THE Earl of Eden had become Prime Minister for the third time, and his face and figure were therefore familiar in the political cartoons and even in the public streets. His yellow hair and lean and springy figure gave him a factitious air of youth; but his face on a closer study looked lined and wrinkled and gave almost a shock of decrepitude1. He was in truth a man of great experience and dexterity2 in his own profession. He had just succeeded in routing the Socialist3 Party and overthrowing4 the Socialist Government, largely by the use of certain rhymed mottoes and maxims5 which he had himself invented with considerable amusement. His great slogan of “Don’t Nationalize but Rationalize” was generally believed to have led him to victory. But at the moment when this story begins he had other things to think of. He had just received an urgent request for a consultation6 from three of his most prominent supporters—Lord Normantowers, Sir Horace Hunter, O.B.E., the great advocate of scientific politics, and Mr. R. Low, the philanthropist. They were confronted[212] with a problem, and their problem concerned the sudden madness of an American millionaire.
The Prime Minister was not unacquainted with American millionaires, even those whose conduct suggested that they were hardly representative of a normal or national type. There was the great Grigg, the millionaire inventor, who had pressed upon the War Office a scheme for finishing the War at a blow; it consisted of electrocuting the Kaiser by wireless7 telegraphy. There was Mr. Napper, of Nebraska, whose negotiations8 for removing Shakespeare’s Cliff to America as a symbol of Anglo-Saxon unity10 were unaccountably frustrated11 by the firm refusal of the American Republic to send us Plymouth Rock in exchange. And there was that charming and cultured Bostonian, Colonel Hoopoe, whom all England welcomed in his crusade for Purity and the League of the Lily, until England discovered with considerable surprise that the American Ambassador and all respectable Americans flatly refused to meet the Colonel, whose record at home was that of a very narrow escape from Sing-Sing.
But the problem of Enoch Oates, who had made his money in pork, was something profoundly different. As Lord Eden’s three supporters eagerly explained to him, seated round a garden-table at his beautiful country seat in Somerset, Mr. Oates had done something that the maddest millionaire had[213] never thought of doing before. Up to a certain point he had proceeded in a manner normal to such a foreigner. He had purchased amid general approval an estate covering about a quarter of a county; and it was expected that he would make it a field for some of those American experiments in temperance or eugenics for which the English agricultural populace offer a sort of virgin12 soil. Instead of that, he suddenly went mad and made a present of his land to his tenants13; so that by an unprecedented14 anomaly the farms became the property of the farmers. That an American millionaire should take away English things from England, English rents, English relics15, English pictures, English cathedrals or cliffs of Dover, was a natural operation to which everybody was by this time accustomed. But that an American millionaire should give English land to English people was an unwarrantable interference and tantamount to an alien enemy stirring up revolution. Enoch Oates had therefore been summoned to the Council, and sat scowling16 at the table as if he were in the dock.
“Results most deplorable already,” said Sir Horace Hunter, in his rather loud voice. “Give you an example, my lord; people of the name of Dale in Somerset took in a lunatic as a lodger17. May have been a homicidal maniac18 for all I know; some do say he had a great cannon19 or culverin sticking out of his bedroom window. But with no responsible[214] management of the estate, no landlord, no lawyer, no educated person anywhere, there was nothing to prevent their letting the bedroom to a Bengal tiger. Anyhow, the man was mad, rushed raving20 on to the platform at the Astronomical21 Congress talking about Lovely Woman and the cow that jumped over the moon. That damned agitator22 Pierce, who used to be in the Flying Corps23, was in the hall, and made a riot and carried the crazy fellow off in an aeroplane. That’s the sort of thing you’ll have happening all over the place if these ignorant fellows are allowed to do just as they like.”
“It is quite true,” said Lord Normantowers. “I could give many other examples. They say that Owen Hood24, another of these eccentrics, has actually bought one of these little farms and stuck it all round with absurd battlements and a moat and drawbridge, with the motto ‘The Englishman’s House is his Castle.’”
“I think,” said the Prime Minister quietly, “that however English the Englishman may be, he will find his castle is a castle in Spain; not to say a castle in the air. Mr. Oates,” he said, addressing very courteously25 the big brooding American at the other end of the table, “please do not imagine that I cannot sympathize with such romances, although they are only in the air. But I think in all sincerity26 that you will find they are unsuited to the English climate. Et ego9 in Arcadia, you know;[215] we have all had such dreams of all men piping in Arcady. But after all, you have already paid the piper; and if you are wise, I think you can still call the tune27.”
“Gives me great gratification to say it’s too late,” growled28 Oates. “I want them to learn to play and pay for themselves.”
“But you want them to learn,” said Lord Eden gently, “and I should not be in too much of a hurry to call it too late. It seems to me that the door is still open for a reasonable compromise; I understand that the deed of gift, considered as a legal instrument, is still the subject of some legal discussion and may well be subject to revision. I happened to be talking of it yesterday with the law officers of the Crown; and I am sure that the least hint that you yourself——”
“I take it you mean,” said Mr. Oates with great deliberation, “that you’ll tell your lawyers it’ll pay them to pick a hole in the deal.”
“That is what we call the bluff30 Western humour,” said Lord Eden, smiling, “but I only mean that we do a great deal in this country by reconsideration and revision. We make mistakes and unmake them. We have a phrase for it in our history books; we call it the flexibility31 of an unwritten constitution.”
“Really,” cried Normantowers, a little bristly[216] man, with sudden shrillness33, “I did not know you were so scrupulous34 in your own methods.”
“Motht unthcrupulouth,” said Mr. Low virtuously35.
Enoch Oates rose slowly like an enormous leviathan rising to the surface of the sea; his large sallow face had never changed in expression; but he had the air of one drifting dreamily away.
