With a shrill laugh that set his teeth on edge, she put up the umbrella and walked out into the rain. And only a passing policeman saw, by the light of a lamp, that her eyes were glistening.
Selwyn remained where he was, blinking stupidly into the rain-soaked night, as one who has been walking in his sleep and has waked at the edge of an abyss.
It was nearly noon next day before Selwyn woke from a heavy, dreamless sleep. Both in mind and in body there was the listlessness which follows the passing of a crisis, but for the first time in many days he felt the impulse to face life again, to accept its bludgeonings, unflinching.
He was almost fully dressed, when a messenger arrived with a letter. It was from Edgerton Forbes.
'MY DEAR AUSTIN,—I have been trying to get hold of you for the past week, but you are as elusive as a hundred-dollar bill. Douglas Watson has returned from the front, minus an arm, and he has asked as many ex-Harvard men as possible to meet him at the University Club. We are having dinner there to-night in one of the smaller rooms, and I want you to come with me. I'll pick you up at your hotel at seven, and we can walk over. If it is all right, send word by the messenger.—As ever, FORBES.'
Selwyn's first instinct was to refuse. He had no desire to meet Watson again just yet, nor did he want to face men with whom he had lived at Harvard. But the thought of another lonely night arose—night, with its germs of madness.
'Tell Mr. Forbes,' he said, 'that I shall expect him at seven.'
A few minutes before the time arranged the clergyman called, and they started for the club. The air was raw and chilling, and people were hurrying through the streets, taking no heed of the illuminated shop windows, tempting the eye of woman and the purse of man. In almost every towering building the lights of offices were gleaming, as tired, routine-chained staffs worked on into the night tabulating and recording the ever-increasing prosperity of the times.
The times!
Ordinary forms of greeting had changed to mutual congratulations on affluence. Anecdotes of business men were no longer of struggle and privation, but of record outputs and maximum prices. Theatres, cafés, cinema palaces, churches, hotels—they had never seen such times. Success was in the very dampness of the air as thousands of people looked at it from the cosy interior of limousines, people who had never aspired higher than an occasional taxi-cab. The times! Dollars multiplied and begat great families of dollars—and Broadway glittered as never before.
It is difficult to state what trend of thought made conversation between the friends difficult, but after two or three desultory attempts they walked on without speaking. As they were entering the majestic portals of the club, Selwyn was reminded of a question he had intended all day to ask.
'Edge,' he said, 'have you heard anything of Marjory Shoreham?'
'She sailed two weeks ago for France,' answered the clergyman.
They were directed to an upper floor, where they found a hundred or so guests who claimed Harvard as theiralma mater. Although most of his old acquaintances were quite cordial, Selwyn felt oddly self-conscious. He caught sight of Gerard Van Derwater with his impassive courtliness dominating a group of active but less impressive men; and behind them he saw Douglas Watson of Cambridge surrounded by a dozen guests; but he pleaded a headache to Forbes, and sought a secluded corner, where he remained until dinner was announced.
Like all affairs where men are alone and the charming artifices of femininity are missing, there was a severity and a formality which did not disappear until the ministrations of wine and food had engendered a glow which did away with shyness. The table was arranged in the form of the letter U, with Watson beside the chairman at the head.
Towards the end of the dinner conversation and hilarity were growing apace. Men were forgetting the scramble of existence in the recollection of old college days, when their blood was like wine and the world a thing of adventure. Mellowed by retrospect, they laughed over incidents that had caused heart-burnings at the time; and as they laughed more than one felt a swelling of the throat. It was, perhaps, just an odd streak of sentiment (and the man who is without such is a sorry spectacle); or it may have been the memory of ideals, aspirations, dreams—left behind the college gates.
'Gentlemen.' The chairman had risen to his feet. Cigars were lit; and he was greeted with the usual applause. 'Gentlemen, we have gathered here at short notice to welcome an old boy of Harvard—Douglas Watson. He has a message which he wants to deliver to us, and not only because he is one with us in tradition would we listen, but his empty sleeve is a mute testimony that he has fought in a cause which—though not our own—is one which I know has the sympathy of every man in this room. I shall not detain you, gentlemen, but ask your most attentive hearing for Mr. Watson.'
As the guest of the evening rose to speak he was greeted with prolonged applause, which broke into 'For he's a jolly good fellow,' and ended in a college football yell. During it Selwyn sat motionless, his alert mind trying to decipher the difference between Watson's face and the others. It was not only that they were, almost without exception, clean-shaven, and that Watson wore a small military moustache; the dissimilarity went beyond that. Although he was obviously nervous, Watson's eyes looked steadily ahead as those of a man who has faced death and looked on things that never were intended for human vision. It had left him aged—not aged as with years, but by an experience which made all the keen-faced men about him seem clever precocities whose mentalities had outstripped the growth of their souls.
And studying this phenomenon, Selwyn became conscious of the American business face.
Although differing in colouring and shape, practically every face showed lips thin and straight, eyes narrowing and restlessly on thequi vive, the nervous, muscular tension from the battle for supremacy in feverish competition, the dull, leaden complexion of those who disregard the sunshine—these combined in a clear impression of extraordinary abilities and capacities with which to meet the affairs of the day. What one missed in all their faces was a sense of the centuries.
No—not in all. At the table opposite to Selwyn was Gerard Van Derwater, whose self-composure and air of formal courtliness made him, as always, a man of distinctive, almost lonely, personality.
'Thank you very much,' said Watson, as the applause and singing died away. His fingers pressed nervously on the table, and his first words were uneven and jerky. 'I needn't tell you I am not a speaker. I have a great message for you chaps, but I may not be able to express it. That was my reason for asking to speak to ex-Harvard men. I did it because I knew I should have men who thought as I did—men who looked on things in the same way as myself. I knew you would be patient with me, and I was certain you would give an answer to the question which I bring from France.'
He paused momentarily, and shifted his position, but his face had gained in determination. A few of his listeners encouraged him audibly, but the remainder waited to see what lay behind the intensity of his manner.
'I don't want pity for my wound,' he resumed. 'The soldier who comes out of this war with only the loss of an arm is lucky. Put that aside. I want you to listen to me as an American who loves his country just as you do, and who once was proud to be an American.'
He raised his head defiantly, and when he spoke again, the indecision and the faltering had vanished.
'Gentlemen, the question I bring is from France to America. It is more than a question; it is a challenge. It is not sent from one Government to another Government, but from the heart of France to the conscience of America. They don't understand. Month after month the women there are seeing their sons and husbands killed, their homes destroyed, and no end in sight. And every day they are asking, "Will America never come?" My God! I've seen that question on a thousand faces of women who have lost everything but their hope in this country. I used to tell them to wait—it would come. I said it had to come. When the Hun sank theLusitaniaI was glad, for at last, I told them, America would act. Do you know what the British Tommies were saying about you as we took our turn in the line and read in the papers how Wilson wasconversingwith Germany about that outrage? I could have killed some of them for what they said, for I was still proud of my nationality; but time went on and the French people asked "When?" and the British Tommy laughed.
