The Flying Inn

by Gilbert Keith Chesterton

  Dorian Wimpole was at the tail of the procession, which grew more and more crowded every moment. For one space of the march he even had the misfortune to lose it altogether; owing to the startling activity which the rotund cheese when it escaped from his hands showed, in descending a somewhat steep road toward the river. But in recent days he had gained a pleasure in practical events which was like a second youth. He managed to find a stray taxi-cab; and had little difficulty in picking up again the trail of the extraordinary cortege. Inquiries addressed to a policeman with a black eye outside the House of Commons informed him sufficiently of the rebels’ line of retreat or advance, or whatever it was; and in a very short time he beheld the unmistakable legion once more. It was unmistakable, because in front of it there walked a red-headed giant, apparently carrying with him a wooden portion of some public building; and also because so big a crowd had never followed any man in England for a long time past. But except for such things the unmistakable crowd might well have been mistaken for another one. Its aspect had been altered almost as much as if it had grown horns or tusks; for many of the company walked with outlandish weapons like iron teeth or horns, bills and pole axes, and spears with strangely shaped heads. What was stranger still, whole rows and rows of them had rifles, and even marched with a certain discipline; and yet again, others seemed to have snatched up household or work-shop tools, meat axes, pick axes, hammers and even carving knives. Such things need be none the less deadly because they are domestic. They have figured in millions of private murders before they appeared in any public war.

  Dorian was so fortunate as to meet the flame-haired Captain almost face to face, and easily fell into step with him at the head of the march. Humphrey Pump walked on the other side, with the celebrated cask suspended round his neck by something resembling braces, as if it were a drum. Mr. Wimpole had himself taken the opportunity of his brief estrangement to carry the cheese somewhat more easily in a very large, loose, waterproof knapsack on his shoulders. The effect in both cases was to suggest dreadful deformities in two persons who happened to be exceptionally cleanly built. The Captain, who seemed to be in tearing and towering spirits, gained great pleasure from this. But Dorian had his sources of amusement too.

  “What have you been doing with yourselves since you lost my judicious guidance?” he asked, laughing, “and why are parts of you a dull review and parts of you a fancy dress ball? What have you been up to?”

  “We’ve been shopping,” said Mr. Patrick Dalroy, with some pride. “We are country cousins. I know all about shopping; let us see, what are the phrases about it? Look at those rifles now! We got them quite at a bargain. We went to all the best gunsmiths in London, and we didn’t pay much. In fact, we didn’t pay anything. That’s what is called a bargain, isn’t it? Surely, I’ve seen in those things they send to ladies something about ‘giving them away.’ Then we went to a remnant sale. At least, it was a remnant sale when we left. And we bought that piece of stuff we’ve tied round the sign. Surely, it must be what ladies called chiffon?”

  Dorian lifted his eyes and perceived that a very coarse strip of red rag, possibly collected from a dust bin, had been tied round the wooden sign-post by way of a red flag of revolution.

  “Not what ladies call chiffon?” inquired the Captain with anxiety. “Well, anyhow, it is what chiffoniers call it. But as I’m going to call on a lady shortly, I’ll try to remember the distinction.”

  “Is your shopping over, may I ask?” asked Mr. Wimpole.

  “All but one thing,” answered the other. “I must find a music shop–you know what I mean. Place where they sell pianos and things of that sort.”

  “Look here,” said Dorian, “this cheese is pretty heavy as it is. Have I got to carry a piano, too?”

  “You misunderstand me,” said the Captain, calmly. And as he had never thought of music shops until his eye had caught one an instant before, he darted into the doorway. Returning almost immediately with a long parcel under his arm, he resumed the conversation.

  “Did you go anywhere else,” asked Dorian, “except to shops?”

  “Anywhere else!” cried Patrick, indignantly, “haven’t you got any country cousins? Of course we went to all the right places. We went to the Houses of Parliament. But Parliament isn’t sitting; so there are no eggs of the quality suitable for elections. We went to the Tower of London–you can’t tire country cousins like us. We took away some curiosities of steel and iron. We even took away the halberds from the Beef-eaters. We pointed out that for the purpose of eating beef (their only avowed public object) knives and forks had always been found more convenient. To tell the truth, they seemed rather relieved to be relieved of them.”

  “And may I ask,” said the other with a smile, “where you are off to now?”

  “Another beauty spot!” cried the Captain, boisterously, “no tiring the country cousin! I am going to show my young friends from the provinces what is perhaps the finest old country house in England. We are going to Ivywood, not far from that big watering place they call Pebblewick.”

  “I see,” said Dorian; and for the first time looked back with intelligent trouble on his face, on the marching ranks behind him.