“Wal,” he said, “I dare say it’s true I’ve done some graft in my time, and a good many deals that weren’t what you might call modelled on the Sermon on the Mount. But if I smashed people, it was when they were all out to smash me; and if some of ’em were poor, they were the sort that were ready to shoot or knife or blow me to bits. And I tell you, in my country the whole lot of you would be liable to be lynched or tarred and feathered to-morrow, if you talked about lawyers taking away people’s land when once they’d got it. Maybe the English climate’s different, as you say; but I’m going to see it through. As for you, Mr. Rosenbaum——”
“My name is Low,” said the philanthropist. “I cannot thee why anyone should object to uthing my name.”
“Not on your life,” said Mr. Oates affably. “Seems to me a pretty appropriate name.”
[217]“He’s going on with it, or, rather, they’re going on with it,” groaned37 Horace Hunter. “And what the devil is to be done now?”
“It really looks as if he were right in calling it too late,” said Lord Normantowers bitterly. “I can’t think of anything to be done.”
“I can,” said the Prime Minister. They all looked at him; but none of them could read the undecipherable subtleties38 in his old and wrinkled face under his youthful yellow hair.
“The resources of civilization are not exhausted39,” he said grimly. “That’s what the old governments used to say when they started shooting people. Well, I could understand you gentlemen feeling inclined to shoot people now. I suppose it seems to you that all your power in the State, which you wield40 with such public spirit of course; all Sir Horace’s health reforms, the Normantowers’s new estate, and so on, are all broken to bits, to rotten little bits of rusticity41. What’s to become of a governing class if it doesn’t hold all the land, eh? Well, I’ll tell you. I know the next move, and the time has come to take it.”
“But what is it?” demanded Sir Horace.
“The time has come,” said the Prime Minister, “to Nationalize the Land.”
Sir Horace Hunter rose from his chair, opened his mouth, shut it, and sat down again, all with what he himself might have called a reflex action.
“True Socialism, don’t you think?” mused43 the Prime Minister. “Better call it True Socialism; just the sort of thing to be remembered at elections. Theirs is Socialism, and ours is True Socialism.”
“Do you really mean, my lord,” cried Hunter in a heat of sincerity stronger than the snobbery44 of a lifetime, “that you are going to support the Bolshies?”
“No,” said Eden, with the smile of a sphinx. “I mean the Bolshies are going to support me. Idiots!”
After a silence, he added in a more wistful tone:
“Of course, as a matter of sentiment, it is a little sad. All our fine old English castles and manors45, the homes of the gentry46 ... they will become public property, like post offices, I suppose. When I think of the happy hours I have myself passed at Normantowers—” He smiled across at the nobleman of that name and went on. “And Sir Horace has now, I believe, the joy of living in Warbridge Castle—fine old place. Dear me, yes, and I think Mr. Low has a castle, though the name escapes me.”
“Rosewood Castle,” said Mr. Low rather sulkily.
“But I say,” cried Sir Horace, rising, “what becomes of ‘Don’t Nationalize but Rationalize’?”
“I suppose,” replied Eden lightly, “it will have[219] to be ‘Don’t Rationalize but Nationalize.’ It comes to the same thing. Besides, we can easily get a new motto of some sort. For instance, we, after all, are the patriotic47 party, the national party. What about ‘Let the Nationalists Nationalize’?”
“Well, all I can say is—” began Normantowers explosively.
“Compensation, there will be compensation, of course,” said the Prime Minister soothingly48; “a great deal can be done with compensation. If you will all turn up here this day week, say at four o’clock, I think I can lay all the plans before you.”
When they did turn up next week and were shown again into the Prime Minister’s sunny garden, they found that the plans were, indeed, laid before them; for the table that stood on the sunny lawn was covered with large and small maps and a mass of official documents. Mr. Eustace Pym, one of the Prime Minister’s numerous private secretaries, was hovering50 over them, and the Prime Minister himself was sitting at the head of the table studying one of them with an intelligent frown.
“I thought you’d like to hear the terms of the arrangements,” he said. “I’m afraid we must all make sacrifices in the cause of progress.”
“Oh, progress be——” cried Normantowers, losing patience. “I want to know if you really mean that my estate——”
“It comes under the department of Castle and[220] Abbey Estates in Section Four,” said Lord Eden, referring to the paper before him. “By the provisions of the new Bill the public control in such cases will be vested in the Lord-Lieutenant of the County. In the particular case of your castle—let me see—why, yes, of course, you are Lord-Lieutenant of that county.”
Little Lord Normantowers was staring, with his stiff hair all standing on end; but a new look was dawning in his shrewd though small-featured face.
“The case of Warbridge Castle is different,” said the Prime Minister. “It happens unfortunately to stand in a district desolated51 by all the recent troubles about swine-fever, touching52 which the Health Controller” (here he bowed to Sir Horace Hunter) “has shown such admirable activity. It has been necessary to place the whole of this district in the hands of the Health Controller, that he may study any traces of swine-fever that may be found in the Castle, the Cathedral, the Vicarage, and so on. So much for that case, which stands somewhat apart; the others are mostly normal. Rosenbaum Castle—I should say Rosewood Castle—being of a later date, comes under Section Five, and the appointment of a permanent Castle Custodian53 is left to the discretion54 of the Government. In this case the Government has decided55 to appoint[221] Mr. Rosewood Low to the post, in recognition of his local services to social science and economics. In all these cases, of course, due compensation will be paid to the present owners of the estates, and ample salaries and expenses of entertainment paid to the new officials, that the places may be kept up in a manner worthy56 of their historical and national character.”
He paused, as if for cheers, and Sir Horace was vaguely57 irritated into saying: “But look here, my castle——”
“Damn it all!” said the Prime Minister, with his first flash of impatience58 and sincerity. “Can’t you see you’ll get twice as much as before? First you’ll be compensated59 for losing your castle, and then you’ll be paid for keeping it.”