'If I'm hurting any of you chaps, think of what I felt. One night behind the lines a soldiers' concert-party gave a show. Two of the comedians were gagging, and one asked the other if he knew what the French flag stood for, and he said, "Yes—liberty." His companion then asked him if he knew what the British flag stood for, and he replied, "Yes—freedom." "Then," said the first comedian, "what does the American flag stand for?" "I can't just say," said the other one, "but I know that it has stood a hell of a lot for two years." The crowd roared—officers and men alike. I wanted to get up and fight the whole outfit; but what could I have said in defence of this nation? America—our country here—has become a vulgar joke in men's mouths.'
He stopped abruptly, and poured himself out a glass of water. No one made a sound. There was hot resentment on nearly every face, but they would hear him out without interruption.
'The educated classes of England,' he went on, 'are different in their methods, but they mean the same thing. They say it is America's business to decide for herself, but the Englishman conveys what he means in his voice, not in his words. When I was hit, I swore I would come back here and find out what had changed the nation I knew in the old days into a thing too yellow to hit hack. Mr. Chairman, you said I had fought in a cause that is not yours. I beg to differ. There are hundreds of Americans fighting to-night in France. They're with the Canadians—they're with the French—they're with the British. Ask them if this cause isn't ours. I lay beside a Princeton grad. in hospital. He had been hit, serving with the Durhams. "I'm never going back to America," he said. "I couldn't stand it." As a matter of fact, he died—but I don't think you like that picture any more than I do.'
Bringing his fist down on the table with a crash, Watson leaned forward, and with flashing eyes poured out a stream of words in which reproach, taunts, accusations, and pleading were weirdly mixed. He told them they should remove the statue of Liberty and substitute one of Pontius Pilate. In a voice choking with emotion, he asked what they had done with the soul left them by the Fathers of the Republic. He pictured the British troops holding on with nothing but their indomitable cheeriness, and dying as if it were the greatest of jokes. In one sentence he visualised Arras with refugees fleeing from it, and New York glittering with prosperity. With no relevancy other than that born of his tempestuous sincerity, he thrust his words at them with a ring and an incision as though he were in the midst of an engagement.
'That is all,' he said when he had spoken for twenty minutes. 'In the name of those Americans who have died with the Allies, in the name of theLusitania'smurdered, in the name of civilisation, I ask,What have you done with America's soul?'
He sat down amidst a strained silence. Everywhere men's faces were twitching with repressed fury. Some were livid, and others bit their lips to keep back the hot words that clamoured for utterance. The chairman made no attempt to rise, but by a subconscious unanimity of thought every eye was turned to the one man whose appearance had undergone no change. As if he had been listening to the legal presentation of an impersonal case, Gerard Van Derwater leaned back in his chair with the same courtly detachment he had shown from the beginning of the affair.
'Mr. Van Derwater,' said the chairman hoarsely; and a murmur indicated that he had voiced the wish of the gathering.
Slowly, almost ponderously, the diplomat rose, bowing to the chairman and then to Watson, who was looking straight ahead, his face flushed crimson.
'Mr. Chairman—Mr. Watson—Gentlemen,' said Van Derwater. He stroked his chin meditatively, and looked calmly about as though leisurely recalling a titbit of anecdote or quotation. 'Our friend from overseas has not erred on the side of subterfuge. He has been frank—excellently frank. He has told us that this Republic has become a jest, and that we are responsible. I assume from several of your faces that you are not pleased with the truth. Surely you did not need Mr. Watson to tell you what they are saying in England and France. That has been obvious—unpleasantly obvious—and, I suppose, obviously unpleasant.'
He smiled with a little touch of irony, and leaning forward, flicked the ash from his cigar on to a plate.
'Mr. Watson,' he resumed, 'has asked what we have done with America's soul. That is a telling phrase, and I should like to meet it with an equally telling one; but this is not a matter of phraseology, but of the deepest thought. Gentlemen, if you will, look back with me over the brief history of this Republic. There are great truths hidden in the Past.
'In 1778 Monsieur Turgot wrote that America was the hope of the human race—that the earth could see consolation in the thought of the asylum at last open to the down-trodden of all nations. Three years later the Abbé Taynals, writing of the American Revolution, said: "At the sound of the snapping chains our own fetters seem to grow lighter, and we imagine for a moment that the air we breathe grows purer at the news that the universe counts some tyrants the less." Ten years after that the editor Prudhomme declared: "Philosophy and America have brought about the French Revolution."
'I will not weary you, gentlemen, with further extracts, but I ask you to note—and this is something which many of our public men have forgotten to-day—that at the very commencement of our career we were inextricably involved with European affairs. Entangling alliances—no! But segregation—impossible!'
For an instant his cold, academic manner was galvanised into emphasis. His listeners, who were still smarting under Watson's words, and had been restless at the unimpassioned tone of Van Derwater's reply, began to feel the grip of his slowly developing logic.
'Thus,' the speaker went on, 'at the commencement, our national destiny became a thing dominated by the philosophy of humanitarianism. When we had shed our swaddling-clothes and taken form as a people, the issue of the North and the South began to rise. Because of his realisation of the part America had to play in human affairs, Lincoln, the great-hearted Lincoln, said we must have war. Against the counsel of his Cabinet, loathing everything that had to do with bloodshed, this man of the people declared that there could be no North or South, but only America. And to secure that he plunged this country into a four years' war—four years of untold suffering and terrible bravery. When, during the struggle, Lincoln was informed that peace could be had by dropping the question of the slaves' emancipation, his answer was the proclamation that all men were free. With his great heart bleeding, he said, "The war must go on." Philosophy and America brought on the French Revolution. Philosophy and humanitarianism brought on the war of North and South.
'The psychology of America, which had been hidden beneath the physical side of our rebellion, took definite form as a result. The gates of the country were open to the entire world. The down-trodden, the persecuted, the discouraged, the helpless, no matter of what creed or nationality, saw the rainbow of hope. By hundreds of thousands they poured into this country. Slav and Teuton, Galician, Italian, Belgian, Jew, in an endless stream they came to America, and, true to Washington and Lincoln, she received them with the words, "Welcome—free men." And so we shouldered the burdens of the Past, and men who had been slaves—white as well as black—drank of freedom.'
There was no applause, but men were leaning forward, afraid they might miss a single word. Van Derwater's depth of human understanding, his lack of passion, his solitariness that had been likened to an air of impending tragedy, held his listeners with a magic no one could have explained. He might have come as a spirit of times that had passed, so charged with the ages was his strange, powerful personality.
