第 6 页

I was down from the moorlands and traversing the broad haugh of

a river. For miles I ran alongside a park wall, and in a break of the

trees I saw a great castle. I swung through little old thatched

villages, and over peaceful lowland streams, and past gardens blazing

with hawthorn and yellow laburnum. The land was so deep in

peace that I could scarcely believe that somewhere behind me were

those who sought my life; ay, and that in a month's time, unless I

had the almightiest of luck, these round country faces would be

pinched and staring, and men would be lying dead in English fields.

About mid-day I entered a long straggling village, and had a

mind to stop and eat. Half-way down was the Post Office, and on

the steps of it stood the postmistress and a policeman hard at work

conning a telegram. When they saw me they wakened up, and the

policeman advanced with raised hand, and cried on me to stop.

I nearly was fool enough to obey. Then it flashed upon me that

the wire had to do with me; that my friends at the inn had come to an

understanding, and were united in desiring to see more of me, and

that it had been easy enough for them to wire the description of me

and the car to thirty villages through which I might pass. I released

the brakes just in time. As it was, the policeman made a claw at the

hood, and only dropped off when he got my left in his eye.

I saw that main roads were no place for me, and turned into the

byways. It wasn't an easy job without a map, for there was the risk

of getting on to a farm road and ending in a duck-pond or a stable-

yard, and I couldn't afford that kind of delay. I began to see what

an ass I had been to steal the car. The big green brute would be the

safest kind of clue to me over the breadth of Scotland. If I left it

and took to my feet, it would be discovered in an hour or two and

I would get no start in the race.

The immediate thing to do was to get to the loneliest roads.

These I soon found when I struck up a tributary of the big river,

and got into a glen with steep hills all about me, and a corkscrew

road at the end which climbed over a pass. Here I met nobody, but

it was taking me too far north, so I slewed east along a bad track

and finally struck a big double-line railway. Away below me I saw

another broadish valley, and it occurred to me that if I crossed it I

might find some remote inn to pass the night. The evening was now

drawing in, and I was furiously hungry, for I had eaten nothing since

breakfast except a couple of buns I had bought from a baker's cart.

just then I heard a noise in the sky, and lo and behold there was

that infernal aeroplane, flying low, about a dozen miles to the south

and rapidly coming towards me.

I had the sense to remember that on a bare moor I was at the

aeroplane's mercy, and that my only chance was to get to the leafy

cover of the valley. Down the hill I went like blue lightning,

screwing my head round, whenever I dared, to watch that damned

flying machine. Soon I was on a road between hedges, and dipping

to the deep-cut glen of a stream. Then came a bit of thick wood

where I slackened speed.

Suddenly on my left I heard the hoot of another car, and realized

to my horror that I was almost up on a couple of gate-posts through

which a private road debouched on the highway. My horn gave an

agonized roar, but it was too late. I clapped on my brakes, but my

impetus was too great, and there before me a car was sliding

athwart my course. In a second there would have been the deuce of

a wreck. I did the only thing possible, and ran slap into the hedge

on the right, trusting to find something soft beyond.

But there I was mistaken. My car slithered through the hedge

like butter, and then gave a sickening plunge forward. I saw what

was coming, leapt on the seat and would have jumped out. But a

branch of hawthorn got me in the chest, lifted me up and held me,

while a ton or two of expensive metal slipped below me, bucked

and pitched, and then dropped with an almighty smash fifty feet to

the bed of the stream.

Slowly that thorn let me go. I subsided first on the hedge, and then

very gently on a bower of nettles. As I scrambled to my feet a hand

took me by the arm, and a sympathetic and badly scared voice

asked me if I were hurt.

I found myself looking at a tall young man in goggles and a

leather ulster, who kept on blessing his soul and whinnying

apologies. For myself, once I got my wind back, I was rather glad

than otherwise. This was one way of getting rid of the car.

'My blame, Sir,' I answered him. 'It's lucky that I did not add

homicide to my follies. That's the end of my Scotch motor tour,

but it might have been the end of my life.'