“My lord,” said Lord Normantowers humbly60, “I apologize for anything I may have said or suggested. I ought to have known I stood in the presence of a great English statesman.”
“Oh, it’s easy enough,” said Lord Eden frankly61. “Look how easily we remained in the saddle, in spite of democratic elections; how we managed to dominate the Commons as well as the Lords. It’ll be the same with what they call Socialism. We shall still be there; only we shall be called bureaucrats62 instead of aristocrats63.”
“I see it all now!” cried Hunter, “and by Heaven,[222] it’ll be the end of all this confounded demagogy of Three Acres and a Cow.”
“I think so,” said the Prime Minister with a smile; and began to fold up the large maps.
As he was folding up the last and largest, he suddenly stopped and said:
“Hallo!”
A letter was lying in the middle of the table; a letter in a sealed envelope, and one which he evidently did not recognize as any part of his paper paraphernalia64.
“Where did this letter come from?” he asked rather sharply. “Did you put it here, Eustace?”
“No,” said Mr. Pym staring. “I never saw it before. It didn’t come with your letters this morning.”
“It didn’t come by post at all,” said Lord Eden; “and none of the servants brought it in. How the devil did it get out here in the garden?”
He ripped it open with his finger and remained for some time staring in mystification at its contents.
Welkin Castle,
Sept. 4th, 19—.
“Dear Lord Eden,—As I understand you are making public provision for the future disposal of our historic national castles, such as Warbridge Castle, I should much appreciate any information about your intentions touching Welkin[223] Castle, my own estate, as it would enable me to make my own arrangements.—Yours very truly,
“Welkyn of Welkin.”
“Who is Welkyn?” asked the puzzled politician; “he writes as if he knew me; but I can’t recall him at the moment. And where is Welkin Castle? We must look at the maps again.”
But though they looked at the maps for hours, and searched Burke, Debrett, “Who’s Who,” the atlas65 and every other work of reference, they could come upon no trace of that firm but polite country gentleman.
Lord Eden was a little worried, because he knew that curiously66 important people could exist in a corner in this country, and suddenly emerge from their corner to make trouble. He knew it was very important that his own governing class should stand in with him in this great public change (and private understanding), and that no rich eccentric should be left out and offended. But although he was worried to that extent, it is probable that his worry would soon have faded from his mind if it had not been for something that happened some days later.
Going out into the same garden to the same table, with the more agreeable purpose of taking tea there, he was amazed to find another letter, though this was lying not on the table but on the turf just beside it. It was unstamped like the other and addressed[224] in the same handwriting; but its tone was more stern.
Welkin Castle,
Oct. 6th, 19—.
“My Lord,—As you seem to have decided to continue your sweeping67 scheme of confiscation68, as in the case of Warbridge Castle, without the slightest reference to the historic and even heroic claims and traditions of Welkin Castle, I can only inform you that I shall defend the fortress69 of my fathers to the death. Moreover, I have decided to make a protest of a more public kind; and when you next hear from me it will be in the form of a general appeal to the justice of the English people.—Yours truly,
“Welkyn of Welkin.”
The historic and even heroic traditions of Welkin Castle kept a dozen of the Prime Minister’s private secretaries busy for a week, looking up encyclopædias and chronicles and books of history. But the Prime Minister himself was more worried about another problem. How did these mysterious letters get into the house, or rather into the garden? None of them came by post and none of the servants knew anything whatever about them. Moreover, the Prime Minister, in an unobtrusive way, was very carefully guarded. Prime Ministers always[225] are, but he had been especially protected ever since the Vegetarians70 a few years before had gone about killing71 everybody who believed in killing animals. There were always plain-clothes policemen at every entrance of his house and garden. And from their testimony72 it would appear certain that the letter could not have got into the garden; but for the trifling73 fact that it was lying there on the garden-table. Lord Eden cogitated74 in a grim fashion for some time; then he said as he rose from his chair:
“I think I will have a talk to our American friend Mr. Oates.”
Whether from a sense of humour or a sense of justice, Lord Eden summoned Enoch Oates before the same special jury of three; or summoned them before him, as the case may be. For it was even more difficult than before to read the exact secret of Eden’s sympathies or intentions; he talked about a variety of indifferent subjects leading up to that of the letters, which he treated very lightly. Then he said quite suddenly:
“Do you know anything about those letters, by the way?”
“And what makes you think I know anything about them?”
[226]“Because,” said Horace Hunter, breaking in with uncontrollable warmth, “we know you’re hand and glove with all those lunatics in the League of the Long Bow who are kicking up all this shindy.”
“Well,” said Oates calmly, “I’ll never deny I like some of their ways. I like live wires myself; and, after all, they’re about the liveliest thing in this old country. And I’ll tell you more. I like people who take trouble; and, believe me, they do take trouble. You say they’re all nuts; but I reckon there really is method in their madness. They take trouble to keep those crazy vows76 of theirs. You spoke77 about the fellows who carried off the astronomer78 in an aeroplane. Well, I know Bellew Blair, the man who worked with Pierce in that stunt79, and believe me he’s not a man to be sniffed80 at. He’s one of the first experts in aeronautics81 in the country; and if he’s gone over to them, it means there’s something in their notion for a scientific intellect to take hold of. It was Blair that worked that pig’s stunt for Hilary Pierce; made a great gasbag shaped like a sow and gave all the little pigs parachutes.”
“Well, there you are,” cried Hunter. “Of all the lunacy——”
“I remember Commander Blair in the War,” said the Prime Minister quietly. “Bellows Blair, they called him. He did excellent expert work. Some new scheme with dirigible balloons. But I[227] was only going to ask Mr. Oates whether he happens to know where Welkin Castle is.”
“Must be somewhere near here,” suggested Normantowers, “as the letters seem to come by hand.”
