“1914”

CONTENTS

[I]
[II]
[III]
[IV]
[V]
[VI]
[VII]
[VIII]
[IX]
[X]
[XI]
[XII]
[XIII]
[XIV]
[XV]
[XVI]
[XVII]
[XVIII]
[XIX]
[XX]
[XXI]
[XXII]
[XXIII]
[XXIV]
[XXV]
[XXVI]
[XXVII]
[XXVIII]
[XXIX]
[XXX]
[XXXI]
[XXXII]
[XXXIII]
[XXXIV]
[XXXV]
[XXXVI]
[XXXVII]

JOHN OXENHAM’S NOVELS

God’s Prisoner
Rising Fortunes
Our Lady of Deliverance
A Princess of Vascovy
John of Gerisau
Under the Iron Flail
Bondman Free
Mr. Joseph Scorer
Barbe of Grand Bayou
A Weaver of Webs
Hearts in Exile
The Gate of the Desert
White Fire
Giant Circumstance
Profit and Loss
The Long Road
Carette of Sark
Pearl of Pearl Island
The Song of Hyacinth
My Lady of Shadows
Great-heart Gillian
A Maid of the Silver Sea
Lauristons
The Coil of Carne
Their High Adventure
Queen of the Guarded Mounts
Mr. Cherry
The Quest of the Golden Rose
Mary All-Alone
Red Wrath
Maid of the Mist
Broken Shackles
Flower of the Dust
My Lady of the Moor
“1914”

VERSE

Bees in Amber. 105th Thousand
“All’s Well!” 75th Thousand
The King’s High Way. 55th Thousand
Hymn for the Men at the Front. 6th Million

“1914”

BY
JOHN OXENHAM

SECOND EDITION

METHUEN & CO. LTD.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON

First Published September 15th 1916
Second Edition September 1916

“1914”

I

The early morning of July 25th, 1914, was not at all such as the date might reasonably have led one to expect. It was gray and overcast, with heavy dew lying white on the grass and a quite unseasonable rawness in the air.

The clock on the mantelpiece of the morning-room in The Red House, Willstead, was striking six, in the sonorous Westminster chimes, which were so startlingly inconsistent with its size, as Mr John Dare drew the bolts of the French window and stepped out on to his back lawn.

He had shot the bolts heavily and thoughtfully the night before, long after all the rest had gone up to bed, though he noticed, when he went up himself, that Noel’s light still gleamed under his door. His peremptory tap and ‘Get to bed, boy!’ had produced an instant eclipse, and he determined to speak to him about it in the morning.

He had never believed in reading in bed himself. Bed was a place in which to sleep and recuperate. If it had been a case of midnight oil and the absorption of study now—all well and good. But Noel’s attitude towards life in general and towards study in particular permitted no such illusion.

And it was still heavily and thoughtfully that Mr Dare drew back the bolts and stepped out into the gray morning. Not that he knew definitely that this twenty-fifth of July was a day big with the fate of empires and nations, and of the world at large,—simply that he had not slept well; and bed, when you cannot sleep, is the least restful place in the world.

As a rule he slept very soundly and woke refreshed, but for many nights now his burdened brain had neglected its chances, and had chased, and been chased by, shadowy phantoms,—possibilities, doubts, even fears,—which sober daylight scoffed at, but which, nevertheless, seemed to lurk in his pillow and swarm out for his undoing the moment he laid his tired head upon it.

Out here in the fresh of the morning,—which ought by rights to have been full of sunshine and beauty, the cream of a summer day,—he could, as a rule, shake off the shadows and get a fresh grip on realities and himself.

But the very weather was depressing. The year seemed already on the wane. There were fallen leaves on the lawn. The summer flowers were despondent. There was a touch of red in the Virginia creeper which covered the house. The roses wore a downcast look. The hollyhocks and sweet-peas showed signs of decrepitude. It seemed already Autumn, and the chill damp air made one think of coming Winter.

And the unseasonal atmospheric conditions were remarkably akin to his personal feelings.

For days he had had a sense of impending trouble in business matters, all the more irritating because so ill-defined and impalpable. Troubles that one could tackle in the open one faced as a matter of course, and got the better of as a matter of business. But this ‘something coming and no knowing what’ was very upsetting, and his brows knitted perplexedly as he paced to and fro, from the arch that led to the kitchen-garden to the arch that led to the front path, up which in due course Smith’s boy would come whistling with the world’s news and possibly something that might cast a light on his shadows.

Mr Dare’s business was that of an import and export merchant, chiefly with the Continent, and his offices were in St Mary Axe. He had old connections all over Europe and was affiliated with the Paris firm of Leroux and Cie, Charles Leroux having married his sister.

As a rule his affairs ran full and smooth, with no more than the to-be-expected little surface ruffles. But for some weeks past he had been acutely conscious of a disturbance in the commercial barometer, and so far he had failed to make out what it portended.

Politically, both at home and abroad, matters seemed much as usual, always full of menacing possibilities, to which, however, since nothing came of them, one had grown somewhat calloused.

The Irish brew indeed looked as if it might possibly boil over. That gun-running business was not at all to his mind. But he was inclined to think there was a good deal of bluff about it all. And the suffragettes were ramping about and making fools of themselves in their customary senseless fashion, and doing all the damage they possibly could to their own cause and to the nation at large.

The only trouble of late on the Continent had been the murder of the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife about a month before. And that seemed to be working itself off in acrimonious snappings and yappings by the Austrian and Servian papers. Austria would in due course undoubtedly claim such guarantees of future good behaviour on the part of her troublesome little neighbour as the circumstances, when fully investigated, should call for. The tone of the note she had sent, calling on Servia no longer to permit the brewing of trouble within her borders, was somewhat brusque no doubt but not unnaturally so. And Servia, weary with her late struggles, would, of course, comply and there the matter would end.

It was unthinkable that the general peace should suffer from such a cause when it had survived the great flare-up in the Balkans the year before. Austria would not dare to go too far since she must first consult Germany, and the Kaiser, it was well known, desired nothing better than to maintain the peace which he had kept so resolutely for five-and-twenty years. If it had been that hot-head, the Crown Prince, now—— But fortunately for the world the reins were in cooler hands.

Then again the Money Market here showed no more disturbance than was to be expected under such unsettled conditions, and the Bank-rate remained at three per cent. The Berlin and Vienna Bourses were somewhat unsettled. But there were always adventurous spirits abroad ready to take advantage of any little disturbance and reap nefarious harvests.

Anyway he could see no adequate connection between any of these things and the sudden stoppage of his deliveries of beet-sugar from Germany and Austria, and the unusual lapsus in correspondence and remittances from both those countries,—which matters were causing him endless worry and anxiety.

