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The Message, a novel by Alec John Dawson |
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Part 2. The Awakening - Chapter 4. The Conference |
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_ PART II. THE AWAKENING CHAPTER IV. THE CONFERENCE
A few seconds after his servant had shown me into the dining-room of John Crondall's flat, the man himself entered to me with a rush, as his manner was, both hands outstretched to welcome me. "Good man!" he said. "I've had fine news of you from Constance Grey, and now you're here to confirm it. Splendid!" And then, with sudden gravity, and a glance at my coat sleeve: "I heard of your loss. I know what it means. I lost my mother when I was in Port Arthur, and I know London looked different because of it when I got back. It's a big wrench; one we've all got to face." "Yes. I think my mother died without regret; she was very tired." There was a pause, and then I said: "But I may have chosen my time badly, to-day. Mrs. Van Homrey said you had a conference. If you----" "Tut, tut, man! Don't talk nonsense. I was just going to say how well you'd timed things. I don't know about a conference, but Constance is here, and Varley, and Sir Herbert Tate--he took on the secretaryship of the Army League, you know, after Gilbert chucked it--and Winchester. You know Winchester, the Australian rough-rider, who did such fine work with his bushman corps in the South African war--and--let me see! And Forbes Thompson, the great rifle clubman, you know; and the Canadian preachers--splendid fellows, by Jove! Simply splendid they are, I can tell you. I look for great things from those two. Stairs is English, of course, but he's been nearly all his life in British Columbia and the Northwest, and he's got all the eternal youth, the fire and grit and enthusiasm of the Canadian, with--somehow, something else as well--good. His chum, Reynolds, is an out-and-out Canadian, born in Toronto of Canadian parents. Gad, there's solid timber in that chap, I can tell you. But, look here! Come right in, and take a hand. I'm awfully glad you came. I heard all about The Mass and that; but, bless me, I can see in your eye that that's all past and done with for ever. By the way, I heard last night that your Mr. Clement Blaine had got a job after his own heart, in the pay of the Germans at Chatham--interpreter in the passport office, or some such a thing. What a man! Well, come along in, my dear chap, and give us the benefit of your wisdom." We were leaving the room now. "I knew you'd like Constance," he said. "She's the real thing, isn't she?" I despised myself for the hint of chill his words brought me. What right had I to suspect or resent? And in any case John Crondall spoke in his customary frank way, with never a hint of afterthought. "Yes," I said; "she's splendid." "And such a head-piece, my boy. By Jove, she has a better head for business than---- Here we are, then." Constance Grey was naturally the first to greet me in the big room where John Crondall did his work and met his friends. There was welcome in her beautiful eyes, but, obviously, Constance was very much preoccupied. Then I was presented to Sir Morell Strachey, Sir Herbert Tate, and Forbes Thompson, and then to the Canadian parson, the Rev. George Stairs. I had paid no attention to the name when Crondall had mentioned it in the other room. Now, as he named the parson again, I looked into the man's face, and---- "Mordan? Why, not Dick Mordan, of Tarn Regis?" said the parson. "By gad! George Stairs! I was thinking of you on the side of Barebarrow the night before last." "And I was thinking of you, Dicky Mordan, yesterday afternoon, when I met the present rector of Tarn Regis at a friend's house." It was a long strong handshake that we exchanged. Sixteen years on the young side of thirty is a considerable stretch of time, and all that had passed since I had last seen my old Tarn Regis playmate. Stairs introduced me to his friend, Reynolds, and I learned the curious fact that this comrade and chum of my old friend's was also a parson, but not of Stairs's church. Reynolds had qualified at a theological training college in Ontario, and had been Congregational minister in the parish of which Stairs had been vicar for the last three years. There was a big table in the middle of the room, littered over with papers and writing materials. About this table we presently all found seats. "Now look here, my friends," said John Crondall, "this is no time for ceremoniousness, apologies, and the rest of it, and I'm not going to indulge in any. No doubt we've all of us got special interests of our own, but there's one we all share; and it comes first with all of