to afford room for the institution of a jury, to decide upon the offences of individuals within the community, and upon the questions and controversies respecting property which may chance to arise."[ ] this jury would decide not according to any system of law, but according to reason.[ ]--"it might be easy indeed for an offender to escape from the limits of so petty a jurisdiction; and it might seem necessary at first that the neighboring parishes or jurisdictions should be governed in a similar manner, or at least should be willing, whatever was their form of government, to co-operate with us in the removal or reformation of an offender whose present habits were alike injurious to us and to them. but there will be no need of any express compact, and still less of any common centre of authority, for this purpose. general justice and mutual interest are found more capable of binding men than signatures and seals."[ ] the second function would present itself to us only from time to time. "however irrational might be the controversy of parish with parish in such a state of society, it would not be the less possible. such emergencies can only be provided against by the concert of several districts, declaring and, if needful, enforcing the dictates of justice."[ ] foreign invasions too would make such a concert necessary, and would to this extent resemble those controversies.[ ] therefore it would be "necessary upon certain occasions to have recourse to national assemblies, or in other words assemblies instituted for the joint purpose of adjusting the differences between district and district, and of consulting respecting the best mode of repelling foreign invasion."[ ]--but they "ought to be employed as sparingly as the nature of the case will admit."[ ] for, in the first place, the decision is given by the number of votes, and "is determined, at best, by the weakest heads in the assembly, but, as it not less frequently happens, by the most corrupt and dishonorable intentions."[ ] in the second place, as a rule the members are guided in their decisions by all sorts of external reasons, and not solely by the results of their free reflection.[ ] in the third place, they are forced to waste their strength on petty matters, while they cannot possibly let themselves be quietly influenced by argument.[ ] therefore national assemblies should "either never be elected but upon extraordinary emergencies, like the dictator of the ancient romans, or else sit periodically, one day for example in a year, with a power of continuing their sessions within a certain limit. the former is greatly to be preferred."[ ] but what would be the authority of these national assemblies and those juries? mankind is so corrupted by present institutions that at first the issuing of commands, and some degree of coercion, would be necessary; but later it would be sufficient for juries to recommend a certain mode of adjusting controversies, and for national assemblies to invite their constituencies to co-operate for the common advantage.[ ] "if juries might at length cease to decide and be contented to invite, if force might gradually be withdrawn and reason trusted alone, shall we not one day find that juries themselves, and every other species of public institution, may be laid aside as unnecessary? will not the reasonings of one wise man be as effectual as those of twelve? will not the competence of one individual to instruct his neighbors be a matter of sufficient notoriety, without the formality of an election? will there be many vices to correct and much obstinacy to conquer? this is one of the most memorable stages of human improvement. with what delight must every well-informed friend of mankind look forward to the auspicious period, the dissolution of political government, of that brute engine, which has been the only perennial cause of the vices of mankind, and which has mischiefs of various sorts incorporated with its substance, and no otherwise to be removed than by its utter annihilation!"[ ] .--property i. _in consequence of his unconditional rejection of law, godwin necessarily has to reject property also without any limitation. nay, property, or, as he expresses himself, "the present system of property,"_[ ]--_that is, the distribution of wealth at present established by law,--appears to him to be a legal institution that is peculiarly injurious to the general welfare._ "the wisdom of law-makers and parliaments has been applied to creating the most wretched and senseless distribution of property, which mocks alike at human nature and at the principles of justice."[ ] the present system of property distributes commodities in the most unequal and most arbitrary way. "on account of the accident of birth, it piles upon a single man enormous wealth. if one who has been a beggar becomes a well-to-do man, we usually know that he has not precisely his honesty or usefulness to thank for this change. it is often hard enough for the most diligent and industrious member of society to preserve his family from starvation."[ ] "and if i receive the reward of my work, they give me a hundred times more food than i can eat, and a hundred times more clothes than i can wear. where is the justice in this? if i am the greatest benefactor of the human race, is that a reason for giving me what i do not need, especially when my superfluity might be of the greatest use to thousands?"[ ] this unequal distribution of commodities is altogether opposed to the general welfare. it hampers intellectual progress. "accumulated property treads the powers of thought in the dust, extinguishes the sparks of genius, and reduces the great mass of mankind to be immersed in sordid cares, beside depriving the rich of the most salubrious and effectual motives to activity."[ ] and the rich man can buy with his superfluity "nothing but glitter and envy, nothing but the dismal pleasure of restoring to the poor man as alms that to which reason gives him an undeniable right."[ ] but the unequal distribution of commodities is also a hindrance to moral perfection. in the rich it produces ambition, vanity, and ostentation; in the poor, oppression, servility, and fraud, and, in consequence of these, envy, malice, and revenge.[ ] "the rich man stands forward as the principal object of general esteem and deference. in vain are sobriety, integrity, and industry, in vain the sublimest powers of mind and the most ardent benevolence, if their possessor be narrowed in his circumstances. to acquire wealth and to display it, is therefore the universal passion."[ ] "force would have died away as reason and civilization advanced, but accumulated property has fixed its empire."[ ] "the fruitful source of crimes consists in this circumstance, one man's possessing in abundance that of which another man is destitute."[ ] ii. _the general welfare demands that a distribution of commodities based solely on its precepts should take the place of property._ when godwin uses the expression "property" for that portion of commodities which is assigned to an individual by these precepts, he does so only in a transferred sense; only a portion assigned by law can be designated as property in the strict sense. now, according to the decrees of the general welfare, every man should have the means for a good life. . "how is it to be decided whether an object that may be used for the benefit of man shall be my property or yours? there is only one answer; according to justice."[ ] "the laws of different countries dispose of property in a thousand different ways; but only one of them can be most consonant with justice."[ ] justice demands in the first place that every man have the means for life. "our animal needs, it is well known, consist in food, clothing, and shelter. if justice means anything, nothing can be more unjust than that any man lacks these and at the same time another has too much of them. but justice does not stop here. so far as the general stock of commodities holds out, every one has a claim not only to the means for life, but to the means for a good life. it is unjust that a man works to the point of destroying his health or his life, while another riots in superfluity. it is unjust that a man has not leisure to cultivate his mind, while another does not move a finger for the general welfare."[ ] . such a "state of equality"[ ] would advance the general welfare in the highest degree. in it labor would become "so light, as rather to assume the appearance of agreeable relaxation, and gentle exercise."[ ] "every man would have a frugal, yet wholesome diet; every man would go forth to that moderate exercise of his corporal functions that would give hilarity to the spirits; none would be made torpid with fatigue, but all would have leisure to cultivate the kindly and philanthropical affections, and to let loose his faculties in the search of intellectual improvement."[ ] "how rapid would be the advances of intellect, if all men were admitted into the field of knowledge! it is to be presumed that the inequality of mind would in a certain degree be permanent; but it is reasonable to believe that the geniuses of such an age would far surpass the greatest exertions of intellect that are at present known."[ ] and the moral progress would be as great as the intellectual. the vices which are inseparably joined to the present system of property "would inevitably expire in a state of society where men lived in the midst of plenty, and where all shared alike the bounties of nature. the narrow principle of selfishness would vanish. no man being obliged to guard his little store, or provide with anxiety and pain for his restless wants, each would lose his individual existence in the thought of the general good. no man would be an enemy to his neighbor, for they would have no subject of contention; and of consequence philanthropy would resume the empire which reason assigns her."[ ] . but how could such a distribution of commodities be effected in a particular case? "as soon as law was abolished, men would begin to inquire after equity. in this situation let us suppose a litigated succession brought before them, to which there were five heirs, and that the sentence of their old legislation had directed the division of this property into five equal shares. they would begin to inquire into the wants and situation of the claimants. the first we will suppose to have a fair character and be prosperous in the world: he is a respectable member of society, but farther wealth would add little either to his usefulness or his enjoyments. the second is a miserable object, perishing with want, and overwhelmed with calamity. the third, though poor, is yet tranquil; but there is a situation to which his virtue leads him to aspire and in which he may be of uncommon service, but which he cannot with propriety accept, without a capital equal to two-fifths of the whole succession. one of the claimants is an unmarried woman past the age of child-bearing. another is a widow, unprovided, and with a numerous family depending on her succor. the first question that would suggest itself to unprejudiced persons having the allotment of this succession referred to their unlimited decision, would be, what justice is there in the indiscriminate partition which has hitherto prevailed?"[ ] and their answer could not be doubtful. .--realization. _the change which is called for by the general welfare should, according to godwin, be effected by those who have recognized the truth persuading others how necessary the change is for the general welfare, so that law, the state, and property would spontaneously disappear and the new condition would take their place._ i. the sole requirement is to convince men that the general welfare demands the change. . every other way is to be rejected. "our judgment will always suspect those weapons that can be used with equal prospect of success on both sides. therefore we should regard all force with aversion. when we enter the lists of battle, we quit the sure domain of truth and leave the decision to the caprice of chance. the phalanx of reason is invulnerable; it moves forward with calm, sure step, and nothing can withstand it. but, when we lay aside arguments, and have recourse to the sword, the case is altered. amidst the clamorous din of civil war, who shall tell whether the event will be prosperous or adverse? we must therefore distinguish carefully between instructing the people and exciting them. we must refuse indignation, rage, and passion, and desire only sober reflection, clear judgment, and fearless discussion."[ ] . the point is to convince men as generally as possible. only when this is accomplished can acts of violence be avoided. "why did the revolution in france and america find all sorts and conditions of men almost unanimous, while the resistance to charles the first divided our nation into two equal parties? because the latter occurred in the seventeenth century, the former at the end of the eighteenth. because at the time of the revolutions in france and america philosophy had already developed some of the great truths of political science, and under the influence of sydney and locke, of montesquieu and rousseau, a number of strong and thoughtful minds had perceived what an evil force is. if these revolutions had taken place still later, not a drop of civic blood would have been shed by civic hands, not in a single case would force have been used against persons or things."[ ] . the means to convince men as generally as possible of the necessity of a change consist in "proof and persuasion. the best warrant of a happy outcome lies in free, unrestricted discussion. in this arena truth must always be victor. if, therefore, we would improve the social institutions of mankind, we must seek to convince by spoken and written words. this activity has no limits; this endeavor admits of no interruption. every means must be used, not so much to draw men's attention and bring them over to our opinion by persuasion, as rather to remove every barrier to thought and to open to everybody the temple of science and the field of study."[ ] "therefore the man who has at heart the regeneration of his species should always bear in mind two principles, to regard hourly progress in the discovery and dissemination of truth as essential, and calmly to let years pass before he urges the carrying into effect of his teaching. with all his prudence, it may be that the boisterous multitude will hurry ahead of the calm, quiet progress of reason; then he will not condemn the revolution that takes place some years before the time set by wisdom. but if he is ruled by strict prudence he can without doubt frustrate many over-hasty attempts, and considerably prolong the general quietness."[ ] "this does not mean, as one might think, that the changing of our conditions lies at an immeasurable distance. it is the nature of human affairs that great alterations take place suddenly, and great discoveries are made unexpectedly, as it were accidentally. when i cultivate a young person's mind, when i exert myself to influence that of an older person, it will long seem as if i had accomplished little, and the fruits will show themselves when i least expect them. the kingdom of truth comes quietly. the seed of virtue may spring up when it was fancied to be lost."[ ] "if the true philanthropist but tirelessly proclaims the truth and vigilantly opposes all that hinders its progress, he may look forward, with heart at rest, to a speedy and favorable outcome."[ ] ii. as soon as the conviction that the general welfare demands a change in our condition has made itself generally felt, law, the state, and property will disappear spontaneously and give way to the new condition. "reform, under this meaning of the term, can scarcely be considered as of the nature of action. [it is a general enlightenment.] men feel their situation; and the restraints that shackled them before, vanish like a deception. when such a crisis has arrived, not a sword will need to be drawn, not a finger to be lifted up in purposes of violence. the adversaries will be too few and too feeble, to be able to entertain a serious thought of resistance against the universal sense of mankind."[ ] in what way may the change of our conditions take place? . "the opinion most popular in france at the time that the national convention entered upon its functions, was that the business of the convention extended only to the presenting a draft of a constitution, to be submitted in the sequel to the approbation of the districts, and then only to be considered as law."[ ] "the first idea that suggests itself respecting this opinion is, that, if constitutional laws ought to be subjected to the revision of the districts, then all laws ought to undergo the same process. [but if the approbation of the districts to any declarations is not to be delusive, the discussion of these declarations in the districts must be unlimited. then] a transaction will be begun to which it is not easy to foresee a termination. some districts will object to certain articles; and, if these articles be modeled to obtain their approbation, it is possible that the very alteration introduced to please one part of the community may render the code less acceptable to another."[ ] "this principle of a consent of districts has an immediate tendency, by a salutary gradation perhaps, to lead to the dissolution of all government."[ ] it is indeed "desirable that the most important acts of the national representatives should be subject to the approbation or rejection of the districts whose representatives they are, for exactly the same reason as it is desirable that the acts of the districts themselves should, as speedily as practicability will admit, be in force only so far as relates to the individuals by whom those acts are approved."[ ] . this system would have the effect, first, that the constitution would be very short. the impracticability of obtaining the free approbation of a great number of districts to an extensive code would speedily manifest itself; and the whole constitution might consist of a scheme for the division of the country into parts equal in their population, and the fixing of stated periods for the election of a national assembly, not to say that the latter of these articles may very probably be dispensed with.[ ] a second effect would be, that it would soon be found a proceeding unnecessarily circuitous to send laws to the districts for their revision, unless in cases essential to the general safety, and that in as many instances as possible the districts would be suffered to make laws for themselves. "thus, that which was at first a great empire with legislative unity would speedily be transformed into a confederacy of lesser republics, with a general congress or amphictyonic council, answering the purpose of a point of co-operation upon extraordinary occasions."[ ] a third effect would consist in the gradual cessation of legislation. "a great assembly collected from the different provinces of an extensive territory, and constituted the sole legislator of those by whom the territory is inhabited, immediately conjures up to itself an idea of the vast multitude of laws that are necessary. a large city, impelled by the principles of commercial jealousy, is not slow to digest the volume of its by-laws and exclusive privileges. but the inhabitants of a small parish, living with some degree of that simplicity which best corresponds with nature, would soon be led to suspect that general laws were unnecessary, and would adjudge the causes that came before them, not according to certain axioms previously written, but according to the circumstances and demands of each particular cause."[ ] a fourth effect would be that the abrogation of property would be favored. "all equalization of rank and station strongly tends toward an equalization of possessions."[ ] so not only the lower orders, but also the higher, would see the injustice of the present distribution of property.[ ] "the rich and great are far from callous to views of general felicity, when such views are brought before them with that evidence and attraction of which they are susceptible."[ ] but even so far as they might think only of their own emolument and ease, it would not be difficult to show them that it is in vain to fight against truth, and dangerous to bring upon themselves the hatred of the people, and that it might be to their own interest to make up their minds to concessions at least.[ ] footnotes: [ ] godwin pp. ix-x [ . vi-vii]. [ ] _ib._ pp. - [ . - ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ , ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ , ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ , - ]. [ ] godwin p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ pp. , [ . , ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . - ?]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ pp. - [ . ? ]. [ ] _ib._ p. . [not in ed. .] [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ; bracketed words omitted in ed. ] [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] godwin pp. - [ . - ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . , except bracketed words]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ] [ ] godwin p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . , except bracketed words]. [ ] _ib._ pp. , [ . , ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] godwin pp. - [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . - ]. [ ] _ib._ p. - [ . ]. [ ] godwin p. [ . ] [ ] _ib._ p. . [not in ed. .] [ ] _ib._ p. . [not in ed. .] [ ] _ib._ p. [ . - ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] godwin p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ; credited to paine's "common sense," p. ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . - ? ?]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . - ; but see _per contra_ p. ]. [ ] _ib._ p. . [not in ed. .] [ ] godwin p. . [not in ed. .] [ ] _ib._ pp. - [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ - [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ [ . ]. [ ] godwin p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ [ . ]. [ ] godwin p. [ . . obviously eltzbacher has misunderstood this passage. his german translation shows that he mistook "interests" for "interest" in the sense of "incentive." note also that godwin expressly restricts the application of this paragraph, even in its right sense, on pp. , ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ p. - [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ pp. , , - [ . , - ] [ ] godwin p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ pp. - [ . - ]. [ ] _ib._ pp. - [ . - ]. [ ] _ib._ pp. - , - [ . , ]. [ ] godwin pp. - [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ pp. - [ . - ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ] [ ] _ib._ pp. - [ . - ]. [ ] godwin pp. - [ . ] [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ p. . [not in ed. .] [ ] _ib._ p. . [not in ed. .] [ ] godwin p. . [not in ed. ; cf. . ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ p. . [not in ed. .] [ ] _ib._ pp. , [ . , --but the words "in the poor" seem to be added out of eltzbacher's head]. [ ] godwin p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ] [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ] [ ] _ib._ p. . [not in ed. ; cf. . - .] [ ] _ib._ p. . [not in ed. .] [ ] godwin pp. - . [not in ed. .] [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ] [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] godwin p. [ . ]. [ ] godwin pp. - [ . - ]. [ ] godwin p. [ , , only the two sentences beginning at "but"]. [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [not in ed. .] [ ] godwin pp. - . [not in ed. .] [ ] _ib._ p. . [not in ed. .] [ ] _ib._ p. . [not in ed. ; cf. . .] [ ] godwin p. . [not in ed. .] [ ] _ib._ pp. - [ . , except bracketed words]. [ ] _ib._ pp. - [ . ]. [ ] godwin pp. - [ . - ; bracketed words a paraphrase]. [ ] _ib._ pp. - [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ pp. - [ . - ]. [ ] godwin pp. - [ . - ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ . ]. [ ] godwin p. [cf. . ]. [ ] _ib._ pp. - [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ pp. - [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ pp. - [ . ]. chapter iv proudhon's teaching .--general . pierre-joseph proudhon was born at besançon in . at first he followed the occupation of a printer there and in other cities. in a stipend of the academy of besançon enabled him to go to paris for scientific studies. in he took a mercantile position at lyons. in he gave it up and moved to paris. here, in the years from to , proudhon published several periodicals, one after the other. in he became a member of the national assembly. in he founded a people's bank. soon after this he was condemned to three years' imprisonment for an offence against the press laws, and served his time without having to interrupt his activity as an author. in proudhon was released from prison. he remained in paris till, in , he was again condemned to three years' imprisonment for an offence against the press laws. he fled and settled in brussels. in he was pardoned, and returned to france. thenceforth he lived at passy. he died there in . proudhon published many books and other writings, especially in the fields of jurisprudence, political economy, and politics. . of special importance for proudhon's teaching about law, the state, and property are, among the writings before , the book "_qu'est-ce que la propriété? ou recherches sur le principe du droit et du gouvernement_" ( ) and the two-volume work "_système des contradictions économiques, ou philosophie de la misère_" ( ); among the writings from to the "_confessions d'un révolutionnaire_" ( ) and the "_idée générale de la révolution au xixe siècle_" ( ); and lastly, among the writings after , the three-volume work "_de la justice dans la révolution et dans l'eglise, nouveaux principes de philosophie pratique_" ( ) and the book "_du principe fédératif et de la nécessité de reconstituer le parti de la révolution_" ( ).[ ] proudhon's teaching regarding law, the state, and property underwent changes in minor points, but remained the same in its essentials; the opinion that it changed also in essentials is caused by proudhon's arbitrary and varying use of language. since no history of the evolution of proudhon's teaching can be given here, i shall present, so far as concerns such minor points, only the teaching of - , in which years proudhon developed his views with especial clearness and did especially forcible work for them. . proudhon calls his teaching about law, the state, and property "anarchism." "'what form of government shall we prefer?' 'can you ask?' replies one of my younger readers without doubt; 'you are a republican.' 'republican, yes; but this word makes nothing definite. _res publica_ is "the public thing"; now, whoever wants the public thing, under whatever form of government, may call himself a republican. even kings are republicans.' 'well, you are a democrat.' 'no.' 'what? can you be a monarchist?' 'no.' 'a constitutionalist?' 'i should hope not.' 'you are an aristocrat then?' 'not a bit.' 'you want a mixed government, then?' 'still less.' 'what are you then?' 'i am an anarchist.'"[ ] .--basis _according to proudhon the supreme law for us is justice._ what is justice? "justice is respect, spontaneously felt and mutually guaranteed, for human dignity, in whatever person and under whatever circumstances we find it compromised, and to whatever risk its defence may expose us."[ ] "i ought to respect my neighbor, and make others respect him, as myself; such is the law of my conscience. in consideration of what do i owe him this respect? in consideration of his strength, his talent, his wealth? no, what chance gives is not what makes the human person worthy of respect. in consideration of the respect which he in turn pays to me? no, justice assumes reciprocity of respect, but does not wait for it. it asserts and wills respect for human dignity even in an enemy, which causes the existence of _laws of war_; even in the murderer whom we kill as having fallen from his manhood, which causes the existence of _penal laws_. it is not the gifts of nature or the advantages of fortune that make me respect my neighbor; it is not his ox, his ass, or his maid-servant, as the decalogue says; it is not even the welfare that he owes to me as i owe mine to him; it is his manhood."[ ] "justice is at once a reality and an idea."[ ] "justice is a faculty of the soul, the foremost of all, that which constitutes a social being. but it is more than a faculty; it is an idea, it indicates a relation, an equation. as a faculty it may be developed; this development is what constitutes the education of humanity. as an equation it presents nothing antinomic; it is absolute and immutable like every law, and, like every law, very intelligible."[ ] justice is for us the supreme law. "justice is the inviolable yardstick of all human actions."[ ] "by it the facts of social life, by nature indeterminate and contradictory, become susceptible of definition and arrangement."[ ] "justice is the central star which governs societies, the pole about which the political world revolves, the principle and rule of all transactions. nothing is done among men that is not in the name of _right_; nothing without invoking justice. justice is not the work of the law; on the contrary, the law is never anything but a declaration and application of what is _just_."[ ] "suppose a society where justice is outranked, however little, by another principle, say religion; or in which certain individuals are regarded more highly, by however little, than others; i say that, justice being virtually annulled, it is inevitable that the society will perish sooner or later.[ ] "it is the privilege of justice that the faith which it inspires is unshakable, and that it cannot be dogmatically denied or rejected. all peoples invoke it; reasons of state, even while they violate it, profess to be based on it; religion exists only for it; skepticism dissembles before it; irony has power only in its name; crime and hypocrisy do it homage. [if liberty is not an empty phrase, it acts only in the service of right; even when it rebels against right, at bottom it does not curse it.]"[ ] "all the most rational teachings of human wisdom about justice are summed up in this famous adage: _do to others what you would have done to you; do not to others what you would not have done to you._"[ ] .--law i. _in the name of justice proudhon rejects, not law indeed, but almost all individual legal norms, and the state laws in particular._ the state makes laws, and "as many laws as the interests which it meets with; and, since interests are innumerable, the legislation-machine must work uninterruptedly. laws and ordinances fall like hail on the poor populace. after a while the political soil will be covered with a layer of paper, and all the geologists will have to do will be to list it, under the name of _papyraceous formation_, among the epochs of the earth's history. the convention, in three years one month and four days, issued eleven thousand six hundred laws and decrees; the constituent and legislative assemblies had produced hardly less; the empire and the later governments have wrought as industriously. at present the '_bulletin des lois_' contains, they say, more than fifty thousand; if our representatives did their duty this enormous figure would soon be doubled. do you believe that the populace, or the government itself, can keep its sanity in this labyrinth?"[ ] "but what am i saying? laws for him who thinks for himself, and is responsible only for his own acts! laws for him who would be free, and feels himself destined to become free! i am ready to make terms, but i will have no laws; i acknowledge none; i protest against every order which an ostensibly necessary authority shall please to impose on my free will. laws! we know what they are and what they are worth. cobwebs for the powerful and the rich, chains which no steel can break for the little and the poor, fishers' nets in the hands of the government."[ ] "you say they shall make _few_ laws, make them _simple_, make them _good_. but it is impossible. must not government adjust all interests, decide all disputes? now interests are by the nature of society innumerable, relationships infinitely variable and mobile; how is it possible that only a few laws should be made? how can they be simple? how can the best law escape soon being detestable?"[ ] ii. _justice requires that only one legal norm be in force: to wit, the norm that contracts must be lived up to._ "what do we mean by a _contract_? a contract, says the civil code, art. , is an agreement whereby one or more persons bind themselves to one or more others to do or not to do something."[ ] "that i may remain free, that i may be subjected to no law but my own, and that i may govern myself, the edifice of society must be rebuilt upon the idea of contract."[ ] "we must start with the idea of contract as the dominant idea of politics."[ ] this norm, that contracts must be lived up to, is to be based not only on its justice, but at the same time on the fact that among men who live together there prevails a will to enforce the keeping of contracts, if necessary, with violence;[ ] so it is to be not only a commandment of morality, but also a legal norm. "several of your fellow-men have agreed to treat each other with good faith and fair play,--that is, to respect those rules of action which the nature of things points out to them as being alone capable of assuring to them, in the fullest measure, prosperity, safety, and peace. are you willing to join their league? to form a part of their society? do you promise to respect the honor, the liberty, the goods, of your brothers? do you promise never to appropriate to yourself, neither by violence, by fraud, by usury, nor by speculation, another's product or possession? do you promise never to lie and deceive, neither in court, in trade, nor in any of your dealings? you are free to accept or to refuse. "if you refuse, you form a part of the society of savages. having left the fellowship of the human race, you come under suspicion. nothing protects you. at the least insult anybody you meet may knock you down, without incurring any other charge than that of cruelty to animals. "if you swear to the league, on the contrary, you form a part of the society of free men. all your brothers enter into an engagement with you, promising you fidelity, friendship, help, service, commerce. in case of infraction on their part or on yours, through negligence, hot blood, or evil intent, you are responsible to one another, for the damage and also for the scandal and insecurity which you have caused; this responsibility may extend, according to the seriousness of the perjury or the repetition of the crime, as far as to excommunication and death."[ ] .--the state i. since proudhon approves only the single legal norm that contracts must be lived up to, he can sanction only a single legal relation, that of parties to a contract. hence he must necessarily reject the state; for it is established by particular legal norms, and, as an involuntary legal relation, it binds even those who have not entered into any contract at all. _proudhon does accordingly reject the state absolutely, without any spatial or temporal limitation; he even regards it as a legal relation which offends against justice to an unusual degree._ "the government of man by man is slavery."[ ] "whoever lays his hand on me to govern me is a usurper and a tyrant; i declare him my enemy."[ ] "in a given society the authority of man over man is in inverse ratio to the intellectual development which this society has attained, and the probable duration of this authority may be calculated from the more or less general desire for a true--that is, a scientific--government."[ ] "royalty is never legitimate. neither heredity, election, universal suffrage, the excellence of the sovereign, nor the consecration of religion and time, makes royalty legitimate. in whatever form it may appear, monarchical, oligarchic, democratic,--royalty, or the government of man by man, is illegal and absurd."[ ] democracy in particular "is nothing but a constitutional arbitrary power succeeding another constitutional arbitrary power; it has no scientific value, and we must see in it only a preparation for the republic, one and indivisible."[ ] "authority was no sooner begun on earth than it became the object of universal competition. authority, government, power, state,--these words all denote the same thing,--each man sees in it the means of oppressing and exploiting his fellows. absolutists, doctrinaires, demagogues, and socialists, turned their eyes incessantly to authority as their sole cynosure."[ ] "all parties without exception, in so far as they seek for power, are varieties of absolutism; and there will be no liberty for citizens, no order for societies, no union among workingmen, till in the political catechism the renunciation of authority shall have replaced faith in authority. _no more parties, no more authority, absolute liberty of man and citizen_,--there, in three words, is my political and social confession of faith."[ ] ii. _justice demands, in place of the state, a social human life on the basis of the legal norm that contracts must be lived up to._ proudhon calls this social life "anarchy"[ ] and later "federation"[ ] also. . after the abrogation of the state, men are still to live together in society. as early as proudhon says that the point is "to discover a system of absolute equality, in which all present institutions, minus property or the sum of the abuses of property, might not only find a place, but be themselves means to equality; individual liberty, the division of powers, the cabinet, the jury, the administrative and judiciary organization."[ ] but men are not to be kept together in society by any supreme authority, but only by the legally binding force of contract. "when i bargain for any object with one or more of my fellow-citizens, it is clear that then my will alone is my law; it is i myself who, in fulfilling my obligation, am my government. if then i could make that contract with all, which i do make with some; if all could renew it with each other; if every group of citizens, commune, canton, department, corporation, company, etc., formed by such a contract and considered as a moral person, could then, always on the same terms, treat with each of the other groups and with all, it would be exactly as if my will was repeated _ad infinitum_. i should be sure that the law thus made on all points that concern the republic, on the various motions of millions of persons, would never be anything but my law; and, if this new order of things was called government, that this government would be mine. the _régime of contracts_, substituted for the _régime of laws_, would constitute the true government of man and of the citizen, the true sovereignty of the people, the republic."[ ] "the republic is the organization by which, all opinions and all activities remaining free, the people, by the very divergence of opinions and of wills, thinks and acts as a single man. in the republic every citizen, in doing what he wishes and nothing but what he wishes, participates directly in legislation and government, just as he participates in the production and circulation of wealth. there every citizen is king; for he has plenary power, he reigns and governs. the republic is a positive anarchy. it is neither liberty subjected to order, as in the constitutional monarchy, nor liberty imprisoned in order, as the provisional government would have it. it is liberty delivered from all its hobbles, superstition, prejudice, sophism, speculation, authority; it is mutual liberty, not self-limiting liberty; liberty, not the daughter but the mother of order."[ ] . anarchy may easily seem to us "the acme of disorder and the expression of chaos. they say that when a parisian burgher of the seventeenth century once heard that in venice there was no king, the good man could not get over his astonishment, and thought he should die of laughing. such is our prejudice."[ ] as against this, proudhon draws a picture of how men's life in society under anarchy might perhaps shape itself in detail, to execute the functions now belonging to the state. he begins with an example. "for many centuries the spiritual power has been separated, within traditional limits, from the temporal power. [but there has never been a complete separation, and therefore, to the great detriment of the church's authority and of believers, centralization has never been sufficient.] there would be a complete separation if the temporal power not only did not concern itself with the celebration of mysteries, the administration of sacraments, the government of parishes, etc., but did not intervene in the nomination of bishops either. there would ensue a greater centralization, and consequently a more regular government, if in each parish the people had the right to choose for themselves their vicars and curates, or to have none at all; if in each diocese the priests elected their bishop; if the assembly of bishops, or a primate of the gauls, had sole charge of the regulation of religious affairs, theological instruction, and worship. by this separation the clergy would cease to be, in the hands of political power, an instrument of tyranny over the people; and by this application of universal suffrage the ecclesiastical government, centralized in itself, receiving its inspirations from the people and not from the government or the pope, would be in constant harmony with the needs of society and with the moral and intellectual condition of the citizens. we must, then, in order to return to truth, organic, political, economic, or social (for here all these are one), first, abolish the constitutional cumulation by taking from the state the nomination of the bishops, and definitively separating the spiritual from the temporal; second, centralize the church in itself by a system of graded elections; third, give to the ecclesiastical power, as we do to all the other powers in the state, the vote of the citizens as a basis. by this system what to-day is government will no longer be anything but _administration_; all france is centralized, so far as concerns ecclesiastical functions; the country, by the mere fact of its electoral initiative, governs itself in matters of eternal life as well as in those of this world. and one may already see that if it were possible to organize the entire country in temporal matters on the same bases, the most perfect order and the most vigorous centralization would exist without there being anything of what we to-day call constituted authority or government."[ ] proudhon gives a second example in judicial authority. "the judicial functions, by their different specialties, their hierarchy, [their permanent tenure of office,] their convergence under a single departmental head, show an unequivocal tendency to separation and centralization. but they are in no way dependent on those who are under their jurisdiction; they are all at the disposal of the executive power, which is appointed by the people once in four years with authority that cannot be diminished; they are subordinated not to the country by election, but to the government, president or prince, by appointment. it follows that those who are under the jurisdiction of a court are given over to their 'natural' judges just as are parishioners to their vicars; that the people belong to the magistrate like an inheritance; that the litigant is the judge's, not the judge the litigant's. apply universal suffrage and graded election to the judicial as well as the ecclesiastical functions; suppress the permanent tenure of office, which is an alienation of the electoral right; take away from the state all action, all influence, on the judicial body; let this body, separately centralized in itself, no longer depend on any but the people,--and, in the first place, you will have deprived power of its mightiest instrument of tyranny; you will have made justice a principle of liberty as well as of order. and, unless you suppose that the people, from whom all powers should spring by universal suffrage, is in contradiction with itself,--that what it wants in religion it does not want in justice,--you are assured that the separation of powers can beget no conflict; you may boldly lay it down as a principle that _separation_ and _equilibrium_ are henceforth synonymous."[ ] then proudhon goes on to the army, the customhouses, the public departments of agriculture and commerce, public works, public education, and finance; for each of these administrations he demands independence and centralization on the basis of general suffrage.[ ] "that a nation may manifest itself in its unity, it must be centralized in its religion, centralized in its justice, centralized in its army, centralized in its agriculture, industry, and commerce, centralized in its finances,--in a word, centralized in all its functions and faculties; the centralization must work from the bottom to the top, from the circumference to the centre; all the functions must be independent and severally self-governing. "would you then make this invisible unity perceptible by a special organ, preserve the image of the old government? group these different administrations by their heads; you have your cabinet, your _executive_, which can then very well do without a council of state. "set up above all this a grand jury, legislature, or national assembly, appointed directly by the whole country, and charged not with appointing the cabinet officers,--they have their investiture from their particular constituents,--but with auditing the accounts, making the laws, settling the budget, deciding controversies between the administrations, all after having heard the reports of the public department, or department of the interior, to which the whole government will thenceforth be reduced; and you will have a centralization the stronger the more you multiply its foci, a responsibility the more real the more clear-cut is the separation between the powers; you have a constitution at once political and social."[ ] .--property i. since proudhon sanctions only the one legal norm that contracts must be kept, he can approve only one legal relation, that between contracting parties. hence he must necessarily reject property as well as the state, since it is established by particular legal norms, and, as an involuntary legal relation, binds even such as have in no way entered into a contract. _and he does reject property[ ] absolutely, without any spatial or temporal limitation; nay, it even appears to him to be a legal relation which is particularly repugnant to justice._ "according to its definition, property is the right of using and abusing; that is to say, it is the absolute, irresponsible domain of man over his person and his goods. if property ceased to be the right to abuse, it would cease to be property. has not the proprietor the right to give his goods to whomever he will, to let his neighbor burn without crying fire, to oppose the public good, to squander his patrimony, to exploit the laborer and hold him to ransom, to produce bad goods and sell them badly? can he be judicially constrained to use his property well? can he be disturbed in the abuse of it? what am i saying? is not property, precisely because it is full of abuse, the most sacred thing in the world for the legislator? can one conceive of a property whose use the police power should determine, whose abuse it should repress? is it not clear, in fine, that if one undertook to introduce justice into property, one would destroy property, just as the law, by introducing propriety into concubinage, destroyed concubinage?"[ ] "men steal: first, by violence on the highway; second, alone or in a band; third, by burglary; fourth, by embezzlement; fifth, by fraudulent bankruptcy; sixth, by forgery; seventh, by counterfeiting. eighth, by pocket-picking; ninth, by swindling; tenth, by breach of trust; eleventh, by gambling and lotteries.--twelfth, by usury. thirteenth, by rent-taking.--fourteenth, by commerce, when the profits are more than fair wages for the trader's work.--fifteenth, by selling one's own product at a profit, and by accepting a sinecure or a fat salary."[ ] "in theft such as the laws forbid, force and fraud are employed alone and openly; in authorized theft they are disguised under a produced utility, which they use as a device for plundering their victim. the direct use of violence and force was early and unanimously rejected; no nation has yet reached the point of delivering itself from theft when united with talent, labor, and possession."[ ] in this sense property is "theft,"[ ] "the exploitation of the weak by the strong,"[ ] "contrary to right,"[ ] "the suicide of society."[ ] ii. _justice demands, in place of property, a distribution of goods based on the legal norm that contracts must be lived up to._ proudhon calls that portion of goods which is assigned to the individual by contract, "property." in he had demanded that individual possession be substituted for property; with this one change evil would disappear from the earth.[ ] but in he is already explaining that by property he means only its abuses;[ ] nay, he even then describes as necessary the creation of an immediately applicable social system in which the rights of barter and sale, of direct and collateral inheritance, of primogeniture and bequest, should find their place.[ ] in he says, "some day transformed property will be an idea positive, complete, social, and true; a property which will abolish the old property and will become equally effective and beneficent for all."[ ] in he is declaring that "property, as to its principle or substance, which is human personality, must never perish; it must remain in man's heart as a perpetual stimulus to labor, as the antagonist whose absence would cause labor to fall into idleness and death."[ ] and in he announces: "what i sought for as far back as , in defining property, what i am wanting now, is not a destruction; i have said it till i am tired. that would have been to fall with rousseau, plato, louis blanc himself, and all the adversaries of property, into _communism_, against which i protest with all my might; what i ask for property is a balance,"[ ]--that is, "justice."[ ] in all these pronouncements property means nothing else than that portion of goods which falls to the individual on the basis of contracts, on which society is to be built up.[ ] the property which proudhon sanctions cannot be a special legal relation, but only a possible part of the substance of the one legal relation which he approves, the relation of contract. it can afford no protection against a group of men whose extent is determined by legal norms, but only against a group of men who have mutually secured a certain portion of goods to each other by contract. proudhon, therefore, is here using the word "property" in an inexact sense; in the strict sense it can denote only a portion of goods set apart in an involuntary legal relation by particular legal norms. accordingly, when in the name of justice proudhon demands a certain distribution of property, this means nothing more than that the contracts on which society is to be built should make a certain sort of provision with respect to the distribution of goods. and the way in which they should determine it is this: that every man is to have the product of his labor. "let us conceive of wealth as a mass whose elements are held together permanently by a chemical force, and into which new elements incessantly enter and combine in different proportions, but according to a definite law: value is the proportion (the measure) in which each of these elements forms a part of the whole."[ ] "i suppose, therefore, a force which combines the elements of wealth in definite proportions and makes of them a homogeneous whole."[ ] "this force is labor. it is labor, labor alone, that produces all the elements of wealth and combines them, to the last molecule, according to a variable but definite law of proportionality."[ ] "every product is a representative sign of labor."[ ] "every product can consequently be exchanged for another."[ ] "if then the tailor, in return for furnishing the value of one day of his work, consumes ten times the weaver's day, it is as if the weaver gave ten days of his life for one day of the tailor's. this is precisely what occurs when a peasant pays a lawyer twelve francs for a document that it costs one hour to draw up; and this inequality, this iniquity in exchange, is the mightiest cause of poverty. every error in commutative justice is an immolation of the laborer, a transfusion of a man's blood into another man's body."[ ] "what i demand with respect to property is a balance. it is not for nothing that the genius of nations has equipped justice with this instrument of precision. justice applied to economy is in fact nothing but a perpetual balance; or, to express myself still more precisely, justice as regards the distribution of goods is nothing but the obligation which rests upon every citizen and every state, in their business relations, to conform to that law of equilibrium which manifests itself everywhere in economy, and whose violation, accidental or voluntary, is the fundamental principle of poverty."[ ] . that every man should enjoy the product of his labor is possible only through reciprocity, according to proudhon; therefore he calls his doctrine "the theory of _mutuality_ or of the _mutuum_."[ ] "reciprocity is expressed in the precept, 'do to others what you would have done to you,' a precept which political economy has translated into its celebrated formula, 'products exchange for products.' now the evil which is devouring us results from the fact that the law of reciprocity is unrecognized, violated. the remedy consists altogether in the promulgation of this law. the organization of our mutual and reciprocal relations is the whole of social science."