'From an open sky,' he continued, 'came the present war. The older nations, knit by tradition and startled by its imminence, flew to arms at a word from their leaders. France, who had been our friend, looked to us; but what was our position? In fifty tongues our citizens cried out that it was to escape war that they had come to America. Could we tell the Jew that Russia, which had persecuted him to the point of madness, was on the side of mercy? Could we convince the Teuton that his Fatherland had become suddenly peopled with savages? Could we say to the Irishman, bitterly antagonistic to England, that Britain was fighting for the liberation of small nations? Could we ask the Greek, the Pole, the Galician, to go back to the continent from which they had come, and give their blood that the old order of things might go on?
'But, you ask, what of the real American, descended from the men who fought in the War of Independence and the Civil War. Yes—what of him? From earliest boyhood he has been taught that Britain is our traditional enemy. To secure existence we had to fight her. To maintain existence we fought her again in 1812. When we were locked in a death-struggle with the rebellious South, she tried to hurt our cause—although history will show that the real heart of Britain was solidly with the North. In our short life as a people we find that, always, the enemy is Britain. In one day could we change the teaching of a lifetime? The soul of America was not dead, but it was buried beneath the conflicting elements in which lay her ultimate strength, but her present weakness.
'What, then, was the situation? Events had outridden our national development. Whether it could have been avoided or not I do not know. Whether our education was at fault, or whether materialism had made us blind—these things I cannot tell you. I only know that this war found us potentially a nation, but actually a babel of tongues. Without philosophy and humanitarianism this nation could not go to war—and in those two things we were not ready.
'I do not belittle the many gallant men who have left these shores to fight with the Allies, but I say that in a world-crisis the voices of individuals cannot be heard unless they speak through the medium of their nationality. The question from France is not "Will Americans never come?" but "Will America never come?" When the war found the Americanisation of our people unfinished, it became the duty of every loyal man in the Republic to give his very life-blood to achieve solidarity. Do you think we could not see that the Allies were fighting our battle? It was impossible for this nation that had shouldered the problems of the Old World not to see it; so we began the education of all our people. We could have hurled this nation into war at almost any hour by an appeal to national dignity, but our destiny was imperative in its demands. Not in heat, which would be bound to cool; not in revenge, which would soon be forgotten; but by philosophy and humanitarianism alone could this great Republic go to war.
'Yet, when this Administration looked for help, what did it find? The two races that come to this country and never help its Americanisation are the Germans and the English. They remain true to their former citizenship, and they die true to them. Gentlemen, that must not be again. America will always be open to the world, but he who passes within these gates to live must accept responsibilities as well as privileges.
'I am almost finished. For two years and a half we have fought against the disintegrating forces within our country. We have endured the sneers of belligerents, the insults of Germany, and the tolerance of Britain—and still we have fought on. Literally we were struggling, as did our forefathers, for nationhood. But let me ask Mr. Watson if our psychological unpreparedness was entirely our fault. When Britain allied herself with Russia, did she give a thought to the effect it would have on the American mind? To us, Russia was the last stronghold of barbaric despotism, and yet Britain made that alliance, identifying herself with the forces of reaction. I do not say that we would have entered into a similar or any agreement with Britain, but there are alliances of the spirit far more binding than the most solemn treaties. I accuse Britain of failing to make the advances toward a spiritual covenant with the United States, in which lay—and still lies—the hope of this world.'
A messenger had entered the room and handed a note to the chairman. It was passed along to Van Derwater's place and left in front of him. He took it up without opening it, and fingered it idly as he spoke.
'A nation does not need to be at war,' he went on, 'to find that traitors are in her midst. The struggle of this Administration for unity of thought has been thwarted right and left by men of no vision, men drunk with greed, men blinded with education and so-called idealism. Mr. Watson, you ask what we have done with America's soul. I will tell you what we have doneforit. There are many of us in this room who have given everything we have—our time, our friends, and things which we valued more than life—because we have respected the trust imposed on us of maintaining America's destiny. I am sorry for your empty sleeve. But let me assure you that we, also, have known suffering. Because we believe in America—first, last, and always in America—we have stayed here, enduring sneers and contumely, in order that when America speaks it will be like the sound of a rushing cataract—one voice, one heart, but the voice and heart of Humanity. In no other way can America go to war. . . . And until that moment arrives I shall wear this garb of neutrality as proudly as any soldier his uniform of honour.'
He sat down, and in an instant the whole crowd was on its feet. Men cheered and shouted, and, unashamed, tears ran down many faces. With his heart pounding and his eyes blinded with emotion, Selwyn did not make a move. He could only watch, through the mist, the figure of Gerard Van Derwater with its cloak of loneliness. He saw him look down at the message and break the seal of the envelope. He saw a flush of colour sweep into the pallid cheeks and then recede again. Still with the air of calmness and self-control, Van Derwater rose again to his feet. 'Gentlemen,' he said. The room was hushed instantly and every face was turned towards him. 'Gentlemen, I have received a message from my headquarters. Germany has announced the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare.'
For a moment the room swam before Selwyn's eyes. The shouts and exclamations of the others seemed to come from a distance. And suddenly he found that he was on his feet. His eyes were like brilliants and his voice rang out above all the other sounds.
'Van!' he cried, 'does this mean war—at last?'
With steady, unchanging demeanour his former friend looked at him.'Yes,' he said. 'At last.'
And as they watched they saw Van Derwater's hands contract, and for a moment that passed as quickly as it came his whole being shook in a convulsive tremor of feeling. Then, in a silence that was poignant, he sank slowly into his chair, his shoulders drooping, listless and weary. With eyes that were seeing into some secret world of their own he gazed dreamily across the room, and a smile crept into his face—a smile of one who sees the dawn after a long, bitter night.
'Thank God,' he said, with lips that trembled oddly. 'Thank God.'
On an April evening, fifteen months later, a certain liveliness could have been noted in the vicinity of Drury Lane Theatre. The occasion was another season of opera in English, and as the offering for the night wasMadam Butterfly, the usual heterogeneous fraternity of Puccini-worshippers were gathering in large numbers.
Although the splendour of Covent Garden (which had been closed for the war) was missing, the boxes held their modicum of brilliantly dressed women; and through the audience there was a considerable sprinkling of soldiers, mostly from the British Dominions and America, grasping hungrily at one of the few war-time London theatrical productions that did not engender a deep and lasting melancholy—to say nothing of a deep and lasting doubt of English humour and English delicacy.
In one of the upper boxes Lady Erskin had a small unescorted party. Lady Erskin herself was a plump little miniature who was rather exercised over the dilemma of whether to display a huge feathery fan and obliterate herself, or to sacrifice the fan to the glory of being stared at by common people. With her was her sister, the wife of a country rector, who assumed such an elaborate air ofennuithat any one could have told it was her first time in a box. Between them was Lady Erskin's rather pretty daughter, and behind her, with all her vivid personality made glorious in its setting of velvety cloak and creamy gown, was Elise Durwent, enjoying a three days' respite from her long tour of duty.
