THE MESSAGE
 
 "I SAW THAT QUEEN OF ANCIENT BRITONS AT THE HEAD OF 
 HER WILD, SHAGGY LEGIONS" (See page 233)
 
 A. J. DAWSON 
 
 Jluthor of " Hidden Manna," " African Nights Entertain- 
 
 ments," " Daniel Whyte," " God's Foundling," 
 
 "Ronald Kestrel," etc. 
 
 Illustrated from Color Sketches 
 (By H. M. BROCK 
 
 DANA ESTES & COMPANY, BOSTON 
 E. GRANT RICHARDS, LONDON
 
 Copyright, April 77, 7907 
 BY DANA ESTES & COMPANY 
 
 All rights reserved 
 Entered at Stationers' 1 Hall 
 
 COLONIAL PRESS 
 
 ELKCTROTYPKD AND PRINTED BY C. H. SIMONDS & Co. 
 BOSTON, U.S.A.
 
 SRLF 
 URL 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PART I. THE DESCENT 
 
 OHAPT PAGE 
 
 I. IN THE MAKING 3 
 
 II. Ax THE WATER'S EDGE .... 12 
 
 III. AN INTERLUDE 17 
 
 IV. THE LAUNCHING 29 
 
 V. A JOURNALIST'S EQUIPMENT ... 41 
 
 VI. A JOURNALIST'S SURROUNDINGS ... 53 
 
 VII. A GIRL AND HER FAITH 66 
 
 VIII. A STIRRING WEEK 78 
 
 IX. A STEP DOWN 90 
 
 X. FACILIS DESCENSUS AVERNI ... 101 
 
 XL MORNING CALLERS Ill 
 
 XII. SATURDAY NIGHT IN LONDON . . . 121 
 
 XIII. THE DEMONSTRATION IN HYDE PARK . . 131 
 
 XIV. THE NEWS 143 
 
 XV. SUNDAY NIGHT IN LONDON . . . 153 
 
 XVI. A PERSONAL REVELATION .... 163 
 
 XVII. ONE STEP FORWARD 168 
 
 XVIII. THE DEAR LOAF 177 
 
 XIX. THE TRAGIC WEEK 188 
 
 XX. BLACK SATURDAY 198 
 
 XXI. ENGLAND ASLEEP . .... 208 
 
 PART II. THE AWAKENING 
 
 I. THE FIRST DAYS 221 
 
 II. ANCIENT LIGHTS 228
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTEB PAGE 
 
 III. THE RETURN TO LONDON .... 237 
 
 IV. THE CONFERENCE 243 
 
 V. MY OWN PART 257 
 
 VI. PREPARATIONS 262 
 
 VII. THE SWORD OF THE LORD .... 271 
 
 VIII. THE PREACHERS 291 
 
 IX. THE CITIZENS 301 
 
 X. SMALL FIGURES ON A GREAT STAGE . . 312 
 
 XI. THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE .... 317 
 
 XII. BLOOD Is THICKER THAN WATER . . 330 
 
 XIII. ONE SUMMER MORNING .... 338 
 
 XIV. "FOR GOD, OUR RACE, AND DUTY" . . 343 
 XV. "SINGLE HEART AND SINGLE SWORD' . 352 
 
 XVI. HANDS ACROSS THE SEA .... 360 
 
 XVII. THE PENALTY 366 
 
 XVIII. THE PEACE 374 
 
 XIX. THE GREAT ALLIANCE .... 383 
 
 XX. PEACE HATH HER VICTORIES . . 389 
 
 VI
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 " I SAW THAT QUEEN OF ANCIENT BRITONS AT THE 
 
 HEAD OF HER WILD, SHAGGY LEGIONS " Frontispiece 
 
 THE ROARING CITY ....... 40 
 
 " RIVERS USHERED IN Miss CONSTANCE GREY " . . 114 
 
 " I WAS ON MY KNEES AND KISSING THE NERVP:LESS 
 
 HAND" . 212
 
 Non his juventus orta parentibus infecit aequor sanguine 
 Punico. HOKACB.
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 IN THE MAKING 
 
 " Such as I am, sir no great subject for a boaster, I admit- 
 you see in me a product of my time, sir, and of very worthy 
 parents, I assure you." EZEK.IEL JOT. 
 
 AS a very small lad, at home in Tarn Regis, I had 
 but one close chum, George Stairs, and he went 
 off with his father to Canada, while I was away for 
 my first term at Elstree school. Then came Rugby, 
 where I had several friends, but the chief of them was 
 Leslie Wheeler. Just why we should have been close 
 friends I cannot say, but I fancy it was mainly 
 because Leslie was such a handsome fellow, and always 
 seemed to cut a good figure in everything he did; 
 while I, on the other hand, excelled in nothing, and 
 was not brilliant even in the expression of my discon- 
 tent, which was tolerably comprehensive. Withal, in 
 other matters beside discontent, I was a good deal of 
 an extremist, and by no means lacking in enthusiasm. 
 My father, too, was an enthusiast in his quiet way. 
 His was the enthusiasm of the student, and his work 
 as historian and archaeologist absorbed, I must sup- 
 
 3
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 pose, a great deal more of his interest and energy 
 than was ever given to his cure of souls. He was 
 rector of Tarn Regis, in Dorset, before I was born, 
 and at the time of his death, to be present at which 
 I was called away in the middle of the last term of my 
 third year at Cambridge. I was to have spent four 
 years at the University ; but, as the event proved, I 
 never returned there after my hurried departure, 
 three days prior to my father's death. 
 
 The personal tie between my father and those 
 among whom he lived and worked was not a very close 
 or intimate bond. His contribution to the Cambridge 
 History was greatly appreciated by scholars, and his 
 archaeological research won him the respect and es- 
 teem of his peers in that branch of study. But I can- 
 not pretend that his loss was keenly felt by his parish- 
 ioners, with most of whom his relations had been 
 strictly professional rather than personal. A good 
 man and true, without a trace of anything sordid or 
 self-seeking in his nature, my father was yet singu- 
 larly indifferent to everything connected with the 
 daily lives and welfare of his fellow creatures. 
 
 In this he was typical of a considerable section of 
 the country clergy of the time. I knew colleagues of 
 his who were more pronounced examples of the type. 
 One in particular I call to mind (whose living was in 
 the gift of a Cambridge college, like my father's), 
 who, though a good fellow and a clean-lived gentle- 
 man, was no more a Christian than he was a Buddhist 
 less, upon the whole. Among scholarly folk he 
 made not the slightest pretence of regarding the 
 fundamental tenets of the Christian faith in the light 
 
 4
 
 IN THE MAKING 
 
 of anything more serious than interesting historical 
 myths, notable sections in the mosaic of folk-lore, 
 which it was his pride and delight to study and un- 
 derstand. 
 
 Such men as A R and my father (and there 
 were many like them, and more who shared their 
 aloofness while lacking half their virtues) lived hard- 
 working, studious lives, in which the common kinds of 
 self-indulgence played but a very small part. Hon- 
 ourable, kindly at heart, gentle, rarely consciously 
 selfish, these worthy men never gave a thought to the 
 current affairs of their country, to their own part as 
 citizens, or to the daily lives of their fellow country- 
 men. Indeed, they exhibited a kind of gentle intoler- 
 ance and contempt in all topical concerns ; and though 
 they preached religion and drew stipends as expound- 
 ers of Christianity, they no more thought of " pry- 
 ing " or " interfering," as they would have said, into 
 the actual lives and hearts and minds of those about 
 them, than of thrusting their hands into their parish- 
 ioners' pockets. 
 
 Stated in this bald way the thing may sound incred- 
 ible, but those whose recollections carry them back to 
 the opening years of the century will bear me out in 
 saying that this was far from being either the most 
 distressing or the most remarkable among the out- 
 workings of what was then extolled as a broad spirit 
 of tolerance. Our " tolerance," our vaunted " cosmo- 
 politanism," were far more dangerous factors of our 
 national life, had we but known it, than either the 
 insularity of our sturdy forbears or the strength of 
 our enemies had ever been. 
 
 5
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 Even my dear mother did not, I think, feel the 
 shock of her bereavement so much as might have been 
 supposed. One may say, without disrespect, that the 
 loss of my father gave point and justification to my 
 mother's attitude toward life. Kind, gentle soul that 
 she was, my mother was afflicted with what might be 
 called the worrying temperament ; a disposition char- 
 acteristic of that troublous time. My memory seems 
 to fasten upon the matter of domestic labour as repre- 
 senting the crux and centre of my dear mother's 
 grievances and topics of lament prior to my father's 
 death. The subject may seem to border upon the 
 ridiculous, as an influence upon one's general point of 
 view ; but at that time it was really more tragic than 
 farcical, and I know that what was called " the serv- 
 ant question " as such it was gravely treated in 
 books and papers, and even by leader-writers and 
 lecturers formed the basis of a great deal of my 
 mother's conversation, just as I am sure that it col- 
 oured her outlook upon life, and strengthened her 
 tendency to worry over everything, from the wear- 
 and-tear of house-linen to the morality of the people. 
 All this was incomprehensible and absurd to my 
 father, though, had he but thought of it, it was really 
 more human than his own attitude ; for certainly my 
 mother was interested and concerned in the daily lives 
 of her fellow creatures, though not in a cheering or 
 illuminating manner perhaps. 
 
 But, as I say, the deprecatory, worrying attitude 
 had become second nature with my mother long years 
 before her widowhood, and had lined and seamed her 
 poor forehead and silvered her hair before my Rugby 
 
 6
 
 IN THE MAKING 
 
 days were over. Bereavement merely gave point to 
 a mood already well established. 
 
 That I should not return to Cambridge was decided 
 as a matter of course within the week of my father's 
 funeral, when we learned that the little he had left 
 behind him would not even pay for the dilapidations 
 of the rectory. There was practically nothing, when 
 my father's affairs were put in order, beyond my 
 mother's little property, a recent legacy, the invest- 
 ment of which in Canadian railway stocks brought in 
 about a hundred and fifty a year. 
 
 Thus I found myself confronted with a sufficiently 
 serious situation for a young man whose training so 
 far had no more fitted him for taking part in any 
 particular division of the battle of life, where the 
 prize sought is an income, than for the administration 
 of the planet Mars. Rugby was better than some of 
 the great public schools in this respect, for a lad with 
 definite purposes and ambitions, but its curriculum 
 had far less bearing upon the working life of the age 
 than it had upon its games and pastimes and the af- 
 fairs of nations and peoples long since passed away. 
 Yet Rugby belonged to a group of schools that were 
 admittedly the best, and certainly the most outrage- 
 ously costly, of the educational establishments of the 
 period. 
 
 I think my sister Lucy was more shocked than any 
 one else by the death of our father. I say shocked, 
 because I am not certain whether or not the word 
 grieved would apply accurately. For one thing, Lucy 
 had never before seen any dead person. Neither 
 had I, for that matter; but Lucy was more affected 
 
 7
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 by the actual presence in the house of Death, than I 
 was. Twice a day for years she had kissed our 
 father's forehead. Now and again she had sat upon 
 the arm of his chair and stroked his thin hair. These 
 demonstrations were connected, I believe, with the 
 quest of favours permission, money, and so forth ; 
 but doubtless affection played a part in them. 
 
 As for Lucy's home life, a little conversation I re- 
 call on the occasion of her driving me to the station 
 when I was leaving for what proved my last term at 
 Cambridge, seems to me to throw some light. I had 
 but recently learned of Lucy's engagement to marry 
 Doctor Woodthrop, of Davenham Minster, our near- 
 est market-town. I had found Woodthrop a decent 
 fellow enough, but thirty-four as against Lucy's 
 twenty-one, inclining ominously to corpulence, and as 
 flatly prosaic and unadventurous a spirit as a small 
 country town could produce. Now, as Lucy seemed 
 to me to have hankerings in the direction of social 
 pleasures and the like, with a penchant for brilliancy 
 and daring, I was a little puzzled about her engage- 
 ment, for Woodthrop was one who kept a few conver- 
 sational pleasantries on hand, as a man keeps old 
 pipes on a rack, for periodical use at suitable times. 
 
 " So you are actually going to be married, Loo ? '"' 
 I said. 
 
 " Oh, well, engaged, Dick," she replied, with a 
 little blush. 
 
 " With a view, I presume. Then I suppose it 
 follows that you are in love h'm ? " 
 
 " Why, Dick, what a cross-examiner you are ! " 
 The blush increased. 
 
 8
 
 IN THE MAKING 
 
 " Well, my dear girl, surely it's a natural assump- 
 tion, is it not? " 
 
 " Oh, I suppose so. But " 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " Well, I don't think in real life it's the same thing 
 that you read about in novels, do you, Dick ? " 
 
 " What? Being in love? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Well, perhaps not ; but I imagine it ought to be 
 something pretty pronounced, you know, even in such 
 a pale reflection of the novels as real life. I gather 
 that it ought to be; seriously, Loo, I think it ought 
 to be. I suppose you do love Woodthrop, don't you ? " 
 
 My sister looked a little distressed, and I half- 
 regretted having put so direct a question. I was 
 sufficiently the product of my day to be terribly 
 afraid of any kind of interference with my fellow 
 creatures. Our apotheosis of individual liberty had 
 made any such action anathema, " bad form," a sin 
 more resented in the sinner than cowardice or dishon- 
 esty, or than any kind of wickedness which was 
 strictly personal and, as you might say, self-con- 
 tained. Our one object of universal reverence and 
 respect was the personal equation. 
 
 " There, Loo," I said, " I didn't mean to tease 
 you." Thus, in accordance with my traditions, I 
 brushed aside and apologized for my natural interest 
 in her well-being in the same way that my poor father 
 and his like brushed away all matters of topical im- 
 port, and the average man of the period brushed 
 aside all concern with his fellow men, all responsibility 
 for the common weal. 
 
 9
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 " No," she said, " I know you didn't. And, indeed, 
 Dick, I suppose I don't love Herbert as well as I 
 ought; but but, Dick, you don't know what it is 
 to be a girl. You can go off to Cambridge, and pres- 
 ently you will go out into the world and live your 
 own life in your own way. But it's different for me, 
 Dick. A girl is not supposed to want to live her own 
 
 life; she is just part of the home, and the home . 
 
 Well, Dick, you know father's life, and mother 
 poor mother " 
 
 " Yes," I said, " that's so." 
 
 " Well, Dick, I'm afraid it seems pretty selfish, but 
 I do want to live my own way, and I do get terribly 
 tired of of " 
 
 " Of the * servant question,' for instance." 
 
 " Exactly." 
 
 " And you think you can live your own life with 
 Woodthrop?" 
 
 " Why, I think he is very kind and good, Dick, 
 and he says there's no reason why I shouldn't hunt, 
 if I can manage with one mount, and we can have 
 friends of mine to stay, and and so on." 
 
 " Yes, I see. You will be mistress of a house." 
 
 " And, of course, I like him very much, Dick ; he 
 really is good." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 That was how Lucy felt about her marriage. 
 There seemed to me to be a good deal lacking; but 
 then I was rather given to concentrating my attention 
 upon flaws and gaps. And when I was next at home, 
 at the time of my father's death, I could not help 
 feeling that the engagement was something to be 
 
 10
 
 IN THE MAKING 
 
 thankful for. A hundred and fifty a year would 
 mean a good deal of pinching for my mother alone, 
 as things went then; but for mother and Lucy to- 
 gether it would have been painfully short commons. 
 Life, even in the country, was an expensive business 
 at that time despite the current worship of cheapness 
 and of " free " trade, as our Quixotic fiscal policy 
 was called. The sum total of our wants and fancied 
 wants had been climbing steadily, while our individual 
 capability in domestic and other simple matters had 
 been on the decline for a long while. 
 
 In the end we decided that my mother and Lucy 
 should establish themselves in apartments on the out- 
 skirts of Davenham Minster, which apartments would 
 serve my mother permanently, with the relinquishment 
 of a single room after Lucy's marriage. I saw them 
 both established, gathered my few personal belong- 
 ings in a trunk and a couple of bags, and started for 
 London on a brilliantly fine morning toward the end 
 of June. 
 
 At that time a young man went to London as a mat- 
 ter of course, when launching out for himself. It was 
 not that folk liked living in the huge city (though, 
 curiously enough, many did), but they gravitated 
 toward it because the great aim, always, and in those 
 conditions necessarily, was to make money. There 
 was more money " knocking about," so people said, 
 in London than anywhere else ; so that was the place 
 for which one made. 
 
 I started for London with a capital of precisely 
 eleven guineas over and above my railway fare 
 and left it again on the same day. 
 
 11
 
 II 
 
 AT THE WATER'S EDGE 
 
 " Now a little before them, there was on the left-hand of the 
 Road, a Meadow, and a Stile to go over into it, and that Meadow 
 is called By -Path-Meadow." The Pilgrim's Progress. 
 
 MY friend, Leslie Wheeler, had left Cambridge 
 a few months before my summons home, in 
 order to enter his father's office in Moorgate Street. 
 His father was of the mysteriously named tribe of 
 " financial agents," and had evidently found it a 
 profitable calling. 
 
 As I never understood anything of even the nomen- 
 clature of finance, I will not attempt to describe the 
 business into which my friend had been absorbed ; but 
 I remember that it afforded occupation for dozens of 
 gentlemenly young fellows, the correctness of whose 
 coiffure and general appearance was beyond praise. 
 These beautifully groomed young gentlemen sat upon 
 high stools at desks of great brilliancy. They used 
 an ingenious arrangement of foolscap paper to pro- 
 tect their shirt-cuffs from contact with baser things, 
 and one of the reasons for the evident care lavished 
 upon the disposition of their hair may have been the 
 fact that they made it a point of honour to go hatless 
 when taking the air or out upon business during the 
 day. Their general appearance and deportment in 
 the office and outside always conveyed to me the 
 
 12
 
 AT THE WATER'S EDGE 
 
 suggestion that they were persons of some wealth and 
 infinite leisure; but I have been assured that they 
 were hard-working clerks, whose salaries, even in these 
 simpler days, would not be deemed extravagant. 
 These salaries, I have been told, worked out at an 
 average of perhaps 120 or 130 a year. 
 
 Now London meant no more to me at that time 
 than a place where, upon rare occasions, one dined in 
 splendour, went to a huge and gilded music-hall, cul- 
 tivated a bad headache, and presently sought to ease 
 it by eating a nightmarish supper, and eating it 
 against time. My allowance at Cambridge had, no 
 doubt fortunately for my digestion, allowed of but 
 few excursions to the capital ; but my friend Wheeler 
 lived within twenty miles of it, and I figured him 
 already burgeoning as a magnate of Moorgate 
 Street. Therefore I had of course written to him of 
 my proposed descent upon the metropolis, and had 
 been very kindly invited to spend a week at his father's 
 house in Weybridge before doing anything else. 
 Accordingly then, having reached Waterloo by a fast 
 train, I left most of my effects in the cloak-room 
 there, and taking only one bag, journeyed down to 
 Weybridge. 
 
 My friend welcomed me in person in the hall of his 
 father's big and rather showy house, he having re- 
 turned from the City earlier than usual for that ex- 
 press purpose. I had already met his mother and two 
 sisters upon four separate occasions at Cambridge. 
 Indeed, I may say that I had almost corresponded 
 with Leslie's second sister, Sylvia. At all events, we 
 had exchanged half a dozen letters, and I had even 
 
 13
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 begged, and obtained, a photograph. At Cambridge 
 I thought I had detected in this delicately pretty, 
 soft-spoken girl, some sympathy and fellow-feeling in 
 the matter of my own crude gropings toward a philos- 
 ophy of life. You may be sure I did not phrase it in 
 that way then. The theories upon which my discon- 
 tent with the prevailing order of things was based, 
 seemed to me then both strong and practical ; a little 
 ahead of my time perhaps, but far from crude or un- 
 formed. As I see it now, my creed was rather a pro- 
 test against indifference, a demand for some measure 
 of activity in social economy. That my muse was 
 socialistic seems to me now to have been mainly acci- 
 dental, but so it was, and its nutriment had been 
 drawn largely from such sources as Carpenter's Civi- 
 lization: its Cause and Cure, in addition to the stand- 
 ard works of the Socialist leaders. 
 
 It is quite possible that one of the reasons of my 
 continued friendship with Leslie Wheeler was the fact 
 that, in his agreeable manner, he represented in per- 
 son much of the butterfly indifference to what I con- 
 sidered the serious problems of life, against which my 
 fulminations were apt to be directed. I may have 
 clung to him instinctively as a wholesome corrective. 
 At all events, he submitted, in the main good- 
 humouredly, to my frequently personal diatribes, and, 
 by his very complaisance and merry indifference, sup- 
 plied me again and again with point and illustration 
 for my sermons. 
 
 Leslie's elder sister, Marjory, was his counterpart 
 in petticoats ; merry, frivolous, irresponsible, devoted 
 to the chase of pleasure, and obdurately bent upon 
 
 14
 
 AT THE WATER'S EDGE 
 
 sparing neither thought nor energy over other inter- 
 ests; denying their very existence indeed, or good- 
 humouredly ridiculing them when they were forced 
 upon her. She was a very handsome girl ; I was con- 
 scious of that ; but, perhaps because I could not chal- 
 lenge her as I did her brother, her character made no 
 appeal to me. But Sylvia, on the other hand, with 
 her big, spiritual-looking eyes, transparently fair 
 skin, and earnest, even rapt expression; Sylvia 
 stirred my adolescence pretty deeply, and was assidu- 
 ously draped by me in that cloth of gold and rose- 
 leaves which every young man is apt to weave from 
 out of his own inner consciousness for the persons of 
 those representatives of the opposite sex in whom he 
 detects sympathy and responsiveness. 
 
 Mrs. Wheeler spoke in a kind and motherly way of 
 my bereavement, and the generosity of youth somehow 
 prevented my appreciation of this being dulled by the 
 fact that, until reminded, she had forgotten whether I 
 had lost a father or a mother. Indeed, though not 
 greatly interested in other folk's affairs, I believe that 
 while the good soul's eyes rested upon the supposed 
 sufferer, or his story, she was sincerely sorry about 
 any kind of trouble, from her pug's asthma to the 
 annihilation of a multitude in warfare or disaster. 
 She had the kindest heart, and no doubt it was rather 
 her misfortune than her fault that she could not 
 clearly realize any circumstance or situation which did 
 not impinge in some way upon her own small circle. 
 
 I met Leslie's father for the first time at dinner 
 that evening. One could hardly have imagined him 
 sparing time for visits to Cambridge. He was a fine, 
 
 15
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 soldierly-looking man, with no trace of City pallor in 
 his well-shaven, purple cheeks. Purple is hardly the 
 word. The ground was crimson, I think, and over 
 that there was spread a delicate tracery, a sort of 
 netted film, of some kind of blue. The eyes had a 
 glaze over them, but were bright and searching. The 
 nose was a salient feature, having about it a strong 
 predatory suggestion. The forehead was low, sur- 
 mounted by exquisitely smooth iron-gray hair. Mr. 
 Wheeler was scrupulously fine in dress, and used a 
 single eye-glass. He gave me hearty welcome, and I 
 prefer to think that the apparent chilling of his atti- 
 tude to me after he had learned of my financial cir- 
 cumstances was merely the creation of some morbid 
 vein of hyper-sensitiveness in myself. 
 
 At all events, we were all very jolly together that 
 evening, and I went happily to bed, after what I 
 thought a hint of responsive pressure in my hand- 
 shake with Sylvia, and several entertaining anecdotes 
 from Mr. Wheeler as to the manner in which fortunes 
 had been made in the purlieus of Throgmorton Street. 
 Launching oneself upon a prosperous career in Lon- 
 don seemed an agreeably easy process at the end of 
 that first evening in the Wheeler's home, and the 
 butterfly attitude toward life appeared upon the whole 
 less wholly blameworthy than before. What a grace- 
 ful fellow Leslie was, and how suave and genial the 
 father when he sat at the head of his table toying 
 with a glass of port! And these were capable men, 
 too, men of affairs. Doubtless their earnestness was 
 strong enough below the surface, I thought for 
 that night. 
 
 16
 
 Ill 
 
 AN INTERLUDE 
 
 " To observations which ourselves we make, 
 We grow more partial for th' observer's sake." POPE. 
 
 r \ CHOUGH in no sense unfriendly or lacking in 
 JL sympathy, I noticed that Leslie Wheeler showed 
 no inclination to be drawn into intimate discussion of 
 my prospects. I was not inclined to blame my friend 
 for this, but told myself that he probably acted upon 
 paternal instructions. For me, however, it was im- 
 possible to lay aside for long, thoughts regarding my 
 immediate future. I was aware that a nest-egg of 
 eleven or twelve pounds was not a very substantial 
 barrier between oneself and want. Mr. Wheeler told 
 no more stories of fortunes built out of nothing in the 
 City, but he did take occasion to refer casually to the 
 fact that City men did not greatly care for the prod- 
 ucts of public schools and universities, as employees. 
 I was more than half-inclined to ask why, in this 
 case, Leslie had been sent to Rugby and Cambridge, 
 but decided to avoid the personal application of his 
 remark. It was, after all, no more than the expression 
 of a commonly accepted view, striking though it 
 seems as a comment upon the educational system of 
 the period, when one remembers the huge proportion 
 of the middle and upper-class populace which was ab- 
 
 17
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 sorbed by commercial callings of one kind or 
 another. 
 
 There was practically no demand for physical 
 prowess or aptitude, outside the field of sport and 
 games, nor even for those qualities which are best 
 served by a good physical training. One need not, 
 therefore, be greatly surprised that the public schools 
 should have given no physical training outside games, 
 and that even of the most perfunctory character, the 
 majority qualifying as interested spectators merely, 
 of the prowess of the minority. But it certainly is 
 remarkable, that no practical business training, nor 
 studies of a sort calculated to be of use in later busi- 
 ness training, should have been given in the schools 
 most favoured by those for whom business was a life's 
 calling. In this, as in so many other matters, I sup- 
 pose we were guided and directed entirely by habit 
 and tradition; the line of least resistance. 
 
 When I talked of my prospects with handsome 
 Leslie Wheeler his was his father's face, unblem- 
 ished and unworn our conversation was always 
 three parts jocular, at all events upon his side. I was 
 to recast society and mould our social system anew by 
 means of my pen, and of journalism. I was to pro- 
 vide " the poor blessed poor " with hot-buttered rolls 
 and devilled kidneys for breakfast, said Leslie, and 
 introduce old-age pensions for every British workman 
 who survived his twenty-first birthday. 
 
 I would not be understood to suggest that this sort 
 of f acetiousness indicated the average attitude of the 
 period with regard to the horrible fact that the coun- 
 try contained millions of people permanently in a 
 
 18
 
 AN INTERLUDE 
 
 state of want and privation. But it was a quite possi- 
 ble attitude then. Such people as my friend could 
 never have mocked the sufferings of an individual. 
 But with regard to the state of affairs, the pitiful 
 millions, as an abstract proposition, indifference was 
 the rule, a tone of light cynicism was customary, and 
 " the poor we have always with us," quoted with a 
 deprecatory shrug, was an accepted conversational 
 refuge, even among such people as the clergy and 
 charitable workers. 
 
 And this, if one comes to think of it, was inevitable. 
 The life and habits and general attitude of the period 
 would have been absolutely impossible, in conjunction 
 with any serious face-to-face consideration of a situa- 
 tion which embraced, for example, such preposter- 
 ously contradictory elements as these: 
 
 The existence of huge and growing armies of abso- 
 lutely unemployed men; the insistence of the popu- 
 lace, and particularly the business people, upon the 
 disbandment of regiments, and upon great naval and 
 military reductions, involving further unemployment; 
 the voting of considerable sums for distribution 
 among the unemployed ; violent opposition to the 
 mere suggestion of State aid to enable the unem- 
 ployed of England to migrate to those parts of the 
 Empire which actually needed their labour; the in- 
 creasing difficulty of the problem which was wrapped 
 up in the question of " What to do with our sons " ; 
 the absolute refusal of the nation to admit of uni- 
 versal military service ; the successive closing by 
 tariff of one foreign market after another against 
 British manufactures, and the hysterical refusal of 
 
 19
 
 the people to protect their own markets from what 
 was graphically called the " dumping " into them of 
 the surplus products of other peoples. 
 
 It is a queer catalogue, with a ring of insanity 
 about it ; but these were the merest commonplaces of 
 life at that time, and the man who rebelled against 
 them was a crank. My friend Leslie's attitude was 
 natural enough, therefore; and, with a few excep- 
 tions, it was my own, for, curiously enough, the 
 political school I favoured was, root and branch, 
 opposed to the only possible remedies for this situa- 
 tion. Liberals, Radicals, Socialists, and the majority 
 of those who arrogated to themselves the title of 
 Social Reformers ; these were the people who insisted, 
 if not upon the actual evils and sufferings indicated 
 in this illustrative note of social contradictions, then 
 upon violent opposition to their complements in the 
 way of mitigation and relief. And I was keenly of 
 their number. 
 
 Many of these matters I discussed, or perhaps I 
 should say, dilated upon, in conversation with Sylvia, 
 while her brother and father were in London. We 
 would begin with racquets in the tennis-court, and end 
 late for some meal, after long wanderings among the 
 pines. And in Sylvia, as it seemed to me, I found the 
 most delightfully intelligent responsiveness, as well as 
 sympathy. My knowledge of feminine nature, its 
 extraordinary gifts of emotional and personal intui- 
 tion, was of the scantiest, if it had any existence at 
 all. But my own emotional side was active, and my 
 mind an inchoate mass of ideals and more or less 
 sentimental longings for social betterment. And so, 
 
 20
 
 AN INTERLUDE 
 
 with Sylvia's gentle acquiescence, I rearranged the 
 world. 
 
 Much I have forgotten, and am thus spared the 
 humiliation of recounting. But, as an example of 
 what I recall, I remember a conversation which arose 
 from our passing a miniature rifle-range which some 
 local resident " Some pompous Jingo of retro- 
 gressive tendencies," I called him had erected with 
 a view to tempting young Weybridge into marksman- 
 ship ; a tolerably forlorn prospect at that time. 
 
 " Is it not pathetic," I said, " in twentieth-century 
 England, to see such blatant attacks upon progress 
 as that? " 
 
 Sylvia nodded gravely ; sweetly sympathetic un- 
 derstanding, as I saw it. And, after all, why not? 
 Understanding of my poor bubbling mind, anyhow, 
 and Nature's furnishing of young women's minds 
 is a mighty subtle business, not very much more 
 clearly understood to-day than in the era of knight- 
 errantry. 
 
 Sylvia nodded gravely, as I spurned the turf by 
 the range. 
 
 " Here we are surrounded by quagmires of poverty, 
 injustice, social anomalies, and human distress, and 
 this poor soul a rich pork-butcher, angling for the 
 favours of a moribund political party, I dare say 
 lavishes heaven knows how many pounds over an ar- 
 rangement by which young men are to be taught how 
 to kill each other with neatness and despatch at a dis- 
 tance of half a mile! It is more tragical than farci- 
 cal. It is enough to make one despair of one's 
 fellow countrymen, with their silly bombast about 
 
 21
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 * Empire,' and their childish waving of flags. ' Em- 
 pire,' indeed ; God save the mark ! And our own little 
 country groaning, women and children wailing, for 
 some measure of common-sense internal reform ! " 
 
 " It is dreadful, dreadful," said Sylvia. My heart 
 leapt out to meet the gentle goodness of her. " But 
 still, I suppose there must be soldiers," she added. 
 Of course, this touched me off as a spark applied to 
 tinder. 
 
 " But that is just the whole crux of the absurdity, 
 and as long as so unreal a notion is cherished we can 
 never be freed from the slavery of these huge arma- 
 ments. Soldiers are only necessary if war is neces- 
 sary, and war can only be necessary while men are 
 savages. The differences between masters and men 
 are far more vital and personal than the differences 
 between nations ; yet they have long passed the crude 
 stage of thirsting for each other's destruction as a 
 means of settling quarrels. War is a relic of bar- 
 barous days. So long as armies are maintained, 
 unscrupulous politicians will wage war. If we, who 
 call ourselves the greatest nation in Christendom, 
 would even deserve the credit of plain honesty, we 
 must put away savagery, and substitute boards of 
 arbitration for armies and navies." 
 
 " Yes, I see," said Sylvia, her face alight with 
 interest, " I feel that must be the true, the Christian 
 view. But suppose the other nations would not agree 
 to arbitration ? " 
 
 " But there is not a doubt they would. Can you 
 suppose that any people are so insensate as really to 
 
 22
 
 AN INTERLUDE 
 
 like war, carnage, slaughter, for their own sake, when 
 peaceful alternatives are offered? " 
 
 " No, I suppose not ; and, indeed, I feel that all 
 you say is true, Mr. Mordan." 
 
 " Please don't say * Mr. Mordan,' Sylvia. Even 
 your mother and sister call me Dick. No, no, the 
 other nations would be only too glad to follow our 
 lead, and we, as the greatest Power, should take that 
 lead. What could their soldiers do to a soldierless 
 people, anyhow ; and even if we lost at the beginning, 
 why, ' What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole 
 world and lose his own soul? ' Of what use is the 
 dominion of a huge, unwieldy empire when even a tiny 
 country like this is so administered that. a quarter of 
 its population live always on the verge of starvation? 
 Let the Empire go, let Army and Navy go, let us con- 
 centrate our energies upon the arts of peace, science, 
 education, the betterment of the conditions of life 
 among the poor, the right division of the land among 
 those that will till it. Let us do that, and the world 
 would have something to thank us for, and we should 
 soon hear the last of these noisy, ranting idiots who 
 are eternally waving flags like lunatics and mouthing 
 absurd phrases about imperialism and patriotism, 
 national destiny, and rubbish of that sort. Our duty 
 is to humanity, and not to any decayed symbols of 
 feudalism. The talk of patriotism and imperialism 
 is a gigantic fraud, and the tyranny of it makes our 
 names hated throughout the world. We have no 
 right to enforce our sway upon the peace-loving 
 farmers and the ignorant blacks of South Africa. 
 They rightly hate us for it, and so do the millions 
 
 23
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 of India, upon whom our yoke is held by armies of 
 soldiers who have to be maintained by their victims. 
 It casts one down to think of it, just as the sight of 
 those ridiculous rifle-butts and the thought of the 
 diseased sentiment behind them depresses one." 
 
 " It all seems very mad and wrong, but but I 
 wish you would not take it so much to heart," said 
 Sylvia. 
 
 " That is very sweet of you," I told her ; " and, 
 indeed, there is not so much real cause to be down- 
 hearted. The last elections showed clearly enough 
 that the majority of our people are alive to all this. 
 The leaven of enlightenment is working strongly 
 among the people, and the old tyranny of Jingoism 
 is dying fast. One sees it in a hundred ways. Boer 
 independence has as warm friends in our Parliament 
 as on the veld. The rising movements of interna- 
 tionalism, of Pan-Islam, the Swadeshi movement, the 
 rising toward freedom in India ; all these are largely 
 directed from Westminster. The Jingo sentiment 
 toward Germany, a really progressive nation, full of 
 natural and healthy ambitions, is being swept away 
 by our own statesmen ; by their courteous and 
 friendly attitude toward the Kaiser, who delights to 
 honour our present Minister of War. Also, the work 
 of disarmament has begun. The naval estimates are 
 being steadily ^pruned, and whole regiments have been 
 finally disbanded. And all this comes from within. 
 So you see we have some grounds for hopefulness. It 
 is a great step forward, for our own elected leaders 
 to show the enthusiastic and determined opposition 
 they are showing to the old brutal p retentions of
 
 AN INTERLUDE 
 
 England to sway the world by brute strength. But, 
 forgive me ! Perhaps I tire you with all this 
 Sylvia." 
 
 " No, no, indeed you don't Dick, I I think it 
 is beautiful. It it seems to make everything big- 
 ger, more kind and good. It interests me, immensely." 
 
 And I knew perfectly well that I had not tired her 
 wearisome though the recital of it all may be now. 
 For I knew instinctively how the personal note told in 
 the whole matter. I had been really heated, and per- 
 fectly sincere, bait a kind of subconscious cunning 
 had led me to utilize the heat of the moment in intro- 
 ducing between us, for example, the use of first names. 
 Well I knew that I was not wearying Sylvia. But 
 coldly recited now, I admit the rhodomontade to be 
 exceedingly tiresome. My excuse for it is that it 
 serves to indicate the sort of ideas that were abroad 
 at the time, the sort of sentiments which were shaping 
 our destiny. 
 
 After all, I was an educated youth. Many of my 
 hot statements, too, were of fact, and not merely of 
 opinion and feeling. It is a fact that the sentiment 
 called anti-British had come to be served more sla- 
 vishly in England than in any foreign land. The 
 duration of our disastrous war in South Africa was 
 positively doubled, as the result of British influence, 
 by Boer hopes pinned upon the deliberate utterances 
 of British politicians. In Egypt, South Africa, 
 India, and other parts of the Empire, all opposition 
 to British rule, all risings, attacks upon our prestige, 
 and the like, were aided, and in many cases fomented, 
 steered, and brought to a successful issue not by 
 
 25
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 Germans or other foreigners, but by Englishmen, and 
 by Englishmen who had sworn allegiance at St. Ste- 
 phens. It is no more than a bare statement of fact 
 to say that, in the very year of my arrival in London, 
 the party which ruled the State was a party whose 
 members openly avowed and boasted of their oppo- 
 sition to British dominion, and that in terms, not less, 
 but far more sweeping than mine in talking to Sylvia 
 among the pines at Weybridge. 
 
 But if Sylvia appreciated and sympathized in the 
 matter of my sermonizing, the rest of the family 
 neither approved the sermons nor Sylvia's interest in 
 them. I was made to feel in various ways that no 
 import must be attached to my attentions to Sylvia. 
 Marjory began to shadow her sister in the daytime, 
 and, as she was frankly rather bored by me, I could 
 not but detect the parental will in this. 
 
 Then with regard to my social and political views, 
 Mr. Wheeler joined with his son in openly deriding 
 them. In Leslie's case the thing never went beyond 
 friendly banter. Leslie had no political opinions ; he 
 laughed joyously at the mere notion of bothering his 
 head about such matters for a moment. And, in his 
 way, he represented an enormous section of the 
 younger generation of Englishmen in this. The 
 father, on the other hand, was equally typical of his 
 class and generation. This was how he talked to me 
 over his port : 
 
 " I tell you what it is, you know, Mordan ; you're 
 a regular firebrand, you know ; by Jove, you are ; an 
 out-and-out Socialistic Radical: that's what you are. 
 By gad, sir, I don't mince my words. I consider that 
 
 26
 
 AN INTERLUDE 
 
 er opinions like yours are a danger to the coun- 
 try ; I do, indeed ; a danger to the country, and 
 er to the to the Empire. I do, by gad. And 
 as for your notions about disarmament and that, why, 
 even if our army reductions are justifiable, which, 
 upon my word, I very much doubt, it's ridiculous to 
 suppose we can afford to cut down our Navy. No, 
 sir, the British Navy is Britain's safeguard, and it 
 ought not to be tampered with. I'm an out-and-out 
 Imperialist myself, and er I can tell you I have 
 no patience with your Little Englandism." 
 
 I am not at all sure whether the class Mr. Wheeler 
 belonged to was not almost the most dangerous class 
 of all. The recent elections showed this class to be a 
 minority. Of course, this section had its strong men, 
 but that it also included a large number of men like 
 Leslie's father was a fact a fact which yielded 
 pitiful evidence of its weakness. These men called 
 themselves " out-and-out Imperialists," and had not a 
 notion of even the meaning of the word they used. 
 Still less had they any notion of accepting any role 
 which involved the bearing of responsibilities, the dis- 
 charge of civic and national duties. 
 
 Mr. Wheeler's aim in life was to make money and 
 to enjoy himself. He would never have exercised his 
 right to vote if voting had involved postponing din- 
 ner. He liked to talk of the British Empire, but he 
 did not even know precisely of what countries it con- 
 sisted, and I think he would cheerfully have handed 
 Canada to France, Australia to Germany, India to 
 Russia, and South Africa to the Boers, if by so doing 
 he could have escaped the paying of income-tax. 
 
 27
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 On Sunday night, my last night at Weybridge, I 
 walked home from church alone with Sylvia. Mar- 
 jory was in bed with a sore throat, and whatever their 
 notions as to my undesirability, neither Mr. nor Mrs. 
 Wheeler were inclined to attend evening service. 
 Leslie was not home from golf at Byfleet. We were 
 late for dinner, Sylvia and I, and during our walk 
 she promised to write to me regularly, and I prom- 
 ised many things, and suggested many things, and 
 was only deterred from actual declaration by the 
 thought of the poor little sum which stood between 
 me and actual want. 
 
 Next morning I went up to town with Leslie and his 
 father to open my campaign in London. As a first 
 step toward procuring work, I was to present a letter 
 of introduction from a Cambridge friend to the editor 
 of the Daily Gazette. After that, as Leslie said, I 
 was to " reform England inside out."
 
 IV 
 
 THE LAUNCHING 
 
 " O Friend ! 1 know not which way I must look 
 For comfort, being, as I am, opprest 
 To think that now our life is only drest 
 For show ; mean handi-work of craftsman, cook, 
 Or groom ! We must run glittering like a brook 
 In the open sunshine, or we are unblest ; 
 The wealthiest man among us is the best ; 
 No grandeur now in Nature or in book 
 Delight us. . . . " WORDSWORTH. 
 
 LOOKING back now upon that lonely launch of 
 mine in London, I see a very curious and sombre 
 picture. In the living I am sure there must have been 
 mitigations, and light as well as shade. In the retro- 
 spect it seems one long disillusion. I see myself, and 
 the few folk with whom my relations were intimate, 
 struggling like ants across a grimy stage, in the midst 
 of an inferno of noise, confusion, pointless turmoil, 
 squalor, and ultimate cataclysm. The whole picture 
 is lurid, superhuman in its chaotic gloom; but in the 
 living, I know there were gleams of sunlight. The 
 tragic muddle of that period was so monstrous, that 
 even we who lived through it are apt in retrospect to 
 see only the gloom and confusion. It is natural, 
 therefore, that those who did not live through it 
 should be utterly unable to discern any glimpse of 
 
 29
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 relief in the picture. And that leads to misconcep- 
 tion. 
 
 As a fact, I found very much to admire in London 
 when I sallied forth from the obscure lodging I had 
 chosen in a Bloomsbury back street, on the morning 
 which brought an end to my stay with the Wheelers 
 at Weybridge. Also, it was not given to me at that 
 time to recognize as such one tithe of the madness and 
 badness of the state of affairs. Some wholly bad 
 features were quite good in my eyes then. 
 
 London still clung to its " season," as it was called, 
 though motor-cars and railway facilities had entirely 
 robbed this of its sharply defined nineteenth-century 
 limits. Very many people, even among the wealthy, 
 lived entirely in London, spending their week-ends in 
 this or that country or seaside resort, and devoting 
 the last months of summer with, in many cases, the 
 first months of autumn, to holiday-making on the 
 Continent, or in Scotland, or on the English moors or 
 coasts. 
 
 The London season was not over when I reached 
 town, and in the western residential quarters the sun 
 shone brightly upon many-coloured awnings and 
 beautiful decorative plants and flowers. The annual 
 rents paid by people who lived behind these flowers 
 and awnings frequently ran into thousands of pounds, 
 with ten shillings in each pound additional by way of 
 rates and taxes. To live at all, in this strata, would 
 cost a man and his wife perhaps eighty to a hundred 
 pounds a week, without anything which would have 
 been called extravagance. 
 
 Hundreds of people who lived in this way had 
 30
 
 THE LAUNCHING 
 
 neighbours within a hundred yards of their front 
 doors who never had enough to eat. Even such peo- 
 ple as these had to pay preposterous rents for the 
 privilege of huddling together in a single wretched 
 room. But many of their wealthy neighbours spent 
 hundreds, and even thousands of pounds a year over 
 securing comfort and happiness for such domestic 
 animals as horses, dogs, cats, and the like. Amiable, 
 kindly gentlefolk they were, with tender hearts and 
 ready sympathies. Most of them were interested in 
 some form of charity. Many of them specialized, and 
 these would devote much energy to opposing the work 
 of other charitable specialists. Lady So-and-so, who 
 advocated this panacea, found herself bitterly op- 
 posed by Sir So-and-so, who wanted all sufferers to 
 be made to take his nostrum in his special way. Then 
 sometimes poor Lady So-and-so would throw up her 
 panacea in a huff, and concentrate her energies upon 
 the work of some society for converting Jews, who did 
 not want to be converted, or for supplying red flannel 
 petticoats for South Sea Island girls, who infinitely 
 preferred cotton shifts and floral wreaths. Even 
 these futile charities were permitted to overlap one 
 another to a bewilderingly wasteful extent. 
 
 But the two saddest aspects of the whole gigantic 
 muddle so far as charitable work went, were un- 
 doubtedly these: The fact that much of it went to 
 produce a class of men and women who would not do 
 any kind of work because they found that by judi- 
 cious sponging they could live and obtain alcohol and 
 tobacco in idleness ; and the fact that where charita- 
 ble endeavour infringed upon vested interests, licit or
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 illicit, it was savagely opposed by the persons inter- 
 ested. 
 
 The discipline of the national schools was slack, 
 intermittent, and of short reach. There was posi- 
 tively no duty to the State which a youth was bound 
 to observe. Broadly, it might be said that at that 
 time discipline simply did not enter at all into the life 
 of the poor of the towns, and charity of every con- 
 ceivable and inconceivable kind did enter into it at 
 every turn. 
 
 The police service was excellent and crime exceed- 
 ingly difficult of accomplishment. The inevitable re- 
 sult was the evolution in the towns of a class of men 
 and women, but more especially of men, who, though 
 compact of criminal instincts of every kind, yet com- 
 mitted no offence against criminal law. They com- 
 mitted nothing. They simply lived, drinking to 
 excess when possible, determined upon one point only : 
 that they never would do anything which could possi- 
 bly be called work. It is obvious that among such 
 people the sense of duty either to themselves, to each 
 other, or to the State, was merely non-existent. 
 
 London had long since earned the reputation of 
 being the most charitable city in the world. Its share 
 in the production of an immense loafer class formed 
 one sad aspect of London's charity when I first came 
 to know the city. Another was the opposition of 
 vested interests the opposition of the individual to 
 the welfare of the mass. One found it everywhere. An 
 instance I call to mind (it happened to be brought 
 sharply home to me) struck at the root of the terribly 
 rapid production of degenerates, by virtue of its rela- 
 
 32
 
 THE LAUNCHING 
 
 tion to pauper children that is, the children to 
 whom the State, through its boards of guardians, 
 stood in the light of parents, because their natural 
 parents were dead, or in prison, or in lunatic asy- 
 lums, or hopelessly far gone in the state of criminal 
 inactivity which qualified so many for all three estates. 
 
 Huge institutions were built at great expense for 
 the accommodation of these little unfortunates. Here 
 they were housed in the most costly manner, the whole 
 work of the establishment being carried on by a 
 highly paid staff of servants and officials. The chil- 
 dren were not allowed to do anything at all, beyond 
 the learning by rote of various theories which there 
 was no likelihood of their ever being able to apply to 
 any reality of life with which they would come in 
 contact. 
 
 They listened to lectures on the making of dainty 
 dishes in the best style of French cookery, and in 
 many cases they never saw a box of matches. They 
 learned to repeat poetry as parrots might, but did 
 not know the difference between shavings and raw 
 coffee. They learned vague smatterings of Roman 
 history, but did not know how to clean their boots or 
 brush their hair. It was as though experts had been 
 called upon to devise a scheme whereby children might 
 be reared into their teens without knowing that they 
 were alive or where they lived, and this with the great- 
 est possible outlay of money per child. Then, at a 
 given age, these children were put outside the massive 
 gates of the institutions and told to run away and 
 become good citizens. 
 
 It followed as a matter of course that most of them 
 SB
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 fell steadily and rapidly into the pit ; the place occu- 
 pied by the criminally inactive, the " public-house 
 props." So they returned poor, heavy-laden crea- 
 tures, by way of charity, to the institutions of the 
 " rates," thus completing the vicious circle of life 
 forced upon them by an incredibly wrong-headed, 
 topsyturvy administration. 
 
 For the maintenance of this vicious circle enormous 
 sums of public money were required. Failing such 
 vast expenditure, Nature unaided would have righted 
 matters to some extent, and the Poor Law guardians 
 would have become by so much the less wielders of 
 power and influence, dispensers of public money. 
 Some of these Poor Law guardians gave up more or 
 less honest trades to take to Poor Law guardianship 
 as a business ; and they waxed fat upon it. 
 
 Every now and again came disclosures. Guardians 
 were shown to have paid ten shillings a score for such 
 and such a commodity this year, and next year to have 
 refused a tender for the supply of the same article 
 at 9s. 8d. a score, in favour of the tender of a relative 
 or protege of one of their number at 109s. 8d. a score. 
 I remember the newspapers showing up such cases as 
 these during the week of my arrival in London. The 
 public read and shrugged shoulders. 
 
 " Rascally thieves, these guardians," said the Pub- 
 lic ; and straightway forgot the whole business in the 
 rush of its own crazy race for money. 
 
 " But," cried the Reformer to the Public, " this is 
 really your business. It is your duty as citizens to 
 stop this infamous traffic. Don't you see how you 
 yourselves are being robbed? " 
 
 34
 
 THE LAUNCHING 
 
 You must picture our British Public of the day as 
 a flushed, excited man, hurrying wildly along in pur- 
 suit of two phantoms money and pleasure. These 
 he desired to grasp for himself, and he was being 
 furiously jostled by millions of his fellows, each one 
 of whom desired just the same thing, and nothing 
 else. Faintly, amidst the frantic turmoil, came the 
 warning voices in the wilderness: 
 
 " This is your business. It is your duty as citi- 
 zens," etc. 
 
 Over his shoulder, our poor possessed Public would 
 fling his answer: 
 
 " Leave me alone. I haven't time to attend to it. 
 I'm too busy. You mustn't interrupt me. Why the 
 deuce don't the Government see to it? Lot of rascals ! 
 Don't bother me. I represent commerce, and, what- 
 ever you do, you must not in any way interfere with 
 the Freedom of Trade." 
 
 The band of the reformers was considerable, em- 
 bracing as it did the better, braver sort of statesmen, 
 soldiers, sailors, clergy, authors, journalists, sociolo- 
 gists, and the whole brotherhood of earnest thinkers. 
 But the din and confusion was frightful, the pace at 
 which the million lived was terrific ; and, after all, 
 the cries of the reformers all meant the same thing, 
 the one thing the great, sweating public was deter- 
 mined not to hear, and not to act on. They all meant: 
 
 " Step out from your race a moment. Your duties 
 are here. You are passing them all by. Come to 
 your duties." 
 
 It was like a Moslem call to prayer; but, alas! it 
 was directed at a people who had sloughed all pre- 
 35
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 tensions to be ranked among those who respond to 
 such calls, to any calls which would distract them 
 from their objective in the pelting pursuit of money 
 and pleasure. 
 
 But I am digressing the one vice which, unfor- 
 tunately for us, we never indulged or condoned at the 
 time of my arrival in London. I wanted to give an 
 instance of that aspect of charity and attempted 
 social reform which aroused the opposition of vested 
 interests and chartered brigands in the great money 
 hunt. It was this: A certain charitable lady gave 
 some years of her life to the study of those conditions 
 in which, as I have said, the criminally inactive, the 
 hopelessly useless, were produced by authorized rou- 
 tine, at a ruinous cost in money and degeneracy, and 
 to the great profit of an unscrupulous few. 
 
 This lady then gave some further years, not to 
 mention money, influence, and energy, to the evolution 
 of a scheme by which these pauper children could 
 really be made good and independent citizens, and 
 that at an all-round cost of about one-fifth of the 
 price of the guardians' method for converting them 
 into human wrecks and permanent charges upon the 
 State. The wise practicability of this lady's system 
 was admitted by independent experts, and denied by 
 nobody. But it was swept aside and crushed, beaten 
 down with vicious, angry thoroughness, in one quarter 
 the quarter of vested interest and authority ; 
 quietly, passively discouraged in various other quar- 
 ters ; and generally ignored, as another interrupting 
 duty call, by the rushing public. 
 
 Here, then, were three kinds of opposition the 
 36
 
 THE LAUNCHING 
 
 first active and deadly, the other two passive and 
 fatal, because they withheld needed support. The 
 reason of the first, the guardians' opposition, was 
 frankly and shamelessly admitted in London at the 
 time of my arrival there. The guardians said: 
 
 " This scheme would reduce the rates. We want 
 more rates. It would reduce the amount of money 
 at our disposal. We aim at increasing that. It would 
 divert certain streams of cash from our own channel 
 into other channels in other parts of the Empire. We 
 won't have it." But their words were far less civil 
 and more heated than these, though the sense of them 
 was as I have said. 
 
 The quiet, passive opposition was that of other 
 workers in charity and reform. They said in effect: 
 
 " Yes, the scheme is all right an excellent 
 scheme. But why do you take it upon yourself to 
 bring it forward in this direct manner? Are you not 
 
 aware of the existence of our B nostrum for 
 
 pauper children, or our C - specific for juvenile 
 emigration ? Your scheme, admirable as it is, ignores 
 both these, and therefore you must really excuse us if 
 
 we Quite so ! But, of course, as co-workers 
 
 in the good cause, we wish you well ", and so 
 
 forth. 
 
 The opposition of the general public I have ex- 
 plained. It was not really opposition. It was simply 
 a part of the disease of the period; the dropsical, 
 fatty degeneration of a people. But the mere fact 
 that the reformers sent forth their cries and still 
 laboured beside the public's crowded race-course ; that 
 such people as the lady I have mentioned existed 
 
 37
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 and there were many like her should show that 
 London as I found it was not all shadow and gloom, 
 as it seems when one looks back upon it from the clear 
 light of better days. 
 
 The darkness, the confusion, and the din, were not 
 easy to see and hear through then. From this dis- 
 tance they are more impenetrable; but I know the 
 light did break through continually in places, and 
 good men and women held wide the windows of their 
 consciousness to welcome it, striving their utmost to 
 carry it into the thick of the fight. Many broke their 
 hearts in the effort ; but there were others, and those 
 who fell had successors. The heart of our race never 
 was of the stuff that can be broken. It was the 
 strongest thing in all that tumultuous world of my 
 youth, and I recall now the outstanding figures of 
 men already gray and bowed by long lives of strenu- 
 ous endeavour, who yet fought without pause at this 
 time on the side of those who strove to check the mad, 
 blind flight of the people. 
 
 London, as I entered it, was a battle-field ; the per- 
 verse waste of human energy and life was frightful ; 
 but it was not quite the unredeemed chaos which it 
 seems as we look back upon it. 
 
 Even in the red centre of the stampede (Fleet 
 Street is within the City boundaries) men in the race 
 took time for the exercise of human kindliness, when 
 opportunity was brought close enough to them. The 
 letter I took to the editor of the Daily Gazette was 
 from an old friend of his who knew, and told him, of 
 my exact circumstances. This gentleman received me 
 kindly and courteously. He and his like were among 
 
 38
 
 THE LAUNCHING 
 
 the most furiously hurried in the race, but their 
 handling of great masses of diffuse information gave 
 them, in many cases, a wide outlook, and where, as 
 often happened, they were well balanced as well as 
 honest, I think they served their age as truly as any 
 of their contemporaries, and with more effect than 
 most. 
 
 This gentleman talked to me for ten minutes, dur- 
 ing which time he learned most of all there was to 
 know about my little journalistic and debating expe- 
 rience at Cambridge, and the general trend of my 
 views and purposes. I do not think he particularly 
 desired my services ; but, on the other hand, I was 
 not an absolute ignoramus. I had written for publi- 
 cation; I had enthusiasm; and there was my Cam- 
 bridge friend's letter. 
 
 " Well, Mr. Mordan," he said, turning toward a 
 table littered deep with papers, and cumbered with 
 telephones and bells, " I cannot offer you anything 
 very brilliant at the moment ; but I see no reason why 
 you should not make a niche for yourself. We all 
 have to do that, you know or drop out to make 
 way for others. You probably know that in Fleet 
 Street, more perhaps than elsewhere, the race is to 
 the swift. There are no reserved seats. The best I 
 can do for you now is to enter you on the reporting 
 staff. It is stretching a point somewhat to make the 
 pay fifty shillings a week for a beginning. That is 
 the best I can do. Would you care to take that ? " 
 
 " Certainly," I told him ; " and I'm very much 
 obliged to you for the chance." 
 
 " Right. Then you might come in to-morrow. I 
 39
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 will arrange with the news-editor. And now " 
 
 He looked up, and I took my hat. Then he looked 
 down again, as though seeking something on the floor. 
 " Well, I think that's all. Of course, it rests with you 
 to make your own place, or or lose it. I sympa- 
 thize with what you have told me of your views of 
 course. You know the policy of the paper. But you 
 must remember that running a newspaper is a com- 
 plex business. One's methods cannot always be direct. 
 Life is made up of compromises, and er at times 
 a turn to the left is the shortest way to the right 
 er Good night ! " 
 
 Thus I was given my chance within a few hours of 
 my descent upon the great roaring City. I was 
 spared much. Even then I knew by hearsay, as I 
 subsequently learned for myself, that hundreds of 
 men of far wider experience and greater ability than 
 mine were wearily tramping London's pavements at 
 that moment, longing, questing bitterly for work that 
 would bring them half the small salary I was to earn. 
 
 I wrote to Sylvia that night, from my little room 
 among the cat-infested chimney-pots of Bloomsbury ; 
 and I am sure my letter did not suggest that London 
 was a very gloomy place. My hopes ran high.
 
 THE ROARING CITY
 
 A JOURNALIST S EQUIPMENT 
 
 " . . . Rapine, avarice, expense, 
 This is idolatry ; and these we adore : 
 Plain living and high thinking are no more : 
 The homely beauty of the good old cause 
 Is gone ; our peace, our fearful innocence, 
 And pure religion breathing household laws." 
 
 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 ACTING on the instructions I had received over- 
 night, I presented myself at the office of the 
 Daily Gazette in good time on the morning after my 
 interview with the editor. A pert boy showed me into 
 the news-editor's room, after an interval of waiting, 
 and I found myself confronting the man who con- 
 trolled my immediate destiny. He was dictating tele- 
 grams to a shorthand writer, and, for the moment, 
 took no notice whatever of me. I stood at the end of 
 his table, hat in hand, wondering how so young-look- 
 ing a man came to be occupying his chair. 
 
 He looked about my age, but was a few years older. 
 His face was as smooth as the head of a new axe, and 
 had something else chopper-like about it. He re- 
 minded me of pictures I had seen in the advertisement 
 pages of American magazines ; pictures showing a 
 wedge-like human face, from the lips of which some 
 such an assertion as " It's you I want ! " was supposed 
 
 41
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 to be issuing. I subsequently learned that this Mr. 
 Charles N. Pierce had spent several years in New 
 York, and that he was credited with having largely 
 increased the circulation of the Daily Gazette since 
 taking over his present position. He suddenly raised 
 the even, mechanical tone in which he dictated, and 
 snapped out the words : 
 
 " Right. Get on with those now, and come back in 
 five minutes." 
 
 Then he switched his gaze on to me, like a search- 
 light. 
 
 " Mr. Mordan, I believe? " 
 
 I admitted the charge with my best smile. Mr. 
 Pierce ignored the smile, and said : 
 
 " University man? " 
 
 Accepting his cue as to brevity, I said : " Yes. 
 Corpus Christi, Cambridge." 
 
 He pursed his thin lips. " Ah well," he said, 
 " you'll get over that." 
 
 In his way he was perfectly right ; but his way was 
 as coldly offensive as any I had ever met with. 
 
 " Well, Mr. Mordan, I've only three things to say. 
 Reports for this paper must be sound English ; they 
 must be live stories ; they must be short. You might 
 ask a boy to show you the reporters' room. You'll 
 get your assignment presently. As a day man, you'll 
 be here from ten to six. That's all." 
 
 And his blade of a face descended into the heart of 
 a sheaf of papers. As I reached the door the blade 
 rose again, to emit a kind of thin bark : 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 I turned on my heel, waiting. 
 42
 
 A JOURNALIST'S EQUIPMENT 
 
 " Do you know anything about spelling ? " 
 
 I tried to look pleasant, as I said I thought I was 
 to be relied on in this. 
 
 " Well, ask my secretary for tickets for the meet- 
 ing at Memorial Hall to-day ; something to do with 
 spelling. Don't do more than thirty or forty lines. 
 Right." 
 
 And the blade fell once more, leaving me free to 
 make my escape, which I did with a considerable sense 
 of relief. I found the secretary a meek little clerk, 
 with a curious hidden vein of timid facetiousness. He 
 supplied me with the necessary ticket and a hand-bill 
 of particulars. Then he said: 
 
 " Mr. Pierce is quite bright and pleasant this morn- 
 ing." 
 
 " Oh, is he? " I said. 
 
 " Yes, very for him. He's all right, you know, 
 when you get into his way. Of course, he's a real 
 hustler cleverest journalist in London, they say." 
 
 " Really ! " I think I introduced the right note of 
 admiration. At all events, it seemed to please this 
 little pale-eyed rabbit of a man, who, as I found later, 
 was reverentially devoted to his bullying chief, and 
 positively took a kind of fearful joy in being more 
 savagely browbeaten by Pierce than any other man 
 in the building. A queer taste, but a fortunate one 
 for a man in his particular position. 
 
 For myself, I was at once repelled and gagged by 
 Pierce's manner. I believe the man had ability, 
 though I think this was a good deal overrated by 
 himself, and by others, at his dictation; and I dare 
 say he was a good enough fellow at heart. His 
 
 43
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 manner was aggressive and feverish enough to be 
 called a symptom of the disease of the period. If the 
 blood in his veins sang any song at all to Mr. Pierce, 
 the refrain of that song must have been, " Hurry, 
 hurry, hurry ! " He and his like never stopped to ask 
 "Whither? "or "Why?" They had not time. And 
 further, if pressed for reasons, destination, and so 
 forth, they would have admitted, to themselves at all 
 events, that there could be no other goal than success ; 
 and that success could mean no other thing than the 
 acquisition of money ; and that the man who thought 
 otherwise must be a fool a fool who would soon 
 drop out altogether, to go under, among those who 
 were broken by the way. 
 
 My general aim and purpose in journalistic work, 
 at the outset, was the serving of social reform in 
 everything that I did. As I saw it, society was in a 
 parlous state indeed, and needed awaking to recogni- 
 tion of the fact, to the crying need for reforms in 
 every direction. That attitude was justifiable enough 
 in all conscience. The trouble was that I was at fault, 
 first, in my diagnosis ; second, in my notions as to 
 what kind of remedies were required ; and third, as to 
 the application of those remedies. 
 
 Like the rest of the minority whose thoughts were 
 not entirely occupied by the pursuit of pleasure and 
 personal gain, I saw that the greatest obstacle in the 
 path of the reformer was public indifference. But 
 with regard to the causes of that indifference, I was 
 entirely astray. I clung still to the nineteenth-cen- 
 tury attitude, which had been justifiable enough dur- 
 ing a good portion of that century, but had absolutely 
 
 44
 
 A JOURNALIST'S EQUIPMENT 
 
 ceased to be justifiable before its end came. This was 
 the attitude of demanding the introduction of re- 
 forms from above, from the State. 
 
 Though I fancied myself in advance of my time in 
 thought, when I joined the staff of the Daily Gazette, 
 I really was essentially of it. Even my obscure work 
 as reporter very soon brought me into close contact 
 with some of the dreadful sores which disfigured the 
 body social and politic at that time. But do you 
 think they taught me anything? No more than they 
 taught the blindest racer after money in all London. 
 They moved me, moved me deeply ; they stirred the 
 very foundations of my being; for I was far from 
 being insensitive. But not even in the most glaringly 
 obvious detail did they move me in the right direction. 
 They merely filled me with resentment, and a passion- 
 ate desire to bring improvement, aid, betterment ; a 
 desire to force the authorities into some action. Never 
 once did it occur to me that the movement must come 
 from the people themselves. 
 
 Poverty, though frequently a dreadful complica- 
 tion, was far from being at the root of all the sores. 
 The average respectable working-class wage-earner 
 with a wife and family, who earned from 25s. to 35s. 
 or 40s. a week, would spend a quarter of that wage 
 upon his own drinking; thereby not alone making 
 saving for a rainy day impossible, but docking his 
 family of some of the real necessities of life. But 
 this was accepted as a matter of course. The man 
 wanted the beer ; he must have it. The State made 
 absolutely no demand whatever upon such a man. 
 But it did for him and his, more than he did for him- 
 
 45
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 self and his family. And, giving positively nothing 
 to the State, he complainingly demanded yet more 
 from it. 
 
 These were respectable men. A large number of 
 men spent a half, and even three-quarters of their 
 earnings in drink. The middle class spent propor- 
 tionately far less on liquor, and far more upon dis- 
 play of one kind and another ; they seldom denied 
 themselves anything which they could possibly obtain. 
 The rich, as a class, lived in and for indulgence, in 
 some cases refined and subtle, in others gross ; but 
 always indulgence. The sense of duty to the State 
 simply did not exist as an attribute of any class, but 
 only here and there in individuals. 
 
 I believe I am strictly correct in saying that in half 
 a century, while the population increased by seventy- 
 five per cent., lunacy had increased by two hundred 
 and fifty per cent. 
 
 Yet the majority rushed blindly on, paying no heed 
 to any other thing on earth than their own gratifica- 
 tion, their own pursuit of the money for the purchase 
 of pleasure. One of the tragic fallacies of the period 
 was this crazy notion that not alone pleasure, but 
 happiness, could be bought with money, and in no 
 other way. And the few who were stung by the pre- 
 vailing suffering and wretchedness into recognition of 
 our parlous state, we, for the most part, cherished my 
 wild delusion, and insisted that the trouble could be 
 remedied if the State would contract and discharge 
 new obligations. We clamoured for more rights, 
 more help, more liberty, more freedom from this and 
 that; never seeing that our trouble was our incom- 
 
 46
 
 A JOURNALIST'S EQUIPMENT 
 
 plete comprehension of the rights and privileges we 
 had, with their corresponding obligations. 
 
 Though I knew them not, and as a Daily Gazette 
 reporter was little likely to meet them, there were men 
 who strove to open the eyes of the people to the truth, 
 and strove most valiantly. I call to mind a great 
 statesman and a great general, both old men, a great 
 pro-consul, a great poet and writer, a great editor, 
 and here and there politicians with elements of great- 
 ness in them, who fought hard for the right. But 
 these men were lonely figures as yet, and I am bound 
 to say of the people's leaders generally, at the time of 
 my journalistic enterprise, that they were a poor, 
 truckling, uninspired lot of sheep, with a few clever 
 wolves among them, who saw the people's madness 
 and folly and preyed upon it masterfully by every 
 trick within the scope of their ingenuity. 
 
 Even those who were honourable, disinterested, and, 
 for such a period, unselfish, were for the most part 
 the disciples of tradition and the slaves of that life- 
 sapping curse of British politics: the party spirit, 
 which led otherwise honourable men to oppose with 
 all their strength the measures of their party oppo- 
 nents, even in the face of their country's dire need. 
 
