Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

_C._ Almost all thinking Jews are Deists. I wonder Mr. ⸺ should ever have talked with you on those subjects; the persecution which a Jew would undergo from his brethren if it was known that he did so, is not to be calculated. The life, you know, of Spinoza was twice attempted, but he professed Christianity, at least in his way in a letter to a friend; for he said that if the Logos could be manifested in the flesh, it must converse and act as Jesus did. At the same time his notions of a God were very Pantheistic, a ⊙le. whose centre is everywhere and circumference nowhere. He had no notion of a Conscious Being of a God—but with these ideas to talk of God becoming flesh appears to me very much like talking of a square ⊙le.

Spinoza is a man whom I most deeply reverence, I was going to say whom I reverence as much as it is possible for me to reverence any creature. He was on the borders of the truth, and would no doubt had he lived have attained it.

But bless me! to talk of converting the Jews, people are not aware of what they undertake.

Mr. ⸺ say’d to me, and I thought very beautifully, ‘Convert the Jews! Alas, Sir, Mammon and Ignorance are the two giant porters who stand at the gates of Jerusalem and forbid the entrance of Truth.’

* * * * *

_F._ You have not read much of Keats, Sir, I think.

_C._ No, I have not. I have seen two Sonnets which I think showed marks of a great genius had he lived. I have also read a poem with a classical name—I forget what. Poor Keats, I saw him once. Mr. Green,[3] whom you have heard me mention, and I were walking out in these parts, and we were overtaken by a young man of a very striking countenance whom Mr. Green recognised and shook hands with, mentioning my name; I wish Mr. Green had introduced me, for I did not know who it was. He passed on, but in a few moments sprung back and said, ‘Mr. Coleridge, allow me the honour of shaking your hand.’

I was struck by the energy of his manner, and gave him my hand.

He passed on and we stood still looking after him, when Mr. Green said,

‘Do you know who that is? That is Keats, the poet.’

‘Heavens!’ said I, ‘when I shook him by the hand there was death!’ This was about two years before he died.

_F._ But what was it?

_C._ I cannot describe it. There was a heat and a dampness in the hand. To say that his death was caused by the Review is absurd, but at the same time it is impossible adequately to conceive the effect which it must have had on his mind.

It is very well for those who have a place in the world and are independent to talk of these things, they can bear such a blow, so can those who have a strong religious principle; but all men are not born Philosophers, and all men have not those advantages of birth and education.

Poor Keats had not, and it is impossible I say to conceive the effect which such a Review[4] must have had upon him, knowing as he did that he had his way to make in the world by his own exertions, and conscious of the genius within him.

Have you seen, Mr. F., anything of Lord Byron’s poetry?

_F._ Nothing, Sir, but the Translation of ‘Faust.’

_C._ And what do you think of that?

_F._ Being unacquainted, Sir, with the original I cannot speak of its merits as a translation. As a poem I think it meagre, nor do I conceive that the metres are adapted to the subject in English whatever they may be in German.

_C._ I have been asked why I did not translate the camp scenes in ‘Wallenstein.’

The truth is that the labour would have been immense, and besides it would not have been borne in English, to say nothing of the fact that Mrs. Barbauld reviewed my translation of the rest of the play and abused it through thick and thin, so that it sold for wastepaper. I remember your uncle telling me that he had picked it up—he approved it, so did Canning to whom he showed it—and so might one or two more, but the edition sold for wastepaper.

_F._ Had you ever any thought of translating the ‘Faust’?

_C._ Yes, Sir, I had, but I was prevented by the consideration that though there are some exquisite passages, the opening chorus, the chapel and the prison scenes for instance, to say nothing of the Brocken scene where he has shown peculiar strength in keeping clear of Shakspear, he has not taken that wonderful admixture of Witch Fate and Fairy but has kept to the real original witch, and this suits his purpose much better. I say that a great deal of it I do not admire, and some I reprobate. The conception of Wagner is bad: whoever heard of a man who had gained such wonderful proficiency in learning as to call up spirits &c. being discontented?

No, it is not having the power of knowledge that would make a man discontented—neither would such a man have suddenly become a sensualist. The discourses too with the pupil are dull. The Mephistapholes (_sic_), or whatever the name is, is well executed, but the conception is not original. It was ⸺ who had before said, ‘The Devil is the great humourist of the world.’ There are other parts too which I could not have translated without entering my protest against them in a manner which would hardly have been fair upon the author, for those things are understood in Germany in a spirit very different from what they would infuse here in England. To give you an example, the scene where Mephistopheles is introduced as coming before the Almighty and talking with Him would never be borne in English and this whole scene is founded on a mistranslation of a passage in Scripture, the opening of Job. You remember how Satan means properly one who goes his rounds, and hence it came to mean one of those officers whom the King in Eastern countries used to send round to see how his subjects were going on. This power was soon abused and the Satans used to accuse people falsely, and hence the word came to have the meaning now attached to it of a calumniator, a διάβολος, an accuser.

Now in the Book of Job (which is undoubtedly very ancient, before the law for there is no mention of the law in it, undoubtedly the most ancient book in the world) the word Satan meant only this officer, the prime vizier of the Sultan (you remember in the ‘Arabian Nights’ the Caliph and his vizier are very fond of going their rounds for the same purpose). God Almighty is shown to us under the semblance of a mortal king holding his court, and his officer comes, as the book tells us, ‘from going his rounds on the earth and walking up and down in it,’ but mind there is nothing like malignity attached to him.

