CHAPTER V.

A THREE-FOLD PLEDGE.

All through the following day the deep impressions of the previous evening held Linton as one is held by the memory of some haunting and impressive dream. Everything down below seemed insignificant and irrelevant. They were dining out that evening, and he could not shake off the feeling that in everything connected with that ordinary function he was playing the part of a small automaton on a puppet stage. He and his fellow-puppet, Sir Robert, got into a little motor-car and rushed over five miles of little roads, between two little hedges, to General Hartwell's little bungalow. Presently, they were sitting round a little white-covered table, cutting up food with little implements, and taking little sips out of little glasses. How wise and important they thought themselves in the midst of all these little things; how self-satisfied everyone appeared! There were four of them at the dinner-table, the third guest being Major Edgar Wardlaw, of the Sappers, a man to whom their host showed great deference and affection. Wardlaw talked but little; the look in his eyes and the lines on his broad, fair forehead suggested concentration of thought on some problem remote from those which the others were discussing.

The General himself did most of the talking. He was a woman-hater, that is to say, a hater of woman in the abstract. To the individual woman he was gentleness and kindness itself. But rumours of a new and daring forward movement by the Vice-President of the Council and her party had roused the veteran to a pitch of extraordinary resentment. It was said that Lady Catherine contemplated forming a regiment of Amazons in the Twentieth Century! It was monstrous. The General boiled over with disgust and indignation. His language at times became absolutely lurid.

"A devilish nice pass we've come to at last," he growled. Then he seemed to be vainly ransacking his vocabulary for strong language, and gulped down his wine in default of finding an adequate objurgation. The judge laughed with gentle amusement at his fiery old friend.

"It's all very well to laugh, Herrick, but, damme, sir, it's the last straw, it's the last straw!" roared the General.

"Just what we've been wanting," said Sir Robert, calmly.

"Eh, what d'ye mean?" General Hartwell stared.

"When people get the last straw laid on, they can't stand any more. So now's the time for the worm to turn."

"You're right! By gad, you're right! But how's the worm going to manage it?" cried the old officer, leaning back.

The judge fingered the stem of his wine glass and gazed thoughtfully at the table-cloth. Major Wardlaw turned his gaze on him as if suddenly recalled from the regions of mental speculation. Linton, also self-absorbed as yet, began to listen and to wonder.

"You have strong views about women. You don't exactly love the sex," said the Judge.

"How can a man love 'em when he sees the mischief they've done by their ambitions and pertinacity?" demanded the General.

"My dear fellow, you are too sweeping. They're not all alike. There are plenty of good women left in the world."

"Show me where they are, then! I don't say they all set out to break the Ten Commandments. But it's their love of power, their restless ambitions, their confounded unreasonableness, that have played the deuce with us. They want to rule the world, sir, and they weren't meant for it, and it's not good for them, and they know it!"

They all laughed at the General's vehemence, and extending a wrinkled forefinger, he went on, with unabated powers of declamation:

"Men ought to have nipped it in the bud, that's what they ought to have done. Instead of which we gave place to their insidious aggressions. We gave 'em an inch and they took an ell. We gave 'em the whip hand, and they weren't content with it in little things. By heaven, they're chastising us with scorpions. And there'll be the devil to pay before we can put 'em back in their proper place. But, mark you, it'll have to be done, if we want to call our souls our own, it'll have to be done. Why! my blood boils when I think of the misery shrewish, self-willed women have inflicted on some of the best fellows in the world. I know cases. I've seen it done among my old friends. I knew a man, he was a retired Colonel with a splendid record. What do you think? His scold of a wife used to send him out to buy cream for the apple-tart. It's not always the wife. Sometimes it's the mother-in-law. Sometimes it's a sister. Now and then it's a daughter. I know an old school-fellow, a parson; the poor beggar has three plain sisters quartered on him; great, gaunt women who talk about 'dear Robert,' and badger dear Robert out of his life. His only happy moment is when they're all gone to bed. He'd like to marry; but he's too soft-hearted to send 'em about their business. I tell you the man's afraid. I know another fellow, too ... but there--what's the good of talking!"

Major Wardlaw was raising from his seat.

"Excuse me for two minutes, General!"

"Yes, yes, to be sure," assented his host, and when the Major had closed the door behind him, he dropped his voice and leaned across the table.

"Now there's a man! The best engineer the British army has produced for thirty years. That man, sir, designed the great fort they built at Dover to guard the Channel Tunnel. He's got a big brain and a great heart, but in one way he's shown himself a fool. What does he do but go and marry a garrison flirt, sir, a little thing with a pretty face and fluffy hair, and the tongue of a viper. The poison of asps was under her lips. I can tell you she led Wardlaw a life. Now she's dead and gone, and I do believe he's sorry! He worships the child she left him,--little Miss Flossie. She's upstairs at the present moment. Wardlaw's gone to say good-night to her. He worships the ground she walks on, and that child takes it all for granted. By heaven! she orders him about. She's got her mother's blue eyes and fluffy hair, and I'd wager she's got her temper too. By-and-by she'll lead her father a pretty dance. He wouldn't come here to stay with me--and, mind you, I'm his oldest friend,--no, he wouldn't come without Miss Flossie. Oh these women! By heaven, they raise my gorge."

"My dear Hartwell," said the Judge, calmly, "You go too far. You're prejudiced...."

