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002 - The Improbable Success of Mr Owen Hood · Tales of the Long Bow

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Speaker 1: Chapter two of Tales of the Longbow by G. K. Chesterton.
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Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
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Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
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Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. Chapter two, The Improbable success of
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Speaker 1: Mister owen Hood. Heroes who have endured the heavy labor
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Speaker 1: of reading to the end the story of the unpresentable
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Speaker 1: appearance of Colonel Crane are aware that his achievement was
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Speaker 1: the first of a series of events counted impossible, like
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Speaker 1: the quests of the Arthurian Knights. For the purpose of
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Speaker 1: this tale, in which the Colonel is but a secondary figure,
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Speaker 1: it is enough to say that he was long known
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Speaker 1: and respected before his last escapade, as a respectable and
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Speaker 1: retired military man in a residential part of Surrey, with
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Speaker 1: a sunburned complexion and an interest in savage mythology. As
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Speaker 1: a fact, however, he had gathered the sunburn and the
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Speaker 1: savage myths some time before he had managed to collect
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Speaker 1: the respectability and the bourbon mitz. In his early youth,
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Speaker 1: he had been a traveler of the adventurous and even
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Speaker 1: restless sort, and he only concerns this story because he
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Speaker 1: was a member of a sort of club or clique
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Speaker 1: of young men whose adventurousness verged on extravagance. They were
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Speaker 1: all eccentrics of one kind or another, some professing extreme
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Speaker 1: revolutionary and some extreme reactionary opinions, and some both. Among
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Speaker 1: the latter may be classed mister Robert owen Hood, the
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Speaker 1: somewhat unlegal lawyer who is the hero of this tale.
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Speaker 1: Robert owen Hood was Crane's most intimate and incongruous friend.
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Speaker 1: Hood was from the first as sedentary as Crane was adventurous.
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Speaker 1: Hood was, to the end as casual as Crane was. Conventional.
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Speaker 1: The prefix of Robert owen Hood was a relic of
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Speaker 1: a vague revolutionary tradition in his family, but he inherited
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Speaker 1: along with it a little money that allowed him to
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Speaker 1: neglect the law and to cultivate a taste for liberty
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Speaker 1: and for drifting and dreaming in lost corners of the country,
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Speaker 1: especially in the little hills between the Severn and the Thames.
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Speaker 1: In the upper reaches of the latter river is an
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Speaker 1: islet on which he especially loved to sit fishing. A
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Speaker 1: shabby but not commonplace figure clad in gray with a
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Speaker 1: mane of rust colored hair and a long face with
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Speaker 1: a large chin, rather like Napoleon beside him on the occasion.
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Speaker 1: Now in question stood the striking contrast of his alert
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Speaker 1: military friend in full traveling kit, being on the point
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Speaker 1: of starting for one of his odysses in the south
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Speaker 1: seas well, demanded the impatient traveler, in a tone of remonstrance.
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Speaker 1: Have you caught anything you once asked me? Replied the
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Speaker 1: angler placidly, what I meant by calling you a materialist?
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Speaker 1: That is what I meant by calling you a materialist.
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Speaker 1: If one must be a materialist or a madman, snorted
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Speaker 1: the soldier, give me materialism. On the contrary, replied his friend,
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Speaker 1: You're fat is far matter than mine, and I doubt
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Speaker 1: if it's any more fruitful the moment. Men like you
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Speaker 1: see a man sitting by a river with a rod,
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Speaker 1: they're insanely impelled to ask what he's caught. But when
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Speaker 1: you go off to shoot big game, as you call it,
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Speaker 1: nobody asks you what you've caught. Nobody expects you to
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Speaker 1: bring home a hippopotamus for supper. Nobody has ever seen
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Speaker 1: you walking up pall mall, followed respectfully by a captive giraffe.
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Speaker 1: Your bag of elephants, though enormous, seems singularly unobtrusive, left
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Speaker 1: in the cloak room. No doubt. Personally, I doubt if
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Speaker 1: you ever catch anything. It's all decorously hidden in desert,
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Speaker 1: sand and doubt and distance. But what I catch is
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Speaker 1: something far more elusive and as slippery as any fish.
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Speaker 1: It is the soul of England. I should think you'd
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Speaker 1: catch a cold, if not a fish, answered Crane. Sitting
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Speaker 1: dangling your feet in a pool like that, I'd like
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Speaker 1: to move about a little more. Dreaming is all very
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Speaker 1: well in its way. At this point a symbolic cloud
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Speaker 1: ought to have come across the sun, and a certain
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Speaker 1: mystery of shadow and silence must rest for a moment
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Speaker 1: upon the narrative. For it was at this moment that
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Speaker 1: James Crane, being blind with inspiration, uttered his celebrated prophecy,
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Speaker 1: upon which this improbable narrative turns. As was commonly the
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Speaker 1: case with men uttering o he was utterly unconscious of
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Speaker 1: anything ominous about what he said. A moment after, he
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Speaker 1: probably would not know that he had said it. A
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Speaker 1: moment after it was as if a cloud of strange
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Speaker 1: shape had indeed passed from the face of the sun.
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Speaker 1: The prophecy has taken the form of a proverb. In
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Speaker 1: due time, the patient, all suffering reader may learn what
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Speaker 1: proverb as it happened. Indeed, that the conversation had largely
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Speaker 1: consisted of proverbs, as is often the case with men
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Speaker 1: like Hood, whose hearts are with that old English country
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Speaker 1: life from which all the proverbs came. But it was
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Speaker 1: Crane who said, it's all very well to be fond
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Speaker 1: of England, but a man who wants to help England
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Speaker 1: mustn't let the grass grow under his feet. And that's
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Speaker 1: just what I want to do, answered Hood. That's exactly
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Speaker 1: what even your poor, tired people in big towns really
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Speaker 1: want to do. When a wretched clerk walks down Threadneedle Street,
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Speaker 1: wouldn't he really be delighted if he could look down
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Speaker 1: and see the grass growing under his feet, a magic
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Speaker 1: green carpet in the middle of the pavement. It would
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Speaker 1: be like a fairy tale. Well, but he wouldn't sit
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Speaker 1: like a stone as you do, replied the other. A
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Speaker 1: man might let the grass grow under his feet without
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Speaker 1: actually letting the ivy grow up his legs. That sounds
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Speaker 1: like a fairy tale too, if you like. But there's
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Speaker 1: no proverb to recommend it. Oh, there are proverbs on
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Speaker 1: my side if you come to that, answered Hood, laughing,
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Speaker 1: I might remind you about the rolling stone that gathers
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Speaker 1: no moss. Well, who wants to gather moss except a
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Speaker 1: few fussy old ladies, demanded Crane. Yes, I'm a rolling stone,
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Speaker 1: I suppose, and I go rolling round the earth as
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Speaker 1: the earth goes rolling round the sun. But I'll tell
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Speaker 1: you what. There's only one kind of stone that does
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Speaker 1: really gather moss. And what is that, my rambling geologist,
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Speaker 1: A gravestone, said Krane. There was a silence, and Hood
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Speaker 1: sat gazing with his owlish face at the dim pools
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Speaker 1: in which the dark woods were mirrored. At last, he said,
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Speaker 1: moss isn't the only thing found on that Sometimes there
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Speaker 1: is the word resurge em Well, I hope you will,
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Speaker 1: said Crane genially, But the trumpet will have to be
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Speaker 1: pretty loud to wake you up. It's my opinion, too
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Speaker 1: late for the day of judgment. Now, if this were
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Speaker 1: a true dramatic dialog, remarked Hood, I should answer that
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Speaker 1: it would be better for you if you were. But
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Speaker 1: it hardly seems a Christian sentiment for a parting. Are
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Speaker 1: you really off to day? Yes, off tonight, replied his friend.
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Speaker 1: Sure you won't come with me to the Cannibal islands.