The King asks him concerning Job—the officer answers that he is a perfect man—but (adds he) ‘He has yet had no temptation; he is prosperous, and he might alter if his circumstances were altered.’

The King then commands him to try and to destroy his possessions. (N.B.—This is a mistake, _He gives him leave_.)

Again on another day the same things happen and when the officer is asked about Job he says ‘He is yet integer but many men will do this. I can say nothing for his integrity as long as his possessions only are touched; but stretch out your hand against his person and see if he will curse Thee then?’ It is evident that there is no suggestion, no evil in the officer at all—indeed the belief in Angels and that sort of poultry is nowhere countenanced in the Old Testament and in the New, nowhere else.

_F._ Indeed, Sir, I think I know a very strong passage.

_C._ Well, what is it?

_F._ Our Saviour tells his disciples when alone with them and apart that a certain kind of Devils goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.

_C._ Well, and what has that to do with Angels?

_F._ I beg your pardon, Sir. I thought you included devils in your feathered fowl.

_C._ There is nothing I say in the New Testament to countenance the belief in Angels. For what are the three first Gospels? Every one must see that they are mere plain narrations, not of things as they are but of things as they appeared to the ignorant disciples—but when we come to John, Mr. F., there we find the difference. He told things as they were, and therefore you must not believe everything that you read implicitly; and with respect to Devils entering into a man, why it is quite absurd. What do we mean when we say a thing is in another? Why ‘in’ is merely a relative term. [The argument, though I was compelled to assent to it, I am sorry to say was far above my comprehension, and therefore I could not catch it, still less bag it and carry it away,—however it proved that there could be no Devils and still less could there be Devils in a man.] Spirit therefore was not more in a man than it was out of him, the mistake arising from a misconception of the word _in_. As for all notions of men with wings, of course they are absurd in the extreme.

I return however to ‘Faust.’

_F._ Did you ever see Shelley’s translation of the Chorus in ‘Faust’ you were just mentioning?

_C._ I have, and admire it very much. Shelley was a man of great power as a poet, and could he only have had some notion of order, could you only have given him some plane whereon to stand, and look down upon his own mind, he would have succeeded. There are flashes of the true spirit to be met with in his works. Poor Shelley, it is a pity I often think that I never met with him. I could have done him good. He went to Keswick on purpose to see me and unfortunately fell in with Southey instead. There could have been nothing so unfortunate. Southey had no understanding for a toleration of such principles as Shelley’s.

I should have laughed at his Atheism. I could have sympathised with him and shown him that I did so, and he would have felt that I did so. I could have shown him that I had once been in the same state myself, and I could have guided him through it. I have often bitterly regretted in my heart of hearts that I did never meet with Shelley.

_F._ It is time to be gone now I fear, Mr. Coleridge, and when I come up again I hope you will allow me to bring a volume of Keats with me.

_C._ I shall be most happy to see you for any night you like to come, and any day before 12 o’clock. Thursday nights are over now, but any night whether Thursday or not I shall be most happy to see you.

_F._ I must not allow you to come out into the passage, Sir. Good night....

* * * * *

It was nearly a hundred years ago, yet we seem to see Mr. Frere stepping out into the night, his mind busy with the thoughts of the last hour.

Were the link boys running through the streets with flaring torches, and did the stately sedan chair carry home the gay beauty of those far-off days?

The picture arises which each reader can colour according to his fancy, yet the impression left as we close the manuscript volume with its marbled cover, is less of contrast than of unity. The matters that were of interest in the state of the country in 1830 are of interest in 1917, though in some cases we see the fulfilment of what was then hoped for.

To-day as the Colonies send their sons in their thousands to uphold the Motherland in her fight for Justice and Freedom, we know that our colonial attitude has been more than justified, and England is indeed proud of her Dominions.

* * * * *

The marble-covered volume closely written in a scholarly hand is once more placed on the shelf. The ink has grown pale with age, and the question arises—‘Who to-day would find time to write down an evening’s conversation, however interesting?’ But another question is more insistent, as we compare the popular opinion expressed then about Keats, and other persons and subjects with the verdict of time:

Can a contemporary judgment be as good as a judgment formed when the person or matter is further from us? And this consideration brings the consoling thought that not all that may appear failure at the time is really failure. The age in which they live may be unworthy of its poets and prophets, yet none the less is their message Divine, and their voice will be heard at last.

* * * * *

But Mr. Coleridge and Mr. Frere have retired to rest, and we shall not again disturb them.

E. M. GREEN.

FOOTNOTES

[1] John Frere was the eldest son of George Frere of Lincoln’s Inn and Twyford, Herts, who was third son of John Frere of Roydon, Norfolk. He was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge; B.A. 1830, M.A. 1833, 2nd class Classical Tripos, 1st Sen. Op.; Curate of Hadleigh, Suffolk, under Archdeacon Lyall; Chaplain to Blomfield, Bishop of London; Rector of Cottenham, Cambe, 1839. Married Jane B. Dalton, 1839. Died May 21, 1851. He was first curate of Wakes Colne, Essex, at that time held with Messing Vicarage.

[2] Possibly Sir Nathaniel Tooke, a celebrated politician of those times.