He plucked out a watch and studied it. 'You're the right sort of

fellow,' he said. 'I can spare a quarter of an hour, and my house is

two minutes off. I'll see you clothed and fed and snug in bed.

Where's your kit, by the way? Is it in the burn along with the car?'

'It's in my pocket,' I said, brandishing a toothbrush. 'I'm a

Colonial and travel light.'

'A Colonial,' he cried. 'By Gad, you're the very man I've been

praying for. Are you by any blessed chance a Free Trader?'

'I am,' said I, without the foggiest notion of what he meant.

He patted my shoulder and hurried me into his car. Three minutes

later we drew up before a comfortable-looking shooting box set

among pine-trees, and he ushered me indoors. He took me first to a

bedroom and flung half a dozen of his suits before me, for my own

had been pretty well reduced to rags. I selected a loose blue serge,

which differed most conspicuously from my former garments, and

borrowed a linen collar. Then he haled me to the dining-room,

where the remnants of a meal stood on the table, and announced

that I had just five minutes to feed. 'You can take a snack in your

pocket, and we'll have supper when we get back. I've got to be at

the Masonic Hall at eight o'clock, or my agent will comb my hair.'

I had a cup of coffee and some cold ham, while he yarned away

on the hearth-rug.

'You find me in the deuce of a mess, Mr - by-the-by, you

haven't told me your name. Twisdon? Any relation of old Tommy

Twisdon of the Sixtieth? No? Well, you see I'm Liberal Candidate

for this part of the world, and I had a meeting on tonight at

Brattleburn - that's my chief town, and an infernal Tory stronghold.

I had got the Colonial ex-Premier fellow, Crumpleton, coming to

speak for me tonight, and had the thing tremendously billed and

the whole place ground-baited. This afternoon I had a wire from

the ruffian saying he had got influenza at Blackpool, and here am I

left to do the whole thing myself. I had meant to speak for ten

minutes and must now go on for forty, and, though I've been

racking my brains for three hours to think of something, I simply

cannot last the course. Now you've got to be a good chap and help

me. You're a Free Trader and can tell our people what a wash-out

Protection is in the Colonies. All you fellows have the gift of the

gab - I wish to Heaven I had it. I'll be for evermore in your debt.'

I had very few notions about Free Trade one way or the other,

but I saw no other chance to get what I wanted. My young gentleman

was far too absorbed in his own difficulties to think how odd

it was to ask a stranger who had just missed death by an ace and

had lost a 1,000-guinea car to address a meeting for him on the spur

of the moment. But my necessities did not allow me to contemplate

oddnesses or to pick and choose my supports.

'All right,' I said. 'I'm not much good as a speaker, but I'll tell

them a bit about Australia.'

At my words the cares of the ages slipped from his shoulders,

and he was rapturous in his thanks. He lent me a big driving coat -

and never troubled to ask why I had started on a motor tour

without possessing an ulster - and, as we slipped down the dusty

roads, poured into my ears the simple facts of his history. He was

an orphan, and his uncle had brought him up - I've forgotten the

uncle's name, but he was in the Cabinet, and you can read his

speeches in the papers. He had gone round the world after leaving

Cambridge, and then, being short of a job, his uncle had advised

politics. I gathered that he had no preference in parties. 'Good

chaps in both,' he said cheerfully, 'and plenty of blighters, too. I'm

Liberal, because my family have always been Whigs.' But if he was

lukewarm politically he had strong views on other things. He

found out I knew a bit about horses, and jawed away about the

Derby entries; and he was full of plans for improving his shooting.

Altogether, a very clean, decent, callow young man.

As we passed through a little town two policemen signalled us to

stop, and flashed their lanterns on us.

'Beg pardon, Sir Harry,' said one. 'We've got instructions to

look out for a car, and the description's no unlike yours.'