“Well, I don’t know,” said Enoch Oates doubtfully. “I know a man living in Ely, who had one of those letters delivered by hand. And I know another near Land’s End who thought the letter must have come from somebody living near. As you say, they all seem to come by hand.”
“By what hand?” asked the Prime Minister, with a queer, grim expression.
“Mr. Oates,” said Lord Normantowers firmly, “where is Welkin Castle?”
“Why, it’s everywhere, in a manner of speaking,” said Mr. Oates reflectively. “It’s anywhere, anyhow. Gee—!” he broke off suddenly: “Why, as a matter of fact, it’s here!”
“Ah,” said the Prime Minister quietly, “I thought we should see something if we watched here long enough! You didn’t think I kept you hanging about here only to ask Mr. Oates questions that I knew the answer to.”
“What do you mean? Thought we would see what?”
“Where the unstamped letters come from,” replied Lord Eden.
Luminous82 and enormous, there heaved up above the garden trees something that looked at first like[228] a coloured cloud; it was flushed with light such as lies on clouds opposite the sunset, a light at once warm and wan29; and it shone like an opaque83 flame. But as it came closer it grew more and more incredible. It took on solid proportions and perspective, as if a cloud could brush and crush the dark tree-tops. It was something never seen before in the sky; it was a cubist cloud. Men gazing at such a sunset cloudland often imagine they see castles and cities of an almost uncanny completeness. But there would be a possible point of completeness at which they would cry aloud, or perhaps shriek84 aloud, as at a sign in heaven; and that completeness had come. The big luminous object that sailed above the garden was outlined in battlements and turrets85 like a fairy castle; but with an architectural exactitude impossible in any cloudland. With the very look of it a phrase and a proverb leapt into the mind.
“There, my lord!” cried Oates, suddenly lifting his nasal and drawling voice and pointing, “there’s that dream you told me about. There’s your castle in the air.”
As the shadow of the flying thing travelled over the sun-lit lawn, they looked up and saw for the first time that the lower part of the edifice86 hung downwards87 like the car of a great balloon. They remembered the aeronautical88 tricks of Commander[229] Blair and Captain Pierce and the model of the monstrous89 pig. As it passed over the table a white speck90 detached itself and dropped from the car. It was a letter.
The next moment the white speck was followed by a shower that was like a snowstorm. Countless91 letters, leaflets, and scraps92 of paper were littered all over the lawn. The guests seemed to stand staring wildly in a wilderness93 of waste-paper; but the keen and experienced eyes of Lord Eden recognized the material which, in political elections, is somewhat satirically called “literature.”
It took the twelve private secretaries some time to pick them all up and make the lawn neat and tidy again. On examination they proved to be mainly of two kinds: one a sort of electioneering pamphlet of the League of the Long Bow, and the other a somewhat airy fantasy about private property in air. The most important of the documents, which Lord Eden studied more attentively94, though with a grim smile, began with the sentence in large letters:
“An Englishman’s House Is No Longer His Castle On The Soil Of England. If It Is To Be His Castle, It Must Be A Castle In The Air.
“If There Seem To Be Something Unfamiliar95 And Even Fanciful In The Idea, We Reply That[230] It Is Not Half So Fantastic To Own Your Own Houses In The Clouds As Not To Own Your Own Houses On The Earth.”
Then followed a passage of somewhat less solid political value, in which the acute reader might trace the influence of the poetical96 Mr. Pierce rather than the scientific Mr. Blair. It began “They Have Stolen the Earth; We Will Divide the Sky.” But the writer followed this with a somewhat unconvincing claim to have trained rooks and swallows to hover49 in rows in the air to represent the hedges of “The blue meadows of the new realm,” and he was so obliging as to accompany the explanation with diagrams of space showing these exact ornithological97 boundaries in dotted lines. There were other equally scientific documents dealing98 with the treatment of clouds, the driving of birds to graze on insects, and so on. The whole of this section concluded with the great social and economic slogan: “Three Acres and a Crow.”
But when Lord Eden read on, his attention appeared graver than this particular sort of social reconstruction99 would seem to warrant. The writer of the pamphlet resumed:
“Do not be surprised if there seems to be something topsy-turvy in the above programme. That topsy-turvydom marks the whole of our politics.[231] It may seem strange that the air which has always been public should become private, when the land which has always been private has become public. We answer that this is exactly how things really stand to-day in the matter of all publicity100 and privacy. Private things are indeed being made public. But public things are being kept private.
“Thus we all had the pleasure of seeing in the papers a picture of Sir Horace Hunter, O.B.E., smiling in an ingratiating manner at his favourite cockatoo. We know this detail of his existence, which might seem a merely domestic one. But the fact that he is shortly to be paid thirty thousand pounds of public money, for continuing to live in his own house, is concealed101 with the utmost delicacy102.
“Similarly we have seen whole pages of an illustrated103 paper filled with glimpses of Lord Normantowers enjoying his honeymoon104, which the papers in question are careful to describe as his Romance. Whatever it may be, an antiquated105 and fastidious taste might possibly be disposed to regard it as his own affair. But the fact that the taxpayer106’s money, which is the taxpayer’s affair, is to be given him in enormous quantities, first for going out of his castle, and then for coming back into it—this little domestic detail is thought too trivial for the taxpayer to be told of it.
“Or again, we are frequently informed that the hobby of Mr. Rosenbaum Low is improving the[232] breed of Pekinese, and God knows they need it. But it would seem the sort of hobby that anybody might have without telling everybody else about it. On the other hand, the fact that Mr. Rosenbaum Low is being paid twice over for the same house, and keeping the house as well, is concealed from the public; along with the equally interesting fact that he is allowed to do these things chiefly because he lends money to the Prime Minister.”