The lights went out, and with the rising of the curtain the little drama of tenderness and cruelty held the stage. From the distance, Butterfly could be heard approaching, her voice coming nearer as the typical Puccini progressions followed her ascent. There was the marriage, the cursing of Butterfly by the Bonze, and the exquisite love duet, so full of passionateabandon, and yet shaded with such delicacy. At the conclusion of the act, where the orchestra adds its overpoweringtour de forceto the singers', the audience burst into applause that lasted for several minutes. It was the spontaneous gratitude of hundreds of war-tired souls whose bonds had been relaxed for an hour by the magic touch of music.
'Do you think the tenor is good-looking?' asked Lady Erskin of no one in particular.
'Who is that in the opposite box, with the leopard's skin on her shoulders?' queried the rector's wife.
'I think Butterfly is topping,' said Lady Erskin's daughter. 'I always weep buckets in the second act.'
'I should like to die to music like that,' said Elise, almost to herself.
Close by a communication-trench, Dick Durwent stood shivering in the cool night-air. He was waiting to go forward on sentry-duty, the remainder of the relief having gathered at the other end of the reserve-trench in which he was standing; but though it was spring, there was a chill and a dampness in the air that seemed to breathe from the pores of the mutilated earth. A desultory shelling was going on, but for a week past a comparative calm had succeeded the hideous nightmare of March and early April, when Germany had so nearly swept the board clean of stakes.
He heard the voices of a carrying-party coming up, and suddenly he crouched low. There was a horrible whine, growing to a shriek—and a shell burst a few yards away. Shaken and almost deafened, Durwent remained where he was until he saw an object roll nearly to his feet. It was a jar of rum that was being brought up for issue. He lifted the thing up, and again he shivered in the raw air like one sickening of the ague. Quick as the thought itself, he put the jar down, and seizing his water-bottle, emptied its contents on the ground. Kneeling down, he filled it with rum, and leaving the jar lying at such an angle that it would appear to have spilled a certain amount, he hurriedly joined the rest of the relief warned for duty.
Dick had been on guard in the front line for an hour, when he received word that a patrol was going out. A moment later they passed him, an officer and two men, and he saw them quietly climb over the parapet which had been hastily improvised when the battalion took over the position. They had been gone only a couple of minutes when pistol-shots rang out, and the flares thrown up revealed a shadowy fight between two patrols that had met in the dark. The firing stopped, and Durwent's eyes, staring into the blackness, saw two men crouching low and dragging something after them. He challenged, to find that it was the patrol returning, and that the one they were bringing back was the officer, killed.
The trench was so narrow that they could not carry him back, and they left the body lying on the parapet until a stretcher could be fetched.
Dulled as he had become to terrible sights, the horror of that silent, grotesque figure began to freeze Dick Durwent's blood. A few minutes before it had been a thing of life. It had loved and hated and laughed; its veins had coursed with the warm blood of youth; and there it sprawled, a ghastly jumble of arms and legs—motionless, silent,dead. He tried to keep his eyes turned away, but it haunted him. When he stared straight ahead into the dark it beckoned to him—he could see the fingers twitching! And not till he crept near could he be satisfied that, after all, it had not moved.
'Sherwood!' He heard a quivering voice to his right. It was the nearest sentry, an eighteen-year-old boy, who had called him by the name given him by Austin Selwyn, the name under which he had enlisted.
'What's the matter?' called Durwent.
Without his rifle, the little chap stumbled towards him, and, dark as it was, Dick could see that his face was livid and his eyes were wide with terror.
'Sherwood,' whimpered the boy, 'I can't stand it—I've lost my nerve. . . . That thing there—there. . . . It moves. It's dead, and it moves. . . . Look, it's grinning at me now! I'm going back. I can't stay here—I can't.'
'Steady, steady,' said Durwent, gripping the boy by the shoulder and shaking him roughly. 'Pull yourself together. Don't be a kid. You've seen far worse than this and never turned a hair.'
'I can't help it,' whined the boy. 'There's dead men walking out there all over. Can't you see them? They whisper in the dark—I can hear them all the time. I'm going back.'
'You can't, you little idiot. They'll shoot you.'
'I don't care. Let them shoot.'
'Where's your rifle? Get back to your post. If you're caught like this, there'll be a firing-party at daybreak for you.'
'I don't care,' cried the lad hysterically. 'They can't keep me here.I'm going'——
'Here'—— Throwing the young fellow against the parapet and holding him there by leaning heavily against him, Durwent felt for his water-bottle and withdrew the stopper. 'Drink this,' he said, forcing the mouth of the flask between the boy's lips. 'Take a shot of rum. It will put the guts back into you.'
The young soldier choked with the burning liquid, and tears oozed from his eyes, but the chill of the body passed, and with it the chill of cowardice. With a half-whimper, half-laugh, he forced a silly, coarse jest from his lips. 'Where did you get it, Sherwood?'
'Never mind,' said Dick. 'Come on now. Back you go—and stick it out.'
The second act ofMadam Butterflywas in progress.
With the sure touch of high artistry, both composer and librettist had delineated the result of Pinkerton's faithlessness—a faithlessness that was obvious to every one but Cho-cho-san, who still believed that her husband would return with the roses. Firm in her trust, she pictured to Sazuki the day when he would come, 'a little speck in the distance, climbing the hillock'—how she would wait 'a bit to tease him and a bit so as not to die at our first meeting'—ending with the triumphant assurance (born of her woman's intuition, which, alas! proves so frequently unreliable) that it would all come to pass as she told. Sheknewit.
And so to the visit of the American consul, who tries to tell her that her husband has written that he has tired of her—she, poor soul, reading in his words the message that he still loves her. Then the final tableau of the act with Butterfly, her baby and Sazuki standing at the Shosi facing the distant harbour where his ship has just been signalled. Softly the humming of the priests at worship ceases, and the curtain descends on what must always remain a masterpiece of delicate pathos—a story that will never lose its appeal while woman's trust in man lends its charm to drab existence.
'The tenor didn't come in at all in that act,' said Lady Erskin.
'Really,' said the rector's wife, fixing her lorgnette on the opposite box, 'that person with the leopard's skin looks absolutely like a cannibal.'
'I'm just swimming in tears,' was the comment of Lady Erskin's daughter.
Elise said nothing; nor did she hear them speak. Her heart was fluttering wildly, and her hands were clasped tightly together. She had heard a far-away cry—and the voice was Dick's.
The raw air of the night, the dread of that loathsome, silent thing, the haunting terror of the boy's eyes a few minutes before, the whine of shells, all bored their way into Dick Durwent's brain. He began to tremble. With every bit of will-power he fought it off, but he felt the fumes of madness coming over him.
For days on end he had had no rest. In the Fifth Armydébâcleof March his battalion had been one of the first to break, although remnants had fought as few men had ever fought before; and when they had been reorganised they were moved back into the line, undermanned, ill-equipped, and branded with disgrace. It was the culmination of three years' service at the front, and his nerves were at the breaking-point. Mounds of earth ahead of him, and gnarled, dismembered trees, began to take the ghostly shapes that the frightened boy had told of.