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Speaker 1: I prefer my own island, said mister owen Hood. When
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Speaker 1: his friend had gone, he continued to gaze abstractedly at
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Speaker 1: the tranquil topsy turvy them in the green mirror of
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Speaker 1: the pool. Nor did he change his posture, and hardly
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Speaker 1: moved his head. This might be partly explained by the
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Speaker 1: still habits of a fisherman, But to tell the truth,
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Speaker 1: it was not easy to discover whether the solitary lawyer
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Speaker 1: really wanted to catch any fish. He would often carry
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Speaker 1: a volume of Isaac Walton in his pocket, having a
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Speaker 1: love of the Old English literature as of the old
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Speaker 1: English landscape. But if he was an angler, he certainly
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Speaker 1: was not a very complete angler. But the truth is
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Speaker 1: that owen Hood had not been quite candid with his
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Speaker 1: friend about the spell that held him to that particular
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Speaker 1: eyelid in the Upper Thames. If he had said as
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Speaker 1: he was quite capable of saying that he expected to
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Speaker 1: catch the miraculous draft of fishes, or the whale that
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Speaker 1: swallowed Jonah, or even the great Sea serpent. His expressions
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Speaker 1: would have been merely symbolical, but they would have been
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Speaker 1: the symbol of something as unique and unattainable. For mister
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Speaker 1: Owenhood was really fishing for something that very few fishermen
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Speaker 1: ever catch, and that was a dream of his boyhood,
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Speaker 1: for something had happened on that lonely spot long ago,
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Speaker 1: years before, when he was a very young man. He
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Speaker 1: had sat fishing on that island one evening as the
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Speaker 1: twilight bands turned to dark, and two or three broad
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Speaker 1: bands of silver were all that was left of the
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Speaker 1: sunset behind the darkening trees. The birds were dropping out
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Speaker 1: of the sky, and there was no noise except the
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Speaker 1: soft noises of the river. Suddenly, and without a sound,
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Speaker 1: as comes a veritable vision, a girl had come out
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Speaker 1: of the woods opposite. She spoke to him across the stream,
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Speaker 1: asking him he hardly knew what, which she answered he
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Speaker 1: hardly knew how. She was dressed in white and carried
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Speaker 1: a bunch of bluebells loose in her hand. Her hair
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Speaker 1: in a straight fringe of gold was on her forehead.
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Speaker 1: She was pale like ivory, and her pale eyelids had
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Speaker 1: a sort of flutter as of nervous emotion. There came
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Speaker 1: on him a strangling sense of stupidity. But he must
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Speaker 1: have managed to speak civilly, for she lingered, and he
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Speaker 1: must have said something to amuse her, for she laughed.
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Speaker 1: Then followed the incident he could never analyze. Though he
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Speaker 1: was an introspective person. Making a gesture towards something, she
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Speaker 1: managed to drop her loose blue flowers in the water.
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Speaker 1: He knew not what sort of whirlwind was in his head,
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Speaker 1: but it seemed to him that prodigious things were happening,
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Speaker 1: as in an epoch of the gods, of which all
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Speaker 1: visible things were but the small signs. Before he knew
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Speaker 1: where he was, he was standing dripping on the other bank,
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Speaker 1: for he had splashed in somehow and saved the bunch
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Speaker 1: as if it had been a baby drowning. Of all
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Speaker 1: the things she said, he could recall one sentence that
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Speaker 1: repeated itself perpetually in his mind. You'll catch your death
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Speaker 1: of cold. He only caught the cold and not the death.
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Speaker 1: Yet even the notion of the latter did not somehow
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Speaker 1: seem disproportionate. The doctor to whom he was forced to
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Speaker 1: give some sort of explanation of his immersion was much
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Speaker 1: interested in the story, or what he heard of it,
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Speaker 1: having a pleasure in working out the pedigrees of the
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Speaker 1: county families and the relationships of the best houses in
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Speaker 1: the neighborhood. By some rich process of elimination, he deduced
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Speaker 1: that the lady must be Miss Elizabeth Seymour, from Marley Court.
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Speaker 1: The doctor spoke with a respectful relish of such things.
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Speaker 1: He was a rising young practitioner named Hunter, afterwards, a
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Speaker 1: neighbor of Colonel Crane. He shared Hood's admiration for the
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Speaker 1: local landscape, and said it was owing to the beautiful
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Speaker 1: way in which Marley Court was kept up. It's landowners
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Speaker 1: like that, he said, who have made England. It's all
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Speaker 1: very well for radicals to talk, but where should we
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Speaker 1: be without the landowners. Oh I'm all for landowners, said
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Speaker 1: Hood rather wearily. I like him so much. I should
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Speaker 1: like more of them, more and more landowners, hundreds and
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Speaker 1: thousands of them. It is doubtful whether doctor Hunter quite
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Speaker 1: followed his enthusiasm or even his meaning. But Hood had
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Speaker 1: reason later to remember this little conversation, so far as
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Speaker 1: he was in a mood to remember any conversations except one. Anyhow,
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Speaker 1: Brevaane to disguise from the intelligent though exhausted reader, that
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Speaker 1: this was probably the true origin of mister Hood's habit
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Speaker 1: of sitting solidly on that island and gazing abstractedly at
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Speaker 1: that bank. All through the years when he felt his
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Speaker 1: first youth was passing, and even when he seemed to
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Speaker 1: be drifting towards middle age, he haunted that valley like
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Speaker 1: a ghost, waiting for something that never came again. It
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Speaker 1: is by no means certain, in the last and most
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Speaker 1: subtle analysis, that he even expected it to come again.
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Speaker 1: Somehow it seemed too like a miracle, for that only
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Speaker 1: this place had become the shrine of the miracle, and
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Speaker 1: he felt that if anything ever did happen there, he
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Speaker 1: must be there to see. And so it came about
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Speaker 1: that he was there to see when things did happen,
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Speaker 1: and rather queer things had happened before the end. One
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Speaker 1: morning he saw an extraordinary thing that indeed would not
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Speaker 1: have seemed extraordinary to most people, but it was quite
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Speaker 1: apocalyptic to him. A dusty man came out of the
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Speaker 1: woods carrying what looked like dusty pieces of timber, and
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Speaker 1: proceeded to erect on the bank what turned out to
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Speaker 1: be a sort of hoarding a very large wooden notice
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Speaker 1: board on which was written in enormous letters to be sold,
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Speaker 1: with remarks in smaller letters about the land and the
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Speaker 1: name of the land agents. For the first time for years,
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Speaker 1: owen Hood stood up in his place and left his
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Speaker 1: fishing and shouted questions across the river. The man answered
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Speaker 1: with the greatest patience and good humor, but it's probable
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Speaker 1: that he went away convinced that he had been talking
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Speaker 1: to a wandering lunatic. That was the beginning of what
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Speaker 1: was for owen Hood a crawling nightmare. The change advanced
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Speaker 1: slowly by a process covering years, but it seemed to
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Speaker 1: him that he was helpless and paralyzed in its presence,
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Speaker 1: precisely as a man is paralyzed in an actual nightmare.
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Speaker 1: He laughed with an almost horrible laughter, to think that
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Speaker 1: a man in a modern society is supposed to be
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Speaker 1: master of his fate and free to pursue his pleasures,
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Speaker 1: when he had not power to prevent the daylight he
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Speaker 1: looks on from being darkened, or the air he breathes
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Speaker 1: from being turned to poison, or the silence that is
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Speaker 1: his full possession from being shaken with the cacophony at hell.
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Speaker 1: There was something, he thought grimly, in doctor Hunter's simple
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Speaker 1: admiration for agricultural aristocracy, there was something in quite primitive
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Speaker 1: and even barbarous aristocracy. Feudal lords went in fit fory
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Speaker 1: for fights and forays. They put collars round the necks
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Speaker 1: of some serfs. They occasionally put halters round the next
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Speaker 1: of a few of them, but they did not wage
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Speaker 1: war day and night against the five senses of man.
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Speaker 1: There had appeared, first on the river bank small sheds
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Speaker 1: and shanties for workmen, who seemed to be rather lengthily
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Speaker 1: occupied in putting up larger sheds and shanties to the
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Speaker 1: very last when the factory was finished. It was not
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Speaker 1: easy for the traditional eye to distinguish between what was
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Speaker 1: temporary and what was permanent. It did not look as
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Speaker 1: if any of it could be permanent, if there were
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Speaker 1: anything natural in the natured of things, so to speak.
