“This done, I am at your service. I shall not kill myself; you may hand my letter to the Public Prosecutor; I hope at least to go to the gallows like a man.
“REGINALD-BROOKE HUNTER.”
Jack Flynn broke the long silence which followed the reading of the letter. But his voice, in that dim hall, sounded like the echo of some god’s voice — some god who was speaking elsewhere, a great way off.
“I take this letter as true.”
“I also.”
“What am I to say?”
“What I am to do?”
There was a long pause. Finally Flynn’s voice boomed, fainter and hollower than before.
“Nothing.”
The mystic held the letter in the flame of the lamp. He blew the last ash lightly into the air, and led the way out of the House of Judgement.
In the study they found Lord Juventius Mellor, a young disciple of Simple Simon, who acted as his secretary. “Little Brother,” said the magician, “I want you to ring up Sir Reginald Brooke-Hunter and ask him to spare me an evening as soon as he can to dine at the Hemlock Club. I want to persuade him to stand for Parliament. I think we can promise him the Presidency of the Board of Education; Willett-Smith is resigning, you know. Tell him, of course, that the Prime Minister has asked me to see him about it.”
The young man went off, while Jack Flynn stared. “So that’s how you do things?” he said. “Yes,” said the old man, “we do things by the simple process of doing them. You remember the butcher in the Tao Teh Ching — no! in the writings of Chwantze! — who cut up oxen until he did it without knowing that he did it, so that his knife never needed sharpening, and his arm never tired? Which muscle of our body never tires? The heart, though it works all the time. Why? Because our silly muddled brains don’t meddle with it. That is the art of government. So, having found the perfect man to educate our youth, we slip him in!”
“Good,” said Flynn, laughing. “A double murderer! If I rob a bank will you make me Chancellor of the Exchequer?”
“Oh, no,” said the magician with a sigh. “I must have a perfect robber. Our best thief is Lord Chief Justice, as you know; but for the Exchequer, we ought really to look on the other side of the Atlantic. Oh, dear! What a pity they threw that tea into Boston Harbor!”
“By the way,” said Flynn, “to return. I still don’t see why Haramzada confessed to a murder he knew he didn’t do.”
“As I said before — and you had ears, and heard not — it was all of a piece with the rest of his life. He did not know the truth about the murder, though in one of his numerous confessions he probably told all he did know. He wasn’t believed; he knew there was no chance to cheat the gallows; so he thought he would cheat God. Splendid idea! to die for a crime one has not committed. One goes to heaven with colors flying, one of the noble army of martyrs. It’s a cowardly idea, a liar’s idea ——”
“An Eurasian’s idea?”
“Yes; and that’s the ghastly thing about it. His nature is not his own fault, any more than a toad’s. But this I want you to understand, that as sex is the most sacred thing in life, so the sins of the fathers are visited on the children most of all in violations of eugenics.
“Whether it’s tubercle, or alcoholism, or marriage between kin too close, or sub-race to distant, the penalty is fulminating and disastrous. Generation becomes degeneration.”
“What’s the remedy?”
“Oh, we might restore the worship of Dionysus and Priapus and Mithras, perhaps, for a beginning. Then there’s the question of polygamy, we shall have that; and harems; and groves, with sacred men and women. You can read it up in Fraser if you’re rusty.”
But that was the worst of Simple Simon. He would constantly change the key of his discourse without warning; and unless you knew him as well as Jack Flynn, you could never be sure when he was joking.
Ineligible
Simon Iff, the mystic, was the most delightfully unclubbable man in the Hemlock Club. But all was forgiven to a man of his powers — and of the extraordinary charm which he radiated, even when sitting silent in his favorite window. It was a genuine triumph for any one to get him to talk. One Christmas evening after dinner, the editor of the “Emerald Tablet” informed him that the Committee had made a new rule to the effect that the eldest member of the Club who happened to be present must tell a story under penalty. It was a genial lie, and appealed to Simple Simon’s sense of humor. “What sort of a story?” he grunted.
“Tell us of the first occasion on which you used your powers of reading men.”
