Chapter 9
"Sit down!" cried some. "Oh, shut it!" cried others. All looked at him with the amused curiosity of people in a tramcar looking at a talkative child. The usher bustled across the room, and said in a loud and reassuring whisper: "All them things has got nothing to do with you, sir. Those is questions for the Judge and Petty Jury upstairs. The magistrates have sat on all these cases already and committed them for trial; so all you've got to do is to find a True Bill, and you can't go wrong."
"If we can't go wrong, there's no merit in going right," protested Mr. Clarkson.
"Next case. Page fourteen, number seventy-two," shouted the usher again, and as the witness was a Jew, his hat was sent for. "There's a lot of history behind that hat," said Mr. Clarkson, wishing to propitiate public opinion.
"Wish that was all there was behind it," said the juror on his left. The Jew finished his evidence and went away. The foreman glanced round, and the usher had already got as far as "Signify," when a venerable juror, prompted by Mr. Clarkson's example, interposed.
"I should like to ask that witness one further question," he said in a fine Scottish accent, and after considerable shouting, the Jew was recalled.
"I should like to ask you, my man," said the venerable juror, "how you spell your name?" The name was spelt, the juror carefully inscribed it on a blank space opposite the charge, sighed with relief, and looked round. "Signify, gentlemen, signify!" cried the usher. "Two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve. True Bill, True Bill! Next case. Page six, number eleven."
Number eleven was a genuine murder case, and sensation pervaded the room when the murdered man's wife was brought in, weeping. She sobbed out the oath, and the foreman, wishing to be kind, said, encouragingly, "State briefly what you know of this case."
She sobbed out her story, and was led away. The foreman glanced round the tables.
"I think we ought to hear the doctor," said the red-faced man. The doctor was called and described a deep incised wound, severing certain anatomical details.
"I think we ought to hear the constable," said the red-faced man, and there was a murmur of agreement. A policeman came in, carrying a brown paper parcel. Having described the arrest, he unwrapped a long knife, which was handed round the tables for inspection. When it reached the red-faced juror, he regarded the blade closely up and down, with gloating satisfaction. "Are those stains blood?" he asked the policeman.
"Yes, sir; them there is the poor feller's blood."
The red-faced man looked again, and suddenly turning upon Mr. Clarkson, went through a pantomime of plunging the knife into his throat. At Mr. Clarkson's horrified recoil he laughed himself purple.
"Well said the Preacher you may know a man by his laughter," Mr. Clarkson murmured, while the red-faced man patted him amicably on the back.
"No offence, I hope; no offence!" he said. "Come and have some lunch. I always must, and I always do eat a substantial lunch. Nice, juicy cut from the joint, and a little dry sherry? What do you say?"
"Thank you very much indeed," said Mr. Clarkson, instantly benign. "You are most kind, but I always have coffee and a roll and butter."
"O my God!" exclaimed the red-faced man, and speaking across Mr. Clarkson to another substantial juror, he entered into discussion on the comparative merits of dry sherry and champagne-and-bitters.
Soon after two they both returned in the comfortable state of mind produced by the solution of doubt. But Mr. Clarkson's doubts had not been solved, and his state of mind was far from comfortable. All through the lunch hour he had been tortured by uncertainty. A plain duty confronted him, but how could he face it? He hated a scene. He abhorred publicity as he abhorred the glaring advertisements in the streets. He had never suffered so much since the hour before he had spoken at the Oxford Union on the question whether the sense for beauty can be imparted by instruction. He closed his eyes. He felt the sweat standing on his forehead. And still the cases went on. "Two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve. True Bill. True Bill. Two, four, six, eight...."
"Now then, sleepy!" cried the red-faced man in his ear, giving him a genial dig with his elbow. Mr. Clarkson quivered at the touch, but he rose.
"Gentlemen," he began, "I wish to protest against the continuation of this farce."
The jury became suddenly alert, and his voice was drowned in chaos. "Order, order! Chair, chair!" they shouted. "Everybody's doing it!" sang one.