Mumbling meaningless things, he reached for his water-bottle and poured a mouthful of rum down his throat. It set his heart beating more firmly, and his blood was no longer like ice in a sluggish river. He replaced the stopper and resumed his watch, but every fibre of his body was craving for more of the alcohol. With set teeth he struggled for self-control, but every instinct was fighting against him. He took another sip, then a long draught of the scorching liquid, and leaned against the parapet. He pressed his hot face against the damp earth, and burrowed his fingers into it in a frenzied effort for self-mastery. Again he drank, and his mouth burned with the stuff. His head was swimming, and he could hear surf breaking on a rocky coast. The dead man was grinning at him, but death no longer held any terrors for him. He raised the bottle in a mock toast and drank greedily of the rum again.
The pounding of the waves puzzled him. He could not remember that they were near any water. But more and more distinctly he could hear the roll of surf dashed into spray against the shore. . . . It was strange. . . . Once more he pressed the bottle to his lips, and it set his very arteries on fire. Yes. Over to the left he could see the glimmer of the ocean. There was a light; some one was beside it. It was Elise! She was giving a signal. That was it—the smugglers were landing their contraband, and she was signalling that all was clear.
He looked over to the dead man. The corpse was rising to its feet. It had all been a hoax on its part—it was an excise officer. His eyes were fixed on the light, too. His men would be near, and they would capture Elise—and afterwards the smugglers, led by their great-grandfather. He would have to warn her. He couldn't shout, for that would give everything away. He would crawl near to her first.
He finished the rum, draining the bottle to the last drop, and started to creep along the trench, his heavy, powerless limbs carrying him only inches where his imagination made it yards. He looked back once. The dead man was following him. It had become a race between himself and a corpse. He kept his eye on the light. He could see Elise quite plainly. She was looking out towards the sea.
Feeling his muscles growing weaker, and fearful that the dead man would overtake him, he struggled to his feet and clapped his hands to his mouth.
'Elise!' he yelled. 'Elise!'
And with the roar of surf in his ears, he sank to the ground in a drunken stupor.
The last act ofMadam Butterflywas ending. The cruel little story wound to a close with the return of Pinkerton and his sympathy-uninspiring American wife, and then the suicide of Butterfly—the logical, but comparatively unmoving, finale to the opera.
But Elise neither saw the actors nor heard the music. With her hands covering her eyes, she had been listening for the voice of Dick. She could hear it, distant and faint, growing nearer, as if he were coming towards her through a forest. There was in it a despair she had never heard before. He was in danger—where or how she could not fathom—but over the surging music of the orchestra she could hear the voice of Boy-blue crying through the infinity of space.
The opera was over, and there was a storm of applause that developed into an ovation.
'The tenor isn't really handsome, after all,' said Lady Erskin.
'I think the women of to-day are shameless,' said the rector's wife, casting a last indignant glance at the box across the theatre.
'I feel a perfect rag,' said Lady Erskin's daughter. 'Good heavens!Elise, what's the matter?'
'Nothing. I—I don't know,' Elise answered, looking up with terror-stricken eyes. 'I'm just overwrought. That's all.'
'You poor dear!' said Lady Erskin. 'You shouldn't take the opera so seriously. After all, it didn't really happen—and I have no doubt in real life the tenor is quite a model husband, with at least ten children.'
'Drunk,' said the company commander, stooping over the prostrate body of Dick Durwent. 'He was all right when he took over. Where did he get the stuff?'
'Smell that, sir,' said the subaltern of the night, handing him a water-bottle.
'Humph! This looks bad. Have him carried to the rear and placed under arrest.'
On the outskirts of a village near the junction of the British and French armies, two guards with loaded rifles kept watch at the doors of a hut. The warm sunlight of May was bathing the fields in gold, where here and there a peasant woman could be seen sprinkling seed into the furrows. Across a field, cutting its way through a farmyard, a light railway carried its occasional wobbling, narrow-gauged traffic; and outside half-a-dozen huts soldiers were lolling in the warmth of early afternoon, polishing accoutrements and exchanging the lazy philosophy of men resting after herculean tasks. Elsewhere there was no sign of war. Cattle browsed about the meadows, and the villagers, long since grown used to the presence of foreign soldiers, pursued their endless duties.
A sergeant walked briskly from a cottage in the village and went directly to the field where lay the hut guarded by the sentries. 'Fall in outside!' he said sharply, opening the door.
Bareheaded, and with his dark hair seeming to cast the shadows that had gathered beneath his eyes, Dick Durwent emerged and took his place between the guards.
'To receive the sentence of the court,' said the sergeant in answer to his questioning glance. 'Escort and prisoner—'shun! Right turn! Quick march!'
Past the lounging soldiers to the road, and on to the village, they marched. Women glanced up, curious as to the meaning of the little procession, but with a shrug of their shoulders resumed their work, and soon forgot all about it. The escort halted outside the cottage from which the sergeant had come, and he entered it alone. A minute later he reappeared, and marched prisoner and guards into the room where the court-martial had been held that morning. The three officers were sitting in the same places—a lieutenant-colonel, whose set, sun-tanned face told nothing; a captain, whose firmness of jaw and steadiness of eye could not hide his twitching lip; and a subaltern, pale as Dick Durwent himself.
As president of the court, the senior officer handed a sealed envelope to the prisoner. Not a word was spoken on either side. The sergeant's command rang out, and the noise of metalled heels upon the floor was startlingly loud.
Still without a word, carrying the unread sentence in his hand, Durwent was marched back to the hut. Again the women cast curious glances, and a little urchin in a cocked-hat stood at the salute as they passed.
When he was alone once more, Dick broke the seal of the envelope, and without his face altering, except that the shadows grew darker beneath his eyes, he read the finding of the court.
He was to be shot.
He read it twice. With a long, quivering intake of the breath, he tore the thing slowly into a dozen pieces and threw them into a corner.
Walking to the end of the hut, he leaned against the ledge of a little window, and looked out towards the horizon where the great blue of the sky stooped to earth. There was the laughter of soldiers, and from an adjoining meadow came the neighing of a restive horse. The sunlight deepened, and from a hundred branches birds were trilling welcome to the promise of another summer.
Two hours passed. The warmth of early afternoon was giving way to the cool mood of twilight—but the solitary figure had not moved.
Nine days had passed when a motor-lorry drew up on the road, and the same sergeant ordered Dick Durwent to take his place outside the hut with his escort. The prisoner asked as to his destination, and was told that the sentence, having been confirmed, was to be promulgated before his unit.