 Then there was the anti-British faction, a party 
 which spread fast-growing shoots from out the then 
 Government's very heart and root. The Govern- 
 ment's half-hearted supporters were not anti-British, 
 but they were not readers of the Daily Gazette; they 
 were not, in short, whole-hearted Government sup- 
 porters. They were Whigs, as the saying went. My 
 party, the readers of the Gazette, the out-and-out 
 
 47
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 Government party, to whom I looked for real prog- 
 ress, real social reform; they were unquestionably 
 riddled through and through with this extraordinary 
 sentiment which I call anti-British, a difficult thing 
 to explain nowadays. 
 
 With the newly and too easily acquired rights and 
 liberties of the nineteenth century, with its universal 
 spread of education, cheap literature, and the like, 
 there came, of course, increased knowledge, a wider 
 outlook. No discipline came with it, and one of its 
 earliest products was a nervous dread of being 
 thought behind the time, of being called ignorant, 
 narrow-minded, insular. People would do anything 
 to avoid this. They went to the length of interlard- 
 ing their speech and writings with foreign words 
 often in ignorance of the meaning of those words. 
 Broad-minded, catholic, tolerant, cosmopolitan 
 those were the descriptive adjectives which all desired 
 to earn for themselves. It became a perfect mania, 
 particularly with the young and clever, the half -edu- 
 cated, the would-be " smart " folk. 
 
 But it was also the honest ambition of many very 
 worthy people, who truly desired broad-minded under- 
 standing and the avoidance of prejudice. This 
 sapped the bulldog qualities of British pluck and 
 persistence terribly. You can see at a glance how it 
 would shut out a budding Nelson or a Wellington. 
 But its most notable effect was to be seen among poli- 
 ticians, who were able to claim Fox for a precedent. 
 
 To believe in the superiority of the British became 
 vulgar, a proof of narrow-mindedness. But, by that 
 token, to enlarge upon the inferiority of the British 
 
 48
 
 A JOURNALIST'S EQUIPMENT 
 
 indicated a broad, tolerant spirit, and a wide outlook 
 upon mankind and affairs. From that to the senti- 
 ment I have called anti-British was no more than a 
 step. Many thoroughly good, honourable, benevo- 
 lent people took that step unwittingly, and all uncon- 
 sciously became permeated with the vicious, suicidal 
 sentiment, while really seeking only good. Such 
 people were saved by their natural goodness and sense 
 from becoming actual and purposeful enemies of their 
 country. But as " Little Englanders " so they 
 were called they managed, with the best intentions, 
 to do their country infinite harm. 
 
 But there were others, the naturally vicious and un- 
 scrupulous, the morbid, the craven, the ignorant, the 
 self-seeking; these were the dangerous exponents of 
 the sentiment. With them, Little Englandism pro- 
 gressed in this wise : " There are plenty of foreigners 
 just as good as the British; their rule abroad is just 
 as good as ours." Then : " There are plenty of 
 foreigners far better than the British ; their rule 
 abroad is better than ours." Then : " Let the people 
 of our Empire fend for themselves among other peo- 
 ples ; our business is to look after ourselves." Then : 
 " We oppose the people of the Empire ; we oppose 
 British rule; we oppose the British." From that to 
 " We befriend the enemies of the British " was less 
 than a step. It was the position openly occupied by 
 many, in and out of Parliament. 
 
 " We are for you, for the people ; and devil take 
 Flag, Empire, and Crown ! " said these ranters ; 
 drunken upon liberties they never understood, free- 
 
 49
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 dam they never earned, privileges they were not qual- 
 ified to hold. 
 
 There were persons among them who spat upon the 
 Flag that protected their worthless lives, and cut it 
 down ; sworn servants of the State who openly pro- 
 claimed their sympathy with the State's enemies ; 
 carefully protected, highly privileged subjects of the 
 Crown, who impishly slashed at England's robes, to 
 show her nakedness to England's foes. 
 
 And these were supporters, members, proteges of 
 the Government, and readers of the Daily Gazette, 
 upheld in all things by that organ. And I, the son of 
 an English gentleman and clergyman, graduate of an 
 English university, I looked to this party, the Liberal 
 Government of England, as the leaders of reform, of 
 progress, of social betterment. And so did the coun- 
 try; the British public. Errors of taste and judg- 
 ment we regretted. That was how we described the 
 most ribald outbursts of the anti-British sentiment. 
 
 It is hard to find excuse or palliation. Instinct 
 must have told us that the demands, the programme, 
 of such diseased creatures, could only aggravate the 
 national ills instead of healing them. Yes, it would 
 seem so. I can only say that comparatively few 
 among us did see it. Perhaps disease was too general 
 among us for the recognition of symptoms. 
 
 This then was the mental attitude with which I ap- 
 proached my duties as a reporter on the staff of a 
 London daily newspaper of old standing and good 
 progressive traditions. And my notion was that in 
 every line written for publication, the end of social 
 reform should be served, directly or indirectly. My 
 
 50
 
 A JOURNALIST'S EQUIPMENT 
 
 idea of attaining social reformation was that the 
 people must be taught, urged, spurred into extract- 
 ing further gifts from the State; that the public 
 must be shown how to make their lives easier by get- 
 ting the State to do more for them. That was as 
 much as my education and my expansive theorizing 
 had done for me. Assuredly I was a product of my 
 age. 
 
 I had forgotten one thing, however, and that was 
 the thing which Mr. Charles N. Pierce began now to 
 drill into me, by analogy, and with a good deal more 
 precision and directness than I had ever seen used at 
 Rugby or Cambridge. This one thing was that the 
 Daily Gazette was not a philanthropic organ, but a 
 people's paper; and that the people did not want 
 instructing but interesting. 
 
 " But," I pleaded, " surely, for their own sakes, in 
 their own interests " 
 
 " Damn their own sakes ! " 
 
 " Well, but " 
 
 " There's no ' but ' about it. The public is an 
 aggregation of individuals. This paper must interest 
 the individual. The individual doesn't care a damn 
 about the people. He cares about himself. He is 
 very busy making money, and when he opens his 
 paper he wants to be amused and interested ; and he 
 is not either interested or amused by any instruction 
 as to how the people may be served. He doesn't want 
 'em served. He wants himself served and amused. 
 That's your job." 
 
 I believe I had faint inclinations just then to 
 wonder whether, after all, there might not be some- 
 
 51
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 thing to be said for the bloated Tories: the oppo- 
 nents of progress, as I always considered them. My 
 thoughts ran on parties, in the old-fashioned style, 
 you see. Also I was thinking, as a journalist, of the 
 characteristics which distinguished different news- 
 papers. 
 
 I cordially hated Mr. Charles N. Pierce, but he 
 really had more discernment than I had, for he said : 
 
 " Don't you worry about teaching the people to 
 grab more from the State. They'll take fast enough ; 
 they'll take quite as much as is good for 'em, without 
 your assistance. But, for giving, the angel Gabriel 
 and two advertisement canvassers wouldn't make 'em 
 give a cent more than they're obliged."
 
 VI 
 
 A JOURNALIST'S SURROUNDINGS 
 
 " Religion crowns the statesman and the man, 
 Sole source of public and of private peace." YOUNG. 
 
 I AM bound to suppose that I must have been a 
 tolerably tiring person to have to do with during 
 my first year in London. The reason of this was that 
 I could never concentrate my thoughts upon intimate, 
 personal interests, either my own or those of the peo- 
 ple I met. My thoughts were never of persons, but 
 always of the people ; never of affairs, but always of 
 tendencies, movements, issues, ultimate ends. Prob- 
 ably my crude unrest would have made me tiresome to 
 any people. It must have been peculiarly irritating 
 to my contemporaries at that period, who, whatever 
 they may have lacked, assuredly possessed in a re- 
 markable degree the faculty of concentration upon 
 their own individual affairs, their personal part in 
 the race for personal gain. 
 
 I remember that I talked, even to the poor, over- 
 worked servant at my lodging, rather of the pros- 
 pects of her class and order than of anything more 
 intimate or within her narrow scope. Poor Bessie! 
 She was of the callously named tribe of lodging- 
 house " slaveys " ; and what gave me some interest 
 in her personality, apart from the type she repre- 
 
 53
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 sented, was the fact that she had come from the Vale 
 of Blackmore, a part of Dorset which I knew very 
 well. I even remembered, for its exceptional pictur- 
 esqueness and beauty of situation, the cottage in 
 which Bessie had passed her life until one year before 
 my arrival at the fourth-rate Bloomsbury " apart- 
 ments " house in which she now toiled for a living. 
 There was little enough of the sap of her native 
 valley left in Bessie's cheeks now. She had acquired 
 the London muddiness of complexion quickly, poor 
 child, in the semi-subterranean life she led. 
 
 I was moved to inquire as to what had led her to 
 come to London, and gathered that she had been 
 anxious to " see a bit o' life." Certainly she saw life, 
 of a kind, when she entered her horrible underground 
 kitchen of a morning, for, as a chance errand once 
 showed me, its floor was a moving carpet of black- 
 beetles until after the gas was lighted. In Blooms- 
 bury, Bessie's daily work began about six o'clock 
 there were four stories in the house, and coals and 
 food and water required upon every floor and 
 ended some seventeen hours later. Occasionally, an 
 exacting lodger would make it eighteen hours the 
 number of Bessie's years in the world but seventeen 
 was the normal. 
 
 The trains which every day came rushing in from 
 the country to the various railway termini of London 
 were almost past counting. The " rural exodus," as 
 it was called, was a sadly real movement then. Every 
 one of them brought at least one Bessie, and one of 
 her male counterparts, with ruddy cheeks, a tin box, 
 and bright eyes straining to " see life." Insatiable 
 
 54
 
 A JOURNALIST'S SURROUNDINGS 
 
 London drew them all into its maw, and, while sap- 
 ping the roses from their cheeks, enslaved many of 
 them under one of the greatest curses of that day: 
 the fascination of the streets. 
 
 So terrible a power was exercised by this unwhole- 
 some passion that men and women became paralyzed 
 by it, and incapable of plucking up courage enough 
 to enable them to leave the streets. I talked with 
 men poor, sodden creatures, whose greasy black 
 coats were buttoned to their stubbly chins to hide the 
 absence of collar and waistcoat who supported a 
 wretched existence in the streets, between begging, 
 stealing, opening cab-doors, and the like, in constant 
 dread of police attention. Among these I found 
 many who had refused again and again offers of 
 help to lead an honest, self-dependent life, for the 
 sole reason that these offers involved quitting the 
 streets. 
 
 The same creeping paralysis of the streets kept 
 men from emigration to parts of the Empire in which 
 independent prosperity was assured for the willing 
 worker. They would not leave the hiving streets, 
 with their chances, their flaunting vice, their inces- 
 sant bustle, and their innumerable drinking bars. 
 
 The disease did not stop at endowing the streets 
 with fascination for these poor, undisciplined, un- 
 manned creatures ; it implanted in them a lively fear, 
 hard to comprehend, but very real to them, of all 
 places outside the streets, with their familiar, pent 
 noises and enclosed strife. 
 
 I met one old gentleman, the head of an important 
 firm of printers, who, being impressed with the squalid 
 
 55
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 wretchedness of the surroundings in which his work- 
 people lived, decided to shift his works into the coun- 
 try. He chose the outskirts of a charmingly situated 
 garden city, then in course of formation. He gave 
 his people a holiday and entertained them at a picnic 
 party upon the site of his proposed new works. He 
 set before them plans and details of pleasant cottages 
 he meant to build for them, with good gardens, and 
 scores of conveniences which they could never know 
 in the dingy, grimy tenements for which they paid 
 extortionate rents in London. 
 
 There were four hundred and thirty-eight of these 
 work-people. Twenty-seven of them, with some hesi- 
 tation, expressed their willingness to enter into the 
 new scheme for their benefit. The remaining four 
 hundred and eleven refused positively to leave their 
 warrens in London for this garden city, situated 
 within an hour's run of the metropolis. 
 
 Figure to yourself the attitude of such people, 
 where the great open uplands of the Empire were con- 
 cerned: the prairie, the veld, the bush. Consider 
 their relation to the elements, or to things elemental. 
 We went farther than " Little Englandism " in those 
 days ; we produced little street and alley men by the 
 hundred thousand ; and then we bade them exercise 
 their rights, their imperial heritage, and rule an Em- 
 pire. As for me, I was busy in my newspaper work 
 trying to secure more rights for them; for men 
 whose present freedom from all discipline and control 
 was their curse. 
 
 The reporters' room at the office of the Daily Ga- 
 zette was the working headquarters of five other men 
 
 56
 
 A JOURNALIST'S SURROUNDINGS 
 
 besides myself. One was a Cambridge man, one had 
 been at Oxford, one came from Cork, and the other 
 two were products of Scotch schools. Two of the 
 five would have been called gentlemen ; four of them 
 were good fellows ; the fifth had his good points, but 
 perhaps he had been soured by a hard upbringing. 
 One felt that the desire for money advancement, 
 success, or whatever you chose to call it ; it all meant 
 the one thing to Dunbar mastered every feeling, 
 every instinct even, in this young man, and made him 
 about as safe and agreeable a neighbour as a wolf 
 might be for a kennel of dogs. 
 
 A certain part of our time was devoted to waiting 
 in the reporters' room for what Mr. Pierce called our 
 " assignments," to this or that reporting task. Also, 
 we did our writing here, and a prodigious amount of 
 talking. The talk was largely of Fleet Street, the 
 ruffianism of Mr. Pierce, the fortunes of our own and 
 other journals, the poorness of our pay, the arduous- 
 ness of our labours, the affairs of other newspaper 
 offices, and the like. But at other times we turned to 
 politics, and over our pipes and copy paper would 
 readjust the concert of Europe and the balance of 
 world power. More often we dealt with local politics, 
 party intrigue, and scandals of Parliament; and 
 sometimes more frequently since my advent, it may 
 be we entered gaily upon large abstractions, and 
 ventilated our little philosophies and views of the 
 eternal verities. 
 
 By my recollection of those queer confused days, 
 my colleagues were cynically anarchical in their polit- 
 ical views, unconvinced and unconvincing Socialists, 
 
 57
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 and indifferent Agnostics. I am not quite sure that 
 we believed iti anything very thoroughly except 
 that things were in a pretty bad way. Earnest belief 
 in anything was not a feature of the period. I recall 
 one occasion when consideration of some tyrannical 
 act of our immediate chief, the news-editor, led our 
 talk by way of character and morality to questions 
 of religion. The Daily Gazette, I should mention, 
 was a favourite organ with the most powerful relig- 
 ious community the Nonconformists. Campbell, 
 one of the two Scotch reporters, hazarded the first 
 remark about religion, if I remember aright: some- 
 thing it was to the effect that men like Pierce had 
 neither religion nor manners. Brown, the Cambridge 
 man, took this up. 
 
 " Well now," he said, " that's a queer thing about 
 religion. Fd like you to tell me what anybody's 
 religion is in London.'* 
 
 ** It's the capital of a Christian country, isn't it ? " 
 said Dunbar. 
 
 " Yes," admitted Brown. " That's just it. We're 
 officially and politically Christian. It's a national 
 affair. We're a Christian people; but who knows 
 a Christian individual? Ours is a Christian news- 
 paper, Christian city, Christian country, and all the 
 rest of it. There's no doubt about it. All England 
 believes ; but no single man I ever meet admits that 
 he believes. I suppose it's different up your way, 
 Campbell. One gathers the Scotch are religious ? " 
 
 " H'm ! I won't answer for that," growled Camp- 
 bell. " As a people, yes, as you say ; but as indi- 
 
 58
 
 A JOURNALIST'S SURROUNDINGS 
 
 viduals well, I don't kno\r. But my father** a 
 believer ; I could swear to iL" 
 
 "Ah, je; so's mine. But Pm not talking of 
 fathers. I mean our generation.*' 
 
 " Well," I began, " for my part, Pm not BO sure 
 of the fathers." 
 
 " Oh, we can count TOU oat," said Kelly, the Irish- 
 man. " AH parsons' sons are atheists, as a matter of 
 course ; and had hats at that." 
 
 " Rather a severe blow at oar Christianity, isn't 
 it ? " said Brown. 
 
 I had no more to say on this point, not wishing to 
 discuss my father. But I knew perfectly weD that 
 that good, kind man had cherished no belief whatever 
 in many of what were judged to be the vital dogmas 
 of Christianity. 
 
 ^ Well, I've just been thinking," said CampbeH, 
 " and upon my soul, Brown if I've got one I 
 believe you're right. I don't know any one of our 
 generation who believes. Every one thinks every one 
 else believes, and everybody is most careful not to be 
 disrespectful about the belief everybody else is sup- 
 posed to hold. But, begad, nobody believes himself. 
 We all wink at each other about it; accepting the 
 certainty of every one else's belief, and only recog- 
 nizing as a matter of course that yon and me we*we 
 got beyond that sort of thing." 
 
 " Well, I've often thought of it," said Brown. 
 " I'll write an article about it one of these days." 
 
 " Who'll you get to publish it? " 
 
 "ITm! Yes, that's a fact. And yet, hang it,
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 you know, how absurd! Who is there in this office 
 that believes ? " 
 
 " Echo answers, ' who? ' " 
 
 " I happen to know that both Rainham and Badde- 
 ley go to church," said Dunbar, naming a proprietor 
 and a manager. 
 
 " I don't see the connection," said Brown. 
 
 " Because there isn't any," said Campbell. " But 
 Dunbar sees it, and so does the British public, begad. 
 That's the kernel of the whole thing. That's why 
 every one thinks every one else, except himself, 
 believes. Rainham and Baddeley think their wives, 
 and sons, and servants, and circle generally believe, 
 and therefore would be shocked if Rainham and 
 Baddeley didn't go to church. And every one else 
 thinks the same. So they all go." 
 
 " But, my dear chap, they don't all go. The par- 
 sons are always complaining about it. The women 
 do, but the men don't not as a rule, I mean ; par- 
 ticularly when they've got motors, and golf, and 
 things. You know they don't. Here's six of us here. 
 Does any one of us ever go to church ? " 
 
 Dunbar, looking straight down over his nose, said : 
 "I do often." 
 
 " You're a fine fellow, Dunbar, sure enough," said 
 Campbell ; " and I believe you'll be a newspaper pro- 
 prietor in five years. You've got your finger on the 
 pulse. Can you look me in the face and say you 
 believe? " 
 
 Dunbar smiled in his knowing way and wobbled. 
 " I certainly believe it's a good thing to go to church 
 occasionally," he said. 
 
 60
 
 A JOURNALIST'S SURROUNDINGS 
 
 " And I believe you'll make a fortune in Fleet 
 Street, my son." 
 
 " Well, in my humble opinion," said Kelly, " the 
 trouble with you people in England is not so much 
 that you don't believe; a good many believe, in a 
 kind of a way, like they believe in ventilation, with- 
 out troubling to act on it. They believe, but they 
 don't think about it; they don't care, it isn't real. 
 The poor beggars 'Id go crazy with fear of hell-fire, 
 if the sort of armchair belief they have was real to 
 'em. It isn't real to 'em, like business, and money, 
 and that, or like patriotism is in Japan." 
 
 " Well, it really is a rum thing," said Brown, with 
 an affectation of pathos, " that in all this Christian 
 country I shouldn't know a single believer of my 
 generation." 
 
 " It's a devilish bad thing for the country," said 
 Campbell. And even then, with all my fundamentally 
 rotten sociological nostrums, I had a vague feeling 
 that the Scotchman was right there. 
 
 " Well, then, that's why it's good to go to church," 
 said Dunbar, with an air of finality. 
 
 " I still don't see the connection," murmured 
 Brown. 
 
 " Because it still isn't there. But, of course, it's 
 perfectly obvious. That's why Dunbar sees it, and 
 why he'll presently run a paper." Then Campbell 
 turned to Dunbar, and added slowly, as though 
 speaking to a little child : " You see, my dear, it's 
 not their not going to church that's bad ; it's their 
 not believing." 
 
 If I remember rightly, Mr. Pierce ended the con- 
 61
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 versation, through his telephone, by assigning to 
 Brown the task of reporting a clerical gathering at 
 Exeter Hall. Brown was credited with having a par- 
 ticularly happy touch in the reporting of religious 
 meetings. He certainly had an open mind, for I 
 remember his saying that day that he thought Chris- 
 tianity was perhaps better adapted to a skittish cli- 
 mate like ours than Buddhism, and that Ju-Ju 
 worship in London would be sure to cause friction 
 with the County Council. 
 
 As I see it now, there was a terribly large amount 
 of truth in the view taken by Brown and Campbell 
 and Kelly about belief in England, and more par- 
 ticularly in London. But there were devout men of 
 all ages who did not happen to come within their 
 circle of acquaintance. I met Salvation Army officers 
 occasionally, who were both intelligent, self-denying, 
 and hard-working; and I suppose that with them 
 belief must have been at least as powerful a motive 
 as devotion to their Army, their General, and the 
 work of reclamation among the very poor. Also, 
 there were High Church clergymen, who toiled un- 
 ceasingly among the poor. Symbolism was a great 
 force with them ; but there must have been real belief 
 there. Also, there were some fine Nonconformist mis- 
 sions. I recall one in West London, the work of 
 which was a great power for good in such infected 
 warrens as Soho. But it certainly was not an age of 
 faith or of earnest beliefs. The vast majority took 
 their Christianity, with the national safety and integ- 
 rity, for granted a thing long since established 
 
 62
 
 A JOURNALIST'S SURROUNDINGS 
 
 by an earlier generation; a matter about which no 
 modern could spare time for thought or effort. 
 
 I believe it was on the day following this partic- 
 ular conversation in the reporters' room that I met 
 Leslie Wheeler by appointment at Waterloo, and 
 went down to Weybridge with him for the week-end. 
 My friend was in even gayer spirits than usual, and 
 laughingly told me that I must " Work up a better 
 Saturday face than that " before we got to Wey- 
 bridge. 
 
 I had known Leslie Wheeler since our school-days ; 
 and I remember lying awake in the room next his own 
 at Weybridge that night, and wondering why in the 
 world it was I felt so out of touch with my high- 
 spirited friend. During that Saturday afternoon and 
 evening I had been pretty much preoccupied in secur- 
 ing as much as possible of Sylvia's attention. But 
 the journey down had been made with Leslie alone, 
 and when his father had gone to bed, we two had 
 spent another half-hour together in the billiard- 
 room, smoking and sipping whiskey and soda. Leslie 
 was in the vein most usual with him, of " turning to 
 mirth all things on earth " ; and I was conscious, 
 upon my side, of a notable absence of reciprocal 
 feeling, of friendly rapport. And I could find no 
 explanation for this, as I lay thinking of it in bed. 
 
 Looking backward, I see many causes which prob- 
 ably contributed to my feeling of lost touch. I had 
 only been about a month in London, but it had been 
 a busy month, and full of new experiences, of inti- 
 mate touch with realities of London life, sordid and 
 otherwise. It was all very unlike Rugby and Cam- 
 
 63
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 bridge; very unlike the life of the big luxurious 
 Weybridge house, and even more unlike lichen-cov- 
 ered Tarn Regis. In those days I took little stock 
 of such mundane details as bed and board. But these 
 things count; I had been made to take note of them 
 of late. 
 
 I paid 12s. 6d. a week for my garret, and 7s. a 
 week for my breakfast, Is. for lighting, and Is. for 
 my bath. That left me with 28s. 6d. a week for daily 
 lunch and dinner, clothes, boots, tobacco, and the 
 eternal penny outgoings of London life. The pur- 
 chase of such a trifle as a box of sweets for Sylvia 
 made a week's margin look very small. Already I 
 had begun to note the expensiveness of stamps, laun- 
 dry work, omnibus fares, and such matters. My 
 training had not been a hopeful one, so far as small 
 economies went. Leslie twitted me with neglecting 
 golf, and failing to attend the Inter-'Varsity cricket 
 match. He found economy, like all other things 
 under heaven, and in heaven for that matter, suit- 
 able subjects for the exercise of his tireless humour. 
 But I wondered greatly that his incessant banter 
 should jar upon me; that I should catch myself re- 
 garding him with a coldly appraising eye. Indeed, 
 it troubled me a good deal; and the more so when 
 I thought of Sylvia. 
 
 I flatly declined to admit that London had affected 
 my feeling for Sylvia. Whatever one's view, her big 
 violet eyes were abrim with gentle sympathy. I 
 watched her as I sat by her side in church, and 
 thought of our irreverent talk at the office. Here 
 was sincere piety, at all events, I thought. Mediae- 
 
 64
 
 A JOURNALIST'S SURROUNDINGS 
 
 valism never produced a sweeter devotee, a worshipper 
 more rapt. I could not follow her into the place 
 of ecstasy she reached. But, I told myself, I could 
 admire from without, and even reverence. Could I? 
 Well, I was somewhat strengthened in the belief that 
 very Sunday night by Sylvia's father. 
 
 65
 
 VII 
 
 A GIRL AND HER FAITH 
 
 "If faith produce no works, I see 
 That faith is not a living tree." HANNAH MORE. 
 
 DURING that Sunday at Weybridge I saw but 
 little of my friend Leslie. It was only by 
 having obtained special permission from the Daily 
 Gazette office that I was able to remain away from 
 town that day. My leisure was brief, my chances 
 few, I felt; and that seemed to justify the devoting 
 of every possible moment to Sylvia's company. 
 
 Sylvia's church was not the family place of wor- 
 ship. When Mrs. Wheeler and Marjory attended 
 service, it was at St. Mark's, but Sylvia made her 
 devotions at St. Jude's, a church famous in that dis- 
 trict for its high Anglicanism and stately ritual. 
 
 The incumbent of St. Jude's, his Reverence, or 
 Father Hinton, as Sylvia always called him, was a 
 tall, full-bodied man, with flashing dark eyes, and a 
 fine, dramatic presence. I believe he was an inde- 
 fatigable worker among the poor. I know he had 
 a keen appreciation of the dramatic element in his 
 priestly calling, and in the ritual of his church, with 
 its rich symbolism and elaborate impressiveness. 
 Even from my brief glimpses of the situation, I 
 realized that this priest (the words clergyman and 
 
 66
 
 A GIRL AND HER FAITH 
 
 vicar were discouraged at St. Jude's) played a very 
 important, a vital part, in the scheme of Sylvia's re- 
 ligion. I think Sylvia would have said that the per- 
 sonality of the man was nothing ; but she would have 
 added that his office was much, very much to her. 
 
 She may have been right, though not entirely so, 
 I think. But it is certain that, in the case of Father 
 Hinton, the dramatic personality of the man did 
 nothing to lessen the magnitude of his office in the 
 minds of such members of his flock as Sylvia. I 
 gathered that belief in the celibacy of the clergy was, 
 if not an article of faith, at least a part of piety at 
 St. Jude's. 
 
 Before seven o'clock on Sunday morning I heard 
 footsteps on the gravel under my window, and, look- 
 ing out, saw Sylvia, book in hand, leaving the house. 
 She was exquisitely dressed, the distinguishing note 
 of her attire being, as always in my eyes, a demure 
 sort of richness and picturesqueness. Never was 
 there another saint so charming in appearance, I 
 thought. Her very Prayer Book, or whatever the 
 volume might be, had a seductive, feminine charm 
 about its dimpled cover. 
 
 I hurried over my dressing and was out of the 
 house by half-past seven and on my way to St. 
 Jude's. Breakfast was not until half-past nine, I 
 knew. The morning was brilliantly sunny; and life 
 in the world, despite its drawbacks and complexities, 
 as seen from Fleet Street, seemed an admirably good 
 thing to me as I strode over a carpet of pine-needles, 
 and watched the slanting sun-rays turning the tree 
 trunks to burnished copper. 
 
 67
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 The service was barely over when I tiptoed into a 
 seat beside the door at St. Jude's. At this period the 
 appurtenances of ritual in such churches as St. Jude's 
 incense, candles, rich vestments, and the like 
 rivalled those of Rome itself. I remember that, fresh 
 from the dewy morning sunshine without, these sym- 
 bols rather jarred upon my senses than otherwise, 
 with a strong hint of artificiality and tawdriness, the 
 suggestion of a theatre seen by daylight. But they 
 meant a great deal to many good folks in Wey- 
 bridge, for, despite the earliness of the hour, there 
 were fifty or sixty women present, besides Sylvia, and 
 half a dozen men. 
 
 I could see Sylvia distinctly from my corner by the 
 door, and I was made rather uneasy by the fact that 
 she remained in her place when every one else had left 
 the building. Five, ten minutes I waited, and then 
 walked softly up the aisle to her place. I did not 
 perceive, until I reached her side, that she was kneel- 
 ing, or I suppose I should have felt obliged to refrain 
 from disturbing her. As it was, Sylvia heard me, 
 and, having seen who disturbed her, rose, with the 
 gravest little smile, and, with a curtsy to the altar, 
 walked out before me. 
 
 I found that Sylvia generally stayed on in the 
 church for the eight o'clock service ; and I was duly 
 grateful when she yielded to my solicitations and set 
 out for a walk with me instead. I had taken a few 
 biscuits from the dining-room and eaten them on my 
 way out; but I learned later, rather to my distress, 
 that Sylvia had not broken her fast. I must suppose 
 she was accustomed to such practices, for she seemed 
 
 68
 
 A GIRL AND HER FAITH 
 
 to enjoy almost as much as I did our long ramble in 
 the fresh morning air. 
 
 I learned a good deal during that morning walk, 
 and the day that followed it, the greater part of 
 which I spent by Sylvia's side. Upon the whole, I 
 was perturbed and made uneasy ; but I continued to 
 assure myself, perhaps too insistently for confidence 
 or comfort, that Sylvia was wholly desirable and 
 sweet. It was perhaps unfortunate for my peace of 
 mind that the day was one of continuous religious 
 exercises. The fact tinged all our converse, and in- 
 deed supplied the motive of most of it. 
 
 I did not at the time realize exactly what chilled 
 and disturbed me, but I think now that it was what 
 I might call the inhumanity of Sylvia's religion. I 
 dipped into one of her sumptuous little books at some 
 time during the day, and I remember this passage: 
 
 " To this end spiritual writers recommend what is 
 called a * holy indifference ' to all created things, in- 
 cluding things inanimate, place, time, and the like. 
 Try as far as possible to be indifferent to all things. 
 Remember that the one thing important above all 
 others to you is the salvation of your own soul. It 
 is the great work of your life, far greater than your 
 work as parent, child, husband, wife, or friend." 
 
 It was a reputable sort of a book this, and fathered 
 by a respected Oxford cleric. 
 
 There was singularly little of the mystic in my 
 temperament. My mind, as you have seen, was sur- 
 charged with crude but fervent desires for the mate- 
 rial betterment of my kind. I was nothing if not 
 interested in human well-being, material progress, 
 
 69
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 mortal ills and remedies. Approaching Sylvia's posi- 
 tion and outlook from this level then, I thrust my way 
 through what I impatiently dismissed as the " flum- 
 mery " ; by which I meant the poetry, the pictur- 
 esqueness, the sacrosanct glamour surrounding his 
 Reverence and St. Jude's ; and found, or thought I 
 found, that Sylvia's religion was at worst a selfish 
 gratification of the senses of the individual worship- 
 per, and at best a devout and pious ministration to 
 the worshipper's own soul; in which the loving of 
 one's neighbour and caring for one another seemed 
 to play precisely no part at all. 
 
 True it was, as I already knew, that in the East 
 End of London, and elsewhere, some of the very High 
 Church clergy were carrying on a work of real devo- 
 tion among the poor, and that with possibly a more 
 distinguished measure of success than attended the 
 efforts of any other branch of Christian service. 
 They did not influence anything like the number of 
 people who were influenced by dissenting bodies, but 
 those who did come under their sway came without 
 reservation. 
 
 But the point which absorbed me was the question 
 of how this particular aspect of religion affected 
 Sylvia. In this, at all events, it seemed to me a far 
 from helpful or wholesome kind of religion. Sylvia 
 liked early morning services because so few people 
 attended them. It was " almost like having the 
 church to oneself." The supreme feature of relig- 
 ious life for Sylvia had for its emblem the tinkle 
 of the bell at the service she always called Mass. 
 The coming of the Presence that was the C Major 
 
 70
 
 A GIRL AND HER FAITH 
 
 of life for Sylvia. For the rest, meditation, pref- 
 erably in the setting provided by St. Jude's, with 
 its permanent aroma of incense and its dim lights 
 the world shut out by stained glass this, with 
 prayer, genuflections, and the ecstasy of long 
 thought upon the circumstances of the supreme act 
 of Christ's life upon earth, seemed to me to represent 
 the sum total of Sylvia's religion. 
 
 But, over and above what was to me the chilling 
 negativeness of all this, its indifference to the human 
 welfare of all other mortals, there was in Sylvia's 
 religion something else, which I find myself unable, 
 even now, to put into words. Some indication of it, 
 perhaps, is given by the little passage I have quoted 
 from one of her books. It was the one thing positive 
 which I found in my lady's religion ; all the rest was 
 to me a beautiful, intricate, purely artificial negation 
 of human life and human interest. 
 
 This one thing positive struck into my vitals with 
 a chill premonition, as of something unnatural and, 
 to me, unfathomable. It was a sentiment which I can 
 only call anti-human. Even as those of Sylvia's per- 
 suasion held that the clergy should be celibate, so it 
 seemed to me they viewed all purely human loves, ties, 
 emotions, sentiments, and interests generally with a 
 kind of jealous suspicion, as influences to be belittled 
 as far as possible, if not actually suppressed. 
 
 Puritanism, you say? But, no; the thing had no 
 concern with Puritanism, for it lacked the discipline, 
 the self-restraint that made Cromwell's men invin- 
 cible. There was no Puritanism in the influence 
 which could make women indifferent to the earthly 
 
 71
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 ties of love and sentiment, to children, to the home 
 and domesticity, while at the same time implanting 
 in them an almost feverish appreciation of incense, 
 rich vestments, gorgeous decorations, and the whole 
 paraphernalia of such a service as that of St. Jude's, 
 Weybridge. This religion, or, as I think it would 
 be more just to say, Sylvia's conception of this re- 
 ligion, did not say: 
 
 " Deny yourself this or that." 
 
 It said: 
 
 " Deny yourself to the rest of your kind. Deny 
 all other mortals. Wrap yourself in yourself, think- 
 ing only of your own soul and its relation to its 
 Maker and Saviour." 
 
 This was how I saw Sylvia's religion, and, though 
 she was sweetly kind and sympathetic to me, Dick 
 Mordan, I was strangely chilled and perturbed by 
 realization of the fact that nothing human really 
 weighed with her, unless her own soul was human ; 
 that the people, our fellow men and women, of whose 
 situation and welfare I thought so much, were far 
 less to Sylvia than the Early Fathers and the Saints ; 
 that humanity had even less import for her, was less 
 real, than to me, was the fascination of St. Jude's 
 incense-laden atmosphere. 
 
 Sylvia's dainty person had an infinite charm for 
 me; the personality which animated and informed 
 it chilled and repelled me as it might have been a 
 thing uncanny. When I insisted upon the dear im- 
 portance of some one of humanity's claims, the far- 
 away gaze of her beautiful eyes, with their light that 
 never was on sea or land, her faintly superior smile 
 
 72
 
 A GIRL AND HER FAITH 
 
 all this thrust me back, as might a blow, and with 
 more baffling effect. 
 
 And then the accidental touch of her little hand 
 would bring me back, with pulses fluttering, and the 
 warm blood in my veins insisting that sweet Sylvia 
 was adorable; that everything would be well lost in 
 payment for the touch of her lips. So, moth-like, I 
 spent that pleasant Sabbath day, attached to Sylvia 
 by ties over which my mind had small control ; by 
 bonds which, if the truth were known, were not 
 wholly dissimilar, I believe, from the ties which drew 
 her daily to the heavy atmosphere of the sanctuary 
 rails of St. Jude's. 
 
 In the evening Mr. Wheeler asked me to come and 
 smoke a cigar with him in his private room, and the 
 invitation was not one to be evaded. I was subcon- 
 sciously aware that it elicited a meaning exchange of 
 glances between Marjory and her mother. 
 
 " Well, Mordan, I hope things go well with you in 
 Fleet Street," said Mr. Wheeler, when his cigar was 
 alight and we were both seated in his luxurious little 
 den. 
 
 " Oh, tolerably," I said. " Of course, I am quite 
 an obscure person there as yet; quite on the lowest 
 rungs, you know." 
 
 " Quite so ; quite so ; and from all I hear, compe- 
 tition is as keen there as in the City, though the re- 
 wards are rather different, of course." 
 
 I nodded, and we were silent for a few moments. 
 Then he flicked a little cigar-ash into a tray and 
 looked up sharply, with quite the Moorgate Street 
 expression, I remember thinking. 
 
 73
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 " I think you are a good deal attracted by my 
 youngest girl, Mordan ? " he said ; and his tone de- 
 manded a reply even more than his words. 
 
 " Yes, I certainly admire her greatly," I said, 
 more than a little puzzled by the wording of the 
 question ; more than a little fluttered, it may be ; for 
 it seemed to me a welcoming sort of question, and I 
 was keenly aware of my ineligibility as a suitor. 
 
 " Exactly. That is no more than I expected to 
 hear from you. Indeed, I think anything less would 
 well, I shouldn't have been at all pleased with 
 anything less." 
 
 His complaisance quite startled me. Somehow, too, 
 it reminded me of my many baffled retirements of that 
 day, before the elements in Sylvia's character which 
 chilled and repelled me. I was almost glad that I had 
 not committed myself to any warmer or more definite 
 declaration. Mr. Wheeler weighed his cigar with 
 nice care. 
 
 " Yes," he continued. " If you had disputed the 
 attraction the attachment, I should perhaps say 
 I should have found serious ground for criticizing 
 your your behaviour to my girl. As it is, of 
 course, the thing is natural enough. You have been 
 attracted ; the child is attractive ; and you have paid 
 her marked attentions which is what any young 
 man might be expected to do." 
 
 " If he is going to suggest an engagement," I 
 thought, " I must be very clear about my financial 
 position, or want of position." Mr. Wheeler con- 
 tinued thoughtfully to eye his cigar. 
 
 " Yes, it is perfectly natural," he said ; " and you 
 74.
 
 will probably think, therefore, that what I am going 
 to say is very unnatural and unkind. But you must 
 just bear in mind that I am a good deal older than 
 you, and, also, I am Sylvia's father." 
 
 I nodded, with a new interest. 
 
 " Well, now, Mordan, let me say first that I know 
 my girls pretty well, and I am quite satisfied that 
 Sylvia is not fitted to be a poor man's wife. You 
 would probably think her far better fitted for that 
 part than her sister, because Marjory is a lot more 
 gay and frivolous. Well, you would be wrong. 
 They are neither of them really qualified for the post, 
 but Sylvia is far less so than Marjory. In point of 
 fact she would be wretched in it, she would fail in 
 it ; and I may say that the fact would not make 
 matters easier for her husband." 
 
 There did not seem to me any need for a reply, but 
 I nodded again ; and Mr. Wheeler resumed, after a 
 long draw at his cigar. He smoked a very excellent, 
 rather rich Havana. 
 
 " Yes, girls are different now from the girls I 
 sweethearted with; and girls like mine must have 
 money. I dare say you think Sylvia dresses very 
 prettily, in a simple way. My dear fellow, her laun- 
 dry bill alone would bankrupt a newspaper reporter." 
 
 I may have indicated before, that Mr. Wheeler 
 was not a person of any particular refinement. He 
 had made the money which provided a tolerably 
 costly up-bringing for his children, but his own edu- 
 cation I gathered had been of a much more exiguous 
 character. There was, as I know, a good deal of 
 truth in what he said of the girl of the period. 
 
 75
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 " Well, now, I put it to you, Mordan, whether, ad- 
 mitting that what I say about Sylvia is true and 
 you may take it from me that it is true whether 
 it would be very kind or fair on my part to allow you 
 to go on paying attention to her at the rate of 
 say to-day's. Do you think it would be wise or kind 
 of me to allow it? I say nothing about your side in 
 the matter, because well, because I still have some 
 recollection of how a young fellow feels in such a 
 case. But would it be wise of me to allow it ? " 
 
 He was a shrewd man, this father of Sylvia, and of 
 my old friend; and I have no doubt that the tactics 
 I found so disarming had served him well before that 
 day in the City. At the same time, instinct seemed to 
 forbid complete surrender on my side. 
 
 " It is just consideration of the present difficulties 
 of my position which has made me careful to avoid 
 seeking to commit Sylvia in any way," I said. 
 
 It was probably an unwise remark. At all events, 
 it struck the note of opposition, of contumacy, which 
 it seemed my host had been anticipating; and he 
 met it with a new inflection in his voice, as who should 
 say : " Well, now to be done with explanations and 
 the velvet glove. Have at you ! " What he actually 
 said was : 
 
 " Ah, there's a deal of mischief to be done without 
 a declaration, my friend. But, however, I don't ex- 
 pect that you should share my view. I only sug- 
 gested it on the off chance because well, I suppose, 
 because that would be the easiest way out for me, as 
 host. But I don't know that I should have thought 
 much of you if you had met me half-way. So now 
 
 76
 
 A GIRL AND HER FAITH 
 
 let me do my part and get it over, for it's not very 
 pleasant. I have shown you my reasons, which, how- 
 ever they may seem to you, are undeniable to me. 
 Now for my wishes in the matter, as a father ; I am 
 sure there is no need for me to say ' instructions,' so 
 I say * wishes.' They are simply that for the time 
 for a year or two, anyhow you should not give me 
 the pleasure of being your host, and that you should 
 not communicate in any way with Sylvia. There, 
 now it's said, and done, and I think we might leave 
 it at that ; for I don't think it's much more pleasant 
 for me than for you. I'm sure I hope we shall have 
 many a pleasant evening together er after a 
 few years have passed. Now, what do you say 
 shall we have another cigar, or go in to the ladies ? " 
 I flatter myself that, with all my short-comings, I 
 was never a sulky fellow. At all events, I elected to 
 join the ladies; but my reward was not immediately 
 apparent, for it seemed that Sylvia had retired for 
 the night. At least, we did not meet again until 
 breakfast-time next morning, when departure was 
 imminent, and the week's work had, so to say, begun. 
 
 77
 
 VIII 
 
 A STIRRING WEEK 
 
 " Ay I we would each fain drive 
 At random, and not steer by rule. 
 Weakness ! and worse, weakness bestows in vain. 
 Winds from our side the unsuiting consort rive. 
 We rush by coasts where we had lief remain ; 
 Man cannot, though he would, live chance's fool. 
 
 Even so we leave behind, 
 
 As, charter' d by some unknown Powers, 
 
 We stem across the sea of life by night. 
 
 The joys which were not for our use design'd ; 
 
 The friends to whom we had no natural right, 
 
 The homes that were not destined to be ours. 
 
 MATTHEW ARNOLD. 
 
 IT goes without saying that Mr. Wheeler's attitude, 
 and my being practically forbidden the house at 
 Weybridge, strengthened and sharpened my interest 
 in Sylvia. Nothing else so fans the flame of a young 
 man's fancy as being forbidden all access to its ob- 
 ject. Accordingly, in the weeks which followed that 
 Sunday at Weybridge, I began an ardent correspond- 
 ence with Sylvia, after inducing her to arrange to 
 call for letters at a certain newspaper shop not far 
 from the station. 
 
 It was a curious correspondence in many ways. 
 Some of my long, wordy epistles were indited from 
 
 78
 
 A STIRRING WEEK 
 
 the reporters' room at the Daily Gazette office, in the 
 midst of noisy talk and the hurried production of 
 " copy." Others, again, were produced, long after 
 for my health's sake I should have been in bed ; 
 and these were written on a corner of my little chest 
 of drawers in the Bloomsbury lodging-house. I was 
 a great reader of the poet Swinburne at the time, and 
 I doubt not my muse was sufficiently passionate seem- 
 ing. But, though I believe my phrases of endearment 
 were alliteratively emphatic, and even, as I after- 
 wards learned, somewhat alarming to their recipient, 
 yet the real mainspring of my eloquence was the 
 difference between our respective views of life, Syl- 
 via's and mine. 
 
 In short, before very long my letters resolved them- 
 selves into fiery and vehement denunciation of Sylvia's 
 particular and chosen metier in religion, and equally 
 vehement special pleading on behalf of the claims of 
 humanity and social reform, as I saw them. I find 
 the thing provocative of smiles now, but I was terri- 
 bly in earnest then, or thought so, and had realized 
 nothing of the absolute futility of pitting tempera- 
 ment against temperament, reason against conviction, 
 argument against emotional belief. 
 
 We had some stolen meetings, too, in the evenings, 
 I upon one side of a low garden wall, Sylvia upon the 
 other. Stolen meetings are apt to be very sweet and 
 stirring to young blood ; but the sordid consideration 
 of the railway fare to Weybridge forbade frequent 
 indulgence, and such was my absorption in social 
 questions, such my growing hatred of Sylvia's anti- 
 human form of religion, that even here I could not 
 
 79
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 altogether forbear from argument. Indeed, I believe 
 I often left poor Sylvia weary and bewildered by the 
 apparently crushing force of my representations, 
 which, while quite capable of making her pretty head 
 to ache, left her mental and emotional attitude as 
 completely untouched as though I had never opened 
 my lips. 
 
 Wrought up by means of my own eloquence, I 
 would make my way back to London in a hot tremor 
 of exaltation, which I took to be love and desire of 
 Sylvia. And then, as like as not, I would receive a 
 letter from my lady-love the next day, the refrain of 
 which would be: 
 
 " How strange you are. How you muddle me ! 
 Indeed, you don't understand; and neither, perhaps, 
 do I understand you. It seems to me you would drag 
 sacred matters down to the dusty level of your poli- 
 tics." 
 
 The dusty level of my politics ! That was it. The 
 affairs of the world, of mortal men, they were as the 
 affairs of ants to pretty Sylvia. A lofty and soaring 
 view, you say ? Why, no ; not that exactly, for what 
 remained of real and vital moment in her mind, to the 
 exclusion of all serious interest in humanity? There 
 remained, as a source of much gratification, what I 
 called the daily dramatic performance at St. Jude's ; 
 and there remained as the one study worthy of serious 
 devotion and interest Sylvia Wheeler's own soul. 
 She never sought to influence the welfare of another 
 person's soul. Indeed, as she so often said to me, 
 with a kind of plaintiveness which should have soft- 
 ened my declamatory ardour but did not, she did not 
 
 80
 
 A STIRRING WEEK 
 
 like speaking of such matters at all ; she regarded it 
 as a kind of desecration. 
 
 No, it did not seem to me a lofty and inspiring 
 view that Sylvia took. On the contrary, it exercised 
 a choking effect upon me, by reason of what I re- 
 garded as its intense littleness and narrowness. The 
 too often bitter and sordid realities of the struggle 
 of life, as I saw it in London, had the effect upon 
 me of making Sylvia's esoteric exclusiveness of inter- 
 est seem so petty as to be an insult to human intelli- 
 gence. I would stare out of the train windows, on my 
 way back from Weybridge, at the countless lights, 
 the endless huddled roofs of London ; and, seeing in 
 these a representation of the huge populace of the 
 city, I would stretch out my arms in an impotent 
 embrace, muttering: 
 
 " Yes, indeed, you are real ; you are more impor- 
 tant than any other consideration ; you are not the 
 mere shadows she thinks you ; your service is of more 
 moment than any miracle, or than any nursing of 
 one's own soul ! " 
 
 And so I would make my way to Fleet Street, 
 where I forced myself to believe I served the people 
 by teaching them to despise patriotism, to give noth- 
 ing, but to organize and demand, and keep on de- 
 manding and obtaining, more and more, from a State 
 whose business it was to give, and to ask nothing in 
 return. I was becoming known, and smiled at mock- 
 ingly, for my earnest devotion to the extreme of the 
 Daily Gazette's policy, which, if it made for any- 
 thing, made, I suppose, for anti-nationalism, anti- 
 militarism, anti-Imperialism, anti-loyalty, and anti- 
 
 81
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 everything else except State aid by which was 
 meant the antithesis of aid of the State. 
 
 " I've got quite a good j ob for you this afternoon, 
 Mordan something quite in your line," said Mr. 
 Charles N. Pierce one morning. " A lot of these 
 South African firebrands are having a luncheon at 
 the Westminster Palace Hotel, and that fellow John 
 Crondall is to give an address afterwards on ' Impe- 
 rial Interests and Imperial Duties.' I'll give you 
 your fling on this up to half a column three-quar- 
 ters if it's good enough ; but, be careful. A sort of 
 contemptuous good humour will be the best line to 
 take. Make 'em ridiculous. And don't forget to 
 convey the idea of the whole business being pluto- 
 cratic. You know the sort of thing: Park Lane 
 Israelites, scooping millions, at the expense of the 
 overtaxed proletariat in England. Jingoism, a sort 
 of swell bucket-shop business you know the tone. 
 None of your heroics, mind you. It's got to be news ; 
 but you can work in the ridicule all right." 
 
 I always think of that luncheon as one of the 
 stepping-stones in my life. However crude and mis- 
 taken I had been up till then, I had always been sin- 
 cere. My report of that function went against my 
 own convictions. The writing of it was a painful 
 business ; I knew I was being mean and dishonest. 
 Not that what I heard there changed my views mate- 
 rially. No; I still clung to my general convictions, 
 which fitted the policy of the Dally Gazette. But the 
 fact remained that in treating that gathering as I 
 did, on the lines laid down by my news-editor, I knew 
 
 82
 
 A STIRRING WEEK 
 
 that I was being dishonest, that I was conveying an 
 untrue impression. 
 
 In this feeling, as in most of a young man's keen 
 feelings, the personal element played a considerable 
 part. I was introduced to the speaker, John Cron- 
 dall, by a Cambridge man I knew, who came there on 
 behalf of a Conservative paper, which had recently 
 taken a new lease of life in new hands, and become 
 the most powerful among the serious organs of the 
 Empire party. It is a curious thing, by the way, 
 that overwhelming as was the dominance of the anti- 
 national party in politics, the Imperialist party could 
 still claim the support of the greatest and most 
 thoughtfully written newspapers. 
 
 John Crondall had no time to spare for more than 
 a very few words with so obscure a person as myself ; 
 but in two minutes he was able to produce a deep im- 
 pression upon me, as he did upon most people who 
 met him. John Crondall had a great deal of per- 
 sonal charm, but the thing about him which bit right 
 into my consciousness that afternoon was his earnest 
 sincerity. As Crewe, the man who introduced me to 
 him, said afterwards: 
 
 " There isn't one particle of flummery in Cron- 
 dall's whole body." 
 
 It was an obviously truthful criticism. You might 
 agree with the man or not, but no intelligent human 
 being could doubt his honesty, the reality of his con- 
 victions, the strength and sincerity of his devotion to 
 the cause of those convictions. It was perfectly well 
 known then that Crondall had played a capable third 
 or fourth fiddle in the maintenance, so far, of the 
 
 83
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 Imperial interest in South Africa. His masterful 
 leader, the man who, according to report, had in- 
 spired all his fiery earnestness in the Imperialist 
 cause, was dead. But John Crondall had relinquished 
 nothing of his activity as a lieutenant, and continued 
 to spend a good share of his time in South Africa, 
 while, wherever he was, continuing to devote his ener- 
 gies to the same cause. 
 
 As for his material interests, Crewe assured me that 
 Crondall knew no more of business, Soutn African or 
 otherwise, than a schoolboy. He had inherited prop- 
 erty worth about a couple of thousand a year, and 
 had rather decreased than added to it. For, though 
 he had acted as war correspondent in the Russo- 
 Japan war, and through one or two " little wars," 
 in outlying parts of the British Empire, circum- 
 stances had prevented such work being of profit to 
 him. In the South African war he had served as an 
 irregular, and achieved distinction in scouting and 
 guiding work. 
 
 John Crondall's life, I gathered, had been the very 
 opposite of my own sheltered progress from Dorset 
 village to school, from school to University, and 
 thence to my present street-bound routine in London. 
 His views were clearly no less opposite to that vague 
 tumult of resentment, protest, and aspiration which 
 represented my own outlook upon life. Indeed, his 
 speech that day was an epitome of the sentiment and 
 opinions which I had chosen to regard with the utmost 
 abhorrence. 
 
 With Crondall, every other consideration hinged 
 upon and was subservient to the Imperialist idea of 
 
 84
 
 A STIRRING WEEK 
 
 devotion to the bond which united all British posses- 
 sions under one rule. The maintenance and further- 
 ance of that tie, the absorption of all parts into that 
 great whole, the subordination of all other interests 
 to this : that I took to be John Crondall's great end 
 in life. By association I had come to identify myself, 
 and my ideals of social reform, entirely with those to 
 whom mere mention of the rest of the Empire, or of 
 the ties which made it an Empire, was as a red rag 
 to a bull. 
 
 I have tried to explain something of the causes for 
 this extraordinary attitude, but I am conscious that 
 at the present time it cannot really be explained. It 
 was there, however. We might interest ourselves in 
 talk of Germany, we might enthusiastically admire 
 and even model ourselves upon the conduct of a for- 
 eign people; but mention of the outside places of 
 our own Empire filled us with anger, resentment, 
 scorn, and contempt. It amounted to this: that we 
 regarded as an enemy the man who sought to serve 
 the Empire. He cannot do that without opposing 
 us, we said in effect; as one who should say: You 
 cannot cultivate my garden, or repair my fences, 
 without injuring my house and showing yourself an 
 enemy to my family. A strange business ; but so it 
 was. 
 
 Therefore, John Crondall's speech that day found 
 me full enough of opposition, and not at all inclined 
 to be sympathetic. But the thing of it was, I knew 
 him for an honest and disinterested man ; a man 
 alight with high inspiration and lofty motive ; a man 
 immeasurably above sordid or selfish ends. And it 
 
 85
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 was my task, first, to ridicule him; and, second, to 
 attach sordidness and self-interest to him. That was 
 the thing which made the day eventful for me. 
 
 John Crondall talked of British rule and British 
 justice, as he had known them in the world's far 
 places. He drew pictures of Oriental rule, Boer rule, 
 Russian rule, savage rule; and, again, of the meth- 
 ods and customs of foreign Powers in their colonial 
 administration. When he claimed this and that for 
 British rule,, and the Imperial unity which must back 
 it, as such, sneers came naturally to me. The anti- 
 British sentiment covered that. My qualms began, 
 when he based his plea upon the value of British 
 administration to all concerned, the danger to civili- 
 zation, to mankind, of its being allowed to weaken. 
 
 Remember, he spoke in pictures, and in the first 
 person ; not of imaginings, but of what he had seen : 
 how a single anti-British speech in London, meant a 
 month's prolongation of bloody strife in one country, 
 or an added weight of cruel oppression in another. 
 Right or wrong, John Crondall carried you with him ; 
 for he dealt with men and things as he had brothered 
 and known them, before ever he let loose, in a fiery 
 peroration, that abstract idea of Empire patriotism 
 which ruled his life. 
 
 But it was not all this that made my paltry jour- 
 nalistic task a hard one. It was my certainty of 
 Crondall's lofty sincerity. From that afternoon I 
 date the beginning of the end of my Daily Gazette 
 engagement. Some men in my shoes would have 
 moved to success from this point; gaining from it 
 either complete unscrupulousness, or the bold decision 
 
 86
 
 A STIRRING WEEK 
 
 which would have made them important as friends or 
 enemies. For my part I was simply slackened by the 
 episode. I met John Crondall several times again. 
 He chaffed me in the most generous fashion over my 
 abominably unfair report of the luncheon gathering. 
 He influenced me greatly, though my opinions re- 
 mained untouched, so far as I knew. 
 
 I cannot explain just how John Crondall influenced 
 me, but I am very conscious that he had a broaden- 
 ing effect on me he enlarged my horizon. If he 
 had remained in London things might have gone dif- 
 ferently with me. One cannot tell. Among other 
 things, I know his influence mightily reduced the 
 number and length of my letters to Weybridge. In 
 my mind I was always fighting John Crondall. It 
 was my crowded millions of England against his 
 lonely, sun-browned men and women outside his 
 world interests. The war in my heart was real, un- 
 ceasing. And then there was pretty Sylvia and her 
 little soul, and her meditations, and her daily mira- 
 cles. The pin-point, bright as it was, became too 
 tiny for me to concentrate upon it, when contrasted 
 with these other tumultuous concerns. 
 
 Then came a crowded, confused week, in which I 
 saw John Crondall depart by the South African boat- 
 train from Waterloo. The first lieutenant of his dead 
 leader out there had cabled for Crondall to come and 
 hold his broad shoulders against the side of some 
 political dam. My eyes pricked when John Crondall 
 wrung my hand. 
 
 " You're all right, sonny," he said. " Don't you 
 suppose I have the smallest doubt about you." 
 
 87
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 I had never given him anything but sneers and 
 opposition I, a little unknown scrub of a reporter ; 
 he a man who helped to direct policies and shape 
 States. Here he was rushing off to the other side 
 of the earth at his own expense, sacrificing his own 
 interests and engagements at home, in the service of 
 an Idea, an abstract Tie, a Flag. My philosophy had 
 seemed spacious beside, say, Sylvia's : to secure better 
 things for those about me, instead of for my own soul 
 only. But what of Crondall? As I say, my eyes 
 pricked, even while I framed some sentence in my 
 mind expressing regret for his wrong-headedness. 
 Ah, well ! 
 
 The same week the same day brought me the 
 gentlest little note of dismissal from Sylvia. Her 
 duty to her father, and my ideas seemed too much 
 for her peace of mind ; so bewildering. " I am no 
 politician, you know ; and truth to tell, these matters 
 which seem so much to you that you would have them 
 drive religion from me, they seem to me so infinitely 
 unimportant. Forgive me ! " 
 
 No doubt my vanity was wounded, but I will not 
 pretend that I was very seriously hurt. Neither could 
 I ponder long upon the matter, because another letter, 
 received by the same post, claimed my attention. 
 Sylvia's letter threw out a hint of better things for 
 us in a year or two's time. Her notion of a break 
 between us was " for the present." There were refer- 
 ences to " later on, when you can come here again, 
 and we need not hide things." But my other letter 
 made more instant claims. It was type-written, and 
 ran thus : 
 
 88
 
 A STIRRING WEEK 
 
 " DEAR MR. MORDAN : Mr. Chas. N. Pierce 
 directs me to inform you that after the expiration 
 of the present month your services will no longer be 
 required by the editor of the Daily Gazette. 
 " I am, Sir, 
 
 " Yours faithfully, 
 
 '" JAMES MARTIN, 
 
 " Secretary." 
 
 I pictured the little pale-eyed rabbit of a man 
 typing the dictum of his Napoleon, his hero, and 
 wondering in his amiable way how " Mr. Mordan " 
 would be affected thereby, and how he had managed 
 to displease the great man. As for " the editor of 
 the Daily Gazette," I had not seen him since the day 
 of my engagement. But I recalled now various re- 
 cent signs of chill disapproval of my work on Mr. 
 Pierce's part. And, indeed, I was aware myself of a 
 slackness in my work, a kind of reckless, windmill- 
 tilting tendency in my general attitude. 
 
 Meantime, there was the fact that I had recently 
 encroached twice upon my tiny nest-egg ; once to buy 
 a wedding present for my sister Lucy, and once for 
 a piece of silly extravagance. 
 
 It was quite a notable week.
 
 A STEP DOWN 
 
 " Cosmopolitanism is nonsense ; the cosmopolite is a cipher, 
 worse than a cipher ; outside of nationality there is neither art, nor 
 truth, nor life ; there is nothing." IVAN TURGENIEFF. 
 
 I HAVE mentioned a piece of reckless extrava- 
 gance ; it was reckless in view of my straightened 
 circumstances. And the reason I mention this ap- 
 parent trifle is that it and its attendant circumstances 
 influenced me in my conduct after the abrupt termi- 
 nation of the Daily Gazette engagement. 
 
 One of my fellow knights of the reporters' room 
 introduced me in a certain Fleet Street wine-bar to 
 one of the characters of that classic highway a 
 man named Clement Blaine, who edited and owned a 
 weekly publication called The Mass. I hasten to add 
 that this journal had nothing whatever to do with any 
 kind of religious observance. Its title referred to 
 the people, or rather, to the section of the public 
 which, at that time, we still described by the quaintly 
 misleading phrase, " the working classes," as though 
 work were a monopoly in the hands of the manual 
 labourer. 
 
 The Mass was a journal which had quite a vogue 
 at that time. This was brought about, I suppose, 
 
 90
 
 A STEP DOWN 
 
 by the wave of anti-nationalism which, in 1906, estab- 
 lished the notorious administration which subsequently 
 became known as " The Destroyers." It was main- 
 tained largely, I fancy, by Clement Elaine's genius 
 for getting himself quoted in other journals of every 
 sort and standing. 
 
 The existence of The Mass, and the popularity 
 which it earned by outraging every civic and national 
 decency, stands in my mind as a striking example of 
 the extraordinary laxity and slackness of moral 
 which had grown out of our boasted tolerance, broad- 
 mindedness, and cosmopolitanism. We had waxed 
 drunken upon the parrot-like asseveration of 
 " rights," which our fathers had won for us, and we 
 had no time to spare for their compensating duties. 
 This misquided apotheosis of what we considered 
 freedom and broad-mindedness, produced the most 
 startling and anomalous situations in our national 
 life, including the almost incredible fact that, while 
 nominally at peace with the world, the State was 
 being bitterly warred against by cliques and parties 
 among its own subjects. 
 
 For instance, in any other State than our own, my 
 new acquaintance, Clement Elaine, would have been 
 safely disposed in a convenient prison cell, and his 
 flamingly seditious journal would have been promptly 
 and effectually squashed. In England the man was 
 free as the Prime Minister, and a Department of 
 State, the Post Office, was engaged in the distribution 
 of the journal which he devoted exclusively to stirring 
 up animosity against that State, and traitorous oppo- 
 sition to its constitution. 
 
 91
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 Further, Mr. Elaine's vitriolic outpourings, his un- 
 natural defilement of his own nest, were gravely 
 quoted in every newspaper in the Kingdom, without 
 a hint of recognition of the fact that they were fun- 
 damentally criminal and a public offence. The sac- 
 rosanct "liberty of the subject" was involved; and 
 though Mr. Blaine would have been forcibly re- 
 strained if he had shown any tendency to injure 
 lamp-posts, or to lay hands upon his own worthless 
 life, he was given every facility in his self-appointed 
 task of inciting the public to all sorts of offences 
 against the State, and to a variety of forms of 
 national suicide. 
 
 It was the commonest thing for a Member of Par- 
 liament, a man solemnly sworn and consecrated to the 
 loyal service of the Crown and State, to fill a signed 
 column of Clement Elaine's paper, with an article or 
 letter the whole avowed end of which would be the 
 championing of some national enemy or rival, or the 
 advocacy of means whereby a shrewd blow might be 
 struck against British rule or British prestige in 
 some part of the world. 
 
 I recall one long and scurrilous article by a Mem- 
 ber of Parliament, urging rebellious natives in South 
 Africa to take heart of grace and pursue with ever- 
 increasing vigour their attacks upon the small and 
 isolated white populace which upheld British rule in 
 that part of the Continent. I remember a long and 
 venomous letter from another Member of Parliament 
 (a strong advocate of the State payment of mem- 
 bers) defending in the most ardently sympathetic 
 manner both the action and the sentiments of a munic-
 
 A STEP DOWN 
 
 ipal official who had torn down and destroyed the 
 Union Jack upon an occasion of public ceremony. 
 
 We called this sort of thing British freedom in 
 those chaotic days ; and when our Continental rivals 
 were not jeering at the grotesqueness of it, they were 
 lauding this particular form of madness to the skies, 
 as well they might, seeing that our insensate profli- 
 gacy and incontinence meant their gain. The cause 
 of a foreigner, good, bad, or indifferent that was 
 the cause Clement Blaine most loved to champion in 
 his journal. An attack upon anything British, 
 though the author of it might be the basest creature 
 ever outlawed from any community that was cer- 
 tain of ready and eager hospitality in the columns of 
 The Mass. 
 
 I can conceive of no infamy which that journal was 
 not ready to condone, no offence it would not seek 
 to justify save and except the crime of patriotism, 
 loyalty, avowed love of Britain. And this obscene, 
 mad-dog policy, so difficult even to imagine at this 
 time, was by curious devious ways identified with 
 Socialism. The Mass was called a Socialist organ. 
 The fact may have been a libel upon Socialism, if not 
 upon Socialists ; but so it was. 
 
 Be it said that at Cambridge I had rather surprised 
 the evangelical section of my college (Corpus Christi) 
 by the part I played in founding a short-lived insti- 
 tution called the Anonymous Society, the choicest 
 spirits in which affected canvas shirts and abstention 
 from the use of neckties. As Socialists, we invited 
 the waiters of the college to a soiree, at which a judi- 
 cious blend of revolutionary economics and bitter 
 
 93
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 beer was relied upon to provide a flow of reasonable 
 and inexpensive entertainment. The society lapsed 
 after a time, chiefly owing, if I remember rightly, to 
 an insufficiency of funds for refreshments. But I 
 had remained rather a person to be reckoned with at 
 the Union. 
 
 I regarded my meeting with Clement Blaine as 
 something of an event, and I very cheerfully and 
 quite gratuitously contributed an article to his jour- 
 nal dealing with some form of government subvention 
 which I held to be a State duty. (We wasted few 
 words over the duties of the citizen in those days. ) It 
 was as a result of that article that I was invited to 
 a Socialist soiree in which the moving spirit, at all 
 events in the refreshment-room, was Mr. Clement 
 Blaine. Here I met a variety of queer fish who called 
 themselves Socialists. They were of both sexes, and 
 upon the whole they were a silly, inconsequent set. 
 Their views rather wearied me, despite my predispo- 
 sition to favour them. 
 
 They were a kind of tepid, ineffectual anarchists, 
 unconvinced and wholly unconvincing. Broadly 
 speaking, theirs was a policy of blind reversal. They 
 were not constructive, but they were opposed vaguely 
 to the existing order of things, and, particularly, to 
 everything British. They pinned their faith to the 
 foreigner in all things, even though the foreigner's 
 whole energies might be devoted to the honest en- 
 deavour to raise conditions in his country to a level 
 approaching the British standard. Any contention 
 against the existing order, and, above all, anything 
 
 94
 
 A STEP DOWN 
 
 against Britain, appealed directly to these rather 
 tawdry people. 
 
 In this drab, ineffective gathering, I found one 
 point of colour, like a red rose on a dingy white table- 
 cloth. This was Beatrice, the daughter of Clement 
 Blaine. I believe the man had a wife. One figures 
 her as a worn household drudge. In any case, she 
 made no appearance in any of the places in which 
 I met Blaine, or his handsome daughter. Beatrice 
 Blaine was a new type to me. One had read of such 
 girls, but I had never met them. And I suppose 
 novelty always has a certain charm for youth. One 
 felt that Beatrice had crossed the Rubicon. Men- 
 tally, at all events, one gathered that she had thrown 
 her bonnet over the windmill. 
 
 Physically, materially, I have no doubt that Bea- 
 trice was perfectly well qualified to take care of hjer- 
 self. But here was a very handsome girl who was 
 entirely without reticence or reserve. With her, many 
 things usually treated with respect were " all rot." 
 Beatrice's aim in life was pleasure, and she not merely 
 admitted, but boasted of the fact. She did not think 
 much of her father's friends as individuals. She 
 probably objected to their dinginess. But she ac- 
 claimed herself a thoroughgoing Socialist, I think 
 because she believed that Socialism meant the pro- 
 vision of plenty in money, dresses, pleasures, and so 
 forth, for all who were short of these commodities. 
 