[3] Possibly Rev. George Rowney Green, Fellow of Eton and grandfather to the finder of this paper.

[4] These lines were written by Byron in July 1821:

Who kill’d John Keats?
‘I,’ says the _Quarterly_,
So savage and Tartarly;
‘’Twas one of my feats.’

Who shot the arrow?
‘The poet-priest Milman
(So ready to kill man),
Or Southey or Barrow.’

‘_THE WASTREL._’

The black-faced sheep were scattering about the moss when David Moir stopped to shut the loaning gate. It was getting dark and the lonely fells rolled back, blurred and shadowy, to the east. In the foreground, peat-hags showed gashes of oily black among the ling, but some were filled with leaden water, ruffled by the bitter wind. Beneath him, in a hollow, his small, white farmstead stood amidst a few bare ash trees, and a dim gleam to the west indicated the sea. Moir was gaunt and a trifle bent by age and toil, though his eyes were keen. Sheep dealers called him a hard man, but took his word about the flocks he sold. As a matter of fact, he lived with stern frugality because his upland farm was poor and his younger son’s folly had cost him dear.

By and by his old collie growled and he saw a line of indistinct figures crossing the moss. As one left the rest and came towards him he recognised a young Territorial sergeant, who was a seed merchant’s clerk in peaceful times.

‘Ye’ll hae had a cauld day amang the fells,’ he remarked. ‘What were ye looking for?’

‘I don’t know,’ the sergeant answered, smiling. ‘The idea may have been to keep us fit, but we had orders to inquire about the old drove road and note anything suspicious. You’ll have heard the tales about signal lights and mysterious cars that cross the moors after dark.’

‘Idle clashes!’

‘I’m not sure. The authorities seem to suspect that something’s going on, and a strange motor launch has been seen off Barennan Sands; then the old north road comes down to the shore this way. I expect you know it?’

Moir nodded. The new road, which led through two towns, followed the water of Ewan down a neighbouring valley; the old one ran straight across the lonely fells.

‘It’s a green ro’d, but the maist o’ it’s no’ so bad. I hae driven a young horse ower it in the dark, and it’s no’ verra steep until ye rin doon to Ewan glen.’

‘Well,’ said the sergeant, ‘you may have a visit from Lieutenant Jardine and his motor scouts. They start on a patrol at eight o’clock, and, as they go round by Turnberry Moss, should get to you about two hours later. There’s a mystery about their job, but my notion is they’re after the strange car. Anyhow I must catch the boys before they reach the big plantin’. They’re a sporting lot and I don’t trust them when there’s game about.’

He turned away, and as Moir went down the loaning the hazy outline of a ruined kirk on the fellside caught his eye. His only daughter was buried in its wind-swept yard, and his two sons had left him. Tam, who was a well-doing lad, had joined the Borderers and been wounded in France; it was a month since they had news of him. Jimmy had disappeared a year ago, after Moir, who had crippled himself financially to save the lad from arrest, disowned him. The farmer suspected that his unemotional wife sometimes blamed him for harshness and grieved in secret for the prodigal. She had borne with Jimmy as she had never done with steady Tam.

When he entered the stone-floored, farm kitchen, Janet was sitting near the peat fire. Her hair was whiter than Moir’s and her face deeply lined, but her plain dress was marked by austere taste, and she had a certain dignity. Man and wife were of the old, stern Calvinistic type that is now dying out. The room was large and draughty, and its precise neatness had a chilling effect. A rag-mat, which Janet had made before rheumatism stiffened her fingers, was the only concession to comfort, but shining china filled a rack above the plain oak press. The hearth-irons glittered, and a copper jelly pan flashed with an orange lustre in the glow of the peats. The herd had gone home to his cot-house and there was nobody else about. When Moir sat down Janet indicated a Glasgow newspaper.

‘Townheid brought it ower—there’s nae news,’ she said.

Moir knew she had been studying the casualty list. Janet seldom showed her feelings and he could not tell whether she was conscious of relief or renewed suspense.

‘We’ll maybe get a letter soon,’ he said. ‘I met Ferguson on the moss and he telt me Mr. Jardine is likely to be here with his men.’

‘Then I’ll hae to offer them a bite to eat. There’s nae loaf-bread and the scones are getting done; but Euphie’s coming and she’ll help me bake.’

Moir looked at her thoughtfully. Euphie Black was a neighbour’s daughter and would have married Jimmy had things gone well.

‘Does she ever hear frae him?’

Janet hesitated. ‘I dinna ken; whiles I think—But I’ll need to see if there’s enough soor milk,’ and she went off to the dairy, while Moir sat thinking of his wastrel son.

Jimmy was clever and it was by his mother’s wish he went into the Glasgow merchant’s office, but when he first came home for the Fair holidays, Moir owned that his wife was right. Jimmy looked well and more of a man, and his employer sent a good account of him. On subsequent visits Moir was less satisfied. The lad’s showy clothes offended his sober taste and he did not like his city smartness. These, however, were not serious matters, and Janet showed no alarm. Moir thought he could trust her judgment, but had reflected since that her mother’s partiality had blinded her. Then one Fair holiday Jimmy did not come home, and before the next arrived Moir was summoned to Glasgow by the boy’s employer. He remembered the curious glances cast at him as he walked through the dingy office to the merchant’s private room, from which he came out hiding a crushing load of shame behind a stern, set face. Half an hour later he returned with a bundle of British Linen notes and a letter of three bitter lines to be sent to the boy’s lodgings. Janet acquiesced in his decision and never spoke of her son, but the lines on her face had deepened.