  “Captain Dalroy,” said Dorian Wimpole, in a slightly altered tone, “there is one thing that puzzles me. Ivywood talked about having set the police to catch us; and though this is a pretty big crowd, I simply cannot believe that the police, as I knew them in my youth, could not catch us. But where are the police? You seem to have marched through half London with much (if you’ll excuse me) of the appearance of carrying murderous weapons. Lord Ivywood threatened that the police would stop us. Well, why didn’t they stop us?”

  “Your subject,” said Patrick, cheerfully, “divides itself into three heads.”

  “I hope not,” said Dorian.

  “There really are three reasons why the police should not be prominent in this business; as their worst enemy cannot say that they were.”

  He began ticking off the three on his own huge fingers; and seemed to be quite serious about it.

  “First,” he said, “you have been a long time away from town. Probably you do not know a policeman when you see him. They do not wear helmets, as our line regiments did after the Prussians had won. They wear fezzes, because the Turks have won. Shortly, I have little doubt, they will wear pigtails, because the Chinese have won. It is a very interesting branch of moral science. It is called Efficiency.

  “Second,” explained the Captain, “you have, perhaps, omitted to notice that a very considerable number of those wearing such fezzes are walking just behind us. Oh, yes, it’s quite true. Don’t you remember that the whole French Revolution really began because a sort of City Militia refused to fire on their own fathers and wives; and even showed some slight traces of a taste for firing on the other side? You’ll see lots of them behind; and you can tell them by their revolver belts and their walking in step; but don’t look back on them too much. It makes them nervous.”

  “And the third reason?” asked Dorian.

  “For the real reason,” answered Patrick, “I am not fighting a hopeless fight. People who have fought in real fights don’t, as a rule. But I noticed something singular about the very point you mention. Why are there no more police? Why are there no more soldiers? I will tell you. There really are very few policemen or soldiers left in England today.”

  “Surely, that,” said Wimpole, “is an unusual complaint.”

  “But very clear,” said the Captain, gravely, “to anyone who has ever seen sailors or soldiers. I will tell you the truth. Our rulers have come to count on the bare bodily cowardice of a mass of Englishmen, as a sheep dog counts on the cowardice of a flock of sheep. Now, look here, Mr. Wimpole, wouldn’t a shepherd be wise to limit the number of his dogs if he could make his sheep pay by it? At the end you might find millions of sheep managed by a solitary dog. But that is because they are sheep. Suppose the sheep were turned by a miracle into wolves. There are very few dog
s they could not tear in pieces. But, what is my practical point, there are really very few dogs to tear.”

  “You don’t mean,” said Dorian, “that the British Army is practically disbanded?”

  “There are the sentinels outside Whitehall,” replied Patrick, in a low voice. “But, indeed, your question puts me in a difficulty. No; the army is not entirely disbanded, of course. But the British army–. Did you ever hear, Wimpole, of the great destiny of the Empire?”

  “I seem to have heard the phrase,” replied his companion.

  “It is in four acts,” said Dalroy. “Victory over barbarians. Employment of barbarians. Alliance with barbarians. Conquest by barbarians. That is the great destiny of Empire.”

  “I think I begin to see what you mean,” returned Dorian Wimpole. “Of course Ivywood and the authorities do seem very prone to rely on the sepoy troops.”

  “And other troops as well,” said Patrick. “I think you will be surprised when you see them.”

  He tramped on for a while in silence and then said, with some air of abruptness, which yet did not seem to be entirely a changing of the subject,

  “Do you know the man who lives now on the estate next to Ivywood?”

  “No,” replied Dorian, “I am told he keeps himself very much to himself.”

  “And his estate, too,” said Patrick, rather gloomily. “If you would climb his garden-wall, Wimpole, I think you would find an answer to a good many of your questions. Oh, yes, the right honourable gentlemen are making full provision for public order and national defence–in a way.”

  He fell into an almost sullen silence again; and several villages had been passed before he spoke again.

  They tramped through the darkness; and dawn surprised them somewhere in the wilder and more wooded parts where the roads began to rise and roam. Dalroy gave an exclamation of pleasure and pointed ahead, drawing the attention of Dorian to the distance. Against the silver and scarlet bars of the daybreak could be seen afar a dark purple dome, with a crown of dark green leaves; the place they had called Roundabout.

  Dalroy’s spirit seemed to revive at the sight, with the customary accompaniment of the threat of vocalism.

  “Been making any poems lately?” he asked of Wimpole.

  “Nothing particular,” replied the poet.

  “Then,” said the Captain, portentously, clearing his throat, “you shall listen to one of mine, whether you like it or not–nay, the more you dislike it the longer and longer it will be. I begin to understand why soldiers want to sing when on the march; and also why they put up with such rotten songs.

  “The Druids waved their golden knives

  And danced around the Oak,

  When they had sacrificed a man;

  But though the learned search and scan

  No single modern person can

  Entirely see the joke;

  But though they cut the throats of men

  They cut not down the tree,

  And from the blood the saplings sprang

  Of oak-woods yet to be.