 Perhaps I was a shade less dingy than the others. 
 At all events, Beatrice honoured me with her favour 
 upon this occasion, and talked to me of pleasure. So 
 far as recollection serves me she connected pleasure 
 
 95
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 chiefly with theatres, restaurants, the habit of sup- 
 ping in public, and the use of hansom cabs. At all 
 events, within the week I squandered two whole 
 sovereigns out of my small hoard on giving this 
 young pagan what she called a " fluffy " evening. 
 It reminded me more than a little of certain rather 
 frantic undergraduate excursions from Cambridge. 
 But Beatrice quoted luscious lines of minor poetry, 
 and threw a certain glamour over a quarter of the 
 town which was a warren of tawdry immorality ; the 
 hunting-ground of a pallid-faced battalion of alien 
 pimps and parasites. 
 
 England was then the one civilized country in the 
 world which still welcomed upon its shores the outcast, 
 rejected, refuse of other lands; and, as a matter of 
 course, when foreign capitals became positively too 
 hot for irreclaimable characters, they flocked into 
 Whitechapel and Soho, there to indulge their natural 
 bent for every kind of criminality known to civiliza- 
 tion, save those involving physical risk or physical 
 exertion for the criminal. There were then whole 
 quarters of the metropolis out of which every native 
 resident had gradually been ousted, in which the Eng- 
 lish language was rarely heard, except during a police 
 raid. 
 
 Tens of thousands of these unclassed, denational- 
 ized foreigners lived and waxed fat by playing upon 
 the foibles and pandering to the weaknesses of the 
 great city's native population. Others, of a higher 
 class, steadily ousted native labour in the various 
 branches of legitimate commerce. We know now, to 
 our cost, something of the malignant danger these 
 
 96
 
 A STEP DOWN 
 
 foreigners represented. In indirect ways one would 
 have supposed their evil influence was sufficiently ob- 
 vious then. But I remember that the parties repre- 
 sented by such organs as the Daily Gazette prided 
 themselves upon their furious opposition to any hint 
 of precautions making for the restriction of alien 
 immigration. 
 
 England was the land of the free, they said. Yet, 
 while boasting that England was the refuge of the 
 persecuted (as well as the rejected) of all lands, we 
 were so wonderfully broad-minded that we upheld 
 anything foreign against anything British, and were 
 intolerant only of English sentiment, English rule, 
 English institutions. I believe Beatrice's conviction 
 of the superiority of the Continent and of foreigners 
 generally was based upon the belief that: 
 
 " On the Continent people can really enjoy them- 
 selves. There's none of our ridiculous English puri- 
 tanism, and early closing, and rubbish of that sort 
 there." 
 
 I am rather surprised that the crude hedonism of 
 Beatrice should have appealed to me, for my weak- 
 nesses had never really included mere fleshly indul- 
 gence. But, as I have said, the girl had the charm 
 of novelty for me. I remember satirically assuring 
 myself that, upon the whole, her frank concentration 
 upon worldly pleasure was more natural and pleasing 
 than Sylvia's rapt concentration upon other kinds of 
 self -ministration. Ours was a period of self-indul- 
 gence. Beatrice was, after all, only a little more 
 nai've and outspoken than the majority in her thirst 
 
 97
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 for pleasure. And she was quite charming to look 
 upon. 
 
 Almost the first man to whom I spoke regarding 
 my dismissal from the staff of the Daily Gazette was 
 Clement Elaine. I met him in Fleet Street, and was 
 asked in to his cupboard of an office. 
 
 " You are a man who knows every one in Fleet 
 Street," I said. " I wish you would keep an eye lift- 
 ing for a journalistic billet for me." 
 
 And then I told him that I was leaving the Daily 
 Gazette, and spoke of the work I had done, and of 
 my little journalistic experiences at Cambridge. 
 
 He combed his glossy black beard with the fingers 
 of one hand; a white hand it was, save where ciga- 
 rettes had browned the first and second fingers; a 
 hand that had never known physical toil, though its 
 owner always addressed " working " men as one of 
 themselves. He wore a fiery red necktie, and a fiery 
 diamond on the little finger of the hand that combed 
 his beard. A self-indulgent life in the city was tell- 
 ing on him, but Clement Elaine was still rather a fine 
 figure of a man, in his coarse, bold way. He had a 
 varnished look, and, dressed for the part, would have 
 made a splendid stage pirate. 
 
 " It's odd you should have come to me to-day," he 
 said. " Look here ! " 
 
 He handed me a cutting from a daily paper. 
 
 At Holloway, yesterday afternoon, an inquest 
 was held on the body of a man named Joseph 
 Cartwright, who is said to have been a journalist. 
 This man was found dead upon his bed, fully 
 
 98
 
 A STEP DOWN 
 
 dressed, on Tuesday morning. The medical 
 evidence showed death to be due to heart failure, 
 and indicated alcoholism as the predisposing 
 cause. A verdict was returned in accordance 
 with the medical evidence. 
 
 " He was my assistant editor," said Clement Blaine, 
 as I looked up from my perusal of this sorry tale. 
 
 "Really?" I said. 
 
 " Yes, a clever fellow ; most accomplished journal- 
 ist, but " And Mr. Blaine raised his elbow with a 
 significant gesture, by which he suggested the act of 
 drinking. 
 
 Within the hour I had accepted an engagement as 
 assistant editor of The Mass with the magnificent 
 sum of two pounds a week by way of remuneration. 
 
 " It's poor pay," said Blaine. " And I only wish I 
 could double it. But that's all it will run to at pres- 
 ent, and well, of course, it counts for something 
 to be working for the cause as directly as we do in 
 The Mass" 
 
 I nodded, not without qualms. My education made 
 it impossible for me to accept unreservedly the most 
 scurrilous features of the journal. But the cause was 
 good I was assured of that ; and I would intro- 
 duce improvements, I thought. I was still very inex- 
 perienced. Meantime, I was not to know the carking 
 anxiety of the out-of-work. I could still pay my way 
 at the Bloomsbury lodging. This was something. 
 
 Beatrice expressed herself as delighted. I was to 
 accumulate large sums in various vague ways, and 
 enjoy innumerable " fluffy evenings " with her. 
 
 What a queer mad jumble of a shut-in world our 
 99
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 London was, and how blindly self-centred we all were 
 in our pursuit of immediate gain, in our absolute 
 indifference to the larger outside movements, the shap- 
 ing of national destinies, the warring of national 
 interests ! I remember that we were quite triumphant, 
 in our little owlish way, that year ; for the weight of 
 socialistic and anti-national, anti-responsible feeling 
 had forced a time-serving Cabinet into cutting down 
 our Navy by a quarter at one stroke. The hurried 
 scramblers after money and pleasure were much grat- 
 ified. 
 
 " We can make defensive alliances with other Pow- 
 ers," they said. " Meantime retrench, reduce, cut 
 down, and give us more freedom in our race. Free- 
 dom, freedom that's the thing ; and peace for the 
 development of commerce." 
 
 Undoubtedly, as a people, we were fey. 
 
 100
 
 FACILIS DESCENSTTS AVEENI 
 
 Love thou thy land, with love far-brought 
 
 From out the storied Past, and used 
 
 Within the Present, but transfused 
 Thro' future time by power of thought. 
 
 True love turned round on fixed poles, 
 Love that endures not sordid ends, 
 For English natures, freemen, friends, 
 
 Thy brothers and immortal souls. 
 
 But pamper not a hasty time, 
 Nor feed with crude imaginings 
 The herd, wild hearts and feeble wings 
 
 That every sophister can lime. 
 
 Deliver not the tasks of might 
 To weakness, neither hide the ray 
 From those, not blind, who wait for day, 
 
 Tho' sitting girt with doubtful light. TBKNTSOW. 
 
 AND now, as assistant editor of The Mass, I en- 
 tered a period of my life upon which I look 
 back as one might who, by chance rather than by 
 reason of any particular fitness for survival, had won 
 safely through a whirlpool. The next few years 
 were a troublous time, a stormy era of transition, 
 for most English people. For many besides myself 
 
 101
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 the period was a veritable maelstrom of confusion, 
 of blind battling with unrecognized forces, of wasted 
 effort, neglected duty, futile struggles, and slavish 
 inertia. 
 
 At an early stage I learned to know Clement Elaine 
 for a sweater of underpaid labour, a man as grossly 
 self-indulgent as he was unprincipled, as much a 
 charlatan as he was, in many ways, an ignoramus. 
 Yet I see now, more clearly than then, that even 
 Clement Elaine was not all bad. He was not even 
 completely a charlatan. He believed he was justified 
 in making all the money he could, in any way that 
 was possible. It must be remembered, however, that 
 at that time most people really thought, whatever 
 they might say, that the first and most obvious duty 
 in life was to make money for themselves. 
 
 Then, too, I think Elaine really believed that the 
 sort of anti-national, socialistic theories he advocated 
 would make for the happiness of the people ; for the 
 profit and benefit of the majority. He was blinded 
 by lack of knowledge of history and of human nature. 
 He was an extreme example, perhaps, but, after all, 
 his mistaken idea that happiness depended upon per- 
 sonal possession of this and that, upon having and 
 holding, was very generally accepted at that time. 
 The old saving sense of duty, love of country, na- 
 tional responsibility, and pride of race, had faded 
 and become unreal to a people feverishly bent upon 
 personal gain only. Nelson's famous signal and 
 watchword was kept alive, in inscriptions ; in men's 
 hearts and minds it no longer had any meaning ; it 
 made no appeal. This is to speak broadly, of course, 
 102
 
 FACILIS DESCENSUS AVERNI 
 
 and of the majority. We had some noble exceptions 
 to the rule. 
 
 In looking back now upon that period, it seems to 
 me, as I suppose to all who lived through it, such 
 a tragedy of confusion, of sordidness, and of futility, 
 that one is driven to take too sweepingly pessimistic 
 a view of the time. I have said a good deal of the 
 anti-national sentiment, because it was undoubtedly 
 in the ascendant then. As history shows us, this 
 sentiment ruled ; by it the ship of state was steered ; 
 by it the defences of the Empire were cut down and 
 down to the ultimate breaking point. We call the 
 administration of that period criminally unpatriotic. 
 As such " The Destroyers " must always figure in 
 history. But we must not forget that then, as now, 
 we English people had as good a Government as we 
 deserved. The spirit of selfish irresponsibility was 
 not confined to Whitehall. 
 
 On the other hand, it must not be supposed that no 
 patriotic party existed. There was a patriotic party, 
 and the exigencies of the time inspired some of its 
 leaders nobly. But the sheer weight of numbers, of 
 indifference, and of selfishness to which this party 
 was opposed was too much for it. The best method of 
 realizing this nowadays is by the study of the news- 
 paper files for the early years of the century. From 
 these it will be seen that even the people and journals 
 in whom devoted patriotism survived, even the leaders 
 who gave up their time and energy (politics gave us 
 such a man, the Army another, the Navy another, 
 literature another, and journalism gave us an editor 
 in whom the right fire burned brightly) to the task of 
 
 103
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 warning and adjuring the public, and seeking to 
 awaken the nation to the lost sense of its dangers, 
 its duties, and its responsibilities ; even these were 
 forced by the weight of public selfishness into using 
 an almost apologetic tone, with reference to the com- 
 mon calls of patriotism and Imperial unity. 
 
 People dismissed an obvious challenge of the 
 national conscience with a hurried and impatient 
 wave of the hand. They were tired of this ; they had 
 heard enough of the other; they were occupied with 
 local interests of the moment, and could not be both- 
 ered with this or that consideration affecting the wel- 
 fare of the world-wide shores of greater outside 
 Britain. And, accordingly, we find that the most 
 patriotic and public- spirited journal was obliged, for 
 its life, to devote more attention to a football match 
 at the Crystal Palace than to a change of public 
 policy affecting the whole commercial future of a part 
 of the Empire twenty times greater than Britain. 
 There were other journals, organs of the self-centred 
 majority, that would barely even mention an Impe- 
 rial development of that sort, and then but casually, 
 as a matter of no particular interest to their readers ; 
 as indeed it was. 
 
 I do not think that retrospection has coloured my 
 view too darkly when I say that my brief experience 
 in Fleet Street made me feel that the Daily Gazette 
 party, the supporters of " The Destroyers " (as 
 naval folk had named the Government of the day) 
 consisted of a mass of smugly hypocritical self-seek- 
 ers; and that the party I served under Clement 
 Blaine were a mass of blatantly frank self-seekers. 
 
 104
 
 FACILIS DESCENSUS AVERNI 
 
 Such generalizations can never be quite just, how- 
 ever. There were earnest and devoted men in every 
 section of the community. But, as a generalization, 
 as indicating the typical characteristics of the parties, 
 I fear that my view has been proved correct. 
 
 It would be quite a mistake to suppose that in the 
 political world the shortcomings were all on one side. 
 Writers like myself, even men like Clement Blaine, 
 had only too much justification for the contempt they 
 poured upon the Conservative party. Selfishness, in- 
 dolence, and the worship of the fossilized party spirit, 
 had eaten into the very vitals of this section of the 
 political world. The form of madness we called party 
 loyalty made the best men we had willing to sacrifice 
 national to personal interests. So-and-so must retain 
 his place ; loyalty to the party demands our support 
 there and there. We must give it, whatever the con- 
 sequences. The thing is not easy to understand ; but 
 it was so, and the strongest and best men of the day 
 were culpable in this. 
 
 The farther my London experiences took me, the 
 greater became the mass of my shattered illusions, 
 broken ideals, and lost hopes. I remember my reflec- 
 tions during a brief visit I paid to my mother in 
 Dorset, when I had spent an evening talking with my 
 sister Lucy's husband. Doctor Woodthrop was a 
 good fellow enough, and my sister seemed happier 
 with him than one would have expected, remembering 
 that it was rather the desire for freedom, than love, 
 which gave her to him. 
 
 Woodthrop was popular, honest, steady-going; a 
 fine, typical Englishman of the period, I suppose. 
 
 105
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 In politics he was as his father before him, though 
 the name had changed from Tory to Conservative. 
 He talked politics for a week at election time. I 
 would not say that he ever thought politics. I know 
 that he had no knowledge, and less interest, where the 
 affairs of his country were concerned, when I met and 
 talked with him during that visit. The country's de- 
 fences were actually of far less importance in his eyes 
 than the country's cricket averages. As for either 
 social reform interests in England, or the affairs of 
 the Empire outside England, he simply could not be 
 induced to give them even conversational breathing 
 space. They were as exotic to my sister's husband 
 as the ethics of esoteric Buddhism. But he was a 
 thick and thin Conservative. To be sure, he would 
 have said, nothing would cause him to waver in that. 
 
 As for myself, I defended the anti-national party 
 in its repudiation of Imperial responsibility by argu- 
 ing that the domestic needs of the country were too 
 urgent and great to admit of any kind of expendi- 
 ture, in money or energy, upon outside affairs. We 
 did not recognize that internal reform and content 
 were absolutely incompatible with shameless neglect 
 of fundamental duties. 
 
 We were as sailors who should concentrate upon 
 drying and cleaning their cabin, seeking at all haz- 
 ards to make that comfortable, while refusing to 
 spare time for the ship's pumps, though the water 
 was rising in her hold from a score of external fis- 
 sures. Our anti-nationalists and Little Englanders 
 were little cabin-dwellers, shirkers from the open deck, 
 careless of the ship's hull, and masts, and sails, busily 
 
 106
 
 bent only upon the enrichment of their particular 
 divisions among her saloons. 
 
 In the early days of my engagement as assistant 
 editor of The Mass, I think I may claim that I worked 
 hard and with honest intent to make the paper repre- 
 sent truly what I conceived to be the good and helpful 
 side of Socialism, of social progress and reform. 
 But, if I am to be frank, I fear I must admit that 
 within six months of my first engagement by Clement 
 Elaine, I had ceased to entertain any sincere hope or 
 ambition in this direction. And yet I remained as- 
 sistant editor of The Mass. 
 
 The two statements doubtless redound to my dis- 
 credit, and I have little excuse to offer. The work 
 represented bread and butter for me, and that counted 
 for something, of course. But I will admit that I 
 think I could have found some more worthy employ- 
 ment, and should have done so but for Beatrice 
 Blaine, my employer's daughter. 
 
 Time and time again my gorge rose at being 
 obliged to play my part very often, as a writer, 
 the principal part in what I knew to be an abso- 
 lutely dishonest piece of journalism. Once I remem- 
 ber refusing to write a grossly malicious and untrue 
 representation of certain actions of John Crondall's 
 in the Transvaal. But I am ashamed to say I revised 
 the proofs of the lying thing, and saw it to press, 
 when a hireling of Clement Elaine's had prepared it. 
 The man was a discharged servant of Crondall's, a 
 convicted thief, as I afterwards learned, as well as a 
 most abandoned liar. But his scurrilous fabrication, 
 after publication in The Mass, was quoted at length 
 
 107
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 by the T)aily Gazette, and by the journals of that 
 persuasion throughout the country. 
 
 I hardly know how to explain my relations with 
 Blaine's daughter. I suppose the main point is she 
 was beautiful, in the sense that certain cats are beau- 
 tiful. I rarely heard of my Weybridge friends now, 
 and never, directly, of Sylvia. My life seemed in- 
 finitely remote from that of the luxurious Wheeler 
 menage. When I chanced to earn a few guineas with 
 my pen outside the littered office of The Mass (where 
 the bulk of the editorial work fell to me), the money 
 was almost invariably devoted to the entertainment of 
 Beatrice. She was in several ways not unlike a kitten, 
 or something feline, of larger growth: the panther, 
 for example, in Balzac's thrilling story, " A Passion 
 in the Desert." 
 
 I have never, before or since, met any woman so 
 totally devoid of the moral sense as Beatrice. Yet 
 she had a heart that was not bad ; indeed it was a 
 tender heart. But there was no moral sense to guide 
 and balance her. 
 
 I think of Beatrice as very much a product of that 
 time. Her own personal enjoyment, pleasure, indul- 
 gence; these formed alike the centre and the limit 
 of her thoughts and aims. And the suggestion that 
 serious thought or energy should be given to any 
 other end, struck Beatrice as necessarily insincere and 
 absurd. As for duty, the word had no more real 
 application to her own life as Beatrice saw it than the 
 counsels of old-time chivalry for the pursuit of the 
 Holy Grail. 
 
 Soberly considered, this is doubtless very grievous. 
 108
 
 FACILIS DESCENSUS AVERNI 
 
 But it must be said that if Beatrice was singular in 
 this, her singularity lay rather in her frank disclosure 
 of her attitude than in the attitude itself. I am not 
 sure that morally her absorption in such crude pleas- 
 ures as she knew, was a whit more culpable than the 
 equal absorption of nine people out of ten at that 
 time, in money-getting, in sport, in society functions, 
 or in sheer idleness. The same oblivion to the sense 
 of duty was very generally characteristic ; though in 
 other matters, no doubt, the moral sense was more 
 active. In Beatrice it simply was not present at all. 
 
 All this was tolerably clear to me even then ; but I 
 will not pretend that it interfered much with the 
 physical and emotional attraction which Beatrice had 
 for me. Apart from her my life was very drab in 
 colour. I had no recreations. In my time at Rugby 
 and at Cambridge we either practically ignored sport 
 (so far, at all events, as actual participation in it 
 went), or lived for it. I had very largely ignored it. 
 Now, Beatrice Elaine represented, not exactly recrea- 
 tion, perhaps no, not that I think but gaiety. 
 The hours I spent in her company were the only 
 form of gaiety that entered into my life. 
 
 My feeling for Beatrice was not serious love, not 
 at all a grand passion ; but denying myself the occa- 
 sional pleasure of ministering to her appetite for 
 little outings would have been a harder task for me 
 than the acceptation of Sylvia Wheeler's dismissal. 
 My attentions to Beatrice were very much those of 
 Balzac's Proven9al to his panther, after he had over- 
 come his first terrors. 
 
 There were times when her acceptance of gifts or 
 109
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 compliments from another man made me believe my- 
 self really in love with Beatrice. Then some pecul- 
 iarly distasteful aspect of my journalistic work would 
 be forced upon me; I would receive some striking 
 illustration of the hopelessly sordid character of 
 Elaine and his circle, of the policy of The Mass, of 
 the general trend of my life ; and, seeing Beatrice's 
 indifferent acceptance of all this venality, I would 
 turn from her with a certain sense of revulsion for 
 three days. After that, I would return to handsome 
 Beatrice, with her feline graces and her warm colour- 
 ing, as a chilly, tired man turns from his work to his 
 fireside. 
 
 In short, as time went on, I became as indifferent 
 to ends and aims as the most callous among those at 
 whose indifference to matters of real moment I had 
 once girded so vehemently. And I lacked their ex- 
 cuse. I cut no figure at all in the race for money 
 and pleasure; unless my clinging to Beatrice be 
 accounted pursuit of pleasure. Certainly it lacked 
 the rapt absorption which characterized the multitude 
 really in the race. I fear I was rapidly degenerating 
 into a common type of Fleet Street hack ; into noth- 
 ing more than Clement Elaine's assistant. And then 
 a quite new influence came into my life. 
 
 110
 
 XI 
 
 MORNING CALLERS 
 
 A woman mixed of such fine elements 
 That were all virtue and religion dead 
 She'd make them newly, being what she was. 
 
 GEORGE ELIOT. 
 
 A SANDY - HAIRED youth-of-all-work, named 
 Rivers, spent his days in the box we called the 
 front office; a kind of lobby really, by which one 
 entered the tolerably large and desperately untidy 
 room in which Blaine and myself compiled each issue 
 of The Mass. Blaine spent a good slice of all his 
 days in keeping appointments, usually in Fleet Street 
 bars. 
 
 My days were spent in the main office of the paper, 
 among the files, the scissors and paste, the books of 
 reference, and the three Gargantuan waste-paper 
 baskets. Here at different times I interviewed men of 
 every European nationality and every known calling, 
 besides innumerable followers of no recognized trade 
 or profession. Among them all I cannot call to mind 
 more than two or three who, by the most charitable 
 stretch of imagination, could have been called gentle- 
 men. 
 
 Most of them were obviously, and in all ways seedy, 
 shady characters furtive, wordy creatures, full of 
 
 111
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 vague, involved grievances. The greater proportion 
 were foreigners ; scallywags from the mean streets of 
 every Continental capital ; men familiar with prisons ; 
 men who talked of the fraternity of labour, and 
 never did any work ; men full of windy plans for the 
 enrichment of humanity, who themselves must always 
 borrow and never repay money, food, shelter, and 
 the other things for which honest folk give their 
 labour. 
 
 If an English Cabinet Minister had offered us an 
 explanation of any political development we should 
 have had small use for his contribution in The Mass, 
 unless as an advertisement of our importance. For 
 their teaching, for the text they gave us in our ful- 
 minations, we greatly preferred the rancorous and 
 generally scurrilous vapourings of some unknown 
 alien dumped upon our shores for the relief and bene- 
 fit of his own country. 
 
 We wanted no information from Admiralty Lords 
 about the Navy, from commanding officers about the 
 Army, from pro-Consuls about the Colonies, or from 
 the Foreign Office about foreign relations. But a 
 deserter or a man dismissed from either of the Serv- 
 ices, a broker ne'er-do-well rejected as unfit by one 
 of the Colonies, or a foreign agitator with stories to 
 tell of Britain's duplicity abroad ; these were all wel- 
 come fish for our net, and folk whom it was my duty 
 to receive with respectful attention. From their per- 
 jured lips it became my mechanical duty to extract 
 and publish wisdom for the use of our readers in the 
 guidance of their lives and the exercise of their rights 
 as citizens and ratepayers. I became adept at the 
 
 112
 
 work, and in the end accomplished it daily without 
 interest, and with only occasional qualms of con- 
 science. It was my living. 
 
 On a sunshiny morning in June, which I remember 
 very well, the sandy-haired Rivers brought me a visit- 
 ing-card upon which I read the name of " Miss Con- 
 stance Grey." In one corner of the card the words 
 " Cape Town " had been crossed out and a London 
 address written over them. 
 
 I was engaged at the time with a large, pale, fat 
 man from Stettin, whose mission it was to show me 
 that the socialist working men of the Fatherland 
 dearly loved their comrades in England, and that the 
 paying of taxes for the defence of these islands was a 
 preposterously absurd thing, for the reason that the 
 Socialists would never allow Germany to go to war 
 with England or with any other country. " The 
 Destroyers," in their truckling to Demos, had al- 
 ready cut down Naval and Army estimates by more 
 than one-half since their rise to power, and our 
 Stettin ambassador was priming me regarding a 
 demand for further reductions, prior to actual dis- 
 armament, to provide funds for the fixing of a mini- 
 mum day's pay and a maximum day's work. 
 
 The gentleman from Stettin was to provide us with 
 material for a special article and a leading article. 
 His proposals were to be made a " feature." How- 
 ever, I thought I had gone far enough with him at 
 this time; and so, looking from his pendulous jowl 
 to the card in my hand, I told Rivers to ask the lady 
 to wait for two minutes, and to say that I would see 
 her then. I remember Herr Mitmann found the occa- 
 
 113
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 sion opportune for the airing of what I suppose he 
 would have called his sense of humour. His English 
 and his front teeth were equally badly broken, and 
 his taste in jokes was almost as swinishly gross as his 
 appearance. But I was able to be quit of him at 
 length, and then Rivers ushered in Miss Constance 
 Grey. 
 
 As I rose to provide my visitor with a chair, I 
 received the impression that she was a young and 
 quietly well-dressed woman, with a notable pair of 
 dark eyes. I thought of her as being no more than 
 five-and-twenty years of age and pleasant to look 
 upon. But her eyes were the feature that seized one's 
 attention. They produced an impression of light 
 and brilliancy, of vigour, intelligence, and charm. 
 
 " I called to see you at the office of the Daily 
 Gazette, Mr. Mordan, and this was the only address 
 of yours they could give me, or I should have hesi- 
 tated about intruding on you in working hours. I 
 bring you an introduction from John Crondall." 
 
 And with that she handed me a letter in Crondall's 
 writing, and nodded in a friendly way when I asked 
 permission to read it at once. 
 
 " Please do," she said. 
 
 She had no particular accent, but yet her speech 
 differed slightly from that of the conventional Eng- 
 lishwoman of her class the refined and well-edu- 
 cated Englishwoman, that is. I suppose the difference 
 was rather one of expression, tone, and choice of 
 phrase than a matter of accent. I doubt if one could 
 easily find an example of it nowadays, increased com- 
 munication having so much broadened our own collo- 
 
 114
 
 'RIVERS USHERED IN Miss CONSTANCE GREY"
 
 MORNING CALLERS 
 
 quial diction that many of its conventional peculiari- 
 ties have disappeared. But it existed then, and after 
 a time I learned to place it as characteristic of the 
 speech of Greater Britain, as distinguished from the 
 English of those of us who lived always in this capital 
 centre of the Empire. 
 
 Miss Grey had the Colonial directness and vividness 
 of speech; a larger, freer diction upon the whole 
 than that of the Londoner born and bred ; more racy, 
 less clipped and formal, but, in certain ways, more 
 correct. The society cliche, and the society fads of 
 abbreviation and accent, were missing; and in their 
 place was an easy, idiomatic directness, distinctly 
 noticeable to a man like myself who had actually 
 never been out of England. This it was that first 
 struck me about Miss Grey ; this and the warm bril- 
 liance of her eyes: a graphic, moving speech, a 
 frank, compelling gaze ; both indicative, as it seemed 
 to me, of broadly sympathetic understanding. 
 
 I read John Crondall's kindly letter with a good 
 deal of interest, moved by the fact that his terse, 
 friendly phrases recalled to me a phase of my own 
 life which, though no more than a couple of years 
 past, seemed to me wonderfully remote. I had been 
 new to London and to Fleet Street then, full of as- 
 pirations, of earnestness, of independent aims and 
 hopes; fresh from the University and the more 
 leisured days of my life as the son of the rector of 
 Tarn Regis. I had had glimpses of much that was 
 sordid and squalid in London life, at the period John 
 Crondall's letter recalled, but as yet there had been no 
 sordidness in my own life. All that was far other- 
 
 115
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 wise now, I felt. Cambridge and Dorset were a long 
 way from the office of The Mass. I thought of the 
 greasy Teuton nondescript for whom I had kept 
 Miss Grey waiting, and I felt colour rise in my face 
 as I read John Crondall's letter; 
 
 " I expect you have been burgeoning mightily 
 since I left London, and I should not be surprised 
 to learn that you have put the Daily Gazette and its 
 kind definitely behind you. You remember our talks? 
 Tut, my dear fellow, Liberalism, Conservatism, Radi- 
 calism it's of not the slightest consequence, and 
 they're all much of a muchness. The thing is to 
 stand to one's duty as a citizen of the Empire, not as 
 a member of this or that little tin coterie ; and if we 
 stick honourably to that, nothing else matters. You 
 will like Constance Grey ; that is why I have asked 
 her to look you up. She's sterling all through ; her 
 father's daughter to the backbone. And he was the 
 man of whom Talbot said : ' Give me two Greys, and ' 
 and a couple of other men he mentioned ' and a 
 free hand, and Whitehall could go to sleep with its 
 head on South Africa, and never be disturbed 
 again.' " When Crondall quoted his dead chief, the 
 man whose personality had dominated British South 
 Africa, one felt he had said his utmost. " The 
 principal thing that takes her to London now, I be- 
 lieve, is detail connected with a special series she has 
 been engaged upon for The Times; fine stuff, from 
 what I have seen of it. It is marvellous the grip this 
 one little bit of a girl has of South African affairs." 
 
 " Yes," I thought, now the fact was mentioned, 
 " I suppose she is small." 
 
 116
 
 MORNING CALLERS 
 
 " I hope the articles will be well read, for there's a 
 heap of the vitals of South Africa in them ; and even 
 if they are to cut us adrift altogether, it's as well 
 * The Destroyers ' should know a little about us, and 
 the country. Constance Grey's name and introduc- 
 tions will take her anywhere in London, or I would 
 have asked your help in that way." 
 
 I thought of Clement Elaine's friends, my own 
 Fleet Street circle, and shifted uncomfortably in my 
 chair. 
 
 " As it is, the boot may be rather on the other leg, 
 and she may be of some service to you. But in any 
 case, I want you to know each other, because you are 
 a good chap, and will interest her, I know ; and 
 because she is of the bigger Britain and will interest 
 you. Things political are, of course, looking pretty 
 blue for us all, and your particular friends I 
 rather hope perhaps they're not so much your friends 
 by now are certainly doing their level best to cut 
 all moorings. But one must keep pegging aVay. 
 The more cutting for them, the more splicing for us. 
 But I do wish we could blindfold Europe until these 
 ' Destroyers ' had got enough rope, and satisfacto- 
 rily hanged themselves ; for if they go much farther, 
 their hanging will come too late to save the situation. 
 Well, salue ! " 
 
 I allowed my eyes to linger over the tail-end of the 
 letter, while I thought. I was sensible of a very real 
 embarrassment. There seemed a kind of treachery to 
 John Crondall, a kind of unfairness to Miss Grey, in 
 my receiving her there at all. By this time one had 
 no illusions left regarding Clement Blaine and his 
 
 117
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 circle, nor about The Mass. I knew that, at heart, 
 I was ashamed, and with good reason, of my connec- 
 tion with both. Still, there I was ; it was my living ; 
 and I suppose my eyes must have wandered from 
 the letter. At all events, evidently seeing that I had 
 finished reading it, my visitor spoke. 
 
 " I had an introduction to the editor of the Daily 
 Gazette, so I took advantage of being there this af- 
 ternoon to see him. A nice man, I thought, though I 
 don't care for his paper. He remembered you as 
 soon as I mentioned your name, and told me you 
 you were here. He seemed quite sorry you had left 
 his paper; but I am sure I can understand the at- 
 traction of a position in which the whole concern is 
 more or less in one's own hands. Mr. Delaney found 
 me a copy of The Mass; so I have been studying 
 you before calling. Perhaps you have inadvertently 
 done so much by me, through The Times a rather 
 high and dry old institution, isn't it ? " 
 
 Naturally I had punctuated these remarks of hers, 
 here and there. She had a very bright, alert way in 
 talking, and now she added, easily, a sentence or two 
 to the effect that it would be a dull world if we all 
 held precisely the same views. She did the thing well, 
 and in a few minutes I found myself chatting away 
 with her in the most friendly manner. She managed 
 with the utmost deftness to remove all ground for my 
 embarrassment regarding my position. She talked 
 for awhile of South Africa, and the life she had 
 lived there prior to her father's death ; but she 
 touched no topic which contained any controversial 
 
 118
 
 element. It seemed her aunt, a sister of her father's, 
 had accompanied her to England, and she said: 
 
 " I promised my aunt, Mrs. Van Homrey, that I 
 would induce you to spare us an evening soon. She 
 loves meeting friends of John Crondall. We dine at 
 eight, but would fix any other hour if it suited you 
 better." 
 
 The end of it was I promised to dine with Miss 
 Grey and her aunt in South Kensington on the follow- 
 ing evening, and, after a quarter of an hour's very 
 pleasant chat (twice interrupted by Rivers, who had 
 people in his cupboard waiting to see me) my visitor 
 rose to take her departure, with apologies for having 
 trespassed upon a busy man's time. I told her with 
 some warmth that the loss of my time was of no 
 importance, and, with a thought as to the nature of 
 my petty routine, I repeated the assurance. She 
 smiled : 
 
 " Ah, that's just the masculine insincerity of your 
 gallantry," she said, " unworn, I see, by working 
 with women. John Crondall would have sent me 
 packing." 
 
 " No doubt his time is of more value better 
 occupied." 
 
 I had a mental vision of Clement Elaine (who grew 
 stouter and slacker day by day) sitting drinking with 
 Herr Mitmann of Stettin, in a favourite bar, within 
 fifty yards of the office. 
 
 " Still the insincerity of politeness," she laughed. 
 " You forget I have read The Mass. I find you a 
 terribly earnest partisan; very keenly occupied, I 
 should say. Till to-morrow evening, then ! " 
 
 119
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 And she was gone, and Rivers was leading in, like 
 a bear on a cord, a tousled Polish Jew named Kraun- 
 ski, who was teaching us how the Metropolitan Police 
 Force should be run, and how tyrannically its wicked 
 myrmidons oppressed worthy citizens of Houndsditch, 
 like Mr. Kraunski quite a good Mass feature. 
 
 So I stepped back again, feeling as though Con- 
 stance Grey had carried away the pale London sun- 
 light with her when she left my littered den. 
 
 120
 
 XII 
 
 SATURDAY NIGHT IN LONDON 
 
 " Corrupted freemen are the worst of slaves." 
 
 DAVID GARRICK. 
 
 I REMEMBER that the evening of the day fol- 
 lowing my dinner engagement with Miss Grey 
 and her aunt was consecrate, by previous arrange- 
 ment, to Beatrice Blaine. I had received seven 
 guineas a couple of days before for a rather silly 
 and sensational descriptive article, the subject of 
 which had been suggested by Beatrice. Indeed, she 
 had made me write it, and liked the thing when it 
 appeared in print. It described certain aspects of 
 the quarter of London which stood for pleasure in 
 her eyes ; the quarter bounded by Charing Cross and 
 Oxford Street, Leicester Square and Hyde Park 
 Corner. 
 
 I think I would gladly have escaped the evening 
 with Beatrice if I could have done so fairly. Seeing 
 that I could not do this, and that my mood seemed 
 chilly, I plunged with more than usual extravagance, 
 and sought to work up all the gaiety I could. I had 
 a vague feeling that I owed so much to Beatrice; 
 that the occasion in some way marked a crisis in our 
 relations. I did not mentally call it a last extrava-
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 gance, but yet I fancy that must have been the notion 
 at the back of my mind ; from which one may assume, 
 I think, that Constance Grey had already begun to 
 exercise some influence over me. 
 
 With the seven guineas clinking in the pockets of 
 my evening clothes here, at all events, was a link 
 with University days, for these seldom-worn garments 
 bore the name of a Cambridge tailor I drove to 
 the corner of the road beside Battersea Park in which 
 the Blaines lived, and there picked up Beatrice, in 
 all her vivid finery, by appointment. She loved 
 bright colours and daring devices in dress. That I 
 should come in a cab to fetch her was an integral 
 part of her pleasure, and, if funds could possibly be 
 stretched to permit it, she liked to retain the services 
 of the same cab until I brought her back to her own 
 door. 
 
 We drove to a famous showy restaurant close to 
 Piccadilly Circus, where Beatrice accomplished the 
 kind of entrance which delighted her heart, with at- 
 tendants fluttering about her, and a messenger post- 
 ing back to the cab for a forgotten fan, and a deal 
 of bustle and rustle of one sort and another. A quar- 
 ter of an hour was devoted to the choice of a menu 
 in a dining-room which resembled the more ornate 
 type of music-hall, and was of about the same size. 
 The flashing garishness of it all delighted Beatrice, 
 and the heat of its atmosphere suited both her mood 
 and her extremely decollete toilette. 
 
 I remember beginning to speak of my previous eve- 
 ning's engagement while Beatrice sipped the rather 
 sticky champagne, which was the first item of the
 
 SATURDAY NIGHT IN LONDON 
 
 meal to reach us. But a certain sense of unfitness or 
 disinclination stopped me after a few sentences, and 
 I did not again refer to my new friends ; though I 
 had been thinking a good deal of Constance Grey 
 and her plain-faced, plain-spoken aunt. I felt 
 strangely out of key with my environment in that 
 glaring place, and the strains of an overloud orches- 
 tra, when they came crashing through the buzz of 
 talk and laughter, and the clatter of glass and silver, 
 were rather a relief to me as a substitute for conver- 
 sation. I drank a great deal of champagne, and re- 
 sented the fact that it seemed to have no stimulating 
 effect upon me. But Beatrice was in a purring stage 
 of contentment, her colour high, her passionate eyes 
 sparkling, and low laughter ever atremble behind her 
 full, red lips. 
 
 After the dinner we drove to another place exactly 
 like the restaurant, all gilding and crimson plush, 
 and there watched a performance, which for dulness 
 and banality it would be difficult to equal anywhere. 
 It was more silly than a peep-show at a country fair, 
 but it was all set in a most gorgeous and costly frame. 
 The man who did crude and ancient conjuring tricks 
 was elaborately finely dressed, and attended by mon- 
 strous footmen in liveries of Oriental splendour. 
 What he did was absurdly tame; the things he did 
 it with, his accessories, were barbarously gorgeous. 
 
 This was not one of the great " Middle Class 
 Halls," as they were called during their first year of 
 existence, but an old-established haunt of those who 
 aimed at " seeing life " a great resort of am- 
 bitious young bloods about town. Not very long
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 before this time, a powerful trust had been formed 
 to confer the stuffy and inane delights of the " Hall " 
 upon that sturdily respectable suburban middle class 
 the backbone of London society which had 
 hitherto, to a great extent, eschewed this particular 
 form of dissipation. The trust amassed wealth by 
 striking a shrewd blow at our national character. Its 
 entertainments were to be all refinement " fun with- 
 out vulgarity " ; the oily announcements were nau- 
 seating. But they answered their purpose only too 
 well. The great and still religious bourgeois class 
 was securely hooked ; and then the name of " Middle 
 Class Halls " was dropped, and the programme pro- 
 vided in these garish palaces became simply an inex- 
 pensive and rather amateurish imitation of those of 
 the older halls, plus a kind of prudish, sentimental, 
 and even quasi-religious lubricity, which made them 
 altogether revolting, and infinitely deleterious. 
 
 But our choice upon this occasion had fallen upon 
 the most famous of the old halls. Of the perform- 
 ance I remember a topical song which evoked enthu- 
 siastic applause. It was an incredibly stupid piece 
 of doggerel about England's position in the world; 
 and the shiny-faced exquisite who declaimed it 
 strutted to and fro like a bantam cock at each fresh 
 roar of applause from the heated house. When he 
 used the word " fight " he waved an imaginary sword 
 and assumed a ridiculous posture, which he evidently 
 connected with warlike exercises of some kind. The 
 song praised the Government "A Government er 
 business men ; men that's got sense " and told how 
 this wonderful Government had stopped the pouring 
 
 124
 
 SATURDAY NIGHT IN LONDON 
 
 out of poor folks' money upon flag-waving, to devote 
 it to poor folks' needs. It alluded to the title that 
 Administration had earned : " The Destroyers " ; 
 and acclaimed it a proud title, because it meant the 
 destruction of " gold-laced bunkcombe," and of 
 " vampires that were preying on the British working 
 man." 
 
 But the chorus was the thing, and the perspiring 
 singer played conductor with all the airs and graces 
 of a spangled showman in a booth, while the huge 
 audience yelled itself hoarse over this. I can only 
 recall two lines of it, and these were to the effect that : 
 " They " meaning the other Powers of civilization 
 " will never go for England, because England's 
 got the dibs." 
 
 It was rather a startling spectacle ; that vast audi- 
 torium, in which one saw countless flushed faces, tier 
 on tier, gleaming through a haze of tobacco smoke; 
 their mouths agape as they roared out the vapid lines 
 of this song. I remember thinking that the doggerel 
 might have been the creation of my fat contributor 
 from Stettin, Herr Mitmann, and that if the music- 
 hall public had reached this stage, I must have been 
 oversensitive in my somewhat hostile and critical atti- 
 tude toward the writings of that ponderous Teuton. 
 I thought that for once The Mass would almost lag 
 behind its readers ; though in the beginning I had 
 regarded Herr Mitmann's proposals as going beyond 
 even our limits. 
 
 We left the hall while its roof echoed the jingling 
 tail-piece of another popular ditty, which tickled 
 Beatrice's fancy hugely. In it the singer expressed, 
 
 125
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 without exaggeration and without flattery, a good 
 deal of the popular London attitude toward the pur- 
 suit of pleasure and the love of pleasure resorts. I 
 recall phrases like : " Give my regards to Leicester 
 Square Greet the girls in Regent Street Tell 
 them in Bond Street we'll soon meet " and, " Give 
 them my love in the Strand." 
 
 The atmosphere reeked now of spirits, smoke, and 
 overheated humanity. The voice of the great audi- 
 ence was hoarse and rather bestial in suggestion. 
 The unescorted women began to make their invita- 
 tions dreadfully pressing. Doubtless my mood col- 
 oured the whole tawdry business, but I remember 
 finding those last few minutes distinctly revolting, 
 and experiencing a genuine relief when we stepped 
 into the outer air. 
 
 But the lights were just as brilliant outside, the 
 pavements as thronged as the carpeted promenade, 
 its faces almost as thickly painted as those of the 
 lady who wished her " regards " given to Leicester 
 Square, or the gentleman who had assured us that 
 nobody wanted to fight England, because England 
 had the dibs." 
 
 Beatrice was now in feverishly high spirits. She 
 no longer purred contentment; rather it seemed to 
 me she panted in avid excitement, while pouring out 
 a running fire of comment upon the dress and appear- 
 ance of passers-by, as we drove to another palace of 
 gilt and plush a sort of magnified Pullman car, 
 with decorations that made one's eyes ache. Here 
 we partook of quite a complicated champagne sup- 
 per. I dare say fifty pounds was spent in that room 
 
 126
 
 SATURDAY NIGHT IN LONDON 
 
 after the gorgeously uniformed attendants had begun 
 their chant of " Time, gentlemen, please ; time ! " 
 which signified that the closing hour had arrived. 
 
 Beatrice kept up her excitement or perhaps the 
 champagne did this for her until our cab was half- 
 way across Chelsea Bridge. Then she lay back in her 
 corner, and, I suppose, began to feel the grayness of 
 the as yet unseen dawn of a new day. But as I 
 helped her out of the cab in Battersea, she said she 
 had thoroughly enjoyed her "fluffy" evening, and 
 thanked me very prettily. I returned in the cab as 
 far as Westminster, and there dismissed the man with 
 the last of my seven guineas, having decided to walk 
 from there to my Bloomsbury lodging. 
 
 For a Socialist, my conduct was certainly peculiar. 
 There were two of us. We had had two meals, one 
 of which was as totally unnecessary as the other was 
 overelaborate. And we had spent an hour or two in 
 watching an incredibly stupid and vulgar perform- 
 ance. And over this I had spent a sum upon which 
 an entire family could have been kept going for a 
 couple of months. But there were scores of people 
 in London that night some of them passed me in 
 cabs and carriages, as I walked from the Abbey 
 toward Fleet Street who had been through a simi- 
 lar programme and spent twice as much over it as 
 I had. It was an extraordinarily extravagant period ; 
 and it seemed that the less folk did in the discharge 
 of their national obligations as citizens, the more 
 they demanded, and the more they spent, in the name 
 of pleasure. 
 
 The people who passed me, as I made my way east- 
 127
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 ward, were mostly in evening dress, pale and raffish- 
 looking. Many, particularly among the couples in 
 hansoms, were intoxicated, and making a painful 
 muddle of such melodies as those we had listened to 
 at the music hall. Overeaten, overdrunken, over- 
 excited, overextravagant, in all ways figures of in- 
 continence, these noisy Londoners made their way 
 homeward, pursued by the advancing gray light of 
 a Sabbath dawn in midsummer. 
 
 And Beatrice loved everything foreign, because 
 the foreigners had none of our stupid British Puri- 
 tanism ! And the British public was mightily pleased 
 with its Government, " The Destroyers," because 
 they were cutting down to vanishing point expendi- 
 ture upon such superfluous vanities as national de- 
 fence, in order to devote the money to improving 
 the conditions in which the public lived, and to the 
 reducing of their heavy burdens as citizens of a great 
 Empire. Money could not possibly be spared for 
 such ornamentation as ships and guns and bodies of 
 trained men. We could not afford it! 
 
 As I passed the corner of Agar Street a drunken 
 cabdriver, driving two noisily intoxicated men in 
 evening dress, brought his cab into collision with a 
 gaunt, wolf-eyed man who had been scouring the 
 gutter for scraps of food. He was one of an army 
 prowling London's gutters at that moment: human 
 wolves, questing for scraps of refuse meat. The 
 space between each prowler was no more than a few 
 yards. This particular wretch was knocked down 
 by the cab, but not hurt. Cabby and his fares roared 
 out drunken laughter. The horse was never checked. 
 
 128
 
 But in the midst of their laughter one of the passen- 
 gers threw out a coin, upon which the human wolf 
 pounced like a bird of prey. I saw the glint of the 
 coin. It was a sovereign ; very likely the twentieth 
 those men had spent that night. For that sum, four 
 hundred of the gaunt, gutter-prowling wolves might 
 have been fed and sheltered. 
 
 Entering Holborn I ran against a man I knew, 
 named Wardle, one of the sub-editors of a Sunday 
 newspaper, then on his way home from Fleet Street. 
 Wardle was tired and sleepy, but stopped to ex- 
 change a few words of journalistic gossip. 
 
 " Rather sickening about the wind-up of the East 
 Anglian Pageant," he said, " isn't it? Did you hear 
 of it?" 
 
 I explained that I had not been in Fleet Street that 
 night, and had heard nothing. 
 
 " Why, there was to be no end of a tumashi for the 
 Saturday evening wind-up, you know, and we were 
 featuring it. We sent a special man up yesterday to 
 help the local fellow. Well, just as we'd got in 
 about a couple of hundred words of his introductory 
 stuff, word came through that the wires were inter- 
 rupted, and not another blessed line did we get. I 
 tell you there was some tall cursing done, and some 
 flying around in the editorial ' fill-up ' drawers. We 
 were giving it first place three columns. One 
 blessing, we found the stoppage was general. No 
 one else has got a line of East Anglian stuff to-night. 
 Ours was the last word from the submerged city of 
 Ipswich. But it really is rather an odd breakdown. 
 No sign of rough weather ; and, mind you there are 
 
 129
 
 a number of different lines of communication. But 
 they're all blocked, telegraph and telephone. Our 
 chief tried to get through via the Continent, just to 
 give us something to go on. But it was no go. Odd, 
 isn't it?" 
 
 " Very," I agreed, as we turned ; and I added, 
 rather inanely : " One hears a lot about East An- 
 glian coast erosion." 
 
 Wardle yawned and grinned. 
 
 " Yes, to be sure. Perhaps East Anglia is cruis- 
 ing down Channel by now. Or perhaps the Kaiser's 
 landed an army corps and taken possession. That 
 Mediterranean business on Tuesday was pretty pro- 
 nounced cheek, you know, and, by all accounts, the 
 result of direct orders from Potsdam. Only the 
 Kaiser's bluff, I suppose, but I'm told it's taken most 
 of the Channel Fleet down into Spanish waters." 
 
 I smiled at the activity of Wardle's journalistic 
 imagination, and thought of the music-hall crowd. 
 
 " Ah, well," I said, " They'll never go for Eng- 
 land, because England's got the dibs ' ! " 
 
 " What ho ! " remarked Wardle, with another 
 yawn. And this time he was really off. 
 
 And so I walked home alone to my lodgings, and 
 climbed into bed, thinking vaguely of Constance 
 Grey, and what she would have thought of my night's 
 work ; this, as the long, palely glinting arms of the 
 Sabbath dawn thrust aside the mantle of summer 
 night from Bloomsbury. 
 
 130
 
 XIII 
 
 THE DEMONSTRATION IN HYDE PARK 
 
 Winds of the World give answer ! They are whimpering 
 to and fro 
 
 And what should they know of England who only Eng- 
 land know ? 
 
 The poor little street-bred people that vapour and fume 
 and brag, 
 
 They are lifting their heads in the stillness to yelp at the 
 English flag. RDDYARD KIPLING. 
 
 AS was usually the case on the day following one 
 of Beatrice's " fluffy " evenings, I descended 
 to my never very tempting lodging-house breakfast 
 on that Sunday morning feeling the reverse of cheer- 
 ful, and much inclined to take the gloomiest view of 
 everything life had to offer me. 
 
 Sunday was generally a melancholy day for me. 
 It was my only day out of Fleet Street, and, though 
 I had long since taken such steps as I thought I 
 could afford toward transforming my bedroom into 
 a sitting-room, there was nothing very comfortable 
 or homelike about it. I had dropped the habit of 
 churchgoing after the first few months of my Lon- 
 don life, without any particular thought or intention, 
 but rather, I think, as one kind of reflex action a 
 subconscious reflection of the views and habits of 
 those among whom I lived and worked. 
 
 131
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 Hearing a newsboy crying a " special " edition of 
 some paper, I threw up the window and bought a 
 copy, across the area railings. It was the paper for 
 which Wardle worked. I found in it no particular 
 justification for any special issue, and, as a fact, the 
 probability is the appearance of this edition was 
 merely a device to increase circulation, suggested 
 mainly by the fact that the ordinary issue had been 
 delayed by the East Anglian telegraphic breakdown. 
 Regarding this, I found the following item of edito- 
 rial commentary: 
 
 " As is explained elsewhere, a serious breakdown 
 of telegraphic communication has occurred between 
 London and Harwich, Ipswich and East Anglia gen- 
 erally, as a result of which our readers are robbed 
 of special despatches regarding last night's conclu- 
 sion of the East Anglian Pageant. It is thought 
 that the breakdown is due to some electrical disturb- 
 ance of the atmosphere resulting in a fusion of 
 wires. 
 
 " But as an example of the ridiculous lengths to 
 which the national defence cranks will go in their 
 hatching of alarmist reports, a rumour was actually 
 spread in Fleet Street at an early hour this morning 
 that this commonplace accident to the telegraph wires 
 was caused by an invading German army. This 
 ridiculous canard is reminiscent of some of the foolish 
 scares which frightened our forefathers a little more 
 than a century ago, when the Corsican terrorized 
 Europe. But our rumour-mongers are too far out 
 of date for this age. It is unfortunate that the ad- 
 vocates of militarism should receive parliamentary 
 132
 
 THE DEMONSTRATION IN HYDE PARK 
 
 support of any kind. The Opposition is weakly and 
 insignificant enough in all conscience, without court- 
 ing further unpopularity by floating British public 
 feeling in this way, and encouraging the cranks 
 among its following to bring ridicule upon the coun- 
 
 try- 
 
 " The absurd canard to which we have referred is 
 maliciously ill-timed. It will doubtless be reported 
 on the Continent, and may injure us there. But we 
 trust our friends in Germany will do us the justice 
 of recognizing at once that this is merely the work 
 of an irresponsible and totally unrepresentative 
 clique, and in no sort a reflection of any aspect of 
 public feeling in this country. We are able to state 
 with certainty that last Tuesday's regrettable inci- 
 dent in the Mediterranean has been satisfactorily and 
 definitely closed. Admiral Blennerhaustein displayed 
 characteristic German courtesy and generosity in his 
 frank acceptance of the apology sent to him from 
 Whitehall; and the report that our Channel Fleet 
 had entered the Straits of Gibraltar is incorrect. A 
 portion of the Channel Fleet had been cruising off 
 the coast of the Peninsula, and is now on its way back 
 to home waters. Our relations with His Imperial 
 Majesty's Government in Berlin were never more 
 harmonious, and such a canard as this morning's 
 rumour of invasion is only worthy of mention for the 
 sake of a demonstration of its complete absurdity. 
 If, as was stated, the author of this puerile inven- 
 tion is a Navy League supporter, who reached Lon- 
 don in a motor-car from Harwich soon after daylight 
 this morning, our advice to him is to devote the rest 
 
 133
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 of the day to sleeping off the effects of an injudicious 
 evening in East Anglia." 
 
 Failing the East Anglian Pageant, the paper's 
 " first feature," I noticed, consisted of a lot of gen- 
 erously headed particulars regarding the big Dis- 
 armament Demonstration to be held in Hyde Park 
 that afternoon. It seemed that this was to be a 
 really big thing, and I decided to attend in the inter- 
 ests of The Mass. The President of the Local Gov- 
 ernment Board and three well-known members on the 
 Government side of the House were to speak. The 
 Demonstration had been organized by the National 
 Peace Association for Disarmament and Social Re- 
 form, of which the Prime Minister had lately been 
 elected President. Delegates, both German and Eng- 
 lish, of the Anglo-German Union had promised to 
 deliver addresses. Among other well-known bodies 
 who were sending representatives I saw mention of 
 the Anti-Imperial and Free Tariff Society, the Inde- 
 pendent English Guild, the Home Rule Association, 
 the Free Trade League, and various Republican and 
 Socialist bodies. The paper said some amusement 
 was anticipated from a suggested counter demonstra- 
 tion proposed by a few Navy League enthusiasts; 
 but that the police would take good care that no 
 serious interruptions were allowed. 
 
 As the Demonstration was fixed for three o'clock 
 in the afternoon, I decided to go up the river by 
 steamboat to Kew after my late breakfast. It was a 
 gloriously fine morning, and on the river I began to 
 feel a little more cheerful. As we passed Battersea 
 Park I thought of Beatrice, who always suffered
 
 THE DEMONSTRATION IN HYDE PARK 
 
 from severe depressions after her little outings. Her 
 spirits were affected; in my case, restaurant food, 
 inferior wine, and the breathing of vitiated air was 
 paid for by nothing worse than a headache and a 
 morning's discomfort. 
 
 (One of the curses of the time, which seemed to 
 grow more acute as the habit of extravagance and 
 the thirst for pleasure increased, was the outrageous 
 adulteration of all food-stuffs, and more particularly 
 of all alcoholic liquors, which prevailed not alone in 
 the West End of London, but in every city. Home 
 products could only be obtained in clubs and in the 
 houses of the rich. Their quantity was insufficient 
 to admit of their reaching the open markets. In the 
 cities we lived entirely upon foreign products, and 
 their adulteration had reached a most amazing limit 
 of badness.) 
 
 My thought of Beatrice was brief that morning, 
 but I continued during most of my little excursion 
 to dwell upon my new friends in South Kensington. 
 I wondered how Constance Grey spent Sunday in 
 London, and whether the confinement of the town 
 oppressed her after the spacious freedom of the 
 South African life she had described to me. I re- 
 membered that I had promised to call upon her and 
 her aunt very soon, and wandered whether that after- 
 noon, after the Demonstration, would be too soon. 
 I mentally decided that it would, but that I would 
 go all the same. 
 
 And then, suddenly, as the steamer passed under 
 Hammersmith Bridge, a thought went through me 
 like cold steel: 
 
 135
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 " She will very soon return to that freer, wider 
 life out there in South Africa." 
 
 How I hated the place. South Africa ! I had 
 always associated it with Imperialism, militarism 
 " empireism," as I called it in my own mind : the 
 strange, outside interests, which one regarded as 
 opposing home interests, social reform, and the like. 
 Though I did not know that any political party con- 
 siderations influenced me one atom, I was in reality, 
 like nearly every one else at that time, mentally the 
 slave and creature of party feeling, party tradition, 
 party prejudice. But now I had a new cause for 
 hating those remote uplands of Empire, those out- 
 side places. 
 
 Sitting under a tree in Kew Gardens, I had leisure 
 in which to browse over the matter, and, upon reflec- 
 tion, I was astonished that this sudden thought of 
 mine should have struck so shrewdly, so violently, 
 into my peace of mind. I tried to neutralize its effect 
 by reminding myself that I had met Constance Grey 
 only twice; that she was in many ways outside my 
 purview; that she was the intimate friend of people 
 who had helped to make history, the special contrib- 
 utor to the Times, with her introductions to ex-Cab- 
 inet Ministers in England and her other relations 
 with great people; that such a woman could never 
 play an intimate part in my life. Her friendliness 
 could not be the prelude to friendship with the assist- 
 ant editor of The Mass; it probably meant no more 
 than a courteous deference to John Crondall's whim, 
 I told myself. But I would call at the South Ken- 
 sington flat, certainly ; it would be boorish to refrain, 
 
 136
 
 THE DEMONSTRATION IN HYDE PARK 
 
 and there was no denying I should have been 
 mightily perturbed if any valid reason had appeared 
 against my going to see Constance Grey after doing 
 my duty by the Demonstration. 
 
 The newsboys were putting a good deal of feel- 
 ing into their crying of special editions when I 
 reached the streets again ; but I was not inclined 
 to waste further pence upon the Sunday News' mor- 
 alizings over the evolution of canards. I took a mess 
 of some adulterated pottage at a foreign restaurant 
 in Netting Hill, as I had no wish to return to Blooms- 
 bury before the Demonstration. The waiter either 
 a Swiss or a German asked me: 
 
 " Vad you sink, sare, of ze news from ze coun- 
 try?" 
 
 I asked him what it was, and he handed me a fresh 
 copy of the Sunday News, headed : " Special Edi- 
 tion. Noon." 
 
 " By Jove ! " I thought ; " no Sunday dinner for 
 Wardle! They couldn't have printed this in the 
 small hours." 
 
 But the only new matter in this issue was a short 
 announcement, headed in poster type, as follows: 
 
 "EAST ANGLIA'S ISOLATION 
 
 RAILWAY COMMUNICATION STOPPED 
 
 STRANGE SUPPORT OF INVASION CANARD 
 
 IS THIS A TORY HOAX? 
 
 (SPECIAL) 
 
 The preposterous rumour of a German invasion of 
 England is receiving mysterious support. We hear 
 from a reliable source that some Imperialist and Navy 
 
 137
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 League cranks have organized a gigantic hoax by 
 way of opposition to the Disarmament Demonstra- 
 tion. If the curious breakdown of communication 
 with the east coast does prove to be the work of 
 political fanatics, we think, and hope, that these 
 gentry may shortly be convinced, in a manner they 
 are never likely to forget, that, even in this land of 
 liberty, the crank is not allowed to interfere with the 
 transaction of public business. 
 
 " No trains have reached Liverpool Street from the 
 northeast this morning, and communication cannot 
 be established beyond Chelmsford. Whatever the 
 cause of this singular breakdown may be, our read- 
 ers will soon know it, for, in order finally to dispel 
 any hint of credence which may be attached in some 
 quarters to the absurd invasion report, we have al- 
 ready despatched two representatives in two powerful 
 motor-cars, northeastward from Brentwood, with in- 
 structions to return to that point and telegraph full 
 particulars directly they can discover the cause of 
 the stoppage of communication. 
 
 " Further special editions will be issued when news 
 is received from East Anglia." 
 
 " Yes," I said to the waiter ; " it's a curious af- 
 fair." 
 
 " You believe him, sare zat Shermany do it? " 
 
 "Eh? No; certainly not. Do you? " 
 
 " Me ? Oh, sare, I don' know nozzing. Vaire 
 shstrong, sare, ze Sherman Armay." 
 
 The fellow's face annoyed me in some way. It, 
 and his grins and gesticulations, had a sinister seem- 
 ing. My trade brought me into contact with so 
 
 138
 
 THE DEMONSTRATION IN HYDE PARK 
 
 many low-class aliens. I told myself I was getting 
 insular and prejudiced, and resumed my meal with 
 more thought for myself and my tendencies and af- 
 fairs than for the East Anglian business. I have 
 wondered since what the waiter thought about while 
 I ate; whether he thought of England, Germany, 
 and of myself, as representing the British citizen. 
 But, to be sure, for aught I know, his thoughts may 
 have been ordered for him from Berlin. 
 
 The Demonstration drew an enormous concourse 
 of people to Hyde Park. The weather being perfect, 
 a number of people made an outing of the occasion, 
 and one saw whole groups of people who clearly 
 came from beyond Whitechapel, the Borough, Shep- 
 herd's Bush, and Islington. As had been anticipated, 
 a few well-dressed people endeavoured to run a coun- 
 ter-demonstration under a Navy League banner ; but 
 their following was absurdly small, and the crowd 
 gave them nothing but ridicule and contempt. 
 
 The President of the Local Government Board 
 received a tremendous ovation. For some minutes 
 after his first appearance that enormous crowd sang, 
 " He's a jolly good fellow! " with great enthusiasm. 
 Then, when this member of the Government at last 
 succeeded in getting as far as : " Mr. Chairman, 
 ladies and gentlemen," some one started the song 
 with the chorus containing the words : " They'll 
 never go for England, because England's got the 
 dibs." This spread like a line of fire in dry grass, 
 and in a moment the vast crowd was rocking to the 
 jingling rhythm of the song, the summer air quiver- 
 ing to the volume of its thousand-throated voice. 
 
 139
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 The President of the Local Government Board had 
 been rather suspected of tuft-hunting recently, and 
 his appearance in the stump orator's role, and in the 
 cause of disarmament, was wonderfully popular. In 
 his long career as Labour agitator, Socialist, and 
 Radical, he had learned to know the popular pulse 
 remarkably well; and now he responded cleverly to 
 the call of the moment. His vein was that of the 
 heavy, broad bludgeoning sarcasm which tickles a 
 crowd, and his theme was not the wickedness, but the 
 stupidity and futility of all " Jingoism," " spread- 
 eagleism," " tall-talk," and " gold-lace bunk- 
 combe." 
 
 " I am told my honourable friends of the opposi- 
 tion," he said, with an ironical bow in the direction of 
 the now folded Navy League banner, " have played 
 some kind of a practical joke in the eastern coun- 
 ties to-day. Well, children will be children; but I 
 am afraid there will have to be spankings if half that 
 I hear is true. They have tried to frighten you into 
 abandoning this Demonstration with a pretended in- 
 vasion of England. Well, my friends, it does not 
 look to me as though their invasion had affected this 
 Demonstration very seriously. I seem to fancy I see 
 quite a number of people gathered together here. 
 (It is estimated that over sixty thousand people were 
 trying to hear his words.) But all I have to say on 
 this invasion question is just this: If our friends 
 from Germany have invaded East Anglia, let us be 
 grateful for their enterprise, and, as a nation of 
 shopkeepers should, let us make as much as we can 
 out of 'em. But don't let us forget our hospitality. 
 
 140
 
 THE DEMONSTRATION IN HYDE PARK 
 
 If our neighbours have dropped in in a friendly way, 
 why, let's be sure we've something hot for supper. 
 Perhaps a few sausages wouldn't be taken amiss. 
 (The laughter and applause was so continuous here 
 that for some moments nothing further could be 
 heard.) No, my friends, this invasion hoax should 
 now be placed finally upon the retired list. It has 
 been on active service now since the year 1800, and 
 I really think it's time our spread-eagle friends gave 
 us a change. Let me for one moment address you in 
 my official capacity, as your servant and a member 
 of the Government. This England of ours is about 
 as much in danger of being invaded as I am of be- 
 coming a millionaire, and those of you " 
 
 The speaker's next words never reached me, being 
 drowned by a great roar of laughter and applause. 
 Just then I turned round to remonstrate with a man 
 who was supporting himself upon my right shoulder. 
 I was on the edge of the one narrow part of the 
 crowd, against some iron railings. As I turned I 
 noticed a number of boys tearing along in fan-shaped 
 formation, and racing toward the crowd from the 
 direction of Marble Arch. My eyes followed the 
 approaching boys, and I forgot the fellow who had 
 been plaguing me. The lads were all carrying bun- 
 dles of papers, and now, as they drew nearer, I could 
 see and hear that they were yelling as they ran. 
 
 " Another special edition," I thought. " No sort 
 of a Sunday for poor Wardle." 
 
 The President of the Local Government Board had 
 resumed his speech, and I could hear his clean-cut 
 words distinctly. He had a good incisive delivery. 
 
 141
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 Across his words now the hoarse yell of an approach- 
 ing newsboy smote upon my ears : 
 
 " Extry speshul ! Sixpence ! German Army Corps 
 in England! Speshul! Invashen er Sufferk! Spe- 
 shul sixpence ! German Army Corps sixpence ! 
 Invashen ! " 
 
 " By Jove ! " I thought. " That's rough on our 
 disarmament feature from Herr Mitmann ! " 
 
 I very well remember that that precisely was my 
 thought. 
 
 142
 
 XIV 
 
 THE NEWS 
 
 He could not hear Death's rattle at the door, 
 He was so busy with his sottishness. TURNER. 
 
 THE chance of my position on the edge of the 
 crowd nearest to Marble Arch caused me to be 
 among those who secured a paper, and at the compar- 
 atively modest price of sixpence. Two minutes later, 
 I saw a member of the committee of the Demonstra- 
 tion hand over half-a-crown for one of the same 
 limp sheets, all warm and smeary from the press. 
 And in two more minutes the newsboys (there must 
 have been fifty of them) were racing back to Marble 
 Arch, feverishly questing further supplies, and, I 
 suppose, reckoning as they ran their unaccustomed 
 gains. 
 
 The news, mostly in poster type, was only a matter 
 of a few lines of comment, and a few more lines of 
 telegraphic despatch from Brentwood: 
 
 " Telegraphic communication with Chelmsford has 
 now been cut off, but one of our special representa- 
 tives, who succeeded in obtaining a powerful six- 
 cylinder motor-car, has reached Brentwood, after a 
 racing tour to the northeastward. We publish his 
 despatch under all possible reserve. He is a journal- 
 ist of high repute, but we venture to say with confi- 
 
 143
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 dence that he has evidently been imposed upon by the 
 promoters of the most abominably wicked hoax and 
 fraud ever perpetrated by criminal fanatics upon a 
 trusting public. We have very little doubt that a 
 number of these rabid advocates of that spirit of 
 militarism to which the British public will never for 
 one moment submit, will be cooling their heated brains 
 in prison cells before the night is out." 
 
 And then followed the despatch from Brentwood, 
 which said: 
 
 " Roads, railways, communication of all kinds ab- 
 solutely blocked. Coastal regions of Suffolk and 
 South Norfolk, and possibly Essex, are occupied by 
 German soldiers. A cyclist from near Harwich says 
 the landing was effected last evening, the most elab- 
 orate preparations and arrangements having been 
 made beforehand. My car was fired at near Colches- 
 ter. Chelmsford is now occupied by German cavalry, 
 cyclist and motor corps. Have not heard of any loss 
 of life, but whole country is panic-stricken. Cannot 
 send further news. Telegraph office closed to public, 
 being occupied in official business." 
 