The mystic’s face darkened. “It’s poetic justice. You shall be well paid out for your impudence in inventing new rules. The story is hideous and horrible; the gleams of heroism that shine in it only serve to make the darkness more detestable. But you shall hear it: for one reason, because the result of my interference was to save this Club, and therefore the Universe (which revolves about it) from irreparable disaster.
I
His Majesty’s Sloop “Greyhound” was wrecked in the Bay of Biscay in the month of April, 1804, of the vulgar era. She was carrying dispatches to Sir Arthur Wellesley. Captain Fortescue, who was in charge of them, escaped the wreck, in company with a sergeant of marines named Glass. They found themselves cast ashore on the north coast of Spain. Many days’ journey lay between them and their destination. However, they fell in with friendly guerrillas, who aided them in every way. But the luck changed when they were within sight, almost, of their goal. A battle had taken place; and Massena, retreating, had chosen a line which cut them off completely from Sir Arthur’s positions.
Becoming aware of these facts, they broke away at right angles towards some mountainous country, intending to traverse it, and, descending the opposite slopes, to fetch a compass round about the flank of the French army. Unluckily for them, they were perceived as they crossed the first range of hills, and a detachment of light infantry was sent in pursuit.
Immediately on seeing this, their Spanish guide took to his heels. They were thus not only hunted but lost. They knew the general direction of the British lines; they had about two hours’ start; otherwise they were hopeless.
They gained the crest of the second range just as their pursuers, spread out in a long line, swarmed over the first; but in beginning their descent, which was excessively steep, with only a narrow mule-path among the enormous tangle of rocks, they came upon a cottage; and the path ended. Fortescue recognized the place, for the guide had spoken of it on the previous day; it was the home of a desperate brigand, a heavy price upon his head from French and English alike. They had no choice, however, but to go on. Chance favored them; the brigand was away, leaving but one drowsy sentinel. Fortescue ran the man through with his sword before he had time to seize his gun.
The two Englishmen found themselves alone in the cottage. Could it be defended? Possibly, but only for an hour or two; reinforcements would arrive in case of a prolonged resistance. The vital question was to find the way to the valley.
The cottage was perched upon the edge of a cliff; they could see the path winding away below. But access to it seemed to be cut off. Glass it was who reasoned out the situation. There must be a way through some cellar. Quickly he searched the cottage. A trap-door was found. Glass descended the ladder. All was well. He found himself in a large room, half filled with barrels of gunpowder. A narrow door gave exit to the path below. “Come on!” cried Fortescue.
“We shall be caught, sir,” answered Glass. “Let me stay here; I can delay them long enough to let you get away.” The officer saw the good sense of this; his first duty was to deliver the dispatches. He wrung Glass by the hand, and ran out.
The sergeant of marines knew that he had barely an hour; but he had a plan in his mind. His first action was to twist a long match from the gunpowder to that window of the cottage which looked over the cliff; his next to strip himself and the dead sentinel of uniform, and to dress the corpse in his own. He then found a piece of rope and hanged th
e body in the doorway.
He dressed himself in the brigand’s best clothes; but, not content with masculine adornment, he covered himself with the all-sufficing mantilla. He was a smooth-faced good-looking boy; with the shawl, he made a quite passable Spanish girl — to the waist.
He then took up his position at the window by the door, so that the lower part of his body was hidden, and awaited the pursuers. It was near twilight when they arrived. Their leader grasped what he thought to be the situation. “Where is the other?” he cried. Glass smiled divinely. Unluckily for him, he knew only a few words of any tongue but English. But a finger to his lips, and the sign of beckoning, reassured the others; they filed down the path, and crowded into the cottage. “Where’s the girl?” cried the leader, “are we in a trap? Look to your arms, men!” Before he had ended, Glass, who had run upstairs to the other room, had touched fire to the match. “Let Samson perish with the Philistines!” he roared, and at the same moment leaped from the window.
The cottage sprang into the air, killing every man in it; Glass lay fifty feet below upon a thorn-bush, with one arm broken and many bruises, but good for many another day’s adventure.
