The Men Who Wrought.
by Ridgwell Cullum.
CHAPTER I
THE DANGER
"Amongst the many uncertainties which this deplorable, patched-up peace has brought us, there is, at least, one significant certainty, my boy.
It"s the inventor. He"s buzzing about our heads like a fly in summer-time, and he"s just about as--sticky."
Sir Andrew Farlow sighed. His sigh was an expression of relief; relief at the thought that he and his son, dining together at Dorby Towers for the first time since the dissolution of Parliament had released the latter from his political duties, had at last reached the end of a long discussion of the position brought about by the hopelessly patched-up peace, which, for the moment, had suspended the three years of terrible hostilities which had hurled the whole of Europe headlong over the precipice of ruin.
The great ship-owner toyed with the delicate stem of his liquor gla.s.s.
There was a smile in his keen blue eyes. But it was a smile without lightness of heart to support it.
"Yes, I know. They"ve been busy enough throughout the war--and to some purpose. Now we have a breathing s.p.a.ce they"ll spread like a--plague."
Ruxton Farlow sipped his coffee. The weight of the recent discussion was still oppressing him. His mind was full of the appalling threat which the whole world knew to be overshadowing the future.
The dinner was drawing to its close. The butler, grown old in Sir Andrew"s service, had finally withdrawn. The great Jacobean dining-hall of Dorby Towers, with its aged oak beams and beautifully carved panelling, was lost in the dim shadows cast by the carefully shaded table lights. Father and son were occupying only the extreme end of the dining-table, which had, at some far-distant age, served to bear the burden of the daily meals of half a hundred monks. There were no other lights in the room, and even the figures of the two diners were only illuminated by the reflected glow from the spotless damask on the table, a fashion to which the conservative habits of the household still ardently clung. It was a fitting setting for such a meeting as the present.
Sir Andrew Farlow, Baronet, was one of the greatest magnates of shipping and ship-building in the country, and was also one of the greatest sufferers by the German submarine warfare during the late war.
His extreme wealth, and the fact of the enormous Government contracts in his ship-building yards, had left him practically immune from the consequences of his losses, but the losses to his fleet had been felt by the man, who was, before all things in the world, a shipmaster.
His son, and only partner, had spent those past three years in the service of his country. Not in the actual fighting line but in the work of organization, an important position which his wealth and capacity had ent.i.tled him to.
Sir Andrew pierced and lit a cigar.
"We mustn"t ridicule them, though," he said, in his hearty Yorkshire way. "We"ve laughed at "em too often in the past. It"s a laugh which cost our country a couple of thousand millions, and a world-wide suffering which mankind will never forget." Then his manner lightened.
"Henceforth the inventor must be to us a rare and precious orchid. We must spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on him, the same as I spend thousands on my orchid houses. I count myself well repaid if I succeed in raising one single perfect bloom on some rare plant. That is, if my rivals have failed with the same plant. The inventor is the orchid of modern civilization, and the perfect blooms he produces are very, very precious and--rare."
"You are thinking of those diabolical engines of destruction which were prepared for this war."
Ruxton helped himself to a cigar.
"On the contrary, I am thinking of the defence, not the offence, of this old country of ours."
The younger man nodded as he lit his cigar.
"That is it. We must prepare--prepare. We have only a breathing s.p.a.ce for it."
"There must be no more slumbering."
"And no more sacrificing the country to self-seeking demagogues."
"Yes, and no more slavery to Party prejudices, as antique as the timbers of this house."
"Nor the knaveries of men who seek power through dividing the country into cla.s.ses, and setting each at the other"s throat."
"Nor must we ever again allow the nation"s security, economic or military, to be hurled into the c.o.c.kpit of Party politics."
"Gad! It makes me shiver when I think how near--how near----"
"We were to destruction," added Sir Andrew gravely.
It was again a moment of intense thought. Each man was regarding from his own view-point that intangible threat inspired by the unsatisfactory termination of the war, which left the Teutonic races in a position to brew further mischief with which to flood the world.