His brother-in-law, Leroux, in Paris, had hinted at no gathering clouds, as he certainly would have done had any been perceptible. And the sensitive pulse of international affairs on the Bourse there would have perceived them instantly if they had existed. The very fact that M. Poincaré, the President, was away in Russia was proof positive that the sky was clear.

The only actual hint of anything at all out of the common was in that last letter from his eldest girl, Lois, who had been studying at the Conservatorium in Leipsic for the last two years.

She had written, about a week before,—“What is brewing? There is a spirit of suppressed excitement abroad here, but I cannot learn what it means. They tell me it is the usual preparation for the Autumn manœuvres. It may be so, but all the time I have been here I have never seen anything quite like it. If they were preparing for war I could understand it, but that is of course out of the question, since the Kaiser’s heart is set on peace, as everyone knows.”

There was not much in that in itself, though Lois was an unusually level-headed girl and not likely to lay stress on imaginary things. But that, and the evasiveness, when it was not silence, of his German correspondents, and the non-arrival of his contracted-for supplies of beet-sugar, had set his mind running on possibilities from which it recoiled but could not shake itself entirely free.

Presently, as he paced the well-defined track he had by this time made across the dewy lawn, he heard the rattle of the kitchen grate as heavy-handed Sarah lit the fire, and the gush of homely smoke from the chimney had in it a suggestion of breakfast that put some of his shadows to flight. Sarah and breakfast were substantial every-day facts before which the blue devils born of broken sleep temporarily withdrew.

Then from behind Honor’s wide-open window and drawn curtains he heard her cheerful humming as she dressed. And then her curtains were switched aside with a strenuous rattle, and at sight of him she stuck out her head with a saucy,

“Hello, Mr Father! Got the hump? What a beast of a day! I say,—you are wearing a hole in that carpet. Doesn’t look much of a day for a tennis tournament, does it? Rotten! I just wish I had the making of this country’s weather; anyone who wished might make her——”

Smith’s boy’s exuberant whistle sounded in the front garden, and Honor chimed in, “Good-bye, Piccadilly!”—as her father hastened to the gate to get his paper.

Smith’s boy was just preparing to fold and hurl it at the porch—a thing he had been strictly forbidden to do, since on wet and windy days it resulted in an unreadable rag retrieved from various corners of the garden instead of a reputable news-sheet. At the unexpected appearance of Mr Dare in the archway, his merry pipe broke off short at the farewell to Leicester Square, and Honor’s clear voice round the corner carried them triumphantly to the conclusion that it was “a long long way to Tipperary,” without obbligato accompaniment. The boy grinned, and producing a less-folded paper from his sheaf, retired in good order through the further gate, and piped himself bravely up the Oakdene path next door, while Mr Dare shook the paper inside out and stood searching for anything that might in any way bear upon his puzzle.

His anxious eye leaped at once to the summary of foreign news, and his lips tightened.

“The Austrian Minister has been instructed to leave Belgrade unless the Servian Government complies with the Austrian demand by 6 p.m. this evening.”

An ultimatum!... Bad!... Dangerous things, ultimatums!

“It is stated that Russia has decided to intervene on behalf of Servia.”

“H’m! If Russia,—then France! If France,—then Germany and Italy!... And how shall we stand? It is incredible,” and he turned hastily for hope of relief to the columns of the paper, and read in a leader headed “Europe and the Crisis,”—“All who have the general peace at heart must hope that Austria has not spoken her last word in the note to Servia, to which she requires a reply to-night. If she has we stand upon the edge of war, and of a war fraught with dangers that are incalculable to all the Great Powers.”

Then the front door opened and his wife came out into the porch.

“Breakfast’s ready, father,” she said briskly. “Any news?”

She was a very comely woman of fifty or so, without a gray hair yet and of an unusually pleasing and cheerful countenance. The girls got their good looks from her, the boys took more after their father.

“Any light on matters?” asked Mrs Dare hopefully again, as he came slowly along the path towards her. And then, at sight of his face, “Whatever is it, John?”

He had made it a rule to leave ordinary business worries behind him in town where they properly belonged. But matters of moment he frequently discussed with his wife and had found her aloof point of view and clear common-sense of great assistance at times. His late disturbance of mind had been very patent to her, but, beyond the simple facts, he had been able to satisfy her no more than himself.

“Very grave news, I’m afraid,” he said soberly. “Austria and Servia look like coming to blows.”

“Oh?” said Mrs Dare, in a tone which implied no more than interested surprise. “I should have thought Servia had had enough fighting to last her for some time to come.”

“I’ve no doubt she has. It’s Austria driving at her. Russia will probably step in, and so Germany, Italy, France, and maybe ourselves——”

“John!”—very much on the alert now.—“It is not possible.”

“I’m afraid it’s even probable, my dear. And if it comes it will mean disaster to a great many people.”

“What about Lois? Will she be safe out there?”

“We must consider that. I’ve hardly got round to her yet. Let us make sure of one more comfortable breakfast anyway,” he said, with an attempt at lightness which he was far from feeling, and as they went together to the breakfast-room, Honor came dancing down the stairs.

“Hello, Dad! Did they give extra prizes for early rising at your school?” she asked merrily, and ran on without waiting for an answer,—“And did you choke that boy who was whistling ‘Tipperary’? I had to finish without accompaniment and he was doing it fine. He has a musical soul. It was Jimmy Snaggs. He’s in my class at Sunday School. You should hear him sing.”

“You tell him again from me that if he can’t deliver papers properly he’d better find some other walk in life,” said Mr Dare, as he chipped an egg and proceeded with his breakfast.

“It looks all right,” said Honor, picking up the paper. “Let’s see the cricket. Old No’s aching to hear. Hm—hm—hm—Kent beat Middlesex at Maidstone,—Blythe and Woolley’s fine bowling,—Surrey leads for championship. That’s all right. Hello, what’s all this?—‘Servia challenged. King Peter’s appeal to the Tsar. Grave decisions impending. The risk to Europe.’ I—say! Is there going to be another war? How ripping!”

“Honor!” said her mother reprovingly.

“Well, I don’t mean that, of course. But a war does make lively papers, doesn’t it? I’m sick of Ireland and suffragettes.”

“If this war comes you’ll be sicker of it than of anything you ever experienced, before it’s over, my dear,” said Mr Dare gravely.

“Why?—Austria and Servia?”

“And Russia and Germany and France and Italy and possibly England.”

“My Goodness! You don’t mean it, Dad?” and she eyed him keenly. “I believe you’re just—er—pulling my leg, as old No would say?” and she plunged again into the paper.

“Bitter fact, I fear, my dear.”