[ ] and so proudhon, in the solemn declaration which he prefixed to the constitution of the people's bank when he first published it, gives the following assurance: "i protest that in criticising property, or rather the whole body of institutions of which property is the pivot, i never meant either to attack the individual rights recognized by previous laws, or to dispute the legitimacy of acquired possessions, or to instigate an arbitrary distribution of goods, or to put an obstacle in the way of the free and regular acquisition of properties by bargain and sale; or even to prohibit or suppress by sovereign decree land-rent and interest on capital. i think that all these manifestations of human activity should remain free and optional for all; i would admit no other modifications, restrictions, or suppressions of them than naturally and necessarily result from the universalization of the principle of reciprocity and of the law of synthesis which i propound. this is my last will and testament. i allow only him to suspect its sincerity, who could tell a lie in the moment of death."[ ] .--realization _the change which justice calls for is to come about in this way, that those men who have recognized the truth are to convince others how necessary the change is for the sake of justice, and that hereby, spontaneously, law is to transform itself, the state and property to drop away, and the new condition to appear._ the new condition will appear "as soon as the idea is popularized";[ ] that it may appear, we must "popularize the idea."[ ] i. nothing is requisite but to convince men that justice commands the change. . proudhon rejects all other methods. his doctrine is "in accord with the constitution and the laws."[ ] "accomplish the revolution, they say, and after this everything will be cleared up. as if the revolution itself could be accomplished without a leading idea!"[ ] "to secure justice to one's self by bloodshed is an extremity to which the californians, gathered since yesterday to seek for gold, may be reduced; but may the luck of france preserve us from it!"[ ] "despite the violence which we witness, i do not believe that hereafter liberty will need to use force to claim its rights and avenge its wrongs. reason will serve us better; and patience, like the revolution, is invincible."[ ] . but how shall we convince men, "how popularize the idea, if the _bourgeoisie_ remains hostile; if the populace, brutalized by servitude, full of prejudices and bad instincts, remains plunged in indifference; if the professors, the academicians, the press, are calumniating you; if the courts are truculent; if the powers that be muffle your voice? don't worry. just as the lack of ideas makes one lose the most promising games, war against ideas can only push forward the revolution. do you not see already that the _régime_ of authority, of inequality, of predestination, of eternal salvation, and of reasons of state, is daily becoming still more intolerable for the well-to-do classes, whose conscience and reason it tortures, than for the mass, whose stomach cries out against it?"[ ] . the most effective means for convincing men, according to proudhon, is to present to the people, within the state and without violating its law, "an example of centralization spontaneous, independent, and social," thus applying even now the principles of the future constitution of society.[ ] "rouse that collective action without which the condition of the people will forever be unhappy and its efforts powerless. teach it to produce wealth and order with its own hands, without the help of the authorities."[ ] proudhon sought to give such an example by the founding of the people's bank.[ ] the people's bank was to "insure work and prosperity to all producers by organizing them as beginning and end of production with regard to one another,--that is, as capitalists and as consumers."[ ] "the people's bank was to be the property of all the citizens who accepted its services, who for this purpose furnished money to it if they thought that it could not yet for some time do without a metallic basis, and who, in every case, promised it their preference in discounting paper, and received its notes as cash. accordingly the people's bank, working for the profit of its customers themselves, had no occasion to take interest for its loans nor to charge a discount on commercial paper; it had only to take a very slight allowance to cover salaries and expenses. so credit was gratuitous!--the principle being realized, the consequences unfolded themselves ad _infinitum_."[ ] "so the people's bank, giving an example of popular initiative alike in government and in public economy, which thenceforth were to be identified in a single synthesis, was becoming for the _prolétariat_ at once the principle and the instrument of their emancipation; it was creating political and industrial liberty. and, as every philosophy and every religion is the metaphysical or symbolic expression of social economy, the people's bank, changing the material basis of society, was ushering in the revolution of philosophy and religion; it was thus, at least, that its founders had conceived of it."[ ] all this can best be made clear by reproducing some provisions from the constitution of the people's bank. art. . by these presents a commercial company is founded under the name of _société de la banque du peuple_, consisting of citizen proudhon, here present, and the persons who shall give their assent to this constitution by becoming stockholders. art. .... for the present the company will exist as a partnership in which citizen proudhon shall be general partner, and the other parties concerned shall be limited partners who shall in no case be responsible for more than the value of their shares. art. .... the firm name shall be p. j. proudhon & co. art. . besides the members of the company proper, every citizen is invited to form a part of the people's bank as a co-operator. for this it suffices to assent to the bank's constitution and to accept its paper. art. . the people's bank company being capable of indefinite extension, its virtual duration is endless. however, to conform to the requirements of the law, it fixes its duration at ninety-nine years, which shall commence on the day of its definitive organization. art. .... the people's bank, having as its _basis_ the essential gratuitousness of credit and exchange, as its _object_ the circulation, not the production, of values, and as its _means_ the mutual consent of producers and consumers, can and should work without capital. this end will be reached when the entire mass of producers and consumers shall have assented to the constitution of the company. till then the people's bank company, having to conform to established custom and the requirements of law, and especially in order more effectively to invite citizens to join it, will provide itself with capital. art. . the capital of the people's bank shall be five million francs, divided into shares of five francs each. ... the company shall be definitively organized, and its business shall begin, when ten thousand shares are taken. art. . stock shall be issued only at par. it shall bear no interest. art. . the principal businesses of the people's bank are, , to increase its cash on hand by issuing notes; , discounting endorsed commercial paper; , discounting accepted orders (_commandes_) and bills (_factures_); , loans on personal property; , loans on personal security; , advances on annuities and collateral security; , payments and collections; , advances to productive and industrial enterprises (_la commande_). to these departments the people's bank will add: , the functions of a savings bank and endowment insurance; , insurance; , safe deposit vaults; , the service of the budget.[ ] art. . in distinction from ordinary bank notes, payable in _specie_ to some one's _order_, the paper of the people's bank is an order for goods, vested with a social character, rendered perpetual, and is payable at sight by every stockholder and co-operator in the _products_ or _services_ of his industry or profession. art. . every co-operator agrees to trade by preference, for all goods which the company can offer him, with the co-operators of the bank, and to reserve his orders exclusively for his fellow stockholders and fellow co-operators. in return, every producer or tradesman co-operating with the bank agrees to furnish his goods to the other co-operators at a reduced price. art. . the people's bank has its headquarters in paris. its aim is, in the course of time, to establish a branch in every _arrondissement_ and a correspondent in every commune. art. . as soon as circumstances permit, the present company shall be converted into a corporation, since this form allows us to realize, according to the wish of the founders, the threefold principle, first, of election; second, of the separation and the independence of the branches of work; third, of the personal responsibility of every employee.[ ] ii. if once men are convinced that justice commands the change, then will "despotism fall of itself by its very uselessness."[ ] the state and property disappear, law is transformed, and the new condition of things begins. "the revolution does not act after the fashion of the old governmental, aristocratic, or dynastic principle. it is right, the balance of forces, equality. it has no conquests to pursue, no nations to reduce to servitude, no frontiers to defend, no fortresses to build, no armies to feed, no laurels to pluck, no preponderance to maintain. the might of its economic institutions, the gratuitousness of its credit, the brilliancy of its thought, are its sufficient means for converting the universe."[ ] "the revolution has for allies all who suffer oppression and exploitation; let it appear, and the universe stretches its arms to it."[ ] "i want the peaceable revolution. i want you to make the very institutions which i charge you to abolish, and the principles of law which you will have to complete, serve toward the realization of my wishes, so that the new society shall appear as the spontaneous, natural, and necessary development of the old, and that the revolution, while abrogating the old order of things, shall nevertheless be the progress of that order."[ ] "when the people, once enlightened regarding its true interests, declares its will not to reform the government but to revolutionize society,"[ ] then "the dissolution of government in the economic organism"[ ] will follow in a way about which one can at present only make guesses.[ ] footnotes: [ ] not (as stated by diehl vol. p. , zenker p. ) . [ ] proudhon "_propriété_" p. [ . bracketed references under proudhon are to the collected edition of his "_oeuvres complètes_," paris, - .--the passage quoted above is probably the first case in history where anybody called himself an anarchist, though the word had long been in use as a term of reproach for enemies]. [ ] pr. "_justice_" . - [ . - ]. [ ] pr. "_justice_" . - [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ . [ ? but there he says _must be_, not _is_]. [ ] _ib._ . [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ . [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ . [ . ]. [ ] pr. "_justice_" . [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ . [ . , but with the bracketed sentence much abridged. for the phrase "rebel against right," remember that in french _right_ and _common law_ are one and the same word]. [ ] pr. "_propriété_" p. [ - ]. [ ] pr. "_idée_" - [ - ] [ ] _ib._ [ ]. [ ] pr. "_idée_" pp. - [ ]. [ ] pr. "_principe_" p. [ ]. [ ] pr. "_idée_" p. [ ]. [ ] pr. "_principe_" p. [ ]. [ ] pr. "_idée_" p. [ ]. [ ] pr. "_idée_" pp. - [ - ]. [ ] pr. "_confessions_" p. [ ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ ]. [ ] pr. "_propriété_" p. [ ]. [ ] _ib._ pp. - [ ]. [ ] pr. "_solution_" p. [ ]. [ ] pr. "_confessions_" p. [ ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ - ]. [ ] pr. "_propriété_" p. [ ], "_confessions_" p. [ ], "_solution_" p. [ ]. [ ] pr. "_principe_" p. [ ].--proudhon's teaching was not, as asserted by diehl vol. p. , vol. pp. - , and zenker p. , anarchism till and federalism thenceforward; his anarchism was federalism from the start, only he later gave it the additional name of federalism. [ ] pr. "_propriété_" pp. xix-xx [ - ]. [ ] pr. "_idée_" pp. - [ - ]. [ ] pr. "_solution_" p. [ ]. [ ] pr. "_propriété_" pp. - [ ]. [ ] pr. "_confessions_" p. [ - ; bracketed words a paraphrase.] [ ] pr. "_confessions_" pp. - [ - , except bracketed words]. [ ] _ib._ pp. - [ - ]. [ ] pr. "_confessions_" p. [ - ]. [ ] pfau pp. - , adler p. , zenker pp. , , fail to see this, being influenced by the improper sense in which proudhon uses the word "property" for a contractually guaranteed share of goods. [eltzbacher's statement, on the other hand, is not so much drawn from proudhon himself as deduced from a comparison of eltzbacher's definition of property with the statement that proudhon admits no law but the law of contract. i do not think this last statement is correct; i think proudhon would have his voluntary contractual associations protect their members in certain definable respects--among others, in the possession of goods--against those who stood outside the contract as well as against those within. then this would be, by eltzbacher's definitions, both law and property.] [ ] pr. "_contradictions_" . - [ . - ]. [ ] pr. "_propriété_" pp. - [ - ]. [ ] pr. "_propriété_" p. [ ]. [ ] _ib._ pp. - [ ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ ]. [ ] _ib._ pp. xviii-xix [ ; consult the passage]. [ ] _ib._ pp. xix-xx [ ]. [ ] pr. "_contradictions_" . - [ . ]. [ ] pr. "_droit_" p. [ ]. [ ] pr. "_justice_" . - [ . - ]. [ ] _ib._ [ . ]. [ ] pr. "_idée_" p. [ ]; "_principe_" p. [ ]. [ ] pr. "_contradictions_" . [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ . [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ . . [ . - ]. [ ] _ib._ . [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ . [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ . [ . - ]. [ ] pr. "_justice_" . - [ . ]. [ ] pr. "_contradictions_" . [ . ]. [ ] pr. "_organisation_" p. [ ]. [ ] pr. "_banque_" pp. - [ ]. [ ] pr. "_justice_" . [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ . [ . ]. [ ] pr. "_confessions_" p. [ ]. [ ] pr. "_justice_" , [ , . eltzbacher finds the sense "all will be enlightened" where i translate "everything will be cleared up." eltzbacher's view of the sense--that to those who say "enlightenment must come by the revolution" proudhon replies, "no, the revolution must come by enlightenment"--correctly gives the thought brought out in the context]. [ ] pr. "_justice_" . [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ . - [ . ]. [ ] _ib._ . [ . - ]. [ ] pr. "_confessions_" p. [ ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ ]. [ ] _ib._ pp. - [ ]. [ ] pr. "_confessions_" p. [ - ]. [ ] [french dictionaries leave us somewhat in the lurch as to commercial usages which differ from the english. eltzbacher translates , "investment as silent partner"; , "balancing accounts."] [ ] pr. "_banque_" pp. - [ - ]. [ ] pr. "_confessions_" p. [ - ]. [ ] pr. "_justice_" . [ . - ]. [ ] _ib._ . [ . ]. [ ] pr. "_idée_" pp. - [ ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ ]. [ ] _ib._ p. [ ]. [ ] _ib._ pp. , [ - ]. chapter v stirner's teaching .--general . johann kaspar schmidt was born in , at bayreuth in bavaria. he studied philosophy and theology at berlin from to , at erlangen from to . in he interrupted his studies, made a prolonged tour through germany, and then lived alternately at koenigsberg and kulm till . from to he studied at berlin again; in he passed his tests there as _gymnasiallehrer_. he received no government appointment, however, and in became teacher in a young ladies' seminary in berlin. he gave up this place in , but continued to live in berlin, and died there in . in part under the pseudonym max stirner, in part anonymously, schmidt published a small number of works, mostly of a philosophical nature. . stirner's teaching about law, the state, and property is contained chiefly in his book "_der einzige und sein eigentum_" ( ). --but here arises the question, can we speak of such a thing as a "teaching" of stirner's? stirner recognizes no _ought_. "men are such as they should be--can be. what should they be? surely not more than they can be! and what can they be? not more, again, than they--can, _i. e._ than they have the ability, the strength, to be."[ ] "a man is 'called' to nothing, and has no 'proper business,' no 'function,' as little as a plant or beast has a 'vocation.' he has not a vocation; but he has powers, which express themselves where they are, because their being consists only in their expression, and which can remain idle as little as life, which would no longer be life if it 'stood still' but for a second. now one might cry to man, 'use your power.' but this imperative would be given the meaning that it was man's proper business to use his power. it is not so. rather, every one really does use his power, without first regarding this as his vocation; every one uses in every moment as much power as he possesses."[ ] nay, stirner acknowledges no such thing as truth. "truths are phrases, ways of speaking, words (_logos_); brought into connection, or arranged by ranks and files, they form logic, science, philosophy."[ ] "nor is there a truth,--not right, not liberty, humanity, etc.,--which could subsist before me, and to which i would submit."[ ] "if there is a single truth to which man must consecrate his life and his powers because he is man, then he is subjected to a rule, dominion, law, etc.; he is a man in service."[ ] "as long as you believe in truth, you do not believe in yourself; you are a--servant, a--religious man. you alone are truth; or rather, you are more than truth, which is nothing at all before you."[ ] if one chose to draw the extreme inference from this, stirner's book would be only a self-avowal, an expression of thoughts without any claim to general validity; in it stirner would not be informing us what he thinks to be true, or what in his opinion we ought to do, but only giving us an opportunity to observe the play of his ideas. stirner did not draw this inference,[ ] and one should not let the style of the book, which speaks mostly of stirner's "i," lead him to think that stirner did draw it. he calls that man "blinded, who wants to be only 'man'."[ ] he takes the floor against "the erroneous consciousness of not being able to entitle myself to as much as i want."[ ] he mocks at our grandmothers' belief in ghosts.[ ] he declares that "penalty must make room for satisfaction,"[ ] that man "should defend himself against man."[ ] and he asserts that "over the door of our time stands not apollo's 'know thyself,' but a 'turn yourself to account!'"[ ] so stirner intends not only to give us information about his inward condition at the time he composed his book, but to tell us what he thinks to be true and what we ought to do; his book is not a mere self-avowal, but a scientific teaching. . stirner does not call his teaching about law, the state, and property "anarchism." he prefers to use the epithet "anarchic" to designate political liberalism, which he combats.[ ] .--basis _according to stirner the supreme law for each one of us is his own welfare._ what does one's own welfare mean? "let us seek out the enjoyment of life!"[ ] "henceforth the question is not how one can acquire life, but how he can expend it, enjoy it; not how one is to produce in himself the true ego, but how he is to dissolve himself, to live himself out."[ ] "if the enjoyment of life is to triumph over the longing or hope for life, it must overcome it in its double significance which schiller brings out in 'the ideal and life'; it must crush spiritual and temporal poverty, abolish the ideal and--the want of daily bread. he who must lay out his life in prolonging life cannot enjoy it, and he who is still seeking his life does not have it, and can as little enjoy it; both are poor."[ ] our own welfare is our supreme law. stirner recognizes no duty.[ ] "whether what i think and do is christian, what do i care? whether it is human, humane, liberal, or unhuman, inhumane, illiberal, what do i ask about that? if only it aims at what i would have, if only i satisfy myself in it, then fit it with predicates as you like; it is all one to me."[ ] "so then my relation to the world is this: i no longer do anything for it 'for god's sake', i do nothing 'for man's sake', but what i do i do 'for my sake'."[ ] "where the world comes in my way--and it comes in my way everywhere--i devour it to appease the hunger of my egoism. you are to me nothing but--my food, just as i also am fed upon and used up by you. we have only one relation to each other, that of utility, of usableness, of use."[ ] "i too love men, not merely individuals, but every one. but i love them with the consciousness of egoism; i love them because love makes me happy, i love because love is natural to me, because it pleases me. i know no 'commandment of love'."[ ] .--law i. _looking to each one's own welfare, stirner rejects law, and that without any limitation to particular spatial or temporal conditions._ law[ ] exists not by the individual's recognizing it as favorable to his interests, but by his holding it sacred. "who can ask about 'right' if he is not occupying the religious standpoint just like other people? is not 'right' a religious concept, _i. e._ something sacred?"[ ] "when the revolution stamped liberty as a 'right' it took refuge in the religious sphere, in the region of the sacred, the ideal."[ ] "i am to revere the sultanic law in a sultanate, the popular law in republics, the canon law in catholic communities, etc. i am to subordinate myself to these laws, i am to count them sacred."[ ] "the law is sacred, and he who outrages it is a criminal."[ ] "there are no criminals except against something sacred";[ ] crime falls when the sacred disappears.[ ] punishment has a meaning only in relation to something sacred.[ ] "what does the priest who admonishes the criminal do? he sets forth to him the great wrong of having by his act desecrated that which was hallowed by the state, its property (in which, you will see, the lives of those who belong to the state must be included)."[ ] but law is no more sacred than it is favorable to the individual's welfare. "right--is a delusion, bestowed by a ghost."[ ] men have "not recovered the mastery over the thought of 'right,' which they themselves created; their creature is running away with them."[ ] "let the individual man claim ever so many rights; what do i care for his right and his claim?"[ ] i do not respect them.--"what you have the might to be you have the right to be. i deduce all right and all entitlement from myself; i am entitled to everything that i have might over. i am entitled to overthrow zeus, jehovah, god, etc., if i can; if i cannot, then these gods will always remain in the right and in the might as against me."[ ] "right crumbles into its nothingness when it is swallowed up by force,"[ ] "but with the concept the word too loses its meaning."[ ] "the people will perhaps be against the blasphemer; hence a law against blasphemy. shall i therefore not blaspheme? is this law to be more to me than an order?"[ ] "he who has might 'stands above the law'."[ ] "the earth belongs to him who knows how to take it, or who does not let it be taken from him, does not let himself be deprived of it. if he appropriates it, then not merely the earth, but also the right to it, belongs to him. this is egoistic right; _i. e._, it suits me, therefore it is right."[ ] ii. _self-welfare commands that in future it itself should be men's rule of action in place of the law._ each of us is "unique,"[ ] "a world's history for himself,"[ ] and, when he "knows himself as unique,"[ ] he is a "self-owner."[ ] "god and mankind have made nothing their object, nothing but themselves. let me then likewise make myself my object, who am, as well as god, the nothing of all else, who am my all, who am the unique."[ ] "away then with every business that is not altogether my business! you think at least the 'good cause' must be my business? what good, what bad? why, i myself am my business, and i am neither good nor bad. neither has meaning for me. what is divine is god's business, what is human 'man's.' my business is neither what is divine nor what is human, it is not what is true, good, right, free, etc., but only what is mine; and it is no general business, but is--unique, as i am unique. nothing is more to me than myself!"[ ] "what a difference between freedom and self-ownership! i am free from what i am rid of; i am owner of what i have in my power."[ ] "my freedom becomes complete only when it is my--might; but by this i cease to be a mere freeman and become a self-owner."[ ] "each must say to himself, i am all to myself and i do all for my sake. if it ever became clear to you that god, the commandments, etc., do you only harm, that they encroach on you and ruin you, you would certainly cast them from you just as the christians once condemned apollo or minerva or heathen morality."[ ] "how one acts only from himself, and asks no questions about anything further, the christians have made concrete in the idea of 'god.' he acts 'as pleases him'."[ ] "might is a fine thing and useful for many things; for 'one gets farther with a handful of might than with a bagful of right.' you long for freedom? you fools! if you took might, freedom would come of itself. see, he who has might 'stands above the law.' how does this prospect taste to you, you 'law-abiding' people? but you have no taste!"[ ] .--the state i. _together with law stirner necessarily has to reject also, just as unconditionally, the legal institution which is called state._ without law the state is not possible. "'respect for the statutes!' by this cement the whole fabric of the state is held together."[ ] the state as well as the law, then, exists, not by the individual's recognizing it as favorable to his welfare, but rather by his counting it sacred, by "our being entangled in the error that it is an i, as which it applies to itself the name of a 'moral, mystical, or political person.' i, who really am i, must pull off this lion's skin of the i from the parading thistle-eater."[ ] the same holds good of the state as of the family. "if each one who belongs to the family is to recognize and maintain that family in its permanent existence, then to each the tie of blood must be sacred, and his feeling for it must be that of family piety, of respect for the ties of blood, whereby every blood-relative becomes hallowed to him. so, also, to every member of the state-community this community must be sacred, and the concept which is supreme to the state must be supreme to him too."[ ] the state is "not only entitled, but compelled, to demand" this.[ ] but the state is not sacred. "the state's behavior is violence, and it calls its violence 'law', but that of the individual 'crime'."[ ] if i do not do what it wishes, "then the state turns against me with all the force of its lion-paws and eagle-talons; for it is the king of beasts, it is lion and eagle."[ ] "even if you do overpower your opponent as a power, it does not follow that you are to him a hallowed authority, unless he is a degenerate. he does not owe you respect, and reverence, even if he will be wary of your might."[ ] nor is the state favorable to the individual's welfare. "i am the mortal enemy of the state."[ ] "the general welfare as such is not my welfare, but only the extremity of self-denial. the general welfare may exult aloud while i must lie like a hushed dog; the state may be in splendor while i starve."[ ] "every state is a despotism, whether the despot be one or many, or whether, as people usually conceive to be the case in a republic, all are masters, _i. e._ each tyrannizes over the others."[ ] "doubtless the state leaves the individuals as free play as possible, only they must not turn the play to earnest, must not forget it. the state has never any object but to limit the individual, to tame him, to subordinate him, to subject him to something general; it lasts only so long as the individual is not all in all, and is only the clear-cut limitation of me, my limitedness, my slavery."[ ] "a state never aims to bring about the free activity of individuals, but only that activity which is bound to the state's purpose."[ ] "the state seeks to hinder every free activity by its censorship, its oversight, its police, and counts this hindering as its duty, because it is in truth a duty of self-preservation."[ ] "i am not allowed to do all the work i can, but only so much as the state permits; i must not turn my thoughts to account, nor my work, nor, in general, anything that is mine."[ ] "pauperism is the valuelessness of me, the phenomenon of my being unable to turn myself to account. therefore state and pauperism are one and the same. the state does not let me attain my value, and exists only by my valuelessness; its goal is always to get some benefit out of me, _i. e._ to exploit me, to use me up, even if this using consisted only in my providing a _proles_ (_prolétariat_); it wants me to be 'its creature'."[ ] "the state cannot brook man's standing in a direct relation to man; it must come between as a--mediator, it must--intervene. it tears man from man, to put itself as 'spirit' in the middle. the laborers who demand a higher wage are treated as criminals so soon as they want to get it by compulsion. what are they to do? without compulsion they don't get it, and in compulsion the state sees a self-help, a price fixed by the ego, a real, free turning to account of one's property, which it cannot permit."[ ] ii. _every man's own welfare demands that a social human life solely on the basis of its precepts should take the place of the state._ stirner calls this sort of social life "the union of egoists."[ ] . even after the state is abolished men are to live together in society. "self-owners will fight for the unity which is their own will, for union."[ ] but what is to keep men together in the union? not a promise, at any rate, "if i were bound to-day and hereafter to my will of yesterday," my will would "be benumbed. my creature, _viz._, a particular expression of will, would have become my dominator. because i was a fool yesterday i must remain such all my life."[ ] "the union is my own creation, my creature, not sacred, not a spiritual power above my spirit, as little as any association of whatever sort. as i am not willing to be a slave to my maxims, but lay them bare to my constant criticism without any warrant, and admit no bail whatever for their continuance, so still less do i pledge myself to the union for my future and swear away my soul to it as men are said to do with the devil, and as is really the case with the state and all intellectual authority; but i am and remain more to myself than state, church, god, and the like, and, consequently, also infinitely more than the union."[ ] rather, men are to be held together in the union by the advantage which each individual has from the union at every moment. if i can "use" my fellow-men, "then i am likely to come to an understanding and unite myself with them, in order to strengthen my power by the agreement, and to do more by joint force than individual force could accomplish. in this joinder i see nothing at all else than a multiplication of my strength, and only so long as it is my multiplied strength do i retain it."[ ] hence the union is something quite different from "that society which communism means to found."[ ] "you bring into the union your whole power, your ability, and assert yourself; in society you with your labor-strength are spent. in the former you live egoistically, in the latter humanly, _i. e._ religiously, as a 'member in the body of this lord'. you owe to society what you have, and are in duty bound to it, are--possessed by 'social duties'; you utilize the union, and, undutiful and unfaithful, give it up when you are no longer able to get any use out of it. if society is more than you, then it is of more consequence to you than yourself; the union is only your tool, or the sword with which you sharpen and enlarge your natural strength; the union exists for you and by you, society contrariwise claims you for itself and exists even without you; in short, society is sacred, the union is your own; society uses you up, you use up the union."[ ] . but what form may such a social life take in detail? in reply to his critic, moses hess, stirner gives some examples of unions that already exist. "perhaps at this moment children are running together under his window for a comradeship of play; let him look at them, and he will espy merry egoistic unions. perhaps hess has a friend or a sweetheart; then he may know how heart joins itself to heart, how two of them unite egoistically in order to have the enjoyment of each other, and how neither 'gets the worst of the bargain.' perhaps he meets a few pleasant acquaintances on the street and is invited to accompany them into a wine-shop; does he go with them in order to do an act of kindness to them, or does he 'unite' with them because he promises himself enjoyment from it? do they have to give him their best thanks for his 'self-sacrifice' or do they know that for an hour they formed an 'egoistic union' together?"[ ] stirner even thinks of a "german union."[ ] .--property i. _together with law stirner necessarily has to reject also, and just as unconditionally, the legal institution of property._ this "lives by grace of the law. it has its guarantee only in the law; it is not a fact, but a fiction, a thought. this is law-property, legal property, warranted property. it is mine not by me, but by--law."[ ] property in this sense, as well as the law and the state, is based not on the individual's recognizing it as favorable to his welfare, but on his counting it sacred. "property in the civil sense means sacred property, in such a way that i must respect your property. 'have respect for property!' therefore the political liberals would like every one to have his bit of property, and have in part brought about an incredible parcellation by their efforts in this direction. every one must have his bone, on which he may find something to bite."[ ] but property is not sacred. "i do not step timidly back from your property, be you one or many, but look upon it always as my property, in which i have no need to 'respect' anything. now do the like with what you call my property!"[ ] nor is property favorable to the individual's welfare. "property, as the civic liberals understand it, is untenable, because the civic proprietor is really nothing but a propertyless man, a man everywhere excluded. instead of the world's belonging to him, as it might, there belongs to him not even the paltry point on which he turns around."[ ] ii. _every one's own welfare commands that a distribution of commodities based solely on its precepts should take the place of property._ when stirner designates as "property" the share of commodities assigned to the individual by these precepts, it is in the improper sense in which he constantly uses the word property: in the proper sense only a share of commodities assigned by law can be called property.[ ] now, according to the decrees of his own welfare, every man should have all that he is powerful enough to obtain. "what they are not competent to tear from me the power over, that remains my property: all right, then let power decide about property, and i will expect everything from my power! alien power, power that i leave to another, makes me a slave; then let own power make me an owner."[ ] "to what property am i entitled? to any to which i--empower myself. i give myself the right of property in taking property to myself, or giving myself the proprietor's power, plenary power, empowerment."[ ] "what i am competent to have is my 'competence.'"[ ] "the sick, children, the aged, are still competent for a great deal; _e. g._ to receive their living instead of taking it. if they are competent to control you to the extent of having you desire their continued existence, then they have a power over you."[ ] "what competence the child possesses in its smile, its play, its crying,--in short, in its mere existence! are you capable of resisting its demand? or do you not hold out to it, as a mother, your breast,--as a father, so much of your belongings as it needs? it puts you under constraint, and therefore possesses what you call yours."[ ] "property, therefore, should not and cannot be done away with; rather, it must be torn from ghostly hands and become my property; then will the erroneous consciousness that i cannot entitle myself to as much as i want vanish.--'but what cannot a man want?' well, he who wants much, and knows how to get it, has in all times taken it to him, as napoleon did the continent, and the french algeria. therefore the only point is just that the respectful 'lower classes' should at length learn to take to themselves what they want. if they reach their hands too far for you, why, defend yourselves."[ ] "what 'man' wants does not by any means furnish a scale for me and my needs; for i may have a use for more, or for less. rather, i must have as much as i am competent to appropriate to myself."[ ] . "in this matter, as well as in others, unions will multiply the individual's means and make secure his assailed property."[ ] "when it is our will no longer to leave the land to the land-owners, but to appropriate it to ourselves, we unite ourselves for this purpose; we form a union, a _société_, which makes itself owner; if we are successful, they cease to be land-owners. and, as we chase them out from land and soil, so we can also from many another property, to make it our own, the property of the--conquerors. the conquerors form a society, which one may conceive of as so great that by degrees it embraces all mankind; but so-called mankind is also, as such, only a thought (ghost); its reality is the individuals. and these individuals as a collective mass will deal not less arbitrarily with land and soil than does an isolated individual."[ ] "what all want to have a share in will be withdrawn from that individual who wants to have it for himself alone; it is made a common possession. as a common possession every one has a share in it, and this share is his property. just so, even in our old relations, a house which belongs to five heirs is their common possession; but the fifth part of the proceeds is each one's property. the property which for the present is still withheld from us can be better made use of when it is in the hands of us all. let us therefore associate ourselves for the purpose of this robbery."[ ] .--realization _according to stirner the change which every one's own welfare requires is to come about in this way,--that men in sufficient number first undergo an inward change and recognize their own welfare as their highest law, and that these men then bring to pass by force the outward change also: to wit, the abrogation of law, state, and property, and the introduction of the new condition._ i. the first and most important thing is the inward change of men. "revolution and insurrection must not be regarded as synonymous. the former consists in an overturning of conditions, of the existing condition or state, the state or society, and so is a political or social act; the latter has indeed a transformation of conditions as its inevitable consequence, but starts not from this but from men's discontent with themselves, is not a lifting of shields but a lifting of individuals, a coming up, without regard to the arrangements that spring from it. the revolution aimed at new arrangements: the insurrection leads to no longer having ourselves arranged but arranging ourselves, and sets no brilliant hope on 'institutions.' it is not a fight against the existing order, since, if it prospers, the existing order collapses of itself; it is only a working my way out of the existing order. if i leave the existing order, it is dead and passes into decay. now, since my purpose is not the upsetting of an existing order but the lifting of myself above it, my aim and act are not political or social, but, as directed upon myself and my ownness alone, egoistic."[ ] why was the founder of christianity "not a revolutionist, not a demagogue as the jews would have liked to see him; why was he not a liberal? because he expected no salvation from a change of _conditions_, and this whole business was indifferent to him. he was not a revolutionist, like cæsar for instance, but an insurgent; not an overturner of the state, but one who straightened _himself_ up. he waged no liberal or political war against the existing authorities, but wanted to go his own way regardless of these authorities and undisturbed by them."[ ] "everything sacred is a bond, a fetter. everything sacred will be, must be, perverted by perverters of law; therefore our present time has such perverters by the quantity in all spheres. they are preparing for the break of the law, for lawlessness."[ ] "regard yourself as more powerful than they allege you to be, and you have more power; regard yourself as more, and you are more."[ ] "the poor become free and proprietors only when they--'rise'."[ ] "only from egoism can the lower classes get help, and this help they must give to themselves and--will give to themselves. if they do not let themselves be constrained into fear, they are a power."[ ] ii. furthermore, in order to bring about the "transformation of conditions"[ ] and put the new condition in the place of law, state, and property, violent insurrection against the condition that has hitherto existed is requisite. . "the state can be overcome only by a violent arbitrariness."[ ] "the individual's violence [_gewalt_] is called crime [_verbrechen_], and only by crime does he break [_brechen_] the state's authority [_gewalt_] when he opines that the state is not above him, but he above the state."[ ] "here too the result is that the thinkers' combat against the government is wrong, _viz._ in impotence, so far as it cannot bring into the field anything but thoughts against a personal power (the egoistic power stops the mouths of the thinkers). the theoretical combat cannot complete the victory, and the sacred power of thought succumbs to the might of egoism. it is only the egoistic combat, the combat of egoists on both sides, that clears up everything."[ ] "the property question cannot be solved so gently as the socialists, even the communists, dream. it is solved only by the war of all against all."[ ] "let me then retract the might which i have conceded to others out of ignorance regarding the strength of my own might! let me say to myself, 'whatever my might reaches to is my property,' and then claim as property all that i feel myself strong enough to attain; and let me make my real property extend as far as i entitle (_i. e._ empower) myself to take."[ ] "in order to extirpate the unpossessing rabble, egoism does not say, 'wait and see what the board of equity will--donate to you in the name of the collectivity', but 'put your hand to it and take what you need!'"[ ] in this combat stirner agrees to all methods. "i will not draw back with a shudder from any act because there dwells in it a spirit of godlessness, immorality, wrongfulness, as little as st. boniface was disposed to abstain from chopping down the heathens' sacred oak on account of religious scruples."[ ] "the power over life and death, which church and state reserved to themselves, this too i call--mine."[ ] "the life of the individual man i rate only at what it is worth. his goods, the material and the spiritual alike, are mine, and i dispose of them as proprietor to the extent of my--might."[ ] . stirner depicts for us a single event in this violent transformation of conditions. he assumes that certain men come to realize that they occupy a disproportionately unfavorable position in the state as compared with others who receive the preference. "those who are in the unfavorable position take courage to ask the question, 'by what, then, is your property secure, you favored ones?' and give themselves the answer, 'by our refraining from interference! by our protection, therefore! and what do you give us for it? kicks and contempt you give the "common people"; police oversight, and a catechism with the chief sentence "respect what is not yours, what belongs to others! respect others, and especially superiors!" but we reply, "if you want our respect, buy it for a price that shall be acceptable to us." we will leave you your property, if you pay duly for this leaving. with what, indeed, does the general in time of peace pay for the many thousands of his yearly income? or another for the sheer hundred-thousands and millions? with what do you pay us for chewing potatoes and looking quietly on while you swallow oysters? only buy the oysters from us as dear as we have to buy the potatoes from you, and you may go on eating them. or do you suppose the oysters do not belong to us as much as to you? you will make an outcry about violence if we take hold and help eat them, and you are right. without violence we do not get them, as you no less have them by doing violence to us. "'but take the oysters and done with it, and let us come to what is in a closer way our property (for this other is only possession)--to labor. we toil twelve hours in the sweat of our foreheads, and you offer us a few groschen for it. then take the like for your labor too. we will come to terms all right if only we have first agreed on the point that neither any longer needs to--donate anything to the other. for centuries we have offered you alms in our kindly--stupidity, have given the mite of the poor and rendered to the masters what is--not the masters'; now just open your bags, for henceforth there is a tremendous rise in the price of our ware. we will take nothing away from you, nothing at all, only you shall pay better for what you want to have. what have you then? "i have an estate of a thousand acres." and i am your plowman, and will hereafter do your plowing only for a thaler a day wages. "then i'll get another." you will not find one, for we plowmen are no longer doing anything different, and if one presents himself who takes less, let him beware of us.'"[ ] footnotes: [ ] stirner p. . [the page-numbers of stirner's first edition, here cited, agree almost exactly with those of the english translation under the title "the ego and his own." any passage quoted here will in general be found in the english translation either on the page whose number is given or on the preceding page; for the early pages, subtract two or three from the number.] [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] stirner p. . [ ] no more do his adherents, _e. g._ mackay, "stirner" pp. - . [ ] stirner p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] stirner p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] stirner p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] [to understand some of the following citations it is necessary to remember that in german "law" (in the sense of common law, or including this) and "right" are one and the same word.--while it is probably not fair to say that these assaults of stirner are directed only against some laws, it does seem fair to say that they deny to the laws only some sorts of validity. we have very little material for compiling the constructive side of stirner's teaching, for he avoided specifying what things the egoists or their unions were to do in his future social order; he said explicitly that the only way to know what a slave will do when he breaks his fetters is to wait and see. but, while he may nowhere have stated a law which is to obtain in the good time coming, neither has he said anything which authorizes us to declare that none of his unions will ever make laws on such a basis as (for instance) the rules of the stock exchange. on page below is quoted a passage where he distinctly and approvingly contemplates the possibility that a union of his followers may fix a minimum wage, and may threaten violence to any person who consents to work below the scale. this would be law, and might easily be the germ of a state. on pages and are quoted passages which strongly suggest that the egoistic union would undertake to defend its member against all interference with his possession of certain goods; this would be both law and property.] [ ] stirner p. . [ ] stirner p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. , . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] stirner p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. , . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [the german idiom for "it suits me" is "it is right to me"]. [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] stirner p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] stirner p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] stirner p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] stirner p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. ; stirner "_vierteljahrsschrift_" p. . [ ] stirner p. . [ ] stirner p. . [ ] _ib._ p . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] stirner pp. - . [ ] stirner "_vierteljahrsschrift_" pp. - . [ ] stirner p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ pp. , . [ ] stirner pp. - . [ ] zenker fails to recognize this when he asserts (p. ) that stirner demands property based on the right of occupation [ ] stirner p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] stirner p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] stirner pp. - . [see footnote on page .] [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] stirner pp. - . [ ] stirner p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ . [ ] stirner pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [but stirner does not mean that all are to fight against all; they are merely to declare themselves no longer bound by the obligations of peace, and then those who are able to agree with each other can at once make terms to suit themselves.] [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] stirner p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] stirner pp. - . chapter vi bakunin's teaching .--general . mikhail alexandrovitch bakunin was born in at pryamukhino, district of torshok, government of tver. in he entered the artillery school at st. petersburg; in he became an officer, but resigned his commission in the same year. he then lived alternately in pryamukhino and in moscow. in bakunin left russia. in the following years revolutionary plans took him now to this part of europe, now to that; in paris he associated much with proudhon. in he was condemned to death in saxony, but was pardoned; in he was handed over to austria and was condemned to death there also; in he was handed over to russia and was there kept a prisoner first at st. petersburg, then at schluesselburg; in he was sent to siberia. from siberia bakunin escaped to london in , by way of japan and california. he took up his revolutionary activities again at once, and thereafter lived by turns in the most various parts of europe. in he became a member of the _association internationale des travailleurs_, and soon afterward he founded the _alliance internationale de la démocratie socialiste_. in he came into intimate relations with the fanatic nechayeff, but broke away from him in the next year. in he was expelled from the _association internationale des travailleurs_ on the ground that his aims were different from those of the association. he died at berne in . bakunin wrote a number of works of a philosophical and political nature. . bakunin's teaching about law, the state, and property finds its expression especially in the "_proposition motivée au comité central de la ligue de la paix et de la liberté_"[ ] offered by him in ; in the principles[ ] of the _alliance internationale de la démocratie socialiste_, drawn up by him in ; and in his work "_dieu et l'etat_"[ ] ( ). writings which cannot with certainty be assigned to bakunin are here disregarded. among such we may name especially the two works "the principles of the revolution"[ ] and "catechism of the revolution,"[ ] in which nechayeff's views are set forth. they are indeed ascribed to bakunin by some,[ ] but their matter is in contradiction to his other utterances as well as to his deeds; he even used vehement language on several occasions against nechayeff's "machiavellianism and jesuitism."[ ] even on the assumption that they are by bakunin, they would at any rate express only a very insignificant chapter in his development. . bakunin designates his teaching about law, the state, and property as "anarchism." "in a word, we reject all legislation, all authority, all privileged, chartered, official, and legal influence,--even if it were created by universal suffrage,--in the conviction that such things can but redound always to the advantage of a ruling minority of exploiters and to the disadvantage of the vast enslaved majority. in this sense we are in truth anarchists."[ ] .--basis _bakunin regards the evolutionary law of the progress of mankind from a less perfect existence to the most perfect possible existence as the law which has supreme validity for man._ "science has no other task than the careful intellectual reproduction, in the most systematic form possible, of the natural laws of corporeal, mental, and moral life, alike in the physical and in the social world, which two worlds constitute in fact only a single natural world."[ ] now "science--that is, true, unselfish science"[ ]--teaches us the following: "every evolution signifies the negation of its starting-point. since according to the materialists the basis or starting-point is material, the negation must necessarily be ideal."[ ] that is, "everything that lives makes the effort to perfect itself as fully as possible."