Complete Fictional Works of John Buchan (Illustrated)

by John Buchan

  “I?”

  “Yes, you,” she went on. “You know very well that you’re behind all Ken’s daftness. He takes everything you say for gospel. But for you he would have been a most respectable Mayor of Birkpool, and at the end of his term of office would have been presented with a service of plate subscribed for by all good citizens. As it is, good citizens spit when his name is mentioned. He has made everybody uncomfortable, and has got nothing out of it except the affection of the rag-tag and bob-tail. . . . And look at his processing up and down the country. He is never off the stump, and he talks the wildest stuff. Oh, I know some people admire it. Charles Lamancha says that if you know Ken you understand the kind of fellows the Cavaliers were who rode with Rupert. But that is not much of a certificate, for as far as I can understand history Rupert muddled all his battles. He is getting a black name with his party, too. Mr Stannix told me that he would have been safe for the vacant under-secretary-ship last spring if he hadn’t blotted his copy-book. As it was, they were compelled to give it to Jimmy Raven, who is a congenital idiot.”

  Jacqueline glanced through the rain-dimmed window and saw that her car had arrived. She rescued her partially dried hat from the fender, and with Adam’s help struggled into her waterproof.

  “I’m going to have all this out with you some day soon,” she said. “I’m not thinking of Ken’s career — I’m thinking of his happiness — and mine and young Jeremy’s. And the country’s good, too. Ken’s digging up dangerous things out of people’s minds — and dangerous things out of his own. The Armines are a queer race, you know, and I don’t want any return to prehistoric freaks. Atavism is a kittle thing to play with. He says that he is getting back to Old England, but Old England had its unpleasant side. We learned that last June with our Women’s Institute. Did I tell you about it? Well, we have an enlightened vicar who is keen on teaching the people history by ocular demonstration, and so he got them to act the founding of Arcote priory, and the flight after Naseby, and Lady Armine sheltering Charles — all with the proper clothes and correct detail. Then this summer he thought he would go a bit farther back and have the dancing on Midsummer Eve round the standing stones on Armine Hill. It was a fine moonlight night, but everybody was rather shy at first, and I thought it was going to be a fiasco. And then it began to go well — a little too well. You will scarcely believe it, but our village started to revert to type. You never saw such a pandemonium. The Sunday-school teachers became mænads, and those that weren’t shingled let their hair down, and Pobjoy the earth-stopper behaved like a dancing dervish, and Gosling the verger thought he was a high-priest and tried to brain the vicar. It seems that the chief feature of those revels had been the sacrifice of a virgin, and they dashed nearly succeeded — Jenny Dart it was — one of our laundrymaids. I can tell you we had the deuce’s own job whipping them off.”

  II

  A fortnight later Adam dined with Christopher Stannix in a private room at the House of Commons. The only other guest was Falconet, who was on the eve of returning to America.

  Stannix held a curious position in the Government. He was reported to be a most competent administrator and his actual department was little criticised. In the House he confined himself in his speeches to sober and incontrovertible arguments on facts. But he was also credited with a singularly receptive mind, and had become the acknowledged unofficial intelligence officer of the Cabinet. What his views on policy were the world was left to guess. He was believed to be often at variance with some of his colleagues, notably with Geraldine the Prime Minister, and his friendship with members of the Opposition, particularly with Trant, was a scandal to the more precise. Yet no one questioned his party loyalty, and the many who at the time professed themselves sick of politics and politicians were accustomed to except Stannix, and to wish him a cleaner job.

  Adam and Falconet had been waiting for ten minutes before he joined them and dinner could begin.

  “Well, we’re in for it,” he announced, when the waiter had left the room after serving the soup. “I ran across Judson in the Lobby just now, and he was positively menacing. You know how he slings the ‘bloodys’ in his talk. To-night he was so excited that his conversation was mostly expletives and not very easy to follow. The big strike apparently is pretty well certain. The employers want a cut in wages in the new agreement and an extension of hours — they are on their uppers they say, and a lot of shops will have to close down if they don’t get what they ask. They’ve been at the Ministry of Labour to-day presenting their case, and I gather from Leveson that he is so convinced by it that he won’t have the Government intervene.”