us, I think. We all want the same thing for England and the Empire, and we all want to do what we can to help. It's because of that I dismiss the ceremonies, and don't say anything about the fear of boring you, and all that. I don't even make exceptions of you, Stairs, or you, Reynolds. I tell you quite frankly I want to poke and pry into your plans. I want to know all about 'em. I've sense enough to see that you wield a big influence. I am certain I have your sympathy in my aims. And I want to find out how far I can make your aims help my aims. All I know is that you have addressed three meetings, each bigger than the last; and that your preaching is the real right thing. Now I want you to tell us as much as you will about your plans. You know we are all friends here." Stairs looked at Reynolds, and Reynolds nodded at Stairs. "Well," said the latter, smiling, first at Crondall, and then at me, "our plans are simplicity itself. In Canada we have not risen yet to the cultivation of much diplomacy. We don't understand anything of your high politics, and we don't believe in roundabout methods. For instance, I suppose here in England you don't find parsons of one denomination working in partnership much with parsons of another denomination. Well, now, when I took over from my predecessor at Kootenay, I found my friend Reynolds doing a fine work there, among the farmers and miners, as Congregational minister. He was doing precisely the work I wanted to do; but there was only one of him. Was I to fight shy of him, or set to work, as it were, in opposition to him? Well, anyhow, that didn't seem to me the way. We had our own places of worship; but, for the rest, both desiring the one thing--the Christian living of the folk in our district--we worked absolutely shoulder to shoulder. There were a few worthy folk who objected; but when Reynolds and I came to talk it over, we decided that these had as much religion as was good for them already, and that we could afford rather to ignore them, if by joint working we could rope in the folk who had next to none at all---- You must forgive my slang, Miss Grey." Constance smiled across at the parson. "You forget, Mr. Stairs, I grew up on the veld," she said. "Ah, to be sure; I suppose one is as close to the earth and the realities there as in Canada." "Quite," said Crondall. "And, anyhow, we are not doing any apologies to-day; so please go ahead." "Well," continued George Stairs, "we often talked over Old Country affairs, Reynolds and I. Reynolds had only spent three months over here in his life, but I fancy I learned more from him than he from me." "That's a mistake, of course," said Reynolds. "He had the facts and the knowledge. I merely supplied a fresh point of view--home-grown Canadian." "Ah, well, we found ourselves very much in agreement, anyhow, about Home affairs and about the position of the Anglican Church in Canada; the need there is for less exclusiveness and more direct methods. The idea of coming Home and preaching through England, a kind of pilgrimage--that was entirely Reynolds's own. I would have come with him gladly, when we had our district in good going order out there. But, you see, I had no money. My friend had a little. Then my father died. He had been ailing for a long time, and I verily think the news of the invasion broke his heart. He died in the same week that it reached him, and left his two farms, with some small house property, to me. "My father's death meant for me a considerable break. The news from England shocked me inexpressibly. It was such a terrible realization of the very fears that Reynolds and myself had so often discussed--the climax and penalty of England's mad disregard of duty; of every other consideration except pleasure, easy living, comfort, and money-making." "This is the pivot of the whole business, that duty question," interposed Crondall. "It was your handling of that on Tuesday that burdened you with my acquaintance. I listened to that, and I said, 'Mr. George Stairs and you have got to meet, John Crondall!' But I didn't mean to interrupt." "Well, as I say, I found myself rather at a parting of the ways, and then came my good friend here, and he said, 'What about these farms and houses of yours, Stairs? They represent an income. What are you going to do about it?' And--well, you see, that settled it. We just packed our bags and came over." "And now that you are here?" said John Crondall. "Well, you heard what we had to say the other afternoon?" "I did--every word of it." "Well, that's what we are here for. Our aim is to take that message to every man and woman in this country; and we believe God will give us zest and strength enough to bring it home to them--to make them feel the