[ ] thus, "according to the conception of materialists, man's historical evolution also moves in a constantly ascending line."[ ] "it is an altogether natural movement from the simple to the compound, from down to up, from the lower to the higher."[ ] "history consists in the progressive negation of man's original bestiality by the evolution of his humanity."[ ] "man is originally a wild beast, a cousin of the gorilla. but he has already come out of the deep night of bestial impulses to make his way to the light of the mind. this explains all his former missteps in the most natural way, and comforts us somewhat with regard to his present aberrations. he has turned his back on bestial slavery, and is now moving toward freedom through the realm of slavery to god, which lies between his bestial and his human existence. behind us, therefore, lies our bestial existence, before us our human; the light of humanity, which alone can light us and warm us, deliver us and exalt us, make us free, happy, and brothers, stands never at the beginning of history, but always only at its end."[ ] this "historical negation of the past takes place now slowly, sluggishly, sleepily, but now again passionately and violently."[ ] it always takes place with the inevitable certainty of natural law: "we believe in the final triumph of humanity on earth."[g] "we yearn for the coming of this triumph, and seek to hasten it with united effort";[ ] "we must never look back, always forward alone; before us is our sun, before us our bliss."[ ] .--law i. _in the progress of mankind from its bestial existence to a human existence, one of the next steps, according to bakunin, will be the disappearance--not indeed of law, but--of enacted law._ enacted law belongs to a low stage of evolution. "a political legislation, whether it is based on a ruler's will or on the votes of representatives chosen by universal suffrage, can never correspond to the laws of nature, and is always baleful, hostile to the liberty of the masses, if only because it forces upon them a system of external and consequently despotic laws."[ ] no legislation has ever "had another aim than that of confirming, and exalting into a system, the exploitation of the laboring populace by the ruling classes."[ ] thus every legislation "has for its consequence at once the enslavement of society and the depravation of the legislators."[ ] but mankind will soon leave behind it the stage of evolution to which law belongs. enacted law is indissolubly connected with the state: "the state is a historically necessary evil,"[ ] "a transitory form of society";[ ] "with the state, law in the jurists' sense, the so-called legal regulation of popular life from above downward by legislation, must necessarily fall."[ ] everybody feels already that this moment is approaching,[ ] the transformation is at hand,[ ] it is to be expected within the nineteenth century.[ ] ii. _in the next stage of evolution, which mankind must speedily reach, there will be no enacted law to be sure, but there will be law even there._ what bakunin predicts with regard to this next stage of evolution enables us to perceive that according to his expectation norms will then prevail which "are based on a general will,"[ ] and which even secure obedience by forcible compulsion if necessary,[ ] so that they are legal norms. among such legal norms of our next stage of evolution bakunin mentions that by virtue of which there exists a "right to independence."[ ] for me as an individual this means "that i as a man am entitled to obey no other man, and to act only in accordance with my own judgment."[ ] but, furthermore, "every nation, every province, and every commune has the unlimited right to complete independence, provided that its internal constitution does not threaten the independence and liberty of the adjoining territories."[ ] likewise bakunin regards it as a legal norm of the next stage of evolution that contracts must be lived up to. to be sure, the obligation of contracts has its limits. "human justice cannot recognize anything as creating an obligation in perpetuity. all rights and duties are founded on liberty. the right of freely uniting and separating is the first and most important of all political rights."[ ] another legal norm mentioned by bakunin as belonging to the next stage of evolution is that by virtue of which "the land, the instruments of labor, and all other capital, as the collective property of the whole of society, will exclusively serve for the use of the agricultural and industrial associations."[ ] .--the state i. _in the progress of mankind from its bestial existence to a human existence the state will shortly, according to bakunin, disappear._ "the state is a historically temporary arrangement, a transitory form of society."[ ] . the state belongs to a low stage of evolution. "man takes the first step from his bestial existence to a human existence by religion; but so long as he remains religious he will never reach his goal; for every religion condemns him to absurdity, guides him into a wrong course, and makes him seek the divine in place of the human."[ ] "all religions, with their gods, demigods, and prophets, their messiahs and saints, are products of the credulous fancy of men who had not yet come to the full development and entire possession of their intellectual powers."[ ] this holds good also, and particularly, of christianity: it is "the complete inversion of common-sense and reason."[ ] the state is a product of religion. "in all lands it is born of a marriage of violence, robbery, spoliation,--in short, of war and conquest,--with the gods whom the religious enthusiasm of the nations had gradually created."[ ] "he who speaks of revelation speaks thereby of revealers enlightened by god, of messiahs, prophets, priests, and lawgivers; and, if once these are recognized on earth as representatives of the deity, as sacred teachers of mankind chosen by god himself, then of course they have unlimited authority. all men owe them blind obedience; for no human reason, no human justice, is valid against the divine reason and justice. as slaves of god, men must be also slaves of the church, and of the state so far as the church hallows the state."[ ] "no state is without religion, and none can be without religion. take the freest states in the world,--for instance, the united states of america or the swiss confederacy,--and see what an important part divine providence plays in all public utterances there."[ ] "it is not without good reason that governments hold the belief in god to be an essential condition of their power."[ ] "there is a class of people who, even if they do not believe, must necessarily act as if they believed. this class embraces all mankind's tormentors, oppressors, and exploiters. priests, monarchs, statesmen, soldiers, financiers, office-holders of all sorts; policemen, _gendarmes_, jailers, and executioners; capitalists, usurers, heads of business, and house-owners; lawyers, economists, politicians of all shades,--all of them, down to the smallest grocer, will always repeat in chorus the words of voltaire, that, if there were no god, it would be necessary to invent him; 'for must not the populace have its religion?' it is the very safety-valve."[ ] . the characteristics of the state correspond to the low stage of evolution to which it belongs. the state enslaves the governed. "the state is force; nay, it is the silly parading of force. it does not propose to win love or to make converts; if it puts its finger into anything, it does so only in an unfriendly way; for its essence consists not in persuasion, but in command and compulsion. however much pains it may take, it cannot conceal the fact that it is the legal maimer of our will, the constant negation of our liberty. even when it commands the good, it makes this valueless by commanding it; for every command slaps liberty in the face; as soon as the good is commanded, it is transformed into the evil in the eyes of true (that is, human, by no means divine) morality, of the dignity of man, of liberty; for man's liberty, morality, and dignity consist precisely in doing the good not because he is commanded to but because he recognizes it, wills it, and loves it."[ ] at the same time the state depraves those who govern. "it is characteristic of privilege, and of every privileged position, that they poison the minds and hearts of men. he who is politically or economically privileged has his mind and heart depraved. this is a law of social life, which admits of no exceptions and is applicable to entire nations as well as to classes, corporations, and individuals. it is the law of equality, the foremost of the conditions of liberty and humanity."[ ] "powerful states can maintain themselves only by crime, little states are virtuous only from weakness."[ ] "we abhor monarchy with all our hearts; but at the same time we are convinced that a great republic too, with army, bureaucracy, and political centralization, will make a business of conquest without and oppression within, and will be incapable of guaranteeing happiness and liberty to its subjects even if it calls them citizens."[ ] "even in the purest democracies, such as the united states and switzerland, a privileged minority faces the vast enslaved majority."[ ] . but the stage of mankind's evolution to which the state belongs will soon be left behind. "from the beginning of historic society to this day, there has always been oppression of the nations by the state. is it to be inferred that this oppression is inseparably connected with the existence of human society?"[ ] certainly not! "the great, true goal of history, the only one for which there is justification, is our humanization and deliverance, the genuine liberty and prosperity of all socially-living men."[ ] "in the triumph of humanity is at the same time the goal and the essential meaning of history, and this triumph can be brought about only by liberty."[ ] "as in the past the state was historically necessary evil, it must just as necessarily, sooner or later, disappear altogether."[ ] everybody feels already that this moment is approaching,[ ] the transformation is at hand,[ ] it is to be expected within the nineteenth century.[ ] ii. _in the next stage of evolution, which mankind must speedily reach, the place of the state will be taken by a social human life on the basis of the legal norm that contracts must be lived up to._ . even after the state is done away, men will live together socially. the goal of human evolution, "complete humanity,"[ ] can be attained only in a society. "man becomes man, and his humanity becomes conscious and real, only in society and by the joint activity of society. he frees himself from the yoke of external nature only by joint--that is, societary--labor: it alone is capable of making the surface of the earth fit for the evolution of mankind; but without such external liberation neither intellectual nor moral liberation is possible. furthermore, man gets free from the yoke of his own nature only by education and instruction: they alone make it possible for him to subordinate the impulses and motions of his body to the guidance of his more and more developed mind; but education and instruction are of an exclusively societary nature. outside of society man would have remained forever a wild beast, or, what comes to about the same thing, a saint. finally, in his isolation man cannot have the consciousness of liberty. what liberty means for man is that he is recognized as free, and treated as free, by those who surround him; liberty is not a matter of isolation, therefore, but of mutuality--not of separateness, but of combination; for every man it is only the mirroring of his humanity (that is, of his human rights) in the consciousness of his brothers."[ ] but men will be held together in society no longer by a supreme authority, but by the legally binding force of contract. complete humanity can be attained only in a free society. "my liberty, or, what means the same, my human dignity, consists in my being entitled, as man, to obey no other man and to act only on my own judgment."[ ] "i myself am a free man only so far as i recognize the humanity and liberty of all the men who surround me. in respecting their humanity i respect my own. a cannibal, who treats his prisoner as a wild beast and eats him, is himself not a man, but a beast. a slaveholder is not a man, but a master."[ ] "the more free men surround me, and the deeper and broader their freedom is, so much deeper, broader, and more powerful is my freedom too. on the other hand, every enslavement of men is at the same time a limitation of my freedom, or, what is the same thing, a negation of my human existence by its bestial existence."[ ] but a free society cannot be held together by authority,[ ] but only by contract.[ ] . how will the future society shape itself in detail? "unity is the goal toward which mankind ceaselessly moves."[ ] therefore men will unite with the utmost amplitude. but "the place of the old organization, built from above downward upon force and authority, will be taken by a new one which has no other basis than the natural needs, inclinations, and endeavors of men."[ ] thus we come to a "free union of individuals into communes, of communes into provinces, of provinces into nations, and finally of nations into the united states of europe and later of the whole world."[ ] "every nation,--be it great or small, strong or weak,--every province, and every commune has the unlimited right to complete independence, provided that its internal constitution does not threaten the independence and liberty of the adjoining territories."[ ] "all of what are known as the historic rights of nations are totally done away; all questions regarding natural, political, strategic, and economic boundaries are henceforth to be classed as ancient history and resolutely disallowed."[ ] "by the fact that a territory has once belonged to a state, even by a voluntary adhesion, it is in no wise bound to remain always united with this state. human justice, the only justice that means anything to us, cannot recognize anything as creating an obligation in perpetuity. all rights and duties are founded on liberty. the right of freely uniting and separating is the first and most important of all political rights. without this right the league would be merely a concealed centralization still."[ ] .--property i. _in the progress of mankind from its bestial existence to a human existence, according to bakunin, we must shortly come to the disappearance--not indeed of property, but--of property's present form, unlimited private property._ . private property, so far as it fastens upon all things without distinction, belongs to the same low stage of evolution as the state. "private property is at once the consequence and the basis of the state."[ ] "every government is necessarily based on exploitation on the one hand, and on the other hand has exploitation for its goal and bestows upon exploitation protection and legality."[ ] in every state there exist "two kinds of relationship,--to wit, government and exploitation. if really governing means sacrificing one's self for the good of the governed, then indeed the second relationship is in direct contradiction to the first. but let us only understand our point rightly! from the ideal standpoint, be it theological or metaphysical, the good of the masses can of course not mean their temporal welfare: what are a few decades of earthly life in comparison to eternity? hence one must govern the masses with regard not to this coarse earthly happiness, but to their eternal good. outward sufferings and privations may even be welcomed from the educator's standpoint, since an excess of sensual enjoyment kills the immortal soul. but now the contradiction disappears. exploiting and governing mean the same; the one completes the other, and serves as its means and its end."[ ] . private property, when it exists in all things without distinction, has such characteristics as correspond to the low stage of evolution to which it belongs. "on the privileged representatives of head-work (who at present are called to be the representatives of society, not because they have more sense, but only because they were born in the privileged class) such property bestows all the blessings and also all the debasement of our civilization: wealth, luxury, profuse expenditure, comfort, the pleasures of family life, the exclusive enjoyment of political liberty, and hence the possibility of exploiting millions of laborers and governing them at discretion in one's own interest. what is there left for the representatives of handwork, these numberless millions of proletarians or of small farmers? hopeless misery, not even the joys of the family (for the family soon becomes a burden to the poor man), ignorance, barbarism, an almost bestial existence, and this for consolation with it all, that they are serving as pedestal for the culture, liberty, and depravity of a minority."[ ] the freer and more highly developed trade and industry are in any place, "the more complete is the demoralization of the privileged few on the one hand, and the greater are the misery, the complaints, and the just indignation of the laboring masses on the other. england, belgium, france, germany, are certainly the countries of europe in which trade and industry enjoy greatest freedom and have made most progress. in these very countries the most cruel pauperism prevails, the gulf between capitalists and landlords on the one hand and the laboring class on the other is greater than in any other country. in russia, in the scandinavian countries, in italy, in spain, where trade and industry are still embryonic, people but seldom die of hunger except on extraordinary occasions. in england starvation is an every-day thing. and not only individuals starve, but thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands."[ ] . but mankind will soon have passed the low stage of evolution to which private property belongs. as there has at all times been oppression of the nations by the state, so has there also always been "exploitation of the masses of slaves, serfs, wage-workers, by a ruling minority."[ ] but this exploitation is no more "inseparably united with the existence of human society"[ ] than is that oppression. "by the force of things themselves"[ ] unlimited private property will be done away. everybody feels already that this moment is approaching,[ ] the transformation is already at hand,[ ] it is to be expected within the nineteenth century.[ ] ii. _in the next stage of evolution, which mankind must speedily reach, property will be so constituted that there will indeed be private property in the objects of consumption, but in land, instruments of labor, and all other capital, there will be only social property. the future society will be collectivist._ in this way every laborer has the product of his labor guaranteed to him. . "justice must serve as basis for the new world: without it, no liberty, no living together, no prosperity, no peace."[ ] "justice, not that of jurists, nor yet that of theologians, nor yet that of metaphysicians, but simple human justice, commands"[ ] that "in future every man's enjoyment corresponds to the quantity of goods produced by him."[ ] the thing is, then, to find a means "which makes it impossible for any one, whoever he may be, to exploit the labor of another, and permits each to share in the enjoyment of society's stock of goods (which is solely a product of labor) only so far as he has, by his labor, directly contributed to the production of this stock of goods."[ ] this means consists in the principle "that the land, the instruments of labor, and all other capital, as the collective property of the whole of society, shall exclusively serve for the use of the laborers,--that is, of their agricultural and industrial associations."[ ] "i am not a communist, but a collectivist."[ ] . the collectivism of the future society "by no means demands the setting up of any supreme authority. in the name of liberty, on which alone an economic or a political organization can be founded, we shall always protest against everything that looks even remotely similar to communism or state socialism."[ ] "i would have the organization of society, and of the collective or social property, from below upward by the voice of free union, not from above downward by means of any authority."[ ] .--realization _the change that is promptly to be expected in the course of mankind's progress from its bestial existence to a human existence,--the disappearance of the state, the transformation of law and property, and the appearance of the new condition,--will come to pass, according to bakunin, by a social revolution; that is, by a violent subversion of the old order, which will be automatically brought about by the power of things, but which those who foresee the course of evolution have the task of hastening and facilitating._ i. "to escape its wretched lot the populace has three ways, two imaginary and one real. the two first are the rum-shop and the church, the third is the social revolution."[ ] "a cure is possible only through the social revolution,"[ ]--that is, through "the destruction of all institutions of inequality, and the establishment of economic and social equality."[ ] the revolution will not be made by anybody. "revolutions are never made, neither by individuals nor yet by secret societies. they come about automatically, in a measure; the power of things, the current of events and facts, produces them. they are long preparing in the depth of the obscure consciousness of the masses--then they break out suddenly, not seldom on apparently slight occasion."[ ] the revolution is already at hand to-day;[ ] everybody feels its approach;[ ] we are to expect it within the nineteenth century.[ ] . "by the revolution we understand the unchaining of everything that is to-day called 'evil passions,' and the destruction of everything that in the same language is called 'public order'."[ ] the revolution will rage not against men, but against relations and things.[ ] "bloody revolutions are often necessary, thanks to human stupidity; yet they are always an evil, a monstrous evil and a great disaster, not only with regard to the victims, but also for the sake of the purity and perfection of the purpose in whose name they take place."[ ] "one must not wonder if in the first moment of their uprising the people kill many oppressors and exploiters--this misfortune, which is of no more importance anyhow than the damage done by a thunderstorm, can perhaps not be avoided. but this natural fact will be neither moral nor even useful. political massacres have never killed parties; particularly have they always shown themselves impotent against the privileged classes; for authority is vested far less in men than in the position which the privileged acquire by any institutions, particularly by the state and private property. if one would make a thorough revolution, therefore, one must attack things and relationships, destroy property and the state: then there is no need of destroying men and exposing one's self to the inevitable reaction which the slaughtering of men always has provoked and always will provoke in every society. but, in order to have the right to deal humanely with men without danger to the revolution, one must be inexorable toward things and relationships, destroy everything, and first and foremost property and its inevitable consequence the state. this is the whole secret of the revolution."[ ] "the revolution, as the power of things to-day necessarily presents it before us, will not be national, but international,--that is, universal. in view of the threatened league of all privileged interests and all reactionary powers in europe, in view of the terrible instrumentalities that a shrewd organization puts at their disposal, in view of the deep chasm that to-day yawns between the _bourgeoisie_ and the laborers everywhere, no revolution can count on success if it does not speedily extend itself beyond the individual nation to all other nations. but the revolution can never cross the frontiers and become general unless it has in it the foundations for this generality; that is, unless it is pronouncedly socialistic, and, by equality and justice, destroys the state and establishes liberty. for nothing can better inspire and uplift the sole true power of the century, the laborers, than the complete liberation of labor and the shattering of all institutions for the protection of hereditary property and of capital."[ ] "a political and national revolution cannot win, therefore, unless the political revolution becomes social, and the national revolution, by the very fact of its fundamentally socialistic and state-destroying character, becomes a universal revolution."[ ] . "the revolution, as we understand it, must on its very first day completely and fundamentally destroy the state and all state institutions. this destruction will have the following natural and necessary effects. (a) the bankruptcy of the state. (b) the cessation of state collection of private debts, whose payment is thenceforth left to the debtor's pleasure. (c) the cessation of the payment of taxes, and of the levying of direct or indirect imposts. (d) the dissolution of the army, the courts, the corps of office-holders, the police, and the clergy. (e) the stoppage of the official administration of justice, the abolition of all that is called juristic law and of its exercise. hence, the valuelessness, and the consignment to an _auto-da-fe_, of all titles to property, testamentary dispositions, bills of sale, deeds of gift, judgments of courts--in short, of the whole mass of papers relating to private law. everywhere, and in regard to everything, the revolutionary fact in place of the law created and guaranteed by the state. (f) the confiscation of all productive capital and instruments of labor in favor of the associations of laborers, which will use them for collective production. (g) the confiscation of all church and state property, as well as of the bullion in private hands, for the benefit of the commune formed by the league of the associations of laborers. in return for the confiscated goods, those who are affected by the confiscation receive from the commune their absolute necessities; they are free to acquire more afterward by their labor."[ ] the destruction will be followed by the reshaping. hence, (h) "the organization of the commune by the permanent association of the barricades and by its organ, the council of the revolutionary commune, to which every barricade, every street, every quarter, sends one or two responsible and revocable representatives with binding instructions. the council of the commune can appoint executive committees out of its membership for the various branches of the revolutionary administration. (i) the declaration of the capital, insurgent and organized as a commune, that, after the righteous destruction of the state of authority and guardianship, it renounces the right (or rather the usurpation) of governing the provinces and setting a standard for them. (k) the summons to all provinces, communities, and associations, to follow the example given by the capital, first to organize themselves in revolutionary form, then to send to a specified meeting-place responsible and revocable representatives with binding instructions, and so to constitute the league of the insurgent associations, communities, and provinces, and to organize a revolutionary power capable of defeating the reaction. the sending, not of official commissioners of the revolution with some sort of badges, but of agitators for the revolution, to all the provinces and communities--especially to the peasants, who cannot be revolutionized by scientific principles nor yet by the edicts of any dictatorship, but only by the revolutionary fact itself: that is, by the inevitable effects of the complete cessation of official state activity in all the communities. the abolition of the national state, not only in other senses, but in this,--that all foreign countries, provinces, communities, associations, nay, all individuals who have risen in the name of the same principles, without regard to the present state boundaries, are accepted as part of the new political system and nationality; and that, on the other hand, it shall exclude from membership those provinces, communities, associations, or personages, of the same country, who take the side of the reaction. thus must the universal revolution, by the very fact of its binding the insurgent countries together for joint defence, march on unchecked over the abolished boundaries and the ruins of the formerly existing states to its triumph."[ ] ii. "to serve, to organize, and to hasten"[ ] "the revolution, which must everywhere be the work of the people"[ ]--this alone is the task of those who foresee the course of evolution. we have to perform "midwife's services"[ ] for the new time, "to help on the birth of the revolution."[ ] to this end we must, "first, spread among the masses thoughts that correspond to the instincts of the masses."[ ] "what keeps the salvation-bringing thought from going through the laboring masses with a rush? their ignorance; and particularly the political and religious prejudices which, thanks to the exertions of the ruling classes, to this day obscure the laborer's natural thought and healthy feelings."[ ] "hence the aim must consist in making him completely conscious of what he wants, evoking in him the thought that corresponds to his impulses. if once the thoughts of the laboring masses have mounted to the level of their impulses, then will their will be soon determined and their power irresistible."[ ] furthermore, we must "form, not indeed the army of the revolution,--the army can never be anything but the people,--but yet a sort of staff for the revolutionary army. these must be devoted, energetic, talented men, who, above all, love the people without ambition and vanity, and who have the faculty of mediating between the revolutionary thought and the instincts of the people. no very great number of such men is requisite. a hundred revolutionists firmly and seriously bound together are enough for the international organization of all europe. two or three hundred revolutionists are enough for the organization of the largest country."[ ] here, especially, is the field for the activity of secret societies.[ ] "in order to serve, organize, and hasten the general revolution"[ ] bakunin founded the _alliance internationale de la démocratie socialiste_. it was to pursue a double purpose: "(a) the spreading of correct views about politics, economics, and philosophical questions of every kind, among the masses in all countries; an active propaganda by newspapers, pamphlets, and books, as well as by the founding of public associations. (b) the winning of all wise, energetic, silent, well-disposed men who are sincerely devoted to the idea; the covering of europe, and america too so far as possible, with a network of self-sacrificing revolutionists, strong by unity."[ ] footnotes: [ ] printed in "_oeuvres de michel bakounine_" ( ) pp. - , under the title "_fédéralisme, socialisme et antithéologisme_." [ ] printed in "_l'alliance de la démocratie socialiste et l'association internationale des travailleurs_" ( ) pp. - . [ ] only fragments have been printed: one under the title "_l'empire knoutogermanique et la révolution sociale_" ( ), a second under the title "_dieu et l'etat_" ( ), a third under the same title in "_oeuvres de michel bakounine_" ( ) pp. - . [ ] printed in dragomanoff, "_michail bakunins sozial-politischer briefwechsel mit alexander iw. herzen und ogarjow_," german translation by minzès ( ) pp. - . [ ] a part is printed in french translation, in "_l'alliance de la démocratie socialiste et l'association internationale des travailleurs_" ( ) pp. - , the rest in dragomanoff pp. - . [ ] "_l'alliance de la démocratie socialiste et l'association internationale des travailleurs_" p. ; dragomanoff p. ix. [ ] ba. "_briefe_" pp. , , , . [ ] ba. "_dieu_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] ba. "_proposition_" p. . [ ] ba. "_dieu_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] ba. "_proposition_" p. . [ ] ba. "_dieu_" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] ba. "_programme_" p. . [ ] ba. "_dieu_" p. . [ ] ba. "_dieu_" _oeuvres_ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] ba. "_programme_" p. . [ ] ba. "_articles_" p. . [ ] ba. "_statuts_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] ba. "_dieu_" _oeuvres_ p. . [ ] ba. "_statuts_" pp. - . [ ] ba. "_proposition_" pp. - . [ ] ba. "_dieu_" _oeuvres_ p. . [ ] ba. "_proposition_" pp. - . [ ] ba. "_proposition_" p. . [ ] ba. "_statuts_" p. . [ ] ba. "_dieu_" _oeuvres_ p. . [ ] ba. "_proposition_" p. . [ ] ba. "_dieu_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] ba. "_dieu_" _oeuvres_ p. . [ ] ba. "_dieu_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] ba. "_dieu_" _oeuvres_ p. . [ ] ba. "_dieu_" pp. - . [ ] ba. "_proposition_" p. [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] ba. "_dieu_" _oeuvres_ pp. - . [ ] ba. "_dieu_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. [ ] ba. "_dieu_" _oeuvres_ p. . [ ] ba. "_articles_" p. . [ ] ba. "_statuts_" p. . [ ] ba. "_statuts_" p. . [ ] ba. "_dieu_" p. . [ ] ba. "_dieu_" _oeuvres_ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] ba. "_proposition_" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] ba. "_proposition_" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] ba. "_statuts_" p. . [ ] ba. "_dieu_" _oeuvres_ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] ba. "_proposition_" pp. - . [ ] ba. "_proposition_" pp. - . [ ] ba. "_dieu_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] ba. "_programme_" p. . [ ] ba. "_articles_" p. . [ ] ba. "_statuts_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] ba. "_proposition_" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] ba. "_statuts_" p. . [ ] ba. "_proposition_" p. . [ ] ba. "_statuts_" p. . [ ] ba. "_discours_" p. . [ ] ba. "_proposition_" p. . [ ] ba. "_discours_" p. . [ ] ba. "_dieu_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] ba. "_statuts_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] ba. "_articles_" p. . [ ] ba. "_statuts_" p. . [ ] ba. "_statuts_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] ba. "_volkssache_" p. . [ ] ba. "_statuts_" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] ba. "_statuts_" pp. - . [bakunin is writing in a world where the church is everywhere part of the state machine. would his words about church property apply equally, according to him, in the united states, where the church property is in general made up of the free gifts of individual believers? perhaps; for he would have no love for the church even here, and he is obviously hostile to anything in the nature of mortmain. if so, how about college property?] [ ] ba. "_statuts_" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] ba. "_volkssache_" p. . [ ] ba. "_statuts_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] ba. "_articles_" p. . [ ] ba. "_articles_" p. . [ ] ba. "_statuts_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [illustration] chapter vii kropotkin's teaching .--general . prince peter alexeyevitch kropotkin was born at moscow in . from to he was an officer of the cossacks of the amur; during this time he traveled over a great part of siberia and manchuria. from to he studied mathematics at st. petersburg; at this time he was also secretary of the geographical society; under its commission he explored the glaciers of finland and sweden in . in kropotkin visited belgium and switzerland, where he joined the _association internationale des travailleurs_. in the same year he returned to st. petersburg and became a prominent member of the tchaikoffski secret society. this was found out in . he was arrested and kept in prison until in he succeeded in escaping to england. from england kropotkin went to switzerland in , but was expelled from that country in . thenceforth he resided alternately in england and france. in france, in , he was condemned to five years' imprisonment for membership in a prohibited association; he was kept in prison till , and then pardoned. since then he has lived in england. kropotkin has published geographical works and accounts of travel, and also writings in the spheres of economics, politics, and the philosophy of law. . for kropotkin's teaching about law, the state, and property, the most important sources are his many short works, newspaper articles, and lectures. the articles that he published from to in "_le révolté_" of geneva, appeared in as a book under the title "_paroles d'un révolté_." the only large work in which he develops his teaching is "_la conquête du pain_" ( ). . kropotkin calls his teaching "anarchism." "when in the bosom of the international there was formed a party which no more acknowledged an authority inside that association than any other authority, this party called itself at first federalist, then anti-authoritarian or hostile to the state. at that time it avoided describing itself as anarchistic. the word _an-archie_ (it was so written at that time) seemed to identify the party too much with the adherents of proudhon, whose reform ideas the international was opposing. but for this very reason its opponents delighted in using this designation in order to produce confusion; besides, the name made the assertion possible that from the very name of the anarchists it was evident that they aimed merely at disorder and chaos, without thinking any farther. the anarchistic party was not slow to adopt the designation that was given to it. at first it still insisted on the hyphen between _an_ and _archie_, with the explanation that in this form the word _an-archie_, being of greek origin, denoted absence of dominion and not 'disorder'; but it soon decided to spare the proof-reader his useless trouble and the reader his lesson in greek, and used the name as it stood."[ ] and in fact "the word _anarchie_, which negates the whole of this so-called order and reminds us of the fairest moments in the lives of the nations, is well chosen for a party that looks forward to conquering a better future."[ ] .--basis _according to kropotkin, the law which has supreme validity for man is the evolutionary law of the progress of mankind from a less happy existence to an existence as happy as possible; from this law he derives the commandment of justice and the commandment of energy._ . the supreme law for man is the evolutionary law of the progress of mankind from a less happy existence to an existence as happy as possible. there is "only one scientific method, the method of the natural sciences,"[ ] and we apply this method also "in the sciences that relate to man,"[ ] particularly in the "science of society."[ ] now, a mighty revolution is at present taking place[ ] in the entire realm of science; it is the result of the "philosophy of evolution."[ ] "the idea hitherto prevalent, that everything in nature stands fast, is fallen, destroyed, annihilated. everything in nature changes; nothing remains: neither the rock which appears to us to be immovable and the continent which we call _terra firma_, nor the inhabitants, their customs, habits, and thoughts. all that we see about us is a transitory phenomenon, and must change, because motionlessness would be death."[ ] in the case of organisms this evolution is progress, in consequence of "their admirable adaptivity to their conditions of life. they develop such faculties as render more complete both the adaptations of the aggregates to their surroundings and those of each of the constituent parts of the aggregate to the needs of free co-operation."[ ] "this is the 'struggle for existence,' which, therefore, must not be conceived merely in its restricted sense of a struggle between individuals for the means of subsistence."[ ] "evolution never advances so slowly and evenly as has been asserted. evolution and revolution alternate, and the revolutions--that is, the times of accelerated evolution--belong to the unity of nature just as much as do the times in which evolution takes place more slowly."[ ] "order is the free equilibrium of all forces that operate upon the same point; if any of these forces are interfered with in their operation by a human will, they operate none the less, but their effects accumulate till some day they break the artificial dam and provoke a revolution."[ ] kropotkin applies these general propositions to the social life of men.[ ] "a society is an aggregation of organisms trying to combine the wants of the individual with those of co-operation for the welfare of the species";[ ] it is "a whole which serves toward the purpose of attaining the largest possible amount of happiness at the least possible expense of human force."[ ] now human societies evolve,[ ] and one may try to determine the direction of this evolution.[ ] societies advance from lower to higher forms of organization;[ ] but the goal of this evolution--that is, the point towards which it directs itself--consists in "establishing the best conditions for realizing the greatest happiness of humanity."[ ] what we call progress is the right path to this goal;[ ] humanity may for the time err from this path, but will always be brought back to it at last.[ ] but not even here does evolution take place without revolutions. what is true of a man's views, of the climate of a country, of the characteristics of a species, is true also of societies: "they evolve slowly, but there are also times of the quickest transformation."[ ] for circumstances of many kinds may oppose themselves to the effort of human associations to attain to the greatest possible measure of happiness.[ ] "new thoughts germinate everywhere, try to get to the light, try to get themselves applied in life; but they are kept back by the inertia of those who have an interest in keeping up the old conditions, they are stifled under long-established prejudices and traditions."[ ] "political, economic, and social institutions fall in ruins, and the building which has become uninhabitable hinders the development of what is sprouting in its crevices and around it."[ ] then there is need of "great events which rudely break the thread of history and hurl mankind out of its ruts into new roads";[ ] "the revolution becomes a peremptory necessity."[ ]--"man has recognized his place in nature; he has recognized that his institutions are his work and can be refashioned by him alone."[ ] "what has not the engineer's art dared, and what do not literature, painting, music, the drama dare to-day?"[ ] thus must we also, where any institutions hinder the progress of society, "dare the fight, to make a rich and overflowing life possible to all."[ ] . from the evolutionary law of the progress of mankind from a less happy existence to the happiest existence possible kropotkin derives the commandment of justice and the commandment of energy. in the struggle for existence human societies evolve toward a condition in which there are given the best conditions for the attainment of the greatest happiness of mankind.[ ] when we describe anything as "good," we mean by this that it favors the attainment of the goal; that is, it is beneficial to the society in which we live; and we call that "evil" which in our opinion hinders the attainment of the goal, that is, is harmful to the society we live in.[ ] now, men's views as to what favors and what hinders the establishment of the best conditions for the attainment of mankind's greatest happiness, and hence as to what is beneficial or harmful to society, may certainly change.[ ] but one fundamental requisite for the attainment of the goal will always have to be recognized as such, whatever the diversity of opinions. it "may be summed up in the sentence 'do to others as you would have it done to you in the like case'."[ ] but this sentence "is nothing else than the principle of equality";[ ] and equality, in turn, "means the same as equity,"[ ] "solidarity,"[ ] "justice."[ ] but there is indisputably yet another fundamental requisite for the attainment of the goal. this is "something greater, finer, and mightier than mere equality";[ ] it may be expressed in the sentence "be strong; overflow with the passion of thought and action: so shall your understanding, your love, your energy, pour itself into others."[ ] .--law i. _in mankind's progress from a less happy existence to an existence as happy as possible, one of the next steps, according to kropotkin, will be the disappearance--not indeed of law, but--of enacted law._ . enacted law has become a hindrance to mankind's progress toward an existence as happy as possible. "for thousands of years those who govern have been repeating again and again, 'respect the law!'";[ ] "in the states of to-day a new law is regarded as the cure for all evils."[ ] but "the law has no claim to men's respect."[ ] "it is an adroit mixture of such customs as are beneficial to society, and would be observed even without a law, with others which are to the advantage only of a ruling minority, but are harmful to the masses and can be upheld only by terror."[ ] "the law, which first made its appearance as a collection of customs which serve for the maintenance of society, is now merely an instrument to keep up the exploitation and domination of the industrious masses by wealthy idlers. it has now no longer any civilizing mission; its only mission is to protect exploitation."[ ] "it puts rigid immobility in the place of progressive development,"[ ] "it seeks to confirm permanently the customs that are advantageous to the ruling minority."[ ] "if one looks over the millions of laws which mankind obeys, one can distinguish three great classes: protection of property, protection of government, protection of persons. but in examining these three classes one comes in every case to the necessary conclusion that the law is valueless and harmful. what the protection of property is worth, the socialists know only too well. the laws about property do not exist to secure to individuals or to society the product of their labor. on the contrary, they exist to rob the producer of a part of his product, and to protect a few in the enjoyment of what they have stolen from the producer or from the whole of society."[ ] and as regards the laws for the protection of government, "we know well that all governments, without exception, have it for their mission to uphold by force the privileges of the propertied classes--the nobility, the clergy, and the _bourgeoisie_. a man has only to examine all these laws, only to observe their every-day working, and he will be convinced that not one is worth keeping."[ ] equally "superfluous and harmful, finally, are the laws for the protection of persons, for the punishment and prevention of 'crimes'. the fear of punishment never yet restrained a murderer. he who would kill his neighbor, for revenge or for necessity, does not beat his brains about the consequences; and every murderer hitherto has had the firm conviction that he would escape prosecution. if murder were declared not punishable, the number of murders would not increase even by one; rather it would decrease to the extent that murders are at present committed by habitual criminals who have been corrupted in prison."[ ] . the stage of evolution to which enacted law belongs will soon be left behind by man. "the law is a comparatively young formation. mankind lived for ages without any written law. at that time the relations of men to each other were regulated by mere habits, by customs and usages, which age made venerable, and which every one learned from his childhood in the same way as he learned hunting, cattle-raising, or agriculture."[ ] "but when society came to be more and more split into two hostile classes, of which the one wanted to rule and the other to escape from rule, the victor of the moment sought to give permanence to the accomplished fact and to hallow it by all that was venerable to the defeated. consecrated by the priest and protected by the strong hand of the warrior, law appeared."[ ] but its days are already numbered. "everywhere we find insurgents who will no longer obey the law till they know where it comes from, what it is good for, by what right it demands obedience, and for what reason it is held in honor. they bring under their criticism everything that has until now been respected as the foundation of society, but first and foremost the fetish, law."[ ] the moment of its disappearance, for the hastening of which we must fight,[ ] is close at hand,[ ] perhaps even at the end of the nineteenth century.[ ] ii. _in the next stage of evolution, which, as has been shown, mankind must soon reach, there will indeed be no enacted law, but there will be law even there._ "the laws will be totally abrogated;"[ ] "unwritten customs,"[ ] "'customary law,' as jurists say,"[ ] will "suffice to maintain a good understanding."[ ] these norms of the next stage of evolution will be based on a general will;[ ] and conformity to them will be adequately assured "by the necessity, which every one feels, of finding co-operation, support, and sympathy"[ ] and by the fear of expulsion from the fellowship,[ ] but also, if necessary, by the intervention of the individual citizen[ ] or of the masses;[ ] they will therefore be legal norms. of legal norms of the next stage of evolution kropotkin mentions in the first place this,--that contracts must be lived up to.[ ] furthermore, according to kropotkin there will obtain in the next stage of evolution a legal norm by virtue of which not only the means of production, but all things, are common property.[ ] an additional legal norm in the next stage of evolution will, according to kropotkin, be that by virtue of which "every one who co-operates in production to a certain extent has, for one thing, the right to live; for another, the right to live comfortably."[ ] .--the state i. _according to kropotkin, in mankind's progress from a less happy existence to an existence as happy as possible the state will shortly disappear._ . the state has become a hindrance to mankind's evolution toward a happiness as great as possible. "what does this monstrous engine serve for, that we call 'state'? for preventing the exploitation of the laborer by the capitalist, of the peasant by the landlord? or for assuring us of work? for providing us food when the mother has nothing but water left for her child? no, a thousand times no."[ ] but instead of this the state "meddles in all our affairs, pinions us from cradle to grave. it prescribes all our actions, it piles up mountains of laws and ordinances that bewilder the shrewdest lawyer. it creates an army of office-holders who sit like spiders in their webs and have never seen the world except through the dingy panes of their office-window. the immense and ever-increasing sums that the state collects from the people are never sufficient: it lives at the expense of future generations, and steers with all its might toward bankruptcy. 'state' is tantamount to 'war'; one state seeks to weaken and ruin another in order to force upon the latter its law, its policy, its commercial treaties, and to enrich itself at its expense; war is to-day the usual condition in europe, there is a thirty years' supply of causes of war on hand. and civil war rages at the same time with foreign war; the state, which was originally to be a protection for all and especially for the weak, has to-day become a weapon of the rich against the exploited, of the propertied against the propertyless."[ ] in these respects there is no distinction to be made between the different forms of the state. "toward the end of the last century the french people overthrew the monarchy, and the last absolute king expiated on the scaffold his own crimes and those of his predecessors."[ ] "later all the countries of the continent went through the same evolution: they overthrew their absolute monarchies and flung themselves into the arms of parliamentarism."[ ] "now it is being perceived that parliamentarism, which was entered upon with such great hopes, has everywhere become a tool for intrigue and personal enrichment, for efforts hostile to the people and to evolution."[ ] "precisely like any despot, the body of representatives of the people--be it called parliament, convention, or anything else; be it appointed by the prefects of a bonaparte or elected with all conceivable freedom by an insurgent city--will always try to enlarge its competence, to strengthen its power by all sorts of meddling, and to displace the activity of the individual and the group by the law."[ ] "it was only a forty years' movement, which occasionally even set fire to grain-fields, that could bring the english parliament to secure to the tenant the value of the improvements made by him. but if it is a question of protecting the capitalist's interest, threatened by a disturbance or even by agitation,--ah, then every representative of the people is on hand, then it acts with more recklessness and cowardice than any despot. the six-hundred-headed beast without a name has outdone louis ix and ivan iv."[ ] "parliamentarism is nauseating to any one who has seen it near at hand."[ ] "the dominion of men, which calls itself 'government,' is incompatible with a morality founded on solidarity."[ ] this is best shown by "the so-called civil rights, whose value and importance the _bourgeois_ press is daily praising to us in every key."[ ] "are they made for those who alone need them? certainly not. universal suffrage may under some circumstances afford to the _bourgeoisie_ a certain protection against encroachments by the central authority, it may establish a balance between two authorities without its being necessary for the rivals to draw the knife on each other as formerly; but it is valueless when the object is to overthrow authority or even to set bounds to it. for the rulers it is an excellent means of deciding their disputes; but of what use is it to the ruled? just so with the freedom of the press. to the mind of the _bourgeoisie_, what is the best thing that has been alleged in its favor? its impotence. 