 That was all. As my eyes rose from the blurred 
 surface of the news-sheet the picture of the crowd 
 absorbed me, like a stage-spectacle. There were from 
 forty to sixty thousand people assembled, of all ages 
 and classes. Among them were perhaps one thou- 
 sand, perhaps two thousand, copies of the newspaper. 
 Some ten thousand people were craning necks and 
 straining eyes to read those papers. The rest were 
 making short, hoarse, frequently meaningless ejacu- 
 lations. 
 
 144
 
 THE NEWS 
 
 I saw one middle-aged man, who might have been 
 a grocer, and a deacon in his place of worship, fold 
 up his paper after reading it and thrust it, for future 
 reference, in the tail-pocket of his sombre Sunday 
 coat. But his neighbours in the crowd would not 
 have that. A number of outstretched hands sud- 
 denly surrounded him. I saw his face pale. "Give 
 us a look ! " was all the sense I grasped from a score 
 of exclamations. The grocer's paper was in frag- 
 ments on the grass ten seconds later, and its destroy- 
 ers were reaching out in other directions. 
 
 " It's abominable," I heard the grocer muttering 
 to himself; and his hands shook as though he had 
 the palsy. 
 
 But in other cases the papers passed whole from 
 hand to hand, and their holders read the news aloud. 
 I think the entire crowd had grasped the gist of it 
 inside of four minutes ; and their exclamatory com- 
 ments were extraordinary, grotesque. 
 
 " My God ! " and " My Gawd ! " reached my ears 
 frequently. But they were less representative than 
 were short, sharp bursts of laughter, harsh and stac- 
 cato, like a dog's bark, and, it may be, half-hyster- 
 ical. And, piercing these snaps of laughter, one 
 heard the curious, contradictory yapping of such 
 sentences as : "I sye ; 'ow about them 'ot sossiges ? " 
 "'Taint true, Bill, is it?" "Disgraceful business; 
 perfectly disgraceful!" "Wot price the Kaiser? 
 Not arf ! " " Anything to sell the papers, you 
 know!" "What? No. Jolly lot of rot!" 
 " Johnny get yer gun, get yer gun ! " " Some one 
 must be punished for this. Might have caused a 
 
 145
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 panic, you know." " True ? Good Lord, no ! What 
 would our Navy be doing? " " Well, upon my word, 
 I don't know." " Nice business for the fish trade ! " 
 " Well, if that's it, I shall take the children down to 
 their Aunt Rebecca's." " Wot price Piccadilly an' 
 Regent Street to-night ? " " Come along, my dear ; 
 let's get home out of this." " Absolute bosh, my dear 
 boy, from beginning to end doing business with 
 'em every day o' my life ! " And then a hoarse snatch 
 of song : " ' They'll never go for England ' not 
 they ! What ho ! ' Because England's got the 
 dibs!'" 
 
 Suddenly then, above and across the thousand- 
 voiced small talk, came the trained notes of the voice 
 of the President of the Local Government Board. 
 
 " My friends, the whole story is a most transpar- 
 ent fraud. It's a shameful hoax. I tell you the thing 
 is physically and morally impossible. It couldn't 
 have been done in the time ; and it is all a lie, anyhow. 
 I beg to propose a hearty vote of thanks to our 
 chairman for " 
 
 The crowd had listened attentively enough to the 
 old agitator's comment on the news. They liked his 
 assurances on that point. But they were in no mood 
 for ceremonial. Thousands were already straggling 
 across the grass toward Marble Arch and down to 
 Hyde Park Corner. The speaker's further words 
 were drowned in a confused hubbub of applause, 
 cheers, laughter, shouts of " Are we downhearted ? " 
 raucous answers in the negative, and cries of " Never 
 mind the chairman!" and "He's a jolly good 
 fellow!" 
 
 146
 
 THE NEWS 
 
 In ten minutes that part of the park seemed to 
 have been stripped naked, and the few vehicles, tables, 
 and little platforms which had formed the centre of 
 the Demonstration appeared, like the limbs of a tree 
 suddenly bereft of foliage, looking curiously small 
 and bare. I am told that restaurants and refresh- 
 ment places did an enormous trade during the next 
 few hours. When the public-houses opened they 
 were besieged, and, in many cases, closed again after 
 a few hours, sold out. 
 
 For my part, I made at once, and without think- 
 ing, for Constance Grey's flat in South Kensington. 
 The crowds in the streets were not only much larger, 
 but in many ways different from the usual run of 
 Sunday crowds. The people wore their Sunday 
 clothes, but they had doffed the Sunday manners and 
 air. There was more of a suggestion of Saturday 
 night in the streets ; the suggestion that a tremen- 
 dous number of people were going to enjoy a 
 " spree " of some kind. A kind of noisy hilarity, com- 
 bined with a general desire for cigars, drinks, sing- 
 ing, and gaiety, seemed to be ruling the people. 
 
 At the upper end of Sloane Street a German band 
 was blaring out the air of " The Holy City," and 
 people stood about in groups laughing and chatting 
 noisily. The newspaper boys had some competitors 
 now, and the Bank Holiday flavour of the streets was 
 added to by a number of lads and girls who had ap- 
 peared from nowhere, with all sorts of valueless com- 
 modities for sale, such as peacocks' feathers, paper 
 fans, and streamers of coloured paper. 
 
 Why these things should have been wanted I can- 
 147
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 not say; but their sellers knew their business very 
 well. The demand was remarkably brisk. Indeed, 
 I noticed one of three young men, who walked 
 abreast, purchase quite a bunch of the long feathers, 
 only to drop them beside the curb a few moments 
 later, whence another vendor promptly plucked them, 
 and sold them again. I suppose that by this time 
 the vast majority of the people had no doubt what- 
 ever about the news being a monstrous hoax ; but 
 there was no blinking the fact that the public had 
 been strongly moved. 
 
 It was with a distinct sense of relief that I learned 
 from a servant that Miss Grey was at home had 
 just come in, as a matter of fact. It was as though 
 I had some important business to transact with this 
 girl from South Africa, with her brilliant dark eyes, 
 and alert, thoughtful expression. I felt that it would 
 have been serious if she should have been away, if I 
 had missed her. It was not until I heard her step 
 outside the door of the little drawing-room into 
 which I had been shown, that I suddenly became con- 
 scious that I had no business whatever with Constance 
 Grey, and that this call, on Sunday, within forty- 
 eight hours of my dining there, might perhaps be 
 adjudged a piece of questionable taste. 
 
 A minute later, and, if I had thought again of the 
 matter at all, I should have known that Constance 
 Grey wasted no time over any such petty considera- 
 tions. She entered to me with a set, grave face, tak- 
 ing my hand mechanically, as though too much pre- 
 . occupied for such ceremonies. 
 
 " What do you think of the news ? " she said, with- 
 148
 
 THE NEWS 
 
 out a word of preliminary greeting. I felt more 
 than a little abashed at this; for, truth to tell, I 
 really had given no serious thought to the news. I 
 had observed its reception by the public as a specta- 
 tor might. But, in the first place, I had been early 
 warned that it was all a hoax ; and then, too, like so 
 many of my contemporaries, I was without the citi- 
 zen feeling altogether, so far as national interests 
 were concerned. I had grown to regard citizenship 
 as exclusively a matter of domestic politics and social 
 progress, municipal affairs, and the like. I never 
 gave any thought to our position as a people and a 
 nation in relation to foreign Powers. 
 
 " Oh, well," I said, " it's an extraordinary busi- 
 ness, isn't it? I have just come from the Demon- 
 stration in Hyde Park. It was practically squashed 
 by the arrival of the special editions. The people 
 seemed pretty considerably muddled about it, so I 
 suppose those who arranged it all may be said to 
 have scored their point." 
 
 " So you don't believe it? " 
 
 " Well, I believe it is generally admitted to be a 
 gigantic hoax, is it not? " 
 
 " But, my dear Mr. Mordan, how how wonder- 
 ful English people are! You, your own self; what 
 do you think about it? But forgive me for heckling. 
 Won't you sit down? Or will you come into the 
 study? Aunt is in there." 
 
 We went into the study, a cheerful, bright room, 
 with low wicker chairs, and a big, littered writing- 
 table. 
 
 149
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 " Mr. Mordan doesn't believe it," said Constance 
 Grey, when I had shaken hands with her aunt. 
 
 " Doesn't he? " said that strong, plain-spoken 
 woman. " Well, I fancy there are a good many 
 more by the same way of thinking, who'll have their 
 eyes opened pretty widely by this time to-morrow." 
 
 " Then you take the whole thing seriously ? " I 
 asked them. 
 
 Somehow, my own thoughts had become active in 
 the presence of these women, and were racing over 
 everything that I had seen and heard that day, from 
 the moment of my chat with Wardle, before sunrise, 
 in Holborn. 
 
 " I don't see any other way to take it," said Mrs. 
 Van Homrey, with laconic emphasis. "Do you?" 
 she added. 
 
 " Well, you see, I did not begin by taking your 
 view. My first word of it was just before dawn this 
 morning, from a newspaper man in Holborn; and, 
 somehow well, you know, the general idea seems 
 to be that the whole thing is an elaborate joke worked 
 up by the Navy League, or somebody, as a counter- 
 stroke to the Disarmament Demonstration to teach 
 us a lesson, and all that, you know." 
 
 I had to remind myself that I was addressing two 
 ladies who were sure to be whole-hearted supporters 
 of the Navy League and all other Imperialist organi- 
 zations. Constance Grey seemed to me to be apprais- 
 ing me. I fancied those brilliant eyes of hers were 
 looking right into me with grave criticism, and dis- 
 covering me unworthy. My heart sickened at the 
 thought. I should have been more distressed had not 
 
 150
 
 THE NEWS 
 
 a vague, futile anger crept into my mind. After all, 
 I thought, what right had this girl from South 
 Africa to criticize me? I was a man. I knew Eng- 
 land better than she did. I was a journalist of expe- 
 rience. Bah! My twopenny thoughts drooped and 
 fainted as they rose. 
 
 " But perhaps you are better informed? " I said, 
 weakly. " Perhaps you have other information? " 
 
 Constance Grey looked straight at me, and as I 
 recall her gaze now, it was almost maternal in its 
 yearning gravity. 
 
 " I think it's going to be a lesson all right," she 
 said. " What cuts me to the heart is the fear that 
 it may have come too late." 
 
 Never have I heard such gravity in a young 
 woman's voice. Her words overpowered me almost 
 by the weight of prescient meaning she gave them. 
 They reached me as from some solemn sanctuary, a 
 fount of inspiration. 
 
 " We haven't any special information," said Mrs. 
 Van Homrey. " We have only read, like every one 
 else, that East Anglia is occupied by German sol- 
 diers, landed last night; that the East Anglian 
 Pageant has been made the cloak of most elaborate 
 preparations for weeks past ; that the Mediterranean 
 incident last week was a deliberate scheme to draw 
 the Channel Fleet south; and that the whole dread- 
 ful business has succeeded so far, like like perfect 
 machinery ; like the thing it is : the outcome of per- 
 fect discipline and long, deliberate planning. We 
 have heard no more; but the only hoaxing that I 
 can see is done by the purblind people who have 
 
 151
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 made the public think it a hoax and that is not 
 conscious hoaxing, of course; they are too bemud- 
 dled with their disarmament farce for that." 
 
 " More tragedy than farce, aunt, I'm afraid," 
 said Constance Grey. And then, turning to me, she 
 said : " We lunched at General Penn Dicksee's to- 
 day ; and they have no doubt about the truth of the 
 news. The General has motored down to Aldershot. 
 They will begin some attempt at mobilizing at once, 
 I believe. But it seemed impossible to get into touch 
 with headquarters. All the War Office people are 
 away for the week-end. In fact, they say the Min- 
 ister's in Ipswich, and can't get away. General Penn 
 Dicksee says they have practically no material to 
 work with for any immediate mobilization purposes. 
 He says that under the present system nothing can be 
 done in less than a week. He thinks the most useful 
 force will be the sailors from the Naval Barracks. 
 But I should suppose they would be wanted for the 
 ships if we have any ships left fit for sea. The 
 General thinks there may be a hundred thousand 
 German soldiers within twenty or thirty miles of 
 London by to-morrow." 
 
 " Yes," said Mrs. Van Homrey, " it doesn't seem 
 easy to take it any other way than seriously; not if 
 one's on the British side. And, for the matter of 
 that, if I know the Teuton, they are taking it pretty 
 seriously in East Anglia, and and in Berlin." 
 
 And up till now, I had been thinking of the extra 
 Sunday work for Wardle, and the way they had 
 started selling peacocks' feathers and things, in the 
 streets ! 
 
 152
 
 XV 
 
 SUNDAY NIGHT IN LONDON 
 
 "Ah," they cry, "Destiny, 
 Prolong the present ! 
 Time, stand still here! " 
 
 The prompt stern Goddess 
 
 Shakes her head, frowning; 
 
 Time gives his hour-glass 
 
 Its due reversal ; 
 
 Their hour is gone. MATTHEW ARNOLD. 
 
 I STAYED to dinner at the flat in South Ken- 
 sington, and after dinner, when I spoke of 
 leaving, Constance Grey asked if I would care to 
 accompany her into Blackfriars. She wanted to call 
 at Printing House Square, and ascertain what 
 further news had arrived. The implied intimacy and 
 friendliness of the suggestion gave me a pleasur- 
 able thrill; it came as something of a reinstatement 
 for me, and compensated for much. Constance Grey's 
 views of me had in some way become more important 
 to me than anything else. I was even now more con- 
 cerned about that than about the news. 
 
 We made the journey by omnibus. I suggested a 
 cab, as in duty bound, but, doubtless with a thought 
 of my finances, my companion insisted upon the 
 
 153
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 cheaper way. We had some trouble to get seats, but 
 found them at last on a motor omnibus bound for 
 Whitechapel. The streets were densely crowded, and 
 the Bank Holiday spirit which I had remarked before 
 was now general, and much more marked. 
 
 " It reminds me exactly of ' Maf eking Night,' " I 
 said, referring to that evening of the South African 
 war during which London waxed drunk upon the 
 news of the relief of Mafeking. 
 
 " Was it as bad even then? " said my companion. 
 And her question showed me, what I might otherwise 
 have overlooked, that a good deal of water had 
 passed under the bridges since South African war 
 days. We had been a little ashamed of our innocent 
 rowdiness over the Mafeking relief. We had become 
 vastly more inconsistent and less sober since then. I 
 think the "Middle Class Music Halls" had taken 
 their share in the progress, by breaking down much 
 of the staid reserve and self-restraint of the respect- 
 able middle class. But, of course, one sees now that 
 the rapid growth among us of selfish irresponsibility 
 and repudiation of national obligations was the root 
 cause of that change in public behaviour which I saw 
 clearly enough, once it had been suggested to me by 
 Constance Grey's question. 
 
 I saw that, among the tens of thousands of noisy 
 promenaders of both sexes who filled the streets, and 
 impeded traffic at all crossings, the class which had 
 always been rowdily inclined was now far more rowdy, 
 and that its ranks were reinforced, doubled in 
 strength, by recruits from a class which, a few years 
 before, had been proverbially noted for its decorous 
 
 154
 
 SUNDAY NIGHT IN LONDON 
 
 and decent reserve. And this was Sunday Night. I 
 learned afterwards that the clergy had preached to 
 practically empty churches. A man we met in The 
 Times office told us of this, and my companion's com- 
 ment was: 
 
 " Yes, even their religion has less meaning for them 
 than their pleasure ; and, with religion a dead letter, 
 the spirit that won Trafalgar and armed the Thames 
 against Napoleon, must be dead and buried." 
 
 The news we received at The Times office was ex- 
 traordinary. It seemed there was no longer room 
 for the smallest doubt that a large portion of East 
 Anglia was actually occupied by a German army. 
 Positive details of information could not be obtained. 
 
 " The way the coastal districts have been hermetic- 
 ally sealed against communication, and the speed and 
 thoroughness with which the occupation has been 
 accomplished, will remain, I believe, the most amaz- 
 ing episode in the history of warfare," said the 
 solemn graybeard, to whom I had been presented by 
 Constance Grey. (If he had known that I was the 
 assistant editor of The Mass, I doubt if this Mr. 
 Poole-Smith would have consented to open his mouth 
 in my presence. But my obscurity and his impor- 
 tance combined to shelter me, and I was treated with 
 confidence as the friend of a respected contributor.) 
 
 " Already we know enough to be certain that the 
 enemy has received incalculably valuable assistance 
 from within. I am afraid there will presently be 
 only too much evidence of the blackest kind of treach- 
 ery from British subjects, members of one or other 
 among the anti-National coteries. But in the mean- 
 
 155
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 time, we hear of extraordinary things accomplished 
 by aliens employed in this country, many of them in 
 official capacities. We have learned through the 
 Great Eastern Railway Company, and through one 
 or two shipping houses, of huge consignments of 
 stores, and, I make very little doubt, of munitions of 
 war. The thing must have been in train on this side 
 for many months possibly for years. Here, for 
 instance, is an extraordinary item, which is hardly 
 likely to be only coincidence: Out of one hundred 
 postmasters within a sixty-mile radius of Harwich, 
 eighty-one have obtained their positions within the 
 last two years, and of those sixty-nine bear names 
 which indicate German nationality or extraction. 
 But that is only one small item. An analysis of the 
 Eastern Railway employees, and of the larger busi- 
 ness firms between here and Ipswich, will tell a more 
 startling tale, unless I am greatly mistaken." 
 
 But to me, I think the part of the news we gath- 
 ered which seemed most startling was the fact that a 
 tiny special issue of The Times, then being sold in the 
 streets, contained none of the information given to 
 us, but only a cautiously worded warning t the 
 public that the news received from East Anglia had 
 been grossly exaggerated, and that no definite impor- 
 tance should be attached to it, until authoritative 
 information, which would appear in the first ordinary 
 issue of The Times on Monday, had been considered. 
 It was all worded very pompously, and vaguely, in 
 a deprecating tone, which left it open for the reader 
 to conclude that The Times supported the generally 
 accepted hoax theory. And we found that all the 
 
 156
 
 SUNDAY NIGHT IN LONDON 
 
 daily papers of repute and standing had issued sim- 
 ilar bulletins to the public. Asked about this, our 
 grave informant stroked his whiskers, and alluded 
 distantly to " policy decided upon in consultation 
 with representatives of the Crown." 
 
 " For one thing, you see, London is extraordinarily 
 full of Germans, though we have already learned that 
 vast numbers of them went to swell the attendance at 
 the East Anglian Pageant, and may now, for all we 
 know, be under arms. Then, too, anything in the 
 nature of a panic on a large scale, and that before 
 the authorities have decided upon any definite plan of 
 action, would be disastrous. Unfortunately our re- 
 ports from correspondents at the various southern 
 military depots are all to the effect that mobilization 
 will be a slow business. As you know, the regulars 
 in England have been reduced to an almost negligi- 
 ble minimum, and the mobilization of the ' Haldane 
 Army ' involves the slow process of drawing men out 
 of private life into the field. What is worse, it means 
 in many cases Edinburgh men reporting themselves 
 at Aldershot, and south-country men reporting them- 
 selves in the north. And then their practical knowl- 
 edge so far leaves them simply men in the 
 street." 
 
 " But the great trouble is that the Government and 
 the official heads of departments have been at logger- 
 heads this long time past, and now are far from arriv- 
 ing at any definite policy of procedure. Of course, 
 the majority of the leaders are out of town. You 
 will understand that every possible precaution must 
 be taken to avoid unduly alarming the public, or pro- 
 
 157
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 yoking panic. We hope to be able to announce 
 something definite in the morning. The sympathy 
 of all the Powers will undoubtedly be with us, for 
 every known tenet of international law has been out- 
 raged by this entirely unprovoked invasion." 
 
 " And what do you think will be the practical effect 
 and use of their sympathy, Mr. Poole-Smith ? " asked 
 Constance Grey. 
 
 " Well," said our solemn friend, caressing his whis- 
 kers, " as to its practical effect, my dear Miss Grey, 
 why, I am afraid that in such bitter matters as these 
 the practical value of sympathy, or of international 
 law, is er cannot very easily be defined." 
 
 " Quite so. Exactly as I thought. It would not 
 make one pennyworth of difference, Mr. Poole-Smith. 
 The British public is on the eve of learning the mean- 
 ing of brave old Lord Roberts's teaching: that no 
 amount of diplomacy, of ' cordiality,' of treaties, or 
 of anything else in the repertoire of the disarmament 
 party, can ever counterbalance the uses of the rifle 
 in the hands of disciplined men. Their twentieth- 
 century notions will avail us pitifully little against 
 the advance of the Kaiser's legions. The brotherhood 
 of man and the sacred arts of commerce and peace 
 will have little in the way of reply to machine guns. 
 If only our people could have had even one year of 
 universal military training ! But no ; they would not 
 even pay for the maintenance of such defence force 
 as they had when it took three years to beat the 
 Boers ; and now didn't some man write a book 
 called ' The Defenceless Isles '? We live in them." 
 
 " But that is not the worst, Miss Grey," said our 
 158
 
 SUNDAY NIGHT IN LONDON 
 
 friend. " These are now not only defenceless, but 
 invaded isles." 
 
 " Ah ! How long before they become surrendered 
 isles, Mr. Poole-Smith? " 
 
 " The answer to that is with a higher Power than 
 any in Printing House Square, Miss Grey. But, 
 let me say this, in strict confidence, please. You 
 wonder, and perhaps are inclined to condemn our 
 well, our reticence about this news. Do you know 
 my fear? It is that if, in its present mood, suddenly, 
 the British public, and more especially the London 
 public, were allowed to realize clearly both what has 
 happened in East Anglia, and the monumental unfit- 
 ness of our authorities and defences to meet and cope 
 with such an emergency that then we should see 
 England torn in sunder by the most terrible revolu- 
 tion of modern times. We should see statesmen hang- 
 ing from lamp-posts in Whitehall ; ' The Destroyers ' 
 would be destroyed ; the Crown would be in danger, 
 as well as its unworthy servants. And the Kaiser's 
 machine-like army would find it had invaded a rav- 
 aged inferno, occupied by an infuriated populace 
 hopelessly divided against itself, and already in the 
 grip of the deadliest kind of strife. That, I think, 
 is a danger to be guarded against, so far as it is 
 possible, at all or any cost." 
 
 One could not but be impressed by this rather 
 pompous, but sincere and earnest man's words. 
 
 " I see that very clearly, Mr. Poole-Smith," said 
 Constance Grey. " But can the thing be done? Can 
 the public be deluded for more than a few hours ? " 
 
 " Not altogether, my dear young lady, not alto- 
 159
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 gether. But, as we learn early in journalism, life is 
 made up of compromises. We hope to school them 
 to it, and give them the truth gradually, with as little 
 shock as may be." 
 
 Soon after this we left the great office, and, as we 
 passed out into the crowded streets, Constance Grey 
 said to me: 
 
 " Thank God, The Times managed to win clear of 
 the syndicate's clutches when it did. There is moral 
 and strength of purpose there now. I think the Press 
 is behaving finely if only the public can be made to 
 do as well. But, oh, ' The Destroyers ' what a 
 place they have cut out for themselves in history ! " 
 
 But for the glorious summer weather, one could 
 have fancied Christmas at hand from the look of Lud- 
 gate Hill. From the Circus we took a long look up 
 at Paul's great dome, massive and calm against the 
 evening sky. But between it and us was a seething 
 crowd, promenading at the rate of a mile an hour, 
 and served by two solid lines of vendors of useless 
 trifles and fruit, and so forth. 
 
 Crossing Ludgate Circus, as we fought our way to 
 the steps of an omnibus, was a band of youths linked 
 arm in arm, and all apparently intoxicated. There 
 must have been forty in a line. As they advanced, 
 cutting all sorts of curious capers, they bawled, in 
 something like unison, the melancholy music-hall re- 
 frain : 
 
 " They'll never go for England, because England's 
 got the dibs." 
 
 The crowd caught up the jingle as fire licks up 
 grass, and narrow Fleet Street echoed to the mon- 
 
 160
 
 SUNDAY NIGHT IN LONDON 
 
 strous din of their singing. I began to feel anxious 
 about getting Constance safely to her flat. Six out 
 of the fourteen people on the top of our omnibus 
 were noticeably and noisily tipsy. 
 
 " Ah me, Dick, where, where is their British re- 
 serve? How I hate that beloved word cosmopoli- 
 tan!" 
 
 She looked at me, and perhaps that reminded her 
 of something. 
 
 " Forgive my familiarity," she said. " John Cron- 
 dall spoke of you as Dick Mordan. It's rather a way 
 we have out there." 
 
 I do not remember my exact reply, but it earned 
 me the friendly short name from her for the future; 
 and, with England tumbling about our ears, for 
 aught we knew, that, somehow, made me curiously 
 happy. But it was none the less with a sigh of relief 
 that I handed her in at the outer door of the mansions 
 in which their flat was situated. We paused for a 
 moment at the stairs' foot, the first moment of privacy 
 we had known that evening, and the last, I thought, 
 with a recollection of Mrs. Van Homrey waiting in 
 the flat above. 
 
 I know I was deeply moved. My heart seemed full 
 to bursting. Perhaps the great news of that day 
 affected me more than I knew. But yet it seemed I 
 had no words, or very few. I remember I touched 
 the sleeve of her dress with my finger-tips. What I 
 said was: 
 
 " You know I am you know I am at your orders, 
 don't you?" 
 
 And she smiled, with her beautiful, sensitive mouth, 
 161
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 while the light of grave watching never flickered in 
 her eyes. 
 
 " Yes, Dick ; and thank you ! " she said, as we 
 began to mount the stairs. 
 
 Yet I was still the assistant editor of The Mass 
 Clement Elaine's right hand. 
 
 162
 
 XVI 
 
 A PERSONAL REVELATION 
 
 The thorns which I have reap'd are of the tree 
 I planted ; they have torn me, and I bleed. 
 I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed. 
 
 BYRON. 
 
 '"T^HAT Sunday night was not one of London's 
 JL black nights that have been so often described. 
 The police began to be a little sharp with the people 
 after nine or ten o'clock, and by midnight the streets 
 were getting tolerably clear. For the great maj ority, 
 I believe it had been a day of more or less pleasur- 
 able excitement and amusement. For the minority, 
 who were better informed, it was a day and night of 
 curious bewilderment and restless anxiety. 
 
 I looked in at several newspaper offices on my way 
 home from South Kensington, but found that sub- 
 ordinate members of the staffs had no information to 
 give, and that their superiors maintained an attitude 
 of strict reticence. As I passed the dark windows of 
 my own office I thought of our " feature " for the 
 coming week : the demand for disarmament, in order 
 that naval and military expenditure might be diverted 
 into labour reform channels ; Herr Mitmann's volu- 
 ble assurances of the friendliness of the German peo- 
 ple ; of the ability and will of the German Socialists 
 
 163
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 to make German aggression impossible, for the sake 
 of their brother workers in England. 
 
 I thought of these things, and wished I could spurn 
 under foot my connection with The Mass. Then, 
 sitting at the window of my little bed-sitting-room 
 in Bloomsbury, I looked into my petty finances. If I 
 left Clement Elaine I had enough to subsist upon for 
 six or eight weeks. It was a risky business. Then I 
 pictured myself casually mentioning to Constance 
 Grey that I was no longer connected with The Mass. 
 I fancied that I saw the bright approval in her eyes. 
 Before blowing my light out, I had composed the little 
 speech to Elaine which, in the morning, should set 
 a period to our connection. 
 
 And then I thought of Beatrice. It was barely 
 twenty-four hours since we had parted beside Batter- 
 sea Park (though it seemed more like twenty-four 
 days), and recollection showed me Beatrice in her 
 rather rumpled finery, with the bleakness of the gray 
 hour that follows such pleasures as most appealed to 
 her, beginning to steal over her handsome face, sap- 
 ping its warm colour, thinning and sharpening its 
 ripe, smooth contours. Beatrice would pout when 
 she heard of my leaving her father. The thought 
 showed me her full red lips, and the little even white 
 teeth they so often disclosed. 
 
 The curves of Beatrice's mouth were of a kind that 
 have twisted many men's lives awry ; and those men 
 have thought straightness well lost for such red lips. 
 Yes, Beatrice was good to look upon. She had a way 
 of throwing her head back, and showing the smooth, 
 round whiteness of her throat when she laughed, that 
 
 164
 
 A PERSONAL REVELATION 
 
 had thrilled me time and again. And how often, and 
 how gaily she laughed. 
 
 In the midst of a picture of Beatrice, laughing at 
 me across a restaurant table with a raised glass in 
 her hand, I had a shadowy vision of Constance Grey 
 beside the foot of the stairs in South Kensington. 
 There was no laughter in her face. I had gathered, 
 when I dined there, that Constance did not care for 
 wine. She had said : " I don't care for anything that 
 makes me feel as though I couldn't work if I wanted 
 to." How Beatrice would have scoffed at that ! And 
 then, how Constance would have smiled over Bea- 
 trice's ideals her " fluffy " evenings in a kind of 
 regretful, wondering way ; almost as she had smiled 
 when she first called me " Dick," in asking what had 
 become of our staid English reserve; as she watched 
 the noisy crowd in Fleet Street, singing its silly dog- 
 gerel about England's security and England's 
 " dibs." 
 
 And then, suddenly, my picture-making thoughts 
 swept out across low Essex flats to the only part of 
 East Anglia with which I was familiar, and gave me 
 a vision of burning farmhouses, and terror-smitten 
 country-folk fleeing blindly before a hail of bullets, 
 and the pitiless advance of legions of fair-haired men 
 in long coats of a kind of roan-gray, buttoned across 
 the chest with bright buttons arranged to suggest 
 the inward curve to an imaginary waist-line. The 
 faces of the soldiers were all the same; they all had 
 the face of Herr Mitmann of Stettin. And a hot 
 wave of angry resentment and hatred of these 
 machine-like invaders of a peaceful unprotected 
 
 165
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 countryside pulsed through my veins. Could they 
 dare here on English soil? My fists clenched under 
 the bed-clothes. If it was true, by heavens, there was 
 work for Englishmen toward ! 
 
 My blood was hot at the thought. It was perhaps 
 the first swelling of a patriotic emotion I had known ; 
 the first hint of any larger citizenship than that 
 which claims and demands, without thought of giving. 
 And, immediately, it was succeeded by a sharp chill, 
 a chill that ushered me into one of the bitterest mo- 
 ments of humiliation that I can remember. The 
 thought accompanying that chill was this : 
 
 " What can you do? What are you fit for ? What 
 boy's part, even, can you take, though the roof were 
 being burned over your mother's head? What of 
 Constance, or Beatrice? Could you strike a blow for 
 either? Work for Englishmen, forsooth! Yes, for 
 those of them who have ever learned a man's part 
 in such work. But you you have never had a gun 
 in your hand. What have you done? You have 
 poured out for your weekly wage so many thousands 
 of words ; words meaning what ? Why, they have 
 meant what the roadside beggar means : * Give ! 
 Give ! Give ! ' They have urged men to demand 
 more from the State, and give the State nothing; to 
 rob the State of even its defences, for the sake of 
 adding to their own immediate ease. And you have 
 ridiculed, as a survival of barbarous times, the efforts 
 of such men as the brave old Field Marshal who gave 
 his declining years to the thankless task of urging 
 England to make some effort of preparation to fend 
 off just that very crisis which has now come upon her, 
 
 166
 
 A PERSONAL REVELATION 
 
 and found her absolutely unprepared. That is how 
 you have earned your right to live, a citizen of the 
 freest country in the world, a subject of the greatest 
 Empire the world has ever seen. And when you have 
 had leisure and money to spend, you have devoted it 
 to overeating and drinking, and helping to fill the tills 
 of alien parasites in Soho. That has been your part. 
 And now, now that the fatal crisis has arrived, you, 
 whose qualification is that you can wield the pen of 
 a begging letter-writer, who is also scurrilous and in- 
 solent you lie in bed and clench your useless hands, 
 and prate of work for Englishmen ! " 
 
 That was the thought that came to me with a 
 sudden chill that night ; and I suppose I was one of 
 the earliest among millions doomed to writhe under 
 the impotent shame of such a thought. I shall never 
 forget that night in my Bloomsbury lodging. It 
 was my ordeal of self-revelation. I suppose I slept 
 a little toward morning ; but I rose early with a kind 
 of vague longing to escape from the company of the 
 personality my thought had shown me in the night. 
 
 It is natural that the awakening of an individual 
 should be a more speedy process than the awakening 
 of a people a nation. I regard my early rising 
 on that Monday morning as the beginning of my 
 first real awakening to life as an Englishman. I had 
 still far to go I had not even crossed the threshold 
 as yet. 
 
 167
 
 xvn 
 
 ONE STEP FORWARD 
 
 Thy trust, thy honours, these were great; the greater now thy 
 shame, for thou hast proved both unready and unfit, unworthy 
 offspring of a noble sire! MERKOW'S Country Tales. 
 
 FIVE minutes after Clement Elaine reached the 
 office of The Mass that morning, he had lost 
 the services of his assistant editor, and I felt that I 
 had taken one step upward from a veritable quag- 
 mire of humiliation. 
 
 Blaine was almost too excited about the news of the 
 day to pay much heed to my little speech of resig- 
 nation. The morning paper to which he subscribed 
 a Radical journal of pronounced tone had ob- 
 served far less reticence than most of its contempora- 
 ries, and, in its desire to lend sensational interest to 
 its columns, had not minimized in any way the start- 
 ling character of such intelligence as it had received. 
 
 " The bloodthirsty German devils ! " said Blaine, 
 the erstwhile apostle of internationalism and the 
 socialistic brotherhood of man. " By God, the Ad- 
 miralty and the War Office ought to swing for this ! 
 Here are we taxed out of house and home to support 
 their wretched armies and navies, and German sol- 
 diers marching on London, they say, with never a 
 sign of a hand raised to oppose 'em damn them ! 
 
 168
 
 ONE STEP FORWARD 
 
 Nice time you choose to talk of leaving. By God, 
 Mordan, you may be leaving from against a wall with 
 a bullet through your head, next thing you know. 
 These German devils don't wear kid gloves, I fancy. 
 They're not like our tin-pot army. Army! we 
 haven't got one lot of gold-laced puppets ! " 
 
 That was how Clement Blaine was moved by the 
 news. Last week : " Bloated armaments," " huge 
 battalions of idle men eating the heart out of the 
 nation through its revenues." This week, we had no 
 army, and because of it the Admiralty and the War 
 Office ought to " swing." In Elaine's ravings I had 
 my foretaste of public opinion on the crisis. 
 
 On the previous day I had listened to a prominent 
 Member of Parliament urging that our children 
 should be preserved from the contamination of con- 
 tact with those who taught the practice of the " hell- 
 ish art " of shooting. 
 
 The leading daily papers of this Monday morning 
 admitted the central fact that England had been in- 
 vaded during Saturday night, and even allowed read- 
 ers to assume that portions of the eastern counties 
 were then occupied by " foreign " troops. But they 
 used the word " raid " in place of " invasion," and 
 generally qualified it with such a word as " futile." 
 The general tone was that a Power with whom we 
 had believed ourselves to be upon friendly terms had 
 been guilty of rash and provocative action toward 
 us, which it would speedily be made to regret. It 
 was an insult, which would be promptly avenged; 
 full atonement for which would be demanded and ob- 
 tained at once. It was even suggested that some 
 
 169
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 tragic misunderstanding would be found to lie at the 
 root of the whole business ; and in any case, things 
 were to be set right without delay. One journal, the 
 Standard, did go so far as to say that the British 
 public was likely to be forced now into learning at 
 great cost a lesson which had been offered daily as 
 a free gift since the opening of the century, and as 
 steadily repudiated or ignored. 
 
 " Two things it should teach England," said this 
 journal; "never to invite insult and contempt by a 
 repetition of Sunday's Disarmament Demonstration 
 or enunciation of its fallacious and dangerous teach- 
 ing ; and the necessity for paying instant heed to the 
 warnings of the advocates of universal military train- 
 ing for purposes of home defence." 
 
 But at that time the nicknames of the " The Im- 
 perialist Banner " and " The Patriotic Pulpit," ap- 
 plied by various writers and others to this great 
 newspaper, were scornful names, applied with oppro- 
 brious intent ; and London was still full of people 
 whose only comment upon this sufficiently badly- 
 needed warning would be : " Oh, of course, the 
 Standard! " 
 
 But the policy of reticence, though I have no doubt 
 that it did save London from some terrible scenes of 
 panic, was not to be tenable for many hours. Within 
 half an hour of noon special editions of a halfpenny 
 morning paper, and an evening paper belonging to 
 the same proprietors, were issued simultaneously with 
 a full, sensational, and quite unreserved statement of 
 all the news obtainable from East Anglia. A number 
 of motor-cyclists had been employed in the quest of 
 
 170
 
 ONE STEP FORWARD 
 
 intelligence, and one item of the news they had to 
 tell was that Colchester had offered resistance to the 
 invaders, and as a result had been shelled and burned 
 to the ground. A number of volunteers and other 
 civilians had been found bearing arms, and had been 
 tried by drum-head court martial and shot within the 
 hour, by order of the Commander-in-Chief of the 
 German forces. 
 
 Another sensational item was a copy of a proclama- 
 tion issued by the German Commander-in-Chief. This 
 proclamation was dated from Ipswich, and I think 
 it struck more terror into the people than any other 
 single item of intelligence published during that 
 eventful day. It was headed with the Imperial Ger- 
 man Arms, and announced the establishment of Ger- 
 man military jurisdiction in England. It announced 
 that the penalty of immediate death would be inflicted 
 without any exception upon any British subject not 
 wearing and being entitled to wear British military 
 uniform who should be found: 
 
 1. Taking arms against the invaders. 
 
 2. Misleading German troops. 
 
 3. Injuring in any manner whatever any German 
 subject. 
 
 4. Injuring any road, rail, or waterway, or means 
 of communication. 
 
 5. Offering resistance of any kind whatsoever to 
 the advance and occupation of the German Army. 
 
 Then followed peremptory details of instructions 
 as to the supplies which every householder must fur- 
 nish for the German soldiers quartered in his neigh- 
 bourhood, and an announcement as to the supreme 
 
 171
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 and inviolable authority of the German officer in 
 command of any given place. 
 
 Nothing else yet published brought home to the 
 public the realization of what had happened as did 
 this coldly pompous and, in the circumstances, very 
 brutal proclamation. And no item in it so bit into 
 the hearts of the bewildered Londoners who read it 
 as did the clear incisive statement to the effect that 
 a British subject who wore no military uniform would 
 be shot like a dog if he raised a hand in the defence 
 of his country or his home. He must receive the in- 
 vader with open arms, and provide him food, lodging, 
 and assistance of every kind, or be led out and shot. 
 There were hundreds of thousands of men in London 
 that day who would have given very much for the 
 right to wear a uniform which they had learned 
 almost to despise of late years ; a uniform many of 
 them had wished to abolish altogether, as the badge 
 of a primitive and barbarous trade, a " hellish 
 art." 
 
 We had talked glibly enough of war, of its impossi- 
 bility in England, and of the childish savagery of the 
 appeal to arms; just as, a few years earlier, before 
 the naval reductions, we had talked of England's in- 
 violability, secured her by her unquestioned mastery 
 of the sea. We had written and spoken hundreds of 
 thousands of fine words upon these subjects; and, 
 within the last forty-eight hours, we had demon- 
 strated with great energy the needlessness of armed 
 forces for England. For and against, about it and 
 about, we had woven a mazy network of windy plati- 
 tudes and catch-phrases, all devised to hide the mani- 
 
 172
 
 ONE STEP FORWARD 
 
 f est and manly duties of citizenship ; all intended to 
 justify the individual's exclusive concentration upon 
 his own personal pleasures and aggrandizement, with- 
 out waste of time or energy upon any claims of the 
 commonwealth. 
 
 And now, in a few score of short, sharp words, in 
 a single brief document, peremptorily addressed to 
 the fifty million people of these islands, a German 
 soldier had brought an end to all our vapourings, all 
 our smug, self-interested theories, and shattered the 
 monstrous fabric of our complaisance, as it were, with 
 a rattle of his sword-hilt. Never before in history 
 had a people's vanity been so shaken by a word. 
 
 In the early afternoon an unavoidable errand took 
 me to a northeastern suburb. I made my return to 
 town as one among an army of refugees. The people 
 had begun flocking into London from as far north 
 and east as Brentwood. The Great Eastern Railway 
 was disorganized. The northern highways leading 
 into London were occupied by unbroken lines of peo- 
 ple journeying into the city for protection afoot, 
 in motor-cars, on cycles, and in every kind of horse- 
 drawn vehicle, and carrying with them the strangest 
 assortment of personal belongings. 
 
 At the earliest possible hour I made my way toward 
 South Kensington. I told myself there might be 
 something I could do for Constance Grey. Beyond 
 that there was the fact that I craved another sight 
 of her, and I longed to hear her comment when she 
 knew I had finished with The Mass. 
 
 A porter on the Underground Railway told me that 
 the Southwestern and Great Western termini were 
 
 173
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 blocked by feverish crowds of well-to-do people, 
 struggling, with their children, for places in trains 
 bound south and west. Huge motor-cars of the more 
 luxurious type whizzed past one in the street continu- 
 ously, their canopies piled high with bags, their bodies 
 full of women and children, their chaffeurs driving 
 hard toward the southern and western highways. 
 
 Outside South Kensington station I had my first 
 sight of a Royal Proclamation upon the subject of 
 the invasion. Evidently the Government realized 
 that, prepared or unprepared, the state of affairs 
 could no longer be hidden from the public. The King 
 was at Buckingham Palace that day I knew, and it 
 seemed to me that I read rather his Majesty's own 
 sentiments than those of his Cabinet in the Proclama- 
 tion. I gathered that the general public also formed 
 this impression. 
 
 There is no need for me to reproduce a document 
 which forms part of our history. The King's famous 
 reference to the Government " The Destroyers " 
 " Though admittedly unprepared for such a blow, 
 my Government is taking prompt steps for coping in 
 a decisive manner," etc. ; and again, the equally fa- 
 mous reference to the German Emperor, in the sen- 
 tence beginning : " This extraordinary attack by the 
 armed forces of my Royal and Imperial nephew." 
 These features of a nobly dignified and restrained 
 Address seemed to me to be a really direct communi- 
 cation from their Sovereign to the English people. 
 Whatever might be said of the position of " The 
 Destroyers " in Whitehall, it became evident, even at 
 this early stage, that the Throne was in no danger 
 
 174
 
 ONE STEP FORWARD 
 
 that the sanctity pertaining to the person of the 
 Monarch who, as it were in despite of his Government, 
 had done more for the true cause of peace than any 
 other in Europe, remained inviolate in the hearts of 
 the people. 
 
 For the rest, the Proclamation was a brief, simple 
 statement of the facts, with an equally simple but 
 very heart-stirring appeal to every subject of the 
 Crown to concentrate his whole energies, under 
 proper guidance, upon the task of repelling " this 
 dastardly and entirely unprovoked attack upon our 
 beloved country." 
 
 I heard many deeply significant and interesting 
 comments from the circle of men and women who were 
 reading this copy of the Proclamation. The remarks 
 of two men I repeat here because in both cases they 
 were typical and representative. The first remark 
 was from a man dressed as a navvy, with a short clay 
 pipe in his mouth. He said: 
 
 " Oh, yus ; the King's all right ; Gawd bless un ! 
 No one 'Id mind fightin' for 'im. It's 'is blighted 
 Gov'nment wot's all bloomin' wrong blast 'em ! " 
 
 The reply came from a young man evidently of 
 sedentary occupation a shop-assistant or clerk : 
 
 " You're all right, too, old sport ; but don't you 
 forget the other feller's proclamation. If you 'aven't 
 got no uniform, your number's up for lead pills, an' 
 don't you forget it. A fair fight an' no favour's all 
 right; but I'm not on in this blooming execution act, 
 thank you. Edward R. I. will have to pass me, I can 
 see." 
 
 " Well, 'e won't lose much matey, when all's said. 
 175
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 But you're English, anyway ; that seems a pity. 
 Why don't yer run 'ome ter yer ma, eh ? " 
 
 " Go it, old sport. You're a blue-blooded Tory ; 
 an Imperialist, aren't you? " 
 
 " Not me, boy ; I'm only an able-bodied man." 
 
 " What ho ! Got a flag in your pocket, have you ? 
 You watch the Germans don't catch you fer sausage 
 meat." 
 
 And then I passed on, heading for Constance 
 Grey's flat. I reflected that I had done my share 
 toward forming the opinions, the mental attitude of 
 that young clerk or shop-assistant. The type was 
 familiar enough. But I had had no part nor lot in 
 the preservation of that navvy's simple patriotism. 
 Rather, by a good deal, had the tendency of all I 
 said and wrote been toward weakening the sturdy 
 growth, and causing it to be deprecated as a thing 
 archaic, an obstacle in the way of progress. 
 
 Progress ! The expounding of Herr Mitmann of 
 Stettin! That Monday was a minor day of judg- 
 ment for others beside myself. 
 
 176
 
 XVIII 
 
 THE DEAR LOAF 
 
 A third of the people, then, in the event of war, would immedi- 
 ately be reduced to starvation: and the rest of the thirty-eight 
 million would speedily be forced thither. L. COPE COENFORD'S 
 The Defenceless Islands (London, 1906). 
 
 I SAW Constance Grey only for a few minutes dur- 
 ing that day. She had passed the stage of 
 shocked sorrow and sad fear in which I had found 
 her on Sunday, and was exceedingly busy in organiz- 
 ing a corps of assistant nurses, women who had had 
 some training, and were able to provide a practical 
 outfit of nursing requisites. She had the countenance 
 of the Army Medical authorities, but her nursing 
 corps was to consist exclusively of volunteers. 
 
 The organizing ability this girl displayed was ex- 
 traordinary. She spared five minutes for conversa- 
 tion, and warmed my heart with her appreciation of 
 my severance of The Mass connection. And then, 
 before I knew what had happened, she had me im- 
 pressed, willingly enough, in her service, and I was 
 off upon an errand connected with the volunteer 
 nursing corps. News had arrived of some wounded 
 refugees in Romford, unable to proceed on their way 
 into London ; and a couple of motor-cars, with nurses 
 and medical comforts, were despatched at once. 
 
 177
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 Detailed news of the sacking of Colchester showed 
 this to have been a most extraordinarily brutal affair 
 for the work of a civilized army. The British regu- 
 lar troops at Colchester represented the whole of our 
 forces of the northeastern division, and included three 
 batteries of artillery. The regiments of this division 
 had been reduced to three, and for eighteen months 
 or more these had been mere skeletons of regiments, 
 the bulk of the men being utilized to fill other gaps 
 caused by the consistently followed policy of reduc- 
 tion which had characterized " The Destroyers' ' 
 regime. 
 
 A German spy who had been captured in Romford 
 and brought to London, said that the Commander-in- 
 Chief of the German forces in England had publicly 
 announced to his men that the instructions received 
 from their Imperial master were that the pride of the 
 British people must be struck down to the dust ; that 
 the first blows must be crushing; that the British 
 people were to be smitten with terror from which 
 recovery should be impossible. 
 
 Be this as it may, the sacking of Colchester was a 
 terrible business. A number of citizens had joined 
 the shockingly small body of regulars in a gallant 
 attempt at defence. The attempt was quite hopeless ; 
 the German superiority in numbers, discipline, metal, 
 and material being quite overwhelming. But the 
 German commander was greatly angered by the re- 
 sistance offered, and, as soon as he ascertained that 
 civilians had taken part in this, the town was first 
 shelled and then stormed. It was surrounded by a 
 cordon of cavalry, and no prisoners were taken. 
 
 178
 
 THE DEAR LOAF 
 
 The town was burned to the ground, though many 
 valuable stores were first removed from it ; and those 
 of the inhabitants who had not already fled were 
 literally mown down in their native streets, without 
 parley or quarter men, women, and children being 
 alike regarded as offenders against the edict forbid- 
 ding any civilian British subject, upon pain of death, 
 to offer any form of resistance to German troops. 
 I myself spoke to a man in Knightsbridge that eve- 
 ning who had definite news that his nineteen-year-old 
 daughter, a governess in the house of a Colchester 
 doctor, was among those shot down in the streets of 
 the town while endeavouring to make her escape with 
 two children. The handful of British regulars had 
 been shot or cut to pieces, and the barracks and stores 
 taken over by the Germans. 
 
 As I left Constance Grey's flat that evening I 
 passed a small baker's shop, before which an angry 
 crowd was engaged in terrifying a small boy in a 
 white apron, who was nervously endeavouring to put 
 up the window shutters. I asked what the trouble 
 was, and was told the baker had refused to sell his 
 half-quartern loaves under sevenpence, or his quar- 
 tern loaves under a shilling. 
 
 " It's agin the law, so it is," shouted an angry 
 woman. " I'm a policeman's wife, an' I know what 
 I'm talking about. I'll have the law of the nasty 
 mean hound, so I will, with his shillin' for a fivepenny 
 loaf, indeed ! " 
 
 Long before this time, and while Britain still held 
 on to a good proportion of her foreign trade, it had 
 been estimated by statisticians that in the United 
 
 179
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 Kingdom some ten to twelve million persons lived 
 always upon the verge of hunger. But since then the 
 manufacturers of protected countries, notably Ger- 
 many and the United States, had, as was inevitable 
 in the face of our childish clinging to what we mis- 
 called " free " trade, crowded the British manufac- 
 turer out of practically every market in the world, 
 except those of Canada. Those also must of necessity 
 have been lost, but for the forbearing and enduring 
 loyalty of the Canadian people, who, in spite of per- 
 sistent rebuffs, continue4 to extend and to increase 
 their fiscal preference for imports from the Mother- 
 country. 
 
 But, immense as Canada's growth was even then, 
 no one country could keep the manufacturers of 
 Britain busy ; and I believe I am right in saying that 
 at this time the number of those who lived always on 
 the verge of hunger had increased to at least fifteen 
 millions. Cases innumerable there were in which 
 manufacturers themselves had gone to swell the ranks 
 of the unemployed and insufficiently employed; the 
 monstrous legion of those who lived always close to 
 the terrifying spectre of hunger. 
 
 If the spirit of Richard Cobden walked the earth 
 at that time, even as his obsessions assuredly still 
 cumbered it, it must have found food for bitter re- 
 flection in the hundreds of empty factories, grass- 
 grown courtyards, and broken-windowed warehouses, 
 which a single day's walk would show one in the north 
 of England. 
 
 You may be sure I thought of those things as I 
 walked away from that baker's shop in South Ken- 
 
 180
 
 THE DEAR LOAF 
 
 sington. A journalist, even though he be only the 
 assistant of a man like Blaine, is apt to see the condi- 
 tions of life in his country fairly plainly, because he 
 has a wider vision of them than most men. Into Fleet 
 Street, each day brings an endless stream of " news 
 items," not only from all parts of the world, but from 
 every town and city in the kingdom. And your jour- 
 nalist, though he may have scant leisure for its diges- 
 tion, absorbs the whole of this mass of intelligence 
 each day in the process of conveying one-tenth part 
 of it, in tabloid form, to the public. 
 
 If one assumes for the moment that only twelve 
 million people in Great Britain were living on hun- 
 ger's extreme edge at that time, the picture I had of 
 the sullen, angry crowd outside the baker's shop re- 
 mains a sufficiently sinister one. As a matter of fact, 
 I believe that particular baker was a shade prema- 
 ture, or a penny or two excessive, in his advance of 
 prices. But I know that by nightfall you could not 
 have purchased a quartern loaf for elevenpence half- 
 penny within ten miles of Charing Cross. The 
 Bakers' Society had issued its mandates broadcast. 
 Shop-windows were stoned that night in south and 
 east London ; but twenty-four hours later the price 
 of the quartern loaf was Is. 3d., and a man offering 
 Is. 2d. would go empty away. 
 
 And with the same loaf selling at one-third the 
 price, twelve million persons at least had lived always 
 on the verge of hunger. I mention the staple food 
 only, but precisely the same conditions applied to all 
 other food-stuffs with the exception of dairy produce, 
 the price of which was quadrupled by Tuesday after- 
 
 181
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 noon, and fish, the price of which put it at once 
 beyond the reach of all save the rich, and all delica- 
 cies, the prices of which became prohibitive. Twelve 
 million persons had lived on the verge of hunger, 
 before, under normal conditions, and when the coun- 
 try's trade had been far larger and more prosperous 
 than of late. Now, with the necessities of lif e stand- 
 ing at fully three times normal prices, a large number 
 of trades employing many thousands of work-people 
 were suddenly shut down upon, and rendered com- 
 pletely inoperative. 
 
 It must be borne in mind that we had been warned 
 again and again that matters would be precisely thus 
 and not otherwise in the event of war, and we had 
 paid no heed whatever to the telling. 
 
 Historians have explained for us that the primary 
 reason of the very sudden rise to famine rates of the 
 prices of provisions was the persistent rumour that 
 the effective bulk of the Channel Fleet had been cap- 
 tured or destroyed on its way northward from Span- 
 ish waters. German strategy had drawn the Fleet 
 southward, in the first place, by means of an inter- 
 national " incident " in the Mediterranean, which was 
 clearly the bait of what rumour called a death-trap. 
 Once trapped, it was said, German seamanship and 
 surprise tactics had done the rest. 
 
 The crews of the Channel Fleet ships (considerably 
 below full strength) had been rushed out of shore 
 barracks, in which discipline had fallen to a terribly 
 low ebb, to their unfamiliar shipboard stations, at the 
 time of the Mediterranean scare. Beset by the flower 
 of the German Navy, in ships manned by crews who 
 
 182
 
 THE DEAR LOAF 
 
 Kred afloat, it was asserted that the Channel Fleet had 
 been annihilated, and that the entire force of the 
 German Navy was concentrated upon the task of 
 patrolling English waters. 
 
 We know that men and horses, stores and muni- 
 tions of war, were pouring steadily and continuously 
 into East Angtia from Germany daring this time, es- 
 corted by German cruisers and torpedo-boats, and 
 uninterrupted by British ships. There was yet no 
 report of the Channel Fleet, the ships of which 
 were already twenty-four hours overdue at Ports- 
 mouth. 
 
 Two things, more than any others, had influenced 
 the British Navy during the Administration of " The 
 Destroyers " : the total cessation of building opera- 
 tions, and the withdrawal of ships and men from sea 
 service. The reserve ships had long been unfit to put 
 to sea, the reserve crews had, for all practical pur- 
 poses, become landsmen landsmen among whom 
 want of sea-going discipline had of late produced 
 many mutinous outbreaks. 
 
 It had been said by the most famous admiral of the 
 time, and said without much exaggeration, that, 
 within twelve months of " The Destroyers' " aban- 
 donment of the traditional two-Power standard of 
 efficiency, the British Navy had u fallen to half- 
 Power standard." The process was quickened, of 
 course, by the unprecedented progress of the German 
 Navy during the same period. It was said that at the 
 end of 1907 the German Government had ships of 
 war building in every great dockyard in the world. 
 It is known that the entire fleet of the u Kaiser " class 
 
 1S3
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 torpedo-boats and destroyers was built and set afloat 
 at the German Emperor's own private expense. 
 
 Then there were the " Well-borns," as they were 
 called vessels of no great weight of metal, it is 
 true, but manned, armed, officered, and found better 
 perhaps than any other war-ships in the world; en- 
 tirely at the instigation of the German Navy League, 
 and out of the pockets of the German nobility. The 
 majority of our own wealthy classes preferred sink- 
 ing their money in German motor-cars and German 
 pleasure resorts ; or one must assume so, for it is well 
 known that our Navy League had long since ceased 
 to exert any active influence, because it was unable to 
 raise funds enough to pay its office expenses. 
 
 Our Navy might have had a useful reserve to draw 
 upon in the various auxiliary naval bodies if these 
 had not, one by one, been abolished. The Mercantile 
 Marine was not in a position to lend much assistance 
 in this respect, for our ships at that time carried 
 eighty-seven thousand foreign officers and men, three 
 parts of whom were Teutons. These facts were pre- 
 sumably all well known to the heads and governing 
 bodies of the various trades, and, that being so, the 
 extremely pessimistic attitude adopted by them, di- 
 rectly the fact of invasion was established, is scarcely 
 to be wondered at. 
 
 In banking, insurance, underwriting, stock and 
 share dealing, manufacturing, and in every branch 
 of shipping the lead of the bakers were followed, and 
 in many cases exceeded. The premiums asked in in- 
 surance and underwriting, and the unprecedented 
 advance in the bank-rate, corresponding as it did 
 
 184
 
 THE DEAR LOAF 
 
 with a hopeless " slump " in every stock and share 
 quoted on the Stock Exchange, from Consols to min- 
 ing shares, brought business to a standstill in London 
 on Monday afternoon. 
 
 On Tuesday entire blocks of offices remained un- 
 opened. In business, more perhaps than in any other 
 walk of life, self-preservation and self-advancement 
 were at that time, not alone the first, but the only 
 fixed law. With bread at Is. 4d. a loaf, great ship- 
 owners in England were cabling the masters of wheat 
 ships in both hemispheres to remain where they were 
 and await orders. 
 
 This last fact I learned from Leslie Wheeler, whom 
 I happened to meet hurrying from the City to Water- 
 loo, on his way down to Weybridge. His family were 
 leaving for Devonshire next morning, to stay with 
 relatives there. 
 
 " But, bless me ! " I said, when he told me that 
 friends of his father, shipping magnates, had des- 
 patched such cable messages that morning, " surely 
 that's a ruffianly thing to do, when the English people 
 are crying out for bread ? " 
 
 Leslie shrugged his smartly-clad shoulders. " It's 
 the English people's own affair," he said. 
 
 "How's that?" 
 
 " Why, you see it's all a matter of insurance. All 
 commerce is based on insurance, in one form or an- 
 other. The cost of shipping insurance to-day is ab- 
 solutely prohibitive; in other words, there isn't any. 
 We did have a permanent and non-fluctuating form 
 of insurance of a kind one time. But you Socialist 
 chaps social reform, Little England for the Eng- 
 
 185
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 lish, and all that you swept that away. Wouldn't 
 pay for it; said it wasn't wanted. Now it's gone, 
 and you're feeling the pinch. The worst of it is, you 
 make the rest of us feel it, too. I'm thankful to say 
 the dad's pulling out fairly well. He told me yester- 
 day he hadn't five hundred pounds in anything Brit- 
 ish. Wise old bird, the dad ! " 
 
 My friend's " You Socialist chaps " rather wrang 
 my withers ; its sting not being lessened at all by my 
 knowledge of its justice. I asked after the welfare 
 of the Wheeler family generally, but it was only as 
 Leslie was closing the door of the cab he hailed that 
 I mentioned Sylvia. 
 
 " Yes, Sylvia's all right," he said, as he waved me 
 good-bye ; " but she won't come away with the rest 
 of us absolutely refuses to budge." 
 
 And with that he was off, leaving me wondering 
 about the girl who had at one time occupied so much 
 of my mind, but of late had had so little of it. Dur- 
 ing the next few hours I wove quite a pretty story 
 round Sylvia's refusal to accompany her family. I 
 even thought of her as joining Constance Grey's 
 nursing corps. 
 
 The thought of this development of Sylvia Wheel- 
 er's character interested me so much that I wrote to 
 her that evening, tentatively sympathizing with her 
 determination not to be frightened away from her 
 own place. The whole thing was a curious misappre- 
 hension on my part; but Sylvia's reply (explaining 
 that it was her particular place of worship she re- 
 fused to leave, and that she was staying " with his 
 
 186
 
 THE DEAR LOAF 
 
 Reverence's sister "), though written within twenty- 
 four hours, did not reach me until after many 
 days days such as England will never face 
 again. 
 
 187
 
 XIX 
 
 THE TRAGIC WEEK 
 
 England can never have an efficient army during peace, and she 
 must, therefore, accept the rebuffs and calamities which are always 
 in store for the nation that is content to follow the breed of cow- 
 ards who usually direct her great affairs. The day will come when 
 she will violently and suddenly lose her former fighting renown to 
 such an unmistakable extent that the plucky fishwives will march 
 upon Downing Street, and if they can catch its usual inmates, will 
 read them. One party is as bad as the other, and I hope and pray 
 that when the national misfortune of a great defeat at sea over- 
 takes us, followed by the invasion of England, that John Bull will 
 turn and rend the jawers and talkers who prevent us from being 
 prepared to meet invasion. From a letter written by Lord Wolsley, 
 ex-Commander-in-Chief of the British Army, to Lord Wemyss, and 
 published, and ignored by the public, in the year 1906. 
 
 IT is no part of my intention to make any attempt 
 to limp after the historians of the Invasion. The 
 Official History, the half-dozen of standard military 
 treatises, and the well-known works of Low, Forster, 
 Gordon, and others, have allowed few details of the 
 Invasion to escape unrecorded. But I confess it has 
 always seemed to me that these writers gave less atten- 
 tion to the immediate aftermath of the Invasion than 
 that curious period demanded. Yet here was surely 
 a case in which effect was of vastly more inportance 
 than cause, and aftermath than crisis. But perhaps 
 I take that view because I am no historian. 
 
 188
 
 THE TRAGIC WEEK 
 
 To the non-expert mind, the most bewildering and 
 extraordinary feature of that disastrous time was the 
 amazing speed with which crisis succeeded crisis, and 
 events, each of themselves epoch-making in character, 
 crashed one upon another throughout the progress 
 toward Black Saturday. We know now that much 
 of this fury of haste which was so bewildering at the 
 time, which certainly has no parallel in history, was 
 due to the perfection of Germany's long-laid plans. 
 Major-General Farquarson, in his " Military History 
 of the Invasion," says: 
 
 " It may be doubted whether in all the history of 
 warfare anything so scientifically perfect as the prep- 
 arations for this attack can be found. It is safe to 
 say that every inch of General von Fiichter's prog- 
 ress was mapped out in Berlin long months before 
 it came to astound and horrify England. The maps 
 and plans in the possession of the German staff were 
 masterpieces of cartographical science and art. The 
 German Army knew almost to a bale of hay what 
 provender lay between London and the coast, and 
 where it was stored ; and certainly their knowledge of 
 East Anglia far exceeded that of our own authorities. 
 The world has never seen a quicker blow struck; it 
 has seldom seen a blow so crushingly severe; it has 
 not often seen one so aggressively unjustifiable. And, 
 be it noted, that down to the last halter and the least 
 fragment of detail, the German Army was provided 
 with every conceivable aid to success in duplicate. 
 
 " Never in any enterprise known to history was 
 less left to chance. The German War Office left 
 nothing at all to chance, not even its conception a 
 
 189
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 certainty really of Britain's amazing unreadiness. 
 And the German Army took no risks. A soldier's 
 business, whether he be private or Field Marshal, is, 
 after all, to obey orders. It would be both foolish 
 and unjust to blame General von Fiichter. But the 
 fact remains that no victorious army ever risked less 
 by generosity than the invading German Army. Its 
 tactics were undoubtedly ruthless ; they were the tac- 
 tics necessitated by the orders of the Chief of the 
 Army. They were more severe, more crushing, than 
 any that have ever been adopted even by a punitive 
 expedition under British colours. They were suc- 
 cessful. For that they were intended. Swiftness and 
 thoroughness were of the essence of the contract. 
 
 " With regard to their humanity or morality I am 
 not here concerned. But it should always be remem- 
 bered by critics that British apathy and neglect made 
 British soil a standing temptation to the invader. 
 The invasion was entirely unprovoked, so far as di- 
 rect provocation goes. But who shall say it was 
 entirely undeserved, or even unforeseen, by advisers 
 whom the nation chose to ignore? This much is cer- 
 tain : Black Saturday and the tragic events leading 
 up to it were made possible, not so much by the skill 
 and forethought of the enemy, which were notable, 
 as by a state of affairs in England which made that 
 day one of shame and humiliation, as well as a day 
 of national mourning. No just recorder may hope 
 to escape that fact." 
 
 In London, the gravest aspect of that tragic week 
 was the condition of the populace. It is supposed 
 that over two million people flocked into the capital 
 
 190
 
 THE TRAGIC WEEK 
 
 during the first three days. And the prices of the 
 necessities of life were higher in London than any- 
 where else in the country. The Government measures 
 for relief were ill-considered and hopelessly inade- 
 quate. But, in justice to " The Destroyers," it must 
 be remembered that leading authorities have said that 
 adequate measures were impossible, from sheer lack of 
 material. 
 
 During one day I think it was Wednesday 
 huge armies of the hungry unemployed nine-tenths 
 of our wage-earners were unemployed were set to 
 work upon entrenchments in the north of London. 
 But there was no sort of organization, and most of 
 the men streamed back into the town that night, un- 
 paid, unfed, and sullenly resentful. 
 
 Then, like cannon shots, came the reports of the 
 fall of York, Bradford, Leeds, Halifax, Hull, and 
 Huddersfield, and the apparently wanton demolition 
 of Norwich Cathedral. The sinking of the Dread- 
 nought near the Nore was known in London within 
 the hour. Among the half-equipped regulars who 
 were hurried up from the southwest, I saw dozens of 
 men intercepted in the streets by the hungry crowds, 
 and hustled into leaving their fellows. 
 
 Then came Friday's awful " surrender riot " at 
 Westminster, a magnificent account of which gives 
 Martin's big work its distinctive value. I had left 
 Constance Grey's flat only half an hour before the 
 riot began, and when I reached Trafalgar Square 
 there was no space between that and the Abbey in 
 which a stone could have been dropped without fall- 
 ing upon a man or a woman. There were women in 
 
 191
 
 that maddened throng, and some of them, crying 
 hoarsely in one breath for surrender and for bread, 
 were suckling babies. 
 
 No Englishman who witnessed it could ever forget 
 that sight. The Prime Minister's announcement that 
 the surrender should be made came too late. The 
 panic and hunger-maddened incendiaries had been at 
 work. Smoke was rising already from Downing 
 Street and the back of the Treasury. Then came the 
 carnage. One can well believe that not a single un- 
 necessary bullet was fired. Not to believe that would 
 be to saddle those in authority with a less than human 
 baseness. But the question history puts is: Who 
 was primarily to blame for the circumstances which 
 led up to the tragic necessity of the firing order? 
 
 Posterity has unanimously laid the blame upon the 
 Administration of that day, and assuredly the task 
 of whitewashing " The Destroyers " would be no 
 light or pleasant one. But, again, we must remind 
 ourselves that the essence of the British Constitution 
 has granted to us always, for a century past at least, 
 as good a Government as we have deserved. " The 
 Destroyers " may have brought shame and humilia- 
 tion upon England. Unquestionably, measures and 
 acts of theirs produced those effects. But who and 
 what produced " The Destroyers " as a Government ? 
 The only possible answer to that is, in the first place, 
 the British public; in the second place, the British 
 people's selfish apathy and neglect, where national 
 duty and responsibility were concerned, and blindly 
 selfish absorption, in the matter of its own individual 
 interests and pleasures. 
 
 192
 
 THE TRAGIC WEEK 
 
 One hundred and thirty-two men, women, and 
 children killed, and three hundred and twenty-eight 
 wounded; the Treasury buildings and the official 
 residence of the Prime Minister gutted ; that was the 
 casualty list of the " Surrender Riot " at Westmin- 
 ster. But the figures do not convey a tithe of the 
 horror, the unforgettable shame and horror, of the 
 people's attack upon the Empire's sanctuary. The 
 essence of the tragedy lay in their demand for imme- 
 diate and unconditional surrender ; the misery of it 
 lay in " The Destroyers' " weak, delayed, terrified re- 
 sponse, followed almost immediately by the order to 
 those in charge of the firing parties an order flung 
 hysterically at last, the very articulation of panic. 
 