'Right-o,' said my host, while I thanked Providence for the

devious ways I had been brought to safety. After that he spoke no

more, for his mind began to labour heavily with his coming speech.

His lips kept muttering, his eye wandered, and I began to prepare

myself for a second catastrophe. I tried to think of something to say

myself, but my mind was dry as a stone. The next thing I knew we

had drawn up outside a door in a street, and were being welcomed

by some noisy gentlemen with rosettes.

The hall had about five hundred in it, women mostly, a lot of

bald heads, and a dozen or two young men. The chairman, a

weaselly minister with a reddish nose, lamented Crumpleton's absence,

soliloquized on his influenza, and gave me a certificate as a

'trusted leader of Australian thought'. There were two policemen at

the door, and I hoped they took note of that testimonial. Then Sir

Harry started.

I never heard anything like it. He didn't begin to know how to

talk. He had about a bushel of notes from which he read, and when

he let go of them he fell into one prolonged stutter. Every now and

then he remembered a phrase he had learned by heart, straightened

his back, and gave it off like Henry Irving, and the next moment he

was bent double and crooning over his papers. It was the most

appalling rot, too. He talked about the 'German menace', and said

it was all a Tory invention to cheat the poor of their rights and

keep back the great flood of social reform, but that 'organized

labour' realized this and laughed the Tories to scorn. He was all for

reducing our Navy as a proof of our good faith, and then sending

Germany an ultimatum telling her to do the same or we would

knock her into a cocked hat. He said that, but for the Tories,

Germany and Britain would be fellow-workers in peace and reform.

I thought of the little black book in my pocket! A giddy lot Scudder's

friends cared for peace and reform.

Yet in a queer way I liked the speech. You could see the niceness

of the chap shining out behind the muck with which he had been

spoon-fed. Also it took a load off my mind. I mightn't be much of

an orator, but I was a thousand per cent better than Sir Harry.

I didn't get on so badly when it came to my turn. I simply told

them all I could remember about Australia, praying there should be

no Australian there - all about its labour party and emigration and

universal service. I doubt if I remembered to mention Free Trade,

but I said there were no Tories in Australia, only Labour and

Liberals. That fetched a cheer, and I woke them up a bit when I

started in to tell them the kind of glorious business I thought could

be made out of the Empire if we really put our backs into it.

Altogether I fancy I was rather a success. The minister didn't like

me, though, and when he proposed a vote of thanks, spoke of Sir

Harry's speech as 'statesmanlike' and mine as having 'the eloquence

of an emigration agent'.

When we were in the car again my host was in wild spirits at

having got his job over. 'A ripping speech, Twisdon,' he said.

'Now, you're coming home with me. I'm all alone, and if you'll

stop a day or two I'll show you some very decent fishing.'

We had a hot supper - and I wanted it pretty badly - and then

drank grog in a big cheery smoking-room with a crackling wood

fire. I thought the time had come for me to put my cards on the

table. I saw by this man's eye that he was the kind you can trust.

'Listen, Sir Harry,' I said. 'I've something pretty important to

say to you. You're a good fellow, and I'm going to be frank.

Where on earth did you get that poisonous rubbish you talked tonight?'

His face fell. 'Was it as bad as that?' he asked ruefully. 'It did

sound rather thin. I got most of it out of the PROGRESSIVE MAGAZINE

and pamphlets that agent chap of mine keeps sending me. But you

surely don't think Germany would ever go to war with us?'

'Ask that question in six weeks and it won't need an answer,' I

said. 'If you'll give me your attention for half an hour I am going

to tell you a story.'

I can see yet that bright room with the deers' heads and the old

prints on the walls, Sir Harry standing restlessly on the stone curb

of the hearth, and myself lying back in an armchair, speaking. I

seemed to be another person, standing aside and listening to my

own voice, and judging carefully the reliability of my tale. It was

the first time I had ever told anyone the exact truth, so far as I

understood it, and it did me no end of good, for it straightened out

the thing in my own mind. I blinked no detail. He heard all about