They had been travelling for half-an-hour when they reached a field in which Durwent saw two companies of his battalion drawn up in the form of a hollow square. Faint with shame, staggering under the hideous cruelty of the whole thing, he was marched into the centre and ordered to take a pace forward, while the commanding officer read the sentence of court-martial to the men: that Private Sherwood, being found guilty of drunkenness while on guard—it being further proved that he had obtained unlawful possession of the liquor—was to be shot at dawn, and that the sentence would be carried out the following morning.
Although his senses reeled with the shock and ignominy of it all, the prisoner's bearing showed no sign of it. With his head erect, he looked into the faces of the men whom he had lived and slept and fought beside; men with whom he had shared privation and danger; men who had been his comrades through it all. But as he searched their faces he felt an overpowering loneliness. In the eyes of every one there was horror; To be killed in battle—what was that? But to be shot like a cur in the grizzly morning! Yet their horror, their anger, was against the military law, and was born of a fear that the same thing might come to them. It was that which cut him to the quick. It was not thathewas to be shot the next day, but thattheymight meet a similar fate. That was the fear which drove the blood from their cheeks and left their lips parted in awe.
And then he saw a face which almost broke down his manhood, and sent scalding tears to the very brink. It was the face of the lad he had saved from deserting that terrible night. The boy's agony was for him alone; it was pleading for understanding; it was trying to tell him that he would never forget—that the condemned man would not go to his death unmourned by one human heart.
It was his last night. All evening the chaplain had been with him, offering the solace of divine mercy and forgiveness; but though he was grateful for the good man's ministrations, Durwent felt that he wanted to be alone. He hardly knew why; but there were many things to think of, things which would be remembered more easily if he were by himself. Towards eleven o'clock he made the request of the chaplain, who left him, promising to return shortly after midnight; and, with his hands clasped behind his back, Dick walked slowly up and down the hut.
His mind journeyed to Roselawn—and Elise. At least—and at the thought he struck his hands together with joy—she would never know. She would think he had died in China. For several minutes he walked without his thoughts taking any other form than that, but gradually the realisation of his surroundings began to leave him. He was roaming through the woods with Elise; they were climbing a great tree for birds' eggs; they were casting flies for trout in the stream that ran through their estate; they were riding across country on ponies that whinnied with pleasure at the feel of the soft turf. But wherever his hungry imagination painted her, there was in her face the womanly tenderness that had always been hers in their companionship.
He stopped in his walk and pressed his clenched fingers against his lips. She had always believed in him. Through all the hell in which the Fates had cast his destiny, she had been one star towards which he could grope. But now—a drunkard—a renegade soldier of a renegade battalion—to be shot. He had killed her trust! The horrors of the night closed on him like hounds on a dying stag.
Uttering a dull cry of agony, he staggered across the hut with outstretched hands—and in the darkness his poor disordered fancy saw once more the vision of his sister's face. It was as he had seen her when, as a boy bruised by life, he had gone to her for solace. She had not changed. She could not change. Her eyes, her lips, were saying that in the morning she would stand beside him, holding his hand in hers, until the levelled rifles severed his soul and his body for eternity.
He sank to his knees, and for the first time in many years he prayed. It was a prayer to an unknown God, in words that were meaningless, disjointed things. It was a soul crying out to its source, a soul struggling towards the throne of Eternal Justice, through a darkness lit only by a sister's love and the gratitude of an eighteen-year-old boy saved from shameful death.
The commands of the sergeant of the guard could be heard as sentries were changed. Durwent rose to his feet and tried to look from the window, but the night was as black as the grave which had already been dug for him. Once more there was no sound but the wind moaning about the deserted fields.
'Mas'r Dick.'
Dick's body grew rigid. Was it a prank of his mind, or had he really heard the words?
'Mas'r Dick.'
The door had opened an inch. His heart beat wildly, and he crouched close to the crevice.
'Mathews!' he gasped.
'Sh-sh.' An admonishing hand touched him. 'Come close, sir. This is a dirty business, Mas'r Dick. If you hear me cough noticeable, get back and pretend like you're asleep.'
'But—but, in God's name, what are you doing there?'
'I'm a-guardin' you, sir. Sh-sh.'
The old groom moved a couple of paces away from the door, humming a song about a coachman who loved a turnkey's daughter. Almost mad with excitement, Dick stood in the darkness of the hut with his outstretched arms shaking and quivering. He was afraid he would shout, and bit his finger-nails to help to repress the wild desire.
'Mas'r Dick.'
In an instant he was crouching again by the door.
'There'll be a orficer's inspection,' whispered the sentry, 'a minute or two arter midnight. When that there little ceremony has took place, you and me is goin' for a walk.'
'Where?'
'Anywheres, Mas'r Dick.'
'You mean—to escape?'
'Precisely so, sir.'
For a moment his pulses beat furiously with hope; but the realisation of what it meant for the old groom killed it like a sudden frost. 'No, Mathews,' he whispered. 'It isn't fair to you. I am not going to try to escape. Give me your hand; I want to say good-bye.'
For answer, the imperturbable Mathews moved off again, and, in a soft but most unmusical bass, sang the second verse about the amorous coachman and the susceptible turnkey's daughter. Dick listened, hanging greedily on every little sound with its atmosphere of Roselawn.
'Mas'r Dick.' Mathews had returned. 'No argifyin' won't get you nowhere. If I have to knock you atwixt the ears and drag you out by the 'eels, you're comin' out o' that there stall to-night. I ain't goin' for to see a Durwent made a target of. No, sir; not if I have to blow the whole army up, and them frog-eaters along with 'em. Close that door, Mas'r Dick. I've got a contrary temper, and can't stand no argifyin' like. Close that door, sir.'
Almost crazed with excitement, Dick strode about the hut. Even if he were to get away, the chances of capture were overwhelming. But—to be shot in an open fight for freedom! That would be a thousand times better than death by an open grave. Freedom! The word was intoxication. To breathe the air of heaven once again—to feel the canopy of the stars—to smell the musk of flowers and new grass! If only for an hour; yet, what an hour!
And then the chance, remote, but still within the realm of possibility, of reaching the front line, where men died like men. Of all the desires he had ever known, none had gripped him like the longing for battle, where death and honour were inseparable.
But once more the thought of Mathews chilled his purpose. It would mean penal servitude or worse for the old groom, and he was not going to be the means of ruining him for his faithfulness. He could not stoop so low as that.
These and a hundred similar thoughts flashed through his mind, and he was no nearer their solution when the door was opened and a sergeant shouted a command. He started. For a second he thought that dawn might be breaking, and that his hour had arrived; but an officer came up the steps, and he saw with a quiver of relief that it was the nightly inspection.
'Everything all right?'
'Yes, sir,' he answered.
'Where's the chaplain?'
'He'll be back directly, sir.'
'Food all right—everything possible being done for you?'
'I have no complaints, sir.'
In the light of the lamp held by the sergeant the two men looked at each other. Without saying anything more, the officer glanced about the hut. 'That will do, sergeant.—Good-night.'
'Good-night, sir,' answered Durwent.