 No one is likely to question Martin's assertion that 
 Friday's tragedy at Westminster must be regarded 
 " not alone as the immediate cause of Black Satur- 
 day's national humiliation, but also as the crucial 
 phase, the pivot upon which the development of the 
 whole disastrous week turned." But the Westminster 
 Riot at least had the saving feature of unpremedita- 
 tion. It was, upon the one side, the outcry of a 
 wholly undisciplined, hungry, and panic-smitten pub- 
 lic ; and, upon the other side, the irresponsible, more 
 than half-hysterical action of a group of terrified and 
 incompetent politicians. These men had been swept 
 into great positions, which they were totally unfitted 
 to fill, by a tidal wave of reactionary public feeling, 
 and of the blind selfishness of a decadence born of 
 long freedom from any form of national discipline; 
 of liberties too easily won and but half-understood; 
 
 193
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 of superficial education as to rights, and absymal ig- 
 norance as to duties. 
 
 But, while fully admitting the soundness of Mar- 
 tin's verdict, for my part I feel that my experiences 
 during that week left me with memories not perhaps 
 more shocking, but certainly more humiliating and 
 disgraceful to England, than the picture burnt into 
 my mind by the Westminster Riot. I will mention 
 two of these. 
 
 By Wednesday a large proportion of the rich resi- 
 dents of Western London had left the capital to take 
 its chances, while they sought the security of coun- 
 try homes, more particularly in the southwestern 
 counties. Such thoroughfares as Piccadilly, Regent 
 Street, and Bond Street were no longer occupied by 
 well-dressed people with plenty of money to spend. 
 Their usual patrons were for the most part absent ; 
 but, particularly at night, they were none the less 
 very freely used more crowded, indeed, than ever 
 before. The really poor, the desperately hungry 
 people, had no concern whatever with the wrecking 
 of the famous German restaurants and beer-halls. 
 They were not among the Regent Street and Picca- 
 dilly promenaders. 
 
 The Londoners who filled these streets at night 
 the people who sacked the Leicester Square hotel and 
 took part in the famous orgie which Blackburn de- 
 scribes as " unequalled in England since the days 
 of the Plague, or in Europe since the French Revolu- 
 tion " ; these people were not at all in quest of food. 
 They were engaged upon a mad pursuit of pleasure 
 and debauchery and drink. " Eat, drink, and be 
 
 194.
 
 THE TRAGIC WEEK 
 
 vicious ; but above all, drink and be vicious ; for this 
 is the end of England ! " That was their watchword. 
 
 I have no wish to repeat Blackburn's terrible stories 
 of rapine and bestiality, of the frenzy of intoxication, 
 and the blind savagery of these Saturnalias. In their 
 dreadful nakedness they stand for ever in the pages 
 of his great book, a sinister blur, a fiery warning, 
 writ large across the scroll of English history. I 
 only wish to say that scenes I actually saw with my 
 own eyes (one episode in trying to check the horror 
 of which I lost two fingers and much blood), prove 
 beyond all question to me that, even in its most lurid 
 and revolting passages, Blackburn's account is a mere 
 record of fact, and not at all, as some apologists have 
 sought to show, an exaggerated or overheated version 
 of these lamentable events. 
 
 Regarded as an indication of the pass we had 
 reached at this period of our decadence, this stage 
 of our trial by fire, the conduct of the crowds in 
 Western London during those dreadful nights, im- 
 pressed me more forcibly than the disaster which 
 Martin considers the climax and pivot of the week's 
 tragedy. 
 
 One does not cheerfully refer to these things, but, 
 to be truthful, I must mention the other matter which 
 produced upon me, personally, the greatest sense of 
 horror and disgrace. 
 
 Military writers have described for us most fully 
 the circumstances in which General Lord Wensley's 
 command was cut and blown to pieces in the Epping 
 and Romford districts. Authorities are agreed that 
 the records of civilized warfare have nothing more 
 
 195
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 horrible to tell than the history of that ghastly butch- 
 ery. As a slaughter, there was nothing exactly like 
 it in the Russo-Japanese war for we know that 
 there were less than a hundred survivors of the whole 
 of Lord Wensley's command. But those who 
 mourned the loss of these brave men had a consola- 
 tion of which nothing could rob them; the consola- 
 tion which is graven in stone upon the Epping monu- 
 ment; a consolation preserved as well in German as 
 in English history. Germany may truthfully say of 
 the Epping shambles that no quarter was given that 
 day. England may say, with what pride she may, 
 that none was asked. The last British soldier slaugh- 
 tered in the Epping trenches had no white flag in his 
 hand, but a broken bayonet, and, under his knee, the 
 Colours of his regiment. 
 
 The British soldiers in those blood-soaked trenches 
 were badly armed, less than half-trained, under- 
 officered, and of a low physical standard. But these 
 lamentable facts had little or nothing to do with their 
 slaughter. There were but seven thousand of them, 
 while the German force has been variously estimated 
 at between seventy thousand and one hundred thou- 
 sand horse and foot, besides artillery. One need not 
 stop to question who should bear the blame for the 
 half -trained, vilely equipped condition of these heroic 
 victims. The far greater question, to which the only 
 answer can be a sad silence of remorse and bitter 
 humiliation, bears upon the awful needlessness of 
 their sacrifice. 
 
 The circumstances have been described in fullest 
 detail from authentic records. The stark fact which 
 
 196
 
 THE TRAGIC WEEK 
 
 stands out before the average non-expert observer is 
 that Lord Wensley was definitely promised reinforce- 
 ments to the number of twenty thousand horse and 
 foot; that after the Westminster Riot not a single 
 man or horse reached him ; and he was never informed 
 of the Government's forced decision to surrender. 
 
 And thus those half-trained boys and men laid 
 down their lives for England within a dozen miles of 
 Westminster, almost twelve hours after a weak-kneed, 
 panic-stricken Cabinet had passed its word to the 
 people that England would surrender. 
 
 That, to my thinking, was the most burning feature 
 of our disgrace ; that, as an indication of our parlous 
 estate, is more terrible than Martin's " pivot " of the 
 tragic week. 
 
 197
 
 XX 
 
 BLACK SATURDAY 
 
 Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour: 
 England hath need of thee: she is a fen 
 Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen, 
 Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, 
 Have forfeited their ancient English dower 
 Of inward happiness. We are selfish men. 
 
 WORDSWOBTH. 
 
 IN the afternoon of Black Saturday, General von 
 Fiichter, the Commander-in-Chief of the German 
 Army in England, took up his quarters, with his staff, 
 in the residence of the German Ambassador to the 
 Court of St. James in Carlton House Terrace, and, 
 so men said, enjoyed the first sleep he had had for a 
 week. (The German Ambassador had handed in his 
 credentials, and been escorted out of England on the 
 previous Monday.) 
 
 Throughout the small hours of Saturday morning 
 I was at work near Romford as one of the volunteer 
 bearers attached to Constance Grey's nursing corps. 
 That is one reason why the memory of the north of 
 London massacre will never leave me. One may as- 
 sume that the German Army had no wish to kill 
 nurses, but, as evidence of the terrible character of 
 the onslaught on the poor defences of London, I may 
 recall the fact that three of our portable nursing 
 
 198
 
 BLACK SATURDAY 
 
 shelters were blown to pieces ; while of Constance 
 Grey's nurses alone five were killed and fourteen were 
 badly wounded. 
 
 Myself, I had much to be thankful for, my only 
 wound being the ploughing of a little furrow over 
 the biceps of my right arm by a bullet that passed 
 out through the back of my coat. But a circum- 
 stance for which my gratitude was more deeply 
 moved was the fact that Constance Grey, despite a 
 number of wonderfully narrow escapes, was entirely 
 uninjured. 
 
 The actual entry of General von Fiichter and his 
 troops into London has been so often described that 
 nothing remains for me to say about that. Also, I 
 am unable to speak as an eye witness, since Constance 
 Grey and myself were among those who returned to 
 London, in the rear of the German troops, with the 
 ambulances. The enemy's line of communications 
 stretched now from the Wash to London, and between 
 Brentwood and London there were more Germans 
 than English. I believe the actual number of troops 
 which entered London behind General von Fiichter was 
 under forty-eight thousand ; but to the northward, 
 northeast, and northwest the huge force which really 
 invested the capital was spread in careful formation, 
 and amply provided with heavy artillery, then trained 
 upon central London from all such points as the 
 Hampstead heights. 
 
 Although a formal note of surrender had been con- 
 veyed to General von Fiichter at Romford, after the 
 annihilation of our entrenched troops, occasional shots 
 were fired upon the enemy as they entered London. 
 
 199
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 Indeed, in the Whitechapel Road, one of the Gen- 
 eral's aides-de-camp, riding within a few yards of his 
 chief, was killed by a shot from the upper windows 
 of a provision shop. But the German reprisals were 
 sharp. It is said that fifty-seven lives paid the pen- 
 alty for the shooting of that aide-de-camp. Several 
 streets of houses in northeast London were burned. 
 
 By this time the Lord Mayor of London had been 
 notified that serious results would accrue if any 
 further opposition were offered to the German ac- 
 ceptance of London's surrender ; and proclamations 
 to that effect were posted everywhere. But the great 
 bulk of London's inhabitants were completely cowed 
 by hunger and terror. Practically, it may be said 
 that, throughout, the only resistance offered to the 
 Army of the invaders was that which ended so tragi- 
 cally in the trenches beyond Epping and Romford, 
 with the equally tragical defence of Colchester, and 
 some of the northern towns captured by the eighth 
 German Army Corps. 
 
 In London the people's demand from the first had 
 been for unconditional surrender. It was this demand 
 which had culminated in the Westminster Riot. The 
 populace was so entirely undisciplined, so completely 
 lacking in the sort of training which makes for self- 
 restraint, that even if the Government had been 
 possessed of an efficient striking force for defensive 
 purposes, the public would not have permitted its 
 proper utilization. The roar of German artillery 
 during Friday night and Saturday morning, with the 
 news of the awful massacre in the northern entrench- 
 
 200
 
 BLACK SATURDAY 
 
 ments, had combined to extinguish the last vestige of 
 desire for resistance which remained in London. 
 
 Almost all the people with money had left the cap- 
 ital. Those remaining the poor, the refugees from 
 northward, irresponsibles, people without a stake of 
 any kind ; these desired but the one thing : food and 
 safety. The German Commander-in-Chief was wise. 
 He knew that if time had been allowed, resistance 
 would have been organized, even though the British 
 regular Army had, by continuous reductions in the 
 name of " economy," practically ceased to exist as a 
 striking force. And therefore time was the one thing 
 he had been most determined to deny England;. 
 
 It is said that fatigue killed more German soldiers 
 than fell to British bullets; and the fact may well 
 be believed when we consider the herculean task Gen- 
 eral von Fiichter had accomplished in one week. His 
 plan of campaign was to strike his hardest, and to 
 keep on striking his hardest, without pause, till he 
 had the British Government on its knees before him ; 
 till he had the British public maddened by sudden 
 fear, and the panic which blows of this sort must 
 bring to a people with no defensive organization, 
 and no disciplinary training cowed and crying for 
 quarter. 
 
 The German Commander has been called inhuman, 
 a monster, a creature without bowels. All that is 
 really of small importance. He was a soldier who 
 carried out orders. His orders were ruthless orders. 
 The instrument he used was a very perfect one. He 
 carried out his orders with the utmost precision and 
 thoroughness ; and his method was the surest, quick- 
 
 201
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 est, and, perhaps, the only way of taking possession 
 of England. 
 
 At noon precisely, the Lord Mayor of London was 
 brought before the German Commander-in-Chief in 
 the audience chamber of the Mansion House, and 
 formally placed under arrest. A triple cordon of 
 sentries and two machine-gun parties were placed in 
 charge of the Bank of England, and quarters were 
 allotted for two German regiments in the immediate 
 vicinity. Two machine-guns were brought into posi- 
 tion in front of the Stock Exchange, and all avenues 
 leading from the heart of the City were occupied by 
 mixed details of cavalry and infantry, each party 
 having one machine-gun. 
 
 My acquaintance, Wardle, of the Sunday News, 
 was in the audience chamber of the Mansion House 
 at this time, and he says that he never saw a man look 
 more exhausted than General von Fiichter, who, ac- 
 cording to report, had not had an hour's sleep during 
 the week. But though the General's cheeks were 
 sunken, his chin unshaven, and his eyes blood-red, his 
 demeanour was that of an iron man stern, brusque, 
 taciturn, erect, and singularly immobile. 
 
 Food was served to this man of blood and iron in 
 the Mansion House, while the Lord Mayor's secretary 
 proceeded to Whitehall, with word to the effect that 
 the Commander-in-Chief of the German forces in 
 England awaited the sword and formal surrender of 
 the British Commander, before proceeding to take 
 up quarters in which he would deal with peace nego- 
 tiations. 
 
 Forster's great work, " The Surrender," gives the
 
 BLACK SATURDAY 
 
 finest description we have of the scene that followed. 
 The Field Marshal in command of the British forces 
 had that morning been sent for by a Cabinet Council 
 then being held in the Prime Minister's room at the 
 House of Commons. With nine members of his staff, 
 the white-haired Field Marshal rode slowly into the 
 City, in full uniform. His instructions were for un- 
 conditional surrender, and a request for the immedi- 
 ate consideration of the details of peace negotia- 
 tions. 
 
 The Field Marshal had once been the most popular 
 idol of the British people, whom he had served nobly 
 in a hundred fights. Of late years he himself had 
 been as completely disregarded, as the grave warn- 
 ings, the earnest appeals, which he had bravely con- 
 tinued to urge upon a neglectful people. The very 
 Government which now despatched him upon the hard- 
 est task of his whole career, the tendering of his 
 sword to his country's enemy, had for long treated 
 him with cold disfavour. The general public, in its 
 anti-national madness, had sneered at this great little 
 man, their one-time hero, as a Jingo crank. 
 
 (As an instance of the lengths to which the public 
 madness went in this matter, the curious will find in 
 the British Museum copies of at least one farcical 
 work of fiction written and published with consider- 
 able success, as burlesques of that very invasion which 
 had now occurred, of the possibility of which this 
 loyal servant in particular had so earnestly and so 
 unavailingly warned his countrymen.) 
 
 Now, the blow he had so often foreshadowed had 
 fallen ; the capital of the British Empire was actually 
 
 203
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 in possession of an enemy ; and the British leader 
 knew himself for a Commander without an Army. 
 
 He had long since given his only son to the cause 
 of Britain's defence. The whole of his own strenuous 
 life had been devoted to the same cause. His declin- 
 ing years had known no ease by reason of his unceas- 
 ing and thankless striving to awaken his fellow coun- 
 trymen to a sense of their military responsibilities. 
 Now he felt that the end of all things had come for 
 him, in the carrying out of an order which snapped 
 his life's work in two, and flung it down at the feet of 
 England's almost unopposed conqueror. 
 
 The understanding Englishman has forgiven Gen- 
 eral von Fiichter much, by virtue of his treatment of 
 the noble old soldier, who with tear-blinded eyes and 
 twitching lips tendered him the surrender of the 
 almost non-existent British Army. No man ever 
 heard a speech from General von Fiichter, but the 
 remark with which he returned our Field Marshal's 
 sword to him will never be forgotten in England. He 
 said, in rather laboured English, with a stiff, low bow : 
 
 " Keep it, my lord. If your countrymen had not 
 forgotten how to recognize a great soldier, I could 
 never have demanded it of you." 
 
 And the man of iron saluted the heart-broken 
 Chief of the shattered British Army. 
 
 We prefer not to believe the report that this, the 
 German Commander's one act of gentleness and mag- 
 nanimity in England, was subsequently paid for by 
 the loss of a certain Imperial decoration. But, if the 
 story was true, then the decoration it concerned was 
 well lost. 
 
 204
 
 BLACK SATURDAY 
 
 It was a grim, war-stained procession that followed 
 General von Fiichter when, between two and three 
 o'clock, he rode with his staff by way of Ludgate 
 Hill and the Strand to Carlton House Terrace. But 
 the cavalry rode with drawn sabres, the infantry 
 marched with fixed bayonets, and, though weariness 
 showed in every line of the men's faces, there was as 
 yet no sign of relaxed tension. 
 
 Throughout that evening and night the baggage 
 wagons rumbled through London, without cessation, 
 to the two main western encampments in Hyde Park. 
 The whole of Pall Mall and Park Lane were occupied 
 by German officers that night, few of the usual occu- 
 pants of the clubs in the one thoroughfare, or the 
 residences in the other, being then in London. 
 
 By four o'clock General von Fiichter's terms were 
 in the hands of the Government which had now com- 
 pleted its earning of the title of " The Destroyers." 
 The Chief Commissioner of Police and the principal 
 municipal authorities of greater London had all been 
 examined during the day at the House of Commons, 
 and were unanimous in their verdict that any delay in 
 the arrangement of peace and the resumption of 
 trade, ashore and afloat, could mean only revolution. 
 Whole streets of shops had been sacked and looted 
 already by hungry mobs, who gave no thought to the 
 invasion or to any other matter than the question of 
 food supply. A great, lowering crowd of hungry 
 men and women occupied Westminster Bridge and the 
 southern embankment (no German soldiers had been 
 seen south of the Thames ) waiting for the news of the 
 promised conclusion of peace terms. 
 
 205
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 There is not wanting evidence that certain mem- 
 bers of the Government had already bitterly repented 
 of their suicidal retrenchment and anti-defensive atti- 
 tude in the past. But repentance had come too late. 
 The Government stood between a hungry, terrified 
 populace demanding peace and food, and a mighty 
 and victorious army whose commander, acting upon 
 the orders of his Government, offered peace at a ter- 
 rible price, or the absolute destruction of London. 
 For General von Fiichter's brief memorandum of 
 terms alluded threateningly to the fact that his heavy 
 artillery was so placed that he could blow the House 
 of Commons into the river in an hour. 
 
 At six o'clock the German terms were accepted, a 
 provisional declaration of peace was signed, and 
 public proclamations to that effect, embodying refer- 
 ence to the deadly perils which would be incurred by 
 those taking part in any kind of street disorder, were 
 issued to the public. As to the nature of the German 
 terms, it must be admitted that they were as pitiless 
 as the German tactics throughout the invasion, and 
 as surely designed to accomplish their end and object. 
 Berlin had not forgotten the wonderful recuperative 
 powers which enabled France to rise so swiftly from 
 out of the ashes of 1870. Britain was to be far more 
 effectually crippled. 
 
 The money indemnity demanded by General von 
 Fiichter was the largest ever known: one thousand 
 million pounds sterling. But it must be remembered 
 that the enemy already held the Bank of England. 
 One hundred millions, or securities representing that 
 amount, were to be handed over within twenty-four 
 
 206 
 

 
 BLACK SATURDAY 
 
 hours. The remaining nine hundred millions were to 
 be paid in nine annual instalments of one hundred 
 millions each, the first of which must be paid within 
 three months. Until the last payment was made, 
 German troops were to occupy Glasgow, Cardiff, 
 Portsmouth, Devonport, Chatham, Yarmouth, Har- 
 wich, Hull, and Newcastle. The Transvaal was to be 
 ceded to the Boers under a German Protectorate. 
 Britain was to withdraw all pretensions regarding 
 Egypt and Morocco, and to cede to Germany, Gibral- 
 tar, Malta, Ceylon, and British West Africa. 
 
 It is not necessary for me to quote the few further 
 details of the most exacting demands a victor ever 
 made upon a defeated enemy. There can be no doubt 
 that, in the disastrous circumstances they had been so 
 largely instrumental in bringing about, " The Des- 
 troyers " had no choice, no alternative from their 
 acceptance of these crushing terms. 
 
 And thus it was that not at the end of a long 
 and hard-fought war, as the result of vast misfor- 
 tunes or overwhelming valour on the enemy's side, but 
 simply as the result of the condition of utter and 
 lamentable defencelessness into which a truckling 
 Government and an undisciplined, blindly selfish peo- 
 ple had allowed England to lapse the greatest, 
 wealthiest Power in civilization was brought to its 
 knees in the incredibly short space of one week, by 
 the sudden but scientifically devised onslaught of a 
 single ambitious nation, ruled by a monarch whose 
 lack of scruples was more than balanced by his 
 strength of purpose. 
 
 SOT
 
 XXI 
 
 ENGLAND ASLEEP 
 
 Evil springs up, and flowers, and bears no seed, 
 And feeds the green earth with its swift decay, 
 Leaving it richer for the growth of truth. LOWELL. 
 
 ENERAL VON FUCHTER and his splendidly 
 V_T trained troops were not the only people in 
 England for whom the mere fatigue of that week was 
 something not easily to be forgotten. My impression 
 of its last three days is that they brought no period 
 of rest for any one. I know that there were as many 
 people in the streets by night as by day. The act of 
 going within doors or sitting down, seemed in some 
 way to be a kind of cowardice, a species of shirking, 
 or disloyalty. 
 
 I remember Constance Grey assuring me that she 
 had lain down for an hour on Thursday. I can say 
 with certainty that we were both of us on our feet 
 from that time until after the terms of the surrender 
 were made known on Saturday evening. I can also 
 say that no thought of this matter of physical weari- 
 ness occurred to me until that period of Saturday 
 evening soon after seven o'clock it was when 
 the proclamations were posted up in Whitehall, and 
 the special issues of the newspapers containing the 
 peace announcements began to be hawked. 
 
 208
 
 ENGLAND ASLEEP 
 
 An issue of the Standard, a single sheet, with broad 
 black borders, was the first press announcement to 
 reach the public; and it contained a grave, closely 
 reasoned address from the most famous statesman of 
 the Opposition, urging upon the public the need vital 
 of exercising the utmost cautiousness and self-re- 
 straint. 
 
 " England has been stricken to the earth," said this 
 dignified statement. " Her condition is critical. If 
 the injury sustained is not to prove mortal, the 
 utmost circumspection is required at this moment. 
 The immediate duty of every loyal subject is quietly 
 to concentrate his energies for the time upon the 
 restoration of normal conditions. In that way only 
 can our suffering country be given that breathing 
 space which is the first step toward recuperation. 
 For my part, I can conceive of no better, quicker 
 method for the individual of serving this end than for 
 him to make the speediest possible return to the pur- 
 suit of his ordinary avocation in life. It is to be 
 hoped that, bearing in mind our urgent need, all em- 
 ployers of labour will do their utmost to provide 
 immediate occupation for their work-people. It is 
 not in the tragic catastrophe of the past week, but in 
 the ordeal of this moment, of the coming days, that 
 the real test of England's endurance lies. Never be- 
 fore was her need so great ; never before has Nelson's 
 demand had so real and intimate a message for each 
 and every one of us. I pray God the response may 
 ring true. ' England expects that every man will 
 do his duty ! ' " 
 
 I must not omit my tribute to those responsible for 
 209
 
 the salient fact that this important issue of the jour- 
 nal whose unwavering Imperialism had been scoffed 
 at in the mad times before the Invasion, was not sold, 
 but distributed. Employment was found for hun- 
 dreds of hungry men, women, and children in its free 
 distribution; their wage being the thing they most 
 desired: bread, with soup, which, as I learned that 
 night, was prepared in huge coppers in the foundry 
 of the printing works. 
 
 I was with Constance Grey in Trafalgar Square 
 when the news of the accepted terms of peace reached 
 us. We had just secured admission into Charing 
 Cross Hospital not without considerable difficulty, 
 for its wards were crowded for two wounded 
 nurses from Epping. Together we read the news, 
 and when the end was reached it seemed to me that 
 the light of life and energy passed suddenly out of 
 my companion. She seemed to suffer some bodily 
 change and loss, to be bereft of her spring and erect- 
 ness. 
 
 " Ah, well," she said, " I am very tired, Dick ; 
 and, do you know, it occurs to me I have had nothing 
 to eat since yesterday afternoon. I wonder can we 
 get away from these men, anywhere? " 
 
 The streets between Victoria and Hyde Park were 
 lined by German cavalry men, who sat motionless on 
 their chargers, erect and soldierly, but, in many cases, 
 fast asleep. 
 
 We began to walk eastward, looking for some place 
 in which we could rest and eat. But every place 
 seemed to be closed. 
 
 210
 
 ENGLAND ASLEEP 
 
 " How long have you been on your feet? " said 
 Constance, as we passed the Law Courts. 
 
 " Only since Thursday evening," I said. " I had 
 a long rest in that cart, you remember the one I 
 brought the lint and bandages in." 
 
 Just then we passed a tailor's shop-window, and, 
 in a long, narrow strip of mirror I caught a full- 
 length reflection of myself. I positively turned 
 swiftly to see who could have cast that reflection. 
 Four days without shaving and without a change of 
 collar ; two days without even washing my hands or 
 face ; four days without undressing, and eight hours' 
 work beside the North London entrenchments 
 these experiences had made a wild-looking savage of 
 me, and, until that moment, I had never thought of 
 my appearance. 
 
 Smoke, earth, and blood had worked their will upon 
 me. My left hand, from which two fingers were miss- 
 ing, was swathed in blackened bandages. My right 
 coat-sleeve had been cut off by a good-natured fellow 
 who had bandaged the flesh wound in my arm to stop 
 its bleeding. My eyes glinted dully in a black face, 
 with curious white fringes round them, where their 
 moisture had penetrated my skin of smoked dirt. And 
 here was I walking beside Constance Grey ! 
 
 Then I realized, for the first time, that Constance 
 herself bore many traces of these last few terrible 
 days. In some mysterious fashion her face and 
 collar seemed to have escaped scot free ; but her dress 
 was torn, ragged, and stained ; and the intense weari- 
 ness of her expression was something I found it hard 
 to bear. 
 
 211
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 Just then we met Wardle of the Sunday News, and 
 he told us of the bread and soup distribution in the 
 Standard office. Something warned me that Con- 
 stance had reached the limit of her endurance, and, 
 in another moment, she had reeled against me and 
 almost fallen. I took her in my arms, and Wardle 
 walked beside me, up a flight of stairs and into the 
 office of the great newspaper. There I walked into 
 the first room I saw the sanctum of some mana- 
 gerial bashaw, for aught I knew and placed Con- 
 stance comfortably in a huge easy chair of green 
 leather. 
 
 Wardle brought some water, for Constance was in 
 a fainting state still; but I hurried him off again to 
 look for bread and soup. Meantime I lowered Con- 
 stance to the floor, having just remembered that in 
 such a case the head should be kept low. Her face 
 was positively deathly lips, cheeks, all alike gray- 
 white, save for the purple hollows under both eyes. 
 One moment I was taking stock of these things, as 
 a doctor might; the next I was on my knees and 
 kissing the nerveless hand at her side, all worn and 
 bruised and stained as it was from her ceaseless striv- 
 ings of the past week. I knew then that, for me, 
 though I should live a hundred years and Constance 
 should never deign to speak to me again, there was 
 but one woman in the world. 
 
 I am afraid Wardle found me at the same employ ; 
 but, though I remember vaguely resenting his fresh 
 linen and normally smart appearance, he was a good 
 fellow, and knew when to seem blind. All he said was : 
 
 "Here's the soup!"
 
 "I WAS ON MY KNEES AND KISSING THE NERVELESS HAXD :
 
 ENGLAND ASLEEP . 
 
 He had brought a small washhand basin full to the 
 brim, and a loaf of warm, new bread. As the steam 
 of the hot soup reached me, I realized that I was a 
 very hungry animal, whatever else I might be besides. 
 It may have been the steam of the soup that rallied 
 Constance. I know that within two minutes I was 
 feeding her with it from a cracked teacup. It is a 
 wonderful thing to watch the effect of a few mouth- 
 fuls of hot soup upon an exhausted woman, whose 
 exhaustion is due as much to lack of food as need of 
 rest. There was no spoon, but the teacup, though 
 cracked, was clean, and I found a tumbler in a luxu- 
 rious little cabinet near the chair one felt was dedi- 
 cated to the Fleet Street magnate whose room we had 
 invaded. A tumbler is almost as convenient to drink 
 soup from as a cup, but requires more careful manip- 
 ulation when hot. If the side of the tumbler becomes 
 soupy, it can easily be wiped with the crumb of new 
 bread. 
 
 Wardle seemed to be as sufficiently nourished as he 
 was neatly dressed ; but he found a certain vicarious 
 pleasure, I think, in watching Constance and myself 
 at the bowl. We sat on the Turkey carpet, and used 
 the seat of the green chair as a table a strange 
 meal, in strange surroundings ; but a better I never 
 had, before or since. There was a physical gratifica- 
 tion, a warmth and a comfort to me, in watching the 
 colour flowing gradually back into Constance's face; 
 a singularly beautiful process of nature I thought it. 
 Presently the door of the room opened with a jerk, 
 and a tallish man wearing a silk hat looked in. 
 
 " H'm ! " he said brusquely. " Beg pardon ! "
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 And he was gone. I learned afterwards that the 
 room belonged to him, and that he came direct from 
 a conference of newspaper pundits called together at 
 Westminster by the Home Secretary. I do not know 
 where he took refuge, but as for us we went on with 
 our soup and bread till repletion overtook us, as it 
 quickly does after long fasts, and renewed strength 
 brought sighs of contentment. 
 
 " Wardle," I remember saying to my journalistic 
 friend, with absurd earnestness, " have you anything 
 to smoke? " 
 
 " I haven't a thing but my pipe," he said. " But 
 wait a moment ! There used to be yes. Look 
 here!" 
 
 There was a drawer in a side-table near the great 
 writing-table, and one division of it was half -full of 
 cigarettes, the other of Upman's " Torpedoes." 
 
 " I will repay thee," I murmured irreverently, as 
 I helped myself to one of each, and lit the cigarette, 
 having obtained permission from Constance. It was 
 the first tobacco I had tasted for forty-eight hours, 
 and I was a very regular smoker. I had not known 
 my need till then, a fact which will tell much to 
 smokers. 
 
 " And now ? " said Constance. Her eyelids were 
 drooping heavily. 
 
 " Now I am going to take you straight out to 
 South Kensington, and you are going to rest." 
 
 I had never used quite that tone to Constance 
 before. I think, till now, hers had been the guiding 
 and directing part. Yet her influence had never been 
 stronger upon me than at that moment.
 
 ENGLAND ASLEEP 
 
 " Well, of course, there are no cabs or omnibuses," 
 said Wardle, " but a man told me the Underground 
 was running trains at six o'clock." 
 
 We had a long, long wait at Blackfriars' station, 
 but a train came eventually, and we reached the flat 
 in South Kensington as a neighbouring church clock 
 struck ten. The journey was curious and impressive 
 from first to last. Fleet Street had been very much 
 alive still when we left it; and we saw long files of 
 baggage wagons rumbling along between Prussian 
 lancers. But Blackfriars was deserted, the ticket 
 collector slept soundly on his box; the streets in 
 South Kensington were silent as the grave. 
 
 London slept that night for the first time in a week. 
 I learned afterwards how the long lines of German 
 sentries in Pall Mall, Park Lane, and elsewhere slept 
 solidly at their posts ; how the Metropolitan police 
 slept on their beats; how thousands of men, women, 
 and children slept in the streets of South London, 
 whither they had fled panic-stricken that morning. 
 Conquerors and conquered together, the whole vast 
 city slept that night as never perhaps before or since. 
 After a week of terror, of effort, of despair, and of 
 debauchery, the sorely stricken capital of the British 
 Empire lay that night like a city of the dead. Eng- 
 land and her invaders were worn out. 
 
 At the flat we found Mrs. Van Homrey placidly 
 knitting. 
 
 " Well, young folk," she said cheerily ; " I've had 
 all the news, and there's nothing to be said ; and 
 there's bath and bed waiting for you, Conny. I shall 
 bring you something hot in your room." 
 
 15
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 Ah, the kindly comfort of that motherly soul's 
 words ! It was but a few hours since her " Conny " 
 had stood by my side on ground that was literally 
 blood-soaked. Since the previous night we had both 
 seen Death in his most terrible guise; Death swing- 
 ing his dripping scythe through scores of lives at a 
 stroke. We had been in England's riven heart 
 throughout the day of England's bitterest humilia- 
 tion ; and Mrs. Van Homrey had bed and bath wait- 
 ing, with " something hot " for Constance to take in 
 her room. 
 
 " But, Aunty, if you could have seen 
 
 " Dear child, I know it all." She patted her niece's 
 shoulder, and I noticed the rings and the shiny soft- 
 ness of her fingers. She saw at a glance 
 indeed, had seen beforehand, in anticipation the 
 wrought-up, exhausted condition Constance had 
 reached. " I know it all, dear," she said soothingly. 
 " But the time has come for rest now. Nothing else 
 is any good till that is done with. Come, child. God 
 will send better days for England. First, we must 
 rest." 
 
 So Constance turned to leave the room. 
 
 " And you ? " she said to me. 
 
 " I will see to him. You run along, my dear," 
 said her aunt. So Constance took my hand. 
 
 " Good night, Dick. You have been very good and 
 kind, and patient. Good night ! " 
 
 There was no spare bedroom in that little flat, but 
 the dear old lady had actually made up a bed for me 
 on a couch in the drawing-room, and before she re- 
 tired for the night she made me free of the bathroom, 
 
 216
 
 and supplied me with towels and such like matters, 
 and gave me cake and cocoa ; a delicious repast I 
 thought it. And so, while crushed and beaten Lon- 
 don lay sleeping off its exhaustion, I slept under Con- 
 stance Grey's roof, full of gratitude, and of a kind 
 of new hope and gladness, very foreign, one would 
 have said, to my gruesome experiences of the past 
 forty-eight hours. 
 
 England, the old victorious island kingdom, be- 
 queathed to us by Raleigh, Drake, Nelson ; the nine- 
 teenth-century England of triumphant commercial- 
 ism; England till then inviolate for a thousand 
 years ; rich and powerful beyond all other lands ; 
 broken now under the invader's heel that ancient 
 England slept. 
 
 217
 
 PART n 
 
 THE AWAKENING 
 
 Exoriare aliquis de nostris ex ossibus ultor. VIRGIL.
 
 THE FIRST DAYS 
 
 The river glideth at his own sweet will. 
 Dear God! the very houses seem asleep ; 
 And all that mighty heart is lying still! 
 
 Without Thee, what is all the morning's wealth ? 
 Come, blessed barrier between day and day, 
 Dear Mother of fresh thoughts and joyous health! 
 
 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 T T is safe to say that England's exhausted sleep on 
 -*- the night of Black Saturday marked the end of 
 an era in British history. It was followed by a curi- 
 ous, quiescent half-consciousness during Sunday. 
 For the greater part of that day I should suppose 
 that more than half London's populace continued 
 its sleep. 
 
 One of the first things I realized after Monday 
 morning's awakening in my Bloomsbury lodging was 
 that I must find wages and work speedily, since I 
 possessed no more than a very few pounds. As a fact, 
 upon that and several subsequent days I found plenty 
 of work, if nothing noticeable in the way of wages. 
 I was second in command of one of the food and 
 labour bureaux which Constance Grey helped to or- 
 ganize, and all the workers in these bureaux were 
 volunteers.
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 Another of my first impressions after the crisis was 
 a sense of my actual remoteness, in normal circum- 
 stances, from Constance. Her father had left Con- 
 stance a quite sufficient income. Mrs. Van Homrey 
 was in her own right comfortably well-to-do. But, 
 despite the exiguous nature of my own resources, it 
 was not the money question which impressed me most 
 in this connection, but rather the fact that, while my 
 only acquaintances in London were of a more or less 
 discreditable sort, Constance seemed to have friends 
 everywhere, a.nd these in almost every case people of 
 standing and importance. Her army friends were apt 
 to be generals, her political friends ex-Ministers, her 
 journalistic friends editors, and so forth. And I 
 But you have seen my record up to this point. 
 
 Nobody could possibly want Constance so much as 
 I did, I thought. But an astonishing number of 
 persons of infinitely more consequence than myself 
 seemed to delight to honour her, to obtain her co- 
 operation. And I loved her. There was no possi- 
 bility of my mistaking the fact. I had been used to 
 debate with myself regarding Sylvia Wheeler. 
 There was no room for debate where my feeling for 
 Constance was concerned. The hour of her break- 
 down in Fleet Street on Black Saturday had taught 
 me so much. 
 
 In the face of my circumstances just then, the idea 
 of making any definite disclosure of my feelings to 
 Constance seemed impracticable. Yet there was one 
 intimate passage between us during that week, the 
 nature of which I cannot precisely define. I know I 
 conveyed some hint to Constance of my feeling toward 
 
 222
 
 THE FIRST DAYS 
 
 her, and I was made vaguely conscious that anything 
 like a declaration of love would have seemed shocking 
 to her at that time. She held that, at such a junc- 
 ture, no merely personal interests ought to be allowed 
 to weigh greatly with any one. The country's call 
 upon its subjects was all-absorbing in the eyes of 
 this " one little bit of a girl from South Africa," as 
 Crondall had called her. It made me feel ashamed to 
 realize how far short I fell (even after the shared ex- 
 periences culminating in Black Saturday) of her 
 personal standard of patriotism. Even now, my 
 standing in her eyes, my immediate personal needs, 
 loomed nearer, larger in my mind than England's 
 fate. I admitted as much with some shamefacedness, 
 and Constance said: 
 
 " Ah, well, Dick, I suspect that is a natural part of 
 life lived entirely in England, the England of the 
 past. There was so little to arouse the other part in 
 one. All the surrounding influences were against it. 
 My life has been different. Once one has lived, in 
 one's own home, through a native rising, for instance, 
 purely personal interests never again seem quite so 
 absorbing. The elemental things had been so long 
 
 shut out of English life. Why, do you know ? " 
 
 And she began to tell me of one of the schemes in 
 which she was interested; in connection with which 
 I learned of a cable message she had received that 
 day telling that John Crondall was then on his way 
 to England. 
 
 The least forgiving critics of " The Destroyers " 
 have admitted that they did their best and worked 
 well during those strange weeks which came immedi- 
 
 223
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 ately after the invasion. One reason of this was that 
 party feeling in politics had been scotched. The 
 House of Commons met as one party. There was no 
 longer any real Opposition, unless one counted a small 
 section of rabid anti-Britishers, who were incapable 
 of learning a lesson ; and even they carped but feebly, 
 while the rest of the House devoted its united ener- 
 gies to the conduct of the country's shattered business 
 with the single aim of restoring normal conditions. 
 Throughout the country two things were tacitly ad- 
 mitted. That the Government in power must pres- 
 ently answer for its doings to the public before ceas- 
 ing to be a Government; and that the present was 
 no time for such business as that of a general election. 
 
 And so we had the spectacle of a Government which 
 had entirely lost the confidence of the electors, a 
 Government anathematized from the Orkneys to 
 Land's End, carrying on its work with a unison and 
 a complete freedom from opposition such as had not 
 been known before, even by the biggest majority or 
 the most popular Administration which had ever sat 
 at Westminster. For the first time, and by no effort 
 of our own, we obtained the rule of an Imperial Par- 
 liament devoted to no other end than the nation's 
 welfare. The House of Commons witnessed many 
 novel spectacles at that time such as consultations 
 between the leading members of the Government and 
 the Opposition. Most of its members learned many 
 valuable lessons in those first weeks of the new regime. 
 It is to be supposed that the Surrender Riot had 
 taught them something. 
 
 It must also be admitted that General, or, as he
 
 now was, General Baron von Fiichter, accomplished 
 some fine work during this same period. It has been 
 said that he was but consulting the safety of his 
 Imperial master's armed forces; but credit may 
 safely be given the General for the discretion and 
 despatch he used in distributing the huge body of 
 troops at his command, without hitch or friction, to 
 the various centres which it was his plan to occupy. 
 His was a hand of iron, but he used it to good pur- 
 pose; and the few errors of his own men were pun- 
 ished with an even more crushing severity than he 
 showed where British offences were concerned. 
 
 The task of garrisoning those English ports with 
 German soldiers was no light or easy one; no task 
 for a light or gentle hand. In carrying out this 
 undertaking a very little weakness, a very small dis- 
 play of indecision, might easily have meant an ap- 
 palling amount of bloodshed. As it was, the whole 
 business was completed in a wonderfully short while, 
 and with remarkable smoothness. The judicial and 
 municipal administration of these centres was to re- 
 main English; but supreme authority was vested in 
 the officer commanding the German forces in each 
 place, and the heads of such departments as the postal 
 and the police, were German. No kind of public 
 gathering or demonstration was permissible in these 
 towns, unless under the auspices of the German of- 
 ficer in command, who in each case was given the rank 
 of Governor of the town. 
 
 We had learned by this time that the Channel 
 Fleet had not been entirely swept away. But a por- 
 tion of it was destroyed, and the remaining ships had 
 
 225
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 been entrapped. It was strategy which had kept 
 British ships from our coasts during the fatal week 
 of the invasion. " The Destroyers " were responsi- 
 ble for our weak-kneed concessions to Berlin some 
 years earlier, in the matter of wireless telegraphy. 
 In the face of urgent recommendations to the con- 
 trary from experts, the Government had yielded to 
 German pressure in the matter of making our own 
 system interchangeable, and had even boasted of their 
 diplomacy in thus ingratiating themselves with Ger- 
 many. As a consequence, the enemy had been able 
 to convey messages purporting to come from the 
 British Admiralty and ordering British commanders 
 to keep out of home waters. 
 
 That these messages should have been conveyed in 
 secret code form was a mystery which subsequent 
 investigations failed to solve. Some one had played 
 traitor. But the history of the invasion has shown 
 us that we had very many traitors among us in those 
 days ; and there came a time when the British public 
 showed clearly that it was weary of Commissions of 
 Inquiry. Where so many, if not indeed all of us, 
 were at fault, where the penalty was so crushing, it 
 was felt that there were other and more appropriate 
 openings for official energy and public interest than 
 the mere apportioning of blame and punishment, 
 however well deserved. 
 
 The issue of what was called the " Invasion 
 Budget " was Parliament's first important act, after 
 the dispersal of the German forces in England, and 
 the termination of the Government distribution of 
 food supplies. The alterations of customs tariff were 
 
 226
 
 THE FIRST DAYS 
 
 not particularly notable. The House had agreed that 
 revenue was the objective to be considered, and fiscal 
 adjustments with reference to commerce were post- 
 poned for the time. The great change was in the 
 income-tax. The minimum income to be taxed was 
 f 100 instead of, as formerly, 160. The scale ran 
 like this: sixpence in the pound upon incomes of 
 between 100 and 150, ninepence from that to 
 200, one shilling from that to 250, one and three- 
 pence from that to 500, one and sixpence from that 
 to 1,000, two shillings upon all incomes of between 
 1,000 and 5,000, and four shillings in the pound 
 upon all incomes of over 5,000. 
 
 It was on the day following that of the Invasion 
 Budget issue that I received a letter from my sister 
 Lucy, in Davenham Minster, telling me of my 
 mother's serious illness, and asking me to come to 
 her at once. And so, after a hurried visit to the 
 South Kensington flat to explain my absence to Con- 
 stance, I turned my back upon London, for the first 
 time in a year, and journeyed down into Dorset.
 
 n 
 
 ANCIENT LIGHTS 
 
 Then the progeny that springs 
 
 From the forests of our land, 
 Armed with thunder, clad with wings, 
 
 Shall a wider world command. 
 
 Kegions Caesar never knew 
 Thy posterity shall sway. 
 
 COWPER. 
 
 IN the afternoon of a glorious summer's day, ex- 
 actly three weeks after leaving London, I stood 
 beside the newly filled grave of my mother in the 
 moss-grown old churchyard of Davenham Minster. 
 
 My dear mother was not one of those whose end 
 was hastened by the shock of England's disaster. 
 Doctor Wardle gave us little hope of her recovery 
 from the first. The immediate cause of death was 
 pneumonia ; but I gathered that my mother had come 
 to the end of her store of vitality, and, it may be, of 
 desire for life. I have sometimes thought that her 
 complete freedom from those domestic cares of house- 
 keeping, which had seemed to be the very source and 
 fountainhead of continuous worry for her, may 
 actually have robbed my mother of much of her hold 
 upon life. In these last days I had been almost con- 
 
 228
 
 ANCIENT LIGHTS 
 
 tinuously beside her, and I know that she relinquished 
 her life without one sigh that spelt regret. 
 
 Standing there at the edge of her grave in the 
 hoary churchyard of the Minster, I was conscious of 
 the loss of the last tie that bound me to the shelter 
 of youth: the cared- for, irresponsible division of a 
 man's life. The England of my youth was no more. 
 Now, in the death of my mother, it seemed as if I had 
 stepped out of one generation into another. I had 
 entered a new generation, and was alone in it. 
 
 I was to sleep at my sister's house that night, but 
 I had no wish to go there now. Doctor Wardle's 
 forced gravity, his cheerful condolences, rather wor- 
 ried me. So it happened that I set out to walk from 
 the churchyard, and presently found myself upon the 
 winding upland road that led out of the rich Daven- 
 ham valley, over the Ridgeway, and into the hilly 
 Tarn Regis country, where I was born. 
 
 I drank a mug of cider in the quaint little beer- 
 house kept by Gammer Joy in Tarn Regis, and read 
 again the doggerel her grandfather had painted on 
 its sign-board, in which the traveller was advised of 
 the various uses of liquor, taken in moderation, and 
 the evil effects of its abuse. Taken wisely, I remember, 
 it was suggested that liquor proved the best of lubri- 
 cants for the wheels of life. Mrs. Joy looked just 
 as old and just as active and rosy as she had always 
 looked for so long as I could remember; and she 
 hospitably insisted upon my eating a large slab of 
 her dough cake with my cider a very excellent 
 comestible it was. 
 
 The old dame's mood was cheerfully pessimistic 
 229
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 that is to say, she was garrulous, and spoke cheerily 
 of generally downward tendencies. Thus, the new 
 rector, by her way of it, was of a decadent modern 
 type, full of newfangled " Papish " notions as to 
 church vestments and early services, and neglectful 
 of traditional responsibilities connected with soup and 
 coal and medical comforts. Cider was no longer what 
 it used to be, I gathered, since the big brewers took 
 it in hand, and spoiled the trade of those who had 
 hand-presses. As for farming, Gammer Joy held 
 that it was not near so good a trade for master or 
 man with land at fifteen shillings the acre, as much 
 of it was thereabouts, as it had been with rents up to 
 two or three pounds, and food twice as dear as 
 now. 
 
 " But there, Master Dick," said the old lady ; " I 
 suppose we be all Germans now so they do tell me, 
 however ; an' if we be no better nor furriners here in 
 Darset, why I doan't know as't matters gertly wha' 
 cwomes to us at all. But I will say things wor dif- 
 ferent in your f eyther's time, Master Dick that 
 they was. Ah doan't believe he'd ha' put up wi' this 
 German business for a minute, that ah doan't." 
 
 I gathered that the new rector was an earnest 
 young man and a hard worker; but, evidently, those 
 of Gammer Joy's generation preferred my father's 
 aloofness in conjunction with his regular material 
 dispensations, and his habit of leaving folk severely 
 to themselves, so far as their thoughts and feelings 
 were concerned. 
 
 The cottagers with whom I talked that summer's 
 evening cherished a monumental ignorance regarding 
 
 230
 
 ANCIENT LIGHTS 
 
 the real significance of the events which had shaken 
 England to its very roots since I had last seen Tarn 
 Regis. Gammer Joy's view seemed to be fairly typ- 
 ical. We had become German ; England belonged to 
 Germany ; the Radicals had sold us to the Kaiser 
 and so forth. But no German soldiers had been seen 
 in Dorset. The whole thing was shadowy, academic, 
 a political business ; suitable enough for the discus- 
 sion of Londoners, no doubt, but, after all, of small 
 bearing upon questions of real and intimate interest, 
 such as the harvest, the weather, and the rate of 
 wages. 
 
 " Sims queer, too, that us should be born again like, 
 and become Germans," said one man to me ; " but ah 
 doan't know as it meakes much odds to the loike o' 
 we; though ah hev heerd as how Farmer Jupp be 
 thinkin' o' gettin' shut o' his shartharn bull that won 
 the prize to Davenham, an' doin' wi' fower men an' a 
 b'y, in place o' sevin. Well, o' course, us has to keep 
 movin' wi' the times, as sayin' is ; an' 'tis trew them 
 uplan' pastures o' Farmer Jupp's they do be mos' 
 onusual poor an' leery, as you med say." 
 
 Twilight already held the land in its grave embrace 
 when I made my way along Abbott's Lane (my father 
 had devoted months to the task of tracing the origin 
 of that name) and began the ascent of Barebarrow, 
 by crossing which diagonally one reaches the Daven- 
 ham turnpike from Tarn Regis, a shorter route by 
 nearly a mile than that of the road past the mill and 
 over the bridge. And so, presently, my feet were 
 treading turf which had probably been turf before 
 the Christian era. Smooth and vast against the sky- 
 
 231
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 line, Barebarrow lay above me, like a mammoth at 
 rest. 
 
 On its far side was our Tarn Regis giant, a famous 
 figure cut in the turf, and clearly visible from the 
 tower of Davenham Minster. Long ago, in my earli- 
 est childhood, village worthies had given me the story 
 of this figure how once upon a time a giant came 
 and slew all the Tarn Regis flocks for his breakfast. 
 Then he lay down to sleep behind Barebarrow, and 
 while he slept the enraged shepherds and work-folk 
 bound him with a thousand cart-ropes, and slew him 
 with a thousand scythes and forks and other homely 
 implements. And then, that posterity might know 
 his fearsome bulk, they cut out the turf all round his 
 form, and eke the outline of the club beside him, and 
 left the figure there to commemorate their valour and 
 the loss of their flocks. Some three hundred feet long 
 it was, I think, with a club the length of a tall pine- 
 tree. In any case, the Tarn Regis lad who would 
 excel in feats of strength had but to spend the night 
 of Midsummer's Eve in the crook of the giant's arm 
 (as some one or two did every year), and other 
 youths of the countryside could never stand a chance 
 with him. 
 
 I paused on the ledge below the barrow beside a 
 ruined shepherd's hut, and recalled the fact that here 
 my father had unearthed sundry fragments of stone 
 and pieces of implements which the Dorchester 
 Museum curator had welcomed as very early British 
 relics. They went back, I remembered, to long before 
 the Roman period; to days possibly more remote 
 than those of ancient Barebarrow himself. If you 
 
 232
 
 ANCIENT LIGHTS 
 
 refer to a good map you will find this spot surrounded 
 by such indications of immemorial antiquity as 
 "Tumuli," "British Village," and the like. The 
 Roman encampment on the other side of Davenham 
 Minster was modernity itself, I thought, compared 
 with this ancient haunt of the neolithic forerunners of 
 the early Briton ; this resting-place of men whose 
 doings were a half -forgotten story many centuries 
 before the birth of Julius Caesar. 
 
 I sat down on the grassy ledge and looked out 
 across the lichen-covered roofs and squat, rugged 
 church tower of Tarn Regis; and pictures rose in 
 my mind, pictures to some extent inspired, perhaps, 
 by scraps I had read of learned essays written by my 
 father. He had loved this ancient ground; he had 
 been used to finger the earth hereabouts as a man 
 might finger his mistress's hair. I do not know what 
 period my twilit fancy happened upon, but it was 
 assuredly a later one than that of Barebarrow, for 
 I saw shaggy warriors with huge pointless swords, 
 their hilts decorated with the teeth of wild beasts 
 a Bronze Age vision, no doubt. I saw rude chariots 
 of war, with murderous scythe-blades on their wheels 
 and, in a flash then, the figure of Boadicea : that 
 valiant mother of our race, erect and fearless in her 
 
 chariot 
 
 Kegions Caesar never knew, 
 Thy posterity shall sway ! 
 
 " Thy posterity shall sway ! " If you repeat the 
 lines to yourself you may see the outline of my vision. 
 There at the foot of Barebarrow I saw that Queen 
 of ancient Britons at the head of her wild, shaggy 
 
 233
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 legions. " The Roman Army can never withstand 
 the shouts and clamour of so many thousands, far 
 less their shock and fury," said the Queen. I saw her 
 lead her valiant horde upon Colchester, and for me 
 the ancient rudeness of it all was shot through and 
 through with glimpses of the scientific sacking of 
 Colchester, as I had read of it but a few weeks ago. 
 I saw the advance of the Roman Governor ; the awful 
 slaughter of the British ; the end of the brave Queen 
 who could not brook defeat: the most heart-stirring 
 episode in English history. 
 
 ** Thy posterity shall sway ! " I recalled the 
 solemn splendour of another great Queen's passing 
 that which I had seen with my own eyes while still 
 a lad at Rugby: the stately gathering of the great 
 ships at Spithead ; the end of Victoria the Good. No 
 more than a step it seemed from my vision of the un- 
 conquerable Boadicea. But to that other onslaught 
 upon Colchester to General von Fiichter's slaugh- 
 ter of women and children and unarmed men in 
 streets of houses whose ashes must be warm yet O 
 Lord, how far! I thought. Could it really be that 
 a thousand years of inviolability had been broken, 
 ended, in those few wild days ; ended for ever ? 
 
 Lights twinkled now among the nestling houses of 
 the little place where I was born. They made me 
 think of torches, the clash of arms, the spacious 
 mediaeval days when Davenham Minster supported a 
 great monastery, whose lordly abbot owned the land 
 Tarn Regis stood upon. 
 
 And then the little lights grew misty and dim in 
 my eyes as glimpses came of my own early days ; of 
 
 234
 
 ANCIENT LIGHTS 
 
 play on that very ridge-side where I sat now, where 
 I had then romantically sworn friendship with George 
 Stairs on the eve of my departure for Elstree School, 
 and his leaving with his father for Canada. How 
 had I kept my vow? Where was George Stairs now? 
 There was not a foot of that countryside we had not 
 roamed together. My eyes pricked as I looked and 
 listened. Exactly so, I thought, the sheep-bells had 
 sounded below Barebarrow when I had lain listening 
 to them in that low-pitched back bedroom of the Rec- 
 tory which I had been proud to hear called " Dick's 
 Room," after my first experience of sleeping alone. 
 
 Then for a space my mind was blank as the dark 
 valley beyond the village until thoughts and pic- 
 tures of recent happenings began to oust the gentler 
 memories, and I lived over again the mad, wild, tragic 
 week which culminated in the massacre of the North 
 London trenches. But in the light of my previous 
 musings I saw these happenings differently, more 
 personally, than in the actual experience of them. It 
 seemed now that not my country only, but myself, 
 had been struck down and humbled to the dust by the 
 soldiers of the Kaiser. I saw the broad fair faces of 
 the German cavalry as they had sat their horse in 
 Whitehall on the evening of Black Saturday. I 
 heard again the clank of their arms, the barking of 
 guttural orders. Could it be that they had mastered 
 England? that for nine long years we were to be 
 encircled by their garrisons? Nine years of helotry ! 
 
 A sudden coolness in the air reminded me of the 
 lateness of the hour, and I rose and began to cross 
 Barebarrow.
 
 But this ancient land was British in every blade of 
 its grass, I thought root and crop, hill and dale, 
 above and beneath, no single sod of it but was British. 
 Surely nothing could alter that. Nine years of hel- 
 otry ! I heard again the confused din of the West- 
 minster Riot; the frantic crowd's insistent demand 
 for surrender, for unconditional surrender. And 
 now the nation's word was pledged. Our heads were 
 bowed for nine years long. 
 
 Suddenly, then, as I descended upon the turnpike, 
 a quite new thought came to me. The invasion had 
 overridden all law, all custom, all understandings. 
 The invasion was an act of sheer lawless brutality. 
 No surrender could bind a people to submission in 
 the face of such an outrage as that. The Germans 
 must be driven out; the British people must rise and 
 cast them out, and overthrow for ever their insolent 
 dominion. But too many of the English people were 
 like myself ! Well, they must learn ; we must all 
 learn ; every able-bodied man must learn ; for a blow 
 had to be struck that should free England for ever. 
 The country must be awakened to realization of that 
 need. We owed so much to the brave ones who gave 
 us England; so much could be demanded of us by 
 those that came after. The thing had got to be. 
 
 I walked fast, I remember, and singing through 
 my head as I entered Davenham Minster, long after 
 my sister's supper hour, were the lines to which I had 
 never till then paid any sort of heed : 
 
 Regions Caesar never knew, 
 Thy posterity shall sway! 
 
 236
 
 m 
 
 THE RETURN TO LONDON 
 
 Oh ! 'tis easy 
 
 To beget great deeds ; but in the rearing of them 
 The threading in cold blood each mean detail, 
 And furze brake of half-pertinent circumstance 
 There lies the self-denial. CHARLES KINGSLBY. 
 
 I SPENT but one other day in Dorset after my 
 walk out to Tarn Regis, and then took train in 
 the morning for London. 
 
 I believe I have said before that Doctor Wardle, 
 my sister's husband, was prosperous and popular. 
 The fact made it natural for me to accept my 
 mother's disposition of her tiny property, which, in 
 a couple of sentences, she had bequeathed solely to 
 me. My sister had no need of the hundred and fifty 
 pounds a year that was derived from my mother's 
 little capital, which had been invested in Canadian 
 securities and was unaffected by England's losses. 
 Thus I was now possessed of means sufficient to pro- 
 vide me with the actual necessities of life; and, 
 though I had not thought of it before, realization of 
 this came to me while I attended to the winding up 
 of my mother's small affairs, bringing with it a cer- 
 tain sense of comfort and security. 
 
 It was with a strongly hopeful feeling, a sense 
 237
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 almost of elation, that I stepped from the train at 
 Waterloo. My quiet days and nights in Dorset had 
 taught me something; and, particularly, I had 
 gained much, in conviction and in hope, from the eve- 
 ning spent by Barebarrow. I cannot say that I had 
 any definite plans, but I was awake to a genuine sense 
 of duty to my native land, and that was as strange 
 a thing for me as for a great majority of my fellow 
 countrymen. I was convinced that a great task 
 awaited us all, and I determined upon the perform- 
 ance of my part in it. I suppose I trusted that Lon- 
 don would show me the particular form that my eif ort 
 should take. Meanwhile, as a convert, the missionary 
 feeling was strong in me. 
 
 I might have made shift to afford better quarters, 
 perhaps, but it was to my original lodging in Blooms- 
 bury that I drove from Waterloo. Some few belong- 
 ings of mine were there, and I entertained a friendly 
 sort of feeling for my good-hearted but slatternly 
 landlady, and for poor, overworked Bessie, with her 
 broad, generally smutty face, and lingering remains 
 of a Dorset accent. The part of London with which 
 I was familiar had resumed its normal aspect now, 
 and people were going about their ordinary avoca- 
 tions very much as though England never had been 
 invaded. 
 
 But in the north and east of the capital were streets 
 of burned and blackened houses, and the Epping and 
 Romford districts were one wilderness of ruins, and 
 of graves ; while across East Anglia, from the coast 
 to the Thames, the trail of the invaders was as the 
 track of a locust plague, but more terrible by reason 
 
 238
 
 THE RETURN TO LONDON 
 
 of its blood-soaked trenches, its innumerable shallow 
 graves, and its charred remains of once prosperous 
 towns. Hundreds of ruined farmers and small land- 
 holders were working as navvies at bridge and road 
 and railway repairs. 
 
 A great many people had been ruined during those 
 few nightmare days of the invasion, and every man 
 in England was burdened now with a scale of taxa- 
 tion never before known in the country. But business 
 had resumed its sway, and London looked very much 
 as ever. The need there was for a general making 
 good, from London to the Wash, provided a great 
 deal of employment, and the Government had taken 
 such steps as it could to make credit easy. But Con- 
 sols were still as low as sixty-eight; prices had not 
 yet fallen to the normal level, and money was every- 
 where scarce. 
 
 In the middle afternoon I set out for South Ken- 
 sington to see Constance Grey, to whom I had written 
 only once during my absence, and then only to tell 
 her of my mother's death. She had replied by tele- 
 graph, a message of warm and friendly sympathy. 
 I knew well that she was always busy, and, like most 
 moderns who have written professionally, I suppose 
 we were both bad correspondents. Now there was 
 much of which I wanted to talk with Constance, and 
 it was with a feeling of sharp disappointment that I 
 learned from the servant at the flat that she was not 
 at home. Mrs. Van Homrey was in, however, and in 
 a few moments I was with her in the little drawing- 
 room where I had passed the night of London's ex- 
 hausted sleep on Black Saturday. 
 
 239
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 " Yes, you have just missed my niece," said Mrs. 
 Van Homrey, after a kindly reference to the strip 
 of crepe on my arm. " She has gone in to Victoria 
 Street to a i conference of the powers ' of John Cron- 
 dall's convening. Oh, didn't you know he was here 
 again? Yes, he arrived last week, and, as usual, is 
 up to his neck in affairs already, and Constance with 
 him. I verily believe that child has discovered the 
 secret of perpetual motion." 
 
 At first mention of John Crondall's name my heart 
 had warmed to its recollection of the man, and a 
 pleasurable thought of meeting him again. And 
 immediately then the warm feeling had been pene- 
 trated by a vague sense of disquiet, when Mrs. Van 
 Homrey spoke of his affairs " and Constance with 
 him." But I was not then conscious of the meaning 
 of my momentary discomfort, though, both then and 
 afterwards, I read emphasis and meaning into Mrs. 
 Van Homrey's coupling of the two names. I asked 
 what the " conference " was about, but gathered that 
 Mrs. Van Homrey was not very fully informed. 
 
 " I know they are to meet these young Canadian 
 preachers who are so tremendously praised by the 
 
 Standard What are their names, again ? Tcha ! 
 
 How treacherous my memory grows ! You know the 
 men I mean. John Crondall met them the day after 
 their arrival last week, and is enthusiastic about 
 them." 
 
 I felt very much out of the movement. During 
 the few days immediately preceding my mother's 
 death, and since then, I had not even seen a news- 
 paper, and, being unusually preoccupied, not only 
 
 240
 
 THE RETURN TO LONDON 
 
 over the events of my stay at Davenham Minster, 
 but by developments in my own thoughts, I seemed 
 to have lost touch with current affairs. 
 
 " And what does John Crondall think of the out- 
 look?" I asked. 
 
 " Well, I think his fear is that people in the coun- 
 try outside East Anglia, of course may fail to 
 realize all that the invasion has meant and will mean ; 
 and that Londoners and townsfolk generally may slip 
 back into absorption in business and in pleasure as 
 soon as they can afford that again, and forget the 
 fact that England is practically under Germany's 
 heel still." 
 
 " The taxes will hardly allow them to do that, 
 surely," I said. 
 
 " Well, I don't know. The English are a wonder- 
 ful people. The invasion was so swift and sudden; 
 the opposition to it was so comparatively trifling; 
 surrender and peace came so soon, that really I don't 
 know but what John is right. He generally is. You 
 must remember that millions of the people have not 
 seen a German soldier. They have had no discipline 
 yet. Even here in London, as soon as the people 
 spoke decidedly, peace followed. They did not have 
 to strike a blow. They did not feel a blow. They 
 were not with you and Conny, remember, at those 
 awful trenches. Anyhow, John thinks the danger is 
 lest they forget again, and regard the whole tragic 
 business as a new proof of England's ability to 
 * muddle through ? anything, without any assistance 
 from them. Of course, England's wealth is still 
 great, and her recuperative powers are wonderful; 
 
 241
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 but John Crondall holds that, in spite of that, sub- 
 mission to nine years of German occupation and 
 German tribute-paying will mean the end of the 
 British Empire." 
 
 " And he feels that the people must be stirred into 
 seeing that and acting on it ? " I said, recalling my 
 own thoughts during the night walk from Bare- 
 barrow. 
 
 " Yes, I suppose that is his view. But, now I come 
 to think of it, why should you waste your time in 
 talking to an old woman who can only give you 
 echoes? It is only half an hour since Conny started. 
 Why not hurry on to John Crondall's place, and join 
 them there? He has often spoken of you, Conny 
 tells me." 
 
 This seemed to me too good a suggestion to neg- 
 lect, and ten minutes later I was on my way to St. 
 James's Park by underground railway. I bought an 
 evening paper on my way, and read an announcement 
 to the effect that General Baron von Fiichter, after 
 returning to Portsmouth from his visit to Berlin, had 
 definitely decided that Portsmouth and Devonport 
 could no longer remain British naval bases, and that 
 no British sailors or soldiers in uniform could in 
 future be admitted into any of the towns in England 
 now occupied by Germany. 
 
 242
 
 IV 
 
 THE CONFERENCE 
 
 Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, 
 In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side ; 
 Some great cause, God's new Messiah offering each the bloom or 
 
 blight, 
 
 Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right ; 
 And the choice goes by for ever 'twixt that darkness and that light. 
 
 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 A FEW seconds after his servant had shown me 
 into the dining-room of John Crondall's flat, 
 the man himself entered to me with a rush, as his 
 manner was, both hands outstretched to welcome me. 
 
 " Good man ! " he said. " I've had fine news of 
 you from Constance Grey, and now you're here to 
 confirm it. Splendid ! " 
 
 And' then, with sudden gravity, and a glance at my 
 coat sleeve : " I heard of your loss. I know what it 
 means. I lost my mother when I was in Port Arthur, 
 and I know London looked different because of it 
 when I got back. It's a big wrench; one we've all 
 got to face." 
 
 " Yes. I think my mother died without regret ; 
 she was very tired." 
 
 There was a pause, and then I said: 
 
 " But I may have chosen my time badly, to-day. 
 243
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 Mrs. Van Homrey said you had a conference. If 
 
 you " 
 
 " Tut, tut, man ! Don't talk nonsense. I was just 
 going to say how well you'd timed things. I don't 
 know about a conference, but Constance is here, and 
 Varley, and Sir Herbert Tate he took on the secre- 
 taryship of the Army League, you know, after Gil- 
 bert chucked it and Winchester. You know Win- 
 chester, the Australian rough-rider, who did such fine 
 work with his bushman corps in the South African 
 war and let me see ! And Forbes Thompson, 
 the great rifle clubman, you know ; and the Canadian 
 preachers splendid fellows, by Jove ! Simply 
 splendid they are, I can tell you. I look for great 
 things from those two. Stairs is English, of course, 
 but he's been nearly all his life in British Columbia 
 and the Northwest, and he's got all the eternal youth, 
 the fire and grit and enthusiasm of the Canadian, 
 with somehow, something else as well good. His 
 chum, Reynolds, is an out-and-out Canadian, born in 
 Toronto of Canadian parents. Gad, there's solid tim- 
 ber in that chap, I can tell you. But, look here! 
 Come right in, and take a hand. I'm awfully glad 
 you came. I heard all about The Mass and that; 
 but, bless me, I can see in your eye that that's all 
 past and done with for ever. By the way, I heard 
 last night that your Mr. Clement Blaine had got a 
 job after his own heart, in the pay of the Germans 
 at Chatham interpreter in the passport office, or 
 some such a thing. What a man ! Well, come along 
 in, my dear chap, and give us the benefit of your 
 wisdom." 
 
 244
 
 THE CONFERENCE 
 
 We were leaving the room now. 
 
 " I knew you'd like Constance," he said. " She's 
 the real thing, isn't she? " 
 
 I despised myself for the hint of chill his words 
 brought me. What right had I to suspect or resent? 
 And in any case John Crondall spoke in his custom- 
 ary frank way, with never a hint of afterthought. 
 