By and by Euphie came in and Moir went to the stable, where he found some harness that needed repair. He set about it and, as he was thorough in all he did, an hour passed before he was satisfied. When he came out it was raining hard, and on going back to the kitchen he found the baking finished and supper ready for the patrol. They are hospitable folk among the western fells and Lieutenant Jardine was a nephew of Moir’s landlord’s. The farmer sat down and watched Euphie knit. She was tall and had an attractive face, with firmly-lined features and steady grey eyes. As a rule, she was quiet, but her character was decided, and Moir sometimes wondered what had drawn her to his weak son.

Nobody spoke. A cold wind wailed about the house and the drips from a flooded roaning beneath the flagstone eaves splashed against a window-pane. After a time Janet moved abruptly as the door rattled and began to open. It had an awkward old-fashioned latch that few strangers were able to lift. The door, however, had opened and an indistinct figure stood, hesitating, in the porch. Janet got up and beckoned, but Moir sat still with his mouth set.

A young man came in, the water running from his light overcoat, and mud splashed about his leggings. He was breathless, but his face was rather pale than hot, and as he approached the lamp Moir saw there was blood upon his sleeve. The lad said nothing, but Janet went to meet him and put her arms round his neck. She felt him wince at her embrace, and, drawing back, saw, for the first time, his torn and reddened sleeve. Then with a low, pitiful cry she led him forward to the fire.

‘Come away while I see til yere arm. How got ye hurt?’

Jimmy looked at his father, who made no sign, and afterwards at Euphie with a shamefaced air. She did not speak, but gave him a quiet, friendly smile that offended Moir. It was not for nothing he had disowned his son, and now the women had, without asking a question, re-instated him. Janet helped the lad to take off his wet coat, which he dropped upon the floor, and then, after telling Euphie to bring hot water, took him away.

Euphie sat down silently when she returned, and Moir, who disliked untidiness, picked up the coat and, after washing the sleeve, hung it near the door. By and by mother and son came back, but Jimmy now wore a different suit that Moir remembered. It was an old one he had once left behind, but Janet had cleaned and pressed it and kept it for three years. Moir began to realise that he did not know his wife yet. He turned to Euphie when Jimmy sat down without looking at him.

‘It’s getting late and ye’d be better at home,’ he said.

‘No,’ she answered with firm quietness. ‘I was promised to Jimmy and I’ll hear what he has to tell.’

Moir made a sign of acquiescence and gave his son a stern commanding look.

‘What brought ye here?’ he asked.

‘I was hurt and had nowhere else to go,’ Jimmy answered in a strained voice. ‘I only want shelter for a few hours; not to stay.’

‘How did ye get hurt?’

‘A Territorial stopped me at a gate. He tore my arm with his bayonet, but the cut’s not very deep.’

‘Ye were hard put to it when ye tried to pass the soldier,’ Moir remarked.

‘I had to pass him. It was very dark, and there was a hole in the dyke not far off. I thought the others were after me.’

‘What ithers? But ye’ll go back and begin at the first o’ it. I sent ye the price o’ a third-class passage to Canada. Why did ye not go?’

‘The money was stolen.’

‘Ay,’ said Moir grimly, ‘I will not ask ye where! Gang on.’

Jimmy hesitated, but pulled himself together and told his tale. Soon after he was left penniless and disgraced, he found a friend in Fritz, one of the boon companions who had brought about his downfall. Fritz lent him a few small sums and by and by took him to see another man, who sent him to Leith. Jimmy did not mention what he did there, but stated awkwardly that he had got in too deep to draw back when he found out what his employer’s business really was. Then he stopped and said his arm was hurting him. The women looked puzzled, but Moir’s face set like flint.

‘So ye stayed and helped the Gairman spies!’

There was silence for a few moments. Euphie’s face was flushed and she fixed her eyes on the fire, while Janet nervously moved her hands.

‘Weel,’ Moir resumed, ‘ye can noo tell us how ye cam’ to visit this pairt o’ the country.’

Jimmy roused himself with an effort and went on in a low voice: ‘I came with them in the car now and then, by the old green road; you see I knew the way. They met another party at the waterfoot by Barennan Sands.’

‘Just that!’ Moir said grimly. ‘I ken why ye went to Leith. There was news to be picked up aboot the navy yards at Rosyth. What else did ye bring?’

‘Sometimes a man I didn’t know, and once a load of small iron drums. I can’t say what was inside. They didn’t tell me much.’

Moir pondered. He imagined that the drums held something that was needed by enemy submarines; but Jimmy’s frankness puzzled him. He did not think it was contrition, since he had no faith in his son. The lad seemed to have told the truth because he was afraid.

‘Where did ye leave yere foreign friends?’ he asked.

‘Where the road turns off to the old place of Whiterigg; they stopped there now and then, and there’s a gate, you mind. I got down to open it and they drove off.’

‘Why?’ Moir demanded, and the fear was plainer in Jimmy’s eyes.

‘I think their work must be nearly done and they meant to get rid of me. After all, I don’t know very much, and they’d reckon I’d be afraid to tell what I had found out.’

