The Message Part 11

Winds of the World give answer! They are whimpering to and fro-- And what should they know of England who only England 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.

RUDYARD 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 cheerful, 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 London 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.

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 editorial commentary:

"As is explained elsewhere, a serious breakdown of telegraphic communication has occurred between London and Harwich, Ipswich and East Anglia generally, as a result of which our readers are robbed of special despatches regarding last night's conclusion of the East Anglian Pageant. It is thought that the breakdown is due to some electrical disturbance 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 advocates of militarism should receive parliamentary support of any kind. The Opposition is weakly and insignificant enough in all conscience, without courting further unpopularity by floating British public feeling in this way, and encouraging the cranks among its following to bring ridicule upon the country.

"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 incident 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 invention is a Navy League supporter, who reached London in a motor-car from Harwich soon after daylight this morning, our advice to him is to devote the rest 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 generously headed particulars regarding the big Disarmament 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 interests of _The Ma.s.s_. The President of the Local Government 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 a.s.sociation for Disarmament and Social Reform, of which the Prime Minister had lately been elected President. Delegates, both German and English, 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 Independent English Guild, the Home Rule a.s.sociation, the Free Trade League, and various Republican and Socialist bodies. The paper said some amus.e.m.e.nt was antic.i.p.ated from a suggested counter demonstration 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 pa.s.sed Battersea Park I thought of Beatrice, who always suffered 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 quant.i.ty 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 s.p.a.cious freedom of the South African life she had described to me. I remembered that I had promised to call upon her and her aunt very soon, and wondered whether that afternoon, 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 pa.s.sed under Hammersmith Bridge, a thought went through me like cold steel:

"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 a.s.sociated 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 considerations 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 outside places.

Sitting under a tree in Kew Gardens, I had leisure in which to browse over the matter, and, upon reflection, 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 contributor to _The Times_, with her introductions to ex-Cabinet 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 friends.h.i.+p with the a.s.sistant editor of _The Ma.s.s_; it probably meant no more than a courteous deference to John Crondall's whim, I told myself. But I would call at the South Kensington flat, certainly; it would be boorish to refrain, 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 feeling 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'_ moralizings over the evolution of _canards_. I took a mess of some adulterated pottage at a foreign restaurant in Notting Hill, as I had no wish to return to Bloomsbury before the Demonstration. The waiter--either a Swiss or a German--asked me:

"Vad you sink, sare, of ze news from ze country?"

I asked him what it was, and he handed me a fresh copy of the _Sunday News_, headed: "Special Edition. 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 League cranks have organized a gigantic hoax by way of opposition to the Disarmament Demonstration. 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 readers 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 already despatched two representatives in two powerful motor-cars, northeastward from Brentwood, with instructions 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 affair."

"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 seeming. My trade brought me into contact with so many low-cla.s.s aliens. I told myself I was getting insular and prejudiced, and resumed my meal with more thought for myself and my tendencies and affairs 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, Shepherd's Bush, and Islington. As had been antic.i.p.ated, a few well-dressed people endeavoured to run a counter-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 gra.s.s, and in a moment the vast crowd was rocking to the jingling rhythm of the song, the summer air quivering to the volume of its thousand-throated voice.

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 bunkcombe."

"I am told my honourable friends of the opposition," 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 counties 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 invasion 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. 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 becoming 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 bundles 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. Across his words now the hoa.r.s.e yell of an approaching newsboy smote upon my ears:

"Extry speshul! Sixpence! German Army Corps in England! Speshul!

Invashen er Sufferk! Speshul--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.

XIV

THE NEWS