truth of it. Your aim, naturally, is political and patriotic. I don't think you can have any warmer sympathizers than Reynolds and myself. But our part, as you see, is another one, and outside politics. We believe the folk at Home have lost their bearings; their compasses want adjusting. I say here what I should not venture to admit to a less sympathetic and indulgent audience: Reynolds and myself aim at arousing, by God's will, the sleeping sense of duty in our kinsmen here at Home. We have no elaborate system, no finesse, no complicated issues to consider. Our message is simply: 'You have forgotten Duty; and the Christian life is not possible while Duty remains forgotten or ignored.' Our purpose is just to give the message; to prove it; make it real; make it felt." Crondall had been looking straight at the speaker while he listened, his face resting between his two hands, his elbows planted squarely on the table. Now he seemed to pounce down upon Stairs's last words. "And yet you say your part is another one than ours. But why not the same? Why not the very essence and soul of our part, Stairs?" "Gad--he's right!" said Sir Herbert Tate, in an undertone. Reynolds leaned forward in his chair, his lean, keen face alight. "Why not the very soul of our part, Stairs--the essential first step toward our end? Our part is to urge a certain specific duty on them--a duty we reckon urgent and vital to the nation. But we can't do that unless we, or you, can first do your part--rousing them to the sense of duty--Duty itself. Man, but your part is the foundation of our part--foundation, walls, roof, corner-stone, complete! We only give the structure a name. Why, I give you my word, Stairs, that that address of yours on Tuesday was the finest piece of patriotic exhortation I ever listened to." "But--it's very kind of you to say so; but I never mentioned King or country." "Exactly! You gave them the root of the whole matter. You cleared a way into their hearts and heads which is open now for news of King and country. It's as though I had to collect some money for an orphanage from a people who'd never heard of charity. Before I see the people you teach 'em the meaning and beauty of charity--wake the charitable sense in them. You needn't bother mentioning orphanages; but if I come along in your rear, my chances of collecting the money are a deal rosier than if you hadn't been there first--what?" "I see--I see," said Stairs, slowly. "Mr. Crondall, you ought to have been a Canadian," said Reynolds, in his dry way. His use of the "Mr.," even to a man who had no hesitation in calling him plain "Reynolds," was just one of the tiny points of distinction between himself and Stairs. "Oh, Canada has taught me something; and so have South Africa and India; and so have you and Stairs, with your mission, or pilgrimage, or whatever it is--your Message." "Well," said Stairs, "it seems to me your view of our pilgrimage is a very kindly, and perhaps flattering one; and as I have said, your aims as a citizen of the Empire and a lover of the Old Country could not have warmer sympathizers than Reynolds and myself; but----" "Mind, I'm not trying to turn your religious teaching to any ignoble purpose," said Crondall, quickly. "I am not asking you to introduce a single new word or thought into it for my sake." "That's so," said Reynolds, his eye upon Stairs. "Quite so, quite so," said Stairs. "And, of course, I am with you in all you hope for; but you know, Crondall, religion is perhaps a rather different matter to a parson from what it is to you. Forgive me if I put it clumsily, but----" And now, greatly daring, I ventured upon an interruption, speaking upon impulse, without consideration, and hearing my voice as though it were something outside myself. "George Stairs," I said--and I fancy the thoughts of both of us went back sixteen years--"what was it you thought about the Congregational minister when you took over your post at Kootenay? How did you decide to treat him? Did you ever regret the partnership?" "Now if that isn't straight out Western fashion!" murmured Reynolds. Constance beamed at me from her place beside John Crondall. "I leave it at that," said our host. "A palpable bull's-eye," said Forbes Thompson. I hardly needed George Stairs's friendly clap on the shoulder, nor the assurance of his: "You are right, Dick. You have shown me my way in three words." "Good," said Reynolds. "Well, now I don't mind saying what I wouldn't have said before, that among the notes we drew up nearly three years ago----" "You drew up, my friend," said Stairs. "Among the notes we drew up, I say, on this question of neglected duty, were details as to the citizen's obligations regarding the defence of his home and