Moir began to understand. The old house at Whiterigg had lately been left in charge of a caretaker who obviously belonged to the gang, which indicated that the latter was well organised. The lad was perhaps in some danger from them.

‘But what for did they gang to the Whiterigg?’

‘To wait for high-tide, I expect. They’d run down to the waterfoot when a boat could come up the gut through the sands.’

‘That would be the way o’ it, nae doot; but I dinna ken yet why ye cam’ hame.’

‘Where else would he gang for safety?’ Janet asked in a pitiful tone.

‘Ony place but here! It’s to my sorrow he’s a son o’ mine. But let him speak.’

Jimmy’s narrative was not very lucid, but it appeared that he had been seized by a kind of panic when left in the road. He had very little money, something suspicious had happened at the last stopping place, and he thought his friends had betrayed him to the police, or might send somebody after him in the dark. He lost his nerve when he found the soldier in his way, and after getting past the man ran blindly across the moor towards home. When he finished Moir glanced at the tall oak clock.

‘Ye have aboot an ’oor, and then Mr. Jardine will be here with his motor scouts,’ he said, and taking his gun from a rack went out.

It was raining hard and very dark, but he made his way across the moss to where the old road ran down to Ewan Water, and stopped a short distance from the bank. A weak thorn hedge grew beside it, but Moir could see the pale glimmer of the water two or three yards below and hear the gurgle of the current, which swirled round a deep elbow-pool. A pair of stone gateposts stood close by, but the gate had been removed to allow the cattle fresh pasture, and Moir, who knew where it was, brought it back. He hung it to the post and fastened it firmly to the other with some wire from a fence. He had already lighted a lantern, and now examined his work. The gate was old, but looked pretty strong; some force would be required to break it down. Then he went up the steep hill away from the water and stopped at an opening in a dyke at the top. There was no gate here, and after hiding his lantern he sheltered behind the wall in a dangerous mood.

David Moir was a true descendant of the old Westland Whigs; sternly just and ready to suffer for his principles, he could make no allowance for a different point of view, and was subject to fits of cold anger which, while generally righteous, was tinged with fanaticism. His son’s treachery filled him with horror, but he was calm enough to see that the weak lad had been the victim of the men who used him. Well, he meant to settle the black account with them!

It was bitterly cold and he was getting wet, but his watchfulness did not relax. The growl of Ewan Water, brawling among the stones, rose from the valley and the wind whistled eeriely through the chinks in the dyke. For a time he heard nothing else, and then a faint throbbing began and grew louder. A big car, without lights, was travelling dangerously fast along the fellside, and as it came near Moir stood in the gateway holding up his lantern. He heard a warning shout and a rattle of stones as the locked wheels skidded, and the half-seen car stopped a few yards off. Moir turned the light upon the two men in it.

‘Which o’ ye is Fritz?’ he asked.

They looked surprised, but one said ‘You want to know too much. Why have you stopped us?’

‘My name is Moir. I want a word with ye.’

He put the lantern on the dyke and the light glimmered on the barrel of his gun. It was his duty to hand the men to the patrol, but if this was impossible, so much the worse for them. They had made his son a traitor to his country by taking advantage of his need, and Moir suspected that Fritz had first made him a thief.

‘You’re the young fool’s father, but we can’t waste time on you,’ said one. ‘Drop that gun and let us pass!’

‘Get doon!’ said Moir, who did not move.

‘Out of the way, or we’ll drive over you!’ the other cried.

The car rolled forward and Moir sprang back, hesitated as it ran past, and lowered his gun.

‘Drive tae h—, where ye belang!’ he said, as the car lurched furiously down the hill.

Then he stood and listened. A sharp-pitched throbbing now rose from the valley, through which the high-road wound on the other side of the water. It sounded like a motor bicycle, and Moir understood the impatience of the men he had stopped. Jardine’s scouts had got upon their track, but the chances were against the fugitives reaching the bridge where the roads joined. He waited with his face fixed like stone until he heard a heavy crash in the dark below. Then he picked up his lantern and ran down the hill.

When he reached the bottom everything was quiet except for the roar of Ewan Water and the hum of the approaching bicycle, but pieces of the broken gate lay about the road. Moir raised the lantern and saw a track deeply ploughed through the grass and stones, in front of which the hedge was smashed. Looking down through the gap, he distinguished something in the water. It looked like the wheel of an upset car, but he could not see it well, because the torrent foamed in an angry swirl across what lay below. If the men had not jumped before the plunge, it was too late for help.

A minute later, the motor bicycle rattled across the bridge a short distance off and sped towards him. It slowed and Lieutenant Jardine got down.

‘Have you seen a car, David?’ he asked.

‘I hae,’ said Moir. ‘Let yere machine stand. She’s in the pool.’

The young man followed him to the broken hedge and looked down. ‘What about the men?’

‘Maybe they jumpit aff. If no’, they’re under her.’

Lieutenant Jardine, who had seen no active service yet, caught his breath with a short gasp.

‘How long will it take to get her out?’

‘An ’oor or two and half a dizzen men; but ye’ll need to send doon the bay for tackle.’

‘I’m afraid that’s so,’ agreed Jardine, who had got a shock. ‘However, we’d better see if they’ve escaped and are somewhere about.’

They searched the hedge and bank on both sides, but found nobody, nor any footprints leading from the water. Then Jardine followed Moir to where the shattered gate lay about the road.