“How about Lois? Will she be in the thick of it?” she asked, raising her head for a moment to stare meditatively at him, with the larger part of her mind still busy with the news.

“We were just thinking of her. I’m inclined to wire her to come home at once.”

Then Noel strolled in with a nonchalant, “Morning everybody!... Say, Nor! What about the cricket? You promised——”

“Cricket’s off, my son,” said Honor, reading on. “It’s war and a case of fighting for our lives maybe.”

“Oh, come off!”—then, noticing the serious faces of the elders,—“Not really? Who with?”

“Everybody,” said Honor. “—Armageddon!”

He went round to her and pored eagerly over the paper with his head alongside hers. They were twins and closely knit by many little similarities of thought and taste and feeling.

“Well!... I’ll—be—bowled!” as he gradually assimilated the news. “Do you really think it’ll come to a general scrap?”—to his father.

“Those who have better means of judging than I have evidently fear it, my boy. I shall learn more in the City no doubt,” and he hurried on with his breakfast.

The front-door bell shrilled sharply.

“Post!” said Honor. “Must be something big,” and dashed away to get it. She never could wait for the maid’s leisurely progress when letters were in question, and she and the postman were on the best of terms. He always grinned when she came whirling to the door.

“Why—Colonel!” they heard her surprised greeting. “And Ray! You are early birds. I thought you were the post. What worms are you after now? Is it the War?”—as she ushered them into the drawing-room.

“Bull’s-eye first shot,” said a stentorian voice. “Has your father gone yet, Honor?”

“Just finishing his breakfast, Colonel. I’ll tell him,” and as she turned to go, her father came in.

“How are you, Colonel?” said Mr Dare. “Good morning, Ray! What are our prospects of keeping out of it, do you think?”

“None,” said the Colonel gravely. “It’s ‘The Day’ they’ve been getting ready for all these years, and that we’ve been expecting—some of us, and unable to get ready for because you others thought differently. But we want a word or two with Mrs Dare too. Will you beg her to favour us, Honor, my dear?” and Honor sped to summon her mother to the conference.

“We must apologise for calling at such an hour, Mrs Dare,” said the Colonel, as they shook hands, “But the matter admits of no delay. Ray here wants your permission to go out and bring Lois home. We think she is in danger out there.”

“You know how things are between us, dear Mrs Dare,” broke in Ray impulsively. “We have never really said anything definite, but we understand one another. And if it’s going to be a general scrap all round, as Uncle Tony is certain it is, then the sooner she is clear of it the better. I’ve never been easy in my mind about her since that little beast von Helse brought her over last year.”

At which a reminiscent smile flickered briefly in the corners of Mrs Dare’s lips and made Ray think acutely of Lois, who had just that same way of savouring life’s humours.

“I was thinking of wiring for her to come home, as soon as I got to town,” said Mr Dare.

“If my views are correct,” said the Colonel weightily, “and I fear you’ll find them so, travelling, over there, will be no easy matter. The moment mobilisation is ordered—and the possibility is that it’s going on now for all they are worth,—everything will be under martial law,—all the railways in the hands of the military, all traffic disorganised,—possibly the frontiers closed. Everything chock-a-block, in fact. It may be no easy job to get her safely out even now. But if anyone can do it, in the circumstances, I’ll back Ray. He’s glib at German and knows his way about, and where Lois is concerned——”

“It is very good of you, Ray,”—began Mrs Dare, warmly.

“Not a bit. It’s good of you to trust her to me. I can start in an hour, and I’ll bring her back safe or know the reason why. Thank you so much!” and he gripped her hand and then suddenly bent forward and kissed her on the cheek. “I’m nearly packed,”—at which Mrs Dare’s smile flickered again.—“I’ll cut away and finish. I must catch the ten o’clock from Victoria, and bar accidents I’ll be in Leipsic to-morrow morning. You might perhaps give me just a little note for her, saying you approve my coming,” and he hurried away to finish his preparations.

Honor and Noel heard him going and sped out after him, all agog to know what it was all about.

“Here! What’s up among all you elderly people?” cried Noel.

“No time to talk, old man. They’ll tell you all about it,” Ray called over his shoulder and disappeared through the front gate.

“Well!—I’m blowed! Old Ray’s got a move on him. What’s he up to, I wonder.”

“I’ll tell you, No. He’s going after Lois——”

“After Lois? Why—what’s wrong with Lo?”

“Don’t you see? If there’s going to be war over there she might get stuck and not be able to get home for years——”

“Oh—years! It’ll all be over in a month. Wars now-a-days don’t run into time. It’s too expensive, my child.”

“Well, anyway, old Lo will be a good deal better safe at home than in the thick of it. And I guess that’s what Ray and the Colonel think.”

“I’d no idea they’d got that far. Of course I knew he was sweet on her. You could see that when that von Helse chap was here, and old Ray used to look as if he’d like to chew him up.”

“I knew all about it.”

“Of course. Girls always talk about these things.”

“She never said a word. But I knew all the same.”

“Kind of instinct, I suppose.”

Here the elders came out of the drawing-room, preceded, as the door opened, by the Colonel’s emphatic pronouncement,

“—Inevitable, my dear sir. We cannot possibly escape being drawn in. Their plans are certain to be based on getting in through Belgium and Luxembourg. We’ve been prepared for that for many years past. And if they touch Belgium the fat’s in the fire, for we’re bound to stop it—if we can. If some of us had had our way we’d be in a better position to do it than we are. Anyhow we’ll have to do our best. We’d have done better if you others had had less faith in German bunkum. Noel, my boy,” as Noel saluted, “We shall probably want you before we’re through.”

“You think it’ll be a tough business, sir?”

“Tough? It’ll be hell, my boy, before the slate’s all clean again. And that won’t be till the Kaiser and all his gang are wiped off it for ever.”

“I thought it would be all over in a month or two.”

“A year or two may be more like it. Germany is one big fighting-machine, and till it’s smashed there’ll be no peace in the world.”

“Think they’ll get over here, sir?” chirped Honor expectantly.

“They’ll try, if we leave them a chance. Thank God,—and Winston Churchill—we’re ready for them there. That man’s looked ahead and he’s probably saved England.”

“Good old Winston!”

“If you’re off, Dare, I’ll walk along with you. I must call at the Bank. It won’t do for Ray to run out of funds over there. Good-bye, Mrs Dare! Bring you good news in a day or two. Ta-ta, Honor!”

“You’ll let me stand my share——” began Mr Dare, as they walked along together.

“Tut, man! You’ll need all your spare cash before we’re through and I’ve plenty lying idle.”

“You really think it may be a long business?”

“I don’t see how it can be anything else. Have you had no warnings of its coming from any of your correspondents?”