"I call that gentleman to order," said the foreman, rising with dignity. "He has previously interrupted and delayed our proceedings, without bringing fresh light to bear upon our investigations. After the luncheon interval, I was pleased to observe that for one cause or another--I repeat, for one cause or another--he was distinctly--shall I say somnolent, gentlemen? Yes, I will say somnolent. And I wish to inform him that the more somnolent he remains, the better we shall all be pleased."
"Hear, hear! Quite true!" shouted the jury.
"Does it appear to you, sir, fitting to sit here wasting time?" Mr. Clarkson continued, with diminishing timidity. "Does it seem to you a proper task for twenty-three apparently rational beings--"
"Twenty-two! Twenty-two!" cried the red-faced man, adding up the jurors with the end of a pen, and ostentatiously omitting Mr. Clarkson.
The jurors shook with laughter. They wiped tears from their eyes. They rolled their heads on the pink blotting-paper in their joy. When quiet was restored, the foreman proceeded:
"I have already ruled that gentleman out of order, and I warn him that if he perseveres in his contumacious disregard of common decency and the chair, I shall proceed to extremities as the law directs. We are here, gentlemen, to fulfil a public duty as honourable British citizens, and here we will remain until that duty is fulfilled, or we will know the reason why."
He glanced defiantly round, assuming an aspect worthy of the last stand at Maiwand. Looking at Mr. Clarkson as turkeys might look at a stray canary, the jurors expressed their applause.
But the genial usher took pity, and whispered across the table to him, "It'll all come right, sir; it'll all come right. You wait a bit. The Grand Jury always rejects one case before it's done; sometimes two."
And sure enough, next morning, while Mr. Clarkson was reading Burke's speeches which he had brought with him, one of the jurors objected to the evidence in the eighty-seventh case. "We cannot be too cautious, gentlemen," he said, "in arriving at a decision in these delicate matters. The apprehension of blackmail in relation to females hangs over every living man in this country."
"Delicate matters; blackmail; relation to females; great apprehension of blackmail in these delicate matters," murmured the jury, shaking their heads, and they threw out the Bill with the consciousness of an independent and righteous deed.
Soon after midday, the last of the cases was finished, and having signified a True Bill for nearly the hundredth time, the jurors were conducted into the Court where a prisoner was standing in the dock for his real trial. As though they had saved a tottering State, the Judge thanked them graciously for their services, and they were discharged.
"Just a drop of something to show there's no ill-feeling?" said the red-faced man as they passed into the street.
"Thank you very much," replied Mr. Clarkson warmly. "I assure you I have not the slightest ill-feeling of any kind. But I seldom drink."
"Bless my soul!" said the red-faced man. "Then, what _do_ you do?"
XV
A NEW CONSCRIPTION
When the Territorial exclaims that, for his part, he would refuse to inhabit a planet on which there was no hope of war, the peaceful listener shudderingly charges the inventor of Territorials with promoting a bloodthirsty mind. After all the prayers for peace in our time--prayers in which even Territorials are expected to join on church parade--it appears an impious folly to appraise war as a necessity for human happiness. Or if indeed it be a blessing, however much in disguise, why not boldly pray to have the full benefit of it in our time, instead of passing it on, like unearned increment, for the advantage of posterity? Such a thing is unimaginable. A prayer for war would make people jump; it would empty a church quicker than the collection. Nevertheless, it is probable that the great majority of every congregation does in its heart share the Territorial's opinion, and, if there were no possibility of war ever again anywhere in the world, they would find life upon this planet a trifle flat.
