The old Field-Marshal, wise and anxious as a great doctor, was sitting now at the bedside of the patient that was his country. His finger was on her pulse, his eye on the hourglass, the sands of which were running out; and he was listening always for the padding feet of that Visitor whose knock on the door he expected momentarily.
After South Africa he had sheathed at last the sword which had not rested in its scabbard for fifty years; and from that moment his eyes were everywhere, watching, guiding, cherishing the movement to which he had given birth.
He followed the activities and successes of Colonel Lewknor on the South Coast with a close attention of which the old Hammer-man knew nothing; and to show his appreciation of the Colonel's labours, he volunteered to come down to Beachbourne and address a meeting.
The offer was greedily accepted.
Mrs. Lewknor, who, now that the hostel was in full swing, was more free to interest herself in her husband's concerns, flung herself into the project with enthusiasm. And the Colonel went to work with tact and resolution. On one point he was determined: this should not be a Conservative demonstration, run by the Tories of Old Town and Meads. Mr. Glynde, a local squire, the member for Beachbourne West, might be trusted to behave himself. But young Stanley Bessemere, who, as the Colonel truly said, was for thrusting his toe into the crack of every door, would need watching--he and his cohorts of lady-workers.
The Committee took the Town Hall for the occasion, and arranged for the meeting to be at eight in the evening so that Labour might attend if it would.
The Colonel journeyed down to the East-end to ask Joe Burt to take an official part in the reception; but the engineer refused, to the Colonel's chagrin.
"A shall coom though," said Joe.
"And bring your mates along," urged the Colonel. "The old gentleman's worth seeing at all events. Mr. Geddes is coming."
"I was going to soop with Ernie Caspar and his missus," replied the engineer, looking a little foolish. "And we were coomin along together afterwards."
"Ah," laughed the Colonel, as he went out. "She's beat you!--I knew she would. Back the woman!"
Joe grinned in the door.
"Yes," he said. "Best get it over. That's my notion of it."
Bobs was still the most popular of Englishmen, if no longer the figure of romance he had been in the eyes of the British public for a few minutes during the South African war. His name drew; and the Town Hall was pleasantly full without being packed. Many came to see the old hero who cared little for his subject. Amongst these was Ruth Caspar who at Ernie's request for once had left her babes to the care of a friend. She stood at the back of the hall with her husband amongst her kind. Mrs. Trupp, passing, invited her to come forward; but Ruth had spied Alf at the platform end, a steward with a pink rosette, very smart, and deep in secret counsel with the Reverend Spink. Joe Burt, with critical bright eye everywhere, supported the wall next to her. The Colonel, hurrying by, threw a friendly glance at him.
"Ah," he said, "so you've found each other."
"Yes, sir," replied Ruth mischievously. "He's faced me at last, Mr. Burt has."
"And none the worse for it, I hope," said the Colonel.
"That's not for me to say, sir," answered Ruth, who was in gay mood.
Joe changed the subject awkwardly.
"A see young Bessemere's takin a prominent part in the proceedings," he said, nodding towards the platform. "He's two oughts above nothing, that young mon."
"Yes, young ass," replied the Colonel cheerfully. "Now if you'd come on the Committee as I asked you, you'd be there to keep him in his place. You play into the hands of your enemy!"
Then Bobby Chislehurst stopped for a word with Ruth and Ernie and their friend.
"Coom, Mr. Chislehurst!" chaffed the engineer. "A'm surprised to see you here. A thought you was a Pacifist."
"So I am," replied the other cheerily. "That's why I've come. I want to hear both sides."
Joe shook his bullet-head gravely.
"There's nobbut two sides in life," he said. "Right and Wrong. Which side is the Church on?"
Then the little Field-Marshal came on to the platform with the swift and resolute walk of the old Horse-gunner. He was nearly eighty now, but his figure was that of a youth, neat, slight, alert. Ruth remarked with interest that the hero was bow-legged, which she did not intend her children to be. For the rest, his kindly face of a Roman-nosed thoroughbred in training, his deep wrinkles, and close-cropped white hair, delighted her.
The great soldier proved no orator; but his earnestness more than compensated for his lack of eloquence.
After the meeting he came down into the body of the hall and held an informal reception. The Colonel introduced Mr. Geddes, and left the two together while he edged his way down to Joe Burt.
"Well, what d'you think of him?" he asked.
The engineer, his hands glued to the wall behind him, rocked to and fro.
"A like him better than his opinions," he grinned.
"You come along and have a word with him," urged the Colonel.
Joe shook a wary head.
"He's busy with Church and State," he said, nodding down the hall. "He don't need Labour."
Then Ruth chimed in almost shrilly for once.
"There's young Alf shook hands with him!"
"Always shovin of issalf!" muttered Ernie sourly. "He and Reverend Spink."
The old Field-Marshal was now coming slowly down the hall with a word here and a handshake there. Church and State, as Joe had truly said, were pressing him. Mrs. Trupp, indeed, and Mrs. Lewknor were fighting a heavy rearguard action against the Archdeacon and Stanley Bessemere and his cohorts, to cover the old soldier's retirement.