  But Ivywood, Lord Ivywood,

  He rots the tree as ivy would,

  He clings and crawls as ivy would

  About the sacred tree.

  “King Charles he fled from Worcester fight

  And hid him in an Oak;

  In convent schools no man of tact

  Would trace and praise his every act,

  Or argue that he was in fact

  A strict and sainted bloke;

  But not by him the sacred woods

  Have lost their fancies free,

  And though he was extremely big,

  He did not break the tree.

  But Ivywood, Lord Ivywood,

  He breaks the tree as ivy would

  And eats the woods as ivy would

  Between us and the sea.

  “Great Collingwood walked down the glade

  And flung the acorns free,

  That oaks might still be in the grove

  As oaken as the beams above

  When the great Lover sailors love

  Was kissed by Death at sea.

  But though for him the oak-trees fell

  To build the oaken ships,

  The woodman worshipped what he smote

  And honoured even the chips.

  But Ivywood, Lord Ivywood,

  He hates the tree as ivy would,

  As the dragon of the ivy would,

  That has us in his grips.”

  They were ascending a sloping road, walled in on both sides by solemn woods, which somehow seemed as watchful as owls awake. Though daybreak was going over them with banners, scrolls of scarlet and gold, and with a wind like trumpets of triumph, the dark woods seemed to hold their secret like dark, cool cellars; nor was the strong sunlight seen in them, save in one or two brilliant shafts, that looked like splintered emeralds.

  “I should not wonder,” said Dorian, “if the ivy does not find the tree knows a thing or two also.”

  “The tree does,” assented the Captain. “The trouble was that until a little while ago the tree did not know that it knew.”

  There was a silence; and as they went up the incline grew steeper and steeper, and the tall trees seemed more and more to be guarding something from sight, as with the grey shields of giants.

  “Do you remember this road, Hump?” asked Dalroy of the innkeeper.

  “Yes,” answered Humphrey Pump, and said no more; but few have ever heard such fulness in an affirmative.

  They marched on in silence and about two hours afterward, toward eleven o’clock, Dalroy called a halt in the forest, and said that everybody had better have a few hours’ sleep. The impenetrable quality in the woods and the comparative softness of the carpet of beech-mast, made the spot as appropriate as the time was inappropriate. And if anyone thinks that common people, casually picked up in a street, could not follow a random leader on such a journey or sleep at his command in such a spot, given the state of the soul, then someone knows no history.

  “I’m afraid,” said Dalroy, “you’ll have to have your supper for breakfast. I know an excellent place for having breakfast, but it’s too exposed for sleep. And sleep you must have; so we won’t unpack the stores just now. We’ll lie down like Babes in the Wood, and any bird of an industrious disposition is free to start covering me with leaves. Really, there are things coming, before which you will want sleep.”

  When they resumed the march it was nearly the middle of the afternoon; and the meal which Dalroy insisted buoyantly on describing as breakfast was taken about that mysterious hour when ladies die without tea. The steep road had consistently grown steeper and steeper; and steeper; and at last, Dalroy said to Dorian Wimpole,

  “Don’t drop that cheese again just here, or it will roll right away down into the woods. I know it will. No scientific calculations of grades and angles are necessary; because I have seen it do so myself. In fact, I have run after it.”

  Wimpole realised they were mounting to the sharp edge of a ridge, and in a few moments he knew by the oddness in the shape of the trees what it had been that the trees were hiding.

  They had been walking along a swelling, woodland path beside the sea. On a particular high plateau, projecting above the shore, stood some dwarfed and crippled apple-trees, of whose apples no man alive would have eaten, so sour and salt they must be. All the rest of the plateau was bald and featureless, but Pump looked at every inch of it, as if at an inhabited place.

  “This is where we’ll have breakfast,” he said, pointing to the naked grassy waste. “It’s the best inn in England.”

  Some of his audience began to laugh, but somehow suddenly ceased doing so, as Dalroy strode forward and planted the sign of “The Old Ship” on the desolate sea-shore.

  “And now,” he said, “you have charge of the stores we brought, Hump, and we will picnic. As it said in a song I once sang,

  “The Saracen’s Head out of Araby came,

  King Richard riding in
arms like flame,

  And where he established his folk to be fed

  He set up his spear, and the Saracen’s Head.”

  It was nearly dusk before the mob, much swelled by the many discontented on the Ivywood estates, reached the gates of Ivywood House. Strategically, and for the purposes of a night surprise, this might have done credit to the Captain’s military capacity. But the use to which he put it actually was what some might call eccentric. When he had disposed his forces, with strict injunctions of silence for the first few minutes, he turned to Pump, and said,

  “And now, before we do anything else, I’m going to make a noise.”