The impulse to hostilities arises not merely from the delight in scenes of blood enjoyed at a distance, though that is the commonest form of military ardour, and in many a bloody battle the finest fruits of victory are reaped over newspapers and cigars at the bar or in the back garden. There is no such courage as glows in the citizen's bosom when he peruses the telegrams of slaughter, just as there is no such ferocity as he imbibes from the details of a dripping murder. "War! War! Bloody war! North, South, East, or West!" cries the soldier in one of Mr. Kipling's pretty tales; but in real life that cry arises rather from the music-halls than from the soldier, and many a high-souled patriot at home would think himself wronged if perpetual peace deprived him of his one opportunity of displaying valour to his friends, his readers, or his family. All these imaginative people, whose bravery may be none the less genuine for being vicarious, must be reckoned as the natural supporters of war, and, indeed, one can hardly conceive any form of distant conflict for which they would not stand prepared.
But still, the widespread dislike of peace is not entirely derived from their prowess; nor does it spring entirely from the nursemaid's love of the red coat and martial gait, though this is on a far nobler plane, and comes much nearer to the heart of things. The gleam of uniforms in a drab world, the upright bearing, the rattle of a kettledrum, the boom of a salute, the murmur of the "Dead March," the goodnight of the "Last Post" sounding over the home-faring traffic and the quiet cradles--one does not know by what substitutes eternal peace could exactly replace them. For they are symbols of a spiritual protest against the degradation of security. They perpetually re-assert the claim of a beauty and a passion that have no concern with material advantages. They sound defiance in the dull ears of comfort, and proclaim woe unto them that are at ease in the city of life. Dimly the nursemaid is aware of the protest; most people are dimly aware of it; and the few who seriously labour for an unending reign of peace must take it into account.
It is useless to allure mankind by promises of a pig's paradise. Much has been rightly written about the horrors of war. Everyone knows them to be sudden, hideous, and overwhelming; those who have seen them can speak also of the squalor, the filthiness, the murderous swindling, and the inconceivable absurdity of the whole monstrous performance. But the horrors of peace, if not so obvious, come nearer to our daily life, and we are naturally terrified at its softness, its monotony, and its enfeebling relaxation. Of all people in the world the wealthy classes of England and America are probably the furthest removed from danger, and no one admires them in the least; no one in the least envies their treadmill of successive pleasures. The most unwarlike of men are haunted by the fear that perpetual peace would induce a general degeneration of soul and body such as they now behold amid the rich man's sheltered comforts. They dread the growth of a population slack of nerve, soft of body, cruel through fear of pain, and incapable of endurance or high endeavour. They dread the entire disappearance of that clear decisiveness, that disregard of pleasure, that quiet devotion of self in the face of instant death, which are to be found, now and again, in the course of every war. Even peace, they say, may be bought too dear, and what shall it profit a people if it gain a swill-tub of comforts and lose its own soul?
The same argument is chosen by those who would persuade the whole population to submit to military training, whether it is needful for the country's defence or not. Under such training, they suppose, the virtues that peace imperils would be maintained; a sense of equality and comradeship would pervade all classes, and for two or three years of life the wealthy would enjoy the realities of labour and discomfort. It is a tempting vision, and if this were the only means of escape from such a danger as is represented, the wealthy would surely be the first to embrace it for their own salvation. But is there no other means? asked Professor William James, and his answer to the question was that distinguished psychologist's last service. What we are looking for, he rightly said, is a moral equivalent for war, and he suddenly found it in a conscription, not for fighting, but for work. After showing that the life of many is nothing else but toil and pain, while others "get no taste of this campaigning life at all," he continued:
"If now--and this is my idea--there were, instead of military conscription, a conscription of the whole youthful population to form for a certain number of years a part of the army enlisted against _nature_, the injustice would tend to be evened out, and numerous other benefits to the commonwealth would follow. The military ideals of hardihood and discipline would be wrought into the growing fibre of the people; no one would remain blind, as the luxurious classes now are blind, to man's real relations to the globe he lives on, and to the permanently solid and hard foundations of his higher life. To coal and iron mines, to freight trains, to fishing fleets in December, to dish-washing, clothes-washing, and window-washing, to road-building and tunnel-making, to foundries and stoke-holes, and to the frames of skyscrapers, would our gilded youths be drafted off, according to their choice, to get the childishness knocked out of them, and to come back into society with healthier sympathies and soberer ideas."