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Speaker 1: But whatever was the name and nature of that amorphous thing,
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Speaker 1: it swelled and increased and even multiplied without clear division,
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Speaker 1: until there stood on the river bank a great black
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Speaker 1: patchwork block of buildings terminating in a tall brick factory chimney,
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Speaker 1: from which a stream of smoke mounted into the silent sky.
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Speaker 1: A heap of some sort of debris, rapt iron and
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Speaker 1: similar things lay in the foreground, and a broken bar
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Speaker 1: run with rust, had fallen on the spot where the
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Speaker 1: girl had been standing when she brought bluebells out of
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Speaker 1: the wood. He did not leave his island. Rural and
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Speaker 1: romantic and sedentary as he may have seemed, he was
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Speaker 1: not the son of an old revolutionist for nothing. It
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Speaker 1: was not altogether in vain that his father had called
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Speaker 1: him Robert Owen, or that his friends had sometimes called
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Speaker 1: him Robin Hood. Sometimes, indeed, his soul sank within him
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Speaker 1: with a mortal sickness that was near suicide. But more
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Speaker 1: often he marched up and down in a militant fashion,
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Speaker 1: being delighted to see the tall wild flowers waving on
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Speaker 1: the banks like flags within a stone's throw of all
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Speaker 1: he hated, and muttering, throw out the banners on the
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Speaker 1: outward wall. He had, already, when the estate of Marley
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Speaker 1: Court was broken up for building, taken some steps to
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Speaker 1: establish himself on the island. He had built a sort
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Speaker 1: of hut bear in which it was possible to picnic
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Speaker 1: for considerable periods. One morning, when dawn was still radiant
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Speaker 1: behind the dark factory, and light lay in a satin
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Speaker 1: sheen upon the water. There crept out upon that satin
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Speaker 1: something like a thickening thread of a different color and material.
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Speaker 1: It was a thin ribbon of some liquid that did
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Speaker 1: not mingle with the water, but lay on top of it,
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Speaker 1: wavering like a worm, and Owen Hood watched it as
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Speaker 1: a man watches a snake. It looked like a snake,
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Speaker 1: having opalescent colors, not without intrinsic beauty. But to him
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Speaker 1: it was a very symbolic snake, like a serpent that
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Speaker 1: destroyed Eden. A few days afterward there were a score
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Speaker 1: of snakes covering the surface, little crawling rivers that moved
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Speaker 1: on the river but did not mix with it, being
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Speaker 1: as alien as witches oils. Later there came darker liquids
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Speaker 1: with no pretensions to beauty, black and brown flakes of
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Speaker 1: grease that floated heavily. It was highly characteristic of Hood
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Speaker 1: that to the last he was rather hazy about the
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Speaker 1: nature and purpose of the factory, and therefore about the
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Speaker 1: ingredients of a chemicals that were flowing into the river,
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Speaker 1: beyond the fact that they were mostly of the oily
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Speaker 1: sort and floated on the water in flakes and lumps,
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Speaker 1: and that something resembling petrol seemed to predominate, used perhaps
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Speaker 1: rather for power than raw material. He had heard a
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Speaker 1: rustic rumor that the enterprise was devoted to hair dye.
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Speaker 1: It smelled rather like a soap factory, so far as
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Speaker 1: he ever understood it. He gathered that it was devoted
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Speaker 1: to what might be considered as a golden mean between
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Speaker 1: hair dye and soap, some kind of new and highly
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Speaker 1: hygienic cosmetics. There had been a yet more feverish fashion
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Speaker 1: in these things since Professor Haik had written his book
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Speaker 1: proving that cosmetics were, of all things the most hygienic.
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Speaker 1: And who had seen many of the meadows of his childhood,
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Speaker 1: now brightened and adorned by large notices inscribed why Grow Old?
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Speaker 1: With a portrait of a young woman grinning in a
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Speaker 1: regrettable manner. The appropriate name on the notices was Bliss,
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Speaker 1: and he gathered that it all had something to do
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Speaker 1: with the Great Factory. Resolved to know a little bit
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Speaker 1: more than this about the matter, He began to make
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Speaker 1: inquiries and complaints, and engaged in a correspondence which ended
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Speaker 1: in an actual interview with some of the principal persons involved.
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Speaker 1: The correspondence had gone on for a long time before
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Speaker 1: it came anywhere near to anything so natural as that. Indeed,
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Speaker 1: the correspondence for a long time was entirely on his side,
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Speaker 1: for the big businesses are quite as unbusinesslike as the
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Speaker 1: government departments. They're no better inefficiency and much worse in manners.
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Speaker 1: But he obtained his interview at last, and it was
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Speaker 1: with a sense of sour amusement that he came face
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Speaker 1: to face with four people whom he wanted to meet.
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Speaker 1: One was Sir Samuel Bliss, for he had not yet
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Speaker 1: performed those party services which led to his being known
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Speaker 1: to us all as Lord Norman Towers. He was a small,
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Speaker 1: alert man, like a ferret, with bristles of gray beard
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Speaker 1: and hair, and active or even agitated movements. The second
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Speaker 1: was his manager, mister Lowe, a stout dark man with
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Speaker 1: a thick nose and thick rings, who eyed strangers with
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Speaker 1: a curious, heavy expression, like a congested sense of injury.
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Speaker 1: It is believed that he expected to be persecuted. The
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Speaker 1: third man was somewhat of a surprise, for he was
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Speaker 1: no other than his old friend doctor Hordce Hunter, as
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Speaker 1: healthy and hearty as ever, but even better dressed, as
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Speaker 1: he now had a great official appointment as some kind
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Speaker 1: of medical inspector of the sanitary conditions of the district.
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Speaker 1: But the fourth man was the greatest surprise of all,
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Speaker 1: for it appeared that their conference was honored by so
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Speaker 1: great a figure in the scientific world as Professor Haik himself,
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Speaker 1: who had revolutionized the modern mind with his new discoveries
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Speaker 1: about the complexion in relation to health. When Hood realized
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Speaker 1: who he was, a light of somewhat sinister understanding dawned
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Speaker 1: on his long face. On this occasion, the professor advanced
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Speaker 1: an even more interesting theory. He was a big blonde
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Speaker 1: man with blinking eyes and a bull neck, and doubtless
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Speaker 1: there was more in him than met the eye. As
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Speaker 1: is the way with great men, he spoke last, and
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Speaker 1: his theory was expounded with a certain air of finality.
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Speaker 1: The manager had already stated that it was quite impossible
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Speaker 1: for large quantities of petrol to have escaped, as only
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Speaker 1: a given amount was used in the factory. Sir Samuel
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Speaker 1: had explained, in what seemed an irascible and even irrelevant manner,
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Speaker 1: that he had presented several parks to the public and
17:53
Speaker 1: had the dormitories of his Workpeople decorated him a siplest
17:56
Speaker 1: and best taste, and nobody could accuse him of vandalism
17:59
Speaker 1: or not caring for beauty and all that. Then it
18:02
Speaker 1: was that Professor Haik explained the theory of the protective screen.
18:05
Speaker 1: Even if it were possible, he said, for some thin
18:08
Speaker 1: film of petrol to appear on the water, as it
18:11
Speaker 1: would not mix with the water, the latter would actually
18:13
Speaker 1: be kept in a clearer condition. It would act, as
18:16
Speaker 1: it were, as a cap, as does the gelatinous cap
18:19
Speaker 1: upon certain preserved foods. That is a very interesting view,
18:23
Speaker 1: observed Hood. I suppose you will write another book about that.
18:26
Speaker 1: I think we are all the more privileged, remarked Bliss,
18:29
Speaker 1: in hearing of the discovery in this personal fashion, before
18:32
Speaker 1: our expert has laid it before the public. Yes, said Hood.
18:36
Speaker 1: Your expert is very expert, isn't he in writing books?