The Prime Minister smiled still more grimly and glanced in a light yet lingering fashion at some of the accompanying leaflets. They seemed to be in the form of electioneering leaflets, though not apparently107 connected with any particular election.
“Vote for Crane. He Said He would Eat His Hat and Did It. Lord Normantowers said he would explain how people came to swallow his coronet; but he hasn’t done it yet.
“Vote for Pierce. He Said Pigs Would Fly And They Did. Rosenbaum Low said a service of international aërial express trains would fly; and they didn’t. It was your money he made to fly.
“Vote for the League of the Long Bow. They Are The Only Men Who Don’t Tell Lies.”
The Prime Minister stood gazing after the vanishing cloud-castle, as it faded into the clouds, with a curious expression in his eyes. Whether it were[233] better or worse for his soul, there was something in him that understood much that the muddled108 materialists around him could never understand.
“Quite poetical, isn’t it?” he said drily. “Wasn’t it Victor Hugo or some French poet who said something about politics and the clouds?... The people say, ‘Bah, the poet is in the clouds. So is the thunderbolt.’”
“Thunderbolts!” said Normantowers contemptuously. “What can those fools do but go about flinging fireworks?”
“Quite so,” replied Eden; “but I’m afraid by this time they are flinging fireworks into a powder magazine.”
He continued to gaze into the sky with screwed-up eyes, though the object had become invisible.
If his eye could really have followed the thing after which he gazed, he would have been surprised; if his unfathomable scepticism was still capable of surprise. It passed over woods and meadows like a sunset cloud towards the sunset, or a little to the north-west of it, like the fairy castle that was west of the moon. It left behind the green orchards109 and the red towers of Hereford and passed into bare places whose towers are mightier110 than any made by man, where they buttress111 the mighty112 wall of Wales. Far away in this wilderness of columned cliffs and clefts114 it found a cleft113 or hollow, along the floor of which ran a dark line that might have been a black[234] river running through a rocky valley. But it was in fact a crack opening below into another abyss. The strange flying ship followed the course of the winding115 fissure116 till it came to a place where the crack opened into a chasm117, round like a cauldron and accidental as the knot in some colossal118 tree-trunk; through which it sank, entering the twilight119 of the tremendous cavern120 beneath. The abyss below was lit here and there with artificial lights, like fallen stars of the underworld, and bridged with wooden platforms and galleries, on which were wooden huts and huge packing-cases and many things somewhat suggestive of a munition121 dump. On the rocky walls were spread out various balloon coverings, some of them of even more grotesque122 outline than the castle. Some were in the shapes of animals; and on that primeval background looked like the last fossils, or possibly the first outlines of vast prehistoric123 creatures. Perhaps there was something suggestive in the fancy that in that underworld a new world was being created. The man who alighted from the flying castle recognized, almost as one recognizes a domestic pet, the outline of a highly primitive124 pig stretching like a large archaic125 drawing across the wall. For the young man was called Hilary Pierce, and had had previous dealings with the flying pig, though for that day he had been put in charge of the flying castle.
On the platform on which he alighted stood a table[235] covered with papers, with almost more papers than Lord Eden’s table. But these papers were covered almost entirely126 with figures and numbers and mathematical symbols. Two men were bending over the table, discussing and occasionally disputing. In the taller of the two the scientific world might have recognized Professor Green, whom it was seeking everywhere like the Missing Link, to incarcerate127 him in the interests of science. In the shorter and sturdier figure a very few people might have recognized Bellew Blair, the organizing brain of the English Revolution.
“I haven’t come to stay,” explained Pierce hastily. “I’m going on in a minute.”
“I don’t want your little talk interrupted. Still less, far, far less, do I want it uninterrupted. I mean while I’m here. A little of your scientific conversation goes a long way with me; I know what you’re like when you’re really chatty. Professor Green will say in his satirical way ‘9920.05,’ to which you will reply with quiet humour ‘75.007.’ This will be too good an opening for a witty129 fellow like the Professor, who will instantly retort ‘982.09.’ Not in the best taste perhaps, but a great temptation in the heat of debate.”
“Commander Blair,” said the Professor, “is very kind to let me share his calculations.”
[236]“Lucky for me,” said Blair. “I’d have done ten times more with a mathematician130 like you.”
“Well,” said Pierce casually131, “as you are so much immersed in mathematics, I’ll leave you. As a matter of fact, I had a message for Professor Green, about Miss Dale at the house where he was lodging132; but we mustn’t interrupt scientific studies for a little thing like that.”
Green’s head came up from the papers with great abruptness133.
“Message!” he cried eagerly. “What message? Is it really for me?”
“8282.003,” replied Pierce coldly.
“Don’t be offended,” said Blair. “Give the Professor his message and then go if you like.”
“It’s only that she came over to see my wife to find out where you had gone to,” said Pierce. “I told her, so far as it’s possible to tell anybody. That’s all,” he added, but rather with the air of one saying “it ought to be enough.”
Apparently it was, for Green, who was once more looking down upon the precious papers, crumpled134 one of them in his clenched135 hand unconsciously, like a man suddenly controlling his feelings.
“Well, I’m off,” said Pierce cheerfully; “got to visit the other dumps.”
“Stop a minute,” said Blair, as the other turned away. “Haven’t you any sort of public news as[237] well as private news? How are things going in the political world?”
“Expressed in mathematical formula,” replied Pierce over his shoulder, “the political news is MP squared plus LSD over U equals L. L let loose. L upon earth, my boy.”
And he climbed again into his castle of the air.
Oliver Green stood staring at the crumpled paper and suddenly began to straighten it out.
“Mr. Blair,” he said, “I’m terribly ashamed of myself. When I see you living here like a hermit136 in the mountains and scrawling137 your calculations, so to speak, on the rocks of the wilderness, devoted138 to your great abstract idea, vowed139 to a great cause, it makes me feel very small to have entangled140 you and your friends in my small affairs. Of course, the affair isn’t at all small to me; but it must seem very small to you.”