‘Well,’ he said slowly, ‘it was justifiable; you warned them to stop. A herd told us about the car and I started at once. After a time I thought I heard her in front, but suppose I missed her where the old road branches off. But some of the boys will have reached your farm, and we must send for tackle.’

He left the bicycle and resumed as they walked up the hill: ‘When we stopped at the Mains farm, I sent out flankers to search the by-roads ahead, by way of training the men. One reported that he challenged and wounded a suspicious stranger who refused to stop and managed to get away. I sent him and another on to search the country and report to me at your house. It looks as if the fellow had something to do with the car.’

‘Ay,’ Moir answered quietly, ‘it looks like that.’

He said nothing further, for his mind was occupied. His duty was to give up his son, but he thought of the lad’s mother and shrank. Still, he would not shield him; if Jimmy was in the house when they reached it, justice must take its course. His heart beat fast as he opened the door and then he drew a breath of relief. A few men in wet khaki sat by the hearth, talking to Janet and Euphie, but Jimmy was not there. Moir thought his wife’s look was somewhat strained, but when she turned towards him the girl’s glance was steady. The men got up as Jardine came forward, and he sent one off to obtain appliances for dragging out the car.

‘Did you get on the track of the fellow you wounded?’ he asked another.

‘No, sir. I took the moss road without a light, but the machine went ower a big stone and threw me off. The front wheel was buckled, so I left her behind a peat-stack and cam’ on, without seeing anybody.’

‘Has Watson been in to report?’

‘Yes, sir. He kept the high-road, by the Knowe and Townhead, but they’d seen nothing o’ our man, and there was nobody on the road as far as where the drove track runs in. Watson’s gone back to watch by the bothy near the brig.’

‘Then it looks as if the fellow was hiding between where he was seen and here, but it’s unlikely that a wounded man would lie out on the moors on a night like this,’ Jardine said thoughtfully, and turned to Janet. ‘He might have crept into your byre or barn. Did you hear anything suspicious?’

Moir was sensible of keen tension as he glanced at his wife, but her face was calm.

‘He couldna have creepit into ony place withoot Rab, the collie, hearing him.’

‘The dog was outside and he’ll hardly let a stranger set foot in the loaning,’ Euphie supported her.

‘That’s true, sir,’ one of the men remarked. ‘He cam’ oot to meet us and it was no’ that easy getting by.’

Jardine hesitated, and Moir felt his heart beat as he glanced at Jimmy’s coat, which hung in plain view with the wet sleeve suspiciously torn. Nobody, however, seemed to have noticed it, and when Janet urged them Jardine and his scouts sat down to supper. When the meal was over and they were going, Moir said:

‘I’ll hae to drive a son o’ mine, frae Glasgow, doon the water to catch the early train.’

‘Then Jimmy’s back?’ said Jardine, who knew something about the lad.

‘He got hame late and needit a few ’oors’ sleep before starting again,’ Janet explained.

‘Very well,’ said Jardine, who took out a fountain pen and writing on a leaf from his pocket-book gave it Moir. ‘My men won’t interfere with you, but as I must warn the police and Territorials, you’d better take this pass.’

He went out and Moir turned to Janet. ‘Where hae ye hidden him?’

‘In the barn,’ said Janet, with signs of strain.

‘Then ye’ll baith come and hear what I say til him,’ Moir replied, and lighted his lantern.

A minute or two later, Jimmy got up from the straw among which he was lying, as Moir flashed the light into his face.

‘Have they gone?’ he asked anxiously.

‘Ay,’ said Moir; ‘but ye’re no’ safe yet. If yere Gairman friends arena’ drooned, they’ll be in jail the morn.’

‘Then they’ll think I gave them away.’

‘It’s verra probable,’ Moir agreed. ‘For a’ that, ye’ll be in Carlisle by then to enlist in the Borderers.’

There was silence for a moment, and then Euphie said ‘It’s the only way, Jimmy. It’s your chance of winning back.’

‘He’ll tak’ it,’ Moir remarked grimly. ‘If he doesna, he leaves here in chairge o’ the polis.’ Then he turned to the lad. ‘I’ll waken ye when it’s time. Dinna’ keep yere mither lang.’

He went back to the kitchen, and by and by Janet came in alone. Her eyes were wet, but she put her hand on Moir’s shoulder.

‘I’m thinking ye found the right way, David,’ she said. ‘He’ll gang.’

HAROLD BINDLOSS.

_ON NIGHT DUTY._

It was a large base hospital in a large and dirty town. South Country men grew frank with disgust when they saw the pall of fog that hung for a fortnight outside the windows, yet things were little better when the fog cleared and the great buildings stood stark in their black ugliness.

Yet the night nurses would linger at the corridor windows on their way down to the dining-room. There was the glamour of night on the big city, mighty buildings silhouetted against a sky of dark luminous blue, towers that divided the stars, and far below in the street the ruby and topaz lights of the road-menders, with the glowing brazier of the night-watchman. And then dawn came with its chilling wind and its grey cheerless light that discovered, without love or pity, the sordid things of town—the dirty canal, the barges, the heaps of timber, the ugly money-making warehouses and factories. All this we saw—a world pallid and cold, with none of the genial glow of noontide.