The pucker of thought, the drawn brows, completed the likeness of Sir Andrew Farlow to England"s national symbolic figure. His broad shoulders and shortish figure; his round, strong, Yorkshire face, with its crowning of snow-white, curly hair, and the old-fashioned, crisp side whiskers made him a typical John Bull, even in his modern evening dress.
In the case of his son Ruxton it was almost in every respect an ant.i.thesis.
No foreigner would have taken Ruxton Farlow for anything but an Englishman, just as no Englishman but would have charged him with possessing foreign blood in his veins. And the Englishman would have been right.
Sir Andrew Farlow had spent a brief married life of a few months over one year with one of the most beautiful women amongst the Russian n.o.bility, and the birth of his son left him a widower.
From his mother young Ruxton had inherited all those characteristics which foreign Europe a.s.signs to the British born; his great size, his fair, waving hair and his darkly serious eyes. These things all came from his Russian mother, who had possessed them herself in a marked degree. Furthermore he inherited other qualities which could never be claimed for his Yorkshire father. The boy from his earliest childhood was an idealist: an idealist of but a single purpose which developed into a brilliant specimen of the modern product of an old-fashioned patriotism.
But he brought more to bear upon his patriotism than the mere pa.s.sionate devotion to his country. He was a fine product of public school and university with the backing of a keen, well-balanced brain, and a natural apt.i.tude for statecraft in relation to the rest of the world. He saw with eyes wide open to those interests dearest to his heart, and clearly, without one single smudge of the fog of personal self-interest.
"It"s never out of my thoughts, Dad," Ruxton said at last. "It is with me at all times. It is the purpose of my life to devote myself to, and a.s.sociate myself with, only those who will place their country before all else in life."
"An ideal difficult to realize in Great Britain," observed his father drily.
"Do you think that? Do you really think that?"
Sir Andrew stirred impatiently.
"It is not what I think. It is not what any of us think. It is what we see and hear--and _know_. This war has shown up so many weaknesses in the armor of our social economy as well as the psychology of our people that one hardly knows where to hurl one"s condemnation the most forcefully. So many weaknesses and failures stand out crying aloud for the bitter castigations of national conscience that it is difficult to point out one worthy feature. Oh, you think that too sweeping," cried the baronet with flushed rugged cheeks and brow, as his son raised questioning eyes in his direction. "That is what every other man and woman in the country would say in their purblind vanity. But it is true. True of the country. True of us all. There is one thing which appeals to me as our greatest failure, however. One failure preeminent over all others that has sunk deep down in my heart, and the scar of which can never be obliterated. I was brought up in the early Victorian days when patriotism was no mere head-line in a sensation-loving press.
It was something real. Something big. Something which gripped the sense of duty and made our men and women yearn for active partic.i.p.ation when danger threatened our Empire, even to the sacrifice of all they held dear in life. That national spirit was sick to death when this war broke out. Our press was divided, our politicians were divided, and, yes, our people were largely indifferent. But for the strength of a few of our leaders, men who have deserved far better of our country than our country has ever yielded them, thanks to indifference and Party politics, the end of this war would have come with even more terrible consequences to our Empire than all that is signified by the position, almost approaching _in status quo ante_, in which we now find ourselves. The ramifications of our lack of national spirit are so multifarious that it is impossible to go into them as a whole. One or two, however, are so prodigious, and have been so p.r.o.nouncedly marked, that the veriest optimist has not failed to observe. One which stood out remarkably was the att.i.tude of the reigning Government when war was declared. Every newspaper cried aloud that our ranks had closed up to meet the peril. They did close up, as far as the will of the country was concerned, but our machinery was geared to certain movement, a machine built through years of partizanship in politics. The result was pitiful. When the party in power was faced with Labor troubles which threatened our downfall in the war, they dared not face their task of drastic remedy because they saw in the dim future the loss of votes which would return their opponents to power at the next election. Hence the political crisis, at a time when we could ill afford such crises, and the formation of a coalition. Ten months were thus lost in drifting while Labor played, and our soldiers, inadequately armed, went to their deaths. The press, a divided press, mark you, sought a scapegoat in the individual, when they, no less than our national machinery, were to blame for the disaster. Is such a condition conceivable in a fervent Latin race, or an iron-shod Teuton? No, no. Is it right to blame Labor, who, for the past decade and more, has been coddled and pampered into the belief that like any baby in its cradle it has only to cry loud enough to obtain the alleviating fluid? It at least has cunning enough to realize that its weight of vote in the country is sufficient to control the destiny of the demagogues who seek place and power through its ignorance. Man, but it makes me sweat to think of it. National spirit? Faugh! Look at the manufacturers. Patriotism? They were full of newspaper patriotism until those who were executing Government contracts discovered that their profits were to be limited. The Army?