'look at england, switzerland, the united states,' they say. 'there the press is free and yet the dominion of capital is more assured than in any other country.' just so they think about the right of association. 'why should we not grant full right of association?' says the _bourgeoisie_. 'it will not impair our privileges. what we have to fear is secret societies; public unions are the best means to cripple them.' 'the inviolability of the home? yes, this we must proclaim aloud, this we must inscribe in the statute-books,' say the sly _bourgeois_, 'the police certainly must not be looking into our pots and kettles. if things go wrong some day, we will snap our fingers at a man's right to his own house, rummage everything, and, if necessary, arrest people in their beds.' 'the secrecy of letters? yes, just proclaim its inviolability aloud everywhere, our little privacies certainly must not come to the light. if we scent a plot against our privileges, we shall not stand much on ceremony. and if anybody objects, we shall say what an english minister lately said among the applause of parliament: "yes, gentlemen, it is with a heavy heart and with the deepest reluctance that we are having letters opened, but the country (that is, the aristocracy and _bourgeoisie_) is in danger!"' that is what political rights are. freedom of the press and freedom of association, the inviolability of the home, and all the rest, are respected only so long as the people make no use of them against the privileged classes. but on the day when the people begin to use them for the undermining of privileges all these 'rights' are thrown overboard."[ ] . the stage of evolution to which the state belongs will soon be left behind by man. the state is doomed.[ ] it is "of a relatively modern origin."[ ] "the state is a historic formation which, in the life of all nations, has at a certain time gradually taken the place of free associations. church, law, military power, and wealth acquired by plunder, have for centuries made common cause, have in slow labor piled stone on stone, encroachment on encroachment, and thus created the monstrous institution which has finally fixed itself in every corner of social life--nay, in the brains and hearts of men--and which we call the state."[ ] it has now begun to decompose. "the peoples--especially those of the latin races--are bent on destroying its authority, which merely hampers their free development; they want the independence of provinces, communes, and groups of laborers; they want not to submit to any dominion, but to league themselves together freely."[ ] "the dissolution of the states is advancing at frightful speed. they have become decrepit graybeards, with wrinkled skins and tottering feet, gnawed by internal diseases and without understanding for the new thoughts; they are squandering the little strength that they still had left, living at the expense of their numbered years, and hastening their end by falling foul of each other like old women."[ ] the moment of the state's disappearance is therefore close at hand.[ ] kropotkin says now that it will come in a few years,[ ] now that it will come at the end of the nineteenth century.[ ] ii. _in the next stage of evolution, which, as has been shown, mankind must soon reach, the place of the state will be taken by a social human life on the basis of the legal norm that contracts must be lived up to._ anarchism is the "inevitable"[ ] "next phase,"[ ] "higher form,"[ ] of society. . even after the state is done away men will live together socially; but they will no longer be held together in society by a governmental authority, but by the legally binding force of contract. "free expansion of individuals into groups and of groups into associations, free organization from the simple to the complex as need and inclination are felt,"[ ] will be the future form of society. we can at present perceive a growing anarchistic movement; that is, "a movement towards limiting more and more the sphere of action of government. after having tried all kinds of government, humanity is trying now to free itself from the bonds of any government whatever, and to respond to its needs of organization by the free understanding between individuals prosecuting the same common aims."[ ] "free associations are beginning to take to themselves the entire field of human activity."[ ] "the large organizations resulting merely and simply from free agreement have grown recently. the railway net of europe--a confederation of so many scores of separate societies--is an instance; the dutch _beurden_, or associations of ship and boat owners, are extending now their organizations over the rivers of germany, and even to the shipping trade of the baltic; the numberless amalgamated manufacturers' associations, and the _syndicats_ of france, are so many instances in point. but there also is no lack of free organizations for nobler pursuits: the lifeboat association, the hospitals association, and hundreds of like organizations. one of the most remarkable societies which has[ ] recently arisen is the red cross society. to slaughter men on the battle-fields, that remains the duty of the state; but these very states recognize their inability to take care of their own wounded; they abandon the task, to a great extent, to private initiative."[ ] "these endeavors will attain to free play, will find a new and vast field for their application, and will form the foundation of the future society."[ ] "the agreement between the hundreds of companies to which the european railroads belong has been entered into directly, without the meddling of any central authority that prescribed laws to the several companies. it has been kept up by conventions at which delegates met to consult together and then to lay before their principals plans, not laws. this is a new procedure, utterly different from any government whether monarchical or republican, absolute or constitutional. it is an innovation which at first makes its way into european manners only by hesitating steps, but to which the future belongs."[ ] . "to rack our brains to-day about the details of the form which public life shall take in the future society, would be silly. yet we must come to an agreement now about the main outlines."[ ] "we must not forget that perhaps in a year or two we shall be called on to decide all questions of the organization of society."[ ] communes will continue to exist; but "these communes are not agglomerations of men in a territory, and know neither walls nor boundaries; the commune is a clustering of like-minded persons, not a closed integer. the various groups in one commune will feel themselves drawn to similar groups in other communes; they will unite themselves with these as firmly as with their fellow-citizens; and thus there will come about communities of interest whose members are scattered over a thousand cities and villages."[ ] men will join themselves together by "contracts"[ ] to form such communes. they will "take upon themselves duties to society,"[ ] which on its part engages to do certain things for them.[ ] it will not be necessary to compel the fulfilment of these contracts,[ ] there will be no need of penalties and judges.[ ] fulfilment will be sufficiently assured by "the necessity, which every one feels, of finding co-operation, support, and sympathy among his neighbors;"[ ] he who does not live up to his obligations can of course be expelled from fellowship.[ ] in the commune every one will "do what is necessary himself, without waiting for a government's orders."[ ] "the commune will not first destroy the state and then set it up again."[ ] "people will see that they are freest and happiest when they have no plenipotentiary agents and depend as little on the wisdom of representatives as on that of providence."[ ] nor will there be prisons or other penal institutions;[ ] "for the few anti-social acts that may still take place the best remedy will consist in loving treatment, moral influence, and liberty."[ ] the communes on their part will join themselves together by contracts[ ] quite in the same way as do the members of the individual communes. "the commune will recognize nothing above it except the interests of the league that it has of its own accord made with other communes."[ ] "owing to the multiplicity of our needs, a single league will soon not be enough; the commune will feel the necessity of entering into other connections also, joining this or that other league. for the purpose of obtaining food it is already a member of one group; now it must join a second in order to obtain other objects that it needs,--metal, for instance,--and then a third and fourth too, that will supply it with cloth and works of art. if one takes up an economic atlas of any country, one sees that there are no economic boundaries: the areas of production and exchange for the different objects are blended, interlaced, superimposed. thus the combinations of the communes also, if they followed their natural development, would soon intertwine in the same way and form an infinitely denser network and a far more consummate 'unity' than the states, whose individual parts, after all, only lie side by side like the rods around the lictor's axe."[ ] . the future society will be able easily to accomplish the tasks that the state accomplishes at present. "suppose there is need of a street. well, then let the inhabitants of the neighboring communes come to an understanding about it, and they will do their business better than the minister of public works would do it. or a railroad is needed. here too the communes that are concerned will produce something very different from the work of the promoters who only build bad pieces of track and make millions by it. or schools are required. people can fit them up for themselves at least as well as the gentlemen at paris. or the enemy invades the country. then we defend ourselves instead of relying on generals who would merely betray us. or the farmer must have tools and machines. then he comes to an understanding with the city workingmen, these supply him with them at cost in return for his products, and the middleman, who now robs both the farmer and the workingman, is superfluous."[ ] "or there comes up a little dispute, or a stronger man tries to push down a weaker. in the first case the people will know enough to create a court of arbitration, and in the second every citizen will regard it as his duty to interfere himself and not wait for the police; there will be as little need of constables as of judges and turnkeys."[ ] .--property i. _according to kropotkin, the progress of mankind from a less happy existence to an existence as happy as possible will shortly bring us to the disappearance not indeed of property, but of its present form, private property._ . private property has become a hindrance to the evolution of mankind toward a happiness as great as possible. what are the effects of private property to-day? "the crisis, which was formerly acute, has become chronic; the crisis in the cotton trade, the crisis in the production of metals, the crisis in watchmaking, all the crises, rage concurrently now and do not come to an end. the unemployed in europe to-day are estimated at several million; those who beg their way from city to city, or gather in mobs to demand 'work or bread' with threats, are estimated at tens of thousands. great branches of industry are destroyed; great cities, like sheffield, forsaken. everything is at a standstill, want and misery prevail everywhere: the children are pale, the wife has grown five years older in one winter, disease and death are rife among the workingmen--and people talk of over-production!"[ ] one might reply that in peasant ownership of land, at least, private property has good effects.[ ] "but the golden age is over for the small farmer. to-day he hardly knows how to make both ends meet. he gets into debt, becomes a victim of the cattle-dealer, the real-estate jobber, the usurer; notes and mortgages ruin whole villages, even more than the frightful taxes imposed by state and commune. small proprietorship is in a desperate condition; and even if the small farmer is still owner in name, he is in fact nothing more than a tenant paying rent to money-dealers and usurers."[ ] but private property has still more sweeping indirect effects. "so long as we have a caste of idlers who have us feed them under the pretext that they must lead us, so long these idlers will always be a focus of pestilence to general morality. he who lives his life in dull laziness, who is always bent merely on getting new pleasures, who by the very basis of his existence can know no solidarity, and who by his course of life cultivates the vilest self-seeking,--he will always pursue the coarsest sensual pleasures and debase everything around him. with his bag full of dollars and his bestial impulses he will go and dishonor women and children, degrade art, the drama, the press, sell his country and its defenders, and, because he is too cowardly to murder with his own hands, will have his proxies murder the choicest of his nation when, some day, he is afraid for his darling money-bag."[ ] "year by year thousands of children grow up in the physical and moral filth of our great cities, among a population corrupted by the struggle for daily bread, and at the same time they daily see the immorality, idleness, prodigality, and ostentation of which these same cities are full."[ ] "thus society is incessantly bringing forth beings who are incapable of an honorable and industrious life, and who are full of anti-social feelings. it does homage to them when success crowns their crimes, and sends them to the penitentiary when they are unlucky."[ ] private property offends against justice. "the labor of all has produced the entire accumulated mass of wealth, that of the present generation as well as that of all that went before. the house in which we happen to be together has value only by its being in paris, this glorious city in which the labor of twenty generations is piled layer upon layer. if it were removed to the snow-fields of siberia, it would be worth substantially nothing. this machine, invented and patented by you, has in it the labor of five or six generations; it has a value only as a part of the vast whole that we call nineteenth-century industry. take your lace-making machine to the papuans in new guinea, and it is valueless."[ ] "science and industry; theory and practice; the invention and the putting the invention in operation, which leads to new inventions again; head work and hand work,--all is connected. every discovery, every progress, every increase in our wealth, has its origin in the total bodily and mental activity of the past and present. then by what right can any one appropriate to himself the smallest fraction of this vast total and say 'this belongs to me and not to you'?"[ ]--but this unjust appropriation of what belongs to all has nevertheless taken place. "among the changes of time a few have taken possession of all that is made possible to man by the production of goods and the increase of his productive power. to-day the land, though it owes its value to the needs of a ceaselessly increasing population, belongs to a minority which can hinder the people from cultivating it, and which does so--or at least does not permit the people to cultivate it in a manner accordant with modern needs. the mines, which represent the toil of centuries, and whose value is based solely on the needs of industry and the necessities of population, belong likewise to a few, and these few limit the mining of coal, or entirely forbid it when they find a better investment for their money. the machines, too, are the property of a handful of men; and, even if a machine has indubitably been brought to its present perfection by three generations of workers, it nevertheless belongs to a few givers of work. the roads, which would be scrap-iron but for europe's dense population, industry, trade, and travel, are in the possession of a few shareholders who perhaps do not even know the location of the lines from which they draw princely incomes."[ ] . mankind will soon have passed the stage of evolution to which private property belongs. private property is doomed.[ ] private property is a historic formation: it "has developed parasitically amidst the free institutions of our earliest ancestors,"[ ] and this in the closest connection with the state. "the political constitution of a society is always the expression, and at the same time the consecration, of its economic constitution."[ ] "the origin of the state, and its reason for existence, lie in the fact that it interferes in favor of the propertied and to the disadvantage of the propertyless."[ ] "the omnipotence of the state constitutes the foundation of the strength of the _bourgeoisie_."[ ] but private property is already on the way to dissolution. "the economic chaos can last no longer. the people are tired of the crises which the greed of the ruling classes provokes. they want to work and live, not first drudge a few years for scanty wages and then become for many years victims of want and objects of charity. the workingman sees the incapacity of the ruling classes: he sees how unable they are either to understand his efforts or to manage the production and exchange of goods."[ ] hence "one of the leading features of our century is the growth of socialism and the rapid spreading of socialist views among the working classes."[ ] the moment when private property is to disappear is near, therefore: be it in a few years,[ ] be it at the end of the nineteenth century,[ ] in any case it will come soon.[ ] ii. _in mankind's next stage of evolution, which, as has been shown, must soon be attained, property will take such form that only property of society shall exist._ the "next phase of evolution,"[ ] "higher form of social organization,"[ ] will "inevitably"[ ] be not only anarchism, but "anarchistic communism."[ ] "the tendencies towards economical and political freedom are two different manifestations of the very same need of equality which constitutes the very essence of all struggles mentioned by history";[ ] "these two powerful currents of thought characterize our century."[ ] in this way a comfortable life will be guaranteed to every person who co-operates in production to a certain extent. . mankind's next stage of evolution will no longer know any but the property of society. "in our century the communist tendency is continually reasserting itself. the penny bridge disappears before the public bridge; and the turnpike road before the free road. the same spirit pervades thousands of other institutions. museums, free libraries, and free public schools; parks and pleasure grounds; paved and lighted streets, free for everybody's use; water supplied to private dwellings, with a growing tendency towards disregarding the exact amount of it used by the individual; tramways and railways which have already begun to introduce the season ticket or the uniform tax, and will surely go much further on this line when they are no longer private property: all these are tokens showing in what direction further progress is to be expected."[ ] so will the future society be communistic. "the first act of the nineteenth-century commune will consist in laying hands on the entire capital accumulated in its bosom."[ ] this applies "to the materials for consumption as well as to those for production."[ ] "people have tried to make a distinction between the capital that serves for the production of goods and that which satisfies the wants of life, and have said that machines, factories, raw materials, the means of transportation, and the land are destined to become the property of the community; while dwellings, finished products, clothing, and provisions will remain private property. this distinction is erroneous and impracticable. the house that shelters us, the coal and gas that we burn, the nutriment that our body burns up, the clothing that covers us, and the book from which we draw instruction, are all essential to our existence and are just as necessary for successful production and for the further development of mankind as are machines, factories, raw materials, and other factors of production. with private property in the former goods, there would still remain inequality, oppression, and exploitation; a half-way abolition of private property would have its effectiveness crippled in advance."[ ] there is no fear that the communistic communes will isolate themselves.[ ] "if to-day a great city transforms itself into a communistic commune, and introduces community of the materials for both work and enjoyment, then in a very few days, if it is not shut in by hostile armies, trains of wagons will appear in its markets, and raw materials will arrive from distant ports; and the city's industrial products, when once the wants of the population are satisfied, will go to the ends of the earth seeking purchasers; throngs of strangers will stream in from near and far, and will afterward tell at home of the marvelous life of the free city where everybody works, where there are neither poor nor oppressed, where every one enjoys the fruit of his toil, and no one interferes with another's doing so."[ ] . the communism of the future society will "not be the communism of the convent or the barrack, such as was formerly preached, but a free communism which puts the joint products at the disposal of all while leaving to every one the liberty of using them at home."[ ] to get an entirely clear idea of every detail of it, indeed, is not as yet possible; "nevertheless we must come to an agreement about the fundamental features at least."[ ] what form will production take? that must first be produced which is requisite "for the satisfaction of man's most urgent wants."[ ] for this it suffices "that all adults, with the exception of those women who are occupied with the education of children, engage to do five hours a day, from the age of twenty or twenty-two to the age of forty-five or fifty, of any one (at their option) of the labors that are regarded as necessary."[ ] "for instance, a society would enter into the following contract with each of its members: 'we will guarantee to you the enjoyment of our houses, stores of goods, streets, conveyances, schools, museums, etc., on condition that from your twentieth year to your forty-fifth or fiftieth you apply five hours every day to one of the labors necessary to life. every moment you will have your choice of the groups you will join, or you may found a new one provided that it proposes to do necessary service. for the rest of your time you may associate yourself with whom you like for the purpose of scientific or artistic recreation at your pleasure. we ask of you, therefore, nothing but twelve or fifteen hundred hours' work annually in one of the groups which produce food, clothing, and shelter, or which care for health, transportation, etc.; and in return we insure to you all that these groups produce or have produced'."[ ] there will be time enough, therefore, to produce what is requisite for the satisfaction of less urgent wants. "when one has done in the field or the factory the work that he is under obligation to do for society, he can devote the other half of his day, his week, or his year, to the satisfaction of artistic or scientific wants."[ ] "the lover of music who wishes a piano will enter the association of instrument-makers; he will devote part of his half-days, and will soon possess the longed-for piano. or the enthusiast in astronomy will join the astronomers' association with its philosophers, observers, calculators, and opticians, its scholars and amateurs; and he will obtain the telescope he wishes, if only he dedicates some work to the common cause--for there is a deal of rough work necessary for an observatory, masons' work, carpenters' work, founders' work, machinists' work--the final polish, to be sure, can be given to the instrument of precision by none but the artist. in a word, the five to seven hours that every one has left, after he has first devoted some hours to the production of the necessary, are quite sufficient to render possible for him every kind of luxury."[ ] "the separation of agriculture from manufactures will pass away. the factory workmen will be at the same time field workmen."[ ] "as an eminently periodic industry, which at certain times (and even more in the making of improvements than in harvest) needs a large additional force, agriculture will form the link between village and city."[ ] and "the separation of mental from bodily labor will come to an end"[ ] too. "poets and scientists will no longer find poor devils who will sell their energies to them for a plate of soup; they will have to get together and print their writings themselves. then the authors, and their admirers of both sexes, will soon acquire the art of handling the type-case and composing-stick; they will learn the pleasure of producing jointly, with their own hands, a work that they value."[ ] "every labor will be agreeable."[ ] "if there is still work which is really disagreeable in itself, it is only because our scientific men have never cared to consider the means of rendering it less so: they have always known that there were plenty of starving men who would do it for a few pence a day."[ ] "factories, smelters, mines, can be as sanitary and as splendid as the best laboratories of our universities; and the more perfectly they are fitted up the more they will produce."[ ] and the product of such labor will be "infinitely better, and considerably greater, than the mass of goods hitherto produced under the goad of slavery, serfdom, and wage-slavery."[ ] how will distribution take place? every one who contributes his part to production will also have his share in the product. but it must not be assumed that this share in the product will correspond to that share in the production. "each according to his powers; to each according to his wants."[ ] "need will be put above service; it will be recognized that every one who co-operates in production to a certain extent has in the first place the right to live, and in the second place the right to live comfortably."[ ] "every one, no matter how strong or weak, how competent or incompetent he may be, will have the right to live,"[ ] and "to have a comfortable life; he will furthermore have the right to decide for himself what belongs to a comfortable life."[ ] society's stock of goods will quite permit this. "if one considers on the one hand the rapidity with which the productive power of civilized nations is increasing, and on the other hand the limits that are directly or indirectly set to its production by present conditions, one comes to the conclusion that even a moderately sensible economic constitution would permit the civilized nations to heap up in a few years so many useful things that we should have to cry out 'enough! enough coal! enough bread! enough clothes! let us rest, take recreation, put our strength to a better use, spend our time in a better way!'"[ ] however, what if the stock should in fact not suffice for all wants? "the solution is--free taking of everything that exists in superfluity, and rations of that in which there is a possibility of dearth: rations according to needs, with preference to children, the aged, and the weak in general. that is what is done even now in the country. what commune thinks of limiting the use of the meadows so long as there are enough of them? what commune, so long as there are chestnuts and brushwood enough, hinders those who belong to it from taking as much as they please? and what does the peasant introduce when there is a prospect that firewood will give out? rationing."[ ] .--realization _the change that is promptly to be expected in the course of mankind's progress from a less happy existence to an existence as happy as possible,--the disappearance of the state, the transformation of law and property, and the appearance of the new condition,--will be accomplished, according to kropotkin, by a social revolution; that is, by a violent subversion of the old order, which will come to pass of itself, but for which it is the function of those who foresee the course of evolution to prepare men's minds._ i. we know that we shall not reach the future condition "without intense perturbations."[ ] "that justice may be victorious, and the new thoughts become reality, there is need of a frightful storm to sweep away all this rottenness, to vivify torpid souls with its breath, and to restore self-sacrifice, self-denial, and heroism to our senile, decrepit, crumbling society."[ ] there is need of "social revolution: that is, the people's taking possession of society's total stock of goods, and the abolition of all authorities."[ ] "the social revolution is at the door,"[ ] "it stands before us at the end of this century,"[ ] "it will be here in a few years."[ ] it is "the task which history sets for us,"[ ] but "whether we will or not, it will be accomplished independently of our will."[ ] . "the social revolution will be no uprising of a few days: we shall have to go through a period of three, four, or five years of revolution, till the transformation of the social and economic situation is completed."[ ] "during this time what we have sown to-day will be coming up and bearing fruit; and he who now is yet indifferent will become a convinced adherent of the new doctrine."[ ] nor will the social revolution be limited to a narrow area. "we must not assume, to be sure, that it will break out in all europe at once."[ ] "germany is nearer the revolution than people think";[ ] "but whether it start from france, germany, spain, or russia, it will anyhow be a european revolution in the end. it will spread as rapidly as that of our predecessors the heroes of , and set europe afire."[ ] . the first act of the social revolution will be a work of destruction.[ ] "the impulse to destruction, which is so natural and justifiable because it is at the same time an impulse to renovation, will find its full satisfaction. how much old trash there is to clear away! does not everything have to be transformed, the houses, the cities, the businesses of manufacturing and farming,--in short, all the arrangements of society?"[ ] "everything that it is necessary to abolish should be destroyed without delay: the penitentiaries and prisons, the forts that threaten cities, the slums whose disease-laden air people have breathed so long."[ ] yet the social revolution will not be a reign of terror. "naturally the fight will demand victims. one can understand how it was that the people of paris, before they hurried to the frontiers, killed the aristocrats in the prisons, who had planned with the enemy for the annihilation of the revolution. he who would blame the people for this should be asked, 'have you suffered with them and like them? if not, blush and be still.'"[ ] but yet the people will never, like the kings and czars, exalt terror into a system. "they have sympathy for the victims; they are too good-hearted not to feel a speedy repugnance at cruelty. the public prosecutor, the corpse-cart, the guillotine, speedily become repulsive. after a little while it is recognized that such a reign of terror is merely preparing the way for a dictatorship, and the guillotine is abolished."[ ] the government will be overthrown first. "there is no need of fearing its strength. governments only seem terrible; the first collision with the insurgent people lays them prostrate; many have collapsed in a few hours before now."[ ] "the people rise, and the state machine is already at a standstill; the officials are in confusion and know not what to do; the army has lost confidence in its leaders."[ ] but it cannot stop with this. "on the day when the people has swept away the governments, it will also, without waiting for any directions from above, abolish private property by forcible expropriation."[ ] "the peasants will drive out the great landlords and declare their estates common property; they will annul the mortgages and proclaim general release from debt";[ ] and in the cities "the people will seize on the entire wealth accumulated there, turn out the factory-owners, and undertake the management themselves."[ ] "the expropriation will be general; nothing but an expropriation of the broadest kind can initiate the re-shaping of society--expropriation on a small scale would appear like ordinary plunder."[ ] it will extend not only to the materials of production, but also to those of consumption: "the first thing that the people do after the overthrow of the governments will be to provide itself with sanitary dwellings and with sufficient food and clothing."[ ]--yet expropriation will "have its limits."[ ] "suppose by pinching, a poor devil has got himself a house that will hold him and his family. will he be thrown on the street? certainly not! if the house is just big enough for him and his family, he shall keep it, and he shall also continue to work the garden under his window. our young men will even lend him a hand in case of need. but, if he has rented a room to somebody else, the people will say to this one, 'you know, friend, don't you, that you no longer owe the old fellow anything? keep your room gratis; you need no longer fear the officer of the court, we have the new society!"[ ] "expropriation will extend just to that which makes it possible for any one to exploit another's labor."[ ] . "the work of destruction will be followed by a work of re-shaping."[ ] most people conceive of revolution as with "a 'revolutionary government'"[ ]--this in two ways. some understand by this an elective government. "it is proposed to summon the people to elections, to elect a government as quickly as possible, and entrust to it the work which each of us ought to be doing of his own accord."[ ] "but any government which an insurgent people attains by elections must necessarily be a leaden weight on its feet, especially in so immense an economic, political, and moral reorganization as the social revolution."[ ] this is perceived by others; "therefore they give up the thought of a 'legal' government, at least for the time of insurrection against all laws, and preach the 'revolutionary dictatorship.' 'the party which has overthrown the government,' say they, 'will forcibly put itself in the government's place. it will seize the authority and adopt a revolutionary procedure. for every one who does not recognize it--the guillotine; for every one who refuses obedience to it--the guillotine likewise.' so talk the little robespierres. but we anarchists know that this thought is nothing but an unwholesome fruit of government fetishism, and that any dictatorship, even the best disposed, is the death of the revolution."[ ] "we will do what is needful ourselves, without waiting for the orders of a government."[ ] "if the dissolution of the state is once started, if once the oppression-machine begins to give out, free associations will be formed quite automatically. just remember the voluntary combinations of the armed _bourgeoisie_ during the great revolution. remember the societies which were voluntarily formed in spain, and which defended the independence of the country, when the state was shaken to its foundations by napoleon's armies. as soon as the state no longer compels any co-operation, natural wants bring about a voluntary co-operation quite automatically. if the state be but overthrown, free society will rise up at once on its ruins."[ ] "the reorganization of production will not be possible in a few days,"[ ] especially as the revolution will presumably not break out in all europe at a time.[ ] the people will consequently have to take temporary measures to assure themselves, first of all, of food, clothing, and shelter. first the populace of the insurgent cities will take possession of the dealers' stocks of food, and of the grain warehouses and the slaughter-houses. volunteers make an inventory of the provisions found, and distribute printed tabular statements by the million. henceforth free taking of all that is present in abundance; rations of what has to be measured out, with preference to the sick and the weak; a supply for deficiencies by importation from the country (which will come in plenty if we produce things that the farmer needs and put them at his disposal) and also by the inhabitants of the city entering upon the cultivation of the royal parks and meadows in the vicinity.[ ] the people will take possession of the dwelling-houses in like manner. again volunteers make lists of the available dwellings and distribute them. people come together by streets, quarters, districts, and agree about the allotment of the dwellings. but the evils that will at first still have to be borne are soon to be done away: the artisans of the building trades need only work a few hours a day, and soon the over-spacious dwellings that were on hand will be sensibly altered, and model houses, entirely new, will be built.[ ] the same procedure will be followed with regard to clothing. the people take possession of the great clothiers' establishments, and volunteers list the stocks. people take freely what is on hand in abundance, in rations what is limited in quantity. what is lacking is supplied in the shortest of time by the factories with their perfected machines.[ ] ii. "to prepare men's minds"[ ] for the approaching revolution is the task of those who foresee the course of evolution. this is especially "the task of the secret societies and revolutionary organizations."[ ] it is the task of "the anarchist party."[ ] the anarchists "are to-day as yet a minority, but their number is daily growing, will grow more and more, and will on the eve of the revolution become a majority."[ ] "what a dismal sight france presented a few years before the great revolution, and how weak was the minority of those who thought of the abolition of royalty and feudalism; but what a change three or four years later! the minority had begun the revolution and had carried the masses with it."[ ]--but how are men's minds to be prepared for the revolution? . first and foremost, the aim of the revolution is to be made generally known. "it is to be proclaimed by word and deed till it is thoroughly popularized, so that on the day of the rising it is in everybody's mouth. this task is greater and more serious than is generally assumed; for, if some few do have the aim clearly before their eyes, it is quite otherwise with the masses, constantly worked upon as they are by the _bourgeois_ press."[ ] but this does not suffice. "the spirit of insurrection must be aroused; the sense of independence and the wild boldness without which no revolution comes about must awake."[ ] "between the peaceable discussion of evils and tumult, insurrection, lies a chasm--the same chasm that in the greater part of mankind separates reflection from act, thought from will."[ ] . the way to obtain these two results is "action--constant, incessant action by minorities. courage, devotion, self-sacrifice are as contagious as cowardice, servility, and apprehension."[ ] "what forms is the propaganda to take? every form that is prescribed by the situation, by opportunity, and propensity. it may be now serious, now jocular; but it must always be bold. it must never leave a means unused, never leave a fact of public life unobserved, to keep minds alert, to give aliment and expression to discontent, to stir hate against exploiters, to make the government ridiculous, and to demonstrate its impotence. but above all, to arouse boldness and the spirit of insurrection, it must continually preach by example."[ ] "men of courage, willing not only to speak but to act; pure characters who prefer prison, exile, and death to a life that contradicts their principles; bold natures who know that in order to win one must dare,--these are the advance-guard who open the fight long before the masses are ripe to lift the banner of insurrection openly and to seek their rights arms in hand. in the midst of the complaining, talking, discussing, comes a mutinous deed by one or more persons, which incarnates the longings of all."[ ] "perhaps at first the masses remain indifferent and believe the wise ones who regard the act as 'crazy', but soon they are privately applauding the crazy and imitating them. while the first of them are filling the penitentiaries, others are already continuing their work. the declarations of war against present-day society, the mutinous deeds, the acts of revenge, multiply. general attention is aroused; the new thought makes its way into men's heads and wins their hearts. a single deed makes more propaganda in a few days than a thousand pamphlets. the government defends itself, it rages pitilessly; but by this it only causes further deeds to be committed by one or more persons, and drives the insurgents to heroism. one deed brings forth another; opponents join the mutiny; the government splits into factions; harshness intensifies the conflict; concessions come too late; the revolution breaks out."[ ] . to make still clearer the means by which the aim of the revolution is to be made generally known and the spirit of insurrection is to be aroused, kropotkin tells some of the history of what preceded the revolution of . he tells how at that time thousands of lampoons acquainted the people with the vices of the court, and how a multitude of satirical songs flagellated crowned heads and stirred hatred against the nobility and clergy. he sets before us how in placards the king, the queen, the farmers-general, were threatened, reviled, and jeered at; how enemies of the people were hanged or burned or quartered in effigy. he describes to us the way in which the insurrectionists got the people used to the streets and taught them to defy the police, the military, the cavalry. we learn how in the villages secret organizations, the jacques, set fire to the barns of the lord of the manor, destroyed his crops or his game, murdered him himself, threatened the collection or payment of rent with death. he sets forth to us how then, one day, the storehouses were broken into, the trains of wagons were stopped on the highway, the toll-gates were burned and the officials killed, the tax-lists and the account-books and the city archives went up in flames, and the revolution broke out on all sides.[ ] "what conclusions are to be drawn from this"[ ] kropotkin does not think it necessary to explain. he contents himself with characterizing as "a precious instruction for us"[ ] the facts which he reports. footnotes: [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_temps nouveaux_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. , . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "anarchist communism" p. . [ ] kr. "studies" p. . [ ] kr. "anarchist communism" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_temps nouveaux_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "anarchist communism" p. . [ ] kr. "studies" p. . [ ] kr. "anarchist communism" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_l'anarchie dans l'évolution socialiste_" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] kr. "_temps nouveaux_" p. . [ ] kr. "anarchist communism" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "studies" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_morale_" p. . [ ] kr. "anarchist communism" p. . [ ] kr. "_morale_" pp. , . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_morale_" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. ; kr. "_conquête_" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" pp. , . [ ] kr. "_morale_" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [in eltzbacher's general discussions, and his summaries of the different writers' views on law, the word translated "law" is everywhere _recht_, french _droit_, latin _jus_, law as a body of rights and duties. but in the quotations from kropotkin under the heading "law" the word is everywhere (with the single exception of the phrase "customary law") _gesetz_, french _loi_, latin _lex_, a law as an enacted formula to describe men's actions; and the same is the word translated "law" in eltzbacher's summaries under the heading "basis" in the different chapters.] [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] kr. "_morale_" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. ; kr. "_l'anarchie dans l'évolution socialiste_" pp. - . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" pp. , . [ ] kr. "anarchist communism" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_conquête_" pp. , . [ ] kr. "anarchist communism" p. . [ ] kr. "_conquête_" p. . [ ] kr. "studies" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" pp. , - , "_conquête_" p. . [ ] kr. "_conquête_" pp. , - , - . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" pp. - . [ ] kr. "_conquête_" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" pp. - . [ ] kr. "_l'anarchie dans l'évolution socialiste_" p. . [ ] kr. "anarchist communism" p. . [ ] kr. "_temps nouveaux_" pp. - . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp - . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. ; kr. "_l'anarchie dans l'évolution socialiste_" pp. - . [ ] kr. "_l'anarchie dans l'évolution socialiste_" p. . [ ] kr. "anarchist communism" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_l'anarchie dans l'évolution socialiste_" p. . [ ] kr. "anarchist communism" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" pp. - . [ ] [_sic_, edition of ]. [ ] kr. "anarchist communism" pp. - . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] kr. "_conquête_" p. . [ ] kr. "studies" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] kr. "_conquête_" pp. , . [ ] _ib._ pp. , , - . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] kr. "anarchist communism" pp. - , "_conquête_" p. . [ ] kr. "_prisons_" p. . [ ] kr. "anarchist communism" p. . [kropotkin prefixes "his own social habits and."] [ ] kr. "_conquête_" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_prisons_" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] kr. "_conquête_" pp. - . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] kr. "_studies_" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] kr. "_prisons_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_l'anarchie dans l'évolution socialiste_" p. . [ ] kr. "_conquête_" pp. - . [ ] kr. "_conquête_" pp. - . [ ] kr. "_l'anarchie dans l'évolution socialiste_" p. . [ ] kr. "anarchist communism" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] kr. "_temps nouveaux_" p. . [ ] kr. "studies" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" pp. - . [ ] kr. "anarchist communism" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. , "_l'anarchie--sa philosophie son idéal_" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. , "_l'anarchie dans l'évolution socialiste_" pp. - . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" pp. - . [ ] kr. "anarchist communism" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_l'anarchie dans l'évolution socialiste_" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. , "_l'anarchie dans l'évolution socialiste_" p. . [ ] kr. "anarchist communism" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "anarchist communism" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] kr. "_l'anarchie dans l'évolution socialiste_" p. . [ ] kr. "studies" p. . [ ] kr. "_conquête_" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] kr. "_conquête_" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" pp. - . [ ] kr. "_conquête_" pp. - . [ ] kr. "_conquête_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "anarchist communism" p. . [ ] kr. "_conquête_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_l'anarchie dans l'évolution socialiste_" p. . [ ] kr. "_conquête_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "l'_anarchie dans l'évolution socialiste_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_conquête_" p. . [ ] kr. "_l'anarchie dans l'évolution socialiste_" p. . [the nineteenth century, of course, is meant.] [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] kr. "_siècle_" p. . [ ] kr. "_l'anarchie dans l'évolution socialiste_" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. , "studies" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" pp. - . [ ] kr. "_conquête_" p. . [ ] kr. "_l'anarchie. sa philosophie--son idéal_" p. . [ ] kr. "_l'anarchie dans l'évolution socialiste_" pp. - . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] kr. "_prisons_" p. . [ ] kr. "_studies_" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_conquête_" pp. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_conquête_" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] kr. "_conquête_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_conquête_" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. , ; kr. "_temps nouveaux_" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] kr. "_paroles_" p. . chapter viii tucker's teaching .--general benjamin r. tucker was born in at south dartmouth, near new bedford, massachusetts. from to he studied technology in boston; there he made the acquaintance of josiah warren[ ] in . in he traveled in england, france, and italy. in tucker took the temporary editorship of the "word," published at princeton, massachusetts. in he published the quarterly "the radical review" in new bedford; but only four numbers appeared. in , in boston, he founded the semi-monthly paper "liberty," of which there also appeared for a short time a german edition under the title "libertas"; in boston, also, he was for ten years one of the editorial staff of the "globe." since he has lived in new york, and "liberty" has appeared there as a weekly.[ ] . tucker's teaching about law, the state, and property is contained mainly in his articles in "liberty." he has published a collection[ ] of these articles under the title "instead of a book. by a man too busy to write one. a fragmentary exposition of philosophical anarchism" ( ). [illustration] . tucker calls his teaching "anarchism." "circumstances have combined to make me somewhat conspicuous as an exponent of the theory of modern anarchism."[ ] "anarchy does not mean simply opposed to the _archos_, or political leader. it means opposed to _arch[=e]_. now, _arch[=e]_, in the first instance, means _beginning_, _origin_. from this it comes to mean _a first principle_, _an element_; then _first place_, _supreme power_, _sovereignty_, _dominion_, _command_, _authority_; and finally _a sovereignty_, _an empire_, _a realm_, _a magistracy_, _a governmental office_. etymologically, then, the word anarchy may have several meanings. but the word anarchy as a philosophical term and the word anarchist as the name of a philosophical sect were first appropriated in the sense of opposition to dominion, to authority, and are so held by right of occupancy, which fact makes any other philosophical use of them improper and confusing."[ ] .--basis _tucker considers that the law which has supreme validity for every one of us is self-interest; and from this he derives the law of equal liberty._ . for every man self-interest is the supreme law. "the anarchists are not only utilitarians, but egoists in the farthest and fullest sense."[ ] what does self-interest mean? my interest is everything that serves my purposes.[ ] it takes in not only the lowest but also "the higher forms of selfishness."[ ] thus, in particular, the interest of society is at the same time that of every individual: "its life is inseparable from the lives of individuals; it is impossible to destroy one without destroying the other."[ ] self-interest is the supreme law for man. "the anarchists totally discard the idea of moral obligation, of inherent rights and duties."[ ] "so far as inherent right is concerned, might is its only measure. any man, be his name bill sykes or alexander romanoff, and any set of men, whether the chinese highbinders or the congress of the united states, have the right, if they have the power, to kill or coerce other men and to make the entire world subservient to their ends."[ ] "the anarchism of to-day affirms the right of society to coerce the individual and of the individual to coerce society so far as either has the requisite power."[ ] . from this supreme law tucker derives "the law of equal liberty."[ ] the law of equal liberty is based on every individual's self-interest. for "liberty is the chief essential to man's happiness, and therefore the most important thing in the world, and i want as much of it as i can get."[ ] on the other hand, "human equality is a necessity of stable society,"[ ] and the life of society "is inseparable from the lives of individuals."[ ] consequently every individual's self-interest demands the equal liberty of all. "equal liberty means the largest amount of liberty compatible with equality and mutuality of respect, on the part of individuals living in society, for their respective spheres of action."[ ] "'mind your own business' is the only moral law of the anarchistic scheme."[ ] "it is our duty to respect others' rights, assuming the word 'right' to be used in the sense of the limit which the principle of equal liberty logically places upon might."[ ]--on the law of equal liberty is founded "the distinction between invasion and resistance, between government and defence. this distinction is vital: without it there can be no valid philosophy of politics."[ ] "by 'invasion' i mean the invasion of the individual sphere, which is bounded by the line inside of which liberty of action does not conflict with others' liberty of action."[ ] this boundary-line is in part unmistakable; for instance, a threat is not an invasion if the threatened act is not an invasion, "a man has a right to threaten what he has a right to execute."[ ] but the boundary-line may also be dubious; for instance, "we cannot clearly identify the maltreatment of child by parent as either invasive or non-invasive of the liberty of third parties."