 "Yes," I said; "she's splendid." 
 
 " And such a head-piece, my boy. By Jove, she has 
 
 a better head for business than Here we are, 
 
 then." 
 
 Constance Grey was naturally the first to greet me 
 in the big room where John Crondall did his work and 
 met his friends. There was welcome in her beautiful 
 eyes, but, obviously, Constance was very much pre- 
 occupied. Then I was presented to Sir Morell 
 Strachey, Sir Herbert Tate, and Forbes Thompson, 
 and then to the Canadian parson, the Rev. George 
 Stairs. I had paid no attention to the name when 
 Crondall had mentioned it in the other room. Now, 
 as he named the parson again, I looked into the man's 
 face, and 
 
 " Mordan ? Why, not Dick Mordan, of Tarn 
 Regis?" said the parson. 
 
 " By gad ! George Stairs ! I was thinking of 
 you on the side of Barebarrow the night before 
 last." 
 
 " And I was thinking of you, Dicky Mordan, yes- 
 terday afternoon, when I met the present rector of 
 Tarn Regis at a friend's house." 
 
 It was a long strong handshake that we exchanged. 
 Sixteen years on the young side of thirty is a con- 
 
 245
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 siderable stretch of time, and all that had passed 
 since I had last seen my old Tarn Regis playmate. 
 
 Stairs introduced me to his friend, Reynolds, and 
 I learned the curious fact that this comrade and chum 
 of my old friend's was also a parson, but not of 
 Stairs's church. Reynolds had qualified at a theo- 
 logical training college in Ontario, and had been 
 Congregational minister in the parish of which Stairs 
 had been vicar for the last three years. 
 
 There was a big table in the middle of the room, 
 littered over with papers and writing materials. 
 About this table we presently all found seats. 
 
 " Now look here, my friends," said John Crondall, 
 " this is no time for ceremoniousness, apologies, and 
 the rest of it, and I'm not going to indulge in any. 
 No doubt we've all of us got special interests of our 
 own, but there's one we all share; and it comes first 
 with all of us, I think. We all want the same thing 
 for England and the Empire, and we all want to do 
 what we can to help. It's because of that I dismiss 
 the ceremonies, and don't say anything about the 
 fear of boring you, and all that. I don't even make 
 exceptions of you, Stairs, or you, Reynolds. I tell 
 you quite frankly I want to poke and pry into your 
 plans. I want to know all about 'em. I've sense 
 enough to see that you wield a big influence. I am 
 certain I have your sympathy in my aims. And I 
 want to find out how far I can make your aims help 
 my aims. Afl I know is that you have addressed 
 three meetings, each bigger than the last; and that 
 your preaching is the real right thing. Now I want 
 
 246
 
 THE CONFERENCE 
 
 you to tell us as much as you will about your plans. 
 You know we are all friends here." 
 
 Stairs looked at Reynolds, and Reynolds nodded at 
 Stairs. 
 
 " Well," said the latter, smiling, first at Crondall, 
 and then at me, " our plans are simplicity itself. In 
 Canada we have not risen yet to the cultivation of 
 much diplomacy. We don't understand anything of 
 your high politics, and we don't believe in roundabout 
 methods. For instance, I suppose here in England 
 you don't find parsons of one denomination working 
 in partnership much with parsons of another denomi- 
 nation. Well, now, when I took over from my prede- 
 cessor at Kooteray, I found my friend Reynolds do- 
 ing a fine work there, among the farmers and miners, 
 as Congregational minister. He was doing precisely 
 the work I wanted to do; but there was only one of 
 him. Was I to fight shy of him, or set to work, as it 
 were, in opposition to him ? Well, anyhow, that didn't 
 seem to me the way. We had our own places of wor- 
 ship ; but, for the rest, both desiring the one thing 
 the Christian living of the folk in our district 
 we worked absolutely shoulder to shoulder. There 
 were a few worthy folk who objected; but when 
 Reynolds and I came to talk it over, we decided that 
 these had as much religion as was good for them 
 already, and that we could afford rather to ignore 
 them, if by joint working we could rope in the folk 
 
 who had next to none at all You must forgive 
 
 my slang, Miss Grey." 
 
 Constance smiled across at the parson.
 
 " You forget, Mr. Stairs, I grew up on the veld," 
 she said. 
 
 " Ah, to be sure ; I suppose one is as close to the 
 earth and the realities there as in Canada." 
 
 " Quite," said Crondall. " And, anyhow, we are 
 not doing any apologies to-day ; so please go ahead." 
 
 " Well," continued George Stairs, " we often talked 
 over Old Country affairs, Reynolds and I. Reynolds 
 had only spent three months over here in his life, but 
 I fancy I learned more from him than he from me." 
 
 " That's a mistake, of course," said Reynolds. 
 " He had the facts and the knowledge. I merely 
 supplied a fresh point of view home-grown Cana- 
 dian." 
 
 " Ah, well, we found ourselves very much in agree- 
 ment, anyhow, about Home affairs and about the 
 position of the Anglican Church in Canada ; the need 
 there is for less exclusiveness and more direct meth- 
 ods. The idea of coming Home and preaching 
 through England, a kind of pilgrimage that was 
 entirely Reynolds's own. I would have come with 
 him gladly, when we had our district in good going 
 order out there. But, you see, I had no money. My 
 friend had a little. Then my father died. He had 
 been ailing for a long time, and I verily think the 
 news of the invasion broke his heart. He died in the 
 same week that it reached him, and left his two 
 farms, with some small house property, to me. 
 
 " My father's death meant for me a considerable 
 break. The news from England shocked me inex- 
 pressibly. It was such a terrible realization of the 
 very fears that Reynolds and myself had so often dis- 
 
 248
 
 cussed the climax and penalty of England's mad 
 disregard of duty ; of every other consideration ex- 
 cept pleasure, easy living, comfort, and money-mak- 
 ing." 
 
 " This is the pivot of the whole business, that duty 
 question," interposed Crondall. " It was your han- 
 dling of that on Tuesday that burdened you with my 
 acquaintance. I listened to that, and I said, * Mr. 
 George Stairs and you have got to meet, John Cron- 
 dall ! ' But I didn't mean to interrupt." 
 
 " Well, as I say, I found myself rather at a part- 
 ing of the ways, and then came my good friend here, 
 and he said, ' What about these farms and houses of 
 yours, Stairs? They represent an income. What 
 are you going to do about it? ' And well, you see, 
 that settled it. We just packed our bags and came 
 over." 
 
 " And now that you are here? " said John Cron- 
 dall. 
 
 " Well, you heard what we had to say the other 
 afternoon ? " 
 
 " I did every word of it." 
 
 " Well, that's what we are here for. Our aim is to 
 take that message to every man and woman in this 
 country ; and we believe God will give us zest and 
 strength enough to bring it home to them to make 
 them feel the truth of it. Your aim, naturally, is 
 political and patriotic. I don't think you can have 
 any warmer sympathizers than Reynolds and myself. 
 But our part, as you see, is another one, and outside 
 politics. We believe the folk at Home have lost their 
 bearings; their compasses want adjusting. I say 
 
 249
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 here what I should not venture to admit to a less sym- 
 pathetic and indulgent audience: Reynolds and my- 
 self aim at arousing, by God's will, the sleeping sense 
 of duty in our kinsmen here at Home. We have no 
 elaborate system, no finesse, no complicated issues 
 to consider. Our message is simply : * You have 
 forgotten Duty ; and the Christian life is not possible 
 while Duty remains forgotten or ignored.' Our pur- 
 pose is just to give the message; to prove it; make 
 it real; make it felt." 
 
 Crondall had been looking straight at the speaker 
 while he listened, his face resting between his two 
 hands, his elbows planted squarely on the table. Now 
 he seemed to pounce down upon Stairs's last words. 
 
 " And yet you say your part is another one than 
 ours. But why not the same? Why not the very 
 essence and soul of our part, Stairs?" 
 
 "Gad he's right!" said Sir Herbert Tate, in 
 an undertone. Reynolds leaned forward in his chair, 
 his lean, keen face alight. 
 
 " Why not the very soul of our part, Stairs the 
 essential first step toward our end? Our part is to 
 urge a certain specific duty on them a duty we 
 reckon urgent and vital to the nation. But we can't 
 do that unless we, or you, can first do your part 
 rousing them to the sense of duty Duty itself. 
 Man, but your part is the foundation of our part 
 foundation, walls, roof, corner-stone, complete! We 
 only give the structure a name. Why, I give you 
 my word, Stairs, that that address of yours on Tues- 
 day was the finest piece of patriotic exhortation I 
 ever listened to." 
 
 250
 
 THE CONFERENCE 
 
 " But it's very kind of you to say so ; but I 
 never mentioned King or country." 
 
 " Exactly ! You gave them the root of the whole 
 matter. You cleared a way into their hearts and 
 heads which is open now for news of King and coun- 
 try. It's as though I had to collect some money for 
 an orphanage from a people who'd never heard of 
 charity. Before I see the people you teach 'em the 
 meaning and beauty of charity wake the charita- 
 ble sense in them. You needn't bother mentioning 
 orphanages ; but if I come along in your rear, my 
 chances of collecting the money are a deal rosier than 
 if you hadn't been there first what?" 
 
 " I see I see," said Stairs, slowly. 
 
 " Mr. Crondall, you ought to have been a Cana- 
 dian," said Reynolds, in his dry way. His use of 
 the " Mr.," even to a man who had no hesitation in 
 calling him plain " Reynolds," was just one of the 
 tiny points of distinction between himself and 
 Stairs. 
 
 " Oh, Canada has taught me something ; and so 
 have South Africa and India ; and so have you and 
 Stairs, with your mission, or pilgrimage, or what- 
 ever it is your Message." 
 
 " Well," said Stairs, " it seems to me your view of 
 our pilgrimage is a very kindly, and perhaps flat- 
 tering one ; and as I have said, your aims as a citizen 
 of the Empire and a lover of the Old Country could 
 not have warmer sympathizers than Reynolds and 
 myself ; but " 
 
 " Mind, I'm not trying to turn your religious 
 teaching to any ignoble purpose," said Crondall, 
 
 251
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 quickly. " I am not asking you to introduce a single 
 new word or thought into it for my sake." 
 
 " That's so," said Reynolds, his eye upon Stairs. 
 
 " Quite so, quite so," said Stairs. " And, of 
 course, I am with you in all you hope for; but you 
 know, Crondall, religion is perhaps a rather different 
 matter to a parson from what it is to you. Forgive 
 me if I put it clumsily, but " 
 
 And now, greatly daring, I ventured upon an inter- 
 ruption, speaking upon impulse, without considera- 
 tion, and hearing my voice as though it were some- 
 thing outside myself. 
 
 " George Stairs," I said and I fancy the 
 thoughts of both of us went back sixteen years 
 " what was it you thought about the Congregational 
 minister when you took over your post at Kooteray? 
 How did you decide to treat him? Did you ever re- 
 gret the partnership? " 
 
 " Now if that isn't straight out Western fashion ! " 
 murmured Reynolds. Constance beamed at me from 
 her place beside John Crondall. 
 
 " I leave it at that," said our host. 
 
 " A palpable bull's-eye," said Forbes Thompson. 
 
 I hardly needed George Stairs's friendly clap on 
 the shoulder, nor the assurance of his: 
 
 " You are right, Dick. You have shown me my 
 way in three words." 
 
 " Good," said Reynolds. " Well, now I don't mind 
 saying what I wouldn't have said before, that among 
 the notes we drew up nearly three years ago " 
 
 " You drew up, my friend," said Stairs. 
 
 " Among the notes we drew up, I say, on this ques- 
 252
 
 THE CONFERENCE 
 
 tion of neglected duty, were details as to the citizen's 
 obligations regarding the defence of his home and 
 native land, with special reference to the callous neg- 
 lect of Lord Roberts's campaign of warning and ex- 
 hortation. Now, Stairs, you know as well as I do, 
 you wrote with your own hand the passage about the 
 Englishman's sphere of duty being as much wider 
 than his country as Greater Britain was wider than 
 Great Britain. You know you did." 
 
 " Oh, you can count me in, all right, Reynolds ; 
 you know I'm not one for half -measures." 
 
 " Well, now, my friends, I believe I see daylight. 
 By joining hands I really believe we are going to 
 accomplish something for England." Crondall looked 
 round the table at the faces of his friends. " We are 
 all agreed, I know, that the present danger is the 
 danger Kipling tried to warn us about years and 
 years ago." 
 
 " ' Lest we forget ! ' : ' quoted Sir Herbert quietly. 
 
 " Exactly. There are so many in England who 
 have neither seen nor felt anything of the blow we 
 have had." 
 
 And here I told them something of what I had seen 
 and heard in Dorset; how remote and unreal the 
 whole thing was to folk there. 
 
 " That's it, exactly," continued Crondall. " That's 
 one difficulty which has just got to be overcome. 
 Another is the danger that, among those who did see 
 and feel something of it, here in London, and even in 
 East Anglia, the habit of apathy in national matters, 
 and the calls of business and pleasure may mean for- 
 getting, indifference the old fatal neglect. You 
 253
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 see, we must remember that, crushing as the blow was, 
 it did not actually reach so very many people. It 
 did not force them to get up and fight for their lives. 
 It was all over so soon. Directly they cried out, 
 * The Destroyers ' answered with surrender, and so 
 helped to strengthen the fatal delusion they had 
 cherished so long, that everything is a matter of 
 pounds, shillings, and pence." 
 
 " ' They'll never go for England, because Eng- 
 land's got the dibs,' " quoted Forbes Thompson, with 
 a nod of assent. 
 
 " Yes, yes. ' Make alliances, and leave me to my 
 business ! ' One knows it all so well. But, mind you, 
 even to the blindest of them, the invasion has meant 
 something." 
 
 " And the income-tax will mean something to 'em, 
 too," said Sir Morell Strachey. 
 
 " Yes. But the English purse is deep, and the 
 Englishman has long years of money-spinning free- 
 dom from discipline behind him. Still, here is this 
 brutal fact of the invasion. Here we are actually 
 condemned to nine years of life inside a circle of Ger- 
 man encampments on English soil, with a hundred 
 millions a year of tribute to pay for the right to live 
 in our own England. Now my notion is that the 
 lesson must not be lost. The teaching of the thing 
 must be forced home. It must be burnt into these 
 happy-go-lucky countrymen of ours if Stairs and 
 Reynolds are to achieve their end, or we ours." 
 
 " Our aim is to awake the sense of duty which 
 seems to us to have become atrophied, even among the 
 professedly religious," said Stairs.
 
 THE CONFERENCE 
 
 " And ours," said Crondall, sharp as steel, " is to 
 ram home your teaching, and to show them that the 
 nearest duty to their hand is their duty to the State, 
 to the Race, to their children the duty of freeing 
 England and throwing over German dominion." 
 
 " To render unto Caesar the things which are 
 Caesar's," said Reynolds. And Stairs nodded agree- 
 ment. 
 
 " Now, by my way of it, Stairs and Reynolds must 
 succeed before we can succeed," said Crondall. 
 " That is my view, and because that is so, you can 
 both look to me, up till the last breath in me, for any 
 kind of support I can give you for any kind of 
 support at all. But that's not all. Where you sow, 
 I mean to reap. We both want substantially the 
 same harvest mine is part of yours. I know I can 
 count on you all. You, Stairs, and you, Reynolds, 
 are going to carry your Message through England. 
 I propose to follow in your wake with mine. You 
 rouse them to the sense of duty ; I show them their 
 duty. You make them ready to do their duty; I 
 show it them. I'll have a lecturer. I'll get pictures. 
 They shall feel the invasion, and know what the Ger- 
 man occupation means. You shall convert them, and 
 I'll enlist them." 
 
 " Enlist them ! By Jove ! that's an idea," said 
 Forbes Thompson. " A patriotic league, a league of 
 defenders, a nation in arms." 
 
 "The Liberators!" 
 
 " Ah ! Yes, the Liberators." 
 
 "Or the Patriots, simply?" 
 
 " I would enrol them just as citizens," said Cron- 
 255
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 dall. " By that time they should have learned the 
 meaning of the word." 
 
 "Yes, by Jove! it is good enough just 'The 
 Citizens,' " said Sir Morell Strachey. 
 
 And then a servant came in with a message for 
 Forbes Thompson, and we realized that dinner-time 
 had come and almost gone. But we were in no mood 
 for separating just then, and so every one welcomed 
 John Crondall's invitation to dine with him at a 
 neighbouring hotel. 
 
 256
 
 MY OWN PART 
 
 Free men freely work ; 
 Whoever fears God, fears to sit at ease. 
 
 E. B. BROWNING. 
 
 CONSTANCE GREY and myself were the last of 
 V_^/ John Crondall's guests to leave him on that 
 evening of the conference. As soon as we three were 
 alone, Constance turned to Crondall, and said: 
 
 " You must expect to have me among your camp 
 followers if I find Aunt Mary can stand the travel- 
 ling. I dare say there will be little things I can do." 
 
 " Things you can do ! By George, I should think 
 so ! " said Crondall. " I shall look to you to capture 
 the women ; and if we get the women, it will surprise 
 me if we don't get the men as well. Besides, don't 
 you fancy I have forgotten your prowess as a speaker 
 in Cape Town and Pretoria. You remember that 
 meeting of your father's, when you saved him from 
 the wrath of Vrow Bischoff? Why, of course, I 
 reckon on you. We'll have special women's meet- 
 ings." 
 
 " And where do I come in ? " I asked, with an 
 assumed lightness of tone which was far from express- 
 ing my feeling. 
 
 257
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 " Yes," said Crondall, eying me thoughtfully ; 
 " I've been thinking of that." 
 
 As he said that, I had a swift vision of myself and 
 my record, as both must have appeared to a man like 
 Crondall, whose whole life had been spent in patriotic 
 effort. The vision was a good corrective for the 
 unworthy shafts of jealousy for that no doubt 
 they were which had come to me with John Cron- 
 dall's references to Constance. I was admitted cor- 
 dially into the confidencec of these people from whom, 
 on my record, I scarcely deserved common courtesy. 
 It was with a distinctly chastened mind that I gave 
 them both some outline of the thoughts and resolu- 
 tions which had come to me during my evening beside 
 Barebarrow, overlooking sleepy little Tarn Regis. 
 
 " It's a kind of national telepathy," said Crondall. 
 " God send it's at work in other counties besides 
 Dorset." 
 
 " It had need be," I told them ; " for all those that 
 I spoke to in Dorset accepted the German occupation 
 like a thing as absolutely outside their purview as 
 the movements of the planets." 
 
 " Yes, they want a lot of stirring, I know ; but I 
 believe we shall stir 'em all right. But about your 
 part in the campaign. Of course, I recognize that 
 every one has to earn his living, just as much now as 
 before. But yet I know you'd like to be in this thing, 
 Dick Mordan, and I believe you can help it a lot. 
 What I thought of was this: I shall want a secre- 
 tary, and want him very badly. He will be the man 
 who will do half my work. On the other hand, I 
 can't pay him much, for every cent of my income will 
 
 258
 
 MY OWN PART 
 
 be wanted in the campaign, and a good deal more 
 besides. The thing is, would you tackle it, for the 
 sake of the cause, for a couple of hundred a year? 
 Of course, I should stand all running expenses. 
 What do you think? It's not much of an offer, but 
 it would keep us all together? " 
 
 Constance looked expectantly at me, and I realized 
 with a sudden thrill the uses of even such small means 
 as I now possessed. 
 
 " Well, no," I said ; " I couldn't agree to that." 
 The pupils of John Crondall's eyes contracted 
 sharply, and a pained, wondering look crept into the 
 face I loved, the vivid, expressive face of Constance 
 Grey. " But what I would put my whole heart and 
 soul into, would be working as your secretary for the 
 sake of the cause, as long as you could stand the 
 running expense, and and longer." 
 
 I think the next minute was the happiest I had ever 
 known. I dare say it seems a small enough matter, 
 but it was the only thing of the kind I had ever been 
 able to do. These friends of mine had always given 
 so much to our country's cause. I had felt myself 
 so far beneath them in this. Now, as John Cron- 
 dall's strong hand came down on my shoulder, and 
 Constance's bright eyes shone upon me in affectionate 
 approval, my heart swelled within me, with something 
 of the glad pride which should be the possession of 
 every man, as it indubitably is of every true citizen 
 and patriot. 
 
 " You see," I explained deprecatingly, as Crondall 
 swayed my shoulder affectionately to and fro in his 
 firm grip ; " I have become a sort of a minor capital- 
 
 259
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 ist. I have about a hundred and fifty a year coming 
 in, and so I'm as free as I am glad to work with you, 
 and there'll be two hundred more for the cam- 
 paign, you see." 
 
 " God bless you, old chap ! You and Constance and 
 I, we'll move mountains even the great mountain 
 of apathy between us. Sir Herbert offers a thou- 
 sand pounds toward expenses, and Forbes Thompson 
 and Varley are ready to speak for us anywhere we 
 like, and Winchester has a pal who he says will work 
 wonders as a kind of advance agent. I'm pretty sure 
 of Government help, too or Opposition help ; 
 they'll be governing before Christmas, you'll find. 
 Now, we all meet here again the day after to-morrow. 
 We three will see each other to-morrow, I expect. 
 I must write a stack of letters before the midnight 
 post." 
 
 "Well, can I lend a hand?" I asked. 
 
 " No, not to-night, Mr. Secretary Dick, thank 
 you ! But it's late. Will you take Constance home ? 
 I'll get my fellow to whistle up a cab." 
 
 Ten minutes earh'er I should have been chilled by 
 his implied guardianship of Constance; but now I 
 had that within which warmed me through and 
 through: the most effectual kind of protection 
 against chill. So all was settled, and we left John 
 Crondall to his letters. And, driving out to South 
 Kensington, we talked over our hopes, Constance and 
 I, as partners in one cause. 
 
 " This is the beginning of everything for me, Con- 
 stance," I said, when we parted in the hall below her 
 flat. 
 
 260
 
 MY OWN PART 
 
 " It is going to be the beginning of very much for 
 a good many," she said, as she gave me her hand. 
 
 " I wonder if you know how much for me ! " 
 
 " I think so. I am tremendously glad about it all." 
 
 But she did not know, could not know, just how 
 much it meant to me. 
 
 " Good night, my patriotic Muse ! " I said. 
 
 " Good night, Mr. Secretary Dick ! " 
 
 And so we parted on the night of my return to 
 London. 
 
 261
 
 VI 
 
 PEEPAEATIONS 
 
 We were dreamers, dreaming greatly, in the man-stifled town ; 
 We yearned beyond the sky-line where the strange roads go down. 
 Came the Whisper, came the Vision, came the Power, with the 
 
 Need, 
 Till the Soul that is not man's soul was lent us to lead. 
 
 Follow after follow after for the harvest is sown : 
 
 By the bones about the wayside ye shall come to your own ! 
 
 RUDYARD KIPLING. 
 
 NEVER before had I known days so full, so com- 
 pact of effort and achievement, as were those of 
 the week following the conference in John Crondall's 
 rooms. I could well appreciate Winchester's state- 
 ment when he said that : " John Crondall is known 
 through three Continents as a glutton for work." 
 
 Our little circle represented Canada, South Africa, 
 Australia, and the Mother Country ; and, while I 
 admit that my old friend, George Stairs, and his 
 Canadian-born partner, Reynolds, could give points 
 to most people in the matter of unwearying energy, 
 yet I am proud to report that the member of our 
 circle who, so to say, worked us all to a standstill was 
 John Crondall, an Englishman born and bred. I 
 said as much in the presence of them all, and when 
 
 262
 
 PREPARATIONS 
 
 my verdict was generally endorsed, John Crondall 
 qualified it with the remark: 
 
 " Well, I can only say that pretty nearly all I 
 know about work I learned in the Colonies." 
 
 And I learned later on to realize the justice of this 
 qualification. Colonial life does teach directness and 
 concentration. Action of any sort in England was 
 at that time hedged about by innumerable complica- 
 tions and cross issues and formalities, many of 
 which we have won clear from since then. Perhaps 
 it was the strength of our Colonial support which 
 set the pace of our procedure. Whatever the cause, 
 I know I never worked harder, or accomplished more ; 
 and I had never been so happy. 
 
 I think John Crondall must have interviewed from 
 two to three hundred prominent politicians and mem- 
 bers of the official world during that week. I have 
 heard it said by men who should know, that the money 
 Crondall spent in cable messages to the Colonies that 
 week was the price of the first Imperial Parliament 
 ever assembled in Westminster Hall. I use these 
 words in their true sense, their modern sense, of 
 course. Nominally, the House of Commons had long 
 been the " Imperial " Parliament. 
 
 I know that week's work established The Citizens 
 as an already powerful organization, with a long list 
 of names famous in history among its members, with 
 a substantial banking account, and with volunteer 
 agents in every great centre in the kingdom. The 
 motto and watchword of The Citizens, as engraved 
 upon a little bronze medal of membership, was: 
 
 263
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 "For God; our Race; and Duty." The oath of 
 enrolment said: 
 
 " I do hereby undertake and promise to do 
 
 my duty to God, to our Race, and to the British 
 Empire to the utmost limit of my ability, without 
 fear and without compromise, so help me God ! " 
 
 John Crondall interviewed the editors of most of 
 the leading London newspapers during that week, 
 and thereby earned a discreet measure of journalistic 
 support for his campaign. There was a great need 
 of discretion here, for our papers were carefully 
 studied in Berlin, as well as by the German Generals 
 commanding the various English towns now occupied 
 by the Kaiser's troops. It was, of course, most im- 
 portant that no friction should be caused at this 
 stage. 
 
 But it was with regard to the preaching pilgrim- 
 age of the two Canadian parsons that Crondall's 
 friends of the Press rendered us the greatest possible 
 service. Here no particular reticence was called for, 
 and the Press could be, and was, unreservedly helpful 
 and generous. In estimating the marvellous achieve- 
 ments of the two preachers, I do not think enough 
 weight has been attached to the great services ren- 
 dered to their mission by such journals as the great 
 London daily which published each morning a 
 column headed, " The New Evangel," and, indeed, by 
 all the newspapers both in London and the prov- 
 inces. 
 
 We were not directly aiming, during that first 
 week, at enrolling members. No recruiting had been 
 done. Yet when, at the end of the week, a meeting 
 
 264
 
 PREPARATIONS 
 
 of the executive committee was held at the West- 
 minster Palace Hotel, the founder, John Crondall, 
 was able to submit a list of close upon six hundred 
 sworn members of The Citizens; and, of these, I sup- 
 pose fully five hundred were men of high standing 
 in the world of politics, the Services, commerce, and 
 the professions. Among them were three dukes, 
 twenty-three peers, a Field Marshal, six newspaper 
 proprietors, eleven editors, seven of the wealthiest 
 men in England, and ninety-eight prominent Mem- 
 bers of Parliament. And, as I say, no systematic re- 
 cruiting had been done. 
 
 At that meeting of the executive a great deal of 
 important business was transacted. John Crondall 
 was able to announce a credit balance of ten thousand 
 pounds, with powers to overdraw under guarantee at 
 the Bank of England. A simple code of membership 
 rules and objects was drawn up for publication, and 
 a short code of secret rules was formed, by which 
 every sworn member was to be bound. These rules 
 stipulated for implicit obedience to the decision and 
 orders of the executive, and by these every member 
 was bound to take a certain course of rifle drill, and 
 to respond immediately to any call that should be 
 made for military service within the British Isles 
 during a period of twelve months from the date of 
 enrolment. John Crondall announced that there was 
 every hope of The Citizens obtaining from the Gov- 
 ernment a grant of one service rifle and one hundred 
 rounds of ammunition for every member who could 
 pass a simple medical examination. 
 
 " We may not actually secure this grant until after 
 265
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 the general election," Crondall explained ; " but it 
 can be regarded as a certain asset." 
 
 It was decided that, officially, there should be no 
 connection between the Canadian preachers, as every 
 one called them, and the propaganda of The Citizens. 
 But it was also privately agreed that steps should be 
 taken to follow the Canadians throughout their pil- 
 grimage with lectures and addresses, and meetings at 
 which members could be enrolled upon the roster of 
 The Citizens, including volunteer instructors in rifle 
 drill. My friend Stairs attended this meeting with 
 Reynolds, and, after discussion, it was agreed that, 
 for the present, they should not visit the towns occu- 
 pied by the Germans. 
 
 " The people there have their lesson before them 
 every day and all day long," said John Crondall. 
 " The folk we want to reach are those who have not 
 yet learned their lesson. My advice is to attack 
 London first. Enlist London on your side, and on 
 that go to the provinces." 
 
 There was a good deal of discussion over this, and 
 finally an offer John Crondall made was accepted by 
 Stairs and Reynolds, and our meeting was brought to 
 a close. What Crondall said was this : 
 
 " To-day is Monday. There is still a great deal of 
 detail to be attended to. Officially, there must be no 
 connection between Stairs and Reynolds and The 
 Citizens. Actually, we know the connection is vital. 
 Give me the rest of this week for arrangements, and 
 I promise that we shall all gain by it. I will not 
 appear in the matter, and I will see you each evening 
 
 266
 
 PREPARATIONS 
 
 for consultation. Your pilgrimage shall begin on 
 Sunday, and ours within a day or so of that." 
 
 Then followed another week of tense effort. Stairs 
 and Reynolds both addressed minor gatherings dur- 
 ing the week, and met John Crondall every evening 
 for consultation. On Wednesday the principal Im- 
 perialistic newspaper in London appeared with a long 
 leading article and three columns of descriptive expo- 
 sition of " The New Evangel." On the same day 
 the papers published despatches telling of the de- 
 parture from their various homes of the Premiers, 
 and two specially elected representatives of all the 
 British Colonies, who were coming to England for 
 an Imperial Conference at Westminster. The Gov- 
 ernment's resignation was expected within the month, 
 and writs for the election were to be issued immedi- 
 ately afterwards. 
 
 On Wednesday evening and Thursday morning the 
 newspapers of London alone published one hundred 
 and thirteen columns of matter regarding the mes- 
 sage and the pilgrimage of the Rev. George Stairs 
 and the Rev. Arthur J. Reynolds. During the latter 
 part of the week all London was agog over the Cana- 
 dian preachers. As yet, very little had appeared in 
 print regarding The Citizens. 
 
 On Sunday morning at three o'clock John Crondall 
 went into his bedroom to sleep, and I slept in the 
 room he had set aside for me in his flat too tired 
 out to undress. Even Crondall's iron frame was 
 weary that night, and he admitted to me before re- 
 tiring from a table at which we had kept three type- 
 
 267
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 writers busy till long after midnight, that he had 
 reached his limit and must rest. 
 
 " I couldn't stand another hour of it unless it 
 were necessary, you know," was his way of putting 
 it. 
 
 By my persuasion he kept his bed during a good 
 slice of Sunday morning, and lunched with me at 
 Constance Grey's flat. He always said that Mrs. Van 
 Homrey was the most restful tonic London could 
 supply to any man. I went to the morning service 
 at Westminster Abbey that day with Constance, and 
 listened to a magnificent sermon from the Bishop of 
 London, whose text was drawn from the sixth chapter 
 of Exodus : " And I will take you to me for a people, 
 and I will be to you a God." 
 
 The Bishop struck a strong note of hopefulness, 
 but there was also warning and exhortation in his dis- 
 course. He spoke of sons of our race who had gone 
 into far countries, and, carrying our Faith and tra- 
 ditions with them, had preserved these and wrought 
 them into a finer fabric than the original from which 
 they were drawn. And now, when a great affliction 
 had come upon the people of England, their sons of 
 the Greater Britain oversea were holding out kindly 
 hands of friendship and support. But it was not 
 alone in the material sense that we should do well to 
 avail ourselves of the support offered us from the out- 
 side places. These wandering children of the Old 
 Land had cherished among them a strong and simple 
 godliness, a devout habit of Christian morality, from 
 which we might well draw spiritual sustenance. 
 
 " You have all heard of the Canadian preachers, 
 268
 
 PREPARATIONS 
 
 and I hope you will all learn a good deal more of 
 their Message this very afternoon at the Albert Hall, 
 where I am to have the honour of presiding over a 
 meeting which will be addressed by these Christian 
 workers from across the sea." 
 
 We found John Crondall a giant refreshed after 
 his long sleep. 
 
 " I definitely promise you a seat this afternoon, 
 Mrs. Van Homrey," he said, as we all sat down to 
 lunch in the South Kensington flat, " but that's as 
 much as I can promise. You and I will have to keep 
 our feet, Dick, and you will have to share Lady Tate's 
 seat, Constance. If every ticket-holder turns up this 
 afternoon, there won't be a single vacant seat in the 
 whole of that great hall." 
 
 " You earned your Sunday morning in, John," 
 said Mrs. Van Homrey. " Is the Prime Minister 
 coming? " 
 
 " No, he has failed me at the last, but half the 
 members of the last Government will be there, and I 
 have promises from prominent representatives of 
 every religious denomination in England. There will 
 be sixty military officers above captain's rank, in 
 uniform, and forty-eight naval officers in uniform. 
 There will be many scores of bluejackets and private 
 soldiers, a hundred training-ship lads, fifty of the 
 Legion of Frontiersmen, and a number of volunteers 
 all in full uniform. There will be a tremendous num- 
 ber of society people, but the mass will be leavened, 
 and I should say one-half the people will be middle- 
 class folk. For to-night, no tickets have been issued. 
 The attendance will depend to some extent on the 
 
 269
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 success of this afternoon, but, to judge from the 
 newspapers and the talk one hears, I should say it 
 would be enormous." 
 
 Just before we left the flat Crondall told us a 
 secret. 
 
 " You know they have a volunteer choir of fifty 
 voices? " he said. " It was Stairs's idea, and he has 
 carried it out alone. The choir consists entirely of 
 bluejackets, soldiers, volunteers, Red Cross nurses, 
 and boys from the Army bands." 
 
 270
 
 VII 
 
 THE SWORD OF THE LORD 
 
 Stern Daughter of the Voice of God I 
 
 O Duty ! if that name thou love 
 
 Who art a light to guide, a rod 
 
 To check the erring, and reprove ; 
 
 Thou who art victory and law 
 
 When empty terrors overawe ; 
 
 From vain temptations dost set free, 
 
 And calm'st the weary strife of frail humanity 
 
 WORDSWORTH'S Ode to Duty. 
 
 I HAVE always been glad that I was able to attend 
 that first great service of the Canadian preachers ; 
 and so, I think, has every one else who was there. 
 Other services of theirs may have been more notable 
 in certain respects indeed, I know they were ; but 
 this one was the beginning, the first wave in a great 
 tide. And I am glad that I was there to see that first 
 grand wave rise upon the rock of British apathy. 
 
 I have said something of the audience, but a book 
 might well be devoted to its description, and, again, 
 a sentence may serve. It was a representative Eng- 
 lish gathering, in that it embraced a member of the 
 Royal Family, a little group of old men and women 
 from an asylum for the indigent, and members of 
 every grade of society that comes between. Also, it 
 
 271
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 was a very large gathering even for the Albert 
 Hall. 
 
 It should be remembered that not many weeks prior 
 to this Sunday afternoon, the people of London, 
 maddened by hunger, fear, and bewildered panic, had 
 stormed Westminster to enforce their demand for 
 surrender, and had seen Von Fiichter with his blood- 
 stained legions take possession of the capital of the 
 British Empire. Fifty Londoners had been cut down, 
 almost in as many seconds, within two miles of the 
 Mansion House. In one terrible week London had 
 passed through an age of terror and humiliation, the 
 end of which had been purchased in panic and dis- 
 order by means of a greater humiliation than any. 
 Now England had to pay the bill. Some, in the 
 pursuit of business and pleasure, were already for- 
 getting; but the majority among the great concourse 
 of Londoners who sat waiting in the Albert Hall that 
 afternoon, clothed in their Sunday best, were still 
 shrewdly conscious of the terrible severity of the blow 
 which had fallen upon England. 
 
 Having found Constance her half -seat with Lady 
 Tate, I stood beside one of the gangways below the 
 platform, which lead to the dressing-rooms and other 
 offices. Beside me was a table for Press representa- 
 tives. There, with their pencils, I noted Campbell, 
 of the Daily Gazette, and other men I knew, including 
 Carew, for the Standard, who had an assistant with 
 him. He told me that somewhere in the hall his 
 paper had a special descriptive writer as well. 
 
 Looking up and down that vast building, from 
 dome to amphitheatre, I experienced, as it were vicari-
 
 THE SWORD OF THE LORD 
 
 ously, something of the nervousness of stage fright. 
 Londoners were not simple prairie folk, I thought. 
 How should my friend George Stairs hold that multi- 
 tude? Two plain men from Western Canada, accus- 
 tomed to minister to farmers and miners, what could 
 they say to engage and hold these serried thousands 
 of Londoners, the most blase people in England? I 
 had never heard either of the preachers speak in 
 public, but I looked out over that assemblage, and 
 I was horribly afraid for my friends. A Church of 
 England clergyman and a Nonconformist minister 
 from Canada, and I told myself they had never had so 
 much as an elocution lesson between them! 
 
 And then the Bishop of London appeared on the 
 crowded platform, followed by George Stairs and 
 Arthur Reynolds ; and a dead silence descended upon 
 the hall. In the forefront of the platform was a 
 plain table with a chair at either end of it, and a 
 larger one in the middle. Here the Bishop and the 
 two preachers placed themselves. Then the Bishop 
 rose with right hand uplifted, and said solemnly: 
 
 " May God bless to us all the Message which His 
 two servants have brought us from oversea; for 
 Christ's sake, Amen." 
 
 George Stairs remained kneeling at his end of the 
 table. But as the Bishop resumed his seat Arthur 
 Reynolds stepped forward, and, pitching his voice 
 well, said: 
 
 " My friends, let us sing the British Anthem." 
 
 And at that the great organ spoke, and the choir 
 of sailors, soldiers, and nurses led the singing of the 
 National Anthem. The first bar was sung by the 
 
 273
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 choir alone, but by the time the third bar was reached 
 thousands among the standing congregation were 
 singing with them, and the volume of sound was most 
 impressive. I think that a good many people besides 
 myself found this solemn singing of the Anthem, 
 from its first line to its last, something of a revelation. 
 It made " God Save the King " a real prayer instead 
 of a musical intimation that hats might be felt for 
 and carriages ordered. It struck a note which the 
 Canadian preachers desired to strike. They began 
 with a National Hymn which was a prayer for King 
 and Country. The people were at first startled, and 
 then pleased, and then stirred by a departure from 
 all customs known to them. And that this should be 
 so was, I apprehend, the deliberate intention of the 
 Canadian preachers. 
 
 Still George Stairs knelt at his end of the bare 
 table. 
 
 As the last note of the organ accompaniment died 
 away, Arthur Reynolds stepped to the front. 
 
 " Will you all pray, please ? " he said. He closed 
 his eyes and extended one hand. 
 
 I cannot tell you what simple magic the man used. 
 I know those were his words. But the compelling 
 appeal in them was most remarkable. There was 
 something childlike about his simple request. I do 
 not think any one could have scoffed at the man. 
 After a minute's silence, he prayed aloud, and this is 
 what he said: 
 
 " Father in Heaven, give us strength to under- 
 stand our duty and to do it. Thou knowest that two 
 of the least among Thy servants have crossed the sea 
 
 274
 
 THE SWORD OF THE LORD 
 
 to give a Message to their kinsmen in England. Our 
 kinsmen are a great and proud people, and we, as 
 Thou knowest, are but very simple men. But our 
 Message is from Thee, and with Thee all things are 
 possible. Father, have pity upon our weakness to- 
 day. Open to us the hearts of even the proudest and 
 the greatest of our kinsmen. Do not let them scorn 
 us. And, O Father of all men, gentle and simple, 
 breathe Thou upon us that we may have a strength 
 not of ourselves ; a power worthy of the Message we 
 bring, which shall make its truth to shine so that 
 none may mistake it. For Christ's sake. Amen." 
 
 Arthur Reynolds resumed his seat, and a great 
 Australian singer, a prima donna of world-wide re- 
 pute, stepped forward very simply and sang as a 
 solo the hymn beginning : 
 
 Church of the Living God, 
 Pillar and ground of truth, 
 Keep the old paths the fathers trod 
 In thy illumined youth. 
 
 The prayer had softened all hearts by its sim- 
 plicity, its humility. The exquisitely rendered 
 hymn attuned all minds to thoughts of ancient, 
 simple piety, and the traditions which guided and 
 inspired our race in the past. When it was ended, 
 and not till then, George Stairs rose from his knees, 
 and stepped forward to where a little temporary ex- 
 tension jutted out beyond the rest of the platform. 
 He stood there with both hands by his side, and a 
 Bible held in one of them. His head inclined a little 
 forward. It was an attitude suggestive rather of 
 
 275
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 submission to that great assembly, or to some Power 
 above it, than of exhortation. Watching him as he 
 stood there, I realized what a fine figure of a man 
 George was, how well and surely Canadian life had 
 developed him. His head was massive, his hair thick 
 and very fair; his form lithe, tall, full of muscular 
 elasticity. 
 
 He stood so, silent, for a full minute, till I began 
 to catch my breath from nervousness. Then he 
 opened the Bible, and: 
 
 " May I just read you a few verses from the 
 Bible?" he said. 
 
 There was the same directness, the same simple, 
 almost childlike appeal that had touched the people 
 in Reynolds's prayer. He read some verses from the 
 First Book of Samuel. I remember: 
 
 " ' And did I choose him out of all the tribes of 
 Israel to be my priest, to offer upon mine altar, to 
 burn incense, to wear an ephod before me? And did 
 I give unto the house of thy father all the offerings 
 made by fire of the children of Israel? Wherefore 
 kick ye at my sacrifice and at mine offering, which I 
 have commanded in my habitation ; and honouredst 
 thy sons above me to make yourselves fat with the 
 chief est of all the offerings of Israel, my people? 
 Wherefore the Lord God of Israel saith, I said indeed 
 that thy house and the house of thy father should 
 walk before me for ever ; but now the Lord saith, be 
 it far from me; for them that honour me I will 
 honour, and them that despise me shall be lightly 
 esteemed. Behold the day is come, that I will cut 
 off thine arm, and the arm of thy father's house, and 
 
 276
 
 THE SWORD OF THE LORD 
 
 there shall not be an old man in my house. And thou 
 shalt see an enemy in my habitation, in all the wealth 
 which God shall give Israel. . . . And I will raise 
 me up a faithful priest, that shall do according to 
 that which is in mine heart and in my mind. . . ." : 
 
 There was a pause, and then the preacher read a 
 passage from Judges, ending with the famous war- 
 cry : " The Sword of the Lord and of Gideon." He 
 looked up then, and, without reference to the Bible 
 in his hand, repeated several verses: 
 
 " ' And by thy sword thou shalt live, and shalt 
 serve thy brother : and it shall come to pass when thou 
 shalt have the dominion, that thou shalt break his 
 yoke from off thy neck.' 
 
 " ' He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment 
 and buy one.' 
 
 " * For he beareth not the sword in vain : for he is 
 the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon 
 him that doeth evil.' 
 
 " ' And take the helmet of salvation, and the Sword 
 of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.' 
 
 " ' Think not that I am come to send peace on 
 earth ; I came not to send peace but a sword.' Not 
 the peace of indolence and dishonour ; not the fatted 
 peace of mercenary well-being; but a Sword; the 
 Sword of the Lord, the Sword of Duty, which creates, 
 establishes, and safeguards the only true peace 
 the peace of honourable peoples." 
 
 I remember his slow turning of leaves in his Bible, 
 and I remember: 
 
 " ' Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: 
 Fear God, and keep His commandments, for this is 
 
 277
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 the whole duty of man ' the whole duty 
 
 Yes, ' but isn't Duty rather an early Victorian sort 
 of business, and a bit out of date, anyhow? ' That 
 was what a young countryman of mine from Dor- 
 set, he came said to me in Calgary, last year. I 
 told him that, according to my reading of history, 
 it had come down a little farther than early Victorian 
 days. I remember I mentioned Rorke's Drift; and 
 he rather liked that. But, of course, I knew what he 
 meant." 
 
 It was in this very simple strain, without a gesture, 
 without a trace of dramatic appeal, that George 
 Stairs began to address that great gathering. Much 
 has been said and written of the quality of revelation 
 which was instinct in that first address ; of its compel- 
 ling force, its inspired strength, the convincing di- 
 rectness of it all. And I should be the last to deny 
 to my old friend's address any of the praises lavished 
 upon it by high and low. But what I would say of it 
 is that, even now, sufficient emphasis and import are 
 never attached to the most compelling quality of all 
 in George Stairs's words : their absolutely unaffected 
 simplicity. I think a ten-year-old child could have 
 followed his every word with perfect understanding. 
 
 Nowadays we take a fair measure of simplicity for 
 granted. Anything less would condemn a man as a 
 fool or a mountebank. But be it remembered that 
 the key-note and most striking feature of all recent 
 progress has been the advance toward simplicity in all 
 things. At the period of George Stairs's first exposi- 
 tion of the new evangel in the Albert Hall, we were 
 not greatly given to simplicity. It was scarcely 
 
 278
 
 THE SWORD OF THE LORD 
 
 noticeable at that time even among tillers of the earth. 
 Not to put too fine a point upon it, we were a tinselled 
 lot of mimes, greatly given to apishness, and shun- 
 ning naked truth as though it were the plague. Past 
 masters in compromise and self-delusion, we had 
 stripped ourselves of simplicity in every detail of life, 
 and, from the cradle to the grave, seemed willingly 
 to be hedged about with every kind of complexity. 
 We so maltreated our physical palates that they re- 
 sponded only to flavours which would have alarmed 
 a plain-living man; and, metaphorically, the same 
 thing held good in every concern of our lives, until 
 simplicity became non-existent among us, and was 
 forgotten. There were men and women in that Sunr- 
 day afternoon gathering at the Albert Hall whose 
 very pleasures were a complicated and laborious art, 
 whose pastimes were a strain upon the nervous sys- 
 tem, whose leisure was quite an arduous business. 
 
 This it was which gave such striking freshness, 
 such compelling strength, to the simple, forthright 
 directness, the unaffected earnestness and modesty of 
 the Message brought us by the Canadian preachers. 
 The most bumptious and self-satisfied Cockney who 
 ever heard the ringing of Bow Bells, would have found 
 resentment impossible after George Stairs's little ac- 
 count of his leaving Dorset as a boy of twelve, and 
 picking up such education as he had, while learning 
 how to milk cows, bed down horses, split fire-wood, and 
 perform " chores " generally, on a Canadian farm. 
 Even during his theological course, vacations had 
 found him in the harvest field. 
 
 " You may guess my diffidence, then," he said, " in 
 279
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 lifting up my voice before such a gathering as this, 
 here in the storied heart of the Empire, the city I 
 have reverenced my life long as the centre of the 
 world's intelligence. But there is not a man or woman 
 here to-day who would chide a lad who came home 
 from school with tidings of something he had learned 
 there. That is my case, precisely. I have been to 
 one of our outside schools, from my home here in this 
 beloved island. Home and school alike, they are all 
 part of our family heritage yours and mine. I 
 only bring you your own word from another part of 
 our own place. That is my sole claim to stand before 
 you to-day. Yet, when I think of it, it satisfies me; 
 it safeguards me from the effect of misunderstanding 
 or offence, so long as my hearers are of my kin 
 British." 
 
 His description of Canada and the life he had lived 
 there occupied us for no more than ten minutes, at 
 the outside. It has appeared in so many books that I 
 will not attempt to quote that little masterpiece of 
 illumination. But by no means every reproduction of 
 this passage adds the simple little statement which 
 divided it from its successor. 
 
 " That has been my life. No brilliant qualities are 
 demanded of a man in such a life. The one thing 
 demanded is that he shall do his duty. You remem- 
 ber that passage in Ecclesiastes ' The conclusion 
 of the whole matter ' ? " 
 
 And then came the story of Edward Hare. That 
 moved the people deeply. 
 
 " My first curacy was in Southern Manitoba. 
 When I was walking from the church to the farm- 
 
 280
 
 THE SWORD OF THE LORD 
 
 house where I lodged, after morning service, one per- 
 fect day in June, I passed a man called Edward Hare, 
 sitting at the edge of a little bluff, on a rising piece 
 of ground. I had felt drawn toward this man. He 
 was a Londoner, and, in his first two years, had had 
 a tough fight. But he had won through, and now 
 had just succeeded in adding a hundred and sixty 
 acres to his little farm, which was one of the most 
 prosperous in the district. 
 
 " ' I didn't see you at church this morning, Hare,' 
 I said, after we had chatted a minute or two. 
 
 " * No,' said he ; 'I wasn't at church. I've been 
 here by this bluff since breakfast, and Parson ! ' 
 he said, with sudden emphasis, * I shall give up the 
 farm. I'm going back Home.' 
 
 " Well, of course, I was surprised, and pressed 
 him for reasons. ' Well,' he said, * I don't know as I 
 can make much of a show of reasons ; but I'm going. 
 Did you notice anything special about the weather, 
 or or that, this morning, Parson?' I told him I 
 had only noticed that it was a very sweet, clear, happy 
 sort of a morning. ' That's just it, Parson,' he said ; 
 * sweet and clear and clean it is ; and I don't believe 
 there's any sweeter, cleaner thing than this morning 
 on my farm no, not in heaven, Parson,' he said. 
 1 And that's why I'm going back Home to London ; to 
 Battersea; that's where I lived before I came here.' 
 
 " I waited for him to tell me more, and presently 
 he said : ' You know, Parson, I was never what you 
 might call a drunkard, not even at Home, where 
 drinkin's the regular thing. But I used to get 
 through a tidy lot of liquor, one way and another, 
 
 281
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 and most generally two or three pints too many of a 
 Saturday night. Then, of a Sunday morning, the 
 job was waiting for the pubs to open. Nobody in 
 our street ever did much else of a Sunday. I sup- 
 pose you don't happen to have ever been down the 
 Falcon Road of a Sunday morning, Parson? No? 
 Well, you see, the street's a kind of market all Satur- 
 day night, up till long after midnight costers' 
 barrows with flare-lights, gin-shops full to the door, 
 and all the fun of the fair all the fun of the fair. 
 Mothers and fathers, lads and sweethearts, babies in 
 prams, and toddlers in blue plush and white wool; 
 you see them all crowding the bars up till midnight, 
 and they see well, they see Battersea through a 
 kind of a bright gaze. Then comes Sunday, and a 
 dry throat, and waiting for the pubs to open. The 
 streets are all a litter of dirty newspaper and cab- 
 bage-stumps, and worse; and the air's kind of sick 
 and stale.' 
 
 " At that Hare stopped talking, and looked out 
 over the prairie on that June morning. Presently he 
 went on again : ' Well, Parson, when I came out here 
 this morning I haven't tasted beer for over three 
 years I sat down and looked around ; and, some- 
 how, I thought I'd never seen anything so fine in all 
 my life ; so sweet and clean ; the air so bright, like 
 dew ; and green well, look at it, far as your eye 
 can carry ! And all this round, away to the bluff 
 there, and the creek this way; it's mine, every foot 
 of it. Well, after a bit, I was looking over there to 
 the church, and what d'ye think I saw, all through 
 the pretty sunlight? I saw the Falcon Road, a pub 
 
 282
 
 THE SWORD OF THE LORD 
 
 I know there, and a streak of sunshine running over 
 the wire blinds into the bar, all frowsy and shut in, 
 with the liquor stains over everything. And outside, 
 I saw the pasty-faced crowd waiting to get in, and 
 all the Sunday litter in the road. Parson, I got the 
 smell of it, the sick, stale smell of it, right here in 
 Paradise; I got the frowsy smell of it, and heard 
 the waily children squabbling, and I can't tell you 
 any more of what I saw. If you'd ever seen it, you'd 
 know.' 
 
 " And there he stopped again, until I moved. Then 
 he said : ' Parson, if you saw a fellow starving on a 
 bit of land over there that wouldn't feed a prairie- 
 chick, and you knew of a free homestead across the 
 creek, where he could raise five and twenty bushels to 
 the acre and live like a man, would you leave him to 
 rot on his bare patch? Not you. That's why I'm 
 going Home to Battersea.' 
 
 " If Hare had been a married man I might have 
 advised him otherwise. But he was married only to 
 the farm he had wrought so well, and it did not seem 
 to me part of my business to come between a man and 
 his duty as he saw it. That man came Home, and 
 took the cheapest lodging he could get in Battersea. 
 He had sold his farm well. Now he took to street 
 preaching, and what he preached was, not religion, 
 but the prairie. * Lord sake, young folk ! ' he used 
 to say to the lads and girls when they turned toward 
 the public-houses. * Hold on ! Wait a minute ! I 
 want to tell you something ! ' And he would tell them 
 what four years' clean work had given him in Can- 
 ada. 
 
 283
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 " He got into touch with various emigration agen- 
 cies. The money he had lasted him, living as he did, 
 for five years. In that time he was the means of 
 sending nine hundred and twenty men and five hun- 
 dred and forty women and girls to a free and inde- 
 pendent life in Canada. Just before his money was 
 exhausted, England's affliction, England's chastise- 
 ment, came upon her like God's anger in a thunder- 
 bolt. Hare had meant to return to Canada to make 
 another start, and earn money enough to return to 
 his work here. Instead of that, my friends, instead 
 of what he called Paradise in Manitoba, God took him 
 straight into Heaven. He left his body beside the 
 North London entrenchments, where, so one of his 
 comrades told me, he fought like ten men for Eng- 
 land, knowing well that, if captured, he would be 
 shot out of hand as a civilian bearing arms. One may 
 say of Edward Hare, I think, tljat he saw his duty 
 very clearly and did it. 
 
 " But what of us ? What of you, and I, my 
 friends ? How do we stand regarding Duty ? " 
 
 I never heard such questions in my life. He had 
 been speaking smoothly, evenly, calmly, and without 
 gesticulation. With the questions, his body was bent 
 as though for a leap ; his hands flung forward. 
 These questions left him like bullets. It was as 
 though that great hall had been in blackest darkness, 
 and with a sudden movement the speaker had switched 
 on ten thousand electric lights. I saw men rise to a 
 
 284
 
 half-erect posture. I heard women catch their breath. 
 The air of the place seemed all aquiver. 
 
 " My friends, will you please pray with me? " 
 
 He leaned forward, an appeal in every line of his 
 figure, addressed confidentially to each soul present. 
 Then his right hand rose: 
 
 " Please God, help me to give my Message ! Please 
 God, open London's heart to hear my Message ! 
 Please God, give me strength to tell it now ! For 
 Christ's sake. Amen ! " 
 
 One heard a low, emphatic, and far-carrying 
 " Amen ! " from the lips of London's Bishop ; and I 
 think that, too, meant something to the great con- 
 gregation of Londoners assembled there. 
 
 Immediately then, it was, while the electric thrill of 
 his questions and the simple prayer still held all his 
 audience at high tension, that George Stairs plunged 
 into the famous declaration of the new evangel of 
 Duty and Simplicity. If any man in the world has 
 learned for himself that prayer is efficacious, that 
 man is the Rev. George Stairs. For it is now univer- 
 sally admitted that such winged words as those of his 
 first great exposition of the doctrine of Duty and 
 simple living, the doctrine which has placed the Eng- 
 lish-speaking peoples in the forefront of Christen- 
 dom, had never before thrilled an English audience. 
 
 His own words were a perfect example of the in- 
 vincible virtue of simplicity ; his presence there was 
 a glowing evidence of the force of Duty. It is quite 
 certain that the knowledge shown in his flashing 
 summary of nineteenth-century English history was 
 not knowledge based upon experience. But neither 
 
 285
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 the poets, nor the most learned historians, nor the 
 most erudite of naval experts, has ever given a pic- 
 ture so instantly convincing as the famous passage 
 of his oration which showed us, first, the British Fleet 
 on the morning of Trafalgar; then, Nelson going 
 into action; then, the great sailor's dying apotheosis 
 of Duty; and, finally, England's reception of her 
 dead hero's body. The delivery of this much-quoted 
 passage was a matter of moments only, but from 
 where I stood I saw streaming eyes in women's faces, 
 and that stiff, unwinking stare on men's faces which 
 indicates tense effort to restrain emotion. 
 
 And so, with a fine directness and simplicity of 
 progress, he carried us down through the century to 
 its stormy close, with vivid words of tribute for the 
 sturdy pioneers of Victorian reform who fought for 
 and built the freest democracy in the world, and gave 
 us the triumphant enlightenment which illumined 
 Victoria's first Jubilee. 
 
 " ' But isn't Duty a rather early Victorian sort of 
 business, and out of date, anyhow ? ' said my young 
 countryman in Calgary. To the first half of his 
 question there can be no answer but ' Yes.' To deny 
 it were to slander our fathers most cruelly. But what 
 of the question's second half? Our fathers have no 
 concern with the answering of that. Is Duty ' out of 
 date,' my friends? If so, let us burn our churches. 
 If so, let the bishops resign their bishoprics. If so, 
 let us lower for ever the flag which our fathers made 
 sacred from pole to pole. If so, let Britain admit 
 as well first as last that she has retired for ever 
 from her proud place among the nations, and is no 
 
 286
 
 THE SWORD OF THE LORD 
 
 more to be accounted a Power in Christendom ; for 
 that is no place for a people with whom Duty is out 
 of date. 
 
 " ' And did I choose him out of all the tribes of 
 Israel to be my priest, to offer upon mine altar ? . . . 
 But now the Lord saith, Be it far from me, for them 
 that honour me I will honour, and them that despise 
 me shall be lightly esteemed. Behold the days come 
 that I will cut off thine arm! ' " 
 
 It was almost unbearable. No one had guessed the 
 man had such a voice. He had recited that passage 
 quietly. Then came the rolling thunder of the: 
 " Behold the days come that I will cut off thine 
 arm ! " A woman in the centre of the hall cried aloud, 
 upon a high note. The roar of German artillery in 
 North London never stirred Londoners as this par- 
 ticular sentence of God's Word stirred them in the 
 Albert Hall. 
 
 And then, in a voice keyed down again to calm and 
 tender wisdom, the words of the Scriptural poet stole 
 out over the heads of the perturbed people, stilling 
 their minds once more into the right receptive vein: 
 " ' Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter : 
 Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the 
 whole duty of man.' ' 
 
 Like balm, the stately words fell upon the people, 
 as a light to lighten their darkness, as an end and a 
 solution to a situation found intolerable. But, though 
 calm resolve was in George Stairs's gift that day, he 
 suffered no complaisance; and, by this time, he held 
 that great assembly in the hollow of his hand. It was 
 then he dealt with the character of our own century, 
 
 281
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 as distinguished from that of the Victorian era. It 
 was then his words taught me, personally, more than 
 all he had said besides. 
 
 I will not quote from a passage which has been 
 incorporated in hundreds of school-books. It is gen- 
 erally admitted that the end and purpose underlying 
 the civil and national code of our age has never since 
 been more admirably stated than on the day of its 
 first enunciation in the Albert Hall by George Stairs. 
 His words were glowing when he showed us how the 
 key-note of our fathers' age had been the claiming 
 and establishing of rights and privileges. His words 
 stung like whip-thongs when he depicted our greedy, 
 self-satisfied enjoyment of those rights and privi- 
 leges, with never a thought, either of the various 
 obligations pertaining to them, or of our plain duty 
 in the conservation for our children of all that had 
 been won for us. Finally, his words were living fire 
 of incentive, red wine of stimulation, when he urged 
 upon us the twentieth-century watchword of Duty, 
 and the loyal discharge of obligations. 
 
 " Theirs, an age crowned by well-won triumph, was 
 the century of claimant demand; ours is the century 
 of grateful obedience. Theirs was the age of claims ; 
 ours the age of Duty. Theirs the century of rights ; 
 ours the century of Duty. Theirs the period of 
 brave, insistent constructive effort; ours the period 
 of Duty Duty Duty! 
 
 " In fighting to obtain all that they won for us, 
 our fathers pledged themselves and us to be fit 
 recipients, true freemen. For a moment, misled by 
 the glare of wealth and pleasure, we have played the 
 
 288
 
 THE PREACHERS 
 
 caitiff's part ; grasped freemen's privileges, without 
 thanks, and with repudiation of the balancing duties 
 and obligations without which no rights can survive. 
 And ' Behold, the days come that I will cut off 
 thine arm ! ' 
 
 " The God of our fathers trusted them, in our 
 behalf; and we played traitor. So God smote Eng- 
 land, through the arrogant war-lords of another 
 people. That blow, self-administered, is Heaven's 
 last warning to England. In truth, the blow was 
 ours, yours and mine ; we ourselves it was who played 
 the traitor and struck a cruel blow at Britain's heart. 
 Unworthy sons of valiant sires, we snatched our 
 wages and shirked our work ; seized the reward and 
 refused the duty. God in His mercy gave us many 
 warnings ; but we hid our faces and pursued our 
 selfish ends. ' Behold, the days come ' 
 
 " But God stayed His hand. England lies bloody 
 but unbroken. There can be no more warnings. The 
 time for warnings has gone by. There can be no 
 more paltering. Now is the day of final choice. Will 
 ye be men or helots and outcasts ? Will you choose 
 Duty, and the favour of God's appointed way for us, 
 of progress and of leadership ; or will you choose 
 pleasure, swift decay, annihilation ? Upon your heads 
 be it ! Our fathers nobly did their part. Upon your 
 choice hangs the future of our race, the fate of your 
 children, the destiny of God's chosen people, who have 
 paltered with strange gods, blasphemed the true 
 faith, and stepped aside from the white path the 
 Only Way : Duty ! " 
 
 He turned, raising one hand, and the notes of the 
 289
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 great organ rose and swelled mightily, filling the hall 
 with the strains of the British National Anthem. 
 Every soul in the building stood erect, and following 
 the choir's lead, that great gathering sang the Brit- 
 ish hymn as it was never sung before. As the last 
 note throbbed into silence in the hall's dome, George 
 Stairs, who had knelt through the singing of the 
 anthem, advanced, with hand uplifted. 
 
 " God helping us, as, if we choose aright, He surely 
 will help us, do we choose Duty, or pleasure ? Choose, 
 my kinsmen! Is it Duty, or is it pleasure? " 
 
 It was a severe test to put to such an assembly, to 
 a congregation of all classes of London society. 
 There was a moment of silence in which I saw George 
 Stairs's face, white and writhen, through a mist which 
 seemed to cloud my vision. And then the answer 
 came, like a long, rolling clap of thunder: 
 
 " Duty ! " 
 
 And I saw George Stairs fall upon his knees in 
 prayer, as the Bishop dismissed the people with a 
 benediction, delivered somewhat brokenly, in a hoarse 
 voice. 
 
 290
 
 VIII 
 
 THE PREACHERS 
 
 There are who ask not if thine eye 
 Be on them ; who in love and truth 
 Where no misgiving is, rely 
 Upon the genial sense of youth : 
 Glad hearts! without reproach or blot, 
 Who do thy work, and know it not : 
 O! if through confidence misplaced 
 They fail, thy saving arms, dread Power! around them cast. 
 
 Ode to Duty. 
 
 IT was with something of a shock that I learned, 
 while endeavouring to make my way through a 
 dense crowd to the Canadian preacher's dressing- 
 room, that my friend, George Stairs, was lying un- 
 conscious in a fainting fit. But my anxiety was not 
 long-lived. Several doctors had volunteered their 
 services, and from one of them I learned that the 
 fainting fit was no more than the momentary result 
 of an exceptional strain of excitement. 
 
 Within half an hour, Stairs and Reynolds were 
 both resting comfortably in a private sitting-room at 
 a neighbouring hotel, and there I visited them, with 
 Constance Grey and Mrs. Van Homrey, and John 
 Crondall. Stairs assured us that his fainting was of 
 no consequence, and that he felt perfectly fit and well 
 again. 
 
 291
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 " You see it was something of an ordeal for me, 
 a nobody from nowhere, to face such an assembly." 
 
 " Well," said John Crondall, " I suppose that at 
 this moment there is not a man in London who is 
 much more a somebody, and less a nobody from no- 
 where." 
 
 " You think we succeeded, then ? " 
 
 " My dear fellow ! I think your address of this 
 afternoon was the most important event England has 
 known this century. Mark my words, that great 
 thunder of ' Duty ! ' that you drew from them 
 from a London audience, mind is to have more far- 
 reaching results for the British Empire than the 
 acquisition of a continent." 
 
 " No, no, my dear Crondall, you surely overrate 
 the thing," said Stairs, warm colour spreading over 
 his pale face. 
 
 " Well, you can take my deliberate assurance that 
 in my opinion you achieved more for your country 
 this afternoon than it has been my good fortune to 
 achieve in the whole of a rather busy life." 
 
 Stairs protested, blushing like a girl. But we 
 know now that, so far at all events as his remarks 
 were prophetic, John Crondall was absolutely right ; 
 though whether or not the new evangel could have 
 achieved what it did without the invasion is another 
 matter. 
 
 Myself, I believe nothing could have been more 
 triumphantly successful, more prenant with great 
 possibilities for good, than the event of that after- 
 noon. Yet I was assured that fully two thousand 
 five hundred more people crowded into the hall for 
 
 292
 
 THE PREACHERS 
 
 the evening service than had been there to hear 
 Stairs's address. And I had thought the huge place 
 crowded in the afternoon. As before, the service 
 began and ended with the National Anthem ; but in 
 the evening the great assembly was thrilled to its 
 heart by the Australian prima donna's splendid sing- 
 ing of Wordsworth's Ode to Duty in the setting spe- 
 cially composed for this occasion by Doctor Elgar. 
 
 I saw very many faces that I had seen at the first 
 service, but I believe that there was a far greater 
 proportion of poorer folk present than there had been 
 in the afternoon. The President of the Congrega- 
 tional Union presided, and the address was delivered 
 by Arthur Reynolds. 
 
 As with Stairs, so with Reynolds, Duty was the 
 gist and heart of the Message delivered Duty, 
 plain living, simplicity ; these they both urged to be 
 the root of the whole matter. Both men gave sub- 
 stantially the same Message, there can be no doubt 
 of that; but there were differences, and upon the 
 whole I am inclined to think that Reynolds's address 
 was more perfectly adapted to his hearers than 
 Stairs's would have been if his had been given that 
 evening. Reynolds's diction in public speaking was 
 not quite his conversational speech, because nothing 
 like slang, nothing altogether colloquial crept into it, 
 but its simplicity was notable; it was the diction of 
 a frank, earnest child. There were none of the stere- 
 otyped phrases of piety ; yet I never heard a more 
 truly pious and deeply religious discourse. 
 
 The social and political aspects of Duty were more 
 cursorily treated by Reynolds than its moral and 
 
 293
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 religious aspect. There was nothing heterodox in the 
 view put forward by this preacher from oversea. A 
 man may find salvation in this world and the next 
 through love and faith, he said in effect; but the 
 love and faith must be of the right sort. The re- 
 demption of the world was the world's greatest mira- 
 cle; but it did not offer mankind salvation in return 
 for a given measure of psalm-singing, sentimental- 
 izing, and prayerful prostrations. Christianity was 
 something which had to be lived, not merely contem- 
 plated. Love and faith were all-sufficient, but they 
 must be the true love and faith, of which Duty was 
 the legitimate offspring. The man who thought that 
 any form of piety which permitted the neglect of 
 Duty, would win him either true peace in this life or 
 salvation in the next, was as pitifully misled as the 
 man who indulged himself in a vicious life with a view 
 to repentance when he should be too near his demise 
 to care for indulgence. 
 