“I don’t know very precisely,” answered Blair, “what was the nature of the affair. But that is emphatically your affair. For the rest, I assure you we’re delighted to have you, apart from your valuable services as a calculating machine.”
Bellew Blair, the last and, in the worldly sense, by far the ablest of the recruits of the Long Bow, was a man in early middle age, square built, but neat in figure and light on his feet, clad in a suit of leather. He mostly moved about so quickly that his[238] figure made more impression than his face; but when he sat down smoking, in one of his rare moments of leisure, as now, it could be remarked that his face was rather calm than vivacious141; a short square face with a short resolute142 nose, but reflective eyes much lighter143 than his close black hair.
“It’s quite Homeric,” he added, “the two armies fighting for the body of an astronomer. You would be a sort of a symbol anyhow, since they started that insanity144 of calling you insane. Nobody has any business to bother you about the personal side of the matter.”
Green seemed to be ruminating145, and the last phrase awoke him to a decision. He began to talk. Quite straightforwardly146, though with a certain schoolboy awkwardness, he proceeded to tell his friend the whole of his uncouth147 love story—the overturning of his spiritual world to the tune the old cow died of, or rather danced to.
“And I’ve let you in for hiding me like a murderer,” he concluded. “For the sake of something that must seem to you, not even like a cow jumping over the moon, but more like a calf148 falling over the milking-stool. Perhaps people vowed to a great work like this ought to leave all that sort of thing behind them.”
“Well, I don’t see anything to be ashamed of,” said Blair, “and in this case I don’t agree with what you say about leaving those things behind. Of some[239] sorts of work it’s true; but not this. Shall I tell you a secret?”
“If you don’t mind.”
“The cow never does jump over the moon,” said Blair gravely. “It’s one of the sports of the bulls of the herd149.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean,” said the Professor.
“I mean that women can’t be kept out of this war, because it’s a land war,” answered Blair. “If it were really a war in the air, you could have done it all by yourself. But in all wars of peasants defending their farms and homes, women have been very much on the spot; as they used to pour hot water out of the windows during the Irish evictions. Look here, I’ll tell you a story. It’s relevant because it has a moral. After all, it’s my turn, so to speak. You’ve told me the true story of the Cow that Jumped over the Moon. It’s time I told you the true story of the Castle in the Air.”
He smoked silently for a moment, and then said:
“You may have wondered how a very prosaic150 practical Scotch151 engineer like myself ever came to make a thing like that pantomime palace over there, as childish as a child’s coloured balloon. Well, the answer is the same; because in certain circumstances a man may be different from himself. At a certain period of the old war preparations, I was doing some[240] work for the government in a secluded152 part of the western coast of Ireland. There were very few people for me to talk to; but one of them was the daughter of a bankrupt squire153 named Malone; and I talked to her a good deal. I was about as mechanical a mechanic as you could dig out anywhere; grimy, grumpy, tinkering about with dirty machinery154. She was really like those princesses you read about in the Celtic poems; with a red crown made of curling elf-locks like little flames, and a pale elfin face that seemed somehow thin and luminous like glass; and she could make you listen to silence like a song. It wasn’t a pose with her, it was a poem; there are people like that, but very few of them like her. I tried to keep my end up by telling her about the wonders of science, and the great new architecture of the air. And then Sheila used to say, ‘And what is the good of them to me, when you have built them. I can see a castle build itself without hands out of gigantic rocks of clear jewels in the sky every night.’ And she would point to where crimson155 or violet clouds hung in the green afterglow over the great Atlantic.
“You would probably say I was mad, if you didn’t happen to have been mad yourself. But I was wild with the idea that there was something that she admired and that she thought science couldn’t do. I was as morbid156 as a boy; I half thought she despised me; and I wanted half to prove her wrong and half[241] to do whatever she thought right. I resolved my science should beat the clouds at their own game; and I laboured till I’d actually made a sort of rainbow castle that would ride on the air. I think at the back of my mind there was some sort of crazy idea of carrying her off into the clouds she lived among, as if she were literally157 an angel and ought to dwell on wings. It never quite came to that, as you will hear, but as my experiments progressed my romance progressed too. You won’t need any telling about that; I only want to tell you the end of the story because of the moral. We made arrangements to get married; and I had to leave a good many of the arrangements to her, while I completed my great work. Then at last it was ready and I came to seek her like a pagan god descending158 in a cloud to carry a nymph up to Olympus. And I found she had already taken a very solid little brick villa159 on the edge of a town, having got it remarkably160 cheap and furnished it with most modern conveniences. And when I talked to her about castles in the air, she laughed and said her castle had come down to the ground. That is the moral. A woman, especially an Irishwoman, is always uncommonly161 practical when it comes to getting married. That is what I mean by saying it is never the cow who jumps over the moon. It is the cow who stands firmly planted in the middle of the three acres; and who always counts in any struggle of the land.[242] That is why there must be women in this story, especially like those in your story and Pierce’s, women who come from the land. When the world needs a Crusade for communal162 ideals, it is best waged by men without ties, like the Franciscans. But when it comes to a fight for private property—you can’t keep women out of that. You can’t have the family farm without the family. You must have concrete Christian163 marriage again: you can’t have solid small property with all this vagabond polygamy: a harem that isn’t even a home.”
Green nodded and rose slowly to his feet, with his hands in his pockets.
“When it comes to a fight,” he said. “When I look at these enormous underground preparations, it is not difficult to infer that you think it will come to a fight.”
“I think it has come to a fight,” answered Blair. “Lord Eden has decided that. And the others may not understand exactly what they are doing; but he does.”