18:40
Speaker 1: Sir Samuel Bliss stiffened in all his bristles. I trust,
18:44
Speaker 1: he said, you are not implying any doubt that our
18:47
Speaker 1: expert is an expert. I have no doubt of your expert,
18:50
Speaker 1: answered Hood, gravely. I do not doubt either that he
18:53
Speaker 1: is expert or that he is yours, really, gentlemen, cried Bliss,
18:57
Speaker 1: in a sort of radiance of protest I I think
19:00
Speaker 1: such an insinuation about a man in Professor Haik's position
19:03
Speaker 1: not at all, Not at all, said Hood soothingly. I'm
19:07
Speaker 1: sure it's a most comfortable position. The professor blinked at him,
19:10
Speaker 1: But a light burned in the eyeballs, under the heavy eyelids.
19:14
Speaker 1: If you come here talking like that, he began, when
19:17
Speaker 1: Hood cut off his speech by speaking across him to
19:20
Speaker 1: somebody else with a cheerful rudeness that was like a
19:22
Speaker 1: kick in its contempt. And what do you say, my
19:25
Speaker 1: dear doctor, he observed a dressing hunter. You used to
19:29
Speaker 1: be almost as romantic as myself about the amenities of
19:32
Speaker 1: this place. Do you remember how much you admired the
19:34
Speaker 1: landlords for keeping a place quiet, and select how you
19:37
Speaker 1: said the old family has preserved the beauty of old England.
19:41
Speaker 1: There was a silence, and then the young doctor spoke, well,
19:45
Speaker 1: it doesn't follow a fellow can't believe in progress. That's
19:48
Speaker 1: what's the matter with you, Hood. You don't believe in progress.
19:51
Speaker 1: We must move with the times, and somebody always has
19:53
Speaker 1: to suffer. Besides, it doesn't matter so much about the
19:56
Speaker 1: river water nowadays. It doesn't even matter so much about
19:59
Speaker 1: the main water supply. When the new bill is passed,
20:02
Speaker 1: people will be obliged to use the Bolton filter in
20:05
Speaker 1: any case, I see, said Hood reflectively. You first make
20:10
Speaker 1: a mess of the water for money, and then make
20:12
Speaker 1: a virtue of forcing people to clean it themselves. I
20:15
Speaker 1: don't know what you're talking about, said Hunter angrily. Well,
20:18
Speaker 1: I was thinking at the moment, said Hood, in his
20:21
Speaker 1: rather cryptic way. I was thinking about mister Bolton, the
20:24
Speaker 1: man who owns the filters. I was wondering whether he
20:26
Speaker 1: might join us. We seem such a happy family party.
20:30
Speaker 1: I cannot see the use of prolonging this preposterous conversation,
20:34
Speaker 1: said Sir Samuel. Don't call the poor professor's theory preposterous,
20:38
Speaker 1: remonstrated Hood. A little fanciful perhaps, And as for the
20:41
Speaker 1: doctor's view, surely there's nothing preposterous in that. You don't
20:44
Speaker 1: think the chemicals will poison all the fish I catch,
20:47
Speaker 1: do you, Doctor, No, of course not, replied Hunter. Curtly.
20:51
Speaker 1: They will adapt themselves by natural selection, said Hood dreamily.
20:55
Speaker 1: They will develop organs suitable to an oily environment. We'll
20:59
Speaker 1: learn to love petrol. Oh, I have no time for
21:02
Speaker 1: this nonsense, said Hunter, and he was turning to go
21:05
Speaker 1: when Hood stepped in front of him and looked at
21:07
Speaker 1: him very steadily. You mustn't call natural selection nonsense, he said,
21:11
Speaker 1: I know all about that. At any rate, I can't
21:13
Speaker 1: tell whether liquid's tipped off the shore will fall into
21:16
Speaker 1: the water because I don't understand hydraulics. I don't know
21:19
Speaker 1: whether your machinery makes a hell of a noise every morning,
21:21
Speaker 1: for I've never studied acoustics. I don't know whether it
21:24
Speaker 1: stinks or not, because I haven't read your experts book
21:26
Speaker 1: on the nose. But I know all about adaptation to environment.
21:30
Speaker 1: I know that some of the lower organisms do really
21:33
Speaker 1: change with their changing conditions. I know there are creatures
21:36
Speaker 1: so low that they do survive by surrendering to every
21:38
Speaker 1: succession of mud and slime. And when things are slow,
21:41
Speaker 1: they are slow, and when things are fast, they are fast,
21:44
Speaker 1: And when things are filthy, they are filthy. I thank
21:47
Speaker 1: you for convincing me of that. He did not wait
21:51
Speaker 1: for a reply, but walked out of the Great Room
21:53
Speaker 1: after bowing curtly to the rest, and that was the
21:55
Speaker 1: end of the Great Conference on the Question of Riparian writes,
21:58
Speaker 1: and perhaps the end of ten Conservancy and of the
22:01
Speaker 1: old aristocracy, with all its good and ill. The general
22:05
Speaker 1: public never heard very much about it, at least until
22:08
Speaker 1: one catastrophic scene which was to follow. There was some
22:11
Speaker 1: faint ripple of the question some months later, when doctor
22:14
Speaker 1: Horace Hunter was standing for Parliament in that division. One
22:17
Speaker 1: or two questions were asked about his duties in relation
22:19
Speaker 1: to river pollution, but it was soon apparent that no
22:22
Speaker 1: party particularly wished to force the issue against the best
22:25
Speaker 1: opinions advanced. On the other side. The greatest living authority
22:28
Speaker 1: on hygiene, Professor Hayke, had actually written to the Times
22:32
Speaker 1: in the Interests of Science to say that in such
22:34
Speaker 1: a hypothetical case as that mentioned, a medical man could
22:37
Speaker 1: only do what doctor Hunter had apparently done. It so
22:40
Speaker 1: happened that the chief captain of industry in that part
22:43
Speaker 1: of the Thames Valley, Sir Samuel Bliss, had himself, after
22:46
Speaker 1: gravely weighing the rival policies, decided to vote for Hunter.
22:51
Speaker 1: The great organizer's own mind was detached and philosophical in
22:54
Speaker 1: the manner. But it seemed that his manager, a mister Lowe,
22:57
Speaker 1: was of the same politics and a more practical, nay
23:00
Speaker 1: pushful spirit, warmly urging the claims of hunter on his workpeople,
23:04
Speaker 1: pointing out the many practical advantages they would gain by
23:06
Speaker 1: voting for that physician, and the still more practical disadvantages
23:10
Speaker 1: they might suffer by not doing so. Hence it followed
23:13
Speaker 1: that the blue ribbons, which were the local badges of
23:16
Speaker 1: the Hunterians, were not only to be found attached to
23:18
Speaker 1: the iron railings and wooden posts of the factory, but
23:21
Speaker 1: to various human figures known as hands, which moved to
23:25
Speaker 1: and fro in it. Hood took no interest in the election,
23:29
Speaker 1: but while it was proceeding he followed the matter a
23:31
Speaker 1: little further in another form. He was a lawyer, a lazy,
23:34
Speaker 1: but in some ways a learned one, for his tastes
23:37
Speaker 1: being studious. He had originally learned the trade he had
23:40
Speaker 1: never used more in defiance than in hope. He once
23:43
Speaker 1: carried the matter into the courts, pleading his own case
23:46
Speaker 1: on the basis of a law of Henry the third
23:48
Speaker 1: against frightening the fish of the King's liege subjects in
23:51
Speaker 1: the Thames Valley. The judge, in giving judgment, complimented him
23:55
Speaker 1: on the ability and plausibility of his contention, but ultimately
23:59
Speaker 1: rejected it on great uns equally historic and remote. His
24:02
Speaker 1: lordship argued that no tests seemed to be provided for
24:05
Speaker 1: ascertaining the degree of fear in the fish, or whether
24:08
Speaker 1: it amounted to that bodily fear of which the law
24:11
Speaker 1: took cognizance. But the learned Judge pointed out the precedent
24:14
Speaker 1: of a law of Richard the Second against certain witches
24:17
Speaker 1: who had frightened children, which had been interpreted by so
24:20
Speaker 1: great an authority as coch in the sense that the
24:22
Speaker 1: child must return and of his own free will testify
24:27
Speaker 1: to his fear. It did not seem to be alleged
24:30
Speaker 1: that any one of the fish in question had returned
24:32
Speaker 1: and laid any such testimony before any proper authority. And
24:35
Speaker 1: he therefore gave judgment for the defendants. And when the
24:39
Speaker 1: learned Judge happened to meet Lord Norman Towers, as he
24:42
Speaker 1: was by this time out at dinner that evening, he
24:44
Speaker 1: was gaily rallied and congratulated by that new nobleman on
24:48
Speaker 1: the lucidity and finality of his judgment. Indeed, the learned
24:51
Speaker 1: judge had really relished the logic of both his own
24:54
Speaker 1: and Hood's contention. But the conclusion was what he would
24:57
Speaker 1: have come to in any case. For our judges are
24:59
Speaker 1: not hamp by any hide bound code. They are progressive,
25:03
Speaker 1: like doctor Hunter, and ally themselves on principle with the
25:06
Speaker 1: progressive forces of the age, especially those they elected to
25:09
Speaker 1: meet out at dinner. But it was this abortive law
25:12
Speaker 1: case that led up to something that altogether obliterated it
25:15
Speaker 1: in a blaze of glory. So far as mister owen
25:17
Speaker 1: Hood was concerned, he had just left the courts, and
25:20
Speaker 1: turning down the streets that led in the direction of
25:22
Speaker 1: the station. He made his way thither in something of
25:24
Speaker 1: a brown study, as was his wont The streets were
25:27
Speaker 1: filled with faces. It struck him for the first time
25:30
Speaker 1: that there were thousands and thousands of people in the world.