A day later he had scrambled to the valley, where a shepherd showed him kindness, and led him by a circuitous route to the British lines.
Here he found himself a hero; for Fortescue had seen the explosion, and given all due credit to his companion. But the sergeant’s arm went ill; for default of treatment, it had begun to mortify; the same night the surgeon removed it at the shoulder.
Sir Arthur Wellesley himself came to the hospital to salute the gallant lad. “Be glad it is the left arm;” he said brusquely: “Nelson lost his right. And for you, we’ll salve you with a commission as lieutenant in the regular army.” Glass was overjoyed; the loss of his arm seemed little, if he could have a sword at his side, epaulets on his shoulder, and the rank of an officer and a gentleman thenceforward.
II
Lieutenant Glass, obtaining six months leave, at the end of the campaign of 1805, returned to his ancestral croft on the northwest side of Loch Ness to find that both his father and mother were dead. A friend in Inverness had warned him as he passed through; but piety made him persist in his journey; he might as well spend his leave there as elsewhere.
It was a stone cottage of two rooms, set high above the loch upon the moor. Away westward stretched the desolate slopes of Meallfavournie; below, the gloomy waters of the loch growled with the cold anger of the Highland winter.
There was no other habitation for a couple of miles. Around the croft was a niggard space of cultivated land, yielding with bitter toil a few oats and a few potatoes; nothing more.
The laird, Grant of Glenmoriston, had sent a man to take possession of the croft, pending instructions from Glass. He was a sturdy lad of sixteen years, self-reliant and secretive; he had kept the cottage in excellent order, and tilled the soil as well as may be in that inhospitable country. Glass kept him on as permanent gardener and servant; but he was rather an accentuation than an alleviation of the loneliness. However, on the first Sunday, when the lieutenant walked down to Strath Errick to church, he found himself the apple of the congregational eye. Even Chisholm, the minister, a dour narrow Calvinist of the oldest school, was moved to make a complimentary reference in his sermon; and, after kirk was over, carried away the officer in triumph to the manse, there to share the miserable substitute for a meal which is all that any Scot dare eat on Sunday, in apprehension of the Divine displeasure.
Chisholm was a widower. He had one daughter, skinny and frosty, with a straight back, thin lips, a peaked nose, bad teeth, and greedy eyes. But her flat chest almost burst as the idea came to her, as it did in a flash, to become Mrs. Lieutenant Glass. It was a way out of her horrible environment; despite the lost arm, he was a fine figure of a man; he was a hero, had been mentioned twice in despatches since he had gained his commission; he would get his company very soon. Promotion was quick in those days. Captain, major, colonel — possibly even General Glass! She saw Strath Errick left far north; instead, presentation at Court, social advancement of every kind; possibly a stately visit or so later on, and a snubbing of the local gentry who had always looked down upon the minister’s daughter. She soon discovered that she had four clear months to catch her fish; poor and plain as she was, she had no rivals in the district; Glass, the crofter’s son, for all his epaulets, had no more chance to marry into the local aristocracy than she had. She went to work with infinite thoroughness and persistence; she enlisted her father’s aid; she laid siege to Glass in every known form.
The lieutenant, for his part, knew that he might do much better. The salons of London were full of better matches; and his peasant ancestry would not be known there. All Highlanders of rank were “gentry” to the average London mother. But the same instinct that led him to live in the deserted croft made him now hesitate to transplant himself to London; the soil gripped him; he soon determined to throw out a new anchor in the granite; and in March, 1807, he was married to Ada Chisholm in the kirk of Strath Errick. A month later he rejoined his regiment; he had taken his wife to Edinburgh for the honeymoon, and she left him at Leith to return to her father’s house, while he set sail for the new campaign in Europe.
He gained his captaincy the same year; two years more elapsed before he saw his wife again. In the summer of 1809 he again distinguished himself in the field, and obtained his majority. A severe wound left him in hospital for three months; and on recovery he asked, and was granted, six months’ sick leave.