 " But, even if one could put aside all thought of 
 God and the life compared with which this life is but 
 an instant of time ; even then there would be nothing 
 left really worth serious consideration besides Duty. 
 Dear friends, you who listen so kindly to the man who 
 comes to you from across the sea, I ask you to look 
 about you in the streets and among the people you 
 know, and to tell me if the majority are really happy. 
 In this connection I dare not speak of the land of my 
 birth, because, though it is yours as truly as it is 
 mine, and we are all blood-brothers, yet I might be 
 thought guilty of a vain partiality. But I do say 
 that I cannot think the majority of the people of 
 
 294
 
 THE PREACHERS 
 
 England are really happy. I do not believe the 
 majority of Londoners are happy. I am sure that 
 the majority of those who spend an immense amount 
 of money here in the West End of London, are not 
 one whit happier than the average man who works 
 hard for a few pounds a week. 
 
 " If I am certain of anything in this world, I am 
 certain that the pursuit of pleasure never yet brought 
 real happiness to any intelligent human being, and 
 never will. True, I have met some happy people in 
 London, even now, when England lies wounded from 
 a cruel blow a blow which I believe may prove the 
 greatest blessing England ever knew. But those 
 happy people are not running after pleasure or con- 
 centrating their intelligence upon their own gratifi- 
 cation. No, no; those happy people are strenuously, 
 soberly striving to do the whole of their duty as 
 Christians and British citizens. They are happy 
 because of that. 
 
 " Oh, my dear friends, do please believe me, that, 
 even apart from God's will and the all-sacrificing love 
 of His Son, there is absolutely no real happiness in 
 this world outside the clean, sweet way of Duty. If 
 you profess you love a woman, but shirk your duty by 
 her, of what worth is such love? Is God of less im- 
 portance to you? Is Eternity of less importance? 
 Are King and Country, and the future of our race 
 and the millions who depend on us for light and guid- 
 ance and protection, of less importance? As God 
 hears me, nothing is of any importance, beside the one 
 thing vital to salvation, to happiness, to honour, to 
 life, here and hereafter. That one thing is Duty." 
 
 295
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 The evening congregation was more demonstrative 
 than that of the afternoon, and though I do not 
 think the impression produced by Reynolds's address 
 was deeper or stronger than that made by Stairs 
 it could hardly have been that its effects were more 
 noticeable. The great crowd that streamed out of the 
 hall after the Benediction had been pronounced, testi- 
 fied in a hundred ways to the truth of John Crondall's 
 assertion that the Canadian preachers had stirred the 
 very depths of London's heart as no other missioners 
 had ever stirred them. 
 
 By George Stairs's invitation, Mrs. Van Homrey, 
 Constance, Crondall, myself, Sir Herbert Tate, and 
 Forbes Thompson, joined the preachers that evening, 
 quite informally, at their very modest supper board. 
 It must have been a little startling to a bon vivant 
 like Sir Herbert to find that the men who had stormed 
 London, supped upon bread and cheese and celery 
 and cold rice pudding, and, without a hint of apology, 
 offered their guests the same Spartan entertainment. 
 But it was quite a brilliant function so far as mental 
 activity and high spirits were concerned. We were 
 discussing the possibilities of the Canadian preachers' 
 pilgrimage, and Crondall said : 
 
 " I know that some of you think I take too sanguine 
 a view, but, mark my words, these meetings to-day 
 are the beginning of the greatest religious, moral, 
 and national revival that the British people have ever 
 seen. I am certain of it. Your blushes are quite 
 beside the point, Stairs ; they are wholly irrelevant ; 
 so is your modesty. Why, my dear fellow, you 
 couldn't help it if you tried. You two men are the 
 
 296
 
 THE PREACHERS 
 
 mouthpiece of the hour. The hour having come, you 
 could not stay its Message if you tried, nor check the 
 tide of its effect. I know my London. In a matter 
 of this kind a moral movement London is the 
 hardest place in the kingdom to move, because its 
 bigness and variety make it so many-sided. Having 
 achieved what you have achieved to-day in London, 
 I say nothing can check your progress. My counsel 
 is for no more than a week in London ; two days more 
 in the west, three in the east, and one in the south; 
 and then a bee-line due north through England, with 
 a few days in all big centres." 
 
 " Well," said Reynolds, " whatever happens after 
 to-night, I just want to say what George Stairs has 
 more than once said to me, and that is, that to-day's 
 success is three parts due to Mr. Crondall for every 
 one part due to us." 
 
 " And to his secretary," said Stairs. " It really is 
 no more than bare truth. Without you, Crondall, 
 there would have been no Albert Hall for us." 
 
 " And no Bishop," added Reynolds. 
 
 " And no great personages." 
 
 " And no columns and columns of newspaper an- 
 nouncements." 
 
 " In point of fact, there would have been none of 
 the splendid organization which made to-day possible. 
 I recognize it very clearly. If this is to prove the 
 beginning of a really big movement, then it is a 
 beginning in which The Citizens and their founder 
 have played a very big part. You won't find that we 
 shall forget that; and I know Reynolds is with me 
 when I say that we shall leave no word unsaid, or act 
 
 297
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 undone, which could make our pilgrimage helpful to 
 The Citizens' campaign. I tell you, standing before 
 that vast assembly to-day, it was borne in upon me as 
 I had not felt it before, that your aims and ours are 
 inseparable. We cannot succeed without your suc- 
 ceeding, nor you without our succeeding. Our inter- 
 pretation of Christianity, our Message, is Duty and 
 simple living, and unless the people will accept that 
 Message they will never achieve what you seek of 
 them. On the other hand, if they will answer your 
 call they will be going a long way toward accepting 
 and acting upon our Message." 
 
 " I am mighty thankful that has come home to you, 
 Stairs," said Crondall. " I felt it very strongly when 
 I first asked you to come and talk things over. Your 
 pilgrimage is going to wake up England, morally. 
 It will be our business to see that newly waked Eng- 
 land choose the right direction for the first outlay of 
 its energy. The thing will go far much farther 
 than I have said, and far beyond England's immedi- 
 ate need. But, of course, we mustn't lose sight of 
 that immediate need. If I am not greatly mistaken, 
 one of the first achievements of this movement will 
 be the safe steering of the British public through the 
 General Election. With the New Year I hope to see 
 a real Imperial Parliament sitting. By that I mean 
 a strong Government administering England from the 
 House of Commons, while some of its members sit in 
 an Imperial Chamber Westminster Hall and 
 help elected representatives of every one of the Colo- 
 nies to govern the Empire. My belief is there will 
 be no such thing as an Opposition in the House. 
 
 298
 
 THE PREACHERS 
 
 Why should England continue to waste its time and 
 energy over pulling both ways in every little job its 
 legislators have to tackle. It sterilizes the efforts of 
 the good men, and gives innumerable openings to the 
 fools and cranks and obstructionists. You will find 
 the very names of the old futile cross-purposes of 
 party warfare will fall into the limbo which has swal- 
 lowed up the pillory, the stocks, and Little England- 
 ism. With deference to the cloth present in the per- 
 son of our reverend friends here, let me quote you 
 what to me is one of the most strikingly interesting 
 passages in the Bible : ' The vile person shall be no 
 more called liberal.' It will become clear to all men 
 that the only possible party, the only people who can 
 possibly stand for progress, movement, advance, are 
 those who stand firm for Imperial Federation." 
 
 " And then ? " said Constance, leaning forward, 
 her face illumined by her shining eyes. Crondall 
 drew a long breath. 
 
 " And then then Britain will have something to 
 say to the Kaiser." 
 
 As we rose from the table, George Stairs laid his 
 hand on Reynolds's shoulder. 
 
 " Deep waters these, my friend," said he, " for 
 simple parsons from the backwoods. But our part 
 is plain, and close at hand. Our work is to make the 
 writing on the wall flame till all can read and feel: 
 Duty first, last, and all the time. ' The conclusion of 
 the whole matter.' " 
 
 " Yes, yes ; that's so," said Reynolds, thoughtfully. 
 And then he added, as it were an afterthought: 
 " But was that remark about vile people no more 
 
 299
 
 being called liberal really scriptural, I wonder I 
 wonder ! " 
 
 " Without a doubt," said Crondall, with a broad 
 grin. " You look up Isaiah xxxn. 5. You will find 
 it there, written maybe three thousand years ago, 
 fitting to-day's situation like a glove." 
 
 On the way out to South Kensington, where I ac- 
 companied the ladies, I asked Constance what she 
 thought of my old chum, George Stairs. 
 
 " Why, Dick," she said, " he makes me feel that an 
 English village can still produce the finest type of 
 man that walks the earth. But, as things have been, 
 in our time, I'm glad this particular man didn't re- 
 main in his native village aren't you ? " 
 
 " Yes," I agreed, with a half -sad note I could not 
 keep out of my voice. " I suppose Colonial life has 
 taught him a lot." 
 
 " Oh, he is magnificent ! " 
 
 "And look at John Crondall!" 
 
 " Ah, John is a wonderful man ; Empire-taught, is 
 John." 
 
 " And I suppose the man who has never lived the 
 outside life in the big, open places can never " 
 
 And then I think she saw what had brought the 
 twinge of sadness to me; for she touched my arm, 
 her bright eyes gleamed upon me, and 
 
 " You're a terribly impatient man, Dick." she said, 
 with a smile. " It seems to me you've trekked a 
 mighty long way from The Mass office in how 
 many weeks is it? " 
 
 300
 
 IX 
 
 THE CITIZENS 
 
 Serene will be our days, and bright 
 And happy will our nature be 
 When love is an unerring light, 
 And joy its own security. 
 And they a blissful course may hold 
 Ev'n now, who, not unwisely bold, 
 Live in the spirit of this creed, 
 Yet find that other strength according to their need. 
 
 Ode to Duty. 
 
 CHARLES CORBETT'S History of the Re- 
 vival is to my mind the most interesting book 
 of this century. There are passages in it which leave 
 me marvelling afresh each time I read them, that any 
 writer, however gifted, could make quite so intimate 
 a revelation, without personal knowledge of the inside 
 workings of the movement he describes so perfectly. 
 But it is a fact that Corbett never spoke with Stairs 
 or Reynolds, or Crondall; neither, I think, was he 
 personally known to any member of the executive of 
 The Citizens. Yet I know from my own working 
 experience of the Revival, both in connection with the 
 pilgrimage of the Canadian preachers and the cam- 
 paign of The Citizens, that Corbett's descriptions are 
 marvellously accurate and lifelike, and that the con- 
 clusions he draws could not have been made more cor- 
 
 301
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 rect and luminous if they had been written by the 
 leaders of the great joint movement themselves. 
 
 The educational authorities were certainly well ad- 
 vised in making Corbett's great work the base from 
 which the contemporary history text-books for use in 
 the national schools were drawn. Your modern stu- 
 dents, by the way, would find it hard to realize that, 
 even at the time of the Revival, our school-children 
 were obliged to waste most of the few hours a week 
 which were devoted to historical studies, to the weari- 
 some memorizing of dates and genealogies connected 
 with the Saxon Heptarchy. As a rule they had no 
 time left in which to learn anything whatever of the 
 progress of their own age, or the nineteenth-century 
 development of the Empire. At that time a national 
 schoolboy destined to earn his living as a soldier or 
 a sailor, or a tinker or a tailor, sometimes knew a 
 little of the Saxon kings of England, or even a few 
 dates connected with the Norman Conquest, and the 
 fact that Henry VIII. had six wives. But he had 
 never heard of the Reform Bill, and knew nothing 
 whatever of the incorporation of India, Australia, 
 South Africa, or Canada. 
 
 I suppose the most notable and impressive intima- 
 tion received by the British public of the fact that a 
 great religious, moral, and social revival had begun 
 among them, was contained in Monday morning's 
 newspapers, after the first great Albert Hall services. 
 The recognized chief among imperialistic journals 
 became from the beginning the organ of the new 
 movement. Upon that Monday morning I remember 
 that this journal's first leading article was devoted 
 
 302
 
 THE CITIZENS 
 
 to the Message of the Canadian preachers, its second 
 to the coming of the various Colonial delegates for the 
 Westminster Hall Conference. For the rest, the 
 centre of the paper was occupied by a four-page 
 supplement, with portraits, describing fully, and re- 
 porting verbatim the Albert Hall services. The open- 
 ing sentences of the leading article gave the public 
 its cue: 
 
 " There can be little doubt, we think, that yester- 
 day's services at the Albert Hall mark the inaugura- 
 tion of a national movement in morals, which, before 
 it has gone far, is as likely to earn the name of the 
 Revolution as that of Revival. A religious, moral, 
 and social revolution is what we anticipate as the 
 result of the mission of the Canadian preachers. 
 Never before has London been so stirred to its moral 
 and emotional depths. In such a movement the pro- 
 vincial centres are not likely to prove less susceptible 
 than the metropolis." 
 
 As a matter of fact, I had occasion to know that 
 Mr. James Bryanstone, the preachers' secretary (in 
 whose name John Crondall had carried out the whole 
 work of organization, while I served him as secretary 
 and assistant) received during that Monday no fewer 
 than thirty-four separate telegraphic invitations from 
 provincial centres subsequently visited by Stairs and 
 Reynolds. It was, as Crondall had said: The time 
 was ripe, and the Canadian preachers were the mouth- 
 piece of the hour. Their Message filled them, and 
 England was conscious of its need of that Message. 
 
 On Monday and Tuesday the afternoon and eve- 
 ning services at the Albert Hall were repeated. 
 
 303
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 Thousands of people were unable to obtain admission 
 upon each occasion. Some of these people were ad- 
 dressed by friends of John Crondall's and The Citi- 
 zens, within the precincts of the hall. On Tuesday 
 morning, sunrise found a great throng of people 
 waiting to secure places when the hall should open. 
 On both days members of the Royal Family were 
 present, and on Tuesday the Primate of England 
 presided over the service addressed by Stairs. 
 
 During all this time, John Crondall was working 
 night and day, and I was busy with him in organiz- 
 ing the recruiting campaign of The Citizens. The 
 Legion of Frontiersmen, and the members of some 
 scores of rifle clubs, had been enrolled en bloc as 
 members, and applications were pouring in upon us 
 by every post from men who had seen service in dif- 
 ferent parts of the world, and from men able to equip 
 themselves either as mounted or foot riflemen. On 
 Tuesday evening the Canadian preachers announced 
 that their next day services would be held at the 
 People's Palace, in the East End. But I fancy that, 
 among the packed thousands who attended The Citi- 
 zens' first public meeting at the Albert Hall on 
 Wednesday afternoon, many came under the impres- 
 sion that they were to hear the Canadian preachers. 
 
 The man of all others in England most fitted for 
 the office, presided over that first meeting, in full 
 review uniform, and wearing the sword which had 
 been returned to him by General Baron von Fiichter, 
 after the historic surrender at the Mansion House on 
 Black Saturday. The great little Field Marshal rose 
 at three o'clock and stood for full five minutes, wait- 
 
 304
 
 THE CITIZENS 
 
 ing for the tempest of cheering which greeted him to 
 subside, before he could introduce John Crondall to 
 that huge audience. Even when the Field Marshal 
 began to speak he could not obtain complete silence. 
 As one burst of cheering rumbled to its close, another 
 would rise from the hall's far side like approaching 
 thunder, swelling as it came. 
 
 It seemed the London public was trying to make up 
 to its erstwhile hero for its long neglect of his brave 
 endeavours to warn them against the evils which had 
 actually befallen. At last, not to waste more time, 
 the little Field Marshal drew his sword, and waved it 
 above his head till a penetrant ray of afternoon sun- 
 light caught and transformed the blade into a streak 
 of living flame. 
 
 " There is a stain on it ! " he shouted, shaking the 
 blade. " It belongs to you to England and 
 there's a stain on it; got on Black Saturday. Now 
 silence, for the man who's for wiping out all stains. 
 Silence!" 
 
 It was long since the little man had delivered him- 
 self of such a roar, as that last " Silence ! " There 
 were one or two Indian veterans in the hall who remem- 
 bered the note. It had its effect, and John Crondall 
 stood, presently, before an entirely silent and eagerly 
 expectant multitude, when he began his explanation 
 of the ends and aims of The Citizens. I remember 
 he began by saying : 
 
 " I cannot pretend to be a Canadian preacher I 
 wish I could." And here there was another demon- 
 stration of cheering. One realized that afternoon 
 that the Canadians had lighted a fire in London that 
 305
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 would not easily be put out. " No, I am a native of 
 your own London," said Crondall ; " but I admit to 
 having learned most of the little I know in Canada, 
 South Africa, India, and Australia. And if there is 
 one thing I have learned very thoroughly in those 
 countries, it is to love England. She has no braver 
 or more devoted sons and lovers within her own 
 shores than our kinsmen oversea. You will find we 
 shall have fresh proofs of that very soon. Mean- 
 time, just in passing, I want to tell you this: You 
 have read something in the papers of The Citizens, 
 the organization of Britishers who are sworn to the 
 defence of Britain. I am here to tell you about them. 
 Well, in the past fortnight, I have received two hun- 
 dred and forty cable messages from representative 
 citizens in Canada, South Africa, Australia, India, 
 and other parts of the Empire, claiming membership, 
 and promising support through thick and thin, from 
 thousands of our kinsfolk oversea. So, before I 
 begin, I give you the greeting of men of our blood 
 from all the ends of the earth. They are with us 
 heart and hand, my friends, and eager to prove it. 
 And now I am going to tell you something about 
 The Citizens" 
 
 But before that last sentence had left Crondall's 
 lips, we were in the thick of another storm of cheer- 
 ing. The religious character of the Canadian 
 preachers' meetings had been sufficient to prevent 
 these outbursts of popular feeling ; but now the pub- 
 lic seemed to welcome the secular freedom of The 
 Citizens' gathering, as an opportunity for giving 
 their feelings vent. I am not sure that it was John 
 
 306
 
 THE CITIZENS 
 
 Crondall's message from the Colonies that they 
 cheered. They were moved, I am sure, by a vague 
 general approval of the idea of a combination of 
 citizens for British defence. But their cheering I 
 take to have been produced by feelings they would 
 have been hard put to it to define in any way. They 
 had been deeply stirred by the teaching of the Cana- 
 dian preachers. In short, they had been seized by 
 the fundamental tenets of the simple faith which has 
 since come to be known to the world as " British 
 Christianity " ; and they were eager to find some 
 way in which they could give tangible expression to 
 the faith that was burgeoning within them ; stirring 
 them as young mothers are stirred, filling them with 
 resolves and aspirations, none the less real and deep- 
 seated because they were as yet incoherent and shape- 
 less. 
 
 I am only quoting the best observers of the time 
 ,in this description of public feeling when John Cron- 
 dall made his great recruiting speech for The Citi- 
 zens. The event proved my chief to have been abso- 
 lutely right in his reckoning, absolutely sound in his 
 judgment. He had urged from the beginning that 
 The Citizens and the Canadian preachers had a com- 
 mon aim. " But you teach a general principle," he 
 had said to George Stairs, " while we supply the par- 
 ticular instance. We must reap where you sow; we 
 must glean after you ; we must follow you, as night 
 follows day, as accomplishment follows preparation 
 because you arouse the sense of duty, you teach 
 the sacredness of duty, while we give it particular 
 direction. It's you who will make them Citizens, my 
 
 307
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 dear fellow for what you mean by a true Chris- 
 tian is what I mean by a true citizen our part 
 is to swear them in. Or, as you might say, you pre- 
 pare, and we confirm. Those that won't come up to 
 your standard as Christians, won't be any use to us 
 as Citizens." 
 
 Just how shrewdly John Crondall had gauged the 
 matter perhaps no one else can realize, even now, so 
 clearly as those who played a recorder's part in the 
 recruiting campaign, as I did from that first day in 
 the Albert Hall, with Constance Grey's assistance, 
 and, later on, with the assistance of many other peo- 
 ple. At a further stage, and in other places, we made 
 arrangements for enrolling members after every 
 meeting. Upon this occasion we were unable to face 
 the task, and, instead, a card was given to every ap- 
 plicant, for subsequent presentation at The Citizens' 
 headquarters in Victoria Street, where I spent many 
 busy hours, with a rapidly growing clerical staff, 
 swearing in new members, and booking the full de- 
 tails of each man's position and capabilities, for reg- 
 istration on the roster. 
 
 We had no fees of any kind, but every new member 
 was invited to contribute according to his means to 
 The Citizens' equipment fund. During the twenty- 
 four hours following that first meeting at the Albert 
 Hall, over twenty-seven thousand pounds was re- 
 ceived in this way from new members. But we en- 
 rolled many who contributed nothing; and we en- 
 rolled a few men to whom we actually made small 
 payments from a special fund raised privately for 
 that purpose. All this last-named minority, and a 
 
 308
 
 THE CITIZENS 
 
 certain proportion of other members, went directly 
 into camp training on the estates of various wealthy 
 members, who themselves were providing camp equip- 
 ment and instructors, while, in many cases, arranging 
 also for employment which should make these camps 
 as nearly as might be self-supporting. 
 
 Among the list of people who agreed to deliver 
 addresses at our meetings we now included many of 
 the most eloquent speakers, and some of the most 
 famous names in England. But I am not sure that 
 any of them ever evoked the same storms of enthu- 
 siasm, the same instant and direct response that John 
 Crondall earned by his simple speeches. Heart and 
 soul, John Crondall was absorbed in the perfection 
 and furtherance of the organization he had founded, 
 and when he sought public support he was irresistible. 
 
 In those first days of the campaign there were 
 times when John Crondall was so furiously occupied, 
 that his bed hardly knew the touch of him, and I 
 could not exchange a word with him outside the im- 
 mediate work of our hands. This was doubtless one 
 reason why I took a certain idea of mine to Constance 
 Grey, instead of to my chief. Together, she and I 
 interviewed Brigadier-General Hapgood, of the Sal- 
 vation Army, and, on the next day, the venerable 
 chief of that remarkable organization, General Booth. 
 The proposition we put before General Booth was 
 that he should join hands with us in dealing with 
 that section of our would-be members who described 
 themselves as unemployed and without resources. 
 
 For five minutes the old General stroked his beard, 
 and offered occasional ejaculatory interrogations. I 
 
 309
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 pointed out that the converts of the Canadian preach- 
 ers (for whom the General expressed unbounded ad- 
 miration and respect) flocked to our standard, full 
 of genuine eagerness to carry out the gospel of duty 
 and simple living. Suddenly, in the middle of one 
 of my sentences, this commander-in-chief of an army 
 larger than that of any monarch in Christendom 
 made up his mind, and stopped me with a gesture. 
 
 " We will do it," he said. " Yes, yes, I see what 
 you would say. Yes, yes, to be sure, to be sure ; that 
 is quite so. We will do it. Come and see me again, 
 and I will put a working plan before you. Good day 
 God bless you ! " 
 
 And we were being shown out. It was all over in 
 a few minutes; but that was the beginning of the 
 connection between the Salvation Army and that sec- 
 tion of The Citizens whose members lacked both 
 means and employment. According to a safe and 
 conservative estimate, we are told that the total num- 
 ber of sworn Citizens subsequently handled by the 
 Salvation Army was six hundred and seventy-five 
 thousand. We supplied the instructors, officers, and 
 all equipment ; the Salvation Army carried out all the 
 other work of control, organization, and maintenance, 
 and made their great farm camps so nearly self-sup- 
 porting as to be practically no burden upon The 
 Citizens' funds. The effect upon the men themselves 
 was wholly admirable. Every one of them was a 
 genuinely unemployed worker, and the way they all 
 took their training was marvellous. 
 
 I think Constance Grey was as pleased as I was 
 with the praise we won from John Crondall over this. 
 
 310
 
 THE CITIZENS 
 
 A little while before this time I should have felt jeal- 
 ous pangs when I saw her sweet face lighten and glow 
 at a word of commendation from John Crondall. But 
 my secretaryship was teaching me many things. No 
 other woman could ever mean to me one tithe of all 
 that Constance Grey meant. Of that I was very 
 sure. To think of such women as handsome Beatrice 
 Blaine or Sylvia Wheeler, in a vein of comparison, 
 was for me like comparing the light of a candle in 
 a distant window with the moon herself. The mere 
 sound of Constance's voice thrilled me as nothing 
 else could. But I am glad to remember now that I 
 no longer knew so small an emotion as jealousy where 
 she was concerned. 
 
 John Crondall was the strongest man of all the men 
 I knew; Constance was the sweetest woman. Here 
 was a natural and fitting comradeship. I thought of 
 my chief as the mate of the woman I loved. My 
 heart ached at times. But I am glad and proud that 
 I had no jealousy. 
 
 311
 
 SMALL FIGURES ON A GREAT STAGE 
 
 I, loving freedom and untried, 
 No sport of every random gust, 
 Yet being to myself a guide, 
 Too blindly have reposed my trust ; 
 And oft, when in my heart was heard 
 Thy timely mandate, I deferred 
 The task, in smoother walks to stray, 
 But thee I now would serve more strictly, if I may. 
 
 Ode to Duty. 
 
 IT has often been said of the Canadian preachers 
 that they conferred the gift of eloquence upon all 
 their converts. It is certainly a fact that long before 
 Stairs and Reynolds had traversed half the length of 
 England, disciples of theirs were winning converts to 
 " British Christianity " as the religion of Duty 
 and simple living came to be called in every county 
 in the kingdom. 
 
 In the same way, the progress of The Citizens' 
 recruiting campaign was made marvellously rapid 
 and triumphant in character by reason of the enthu- 
 siastic activity of all new adherents. During the 
 second of John Crondall's great meetings in Birming- 
 ham, for example, we received telegraphic greeting 
 from the chairmen presiding over one hundred and 
 ninety-eight other meetings then being held for the 
 furtherance of our cause in different parts of the
 
 SMALL FIGURES ON A GREAT STAGE 
 
 country. And, in many cases, those who addressed 
 these meetings were among the most famous public 
 speakers in England. 
 
 In most towns we spent no more than twenty-four 
 hours, in others no more than twelve hours, and in 
 some we stayed only a third of that time. In one 
 memorable day we addressed immense gatherings in 
 four different towns, and travelled one hundred and 
 thirty miles to boot. But in each one of those towns, 
 as in every centre visited, we left a properly organ- 
 ized committee at work, with arrangements for fre- 
 quent meetings, and the swearing in of new members. 
 
 The Canadian preachers spent only one day in 
 many of the places they visited. But in large centres 
 they stayed longer, because, after the first week of 
 the pilgrimage, the attendances at their meetings 
 became unmanageably large, owing to the arrange- 
 ments made by railway companies, who ran special 
 trains to tap the outlying parts of every district 
 visited. Advance agents a hard-working band, 
 many of whom were well-to-do volunteers prepared 
 the way in every detail for the progress of both the 
 Canadians and ourselves, and local residents placed 
 every possible facility at our disposal. 
 
 Never in the history of religious revivals in Eng- 
 land has anything been known to equal the whole- 
 souled enthusiasm with which the new evangel of 
 Duty was welcomed as the basis of our twentieth-cen- 
 tury national life. The facts that the Canadian 
 preachers were rarely seen apart, and that the teach- 
 ing of each was identical with that of the other, com- 
 bined with the general knowledge that one repre- 
 
 313
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 sented the Church of England and the other a great 
 Nonconformist body ; these things divested the pil- 
 grimage of any suggestion of denominationalism, and 
 lent it the same urgent strength of appeal for mem- 
 bers of all sects, and members of none. This seems 
 natural enough to us now, ours being a Christian 
 country. But it was regarded then as a wonderful 
 testimony to the virtue of the new teaching, because 
 at that time sectarian differences, animosities even, 
 were very clearly marked, and led far more naturally 
 to opposition and hostility between the representatives 
 of different denominations than to anything ap- 
 proaching united effort in a common cause. 
 
 It was during the day we spent in York that 
 chance led to my witnessing an incident which greatly 
 affected me. My relations with my chief, John Cron- 
 dall, were not such as to call for the observance of 
 much ceremony between us. Accordingly, it was 
 with no thought of interference with his privacy that 
 I blundered into my chief's sitting-room to announce 
 the number of new members we had enrolled after 
 the meeting. John Crondall was standing on the 
 hearth-rug, his right hand was resting on Constance 
 Grey's shoulder, his lips were touching her forehead. 
 
 For an instant I thought of retreat. But the thing 
 seemed too clumsy. Accordingly, having turned to 
 close the door, with deliberation, I advanced into the 
 room with some awkward remark about having 
 thought my chief was alone, and produced my figures 
 of the enrolment of new members. After a few 
 moments Constance left us, referring to some errand 
 she had in view. I did not look at her, and John 
 
 314
 
 SMALL FIGURES ON A GREAT STAGE 
 
 Crondall plunged at once into working talk. As for 
 me, I was acutely conscious that I had seen Crondall 
 kiss Constance; but my chief made no sign to show 
 me whether or not he was aware that I had seen this. 
 
 Although I thought I had accustomed myself to 
 the idea of these two being predestined mates, I real- 
 ized now that no amount of reasoning would ever 
 really reconcile me to the practical outworking of the 
 idea. Of course, my feeling about it would be de- 
 scribed as jealousy pure and simple. Perhaps it was; 
 but I cherish the idea that it was some more kindly 
 shade of feeling. I know it brought no hint of re- 
 sentment or weakening in my affection for John 
 Crondall ; and most assuredly I harboured no unkind 
 thought of Constance. But I loved her ; every pulse 
 in me throbbed love and longing at her approach. 
 Again and again I had demonstrated to myself my 
 own unworthiness of such a woman ; the natural 
 affinity between Constance and Crondall. Yet now, 
 the sight of that kiss was as the sound of a knell in 
 my heart ; it filled me with an aching lament for the 
 
 death of of something which had still lived in 
 
 me, whether admitted or not, till then. 
 
 For days after that episode of the kiss I lived in 
 hourly expectation of a communication from John 
 Crondall. Our relations were so intimate that I felt 
 certain he would not withhold his confidence for long. 
 But day succeeded day in our strenuous, hurried life, 
 and no word came to me from my chief regarding 
 any other thing than our own work. Indeed, I 
 thought I detected a certain new sternness in John 
 Crondall's demeanour, an extra rigid concentration 
 
 315
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 upon work, which carried with it, for me, a sugges- 
 tion of his being unwilling to meet one upon any 
 other than the working footing. I was surprised and 
 a little hurt about this, because of late there had been 
 no reservations in the confidence with which my chief 
 treated me. Also, I could not see any possible reason 
 for secrecy in such a matter ; it might as well be 
 told first as last, I thought. And I watched Con- 
 stance with a brooding eye for signs she never made, 
 for a confidence which did not come from either of 
 my friends. 
 
 The thing possessed my mind, and must, I fear, 
 have interfered materially with my work. But after 
 a time the idea came to me that these two had decided 
 to allow our joint work to take precedence of their 
 private happiness, and to put aside their own affairs 
 until the aims of The Citizens had been attained. I 
 recalled certain little indications I myself had re- 
 ceived from Constance before John Crondall's return 
 from South Africa, to the effect that personal feeling 
 could have no great weight with her, while our na- 
 tional fate hung in the balance. And, by dulling the 
 edge of my expectancy, this conclusion somehow 
 eased the ache which had possessed me since the day 
 of the kiss to which chance had made me a witness. 
 But it did not altogether explain to me the new re- 
 serve, the hint of stiffness in John Crondall's manner ; 
 and, rightly or wrongly, I knew when I took Con- 
 stance's hand in mine, or met the gaze of her shining 
 eyes, that I did so as a devout lover, and not merely 
 as a friend. 
 
 316
 
 XI 
 
 Through no disturbance of my soul 
 Or strong compunction in me wrought, 
 I supplicate for thy controul ; 
 But in the quietness of thought : 
 Me this unchartered freedom tires ; 
 I feel the weight of chance desires : 
 My hopes no more must change their name; 
 I long for a repose that ever is the same. 
 
 Ode to Duty. 
 
 FROM the first, the courtesy of the Press was 
 securely enlisted in The Citizens' favour by 
 John Crondall. For many months the Standard, 
 now firmly established as the principal organ of the 
 reform movement, devoted an entire page each day 
 to the progress of our campaign and the pilgrimage 
 of our forerunners the Canadian preachers. John 
 Crondall had gone thoroughly into the matter at the 
 beginning with the editor of this journal, and the 
 key-note thus given was taken by the Press of the 
 whole country. 
 
 The essence of our treatment by the newspapers 
 lay in their careful avoidance of all matter which 
 would be likely to earn for the movement the hostility 
 of Germany, or of the officers in command of the 
 German forces in England. Our language took on 
 
 317
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 a new and special meaning in the columns of the 
 newspapers, where reports of our campaign were con- 
 cerned. Such adjectives as " social," " moral," and 
 the like were made to cover quite special meanings, 
 as applied to the organization of The Citizens. So 
 ably was all this done, that the German authorities 
 regarded the whole movement as social and domestic, 
 with a direct bearing upon the General Election, 
 perhaps, but none whatever upon international poli- 
 tics or Anglo-German relations. 
 
 In Elberfeld's ponderous history we are given the 
 text of a despatch to the Kaiser in which General 
 Baron von Fiichter assured his Imperial master that 
 any interference with The Citizens and their meet- 
 ings would be gratuitous and impolitic: 
 
 " Their aims being purely social and domestic, and 
 those of a quasi-religious Friendly Society, resem- 
 bling something between their ' Band of Hope ' and 
 their ' Antediluvian Buffaloes.' The English have a 
 passion for this kind of child's play, and are absurdly 
 impatient of official surveillance. Their incorrigible 
 sentimentality is soothed by such movements as those 
 of the Canadian preachers and The Citizens; but 
 even the rudiments of discipline or efficient coordina- 
 tion are lacking among them. Combination against 
 us would be impossible for them, for this is a country 
 of individualists, among whom the matter of obliga- 
 tions to the State is absolutely not recognized. There 
 is no trace of military feeling among the people, and 
 in my opinion the invasion might safely have been 
 attempted five, if not ten years, before it was. The 
 absence of any note of resentment in their news- 
 
 318
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE 
 
 papers against our occupation has been quite marked 
 since their preoccupation with the Canadian preach- 
 ers and The Citizens. The people accept it in the 
 most matter-of-course manner, and are already en- 
 tirely absorbed once more in their own affairs, and 
 even in their sports. British courage and independ- 
 ence have been no more than a myth for many years 
 past a bubble which your Majesty's triumphantly 
 successful policy has burst for ever." 
 
 Another important feature, alike of our campaign 
 and the pilgrimage of the preachers, was their posi- 
 tively non-party and non-sectarian character. John 
 Crondall had been firm upon this point from the 
 beginning. I remember his saying at the first meet- 
 ing of the executive of The Citizens: 
 
 " Our party government, party conflict, here in 
 England, have sapped the vitality of the British Em- 
 pire long enough. I believe the invasion has scotched 
 the thing, and we must be very careful to do nothing 
 that might help to bring it to life again. A Radical, 
 as such, is neither better nor worse than a Conserva- 
 tive. It does not matter two pins what becomes of 
 the Conservative organization, or the Liberal party, 
 as parties. I should be delighted never to hear of 
 either again. Our business is the Empire's business ; 
 and we want the people of the Empire with us the 
 whole lot of them as one solid party." 
 
 Accordingly, no mention of any political party was 
 ever heard at our meetings. We made no appeal to 
 any given section of the community, but only to the 
 British public as a whole. We aimed at showing that 
 there could be no division in national affairs, save the 
 
 319
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 division which separates citizens and patriots from 
 men worthy of neither name. And that is why Mau- 
 rice Hall, in his famous British Renaissance, was able 
 to write that : 
 
 " The General Elections of the invasion year were 
 practically directed and decided by two forces: the 
 influence of The Citizens and the influence of the 
 Canadian preachers' Duty teaching. Political opin- 
 ions and traditions, as previously understood, played 
 no part whatever." 
 
 Of course, it seems natural enough now that the 
 British public should be united in matters of national 
 and imperial import; but those whose memories are 
 long enough will bear me out in saying that in pre- 
 vious elections nine voters in ten had been guided, not 
 by any question of the needs of the country or the 
 Empire, but by their support of this party or of that, 
 of this colour or of that. Our politicians had strenu- 
 ously supported the preposterous faction system, and 
 fanned party rivalry in every way, because they 
 recognized that it gave them personal power and 
 aggrandizement, which they had long placed before 
 any consideration of the common weal. By this they 
 had brought shame and disaster upon the nation, in 
 precisely the same manner that the same results had 
 been produced by the same means, when these were 
 used by the oligarchs of the Dutch Republic, prior to 
 the downfall of the Netherlands. 
 
 Indeed, for some time before the invasion our poli- 
 ticians might have been supposed to be modelling 
 their lives and policy entirely upon those of the 
 Dutch Republic in the eighteenth century; particu- 
 
 320
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE 
 
 larly with regard to their mercenary spoliation of the 
 nation's defence forces, and their insane pertinacity 
 in clinging to the policy of " cheapness," which killed 
 both the manufacturing and the agricultural indus- 
 tries of the country, by allowing other properly pro- 
 tected nations to oust our producers from all foreign 
 markets, and to swamp our home markets with their 
 surplus stocks. Down to the minutest detail, the same 
 causes and actions had produced the same results a 
 century earlier in the Netherlands; and even as, 
 first, King William of Prussia, and then revolution- 
 ary France, had devastated the Netherlands, so had 
 the Kaiser's legions overrun England. It was not 
 for lack of warning that our politicians had blindly 
 followed so fatal a lead. " The Destroyers " were 
 still being warned most urgently at the very time 
 of the invasion by public speakers, and in such lucid 
 works as Ellis Barker's The Rise and Decline of the 
 Netherlands. 
 
 In spite of the emphatically non-party character 
 of The Citizens' campaign, John Crondall kept in 
 close touch throughout with all his political friends, 
 and very many members of Parliament were among 
 our leading workers. My chief's idea was that, when 
 the elections drew near, we should cease to map out 
 our movements in accordance with those of the Cana- 
 dian preachers, and allow them to be guided by the 
 exigencies of the electoral campaign ; bringing all 
 our influence to bear wherever we saw weakness in the 
 cause of patriotism and reform. 
 
 Already we had arrangements made for leading 
 members of The Citizens to address meetings 
 
 321
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 throughout the elections at a good many centres. 
 But, before the electioneering had gone far, it became 
 evident that more had already been accomplished than 
 we supposed. Candidates who came before their con- 
 stituents with any kind of party programme were 
 either angrily howled down or contemptuously ig- 
 nored. Old supporters of " The Destroyers," who 
 ventured upon temporizing tactics, were perempto- 
 rily faced with demands for straight-out declara- 
 tions of policy upon the single issue of patriotic 
 reform and duty to the State. With a single excep- 
 tion, the actual members of the Cabinet in " The 
 Destroyers' ' Administration refrained from any 
 attempt to secure reelection. 
 
 Such an electoral campaign had never before been 
 known in England. Candidates who, even inadvert- 
 ently, used such words as " Conservative," " Radi- 
 cal," or " Liberal," were hissed into silence. Even 
 the word " Labour " was taboo, so far as it referred 
 to any political party. " Duty," " Patriotism," 
 "Defence," "Citizenship," "United Empire," 
 " British Federation," and, again, ringing loudly 
 above all other cries, " Duty " those were the 
 watchwords and the platforms of the invasion year 
 elections. The candidate who promised relief from 
 taxation was laughed at. The candidate who prom- 
 ised legislation directed toward the citizen's defence 
 of the citizen's hearth and home, was cheered to the 
 echo. 
 
 The one member of " The Destroyers' " Adminis- 
 tration who sought reelection, found it well to assert 
 the claims of his youth by making a public recanta- 
 
 322
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE 
 
 tion of all his previously expressed views and policy, 
 and seeking to outdo every one else in the direction 
 of patriotic reform. Though he gulled nobody, he 
 was listened to good-humouredly, and defeated with 
 great ease by Abel Winchester, the Australian, who 
 saw years of work before him, in conjunction with 
 Forbes Thompson, in the supervision of village rifle 
 corps throughout the country. 
 
 In many ways the country had never known a 
 Parliamentary election so constructive; in one re- 
 spect it was absolutely destructive. It destroyed all 
 previously existing political parties. No single mem- 
 ber was returned as the representative of a previously 
 existing party. The voters of Britain had refused 
 to consider any other than the one issue of patriotic 
 reform: the all-British policy, as it was called; and 
 the consequence was, that when Parliament assembled 
 it was found that the House of Commons could no 
 longer boast possession of an Opposition. 
 
 The members of that assembly had been sent to 
 St. Stephens to busy themselves, in unison, with the 
 accomplishment of a common end ; and if one among 
 them should waste the time of the House by any form 
 of obstruction, he could only do so by breaking the 
 pledges upon the strength of which he had been 
 elected. This fact was clearly set forth in the Speech 
 from the Throne, delivered by the King in person. 
 The business of Parliament was in full swing before 
 its second sitting was far advanced. Though then an 
 aged man, the famous statesman to whom the King 
 had entrusted the task of forming a new Cabinet bore 
 himself with the vigour of early manhood, and no 
 
 323
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 Prime Minister had ever faced Parliament with so 
 great a driving power behind him of unity, confidence, 
 and national sympathy. The fact that for years his 
 name had been most prominently associated with 
 every movement making for unity within the Empire ; 
 that he had striven valiantly for many years against 
 the anti-British forces of disintegration ; this was 
 admitted to augur well for the success of the Confer- 
 ence of Colonial representatives then holding its first 
 sitting in historic Westminster Hall. 
 
 Meantime, the patriotic enthusiasm of the general 
 public seemed to have been greatly heightened by the 
 result of the general elections. By common consent 
 a note of caution, of warning, took the place of the 
 stirring note of appeal and stimulation which had 
 formerly characterized every public address delivered 
 under the auspices of The Citizens. Almost without 
 invitation now the cream of the country's manhood 
 flocked into our travelling headquarters for enrol- 
 ment on the roster of The Citizens; and: "Hasten 
 slowly and silently," became John Crondall's coun- 
 sel to all our supporters. 
 
 The effect upon the whole public of this counsel of 
 caution and restraint was one of the most remarkable 
 features of that period ; and it showed, more clearly, 
 I think, than anything else, the amazing depth and 
 strength of the influence exerted by the Canadian 
 preacher's Duty teaching. Our relations with the 
 Power to which we were in effect a people in vassalage, 
 and payers of tribute, demanded at this stage the 
 exercise of the most cautious restraint; and finely 
 the people responded to this demand. In his His- 
 
 324
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE 
 
 tory of the Revival, Charles Corbett says, with good 
 reason : 
 
 " It was the time of waiting, of cautious prepara- 
 tion, of enthusiasm restrained and harnessed to pru- 
 dence, which must really be regarded as the proba- 
 tionary era of the Revival. It is in no sense a 
 depreciation of the incalculable value of the work 
 done by the Canadian apostles of the new faith, to 
 say that their splendid efforts might well have proved 
 of no more than transitory effect, but for that stern, 
 silent period of repression, of rigid, self -administered 
 discipline, which followed the access to office of the 
 first Free Government. 1 That period may be re- 
 garded as the crucible in which British Christianity 
 was tested and proven ; in which the steel of the new 
 patriotism was tempered and hardened to invincible 
 durability. The Canadian preachers awakened the 
 people ; The Citizens set them their task ; the period 
 of waiting schooled them in the spirit of the twen- 
 tieth century, the key-note of which is discipline, the 
 meaning of which is Duty." 
 
 I do not regard that as a statement of more than 
 the truth; and I do not think it would be easy to 
 overrate, either the value of the period or the excel- 
 lence of the response to the demand it made upon 
 them. The only dissatisfied folk were the publicans 
 and the theatre and music-hall lessees. The special 
 journals which represented the interests of this class 
 caterers for public amusement and public dissipa- 
 
 1 This title, applied by the Prince of Wales in a speech delivered 
 at the Guildhall to the first Parliament which met without an 
 Opposition, remained in use for a number of years afterwards. 
 
 325
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 tion were full of covert raillery against what they 
 called the new Puritanism. Their raillery was no 
 more than covert, however ; the spirit of the time was 
 too strong to permit more than that, and I do not 
 think it produced any effect worth mentioning. 
 
 Here again our difficulties proved real blessings in 
 disguise. The burden of invasion taxation was heavy ; 
 all classes felt the monetary pinch of it, apart 
 altogether from the humiliation of the German occu- 
 pation ; and this helped very materially in the devel- 
 opment of common sense ideals regarding economy 
 and simple living. Not for nothing had John 
 Crondall called the Canadian preachers the mouth- 
 piece of the hour. One saw very plainly, in every 
 walk of life, a steadily growing love of sobriety. 
 The thing was perhaps most immediately noticeable 
 in the matter of the liquor traffic. Throughout the 
 country, those public-houses and hotels which were in 
 reality only drinking-shops were being closed up by 
 the score, or converted into other sorts of business 
 premises, for lack of custom in their old misery- 
 breeding trade. The consumption of spirits, and of 
 all the more expensive wines, decreased enormously. 
 It is true there was a slight increase in the consump- 
 tion of cider, and the falling off of beer sales was 
 slight. But this was because a large number of 
 people, who had been in the habit of taking far less 
 wholesome and more costly beverages, now made use 
 of both beer and cider. It was not at all evidence 
 that the consumption of alcohol among the poorer 
 classes maintained its old level. The sales of gin, for 
 
 326
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE 
 
 example, fell to less than half the amounts used in 
 the years before the invasion. 
 
 And this was no more than one aspect of the great 
 national progress toward realization of the ideals of 
 Duty and simple living. Extravagance of every sort 
 became, not merely unpopular, but hated and de- 
 spised, as evidence of unpatriotic feeling. In this, 
 I think, the women of England deserve the greater 
 meed of gratitude and respect. The change they 
 wrought in domestic economy was not less than won- 
 derful when one realizes how speedily it was brought 
 about, and how great was the change. For in the 
 years immediately preceding the invasion the women 
 had been sad offenders in this respect, particularly, 
 perhaps, in their vulgar and ostentatious extrava- 
 gance in matters of dress. Now, the placards of the 
 British Commercial Union, exhorting the public to 
 " Buy British Empire Goods only," became out of 
 date almost as soon as they were printed, their advice 
 being no longer needed. 
 
 No more could one see the wives and daughters of 
 England competing with their unfortunate sisters of 
 the demi-monde in the extravagance of their attire. 
 One of the first evidences of the effect of the Cana- 
 dian preachers' teaching that I can remember was the 
 notable access of decorum and simplicity in dress 
 which dominated the fashion of our clothes. In this, 
 as in sundry other matters, I think we were helped 
 by the unprecedented number of Colonials who began 
 to flock into England at this time from Canada, 
 South Africa, and Australia. But, despite the gen- 
 eral desire for economy, it is certain that from that 
 
 327
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 time on the middle-class folk at all events began to 
 wear better clothes and buy better commodities gen- 
 erally articles which lasted longer, and were better 
 worth using. The reason of this was all a part of the 
 same teaching, the same general tendency. Shoddy 
 goods, representing the surplus output of German 
 and American firms, could no longer be sold in Eng- 
 land, however low the prices at which they were 
 offered; and shopkeepers soon found that they lost 
 standing when they offered such goods to the public. 
 Thus true economy and true patriotism were served 
 at one and the same time. 
 
 Extravagance in eating, dress, entertainment, and 
 the like, became that year more disgraceful than 
 drunkenness had been a year before in the public 
 eye. In the same way we attained to clearer vision 
 and a saner sense of proportion in very many matters 
 of first-rate social importance. I remember reading 
 that the market for sixty and seventy horse-power 
 touring motor-cars had almost ceased to exist, while 
 the demand for industrial motor-vehicles, and for 
 cars of something under twenty horse-power, had 
 never been so flourishing. 
 
 Before this time we had fallen into incredible ex- 
 travagance in our attitude toward all the parasitical 
 occupations, and paid absurd tributes of respect to 
 many of those who waxed fat upon pandering to our 
 weaknesses. This passed away now, like a single 
 night's dream, and incidentally gave rise to a certain 
 amount of complaining from those who suffered by 
 it. But the public was no more inclined to heed these 
 complainings than it was to fritter away its time and 
 
 328
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE 
 
 substance in drinking-bars or in places of amusement. 
 The famous " Middle-class Music-halls " faded 
 quickly into the limbo of forgotten failures, and the 
 most popular of public performers were those and 
 they were not a few who forsook grease-paint for 
 khaki, and posturing on stages for exercising on 
 rifle-ranges and drill-grounds. 
 
 The word " Puritanism " was still a term of re- 
 proach then, by virtue of its old associations; but, 
 as we see things nowadays, there is room only for 
 gladness in admitting that the wave of feeling which 
 swept through the homes of England in the wake of 
 the Canadian preachers, The Citizens, and the organ- 
 izers of the village rifle corps, was in very truth a 
 mighty revival of Puritanism, backed by the newly 
 awakened twentieth-century spirit of Imperial patri- 
 otism, with its recognition of the duty of loyalty, 
 not alone to country, but to race and Empire. Yes, 
 it was true Puritanism stern, unfaltering Puritan- 
 ism ; and it came to England not a day too soon. 
 Without it, we could never have been purged of our 
 insensate selfishness ; without it, the loose agglomera- 
 tion of states, then called the British Empire, could 
 never have been welded into the State ; without it, the 
 great events of that year would have been impossible, 
 and the dominion of the English-speaking peoples 
 must, ere this, have become no more than a matter of 
 historical interest. 
 
 329
 
 XII 
 
 BLOOD IS THICKER THAN WATEB 
 
 Stern lawgiver ! yet thou dost wear 
 The Godhead's most benignant grace ; 
 Nor know we anything so fair 
 As is the smile upon thy face : 
 Flowers laugh before thee on their beds, 
 And fragrance in thy footing treads ; 
 Thou dost preserve the Stars from wrong ; 
 And the most ancient Heavens, through thee, are fresh 
 
 and strong. Ode to Duty. 
 
 I SUFFERED no change so far as Constance 
 Grey's demeanour to me was concerned ; but cer- 
 tainly John Crondall had altered since the day upon 
 which I had so inopportunely entered his room when 
 Constance was with him. At times I fancied his 
 change was toward me personally, and I thought it 
 curiously unlike the man to cherish any sort of un- 
 kindness over an accident. But then, again, at odd 
 times, I watched him with other men among our now 
 considerable train, and the conclusion was borne in 
 upon me that the change had nothing to do with me, 
 but was general in its character. He was more stern, 
 less cheery, and far more reserved than before. 
 
 And this I thought most strange, for it seemed to 
 me that, even though Constance and my chief might 
 have agreed that nothing like an engagement between 
 
 330
 
 BLOOD IS THICKER THAN WATER 
 
 them must come till our work was done, yet the under- 
 standing which could lead to the kiss I had seen was 
 surely warrant enough for a change of quite another 
 character than this one. I thought of it whenever I 
 took Constance's hand in greeting her; and I think 
 my eyes must sometimes have told her what my heart 
 always felt : that in me, this right to do as Crondall 
 had done would have seemed an entry into Paradise, 
 let circumstances and conditions be what they might. 
 And with such a thought I would recall what, to me, 
 would never be the least of Black Saturday's events: 
 that once Constance Grey had lain in my arms 
 unconsciously, it was true; and that upon the same 
 occasion I had kissed her, and known in that moment 
 that never again could she be as other women for me. 
 
 I was often tempted to speak to Constance of the 
 change I saw in John Crondall, and one day in Car- 
 lisle I yielded to the temptation. At one and the same 
 time I both craved and dreaded definite news of the 
 understanding between the woman I loved and the 
 man I liked and respected more than any other. I 
 wanted Constance's confidence; yet I felt as though 
 my life would be stripped bare by definite knowledge 
 that she was betrothed. So, moth-like, I hovered 
 about the perilous subject, with a nervous endeavour 
 to lend natural composure to my voice. 
 
 " Do you notice any particular change in John 
 Crondall of late ? " I asked. And it seemed to me 
 that Constance flushed slightly as she answered me : 
 
 "Change? No. Has he changed ?" 
 
 " Well, he does not seem to be nearly so happy 
 
 as " And there I broke away from a danger- 
 
 331
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 ous comparison, and substituted " as he was awhile 
 back." 
 
 " Really? But what makes you think that? " 
 
 " I fancy he is much more reserved less frank 
 and more preoccupied; not so jolly, in fact, as he 
 always was. I have thought so for several weeks." 
 
 " I am sorry, very sorry ; and I do hope you are 
 mistaken. Of course he is overworked we all are ; 
 but that never hurt him before; and with things 
 going so splendidly Oh, I hope you are mis- 
 taken.'* 
 
 " Perhaps so," I said. " Certainly I think he has 
 every reason to be happy to be happy and proud ; 
 every reason." 
 
 And I stopped at that; but Constance made no 
 sign to me ; and I wondered she did not, for we were 
 very intimate, and she was sweetly kind to me in those 
 days. Indeed, once when I looked up sharply at her 
 with a question from some work we were engaged 
 upon, I saw a light in her beautiful eyes which 
 thrilled my very heart with strange delight. Her 
 expression had changed instantly, and I told myself 
 I had no sort of business to be thrilled by a look which 
 was obviously born of reverie, of thoughts about John 
 Crondall. Such a sweet light of love her eyes held! 
 I told myself for the hundredth time that no consid- 
 eration should ever cloud the happiness of the man 
 who was so fortunate as to inspire it to have won 
 the heart which looked out through those shining 
 eyes. 
 
 But it must not be supposed that I had much leisure 
 for this sort of meditation. My feeling for Con- 
 
 332
 
 BLOOD IS THICKER THAN WATER 
 
 stance certainly dominated me. Indeed, it accounted 
 for everything of import in my life for my general 
 attitude of mind and, I make no doubt, for my being 
 where I was and playing the part I did play in The 
 Citizens' campaign. But our life was not one that 
 admitted of emotional preoccupation of any sort. 
 We were too close to the working mechanism of 
 national progress. There never was more absorbing 
 work than the making and enrolment of Citizens at 
 such a juncture in the history of one's country. 
 
 The spirit of our work, no less than that of the 
 Canadian preachers' teaching, was actually in the air 
 at that time. It dominated English life, from the 
 mansions of the great landholders to the cottages of 
 the field-labourers and the tenements of the factory- 
 hands. It affected every least detail of the people's 
 lives, and coloured all thought and action in Eng- 
 land a process which I am sure was strengthened 
 by the remarkable growth of Colonial sentiment 
 throughout the country at this time. The tide of 
 emigration seemed to have been reversed by some 
 subtle process of nature : the strong ebb of previous 
 years had become a flow of immigration. Every- 
 where one met Canadians, Australians, South Afri- 
 cans, and an unusual number of Anglo-Indians. 
 
 " We've been doing pretty well of late," said one 
 of the Canadians to me when I commented to him 
 upon this influx into the Old Country of her Colonial 
 sons ; " and I reckon we can most of us spare time 
 to see things through a bit at Home. The way our 
 folk look at it on the other side is this : They reckon 
 we've got to worry through this German business 
 
 333
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 somehow and come out the right way up on the other 
 side, and a good deal more solid than we went in. 
 We don't reckon there's going to be any more ' Little 
 Englandism ' or Cobdenism after this job's once put 
 through; and that's a proposition we're mighty 
 keenly interested in, you see. We put most of our 
 eggs into the Empire basket, away back, while you 
 people were still busy giving Africa to the Boers, and 
 your Navy to the dogs, and your markets to Ger- 
 many, and your trade and esteem to any old foreigner 
 that happened along with a nest to feather. I reckon 
 that's why we're most of us here ; and maybe that's 
 why we mostly bring our cartridge-belts along. A 
 New South Wales chap told me last night you 
 couldn't get up a cricket match aboard a P. and O. 
 or Orient boat, not for a wager nothing but 
 shooting competitions and the gentle art of drill. 
 You say ' Shun ! ' to the next Colonial you meet, and 
 listen for the click of his heels ! Not that we set 
 much store by that business ourselves, but we learned 
 about the Old Country taste for it in South Africa, 
 and it's all good practice, anyhow, and good disci- 
 pline." 
 
 But, whatever the motives and causes behind their 
 coming, it is certain that an astonishingly large num- 
 ber of our oversea kinsmen were arriving in England 
 each week; and I believe every one of them joined 
 The Citizens. Their presence and the part they 
 played in affairs had a marked effect upon the 
 spirit of the time. All sorts and conditions of 
 people, whose thoughts in the past had never 
 strayed far from their own parishes, now talked 
 
 334
 
 BLOOD IS THICKER THAN WATER 
 
 familiarly of people, things, and places Colonial. 
 The idea of our race being one big tribe, though 
 our homes might be hemispheres apart, seemed to 
 me to take root for the first time in the minds of the 
 general public at about this period. I spoke of it to 
 John Crondall, and reminded him how he had urged 
 this idea upon us years before in Westminster with 
 but indifferent success. 
 
 " Ah, well," he said, " they have come to it of their 
 own accord now ; and that means they'll get a better 
 grip of it than any one could ever have given them. 
 That's part of our national character, and not a bad 
 part." 
 
 We were heading southward through Lancashire, 
 when the news reached us of that extension of the 
 British Constitution which first gave us a really Impe- 
 rial Parliament. The country received the news 
 with a deep-seated and sober satisfaction. Perhaps 
 the majority hardly appreciated at once the full sig- 
 nificance of this first great accomplishment of the 
 Free Government. But the published details showed 
 the simplest among us that by this act the congeries 
 of scattered nations we had called the British Empire 
 were now truly welded into an Imperial State. It 
 showed us that we English, and all those stalwart 
 kinsmen of ours across the Atlantic and on the far 
 side of the Pacific north, south, east, and west, 
 wherever the old flag flew were now actually as 
 well as nominally subjects of one Government, and 
 that that Government would for the future be com- 
 posed of men chosen as their representatives by the 
 people of every country in the Empire; men drawn 
 
 335
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 together under one historic roof by one firm purpose 
 the service and administration of a great Impe- 
 rial State. 
 
 As I say, the realization produced deep-seated sat- 
 isfaction. Of late we had learned to take things 
 soberly in England ; but there was no room for doubt 
 about the effect of this news upon the public. The 
 events of the past half-year, the pilgrimage of the 
 Canadian preachers, the new devotion to Duty (which 
 seemed almost a new religion though it was actually 
 but an awakening to the religion of our fathers), the 
 influx among us of Colonial kinsmen, and the cam- 
 paign of The Citizens; these things combined to give 
 us a far truer and more keen appreciation of the 
 news than had been possible before. 
 
 Indeed, looking back upon my experience in Fleet 
 Street, I must suppose the whole thing would have 
 been impossible before. I could imagine how my 
 Daily Gazette colleagues would have scoffed at the 
 Imperial Parliament's first executive act, which was 
 the devising of an Imperial Customs Tariff to give 
 free trade within the Empire, and complete protection 
 so far as the rest of the world was concerned, with 
 strictly reciprocatory concessions to such nations as 
 might choose to offer these to us, and to no others. 
 
 Truly Crondall had said that the Canadian preach- 
 ers accomplished more than they knew. The sense of 
 duty, individual and national, burned in England for 
 the first time since Nelson's day: a steady, white 
 flame. The acceptance by all classes of the commu- 
 nity of the Imperial Parliament's programme of work 
 proved this. The public had been shown that our 
 
 336
 
 BLOOD IS THICKER THAN WATER 
 
 duty to the whole Empire, and to our posterity, de- 
 manded this thing. That was enough. Five years 
 before, one year before, the country had been shown 
 very clearly where its duties lay; and the showing 
 had not moved five men in a hundred from their blind 
 pursuit of individual pleasure and individual gain. 
 Army, Navy, Colonies, Imperial prestige all might 
 go by the board. 
 
 But now, all that was changed. My old friend, 
 Stairs, with Reynolds, and their following, had given 
 meaning and application to the teaching of our na- 
 tional chastisement. Religion ruled England once 
 more ; and it was the religion, not of professions and 
 asseverations, but of Duty. The House of Commons 
 and, more even than our first Free Government, the 
 Imperial Parliament in Westminster Hall had behind 
 them the absolute confidence of a united people. If 
 England could have been convinced at that time that 
 Duty demanded a barefoot pilgrimage to Palestine, 
 I verily believe Europe would have speedily been dis- 
 sected by a thousand-mile column of marching Brit- 
 ishers. 
 
 But the Canadian preachers taught a far more 
 practical faith than that; and, behind them, John 
 Crondall and his workers opened the door upon a 
 path more urgent and direct than that of any pil- 
 grimage; the path to be trodden by all British 
 citizens who respected the white hairs of their fathers, 
 and the innocent trust of their children ; the path of 
 Duty to God and King and Empire; the path for 
 all who could hear and understand the call of our 
 own blood. 
 
 337
 
 XIII 
 
 ONE SUMMER MORNING 
 
 To humbler functions, awful Power ! 
 I call thee : I myself commend 
 Unto thy guidance from this hour ; 
 O, let my weakness have an end ! 
 Give unto me, made lowly wise, 
 The spirit of self-sacrifice ; 
 The confidence of reason give ; 
 And in the light of Truth thy bondman let me live. 
 
 Ode to Duty. 
 
 WINTER rushed past us like a tropical squall 
 that year, and, before one had noted the beau- 
 tiful coming of spring, young summer was upon the 
 land. For me, serving as I did the founder and 
 leader of The Citizens, life was filled as never before. 
 I had never even dreamed of a life so compact of far- 
 reaching action, of intimate relation with great 
 causes. 
 
 I know now that the speed and strenuousness of it 
 was telling upon all of us. But we did not realize it 
 then. John Crondall seemed positively tireless. The 
 rest of us had our moments of exhaustion, but never, 
 I think, of depression. Our work was too finely pro- 
 ductive and too richly rewarded for that. But we 
 were thin, and a little fine-drawn, like athletes some- 
 what overtrained. 
 
 338
 
 ONE SUMMER MORNING 
 
 Published records have analyzed our progress 
 through the country, the Canadian preachers' and 
 our own ; but nothing I have read, or could tell, gives 
 more than a pale reflection of that triumphal prog- 
 ress, as we lived it. In our wake, harlots forsook 
 harlotry to learn something of nursing by doing the 
 rough domestic work of hospitals ; famous misers 
 and money-grubbers gave fortunes to The Citizens' 
 cause, and peers' sons left country mansions to learn 
 defensive arts, in the ranks ; drunkards left their 
 toping for honest work, and actresses sold their ward- 
 robes to provide funds for village rifle corps. 
 
 There was no light sentiment, no sort of hysteria, 
 at the back of these miracles. Be it remembered that 
 the streets of English towns had never been so or- 
 derly ; public-houses and places of amusement had 
 never been so empty ; churches and chapels had never 
 been one-half so full. During that year, as the rec- 
 ords show, it became the rule in many places for 
 curates and deacons to hold services outside the 
 churches and chapels, while packed congregations 
 attended the services held within. And it was then 
 that, for the first time, we saw parsons leading the 
 young men of their flocks to the rifle-ranges, and 
 competing with them there. 
 
 The lessons we learned in those days will never, I 
 suppose, seem so wonderful to any one else as to those 
 of us who had lived a good slice of our lives before 
 the lessons came ; before the need of them was felt or 
 understood. " For God, our Race, and Duty ! " Con- 
 ceive the stirring wonder of the watchword, when it 
 was no more than a month old ! 
 
 339
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 The seasons rushed by us, as I said. But one short 
 conversation served to mark for me the coming of 
 summer. We had reached the Surrey hills in our 
 homeward progress toward London. On a Saturday 
 night we held a huge meeting in Guildford, and very 
 early on Sunday morning I woke with a curiously 
 insistent desire to be out in the open. Full of this 
 inclination I rose, dressed, and made my way down to 
 the side entrance of the hotel, where a few servants 
 were moving about drowsily. As I passed out under 
 a high archway into the empty, sunny street, with its 
 clean Sabbath hush, Constance Grey stepped out 
 from the front entrance to the pavement. 
 
 " I felt such a longing to be out in the open this 
 morning," she said, when we had exchanged greet- 
 ing. " It's months since I had a walk for the walk's 
 sake, and now I mean to climb that hill that we 
 motored over from Farnham the Hog's Back, as 
 they call it." 
 
 We both thought it deserved some more beautiful 
 name, when we turned on its crest and looked back at 
 Guildford in the hollow, shining in summer morning 
 haze. 
 
 " Now surely that's King Arthur's Camelot," said 
 Constance. 
 
 And then we looked out over the delectable valley 
 toward the towers of Charterhouse, across the roofs 
 of two most lovable hamlets, from which blue smoke 
 curled in delicate spirals up from the bed of the 
 valley, through a nacreous mist, to somewhere near 
 our high level. 
 
 340
 
 ONE SUMMER MORNING 
 
 We gazed our fill, and I only nodded when Con- 
 stance murmured: 
 
 " It's worth a struggle, isn't it? " 
 
 I knew her thought exactly. It was part of our 
 joint life, of the cause we both were serving. I had 
 been pointing to some object across the valley, and 
 as my hand fell it touched Constance's hand, which 
 was cool and fresh as a flower. Mine was moist and 
 hot. I never was more at a loss for words. I took 
 her hand in mine and held it. So we stood, hand in 
 hand, like children, looking out over that lovely Eng- 
 lish valley. My heart was all abrim with tenderness ; 
 but I had no words. I had been a good deal moved 
 by the curious instance of telepathic sympathy or 
 understanding which had brought me from my bed 
 that morning and led to our meeting. 
 
 " You have given me so much, taught me so much, 
 Constance," I said at last. 
 
 " No, no ; I am no teacher," she said. " But I do 
 think God has taught all of us a good deal lately 
 all our tribe Dick." 
 
 There was a rare hint of nervousness in her voice; 
 and I felt I knew the cause. I felt she must be think- 
 ing of John Crondall. And yet, if my life had de- 
 pended on it, I could not help saying: 
 
 " It is love that taught me." 
 
 Constance drew her hand away gently. 
 
 " Would not the Canadian preachers say we meant 
 the same thing? " she said. I had my warning; but, 
 though haltingly, the words would come, now. 
 
 " Ah, Constance, it is love of you, I mean love 
 of you. Oh, yes, I know," I hurried on now. " I 
 
 341
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 know. Have no fear of me. I understand. But it 
 is love of you, Constance, that rules every minute of 
 my life. I couldn't alter that if I tried ; and and 
 I would not alter it if I had to die for it. But 
 you must forgive me. Tell me you do not want me 
 to stop loving you, Constance. You see, I do not 
 ask any more of you. I understand. But let me 
 go on loving you, dear heart, because that means 
 everything to me. It has guided me in everything 
 I have done since that day you came to me in The 
 Mass office. Constance, you do not really want me 
 to stop loving you ? " 
 
 I was facing her now; kneeling to her, in my 
 mind, though not in fact. Her head was bowed 
 toward me. Then she raised her glorious eyes, and 
 gave to me the full tender sweetness of them. 
 
 " No, Dick," she said, quite firmly, but soft and 
 low ; " I don't want you ever to stop loving me." 
 
 Whatever else Fate brings or takes from me, I 
 shall never lose the lovely music of those words. That 
 is mine for ever. 
 
 842
 
 XIV 
 
 " FOR GOD, OUE RACE, AND DUTY " 
 
 Soldiers, prepare ? Our cause is Heaven's cause ; 
 Soldiers, prepare ! Be worthy of our cause : 
 Prepare to meet our fathers in the sky : 
 Prepare, O troops that are to fall to-day ! 
 Prepare, prepare. 
 