25:33
Speaker 1: There were more faces at the railway station. And then
25:36
Speaker 1: when he had glanced idly at four or five of them,
25:39
Speaker 1: he saw one that was to him as incredible as
25:41
Speaker 1: the face of the dead. She was coming casually out
25:44
Speaker 1: of the tea room carrying a handbag, just like anybody
25:47
Speaker 1: else that mystical perversity of his mind, which had insisted
25:50
Speaker 1: on sealing up the sacred memory like something hardly to
25:53
Speaker 1: be sought in mere curiosity, had fixed it in its
25:56
Speaker 1: original colors and setting, like something of which no detail
25:59
Speaker 1: could be changed without the vision dissolving. He would have
26:02
Speaker 1: conceived it almost impossible that she could appear in anything
26:05
Speaker 1: but white, or out of anything but a wood And
26:08
Speaker 1: he found himself turned topsy turvy by an old and
26:10
Speaker 1: common incredulity of men in his condition, being startled by
26:14
Speaker 1: the coincidence that blue suited her as well as white.
26:17
Speaker 1: And then in what he remembered of that woodland, there
26:19
Speaker 1: was something else, something to be said, even for tea
26:21
Speaker 1: shops and railway stations. She stopped in front of him,
26:25
Speaker 1: and her pale, fluttering eyelids lifted from her blue gray eyes. Why,
26:30
Speaker 1: she said, you're that boy that jumped in the river.
26:33
Speaker 1: I'm no longer a boy, answered hood, but I'm ready
26:36
Speaker 1: to jump in the river again. Well, don't jump on
26:39
Speaker 1: the railway line, she said, as he turned with a
26:41
Speaker 1: swiftness suggestive of something of the kind. To tell you
26:45
Speaker 1: the truth, he said, I was thinking of jumping into
26:47
Speaker 1: a railway train. Do you mind if I jump into
26:50
Speaker 1: your railway train? Well, I'm going to Berkstead, she said,
26:54
Speaker 1: rather doubtfully. Mister Owenhood did not in the least care
26:57
Speaker 1: where she was going, as he had resolved to go there,
27:00
Speaker 1: But as a matter of fact, he remembered a wayside
27:02
Speaker 1: station on that line that lay very near to what
27:04
Speaker 1: he had in view, So he tumbled into the carriage,
27:07
Speaker 1: if possible, with more alacrity, and landscape shot by them
27:10
Speaker 1: as they sat, looking in a dazed and almost foolish
27:13
Speaker 1: fashion at each other. At last, the girl smiled with
27:16
Speaker 1: a sense of the absurdity of the thing. I heard
27:19
Speaker 1: about you from a friend of yours, she said. He
27:21
Speaker 1: came to call on us soon after it happened, at
27:24
Speaker 1: least that was when he first came. You know doctor Hunter,
27:26
Speaker 1: don't you, yes, replied Owen, a shadow coming over his
27:30
Speaker 1: shining hour. Do you do you know him? Well? I
27:35
Speaker 1: know him pretty well now, said miss Elizabeth Seymour. The
27:39
Speaker 1: shadow on his spirit blackened swiftly. He suspected something quite
27:42
Speaker 1: suddenly and savagely. Hunter, in Crane's old phrase, was not
27:46
Speaker 1: a man who let the grass grow under his feet.
27:49
Speaker 1: It was so like him to have somehow used the
27:51
Speaker 1: incident as an introduction to the Seymour's Things were always
27:54
Speaker 1: stepping stones for Hunter, and the little rock in the
27:57
Speaker 1: river had been a stepping stone to the country house,
27:59
Speaker 1: but the country house a stepping stone to something else.
28:03
Speaker 1: Suddenly Hood realized that all his angers had been very
28:05
Speaker 1: abstracted angers. He had never hated a man before. At
28:10
Speaker 1: that moment, the train stopped at the station of Cowford.
28:13
Speaker 1: I wish you'd get out here with me, he said, abruptly,
28:16
Speaker 1: only for a little and it might be the last
28:18
Speaker 1: time I want you to do something. She looked at
28:22
Speaker 1: him with a curious expression and said, in a rather
28:24
Speaker 1: low voice, what do you want me to do? I
28:27
Speaker 1: want you to come and pick bluebells, he answered, harshly.
28:31
Speaker 1: She stepped out of the train and they went up
28:33
Speaker 1: a winding country road without a word. I remember, she said. Suddenly,
28:38
Speaker 1: when you get to the top of this hill, you
28:40
Speaker 1: see the wood where the bluebells were, and your little
28:42
Speaker 1: island beyond. Come on and see it, said Owen. They
28:46
Speaker 1: stepped on the crest of the hill and stood below them.
28:49
Speaker 1: The black factory belched its livid smoke into the air,
28:52
Speaker 1: and where the wood had been, were little rows of houses,
28:54
Speaker 1: like boxes built of dirty yellow brick. Hood spoke, and
28:58
Speaker 1: when you shall see the bombination of desolation sitting in
29:01
Speaker 1: the Holy of holies, isn't that when the world's supposed
29:04
Speaker 1: to end? I wish the world would end now with
29:07
Speaker 1: you and me standing on a hill. She was staring
29:10
Speaker 1: at the place with parted lips, and more than her
29:12
Speaker 1: ordinary pallor. He knew she understood something monstrous and symbolic
29:16
Speaker 1: in the scene, Yet her first remark was jerky and trivial.
29:20
Speaker 1: On the nearest of the yellow brick boxes were visible
29:22
Speaker 1: the cheap colors of various advertisements, and larger than the rest,
29:26
Speaker 1: a blue poster proclaiming vote for Hunter with a final
29:30
Speaker 1: touch of bathos. Hood remembered that it was the last
29:33
Speaker 1: and most sensational day of the election. But the girl
29:36
Speaker 1: had already found her voice. Is that doctor Hunter? She asked,
29:40
Speaker 1: with commonplace curiosity. Is he standing for Parliament alone? That
29:44
Speaker 1: lay on Hood's mind like a rock suddenly rose like
29:47
Speaker 1: an eagle, and he felt as if the hill he
29:49
Speaker 1: stood on were higher than Everest. By the inside of
29:51
Speaker 1: his own insanity, he knew well enough that she would
29:54
Speaker 1: have known well enough whether Hunter was standing, if if
29:57
Speaker 1: there had been anything like what he supposed. The removal
30:00
Speaker 1: of the steadying weight staggered him, and he had said
30:02
Speaker 1: something quite indefensible. I thought you would know. I thought
30:06
Speaker 1: you and he were probably well. The truth is, I
30:09
Speaker 1: thought you were engaged, though I really don't know why.