As the column drifted past Ernie and Ruth the Colonel stopped.
"An old Hammer-man, sir," he said. "And the mother of future Hammer-men."
Lord Roberts shook hands with Ruth, and turned to Ernie.
"What battalion?" he asked in his high-pitched voice.
"First, sir," answered Ernie, rigid at attention, in a voice Ruth had never heard before.
"Ah," said the old Field-Marshal. "They were with me in the march to Kandahar. Never shall I forget them!" He ran his eye shrewdly over the other. "Are you keeping fit?"
"Pretty fair, considering, sir," answered Ernie, relaxing suddenly as he had braced.
"Well, you'll be wanted soon," said Bobs, and passed on. "How these men run to seed, directly they leave the service, Lewknor!" he remarked to the Colonel on the stairs. "Now I daresay that fellow was a smart upstanding man when he was with you."
Ernie, thrilled at his adventure, went out into the cool night with Ruth, quietly amused at his excitement, beside him.
"Didn't 'alf look, Alf didn't, when he talked to you!" chuckled Ruth.
That was the main impression she had derived from the meeting, that and Lord Roberts's ears and the way they were stuck on to his head; but Ernie's mind was still in tumult.
"Where's Joe then?" he cried suddenly, and turned to see his pal still standing somewhat forlorn on the steps of the Town Hall.
He whistled and beckoned furiously.
"Come on, Joe!" he called. "Just down to the Wish and have a look at the sea."
But the engineer shook his head and turned slowly away down Grove Road.
"Nay, A know when A'm not wanted," he called. "Yoong lovers like to be alone."
"Sauce!" said Ruth, marching on with a little smile.
Ernie rejoined her.
"What d'you think of him?" he asked keenly.
"O, I liked him," said Ruth, cool and a trifle mischievous. "He's like a little bird--so alife like. And that tag of white beard to his chin like a billy-goat!--I did just want to pluck it!" She tittered and then recollected herself.
"I didn't mean Lord Roberts, fat-ead," retorted Ernie. "I meant Joe."
"O, that chap!" answered Ruth casually. "I didn't pay much heed to him. There's a lot o nature to him, I should reckon. Most in general there is--them black chaps, bull-built, wi curly tops to em."
She drifted back to Lord Roberts and the meeting.
"Only all that about war!--I don't like that. Don't seem right, not to my mind. There's a plenty enough troubles seems to me without them a-shoving great wars on top o you all for love."
Ernie felt that the occasion demanded a lecture and that he was pointed out as the man to give it. The chance, moreover, might not recur; and he must therefore make the most of it. He had this feeling less often perhaps than most men, and for that reason when he had it he had it strong. At the moment he was profoundly aware of the immense superiority of his sex; the political sagacity of Man; his power of taking statesmanlike views denied apparently to Woman.
"And what if Germany attacks us!" he asked censoriously. "Take it laying down, I suppose!--Spread yourself on the beach and let em tread on you as they land, so they don't wet their feet!"
"Germany won't interfere with you if you don't interfere with her, I reckon," Ruth answered calmly. "It's just the same as neighbours in the street. You're friends or un-friends, accordin as you like."
"What about Mrs. Ticehurst?" cried Ernie, feeling victory was his for once. "You didn't interfere with her, did you? Yet she tip the dust bin a-top o little Alice over the back-wall--to show she loved you, I suppose."
Ruth tilted a knowing chin.
"She aren't a neighbour, Mrs. Ticehurst aren't--not prarperly."
They were relapsing into broad Sussex as they always would when chaffing.
"What are she then?"
"She's a cat, sure-ly."
The night air, the thronged and brilliant sky, the rare change, the little bit of holiday, inspired and stimulated her. The Martha of much busyness had given place to the girl again. Immersed in the splendid darkness, she was in a delicious mood, cool, provocative, ironical; as Ernie had known her in that brief April of her life before Captain Royal had thrown a shadow across her path.
He threaded his arm through hers. Together they climbed the little Wish hill on the sea-front. From the top, by the old martello tower, they looked across the sea, white beneath the moon. Ernie's mood of high statesmanship had passed already.
"I don't see this Creeping Death they talk on," he said discontentedly.
"Ah," Ruth answered, sagacious in her turn. "Hap it's there though."
Ernie turned on her.
"I thart you just said..."
"No, I didn't then," she answered with magnificent unconcern. "All I say is--War and that, what's it got to do wi' we?"
As they came off the hill they met Colonel and Mrs. Lewknor crossing Madeira Walk on their way home.
"Where's your friend?" asked the Colonel.
"Gone back to his books and learning, sir, I reckon," replied Ruth. "He don't want us."
"Ah, you scared him, Mrs. Caspar," chaffed the Colonel.
"Scared him back to his revolution," commented Mrs. Lewknor.
Ruth laughed that deep silvery bell-like laughter of hers that seemed to make the night vibrate.
"He'd take some scaring, I reckon, that chap would," she said.