 Alfred shall smile, and make his harp rejoice ; 
 The Norman William, and the learned Clerk, 
 And Lion-Heart, and black-browed Edward, with 
 His loyal queen shall rise, and welcome us I 
 
 Prepare, prepare. BLAKE. 
 
 WE had two other meetings before finally taking 
 train for London; but virtually our cam- 
 paign was brought to an end at Guildford. Our 
 peregrination ended there, but the Canadian preach- 
 ers continued their pilgrimage till long afterwards. 
 Scores of rich men were anxious to finance these ex- 
 pounders of the new teaching, and even to build them 
 churches. But Stairs and Reynolds were both agreed 
 in wanting no churches. Their mission was to the 
 public as a whole. 
 
 When we returned to our headquarters in London, 
 the membership of The Citizens stood within a few 
 hundreds of three million and a half of able-bodied 
 men. And still new members were being sworn in 
 
 343
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 every day. Some few of these members had contrib- 
 uted as much as five thousand pounds to our funds. 
 Very many had contributed a fifth of that sum, and 
 very many more had given in hundreds of pounds. 
 There were some who gave us pence, and they were 
 very cordially thanked, giving as they did from the 
 slenderest of purses. There were women who had 
 sold dresses and j ewels for us, hundreds of them ; 
 and there were little children whose pocket-money had 
 helped to swell the armament and instruction funds. 
 Joseph Farquharson, the well-known coal and iron 
 magnate, who had been famous for his " Little Eng- 
 land " sentiments a man who had boasted of his 
 parochialism must have learned very much from 
 the invasion and the teaching of the new movement. 
 He gave one hundred thousand pounds to The Citi- 
 zens after John Crondall's first address in Newcastle. 
 When Crondall attended the famous Council at the 
 War Office, he did so as the founder and representa- 
 tive of the most formidable organization ever known 
 in England. He had no official standing at the Coun- 
 cil: he took his seat there as an unofficial commoner. 
 Yet, in a sense, he held the defensive strength of 
 Britain in his hand. But several of the Ministers and 
 officials who formed that Council were members of 
 our Executive, and our relations with the Government 
 were already well defined and thoroughly harmoni- 
 ous. It was from the War Office that we received the 
 bronze badge which was supplied to every sworn 
 Citizen and bore our watchword " For God, our 
 Race, and Duty " ; and the Government had given 
 substantial aid in the matter of equipment and in- 
 
 344
 
 "FOR GOD, OUR RACE, AND DUTY" 
 
 struction. But now John Crondall represented three 
 million and a half of British men, all sworn to re- 
 spond instantly to his call as President of the Execu- 
 tive. And every Citizen had some training was 
 then receiving some training. 
 
 " The Canadian preachers waked and inspired the 
 people; we swore them in," said John Crondall mod- 
 estly. " Their worth is the faith in them, and their 
 faith spells Duty. That's what makes The Citizens 
 formidable." 
 
 " The grace of God," Stairs called it ; and so did 
 many others. 
 
 Crondall bowed to that, and added a line from his 
 favourite poet : " Then it's the grace of God in those 
 ' Who are neither children nor gods, but men in a 
 world of men ! ' " he said. 
 
 No wise man has ever doubted, so far as I know, 
 that simple piety, simple religion, " British Chris- 
 tianity," was the motive force at work behind the 
 whole of the revival movement. Without that foun- 
 dation, the enduring results achieved must have been 
 impossible. But this was entirely unlike any previ- 
 ously known religious revival, in that it supplied no 
 emotional food whatever. There was no room for 
 sentimentality, still less for hysteria, in the accepta- 
 tion of George Stairs's message from that " Stern 
 Daughter of the Voice of God," whose name is Duty. 
 Tears and protestations were neither sought nor 
 found among converts to the faith which taught all 
 to be up and doing in Duty's name. 
 
 From the records, I know that eight weeks passed 
 after the famous Council at the War Office before 
 
 345
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 England spoke. When I say that during that time 
 I acted as my chief's representative in controlling 
 an office of over ninety clerks (all drilled men and 
 fair shots), besides several times traversing the 
 length and breadth of the kingdom on special mis- 
 sions, it will be understood that the period was to me a 
 good deal more like eight days. During that time, 
 too, I was able to help Constance Grey in her organi- 
 zation of the women helpers' branch of The Citizens, 
 in which over nine thousand members were enrolled. 
 Constance had an executive committee of twenty-five 
 volunteer workers, who spent money and energy un- 
 grudgingly in helping her. 
 
 We kept in close touch with the heads of provincial 
 committees during the whole of that period, and sev- 
 eral times we communicated by means of printed 
 circular letters, franked gratis for us by the War 
 Office, with every single Citizen. 
 
 Then came the day of the now historic telegram 
 which the Post Office was authorized to transmit to 
 every sworn Citizen in the kingdom : 
 
 " Be ready ! ' For God, our Race, and Duty.' " 
 
 This was signed by John Crondall, and came after 
 some days of detailed instruction and preparation. 
 
 It has been urged by some writers that the Govern- 
 ment was at fault in the matter of its famous declara- 
 tion of war with Germany. It has been pointed out 
 that for the sake of a point of etiquette, the Govern- 
 ment had no right to yield a single advantage to an 
 enemy whose conduct toward us had shown neither 
 mercy nor courtesy. There is a good deal to be said 
 for this criticism; but, when all is said and done, I 
 
 346
 
 " FOR GOD, OUR RACE, AND DUTY " 
 
 believe that every Englishman is glad at heart that 
 our Government took this course. I believe it added 
 strength to our fighting arm; I believe it added 
 weight and consequence to the first blows struck. 
 
 Be that as it may, there was no sign of hesitancy 
 or weakness in the action of the Government when 
 the declaration had once been made; and it speaks 
 well for the deliberate thoroughness of all prepara- 
 tions that, twenty-four hours after the declaration, 
 every one of the nine German garrisons in the king- 
 dom was hemmed in by land and by sea. On the land 
 side the Germans were besieged by more than three 
 million armed men. Almost the whole strength of 
 the British Navy was then concentrated upon the 
 patrolling of our coasts generally, and the blockad- 
 ing of the German-garrisoned ports particularly. 
 Thirty-six hours had not passed when the German 
 battle-ships Hohenzottern and Kaiserin, and the cruis- 
 ers Elbe and Deutschland, were totally destroyed off 
 Portsmouth and Cardiff respectively; Britain's only 
 loss at that time being the Corfe Castle, almost the 
 smallest among the huge flotilla of armed merchant- 
 men which had been subsidized and fitted out by the 
 Government that year. 
 
 I believe all the authorities had admitted that, once 
 it was known that our declaration had reached Ber- 
 lin, the British tactics could not have been excelled 
 for daring, promptitude, and devastating thorough- 
 ness. It is true that Masterman, in his well-known 
 History of the War, urges that much loss of life 
 might have been spared at Portsmouth and Devon- 
 port " if more deliberate and cautious tactics had 
 
 347
 
 been adopted, and the British authorities had been 
 content to achieve their ends a little less hurriedly." 
 But Masterman is well answered by the passage in 
 General Hatfield's Introduction to Low's important 
 work, which tells us that: 
 
 " The British plan of campaign did not admit of 
 leisurely tactics or great economy. Britain was 
 striking a blow for freedom, for her very life. Fail- 
 ure would have meant no ordinary loss, but mere ex- 
 tinction. The loss of British life in such strongly 
 armed centres as Portsmouth was very great. It 
 was the price demanded by the immediate end of 
 Britain's war policy, which was to bring the enemy 
 to terms without the terrible risks which delay would 
 have represented, for the outlying and comparatively 
 defenceless portions of our own Empire. When the 
 price is measured and analyzed in cold blood, the 
 objective should be as carefully considered. The 
 price may have been high ; the result purchased was 
 marvellous. It should be borne in mind, too, that 
 Britain's military arm, while unquestionably long and 
 strong (almost unmanageably so, perhaps), was 
 chiefly composed of what, despite the excellent in- 
 structive routine of The Citizens, must, from the 
 technical standpoint, be called raw levies. Yet that 
 great citizen army, by reason of its fine patriotism, 
 was able in less than one hundred hours from the 
 time of the declaration, to defeat, disarm, and extin- 
 guish as a fighting force some three hundred thou- 
 sand of the most perfectly trained troops in the 
 world. That was the immediate objective of Britain's 
 war policy ; or, to be exact, the accomplishment of 
 
 348
 
 " FOR GOD, OUR RACE, AND DUTY " 
 
 that in one week was our obj ect. It was done in four 
 days; and, notwithstanding the unexpected turn of 
 events afterwards, no military man will ever doubt 
 that the achievement was worth the price paid. It 
 strengthened Britain's hand as nothing else could 
 have strengthened it. It gave us at the outset that 
 unmistakable lead which, in war as in a race, is of 
 incalculable value to its possessors." 
 
 And, the General might have added, as so many 
 other writers have, that no civilized and thinking men 
 ever went more cheerfully and bravely to their deaths, 
 or earned more gladly the eternal reward of Duty 
 accomplished, than did The Citizens, the " raw lev- 
 ies," with their stiffening of regulars, who fell at 
 Portsmouth and Devonport. They were not per- 
 fectly disciplined men, in the professional sense, or 
 one must suppose they would have paid some heed to 
 General Sir Robert Calder's repeated orders to re- 
 tire. But they were British citizens of as fine a cal- 
 ibre as any Nelson or Wellington knew, and they 
 carried the Sword of Duty that day into the camp 
 of an enemy who, with all his skill, had not learned, 
 till it was written in his blood for survivors to read, 
 that England had awakened from her long sleep. 
 For my part, if retrospective power were mine, I 
 would not raise a finger to rob those stern converts 
 of their glorious end. 
 
 It is easy to be wise after the event, but no Govern- 
 ment could have foretold the cynical policy adopted 
 by Berlin. No one could have guessed that the Ger- 
 man Government would have said, in effect, that it 
 was perfectly indifferent to the fate of nearly three 
 
 349
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 hundred thousand of its own loyal subjects and de- 
 fenders, and that Britain might starve or keep them 
 at her own pleasure. After all, the flower of the 
 German Army was in England, and only a Govern- 
 ment to the last degree desperate, unscrupulous, and 
 cynical could have adopted Germany's callous atti- 
 tude at this juncture. 
 
 Britain's aim was not at all the annihilation of 
 Germany, but the freeing of her own soil; and it 
 was natural that our Government should have acted 
 on the assumption that this could safely be demanded 
 when we held a great German army captive, by way 
 of hostage. The British aim was a sound one, and it 
 was attained. That it did not bring about the re- 
 sults anticipated was due to no fault in our Govern- 
 ment, nor even to any lack of foresight upon their 
 part; but solely to the cynical rapacity of a ruler 
 whose ambition had made him fey, or of a Court so 
 far out of touch with the country which supported 
 it as to have lost its sense of honour. 
 
 In the meantime, though saddled with a huge army 
 of prisoners, and the poorer by her loss of eighteen 
 thousand gallant citizens, Britain had freed her 
 shores. In an even shorter time than was occupied 
 over the invasion, the yoke of the invader had been 
 torn in sunder, and not one armed enemy was left in 
 England. And for our losses the shedding of that 
 British blood partook of the nature of a sacrament; 
 it was life-giving. By that fiery jet we were baptized 
 again. England had found herself. Once more His 
 people had been found worthy to bear the Sword of 
 the Lord. Britain that had slept, was wide-eyed and 
 
 350
 
 " FOR GOD, OUR RACE, AND DUTY " 
 
 fearless again, as in the glorious days which saw the 
 rise of her Empire. Throughout the land one watch- 
 word ran : " For God, our Race, and Duty 1 " We 
 had heard and answered to the poet's call: 
 
 Strike for your altars and your fires ; 
 Strike for the green graves of your sires ; 
 God, and your native land! 
 
 I find it easy to believe and read between the lines 
 of the grim official record which told us that outside 
 Portsmouth " white-haired men smiled over the graves 
 of their sons, and armed youths were heard singing 
 triumphant chants while burying their fathers." 
 
 Meantime, simple folk in the southern country lanes 
 of Dorset and of Hampshire (Tarn Regis yokels 
 among them, no doubt) heard the dull, rumbling thun- 
 der of great guns at sea, and the talk ran on naval 
 warfare. 
 
 351
 
 XV 
 
 " SINGLE HEART AND SINGLE SWORD 
 
 Yea, though we sinned and our rulers went from righteousness 
 Deep in all dishonour though we stained our garment's hem. 
 
 Hold ye the Faith the Faith our fathers sealed us ; 
 Whoring not with visions overwise and overstate. 
 
 Except ye pay the Lord 
 
 Single heart and single sword, 
 Of your children in their bondage shall he ask them 
 
 treble-tale I 
 
 RUDYARD KIPLING. 
 
 THE learned German, Professor Elberfeld, has 
 told the world, in sentences of portentous 
 length and complication, that " the petty trader's 
 instincts which form the most typical characteristic 
 of the British race " came notably to the fore in our 
 treatment of the German prisoners of war who were 
 held under military surveillance in the British ports 
 which they had garrisoned. 
 
 The learned professor notes with bitter contempt 
 that no wines, spirits, cigars, or " other customary 
 delicacies " were supplied to our prisoners, and that 
 the German officers received very little more than the 
 rations served to their men. The professor makes no 
 mention of one or two other pertinent facts in this 
 connection ; as, for example, that none of these " cus- 
 
 352
 
 "SINGLE HEART AND SINGLE SWORD" 
 
 tomary delicacies " were supplied to the British 
 troops. We may endure his reproaches with the more 
 fortitude, I think, when we remember that the German 
 Government absolutely ignored our invitation to send 
 weekly shipments of supplies under a white flag for 
 the towns they had garrisoned on British soil. 
 
 It is known that the officers in command of the 
 German forces in England had previously maintained 
 a very lavish and luxurious scale of living; in the 
 same way that, since the invasion of England, ex- 
 travagance was said to have reached unparalleled 
 heights in Germany itself. But the British Govern- 
 ment which had reached depletion of our own sup- 
 plies, by assisting our prisoners to maintain a 
 luxurious scale of living while held as hostages, would 
 certainly have forfeited the confidence of the public, 
 and justly so. Upon the whole, it is safe to say that 
 German sneers at British parsimony and Puritanism 
 may fairly be accepted as tribute, and, as such, need 
 in no sense be resented. 
 
 As soon as we received Germany's cynical reply 
 to Britain's demand for a complete withdrawal of all 
 the invasion claims, it became evident that the war was 
 to be a prolonged and bitter one, and that no further 
 purpose could be served by the original British plan 
 of campaign, which, as its object had been the free- 
 ing of our own soil, had been based on the assumption 
 that the defeat and capture of the invader's forces 
 would be sufficient. Troops had to be despatched at 
 once to South Africa, where German overlordship 
 had aroused the combined opposition of the Boers 
 and the British. This opposition burst at once into 
 
 353
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 open hostility immediately the news of England's 
 declaration of war reached South Africa. While the 
 Boers and the British, united in a common cause, were 
 carrying war into German Southwest Africa, troops 
 from German East Africa were said to have landed 
 in Delagoa Bay, and to be advancing southward. 
 
 In all this, the British cause was well served by 
 Germany's initial blunder ; by the huge mistake which 
 cost her four-fifths of her naval strength at a blow. 
 This mistake in Germany's policy was distinctly trace- 
 able to one cause: the national arrogance which, 
 since the invasion, had approached near to madness ; 
 which had now led Germany into contemptuously 
 underrating the striking power still remaining in the 
 British Navy. It was true that, prior to the invasion, 
 our Navy had been consistently starved and impover- 
 ished by " The Destroyers." It was that, of course, 
 which had first earned them their title. But Germany 
 herself, when she struck her great blow at England, 
 hardly wounded the British Navy at all. Her cun- 
 ning had drawn our ships into a Mediterranean im- 
 passe when they were sadly needed upon our coasts, 
 and her strategy had actually destroyed one British 
 line of battle-ship, one cruiser, and two gunboats. But 
 that was the whole extent of the naval damage in- 
 flicted by her at the time of the invasion. But the 
 lesson she gave at the same time was of incalculable 
 value to us. The ships she destroyed had been 
 manned by practically untrained, short-handed crews, 
 hurriedly rushed out of Portsmouth barracks. Yet 
 German arrogance positively inspired Berlin with the 
 impression that the Navies of the two countries had 
 
 354
 
 " SINGLE HEART AND SINGLE SWORD " 
 
 tried conclusions, and that our fleet had been proved 
 practically ineffective. 
 
 Prior to the invasion our Navy had indeed reached 
 a low ebb. Living always in barracks, under the per- 
 nicious system gradually forced upon the country by 
 " The Destroyers " in the name of economy, our blue- 
 jackets had fallen steadily from their one high stand- 
 ard of discipline and efficiency into an incompetent, 
 sullen, half -mutinous state, due solely to the criminal 
 parsimony and destructive neglect of an Administra- 
 tion which aimed at " peace at any price," and 
 adopted, of all means, the measures most calculated 
 to provoke foreign attack. But, since the invasion, 
 an indescribable spirit of emulation, a veritable fury 
 of endeavour, had welded the British fleet into a for- 
 midable state of efficiency. 
 
 First " The Destroyers," actuated by a combina- 
 tion of panic and remorse, and then the first Free 
 Government, representing the convinced feeling of 
 the public, had lavished liberality upon the Navy 
 since the invasion. Increased pay, newly awakened 
 patriotism, the general change in the spirit of the age, 
 all had combined to fill the Admiralty recruiting 
 offices with applicants. Almost all our ships had 
 been kept practically continuously at sea. " The 
 Destroyers' " murderous policy in naval matters had 
 been completely reversed, and our fleet was served 
 by a great flotilla of magnificently armed leviathans 
 of the Mercantile Marine, including two of the fastest 
 steamships in the world, all subsidized by Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 We know now that exact official records of these 
 355
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 facts were filed in the Intelligence Department at 
 Berlin. But German arrogance prohibited their right 
 comprehension, and Britain's declaration of war was 
 instantly followed by an Imperial order which, in 
 effect, divided the available strength of the German 
 Navy into eight fleets, and despatched these to eight 
 of the nine British ports garrisoned by German 
 troops, with orders of almost childish simplicity. 
 These ports were to be taken, and British insurrec- 
 tion crushed, ashore and afloat. 
 
 If the German Navy had been free of its Imperial 
 Commander-in-chief, and of the insensate arrogance 
 of his entourage, it could have struck a terrible blow 
 at the British Empire, while almost the whole fight- 
 ing strength of our Navy was concentrated upon the 
 defence of England. As it was, this fine opportunity 
 was flung aside, and with it the greater part of Ger- 
 many's fleet. Divided into eight small squadrons, 
 their ships were at the mercy of our concentrated 
 striking force. Our men fell upon them with a Ber- 
 serker fury born of humiliation silently endured, and 
 followed by eight or nine months of the finest sort of 
 sea-training which could possibly be devised. 
 
 The few crippled ships of the German fleet which 
 survived those terrible North Sea and Channel en- 
 gagements must have borne with them into their home 
 waters a bitter lesson to the ruler whom they left, so 
 far as effective striking power was concerned, without 
 a Navy. 
 
 Here, again, critics have said that our tactics 
 showed an extravagant disregard of cost, both as to 
 men and material. But here also the hostile critics 
 
 356
 
 " SINGLE HEART AND SINGLE SWORD" 
 
 overlook various vital considerations. The destruc- 
 tion of Germany's sea-striking power at this juncture 
 was worth literally anything that Britain could give ; 
 not perhaps in England's immediate interest, but in 
 the interests of the Empire, without which England 
 would occupy but a very insignificant place among 
 the powers of civilization. 
 
 Then, too, the moral of our bluejackets has to be 
 considered. Since the invasion and the sinking of the 
 Dreadnought, ours had become a Navy of Berserkers. 
 The Duty teaching, coming after the invasion, made 
 running fire of our men's blood. They fought their 
 ships as Nelson's men fought theirs, and with the 
 same invincible success. It was said the Terrible's 
 men positively courted the penalty of mutiny in time 
 of war by refusing to turn in, in watches, after 
 forty-two hours of continuous fighting. There re- 
 mained work to be done, and the " Terribles " refused 
 to leave it undone. 
 
 The commander who had lessened the weight of the 
 blow struck by Britain's Navy, in the interests of 
 prudence or economy, would have shown himself blind 
 to the significance of the new spirit with which Eng- 
 land's awakening had endowed her sons; the stern 
 spirit of the twentieth-century faith which gave us 
 for watchword, " For God, our Race, and Duty ! " 
 
 With the major portion of our Navy still in fight- 
 ing trim, and twenty-five-knot liners speeding south- 
 ward laden with British troops, it speedily became 
 evident that Germany's chance of landing further 
 troops in South Africa was hardly worth serious con- 
 sideration, now that her naval power was gone. On 
 
 357
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 the other hand, it was known that the enemy had 
 already massed great bodies of troops in East and 
 Southwest Africa, and it became the immediate busi- 
 ness of the British Admiralty to see that German 
 oversea communications should be cut off. 
 
 Further, we had to face ominous news of German 
 preparations for aggression in the Pacific and in the 
 near East, with persistent rumours of a hurriedly 
 aggressive alliance with Russia for action in the Far 
 East. The attitude of Berlin itself was amazingly 
 cynical, as it had been from the very time of the un- 
 provoked invasion of our shores. In effect, the 
 Kaiser said: 
 
 " You hold a German Army as prisoners of war, 
 and you have destroyed my Navy ; but you dare not 
 invade my territory, and I defy you to hit upon any 
 other means of enforcing your demands. You can do 
 nothing further." 
 
 The British demands, made directly the German 
 troops in England were in our hands, were, briefly, 
 for the complete withdrawal of the whole of claims en- 
 forced by Germany at the time of the invasion. 
 
 That, then, was the position when I returned to our 
 London headquarters from a journey I had under- 
 taken for my chief in connection with the work of 
 drafting large numbers of Citizens back from the 
 camps into private life. Various questions had to be 
 placed in writing before every Citizen as to his atti- 
 tude in the matter of possible future calls made upon 
 his services. I had only heard of seven cases of men 
 physically fit failing to express perfect readiness to 
 respond to any future call for active service at home 
 
 358
 
 " SINGLE HEART AND SINGLE SWORD " 
 
 or abroad, in case of British need. Here was a shield 
 of which I knew both sides well. The thing impressed 
 me more than I can tell, or most folk would under- 
 stand nowadays. I knew so well how the god of busi- 
 ness (which served to cover all individual pursuit of 
 money or pleasure) would have been invoked to prove 
 the utter impracticability of this one short year 
 before. I looked back toward my Fleet Street days, 
 and I thanked God for the awakening of England, 
 which had included my own awakening. 
 
 My return to London was a matter of considerable 
 personal interest to me, for Constance Grey was there, 
 having been recalled by John Crondall from her active 
 superintendence of nursing at Portsmouth. 
 
 359
 
 XVI 
 
 HANDS ACROSS THE SEA 
 
 There is a Pride whose Father is Understanding, whose Mother 
 is Humility, whose Business is the Recognition and Discharge 
 of Duty. That is the true Pride. MERKOW'S Essays of the Time. 
 
 I WAS impatient to reach London, but I should 
 have been far more impatient if I had known that 
 Constance Grey stood waiting to meet me on the 
 arrival platform at Waterloo. 
 
 " They told me your train at the office," she said, 
 as I took one of her hands in both of mine, " and I 
 could not resist coming to give you the news. Don't 
 say you have had it ! " 
 
 " No," I told her. " My best news is that Con- 
 stance has come to meet me, and that I am alive to 
 appreciate the fact very keenly. Another trifling 
 item is that, so far as I can tell, practically every 
 member of The Citizens would respond to-morrow 
 to a call for active service in Timbuctoo if the call 
 came. I tell you, Constance, this is not reform, it's 
 revolution that has swept over England. We call 
 our membership three and a half millions ; it's fifty 
 millions, really. They're all Citizens, every mother's 
 son of them ; and every daughter, too." 
 
 We were in a cab now. 
 
 " But what about my news ? " said Constance. 
 360
 
 " Yes, tell me, do. And isn't it magnificent about 
 the Navy? How about those 'Terrible' fellows? 
 Constance, do you realize how all this must strike a 
 man who was scribbling and fiddling about disarma- 
 ment a year ago ? And do you realize who gave that 
 man decent sanity? " 
 
 " Hush ! It wasn't a person, it was a force ; it was 
 the revolution that brought the change." 
 
 " Ah, well, God bless you, Constance ! I wish you'd 
 give me the news." 
 
 " I will, directly you give me a chance to get in a 
 word. Well, John is at Westminster, in consultation 
 with the Foreign Office people, and nothing definite 
 has been done yet; but the great point is, to my 
 thinking, that the offer should ever have been 
 made." 
 
 " Why, Constance, whatever has bewitched you ? I 
 never knew you to begin at the end of a thing before." 
 
 And indeed it was unlike Constance Grey. She was 
 in high spirits, and somehow this little touch of il- 
 logical weakness in her struck me as being very 
 charming. She laughed, and said it was due to my 
 persistent interruptions. And then she gave me the 
 news. 
 
 " America has offered to join hands with us." 
 
 " Never ! " 
 
 " Yes. The most generous sort of defensive alli- 
 ance, practically without conditions, and ' as long 
 as Great Britain's present need endures.' Isn't it 
 splendid? John Crondall regards it as the biggest 
 thing that has happened ; but he is all against accept- 
 ing the offer." 
 
 361
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 There had been vague rumours at the time of the 
 invasion, and again, of a more pointed sort, when 
 Britain declared war. But every one had said that 
 the pro-German party and the ultra-American party 
 were far too strong in the United States to permit 
 of anything beyond expressions of good-will. But 
 now, as. I gathered from the copy of the Evening 
 Standard which Constance gave me: 
 
 " The heart of the American people has been 
 deeply stirred by two considerations: Germany's un- 
 warrantable insolence and arrogance, and Britain's 
 magnificent display of patriotism, ashore and afloat, 
 in fighting for her independence. The patriotic 
 struggle for independence that is what has moved 
 the American people to forgetfulness of all jealousies 
 and rivalries. The rather indiscreet efforts of the 
 German sections of the American public have un- 
 doubtedly hastened this offer, and made it more gen- 
 erous and unqualified. The suggestion that any for- 
 eign people could hector them out of generosity to 
 the nation from whose loins they sprang, finally de- 
 cided the American public ; and it is fair to say that 
 the President's offer of alliance is an offer from the 
 American people to the British people." 
 
 " But how about the Monroe Doctrine ? " I said to 
 Constance, after running through the two-column 
 telegram from Washington, of which this passage 
 formed part. 
 
 " I don't know about that ; but you see, Dick, this 
 thing clearly comes from the American people, not 
 her politicians and diplomatists only. That is what 
 gives it its tremendous importance, I think." 
 
 362
 
 HANDS ACROSS THE SEA 
 
 " Yes ; to be sure. And why does John Crondall 
 want the offer declined? " 
 
 " Oh, he hadn't time to explain to me ; but he said 
 something about its being necessary for the new 
 Britain to prove herself, first; our own unity and 
 strength. ' We must prove our own Imperial British 
 alliance first,' he said." 
 
 " I see ; yes, I think I see that. But it is great 
 news, as you say great news." 
 
 How much John Crondall's view had to do with the 
 Government's decision will never be known, but we 
 know that England's deeply grateful Message 
 pointed out that, in the opinion of his Majesty's 
 Imperial Government, the most desirable basis for an 
 alliance between two great nations was one of equality 
 and mutual respect. While in the present case there 
 could be nothing lacking in the affection and esteem 
 in which Great Britain held the United States, yet the 
 equality could hardly be held proven while the former 
 Power was still at war with a nation which had in- 
 vaded its territory. The Message expressed very feel- 
 ingly the deep sense of grateful appreciation which 
 animated his Majesty's Imperial Government and the 
 British people, which would render unforgettable in 
 this country the generous magnanimity of the Amer- 
 ican nation. And, finally, the Message expressed the 
 hope, which was certainly felt by the entire public, 
 that those happier circumstances which should equal- 
 ize the footing of the two nations in the matter of an 
 alliance would speedily come about. 
 
 To my thinking, our official records contain no 
 document more moving or more worthy of a great 
 
 363
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 nation than that Message, which, as has so frequently 
 been pointed out, was in actual truth a Message from 
 the people of one nation to the people of another 
 nation from the heart of one country to the heart 
 of another country. The Message of thanks, no less 
 than the generous offer itself, was an assertion of 
 blood-kinship, an appeal to first principles, a revela- 
 tion of the underlying racial and traditional tie which 
 binds two great peoples together through and be- 
 neath the whole stiff robe of artificial differences which 
 separated them upon the surface and in the world's 
 eyes. 
 
 The offer stands for all time a monument to the 
 frank generosity and humanity of the American peo- 
 ple. And in the hearts of both peoples there is, in 
 my belief, another monument to certain sturdy quali- 
 ties which have gone to the making and cementing of 
 the British Empire. The shape that monument takes 
 is remembrance of the Message in which that kindly 
 offer was for the time declined. 
 
 The declining of the American offer has been called 
 the expression of a nation's pride. It was that, inci- 
 dentally. First and foremost and this, I think, is 
 the point which should never be forgotten it was 
 the expression of a nation's true humility. Pride we 
 had always with us in England, of the right sort and 
 the wrong sort; of the sort that adds to a people's 
 stature, and sometimes, of late, of the gross and 
 senseless sort that leads a people into decadence. But 
 in the past year we had learned to know and cherish 
 that true pride which has its foundations in the rock 
 of Duty, and is buttressed all about and crowned by 
 
 364
 
 HANDS ACROSS THE SEA 
 
 that quality which St. Peter said earned the grace of 
 God humility. 
 
 For my part, I see in that Message the ripe fruit 
 of the Canadian preachers' teaching; the crux and 
 essence of the simple faith which came to be called 
 " British Christianity." I think the spirit of it was 
 the spirit of the general revival in England that came 
 to us with the Canadian preachers ; even as so much 
 other help, spiritual and material, came to us from 
 our kinsmen of the greater Britain overseas, which, 
 before that time, we had never truly recognized as 
 actually part, and by far the greater part, of our 
 State. " 
 
 365
 
 XVII 
 
 THE PENALTY 
 
 We cannot all be masters, nor all masters 
 Cannot be truly followed. Othello. 
 
 f T would be distinctly a work of supererogation for 
 -*- me to attempt to tell the story of the Anglo- 
 German war of all modern wars the most remark- 
 able in some ways, and certainly the war which has 
 been most exhaustively treated by modern historians. 
 A. Low says in the concluding chapter of his fine his- 
 tory : 
 
 " Putting aside the fighting in South Africa, and 
 after the initial destruction of both the German Navy 
 and its Army in England (as effective forces), we 
 must revert to the wars of more than a century ago 
 to find parallels for this remarkable conflict. There 
 can be no doubt that at the time of the invasion of 
 England Germany's effective fighting strength was 
 enormous. Its growth had been very rapid ; its de- 
 cline must be dated from General von Fiichter's occu- 
 pation of London on Black Saturday. 
 
 " At that moment everything appeared to bode well 
 for the realization of the Emperor's ambition to be 
 Dictator of Europe, as the ruler of by far the great- 
 est Power in the Old World. From that moment the 
 German people, but more particularly the German 
 
 366
 
 THE PENALTY 
 
 official and governing class, and her naval and mili- 
 tary men, would appear to have imbibed of some dis- 
 tillation of their Emperor's exaggerated pride, and 
 found it too heady an elixir for their sanity. It 
 would ill become us to dilate at length upon the 
 extremes into which their arrogance and luxurious- 
 ness led them. With regard, at all events, to the 
 luxury and indulgence, we ourselves had been very 
 far from guiltless. But it may be that our extrava- 
 gance was less deadly, for the reason that it was of 
 slower growth. Certain it is, that before ever an 
 English shot was fired the fighting strength of Ger- 
 many waned rapidly from the period of the invasion. 
 By some writers this has been attributed to the in- 
 sidious spread of Socialism. But it must be remem- 
 bered that the deterioration was far more notable in 
 the higher than in the lower walks of life ; and most 
 of all it was notable among the naval and military 
 official nobility, who swore loudest by lineage and the 
 divine privileges of ancient pedigrees. 
 
 " When the German army of occupation in Eng- 
 land was disarmed, prisoners in barracks and camps, 
 and the German Navy had, to all intents and pur- 
 poses, been destroyed, the Imperial German Govern- 
 ment adopted the extraordinary course of simply 
 defying England to strike further blows. Germany 
 practically ceased to fight (no reinforcements were 
 ever landed in South Africa, and the German troops 
 already engaged there had no other choice than to 
 continue fighting, though left entirely without Impe- 
 rial backing), but emphatically refused to consider 
 the extremely moderate terms offered by Britain, 
 
 367
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 which, at that time, did not even include an indemnity. 
 But this extraordinary policy was not so purely cal- 
 lous and cynical as was supposed. Like most things 
 in this world, it had its different component parts. 
 There was the cynical arrogance of the Prussian 
 Court upon the one side; but upon the other side 
 there was the ominous disaffection of the lesser Ger- 
 man States, and the rampant, angry Socialism of the 
 lower and middle classes throughout the Empire, 
 which had become steadily more and more virulent 
 from the time of the reactionary elections of the early 
 part of 1907, in which the Socialists felt that they 
 had been tricked by the Court party. In reality 
 Germany had two mouthpieces. The Court defied 
 Britain ; the people refused to back that defiance with 
 action." 
 
 For a brief summary of the causes leading up to 
 the strange half-year which followed our receipt of the 
 American offer of assistance, I think we have noth- 
 ing more lucid than this passage of Low's important 
 work. That the forces at work in Germany, which 
 he described from the vantage-point of a later date, 
 were pretty clearly understood, even at that time, by 
 our Government, is proved, I think, by the tactics 
 we adopted throughout that troublous period. 
 
 In South Africa our troops, though amply strong, 
 never adopted an aggressive line. They defended our 
 frontiers, and that defence led to some heavy fighting. 
 But, after the first outbreak of hostilities, our men 
 never carried the war into the enemy's camp. There 
 was a considerable party in the House of Commons 
 which favoured an actively aggressive policy in the 
 
 368
 
 THE PENALTY 
 
 matter of seizing the Mediterranean strongholds ceded 
 to Germany at the time of the invasion. It was even 
 suggested that we should land a great Citizen army 
 in Germany and enforce our demands at the point of 
 the sword. 
 
 In this John Crondall rendered good service to the 
 Government by absolutely refusing to allow his name 
 to be used in calling out The Citizens for such a 
 purpose. But, in any case, wiser counsels prevailed 
 without much difficulty. There was never any real 
 danger of our returning to the bad old days of a 
 divided Parliament. The gospel of Duty taught by 
 the Canadian preachers, and the stern sentiment 
 behind The Citizens' watchword, had far too strong 
 a hold upon the country for that. 
 
 Accordingly, the Government policy had free play. 
 No other policy could have been more effective, more 
 humane, or more truly direct and economical. In 
 effect, the outworking of it meant a strictly defensive 
 attitude in Africa, and in the north a naval siege of 
 Germany. 
 
 Germany had no Navy to attack, and, because they 
 believed England would never risk landing an army 
 in Germany, the purblind camarilla who stood between 
 the Emperor's arrogance and the realities of life as- 
 sumed that England would be powerless to carry 
 hostilities further. Or if the Imperial Court did not 
 actually believe this, it was ostensibly the Govern- 
 ment theory, the poor sop they flung to a disaffected 
 people while filling their official organs with news of 
 wonderful successes achieved by the German forces in 
 South Africa. 
 
 369
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 But within three months our Navy had taught the 
 German people that the truth lay in quite another 
 direction. The whole strength of the British Navy 
 which could be spared from southern and eastern 
 bases was concentrated now upon the task of blocking 
 Germany's oversea trade. Practically no loss of life 
 was involved, but day by day the ocean-going vessels 
 of Germany's mercantile marine were being trans- 
 ferred to the British flag. The great oversea carry- 
 ing trade, whose growth had been the pride of Ger- 
 many, was absolutely and wholly destroyed during 
 that half-year. The destruction of her export trade 
 spelt ruin for Germany's most important industries ; 
 but it was the cutting off of her imports which finally 
 robbed even the German Emperor of the power to 
 shut his eyes any longer to the fact that his Empire 
 had in reality ceased to exist. 
 
 The actual overthrow of monarchical government 
 in Prussia was not accomplished without scenes of 
 excess and violence in the capital. But, in justice to 
 the German people as a whole, it should be remem- 
 bered that the revolution was carried out at remark- 
 ably small cost ; that the people displayed wonderful 
 patience and self-control, in circumstances of mad- 
 dening difficulty, which were aggravated at every 
 turn by the Emperor's arbitrary edicts and arrogant 
 obtrusion of his personal will, and by the insolence 
 of the official class. One must remember that for sev- 
 eral decades Germany had been essentially an indus- 
 trial country, and that a very large proportion of her 
 population were at once strongly imbued with Social- 
 istic theories, and wholly dependent upon industrial 
 
 370
 
 THE PENALTY 
 
 activity. Bearing these things in mind, one is moved 
 to wonder that the German people could have endured 
 so long as they did the practically despotic sway of 
 a Ruler who, in the gratification of his own insensate 
 pride, allowed their country to be laid waste by the 
 stoppage of trade, and their homes to be devastated 
 by the famine of an unemployed people whose com- 
 munications with the rest of the world were com- 
 pletely severed. 
 
 That such a ruler and such a Court should have 
 met with no worse fate than deposition, exile, and 
 dispersal is something of a tribute to the temperate 
 character of the Teutonic race. Bavaria, Wurtem- 
 burg, Saxony, and the southern Grand Duchies 
 elected to retain their independent forms of govern- 
 ment under hereditary rule ; and to this no objection 
 was raised by the new Prussian Republic, in which all 
 but one of the northern principalities were incor- 
 porated. 
 
 Within forty-eight hours of the election of Dr. 
 Carl Moller to the Presidency of the new Republic, 
 hostilities ceased between Great Britain and Germany, 
 and three weeks later the Peace was signed in London 
 and Berlin. Even hostile critics have admitted that 
 the British terms were not ungenerous. The war was 
 the result of Germany's unprovoked invasion of our 
 shores. The British terms were, in lieu of indemnity, 
 the cession of all German possessions in the African 
 continent to the British Crown, unreservedly. For 
 the rest, Britain demanded no more than a complete 
 and unqualified withdrawal of all German claims and 
 pretensions in the matter of the Peace terms enforced 
 
 371
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 after the invasion by General Baron von Fiichter, 
 including, of course, the immediate evacuation of all 
 those points of British territory which had been 
 claimed in the invasion treaty, an instrument now null 
 and void. 
 
 The new Republic was well advised in its grateful 
 acceptance of these terms, for they involved no mone- 
 tary outlay, and offered no obstacle to the new Gov- 
 ernment's task of restoration. At that early stage, 
 at all events, the Prussian Republic had no> colonial 
 ambitions, and needed all its straitened financial re- 
 sources for the rehabilitation of its home life. (In 
 the twelve months following the declaration of war 
 between Great Britain and Germany, the number of 
 Germans who emigrated reached the amazing total of 
 1,134,378.) 
 
 To me, one of the most interesting and significant 
 features of the actual conclusion of the Peace 
 which added just over one million square miles to 
 Britain's African possessions, and left the Empire, in 
 certain vital respects, infinitely richer and more pow- 
 erful than ever before in its history is not so much 
 as mentioned in any history of the war I have ever 
 read, though it did figure, modestly, in the report of 
 the Commissioner of Police for that year. As a side- 
 light upon the development of our national character 
 since the arrival of the Canadian preachers and the 
 organization of The Citizens, this one brief passage 
 in an official record is to my mind more luminous than 
 anything I could possibly say, and far more precious 
 than the fact of our territorial acquisitions: 
 
 " The news of the signature of the Peace was pub- 
 372
 
 THE PENALTY 
 
 lished in the early editions of the evening papers on 
 Saturday, 11 March. Returns show that the cus- 
 tom of the public-houses and places of entertainment 
 during the remainder of that day was 37^ per cent, 
 below the average Saturday returns. Divisional re- 
 ports show that the streets were more empty of traffic, 
 both vehicular and pedestrian, than on any ordinary 
 week-day. Police-court cases on the following Mon- 
 day were 8^/2 per cent, below the average, and in- 
 cluded, in the metropolitan area, only five cases of 
 drunkenness or disorderly conduct. All reports indi- 
 cate the prevalence throughout the metropolitan area 
 of private indoor celebrations of the Peace. All 
 London churches and chapels held Thanksgiving 
 Services on Sunday, 12 March, and the attendances 
 were abnormally large." 
 
 Withal, I am certain that the people of London 
 had never before during my life experienced a deeper 
 sense of gladness, a more general consciousness of re- 
 joicing. Not for nothing has " British Christianity " 
 earned its Parisian name of " New Century Puritan- 
 ism." As the President of the French Republic said 
 in his recent speech at Lyons : " It is the ' New Cen- 
 tury Puritanism ' which leads the new century's civili- 
 zation, and maintains the world's peace." 
 
 373
 
 XVIII 
 
 THE PEACE 
 
 Fair is our lot O goodly is our heritage I 
 
 (Humble ye, my people, and be fearful in your mirth 1) 
 
 For the Lord our God Most High 
 
 He hath made the deep as dry, 
 
 He hath smote for us a pathway to the ends of all the earth. 
 
 RUDTAKD KIPLING. 
 
 AT a very early stage of the war with Germany, 
 before the end of the first month, in fact, it 
 became evident that, our own soil having once been 
 freed, this was to be a maritime and not a land war. 
 A little later on it was made quite clear that there 
 would be no need to draw further upon our huge 
 reserve force of Citizen defenders. It was then that 
 John Crondall concentrated his efforts upon giving 
 permanent national effect to our work of the previous 
 year. 
 
 Fortunately, the Government recognized that it 
 would be an act of criminal wastefulness and extrav- 
 agance to allow so splendid a defensive organization 
 as ours to lapse because its immediate purpose had 
 been served. Accordingly, special legislation, which 
 was to have been postponed for another session, was 
 now hurried forward; and long before the German 
 Revolution and the conclusion of the Peace, England 
 
 374
 
 THE PEACE 
 
 was secure in the possession of that permanent or- 
 ganization of home defence which, humanly speaking, 
 has made these shores positively impregnable, by con- 
 verting Great Britain, the metropolis and centre of 
 the Empire, into a nation in arms. There is no need 
 for me to enlarge now upon the other benefits, the 
 mental, moral, and physical advancement which this 
 legislation has given us. Our doctors and school- 
 masters and clergymen have given us full and ample 
 testimony upon these points. 
 
 Prior to the passing of the National Defence Act, 
 which guaranteed military training as a part of the 
 education of every healthy male subject, the great 
 majority of The Citizens had returned to private life. 
 Yet, with the exception of some few hundreds of 
 special cases, every one of The Citizens remained 
 members of the organization. And it was that fact 
 which provided incessant employment, not alone for 
 John Crondall and myself, and our headquarters 
 staff, during the progress of the war, but for our 
 committees throughout the country. 
 
 Before reentering private life, every Citizen was 
 personally interviewed and given the opportunity of 
 being resworn under conditions of permanent member- 
 ship. The new conditions applied only to home de- 
 fence, but they included specific adherence to our 
 propaganda for the maintenance of universal military 
 training. They included also a definite undertaking 
 upon the part of every Citizen to further our ends 
 to the utmost of his ability, and, irrespective of State 
 legislation, to secure military training for his own 
 sons, and to abide by The Citizens' Executive in what- 
 
 375
 
 ever steps it should take toward linking up our or- 
 ganization, under Government supervision, with the 
 regular national defence force of the country. 
 
 It should be easy to understand that this process 
 involved a great deal of work. But it was work that 
 was triumphantly rewarded, for, upon the passage 
 into law of the Imperial Defence Act, which super- 
 seded the National Defence Act, after the peace had 
 been signed, we were able to present the Government 
 with a nucleus consisting of a compact working or- 
 ganization of more than three million British Citizens. 
 These Citizens were men who had undergone training 
 and seen active service. They were sworn supporters 
 of universal military training, and of a minimum of 
 military service as a qualification for the suffrage. 
 
 All political writers have agreed that the knowl- 
 edge of what was taking place in England, with 
 regard to our organization, greatly strengthened the 
 hands of the Imperial Parliament in its difficult task 
 of framing and placing upon the Statute Book those 
 two great measures which have remained the basis of 
 politics and defence throughout the Empire : the Im- 
 perial Defence Act and the Imperial Parliamentary 
 Representation Act. At the time there were not want- 
 ing critics who held that a short reign of peace would 
 bring opposition to legislation born of a state of war ; 
 but if I remember rightly we heard the last of that 
 particular order of criticism within twelve months of 
 the peace, it being realized once and for all then, that 
 the maintenance of an adequate defence system was 
 to be regarded, not so much as a preparation for 
 
 376
 
 THE PEACE 
 
 possible war, as the one and only means of preventing 
 war. 
 
 Constance Grey worked steadily throughout the 
 progress of the war, and it was owing almost entirely 
 to her efforts that the Volunteer Nursing Corps, 
 which she had organized under Citizens' auspices, was 
 placed on a permanent footing. Admirable though 
 this organization was as a nursing corps, its actual 
 value to the nation went far beyond the limits of its 
 nominal scope. By her tireless activity, and as a 
 result of her own personal enthusiasm, Constance was 
 able before the end of the war to establish branches 
 of her corps in every part of the country, with a com- 
 mittee and headquarters in all large centres. Meet- 
 ings were held regularly at all these headquarters, 
 every one of which was visited in turn by Constance 
 herself ; and in the end The Citizens' Nursing Corps, 
 as this great league of Englishwomen was always 
 called, became a very potent force, an inexhaustible 
 spring of what the Prime Minister called " the domes- 
 tic patriotism of Britain." 
 
 In the earliest stage of this work of hers Constance 
 had to cope with a certain inertia on the part of her 
 supporters, due to the fact that no active service 
 offered to maintain their enthusiasm. But Con- 
 stance's watchword was, " Win mothers and sisters, 
 and the fathers and brothers cannot fail you." It 
 was in that belief that she acted, and before long the 
 Nursing Corps might with equal justice have been 
 called The Women Citizens. It became a great 
 league of domestic patriots, and it would not be easy 
 
 377
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 to overstate the value of its influence upon the rising 
 generation of our race. 
 
 War has always been associated in men's minds 
 with distress and want, and that with some reason. 
 But after the first few months of the Anglo-German 
 war it became more and more clearly apparent that 
 this war, combined with the outworking of the first 
 legislation of the Imperial Parliament, was to produce 
 the greatest commercial revival, the greatest access 
 of working prosperity, Britain had ever known. Two 
 main causes were at work here ; and the first of them, 
 undoubtedly, was the protection afforded to our in- 
 dustries by Imperial preference. The time for tink- 
 ering with half-measures had gone by, and, accord- 
 ingly, the fiscal belt with which the first really Impe- 
 rial Parliament girdled the Empire was made broad 
 and strong. The effect of its application was grad- 
 ual, but unmistakable; its benefits grew daily more 
 apparent as the end of the war approached. 
 
 Factories and mills which had long lain idle in the 
 North of England were hastily refitted, and they 
 added every day to the muster-roll of hands employed. 
 Our shipping increased by leaps and bounds, but 
 even then barely kept pace with the increased rate 
 of production. The price of the quartern loaf rose 
 to sixpence, in place of fivepence; but the wages of 
 labourers on the land rose by nearly 25 per cent., 
 and the demand exceeded the supply. Thousands of 
 acres of unprofitable grass-land and of quite idle 
 land disappeared under the plough to make way for 
 corn-fields. Wages rose in all classes of work ; but 
 that was not of itself the most important advance. 
 
 378
 
 THE PEACE 
 
 The momentous change was in the demand for labour 
 of every kind. The statistics prove that while wages 
 in all trades showed an average increase of 19^/2 per 
 cent., unemployment fell during the year of the Peace 
 to a lower level than it had ever reached since records 
 were instituted. 
 
 In that year the cost of living among working 
 people was 5^/2 P 61 " cent, higher than it had been five 
 years previously. The total working earnings for 
 the year were 38^/2 per cent, greater than in any 
 previous year. Since then, as we know, expenditure 
 has fallen considerably ; but wages have never fallen, 
 and the total earnings of our people are still on the 
 up grade. 
 
 Another cause of the unprecedented access of pros- 
 perity which changed the face of industrial and agri- 
 cultural England, was the fact that some seven-tenths 
 of the trade lost by Germany was now not only car- 
 ried in British ships, but held entirely in British 
 hands. Germany's world markets became Britain's 
 markets, just as the markets of the whole Empire 
 became our own as the result of preference, and just 
 as the great oversea countries of the Empire found 
 Britain's home markets, with fifty million customers, 
 exclusively their own. The British public learned 
 once and for all, and in one year, the truth that re- 
 formers had sought for a decade to teach us that 
 the Empire was self-supporting and self-sufficing, 
 and that common-sense legislative and commercial 
 recognition of this fundamental fact spelt prosperity 
 for British subjects the world over. 
 
 But, as John Crondall said in the course of the 
 379
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 Guildhall speech of his which, as has often been said, 
 brought the Disciplinary Regiments into being, " We 
 cannot expect to cure in a year ills that we have 
 studiously fostered through the better part of a cen- 
 tury." There was still an unemployed class, though 
 everything points to the conclusion that before that 
 first year of the Peace was ended this class had been 
 reduced to those elements which made it more prop- 
 erly called " unemployable." There were the men 
 who had forgotten their trades and their working 
 habits, and there were still left some of those melan- 
 choly products of our decadent industrial and social 
 systems the men who were determined not to work. 
 In a way, it is as well that these ills could not be 
 swept aside by the same swift, irresistible wave which 
 gave us " British Christianity," The Citizens' watch- 
 word, Imperial Federation, and the beginning of 
 great prosperity. It was the continued existence of 
 a workless class that gave us the famous Discipline 
 Bill. At that time the title " Disciplinary Regi- 
 ments " had a semidisgraceful suggestion, connected 
 with punishment. In view of that, I shared the feel- 
 ing of many who said that another name should be 
 chosen. But now that the Disciplinary Regiments 
 have earned their honourable place as the most valu- 
 able portion of our non-professional defence forces, 
 every one can see the wisdom of John Crondall's con- 
 tention that not the name, but the public estimate of 
 that name, had to be altered. Theoretically the value 
 and necessity of discipline was, I suppose, always 
 recognized. Actually, people had come to connect 
 the word, not with education, not with the equipment 
 
 380
 
 THE PEACE 
 
 of every true citizen, but chiefly with punishment and 
 disgrace. 
 
 At first there was considerable opposition to the 
 law, which said, in effect : No able-bodied man without 
 means shall live without employment. Indeed, for a 
 few days there was talk of the Government going to 
 the country on the question. But in the end the 
 Discipline Act became law without this, and I know 
 of no other single measure which has done more for 
 the cause of social progress. Its effects have been 
 far-reaching. Among other things, it was this meas- 
 ure which led to the common-sense system which makes 
 a soldier of every mechanic and artisan employed 
 upon Government work. It introduced the system 
 which enables so many men to devote a part of their 
 time to soldiering, and the rest to various other kinds 
 of Government work. But, of course, its main reason 
 of existence is the triumphant fact that it has done 
 away with the loafer, as a class, and reduced the 
 chances of genuine employment to a minimum. Some 
 of the best mechanics and artisans in England to-day 
 are men who learned their trade, along with soldier- 
 ing and general good citizenship, in one of the Dis- 
 ciplinary Regiments. 
 
 Despite the increase of population, the numerical 
 strength of our police force throughout the kingdom 
 is 30 per cent, lower to-day than it was before the 
 Anglo-German war; while, as is well known, the 
 prison population has fallen so low as to have led to 
 the conversion of several large prisons into hospitals. 
 The famous Military Training School at Dartmoor 
 was a convict prison up to three years after the war. 
 
 381
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 There can be no doubt that, but for the Discipline 
 Bill, our police force would have required strengthen- 
 ing and prisons enlarging, in place of the reverse 
 process of which we enjoy the benefit to-day. 
 
 Its promoters deserve all the credit which has been 
 paid them for the introduction of this famous meas- 
 ure; and I take the more pleasure in admitting this 
 by token that the chief among them has publicly 
 recorded his opinion that the man primarily respon- 
 sible for the introduction of the Discipline Bill was 
 John Crondall. At the same time it should not be 
 forgotten that we have John Crondall's own assurance 
 that the Bill could never have been made law but for 
 that opening and awakening of the hearts and minds 
 of the British people which followed the spreading 
 of the gospel of Duty by the Canadian preachers. 
 
 882
 
 XIX 
 
 THE GREAT ALLIANCE 
 
 Truly ye come of the Blood ; slower to bless than to ban ; 
 Little used to lie down at the bidding of any man. 
 
 Deeper than speech our love, stronger than life our tether ; 
 
 But we do not fall on the neck nor kiss when we come together. 
 
 Draw now the threefold knot firm on the ninefold bands, 
 
 And the law that ye make shall be law after the rule of your lands. 
 
 RUDYARD KlPLING. 
 
 DURING all this time I was constantly with John 
 Crondall, and saw a good deal of Constance 
 Grey; yet the announcement that I had once ex- 
 pected every day, the announcement which seemed the 
 only natural sequence to the kiss of which I had been 
 an unwilling witness, never came. Neither did any 
 return come, in John Crondall, of his old frank 
 gaiety of manner. There remained always the 
 shadow of reserve, of gravity, and of a certain re- 
 straint, which dated in my mind from the day of my 
 inadvertent intrusion upon the scene between himself 
 and Constance. 
 
 Knowing John Crondall as I knew him then, it was 
 not possible for me to think ill of him ; but he per- 
 plexed me greatly at times. For at times it did seem 
 to me that I read in Constance's face, when we three
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 were together, a look that was almost an appeal to my 
 chief a half-sorrowful, half-abashed appeal. Then 
 I would recall that kiss, and in my puzzlement I would 
 think : " John Crondall, if you were any other man, 
 
 I should say you " 
 
 And there my thought would stop short. Of what 
 should I accuse him? There was the kiss, the long 
 silence, John Crondall's stiffness, and then this look 
 of distress, this hint of appeal, in the face of Con- 
 stance. Well! And then my intimate knowledge of 
 my chief would silence me, giving me assurance that I 
 should never be a good enough man justly to re- 
 proach John Crondall. But it was all very puzzling, 
 and more, to me, loving Constance as I loved her. 
 
 You may judge, then, of my surprise when Cron- 
 dall came into my room at The Citizens' headquarters 
 office one morning and said : 
 
 " You have been the real secretary for some time, 
 Dick, not only mine, but The Citizens'; so there's no 
 need for me to worry about how you'll manage. I'm 
 going to America." 
 
 " Going to America ! Why when ? " 
 " Well, on Friday, I believe I sail. As to why, I'm 
 afraid I mustn't tell you about that just yet. I've 
 undertaken a Government mission, and it's confiden- 
 tial." 
 
 " I see. And how long will you be away ? " 
 
 " Oh, not more than two or three months, I hope." 
 
 That simplified the thing somewhat. My chief's 
 
 tone had suggested at first that he was going to live in 
 
 the United States. Even as it was, however, surely, 
 
 I thought, he would tell me something now about him- 
 
 384
 
 THE GREAT ALLIANCE 
 
 self and Constance. But though I made several open- 
 ings, he told me nothing. 
 
 While John Crondall was away a new State Under- 
 Secretaryship was created. It was announced that 
 for the future the Government would include an 
 Under-Secretary of State for the Civilian Defence 
 Forces, whose chief would be the Secretary of State 
 for War. A few days later came the announcement 
 that the first to hold this appointment would be John 
 Crondall. I had news of this a little in advance of 
 the public, for my work in connection with The Citi- 
 zens' organization brought me now into frequent con- 
 tact with the War Office, particularly with regard to 
 supplies and general arrangements for our different 
 village rifle-ranges. 
 
 This piece of news seemed tolerably important to 
 Constance Grey and myself, and we talked it over 
 with a good deal of interest and enthusiasm. But 
 before many weeks had passed this and every other 
 item of news was driven out of our minds by a piece 
 of intelligence which, in different ways, startled and 
 excited the whole civilized world, for the reason that 
 it promised to affect materially the destiny of all the 
 nations of civilization. Every newspaper published 
 some kind of an announcement on the subject, but 
 the first full, authoritative statement was that con- 
 tained in the great London Dally which was now the 
 recognized principal organ of Imperial Federation. 
 The opening portion of this journal's announcement 
 read in this way : 
 
 " We are able to announce, upon official authority, 
 the completion of a defensive and commercial Alliance 
 
 385
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 between the British Empire and the United States of 
 America, which amounts for all practical purposes to 
 a political and commercial Federation of the English- 
 speaking peoples of the world. 
 
 " Rumours have been current for some time of 
 important negotiations pending between London and 
 Washington, and, as we pointed out some time ago, 
 Mr. John CrondalPs business in Washington has been 
 entirely with our Ambassador there. 
 
 " The exact terms of the new Alliance will prob- 
 ably be made public within the next week. In the 
 meantime, we are able to say that the Alliance will 
 be sufficiently comprehensive to admit United States 
 trade within the British Empire upon practically 
 British terms that is to say, the United States will, 
 in almost every detail, share in Imperial Preference. 
 
 " Further, in the event of any foreign Power de- 
 claring war with either the British Empire or the 
 United States, both nations would share equally in 
 the conduct of subsequent hostilities, unless the war 
 were the direct outcome of an effort upon the part 
 of either of the high contracting parties in the direc- 
 tion of territorial expansion. The United States will 
 not assist the British Empire to acquire new territory, 
 but will share from first to last the task of defending 
 existing British territory against the attack of an 
 enemy. Precisely the same obligations will bind the 
 British Empire in the defence of the United States. 
 
 " It would scarcely be possible to exaggerate the 
 importance to Christendom of this momentous achieve- 
 ment of diplomacy ; and future generations are little 
 likely to forget the act or the spirit to which this 
 
 386
 
 THE GREAT ALLIANCE 
 
 triumph may be traced: the United States' offer of 
 assistance to Britain during the late war. 
 
 " The advantages of the Alliance to our good 
 friends and kinsmen across the Atlantic are obviously 
 great, for they are at once given free entry into a 
 market which has four hundred and twenty millions 
 of customers, and is protected by the world's greatest 
 Navy and the world's greatest citizen defence force. 
 Upon our side we are given free entry into the second 
 richest and most expansive market in the world, with 
 eighty million customers, and an adequate defence 
 force. Upon a preferential footing, such as the Alli- 
 ance will secure to both contracting Powers, the 
 United States offer us the finest market in the world 
 as an extension of our own. In our own markets we 
 shall meet the American producer upon terms of ab- 
 solute equality, to our mutual advantage, where a 
 couple of years ago we met him at a cruel disadvan- 
 tage, to our great loss. 
 
 " We have said enough to indicate the vast and 
 world-wide importance of the Alliance we are able to 
 announce. But we have left untouched its most 
 momentous aspect. The new Alliance is a guarantee 
 of peace to that half of the world which is primarily 
 concerned; it renders a breach of the peace in the 
 other half of the world far more unlikely than it ever 
 was before. As a defensive Alliance between the 
 English-speaking peoples, this should represent the 
 beginning of an era of unexampled peace, progress, 
 and prosperity for the whole civilized world." 
 
 Before I had half -digested this tremendous piece of 
 news, and with never a thought of breakfast, I found 
 
 387
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 myself hurrying in a hansom to Constance Grey's 
 flat. In her study I found Constance, her beautiful 
 eyes full of shining tears, poring over the announce- 
 ment. 
 
 888
 
 XX 
 
 PEACE HATH HER VICTORIES 
 
 Yet I doubt not thro' the ages one increasing purpose runs, 
 And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of 
 the suns. 
 
 TENNYSON. 
 
 I HAD hoped to be the bearer of the Alliance news 
 to Constance, and seeing how deeply she was 
 moved by it made me the more regretful that I had 
 not arrived at the flat before her morning paper. 
 Constance had been the first to give me the news of 
 the American offer of help at the beginning of the 
 war; she had been the first to give me any serious 
 understanding of the invasion, there in that very 
 room of the little South Kensington flat, on the fate- 
 ful Sunday of the Disarmament Demonstration. Now 
 she raised her gleaming eyes to me as I entered: 
 
 " A thing like this makes up for all the ills one's 
 ever known, Dick," she said, and dropped one hand 
 on the paper in her lap. 
 
 " Yes, it's something like a piece of news, is it not? 
 I had hoped to bring it you, but I might have known 
 you would be at your paper betimes." 
 
 " Oh, it's magnificent, Dick, magnificent ! I have 
 no words to tell you how glad I am about this. I see 
 John Crondall's hand here, don't you? " 
 
 389
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 " Yes," I said ; and thought : " Naturally ! You 
 see John Crondall everywhere." 
 
 " He was dead against any sort of an Alliance 
 while we were under a cloud. And he was right. The 
 British people couldn't afford to enter any compact 
 upon terms of less than perfect equality and inde- 
 pendence. But now why, Dick, it's a dream come 
 true : the English-speaking peoples against the world. 
 It's Imperial Federation founded on solid rock. No ! 
 With its roots in the beds of all the seven seas. And 
 never a hint of condescension, but just an honourable 
 pact between equals of one stock." 
 
 " Yes ; and a couple of years ago " 
 
 " A couple of years ago, there were Englishmen 
 who spat at the British Flag." 
 
 " There was a paper called The Mass" 
 
 Constance smiled up at me. " Do you remember 
 the Disarmament Demonstration ? " she said. 
 
 " Do you remember going down Fleet Street into a 
 wretched den, to call on the person who was assistant 
 editor of The Mass? " 
 
 " The person ! Come ! I found him rather nice." 
 
 " Ah, Constance, how sweet you were to me ! " 
 
 " Now, there," she said, with a little smile, " I 
 think you might have changed your tense." 
 
 " But I was talking of two years ago, before 
 Well, you see, I thought of you, then, as just an 
 unattached angel from South Africa." 
 
 " And now you have learned that my angelic quali- 
 ties never existed outside your imagination. Ah, 
 Dick, your explanations make matters much worse." 
 
 " But, no ; I didn't say you were the less an angel ; 
 390
 
 PEACE HATH HER' VICTORIES 
 
 only that I thought of you as unattached, then you 
 see." 
 
 Constance looked down at her paper, and a silence 
 fell between us. The silence was intolerable to me. I 
 was standing beside her chair, and I cannot explain 
 just what I felt in looking down at her. I know that 
 the very outline of her figure and the loose hair of 
 her head seemed at once intimately familiar and inex- 
 pressibly sacred and beautiful to me. Looking down 
 upon them caused a kind of mist to rise before my 
 eyes. It was as though I feared to lose possession of 
 my faculties. That must end, I felt, or an end would 
 come to all reserve and loyalty to John Crondall. And 
 yet yet something in the curve of her cheek she 
 was looking down held me, drew me out of myself, 
 as it might be into a tranced state in which a man is 
 moved to contempt of all risks. 
 
 " Dear, I loved you, even then," I said ; " but then 
 I thought you free." 
 
 " So I was." She did not look at me, and her voice 
 was very low ; but there was some quality in it which 
 thrilled me through and through, as I stood at her 
 side. 
 
 " But now, of course, I know But why have 
 
 you never told me, Constance? " 
 
 " I am just as free now as then, Dick." 
 
 " Why, Constance! But, John Crondall? " 
 
 " He is my friend, just as he is yours." 
 
 " But I but he " 
 
 " Dick, I asked him if I might tell you, and he said, 
 yes. John asked me to marry him, and when I said I 
 couldn't, he asked me to wait till our work was done, 
 
 391
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 and let him ask me again. Can't you see, Dick, how 
 hard it was for me ? And John is he is such a 
 splendid man. I could not deny him, and that was 
 when you came into the room don't you remember 
 Dick?" 
 
 The mist was thickening about me; it seemed my 
 mind swam in clouds. I only said: "Yes?" 
 
 " Oh, Dick, I am ashamed ! You know how I re- 
 spect him how I like him. He did ask me again, 
 before he went to America." 
 
 " And now now, you " 
 
 " It hurt dreadfully ; but I had to say no, be- 
 cause " 
 
 And there she stopped. She was not engaged to 
 John Crondall. She had refused him refused John 
 Crondall ! Yet I knew how high he stood in her eyes. 
 Could it be that there was some one else some one 
 in Africa? The suggestion spelled panic. It seemed 
 to me that I must know that I could not bear to 
 leave her without knowing. 
 
 " Forgive me, Constance," I said, " but is there 
 some one else who is there some one else?" To 
 see into her dear face, I dropped on one knee beside 
 her chair. 
 
 "I I thought there was," she said very sweetly. 
 And as she spoke she raised her head, and I saw her 
 beautiful eyes, through tears. It was there I read my 
 happiness. I am not sure that any words could have 
 given it me, though I found it sweeter than anything 
 else I had known in my life to have her tell me after- 
 wards in words. It was an unforgettable morning. 
 
 392
 
 PEACE HATH HER VICTORIES 
 
 Why did she love him ? Curious fool! be still ; 
 Is human love the growth of human will ? 
 
 John Crondall was my best man, as he has been 
 always my best friend. He insisted on my taking 
 over the permanent secretaryship of The Citizens 
 when he went to the War Office. And since then I 
 hope I have not ceased to take my part in making our 
 history ; but it is true that there is not much to tell 
 that is not known equally well to everybody. 
 
 Assuredly peace hath her victories. Our national 
 life has been a daily succession of victories since we 
 fought for and won real peace and overcame the 
 slavish notion that mere indolent quiescence could 
 ever give security. Our daily victory as a race is the 
 triumph of race loyalty over individual self-seeking ; 
 and I can conceive of no real danger for the British 
 Empire unless the day came, which God forbid, when 
 Englishmen forgot the gospel of our " New Century 
 Puritanism " the Canadian preachers' teaching of 
 Duty and simple living. And that day can never 
 come while our Citizens' watchword endures: 
 
 "Foa GOD, OUR RACE, AND DUTY!" 
 
 For me, I feel that my share of happiness, since 
 those sombre days of our national chastisement, since 
 those stern, strenuous months of England's awaken- 
 ing to the new life and faith of the twentieth century, 
 has been more, far more, than my deserts. But I 
 think we all feel that in these days ; I hope we do. 
 If we should ever again forget, punishment would 
 surely come. But it is part of my happiness to believe 
 
 393
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 that, at long last, our now really united race, our 
 whole family, four hundred and twenty millions 
 strong, has truly learned the lesson which our great 
 patriot poet tried to teach in the wild years before 
 discipline came to us, in the mailed hand of our one- 
 time enemy: 
 
 God of our fathers, known of old, 
 Lord of our far-flung battle-line, 
 
 Beneath Whose awful Hand we hold 
 Dominion over palm and pine 
 
 Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, 
 
 Lest we forget lest we forget ! 
 
 The tumult and the shouting dies ; 
 
 The captains and the kings depart : 
 Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice, 
 
 An humble and a contrite heart. 
 Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, 
 Lest we forget lest we forget ! 
 
 For heathen heart that puts her trust 
 
 In reeking tube and iron shard, 
 All valiant dust that builds on dust, 
 
 And guarding, calls not Thee to guard, 
 For frantic boast and foolish word 
 Thy Mercy on Thy People, Lord I 
 
 Amen! 
 
 394
 
 
 PBT
 
 SOUTHERN nSlL / Ca "'ml 
 S De M%*"SS
 
 A 000 706 643 4