The Hunchback of Westminster
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in view as a possible candidate forthe Order of St Bruno--longer, much longer, than you can even imagine.Perhaps you may think it was chance, a whim, a case of peculiar personalartfulness, that led our young friend Casteno to seek your offices inStanton Street, to pay you a sum down, and to trust you so blindly withthe secret of those manuscripts, on the fate and translation of whichhangs the disposal of several millions of pounds. Indeed, indeed, itwas nothing of the sort. By that time the Order of St Bruno had gotits point of view about you, was anxious to have you in the midst of it,and so it sent Casteno to you, and not a thing you have said to him, nota deed you have done with him, has it failed to hear and to weigh.
"Why do I tell you these things? you may perhaps ask. Is it to frightenyou? Is it to make you wish to join a body that can, in a time whennearly every man throws out his hands like a wild beast and grabs whatseems to him to be the largest, the finest thing and the best, lay itsplans with so much patience, far-sightedness, and care? Or do I explainthis to you as a wise friend will teach an ignorant, not in vain-gloryor boastfulness, but with an honest desire to reveal what is best andhighest in himself? Well, of all these things I leave you to judge.Choose the answer that seems best to you, and let me fortify you withthis assurance--the Order of St Bruno requires no forced men. At anypoint in the tests that will be put to you, you can retire from yourcandidature and from the house. It will make no difference to us. Itwill cause us no grief, no surprise, no annoyance. We shall be alwaysfriendly disposed towards you--and any day you like you can visit us--and we shall only ask you to give us one assurance."
"And what is that?" I questioned with great eagerness, for my curiositynow was aroused to the highest pitch. Never, never had I known a secretsociety conducted like this.
"That you will not reveal without our permission any of the things thatwe communicate to you in the course of this initiation?"
"I will not." I answered, and I held up my hand.
"This is a serious matter. You must swear it," said my mentor.
"I swear it," I replied, and a sound like a mighty crash of thunderfollowed, and for a moment great eccentric streaks of lightning seem toflash on all sides of the cave.
"That is a token that your word has been accepted by the brethren, who,quite unknown to you, are gathered around the cell listening verycarefully and observantly to your words, and particularly to the tonesin which they are uttered. Thus encouraged, I am at liberty to proceed;and, first, I must tell you why the Order of St Bruno came intoexistence. Not many years ago there was no such body of men in anycountry in the world. Now we number over two thousand adherents, andevery day witnesses fresh accessions to our membership. The idea at theroot of our brotherhood is a very curious, but also a very powerful one.It owes its origin to a man named Bruno Delganni, who was for manyyears a translator in one of our Government offices--the ForeignOffice--and who suddenly inherited a large sum of money--nearlyhalf-a-million, I believe. As it happened, his years of servitude tored tape had given him a very hearty disgust for, and contempt with, theordinary Government servants. His idea was that they are allmachine-made dummies, and he trembled to think what would happen toEngland should she ever get involved in a really serious quarrel withthe European Powers. These men, he argued, are for the most part worsethan useless in their present positions. Picture an invasion of Englandby a large armed force--where would they be? At their desks probably,sorting their papers and indexing their previous performances. Not adozen of them have in them the making of a strong man in an emergency,for the system on which we train our Government servants in everydepartment is to stamp out of them all the fine, heroic, unselfishqualities and to leave them mere calculating or recording machines. Asa consequence, all the business of the country would be at a deadlock.The chaos would be awful to contemplate.