30:13
Speaker 1: I can't imagine why, said Elizabeth Seymour. I heard he
30:16
Speaker 1: was engaged to Lord Norman Towers's daughter. They've got our
30:19
Speaker 1: old place, now, you know. There was a silence, and
30:22
Speaker 1: then Hood spoke suddenly, in a loud and cheerful voice. Well,
30:25
Speaker 1: what I say is vote for Hunter, he said, heartily.
30:28
Speaker 1: After all, why not vote for Hunter, good old Hunter.
30:32
Speaker 1: I hope he'll be a member of Parliament. I hope
30:34
Speaker 1: he'll be Prime Minister. I hope he'll be the president
30:37
Speaker 1: of the world state that Wells talks about. By George.
30:40
Speaker 1: She deserves to be Emperor of the Solar System. But why,
30:44
Speaker 1: she protested, Why should he deserve all that for not
30:48
Speaker 1: being engaged to you? Of course, he replied, oh, she said,
30:53
Speaker 1: and something of a secret shiver in her voice went
30:55
Speaker 1: through him like a silver bell. Abruptly, all of a sudden,
30:59
Speaker 1: the rage of raillery seemed to have left his voice
31:01
Speaker 1: in his face, so that his Napoleonic profile looked earnest
31:04
Speaker 1: and eager, and much younger like the profile of a
31:07
Speaker 1: young Napoleon. His wide shoulders lost the slight stoop that
31:10
Speaker 1: books had given them, and his rather wild red hair
31:13
Speaker 1: fell away from his lifted head. There is one thing
31:16
Speaker 1: I must tell you about him, he said, and one
31:19
Speaker 1: thing you must hear about me. My friends tell me
31:21
Speaker 1: I'm a drifter and a dreamer, that I let the
31:23
Speaker 1: grass grow under my feet. I must tell you at
31:26
Speaker 1: least how and why I once let it grow. Three
31:29
Speaker 1: days after that day by the river, I talked to Hunter.
31:32
Speaker 1: He was attending me, and he talked about it and you.
31:35
Speaker 1: Of course he knew nothing about either. But he is
31:38
Speaker 1: a practical man, a very practical man. He does not
31:41
Speaker 1: dream or drift. From the way he talked, I knew
31:44
Speaker 1: he was considering even then how the accident could be
31:46
Speaker 1: turned to account to his account, and perhaps to mine too,
31:50
Speaker 1: for he is good natured. Yes, he is quite good natured.
31:53
Speaker 1: I think that if I had taken his hint and
31:55
Speaker 1: formed a sort of social partnership, I might have known
31:58
Speaker 1: you six years sooner, not as a memory, but an acquaintance.
32:02
Speaker 1: And I couldn't do it. Judge me how you will,
32:05
Speaker 1: I could not bring myself to do it. That is
32:08
Speaker 1: what is meant by being born with a bee in
32:10
Speaker 1: the bonnet, with an impediment in the speech, with a
32:12
Speaker 1: stumbling block in the path, with a skulky scruple in
32:15
Speaker 1: the soul. I could not bear to approach you by
32:18
Speaker 1: that door, with that gross and grinning flunkey holding it open.
32:21
Speaker 1: I could not bear that suffocatingly substantial snob to bulk
32:25
Speaker 1: so big in my story or know so much of
32:27
Speaker 1: my secret. A revulsion I could never utter. Made me
32:30
Speaker 1: feel that the vision should remain my own, even by
32:32
Speaker 1: remaining unfulfilled. But it should not be vulgarized. That is
32:36
Speaker 1: what is meant by being a failure in life. And
32:39
Speaker 1: when my best friend made a prophecy about me and
32:41
Speaker 1: said there was something I should never do, I thought
32:44
Speaker 1: he was right. Why what do you mean, she asked,
32:47
Speaker 1: rather faintly, What was it you would never do? Never
32:51
Speaker 1: mind that now, he said, with the shadow of a
32:53
Speaker 1: returning smile. Rather strange things are stirring in me just now,
32:57
Speaker 1: And who knows, But I may attempt something yet, But
33:00
Speaker 1: before all else, I must make clear for once what
33:03
Speaker 1: I am and for what I lived. There are men
33:05
Speaker 1: like me in the world. I am far from thinking
33:08
Speaker 1: eire the best or the most valuable, but they exist.
33:11
Speaker 1: To confound all the clever people and the realists and
33:13
Speaker 1: the new novelists there has been, and there is only
33:16
Speaker 1: one thing for me, something that in the normal sense
33:19
Speaker 1: I never even knew. I walked about the world blind,
33:22
Speaker 1: with my eyes turned inward, looking at you for days
33:26
Speaker 1: after a night when I had dreamed of you, I
33:28
Speaker 1: was broken, like a man who had seen a ghost.
33:30
Speaker 1: I read over and over the great and grave lines
33:33
Speaker 1: of the old poets, because they alone were worthy of you.
33:36
Speaker 1: And when I saw you again, by chance, I thought
33:39
Speaker 1: the world had already ended. And it was that return
33:41
Speaker 1: and tryst beyond the grave that is too good to
33:43
Speaker 1: be true. I do not think, she answered, in a
33:48
Speaker 1: low voice, that the belief is too good to be true.
33:52
Speaker 1: As he looked at her, a thrill went through him,
33:54
Speaker 1: like a message too swift to be understood. And at
33:57
Speaker 1: the back of his mind something awoke that repeated again
33:59
Speaker 1: in the again, like a song, the same words too
34:02
Speaker 1: good to be true. There was always something pathetic even
34:06
Speaker 1: in her days of pride about the short sighted look
34:09
Speaker 1: of her half closed eyes. But it was for other
34:11
Speaker 1: reasons that they were now blinking in the strong white sunlight,
34:14
Speaker 1: almost as if they were blind. They were blind and
34:17
Speaker 1: bright with tears. She mastered her voice, and it was steady.
34:21
Speaker 1: You talk about failures, she said, I suppose most people
34:24
Speaker 1: would call me a failure, and all my people failures now,
34:27
Speaker 1: except those who would say we never fail because we
34:30
Speaker 1: never had to try anyhow, we're all poor enough now.
34:33
Speaker 1: I don't know whether you know that I've been teaching music.
34:36
Speaker 1: I dare say we deserve to go. I dare say
34:39
Speaker 1: we're useless. Some of us tried to be harmless, But
34:43
Speaker 1: now I must say something about some of us who
34:45
Speaker 1: tried rather hard to be harmless in that way. The
34:49
Speaker 1: new people will tell you that those ideals were Victorian
34:52
Speaker 1: and Tennysonian and all the rest of it. Well, it
34:55
Speaker 1: doesn't matter what they say. They know quite as little
34:58
Speaker 1: about us as we do about them. But to you,
35:01
Speaker 1: when you talk like that, what can I do but
35:04
Speaker 1: to tell you that if we were stiff, if we
35:06
Speaker 1: were cold, if we were careful and conservative, it was
35:09
Speaker 1: because deep down in our souls. Some of us did
35:11
Speaker 1: believe that there might be loyalty in love, like that
35:14
Speaker 1: for which a woman might well wait even to the
35:16
Speaker 1: end of the world. What is it to these people
35:19
Speaker 1: if we chose not to be drugged or distracted with
35:21
Speaker 1: anything less worthy? But it would be hard indeed, if
35:24
Speaker 1: when I find it does exist after all, hard on you,
35:28
Speaker 1: harder on me if when I had really found it.
35:30
Speaker 1: At last the ketch in her voice came again, and
35:34
Speaker 1: silence caught and held her. He took one stride forward
35:38
Speaker 1: as into the heart of a whirlwind, and they met
35:40
Speaker 1: on the top of that windy hill, as if they
35:42
Speaker 1: had come from the ends of the earth. This is
35:45
Speaker 1: an epoch, he said, which is rather an action than
35:48
Speaker 1: a word. I have lived with words too long. What
35:52
Speaker 1: do you mean I mean you have turned me into
35:55
Speaker 1: a man of action, he replied. So long as you
35:58
Speaker 1: were in the past, nothing was better than in the past.