  “Have you seen their case?” Adam asked.

  “Not yet. But I can imagine what it is like. A perfectly conclusive argument on facts and figures on the present basis of the industry. The only answer to it would be to question the basis. That is probably pretty rotten — all top-heavy from ill-considered war development and financial hokey-pokey.”

  “What do the men say?”

  “Adamant, so far. Stuck their toes in. Won’t budge and won’t argue. The usual thing. They’re certain they are getting a dirty deal, but they can’t put it into reasonable English. Our people won’t stand out for logic, but they’ll fight like devils for an instinct. It’s going to be an ugly business if it comes off, for God knows we can’t afford a big stoppage. Our finances are running briskly downhill. I saw Creevey to-day — I don’t much care for him as you know, but whenever he talks on finance I’m impressed. He was pointing out that we had established a standard of living for our people which was not warranted by the saleable value of our products — which means that we are not paying our way. He is not prepared to go back on our social services — says it can’t be done. Perhaps he is right, for all parties go on sluicing out, or promising to sluice out, new benefits from the public funds — our own people are just as bad as any other. Creevey doesn’t seem to mind that — he has no politics, he says, but I often think that he is the biggest Socialist of them all — he has the kind of quick autocratic mind that always wants to boss and regiment people. But he is clear that sooner or later we must face a scaling down of wages — money wages. As a matter of fact, it is quite true that we have enormously raised the standard of real wages in our trades as compared with before the war.”

  “That’s because you have taught people to want a better kind of life.”

  “No doubt. And that is a good thing if we could afford it. But it looks as if we couldn’t. A strike won’t help matters. The poor devils will be beaten in the end, and the national income will have dropped by thirty or forty millions, and nobody, master or man, will be a penny the better off. . . . Leveson says there is only one hope. If the metal-workers stand out the strike will probably never begin.”

  “Is there any chance of that?”

  “I gather there is a fair chance. Potter, their new leader, is the ordinary thick-headed bellicose type, but there is Utlaw to be reckoned with. That means Birkpool. If Birkpool is against a strike it won’t come off — at least so they tell me. You know more about that than I do, Adam. Could Utlaw swing his men the way he wanted?”

  “Probably — any way he wanted. But what is to be his way?”

  “Creevey seems to think that he is sound.”

  “What do you call sound?”

  “On the side of common sense. He knows that it is folly to quarrel about the share from the pool, when the pool is shrinking.”

  “But aren’t you all behaving as if the pool were bottomless with your policy of increased social services? Creevey and the rest of you?”

  Stannix laughed. “That’s a fair riposte. But it’s easier to be provident in the finance of one industry, where you can get the facts into a reasonable compass, than in the finances of a nation, when you can get few of the facts agreed. . . . But tell us about Utlaw, for you know him better than I. By the way, I see that Robson is dead at last. That means a vacancy in East Flackington, and Utlaw will have a bye-election to
add to his other cares. We shall oppose him of course — bound to — but not very whole-heartedly, and I fancy he’ll get a lot of our people’s votes. But about the strike — which way will he go?”

  “I don’t know,” Adam replied. “But I know which way he ought to go.”

  “And that is?”

  “Bring every man out and keep them out till they win.”

  “But — hang it, man, what do you mean?”

  “Look at it this way. Utlaw is nothing of your ordinary Socialist. He’s an English brand that looks at facts rather than Marxian whimsies. He knows his people and loves them — yes, loves them — that’s half the secret of his power. He sees that they have painfully and slowly climbed a little way up the hill and he wants to keep them there. He doesn’t believe in a society where wage-earners are only a set of figures in a state register; he thinks of them as individuals, each of whom is entitled to some kind of free individual life. He won’t have the moral fibre of his people weakened. Therefore he stands for high wages. Wages, he says, are the key to everything. It’s the old question of property. A reasonable amount of property is necessary for liberty. Therefore any attack on wages is to be fought tooth and nail. If the masters produce figures to show that they can’t pay, he says he is entitled to ask whether the masters are not muddling their businesses. That’s what the ordinary workman is asking. You don’t find much belief in the plenary inspiration of employers to-day. Utlaw would go farther. If the extravagance of the State is crippling the employers he would have that checked in the interests of the worker. He has no notion of expensive pauperization. Wages are his Ark of the Covenant, for he regards them as the price of individuality. . . . One thing more. He admits that matters may get worse with us, and that if we are to go on we may have to ask for a great effort of sacrifice and discipline from everybody. But that must be equal all round. He won’t have the chance of that appeal spoiled by compulsory, one-sided, premature sacrifice.”