[ ] "additional experience is continually sharpening our sense of what constitutes invasion. though we still draw the line by rule of thumb, we are drawing it more clearly every day."[ ] "the nature of such invasion is not changed, whether it is made by one man upon another man, after the manner of the ordinary criminal, or by one man upon all other men, after the manner of an absolute monarch, or by all other men upon one man, after the manner of a modern democracy."[ ] "on the other hand, he who resists another's attempt to control is not an aggressor, an invader, a governor, but simply a defender, a protector."[ ] "the individual has the right to repel invasion of his sphere of action."[ ] "anarchism justifies the application of force to invasive men,"[ ] "violence is advisable when it will accomplish the desired end and inadvisable when it will not."[ ] and "defensive associations acting on the anarchistic principle would not only demand redress for, but would prohibit, all clearly invasive acts. they would not, however, prohibit non-invasive acts, even though these acts create additional opportunity for invasive persons to act invasively: for instance, the selling of liquor."[ ] "and the nature of such resistance is not changed whether it be offered by one man to another man, as when one repels a criminal's onslaught, or by one man to all other men, as when one declines to obey an oppressive law, or by all other men to one man, as when a subject people rises against a despot, or as when the members of a community voluntarily unite to restrain a criminal."[ ] .--law _according to tucker, from the standpoint of every one's self-interest and the equal liberty of all there is no objection to law._ legal norms are to obtain: that is, norms that are based on a general will[ ] and to which obedience is enforced, if necessary, by every means,[ ] even by prison, torture, and capital punishment.[ ] but the law is to be "so flexible that it will shape itself to every emergency and need no alteration. and it will then be regarded as _just_ in proportion to its flexibility, instead of as now in proportion to its rigidity."[ ] the means to this end is that "juries will judge not only the facts, but the law";[ ] machinery for altering the law is then unnecessary.[ ]--in particular, there are to be recognized the following legal norms, whose correctness tucker tries to deduce from the law of equal liberty: first, a legal norm by which the person is secured against hurt. "we are the sternest enemies of invasion of the person, and, although chiefly busy in destroying the causes thereof, have no scruples against such heroic treatment of its immediate manifestations as circumstances and wisdom may dictate."[ ] capital punishment is quite compatible with the protection of the person against hurt, for its essence is not that of an act of hurting, but of an act of defence.[ ] next, there is to be recognized a legal norm by virtue of which "ownership on a basis of labor"[ ] exists. "this form of property secures each in the possession of his own products, or of such products of others as he may have obtained unconditionally without the use of fraud or force."[ ] "it will be seen from this definition that anarchistic property concerns only products. but anything is a product upon which human labor has been expended. it should be stated, however, that in the case of land, or of any other material the supply of which is so limited that all cannot hold it in unlimited quantities, anarchism undertakes to protect no titles except such as are based on actual occupancy and use."[ ] against injury to property, as well as against injury to the person, anarchism has no scruples against "such heroic treatment as circumstances and wisdom may dictate."[ ] furthermore, there is to be recognized the legal norm that contracts must be lived up to. obligation comes into existence when obligations are "consciously and voluntarily assumed";[ ] and the other party thus acquires "a right."[ ] to be sure, the obligatory force of contract is not without bounds. "contract is a very serviceable and most important tool, but its usefulness has its limits; no man can employ it for the abdication of his manhood";[ ] therefore "the constituting of an association in which each member waives the right of secession would be a mere _form_."[ ] furthermore, no one can employ it for the invasion of third parties; therefore a promise "whose fulfilment would invade third parties"[ ] would be invalid.--"i deem the keeping of promises such an important matter that only in the extremest cases would i approve their violation. it is of such vital consequence that associates should be able to rely upon each other that it is better never to do anything to weaken this confidence except when it can be maintained only at the expense of some consideration of even greater importance."[ ] "the man who has received a promise is defrauded by its non-fulfilment, invaded, deprived of a portion of his liberty against his will."[ ] "i have no doubt of the right of any man to whom, for a consideration, a promise has been made, to insist, even by force, upon the fulfilment of that promise, provided the promise be not one whose fulfilment would invade third parties. and, if the promisee has a right to use force himself for such a purpose, he has a right to secure such co-operative force from others as they are willing to extend. these others, in turn, have a right to decide what sort of promises, if any, they will help him to enforce. when it comes to the determination of this point, the question is one of policy solely; and very likely it will be found that the best way to secure the fulfilment of promises is to have it understood in advance that the fulfilment is not to be enforced."[ ] .--the state i. _with regard to every man's self-interest, especially on the basis of the law of equal liberty, tucker rejects the state; and that universally, not merely for special circumstances determined by place and time._ for the state is "the embodiment of the principle of invasion."[ ] . "two elements are common to all the institutions to which the name 'state' has been applied: first, aggression."[ ] "aggression, invasion, government, are interconvertible terms."[ ] "this is the anarchistic definition of government: the subjection of the non-invasive individual to an external will."[ ] and "second, the assumption of authority over a given area and all within it, exercised generally for the double purpose of more complete oppression of its subjects and extension of its boundaries."[ ] therefore "this is the anarchistic definition of the state: the embodiment of the principle of invasion in an individual, or a band of individuals, assuming to act as representatives or masters of the entire people within a given area."[ ] "rule is evil, and it is none the better for being majority rule."[ ] "the theocratic despotism of kings or the democratic despotism of majorities"[ ] are alike condemnable. "what is the ballot? it is neither more nor less than a paper representative of the bayonet, the billy, and the bullet. it is a labor-saving device for ascertaining on which side force lies and bowing to the inevitable. the voice of the majority saves bloodshed, but it is no less the arbitrament of force than is the decree of the most absolute of despots backed by the most powerful of armies."[ ] . "in the first place, all the acts of governments are indirectly invasive, because dependent upon the primary invasion called taxation."[ ] "the very first act of the state, the compulsory assessment and collection of taxes, is itself an aggression, a violation of equal liberty, and, as such, vitiates every subsequent act, even those acts which would be purely defensive if paid for out of a treasury filled by voluntary contributions. how is it possible to sanction, under the law of equal liberty, the confiscation of a man's earnings to pay for protection which he has not sought and does not desire?"[ ] "and, if this is an outrage, what name shall we give to such confiscation when the victim is given, instead of bread, a stone, instead of protection, oppression? to force a man to pay for the violation of his own liberty is indeed an addition of insult to injury. but that is exactly what the state is doing."[ ] for "in the second place, by far the greater number of their acts are directly invasive, because directed, not to the restraint of invaders, but to the denial of freedom to the people in their industrial, commercial, social, domestic, and individual lives."[ ] "how thoughtless, then, to assert that the existing political order is of a purely defensive character!"[ ] "defence is a service, like any other service. it is labor both useful and desired, and therefore an economic commodity subject to the law of supply and demand. in a free market this commodity would be furnished at the cost of production. the production and sale of this commodity are now monopolized by the state. the state, like almost all monopolists, charges exorbitant prices. like almost all monopolists, it supplies a worthless, or nearly worthless, article. just as the monopolist of a food product often furnishes poison instead of nutriment, so the state takes advantage of its monopoly of defence to furnish invasion instead of protection. just as the patrons of the one pay to be poisoned, so the patrons of the other pay to be enslaved. and the state exceeds all its fellow-monopolists in the extent of its villany because it enjoys the unique privilege of compelling all people to buy its product whether they want it or not."[ ] . it cannot be alleged in favor of the state that it is necessary as a means for combating crime.[ ] "the state is itself the most gigantic criminal extant. it manufactures criminals much faster than it punishes them."[ ] "our prisons are filled with criminals which our virtuous state has made what they are by its iniquitous laws, its grinding monopolies, and the horrible social conditions that result from them. we enact many laws that manufacture criminals, and then a few that punish them."[ ] no more can the state be defended on the ground that it is wanted for the relief of suffering. "the state is rendering assistance to the suffering and starving victims of the mississippi inundation. well, such work is better than forging new chains to keep the people in subjection, we allow; but is not worth the price that is paid for it. the people cannot afford to be enslaved for the sake of being insured. if there were no other alternative, they would do better, on the whole, to take nature's risks and pay her penalties as best they might. but liberty supplies another alternative, and furnishes better insurance at cheaper rates. mutual insurance, by the organization of risk, will do the utmost that can be done to mitigate and equalize the suffering arising from the accidental destruction of wealth."[ ] ii. _every man's self-interest, and equal liberty particularly, demands, in place of the state, a social human life on the basis of the legal norm that contracts must be lived up to._ the "voluntary association of contracting individuals"[ ] is to take the place of the state. . "the anarchists have no intention or desire to abolish society. they know that its life is inseparable from the lives of individuals; that it is impossible to destroy one without destroying the other."[ ] "society has come to be man's dearest possession. pure air is good, but no one wants to breathe it long alone. independence is good, but isolation is too heavy a price to pay for it."[ ] but men are not to be held together in society by a concrete supreme authority, but solely by the legally binding force of contract.[ ] the form of society is to be "voluntary association,"[ ] whose "constitution"[ ] is nothing but a contract. . but what is to be the nature of the voluntary association in detail? in the first place, it cannot bind its members for life. "the constituting of an association in which each member waives the right of secession would be a mere _form_, which every decent man who was a party to it would hasten to violate and tread under foot as soon as he appreciated the enormity of his folly. to indefinitely waive one's right of secession is to make one's self a slave. now, no man can make himself so much a slave as to forfeit the right to issue his own emancipation proclamation."[ ] in the next place, the voluntary association, as such, can have no dominion over a territory. "certainly such voluntary association would be entitled to enforce whatever regulations the contracting parties might agree upon within the limits of whatever territory, or divisions of territory, had been brought into the association by these parties as individual occupiers thereof, and no non-contracting party would have a right to enter or remain in this domain except upon such terms as the association might impose. but if, somewhere between these divisions of territory, had lived, prior to the formation of the association, some individual on his homestead, who for any reason, wise or foolish, had declined to join in forming the association, the contracting parties would have had no right to evict him, compel him to join, make him pay for any incidental benefits that he might derive from proximity to their association, or restrict him in the exercise of any previously-enjoyed right to prevent him from reaping these benefits. now, voluntary association necessarily involving the right of secession, any seceding member would naturally fall back into the position and upon the rights of the individual above described, who refused to join at all. so much, then, for the attitude of the individual toward any voluntary association surrounding him, his support thereof evidently depending upon his approval or disapproval of its objects, his view of its efficiency in attaining them, and his estimate of the advantages and disadvantages involved in joining, seceding, or abstaining."[ ] for the members of the voluntary association numerous obligations arise from their membership. the association may require, as a condition of membership, the agreement to perform certain services,--for instance, "jury service."[ ] and "inasmuch as anarchistic associations recognize the right of secession, they may utilize the ballot, if they see fit to do so. if the question decided by ballot is so vital that the minority thinks it more important to carry out its own views than to preserve common action, the minority can withdraw. in no case can a minority, however small, be governed without its consent."[ ] the voluntary association is entitled to compel its members to live up to their obligations. "if a man makes an agreement with men, the latter may combine to hold him to his agreement";[ ] therefore a voluntary association is "entitled to enforce whatever regulations the contracting parties may agree upon."[ ] to be sure, one must bear in mind that "very likely the best way to secure the fulfilment of promises is to have it understood in advance that the fulfilment is not to be enforced."[ ] of especial importance among the obligations of the members of a voluntary association is the duty of paying taxes; but the tax is voluntary by virtue of the fact that it is based on contract.[ ] "voluntary taxation, far from impairing the association's credit, would strengthen it";[ ] for, in the first place, because of the simplicity of its functions, the association seldom or never has to borrow; in the second place, it cannot, like the present state upon its basis of compulsory taxation, repudiate its debts and still continue business; and, in the third place, it will necessarily be more intent on maintaining its credit by paying its debts than is the state which enforces taxation.[ ] and furthermore, the voluntariness of the tax has this advantage, that "the defensive institution will be steadily deterred from becoming an invasive institution through fear that the voluntary contributions will fall off; it will have this constant motive to keep itself trimmed down to the popular demand."[ ] "ireland's true order: the wonderful land league, the nearest approach, on a large scale, to perfect anarchistic organization that the world has yet seen. an immense number of local groups, scattered over large sections of two continents separated by three thousand miles of ocean; each group autonomous, each free; each composed of varying numbers of individuals of all ages, sexes, races, equally autonomous and free; each inspired by a common, central purpose; each supported entirely by voluntary contributions; each obeying its own judgment; each guided in the formation of its judgment and the choice of its conduct by the advice of a central council of picked men, having no power to enforce its orders except that inherent in the convincing logic of the reasons on which the orders are based; all co-ordinated and federated, with a minimum of machinery and without sacrifice of spontaneity, into a vast working unit, whose unparalleled power makes tyrants tremble and armies of no avail."[ ] . among the prominent associations of the new society are mutual insurance societies and mutual banks,[ ] and, especially, defensive associations. "the abolition of the state will leave in existence a defensive association"[ ] which will give protection against those "who violate the social law by invading their neighbors."[ ] to be sure, this need will be only transitory. "we look forward to the ultimate disappearance of the necessity of force even for the purpose of repressing crime."[ ] "the necessity for defence against individual invaders is largely and perhaps, in the end, wholly due to the oppressions of the invasive state. when the state falls, criminals will begin to disappear."[ ] a number of defensive associations may exist side by side. "there are many more than five or six insurance companies in england, and it is by no means uncommon for members of the same family to insure their lives and goods against accident or fire in different companies. why should there not be a considerable number of defensive associations in england, in which people, even members of the same family, might insure their lives and goods against murderers or thieves? defence is a service, like any other service."[ ] "under the influence of competition the best and cheapest protector, like the best and cheapest tailor, would doubtless get the greater part of the business. it is conceivable even that he might get the whole of it. but, if he should, it would be by his virtue as a protector, not by his power as a tyrant. he would be kept at his best by the possibility of competition and the fear of it; and the source of power would always remain, not with him, but with his patrons, who would exercise it, not by voting him down or by forcibly putting another in his place, but by withdrawing their patronage."[ ] but, if invader and invaded belong to different defensive associations, will not a conflict of associations result? "anticipations of such conflicts would probably result in treaties, and even in the establishment of federal tribunals, as courts of last resort, by the co-operation of the various associations, on the same voluntary principle in accordance with which the associations themselves were organized."[ ] "voluntary defensive associations acting on the anarchistic principle would not only demand redress for, but would prohibit, all clearly invasive acts."[ ] to fulfil this function they may choose any appropriate means, without thereby exercising a government. "government is the subjection of the _non-invasive_ individual to a will not his own. the subjection of the _invasive_ individual is not government, but resistance to and protection from government."[ ]--"anarchism recognizes the right to arrest, try, convict, and punish for wrong doing."[ ] "anarchism will take enough of the invader's property from him to repair the damage done by his invasion."[ ] "if it can find no better instrument of resistance to invasion, anarchism will use prisons."[ ] it admits even capital punishment. "the society which inflicts capital punishment does not commit murder. murder is an offensive act. the term cannot be applied legitimately to any defensive act. there is nothing sacred in the life of an invader, and there is no valid principle of human society that forbids the invaded to protect themselves in whatever way they can."[ ] "it is allowable to punish invaders by torture. but, if the 'good' people are not fiends, they are not likely to defend themselves by torture until the penalties of death and tolerable confinement have shown themselves destitute of efficacy."[ ]--"all disputes will be submitted to juries."[ ] "speaking for myself, i think the jury should be selected by drawing twelve names by lot from a wheel containing the names of all the citizens in the community."[ ] "the juries will judge not only the facts, but the law, the justice of the law, its applicability to the given circumstances, and the penalty or damage to be inflicted because of its infraction."[ ] .--property i. _according to tucker, from the standpoint of every one's self-interest and the equal liberty of all there is no objection to property._ tucker rejects only the distribution of property on the basis of monopoly, as it everywhere and always exists in the state. that the state is essentially invasion appears in the laws which "not only prescribe personal habits, but, worse still, create and sustain monopolies"[ ] and thereby make usury possible.[ ] . usury is the taking of surplus value.[ ] "a laborer's product is such portion of the value of that which he delivers to the consumer as his own labor has contributed."[ ] the laborer does not get this product, "at least not as laborer; he gains a bare subsistence by his work."[ ] but, "somebody gets the surplus wealth. who is the somebody?"[ ] "the usurer."[ ] "there are three forms of usury: interest on money, rent of land and houses, and profit in exchange. whoever is in receipt of any of these is a usurer. and who is not? scarcely any one. the banker is a usurer; the manufacturer is a usurer; the merchant is a usurer; the landlord is a usurer; and the workingman who puts his savings, if he has any, out at interest, or takes rent for his house or lot, if he owns one, or exchanges his labor for more than an equivalent,--he too is a usurer. the sin of usury is one under which all are concluded, and for which all are responsible. but all do not benefit by it. the vast majority suffer. only the chief usurers accumulate: in agricultural and thickly settled countries, the landlords; in industrial and commercial countries, the bankers. those are the somebodies who swallow up the surplus wealth."[ ] . "and where do they get their power? from monopoly maintained by the state. usury rests on this."[ ] and "of the various monopolies that now prevail, four are of principal importance."[ ] "first in the importance of its evil influence they [the founders of anarchism] considered the money monopoly, which consists of the privilege given by the government to certain individuals, or to individuals holding certain kinds of property, of issuing the circulating medium, a privilege which is now enforced in this country by a national tax of ten per cent. upon all other persons who attempt to furnish a circulating medium, and by state laws making it a criminal offence to issue notes as currency. it is claimed that holders of this privilege control the rate of interest, the rate of rent of houses and buildings, and the prices of goods,--the first directly, and the second and third indirectly. for, if the business of banking were made free to all, more and more persons would enter into it until the competition should become sharp enough to reduce the price of lending money to the labor cost, which statistics show to be less than three-fourths of one per cent."[ ] "then down will go house-rent. for no one who can borrow capital at one per cent. with which to build a house of his own will consent to pay rent to a landlord at a higher rate than that."[ ] finally, "down will go profits also. for merchants, instead of buying at high prices on credit, will borrow money of the banks at less than one per cent., buy at low prices for cash, and correspondingly reduce the prices of their goods to their customers."[ ] "second in importance comes the land monopoly, the evil effects of which are seen principally in exclusively agricultural countries, like ireland. this monopoly consists in the enforcement by government of land-titles which do not rest upon personal occupancy and cultivation."[ ] "ground-rent exists only because the state stands by to collect it and to protect land-titles rooted in force or fraud."[ ] "as soon as individuals should no longer be protected in anything but personal occupancy and cultivation of land, ground-rent would disappear, and so usury have one less leg to stand on."[ ] the third and fourth places are occupied by the tariff and patent monopolies.[ ] "the tariff monopoly consists in fostering production at high prices and under unfavorable conditions by visiting with the penalty of taxation those who patronize production at low prices and under favorable conditions. the evil to which this monopoly gives rise might more properly be called _mis_usury than usury, because it compels labor to pay, not exactly for the use of capital, but rather for the misuse of capital."[ ] "the patent monopoly protects inventors and authors against competition for a period long enough to enable them to extort from the people a reward enormously in excess of the labor measure of their services,--in other words, it gives certain people a right of property for a term of years in laws and facts of nature, and the power to exact tribute from others for the use of this natural wealth, which should be open to all."[ ] it is on the tariff and patent monopolies, next to the money monopoly, that profit in exchange is based. if they were done away along with the money monopoly, it would disappear.[ ] ii. _every one's self-interest, and particularly the equal liberty of all, demands a distribution of property in which every one is guaranteed the product of his labor._[ ] . "equal liberty, in the property sphere, is such a balance between the liberty to take and the liberty to keep that the two liberties may coexist without conflict or invasion."[ ] "nearly all anarchists consider labor to be the only basis of the right of ownership in harmony with that law";[ ] "the laborers, instead of having only a small fraction of the wealth in the world, should have all the wealth."[ ] this form of property "secures each in the possession of his own products, or of such products of others as he may have obtained unconditionally without the use of fraud or force, and in the realization of all titles to such products which he may hold by virtue of free contract with others."[ ] "it will be seen from this definition that anarchistic property concerns only products. but anything is a product upon which human labor has been expended, whether it be a piece of iron or a piece of land. (it should be stated, however, that in the case of land, or of any other material the supply of which is so limited that all cannot hold it in unlimited quantities, anarchism undertakes to protect no titles except such as are based on actual occupancy and use.)"[ ] . a distribution of property in which every one is guaranteed the product of his labor presupposes merely that equal liberty be applied in those spheres which are as yet dominated by state monopoly.[ ] "free money first."[ ] "i mean by free money the utter absence of restriction upon the issue of all money not fraudulent";[ ] "making the issue of money as free as the manufacture of shoes."[ ] money is here understood in the broadest sense, it means both "commodity money and credit money,"[ ] by no means coin alone; "if the idea of the royalty of gold and silver could once be knocked out of the people's heads, and they could once understand that no particular kind of merchandise is created by nature for monetary purposes, they would settle this question in a trice."[ ] "if they only had the liberty to do so, there are enough large and small property-holders willing and anxious to issue money, to provide a far greater amount than is needed."[ ] "does the law of england allow citizens to form a bank for the issue of paper money against any property that they may see fit to accept as security; said bank perhaps owning no specie whatever; the paper money not redeemable in specie except at the option of the bank; the customers of the bank mutually pledging themselves to accept the bank's paper in lieu of gold or silver coin of the same face value; the paper being redeemable only at the maturity of the mortgage notes, and then simply by a return of said notes and a release of the mortgaged property,--is such an institution, i ask, allowed by the law of england? if it is, then i have only to say that the working people of england are very great fools not to take advantage of this inestimable liberty."[ ] then "competition would reduce the rate of interest on capital to the mere cost of banking, which is much less than one per cent.,"[ ] for "capitalists will not be able to lend their capital at interest when people can get money at the bank without interest with which to buy capital outright."[ ] likewise the charge of rent on buildings "would be almost entirely and directly abolished,"[ ] and "profits fall to the level of the manufacturer's or merchant's proper wage,"[ ] "except in business protected by tariff or patent laws."[ ] "this facility of acquiring capital will give an unheard-of impetus to business";[ ] "if free banking were only a picayunish attempt to distribute more equitably the small amount of wealth now produced, i would not waste a moment's energy on it."[ ] free land is needed in the second place.[ ] "'the land for the people,' according to 'liberty', means the protection of all people who desire to cultivate land in the possession of whatever land they personally cultivate, without distinction between the existing classes of landlords, tenants, and laborers, and the positive refusal of the protecting power to lend its aid to the collection of any rent whatsoever."[ ] this "system of occupying ownership, accompanied by no legal power to collect rent, but coupled with the abolition of the state-guaranteed monopoly of money, thus making capital readily available,"[ ] would "abolish ground-rent"[ ] and "distribute the increment naturally and quietly among its rightful owners."[ ] in the third and fourth place, free trade and freedom of intellectual products are necessary.[ ] if they were added to freedom in money, "profit on merchandise would become merely the wages of mercantile labor."[ ] free trade "would result in a great reduction in the prices of all articles taxed."[ ] and "the abolition of the patent monopoly would fill its beneficiaries with a wholesome fear of competition which would cause them to be satisfied with pay for their services equal to that which other laborers get for theirs."[ ] if equal liberty is realized in these four spheres, its realization in the sphere of property follows of itself: that is, a distribution of property in which every one is guaranteed the product of his labor.[ ] "economic privilege must disappear as a result of the abolition of political tyranny."[ ] in a society in which there is no more government of man by man, there can be no such things as interest, rent, and profits;[ ] every one is guaranteed the ownership of the product of his labor. "socialism does not say: 'thou shalt not steal!' it says: 'when all men have liberty, thou wilt not steal.'"[ ] . "liberty will abolish all means whereby any laborer can be deprived of any of his product; but it will not abolish the limited inequality between one laborer's product and another's."[ ] "there will remain the slight disparity of products due to superiority of soil and skill. but even this disparity will soon develop a tendency to decrease. under the new economic conditions and enlarged opportunities resulting from freedom of credit and land classes will tend to disappear; great capacities will not be developed in a few at the expense of stunting those of the many; freedom of locomotion will be vastly increased; the toilers will no longer be anchored in such large numbers in the present commercial centres, and thus made subservient to the city landlords; territories and resources never before utilized will become easy of access and development; and under all these influences the disparity above mentioned will decrease to a minimum."[ ] "probably it will never disappear entirely."[ ] "now, because liberty has not the power to bring this about, there are people who say: we will have no liberty, for we must have absolute equality. i am not of them. if i can go through life free and rich, i shall not cry because my neighbor, equally free, is richer. liberty will ultimately make all men rich; it will not make all men equally rich. authority may (and may not) make all men equally rich in purse; it certainly will make them equally poor in all that makes life best worth living."[ ] .--realization _according to tucker, the manner in which the change called for by every one's self-interest takes place is to be that those who have recognized the truth shall first convince a sufficient number of people how necessary the change is to their own interests, and that then they all of them, by refusing obedience, abolish the state, transform law and property, and thus bring about the new condition._ i. first a sufficient number of men are to be convinced that their own interests demand the change. . "a system of anarchy in actual operation implies a previous education of the people in the principles of anarchy."[ ] "the individual must be penetrated with the anarchistic idea and taught to rebel."[ ] "persistent inculcation of the doctrine of equality of liberty, whereby finally the majority will be made to see in regard to existing forms of invasion what they have already been made to see in regard to its obsolete forms,--namely, that they are not seeking equality of liberty at all, but simply the subjection of all others to themselves."[ ] "the irish land league failed because the peasants were acting, not intelligently in obedience to their wisdom, but blindly in obedience to leaders who betrayed them at the critical moment. had the people realized the power they were exercising and understood the economic situation, they would not have resumed the payment of rent at parnell's bidding, and to-day they might have been free. the anarchists do not propose to repeat their mistake. that is why they are devoting themselves entirely to the inculcation of principles, especially of economic principles. in steadfastly pursuing this course regardless of clamor, they alone are laying a sure foundation for the success of the revolution."[ ] . in particular, according to tucker, appropriate means for the inculcation of the anarchistic idea are "speech and the press."[ ]--but what if the freedom of speech and of the press be suppressed? then force is justifiable.[ ] but force is to be used only as a "last resort."[ ] "when a physician sees that his patient's strength is being exhausted so rapidly by the intensity of his agony that he will die of exhaustion before the medical processes inaugurated have a chance to do their curative work, he administers an opiate. but a good physician is always loth to do so, knowing that one of the influences of the opiate is to interfere with and defeat the medical processes themselves. it is the same with the use of force, whether of the mob or of the state, upon diseased society; and not only those who prescribe its indiscriminate use as a sovereign remedy and a permanent tonic, but all who ever propose it as a cure, and even all who would lightly and unnecessarily resort to it, not as a cure, but as an expedient, _are social quacks_."[ ] therefore violence "should be used against the oppressors of mankind only when they have succeeded in hopelessly repressing all peaceful methods of agitation."[ ] "bloodshed in itself is pure loss. when we must have freedom of agitation, and when nothing but bloodshed will secure it, then bloodshed is wise."[ ] "as long as freedom of speech and of the press is not struck down, there should be no resort to physical force in the struggle against oppression. it must not be inferred that, because 'libertas' thinks it may become advisable to use force to secure free speech, it would therefore sanction a bloody deluge as soon as free speech had been struck down in one, a dozen, or a hundred instances. not until the gag had become completely efficacious would 'libertas' advise that last resort, the use of force."[ ] "terrorism is expedient in russia and inexpedient in germany and england."[ ]--in what form is violence to be used? "the days of armed revolution have gone by. it is too easily put down."[ ] "terrorism and assassination"[ ] are necessary, but they "will have to consist of a series of acts of individual dynamiters."[ ] . but, besides speech and the press, there are yet other methods of "propagandism."[ ] such a method is "isolated individual resistance to taxation."[ ] "some year, when an anarchist feels exceptionally strong and independent, when his conduct can impair no serious personal obligations, when on the whole he would a little rather go to jail than not, and when his property is in such shape that he can successfully conceal it, let him declare to the assessor property of a certain value, and then defy the collector to collect. or, if he have no property, let him decline to pay his poll tax. the state will then be put to its trumps. of two things one,--either it will let him alone, and then he will tell his neighbors all about it, resulting the next year in an alarming disposition on their part to keep their own money in their own pockets; or else it will imprison him, and then by the requisite legal processes he will demand and secure all the rights of a civil prisoner and live thus a decently comfortable life until the state shall get tired of supporting him and the increasing number of persons who will follow his example. unless, indeed, the state, in desperation, shall see fit to make its laws regarding imprisonment for taxes more rigorous, and then, if our anarchist be a determined man, we shall find out how far a republican government, 'deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed,' is ready to go to procure that 'consent,'--whether it will stop at solitary confinement in a dark cell or join with the czar of russia in administering torture by electricity. the farther it shall go the better it will be for anarchy, as every student of the history of reform well knows. who shall estimate the power for propagandism of a few cases of this kind, backed by a well-organized force of agitators outside the prison walls?"[ ] another method of propaganda consists in "a practical test of anarchistic principles."[ ] but this cannot take place in isolated communities, but only "in the very heart of existing industrial and social life."[ ] "in some large city fairly representative of the varied interests and characteristics of our heterogeneous civilization let a sufficiently large number of earnest and intelligent anarchists, engaged in nearly all the different trades and professions, combine to carry on their production and distribution on the cost principle, and,"[ ] "setting at defiance the national and state banking prohibitions,"[ ] "to start a bank through which they can obtain a non-interest-bearing currency for the conduct of their commerce and dispose their steadily accumulating capital in new enterprises, the advantages of this system of affairs being open to all who should choose to offer their patronage,--what would be the result? why, soon the whole composite population, wise and unwise, good, bad, and indifferent, would become interested in what was going on under their very eyes, more and more of them would actually take part in it, and in a few years, each man reaping the fruit of his labor and no man able to live in idleness on an income from capital, the whole city would become a great hive of anarchistic workers, prosperous and free individuals."[ ] ii. if a sufficient number of persons are convinced that their self-interest demands the change, then the time is come to abolish the state, transform law and property, and bring about the new condition, by "the social revolution,"[ ] _i. e._ by as general a refusal of obedience as possible. the state "is sheer tyranny, and has no rights which any individual is bound to respect; on the contrary, every individual who understands his rights and values his liberties will do his best to overthrow it."[ ] . many believe "that the state cannot disappear until the individual is perfected. "in saying which, mr. appleton joins hands with those wise persons who admit that anarchy will be practicable when the millennium arrives. no doubt it is true that, if the individual could perfect himself while the barriers to his perfection are standing, the state would afterwards disappear. perhaps, too, he could go to heaven, if he could lift himself by his boot-straps."[ ] "'bullion' thinks that 'civilization consists in teaching men to govern themselves and then letting them do it.' a very slight change suffices to make this stupid statement an entirely accurate one, after which it would read: 'civilization consists in teaching men to govern themselves by letting them do it.'"[ ] therefore it is necessary to "abolish the state"[ ] by "the impending social revolution."[ ] . others have the "fallacious idea that anarchy can be inaugurated by force."[ ] in what way it is to be inaugurated is solely a question of "expediency."[ ] "to brand the policy of terrorism and assassination as immoral is ridiculously weak. 'liberty' does not assume to set any limit on the right of an invaded individual to choose his own methods of defence. the invader, whether an individual or a government, forfeits all claim to consideration from the invaded. this truth is independent of the character of the invasion. it makes no difference in what direction the individual finds his freedom arbitrarily limited; he has a right to vindicate it in any case, and he will be justified in vindicating it by whatever means are available."[ ] "the right to resist oppression by violence is beyond doubt. but its exercise would be unwise unless the suppression of free thought, free speech, and a free press were enforced so stringently that all other means of throwing it off had become hopeless."[ ] "if government should be abruptly and entirely abolished to-morrow, there would probably ensue a series of physical conflicts about land and many other things, ending in reaction and a revival of the old tyranny. but, if the abolition of government shall take place gradually, it will be accompanied by a constant acquisition and steady spreading of social truth."[ ] . the social revolution is to come about by passive resistance; that is, refusal of obedience.[ ] "passive resistance is the most potent weapon ever wielded by man against oppression."[ ] "'passive resistance,' said ferdinand lassalle, with an obtuseness thoroughly german, 'is the resistance which does not resist.' never was there a greater mistake. it is the only resistance which in these days of military discipline meets with any result. there is not a tyrant in the civilized world to-day who would not do anything in his power to precipitate a bloody revolution rather than see himself confronted by any large fraction of his subjects determined not to obey. an insurrection is easily quelled, but no army is willing or able to train its guns on inoffensive people who do not even gather in the street but stay at home and stand back on their rights."[ ] "power feeds on its spoils, and dies when its victims refuse to be despoiled. they can't persuade it to death; they can't vote it to death; they can't shoot it to death; but they can always starve it to death. when a determined body of people, sufficiently strong in numbers and force of character to command respect and make it unsafe to imprison them, shall agree to quietly close their doors in the faces of the tax-collector and the rent-collector, and shall, by issuing their own money in defiance of legal prohibition, at the same time cease paying tribute to the money-lord, government, with all the privileges which it grants and the monopolies which it sustains, will go by the board."[ ] consider "the enormous and utterly irresistible power of a large and intelligent minority, comprising say one-fifth of the population in any given locality," refusing to pay taxes.[ ] "i need do no more than call attention to the wonderfully instructive history of the land league movement in ireland, the most potent and instantly effective revolutionary force the world has ever known so long as it stood by its original policy of 'pay no rent,' and which lost nearly all its strength the day it abandoned that policy. but it was pursued far enough to show that the british government was utterly powerless before it; and it is scarcely too much to say, in my opinion, that, had it been persisted in, there would not to-day be a landlord in ireland. it is easier to resist taxes in this country than it is to resist rent in ireland; and such a policy would be as much more potent here than there as the intelligence of the people is greater, providing always that you can enlist in it a sufficient number of earnest and determined men and women. if one-fifth of the people were to resist taxation, it would cost more to collect their taxes, or try to collect them, than the other four-fifths would consent to pay into the treasury."[ ] footnotes: [ ] [recognized by tucker as the originator of anarchism, so far as any man can claim this title. see bailie's life of warren.] [ ] [at present ( ) a bi-monthly magazine.] [ ] [or rather a selection.] [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. , . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] tucker p. . [this passage refers merely to what it mentions, the alleged intent utterly to destroy society. as to identity of interests, i believe tucker's position is that the interest of society is that of _almost_ every individual.] [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [eltzbacher does not seem to perceive that tucker uses this as a ready-made phrase, coined by herbert spencer and designating spencer's well-known formula that in justice "every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man."] [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] tucker p. . [this citation is again irrelevant, but eltzbacher's misapplication of it does not misrepresent tucker's views.] [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [it should be understood that a great part of "instead of a book" is made up of the reprints of discussions with various opponents whose language is quoted and alluded to.] [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [since the publication of "instead of a book" tucker has had a notable discussion of the child question in "liberty," which, while developing much disagreement on this point among tucker's friends, has at least brought definiteness into the judgments passed upon it.] [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [the wording of this clause is so thoroughly eltzbacher's own that his quotation-marks appear unjustifiable; but the doctrine is tucker's.] [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. , , , , . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [but see below, page , where tucker's page is quoted _verbatim_.] [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [tucker is not likely to think that he is fairly represented without a fuller quotation: "not only the facts, but the law, the justice of the law, its applicability to the given circumstances, and the penalty or damage to be inflicted because of its infraction." he would emphasize "the justice of the law"--a juryman will disregard a law that he disapproves. tucker here prefixes "all rules and laws will be little more than suggestions for the guidance of juries." nevertheless the juryman is to be guided by norm and not by caprice: see "liberty" sept. , , where he says: "i am asked by a correspondent if i would 'passively see a woman throw her baby into the fire as a man throws his newspaper'. it is highly probable that i would interfere in such a case. but it is as probable, and perhaps more so, that i would personally interfere to prevent the owner of a masterpiece by titian from applying the torch to the canvas. my interference in the former case no more invalidates the mother's property right in her child than my interference in the latter case would invalidate the property right of the owner of the painting. if i interfere in either case, i am an invader, acting in obedience to my injured feelings. as such i deserve to be punished. i consider that it would be the duty of a policeman in the service of the defence association to arrest me for assault. on my arraignment i should plead guilty, and it would be the duty of the jury to impose a penalty on me. i might ask for a light sentence on the strength of the extenuating circumstances, and i believe that my prayer would be heeded. but, if such invasions as mine were persisted in, it would become the duty of the jury to impose penalties sufficiently severe to put a stop to them."] [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [compare the exact words of this passage as quoted on page below.] [ ] _ib._ p. . [not _verbatim_.] [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. , . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] tucker pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [the words are lucien v. pinney's, but tucker quotes them approvingly.] [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] tucker pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. [ -] . [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] tucker p. . [see my note below, page .] [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [or rather p. , and sundry other passages; on p. see my note below, page .] [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] tucker pp. - . [all this is a discussion of the characteristics which the state of to-day would have to possess if it were to deserve to be characterized as a voluntary association. the same conditions must of course be fulfilled by any future voluntary association; but it does not follow that all the points mentioned are such as anarchistic associations would have most occasion to contemplate.] [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [for context and limitations see page of the present book.] [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [it is not necessary that taxation exist, though it may be altogether presumable that it will. still less is it necessary that the taxation be considerable in amount.] [ ] tucker pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [tucker himself would assuredly have given the emphasis of "especially" to the mutual banks. the defensive associations receive especially frequent mention because of the need of incessantly answering the objection "if we lose the state, who will protect us against ruffians?" but tucker certainly expects that the defensive association will from the start fill a much smaller sphere in every respect than the present police. see _e. g._ "instead of a book" p. .] [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [but the restraint of aggressions against those with whom the association has no contract, and also the possible refusal to pay any attention to some particular class of aggressions which it may be thought best to let alone, are optional; in these respects the association will do what seems best to serve the interests (including the pleasure, altruistic or other) of its members; those who do not approve the policy adopted may quit the association if they like.] [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ p. [where tucker explicitly refuses to approve this statement unless he is allowed to add the caveat "if by the words wrong doing is meant invasion"]. [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [but accompanied by a disapproval of the ordinary practice of capital punishment.] [ ] _ib._ p. [where the particular torture under discussion is failure to "feed, clothe, and make comfortable" the prisoners]. [ ] _ib._ p. . [but "anarchism, as such, neither believes nor disbelieves in jury trial; it is a matter of expediency," pp. - .] [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. , . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [this is given as an answer to the question here quoted next, about "surplus wealth."] [ ] _ib._ p. . [quoted from n. y. "truth."] [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [not _verbatim_.] [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [this is given as the view of proudhon and warren; the next sentence states tucker's belief that for perfect correctness it should be modified by admitting that a small fraction of ground-rent, tending constantly to a minimum, would persist even then, but would be no cause for "serious alarm."] [ ] tucker pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - , . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [quoted, with express approval, from a. b. brown.] [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [meaning, of course, john stuart mill's "unearned increment" in the value of land.] [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] tucker pp. , . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . ["socialism" is here used as including anarchism; and tucker prefers so to use the word.] [ ] _ib._ p. [ -] . [ ] tucker pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] tucker pp. , . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. [where the subject is not "violence" of all sorts great and small, but "terrorism and assassination"]. [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. [with limiting context quoted above, page ]. [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. [where nothing is said as to whether the work is the better or the worse for being "isolated"]. [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ pp. , . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] tucker p. . [ ] _ib._ p. [where the course it must take is somewhat more precisely described]. [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] tucker pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] tucker pp. - . [this chapter should be completed by a mention of tucker's doctrine that we must expect anarchy to be established by gradually getting rid of one oppression after another till at last all the domination of violence shall have disappeared. see, for instance, "liberty" for december, : "the fact is that anarchist society was started thousands of years ago, when the first glimmer of the idea of liberty dawned upon the human mind, and has been advancing ever since,--not steadily advancing, to be sure, but fitfully, with an occasional reversal of the current. mr. byington looks upon the time when a jury of anarchists shall sit, as a point not far from the beginning of the history of anarchy's growth, whereas i look upon that time as a point very near the end of that history. the introduction of more anarchy into our economic life will have made marriage a thing of the past long before the first drawing of a jury of anarchists to pass upon any contract whatever." also "instead of a book" p. : "anarchists work for the abolition of the state, but by this they mean not its overthrow, but, as proudhon put it, its dissolution in the economic organism. this being the case, the question before us is not, as mr. donisthorpe supposes, what measures and means of interference we are justified in instituting, but which ones of those already existing we should first lop off." tucker has lately been laying more emphasis on this view than on the more programme-like propositions cited by eltzbacher, which date from the first six years of the publication of "liberty." indeed, i am sure i remember that somewhere lately, being challenged as to the feasibility of some of the latter, he admitted that those precise forms of action might perhaps not be adequate to bring the state to its end, and added that the end of the state is at present too remote to allow us to specify the processes by which it must ultimately be brought about. all this, however, does not mean that tucker's faith in passive resistance as the most potent instrument discoverable both for propaganda and for the practical winning of liberty has grown weaker; he has no more given up this principle than he has given up the plan of propaganda by discussion.] [illustration] chapter ix tolstoi's teaching .--general i. lef nikolayevitch tolstoi was born in at yasnaya polyana, district of krapivna, government of tula. from to he studied in kazan at first oriental languages, then jurisprudence; from to , in st. petersburg, jurisprudence. after a lengthy stay at yasnaya polyana, he entered an artillery regiment in the caucasus, in ; he became an officer, remained in the caucasus till , then served in the crimean war, and left the army in . tolstoi now lived at first in st. petersburg. in he took a lengthy tour in germany, france, italy, and switzerland. after his return he lived mostly in moscow till . in - he traveled in germany, france, italy, england, and belgium; in brussels he made the acquaintance of proudhon. since tolstoi has lived almost uninterruptedly at yasnaya polyana, as at once agriculturist and author. tolstoi has published numerous works; his works up to are mostly stories, among which the two novels "war and peace" and "anna karenina" are notable; his later works are mostly of a philosophical nature. . of special importance for tolstoi's teaching about law, the state, and property are his works "my confession" ( ), "the gospel in brief" ( ), "what i believe" ( ) [also known in english as "my religion"], "what shall we do then?" ( ), "on life" ( ), "the kingdom of god is within you; or, christianity not a mystical doctrine, but a new life-conception" ( ). . tolstoi does not call his teaching about law, the state, and property "anarchism." he designates as "anarchism" the teaching which sets up as its goal a life without government and wishes to see this realized by the application of force.[ ] .--basis _according to tolstoi our supreme law is love; from this he derives the commandment not to resist evil by force._ . tolstoi designates "christianity"[ ] as his basis; but by christianity he means not the doctrine of one of the christian churches, neither the orthodox nor the catholic nor that of any of the protestant bodies,[ ] but the pure teaching of christ.[ ] "strange as it may sound, the churches have always been not merely alien but downright hostile to the teaching of christ, and they must needs be so. the churches are not, as many think, institutions that are based on a christian origin and have only erred a little from the right way; the churches as such, as associations that assert their infallibility, are anti-christian institutions. the christian churches and christianity have no fellowship except in name; nay, the two are utterly opposite and hostile elements. the churches are arrogance, violence, usurpation, rigidity, death; christianity is humility, penitence, submissiveness, progress, life."[ ] the church has "so transformed christ's teaching to suit the world that there no longer resulted from it any demands, and that men could go on living as they had hitherto lived. the church yielded to the world, and, having yielded, followed it. the world did everything that it chose, and left the church to hobble after as well as it could with its teachings about the meaning of life. the world led its life, contrary to christ's teaching in each and every point, and the church contrived subtleties to demonstrate that in living contrary to christ's law men were living in harmony with it. and it ended in the world's beginning to lead a life worse than the life of the heathen, and the church's daring not only to justify such a life but even to assert that this was precisely what corresponded to christ's teaching."[ ] particularly different from christ's teaching is the church "creed,"[ ]--that is, the totality of the utterly incomprehensible and therefore useless "dogmas."[ ] "of a god, external creator, origin of all origins, we know nothing";[ ] "god is the spirit in man,"[ ] "his conscience,"[ ] "the knowledge of life";[ ] "every man recognizes in himself a free rational spirit independent of the flesh: this spirit is what we call god."[ ] christ was a man,[ ] "the son of an unknown father; as he did not know his father, in his childhood he called god his father";[ ] and he was a son of god as to his spirit, as every man is a son of god,[ ] he embodied "man confessing his sonship of god."[ ] those who "assert that christ professed to redeem with his blood mankind fallen by adam, that god is a trinity, that the holy spirit descended upon the apostles and that it passes to the priest by the laying on of hands, that seven mysteries are necessary to salvation, and so forth,"[ ] "preach doctrines utterly alien to christ."[ ] "never did christ with a single word attest the personal resurrection and the immortality of man beyond the grave,"[ ] which indeed is "a very low and coarse idea";[ ] the ascension and the resurrection are to be counted among "the most objectionable miracles."[ ] tolstoi accepts christ's teaching as valid not on the ground of faith in a revelation, but solely for its rationality. faith in a revelation "was the main reason why the teaching was at first misunderstood and later mutilated outright."[ ] faith in christ is "not a trusting in something related to christ, but the knowledge of the truth."[ ] "'there is a law of evolution, and therefore one must live only his own personal life and leave the rest to the law of evolution,' is the last word of the refined culture of our day, and, at the same time, of that obscuration of consciousness to which the cultured classes are a prey."[ ] but "human life, from getting up in the morning to going to bed at night, is an unbroken series of actions; man must daily choose out from hundreds of actions possible to him those actions which he will perform; therefore, man cannot live without something to guide the choice of his actions."[ ] now, reason alone can offer him this guide. "reason is that law, recognized by man, according to which his life is to be accomplished."[ ] "if there is no higher reason,--and such there is not, nor can anything prove its existence,--then my reason is the supreme judge of my life."[ ] "the ever-increasing subjugation"[ ] "of the bestial personality to the rational consciousness"[ ] is "the true life,"[ ] is "life"[ ] as opposed to mere "existence."[ ] "it used to be said, 'do not argue, but believe in the duty that we have prescribed to you; reason will deceive you; faith alone will bring you the true happiness of life.' and the man exerted himself to believe, and he believed. but intercourse with other men showed him that in many cases these believed something quite different, and asserted that this other faith bestowed the highest happiness. it has become unavoidable to decide the question which of the many faiths is the right one; and only reason can decide this."[ ] "if the buddhist who has learned to know islam remains a buddhist, he is no longer a buddhist in faith but in reason. as soon as another faith comes up before him, and with it the question whether to reject his faith or this other, reason alone can give him an answer. if he has learned to know islam and has still remained a buddhist, then rational conviction has taken the place of his former blind faith in buddha."[ ] "man recognizes truth only by reason, not by faith."[ ] "the law of reason reveals itself to men gradually."[ ] "eighteen hundred years ago there appeared in the midst of the pagan roman world a remarkable new teaching, which was not comparable to any that had preceded it, and which was ascribed to a man called christ."[ ] this teaching contains "the very strictest, purest, and completest"[ ] apprehension of the law of reason to which "the human mind has hitherto raised itself."[ ] christ's teaching is "reason itself";[ ] it must be accepted by men because it alone gives those rules of life "without which no man ever has lived or can live, if he would live as a man,--that is, with reason."[ ] man has, "on the basis of reason, no right to refuse allegiance to it."[ ] . christ's teaching sets up love as the supreme law for us. what is love? "what men who do not understand life call 'love' is only the giving to certain conditions of their personal comfort a preference over any others. when the man who does not understand life says that he loves his wife or child or friend, he means by this only that his wife's, child's, or friend's presence in his life heightens his personal comfort."[ ] "true love is always renunciation of one's personal comfort"[ ] for a neighbor's sake. true love "is a condition of wishing well to all men, such as commonly characterizes children but is produced in grown men only by self-abnegation."[ ] "what living man does not know the happy feeling, even if he has felt it only once and in most cases only in earliest childhood, of that emotion in which one wishes to love everybody, neighbors and father and mother and brothers and bad men and enemies and dog and horse and grass; one wishes only one thing, that it were well with all, that all were happy; and still more does one wish that he were himself capable of making all happy, one wishes he might give himself, give his whole life, that all might be well off and enjoy themselves. just this, this alone, is that love in which man's life consists."[ ] true love is "an ideal of full, infinite, divine perfection."[ ] "divine perfection is the asymptote of human life, toward which it constantly strives, to which it draws nearer and nearer, but which can be attained only at infinity."[ ] "true life, according to previous teachings, consists in the fulfilling of commandments, the fulfilling of the law; according to christ's teaching it consists in the maximum approach to the divine perfection which has been exhibited, and which is felt in himself by every man."[ ] according to the teaching of christ, love is our highest law. "the commandment of love is the expression of the inmost heart of the teaching."[ ] there are "three conceptions of life, and only three: first the personal or bestial, second the social or heathenish,"[ ] "third the christian or divine."[ ] the man of the bestial conception of life, "the savage, acknowledges life only in himself; the mainspring of his life is personal enjoyment. the heathenish, social man recognizes life no longer in himself alone, but in a community of persons, in the tribe, the family, the race, the state; the mainspring of his life is reputation. the man of the divine conception of life acknowledges life no longer in his person, nor yet in a community of persons, but in the prime source of eternal, never-dying life--in god; the mainspring of his life is love."[ ] that love is our supreme law according to christ's teaching means nothing else than that it is such according to reason. as early as tolstoi gives utterance to the thought "that love and beneficence are truth is the only truth on earth,"[ ] and much later, in , he calls love "man's only rational activity,"[ ] that which "resolves all the contradictions of human life."[ ] love abolishes the insensate activity directed to the filling of the bottomless tub of our bestial personality,[ ] does away with the foolish fight between beings that strive after their own happiness,[ ] gives a meaning independent of space and time to life, which without it would flow off without meaning in the face of death.[ ] . from the law of love christ's teaching derives the commandment not to resist evil by force. "'resist not evil' means 'never resist the evil man', that is, 'never do violence to another', that is, 'never commit an act that is contrary to love'."[ ] christ expressly derived this commandment from the law of love. he gave numerous commandments, among which five in the sermon on the mount are notable; "these commandments do not constitute the teaching, they only form one of the numberless stages of approach to perfection";[ ] they "are all negative, and only show"[ ] what "at mankind's present age"[ ] we "have already the full possibility of not doing, along the road by which we are striving to reach perfection."[ ] the first of the five commandments of the sermon on the mount reads "keep the peace with all, and if the peace is broken use every effort to restore it";[ ] the second says "let the man take only one woman and the woman only one man, and let neither forsake the other under any pretext";[ ] the third, "make no vows";[ ] the fourth, "endure injury, return not evil for evil";[ ] the fifth, "break not the peace to benefit thy people."[ ] among these commandments the fourth is the most important; it is enunciated in the fifth chapter of matthew, verses - : "ye have heard that it was said, eye for eye, and tooth for tooth. but i say to you, resist not evil."[ ] tolstoi tells how to him this passage "became the key of the whole."[ ] "i needed only to take these words simply and downrightly, as they were spoken, and at once everything in christ's whole teaching that had seemed confused to me, not only in the sermon on the mount but in the gospels altogether, was comprehensible to me, and everything that had been contradictory agreed, and the main gist appeared no longer useless but a necessity; everything formed a whole, and the one confirmed the other past a doubt, like the pieces of a shattered column that one has rightly put together."[ ] the principle of non-resistance binds together "the entire teaching into a whole; but only when it is no mere dictum but a peremptory rule, a law."[ ] "it is really the key that opens everything, but only when it goes into the inmost of the lock."[ ] we must necessarily derive the commandment not to resist evil by force from the law of love. for this demands that either a sure, indisputable criterion of evil be found, or all violent resistance to evil be abandoned.[ ] "hitherto it has been the business now of the pope, now of an emperor or king, now of an assembly of elected representatives, now of the whole nation, to decide what was to be rated as an evil and combated by violent resistance. but there have always been men, both without and within the state, who have not acknowledged as binding upon them either the decisions that were given out as divine commandments or the decisions of the men who were clothed with sanctity or the institutions that were supposed to represent the will of the people; men who regarded as good what to the powers that be appeared evil, and who, in opposition to the force of these powers, likewise made use of force. the men who were clothed with sanctity regarded as an evil what appeared good to the men and institutions that were clothed with secular authority, and the combat grew ever sharper and sharper. thus it came to what it has come to to-day, to the complete obviousness of the fact that there is not and cannot be a generally binding external definition of evil."[ ] but from this follows the necessity of accepting the solution given by christ.[ ] according to tolstoi, the precept of non-resistance must not be taken "as if it forbade every combat against evil."[ ] it forbids only the combating of evil by force.[ ] but this it forbids in the broadest sense. it refers, therefore, not only to evil practised against ourselves, but also to evil practised against our fellow-men;[ ] when peter cut off the ear of the high priest's servant, he was defending "not himself but his beloved divine teacher, but christ forbade him outright and said 'all who take the sword will perish by the sword.'"[ ] nor does the precept say that only a part of men are under obligation "to submit without a contest to what is prescribed to them by certain authorities,"[ ] but it forbids "everybody, therefore even those in whom power is vested, and these especially, to use force in any case against anybody."[ ] .--law i. _for love's sake, particularly on the ground of the commandment not to resist evil by force, tolstoi rejects law; not unconditionally, indeed, but as an institution for the more highly developed peoples of our time._ to be sure, he speaks only of enacted laws; but he means all law,[ ] for he rejects on principle every norm based on the will of men,[ ] upheld by human force,[ ] especially by courts,[ ] capable of deviating from the moral law,[ ] of being different in different territories,[ ] and of being at any time arbitrarily changed.[ ] perhaps once upon a time law was better than its non-existence. law is "upheld by violence";[ ] on the other hand, it guards against violence of individuals to each other;[ ] perhaps there was once a time when the former violence was less than the latter.[ ] now, at any rate, this time is past for us; manners have grown milder; the men of our time "acknowledge the commandments of philanthropy, of sympathy with one's neighbor, and ask only the possibility of quiet, peaceable life."[ ] law offends against the commandment not to resist evil by force.[ ] christ declared this. the words "judge not, that ye be not judged" (matt. . ), "condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned" (luke . ), "mean not only 'do not judge your neighbor in words,' but also 'do not condemn him by act; do not judge your neighbor according to your human laws by your courts.'"[ ] christ here speaks not merely "of every individual's personal relation to the court,"[ ] but rejects "the administration of law itself."[ ] "he says, 'you believe that your laws better the evil; they only make it greater; there is only one way to check evil, and this consists in returning good for evil, doing good to all without discrimination.'"[ ] and "my heart and my reason"[ ] say to me the same as christ says. but this is not the only objection to be made against law. "authority condemns in the rigid form of law only what public opinion has in most cases long since disallowed and condemned; withal, public opinion disallows and condemns all actions that are contrary to the moral law, but the law condemns and prosecutes only the actions included within certain quite definite and very narrow limits, and thereby, in a measure, justifies all similar actions that do not come within these limits. ever since moses's day public opinion has regarded selfishness, sensuality, and cruelty as evils and has condemned it; it has repudiated and condemned every form of selfishness, not only the appropriation of others' property by force, fraud, or guile, but exploitation altogether; it has condemned every sort of unchastity, be it with a concubine, a slave, a divorced woman, or even with one's own wife; it has condemned all cruelty, as it finds expression in the ill-treating, starving, and killing not only of men but of animals too. but the law prosecutes only particular forms of selfishness, like theft and fraud, and only particular forms of unchastity and cruelty, like marital infidelity, murder, and mayhem; therefore, in a measure, it permits all the forms of selfishness, unchastity, and cruelty that do not come under its narrow definitions inspired by a false conception."[ ] "the jew could easily submit to his laws, for he did not doubt that they were written by god's finger; likewise the roman, as he thought they originated from the nymph egeria; and man in general so long as he regarded the princes who gave him laws as god's anointed, or believed that the legislating assemblies had the wish and the capacity to make the best laws."[ ] but "as early as the time when christianity made its appearance men were beginning to comprehend that human laws were written by men; that men, whatever outward splendor may enshroud them, cannot be infallible, and that erring men do not become infallible even by getting together and calling themselves 'senate' or something else."[ ] "we know how laws are made; we have all been behind the scenes; we all know that the laws are products of selfishness, deception, partisanship, that true justice does not and cannot dwell in them."[ ] therefore "the recognition of any special laws is a sign of the crassest ignorance."[ ] ii. _love requires that in place of law it itself be the law for men._ from this it follows that instead of law christ's commandments should be our rule of action.[ ] but this is "the kingdom of god on earth."[ ] "when the day and the hour of the kingdom of god appear, depends on men themselves alone."[ ] "each must only begin to do what we must do, and cease to do what we must not do, and the near future will bring the promised kingdom of god."[ ] "if only everybody would bear witness, in the measure of his strength, to the truth that he knows, or at least not defend as truth the untruth in which he lives, then in this very year there would take place such changes toward the setting up of truth on earth as we dare not dream of for centuries to come."[ ] "only a little effort more, and the galilean has won."[ ] the kingdom of god is "not outside in the world, but in man's soul."[ ] "the kingdom of god cometh not with outward show; neither will men say, 'lo here!' or, 'there!' for, behold, the kingdom of god is within you (luke . )."[ ] the kingdom of god is nothing else than the following of christ's commandments, especially the five commandments of the sermon on the mount,[ ] which tell us how we must act in our present stage in order to correspond to the ideal of love as much as possible,[ ] and which command us to keep the peace and do everything for its restoration when it is broken, to remain true to one another as man and wife, to make no vows, to forgive injury and not return evil for evil, and, finally, not to break the peace with anybody for our people's sake.[ ] but what form will outward life take in the kingdom of god? "the disciple of christ will be poor; that is, he will not live in the city but in the country; he will not sit at home, but work in wood and field, see the sunshine, the earth, the sky, and the beasts; he will not worry over what he is to eat to tempt his appetite, and what he can do to help his digestion, but will be hungry three times a day; he will not roll on soft cushions and think upon deliverance from insomnia, but sleep; he will be sick, suffer, and die like all men--the poor who are sick and die seem to have an easier time of it than the rich--";[ ] he "will live in free fellowship with all men";[ ] "the kingdom of god on earth is the peace of men with each other; thus it appeared to the prophets, and thus it appears to every human heart."[ ] .--the state ii. _together with law tolstoi necessarily has to reject also, for the more highly developed nations of our time, the legal institution of the state._ "perhaps there was once a time when, in a low state of morality with a general inclination of men to mutual violence, the existence of a power limiting this violence was advantageous--that is, in which the state violence was less than that of individuals against each other. but such an advantage of state violence over its non-existence could not last; the more the individuals' inclination to violence decreased and manners grew milder, and the more the governments degenerated by having nothing to check them, the more worthless did state violence grow. in this change--in the moral evolution of the masses on the one hand and the degeneration of the governments on the other--lies the whole history of the last two thousand years."[ ] "i cannot prove either the general necessity of the state or its general perniciousness,"[ ] "i know only that on the one hand the state is no longer necessary for me, and that on the other hand i can no longer do the things that are necessary for the existence of the state."[ ] "christianity in its true significance abolishes the state,"[ ] annihilates all government.[ ] the state offends against love, particularly against the commandment not to resist evil by force.[ ] and not only this; in founding a dominion[ ] the state furthermore offends against the principle that for love "all men are god's sons and there is equality among them all";[ ] it is therefore to be rejected even aside from the violence on which it is based as a legal institution. "that the christian teaching has an eye only to the redemption of the individual, and does not relate to public questions and state affairs, is a bold and unfounded assertion."[ ] "to every honest, earnest man in our time it must be clear that true christianity--the doctrine of humility, forgiveness, love--is incompatible with the state and its haughtiness, its deeds of violence, its capital punishments and wars."[ ] "the state is an idol";[ ] its objectionableness is independent of its form, be this "absolute monarchy, the convention, the consulate, the empire of a first or third napoleon or yet of a boulanger, constitutional monarchy, the commune, or the republic."[ ]--tolstoi carries this out into detail. . the state is the rule of the bad, raised to the highest pitch. the state is rule. government in the state is "an association of men who do violence to the rest."[ ] "all governments, the despotic and the liberal alike, have in our time become what herzen has so aptly called a jenghis khan with telegraphs."[ ] the men in whom the power is vested "practise violence not in order to overcome evil, but solely for their advantage or from caprice; and the other men submit to the violence not because they believe that it is practised for their good,--that is, in order to liberate them from evil,--but only because they cannot free themselves from it."[ ] "if nice is united with france, lorraine with germany, bohemia with austria, if poland is divided, if both ireland and india are subjected to the english dominion, if people fight with china, kill the africans, expel the chinese from america, and persecute the jews in russia, it is not because this is good or necessary or useful for men and the opposite would be evil, but only because it so pleases those in whom the power is vested."[ ] the state is the rule of the bad.[ ] "'if the state power were to be annihilated, the wicked would rule over the less wicked,' say the defenders of state rule."[ ] but has the power, when it has passed from some men to some others in the state, really always come to the better men? "when louis the sixteenth, robespierre, napoleon, came to power, who ruled then, the better or the worse? when did the better rule, when the power was vested in the versaillese or in the communards, when charles the first or cromwell stood at the head of the government? when peter the third was czar, and then when after his murder the authority of czar was exercised in one part of russia by catharine and in another by pugatcheff, who was wicked then and who was good? all men who find themselves in power assert that their power is necessary in order that the wicked may not do violence to the good, and regard it as self-evident that they are the good and are giving the rest of the good protection against the bad."[ ] but in reality those who grasp and hold the power cannot possibly be the better.[ ] "in order to obtain and retain power, one must love it. but the effort after power is not apt to be coupled with goodness, but with the opposite qualities, pride, craft, and cruelty. without exalting self and abasing others, without hypocrisy, lying, prisons, fortresses, penalties, killing, no power can arise or hold its own."[ ] "it is downright ridiculous to speak of christians in power."[ ] to this it is to be added "that the possession of power depraves men."[ ] "the men who have the power cannot but misuse it; they must infallibly be unsettled by such frightful authority."[ ] "however many means men have invented to hinder the possessors of power from subordinating the welfare of the whole to their own advantage, hitherto not one of these means has worked. everybody knows that those in whose hands is the power--be they emperors, ministers, chiefs of police, or common policemen--are, just because the power is in their hands, more inclined to immorality, to the subordinating of the general welfare to their advantage, than those who have no power; nor can it be otherwise."[ ] the state is the rule of the bad, raised to the highest pitch. we shall always find "that the scheming of the possessors of authority--nay, their unconscious effort--is directed toward weakening the victims of their authority as much as possible; for, the weaker the victim is, the more easily can he be held down."[ ] "to-day there is only one sphere of human activity left that has not been conquered by the authority of government: the sphere of the family, of housekeeping, private life, labor. and even this sphere, thanks to the fighting of the communists and socialists, the governments are already beginning to invade, so that soon, if the reformers have their way, work and rest, housing, clothing, and food, will likewise be fixed and regulated by the governments."[ ] "the most fearful band of robbers is not so horrible as a state organization. every robber chief is at any rate limited by the fact that the men who make up his band retain at least a part of human liberty, and can refuse to commit acts which are repugnant to their consciences."[ ] but in the state there is no such limit; "no crime is so horrible that it will not be committed by the officials and the army at the will of him--boulanger, pugatcheff, napoleon--who accidentally stands at the head."[ ] . the rule in the state is based on physical force. every government has for its prop the fact that there are in the state armed men who are ready to execute the government's will by physical force, a class "educated to kill those whose killing the authorities command."[ ] such men are the police[ ] and especially the army.[ ] the army is nothing else than a collectivity of "disciplined murderers",[ ] its training is "instruction in murdering",[ ] its victories are "deeds of murder."[ ] "the army has always formed the basis of power, and does to this day. the power is always in the hands of those who command the army, and, from the roman cæsars to the russian and german emperors, all possessors of power have always cared first and foremost for their armies."[ ] in the first place, the army upholds the government's rule against external assaults. it protects it against having the rule taken from it by another government.[ ] war is nothing but a contest of two or more governments for the rule over their subjects. it is "impossible to establish international peace in a rational way, by treaty or arbitration, so long as the insensate and pernicious subjection of nations to governments continues to exist."[ ] in consequence of this importance of armies "every state is compelled to increase its army to face the others, and this increase has the effect of a contagion, as montesquieu observed a hundred and fifty years since."[ ] but, if one thinks armies are kept by governments only for external defence, he forgets "that governments need armies particularly to protect them against their oppressed and enslaved subjects."[ ] "in the german reichstag lately, in reply to the question why money was needed in order to increase the pay of the petty officers, the chancellor made the direct statement that reliable petty officers were necessary for the combating of socialism. caprivi merely said out loud what everybody knows, carefully as it is concealed from the peoples,--the reason why the french kings and the popes kept swiss and scots, why in russia the recruits are so introduced that the interior regiments get their contingents from the frontiers and the frontier regiments theirs from the interior. caprivi told, by accident, what everybody knows or at least feels,--to wit, that the existing order exists not because it must exist or because the people wills its existence, but because the government's force, the army with its bribed petty-officers and officers and generals, keeps it up."[ ] . the rule in the state is based on the physical force of the ruled. it is peculiar to government that it demands from the citizens the very force on which it is based, and that consequently in the state "all the citizens are their own oppressors."[ ] the government demands from the citizens both force and the supporting of force. here belongs the obligation, general in russia, to take an oath at the czar's accession to the throne, for by this oath one vows obedience to the authorities,--that is, to men who are devoted to violence; likewise the obligation to pay taxes, for the taxes are used for works of violence, and the compulsory use of passports, for by taking out a passport one acknowledges his dependence on the state's institution of violence; withal the obligation to testify in court and to take part in the court as juryman, for every court is the fulfilment of the commandment of revenge; furthermore, the obligation to police service which in russia rests upon all the country people, for this service demands that we do violence to our brother and torment him; and above all the general obligation to military service,--that is, the obligation to be executioners and to prepare ourselves for service as executioners.[ ] the unchristianness of the state comes to light most plainly in the general obligation to military service: "every man has to take in hand deadly weapons, a gun, a knife; and, if he does not have to kill, at least he does have to load the gun and sharpen the knife,--that is, be ready for killing."[ ] but how comes it that the citizens fulfil these demands of the government, though the government is based on this very fulfilment, and so mutually oppress each other? this is possible only by "a highly artificial organization, created with the help of scientific progress, in which all men are bewitched into a circle of violence from which they cannot free themselves. at present this circle consists of four means of influence; they are all connected and hold each other, like the links of a chain."[ ] the first means is "what is best described as the hypnotization of the people."[ ] this hypnotization leads men to "the erroneous opinion that the existing order is unchangeable and must be upheld, while in reality it is unchangeable only by its being upheld."[ ] the hypnotization is accomplished "by fomenting the two forms of superstition called religion and patriotism";[ ] it "begins its influence even in childhood, and continues it till death."[ ] with reference to this hypnotization one may say that state authority is based on the fraudulent misleading of public opinion.[ ] the second means consists in "bribery; that is, in taking from the laboring populace its wealth, by money taxes, and dividing this among the officials, who, for this pay, must maintain and strengthen the enslavement of the people."[ ] the officials "more or less believe in the unchangeability of the existing order, mainly because it benefits them."[ ] with reference to this bribery one may say that state authority is based on the selfishness of those to whom it guarantees profitable positions.[ ] the third means is "intimidation. it consists in setting down the present state order--of whatever sort, be it a free republican order or be it the most grossly despotic--as something sacred and unchangeable, and imposing the most frightful penalties upon every attempt to change it."[ ] finally, the fourth means is to "separate a certain part of all the men whom they have stupefied and bewitched by the three first means, and subject these men to special stronger forms of stupefaction and bestialization, so that they become will-less tools of every brutality and cruelty that the government sees fit to resolve upon."[ ] this is done in the army, to which, at present, all young men belong by virtue of the general obligation to military service.[ ] "with this the circle of violence is made complete. intimidation, bribery, hypnosis, bring men to enlist as soldiers. the soldiers, in turn, afford the possibility of punishing men, plundering them in order to bribe officials with the money, hypnotizing them, and thus bringing them into the ranks of the very soldiers on whom the power for all this is based."[ ] ii. _love requires that a social life based solely on its commandments take the place of the state._ "to-day every man who thinks, however little, sees the impossibility of keeping on with the life hitherto lived, and the necessity of determining new forms of life."[ ] "the christian humanity of our time must unconditionally renounce the heathen forms of life that it condemns, and set up a new life on the christian bases that it recognizes."[ ] . even after the state is done away, men are to live in societies. but what is to hold them together in these societies? not a promise, at any rate. christ commands us to make "no vows,"[ ] to "promise men nothing."[ ] "the christian cannot promise that he will do or not do a particular thing at a particular hour, because he cannot know what the law of love, which it is the meaning of his life to obey, will demand of him at that hour."[ ] and still less can he "give his word to fulfil somebody's will, without knowing what the substance of this will is to be";[ ] by the mere fact of such a promise he would "make it manifest that the inward divine law is no longer the sole law of his life";[ ] "one cannot serve two masters."[ ] men are to be held together in societies in future by the mental influence which the men who have made progress in knowledge exert upon the less advanced. "mental influence is such a way of working upon a man that by it his wishes change and coincide with what is wanted of him; the man who yields to a mental influence acts according to his own wishes."[ ] now, the force "by which men can live in societies"[ ] is found in the mental influence which the men who have made progress in knowledge exert upon the less advanced, in the "characteristic of little-thinking men, that they subordinate themselves to the directions of those who stand on a higher level of knowledge."[ ] in consequence of this characteristic "a body of men put themselves under the same rational principles, the minority consciously, because the principles agree with the demands of their reason, and the majority unconsciously, because the principles have become public opinion."[ ] "in this subordination there is nothing irrational or self-contradictory."[ ] . but in the future societary condition how shall the functions which the state at present performs be performed? here people usually have three things in mind.[ ] first, protection against the bad men in our midst.[ ] "but who are the bad men among us? if there once were such men three or four centuries ago, when people still paraded warlike arts and equipments and looked upon killing as a brilliant deed, they are gone to-day anyhow; nobody any longer carries weapons, everybody acknowledges the commands of philanthropy. but, if by the men from whom the state must protect us we mean the criminals, then we know that they are not special creatures like the wolf among the sheep, but just such men as all of us, who like committing crimes as little as we do; we know that the activity of governments with their cruel forms of punishment, which do not correspond to the present stage of morality, their prisons, tortures, gallows, guillotines, contributes more to the barbarizing of the people than to their culture, and hence rather to the multiplication than to the diminution of such criminals."[ ] if we are christians and start from the principle that "what our life exists for is the serving of others, then no one will be foolish enough to rob men that serve him of their means of support or to kill them. miklucho-maclay settled among the wildest so-called 'savages', and they not only left him alive but loved him and submitted to his authority, solely because he did not fear them, asked nothing of them, and did them good."[ ] secondly, the question is asked how in the future societary condition we can find protection against external enemies.[ ] but we do know "that the nations of europe profess the principles of liberty and fraternity, and therefore need no protection against each other; but, if it were a protection against the barbarians that was meant, a thousandth part of the armies that are now kept up would suffice. state authority not merely leaves in existence the danger of hostile attacks, but even itself provokes this danger."[ ] but, "if there existed a community of christians who did evil to nobody and gave to others all the superfluous products of their labor, then no enemy, neither the german nor the turk nor the savage, would kill or vex such men; all one could do would be to take from them what they were ready to give voluntarily without distinguishing between russians, germans, turks, and savages."[ ] thirdly, the question is asked how in the future societary condition institutions for education, popular culture, religion, commerce, etc. are to be possible.[ ] "perhaps there was once a time when men lived so far apart, when the means for coming together and exchanging thoughts were so undeveloped, that people could not, without a state centre, discuss and agree on any matter either of trade and economy or of culture. but to-day this separation no longer exists; the means of intercourse have developed extraordinarily; for the forming of societies, associations, corporations, for the gathering of congresses and the creation of economic and political institutions, governments are not needed; nay, in most cases they are rather a hindrance than a help toward the attainment of such ends."[ ] . but what form will men's life together in the future societary condition take in detail? "the future will be as circumstances and men shall make it."[ ] we are not at this moment able to get perfectly clear ideas of it.[ ] "men say, 'what will the new orders be like, that are to take the place of the present ones? so long as we do not know what form our life will take in future, we will not go forward, we will not stir from this spot.'"[ ] "if columbus had gone to making such observations, he would never have weighed anchor. it was insanity to steer across an ocean that no man had ever yet sailed upon toward a land whose existence was a question. with this insanity, he discovered the new world. it would certainly be more convenient if nations had nothing to do but move out of one ready-furnished mansion into another and a better; only, by bad luck, there is nobody there to furnish the new quarters."[ ] but what disquiets men in their imagining of the future is "less the question 'what will be?' they are tormented by the question 'how are we to live without all the familiar conditions of our existence, that are called science, art, civilization, culture?'"[ ] "but all these, bear in mind, are only forms in which truth appears. the change that lies before us will be an approach to the truth and its realization. how can the forms in which truth appears be brought to naught by an approach to the truth? they will be made different, better, higher, but by no means will they be brought to naught. only that which was false in the forms of its appearance hitherto will be brought to naught; what was genuine will but unfold itself the more splendidly."[ ] "if the individual man's life were completely known to him when he passes from one stage of maturity to another, he would have no reason for living. so it is with the life of mankind too; if at its entrance upon a new stage of growth a programme lay before it already drawn up, this would be the surest sign that it was not alive, not progressing, but that it was sticking at one point. the details of a new order of life cannot be known to us, they have to be worked out by us ourselves. life consists only in learning to know the unknown, and putting our action in harmony with the new knowledge. in this consists the life of the individual, in this the life of human societies and of humanity."[ ] .--property i. _together with law tolstoi necessarily has to reject also, for the more highly developed nations of our time, the legal institution of property._ perhaps there was once a time when the violence necessary to secure the individual in the possession of a piece of goods against all others was less than the violence which would have been practised in a general fight for the possession of the goods, so that the existence of property was better than its non-existence. but at any rate this time is past, the existing order has "lived out its time";[ ] among the men of to-day no wild fight for the possession of goods would break out even if there were no property; they all "profess allegiance to the commands of philanthropy,"[ ] each of them "knows that all men have equal rights in the goods of the world,"[ ] and already we see "many a rich man renounce his inheritance from a specially delicate sense of germinant public opinion."[ ] property offends against love, especially against the commandment not to resist evil by force.[ ] but not only this; in founding a dominion of possessors over non-possessors it also offends against the principle that for love "all men are god's sons and there is equality among them all";[ ] and it is therefore to be rejected, even aside from the violence on which it is based as a legal institution. the rich are under "guilt by the very fact that they are rich."[ ] it is "a crime"[ ] that tens of thousands of "hungry, cold, deeply degraded human beings are living in moscow, while i with a few thousand others have tenderloin and sturgeon for dinner and cover horses and floors with blankets and carpets."[ ] i shall be "an accomplice in this unending and uninterrupted crime so long as i still have a superfluous bit of bread while another has no bread at all, or still possess two garments while another does not possess even one."[ ]--tolstoi carries this out into detail. . property means the dominion of the possessors over the non-possessors. property is the exclusive right to use some things, whether one actually uses them or not.[ ] "many of the men who called me their horse," tolstoi makes the horse linen-measurer say, "did not ride me; quite different men rode me. nor did they feed me; quite different men fed me. nor was it those who called me their horse that did me kindnesses, but coachmen, veterinary surgeons, strangers altogether. later, when the circle of my observations grew wider, i convinced myself that the idea 'mine,' which has no other basis than men's low and bestial propensity which they call 'sense of ownership' or 'right of property,' finds application not only with respect to us horses. a man says 'this house is mine' and never lives in it, he only attends to the building and repair of the house. a merchant says 'my store, my dry-goods store,' and his clothing is not of the best fabrics he has in his store. there are men who call a piece of land 'mine' and have never seen this piece of land nor set foot on it. what men aim at in life is not to do what they think good, but to call as many things as possible 'mine.'"[ ] but the significance of property consists in the fact that the poor man who has no property is dependent on the rich man who has property; in order to come by the things which he needs for his living, but which belong to another, he must do what this other wills--in particular, he must work for him. thus property divides men into "two castes, an oppressed laboring caste that famishes and suffers and an idle oppressing caste that enjoys and lives in superfluity."[ ] "we are all brothers, and yet every morning my brother or my sister carries out my dishes. we are all brothers, but every morning i have to have my cigar, my sugar, my mirror, and other such things, in whose production healthy brothers and sisters, people like me, have sacrificed and are sacrificing their health."[ ] "i spend my whole life in the following way: i eat, talk, and listen; eat, write, and read--that is, talk and listen again; eat and play; eat, talk, and listen again; eat and go to bed; and so it goes on, one day like another. i cannot do, do not know how to do, anything beyond this. and, that i may be able to do this, the porter, the farmer, the cook, the cook's maid, the lackey, the coachman, the laundress, must work from morning till night, not to speak of the work of other men which is necessary in order that those coachmen, cooks, lackeys, and so on may have all that they need when they work for me--the axes, barrels, brushes, dishes, furniture, likewise the wax, the blacking, the kerosene, the hay, the wood, the beef. all of them have to work day by day, early and late, that i may be able to talk, eat, and sleep."[ ] this significance of property makes itself especially felt in the case of the things that are necessary for the producing of other things, and so most notably in the case of land and tools.[ ] "there can be no farmer without land that he tills, without scythes, wagons, and horses; no shoemaker is possible without a house built on the earth, without water, air, and tools";[ ] but property means that in many cases "the farmer possesses no land, no horses, no scythe, the shoemaker no house, no water, no awl: that somebody is keeping these things back from them."[ ] this leads to the consequence "that for a large fraction of the workers the natural conditions of production are deranged, that this fraction is necessitated to use other people's stock,"[ ] and may by the owner of the stock be compelled "to work not on their own account, but for an employer."[ ] consequently the workman works "not for himself, to suit his own wish, but under compulsion, to suit the whim of some idle persons who live in superfluity, for the benefit of some rich man, the proprietor of a factory or other industrial plant."[ ] thus property means the exploitation of the laborer by those to whom the land and tools belong; it means "that the products of human labor pass more and more out of the hands of the laboring masses into the hands of the unlaboring."[ ] furthermore, the significance of property as making the poor dependent on the rich becomes especially prominent in the case of money. "money is a value that remains always equal, that always ranks as correct and legal."[ ] consequently, as the saying is, "he who has money has in his pocket those who have none."[ ] "money is a new form of slavery, distinguished from the old solely by its impersonality, by the lack of any human relation between the master and the slave";[ ] for "the essence of all slavery consists in drawing the benefit of another's labor-force by compulsion, and it is quite immaterial whether the drawing of this benefit is founded upon property in the slave or upon property in money which is indispensable to the other man."[ ] "now, honestly, of what sort is my money, and how have i come by it? i got part for the land that i inherited from my father. the peasant sold his last sheep, his last cow, to pay me this money. another part of my assets consists of the sums which i have received for my literary productions, my books. if my books are harmful, then by them i have seduced the purchasers to evil and have acquired the money by bad means. if, on the contrary, my books are useful to people, the case is still worse; i have not given them without ceremony to those who had a use for them, but have said 'give me seventeen rubles and you shall have them,' and, as in the other case the peasant sold his last sheep, so here the poor student or teacher, and many another poor person, have denied themselves the plainest necessities to give me the money. and thus i have piled up a quantity of such money, and what do i do with it? i bring it to the city and give it to the poor here on condition that they satisfy all my whims, that they come after me into the city to clean the sidewalks for me, and to make me lamps, shoes, and so forth, in the factories. with my money i take all their products to myself, and i take pains to give them as little as possible and get from them as much as possible for it. and then all at once, quite unexpectedly, i begin to distribute to the poor this same money gratis--not to all, but arbitrarily to any whom i happen to take up at random";[ ] that is, i take from the poor thousands of rubles with one hand, and with the other i distribute to some of them a few kopeks.