And Blair knocked out his pipe and stood up, to resume his work in that mountain laboratory, at about the same time at which Lord Eden awoke from his smiling meditations164; and, lighting a cigarette, went languidly indoors.
He did not attempt to explain what was in his mind to the men around him. He was the only man there who understood that the England about him was not[243] the England that had surrounded his youth and supported his leisure and luxury; that things were breaking up, first slowly and then more and more swiftly, and that the things detaching themselves were both good and evil. And one of them was this bald, broad and menacing new fact: a peasantry. The class of small farmers already existed, and might yet be found fighting for its farms like the same class all over the world. It was no longer certain that the sweeping social adjustments settled in that garden could be applied165 to the whole English land. But the story of how far his doubts were justified166, and how far his whole project fared, is a part of the story of “The Ultimate Ultimatum167 of the League of the Long Bow,” after which the exhausted and broken-spirited reader may find rest at last.
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1
decrepitude
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| n.衰老；破旧 | |
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dexterity
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| n.(手的)灵巧，灵活 | |
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3
socialist
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| n.社会主义者；adj.社会主义的 | |
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4
overthrowing
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| v.打倒，推翻( overthrow的现在分词 )；使终止 | |
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maxims
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| n.格言，座右铭( maxim的名词复数 ) | |
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6
consultation
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| n.咨询；商量；商议；会议 | |
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7
wireless
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| adj.无线的；n.无线电 | |
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8
negotiations
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| 协商( negotiation的名词复数 )； 谈判； 完成（难事）； 通过 | |
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9
ego
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| n.自我，自己，自尊 | |
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unity
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| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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11
frustrated
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| adj.挫败的，失意的，泄气的v.使不成功( frustrate的过去式和过去分词 )；挫败；使受挫折；令人沮丧 | |
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12
virgin
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| n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的 | |
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13
tenants
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| n.房客( tenant的名词复数 )；佃户；占用者；占有者 | |
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14
unprecedented
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| adj.无前例的，新奇的 | |
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15
relics
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| [pl.］n.遗物，遗迹，遗产；遗体，尸骸 | |
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16
scowling
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| 怒视，生气地皱眉( scowl的现在分词 ) | |
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17
lodger
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| n.寄宿人，房客 | |
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18
maniac
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| n.精神癫狂的人；疯子 | |
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19
cannon
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| n.大炮，火炮；飞机上的机关炮 | |
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20
raving
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| adj.说胡话的；疯狂的，怒吼的；非常漂亮的；令人醉心[痴心]的v.胡言乱语(rave的现在分词)n.胡话；疯话adv.胡言乱语地；疯狂地 | |
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21
astronomical
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| adj.天文学的，（数字）极大的 | |
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22
agitator
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| n.鼓动者；搅拌器 | |
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23
corps
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| n.(通信等兵种的)部队；(同类作的)一组 | |
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24
hood
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| n.头巾，兜帽，覆盖；v.罩上，以头巾覆盖 | |
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25
courteously
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| adv.有礼貌地，亲切地 | |
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26
sincerity
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| n.真诚，诚意；真实 | |
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27
tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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28
growled
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| v.（动物）发狺狺声， （雷）作隆隆声( growl的过去式和过去分词 )；低声咆哮着说 | |
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29
wan
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| (wide area network)广域网 | |
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30
bluff
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| v.虚张声势，用假象骗人；n.虚张声势，欺骗 | |
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31
flexibility
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| n.柔韧性，弹性，（光的）折射性，灵活性 | |
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32
graft
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| n.移植，嫁接，艰苦工作，贪污；v.移植，嫁接 | |
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33
shrillness
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| 尖锐刺耳 | |
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34
scrupulous
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| adj.审慎的，小心翼翼的，完全的，纯粹的 | |
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35
virtuously
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| 合乎道德地，善良地 | |
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36
riddle
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| n.谜，谜语，粗筛；vt.解谜，给…出谜，筛，检查，鉴定，非难，充满于；vi.出谜 | |
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37
groaned
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| v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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38
subtleties
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| 细微( subtlety的名词复数 )； 精细； 巧妙； 细微的差别等 | |
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39
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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40
wield
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| vt.行使，运用，支配；挥，使用(武器等) | |
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41
rusticity
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| n.乡村的特点、风格或气息 | |
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42
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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43
mused
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| v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
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44
snobbery
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| n. 充绅士气派, 俗不可耐的性格 | |
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45
manors
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| n.庄园（manor的复数形式） | |
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46
gentry
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| n.绅士阶级，上层阶级 | |
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47
patriotic
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| adj.爱国的，有爱国心的 | |
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48
soothingly
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| adv.抚慰地，安慰地；镇痛地 | |
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49
hover
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| vi.翱翔，盘旋；徘徊；彷徨，犹豫 | |
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50
hovering
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| 鸟( hover的现在分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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51
desolated
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| adj.荒凉的，荒废的 | |
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52
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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53
custodian
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| n.保管人，监护人；公共建筑看守 | |
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54
discretion
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| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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55
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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56
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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57
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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58
impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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59
compensated
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| 补偿，报酬( compensate的过去式和过去分词 )； 给（某人）赔偿（或赔款） | |
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60
humbly
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| adv. 恭顺地，谦卑地 | |
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61
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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62
bureaucrats
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| n.官僚( bureaucrat的名词复数 )；官僚主义；官僚主义者；官僚语言 | |
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63
aristocrats
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| n.贵族( aristocrat的名词复数 ) | |
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64
paraphernalia
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| n.装备；随身用品 | |
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65
atlas
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| n.地图册，图表集 | |
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66
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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67
sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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68
confiscation
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| n. 没收, 充公, 征收 | |
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69
fortress
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| n.堡垒，防御工事 | |
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70
vegetarians
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| n.吃素的人( vegetarian的名词复数 )；素食者；素食主义者；食草动物 | |
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71
killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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72
testimony
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| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
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73
trifling
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| adj.微不足道的；没什么价值的 | |
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74
cogitated
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| v.认真思考，深思熟虑( cogitate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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75
poker
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| n.扑克；vt.烙制 | |
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76
vows
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| 誓言( vow的名词复数 )； 郑重宣布，许愿 | |
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77
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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78
astronomer
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| n.天文学家 | |
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79
stunt
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| n.惊人表演，绝技，特技；vt.阻碍...发育，妨碍...生长 | |
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80
sniffed