36:01
Speaker 1: So long as you were only a dream, nothing was
36:03
Speaker 1: better than dreaming. But now I am going to do
36:06
Speaker 1: something that no man has ever done before. He turned
36:09
Speaker 1: towards the valley and flung out his hand with a gesture,
36:12
Speaker 1: almost as if the hand had held a sword. I
36:14
Speaker 1: am going to break the prophecy, he cried in a
36:17
Speaker 1: loud voice. I Am going to defy the omens of
36:20
Speaker 1: my doom and make fun of my evil star. Those
36:23
Speaker 1: who called me a failure shall own I have succeeded
36:25
Speaker 1: where all humanity has failed. The real hero is not
36:29
Speaker 1: he who is bold enough to fulfill the predictions, but
36:31
Speaker 1: he who was bold enough to falsify them. And you
36:34
Speaker 1: shall see one falsified tonight. What in the world are
36:38
Speaker 1: you going to do, she asked, He laughed suddenly. The
36:42
Speaker 1: first thing to do, he cried, swinging round with a
36:44
Speaker 1: new air of resolution and even cheerfulness. The very first
36:48
Speaker 1: thing to do is to vote for Hunter, or at
36:51
Speaker 1: any rate help to get him into parliament. But why
36:54
Speaker 1: in the world, she asked, wondering should you want so
36:58
Speaker 1: much to get doctor Hunter into parliament. Well one must
37:01
Speaker 1: do something, he said, with an appearance of good sense,
37:04
Speaker 1: to celebrate the occasion. We must do something, And after all,
37:07
Speaker 1: he must go somewhere, poor devil. You will say, why
37:11
Speaker 1: not throw him into the river. It would relieve the
37:13
Speaker 1: feelings and make a splash. But I'm going to make
37:16
Speaker 1: something much bigger than a splash. Besides, I don't want
37:19
Speaker 1: him in my nice river. I'd much rather pick him
37:22
Speaker 1: up and throw him all the way to Westminster, much
37:24
Speaker 1: more sensible and suitable. Obviously, there ought to be a
37:27
Speaker 1: brass band and a torch like procession somewhere to night,
37:30
Speaker 1: and why shouldn't he have a bit of the fun.
37:32
Speaker 1: He stopped suddenly, as if surprised at his own words,
37:35
Speaker 1: For indeed, his own phrase had fallen for him with
37:38
Speaker 1: the significance of a falling star. Of course, he muttered,
37:42
Speaker 1: a torch like procession. I've been feeling that what I
37:45
Speaker 1: wanted was trumpets, and what I really want is torches. Yes,
37:49
Speaker 1: I believe it could be done. Yes, the hour has come,
37:52
Speaker 1: By stars and blazes, I will give him a torch
37:55
Speaker 1: like procession. He had been almost dancing with excitement on
37:58
Speaker 1: the top of the ridge. Now he suddenly went bounding
38:01
Speaker 1: down the slope beyond, calling to the girl to follow,
38:04
Speaker 1: as carelessly as if they had been two children playing
38:06
Speaker 1: at hide and seek. Strangely enough, perhaps she did follow.
38:10
Speaker 1: More strangely still, when we consider the extravagant scenes through
38:13
Speaker 1: which she allowed herself to be led, they were scenes
38:16
Speaker 1: more insanely incongruous with all her sensitive and even secretive
38:19
Speaker 1: dignity than if she had been changing hats with a
38:21
Speaker 1: coster monker on a bank holiday, for there the world
38:25
Speaker 1: would only be allowed with vulgarity, and here it was
38:27
Speaker 1: also loud with lies. She could never have described that
38:30
Speaker 1: saturnalia of a political election, but she did dimly feel
38:33
Speaker 1: the double impression of a harlequinade at the end of
38:36
Speaker 1: a pantomime, and of Hood's phrase about the end of
38:38
Speaker 1: the world. It was as if a bank holiday could
38:41
Speaker 1: also be a day of judgment. But as the farce
38:43
Speaker 1: could no longer offend her, so the tragedy could no
38:46
Speaker 1: longer terrify. She went through it all with a wan
38:48
Speaker 1: smile which perhaps nobody in the world would have known
38:51
Speaker 1: her well enough to interpret. It was not in the
38:53
Speaker 1: normal sense excitement, yet it was something much more positive
38:56
Speaker 1: than patience, in a sense perhaps more than ever before
39:00
Speaker 1: in her lonely life. She was walled up in her
39:02
Speaker 1: averorry tower, but it was all alight within, as if
39:05
Speaker 1: it were lit up with candles or lined with gold.
39:08
Speaker 1: Hood's impetuous movements brought them to the bank of the
39:10
Speaker 1: river and the outer offices of the factory, all of
39:12
Speaker 1: which were covered with the colored posters of the candidature,
39:15
Speaker 1: and one of which was obviously fitted up as a
39:17
Speaker 1: busy and bustling committee room. Hood actually met mister Low
39:21
Speaker 1: coming out of it, buttoned up in a fur coat
39:23
Speaker 1: and bursting with speechless efficiency. But mister Low's beady black
39:27
Speaker 1: eyes glistened with an astonishment bordering on suspicion. When Hood,
39:30
Speaker 1: in the most hearty fashion offered his sympathy and co operation.
39:35
Speaker 1: That strange, subconscious fear that underlay all the wealthy manager's
39:38
Speaker 1: success and security in this country always came to the
39:41
Speaker 1: surface at the sight of Owen Hood's ironical face. Just
39:44
Speaker 1: at that moment, however, one of the local agents rushed
39:46
Speaker 1: at him in a distracted fashion with telegrams in his hand.
39:50
Speaker 1: They were short of canvassers, they were short of cars,
39:52
Speaker 1: they were short of speakers. The crowd at Little Puddleton
39:55
Speaker 1: had been waiting half an hour. Doctor Hunter could not
39:57
Speaker 1: get round to them till ten past nine, and the engine,
40:01
Speaker 1: in his agony, would probably have haled a market nigger
40:04
Speaker 1: and entrusted him with the cause of the Great National
40:06
Speaker 1: Party without any really philosophical inquiry into the nigger's theory
40:10
Speaker 1: of citizenship for all such over practical push and bustle
40:13
Speaker 1: in our time is always utterly impractical at the last
40:16
Speaker 1: minute and in the long run. On that night, Robert
40:20
Speaker 1: owen Hood would have been encouraged to go anywhere and
40:22
Speaker 1: say anything, and he did. It might be interesting to
40:25
Speaker 1: imagine what the lady thought about it, but it is
40:28
Speaker 1: possible that she did not think about it. She had
40:30
Speaker 1: a radiantly abstracted sense of passing through a number of
40:33
Speaker 1: ugly rooms and sheds with flaring gas and stacks of leaflets,
40:37
Speaker 1: behind which little irritable men ran about like rabbits. The
40:40
Speaker 1: walls were covered with large allegorical pictures printed in line
40:43
Speaker 1: or in a few bright colors, representing Doctor Hunter as
40:47
Speaker 1: clad in armor, as slaying dragons, as rescuing ladies rather
40:51
Speaker 1: like classical goddesses, and so on. Lest it should be
40:54
Speaker 1: too literally understood that doctor Hunter was in the habit
40:56
Speaker 1: of killing dragons in his daily round as a form
40:59
Speaker 1: of fuel. The dragon was inscribed with its name in
41:02
Speaker 1: large letters. Apparently its name was National extravagance. Lest there
41:08
Speaker 1: should be any doubt about the alternative which doctor Hunter
41:10
Speaker 1: had discovered as a corrective to extravagance, the sword which
41:14
Speaker 1: she was thrusting through the dragon's body was inscribed with
41:16
Speaker 1: the word economy. Elizabeth Seymour, through whose happy but bewildered
41:21
Speaker 1: mind these pictures passed, could not but reflect vaguely that
41:24
Speaker 1: she herself had lately had to practice a good deal
41:27
Speaker 1: of economy and resist a good many temptations to extravagance.