Here, indeed, is a vision more tempting than ever conscription was. To be sure, it is not new, for Ruskin had a glimpse of it, and that was why he induced the Oxford undergraduates to vary their comfortable Greek studies and games at ball with a little honest work upon the Hinksey road. But the vision is irresistible. There cannot be the smallest doubt it will be realised, and when the young dukes, landed proprietors, financiers, motorists, officers in the Guards, barristers, and curates are marched off in gangs to their apportioned labour in the stoke-holes, coal-mines, and December fishing fleets, how the workmen will laugh, how exult!
Nor let it be supposed that the conscription would subject even the most luxurious conscripts to any unendurable hardship. So hateful is idleness to man that the toil of the poor is continually being adopted by the rich as sport. To climb a mountain was once the irksome duty of the shepherd and wandering hawker; now it is the privilege of wealth to hang by the finger-nails over an abyss. Once it was the penalty of slaves to pull the galleys; now it is only the well-to-do who labour day by day at the purposeless oar, and rack their bodies with a toil that brings home neither fish nor merchandise. Once it fell to the thin bowman and despised butcher to provide the table with flesh and fowl; now, at enormous expense, the rich man plays the poulterer for himself, and statesmen seek the strenuous life in the slaughter of a scarcely edible rhinoceros. Let the conscripts of comfort take heart. They will run more risks in the galleries of the mines than on the mountain precipice, and one night's trawl upon the Dogger Bank would provide more weight of fish than if they whipped the Tay from spring to winter.
Under this great conscription, a New Model would, indeed, be initiated, as far superior to the conscript armies as Cromwell's Ironsides were to the mercenaries of their time. The whole nation from prince to beggar would by this means be transformed, labour would cease to be despised or riches to be worshipped, the reproach of effeminacy would be removed, the horrors of peace mitigated, and the moral equivalent of war discovered. For the first time a true comradeship between class and class would arise, for, as Goethe said, work makes the comrade, and democracy might have a chance of becoming a reality instead of a party phrase. After three years' service down the sewers or at the smelting works, our men of leisure would no longer raise their wail over national degeneracy or the need of maintaining the standard of hardihood by barrack-square drill. As things are now, it is themselves who chiefly need the drill. "Those who live at ease," said Professor James, "are an island on a stormy ocean." In the summing up of the nation they, in their security, would hardly count, were they not so vocal; but the molten iron, the flaming mine, the whirling machine, the engulfing sea, and hunger always at the door take care that, for all but a very few among the people, the discipline of danger and perpetual effort shall not be wanting. You do not find the pitman, the dustman, or the bargee puling for bayonet exercise to make them hard, and if our nervous gentlemen were all serving the State in those capacities, they might even approach their addition sums in "Dreadnoughts" without a tremor. Besides, as Professor James added for a final inducement, the women would value them more highly.
XVI
THE LAST OF THE RUNNYMEDES
The high debate was over, and Lord Runnymede issued from the House, proud in his melancholy, like a garrison withdrawing from a fortress with colours flying and all the honours of war. He had sent a messenger (he called him an "orderly") for his carriage. He might have telephoned, but he disliked the Board-School voice that said "Number, please!" and he still more disliked the idea of a coachman speaking down a tube (as he imagined it) into his ear. Not that he was opposed to inventions, or the advance of science as such. He recognised the necessity of progress, and had not openly reproached his own sister when she instituted a motor in place of her carriage. But for himself the two dark bays were waiting--heads erect, feet firmly planted on the solid earth. For he loved horses, and the Runnymede stables maintained the blood of King Charles's importations from Arabian chivalry. Besides, what manners, what sense, could be expected of a chauffeur, occupied with oily wheels and engines, instead of living things and corn?