  “Good God, Adam,” said Stannix, “that’s the longest speech you ever made in your life. Is that your confession of faith?”

  Adam laughed.

  “I’m sorry to be so verbose. No, it isn’t my creed. I should put it quite differently, and nobody would agree with me. But I know that it is what Utlaw believes.”

  “Then it looks as if Creevey and Leveson were backing the wrong horse. Will he stick to that?”

  “I don’t know. If he doesn’t he ceases to be a leader. I should be sorry, for we want all the leaders we can get against the evil days that are coming.”

  “Hullo!” said Stannix as the door opened. “Here’s another rebel. Come in, Ken, and join us. Here, waiter, lay another place for Lord Warmestre. You’ll soon catch us up. Do you know Mr Falconet? Adam has been talking the wildest heresies, and they came out so pat that he must have been bottling them up for months. Where have you been? Putting spokes in their Lordships’ wheels?”

  “I’ve been listening to the dullest debate you ever heard in your days. I think I went to sleep. I heard that Adam was dining here, so I tracked you to this underground den. I never know whether I’m still on speaking terms with you fellows.”

  “I don’t mind you,” said Stannix. “I rather like your way of behaving. But Geraldine is looking for you with a tomahawk. To crown all your other offences, you’ve stolen his thunder. It appears that he has been incubating an emigration scheme on the same lines as yours, and now the thing has gone off at half-cock. He can’t touch it now that you’ve given it the flavour of heterodoxy.”

  “He can’t — and he never would,” said Kenneth grimly. “None of your crowd wants to get things done. They’re content if they get a nice little formula for their perorations. I don’t mean you, Kit. You’re not so bad, but you’re a lone wolf in the pack.”

  Kenneth in his new mood was contemptuous of social customs. He was so full of his cause that he overflowed with it on all occasions. Now, long before coffee was served and cigars were lit, he was expounding his emigration ideas.

  “Ken is the new Rhodes,” said Stannix. “Can’t you see him leading out a colony in the ancient Greek fashion? What will you call it? Warmestria? No, Arminia would be better. Did you see Creevey in The Times on your figures?”

  “I can answer that blighter. You’ll see me in the paper to-morrow. And Linaker says his talk about inflation is all moonshine. He is going to write a letter to the press on the subject. No, my trouble is not Creevey or any of his kind. It’s the black, blank apathy of your Government crowd, Kit. I can’t get a move on with them. They’ll neither bless nor ban, only shilly and shally. . . . I’ve sweated hard for a year and what’s the result? I’ve stirred up Birkpool, but whether or not it settles down again into a mud-hole depends upon one man.”

  “You mean Utlaw, and the strike,” Stannix put in.

  “What strike? I haven’t heard of it. I mean Utlaw.” And he looked across the table at Adam.

  “Then there’s this emigration racket. That depends upon the dozen fatted calves who call themselves a Cabinet. Well, I’ve had my try. If they won’t play then I chuck the game. Back to the land I go and breed ‘chasers.”

  “Not you,” said Adam.

  “Why not me?” But his truculent voice and the firm set of his jaw did not suggest an easy surrender.

  Falconet accompanied Adam a little way on his homeward walk along the Embankment.

  “I like your Marquis,” he said. “He’s a fighting man all right. He’s got the eye of an old-time marshal in the Bad Lands. But I wouldn’t put it past him to fling in his hand. Seems as if he were up against too many pikers.”

  III

  Andrew Amos one morning found Adam at breakfast in Charity Row. It was dark February weather, with a swirling east wind that stirred up the dust of Birkpool and made the streets a torment. Andrew had a cold, and a red-spotted handkerchief was constantly at his snuffy nose.