[ ] . the dominion which property involves, of possessors over non-possessors, is based on physical force. "if the vast wealth that the laborers have piled up ranks not as the property of all, but only as that of an elect few,--if the power of raising taxes from labor and using them at pleasure is reserved to some men,--this is not based on the fact that the people want to have it so or that by nature it must be so, but on the fact that the ruling classes see their advantage in it and determine it so by virtue of their power over men's bodies";[ ] it is based on "violence and slaying and the threat thereof."[ ] "if men hand over the greatest part of the product of their labor to the capitalist or landlord, though they, as do all laborers now, hold this to be unjust,"[ ] they do it "only because they know they will be beaten and killed if they do not."[ ] "one may even say outright that in our society, in which to every well-to-do man living an aristocratic life there are ten weary, ravenous, envious laborers, probably pining away with wife and children too, all the privileges of the rich, all their luxury and their abundance, are acquired and secured only by chastisement, imprisonment, and capital punishment."[ ] property is upheld by the police[ ] and the army.[ ] "we may act as if we did not see the policeman walking up and down before the window with loaded revolver to protect us while we eat a savory meal or look at a new play, and as if we had no inkling of the soldiers who are every moment ready to go with rifle and cartridges where any one tries to infringe on our property. yet we well know, if we can finish our meal and see the new play in peace, if we can drive out or hunt or attend a festival or a race undisturbed, we have to thank for this only the policeman's bullet and the soldier's weapon, which are ready to pierce the poor victim of hunger who looks upon our enjoyments from his corner with grumbling stomach, and who would at once disturb them if the policeman with his revolver went away, or if in the barracks there were no longer any soldiers standing ready to appear at our first call."[ ] . the dominion which property involves, of the possessors over the non-possessors, is based on the physical force of the ruled. those very men of the non-possessing classes who through property are dependent on the possessing classes must do police duty, serve in the army, pay the taxes out of which police and army are kept up, and in these and other ways either themselves exercise or at least support the physical force by which property is upheld.[ ] "if there did not exist these men who are ready to discipline or kill any one whatever at the word of command, no one would dare assert what the non-laboring landlords now do all of them so confidently assert,--that the soil which surrounds the peasants who die off for lack of land is the property of a man who does not work on it";[ ] it would "not come into the head of the lord of the manor to take from the peasants a forest that has grown up under their eyes";[ ] nor would any one say "that the stores of grain accumulated by fraud in the midst of a starving population must remain unscathed that the merchant may have his profit."[ ] ii. _love requires that a distribution based solely on its commandments take the place of property._ "the impossibility of continuing the life that has hitherto been led, and the necessity of determining new forms of life,"[ ] relate to the distribution of goods as well as to other things. "the abolition of property,"[ ] and its replacement by a new kind of distribution of goods, is one of the "questions now in order."[ ] according to the law of love, every man who works as he has strength should have so much--but only so much--as he needs. . that every man who works as he has strength should have so much as he needs and no more is a corollary from two precepts which follow from the law of love. the first of these precepts says, man shall "ask no work from others, but himself devote his whole life to work for others. 'man lives not to be served but to serve.'"[ ] therefore, in particular, he is not to keep accounts with others about his work, or think that he "has the more of a living to claim, the greater or more useful his quantum of work done is."[ ] following this precept provides every man with what he needs. this is true primarily of the healthy adult. "if a man works, his work feeds him. if another makes use of this man's work for himself, he will feed him for the very reason that he is making use of his work."[ ] man assures himself of a living "not by taking it away from others, but by making himself useful and necessary to others. the more necessary he is to others, the more assured is his existence."[ ] but the following of the precept to serve others also provides the sick, the aged, and children with their living. men "do not stop feeding an animal when it falls sick; they do not even kill an old horse, but give it work appropriate to its strength; they bring up whole families of little lambs, pigs, and puppies, because they expect benefit from them. how, then, should they not support the sick man who is necessary to them? how should they not find appropriate work for old and young, and bring up human beings who will in turn work for them?"[ ] the second precept that follows from the law of love, and of which a corollary is that every man who works as he has strength should have as much as he needs and no more, bids us "share what you have with the poor; gather no riches."[ ] "to the question of his hearers, what they were to do, john the baptist gave the short, clear, simple answer, 'he who hath two coats, let him share with him who hath none; and he who hath food let him do likewise' (luke . - ). and christ too made the same declaration several times, only still more unambiguously and clearly. he said, 'blessed are the poor, woe to the rich.' he said that one could not serve god and mammon at once. he not only forbade his disciples to take money, but also to have two garments. he told the rich young man that because he was rich he could not enter into the kingdom of god, and that a camel should sooner go through a needle's eye than a rich man come into heaven. he said that he who did not forsake everything--house, children, lands--to follow him could not be his disciple. he told his hearers the parable of the rich man who did nothing bad except that he--like our rich men--clothed himself in costly apparel and fed himself on savory food and drink, and who plunged his soul into perdition by this alone, and of the poor lazarus who did nothing good and who entered into the kingdom of heaven only because he was a beggar."[ ] . but what form can such a distribution of goods take in detail? this is best shown us by "the russian colonists. these colonists arrive on the soil, settle, and begin to work, and no one of them takes it into his head that any one who does not begin to make use of the land can have any right to it; on the contrary, the colonists regard the ground _a priori_ as common property, and consider it altogether justifiable that everybody plows and reaps where he chooses. for working the fields, for starting gardens, and for building houses, they procure implements; and here too it does not suggest itself to them that these could of themselves produce any income--on the contrary, the colonists look upon any profit from the means of labor, any interest for grain lent, etc., as an injustice. they work on masterless land with their own means or with means borrowed free of interest, either each for himself or all together on joint account."[ ] "in talking of such fellowship i am not setting forth fancies, but only describing what has gone on at all times, what is even at present taking place not only among the russian colonists but everywhere where man's natural condition is not yet deranged by some circumstances or other. i am describing what seems to everybody natural and rational. the men settle on the soil and go each one to work, make their implements, and do their labor. if they think it advantageous to work jointly, they form a labor company."[ ] but, in individual business as well as in collective industry, "neither the water nor the ground nor the garments nor the plow can belong to anybody save him who drinks the water, wears the garments, and uses the plow; for all these things are necessary only to him who puts them to use."[ ] one can call "only his labor his own";[ ] by it one has as much as one needs.[ ] .--realization _the way in which the change required by love is to take place, according to tolstoi, is that those men who have learned to know the truth are to convince as many others as possible how necessary the change is for love's sake, and that they, with the help of the refusal of obedience, are to abolish law, the state, and property, and bring about the new condition._ i. the prime necessity is that the men who have learned to know the truth should convince as many others as possible that love demands the change. . "that an order of life corresponding to our knowledge may take the place of the order contrary to it, the present antiquated public opinion must first be replaced by a new and living one."[ ] it is not deeds of all sorts that bring to pass the grandest and most significant changes in the life of humanity, "neither the fitting out of armies a million strong nor the construction of roads and engines, neither the organization of expositions nor the formation of trade-unions, neither revolutions, barricades, and explosions nor inventions in aerial navigation--but the changes of public opinion, and these alone."[ ] liberation is possible only "by a change in our conception of life";[ ] "everything depends on the force with which each individual man becomes conscious of christian truth";[ ] "know the truth and the truth shall make you free."[ ] our liberation must necessarily take place by "the christian's recognizing the law of love, which his master has revealed to him, as entirely sufficient for all human relations, and his perceiving the superfluousness and illegitimateness of all violence."[ ] the bringing about of this revolution in public opinion is in the hands of the men who have learned to know the truth.[ ] "a public opinion does not need hundreds and thousands of years to arise and spread; it has the quality of working by contagion and swiftly seizing a great number of men."[ ] "as a jarring touch is enough to change a fluid saturated with salts to crystals in a moment, so now the slightest effort may perhaps suffice to cause the unveiled truth to seize upon hundreds, thousands, millions of men so that a public opinion corresponding to knowledge shall be established and that hereby the whole order of life shall become other than it is. it is in our hands to make this effort."[ ] . the best means for bringing about the necessary revolution in public opinion is that the men who have learned to know the truth should testify to it by deed. "the christian knows the truth only in order to testify to it before those who do not know it,"[ ] and that "by deed."[ ] "the truth is imparted to men by deeds of truth, deeds of truth illuminate every man's conscience, and thus destroy the force of deceit."[ ] hence you ought properly, "if you are a landlord, to give your land at once to the poor, and, if you are a capitalist, to give your money or your factory to the workingmen; if you are a prince, a cabinet minister, an official, a judge, or a general, you ought at once to resign your position, and, if you are a soldier, you ought to refuse obedience without regard to any danger."[ ] but, to be sure, "it is very probable that you are not strong enough to do this; you have connections, dependents, subordinates, superiors, the temptations are powerful, and your force gives out."[ ] . but there is still another means, though a less effective one, for bringing about the necessary revolution in public opinion, and this "you can always"[ ] employ. it is that the men who have learned to know the truth should "speak it out frankly."[ ] "if men--yes, if even a few men--would do this, the antiquated public opinion would at once fall of itself, and a new, living, present-day one would arise."[ ] "not billions of rubles, not millions of soldiers, no institutions, wars, or revolutions, have so much power as the simple declaration of a free man that he considers something to be right or wrong. if a free man speaks out honestly what he thinks and feels, in the midst of thousands who in word and act stand for the very contrary, one might think he must remain isolated. but usually it is otherwise; all, or most, have long been privately thinking and feeling in the same way; and then what to-day is still an individual's new opinion will perhaps to-morrow be already the general opinion of the majority."[ ] "if we would only stop lying and acting as if we did not see the truth, if we would only testify to the truth that summons us and boldly confess it, it would at once turn out that there are hundreds, thousands, millions, of men in the same situation as ourselves, that they see the truth like us, are afraid like us of remaining isolated if they confess it, and are only waiting, like us, for the rest to testify to it."[ ] ii. to bring about the change and put the new condition in the place of law, the state, and property, it is further requisite that the men who have learned to know the truth should conform their lives to their knowledge, and, in particular, that they should refuse obedience to the state. . men are to bring about the change themselves. they are "no longer to wait for somebody to come and help them, be it christ in the clouds with the sound of the trumpet, be it a historic law or a differential or integral law of forces. nobody will help us if we do not help ourselves."[ ] "i have been told a story that happened to a courageous commissary of police. he came into a village where they had applied for soldiers on account of an outbreak among the peasants. in the spirit of nicholas the first he proposed to make an end of the rising by his personal presence alone. he had a few cart-loads of sticks brought, gathered all the peasants in a barn, and shut himself in with them. by his shouts he succeeded in so cowing the peasants that they obeyed him and began to beat each other at his command. so they beat each other till there was found a simple-minded peasant who did not obey, and who called out to his fellows that they should not beat each other either. only then did the beating cease, and the official made haste to get away. the advice of this simple-minded peasant" should be followed by the men of our time.[ ] . but it is not by violence that men are to bring about the change. "revolutionary enemies fight the government from outside; christianity does not fight at all, but wrecks its foundations from within."[ ] "some assert that liberation from force, or at least its diminution, can be effected by the oppressed men's forcibly shaking off the oppressing government; and many do in fact undertake to act on this doctrine. but they deceive themselves and others: their activity only enhances the despotism of governments, and the attempts at liberation are welcomed by the governments as pretexts for strengthening their power."[ ] however, suppose that by the favor of circumstances (as, for instance, in france in ) they succeed in overthrowing a government, the party which had won by force would be compelled, "in order to remain at the helm and introduce its order into life, not only to employ all existing violent methods, but to invent new ones in addition. it would be other men that would be enslaved, and they would be coerced into other things, but there would exist not merely the same but a still more cruel condition of violence and enslavement; for the combat would have fanned the flames of hatred, strengthened the means of enslavement, and evolved new ones. thus it has been after all revolutions, insurrections, and conspiracies, after all violent changes of government. every fight only puts stronger means of enslavement in the hands of the men who at a given time are in power."[ ] . men are to bring about the change by conforming their lives to their knowledge. "the christian frees himself from all human authority by recognizing as sole plumb-line for his life and the lives of others the divine law of love that is implanted in man's soul and has been brought into consciousness by christ."[ ] this means that one is to return good for evil,[ ] give to one's neighbor all that one has that is superfluous and take away from him nothing that one does not need,[ ] especially acquire no money and get rid of the money one has,[ ] not buy nor rent,[ ] and, without shrinking from any form of work, satisfy one's needs with one's own hands;[ ] and particularly does it mean that one is to refuse obedience to the unchristian demands of state authority.[ ] that obedience to these demands is refused we see in many cases in russia at present. men are refusing the payment of taxes, the general oath, the oath in court, the exercise of police functions, action as jurymen, and military service.[ ] "the governments find themselves in a desperate situation as they face the christians' refusals."[ ] they "can chastise, put to death, imprison for life, and torture, any one who tries to overthrow them by force; they can bribe and smother with gold the half of mankind; they can bring into their service millions of armed men who are ready to annihilate all their foes. but what can they do against men who do not destroy anything, do not set up anything either, but only, each for himself, are unwilling to act contrary to the law of christ, and therefore refuse to do what is most necessary for the governments?"[ ] "let the state do as it will by such men, inevitably it will contribute only to its own annihilation,"[ ] and therewith to the annihilation of law and property and to the bringing in of the new order of life. "for, if it does not persecute people like the dukhobors, the stundists, etc., the advantages of their peaceable christian way of living will induce others to join them--and not only convinced christians, but also such as want to get clear of their obligations to the state under the cloak of christianity. if, on the other hand, it deals cruelly with men against whom there is nothing except that they have endeavored to live morally, this cruelty will only make it still more enemies, and the moment must at last come when there can no longer be found any one who is ready to back up the state with instrumentalities of force."[ ] . in the conforming of life to knowledge the individual must make the beginning. he must not wait for all or many to do it at the same time with him. the individual must not think it will be useless if he alone conforms his life to christ's teaching.[ ] "men in their present situation are like bees that have left their hive and are hanging on a twig in a great mass. the situation of the bees on the twig is a temporary one, and absolutely must be changed. they must take flight and seek a new abode. every bee knows that, and wishes to make an end of its own suffering condition and that of the others; but this cannot be done by one so long as the others do not help. but all cannot rise at once, for one hangs over another and hinders it from letting go; therefore all remain hanging. one might think that there was no way out of this situation for the bees";[ ] if and really there would be none, were it not that each bee is an independent living being. but it is only needful "that one bee spread its wings, rise and fly, and after it the second, the third, the tenth, the hundredth, for the immobile hanging mass to become a freely flying swarm of bees. thus it is only needful that one man comprehend life as christianity teaches it, and take hold of it as christianity teaches him to, and then that a second, a third, a hundredth follow him, and the magic circle from which no escape seemed possible is destroyed."[ ] neither may the individual let himself be deterred by the fear of suffering. "'if i alone,' it is commonly said, 'fulfil christ's teaching in the midst of a world that does not follow it, give away my belongings, turn my cheek without resistance, yes, and refuse the oath and military service, then i shall have the last bit taken from me, and, if i do not die of hunger, they will beat me to death, and, if they do not beat me to death, they will jail me or shoot me; and i shall have given all the happiness of my life, nay, my life itself, for nothing.'"[ ] be it so. "i do not ask whether i shall have more trouble, or die sooner, if i follow christ's teaching. that question can be asked only by one who does not see how meaningless and miserable is his life as an individual life, and who imagines that he shall 'not die'. but i know that a life for the sake of one's own happiness is the greatest folly, and that such an aimless life can be followed only by an aimless death. and therefore i fear nothing. i shall die like everybody, like even those who do not fulfil christ's teaching, but my life and my death will have a meaning for me and for others. my life and my death will contribute to the rescue and life of others--and that is just what christ taught."[ ] if once enough individuals have conformed their lives to their knowledge, the multitude will soon follow. "the passage of men from one order of life to another does not take place steadily, as the sand in the hour-glass runs out, one grain after another from the first to the last, but rather as a vessel that has been sunk into water fills itself. at first the water gets in only on one side, slowly and uniformly; but then its weight makes the vessel sink, and now the thing takes in, all at once, all the water that it can hold."[ ] thus the impulse given by individuals will provoke a movement that goes on faster and faster, wider and wider, avalanche-like, suddenly sweeps along the masses, and brings about the new order of life.[ ] then the time is come "when all men are filled with god, shun war, beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning-hooks; that is, in our language, when the prisons and fortresses are empty, when the gallows, rifles, and cannon are out of use. what seemed a dream has found its fulfilment in a new form of life."[ ] footnotes: [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - , , , . [ ] _ib._ pp. , - , to. "gospel" p. , "religion and morality" p. . [ ] to. "what i believe" p. . [ ] to. "gospel" pp. - , - . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. - . [ ] to. "what i believe" pp. - . [ ] to. "reason and dogma" p. . [ ] to. "what i believe" p. . [ ] to. "gospel" pp. , - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "patriotism" p. . [ ] to. "gospel" p. . [ ] to. "gospel" p. ; to. "religion and morality" p. . [ ] to. "on life" p. . [ ] to. "gospel" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. , , , . [ ] to. "what i believe" p. . [ ] to. "gospel" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "what i believe" pp. , . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "confession" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - , . [ ] to. "what i believe" pp. , , "kingdom" pp. - , "gospel" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] to. "on life" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. , . [ ] to. "confession" p. . [ ] to. "on life" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. , . [ ] _ib._ pp. , . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] to. "on life" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "religion and morality" pp. - . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] to. "gospel" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "what i believe" pp. - [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "on life" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. , "what i believe" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] to. "religion and morality" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - . [ ] to. "morning" pp. - . [ ] to. "on life" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. , . [ ] _ib._ pp. , - , , . [ ] _ib._ pp. , . [ ] to. "on life" pp. , - , , . [ ] to. "what i believe" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "what i believe" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "what i believe" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "what i believe" pp. , ; "kingdom" p. . [has tolstoi compared in a greek concordance the other occurrences of the word translated "resist"?] [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] ["he speaks only of the _gesetz_, but he means all _recht_"; see footnote on page of the present book.] [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. , - . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] to. "what i believe" pp. , . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - , . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "what i believe" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "what i believe" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. , . [ ] _ib._ pp. , . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. , "what i believe" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] to. "persecutions" p. . [ ] to. "gospel" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] to. "what i believe" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - , . [ ] to. "what i believe" pp. - , , , - ; "gospel" pp. - ; "kingdom" pp. - . [ ] to. "what i believe" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "what i believe" p. ; "persecutions" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ pp. , . [ ] to. "what i believe" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] to. "what i believe" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - , . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. , . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "patriotism" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "persecutions" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "patriotism" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] to. "patriotism" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - . [ ] to. "patriotism" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. - . [ ] _ib._ pp. , - . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] to. "what i believe" pp. - . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "patriotism" pp. - , - ; "kingdom" pp. - . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - , - , - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. ; "patriotism" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] to. "what i believe" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - . [ ] to. "what i believe" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. , . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "what i believe" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. , . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "persecutions" pp. - . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "what i believe" p. ; "what shall we do" pp. - . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. , . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "what shall we do" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "money" p. . [ ] to. "linen-measurer" pp. - . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "what shall we do" p. . [ ] to. "money" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] to. "what shall we do" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "money" p. . [ ] to. "what shall we do" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "what shall we do" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. , . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] to. "what i believe" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "what i believe" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] to. "what shall we do" pp. - . [ ] to. "money" p. . [ ] to. "money" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] "kernel" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] "patriotism" p. . [ ] to. "patriotism" pp. - . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "patriotism" pp. - . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] to. "what i believe" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "patriotism" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "patriotism" pp. - . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] to. "what i believe" pp. - . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "what i believe" p. . [ ] to. "what shall we do" p. ; "what i believe" p. . [ ] to. "what shall we do" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to "what shall we do" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] to. "persecutions" p. . [ ] to. "persecutions" p. . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] to. "kingdom" pp. - . [ ] "what i believe" p. . [ ] _ib._ pp. - . [ ] to. "kingdom" p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . [ ] _ib._ p. . chapter x the anarchistic teachings .--general we have now gained the standpoint that permits us to view comprehensively the entire body of anarchistic teachings. this comprehensive view is possible only as follows: first we have to look and see what the seven recognized anarchistic teachings here presented have in common, and what specialties are to be found among them; next we must consider how far that which is common to the seven teachings may be equated to that which the entire body of anarchistic teachings have in common, and, in addition, how far the specialties represented among the seven teachings may be equated to the specialties represented in the entire body of anarchistic teachings. to characterize those qualities of the anarchistic teachings to which attention is to be paid, words already existing are here used as far as has been found practicable. where such were totally lacking, the need of a concise formula has of necessity overcome repugnance to neologisms. .--basis i. as to their basis the seven teachings here presented have nothing in common. . in part they recognize as the supreme law of human procedure merely a natural law, which, as such, does not tell us what ought to take place but what really will take place; these teachings may be called _genetic_. the other part of them regard as the supreme law of human procedure a norm, which, as such, tells us what ought to take place, even if it never really will take place; these teachings may be characterized as _critical_. genetic are the teachings of bakunin and kropotkin: the supreme law of human procedure is for bakunin the evolutionary law of mankind's progress from a less perfect existence to an existence as perfect as possible, and for kropotkin that of mankind's progress from a less happy existence to an existence as happy as possible. critical are the teachings of godwin, proudhon, stirner, tucker, and tolstoi. . the critical teachings, again, are partly such as set up a duty as the supreme law of human procedure, the duty being itself the ultimate purpose,--these teachings may be characterized as _idealistic_,--and partly such as set up happiness as the supreme law of human procedure, all duty being only a means to happiness,--these may take the name of _eudemonistic_. idealistic are the teachings of proudhon and tolstoi: proudhon sets up as the supreme law of human procedure the duty of justice, tolstoi the duty of love. eudemonistic are the teachings of godwin, stirner, and tucker. . the eudemonistic teachings, finally, regard as the supreme law of human procedure either the happiness of mankind as a whole, which the individual is accordingly to further without regard to his own happiness,--these teachings may be characterized as _altruistic_,--or the happiness of the individual, which he is accordingly to further without regard to the welfare of mankind as a whole,--these teachings may be called _egoistic_. altruistic is godwin's teaching, egoistic stirner's and tucker's. ii. with regard to what they have in common in their basis, the seven recognized anarchistic teachings here presented may be taken as equivalent to the entire body of recognized anarchistic teachings. they have in their basis nothing in common with each other; all the more is it impossible, therefore, that the entire body of recognized anarchistic teachings should have in their basis anything in common. furthermore, as regards the specialties that they exhibit in respect to their basis the teachings here presented may be taken as equivalent to the entire body of anarchistic teachings without limitation. for the specialties represented among them can be arranged as a system that has no room left for any more co-ordinate specialties, but only for subordinate. no anarchistic teaching, therefore, can have any specialty that will not be subordinate to these specialties. therefore, what is true of the seven teachings here presented is true of anarchistic teachings altogether. in their basis they have nothing in common, and are to be divided with respect to its differences as shown in the table on page . .--law i. in their relation to law--that is, to those norms which are based on men's will to have a certain procedure generally observed within a circle which includes themselves--the seven teachings here presented have nothing in common. . a part of them negate law for our future; these teachings may be called _anomistic_. the other part of them affirm it for our future; these teachings may be characterized as _nomistic_. anomistic are the teachings of godwin, stirner, tolstoi; nomistic those of proudhon, bakunin, kropotkin, and tucker. ====================================================== |_genetic_ | _critical teachings_ | |_teachings_| | | |----------------------------------------| | | _idealistic_ | _eudemonistic_ | | | |-----------------------| | | | altruistic | egoistic | |===========+================+============+==========| | bakunin | proudhon | godwin | stirner | | kropotkin | tolstoi | | tucker | there cannot be given a more precise definition of what is common to the anomistic teachings on the one hand and to the nomistic on the other, and what is peculiar to the one group as against the other, than has here been given. for both the negation and the affirmation of law for our future have totally different meanings in the different teachings. the negation of law for our future means in the cases of godwin and stirner that they reject law unconditionally, and so for our future as well as everywhere else: godwin because it is always and everywhere contrary to the general happiness, stirner because it is always and everywhere contrary to the individual's happiness. in tolstoi's case the meaning of the negation of law for our future is that he rejects law, though not unconditionally, yet for our future, because it is, though not at all times and in all places, yet under our circumstances, in a higher degree repugnant to love than its non-existence. the affirmation of law for our future means in the cases of proudhon and tucker that they approve law as such (though certainly not every particular form of law) unconditionally, and hence for our future as well as elsewhere: proudhon because law as such never and nowhere offends against justice, tucker because law as such never and nowhere impairs the individual's happiness.[ ] in the cases of bakunin and kropotkin, finally, the affirmation of law for our future has the meaning that they foresee that the progress of evolution will in our future leave in existence law as such, even though not the present particular form of law: bakunin meaning by this the progress of mankind from a less perfect existence to an existence as perfect as possible, and proudhon its progress from a less happy existence to an existence as happy as possible. . the anomistic teachings part company again in regard to what they (in the same different senses in which they negate law for our future) affirm for our future in contrast to the law. according to godwin, in future the general happiness ought to be men's controlling principle in the place of law. according to stirner, in future the happiness of self ought to be men's controlling principle in the place of law. according to tolstoi, in future love ought to be men's controlling principle in the place of law. . on the other part, the nomistic teachings part company in regard to the particular form of law that they affirm for our future. according to tucker, even in future there ought to exist enacted law, in which the will that creates the law is expressly declared,[ ] as well as unenacted law, in which such an express declaration of this will is not present. according to bakunin and kropotkin, in future only unenacted law will exist. according to proudhon, there ought to exist in future only the single legal norm that contracts must be lived up to.[ ] ii. with regard to what they have in common in their relation to law, the seven recognized anarchistic teachings here presented may be taken as equivalent to the entire body of recognized anarchistic teachings. in their relation to law they have nothing in common. much less, therefore, can the entire body of recognized anarchistic teachings have anything in common in their relation to law. furthermore, as regards the specialties that they exhibit in their relation to law the teachings here presented may be taken as equivalent to the entire body of anarchistic teachings without limitation. for the specialties represented among them can be arranged as a system in which there is no room left for any more co-ordinate specialties, but only for subordinate. no anarchistic teaching, therefore, can have any specialty that will not be subordinate to these specialties. therefore, what is true of the seven teachings here presented is true of anarchistic teachings altogether. in their relation to law they have nothing in common, and are to be divided as follows with respect to the differences of this relation: ================================================ | _anomistic teachings_ | _nomistic teachings_ | |=======================+======================| | godwin | proudhon | | stirner | bakunin | | tolstoi | kropotkin | | | tucker | .--the state i. in their relation to the state--that is, to the legal relation by virtue of which a supreme authority exists in a territory--the seven teachings here presented have something in common. . they have this in common, that they negate the state for our future. there cannot be given a more precise definition of what the teachings here presented have in common in their relation to the state than has here been given. for the negation of the state for our future has totally different meanings in them. in the cases of godwin, stirner, tucker, and proudhon, the negation of the state for our future means that they reject the state unconditionally, and hence for our future as well as everywhere else: godwin because the state always and everywhere impairs the general happiness, stirner and tucker because it always and everywhere impairs the individual's happiness, proudhon because at all times and in all places the state offends against justice. in tolstoi's case the negation of the state for our future means that he rejects the state, though not unconditionally, yet for our future, because the state is, though not always and everywhere, yet under our circumstances, more repugnant to love than its non-existence. finally, in the cases of bakunin and kropotkin the negation of the state for our future has the meaning that they foresee that in our future the progress of evolution will abolish the state: bakunin meaning mankind's progress from a less perfect existence to one as perfect as possible, kropotkin its progress from a less happy existence to one as happy as possible. . as to what they affirm for our future in contrast to the state (in the same different senses in which they negate the state for our future) the seven teachings here presented have nothing in common. one part of them affirm for our future, in contrast to the state, a social human life in a voluntary legal relation--to wit, under the legal norm that contracts must be lived up to; these teachings may take the name of _federalistic_. the other part of them affirm for our future, in contrast to the state, a social human life without any legal relation--to wit, under the same controlling principle that they affirm for our future in contrast to law; these teachings may be characterized as _spontanistic_. federalistic are the teachings of proudhon, bakunin, kropotkin, and tucker; spontanistic those of godwin,[ ] stirner, and tolstoi. . the spontanistic teachings in turn part company in respect to the non-legal controlling principle which they affirm in contrast to the state as the basis of the social human life for our future. according to godwin, the place of the state ought to be taken by a social human life based on the principle that the general happiness should be every one's rule of action. according to stirner, the place of the state ought to be taken by a social human life based on the principle that each one's own happiness should be his rule of action. according to tolstoi, the place of the state ought to be taken by a social human life based on the principle that love should be every one's rule of action. ii. with regard to what they have in common in their relation to the state, the seven recognized anarchistic teachings here presented may be taken as equivalent to the entire body of recognized anarchistic teachings. in their relation to the state they have only this one thing in common, that they negate the state for our future--and in very different senses at that. but this is common to all recognized anarchistic teachings: observation of any recognized anarchistic teaching shows that in one sense or another it negates the state for our future. furthermore, as regards the specialties that they exhibit in their relation to the state the teachings here presented may be taken as equivalent to the entire body of anarchistic teachings without limitation. for the specialties represented among them can be arranged as a system which affords no room for any more co-ordinate specialties, but only for subordinate. no anarchistic teaching, therefore, can have any specialty that will not be subordinate to these specialties. therefore, what is true of the seven teachings here presented is true of the anarchistic teachings altogether. in their relation to the state they have in common their negating the state for our future; and with regard to the differences in what they affirm for our future in contrast to the state they are to be divided as shown in the table on page . ======================================================= | _federalistic teachings_ | _spontanistic teachings_ | |==========================+==========================| | proudhon | godwin | | bakunin | stirner | | kropotkin | tolstoi | | tucker | | .--property i. in their relation to property--that is, to that legal relation by virtue of which some one has within a certain group of men the exclusive privilege of ultimately disposing of a thing--the seven teachings here presented have nothing in common. . one part of them negate property for our future; these teachings may be characterized as _indoministic_. the other part affirm it for our future; these teachings may be called _doministic_. indoministic are the teachings of godwin, proudhon, stirner, and tolstoi; doministic the teachings of bakunin, kropotkin, and tucker. there cannot be given a more precise definition of what is common to the indoministic teachings on the one hand and to the doministic on the other, and what is peculiar to the one group as against the other, than has here been given. for both the affirmation and the negation of property for our future have totally different meanings in the different teachings. in the cases of godwin, stirner, and proudhon, the negation of property for our future means that they reject property unconditionally, and so for our future as well as elsewhere: godwin because it is always and everywhere contrary to the general happiness, stirner because it is always and everywhere contrary to the individual's happiness, proudhon because it always and everywhere offends against justice. in tolstoi's case the meaning of the negation of property for our future is that he rejects property, though not absolutely, yet for our future, because it is, though not at all times and in all places, yet under our circumstances, in a higher degree repugnant to love than is its non-existence. in tucker's case the affirmation of property for our future means that he approves property as such (though certainly not every particular form of property) unconditionally, and hence for our future as well as elsewhere, because property as such is never and nowhere contrary to the individual's happiness.[ ] finally, in the cases of bakunin and kropotkin the affirmation of property for our future is as much as to say that they foresee that in our future the progress of evolution will leave in existence property as such, even though not the present particular form of property: bakunin meaning mankind's progress from a less perfect existence to one as perfect as possible, kropotkin its progress from a less happy existence to one as happy as possible. . the indoministic teachings part company again as to what they affirm for our future (in the same different senses in which they negate property for our future) in contrast to property. according to proudhon, a distribution of goods determined by a voluntary legal relation, and based on the legal norm that contracts ought to be lived up to, ought to take the place of property. according to godwin, stirner, and tolstoi, the place of property ought to be taken by a distribution without any legal relation, based rather on the same rule of action that is affirmed by them in contrast to law. according to godwin, therefore, that distribution of goods which is to take the place of property ought to be based on what is prescribed to each one by the general happiness. according to stirner it ought to be based on what is prescribed to each one by his own happiness. according to tolstoi it ought to be based on what is prescribed to each one by love. . the doministic teachings on their side part company again as to the particular form of property that they affirm for our future. according to tucker there ought to exist in future, as at present, both property of the individual and property of the collectivity, in all things indiscriminately.[ ] this teaching may be called _individualistic_. according to bakunin, in future there will exist property of the individual and of the entire community only in goods for consumption, indiscriminately, while in the materials and instruments of production there will be solely property of the collectivity. this teaching may be characterized as _collectivistic_. according to kropotkin, in future there will exist solely property of the collectivity in all things indiscriminately. this teaching may be called _communistic_. ii. with regard to what they have in common in their relation to property, the seven anarchistic teachings here presented may be taken as equivalent to the entire body of recognized anarchistic teachings. they have nothing in common in their relation to property. all the more is it impossible, therefore, that the entire body of recognized anarchistic teachings should in their relation to property have anything in common. furthermore, in regard to the specialties that they exhibit in their relation to property the teachings here presented may be taken as equivalent to the entire body of anarchistic teachings without limitation. for the specialties represented among them can be arranged as a system in which there is no room left for any more co-ordinate specialties, but only for subordinate. no anarchistic teaching, therefore, can have any specialty that will not be subordinate to these specialties. therefore, what is true of the seven teachings here presented is true of anarchistic teachings altogether. they have nothing in common in their relation to property, and are to be divided with respect to the differences of this relation as shown in the table on page . ================================================================= |_indoministic_| _doministic teachings_ | | _teachings_ +-----------------+----------------+-------------+ | |_individualistic_|_collectivistic_|_communistic_| |==============+=================+================+=============| | godwin | tucker | bakunin | kropotkin | | proudhon | | | | | stirner | | | | | tolstoi | | | | .--realization i. with regard to the manner in which they conceive their realization--that is, the transition from the negated condition to the affirmed condition--as taking place, the seven teachings here presented have nothing in common. . the one part of them conceive their realization as taking place without breach of law: they have in mind a transition from the negated to the affirmed condition merely by the application of legal norms of the negated condition; these teachings may be characterized as _reformatory_. reformatory are the teachings of godwin and proudhon. the other part conceive their realization as a breach of law: they have in mind a transition from the negated to the affirmed condition with violation of legal norms of the negated condition; these teachings may be called _revolutionary_. revolutionary are the teachings of stirner, bakunin, kropotkin, tucker, and tolstoi. there cannot be given a more precise definition of what is common to the reformatory teachings on the one hand, to the revolutionary on the other, and what is peculiar to the one group as against the other, than has here been given. for the conceiving the transition from a negated to an affirmed condition as taking place in any given way has totally different meanings in the different teachings. if godwin, proudhon, stirner, tucker, and tolstoi conceive the transition from a negated to an affirmed condition as taking place in any given way, this is as much as to say that they demand that we should in a given way first prepare for, and then effect, the transition from a disapproved to an approved condition. if, on the contrary, bakunin and kropotkin conceive the transition from a negated to an affirmed condition as taking place in any given way, this means that they foresee that in the progress of evolution the transition from a disappearing to a newly-appearing condition will of itself take place in a given way, and that they only demand that we should make a certain sort of preparation for this transition. . the revolutionary teachings part company again as to the fashion in which they conceive of the breach of law that helps in the transition from the negated to the affirmed condition. some of them conceive of the breach of law as taking place without the employment of force; these teachings may be characterized as _renitent_. renitent are the teachings of tucker and tolstoi: tucker conceiving the breach of law chiefly as a refusal to pay taxes and rent and an infringement of the banking monopoly, tolstoi especially as a refusal to do military, police, or jury service, and also to pay taxes. the other revolutionary teachings conceive of the breach of law that helps in the transition from the negated to the affirmed condition as taking place with the employment of force; these teachings may take the name of _insurgent_. insurgent are the teachings of stirner, bakunin, and kropotkin: stirner and bakunin conceiving only of the transition itself as attended with the use of violence, but kropotkin also of preparation for it by such acts (propaganda of deed). ii. with regard to what they have in common in respect of the conceived manner of realization, the seven recognized anarchistic teachings which have been presented may be taken as equivalent to the entire body of recognized anarchistic teachings. in respect of the conceived manner of realization they have nothing in common. much less, therefore, can the entire body of recognized anarchistic teachings have anything in common in this respect. furthermore, as regards the specialties that they exhibit in respect of the conceived manner of realization the teachings here presented may be taken as equivalent to the entire body of anarchistic teachings without limitation. for the specialties represented among them can be arranged as a system in which there is no room left for any more co-ordinate specialties, but only for subordinate. no anarchistic teaching, therefore, can have any specialty that will not be subordinate to these specialties. therefore, what is true of the seven teachings here presented is true of the anarchistic teachings altogether. in respect of the conceived manner of realization they have nothing in common, and are to be arranged as follows with reference to the differences therein: =============================================== |_reformatory_ | _revolutionary teachings_ | | _teachings_ +--------------+---------------| | | _renitent_ | _insurgent_ | |==============+==============+===============| | godwin | tucker | stirner | | proudhon | tolstoi | bakunin | | | | kropotkin | footnotes: [ ] [i shall not indorse this statement till i understand it, and i doubt if tucker will. perhaps eltzbacher might have been content with saying "is in no case more injurious to the happiness of most individuals than its non-existence."] [ ] [this, if interpreted by eltzbacher's quotations from tucker, must refer to the right of a voluntary association of any sort to make rules for its own members. but in this sense it seems in the highest degree doubtful whether eltzbacher is justified in denying the same to all the other six, who have omitted to mention this point (perhaps regarding it as self-evident) while they were talking against laws in the sense of laws compulsorily binding everybody in the land.] [ ] [but see on proudhon and stirner my notes on pages and .] [ ] [it will be seen by consulting the footnotes on pages , , and that the warrants for this statement about godwin are drawn exclusively from the first one-fifth of his book, contrary to eltzbacher's profession at the top of page ; that the passages quoted _verbatim_ are not in godwin's second edition; and that the quotations which are not _verbatim_ are of doubtful correctness by the second edition. this makes it appear that godwin's sweeping rejection of the principle of contract was one of those over-hasty propositions about which he changed his mind even before they were published (see his words quoted on page , and the preface to his second edition). yet i am not prepared to assert that godwin would at any time have made contract the basis of his civil order.] [ ] [on proudhon, stirner, tucker, see my notes on pages , , .] [ ] [we are getting into an ambiguity of language here. the "collectivity" in which kropotkin vests property is, as i understand, the entire population; the only "collectivity" which tucker could recognize as owning property would be a voluntary association, whose membership, whether large or small, would in general be limited by the arbitrary choice of men.] chapter xi anarchism and its species i.