Our voluntary system? The Army was all right. Oh, yes, the Army was great. But the system? The system was probably the most painful among all our national systems. The most hopelessly inadequate. And, from a national spirit view, was hideously grotesque. But the men who joined and shed their blood upon those terrible battle-fields abroad were as the worker in the vineyard who engaged for one penny. They gave their all, and made up in the execution of their duty for those who sheltered behind the skirts of their womenkind, and the race of shopkeepers they left behind. The spirit of our country when the war broke out was a sordid commercial spirit. "Business as usual" was the cry. Then our press, our wonderful divided press, said the country was not awake. It was slumbering! I tell you it was a lie!" The old man banged his fist upon the table and set the gla.s.ses jumping. "Our country was not asleep. Every man, woman, and child capable of common understanding realized our peril from the start. It was the hateful commercial mind seeking to make gain out of the disaster which had overtaken the world, that mind that has acquired for us the detestable sobriquet of "a race of shopkeepers," that hindered and deterred us. We were not slumbering.
We were awake. Wide awake! To think that I have lived to see the day when our women"s fair hands should be called upon to distribute the white feather. Our present-day musicians and our national bards will tell you that the old songs of England are out of date. They are right.
Our girls and boys look askance at your Marryats, your d.i.c.kenses, your Thackerays, your Stevensons, and all those great masters who found their strength in our country"s greatest ages. When war broke out we were floundering in the mire of sensualism brought about by the years of peace and security, and so we bred the cult of the sensualist writers on s.e.x problems, and all the accompaniment of the other arts to match."
The white-haired veteran, who had spent his early youth fighting his country"s battles on the Empire"s frontiers, and, in later days, had devoted all his energies to the furthering of Britain"s supremacy on the seas, pa.s.sed one strong hand over his lined brow. He swallowed like a man choking back an emotion threatening to overwhelm him. Then the flush died out of his rugged cheeks, and he smiled at the son he loved, and who was his one remaining relative. "Forgive me, my boy, but--but all I"ve said is true. I don"t think many will deny it. Anyway those who do are lying to their own consciences, or--or are purblind in their insane egoism."
Ruxton smiled responsively and thrust back his chair.
"There"s no forgiveness needed, Dad," he said. "You have quoted but a few of the hundred signs, of which we all have proof, that when war broke out patriotism had only the smallest possible part in the life of this country. From the beginning to the end of this war England has had to pay out of her coffers, to those of her people whose services she needed, a price so extortionate that one wonders if it is not all some hideous nightmare and in truth unreal. But tell me, Dad," he went on after a pause, "you spoke just now of inventors, and your manner suggested that there was something--important."
Sir Andrew rose from the table and led the way towards the distant folding doors.
"Well, I don"t know if it will prove to be anything--worth while."
He fumbled at an inner pocket of his dinner coat, and produced a letter written on thin paper. When they reached the great hall and stood under the brilliant electrolier he unfolded it and held it out for his son"s perusal.
"I get lots of them," he said almost apologetically, "and few enough turn out worth while. This one reads a little different. That"s all."