The officer had hardly reached the door, where the sergeant had preceded him with the light, when he turned back impulsively and put out his hand. 'I suppose this sort of thing is necessary,' he said hoarsely; 'but it's a damned rotten affair altogether.'
They clasped hands; and turning on his heel, the officer left the hut.
'Take every precaution, sergeant,' Dick heard him say; 'and send a runner to the chaplain with my compliments. Tell him he must not leave the prisoner.'
'Very good, sir.'
Silence again—and the crunching of the sentries' heels on the sparsely sprinkled gravel. The ordeal was becoming unbearable. Dick feared the passing of the minutes which would bring back the chaplain, and yet every minute seemed an eternity. The conflict ravaged his very soul. Was he to take the chance offered him by the strangest trick of Destiny, or remain and die like a rat caught in a trap?
'Mas'r Dick.'
The door was quietly opened. The old groom's hand fell on his arm and drew him firmly outwards. He tried to pull back, but with unexpected strength the older man exerted pressure, until Dick found himself outside.
It was so dark that he could not see a yard ahead of him as Mathews, retaining his grip on his companion's arm, led him towards the road. They were nearly clear of the field, when the groom stopped abruptly, and they lay flat on the ground. It was the orderly officer and the sergeant returning from the inspection of a hut some distance off.
'Sentry.' The officer had paused opposite the hut where the prisoner had been.
'Yes, sir,' came the answer from the soldier still on guard at the other door.
'Has the chaplain returned?'
'Not yet, sir.'
With an impatient exclamation, the officer went on towards the village; and gaining their feet, the two men reached the road.
'There's a path alongside, sir,' whispered Mathews, 'and you and me is goin' to put as much terry-firmy atwixt this village and us as our four legs can do. Now, sir, we're off!'
With lowered heads, they broke into a run. Stumbling over unseen stones, lacerating their hands and faces against bushes which over-hung the path, they ran on into the dark. Once a staff car passed them, and they huddled in a ditch; but it was only for a few seconds, and they were up again. Unless they were unfortunate enough to run right into the arms of the military police, the night was offering every chance of success. A barking dog warned them that they had come to the outskirts of another village. Leaving the road, they circled the place by tortuously making their way through uneven fields, until they thought it safe once more to take the path. On they ran—past silent fields—by streams—by murky swamps.
Towards dawn Dick was faint with fatigue. The ordeal of the last month had cruelly sapped his vitality, and as he ran he found himself stumbling to his knees.
'Hold hard, sir,' said the groom, who was leading. 'Another mile or so, and you and me, sir, will breathe ourselves proper.'
Only another mile—but a mile of utter anguish. Twice Dick fell, and the second time he could not rise without assistance.
'Mas'r Dick,' pleaded the groom, 'look 'ee, sir. Up yonder hill somewheres about I knows there is a cornfield, for I have noted it many a time. 'We can't hide here, sir, in this stubble. Lean on me, Mas'r Dick—that's the way. Now, sir, for England, 'ome, and beauty.'
Struggling to retain his consciousness, Dick limped beside the old servitor, until, gaining the hill, they saw an abandoned cornfield. There was a roll of guns as they made their way into the field, and through the dense blackness of the night a few streaks of gray could be seen towards the east.
Without a sound, Dick sank to the ground in complete exhaustion. The groom unstrapped his own greatcoat, which had been carried rolled, and covered the lad with it. Taking a thermos bottle from his haversack, he poured some hot tea between Dick's lips, and saw a little glow of warmth creep into the cheeks.
'Now, sir,' he said, 'take a bit 'o' this sandwich. 'Ave another swig o' the tea. Bless my heart, sir, won't them fellers be surprised when they finds as how they ain't got no corpse for their funeral? That's better, sir. I will say about army tea that even if it ain't what my old woman would make, it's rare an' strong, Mas'r Dick—rare an' strong an' powerful, likewise and sim'lar.'
'Mathews,' said Dick weakly, 'how was it—you were on guard—last night? Was it just an accident?'
'Yes, sir. Just a accident. Well, not precisely a accident neither, sir. I be what the War Office calls "a headquarter troop," and do odd jobs behind the lines. Sometimes I dig graves, and other times I be a officer's servant, and likewise do a turn o' sentry-go. Well, sir, when I heard that you was a prisoner and was goin' for to be shot, I persuades the corp'l to put me on guard, exchangin' a diggin' job with a bloke by the name o' Griggs, so as not to incormode the records o' the War Office. That's all, sir. There I were, and here we be; and arter you've had a sleep, you and me will have a jaw on our immed'ate future. 'Ave a good snooze, Mas'r Dick, and I'll keep an eye trimmed on the road.'
With the same boyishness he had shown that night in Selwyn's rooms, Dick put out his hand and pressed the old groom's arm. With a paternal air, Mathews patted the hand with his own and reached for his pipe, explaining that he would steal a smoke before daylight. But the lad did not hear him. He was lost in a deep, dreamless sleep.
It was nearly noon when the tired youth awoke. He looked wonderingly about, and there was a haunting fear in his light eyes, like those of a stag that dreads the hunters. From the north there came the sound of drum-fire, a weird, almost tedious, rhythm of guns working at a feverish pace; and the near-by road was a mass of jumbled traffic. Ambulances, supply-wagons, field-artillery, lorries, with jingling harness or snorting engines—streams of vehicles moved slowly up and down their channel. At a reckless speed motorcyclists, carrying urgent messages, swerved through it all; and in the ditches that ran alongside, refugees were stumbling on, fleeing from the new terror, their crouching, misshapen figures like players from a grotesque drama of the Macabre.
'The sausage-eaters,' said Mathews philosophically, 'must be feelin' their oats, sir.'
At the sound of the familiar voice the fear passed from Dick's face. Memory had returned, and he smiled, though his body trembled as if with a chill. 'I'm starved,' he said, 'and I have nothing with me. How long did I sleep, Mathews?'
'Pretty near seven hours, Mas'r Dick. Here you are, sir—feedin'-time, and the bugle's went.'
He handed Durwent a sandwich, which the young man devoured ravenously, washing it down with some cold tea. Mathews also munched at a sandwich, and through the cornstalks they watched the two currents of war-traffic eddying past each other. There was a roar of engines behind them, and, flying low, a formation of sixteen British aeroplanes made in a straight line for the battle area.
With a map which the groom had thoughtfully borrowed from an officer the previous day, Dick managed to gain fairly accurate information as to their position. By calculation he figured out that they had travelled seventeen or eighteen miles during the night, and identifying the main road on which they had come, he saw that after two or three miles it would take a rectangular turn to the right, running parallel to the line of battle. Four miles to the south-east of the turning-point there was a river, and this the fugitives decided to reach that night.
'If we can locate that,' said Dick eagerly, 'it is bound to lead us into the French lines.'