“We told you of Lois’s letter. We’ve had nothing more than that—except delay in goods coming through—and in remittances.”

“Exactly! Railways too busy carrying men and horses; and business men preferring to keep their money in their own hands. I tell you they’ve been working up to this for years, only waiting for the psychological moment.”

“And why is this the psychological moment? The Servian affair hardly seems worth all the pother——”

“Do you remember a man named Humbert attacking the French War Minister in the Senate, about a fortnight ago, on the subject of their army,—no boots, no ammunition, no guns worth firing, no forts, and so on?”

“I remember something about it. I remember it struck me as a rather foolish display of joints in the armour——”

“And Petersburg was all upside down, the other day, with out-of-work riots. Crowds, one hundred thousand strong, slaughtering the police, even while Poincaré was visiting the Tsar. You remember that?”

“Yes.”

“And at home here, matters in Ireland looked like coming to a head. In fact it looked like civil war.”

“I never believed it would come to anything of the kind, as you know.”

“But to that exceedingly clever busy-body, the Kaiser,—at least, he thinks he’s exceedingly clever. It’s possible to be too clever.—Well, here were his three principal enemies all tied up in knots. What better chance would he ever get?”

“H’m! All the same he seems doing his best to smooth things over.”

“Bunkum, my boy!—all bunkum! He may try to save his face to the world at large, but I bet you they’re quietly mobilising over there as fast as they know how to, and that’s faster than we dream of. And the moment they’re ready they’ll burst out like a flood and sweep everything before them—unless we can dam it, damn ’em! Perhaps you’ll look in this evening and tell me how the City feels about it,” and at the door of the Bank they parted, and Mr Dare went on to his train in anything but a comfortable frame of mind.

II

They had been neighbours now for close on ten years and close friends for nine and a half of them.

Noel and Honor were mischievous young things of eight when the Dares took The Red House, and in their adventurous prowlings they very soon made the acquaintance of Miss Victoria Luard, aged nine and also of an adventurous disposition, who lived at Oakdene, the big white house next door with black oak beams all over its forehead,—“like Brahmin marks only the other way,”—as Honor said, which gave it a surprised, wide-awake, lifted-eyebrows look.

From the youngsters the acquaintance spread to the elder members of the two families, and grew speedily into very warm friendship, in spite of the fact that the Dares were all sturdy Liberals, and the Luards, as a family, staunch Conservatives.

Colonel Luard, V.C., C.B.—Sir Anthony indeed, but he always insisted on the Colonel, since, as he said, “That was my own doing, sir, but the other—da-ash it!—I’d nothing to do with that. It was in the family and my turn came.”

He was small made, and of late inclined to stoutness which he strove manfully to subdue, and he wore a close little muzzle of a moustache, gray, almost white now, and slight side-whiskers in the style of the late highly-esteemed Prince Consort. But though his moustache and whiskers and hair and eyebrows all showed unmistakable signs of his seventy-eight years, his little figure—except in front—was as straight as ever. He was as full of fire and go as a shrapnel shell, and his voice, on occasion, was as much out of proportion to his size as was that of the clock with the deep Westminster chimes on the breakfast-room mantelpiece at The Red House.

He looked a bare sixty-five, but as a youngster he had been through the Crimean campaign and the Indian Mutiny, and in the latter gained the coveted cross “For Valour” by exploding a charge at a rebel fort-gate which had already cost a score of lives and still blocked Britain’s righteous vengeance.

He had been on the Abyssinian Expedition and in the Zulu War, and had returned from the latter so punctured with assegai wounds that he vowed he looked like nothing but a da-asht pin-cushion. Then he came into the title, and a very comfortable income, through the death of an uncle, who had made money in the banking business and received his baronetcy as reward for party-services; and after one more campaign—up Nile with Wolseley after Gordon—the Colonel retired on his honors and left the field to younger men.

He found his brother, Geoff, just married and vicar of Iver Magnus, went to stop with him for a time, and stopped on—a very acceptable addition to the vicar’s household. When the children came, who so acceptable, and in every way so adequate, a godfather as the Colonel? And, with the very comfortable expectations incorporated in him, how resist his vehement choice of names,—extraordinary as they seemed to the hopeful father and mother?

And so he had the eldest girl christened Alma, after his first engagement; and the boy who came next he named Raglan, after his first esteemed commander; and the next girl he was actually going to call Balaclava; but there Mrs. Vicar struck, and nearly wept herself into a fever, until they compounded on Victoria, after Her Majesty.

When Vic was five, and Ray ten, and Alma twelve, their father and mother both died in an heroic attempt at combating an epidemic of typhoid, and Uncle Tony shook off the dust and smells of Iver Magnus, bought Oakdene at Willstead, and set up his establishment there, with little Miss Mitten, the sister of his special chum Major Mitten—who had been pin-cushioned by the Zulus at the same time as himself only more so—as vice-reine.

Miss Mitten was sixty-seven if she was a day, but never admitted it even at census-time. She was an eminently early-Victorian little lady, had taught in a very select ladies’ school, and had written several perfectly harmless little books, which at the time had obtained some slight vogue but had long since been forgotten by every one except the ‘eminent authoress’ herself, as some small newspaper had once unforgettably dubbed her.

She was as small and neat as the Colonel himself, and in spite of the ample living at Oakdene her slim little figure never showed any signs of even comfortable rotundity. She was in fact sparely made, and the later fat years had never succeeded in making good the deficiencies of the many preceding lean ones. She wore the neatest of little gray curls at the side of her head, and, year in year out, they never varied by so much as one single hair.

She was very gentle, a much better housekeeper than might have been expected, and was partial to the black silk dresses and black silk open-work mittens of the days of long ago. The youngsters called her Auntie Mitt., and the Colonel they called Uncle Tony. She alone of all their world invariably addressed the Colonel as ‘Sir Anthony,’ and in her case only he raised no objection, since he saw that she thereby obtained some peculiar little inward satisfaction.

Alma, the eldest girl, was, in this year of grace 1914, twenty-six, though you would never have thought it to look at her. She was a tall handsome girl, dark, as were all the Luards, and three years before this, had suddenly shaken off the frivolities of life and gone in for nursing, with an ardour and steady persistence which had surprised her family and greatly pleased the Colonel, whose still-keen, dark eyes twinkled understandingly and approvingly.

Raglan—Ray to all his friends—was twenty-four, two inches taller than Alma, broad of shoulder and deep of chest,—he had pulled stroke in his College eight, and his clean-shaven face, with its firm mouth and jaw and level brows, was good to look upon. He was studying the honourable profession of the law and intended to reach the Woolsack or know the reason why. Partly as a sop to the martial spirit of Uncle Tony, and also because he had deemed it a duty—though he speedily found it a pleasure also—he had joined the Territorials and was at this time a first lieutenant in the London Scottish, and a very fine figure he made in the kilt and sporran.