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| v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的过去式和过去分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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81
aeronautics
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| n.航空术，航空学 | |
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82
luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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83
opaque
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| adj.不透光的；不反光的，不传导的；晦涩的 | |
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84
shriek
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| v./n.尖叫，叫喊 | |
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85
turrets
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| （六角）转台( turret的名词复数 )； （战舰和坦克等上的）转动炮塔； （摄影机等上的）镜头转台； （旧时攻城用的）塔车 | |
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86
edifice
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| n.宏伟的建筑物(如宫殿，教室) | |
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87
downwards
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| adj./adv.向下的（地），下行的（地） | |
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88
aeronautical
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| adj.航空（学）的 | |
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89
monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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90
speck
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| n.微粒，小污点，小斑点 | |
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91
countless
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| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
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92
scraps
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| 油渣 | |
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93
wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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94
attentively
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| adv.聚精会神地；周到地；谛；凝神 | |
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unfamiliar
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| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
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96
poetical
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| adj.似诗人的；诗一般的；韵文的；富有诗意的 | |
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97
ornithological
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| adj.鸟类学的 | |
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98
dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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99
reconstruction
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| n.重建，再现，复原 | |
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100
publicity
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| n.众所周知，闻名；宣传，广告 | |
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101
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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102
delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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103
illustrated
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| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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104
honeymoon
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| n.蜜月（假期）；vi.度蜜月 | |
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105
antiquated
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| adj.陈旧的，过时的 | |
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106
taxpayer
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| n.纳税人 | |
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107
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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108
muddled
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| adj.混乱的；糊涂的；头脑昏昏然的v.弄乱，弄糟( muddle的过去式)；使糊涂；对付，混日子 | |
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109
orchards
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| （通常指围起来的）果园( orchard的名词复数 ) | |
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110
mightier
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| adj. 强有力的，强大的，巨大的 adv. 很，极其 | |
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111
buttress
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| n.支撑物；v.支持 | |
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112
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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113
cleft
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| n.裂缝；adj.裂开的 | |
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114
clefts
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| n.裂缝( cleft的名词复数 )；裂口；cleave的过去式和过去分词；进退维谷 | |
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115
winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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116
fissure
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| n.裂缝；裂伤 | |
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117
chasm
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| n.深坑，断层，裂口，大分岐，利害冲突 | |
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118
colossal
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| adj.异常的，庞大的 | |
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119
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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cavern
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| n.洞穴，大山洞 | |
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121
munition
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| n.军火；军需品；v.给某部门提供军火 | |
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grotesque
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| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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123
prehistoric
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| adj.（有记载的）历史以前的，史前的，古老的 | |
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124
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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125
archaic
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| adj.(语言、词汇等)古代的，已不通用的 | |
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126
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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127
incarcerate
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| v.监禁，禁闭 | |
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128
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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129
witty
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| adj.机智的，风趣的 | |
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130
mathematician
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| n.数学家 | |
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131
casually
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| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
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132
lodging
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| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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133
abruptness
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| n. 突然，唐突 | |
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134
crumpled
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| adj. 弯扭的, 变皱的 动词crumple的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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clenched
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| v.紧握，抓紧，咬紧( clench的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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136
hermit
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| n.隐士，修道者；隐居 | |
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137
scrawling
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| 乱涂，潦草地写( scrawl的现在分词 ) | |
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138
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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139
vowed
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| 起誓，发誓（vow的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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140
entangled
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| adj.卷入的；陷入的；被缠住的；缠在一起的v.使某人（某物/自己）缠绕，纠缠于（某物中），使某人（自己）陷入（困难或复杂的环境中）( entangle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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141
vivacious
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| adj.活泼的，快活的 | |
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142
resolute
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| adj.坚决的，果敢的 | |
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143
lighter
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| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
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144
insanity
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| n.疯狂，精神错乱；极端的愚蠢，荒唐 | |
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145
ruminating
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| v.沉思( ruminate的现在分词 )；反复考虑；反刍；倒嚼 | |
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146
straightforwardly
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| adv.正直地 | |
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147
uncouth
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| adj.无教养的，粗鲁的 | |
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148
calf
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| n.小牛，犊，幼仔，小牛皮 | |
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149
herd
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| n.兽群，牧群；vt.使集中，把…赶在一起 | |
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150
prosaic
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| adj.单调的，无趣的 | |
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151
scotch
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| n.伤口，刻痕；苏格兰威士忌酒；v.粉碎，消灭，阻止；adj.苏格兰(人)的 | |
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152
secluded
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| adj.与世隔绝的；隐退的；偏僻的v.使隔开，使隐退( seclude的过去式和过去分词) | |
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153
squire
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| n.护卫, 侍从, 乡绅 | |
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154
machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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155
crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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156
morbid
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| adj.病的；致病的；病态的；可怕的 | |
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157
literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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158
descending
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| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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159
villa
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| n.别墅，城郊小屋 | |
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160
remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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161
uncommonly
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| adv. 稀罕(极，非常) | |
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162
communal
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| adj.公有的，公共的，公社的，公社制的 | |
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163
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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164
meditations
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| 默想( meditation的名词复数 )； 默念； 沉思； 冥想 | |
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165
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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166
justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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167
ultimatum
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| n.最后通牒 | |
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