native land, with special reference to the callous neglect of Lord Roberts's campaign of warning and exhortation. Now, Stairs, you know as well as I do, you wrote with your own hand the passage about the Englishman's sphere of duty being as much wider than his country as Greater Britain was wider than Great Britain. You know you did." "Oh, you can count me in, all right, Reynolds; you know I'm not one for half-measures." "Well, now, my friends, I believe I see daylight. By joining hands I really believe we are going to accomplish something for England." Crondall looked round the table at the faces of his friends. "We are all agreed, I know, that the present danger is the danger Kipling tried to warn us about years and years ago." "'Lest we forget!'" quoted Sir Herbert quietly. "Exactly. There are so many in England who have neither seen nor felt anything of the blow we have had." And here I told them something of what I had seen and heard in Dorset; how remote and unreal the whole thing was to folk there. "That's it, exactly," continued Crondall. "That's one difficulty which has just got to be overcome. Another is the danger that, among those who did see and feel something of it, here in London, and even in East Anglia, the habit of apathy in national matters, and the calls of business and pleasure may mean forgetting, indifference--the old fatal neglect. You see, we must remember that, crushing as the blow was, it did not actually reach so very many people. It did not force them to get up and fight for their lives. It was all over so soon. Directly they cried out, 'The Destroyers' answered with surrender, and so helped to strengthen the fatal delusion they had cherished so long, that everything is a matter of pounds, shillings, and pence." "'They'll never go for England, because England's got the dibs,'" quoted Forbes Thompson, with a nod of assent. "Yes, yes. 'Make alliances, and leave me to my business!' One knows it all so well. But, mind you, even to the blindest of them, the invasion has meant something." "And the income-tax will mean something to 'em, too," said Sir Morell Strachey. "Yes. But the English purse is deep, and the Englishman has long years of money-spinning freedom from discipline behind him. Still, here is this brutal fact of the invasion. Here we are actually condemned to nine years of life inside a circle of German encampments on English soil, with a hundred millions a year of tribute to pay for the right to live in our own England. Now my notion is that the lesson must not be lost. The teaching of the thing must be forced home. It must be burnt into these happy-go-lucky countrymen of ours--if Stairs and Reynolds are to achieve their end, or we ours." "Our aim is to awake the sense of duty which seems to us to have become atrophied, even among the professedly religious," said Stairs. "And ours," said Crondall, sharp as steel, "is to ram home your teaching, and to show them that the nearest duty to their hand is their duty to the State, to the Race, to their children--the duty of freeing England and throwing over German dominion." "To render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's," said Reynolds. And Stairs nodded agreement. "Now, by my way of it, Stairs and Reynolds must succeed before we can succeed," said Crondall. "That is my view, and because that is so, you can both look to me, up till the last breath in me, for any kind of support I can give you--for any kind of support at all. But that's not all. Where you sow, I mean to reap. We both want substantially the same harvest--mine is part of yours. I know I can count on you all. You, Stairs, and you, Reynolds, are going to carry your Message through England. I propose to follow in your wake with mine. You rouse them to the sense of duty; I show them their duty. You make them ready to do their duty; I show it them. I'll have a lecturer. I'll get pictures. They shall feel the invasion, and know what the German occupation means. You shall convert them, and I'll enlist them." "Enlist them! By Jove! that's an idea," said Forbes Thompson. "A patriotic league, a league of defenders, a nation in arms." "The Liberators!" "Ah! Yes, the Liberators." "Or the Patriots, simply?" "I would enrol them just as citizens," said Crondall. "By that time they should have learned the meaning of the word." "Yes, by Jove! it is good enough--just 'The Citizens,'" said Sir Morell Strachey. And then a servant came in with a message for Forbes Thompson, and we realized that dinner-time had come and almost gone. But we were in no mood for separating just then, and so every one welcomed John Crondall's invitation to dine with him at a neighbouring hotel. _ |
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