Some of the small crowd standing about the gate recognised him as he came out, and one called his name and said "What ho!" For his appearance was fairly well known through political caricatures, which usually represented him in plate-armour, holding a spear, and wearing a coat-of-arms. He had once instructed his secretary to write privately to an editor pointing out that the caricaturist had committed a gross error in heraldry; but in his heart he rather enjoyed the pictures, and it was the duty of one of his maids to stick them into a scrap-book, inscribed with the proper dates, for the instruction and entertainment of his descendants. In fact, he had lately been found showing the book to a boy of three, who picked out his figure by its long nose, and said "Granpa!" with unerring decision.
But what was the good of son or grandchild now? He had nothing to hand down to them but the barren title, the old estate, and wealth safely invested in urban land and financial enterprises which his stockbroker recommended. Titles, estates, and wealth were but shadows without the vitalising breath of power. Cotton-spinners, boot-finishers, purveyors of food at popular prices could now possess such things, and they appeared to enjoy them. There were people, he believed, satisfied with comfort, amusements, rounds of visits, social ambitions, and domestic or luxurious joys. But for a Runnymede thus to decline would be worse than extinction.
For six centuries the Runnymedes had served their country. Edward I had summoned one of them to his "model Parliament," and the present lord could still spell out a word or two of the ancient writ that hung framed in the hall at Stennynge, with the royal seal attached. Two of his ancestors had died by public violence (one killed in battle, fighting for the Yorkists, who Lord Runnymede inclined to think represented the Legitimist side; the other executed under Elizabeth, apparently by mistake), and regretting there were not more, he had searched the records of the Civil Wars and the 'Forty-five in vain. But never had a Runnymede failed in Parliament, or the Council of the King, as he preferred to call it; and their name had frequently appeared among the holders of subordinate but dignified offices, such as the Mastership of the Buckhounds, to which special knowledge gave an honourable claim.
Trained from his first pony in political tradition, and encouraged by every gamekeeper to follow the footsteps of his ancestors, Lord Runnymede had inevitably taken "Noblesse oblige" as his private motto. But of what service was nobility if its obligations were abolished? He sometimes pictured with a shudder the fate of the surviving French nobility--retaining their titles by courtesy, and compelled to fritter away their lives upon châteaux, travelling, aeroplanes, or amatory intrigues, instead of directing their wisdom and influence to the right government of the State. The guillotine was better. He could not imagine his descendants without a House of Lords to sit in. Without the Lords, he was indeed the last of the Runnymedes, and upon the scaffold he might at least die worthy of his name.
Compromise he despised as the artifice of lawyers and upstart politicians. It had been a dagger in his heart to hear his leader speaking of some readjustment between the two Houses as inevitable. He denied the necessity, unless the readjustment augmented the power of the Lords. Planting himself on Edward I's statute, he had vehemently maintained the right of the Lords to control finance, though he was willing to allow the commercial gentlemen in the Commons the privilege of working out the figures of national income and expenditure. He now regarded the threatened creation of Peers as a gross insult to public decency. Properly speaking, he protested, Peers cannot be created. You might as well put terriers into kennels and call them foxhounds. Now and then a distinguished soldier or even a statesman could be ennobled without much harm; and he supposed there was something to be said for a learned man, and a writer or two, though he preferred them to be childless. He had once published a book himself, with the Runnymede arms on the cover. But the thought of making Lords by batches vulgarised the King's majesty, and reversed the order of nature. "Are we worse than Chinamen," he asked, "that we seek to confer nobility on fellows sprung from unknown forefathers?" The Archbishop of Canterbury had appealed to the House to approach the question with mutual consideration and respect, high public spirit and common sense. But on such a question consideration was dangerous, and common sense fatal. He wished the Bishops had stuck to their own Convocation from Plantagenet times, instead of intruding their inharmonious white sleeves where they were not wanted. He was sorry he had subscribed so handsomely to the restoration of Stennynge Church. He ought to have ear-marked his contribution for the Runnymede aisle.