Victoria, who so narrowly escaped being Balaclava, was nineteen and the political heretic of the family. She was an ardent Home-Ruler, a Suffragist, a Land-Reformer, played an almost faultless game at tennis, could give the Colonel 30 at billiards and beat him 100 up with ten to spare; and held a ten handicap on the links. She was in fact very advanced, very full of energy and good spirits, and frankly set on getting out of life every enjoyable thrill it could be made to yield.

Their close intimacy with the Dares had been of no little benefit to all three of them. Accustomed from their earliest years to the atmosphere of an ample income, they had never experienced any necessity for self-denial, self-restraint, or any of the little dove-coloured virtues which add at times an unexpected charm to less luxurious lives.

They found that charm among the Dares and profited by it. To their surprise, as they grew old enough to understand it, they found their own easy lives narrower in many respects than their neighbours’, although obviously Uncle Tony’s open purse was as much wider and deeper than Mr Dare’s as Oakdene, with its well-tended lawns and beds and shrubberies and orchard and kitchen-gardens, was larger than The Red House and its trifling acre. And yet, as children, they had always had better times on the other side of the hedge, when they had made a hole large enough to crawl through; and Christmas revels and Halloweens in The Red House were things to look back upon even yet.

Perhaps it was Mrs Dare that made all the difference. Auntie Mitt was a little dear and all that, and Uncle Tony was an old dear and as good as gold. But there was something about Mrs Dare which gave a different feeling to The Red House and everything about it; and Alma very soon arrived at the meaning of it, and expressed it, succinctly if exaggeratedly, when she said to Lois one day,

“Lo, I’d give Auntie Mitt and Uncle Tony ten times over for half your mother.”

And Mrs Dare, understanding very clearly, had mothered them all alike so far as was possible. And her warm heart was large enough to take in the additional three without any loss, but rather gain, to her own four, and with benefit to the three which only the years were to prove.

The Luard youngsters, in short, had lived in circumstances so wide and easy that they had become somewhat self-centred, somewhat aloof from life less well-placed, somewhat careless of others so long as their own enjoyment of life was full and to their taste.

Auntie Mitt was not blind to it. In her precise little way she took upon herself—with justifiable misgiving that nothing would come of it—to point out to them that they were in danger of falling into the sin of selfishness. And, as she expected, her gentle remonstrances fell from them like water off lively little ducks’ backs.

Uncle Tony considered them the finest children in the world, would not hear a word against them, and spoiled them to his heart’s content and their distinct detriment.

Their association with the Dares saved them no doubt from the worst results of Uncle Tony’s mistaken kindness, but even Mrs Dare could not make angels of them any more than she could of her own four. She could only do her best by them all and leave them to work out their own salvation in their own various ways.

Connal Dare, the eldest of her own tribe, had been in the medical profession since the age of eight, when the game of his heart had been to make the other three lie down on the floor, covered up with tidies and shawls, while he inspected their tongues, and timed their pulses by a toy-watch which only went when he wound it, which he could not do while holding a patient’s pulse. As he invariably prescribed liquorice-water, carefully compounded in a bottle with much shaking beforehand, and acid drops, the others suffered his ministrations with equanimity so long as his medicaments lasted, but grew convalescent with revolting alacrity the moment the supply failed.

Since then, true to his instinct, he had worked hard, and forced his way up in spite of all that might have hindered.

His father would have liked him with him in the business in St Mary Axe, but, perceiving the lad’s bent, raised no objection, on the understanding that, as far as possible, he made his own way. And this Connal had succeeded in doing.

He was a sturdy, fair-haired, blue-eyed fellow, several inches shorter than Ray Luard but fully his match both in boxing and wrestling, as proved in many a bout before an admiring audience of five—and sometimes six, for the Colonel liked nothing better than to see them at it and bombard them both impartially with advice and encouragement.

Connal had overcome all obstacles to the attainment of his chosen career in similar fashion; had taken scholarship after scholarship; and all the degrees his age permitted, and had even paid some of his examination fees by joining the Army Medical Corps, which provided him not only with cash, but also with a most enjoyable yearly holiday in camp and a certain amount of practice in his profession.

He had, however, long since decided that general practice would not satisfy him. He would specialise, and he chose as his field the still comparatively obscure department of the brain. There were fewer skilled workers in it than in most of the others. In fact it was looked somewhat askance at by the more pushing pioneers in research. It offered therefore more chances and he was most profoundly interested in his work in all its mysterious heights and depths.

At the moment he was the hard-worked Third Medical at Birch Grove Asylum, up on the Surrey Downs, and whenever he could run over to Willstead for half a day his mother eyed him anxiously for signs of undue depression or disturbed mentality, and was always completely reassured by his clear bright eyes, and his merry laugh, and the gusto with which he spoke of his work and its future possibilities.

With the approval and assistance of his good friend Dr Rhenius, who had attended to all the mortal ills of the Dares and Luards since they came to live in Willstead, he was working with all his heart along certain definite and well-considered lines, which included prospective courses of study at Munich and Paris. In preparation for these he was very busy with French and German, and for health’s sake had become an ardent golfer. His endless quaint stories of the idiosyncrasies of his patients showed a well-balanced humorous outlook on the most depressing phase of human life, and as a rule satisfied even his mother as to the health and well-being of his own brain.

It was just about the time that he settled on his own special course in life, and accepted the junior appointment at Birch Grove, that Alma Luard surprised her family by deciding that life ought to mean more than tennis and picnics and parties, and became a probationer at St Barnabas’s.

Lois, who came next, had a very genuine talent for music, and a voice which was a joy to all who heard it. For the perfecting of these she had now been two years at the Conservatorium at Leipsic and had lived, during that time, with Frau von Helse, widow of Major von Helse, who died in Togoland in 1890. Frau von Helse had two children,—Luise, who was also studying music, and Ludwig, lieutenant in the army. It was Ludwig’s obvious admiration for Lois, the previous summer,—when he had escorted her and his sister to Willstead for a fortnight’s visit to London in return for Frau von Helse’s great kindness to Lois during her stay in Leipsic—that had fanned into sudden flame the long-glowing spark of Ray Luard’s love for her.

Honor was Vic’s great chum and admirer. When Honor began going to St Paul’s School, Vic insisted on going also, and the experience had done her a world of good. Even Alma had been known to express regret that she had not had her chances. An exceedingly high-class and expensive boarding-school at Eastbourne had been her lot. An establishment in every respect after Auntie Mitt’s precise little heart, but comparison of Vic’s wider, if more democratic, experiences with her own eminently lady-like ones always roused in Alma feelings of vain and envious regret.