The hospital never failed to charm me at night. Its interior aspect had a beauty of dim wards and red subdued lights over the ‘dug-outs,’ where a sister or nurse sat in charge. The long rows of white beds disappeared into the darkness, and the men in them had that pathos—unreal in some cases—of the sleeping and the helpless. At night they were all children—children who talked pitifully in their sleep of Germans and trenches and ghastly things beyond our ken. They called sometimes a woman’s name and professed next morning a guileless ignorance of her existence.

It was a hushed and mysterious world, where one whispered and walked stealthily, and yet where much was told and where life seemed simpler and more genuine than by day when the little tin gods were all awake. At that time I saw most of the mental ward, the most pathetic place in any hospital. Sleep was an unwilling visitor there, except to the orderlies, who, in the intervals of card-playing and button-cleaning, relapsed into the attitudes of the seven sleepers.

Night after night old Dad Hobson would stay awake till two or three o’clock, without complaint or murmur. Any man a little past his prime was called ‘dad’ or described as ‘old’ in this land of youth. And in sober fact Dad Hobson had seven children. He had been a miner before he made the great sacrifice that had left him maimed and insane. He was always courteous, always considerate. Even on those days when he refused to eat it was with a polite ‘I’m sorry not to oblige you, nurse.’ He believed himself guilty of some crime—he had murdered Sir Ian Hamilton—and in trivial ways too he held himself responsible for any disturbance in that much-disturbed ward. At times he was so much better that we hoped he was regaining his wits, but always there would come a relapse and his face would be downcast, and ‘I’m puzzled someway, something’s wrong. I can’t get things clear in my mind,’ would be the explanation. He had odd delusions too, for a doctor clad in a dressing-gown provoked his question to an orderly, ‘Is that Lord Nelson?’

It was a strange little party altogether in that ward. Hobson would lie there by the hour, dimly annoyed by Jimmy in the bed opposite. Jimmy had nearly died of wounds and later of pneumonia, but he had rallied, only to reach a state of discomfort and nervous temper that was liable to fiendish explosions. For the most part he was a lovable boy, with a curious charm of his own. Sleepless, like Hobson, till the small hours, he played cards with the orderlies. When things pleased him Jimmy was an angel, but at other times he was a fiend. A certain soldier, a clarionet player once in the Queen’s Hall orchestra, came to the ward. He was suffering from insomnia and melancholia. Jimmy’s drawling voice and his card-playing and, perhaps, his popularity annoyed the clarionet player, and they quarrelled. Jimmy merely remarked:

‘I’ll do for him—see if I don’t.’

The clarionet player was removed to the next ward, separated from the other only by a glass and wood partition.

‘He shan’t sleep to-night if I don’t,’ said Jimmy, and he took careful aim at the glass partition with his tin mug. He hit the woodwork and missed his enemy’s head in the next ward, so he fell into heavy-browed sulking, with the threat ‘I’ll do for myself.’ This is often a mere threat, but he did make an endeavour by biting up a blue-lead pencil—a tedious and uncertain form of suicide. The pencil was taken away and, blue-lipped and weary, like a naughty child he fell asleep. Poor Jimmy! He went to a Scottish asylum where many of our patients were sent for further treatment. I heard lately that he was really better and likely to be discharged.

One of the beds was occupied by Andy—Andy of the picturesque speech and uncertain behaviour. He came in raging under the effects of alcoholic poisoning. Such cases always spent a night or so in the X-ray room with a special orderly. I saw him that night, a flushed unhappy-looking boy, who was sane enough to speak politely and to say ‘Nurrse,’ with the delightful roll that our Jocks put into it. Later Andy came down to the ward, and was duly established in a corner bed. Here we got to know him for the loquacious rattle-pate he was. By day he was sane enough, but at night he was subject to awful dreams and fits of horror, which caused him to roll out of bed with an alarming bump. One night he thought the German prisoners were coming to murder him—two inoffensive boys with very little strength between them; another time I found him a hump at the foot of his bed.

‘Come out, Andy,’ I said.

‘I’ll kill you if I do, Nurrse; I’ve killed all my chums.’

But he crawled out flushed and weary. His face was coarsened and weakened by too much drinking, but it was a pleasant boyish face. He had, too, that quick imagination which gives vivid charm even to stories which tax belief. Andy told us wonderful stories of his doings at Loos and elsewhere. He had been a bomb-thrower, one of three survivors from a party of one hundred and sixty. The story was declared to be untrue by someone who knew him, but Andy could spin a yarn to keep Sister B., the orderlies, and myself in amazement round his bed. His own history, too, was a chequered, strange record. He had run away from home at ten years old and had joined a circus. He had been with Barnum, Wombwell, ‘Lord’ George Sanger, and travelled the kingdom from town to town. At fifteen he had enlisted in the Cameron Highlanders, deserted after a time, changed his name and joined the Gordons. He had been a champion boxer for—I forget the place. He had been everywhere and done most things, and was—poor Andy!—a nervous, dyspeptic wreck at twenty-four. Yet he had ‘a way with him’—a way that made us fond and disapproving at the same time.

The night before I started for a holiday, the Sister in charge had given orders that Andy was to wear pyjamas. He preferred a night-shirt. The point made a dispute. To humour him I said:

‘Andy, you’ll spoil my holiday if you don’t put on those trousers. I couldn’t be happy if I thought you hadn’t got them on.’