"Prejudiced!" exclaimed the General, "were Thackeray and Dickens prejudiced? Look at Becky Sharpe and the way she treated that big affectionate booby, Rawdon Crawley. Look at that girl Blanche Amory, the little plotter who ran after Pendennis. And if you come to Dickens, what about Rosa Dartle,--a woman as venomous as a serpent!"

"Types, my dear fellow, types; but not a universal type."

"There's lots more like 'em," nodded the General.

"And many more unlike them. You see, we old fogeys...."

"Fogeys, by gad! Speak for yourself, Herrick."

"I do," said the Judge, "it isn't that I feel like a fogey any more than you do. It's the label that the world insists on fastening on men of our age, and it is apt to make us feel bitter. We're supposed to have had our time and finished it. It's not what we feel, Hartwell, it's what we look that settles it, and I'm afraid, my dear fellow, sometimes when our hair turns grey our tempers turn bitter. It's the way of the world...."

"It's the way of the women, I grant you."

"Come, come, let us leave the women alone for a bit. They've brought things to a crisis. It's the last straw. Well and good. Doesn't that suggest an opportunity?"

"Now, you know, you've got something in your lawyer's head. Come, man, what the deuce are you driving at?"

"We haven't drunk Renshaw's health yet," said the Judge with apparent irrelevance. They rose and raised their glasses. Linton--who had taken no part in the recent discussion--now watched his uncle expectantly. "Renshaw, God bless him! and bring him back to England!"

"By the way," said Sir Robert, casually, as they resumed their seats, "is Wardlaw with us?"

The General, who had taken his old friend's lecture in good part, nodded: "Of course he is. Isn't nearly every man, in both services? Do you suppose we want an army of Amazons armed with lethal weapons to keep in order?"

"What about the Corps of Commissionaires?"

"Being their Commander, I ought to know. Seventy per cent. of 'em, at least, are dead against petticoat government. They're good chaps, and they've seen good service. They don't like the way the country is being run any more than you or I do. You take my word for that."

The Judge mused for a moment, tipping the ash from his cigar.

"What about the old Household troops?" he asked.

"Same story. But what can we do without a leader in Parliament? and suppose, after all, poor Renshaw is dead?"

Sir Robert Herrick suddenly abandoned his careless bearing, threw away his cigar, and took from his pocket a letter written on foreign notepaper. "Listen," he said, "both of you," and lowering his voice, he read the letter, slowly and distinctly so that every word was understood. Then he twisted it into a spill and burnt it bit by bit. They sat for a few moments in silence.

Then from the General, whose fierce little eyes seemed starting from his head under the bristling white eyebrows, there came a sort of gasping exclamation: "God bless my soul! Why not?" Then, after a pause, dropping into the familiar style of their early days: "You know, Bob, there's risk in it. I'm with you to the last. I'm with you; but there's risk in it, we must remember that."

"Yes, there's risk in it," answered Sir Robert, gravely. "We must count the cost. But the risk and the cost are not half what they were in other days, when men were ready to die for their country and their cause. If Tower Hill could talk it could tell many a tale of men who were faithful unto death. If the block could unfold its secrets; if the red axe could speak, there'd be some stern lessons for modern men to ponder on. Did you ever read how Balmerino faced the headsman after Culloden? Come what may, we shouldn't have to face the axe, Hartwell."

"Hanging would be no improvement," growled the General. "Still, mind this, I'm with you heart and soul, if we can work it out."

"I don't think we should have to face the hangman either," said the Judge quietly. "We might, perhaps, have to spend the evening of our days behind prison bars. Even that is doubtful. Nothing succeeds like success. What's treason under one rule becomes loyalty under another. History has illustrated that over and over again?"

"What age would Renshaw be by this time?"

"Why, not forty, even after ten years' captivity. He is the only man who can bring back the ancient glory and prestige of the Kingdom. Once in our midst, the people will rally round him with enthusiastic loyalty. If well organised, it will be a bloodless revolution, Hartwell, a glorious and thankful reversion to the old system of man's government for man and woman. It is best suited to the British nation. We've tried something else and it's proved a failure."

"A d----d failure," agreed the General, heartily.

"We've given way to cranks and noisy, shrill-voiced women; to vapouring politicians; to socialism and all the other isms. We had a notion that we could ante-date the millennium and work the scheme of national life according to ideas of equality and uniformity. It can't be done. Experience proves that anomalies work well when logical systems fail. It's a conceited age, a puffed up generation. We are not really wiser than our fathers, though we think we are. Let us try to revert to first principles."

"I'm your man, heart and soul," said General Hartwell, and the two old friends grasped hands across the table.

"I knew you would be!" There was a shine as of tears in the Judge's eyes. "But you and I can't work this thing alone. We must have colleagues; not many, but some, or at least one," and he looked at Linton Herrick.

"I'm with you too, sir," said the young man simply, "show me the way, that's all."

"We three alone at present, with loyal hearts and silent tongues," said Sir Robert, gravely.

"The Three Musketeers!" ventured Linton.

"By Jove, yes," agreed the old officer.

"And we undertake everything that serves the State," added Sir Robert, solemnly. They rose by mutual understanding and clinked their glasses.

"All for one! and one for all!" they cried with one accord.

And Major Wardlaw, opening the door at that moment, stared amazed.