Noel had been at St Paul’s also, and on the whole had managed to have a pretty good time. He was no student, however. The playing fields and Cadet corps always appealed to him more strongly than the class-rooms. He was now having a short holiday before tackling, with such grace as might be found possible when the time came, the loathsome mysteries of St Mary Axe.

There was nothing else for it. He had shown absolutely no inclination or aptitude for any special walk in life. His father’s hope was that, under his own eye, he might in time develop into a business-man and relieve him of some portion of his at times over-taxing work.

By dint of strenuous labours Mr Dare had, in the course of years, worked up a profitable business in foreign imports and exports, but, like most businesses, it had its ups and downs, and it would be a great relief to be able to leave some of the details to one whom he knew he could trust, as he could Noel. He had had—or at all events had had the chance of—a good sound education. His father could only hope that he had taken more advantage of it than he had ever permitted to show. And experience would come with time.

III

When the taxi, for which Ray had ’phoned, came rushing up, they all met again at the front gate to give him their various God-speeds on his gallant errand.

Mrs Dare handed him the note she had hastily penned to Lois, with a warm, “We are very grateful to you, Ray, for your thought of her. Bring her safe home to us.”

The Colonel handed him a small buff paper bag which chinked, saying, “If you haven’t enough there, my boy, you will let me know. God bless you both!”

Vic said enviously, “Just wish I was going! Wouldn’t it be ripping, Nor, to be stranded out there and have someone come out from England to rescue you?”

“Ripping! Let’s try it! Where could we get to?”

“Little girls are better at home,” said Noel, with his golf-clubs slung over his shoulder so that not a moment of this last precious holiday should be missed. “Good-luck, old man! If you get into any boggle wire for me and I’ll come and get you out of the mud. Jawohl! Hein! Nicht wahr!”

“I shall hope to find you all in the best of health about Tuesday or Wednesday,” said Ray, with a final wave of the hand, and the taxi whirled away round the corner.

“See you two later,” cried Noel, as he swung away towards the links. “I’ll feed up yonder and meet you at the courts at three.”

The girls sauntered away, arm in arm, up the Oakdene path, to talk it all over. The Colonel wrung Mrs Dare’s hand again, and said, with warm feeling that subdued his voice to some extent, “We will congratulate one another again, ma’am. Nothing could have pleased me better. Lois is one of the sweetest girls I’ve ever met, and Ray will do us all credit.”

“He’s a fine boy. I’m sure they will be very happy. I am thankful it has fallen out so. I was a little afraid, at times, last summer——”

“You mean that spick-and-span, cut-and-dried, starched and stuck-up German dandy? Pooh, ma’am! I knew better than that myself.”

“He was a good-looking lad, you know, and his music was quite exceptional.”

“Always strikes me as rather namby-pamby in a man. But—a word in your ear, ma’am!”—in a portentous whisper induced by the discharge of his feelings,—“D’you know, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if we came on another link in the chain before long.”

“Another link?” echoed Mrs Dare, and stared at him in great surprise.

“Yes,” with a twinkle of beaming eyes. “What do you suppose made my eldest girl take to that nursing business? You know she’d no need to——”

“You mean Con?”

“Why, of course! Who else? I’ve a great belief in Con. He’ll go far before he’s through. And I know Alma. And it’s only in the light of Con that I can explain her.”

“You’re just an incorrigible old match-maker,” laughed Mrs Dare, more amused than convinced.

“When you’re out of the game yourself there’s nothing like watching the young ones at it. If it had been my luck now to meet yourself before Dare came along——”

“You’d have found me in my cradle,” she laughed again, as she went up the path towards the front door.

“No,—in short frocks,” said the Colonel emphatically. “But I’d have waited all right.”

It was a standing joke among them that the Colonel had fallen in love with his neighbour’s wife, and he confessed to it like a man, to John Dare’s very face.

“Duty calls,” said Mrs Dare. “I’ve got two rooms to turn out this morning, because my charlady couldn’t come yesterday. And there she is going in at the back gate. Good-bye, Colonel! I’m half hoping Con may come over to-day. It’s three weeks since he was here and he sometimes manages it on a Saturday. I’ll send you word if he comes and perhaps you’ll come round for a cup of tea.”

“I will. And bring Alma with me,” he twinkled.

“Is she to be here? I didn’t know.”

“Neither do I, but they generally manage to hit on the same day somehow. Curious, isn’t it?” and he lifted his hat and marched away, chuckling to himself like a plump little turkey-cock.

IV

Con’s visits were like those of the angels, unexpected, generally unannounced, and always very welcome. The one curious thing about them was, as the Colonel had said, that, as often as not, they coincided in most extraordinary fashion with the whirling home-calls of Alma Luard. And whenever it happened so, the Colonel chuckled himself nearly into a fit in private, and in public preserved his innocent unconsciousness with difficulty.

Mrs Dare went off to superintend the operations of her charlady, whose attention to corners and little details in general was subject to lapses unless the eye of the mistress was within easy range. And as Mrs Skirrow worked best under a sense of personal injury Mrs Dare became of necessity the recipient of all her conjugal woes and endless stories of filial ingratitude.

She had a husband,—an old soldier in every sense of the word,—who was cursed with a constitutional objection to authority and work of any kind, and two sons who took after their father. One or the other stumbled into a place now and again and lost it immediately, and Mrs Skirrow slaved night and day to keep them from any deeper depths than half-a-crown a day and her food was able to save them from.

“Is ut true, mum, that we’ll mebbe be having another war?” asked Mrs Skirrow as she flopped and scrubbed.

“I hope not, Mrs Skirrow, but there’s said to be the possibility of it. We must hope we’ll be able to keep out of it. War is very terrible.”

“’Tes that, mum, but there’s a good side to ut too. Mebbe ut’d give chance o’ someth’n to do to some as don’t do much otherwise. If ut took my three off and made men of ’em or dead uns ut’d be a change anyway.”

“You’d find you’d miss them.”

“I would that,” said Mrs Skirrow emphatically, and added presently, “And be glad to.... I done my best to stir ’em up, but ut’s in their bones. Mebbe if they was in th’ army they’d manage to put some ginger into ’em.”

“It might do them good, as you say. But you might never see them again, you know.”

“I seen enough of ’em this last two years to last me. ’Taint reasonable for one woman to have to work herself to the bone for three grown men that can’t get work ’cause they don’t want to.”

“It is not. I think it absolutely shameful of them.”