Andy was on the far side of a screen. There was silence, then a rustling, then Andy’s voice: ‘Nurrse ... I’ve got on they trrousers. I wouldn’t spoil your holiday, you ken.’

The next morning I saw the last of him. He was asleep. I put my hand on his head and said ‘Tell him I left him my blessing.’ It was carelessly said; I thought I should find him when I came back, but I have never seen him since.

They sent an armed escort from Aberdeen to bring Andy to a court-martial. Rumour went round the hospital that he had deserted in France, and would be sent back to France to be shot. How often in his sleep Andy had muttered ‘I won’t go back; I won’t.... I won’t.... I’ll do for myself first. They shan’t court-martial me ... they shan’t.’ Now it was explained.

When Andy heard that the escort had come for him he was quiet enough. He promised to pack his kit-bag and go quietly. However, he went off to the bathroom and was found trying to hang himself. They brought him back to the ward. He snatched a razor from his locker and tried to cut his throat. I don’t think he tried very hard—Andy was more dramatic than thorough. The escort went back to Aberdeen, for Andy was now in one of his raving, struggling attacks, and obviously unfit for the journey. When he was better he was handcuffed, his hands behind him, and so left for more hours than one likes to think of. I heard the story when I came back, and there was a chorus of pity on his behalf.

‘I could have cried when I saw him handcuffed, marching down the corridor,’ said a nurse. And the orderlies, even one whom he had kicked in the stomach, were pitiful for him—orderlies are a compassionate race.

The escort returned and Andy, strapped to a stretcher, was taken away to Aberdeen. We discussed his fate for many days, always with the decision ‘They _couldn’t_ shoot him.’ Then rumour said he would get five years in a military prison, but meanwhile Andy sent us letters, written in lurid-looking red ink. He wrote from a Scottish hospital, and wrote gaily, jauntily, with no mention of prisons, desertion, or court-martial. His pride must have suffered horribly, for he had made of himself so gallant a figure, poor boastful Andy. He loved to write in the dialect that he talked, though he could, if he chose, send a fine English letter. Speaking of his very delicate digestion he says ‘I had a wee bit jelly for dinner; it slipped itself doon and just slipped back again. It doesna matter, what they gie me, it comes back. I try hard to keep it, but I canna.’ A few letters came from the large Scottish asylum where many of our mental cases were sent. They were always written in red ink, and concluded with a liberal supply of kisses (a matter of politeness this with many soldiers). Then the letters stopped, and none of us has heard anything more of poor Andy. He belonged, I fear, to the flotsam of life, and the waves washed him here and there.

A sad case was poor old Snakes. He was called Snakes because when he recovered enough to speak, he told us that he had swallowed a lot of snakes—no wonder that he never smiled. One morning I put the conventional question, ‘Are you better to-day?’ and received the sad answer, ‘How can I be better, I’m full of buttons.’ Another time he was full of watches that ticked in his ears, and again he had swallowed a tramcar—poor, melancholy old Snakes!

But the dearest of all our sad little family was certainly Alfred; Alfred Morgan of a Welsh regiment, never mind which. He was brought in from a military prison—sentenced for desertion, a case for a certain paper that champions the injured Tommy. Poor Alfred, with his wits all gone to pieces, his head and limbs shaking, his face working, seemed to us a living protest against any judgment but a doctor’s. I could hardly bear to see him, so hopelessly insane did he look. Death would have been far better than this doddering idiocy. The other men, sanest of the sane compared with him, tried to pet him and to coax answers out of him, but his mind, as Sister B. remarked, was a jig-saw puzzle gone to pieces. The pieces seemed to have no cohesion. He talked ramblingly of Bob his horse, of a dog, a canal, some medals, a picture, of Ada and the pigeons. He fancied the floor was the canal, and fished there with groping hands. Sometimes a word or a place-name would seem to rouse him, and he’d tell us the names of streets or of people: at other times he would shake his head and gaze vacantly round him, or look with that worried, bewildered look that made one’s heart ache.

It was Sister B. who did the most to fit the puzzle together. Every night she would sit by his bed and question him, bringing him back to the point time after time. We were filling in more of the puzzle every night. Alfred had lived in Birmingham, had been on a canal barge, had taken coal to some place; he had won medals, had a mother, and there was a picture that he remembered. Policemen excited him to frenzy, and when he saw one of the Force he would fling apples or slippers, or any handy missile, through the window. He could play cards too. There was a gradual mental development—the most fascinating thing one can watch. But it was slow, and Alfred seemed like a rudderless boat at sea till he met Jock.

Jock is a story all to himself. Suffice it to say of him that his vocation was to be a guardian angel. Every Scottish soldier is Jock in hospital, and perhaps other hospitals have found Jocks like ours—always unselfish, cheery, uncomplaining, infinitely pitiful to every trouble but their own; still I believe our Jock would outshine theirs.

Sister B. decided to bring Alfred on a visit to Jock’s ward. I must say that the experiment was painful. A surgical ward is a very cheerful place, and poor Alfred, shaky, bewildered, pitiful, was a figure to darken the sun at that time. But Sister B. was a nurse of brave experiments. She dared and succeeded; she was resourceful and passionately interested in her patients. So she brought Alfred to this sane and happy ward, and sat him down by Jock’s bed. Jock had been wounded at Loos in September, 1915, and had remained in bed for eight months with the occasional variation of an operation and brief respites when he was up and in a wheeled chair.