41:30
Speaker 1: But it would never have occurred to her unaided imagination
41:33
Speaker 1: to conceive of that action as that of plunging a
41:35
Speaker 1: sword into a scaly monster of immense size. In the
41:39
Speaker 1: Central Committee room, they actually came face to face for
41:42
Speaker 1: a moment with the candidate, who came in very hot
41:44
Speaker 1: and breathless, with a silk hat on the back of
41:46
Speaker 1: his head, where he had possibly forgotten it, for he
41:48
Speaker 1: certainly did not remove it. She was a little ashamed
41:51
Speaker 1: of being sensitive about such trifles, but she came to
41:54
Speaker 1: the conclusion that she would not like to have a
41:56
Speaker 1: husband standing for Parliament. We've ramped it up all those people,
42:00
Speaker 1: oblique row, said doctor Hunter. No good going down the
42:02
Speaker 1: hole in those filthy places. No vote there. Streets ought
42:06
Speaker 1: to be abolished, and the people too well. We've had
42:09
Speaker 1: a very good meeting in the Masonic Hall, said the
42:11
Speaker 1: agent cheerfully. Lord Norman Towers spoke and really he got
42:14
Speaker 1: through all right, told some stories, you know, when they
42:17
Speaker 1: stood it capitally. And now said Owen Hood, slapping his
42:21
Speaker 1: hands together in an almost convivial manner. What about this
42:24
Speaker 1: torchlight procession? This what procession? Asked the agent. Do you
42:29
Speaker 1: mean to tell me, said Hood sternly, that arrangements are
42:32
Speaker 1: not complete for the torchlight procession of doctor Hunter, That
42:35
Speaker 1: you're going to let this night of triumph pass without
42:37
Speaker 1: kindling a hundred flames to light the path of the
42:39
Speaker 1: Conqueror do you realize that the hearts of a whole
42:42
Speaker 1: people have spontaneously stirred and chosen him, That the suffering
42:46
Speaker 1: poor murmured in their sleep vote for a Hunter long
42:49
Speaker 1: before the caucus came by a providential coincidence to the
42:52
Speaker 1: same conclusion. Would not the people in the hole set
42:55
Speaker 1: fire to their last poor sticks of furniture to do
42:57
Speaker 1: him honor? Why? From this chair alone? He caught up
43:01
Speaker 1: the chair on which Hunter had been sitting and began
43:03
Speaker 1: to break it enthusiastically. In this he was hastily checked,
43:06
Speaker 1: but he actually succeeded in carrying the company with him
43:09
Speaker 1: in his proposal thus urged the eleventh hour. By nightfall
43:13
Speaker 1: he had actually organized his torchlight procession, escorting the triumphant Hunter,
43:17
Speaker 1: covered with blue ribbons, to the river side. Or rather
43:20
Speaker 1: as if the worthy doctor were to be baptized like
43:22
Speaker 1: a convert, or drowned like a witch. For that matter,
43:25
Speaker 1: who might possibly intend to burn the witch? For he
43:28
Speaker 1: brandished the blazing torch he carried so as to make
43:30
Speaker 1: a sort of halo round Hunter's astonished countenance. Then, springing
43:34
Speaker 1: on to the scrap heap by the brink of the river,
43:36
Speaker 1: he addressed the crowd for the last time, fellow citizens,
43:40
Speaker 1: we meet upon the shore of the Thames, the Thames,
43:43
Speaker 1: which is to Englishmen all that the Tiber ever was
43:45
Speaker 1: to Romans. We meet in a valley which has been
43:48
Speaker 1: almost as much the haunt of English poets as of
43:50
Speaker 1: English birds. Never was there an art so native to
43:53
Speaker 1: our island as our old national tradition of landscape painting
43:56
Speaker 1: in water color. Never was that water color so luminous
43:59
Speaker 1: or so delicate as when dedicated to these holy waters.
44:03
Speaker 1: It was in such a scene that one of the
44:05
Speaker 1: most exquisite of our elder poets repeated as a burden
44:07
Speaker 1: to all his meditations the single line sweet Thames run
44:12
Speaker 1: softly till I end my song. Rumors have been heard
44:15
Speaker 1: of some intention to trouble these waters, but we have
44:18
Speaker 1: been amply reassured. Names that now stand as high as
44:21
Speaker 1: those of our national poets and painters are a warrant
44:23
Speaker 1: that the stream is still as clear and pure and
44:26
Speaker 1: beneficent as of old. We all know the beautiful work
44:29
Speaker 1: that mister Bolton has done. In a matter of filters.
44:31
Speaker 1: Doctor Hunter supports mister Bolton, I mean mister Bolton supports
44:35
Speaker 1: doctor Hunter. I may also mention no less a man
44:38
Speaker 1: than mister Low sweet Thames run softly till I end
44:42
Speaker 1: my song. But then, for that matter, we all support
44:45
Speaker 1: doctor Hunter. I myself have always found him quite supportable,
44:49
Speaker 1: I should say quite satisfactory. He is truly a progressive,
44:53
Speaker 1: and nothing gives me greater pleasure than to watch him progress.
44:56
Speaker 1: As somebody said, I lie awake at night, and in
44:58
Speaker 1: the silence of the holy universe, I seem to hear
45:01
Speaker 1: him climbing, climbing, climbing. All the numerous patients among whom
45:05
Speaker 1: he has labored so successfully in this locality will join
45:08
Speaker 1: in a heartfelt expression of joy. If he passes to
45:11
Speaker 1: the higher world of Westminster, I trust I shall not
45:14
Speaker 1: be misunderstood. Sweet Thames run softly till I end my song.
45:19
Speaker 1: My only purpose tonight is to express that unanimity. There
45:22
Speaker 1: may have been times when I differed from Doctor Hunter,
45:25
Speaker 1: but I am glad to say all that is past,
45:27
Speaker 1: and I now have nothing but the most friendly feelings
45:29
Speaker 1: towards him, for reasons which I will not mention, though
45:31
Speaker 1: I have plenty to say. In token of this reconciliation,
45:35
Speaker 1: I hear solemnly cast from me this torch. As that
45:38
Speaker 1: firebrand is quenched in the cool, crystal waters of that
45:40
Speaker 1: sacred stream, so shall all such feuds perish in the
45:44
Speaker 1: heating pool of universal peace. Before anybody knew what he
45:47
Speaker 1: was doing, he had whirled his flambeaux in a flaming
45:50
Speaker 1: wheel around his head and sent it flying like a
45:52
Speaker 1: meteor out into the dim eddies of the river. The
45:55
Speaker 1: next moment, a short, sharp cry was uttered, and every
45:58
Speaker 1: face in that crowd was staring at the river. All
46:01
Speaker 1: the faces were visibly staring, for they were all lit
46:03
Speaker 1: up as by a ghastly firelight, by a wide one
46:06
Speaker 1: of unnatural flame. That leapt up from the very surface
46:08
Speaker 1: of the stream, a flame that the crowd watched as
46:11
Speaker 1: it might have watched a comet. There, cried Owen Hood,
46:15
Speaker 1: turning suddenly on the girl and seizing her arm as
46:17
Speaker 1: if demanding congratulations. So much for Old Crane's prophecy. Who
46:22
Speaker 1: in the world is Old Crane, she asked, And what
46:25
Speaker 1: did he prophecy? Is he something like Old Moore? Only
46:29
Speaker 1: an old friend, said Hood hastily, Only an old friend
46:32
Speaker 1: of mine. It's what he said that's so important. He
46:35
Speaker 1: didn't like my moping about with books in a fishing rod,
46:38
Speaker 1: and he said, standing on that very island, you may
46:41
Speaker 1: know a lot, but I don't think you'll ever set
46:43
Speaker 1: the Thames on fire. I'll eat my hat if you do.
46:47
Speaker 1: But the story of how Old Crane ate his hat
46:49
Speaker 1: is one upon which some readers at least can look
46:51
Speaker 1: back on his labor and suffering bravely endured. And if
46:54
Speaker 1: it be possible for any of them to desire to
46:57
Speaker 1: know any more, either about mister Crane or mister Hood,
47:00
Speaker 1: then they must gird themselves for the ordeal of reading
47:02
Speaker 1: the story of the unobtrusive traffic of Captain Pierce and
47:05
Speaker 1: their trials are for a time deferred end of Chapter
47:11
Speaker 1: two