“Not that they quarrel at all,” said Mrs Skirrow, instantly resentful of anyone blaming her inepts but herself. “I’m bound to say that for ’em. They’re good-tempered about it, but that don’t keep ’em in clo’es, to say noth’n of boots. I suppose, mum, you ain’t got an old pair of ...” and Mrs Skirrow’s lamentations resolved themselves into the usual formula.

It was close upon tea-time when Con came striding up the path, with a searching eye on the next-door grounds.

“And what do you think of the war, mother?” he asked briskly, with his face all alight, as soon as their greetings were over, and he had satisfied himself as to the welfare of the rest of the family, and expressed his entire satisfaction with the news about Lois and Ray.

“You mean this Austrian business? It’s very disturbing but I hope we won’t be drawn into it, my boy.”

“I expect we shall, you know. Pretty certain, it seems to me. And if we are I’m pretty sure to get the call....”

“I had not thought of that, Con,” and her hands dropped into her lap for a moment and she sat gazing at him. “That brings it close home. I pray it may not come to that.”

“Well, you see, I’ve had the cash, and the goods have got to be delivered——”

“Of course. But——”

“And if it comes to a scrap they’ll need every medical they can get. What does Rhenius say about it all?”

“He’s away,—in Italy, I think.”

“I remember. He wrote me he was hoping to get off, if he could find a locum who wouldn’t poison you all in his absence. Well, anyway, I’m getting my kit packed——”

“That’s business, my boy,” pealed the Colonel’s hearty voice, as he came in with a telegram in his hand. “I saw you turn in and I’d already been invited to drink a cup of tea with you. Alma can’t get off,”—he said, in a matter-of-fact way, showing the telegram.

“Oh?—did you expect her, sir?” with an assumption of surprise to cover his disappointment.

“I did, my boy, when I heard from your mother that she thought you might come to-day. Did you?”

“Medicals and nurses are not their own masters,” said Con non-committally. “Do you really think we’ll be into it, sir?”

“I do, Con. I don’t see how we can possibly keep out. It’s a most da—yes, damnably inevitable sequence, it seems to me. Austria goes for Servia. Russia won’t stand it. In that case Germany is bound to help Austria. France will help Russia. Exactly how we stand pledged to help France and Russia no one knows, I imagine, except the Foreign Secretary. But everyone knows that the German war-plan contemplates getting at France through Belgium. And if they try that, the fat’s in the fire and we’ve got to stop them or go under.”

“That’s exactly how they’re looking at it at our place, and all the R.A.M.C. men are getting their things together in readiness for the call.”

“It’ll be a tough business,” said the Colonel weightily, but with the light of battle in his eye. “But we’ve got to go through with it ... right to the bitter end.”

“Have you any doubts about the end, sir?”

“None, my lad. But the end is a mighty long way off and it’ll be a hot red road that leads to it, unless I’m very much mistaken. They’ve been preparing for this for years, you see. It had to come, and some of us saw it. Da-asht pity we didn’t all see it! We’d have been readier for it than we are. Lord Roberts was right. Every man in Great Britain and Ireland ought to have been in training for it.”

“Conscription again, Colonel!” said Mrs Dare. “And you still think England would stand it?”

“Not conscription, my dear madam,—Universal Service,—a very different thing and not liable to the defects of conscription. France broke down through her faulty conscription in 1870. Germany won on her universal service. And, da-ash it! we ought to have had it here ever since. But you others thought we were all screaming Jingoes and mad on military matters because that was our profession. Now, maybe, it’s too late.”

“Still, you say you don’t believe they can beat us, sir?” said Con earnestly.

“Not in the long run. No, I don’t, my boy. But can you begin to imagine what a long run will mean in these times? I’ve seen war and I know what it meant up to twenty years ago. But—if I know anything about it—that was child’s-play to what this will be. Those—da-asht Germans are so infernally clever—and you must remember they’ve been working for this and nothing but this for the last twenty years, while we’ve been playing football and cricket, and squabbling over the House of Lords and Home Rule. Da-ash it! If our side had kept in I believe we’d have been readier.”

“I doubt it, sir,” said Con, with the laugh in the corners of his eyes. “You’d have been fighting for your lives all the time, whereas we at all events have done something—Old Age Pensions, and National Insurance, and so on,” at which the Colonel snorted like a war-horse scenting battle.

“And how is the work going, Con?” asked Mrs Dare, as a lead to less bellicose subjects.

“Oh, all right. About same as usual. We got a new old chap in the other day and he’s taken a curious fancy to my grin. He stops me every time we meet, and says, ‘Doctor, do smile for me!’ and he’s such an old comic that I just roar, and then he roars too, and we’re as happy as can be.”

“He’s no fool,” said the Colonel. For Con’s grin was very contagious. The corners of his eyes had a way of wrinkling up when the humorous aspect of things appealed to him, his eyes almost disappeared, and then his face creased up all over and the laugh broke out. And as a rule it made one laugh just to watch him.

“But we had two rather nasty things, last week,” he said, sobering up. “Two of the old chaps were set to clean up an out-house, and one of them came out after a bit and sat down in the sun with his back against the wall, humming the ‘Old Hundredth,’ they say. One of the attendants asked him what he was doing there, and he said old Jim was tired and was lying down inside. And when they went in they found old Jim lying down with his head beaten in and as dead as a door-nail.”

“Good Lord!” said the Colonel. “And what did you do to the other?”

“What could we do? He was quite unconscious of having done anything wrong. He’ll be kept under observation of course. But the other matter was worse still, in one way. A table-knife disappeared one day from the scullery and couldn’t be found anywhere. And for a week we all went with our heads over both shoulders at once, and the feel of that knife slicing in between our shoulder-blades at any moment. I tell you, that was jolly uncomfortable.”

“And did you find it?” asked Mrs Dare anxiously.

“Yes, we hunted and hunted till we discovered it inside the back of a picture frame, and we were mighty glad to get it, I can tell you.”

“Gad!” said the Colonel, with extreme energy. “I’d sooner be at the front any day. It’s a safer job than yours, my boy.”

“I suppose there are possibilities of getting hurt even there, sir,” and Con’s creases wrinkled up.

“Oh, you can get hurt all right enough, but it’s not knives between your shoulder-blades.”

“Assegais,” suggested Mrs Dare, who knew his record.

“Assegais are deucedly uncomfortable, but that was fair fighting——”

Then Mr Dare walked in, very much later than usual for a Saturday. And, though he greeted them cheerfully, his face was very grave, to his wife’s anxious eyes.

“I waited a bit to see if any further news came along,” he said quietly.

“And how are they feeling about things?” asked the Colonel.

“Nervous. In fact, gloomy. Everybody admits that it seems incredible, but there’s a general fear that we may be drawn in, in spite of all Sir Edward Grey’s efforts.”