"Spurred on by these reflections," proceeded the old monk, leaning backin his chair and folding his hands on his knees, "Bruno Delganniresolved to found with his fortune a secret society which wouldsilently, noiselessly, but none the less resistlessly, band together allthe real patriots in every corner of the British Empire. Their names,he resolved should never be known unless England was actually invaded,and then the St Bruno-ites should spring up like magic everywhere--inthe War Office, in Parliament, in every hole and corner of the Empire--and should take the helm of affairs with one determination and onedetermination alone--to make Britain the greatest, grandest, and noblestEmpire ever seen since the days of Imperial Rome. Nobody in hisorganisation was to be afraid of place, of power, of enemies or of thiswonderful birthright. All diplomatists may be born cowards, this BrunoDelganni argued, but all St Bruno-ites should be strong in the faith ofthe possibilities of the Greater British Empire, and should marchtowards the light of the world domination of the Anglo-Saxon race withthe belief that this was the only way to secure the `peace on earth andgoodwill towards men' which all sincere philanthropists and rulers, nomatter to what nationality they belong, really crave.
"Well," continued the speaker after a significant pause, "as, perhaps,you will agree, this was really the dream of a most wonderful patriotwith a breadth of vision that puts each and all of our statesmen ofto-day to everlasting shame, for look in the House of Commons now andtell me is there one--ay, only one--of its members--who would dare toget up in his place in Parliament to-day and even declare as a matter ofrighteous sentiment that England should rule the earth to safeguard theworld's destinies and peace?"
"There is not one," I answered, and half instinctively I bowed my head.
"No!" proceeded the old monk sadly, "they are all as flabby to-day, asprone to compromise, as eager to renounce the destinies of the Empire asthey were that day when Bruno Delganni left the Foreign Office anddetermined to strike a blow for an ideal he hoped might change theentire face of the history of the world. Had Bruno, of course, not beenground down by this Government system he might have been anotherNapoleon. As it was, the man of action in him was sunk in the man ofthought, and so he set to work to build his dreams on paper, so thatwhen they stood fully erect they would be there all ready to becomematerial forces when the hour struck. I won't weary you now with allthe reverses he met, all the wild and disappointing experiences he wentthrough. It is, we know, an easy thing, to feel patriotic when one isshouting the national anthem or reading the carefully-turned periods ofa party leader; and quite another, and a different thing, to be a real,copper-bottomed, oak-through-and-through kind of patriot whom no stormcan disturb and no question of family, money, or self-interest canalter, but with whom `God' and `Fatherland' are the only two watchwordsthat matter, and all the other facts of life are mere subsidiary shadowsof the two same great all--dominant themes.
"Many and heartbreaking were the reverses dealt out to him before he gothold of the right ideas to find out patriots and to weld them togetherin a union that could never be broken; but, as these ideas will formyour tests as a candidate for admission to the Order, I must not nowreveal them to you. I have really only one more duty left to me to donow I have sketched out to you the broad reason which governs ourexistence. It is this: Do you, Hugh Glynn, feel that you are a goodenough Englishman to say `there is no country like mine, no Empire sofine, no laws, no people so beneficent. I am determined that everywhereshe goes, in everything she does, my own Motherland should triumph, andas long as I have breath, as long as I can stretch out my hands or usemy brains, I will never, if words or deeds of mine can avail heranything, suffer her to fall behind her enemies, but everywhere, ineverything, I will cherish one ideal--"God prosper England."'"
"Indeed I am," I cried in eager enthusiasm.
"Then you may safely advance to the first stage of your initiation!"said the old monk, but, to my surprise, his face was now very grave."Don't be alarmed at what is going to happen, but be warned in time, formany men, I must tell you, have been just as keen and as loyal,apparently, as yourself and have failed to be worthy of the name ofEnglishmen--have miserably failed!" And he gave a great s
igh.
I should have liked to ask him what he meant, but dared not.
Already I was conscious of extraordinary things happening about me, andit was as much as I could do to stand still and to keep my courage fromoozing through my hands.
CHAPTER TWENTY.
MORE MYSTERY.
Slowly, very slowly, the walls of that hermit's cell seemed to fade outof sight.
The darkness of the place did not appear to grow more profound, but thelight became greyer in tone, more misty in character, so that at lengthI felt I was standing in a kind of opalescent vapour, which would notlet me distinguish objects more than two or three feet distant from thepoint where I stood, lost in profound amazement at the changes that cameupon me from every quarter.
Something went moaning and sighing past me with eyes