'Werry good, sir,' said the groom, with an air of resignation. His contempt for maps and their unintelligibility was deep-rooted, but if his young master thought he could locate a river with one, he would keep an open mind on the subject until it had, at least, been given a fair trial.
'You see,' said Durwent, 'a great many of these troops on the road areFrench, so when we follow that route we must get into French territory.'
'Yezzir,' said Mathews profoundly. 'I won't go for to say as 'ow you mayn't be right. All the same, Mas'r Dick, when it comes to enterin' the ring wi' them sausage-eaters I'd raither 'ave a dozen Lancashire or Devon lads about me than all the Frenchies you could put in Hyde Park. It ain't that these here spec'mens don't 'ave a good sound heart as far as standin' up and takin' knocks is concerned, but they be too frisky and skittish for my likin'. I see 'em all wavin' their arms like as if a carriage and pair has run away, and talkin' all at once and together, likewise and sim'lar. Wot's more, they does it in a lingo that no one can't go for to make out, not even a Frenchy hisself, because I never see one Frog listenin' to another—did you, sir? Wot's more, sir, they gets all of a lather over things which is only fit for women-folk to worry on—such as w'ether a hen has laid its egg reg'lar; or the coffee, was it black enough? From wot I see as puts a Frog in a dither, I sez to myself that if you was to take him to a real hoss-race, he'd never see the finish. No, sir; he'd be dead o' heart-failure afore the hosses was off.'
Dick smiled at the tremendous seriousness of the old groom, and lay back wearily on the ground. 'We had better both turn in for another nap,' he said. 'We'll need all our strength to-night, and if we stay awake we're sure to get hungry.'
'Werry sound advice, Mas'r Dick,' said Mathews. 'But would I be presumin', sir, to ask you a favour? I got a letter yesterday from my old woman, and wot with her writin' and me bein' nought o' a scholar, I was wonderin', Mas'r Dick, if you would just acquaint me with any fac's that you might think the old girl would like me for to know.'
'Willingly,' said Dick, taking a sealed letter from the groom, who squatted solemnly on the ground, assuming an air of deep contemplation, as one who has to give an opinion on a hitherto unread masterpiece.
'It begins,' said Dick, with some difficulty making out the writing, which was extremely small in some words and very large in others, and punctuated mainly with blots—'"Dear Daddy"'——
'That,' said Mathews, 'is conseckens o' me bein' sire to littleWellington.'
'Oh yes,' said Dick. '"Dear Daddy, ther ain't nothing to tell youWellington has took the mumps and the cat had some more kittens"'——
'That's a werry remark'ble cat,' observed Mathews. 'I never see a animal so ambitious. Wot does the old girl say Wellington has took?'
'Mumps.'
'By Criky! I hope it don't go for to make his nose no bigger. Wot a infant he is! Mumps! Go on, Mas'r Dick—the old girl's doin' fine.'
'"The day,"' resumed Dick—'"the day afor Tuesday come last week"'——
'Don't pull up, sir,' said Mathews as Dick paused to re-read the puzzling words. 'You has to take my old woman at a good clip to get her meanin'—but you'll find it hid somewere, Mas'r Dick. I never see the old girl come a cropper yet.'
With this to guide him, the reader found his place again with the aid of a blot, a half-inch square, which surrounded the first word. '"The day afor Tuesday,"' he went on, '"come last week Wellington and the rector's boy Charlie fit."'
'Werry good,' said Mathews approvingly.
'"Wellington's nose were badly done in and he looks awful bad but the rector's boy"'——
'Wot does she say about him?' asked Mathews, staring into space.
'"The rector's boy could not see out of neither eye for 3 days."'
Repressing a chuckle by a great effort, Mathews hastily fumbled for his corncob pipe, and placing it unlit in his mouth, continued to look into space with a face that was almost purple from smothered exuberance.
'"Milord and Lady,"' resumed Dick, '"is just the same and Milord always asks how you was and will I remember him to you."'
'A thoroughbred—that's wot he is,' said Mathews, apparently addressing the distant refugees.
'"Miss Elise was heer last week and is that sweet grown that all the woonded tommies fit with pillos to see who wud propos to her. There ain't no news. Bertha the skullery maid marrid a hyland soldier and they are going for to keep a sweet-shop after the war. Wellington sprayned his ankil yesterday by clyming out of the windo where I had locked him in as he has the mumps."'
'Wot a infant!' commented Mathews admiringly.
'"I am sending you a parsil and a picter of me and Wellington. We are very lonesum, daddy, and I'll be reel glad when the war is over and you come back. It is awful lonesum and Wellington is to. This morning he cut his hand trying to carv our best chair into the shape of a horse. I am feeling fine and hope the reumatiz don't worry you no more. With heeps of love from me and Wellington, your wife, Maggie."'
It was a strange contrast in faces as the young man folded the letter and handed it back. In the countenance of the groom there was a sturdy pride in the epistolary achievement of his wife—a pride which he made a violent but unsuccessful effort to conceal. In the pale, handsome face of the young aristocrat there was a whimsical pathos. By the picture conjured up in the crudely written letter he had seen his parents, his sister, the humble cottage of the groom, and the wife's faithfulness and cheeriness. He had seen them, not as separate things, but hallowed and unified by a common sacrifice for England.
For the first time since his escape Dick Durwent regretted it. He could see no safety ahead for Mathews, no matter how long they evaded arrest. Although a cool, fretful wind was blowing over the fields, the warm noon sun made his eyelids heavy.
Against the wish of the groom, he insisted upon spreading the greatcoat over them both, and in a few minutes master and man were resting side by side as comrades.
'Mathews,' said Dick quietly.
'Yezzir?'
'Give me your word that if you ever reach England you will never tell my family about this. They don't know I am in France, and'——
'Mum as a oyster, sir—that's the ticket. Werry good, Mas'r Dick. A oyster it is.'
Ten minutes had passed without either of them speaking, when Mathews partially raised himself on one elbow. 'If women,' he said ruminatingly, 'was to have votes, my old girl would run for Parlyment, sure as skittles. I wonder, Mas'r Dick, if a feller who courted a girl in good faith, and arter a few years found she were Prime Minister of England—would that constitoot grounds for divorce?'
But Dick was asleep, and dreaming of days when happiness was in the air one breathed; when brother and sister had revelled in nature's carnival of seasons. After several minutes' contemplation of the uncertainty of married life, the old groom followed him into a slumber which was unattended by dreams, but did not lack a sonorous serenade.
The night was streaked with tragedy as the fugitives stole to the road. The drum-fire of the guns had grown to a roar, through which there came the blast and the crash of siege artillery, shaking the earth to its very foundations, as if the gases of hell had ignited and were bursting through. As though by lightning striking low, the night was lit with flashes illuminating the fields and the roads about; and shells were screaming and whining through the air, winged, blood-sucking monsters crying for their prey. Across a yellow moon broken clouds were driven on a gale that whipped the dust of the roads into moaning whirlpools.