“We shall,” said the Colonel emphatically. “I feel it in my bones. Germany is very wide awake. She’s been crouching for a spring any time this several years, and here are England, France, and Russia tied up with internal troubles. It’s her day without a doubt. Take my advice and make your preparations, my friend. When it comes it’ll come all in a heap. I only wish we were readier for it, and I wish to God they’d have the common-sense to put Kitchener in charge of the Army. He’s the man for the job, and what earthly use is he in Egypt when Germany may be at our throats any day? Asquith can’t be expected to understand all the ins and outs of the machine.”

“Yes, it’s too much to expect of him. And as to Kitchener, I quite agree. He’s the right man for the job.”

“Exchange upset? Money tight?”

“Slump all round. Consols down one and a half. Bank rate three still, but expected to jump any day. In fact things are about as sick as they can be.”

“We’re in for a very bad time, I’m afraid,” said the Colonel gravely. And the shadow of the future lay upon them all.

When, presently, the Colonel got up to go, Mrs Dare and Con went with him to the front door, and Con went on down the path with him.

“May I speak to you about Alma, Colonel?” Con began, before they reached the gate.

“Yes, my boy, you may. But I know what you want to say.”

“You’ve seen it, sir? You know how we feel then. And you don’t object?”

“On the contrary, my boy. I’m very glad you have both chosen so wisely.”

“That’s mighty good of you, sir. I would have spoken to you before but I wanted to see my way a little more clearly. And now I can. Sir James Jamieson of Harley Street,—he’s the biggest man we have in mental diseases, you know,—well, he saw some scraps of mine in the ‘Lancet’ and asked me to call on him. He’s a fine man, and he wants me to go to him as soon as my courses are finished,—Munich and Paris and the rest. He’s getting on in years, you see, and he was good enough to say that, from what he had heard of me, he believed I was the man to carry on his work when his time came to go. It’s immense, you know.”

“Capital! I always knew you’d go far, Con. My only fear was lest the—er—atmosphere of your special line should in time affect your own mind and spirits. But so far it seems to have had no ill effect. Your spirits are above par, and I’ve just had an excellent proof of your judgment,”—at which Con laughed joyously.

“When you’re really keen on a thing it doesn’t upset you, no matter how unpleasant it may be. And this work is anything but unpleasant to me. It’s packed with interest. There’s so much we don’t know yet. And there’s heaps of quaint humour in it, if you look out for it.”

“Well, keep yourself fit, my boy, and I don’t think your brain will suffer. Mens sana, you know.”

“I see to that. I get a couple of hours on the links every day and I never play with a medical,—get quite outside it all, you know. Then I may speak to Alma, Colonel? She knows, of course, but we’ve never said very much.”

“Yes, my lad,—whenever you can catch her. She’s an elusive creature these days.”

“I’ll catch her all right,” said Con, all abeam.

The other young people had just returned from their tournament and were discussing points over the tea-cups.

“Hello! Here’s old Con,” shouted Noel, and they all jumped up and gave him merry welcome. Vic inquired earnestly after the state of his brain; and satisfied on that head, they poured out their own latest news.

“Vic and I won,” chortled Honor. “6-5, 6-4, against No and Gregor McLean.”

“Oh well,” explained Noel. “If you’d been round the links in the morning you wouldn’t have been half so nimble on your pins.”

“Bit heavy, I suppose?” said the Colonel.

“Heavy wasn’t the word for it, sir, and a beastly gusty wind that upset all one’s calculations. However, I licked old Greg into a cocked hat and he’s no end of a nib with the sticks; so that’s one to me. Pick up any lunch scores as you came along, Con?”

“Sorry, old man! I didn’t. I was thinking of other things,” and the Colonel nodded weightily, and said,

“In a week from now we’ll all have other things to think about, I’m afraid.”

V

Ray Luard’s quest was one in which the soul of any man might well rejoice. He was flying, like a knight of old,—though as to ways and means in very much better case,—to the rescue of his lady-love from possibilities of trouble. More than that he did not look for, and possible difficulties and delays weighed little with him.

He reached Flushing about seven in the evening after a gusty passage which did not trouble him, and was at Cologne in the early hours of the morning. But after that his progress was slow and subject to constant, exasperating, and inexplicable delays.

He had secured a berth in the sleeper and took fullest advantage of it. But all night long, as he slept the troubled sleep of the sleeping-car, he was dully conscious of long intervals when the metronomic nimble of the wheels died away, and the unusual silence was broken only by the creaking complaints of the carriage-fittings and the long-drawn snores and sharper snorts and grunts of his companions in travel.

The train was crowded and every bunk was occupied. The occupant of the one above him was so violently stertorous that Ray feared he was in for a fit, and did his best to save him from it by energetic thumps from below. But the only result was a momentary pause of surprise in the strangling solo up above and the immediate resumption of it with renewed vigour, and Ray gave it up, and drew the bed clothes over his ears, and left him to his fate.

In the morning the noisy one turned out to be an immensely fat German who rolled about the car as if it and the world outside belonged to him,—the repulsively over-bearing kind of person whose very look seemed to intimate that no one but himself and his like had any right to cumber the earth. And just the kind of person that Ray Luard loathed and abominated beyond words.

Ray’s disgust of him, and all his kind and all their doings, showed unmistakably in his face, and the fat one became aware of it and took offence. He dropped ponderously into the seat alongside Ray so that he filled three-quarters of it, and proceeded to stare at him in most offensive fashion. His little yellow pig-like eyes, almost lost in the greasy fat rolls of his face, travelled suspiciously over his neighbour from head to foot as though searching for something to settle on.

Ray knew the look and its meaning. Had he been back at Heidelberg he would forthwith have demanded of the starer when and where it was his pleasure they should meet to fight it out. But this mountain of fat was long past his Mensur days, and Ray was doubtful how to tackle him.

He did perhaps the best thing under the circumstances,—turned his back on him and looked out of the window.

But the fat one was not satisfied to let matters rest so. He loosed a wheezy laugh and said, “Ach, zo! Ein Engländer!” with another wheezy little laugh of extremest scorn.

“And what of that, Fat-Pig?” rapped out Ray, in German equal to his own, and the shot took the fat one in the wind.

“Fat-Pig! Fat-Pig! Gott im Himmel, you call me Fat-Pig?”

He rose, bellowing with fury, and was about to drop himself bodily on Ray, when others who had watched the proceedings—a Bavarian whose foot he had trampled on without apology ten minutes before, and a Saxon upon whose newspapers he had also plumped down and pulped into illegibility—jumped up and laid hands on him and dragged him back.

“So you are! So you are!” they shouted. “The Englishman has doubtless paid his fare and is entitled to the whole of a seat without insult or annoyance.”