--errors about anarchism and its species it has now become possible to set aside some of the numerous errors about anarchism and its species. i. it is said that anarchism has abolished morality and bases itself upon scientific materialism,[ ] that its ideal of society is determined by its peculiar conception of the way things come to pass in history.[ ] if this were correct, the teachings of godwin, proudhon, stirner, tucker, tolstoi, and very many other recognized anarchistic teachings, would have to be regarded as not anarchistic. . it is asserted that anarchism sets up the happiness of the individual as final goal,[ ] that it appraises every human action from the abstract view-point of the unlimited right of the individual,[ ] that to it the supreme law is not the general welfare but every individual's free preference.[ ] were this really the case, we should have to look upon the teachings of godwin, proudhon, bakunin, kropotkin, tolstoi, and a multitude of other recognized anarchistic teachings, as not anarchistic. . the moral law of justice is set down as anarchism's supreme law.[ ] were this assertion correct, the teachings of godwin, stirner, bakunin, kropotkin, tucker, tolstoi, and numerous other recognized anarchistic teachings, could not rank as anarchistic. . it is said that anarchism culminates in the negation of every programme,[ ] that it has only a negative goal.[ ] if this were in accordance with truth, the teachings of godwin, proudhon, stirner, bakunin, kropotkin, tucker, tolstoi, and well-nigh all other recognized anarchistic teachings, would not admit of being regarded as anarchistic. . it is asserted that anarchism rejects law,[ ] the compulsion of law.[ ] if this were so, the teachings of proudhon, bakunin, kropotkin, tucker, and very many other recognized anarchistic teachings, could not rank as anarchistic. . it is declared that anarchism rejects society,[ ] that its ideal consists in wiping out society to make a fresh start,[ ] that for it fellowship exists only to be combated.[ ] were this correct, we should have to look upon the teachings of godwin, proudhon, stirner, bakunin, kropotkin, tucker, tolstoi, and pretty nearly all other recognized anarchistic teachings, as not anarchistic. . it is said that anarchism demands the abolition of the state,[ ] wills to destroy the state off the face of the earth,[ ] wills to have the state in no form at all,[ ] wills to have no government.[ ] if this were correct, the teachings of bakunin and kropotkin, and all the other recognized anarchistic teachings which only foresee the abolition of the state but do not demand it, could not rank as anarchistic. . it is asserted that in anarchism's future society the individual's consent binds him only so long as he is disposed to keep it up.[ ] were this really so, then the teachings of proudhon, bakunin, kropotkin, tucker, and very many other recognized anarchistic teachings, would have to be looked upon as not anarchistic. . it is said that anarchism wills to put a federation in the place of the state,[ ] that what it is striving for is the ordering of all public affairs by free contracts among federalistically instituted communes and societies.[ ] were this in accordance with truth, the teachings of godwin, stirner, tolstoi, and very many other recognized anarchistic teachings, would not admit of being regarded as anarchistic, and no more would the teachings of bakunin and kropotkin and the rest of the recognized anarchistic teachings that do not demand, but only foresee, a fellowship of contract. . it is declared that anarchism rejects property.[ ] if this were correct, we should have to rate the teachings of bakunin, kropotkin, tucker, and all the other recognized anarchistic teachings that affirm property either unconditionally or at any rate in some particular form, as not anarchistic. . it is asserted that anarchism rejects private property,[ ] endeavors to establish community of goods,[ ] is necessarily communistic.[ ] were anarchism necessarily communistic, then, in the first place, the teachings of godwin, proudhon, stirner, tolstoi, and all the other recognized anarchistic teachings which negate property in every form, even as the property of society, could not rank as anarchistic; and furthermore, neither could the teachings of tucker and bakunin, and such other recognized anarchistic teachings as affirm private property either in all things or at least in goods for direct consumption. and if in addition to this it were a matter of rejection or endeavor, then not even kropotkin's teaching, and the rest of the recognized anarchistic teachings which do not demand, but foresee, a communistic form of property, could be regarded as anarchistic. . a distinction is made between communist, collectivist, and individualist anarchism,[ ] or simply between communist and individualist anarchism.[ ] were the first division a complete one, the teachings of godwin, proudhon, stirner, tolstoi, and all the other recognized anarchistic teachings that do not affirm property in any form, could not rank as anarchistic; were the second complete, these again could not, nor yet could bakunin's teaching and such other recognized anarchistic teachings as affirm a property in the means of production only for society, but in the supplies of consumption for individuals also. . it is said that anarchism preaches crime,[ ] looks to a violent revolution for the initiation of the new condition,[ ] seeks to attain its goal with the help of all agencies, even theft and murder.[ ] if anarchism conceived of its realization as taking place by crime, we should have to look upon the teachings of godwin and proudhon and very many more recognized anarchistic teachings as not anarchistic; and, if it conceived of its realization as taking place by criminal acts of violence, the teachings of tucker and tolstoi and numerous other recognized anarchistic teachings would also have to be regarded as not anarchistic. . it is asserted that anarchism recognizes the propaganda of deed as a means toward its realization.[ ] if this were correct, the teachings of godwin, proudhon, stirner, bakunin, tucker, tolstoi, and most of the other recognized anarchistic teachings, could not rank as anarchistic. .--the concepts of anarchism and its species it is now possible, furthermore, to determine the common and special qualities of the anarchistic teachings, to assign them a place in the total realm of our experience, and thus to define conceptually anarchism and its species. i. _the common and special qualities of the anarchistic teachings._ . the anarchistic teachings have in common only this, that they negate the state for our future. in the cases of godwin, proudhon, stirner, and tucker, the negation means that they reject the state unconditionally, and so for our future as well as elsewhere; in the case of tolstoi it means that he rejects the state, though not unconditionally, yet for our future; in the cases of bakunin and kropotkin it means that they foresee that in future the progress of evolution will do away with the state. . as to their basis, the anarchistic teachings are classifiable as _genetic_, recognizing as the supreme law of human procedure merely a law of nature (bakunin, kropotkin) and _critical_, regarding a norm as the supreme law of human procedure. the critical teachings, again, are classifiable as _idealistic_, whose supreme law is a duty (proudhon, tolstoi), and _eudemonistic_, whose supreme law is happiness. the eudemonistic teachings, finally, are on their part further classifiable as _altruistic_, for which the general happiness is supreme law (godwin), and _egoistic_, for which the individual's happiness takes this rank (stirner, tucker). as to what they affirm for our future in contrast to the state, the anarchistic teachings are either _federalistic_--that is, they affirm for our future a social human life on the basis of the legal norm that contracts must be lived up to (proudhon, bakunin, kropotkin, tucker)--or _spontanistic_--that is, they affirm for our future a social human life on the basis of a non-juridical controlling principle (godwin, stirner, tolstoi). as to their relation to law, a part of the anarchistic teachings are _anomistic_, negating law for our future (godwin, stirner, tolstoi); the other part are _nomistic_, affirming it for our future (proudhon, bakunin, kropotkin, tucker). as to their relation to property, the anarchistic teachings are partly _indoministic_, negating property for our future (godwin, proudhon, stirner, tolstoi), partly _doministic_, affirming it for our future. the doministic teachings, again, are partly _individualistic_, affirming property, without limitation, for the individual as well as for the collectivity (tucker), partly _collectivistic_, affirming as to supplies for direct consumption a property that will sometimes be the individual's, but as to the means of production a property that is only for the collectivity (bakunin), and, finally, partly _communistic_, affirming property solely for the collectivity (kropotkin). as to how they conceive their realization, the anarchistic teachings divide into the _reformatory_, which conceive the transition from the negated to the affirmed condition as without breach of law (godwin, proudhon), and _revolutionary_, which conceive this transition as a breach of law. the revolutionary teachings, again, divide into _renitent_, which conceive the breach of law as without the use of force (tucker, tolstoi) and _insurgent_, which conceive it as attended by the use of force (stirner, bakunin, kropotkin). ii. _the place of the anarchistic teachings in the total realm of our experience._ . there must be distinguished three lines of thought in the philosophy of law: that is, three fashions of judging law. the first is _jurisprudential dogmatism_. it judges whether a legal institution ought to exist or not, and it judges quite unconditionally, solely by what the institution consists of, without regard to its effect under this or that particular set of circumstances. it embraces, therefore, the doctrines of a _proper law_: that is, the schools that seek to determine what law--for instance, whether the legal institution of marriage--is under all circumstances to be approved or to be disapproved. its best known form is "natural law." the weakness of jurisprudential dogmatism lies in its not taking account of the fact that our judgment of legal institutions must depend on their effects, and that one and the same legal institution has under different circumstances altogether different effects. the second line of thought is _jurisprudential skepticism_. in view of the weakness of jurisprudential dogmatism it foregoes judgment on whether a legal institution ought to exist or not, and pronounces judgment only on whether the tendency of evolution gives ground for expecting that a legal institution will persist or disappear, arise or remain non-existent. it embraces, therefore, the doctrines of the _evolution of law_: that is, the schools that undertake to inform us what sort of law is to be expected in future--for instance, whether the legal institution of marriage has a prospect of remaining in force among us. its best-known forms are the historical school in the science of law, and marxism. the weakness of jurisprudential skepticism consists in its not meeting our want of a scientific basis that shall enable us to recognize as correct or incorrect the incessantly-appearing judgments on the value of legal institutions, and to approve or disapprove the manifold propositions for changes in law. the third line of thought is _jurisprudential criticism_. in view of the weakness of jurisprudential dogmatism it foregoes passing judgment, without regard to the particular circumstances under which a legal institution operates, on whether that institution ought to exist or not; but yet in view of the weakness of jurisprudential skepticism it does not forego answering the question whether a legal institution ought to exist or not. it therefore sets up a supreme governing principle by which legal institutions are to be judged with regard to the particular circumstances under which they operate, the point being whether, under the particular circumstances under which a legal institution operates, it fulfils that supreme governing principle as well as is possible under these circumstances, or at least better than any other legal institution. it embraces, therefore, the doctrines of _the propriety of law_: that is, the schools that set up fundamental principles by which it is to be determined what law--for instance, whether the legal institution of marriage--ought under any particular circumstances to exist or not to exist. . with respect to the state these three lines of thought in the philosophy of law may arrive at different judgments, each one from its standpoint. first, to the _affirmation of the state_. so far as the schools of jurisprudential dogmatism affirm the state, they approve of it unconditionally, and so for our future as well as elsewhere, without any regard to its effects under this or that particular set of circumstances. among the numerous affirmative doctrines of the state in the sense of jurisprudential dogmatism, the teachings of hobbes, hegel, and jhering may perhaps be selected for emphasis as belonging to different sections of history. so far as the doctrines of jurisprudential skepticism affirm the state, they foresee, looking to the course evolution is taking, that in our future the state will continue to exist. the most notable representatives of jurisprudential skepticism, such as puchta and merkel, have offered no teaching regarding the state; but affirmative doctrines of the state in the sense of jurisprudential skepticism may be found, for instance, in montaigne and bernstein. finally, so far as the doctrines of jurisprudential criticism affirm the state, they commend it for our future in consideration of the particular circumstances that at present prevail in our case. jurisprudential criticism has thus far been most clearly set forth by stammler, who, however, has offered no teaching with regard to the state; but, for instance, spencer's teaching may rank as an affirmative doctrine of the state in the sense of jurisprudential criticism. second, the three lines of thought in the philosophy of law may arrive at the _negation of the state_, each one from its standpoint. so far as the doctrines of jurisprudential dogmatism negate the state, they reject it unconditionally, and so for our future as well as elsewhere, without any regard to its effects under this or that particular set of circumstances. negative doctrines of the state in the sense of jurisprudential dogmatism are the teachings of godwin, proudhon, stirner, and tucker. so far as the doctrines of jurisprudential skepticism negate the state, they foresee, looking to the course evolution is taking, that in our future the state will disappear. negative doctrines of the state in the sense of jurisprudential skepticism are the teachings of bakunin and kropotkin. so far as the doctrines of jurisprudential criticism negate the state, they reject it for our future in consideration of the particular circumstances that at present prevail in our case. a negative doctrine of the state in the sense of jurisprudential criticism is tolstoi's teaching. . therefore, the place of the anarchistic teachings in the total realm of our experience is defined by the fact that they, as a species of doctrine about the state in the philosophy of law,--to wit, as negative doctrines of the state,--stand in opposition to the other species of doctrine about the state, the affirmative doctrines of the state. this may be represented as shown in the table on the following page. iii. _the concepts of anarchism and its species._ . anarchism is the negation of the state in the philosophy of law: that is, it is that species of jurisprudential doctrine of the state which negates the state. . an anarchistic teaching cannot be complete without stating on what basis it rests, what condition it affirms in contrast to the state, and how it conceives the transition to this condition as taking place. a basis, an affirmative side, and a conception of the transition to that which it affirms, are necessary constituents of any anarchistic teaching. with regard to these constituents the following species of anarchism may be distinguished. ================================================================ | |_affirmative doctrines_|_negative doctrines_| | | _of the state_ | _of the state_ | |=================+======================+=====================| | | hobbes | godwin | | in the sense of | hegel | proudhon | | jurisprudential | jhering | stirner | | dogmatism | | tucker | +-----------------+----------------------+---------------------+ | in the sense of | montaigne | bakunin | | jurisprudential | bernstein | kropotkin | | skepticism | | | +-----------------+----------------------+---------------------+ | in the sense of | | | | jurisprudential | spencer | tolstoi | | criticism | | | first, as to basis, _genetic anarchism_, which recognizes as supreme law of human procedure only a law of nature (bakunin, kropotkin), and _critical anarchism_, which regards a norm as supreme law of human procedure; as subspecies of critical anarchism, _idealistic anarchism_, whose supreme law is a duty (proudhon, tolstoi), and _eudemonistic anarchism_, whose supreme law is happiness; and, finally, as subspecies of eudemonistic anarchism, _altruistic anarchism_, for which the supreme law is the general happiness (godwin), and _egoistic anarchism_, for which the supreme law is the individual's happiness (stirner, tucker). second, as to the condition affirmed in contrast to the state, there may be distinguished _federalistic anarchism_, which affirms for our future a social human life according to the legal norm that contracts must be lived up to (proudhon, bakunin, kropotkin, tucker), and _spontanistic anarchism_, which affirms for our future a social life according to a non-juridical governing principle (godwin, stirner, tolstoi). third, as to the conception of the transition to the affirmed condition, there may be distinguished _reformatory anarchism_, which conceives the transition from the state to the condition affirmed in contrast thereto as taking place without breach of law (godwin, proudhon), and _revolutionary anarchism_, which conceives this transition as a breach of law; as subspecies of revolutionary anarchism, _renitent anarchism_, which conceives the breach of law as without the use of violence (tucker, tolstoi), and _insurgent anarchism_, which conceives it as attended by the use of violence (stirner, bakunin, kropotkin). . an anarchistic teaching may be complete without taking up a position toward law or property. whenever, therefore, an anarchistic teaching takes up a position toward the one or the other, it contains an accidental adjunct. the anarchistic teachings that contain this adjunct may be classified according to its character; but, since anarchism as such can be classified only according to the character of the necessary constituents of every anarchistic teaching, such a classification _does not give us species of anarchism_. so far as the anarchistic teachings take up a position toward law, they are either _anomistic_--that is, they negate law for our future (godwin, stirner, tolstoi)--or _nomistic_--that is, they affirm it for our future (proudhon, bakunin, kropotkin, tucker). so far as they take up a position toward property, they are either _indoministic_, negating property for our future (godwin, proudhon, stirner, tolstoi), or _doministic_, affirming it for our future; the doministic teachings, again, are either _individualistic_, affirming property, without limitation, for the individual as well as for the collectivity (tucker), or _collectivistic_, affirming as to supplies for direct consumption a property which may be the individual's, but as to the means of production a property that is only for the collectivity (bakunin), or, last of all, _communistic_, affirming property for the collectivity alone (kropotkin). all this is brought before the eye in the table on page . [**symbol: hand pointing right][the table is given as compiled by eltzbacher. for correction of errors either certain or probable, see footnotes to pages , , ; note also that under "condition affirmed" the distinction is excessively fine between stirner, who would have men agree on the terms of a union which they are to stick to as long as they find it advisable, and bakunin and tucker, who would have them bound together by a contract limited by the inalienable right of secession.] key: a - genetic b - idealistic c - altrustic d - egoistic e - federalistic f - spontanistic g - reformatory h - renitent i - insurgent j - anomistic k - nomistic l - indoministic m - individualistic n - collectivistic o - communistic ===================================================================== | _doctrines of the state_ | _anarchistic teachings_ | | _in the philosophy of law_ | _may possibly be_ | |-----------------+--------------------+ | | affirmative | negative | | | doctrines | doctrines | | | of the state | of the state | | |-----------------+ | | | anarchism | | |-----------------+---------+----------+--------+-------------------| | |_as to |_as to its| _as to | _as to their | | |condition|conception| their | attitude toward | | |affirmed | of the |attitude| property_ | |_as to its basis_| in |transition| toward | | | |contrast | to the | law_ | | | | to the | affirmed | | | | | state_ |condition_| | | |---+-------------+---------+--+-------+---+----+----+--------------| | | critical | | | |revolu-| | | | doministic | | +----+--------+ | | |tionary| | | +--------------| | | |eudemon-| | | +-------+ | | | | | | | | | istic | | | | | | | | | | | | | | +--------+ | | | | | | | | | | | | a | b | c | d | e | f |g | h | i | j | k | l | m | n | o | |---+----+----+---+---+-----+--+---+---+---+----+----+----+----+----| | | | go | | |go* |go| | | go| | go | | | | |---+----+----+---+---+-----+--+---+---+---+----+----+----+----+----| | | pr | | |pr | |pr | | | | pr |pr* | | | | |---+----+----+---+---+-----+---+--+---+---+----+----+----+----+----| | | | |st | | st* | | |st |st*| |st* | | | | |---+----+----+---+---+-----+---+--+---+---+----+----+----+----+----| |ba | | | |ba | | | |ba | | ba | | | ba | | |---+----+----+---+---+-----+---+--+---+---+----+----+----+----+----| |kr | | | |kr | | | |kr | | kr | | | | kr | |---+----+----+---+---+-----+---+--+---+---+----+----+----+----+----| | | | |tu |tu | | |tu| | | tu | | tu | | | |---+----+----+---+---+-----+---+--+---+---+----+----+----+----+----| | | to | | | | to | |to| |to | | to | | | | ===================================================================== * [see note, p. .] footnotes: [ ] "_der anarchismus und seine träger_" pp. , , . [ ] reichesberg p. . [ ] lenz p. . [ ] plechanow p. . [ ] rienzi p. . [ ] bernatzik pp. , . [ ] lenz p. . [ ] crispi p. . [ ] stammler pp. , , , . [ ] lenz pp. , . [ ] garraud p. , tripels p. . [ ] silió p. . [ ] reichesberg pp. , . [ ] bernstein p. . [ ] lenz p. . [ ] bernatzik p. . [ ] "_hintermänner_" p. . [ ] reichesberg p. . [ ] "_hintermänner_" p. . [ ] lombroso p. . [ ] silió p. , dubois p. . [ ] proal p. . [ ] lombroso p. . [ ] sernicoli vol. p. , garraud pp. , . [ ] "_die historische entwickelung des anarchismus_" p. ; zenker p. . [ ] rienzi p. ; stammler pp. - ; merlino pp. , ; shaw p. . [ ] garraud p. ; lenz p. . [ ] sernicoli vol. p. ; garraud p. ; reichesberg p. ; van hamel p. . [ ] lombroso pp. , . [ ] garraud pp. - ; lombroso p. ; ferri p. . conclusion . the personal want that impelled us toward a scientific knowledge of anarchism has met with some satisfaction. the concepts of anarchism and its species have been defined; the most important errors have been removed; the most prominent anarchistic teachings of earlier and recent times have been presented in detail. we have become acquainted with anarchism's armory. we have seen all that can be objected against the state from all possible standpoints. we have been shown the most diverse orders of life as destined to take the state's place in future. the transition from the state to these orders of life has been represented to us in the most manifold ways. he who would know anarchism still more intimately, investigate the less notable teachings as well as the most prominent, and assign to both these and those their place in the causal nexus of historical events, will now find at least the foundation laid for his work. he knows with what sorts of teachings, and what parts of these teachings, he must concern himself, and what questions he must put to each of them. in this investigation he must expect many surprises: the teaching of the unknown pisacane will astonish him by its originality, and that of the much-talked-of most will show itself to be only a coarsened form of kropotkin's. but on the whole it is hardly likely that the investigation will be worth the trouble it takes: the special ideas that anarchism has to offer are given with tolerable completeness in the seven teachings here presented. . the external want on account of which anarchism had to be scientifically known may now also be satisfied. one thing we must at any rate do with regard to anarchism: examine its teachings, as to their soundness or unsoundness, with courage, composure, and impartiality. but success in this task can be expected only if we no longer wander about aimlessly in the night of jurisprudential skepticism, or try to light it up with the lantern of dogmatism, but rather keep our eye fixed upon the guiding star of criticism. whether, besides this, it is requisite to oppose anarchism or at least one or another of its species by especial instrumentalities of power,--whether, in particular, crime committed for the realization of anarchistic teachings is a more serious misdeed than any political or even ordinary crime,--as to this the legislators of each country must decide with a view to the special conditions existing therein. index of details, exemplifications, and catchwords in the quotations from the seven writers the following index is not a translation of eltzbacher's, and does not index his part of the work, but only the matter quoted from the seven writers. furthermore, it does not index such parts of their work as are readily found by consulting the table of contents and chapter x. the reader will therefore, in general, for justice, see the sections "basis" and "property" in each chapter, and the whole of chapter iv; for self-interest, "basis" in each chapter and the whole of chapters v and viii; for classes, "state" and "property" in each chapter; for organization, "state" and "realization"; for government, democracy, tyranny, "state"; for capitalism, poverty, inequality, "property"; for communism, chapters vii and ix, especially "property" and "realization", comparing chapter vi; for propaganda, social revolution, "realization" in each chapter; and so on. so far as general points of this nature are mentioned in the index, it is in most cases only on some incidental occasion, and does not supersede this general reference: nor could this be superseded without thereby misleading the reader. "law" has received somewhat exceptional treatment. the reader will of course not assume, because in the index he does not find a certain author among those who are cited on a certain topic, that this author has not mentioned it. while the index shows a wider range of topics than might have been expected in such a book, the nature of eltzbacher's compilation forbids us to expect that it should serve as a complete cyclopedia of anarchism. absenteeism, kr. - , to. - , , aged, see dependent agriculture, kr. , , to. american revolution, go. anarchism, first use of name, pr. , kr. anarchy, lesser evil, go. areas of jurisdiction, ideally: small, go. - nation-wide, pr. - larger and larger, ba. undefined, kr. , tu. army: cannot crush revolution, kr. basis of state, to. - refuse to serve in, to. , of revolution, ba. , , kr. associations, voluntary, st. - , kr. - , tu. - astronomy, kr. authority: object of competition, pr. - sought only by the bad, to. - bad men, see criminals ballot, see voting bank, pr. , - , tu. - , bees swarming, to. bloodshed: insignificant, ba. , kr. see force, war boundaries: abolished, ba. , no economic, kr. see areas bribery by state, to. - california, pr. central authority in future, go. - , pr. - , ba. centralization, pr. - children, tu. , ftn. ; see dependent christianity, to. - church: anti-christian, to. - organization, pr. - property, ba. collectivism, ba. , kr. - colonists, to. - columbus, to. - commune: economic unit, kr. - , , , - political unit, ba. communism in present society, kr. - , contract: basic, pr. , , kr. , tu. - eschewed, go. - (but see footnotes), , to. scope of, ba. , tu. courts, future: drawn by lot, tu. elective, pr. free from law, go. , partly free from law, tu. , ftn. merely recommend, go. criminals: state gives power to, to. - state makes, kr. , , tu. , , to. - debts: private, ba. , tu. - of state, ba. , kr. defence: a commodity, tu. , - force justified in, tu. - , , force not justified in, to. - see invasion defensive associations, tu. - deliberative assemblies, go. , - , - ; see central dependent: the poor are, to. - provision for the, go. - , st. - , kr. , to. destruction, kr. - discussion, go. , kr. , tu. distress, relief of, tu. egoism, st. - , tu. english history, go. , kr. - evolution no excuse for inertness, kr. - , to. - , example, propaganda by, pr. , ba. , kr. - , tu. - , to. , - exploitation, state stands for, ba. , , expropriation, kr. - expulsion, pr. , kr. , extradition in future, go. - force: inadmissible, to. - justification of, tu. , , in law, to. may be necessary, tu. - necessary, st. , in property, to. - in state, st. , ba. , tu. , to. - undesirable, pr. unreliable, go. useful, kr. , works badly, tu. , - , to. - frankness, to. , - freedom, see liberty; also speech, etc. french revolution: events, go. , kr. , - , - legislatures, go. , pr. government, see state heirs dividing property, go. - houses, kr. , hypnotizing the people, to. independence, ba. , - inequality will persist but diminish, tu. - institutions to be preserved, pr. , intelligence, government checks progress in, go. , intercourse of social organizations, go. - and ftn., kr. - , tu. intimidation, to. invasion: foreign, go. , kr. , to. personal, tu. - irish land league, tu. - , , judge, jury, see courts labor: amount of, go. , kr. - basis of distribution, pr. , ba. basis of ownership, tu. , basis of sharing, kr. , - of past generations, kr. - product of, tu. , seeking higher pay, st. , universal duty, to. , land: monopoly, tu. tenure, tu. , , law: dwarfs character, go. is changeful, go. is consecrated, st. - is hostile in purpose, st. - , ba. , to. is inadequate, to. - is not agreed to, pr. , kr. , to. - is not impartial, pr. , st. , kr. - , - is not up to date, to. - is obstructive, st. , kr. is prophetic, go. is rigid, go. - , kr. , tu. is uncertain, go. is violent, to. is voluminous, go. , , pr. - , kr. origin of, go. , kr. - , to. tends to encroach, go. , pr. , st. , kr. , to. liberty, equal, tu. - , ftn. liquor, tu. mental influence, to. - military, see army money: monopoly, tu. - , - power of, to. - see bank monopoly: economic, tu. - state is, tu. music, kr. mutuality, pr. non-resistance, to. - occupancy and use: title to land, tu. , title to everything, to. - paine quoted, go. and ftn. papers, legal, pr. , ba. passive resistance, tu. - , to. - patents, tu. , peasants: beating each other, to. condition of, kr. , to. economic practices of, kr. - , to. - how to reach, ba. revolutionary achievements of, kr. , ; see irish police: agency of governmental violence, to. , depraved, to. in future society, tu. ftn. , - , ftn. ; see extradition lawless, kr. obstructive, st. to be replaced by voluntary intervention of citizens, kr. the support of property, to. power, see authority press, freedom of, tu. printing, kr. private wants in communism, kr. - product, see labor production will increase, kr. - , tu. promise, see contract property, definition of, pr. - , to. public opinion: in advance of law, to. - to be changed, pr. - , ba. , tu. , to. - doctored by state, ba. , to. - society to be ruled by, to. punishment: is antiquated, to. is not wanted, kr. is proper, tu. - , is useless, kr. makes criminals, kr. , to. see expulsion railroads: agreement of, kr. building, kr. ownership of, kr. rationing, kr. - , red cross society, kr. religion foundation of state, ba. - rent: economic, tu. - , ftn. of landlord, kr. , tu. , , , resistance, see defence, force, passive revolution part of evolution, kr. - rich, the: depraved, ba. , kr. - guilty, to. , - will help us, go. , pr. right, rights: admissible sense, tu. a delusion, st. - , tu. to enforce contract, tu. - to independence, ba. , - to live comfortably, go. - , kr. , only for rich, kr. - of secession, ba. , tu. - state has no, tu. robbery, forms of, pr. - ruling classes: bad men originally, to. - depraved by ruling, ba. , to. incompetent, kr. schools, kr. , to. secession, ba. , tu. - secret societies, ba. , , kr. self the thing to be changed, st. - , to. - , sick, see dependent society: distinguished from government, go. indispensable, ba. , tu. organism, evolving, kr. - values all due to, kr. - see secret soldiers, see army speech, freedom of, tu. spencer quoted, tu. and ftn. spooner, lysander, xi staff of revolutionary army, ba. state defined, tu. - stop beating each other, to. street-making, kr. tariff, tu. taxation: robbery which vitiates all state's acts, tu. refuse to pay, tu. - , - , to. theft, see robbery violence, see force virtue, state hostile to, ba. voting: for officers now appointed otherwise, pr. - in state, a form of force, tu. irrational, go. - in voluntary association, tu. war: a fight for dominion, to. state stands for, kr. see force, invasion warren, josiah, tu. ftn. , (for "they" see ftn. ) * * * * * the adventures of caleb williams or things as they are by william godwin "_it was proposed, in the invention of the following work, to comprehend, as far as the progressive nature of a single story would allow, a general review of the modes of domestic and unrecorded despotism by which man becomes the destroyer of man._"--from the preface. limp lambskin, gilt top, $ . photogravure frontispiece _mailed, post-paid, by_ benj. r. tucker, p. o. box , new york city * * * * * works of p. j. proudhon in the original french +qu'est-ce que la propriété?+ premier mémoire: recherches sur le principe du droit et du gouvernement. deuxième mémoire: lettre à m. blanqui sur la propriété. pages. cents. +avertissement aux propriétaires.+ célébration du dimanche; 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"in a given society the authority of man over man is inversely proportional to the stage of intellectual development which that society has reached."--_the author._ "that element in the idea of property which is necessary, immutable, and absolute is reducible to individual and transmissible possession, susceptible of exchange but not of alienation, founded on labor, and not on fictitious occupancy or idle caprice."--_the author._ in german +was ist das eigentum?+ erste denkschrift. untersuchungen über den ursprung und die grundlagen des rechts und der herrschaft. translated, with a preface, by alfons fedor cohn. pages. cents. +kapital und zins.+ die polemik zwischen bastiat und proudhon. translated, with an introduction, by arthur mülberger. pages. cents. in italian +la soluzione del problema sociale.+ portrait and biographical sketch. pages. cents. +psicologia della rivoluzione.+ pages. cents. _mailed, post-paid, by_ benj. r. tucker, p. o. box , new york city * * * * * works relating to p. j. proudhon in english +dana, charles a.+ +proudhon and his "bank of the people."+ pages. leatherette, cents; paper, cents. +greene, william b.+ +mutual banking.+ showing the radical deficiency of the present circulating medium and the advantages of a free currency. portrait. pages. cents. in french +bourgin, hubert.+ +proudhon.+ portrait. pages. cents. +desjardins, arthur.+ +p.-j. proudhon: sa vie, ses oeuvres, sa doctrine.+ vols. pages. $ . . +lagarde, edmond.+ +la revanche de proudhon: ou, l'avenir du socialisme mutuelliste.+ thèse pour le doctorat presentée et soutenue le vendredi juin . pages. $ . . +sainte-beuve, c. a.+ +p. j. proudhon: sa vie et sa correspondance.+ - . pages. cents. in german +biermann, w. ed.+ +anarchismus und communismus.+ pages. cents. +m�lberger, arthur.+ +p. j. proudhon: leben und werke.+ pages. cents. in italian +zani, bartolomeo.+ +la questione monetaria in relazione alla questione sociale.+ pages. cents. _mailed, post-paid, by_ benj. r. tucker, p. o. box , new york city * * * * * works of max stirner in english +the ego and his own.+ translated from the german by steven t. byington, in collaboration with other students of german and of stirner. with an introduction by j. l. walker. pages. the only edition, in any language, that has an index. ordinary cloth, $ . ; superior cloth, full gilt edges, $ . . the most revolutionary book ever written, its purpose being to totally destroy the idea of duty and assert the supremacy of the will, and from this standpoint to effect a "transmutation of all values" and displace the state by a union of conscious egoists. "if you devour the sacred, you have made it your own. digest the sacramental wafer, and you are rid of it."--the author. "this work of genius is not inferior in style to that of nietzsche, and in philosophical value surpasses nietzsche's by a thousand cubits."--eduard von hartmann. "that there was a pen to write such things is incomprehensible. one must have read the book to believe that it exists."--revue des deux mondes. in german +der einzige und sein eigentum.+ pages. cents. +kleinere schriften.+ pages. cloth, cents; paper, cents. in french +l'unique et sa propriété.+ translated by robert l. reclaire. pages. cents. +l'unique et sa propriété.+ translated, with a preface, by henri lasvignes. pages. $ . . _mailed, post-paid, by_ benj. r. tucker, p. o. box , new york city * * * * * works relating to max stirner in german +duboc, julius.+ +das ich und die �brigen.+ für und wider m. stirner. pages. cents. +hartmann, eduard von.+ +ethische studien.+ pages. $ . . +mackay, john henry.+ +max stirner: sein leben und sein werk.+ pages. cloth, $ . ; paper, cents. +messer, max.+ +max stirner.+ pages. cents. +ruest, anselm.+ +max stirner.+ pages. cents. +stirnerbrevier.+ pages. cents. in french +basch, victor.+ +l'individualisme anarchiste: max stirner.+ pages. $ . . _mailed, post-paid, by_ benj. r. tucker, p. o. box , new york city * * * * * works of michael bakounine in english +god and the state.+ with a preface by carlo cafiero and elisée reclus. translated from the french by benj. r. tucker. pages. cents. "one of the most eloquent pleas for liberty ever written. paine's 'age of reason' and 'rights of man' consolidated and improved. it stirs the pulse like a trumpet-call."--_the truth seeker_. in french +correspondance.+ letters to herzen and to ogareff. - . with preface and annotations by michel dragomanow. translated by marie stromberg. pages. cents. +oeuvres.+ vol. i. fédéralisme, socialisme, et antithéologisme; lettres sur le patriotisme; dieu et l'état. pages. cents. +oeuvres.+ vol. ii. les ours de berne et l'ours de saint-pétersbourg ( ); lettres à un français sur la crise actuelle (septembre, ); l'empire knouto-germanique et la révolution sociale ( - ). with biographical sketch, prefaces, and notes by james guillaume. cents. in german +michail bakunins sozial-politischer briefwechsel mit alexander iw. herzen und ogarjow.+ with preface and annotations by michail dragomanow. translated by boris minzès. pages. cents. _mailed, post-paid, by_ benj. r. tucker, p. o. box , new york city * * * * * works of peter kropotkine in english +fields, factories, and workshops+; or, industry combined with agriculture and brain work with manual work. illustrated. pages. cents. "the main subject of social economy--_i. e._, the economy of energy required for the satisfaction of human needs--is the last subject which one expects to find treated in a concrete form in economical treatises."--_from the preface._ +memoirs of a revolutionist.+ with an introduction by georg brandes. portrait. pages. gilt top. $ . . "one will find in this volume a combination of all the elements out of which an intensely eventful life is composed: idyl and tragedy, drama and romance."--_brandes._ +russian literature.+ pages. gilt top. $ . . in german +memoiren eines revolutionärs.+ translated by max pannwitz. illustrated. vols. pages. $ . . +ideale und wirklichkeit in der russischen literatur.+ translated by b. ebenstein. pages. $ . . +gegenseitige hilfe in der entwickelung.+ translated by gustav landauer. pages. $ . . _mailed, post-paid, by_ benj. r. tucker, p. o. box , new york city * * * * * instead of a book by a man too busy to write one a fragmentary exposition of philosophical anarchism _culled from the writings of_ benj. r. tucker editor of liberty _with a full-page half-tone portrait of the author_ a large, well-printed, and excessively cheap volume of pages, consisting of articles selected from liberty and classified under the following headings: ( ) state socialism and anarchism: how far they agree, and wherein they differ; ( ) the individual, society, and the state; ( ) money and interest; ( ) land and rent; ( ) socialism; ( ) communism; ( ) methods; ( ) miscellaneous. the whole elaborately indexed. _cloth, one dollar; paper, fifty cents_ mailed, post-paid, by benj. r. tucker, p. o. box , new york city * * * * * state socialism and anarchism _how far they agree and wherein they differ_ by benj. r. tucker the opening chapter of "instead of a book," reprinted separately. the best pamphlet with which to meet the demand for a compact exposition of anarchism. _price, cents_ mailed, post-paid, by benj. r. tucker, p. o. box , new york city * * * * * works of leo n. tolstoi in english +war and peace.+ translated by nathan haskell dole. vols. pages. $ . . +anna karénina.+ translated by nathan haskell dole. pages. $ . . +resurrection.+ translated by louise maude. illustrated. pages. gilt top. $ . . +twenty-three tales.+ translated by l. and a. maude. pages. cents. in italian +la potenza delle tenebre.+ pages. cents. +resurrezione.+ translated by nina romanowsky. vols. pages. cents. +la sonata a kreutzer.+ pages. cents. +anna karenine+. con uno studio di domenico ciampoli sui romanzi russi. vols. pages. cents. +la guerra e la paco.+ with a preface by m. de vogüé. vols. , pages. $ . . +che cosa e l'arte?+ cents. _mailed, post-paid, by_ benj. r. tucker, p. o. box , new york city * * * * * works of leo n. tolstoi in french +paroles d'un homme libre.+ translated by j. w. bienstock. pages. cents. +le patriotisme et le gouvernement+. pages. cents. +la guerre russo-japonaise.+ translated by e. halpérine-kaminsky. pages. cents. +plaisirs vicieux.+ translated by halpérine-kaminsky. with a preface by alexandre dumas. pages. cents. +plaisirs cruels.+ contenant la profession de foi de l'auteur. translated by halpérine-kaminsky. with a preface by charles richet. pages. cents. +la fin de notre ère.+ a propos de la révolution en russie. translated by j. w. bienstock. pages. cents. +les décembristes.+ translated by b. tseytline and e. jaubert. with a historical introduction by e. jaubert. pages. cents. +la puissance des ténèbres.+ translated by e. halpérine-kaminsky. pages. cents. in german +anna karenina.+ translated by hans moser. vols. , pages. cents. +krieg und frieden.+ vols. , pages. cents. _mailed, post-paid, by_ benj. r. tucker, p. o. box , new york city * * * * * works relating to anarchism in german +borgius, w. die ideenwelt des anarchismus.+ pages. cents. +eltzbacher, paul. der anarchismus.+ pages. $ . . +friedl�nder, benedict. marxismus und anarchismus.+ pages. cents. +humboldt, wilhelm von. ideen zu einem versuch, die grenzen der wirksamkeit des staats zu bestimmen.+ pages. cents. +ibsen, henrik. ein volksfeind.+ translated by wilhelm lange. pages. cents. +mackay, john henry. die anarchisten.+ kulturgemälde aus dem ende des xix. jahrhunderts. pages. cloth, cents; paper, cents. sturm. cents. +saitzeff, helene. william godwin und die anfänge des anarchismus im xviii. jahrhundert.+ ein beitrag zur geschichte des politischen individualismus. pages. cents. +zenker, e. v. der anarchismus.+ kritische geschichte der anarchistischen theorie. pages. $ . . in italian +ibsen, enrico. un nemico del popolo.+ cents. +zoccoli, estore g. l'anarchia: gli agitatori, le idee, i fatti.+ saggio di una revisione sistematica e critica e di una valutazione etica. pages. $ . . _mailed, post-paid, by_ benj. r. tucker, p. o. box , new york city * * * * * works relating to anarchism in english +burke, edmund. a vindication of natural society+. pamphlet. pages. cents. "in vain you tell me that artificial government is good, but that i fall out only with the abuse. the thing--the thing itself is the abuse."--from the above pamphlet. +donisthorpe, wordsworth. law in a free state.+ pages. $ . . "if the doctrine of passive obedience to the odd man had been universally held by our forefathers, there would have been no smithfield fires to light the way to liberty."--the author. +ibsen, henrik. an enemy of society.+ translated by william archer. pages. paper covers. cents. +ouida. the waters of edera.+ pages. gilt top. $ . . a thoroughly anarchistic novel. +tandy, francis d. voluntary socialism.+ a sketch. pages. cents. in french +eltzbacher, paul. l'anarchisme.+ translated by otto karmin. pages. cents. +ghio, paul. l'anarchisme aux etats-unis.+ pages. cents. +ibsen, henrik. un ennemi du peuple.+ translated, with a preface, by the comte prozor. pages. cents. +mackay, john henry. les anarchistes.+ moeurs de la fin du xixe siècle. translated by auguste lavallé (louis de hessem). pages. cents. +rabani, �mile. l'anarchie scientifique.+ pages. cents. _mailed, post-paid, by_ benj. r. tucker, p. o. box , new york city * * * * * liberty benj. r. tucker, _editor_ an anarchistic journal, expounding the doctrine that in equal liberty is to be found the most satisfactory solution of social questions, and that majority rule, or democracy, equally with monarchical rule, is a denial of equal liberty. _appreciations_ g. bernard shaw, _author of_ "_man and superman_": "liberty is a lively paper, in which the usual proportions of a half-pennyworth of discussion to an intolerable deal of balderdash are reversed." william douglas o'connor, _author of_ "_the good gray poet_": "the editor of liberty would be the gavroche of the revolution, if he were not its enjolras." frank stephens, _well-known single-tax champion, philadelphia_: "liberty is a paper which reforms reformers." bolton hall, _author of_ "_even as you and i_": "liberty shows us the profit of anarchy, and is the prophet of anarchy." allen kelly, _formerly chief editorial writer on the philadelphia_ "_north american_": "liberty is my philosophical polaris. i ascertain the variations of my economic compass by taking a sight at her whenever she is visible." samuel w. cooper, _counsellor at law, philadelphia_: "liberty is a journal that thomas jefferson would have loved." edward osgood brown, _judge of the illinois circuit court_: "i have seen much in liberty that i agreed with, and much that i disagreed with, but i never saw any cant, hypocrisy, or insincerity in it, which makes it an almost unique publication." _published bimonthly. twelve issues, $ . _ _single copies, cents_ address: benj. r. tucker, p. o. box , new york city * * * * * josiah warren the first american anarchist a biography, with portrait by william bailie the biography is preceded by an essay on "the anarchist spirit," in which mr. bailie defines anarchist belief in relation to other social forces. _price, one dollar_ mailed, post-paid, by benj. r. tucker, p. o. box , new york city * * * * * benj. r. tucker's unique book-shop sixth ave., near th st. _open evenings_ largest stock in the world of advanced literature in english, french, german, and italian lowest prices in the united states by to per cent. for all books in french, german, and italian promptest service in america for importation of books from europe benj. r. tucker's unique catalogues of english books, pages, titles of french books, pages, titles of italian books, pages, titles of german books, pages, titles _english catalogue, cents; french, cents; german, cents; italian, cents any catalogue sent to any address on receipt of price_ mail address: benj. r. tucker, p. o. box , new york city * * * * * the sanity of art by bernard shaw this is the first publication in book or pamphlet form of bernard shaw's famous open letter to benj. r. tucker, the editor of _liberty_, in review of max nordau's "degeneration," and originally contributed to the pages of _liberty_. the issue of _liberty_ containing it is out of print, and copies of it are very valuable. the volume contains also a characteristic shaw preface in which he declares that the essay was prepared in response to the highest offer ever made for a magazine article. "the sanity of art" is mr. shaw's most important pronouncement on the subject of art, and admittedly one of the finest pieces of art criticism ever penned. _ pages. cloth, gilt top, cts.; paper, cts._ _mailed, post-paid, by_ benj. r. tucker, p. o. box , new york city * * * * * two of a kind! a brace of anarchist classics spencer and thoreau the right to ignore the state by herbert spencer being a reprint of the suppressed chapter from the original edition of "social statics," now rare and costly. _price, ten cents_ on the duty of civil disobedience by henry d. thoreau "i quietly declare war with the state, after my fashion, though i will still make what use and get what advantage of her i can, as is usual in such cases."--_thoreau._ _price, seven cents_ _mailed, post-paid, by_ benj. r. tucker, p. o. box , new york city * * * * * anarchist stickers aggressive, concise anarchistic assertions and arguments, in sheets, gummed and perforated, to be planted everywhere as broadcast seed for thought. printed in clear, heavy type. size, - / by - / inches. excellent for use on first, third, and fourth class mail matter. there is no better method of propagandism for the money. there are different stickers. each sheet contains copies of one sticker. sample stickers no. .--it can never be unpatriotic to take your country's side against your government. it must always be unpatriotic to take your government's side against your country. no. .--what i must not do, the government must not do. no. .--whatever really useful thing government does for men they would do for themselves if there was no government. no. .--the institution known as "government" cannot continue to exist unless many a man is willing to be government's agent in committing what he himself regards as an abominable crime. no. .--considering what a nuisance the government is, the man who says we cannot get rid of it must be called a confirmed pessimist. no. .--anarchism is the denial of force against any peaceable individual. no. .--"all governments, the worst on earth and the most tyrannical on earth, are free governments to that portion of the people who voluntarily support them."--lysander spooner. no. .--"i care not who makes th' laws iv a nation, if i can get out an injunction."--mr. dooley. no. .--"it will never make any difference to a hero what the laws are."--emerson. no. .--the population of the world is gradually dividing into two classes--anarchists and criminals. no. .--"liberty means responsibility. that is why most men dread it."--bernard shaw. no. .--"there is one thing in the world more wicked than the desire to command, and that is the will to obey."--w. kingdon clifford. no. .--the only protection which honest people need is protection against that vast society for the creation of theft which is euphemistically designated as the state. no. .--with the monstrous laws that are accumulating on the statute-books, one may safely say that the man who is not a confirmed criminal is scarcely fit to live among decent people. send for circular giving entire list of stickers, with their numbers. order by number. price: stickers, assorted to suit purchaser, cents; , or more, stickers, assorted to suit purchaser, cents per hundred. mailed, post paid, by benj. r. tucker, p. o. box , new york city.