  “I’ve come to report,” he said. “I was at the meeting last night. Joe Utlaw is in bigger danger the day from himsel’ than he ever was from Davie Marrish. He has come out against the strike.”

  Amos fixed Adam with a fierce and rheumy eye.

  “Aye, and he’ll get awa’ wi’ it. That’s my judgment. Seventy per cent of the men will vote his way. Joe will be the biggest strike-breaker in history. For, mind you, if Birkpool stands out the metal-workers will stand out, and the strike is broke afore it’s begun.

  “It was a most re-markable occasion,” he went on. “Ye might ca’ it a triumph o’ personality. Joe was arguin’ against a’ the instincts o’ his folk, and what’s more, he was goin’ back on a’ he had been preachin’ for five years. And yet, ma God! he kept the upper hand. He had four mortal hours o’ it, and the questions cam like machine-gun fire, some o’ them gey nesty yins. Man, he never turned a hair. He had a grand grip on his temper, too, for the mair impident a question was the mair ceevil his answer.”

  Adam asked what line he had taken.

  “The cleverest. He wasna arguin’ the employers’ case. If he had, he wad hae been doomed from the start. He put it to them that they were up against the granite o’ economic facts. If they chose to kick against the pricks, says he, the pricks wad be ower muckle for them. They couldna win, says he, and at the end o’ three months or six months they wad be where they were — only their belts wad be drawn tighter and their wives and weans wad be thinner, and the country wad have gotten anither shog doun the brae. . . . Man, it was an extraordinary performance, and though ye kent that every man in his audience was girnin’ in his soul, he got the majority on his side. In my judgment he has done the job. There’ll be nae strike.”

  “What about himself?” Adam asked.

  “Oh, he’s done. Joe is done. He has won this ae time, but he’ll never win again. A’ the purchase he has gotten will be exhausted by this effort. Besides, he has defied his Union, and there will be nae mercy for sic a blackleg. I’m inclined to think—”

  Amos stopped abruptly, for Utlaw himself had
entered the room. He crossed and stood by the fire behind Adam’s chair.

  “I heard your last words, Amos,” he said. “You think I have done wrong?”

  Andrew was on his feet.

  “I think ye’ve done black wrong, though maybe your conscience is clear and ye think it is right. I’m no here to judge ye — I leave that to whatever Power sums up in the hinder end. Ye’re a Union man and ye’ve gone back on the ae thing on which the Unions have never weakened. Ye’ve betrayed the men’s wages. No doubt ye have put up a great argument — I heard ye last nicht — but you havena convinced me, for to my mind there’s a thing ayont logic, and that’s a man’s freedom, and if ye take that from him ye’d better far wind up the concern. Ye’ve relapsed on the fosy Socialism that a’ parties dabble in the day, Tory and Labour alike. Ye’ll be for makin’ it up to a worker wi’ mair education and widows’ pensions and a bigger dole, as if onything on God’s earth could make up to a man for the loss of the right to guide his life in his ain way! . . . But I’m no gaun to argue wi’ ye. I’ve ower bad a cauld. I just cam here to report to Mr Milford. Guid day to ye.” Amos departed in a tornado of sneezing.

  Utlaw sat himself in a vacant chair.

  “Do you agree with Amos?” he asked Adam.

  “I haven’t heard your case. I gather you can carry the men with you.”

  “I think so. The big majority. . . . My case? It’s simply common sense. When we have wasting assets, it’s folly to waste them farther. In a crisis we must sink legitimate interests and — and revise principles.” He looked at Adam a little shyly.

  “I’ve been going pretty deep into the facts,” he went on. “Creevey — you know him? — Warren Creevey — has been helping me. Half our troubles are due to ignorance. Well, I’ve been sweating at the facts of the case. Our whole industrial fabric needs remaking — on that I agree — but meantime the storm is coming and we can’t start rebuilding in the thick of it. Also we have to take precautions against the storm, and one of them may be shoring up the walls which we intend later to pull down. That’s how I have come to look at it. It is pretty nearly the case of all the intelligence of the country arrayed against the obstinacy of the Unions.”