His wife was enthusiastic; she had traveled all the way to London to meet him; and he arranged to have her presented at Court. Her head was completely turned by its splendor; and she resolutely opposed the spending of the six months in Scotland. They went accordingly to Bath instead, and she revelled in the social glories of the place.
Glass was not at all in love with his wife; and she had no more sex than one of the oatmeal scones; but he was an extraordinarily simple soul, with rigid ideas of honesty. He had accordingly been faithful to her in his absence, while she would no more have thought of deceiving him than of eating grass.
They left Bath in December, 1809. They had been extravagant; and, nolens volens, she was obliged to go back to her father’s manse to live. Probably her husband would get his regiment in a year or so; the war might be over too, by then; and they could live pleasantly enough in London, or a jolly garrison town, for the rest of their lives.
In June, 1810, Glass had a letter from his wife, apprising him of the birth of a son. She proposed to call him Joshua, as his father was so great a captain.
The arrival of Joshua changed Glass as completely as a drug- habit or an access of insanity. He knew that he would have to wait a long time for his colonelcy. Short of capturing Napoleon single-handed, he had no chance in the world. His quick rise from the ranks had made him hated by snobbish and incompetent fellow-officers; and the extreme modesty of his manner was no protection. They hated him, as birth without worth always hates worth without birth. Even Wellington — who had never lost sight of him — could not do every thing against so bitter an opposition. His fellow-officers had even laid trap after trap for him, and it had needed all his Scottish caution to avoid them.
These reflections settled him in one momentous decision. He must save ten thousand pounds. Joshua must go to Eton, and start on fair terms, if human determination could secure it. He consequently, from an open-handed, free and easy man, became a miser. Instead of increasing his wife’s allowance, he cut it down. And he sent every penny he could save from his pay to a friendly banker in Edinburgh, who promised to double it in five years. I may tell you at once, lest you start the wrong hare, that he kept his word.
III
That is not such a horrible story, so far, is it? And there seem few elements of tragedy. Well, we go on.
After the banishment of Napoleon to Elba, Major Glass rejoined his wife. This time there was no trip to Bath. The cottage was
furnished with just the extra things needed for Joshua; Glass himself helped to till his own land, and market the produce.
Ada resented this bitterly; there was no open quarrel, but she hid poison in her heart. “I have six thousand pounds in bank,” he had said, “but there’s no hope of a regiment now the war’s over; let us play safe a year or two until we have ten thousand; then we can live where we like, as gentlefolk, and make a greater career for the boy.” She saw the prudence of the plan, and could not argue against it; but she really hungered for social pleasures, as only those do who are not born with the right to them.
The boy himself gave no concern on the score of health; he was hardy as a Highland lad should be; but his disposition troubled his father. He was silent and morose, was very long in learning to speak, and he seemed lacking in affection. He would lie or sit, and watch his parents, in preference to playing. When he did play, he did not do so simply and aimlessly, as most children do. Even when he broke his toys, he neither cried nor laughed; he sat and watched them.
Major Glass went back to his regiment at the end of 1814; his wife once again took shelter with her father. But a month later the minister fell ill; in March he died. Another minister occupied the manse; and there was nothing for Mrs. Glass but to go back to the croft on the moor. The boy still worked on the little apology for a farm; and his sister came to help tend Joshua, and assist in the housework.
In 1815 Major Glass was present at the decisive battles in Belgium. And here befell the fate that transformed this simple career into the tragedy of horror which you have insisted that I should relate to you. The major was in command of the last party that held the shot-swept walls of Hougomont; and he rallied his men for their successful stand against Napoleon’s final and desperate effort to regain that critical point. The British were flooded at one spot; Glass, with a handful of reserves, led a rally, and broke the head of the French dagger-thrust. And then it was that a sabre-stroke beat down his guard; a second blow severed his sword-arm. He was carried hastily to the ruins of the farm, and his wound bandaged; but Napoleon, seeing his troops flung back, ordered another artillery attack; and a cannon-ball, breaking a rafter of the building, brought down the remains of the roof. A heavy beam fell across the Major’s legs, and crushed them.
The Complete Simon Iff Page 13